Tag Archives: Gear

When it Rains it Pours

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So as most weekends this one was too short, but we got a lot of stuff done in and out of game. But man with the time change and everything I am just wiped for Monday. Btw, going to ramble some so if your one of those people that always vote down the ramble posts, leave a comment also just so I know. Cool, Thanks.

So sometime last week the truck stopped starting. I had the feeling that the battery had crapped out on me you know with it being over 5 years old and been spending some cold overnights parked in the driveway as my side of the garage is full of love seats that need taken to the dump. Or is the bike shop during the non-winter months…. But this last week I have been driving the wife’s car and really falling for it, more and more I think that when the truck finally starts to die I might be doing some Subaru shopping. I had plans to run over to the Autozone on Sat once the Brits when to bed but it was raining and Tobril and I were playing so I pushed it to Sunday after the brits died for the night, which in normal fashion the rain turned to snow… But it was just a battery so thank you for small favors.

Lets see what else…

The DG/HoDW started our weekend lob runs. This was a raid I have been putting of for a long time as the crafting hasn’t been that exciting to me. But now Java has the need to make a shield to make some gear swaps happen. That or I need to farm up the EE WoW. So running Lob is more likely… Took us two runs to win. Which is not bad as I have done it twice before and everyone else maybe once expect Tobril who was the tank and trying to lead the raid. Now normally I like the raid leader being the tank, but not on training runs. The tank has his hands full doing the tank job and trying to teach and do all those jobs can be tough. And lets just say some times Tobril has “anger management issues” that some people that don’t know him as well might over look or miss but I pick up on. That and he doesn’t like the pets, but he had better warm to mine, because as long as Fin Fang Foom can be a helper he will be, he as doing fairly well dpsing the lob until one of the spin attacks where I jumped back and called him but ran to be and back at the lob like those hires can do and took a few to many hits. I just need to learn the tells a little better and then I think I can pull him out and set to passive for the spins.

Over all that little guy is rocking as an off tank dps. Each hit is around 50 or so with crits in the 130 range. He has well over 1100 hp unbuffed and I can boost him some more with animal growth. I would totally be able to boost him even more with Pack Aptitude if I could fit it in, but level 5 druid spells are super tight at least the way I am playing, in wolf form. Guess in raids I could trust others for my DW and take Reincarnate or my Pack Aptitude, or better yet if I could just decide forever to give up Wall of Fire…

Oh btw that first run fail was partly my fault as at the time I only had one res and I had used it already. I had never needed more then one res on Java this life but I went to the TR cache and pulled out 2 more clickles. I would really like it if res dead was on the druid list or that they sold Reincarnate scrolls. I could swap from to res people most of the time…

Okay, looks like I did my normal length post wise. Hope I didn’t ramble too much on you.

<3s

So I hear you have an …

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So the other day I got a random tell from a guy more or less asking if I had an EE Iron Beads for sale/trade. Turns out that I do have one, it was passed to my by a guildie that was/had no plans for it and knew that I had a tone of casters that could put it to good use. In fact I have plans to make it a swap slot for Java on EEs or times I am in “caster” mode.

I did offer it up on the trade forums mostly in jest to make a point about people’s price gouging or I should say one or two person’s price gouging but I was never serous about trading it. Don’t get me wrong I would have traded it in a heart beat had said person gave an otto’s box or two but for general whatever items???

But as we sent tells back and forth I warmed to the idea of trading it away if this guy had one of the hard to get items I was looking for but after I listed a few of the items I have been looking for he jumped to how much plat?

Don’t think I have to tell you that I hit the breaks real hard just then. Would I sell some thing I had gotten from a friend for plat? And I started to wonder if I was willing to trade it for an item why not plat? Why is plat a no zone, where a +8 int/wis Dragon helm or a handful of other EH/EE items some how okay but plat is dirty???

The other thing that I started to realize is that these EE Iron Beads might be one of the more rare/had to come by items out there right now. Sure EE Tor Items are hard to come by but more people are running Tor then EE Madstone. Tor Assuming you complete all the dragons is about as long as EE Madstone but has the ability to drop a hell of a lot more quality loot then Madstone. Tor has what 3 quality chests per run Madstone has 1.

So when asked to put a plat value on said item my brain started to jump to BIG numbers. Big enough that I wouldn’t be comfortable even saying it, mainly because I don’t know the relative value of the item compared to other like items. But if forced to put a sale value right now I would have to say 3 mil plat or so. Now here is the reasoning behind that hinges on Zonixx. He is a young man that is a farmer in the true sense of the word. While I believe that he over values some items and gouges a little more then I would like he values the other Madstone items at about 2.5 mil plat. But he has 0 Iron Beads in stock atm, telling me that they are rare. And if I were to cash out for plat I would want enough to buy one of the items I have been hunting myself off him.

Anyway, I left this person with my email address and he said he would send me a list of trade items but unless there is just the perfect item I feel that I should (will) use the item as intended to honor the gift I was given.

<3s

As Promised More Gear List

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This last week in my “spare” time I have been looking at and planning a gear list for Javabot and to some extent Samius. But today I want to share where I am at on Java’s possible gear list. Let me just post the SS from my Google doc and then we can jump into the list.

Javabot gear

Okay so number one, right off the bat, what is the best way to fit in wisdom and matinee as much dps as possible? Last night I picked up a pair of Intricate Field Optics (3 Ins Wis) so that leaves a few options to round out wisdom. We could do an 8 trinket from the Demon web but I swap trinkets a lot and there is that whole cleaned Litany Java happens to already have… We can do a dragon helm and that might be one of the better options but I can’t rule out using a colorless slot like the one in the Field Optics and being 1 down from an 8 item.

Lets look at gear set-up for Spellpower, in order of importance Java needs cold, devotion, elec then the rest… Using this I want to use a 24/7 item for cold to me the least likely item to get swapped around would be the shield. So it is easy to fill the red slot on a LoB shield. But after that things get fuzzy, I could break the Claw set and make Bracers of Air and use one of the devotion trinkets then start on the rest. OR I could wear a Loth trinket, keep the claw set use the Darkstorm Helm, Rock Boots and find a EE Belt of Seven Ideals. Keep in mind that swapping belts would loose my con6/gfl back up and the Barb set… But hey Green and a colorless slot…

Any way the options are getting huge that is why I made a spreadsheet right? To try and hit a moving target…

Well as always leave thoughts or suggestions in the comments.

<3s

Maken’ Gear Lists

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I know everyone has their own method for planning out gear lists, but as I am currently looking at a few of my gear lists I want to share how I do mine or at least how I have been or a while now.

A few years ago I would draw on my dry erase board a rough body sketch and then going around list a few items for each slot. Using different colors for different priorities levels and perma locked item slots. That system had lots of positives and negatives but today I think I have a better method.

I started using Google doc spreadsheets. I have a few of them that I now use for DDo, but the one I am talking about today is for my gear lists. I run down all the gear slots from head to boots as they appear in the inventory tab separating sections of the body from each other with empty rows.

So for example down the A column starts like this
Goggles
Helm
Necklace
Trinket

And so on.

Then I take and list in the B column all the items that mostly go in that slot. So like on Java, who I have been focusing on, has a cordOp in the goggles slot, seeker 6 cove hat on and so on. In the C I list an item I want in that slot and in the D column I copy over the stats of said item then in the E column I slot any augment slots. It keeps things simple.

This is where things start to get complex, if there is a question on what item to use I add another row and start making more entries for that slot. I use the order for weighing and color-coding for symbiotic gear slotting.

For example I am debating on using Rock Boots or Epic Boots of Corrosion on Javabot. If I use the Rock Boots then the Epic Darkstorm Helm makes a really good pairing if I use the Epic Boots of Corrosion then not so much. So the Darkstorm and the Rock Boots are both colored blue. And I will color code pairings like that using shades of blues, greens well any colors besides yellow and reds…

Yellows and Reds are special colors, Yellows mean I have a said item but it is a burned item once used, so like all the new GH loot what I have would be yellow. Reds are don’t have and are key to making some build think work. Like on Darth Samius I have the EE Bracers of Twisting Shade in red because once I have then I could lesser and move some stats/skills around and get fairly passible trapping skills.

Well there is my system in a nutshell. It is 100% portable thanks to being a Google person, has the advantages of being shareable fairly easily, happens to look like work if I am working on it at work and I wont erase it at any given moment to doodle a UI or something. Over all it works a lot better then a lot of systems I have see other people use over the years.

Do you have a system to share for gear? Tips for improvement, use the comments.

<3s

The Mast Plan as it is Today

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One of the things I get a lot of positive feed back from you readers on is gear and build thoughts. Well them and tv/movie talk. Know your readers I guess… Anyhow I took 15-30 mins while waiting for an email reply at the office and fiddled with the new Giant Hold gear and my tank. Sure I could have done some “work” but you know, make the day fun when you can. ☺

For the record this gear list is set up for a few things but mainly max out those big hits on Darth Samius and gear out as he is mostly wearing junk/easy to get loots.

Epic Marith Chain: My seeker, Shatter, some DR, and a blue slot (PRR)

EE Bracers of the Twisting Shade: Disable Device +20, Search +20, Exceptional Seeker +5, Blurry, Resistance +7

Together these two items are the cornerstone of my set up. I need to look at the math but I think with a big Int tome and a lesser heart I should be able to work in rog skills, I might have to give up a lot of points in UMD which I will miss but I can live with a it in the middle to high 20s. I just will have to rely more on clicklies.

Now we/I start to add in the gear to finish fleshing out missing abilities like Fort and key stats.

EH(planed)/EE Ancient Band Protection +7, Heavy Fortification, Yellow Slot (Fear Immunity)
EH Dream Visor: Dream Vision +4, Spot +20, Colorless (EXP STR)

Planar Focus: Prowess: Int Str 3

Okay these last three items round out the main DPS bonuses even if that means I need to complete the Purple Knight favor to unlock my axe…

EH (planed)/EE Girdle of Giants’ Brawn: +8 str, green (goodluck+2), colorless (INT)

EH (planed)/EE Helm of the White Dragon Con 8, green (HPs), Colorless (Chr)

EH (planed)/EE Jorgundal’s Collar: Melee Alacrity 14%, Striding 30%, yellow (Feather Fall), Colorless (Chr)

EH Jeweled Cloak: Inherent (10) Elemental Resistance, Spell Absorption (20 charges), Green (Death Block), Colorless (INT)

We leave the Purple gloves on for now, Con, Amp30%

2 pair of GS boots. 1, all HPs! 2, chr skills
Think that covers the main “should be fairly simple grind list”. Don’t think I am using anything that I would need to pull a second copy of before passing it down to Darth I think I am covering every key stat with as many bonuses as I can work in. The only EE item in the list is something that I can get the Brits to help me farm up easily enough I think. Over all everything else is while farming for Xps or other items nab them.

So what did I miss?

<3s

Summoners

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Looking over my epic bits spreadsheet I have realized that I have two “summoner” items ready to go, more or less, the Wolf Whistle and Roderi’cs Wand. To me this items scream “summoner” but we really don’t have a “summoner” in ddo, or do we?

At first when I realized that I had these items ready to go I thought to myself, “Got to get my Arty capped, ASAP!” The wand makes total sense as my Arty uses his dog, Robutt, in battle. Robutt, btw comes from the classic short story by Isaac Asimov “A Boy’s Best Friend” so no dirty jokes or reporting me for using “butt” in a name.

The Epic Thaarak hound would make a killer summon once the flame turret as more or less out lived its main usefulness.

But then last night I was working on Javabot, who made it to level 21 over the weekend, if you were wondering. And the first thing I did once stepping into some quest alone was summon Fin Fang Foom, the dryad and called my cat gold seal hire. Aka I summoned an army.

And I really don’t have room to fit in augment summoning into Java’s build but I could push it into Samiusbot’s build….

Unless the feat stacks with the granted feat from the wand, which I don’t think it does, giving Java the wand is just a better idea.

As for the wolf whistle, I think atm it is still best to remain on Samiusbot’s gear list. That poor bot doesn’t have an torc yet so he might even leave it on for the slots post 20 until an torc comes on line???

Anyway what do you think?

❤

Gear Thoughts 1/22/13

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For the last week or two my gear has been in the forefront of my thoughts. Armor for Darth (all none weapon slots really), leveling gear for my Arty, Java is a total mess when he makes the switch to druid here real soon, and eGH is about to shit all over my world. Lets not for get the quickly leaving Ice game stuff and what I can only assume is the soon to return Cove…

Growl!

So lets break some things down and I assume that I will be covering it a few more times this week. So prepare.

Darth Samius:
I have talked about his gear issues a few times in the last few weeks but mostly focusing on two slots, weapons and armor. Well what else is there in a big hit build?

Well weapons are covered, Armor not so much. I have earned 16 reds and begged/borrowed the rest from Dim and could make a set of Armor from the FR side. Well I could if I had 100 more favor… Mean while I am a base Marith Chain short of rocking a epic version. Which other then the lack of PRR I think covers my needs better. That and now that I have 20 reds, I think that Java as a druid would be better off using them to make a Ebbron docent while in dog form. But I think it will be a matter of what comes first the PDK favor or the Chain. I am running both as often as possible.

Everything else is butter; I need a EE Bracer, find and use a +3 con trinket to make my plainer set. Breaking my PDK set lets me adjust my helm slot as well meaning that my I have helm/cloak/belt slots fairly free. Some of the Lam preview stuff looks good. Epic Dragon Helms have too slots and insightful dex, so 2 slots. Maybe you can get an str version and that would be badass! Although I like the EH Girdle of Giant’s Brawn, 8 str/+2 str green slot so maybe the added dex wouldn’t be soooo bad.

Over all I have more gear questions then answers. Heck the Epic Black set looks good also.

Lets jump to something I can decide on. Samiusbot, my arty build. Even though I want to have a melee option on the Bot. I know he will mostly be ranged while leveling. So I am thinking about making him a DPS heavy Greensteel repeater.

But there are lots of good options, I could run down them but I am fairly sure a Rad2 or a Dust2 is the way I will be going. Maybe a simple trip positive???

Damn thought I could decide on that at least??? Lolz

Well time to get back to the grind. More Gear tomorrow unless something nasty happens.

<3s

Gear Swap Maddness

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This weekend was a good one, spent lots of time playing with the B (British) team. Did lots of the new quest pack both core DG on Eh and with the B team on EE. What a difference 3 more quality players make. We even pulled some good stuff, Tobril got all the pulls on our Eh runs and the EE orb and a set of armor, Grim I think got a set of the bracers and there was one or two more named loot drops but they don’t come to mind as I can’t be a jealous dick as I pulled a INT upgrade tome to +5…. What you need a +4 tome to make this thing work…. Shit! ☺

Got a lot of xping in as well, logged off after taking lvl 13 due to xp cap. So making progress. Assuming Tobril and I get to play at our normal rate this week until the holiday we should be around level 16-17 by Turkey day.

But that is not what I want to talk about, I want to talk about how my gear changed up over the weekend.

If I remember correct I started off with fire/acid sticks and an electric trinket. For the most part that covered my main spells. I was mostly using Acid blast/web/lighting bolt for damage. Then once I had firewall I would wall and then acid blast. Meaning gear swaps and gear lag….

So cleaned my trinket and made it an acid boosting trinket. Lighting bolt got pulled from the spell list trying to save a casting swap and Acid rain got more play. And life was fine until level 5 spells aka Ball lighting. And lets not to forget Green steel items coming on line shaking things up even more…

Okay… Green Steel on and now lets swap out my life shield 5/magic buckler for new a better lighting sick in my off hand. Incoming damage went up a so I drank a few more pots, but for the most part quest time was lowered. As now I could just acid blast/ball lighting and move past most mobs like a sorc.

Then Saturday night I had a window to fix my SF enchantment error and I took it. Now I am a proper evocation Archmage forcing me to reworking my stuff for more force damage. Out went some APs for hps along with some APs that where making crits happen more often and they went in to force damage. So now my main element types (Force/fire/acid/elec) have 5 or more APs in them meaning I need to fit in 4 element items + Green Steel/Torc + Hp items – my SP helm (with large guild slot).

So this is how I set right now, Force stick, Ele shield (Crafted a new one with a large slot for SP but turns out that you can’t slot SP in a shield as the game things it is a weapon) and a fire/acid trinket/ring I can’t remember what element is in want slot.

But as always the only real truth is “change is constant.” With the level up to 13 last night all my old raid gear comes on line now also. So the first hour of today’s game play will be gear shuffle all over again.
<3s

What is YOUR Favorite “Thing”?

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As most of you know, I have been xping/TRing Samius for a long time. Now that I have gotten my completionest feat I am doing a “final” life to get back into the end game some. Those of you that know that also should know that I have leveled as a few different races but according to DDo I am a dwarf and not a very fat Halfling as I intended.

I noticed right away at level 2 when I went to grab one of the items I picked up a while back for low level guys a (icy burst) holy-pure good falcon race required Halfling level 2. Not a deal breaker as I have my BTA (icy burst) holy great axe also at level 2. But I was a little sad that I wasn’t going to be able to use said item…

A few more levels go by and we are level 8. I got just the toy for a wiz/rog who is really just making himself feel better when “helping” when it comes to melee dps; a level 8 (icy burst) paralyzing long sword, again RR Halfling…. This time the umd needed to use it is closer to my standing umd score (at the time of 16) of 18 so with a heroism buff I could use it… I did run two clickies at the time, so it sat in my pack most of the time. Think I used it once… Damn undead quests once I get my extra cool toy out…

At 9, I was able to take completionest (huge skill boost) plus the seven finger gloves even more to umd and plainer girds on line want to say my umd is around 28 want to say I can boot into the 30s fairly easily. I would have to look to be 100% that is true, but my UMD right now is good enough to allow me to use just about anything I want. For the most part it is all about the gloves.

I remember when I first pulled them. Think I did a segment on DDocast about that day. I won them in a roll and I was so pleased I took my headset off to share the good news with my wife while a dickhead scolded me over voice chat because “HE NEEDED THE LOOT MORE THEN I DID.” I got a few tells from party members asking if I was going to let him talk to me like that? When I finally noticed what was going on and checked in on the raid I was surprised that someone tried to begrudge me of my loot. And then he tried to do so again now that I was around for my lecture. He is still the only person on my guild’s banned list, Doppleblock. Don’t even know if he plays any more but he will never play with me again that is for sure.

So I guess I am saying even though I have “better” loot at higher levels these simple level 9 gloves are my favorite item in the game and a quick count of my past lives I am wearing them when I TR 6 times. 4 or 5 other times I am wearing Vile Blasphemy which is like the 7F gloves cousin.

So now you know my favorite DDO “Thing”, what’s yours?

<3s

Tools for Power Leveling

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Leveling my dps project Darth Samius has been a bit of an eye opener again. Playing Samius for so long and just having the tools at hand is kind of different then playing someone with more or less nothing. I have done what I want to have in my tool box lists before but maybe this will give a little more insight.

Some setup, currently lvl 10 with 8 fighter, 1 arty, 1barb levels. Main weapons are falchions: +5 acid, +1 holy enfeebling (starting to feel its age) other weapons my lvl 2 +1 holy/icy burst greataxe, Phase Hammer, Shock Everbright club and a holy heavy repeater.

Last night I did a lot of Thrall runs and Threnal east/west part 1s. And let me tell you I really think a maul with holy/everbright with a large guild slot and if I were super lucky adamantine would be killer for this level range. As it was there were lots of times I was trying to kill one kind of mob while surrounded by a different mob type and my weapon would damage the first but not the second. Making the fight go longer and wasting resources.

Starting to feel the lack of fort. I have a Minos in the bank at level 11. And I have the xp banked to take 11 but I want to try and bank as much as I can here because when I start doing Shadow Crypt I want that xp to go as far as possible. Anyway back to the fort, normally I would try to work in say the claw set for some fort at this level or if I had it the Nightforged necklace. But right now I am using the bracers of wind and I am having a hard time swapping them out for anything. Think I could do some major gear swaps loosing the Greater Stalwart Trinket and swap into more fort and Hps but I would loose the Earthen Guard which I really don’t want to do.

Something I am starting to feel that is missing is a big seeker item at least in quests where you can crit. With extend Crit slashing falchions are 15+ crit weapons. That is why keen is so killer on them before your bab is 8 or highter. When ¼ of your attacks try to crit that extra seeker is amazing both to confirm and to the damage. +12 damage every forth swing is tasty.

Last think I want to touch on today is healbot hires. The FvSs are often stronger over all having more SP and HP over their Clr counter parts most of the time. Will often fail you because they often don’t have a second healing spell. And there are times when you need a second healing spell. That said being able to live long enough to cast that spell on you could be super important.

Okay enough for now, Tomorrow might be a total change, as I think I will take 11 later tonight and gear with get a major shuffle.

❤