Tag Archives: TRing

Did I Rage?

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Last night I got a tweet from Phlor with a link to an article on Massively.com about players of DDo having a “sit” in to protest the TR costing changes. For those of you that (like myself) don’t really stay up to date ddo news, Turbine is removing the 20 epic tokens (sorry tokens of the twelve) to buy a heart of wood for TRing as an option. Making the buy in the store option a lot more attractive as the other in game option as I understand it will be a lot more grind then the normal populace is ready/willing to do.

My reply is many layered but simple, Turbine fucked up when it added buy a heart in game for epic tokens and I think are just now taking steps to repair it. They took a real in game personal currency (limited based on your willingness to epic and bta) more or less totally deflated its worth and then said well you can buy this thing from the store with them….

So to that end I think moving them back to the store is a valid option. I know that most of my Tp went into TRing Samius when he was on the completionist train. I might have had a life or two for free but most of his lives were done using hearts from the store (as many as I could bought when they were on sale).

Can people complain? Sure.
Can they leave or say they are leaving? Also sure.
Do I think they will? No.
There is a track record of people saying they are leaving but then don’t.

Guess my thing is I know that Turbine (and yes I know there is more to Turbine then just DDo) now has to answer to higher powers each quarter. Last I checked the ddo section of turbine didn’t have a huge push in hires to make more products to sale to cover their share of the accountability to WB. So they have to take back something that was free to cover the costs in redoing the TR system, which by all accounts (again that I hear as I am too lazy to look at things myself) is fairly good.

I for one would rather them make money off the hearts again then do like a over arching 5% higher tax on everything or reduce the number of sales or a dozen of other things they could do to make larger profits. And as I understand it is doable to farm up hearts in game, but again it is not for the lazy.

My rage (if I have any) is at them once again making a new currency and ripping the bottom totally out of an existing one vs reusing the existing currency or at least buffing the now worthless currency…

Okay I need to head to work,
<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

There is a Huge Difference

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There is a huge difference between Samius and Darth Samius and playing them over the weekend made that very clear to me.

Samius is fast, highly resistant to damage/spells, extremely capable at selfhealing and can solo almost any quest where massive selfhealing mobs are not rampant. Oh and very dependent on the wide range of items in his TR cache at different levels.

Darth on the other had is slower, attacks and spells hurt him a lot, is a lot better at self healing then some other melees I have had in the past and can solo (healbot) almost any quest where raw DPS wins out as long as the incoming hits are small enough that the healing can keep up.

To make the point I need to rewind back two to my lives on Samius, it was a very similar build to how Sam is now. Monk base, but with fighter levels vs pally levels, and it struggled to solo things like Shadow Crypt and Offering of Blood. In all fairness Darth had issues in Shadow’s end fight also. But that was will saves vs keeping up with the healing via damage.

Now lets fast-forward to this last weekend and those many WixKing runs.

Samius (in 3+ man runs each team was doing a tower) was able to solo a tower, zip down and in to a second tower often catching up to that person before they opened the last door to the genie. And slaying that towers genie and helping that person with the tower boss. And on more then one occasion Sam, caught up with the third tower person in time to help with the tower boss if not the genie. About 10-15 mins completion times.

Darth on the other hand, was able to do two hard runs per trip to the ship, or about 20-25ish mins a run. Stopping to heal up once or twice per tower. Still for the most part he was around a 1k/min.

Why does it matter?

Because real soon I will start talking about my “final” life on Samius, this pally life is the last one I need before I can TR in to a completionest life and a place where I will sit on Sam and catch up on all the end game content I have missed out on while rocking the lives. And I don’t have a clear plan for Sam other then someone with a blue bar and removal spells. But having a list of the other tools in my tool box is important. And right now I have a tank, (working on) DPS, 2 buffers (one barb, one Arty) and a few halfhearted healers. And Java who I think will become a melee dps arty or a druid.

Also I am reminded by something Tobril says all the time. Everyone should have to play an all out melee at least once. Just to learn how to play with the active combat system we are lucky to have in DDo.

Duck and weave. Crit real big.

❤

What am I? Where is my DDo Happiness?

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For my 400th post I wanted to go a little deeper then a weekend report so I ask myself and I hope to inspire you to ask yourself: What am I? and Where is my DDo Happiness?

I just wrote half a page rambling a long to get to the meat of my question, and I thought it boring to reread so I am editing all that fat out to ask myself this better question, “What do I want out of my “final” build?”

I am at the point that I will be starting my final tr life needed to get my feat. And having played everything I am not 100% sure what I am any more as a dnd player.

Things I do know I need:
A blue bar
Self healing
Removal spells
Combat options
Speed
Lots of Hp for wiggle room

Thing is I am not sure any more what that means for me when it comes to builds. Other then a dick being a wizard is my truest nature. But is it really? I like having every option at my fingertips; maybe that calls more to the bard/arty/druid classes then the others. If the arty had a slightly better spell list I could see going full on arty. If there were a few more scroll options from vendors I could see being a bard for a while. And after playing the druid it is a super strong class even more so then the wizard to have the right tool for the job. But are those sometime alt builds or are they me? So no real help on heroic levels. But I still have a few lives I think before I have to make that call.

Guess I don’t really have any point to this post right now. It is not like I will come to any answers right this minute and take off shouting eureka around the office. But I totally would if I had a final build pop into my head.

As always I am just trying to share my thoughts as we all can become better players. Until 401, Where is your DDo Happiness?

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Topic one, Skipping level 12.

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Today is one of those days where I have a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head and I am not real sure what to settle on and turn into a full on post. So I am going to try and do a few smaller posts. I also have a few (not sure how many but more then 2) winter wolf codes to give away. If you want a code leave a comment on the topic and let me know you want a code.

Topic one, Skipping level 12.

There are quest levels that need help. Level 12 is one such area. Not there aren’t plenty of level 12 quests but if your like me you want to keep your streak running at max and you want to spam the good quests on hard after you break the ice on elite. Meaning that at level 12 your running level 10 quests.

You have some Threnal quests a few Titian quests and a lone sand quest at level 10. Aka not worth the time to solo when going xp per min. And this life I am doing really well keeping on track. I TRed on the 24th aka 7 days ago and last night I took level 13. I am on the faster track this life. Which brings me to my second topic so look for the next post to see what that is.

Anyway I think (and I talked to Glin and Jerry about this a few times at the Con) that if Turbine could just take Threnal make them all level 10 quests and tweaked the xp just a little I could see that area really take off. You might need to do a little bit of an item pass for the end rewards but I think they are fine and if they put in a upgrade alter like they did with the Abbot and Reaver raid loot I think things would be great.

So I leveled after breaking the ice on the one level 10 Sands walkup. And starting tonight (unless there is a MtG draft or pnp game happening) I will be hitting up the desert proper.

❤

Current (DDo) Dilemma

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Jumping right in, I have lots of TRing wraps on Samius. May have touched on that yesterday??? Anyway I have noticed a lack of oomph this life mostly do to the lack of assistance. And now I want to work on my top-level wraps and I am unsure what to do.

Just to give you an idea of how my wraps are laid out atm,
Fanged/Devotion – lvl 0
Lesser vamp (small guild slot)– lvl3
I have some dps unbound wraps in the 2-7 range for more damage/less healing times.
Holy/lesser vamp (Med guild slot)– lvl7 these are my main wraps until 12 where my vamp Stonedust wraps fire up.
Endless Light wraps – lvl 8 these are for the training dummy and the occasional undead thing.
Those named metal aligned/Gp wraps from Shadow crypt
Vamp wraps (Med guild slot)– lvl 9
(lesser)Vamp Stonedust wraps lvl 12

And that is it until level 18 where I have Tod rings (baring glowball killn wraps) but only one is used for damage atm and that one is holy burst. I would burst another ring but I have a hard time taking off my Ring of the Stalker…

You all see my issue, right? I don’t have a weapon power boost from level 12 on. Now for a long time Shroud weapons were the best around but that is no longer the case, and never was the case for monks….

So here is my dilemma, what will boost me the most that I can swap into as soon as now, level 14?

Of Vampirism is a must as it is 80% of my healing in quests, but what to I add to boost the power?

Holy is a clear option, bypassing good DR and a fair amount of damage vs a lot of DDo mobs is solid.

Elemental (aja Acid or Elec) burst is another option.

But there is more to things then throwing damage at mobs. I read a good forum post a while back about using weapon debuffs to good effect. So something like Cursespewing or Roaring is a fair option maybe.

IDK, if you have any comments, well there is a comment box.

❤

Wizbot to MaxDC Guy

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So I decided how to best use my stone of skip 8 levels for me. I was back and forth a lot but think I will be happy at once capped again. Anyway I took one of my 18/2 WF wizard/rogue (As400) and TRed him into a pure drow build. I don’t like the numbers on a lot of the stats. 14 con is low for a 2nd life guy to me. Which means I will need to work extra hard on finding Hps and getting that Con as high as it can go. To make up the short fall of that Con penalty. But I do love having a starting 20 INT so there are some trade offs.

Why? I spent more then an hour last night running down the list of possible quick second life builds I could do and was willing to skip some of the key play levels.

I have a junk Clr, that I designed the original Bowonk for him. I even picked up a first and last name change tokens when they were on sale a few weeks back with the plan to TR him some day. But he had some cons, he had a cleaned Shroud item, as well as I really want to have a monk life on my bowonk builds. And I didn’t really want to invest in a monk life and then the Bowonk live right now. I thought about using him as another Fleshy Artificer. I could skip taking the Essence feat and take the Clr past life instead. Do Helf with the monk dilly, and have a rocking Amp score and make my umd do the healing work. The nice thing would be his CorOp GS would be a boon, as well as him sitting on the shards to make a dual shard GS repeater. Take the Dragon marks and focus on electric damage and go to town. But I wasn’t ready or comfortable trying to make an artificer carry a party of 2 or more pikers to 8. Not yet anyway.

So I looked some more, Samius Jr could use a second Monk life but he is just starting to get his gear sorted. Samiusbot could use a go around but I didn’t want to be with out a scroll farmer while he was leveling back up. I even threw around the idea of taking one of the FvSs and making him into a Sorc.

But I decided that having another real DC caster for the guild would be for the best. Samiusbot’s Dcs are not horrible. And for the amount of work I put into him they are great but it is time for me to have a Big DC guy at least until Samius is done.

As for the Race decision it was fairly simple to rule out WF or any race that didn’t have a way to boost Int and starting with 20 Int is better then any other race although the +1 humans/helf have are close. But if you want the max then drow is the max. I looked at Elf for a long time however because of the Elven Arcanum line and I might regret not having that as an option. Max Dcs don’t do a lot if you can’t beat the SR of the mob.. But past live Wiz, the wiz pen line, pen feats and an item and I should be okay.

Would I have done Drow if I couldn’t skip the hard to solo as a PM levels? Nope. I never liked the Drow as a race. But I hope that skipping the hard levels will make leveling one a ton easier and will give me the big Dcs that the guild needs in epics.

Wait…. Open beta notes…. WTF? Well maybe it wont be soooooo bad?

❤