2007

Deathtoll, and even more housing items

stargrace July 6, 2007 7Comments

This quaint little home in Rivervale may not be so far away to visit in the near future..

Littlebyte, who is co-guild leader of my guild, pointed out this amazing post found on eqtraders, about the new housing items that they’re going to be adding with GU37. The last update is barely out the door yet and already they’re talking about what’s going on with the next one. I love it. I realize a lot of people gripe and complain that there’s so much else that needs to be done and fixed with the game first, however. The game has departments for all of that, and I’m glad to see that the housing / furniture item department is getting some loving. Whether people want to admit it or not, it’s a huge portion of this game, just take a peek over at the Norrathian Homeshow to see how busy.

Apparently from the article there are at least two dozen new house items making their way into the game, taken from the Rivervale zone. The image posted shows some bread pans, muffin tins, comfortable chairs, and two types of stoves. So I’m thinking that they may also include these beds and / or lights in the image above. We’ll have to see, only so many of the items are being released at a time on eqtraders so I’ll have to check back for updates. None the less I was pretty dang pleased to see it.

I was informed about the new furniture during our Deathtoll raid last night. It went very well, not a single death for Dasie and for once Tarinax decided to leave her alone and not swipe at her during the final fight. On an added bonus, we attempted (and defeated) Cruor, who is a huge snake that likes to be mean to people. We did have to use our AoE avoidance signets and blade dance, but since it was our first attempt, it was pretty nice. We had a few issues with the splitting drake still but we didn’t wipe, just trained it off once the MT went down. Did I mention we only had three groups for the majority of it? It was nice. I’m still working with the healers and trying to get everything sorted out where they’re concerned, but it’s not going too badly. I’ve set up a healer channel for us to all use and communicate with one another. Lets me ask who needs heal crit potions and who needs shards and hearts, and just to gripe about things if they’re not going well. It’s not heavily used yet, but over time people will get used to it. I have the regular healers in there each raid. If we need a specific strat, or we need people healing specific people outside of their group, that’s where I tell them.

Of course the day would not be complete with some sort of guild drama. I’ve seen other posts about cliques and guild issues, that’s always going to be present pretty much any time you have a group of people all massed together. Not everyone is going to get along. Doesn’t mean I can’t keep wishing and hoping for it though!

Rare house items, manastone, and other ramblings

stargrace July 5, 2007 3Comments

A Friend donated the following very rare paintings to Arysh’ new home in South Qeynos

I will admit, this may seem foolish – but in EQII I have a some what lofty goal of providing each one of my characters with their own home. Not just some one-room inn though, we’re talking at least two rooms, typically three rooms, and for those I play frequently, five room homes. I’ve never bothered in the past because it was difficult enough to reduce the status on one home without actually owning a carpenter of my own. Now I find the carpenter portion is easy, since I have one at hand. It’s the nick nacks that will take time, much the way they do in a real house. It may seem silly, but it’s just one portion of the game that I enjoy quite a bit.

Anyhow.

A friend of mine donated the pictures in game to Arysh’ new 3-room (under construction) home in South Qeynos. You can find them all listed here on the housing site I adore, under the category of “once sold by merchant” .. that’s right, each one of those paintings above is a very rare very collectable house item. I just about had a heart attack when I saw them being placed on my wall. Anyone who does any housing and decorating understands that these are not items to be treated lightly, they’re highly collectable. It is my goal to raise a little awareness about them, hence the article on them today.

On the eq2players forums, people talk quite frequently about bringing back some of the old furniture that used to be in game, changing items, adding new ones. all that stuff. However, I am a firm believer that there should be rare items that don’t exist any more. Items that were removed, changed, limited edition, that sort of stuff. There are quite a few “house obsessed” players in EQII (self proclaimed one right here) and these items make things even more worth while. I’ve talked about this before, the rare book shelf I bought for 2p that’s sitting in Stargrace’ home, as well as the baby dragon. The collectable Lucan D’Lere and Antonia Bayle statues, those items all have a huge amount of value placed on them (depending on server population).

On a completely unrelated topic, today is raid day. Think we’re going to attempt Freethinkers again after our monumental Chel’Drak raid on Tuesday. I still think we lack a lot of dps, and some classes are really not being used to their full potential, but we’re going to work at it (as always). I just hope people don’t get frustrated at all if we end up exactly where we always are with that zone. Though I get bothered by it some times myself as well I must admit.

I had a pleasant time talking to Selici last night, though I was half asleep and pretty much just went straight to bed and completely forgot about saying good night — oopsie. Hopefully they don’t think I’m completely rude. I’ve met a great number of bloggers (and readers) through my site, and I love talking to everyone. Kilanna and I are fairly good friends, even though we’ve never grouped before we chatter away and have plenty in common. Gothun is another pleseant blogger, he came over from his own server to AB and joined the guild I am in. I’ve also talked to Cuppy a time or two as I’ve caught her on AB, running around on her Goth Moth (my name for the new race that came out not too long ago, lets not get into the particulars about how they’re not goth etc etc it’s just a term!). Cordanim has been very busy and has not been around, but he promises me he’ll be back in game before too long. A new house and a new officer at work tends to keep folks away, understandable. I’ve even spoken to Ogrebear before on Kithicor, as I hung out at the broker one time. It was just a brief visit since I really didn’t care for the server, but it was nice none the less. Lets not also forget Delbert, and Fred, who each have characters on AB (though Fred also plays on the PvP servers). Now that I think about it, I’ve talked to pretty much everyone linked off of my blog aside from a few. What can I say, I love this community.

* edit * I got to the end of the post and then realized that I had added manastone to the title… I completed it on Goudia and Misako (healer, so she needed it badly) and completely forgot to actually write about it.. oh wells! Another time..

Dasie gets a new pretty, and raids go smoothly

stargrace July 4, 2007 3Comments

Yesterday was another one of those frantic quiet days.. if that makes any sense at all. First of all, happy 4th of July for those of you who are from the states. Canada celebrated on the 1st of course, fire works and what have you. Hope everyone who has the day off is enjoying it.

I moved (tried) Misako to Labs incase any spare gear ended up dropping that was just going to get transmuted. Because we work on a DKP system (which is good and bad) I am careful about what I bid on. If something is only a slight upgrade, I won’t bid on it if I know there is something better out there or something I want more. So when the fabled inquisitor hat dropped, I declined. Dasie is wearing her legendary class hat, and if I can manage to some how get 6/7 pieces to it, she’ll have 33% reduced spell cast timers, which is simply amazing for any healer (and specific to templar / inquis legendary class gear). Of course I really don’t have my hopes on it since I doubt I’ll ever manage to get them (I still need the Bp (unrest) the legs (cmm), the gloves (Kaladim ring event) and shoes (obelisk of blight). I could possibly manage all of them if I dedicated myself to it, but there is so much other stuff ongoing that it’s hard, and I spend a lot of my time helping out everyone else.

So we did labs, smooth run. Three groups, low on dps. It was alright though. Vyemm dropped a 2h hammer that I decided to pick up for Dasie. Self buffed she’s at 87 haste, 47 DPS with 100% melee crit chance, and 20% double attack. I’ve also started spec’ing her down the battle cleric EoF lines because there’s just nothing else that I’m interested in. She’s already got the +5% to her spells which is the only “heal” line she has, and she’s also got the EoF line that triggers verdict at the proper time so that she doesn’t have to do it by hand and try to time it. Basically what the battle cleric line does, is provide an alternative means for her to dps. Each one of her dps spells turn into a CA (combat art) and is used in melee range. They also have far shorter cast timers then the actual spells, and since she has 100% melee crit, they always crit. It’s nice. Now, I am not typically a dps’ing healer. Not on important raids at all. But when I am solo’ing, it’s very nice. Yaulp of course helps out a great deal too.

After Labs, we headed to Chel’Drak. I had my doubts, I must say. Pleasantly surprised when we killed him on the first pull, no deaths at all. Now if only he’d drop some of his nicer gear. We’ve seen the plate gloves three times now, the chain shoulders twice, and the sword twice. Some are aching for the dagger, he’s also got a nice ring, earring, and some amazing tank pants. Each time we down him he drops two fabled + a master. The co-ordination this time around was much nicer. We also had three bards, it made a difference. Of course the sort of class adds we have up also plays a roll, we had 1 warrior, 1 acolyte, the rest were mages and thieves. Much easier to burn those down. For the first time in quite some time Dasie was NOT out of power on this fight. In fact she was at about half power (yes, I did use my + power signet and root). She also used her miracle that gave 10% of the grp’s health back every 6 seconds for 1 minute. It made a total of 7% of her over all heals, which is a huge amount in a fight that lasts that long for a spell that only lasts a minute. I love Tunare. I think I’m lucky to have been able to betray her after she was already worshipping, because there really is no evil aligned deity that compares.

Tonight is an off night, I’m sure power leveling some alts / guildies will be in there. I hope tomorrow’s raids have the same sort of people signed up that we had today. Since I’m head of the healer classes now, I’ve been trying to make things easier on them, letting them know what we need for specific fights and what they need to be doing, if we’ve got to heal through the mob, what dot’s are going to be going off, and that sort of thing. Enjoying myself quite a bit, hope it keeps up. Would still love to see some solid progress, but it will come with time.

The new Tunarian Throne

stargrace July 3, 2007 6Comments

Dasie, standing at some very impressive doors

If you’ve been working on Sword of Destiny, you’re probably wondering when it’s ever going to end. The final quest sends you into a solo instance of the raid zone that was added with GU36, the Tunarian Throne. It’s not as scary when you’re in there alone. There’s beautiful gardens, gilded doorways, and a lot of discovery exp to be had if you’re short on those aa’s. You have to wander around the zone and talk to quite a few people in order to get your quest updates. I spent some extra time just marveling at how well the zone was done. It was beautiful.

Yesterday was a some what productive day. I managed to get Misako an aa, leaving her at 78, 5% away from 78. I also managed to get her to level 66, and half way through, another goal I’d hopped to accomplish. Tonight is labs and Chel’Drak, so I won’t have much playing time, and then after Chel I think we’re helping a few people level or something. We’ll be doing the same Wednesday night. I’m really enjoying the defiler, and I’m looking forward to wiggling her into some day-time raids (if possible) and getting to play her a bit. Her gear is not the greatest, but she has quite a few masters, and she may be wearing a lot of T6 stuff right now, but I’ve got stuff stashed away for her. I really do enjoy playing each of the healer classes in EQII, but if I had to put them in order based on what I’ve played it would probably look something like this (from most liked to least):

Defiler, Inquisitor, Warden, Templar, Fury – Mystic N/A because I have never played one past level 30 before.

Defilers have so much available to them. With their wards, their pets, their pet buffs, some debuffs, it makes them complex and interesting. Sort of like playing my enchanter in EQLive actually. I know it’s silly to relate the two classes, but good enchanters, REALLY good enchanters in EQLive, could pull off some amazing things. I feel almost the same in EQII when my healing is challenged to some degree. Inquisitor is much the same. Their heals are a little more boring, they have reactive heals vs. preventative wards, but they have verdict which is just fantastic, and a whole lot of debuffs (7 last I counted) as well as some spells that remove their own stuns (and a group cure elemental and arcane! … LoL). Wardens offer so much in the way of healing with their HoT’s, as well as their temporary spells. Templars have a little less excitement to them, but buff huge amounts of hp and mitigation, always a plus. Fury are more dps spec’d if I had to tag them as anything in particular. They have some very key life saving spells such as back into the fray, but since I’m not much of a dps’er at all (while I play a healer at least) they rank at the bottom.

All in all, this week is looking good. A little guild drama, but it seems to have cleared up for now.

Sword of Destiny

stargrace July 2, 2007 6Comments

Dasie in Freeport, brandishing the new legendary reward from SoD

Yesterday was a long day. I mean, a very long day. I went out for a bit of it, and then Shadowgeist, Kandrial, and I decided that we’d try to push through as much of the Sword of Destiny chain of quests as we could. We had high aspirations of finishing the entire thing, and with a few guild mates who joined later in the evening (a huge thank you to Panache and Thunderwalker) we completed the entire legendary version of the weapons.

It has 10 less power, and 4 less wisdom then the weapon she was currently wearing. However, it can be adorned (for now) and that means I can add another +40 heals to it, for a total of +115 to every heal. That’s a huge amount on one weapon. The “typical” healer weapon (for lower-end raiders) is the Godking weapons due to the power regen, but the +115 to heals will far out weigh that one, plus the dmg rating is better as well as the power and health. On longer fights it may be suggested that our healers (those who currently use Godking) switch out, if needed. I’d like to see all of the healers in guild with this, though I know quite a few are opposed to questing and I won’t lie, this one is a fairly annoying one. The first portions are not so bad. Some busy work. When you get to the Mistmoore Catacombs portion and the Kaladim portion, you’re dreading it a small amount only because of everyone else crammed into the zone. When you start the Castle Mistmoore portions, you’re beginning to doubt why you even started the quest to begin with. After the first portion which is just running and clicking things through the zone, you’re pretty much pulling your hair out. Then you kill some of the 9 named you need (place holders count) and you are waiting for the x2 to spawn (raids do NOT get updates for this quest except for the one x2 you need).

In the end, is it worth it? Well, in my opinion yes. However I basically did the entire quest in one day, and that is something that I do not suggest for people to do. My group was lucky, we joined forces with another group who was on the exact same parts. We had exceptionally knowledgeable people who lead us around, we took turns each disbanding our raid to go after the named / ph’ers we needed. We died, a lot. It was easily a 45g repair bill night. We used a mendor bot in fact. We were all very seasoned raiders who were attempting this as well.

The quest line is beautiful, the New Tunarian Throne instance was just stunning (I’ll post screen shots of it later) and now I’ve got the ability (if my guild ever manages to raid it) to upgrade to the fabled version by completing the raid instance. I think that will be a while, but in the mean time the weapon is pretty dang nice.