2007

Protector’s Realm Goodness and even more questing

stargrace December 14, 2007 2Comments

Last night was our first time in the Protector’s Realm, and the guild was pretty pumped up after our Mayong kill. We ended up almost starting on time, which is practically unheard of, and walked into the zone wondering what to expect. None of us had ever been there before, we didn’t even know the general script of the zone. It’s located in Sebilis, the same zone that Crypt of Agony uses. It’s made up of a few rooms, very little agro to start, and lots of npc dialog. You end up doing some interaction with the npc’s and then go on an epic quest (literally) to help aid the people stuck there. There’s four little named and then one more big named and then two more named after that — or so the rumor goes.

We made it past the first four named, which were not exactly hard, but not easy. Our guild couldn’t find a warden, so I volunteered to bring my 76 warden Arysh, and box the troubador. We can get by without a troubador, but we can’t get by without a warden. I would actually rather play the healer, but the guild screams if I think about dropping the bard. We’ll have to see where that goes. It’s easier to find a warden then a troubador, but difficult to find a good warden, if that makes sense.

We managed to kill Iztapa Vyx on the first pull, Wymbulu took quite a few, we came back to that one later. Adkar Vyx went down after the second pull. The encounters have a lot of aoe’s, some dots, some of them massive. Wymbulu was hitting people for 12-18k a shot with a flurry AoE that just ripped us to shreds the first few pulls until we figured out a method to beat them. I must say, the troubador level 80 spell countersong (absorbs 70% of an aoe raid wide – lasts for 20 seconds 10 minute recast) really helped a lot. We couldn’t avoid the aoe completely, but eating 70% of it was great. M1 absorbs 90% of the aoe. Zukluk Vyx took two pulls, and we were feeling pretty good.

One unique thing about these encounters that differ from the previous tiers, is that they drop coin, and a good amount. By the time we’d downed the first four named, we’d each made 3p – plus paid for repairs once from the mender bot. To be expected while we learn something new. We had a blast, and our spirits were high as we set the script in motion for Doomcoil, which is a giant snake – and you only get one chance to beat him.

We knew he ported. Knew he had two aoe’s one large and one small. We proceeded to pull him (her?) and learned that the snake also heals when ever anyone dies, but also hits like a kitten. Tactics ranged from attempting it as a curor (snake in DT) fight with massive burning while we bladedanced for as long as possible, to trying to hide behind geometry to avoid the aoe’s. Needless to say he wiped the floor with us, though it did take some time. If you fail on him, he apparently can come and assist in the next encounter – so we called it a night for then.

The loot was not fantastic, but not bad either. Upgrades are upgrades after all eh? No discoveries but I’m sure that the “bigger” raid guilds have already cleaned out these little ones.

I was proud of our guild for what we accomplished, though I wish I hadn’t of been boxing, it wasn’t that big of a deal in the end. Nothing required a whole lot of maneuvering, and even though Arysh is only level 76, I ended up parsing 2nd zone wide on heals. Helps that a lot of things are AoE damage and druids certainly shine in those circumstances.

After raids, a few guildmates asked me if I thought I could solo heal Maidens. It’s one of the two instances in the Howling Stones, and used for the legendary (used to be fabled) weapon quest. It’s a hard zone, the two more difficult encounters would be the three sisters, where you have to root one, mez another and dps the third. Then there’s also the final named, who heals every time you dps (and that means ANY dps, including thorns, procs, adornments, cloaks, etc) until she’s done freaking out and then you can start up again. I was a little cautious but told the guild I was fairly confident I could solo heal it at level 76 on the warden. We had the ideal group, a guardian, dirge, necromancer, coercer, and swashbuckler, all level 80 except for me. We had one wipe, on the sisters because we had them running around for a bit too long, but pulled with the group charm and things went just fine. We got a lot of legendary chests, two master chests, a few upgrades (most of them going to the coercer, good night to be a caster!) and other random goodies. Arysh didn’t end up getting her legendary weapon since she still needs to do the quest from Vault of Eternal Sleep first. Afterwards we whipped through Crypt of Agony, and since it was 2:30am after that I called it a night.

Today I quested with Shadowgeist until he left for work, and then picked up a charmed pet to solo quest in Kunzar Jungle, the zone I hate the most. I love the way RoK has plenty of animal creatures, it’s the first time I’ve had such a supply of things to charm. In fact I re-spec’d for now just to be able to max out that charm while I’m questing. The little bit of extra dps is an amazing addition when I’m all alone. Hit level 77, and got to wear two new pieces of gear, a shield and a new pair of gloves. I have a cloak waiting for me and that chestpiece as soon as I hit level 79. Things are going smoothly in game (for the time being) here’s hoping it lasts!

Down goes Mayong, Vampires and All..

stargrace December 13, 2007 7Comments

That’s right, for the first time, Arsenal managed to down Mayong. Now, before anyone goes and starts wondering “hey, isn’t that a T7 raid and shouldn’t you be able to 2 group it by now?!” – just because he’s green, doesn’t mean he hurts any less. Well, ok. Maybe he does hurt a little less. But I was still very proud (and excited) for the guild taking him down. On our third pull none the less. This is Arsenal’s second attempt at Mayong, they didn’t get a whole lot of pulls on him in T7 before having to call it a night.

Of course nothing dropped for the troubador, we had two dirge pieces drop, a mystic bp as well as a necromancer bp, and some other random goodies like the disease bracelet. Once we coordinated ourselves on the final fight it really did seem quite easy. His smoking body can still be seen on the floor in the screen shot. Of course, Goudia is not anywhere close to being finished SoD. Since she’s never been my main before, she’s behind in everything, and I do mean everything. Shadowgeist got his Soulfire sword though, even if it is a tier late, I’m happy. Alaena (I probably spelled that wrong, she’s a guild templar) got hers, and Kaumo (warlock) got his. I was going to box Calreth for his update since he had classes, but I found that I couldn’t properly time bladedance without lagging all over from trying to play two accounts. I didn’t want to risk my group getting eaten by some miss timed aoe, and decided that he’ll just have to come along next time maybe when he doesn’t have tests going on.

Tonight we’re doing the Protector’s Realm, which is (as rumor have it) the T8 version of Labs (but harder..) so I’m anxious to see how that goes. We did have about three groups of guild members and had a few pick ups have to come along as well. Our regular guild coercer was unable to attend, so we took along a 71, our illusionist is also MIA, so we grabbed a 72 who was decked out in adept1’s and still managed to parse higher then some of our regular dps members (he plays a conjuror main). We also grabbed a 70 bruiser from guild who’s working on having that become his ‘new main’ as he has a swashbuckler that we already have one of. We grabbed a 75 warden, a 75 dirge, and a 70 dirge. In fact we had four bards, and I was the only troubador. Dirge is always flavour of the month on AB with troubadors a close second from time to time when everyone starts complaining about there being a lack of them (for raids only of course).

I’ve been crafting like a mad person since Frostfell came out, and I’ve also been doing the quests offered on the thundering stepps docks for house items (dishes, specifically). I collected 100 food items for both Thundering stepps and Everfrost, and was rewarded with a nice plate, and a mug. Of course now I have the concern that everyone is just going to be eager to step on one anothers toes and harvest every shrub they can find — but leave everything else up. Especially wood nodes, I see more wood nodes around then anything lately. I know this was to discourage “Cherry Pickers” (People who only harvest one of any sort of node and leave all the others up) and to try to get rid of the surplus of ‘useless’ bushes. A great idea in theory, just depends on how many people are going to be after these dishes. They’re not lore, you can sell them on broker, and you get 2% (well, I was) tradeskill exp for completing the repeatable quests. Not sure if those will be changing over time.

I love the new Frostfell items, since Goudia is still fairly new she’s got her wreath and tree now, as well as some plushie snowmen, the carol greeting cards are amazing and a nice touch, as well as the new plates of cookies and the hot chocolate mugs. The hanging lanterns give homes a warm fuzzy feeling and the outfits of course are fun as well.

So much going on and only so much time to do it all in. I’m torn between working on Claymore / SoD (is there really any point to working those now or are they going to become extinct like the previous quests such as Godking and Prismatic 1.0?). I’m also cranky because I really wish bards (at least troubadors) could choose the mage staff as a reward for SoD as opposed to the dagger. I parsed on average 1,000-1,3000 DPS (on fights where I wasn’t constantly staying out of range to ensure the survivability of my group, after all a dead bard is a useless bard) and I want to see that rise. I need proc gear in order to do that though. Not bad I suppose for a troubador who doesn’t have a single piece of fabled gear (except for that charm item, and does it count?) yet. We’ll see how things go!

Where to Start.. GU41, Quests, and More

stargrace December 12, 2007 4Comments

Ok, where to start. First of all, a little venting. I love playing my troubador, I love playing all of my classes obviously. I’ve settled to a ‘main’. The guild needs the troubador — on raids. But not much else aside from that. Since we have a steady dirge who plays, they typically get to go along in the instance runs. Which I can understand. In fact I’d say 90% of the groups out there look for a dirge. Very rarely do I ever see anyone specifically asking for a troubador. Do people even know we exist? I know they like the dirge due to their hate transfer for the tank, but I can play a de-agro song for everyone not a fighter. I know they have their melee proc buff, but what about the troubador caster version? I know they have a dps buff, but I can buff haste! Last night was one of the rare occasions that saw me playing the troubador in a group – and I was very thankful for it let me tell you. We headed back to Chelsith to finish off our quests. The zone was stingy (and I do mean stingy) with both named and chests. We got two of the alternative named up (they’re random) which of course all dropped treasured stuff. We got two legendary out of the whole zone, and no one could use either thing that dropped, the last named dropped a 2h spear.

On the plus side, I did complete my quests for the zone, and the scale of the leviathan was one of these items. I can finally get rid of my fishbone earring! It was really time. I also did a few of the island of mara quests, old, sure, but they needed to be done. I missed out on the rest of the instance runs, but well, I was glad for the one I got to go on. I really wish guilds would make exceptions for their bards (maybe it’s just me). I play mine and I play her well (just as I’d play anything) and I understand that I’m not tanking so you can’t appreciate fancy pulls, and I’m not healing, so you can’t appreciate life saving abilities, and I’m not going to top the dps parses, so you can’t comment on that, but I am enhancing everything that the group does, rotating through jesters, making sure Bladedance is up when it’s needed, contributing with a lot of stuns (I think I’m up to 5 now) and debuffs. Bards are useful for far more then just raids. So if you’re not used to taking one along with you, try it.

In other news, GU41 goes in today. Of course, there were no in game warnings about this. I did happen to read about the four hour downtime on the network status page though ahead of time. 10am EST passed and people started grouping up, assuming that the down time had been postponed until another time. Promptly at 10:25am EST, the servers came down. Anyone who’s been playing for any length of time is now used to this happening. Upset? Naw, it happens. We expect it. Is that good? Not especially.

What am I excited about in this update? Well, first of all Frostfell is going to be implemented. Yes, I am excited! I love house items. I love decorating. And Frostfell is one of those wonderful in game events that has plenty of everything. I’m sure I’ll blog about more of the event as it goes on. A lot is the same as last year, but that’s alright, it doesn’t bother me at all.

In the notes, some quests are being changed and fixed. Mastercrafted gear is getting an update (after complaints that it was too far below treasured gear this tier). If you want a full list of what the update contains, you can find it here. Just hope you know how to read without any paragraphs in the text.

So hopefully the update goes off without a hitch. Tonight my guild is raiding MMIS, and I know a bunch of people are hoping we get Mayong down finally. We’re going in with a few new tactics, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes. We’ve also recruited a few new people, which is always good. The drama seems to have died down some, now I just want to get to raiding!

One of those Busy Weekends

stargrace December 10, 2007 2Comments

A good friend of mine surprised me with the portrait of Venril Sathir, which was a limited edition reward for purchasing a magazine (or so I’d read) and made my afternoon. My only issue is that all of these very nice paintings are giant sized, the LoN ones included (can see one of them on the far right side) and I’m going to run out of room before too long. Not so much of an issue in Gorowyn where the houses seem to stretch on forever, but it’s an annoyance in the Qeynos and Freeport versions. I wish there was a “shrink” button. The painting literally comes to life, the mist swirls up in the painting. My little burnayai is passed out on the floor there, named him ‘scrub’.

Once I’d gotten the painting I decided I wanted to completely revamp Arysh’ house, so that’s what I spent the past day or so doing. I still owe 18,000 status on the place where as Stargrace has been down to 0 for quite some time now. I try not to make my houses crowded since it just causes issues. It’s located in South Qeynos though, the 2nd one closest to Qeynos Harbor on the Antonia Bayle server if someone wants to take a peek. I’m sure I’ll post screen shots later on.

So, this weekend was busy. I managed to get Arysh to level 76, completed the tome quests, got her action figures, decorated. Last night I finally managed to wiggle into some instance groups with the guild — oh, wait. That’s right, except Sebilis was down all day for <insert random reason here> and no one could get to the instances inside subsequently. I’d never been in Chelsith before, in fact I didn’t even know it was an instance I thought it was a regular dungeon zone. Low and behold, I was wrong. In beta this zone didn’t re-set properly and you could enter someone else’ cleared out instance. It was interesting. I had three quests for the zone, one ends in the fabled charm item that I’m looking forward to getting that has the enduring breath on it. No more fishbone earring! Goudia is already 80, so I wasn’t there for any experience, but I did get her 130th aa she needed. 10 to go. She also got a new chest piece with some pretty high int. Too bad nothing else good dropped from the zone.

The group changed around some after that and we picked up a few more people. Headed to Charasis: Maiden’s Chamber, and had a hard time in there with the new members, so we ended up leaving after a bunch of deaths. I’ve been there a few times, and love the zone, you just really need a good group. So we decided to go to Charasis: Vault of Eternal Sleep, where I also had two quests to do there, one for the fabled neck piece that has a heal on it. I won’t wear it but it’s fun to look at. Nothing much dropped there either, I think we had two ornate chests and the rest were treasured. I hadn’t been there before, so it was nice to look around. I think I’ve been to all of the instances now, at least with Goudia.

Hopefully I can get Arysh a few more levels, I’d like to get her to 80. On the other hand, I’m also trying to work my tradeskills on the other 7 crafters and get them to 80 as well, we’ll see how it goes. I still dislike doing everything solo, but I suppose it could be worse.

On a side note, Christmas shopping is done, the tree is up, and the cat has been warned. We’ll see how long that lasts.