July 2008

Two MORE Crafters?!

stargrace July 7, 2008 2Comments

That’s right, even with all of my alts, I was missing two crafters. One, being an armorer. I do have a 38 brigand who used to be my armorer, but she’s on another account, on another server (which I’ve closed) so that’s no good. I was also missing a tailor – also on another account, another server. So Melisand, my (now) 32 defiler is shaping up to be an armorer. Got level 20 with her before the servers came down for their daily update. Ysandria the monk, will be the tailor. That leaves me with two characters on another server (and there they’ll sit until SOE lets me move them for free, I’ve already paid way too much to move characters around) and the rest on Najena.

80 Jeweler, 80 Provisioner, 80 Sage (Antonia Bayle), 73 Woodworker, 64 Alchemist (Antonia Bayle), 62 Weaponsmith, 61 Carpenter, 20 Armorer, 20 Tailor.

Why bother having all 9? Well, for one it’s great to be able to make my own gear for all the alts I have. It’s also great to be able to make stuff for friends. I have a transmuter, so being able to make adornments myself without having to pay exceptionally high prices is also nice. I enjoy being self sufficient, and lets face it I’m just a little crazy (that’s right, I said a LITTLE).

Crafting is an easy goal, and a lot of fun – but there’s one significant difference on Najena compared to Antonia Bayle. AB is an RP server and there are PLENTY of people with lower level alts. I used to make most of my money from selling things below level 50 actually. Najena is the opposite. The majority of players are higher level, and higher level things sell far better (ie: food and dring that I’ve been selling at an astounding rate). So as far as sales are concerned, I have to find a niche market again in order to make a significant amount of coin. Granted, running characters through the RoK content 71-80 guarantees massive amounts of coin simply because rewards grant you large sums.

I didn’t play any Vanguard over the weekend – but no worries, I’m still playing it along with EQ2. I hope all my American friends had a wonderful 4th of July, and everyone just had a fantastic weekend in general.

Not a Clue

stargrace July 6, 2008 2Comments

Yesterday was one of those days where I just had no idea what I wanted to do, so I did a little bit of everything. I worked on crafting on a tiny bit, and then realized later I should have taken advantage of that double experience a little more. I’d like to get a level or two, we’ll see if that happens today. I did make Kasul some sales crates, which are always handy.

After the little bit of crafting, I thought about working on the warden epic again. Then I remembered what portion I’m on. I need to travel to the lab in Sebilis, which is deep down inside and while it’s not that difficult, it does require more then just myself and a shadowknight. I really need to make some dps friends on Najena, it’s the one thing I’m always lacking in a group. I’d play my healers a lot more if I had dps around – the shadowknight is one of those classes that pretty much insists on always having power regen because their class just doesn’t function well without it, they’re power hogs – so I typically play a bard or coercer / illusionist and for a lot of the content we make due without a healer at all. Anyhow, the other portion to the epic is Chardok, which is far worse then Sebilis and requires a group and a mezzer would be fantastic too. Need to kill some Arch Magus guys way in the back close to the Queen, past the red portal.

This would ALMOST be duoable – except after the blue portal assassins like to drop from the skies and they hurt real bad and typically show up right when you’re already fighting an encounter or two.

So I logged off of the warden slightly disheartened and logged onto Stargrace, the illusionist. Who’s been sitting at level 76 for quite some time now, having already grinded a few characters to level 80 and not having the stamina to do another. She’s a level 80 provisioner and I was interested in getting the 30k faction she requires with Bathezid, Rilis, and Danak so that she can get the special provisioner recipes. I managed to get Rilis done, and half of Bathezid. Danak is on the block for another day. She also managed to get 50% into her level which was nice. Of course doing RoK quests with her is quite easy – she’s a caster and has plenty of dps. The templar on the other hand, who is sadly only level 74, will be lucky if she ever levels. Unless by some miracle I find some dps leveling up through the content as well. Perhaps when Kasul reaches that tier I can tag along with him.

Also discovered that there is a blue shiny collection in the mines of Nurga, rings, that I’d never seen before. The rings go on the broker from 2-7p each (there are 6) and I don’t have the faintest idea what the reward for this collection is. I have three of the rings so far, and I’m going to try to get the rest. Fighting in the mines is no big deal, but it’s boring.

Nostalgia was the busiest I’ve ever seen it, Tipa was on with her assassin most of the evening working on the Tempest Storm quests, getting a new outfit of armor. Kasul logged in after work, Mayadhros was on between some real life things, and Vlcan popped on for a while. Said was also there, it was so nice to see everyone. The guild also reached level 18! We’ve two more to go for more bank slots and bigger benefits. I’d like to see us pushing to 30, but we’ll take it slowly (as we have been). Kasul and myself broke the 100k mark on guild status, which is something I’ve actually never done in any guild – I’ve never found a home to stay in long enough to accumulate that much guild status. I know, silly, but I’m quite proud.

The food and drink business on Najena is doing fantastic, I put a few stacks of T8 stuff for sale yesterday with Stargrace and it all sold by noon. Of course the supplies are also very expensive right now, so I’ll have to do some harvesting. I need tea leaves in specific. I suppose that’ll get added to the list of ‘things to do some time’.. for now, it’s off to get some groceries (in real life, silly).

Safe Travels!

Little Warm In Here

stargrace July 5, 2008 0Comment

Yesterday was the fourth of July, naturally a lot of my friends were around. The day started off simple enough, Said’s guardian joined up with my defiler, and with an 80 shadowknight mentoring I boxed and took us through Fallen Gate. The zone was practically empty for once, and though we didn’t get a lot of drops, we both got 4-5 levels in a relatively short amount of time. Now I just need to gear the character up some, as at level 26 she’s still not really wearing any gear. Something tells me that makes it a little harder to heal.

Once we’d gotten some levels, I decided to work on the carpenter -and dinged 60! Only twenty more levels to go. Supplies were slightly cheaper for T7 then they were for T6, but I spent a good portion of time harvesting in empty zones to stock up. No doubt I will need even more supplies before this tier is up, but hey it’s a start.

Randomly I decided to work on some grey quests I had in my journal, and thus I completed the stein heritage quest that I’d had kicking around forever. The quest has changed slightly as well – and I dislike it. The four bouncers you need no longer have place holders, and are static spawns in the Feerrote. Another change to a heritage quest is that the x2 epic skeleton in CoD (Cove of Decay) is now just heroic, and they finally removed the access required to CoD -it was one of the very few old world zones that still required access.

No doubt next Rahotep will be made heroic instead of epic, if he hasn’t already.

With the HQ out of the way, I decided to follow in Malfi’s footsteps, and work on the claymore chain. The coercer (who is a character I enjoy far more then most of my characters) is still 17aa short of “complete” and since grey quests now give aa, it’s perfect. One of the first things I had to do though was get the Druzaic language completed – I know, I have slacked horribly with this character. I also need to do speak as a dragon but I’m prolonging that one for as long as humanly possible.

So it was that I stood for 30-45 minutes at four location waiting for a clicky to show up for my updates. I KNEW if I moved over to the other zone (the clickies are up in one of two locations) that they’d move over while I was in transition and I’d miss them. That’s just my luck.

I giggled out loud when Silhouette got discovery outside the doors to SoS. I’d figured it was a fluke.

Then I went inside, and got discovery in the main room. I picked up the quest at the entrance because the 2nd of the chain gives a house item, and a few other quests I found along the way. The zone is grey to me, or at least everything I’ve encountered so far is, and I managed to get myself an aa and a half from the various quests I worked on.

It was actually a lot of fun, much like working on the peacock chain of quests ‘just because’. I doubt I will ever get a Deathtoll raid any more in order to complete this quest chain, but perhaps a little while down the road people will be doing it for fun, and I’ll get a chance to tag along then. We’ll see how it goes.

All in all, it was a pretty fun day, and I felt like I got a lot done.

Oh, and lets not forget the two instances Kasul and I went and did. We headed to the Mines of Meldrath, as well as The Hidden Cache, mostly for aa and hopefully a little experience as well. No deaths, and no real good loot aside from one upgrade for Kasul at the end of Mines, but it was still a lot of fun.

Goudia Night?

stargrace July 3, 2008 5Comments

Last night may as well have been called “Goudia Night” because that’s certainly what it felt like. The troubador got into a Runnyeye 2.0 group for once – I’d never been there with her. In fact, it’s rare I go anywhere with her because no one wants a troub along for anything other then raids. Just call us the opposite of the Shadowknight, where they’re wanted just fine in groups but not for raids. It’s a plight many of us troubadors know all too well. I had picked up a few pretties along the way lately, and changed my aa’s around quite a bit, opting for more of a raid set up. I dropped the AoE avoidance line and instead went fully down the shield blocking line – which also meant I had to get a shield. Thankfully, there’s a very nice faction sold one in Jinsk. Anyhow, I’m sitting at 52% double attack, a lot more melee crit, 54% haste, some dps, 700 str 600 int 500 agi and 400 stam – roughly. No, I don’t forget that troubadors are mostly casters – but with RoK we seem to be more of a hybrid then ever. I have roughly 500+ spell dmg as well as +CA dmg. It’s been hard to find a balance but my dps was fantastic last night. At least, I think it was, I’m not raid geared and the folks I was with were, so it was hard to tell. I don’t have my epic yet. Need to get working on that, again. There’s just one clicky in Chardok* that eludes me past the blue portal.

Anyhow. Last night. No deaths until the final mob, and the only death there was me. Our ONE dps went LD during the fight and even though we had an enchanter at times that enchanter had to dps (since again we had none) and a mob would break free and chew on my tail. Our group make up was templar, mystic, shadowknight, ranger, coercer, and myself as bardling. None of the fabled cloaks dropped, but by the end of the night I hardly cared, I certainly walked away a winner. Which I knew ahead of time that I would, the only things I see of value that drop in RE are for mages and scouts. I ended up getting four upgrades from drops alone, and another one I passed on. If I hadn’t of rolled on the stuff, they’d have been transmuted, so I stopped feeling bad after the second roll. I upgraded an earring, a belt, a breastplate, and forearms. Then with the legendary quest rewards I upgraded legs, and hat. Couldn’t complain. I’d also gotten my 133rd aa which was very nice.

Before that instance I worked on carpentry some – but I’m trying to hold off until after 6pm today so that I can take advantage (again) of the double experience bonus. I also managed to ding the monk to level 35 and decided she needed gear – again. So I dropped a lot of money on the twink (again). The screen shot above is her wearing the level 37 adept blood hide gear that is player crafted with materials from DFC – not too bad eh? I just need two more levels to be able to wear the stuff. Kasul came with and we tore up RoV with him mentored, even though he ended up dying by the end and not exactly in a brave way. Apparently his disarm trap is quite low, and the master chests that drop in RoV are quite painful. He was taken down to low health in one swipe and then Varsoon decided to activate while he stood there, and chewed on him some. He was there for a HQ update – and did manage to get it anyhow, dead from the floor.

Woopsie.

It was still a lot of fun.

Short term goals (or maybe long term depending on where things take me) – are to work on the troubador epic. There’s one clicky in Chardok* that I just can’t seem to manage even though the walk through has told me with patience it can be solo’d. I don’t have the faintest idea how. I do have feign death, and maybe that can help me. I’d also of course like to hit 60 carpenter on Silhouette. If for no other reason then to be out of this REALLY EXPENSIVE crafting tier. Of course more weaponsmith levels on Goudia is equally important. Doing a few more HQ (Nostalgia 2.0 is very close to 17!) is high up there as well, and just over all having a great time!

Bonus exp starts again today at 6pm EST and runs until 1pm EST on Monday. Thanks again to Kasul for tipping me off in his recent post. Hope everyone gets to take advantage of it!