September 29, 2008

Woops.. I’ma Goober

stargrace September 29, 2008 3Comments

I admit now, I’m feeling pretty silly. Here I was, thinking I wasn’t getting any reward at all out of healing my arse off in scenarios when it turns out that I’m actually gaining way more then I thought. See, that first column says rank. I always figured it was my rank in the scenario vs. everyone else. A marking system if you will. Well, upon closer inspection, that’s just my level stated compared to everyone else. Duh. 

The second number is the total number of people I helped kill. Then my total deaths. Then the amount of renown I earned for the scenario (which I rank first in), I forget what the next number is for, then my dps, and my heals (nice number for that one) and finally the amount of regular experience I earned. I’m still figuring everything out but it’s a little less frustrating knowing that I’m at least being rewarded for my healing efforts. Even got some tells tonight thanking me. Of course after 4-5 scenarios the opposing team (which consists of the same guild over and over) catches on and heads straight for the healers. Ouch. I can’t heal when I’m being smashed to the ground. 

I also found a few (small) things to do between pvp to keep my interest there. Number one. Those public quests that are always empty still reward you with influence if you partake in them. Stage one is always very simple, a kill amount (or at least they have been in Chapter one and two thus far). Stage two is taking on some + and ++ mobs (group mobs typically unless you’re a few levels higher). Anyhow, I can hang around those empty public quests (every single one I’ve encountered aside from the first one so far has been empty which is really a shame) and kill at my leisure, and earn influence. Then I can head off to the merchant and get some pretty nice gear. 

I’ve also taken up salvaging and talisman crafting. This requires me to basically disenchant items (as like every other game out there who has them) and I can make talismans that get applied to particular pieces of my gear. It’s rare for me to get green+ gear so it takes some mindless farming and grinding easy encounters to get items to salvage. I think my salvage skill is sitting at around 10 and my talisman crafting skill around 5. I haven’t found any new merchants besides the ones in early chapter two. 

I’ll be writing up another roleplay story tomorrow. I’m still playing very much my own way, and it’s going pretty well. I don’t have a guild, but hopefully I’ll find one before it becomes too much of an issue. I did play EQ2 this evening, and it was great to hit level 28 with Nostalgia.

So you think you can Heal

stargrace September 29, 2008 0Comment

Not quite so bad, since there’s another archmage in this scenario with me, I’m rank 6 here again. At rank 6 I have two heals. One does a  very small direct heal for 80 points or so (depends on how many nukes I’ve cast ahead of time) and the other is a 212 HoT (heal over time) that also is dependant on nukes I’ve cast ahead of time. 

While it IS important to land a few dots to up those heals, my number one concern is always watching the health of everyone else. Notice my damage output? This scenario it’s a grand total of 406. Pretty cruddy. We won this one too though. Notice my rank is only 6? Well, heals are not going to bring in huge numbers if that’s all you’re concentrating on. That’s part of playing a healer though. 

There’s a few things to keep in mind, for archmage specifically. Please remember there are different types of healers – archmage is a cloth wearing RANGED healer. That means I’m pretty much never supposed to be in the front line. I hang back, way back as far back as I possibly can and cast my heals from behind everyone else. I can see pretty far away, and make sure to have the healthbars of everyone turned on, so I haven’t had any issue. One thing I made sure to do / change right away is the fact that you HAVE to be able to toggle through friendly targets. This is my Q key, right beside tab which toggles through my evil targets. 

Of course, after a while people realize that the healers have to be taken out, and you’re going to get a good swarm of people on you. My typical responce to this is to dance around and heal myself as long as I can, staying out of range, my back not to the opposing side, and hope that someone on my team will notice I’m getting smacked around and come hit the person while I’m trying to avoid them. Some times it works, some times it doesn’t. Because I stand so far back it’s rare that I get a whole gang of people on me unless I’ve some how managed to wiggle my way to the front by accident. It happens, especially if I’m trying to heal someone whose main goal is to run to the head of the pack and try to play hero by taking on 10 at once. 

I’m not good at figuring out who is who yet, aside from the white lion people and ranged dps because they have lions and bows. I suppose I’m alright at figuring out who the dps casters are for my side at least, but it takes some getting used to. I did three other scenarios, and the heals looked about the same, we did lose, once. Each scenario was with a guild (or it seemed at least) called ‘Raiders’ and I’m not sure if they were coordinating their moves or not, but it was still fun. 

Ah, right. I don’t like pvp. Like I said in a previous post it has nothing to do with not being good at it, because I don’t suck. It’s just not my thing. Despite this post (and the others that will follow) it’s nice to at least take advantage of the rest of my ‘free’ month though before the account expires, and who knows.