It… drools?

Stargrace, sporting her new warg, which I’ve named Spit. For obvious reasons.

The new update went in yesterday with very little issues at all. I headed to Loping Plains (along with the majority of the server) and did the quests for the new wargs. Easy, simple, fast quests that paid some coin and a lot of ap experience. I did the quest on all three level 70’s, and I’ll head there and do it with the rest once they hit 55 (which is the lowest level you can be to get the quest). All you do is run around close to Somborn and charm three types of warg, you can complete it in less then five minutes. The wargs cost 5p each, and are 45% speed. So they’re slighty faster then the free carpet you can quest for, but slower then the guild level 60 mounts (which also cost status, and 14p each). There was a note on the forums stating these will not be the last wargs you see, nor the fastest. More will come.

They’re… interesting. The run graphic seems to be a bit off for my liking. They also drool. A lot. I do like the jump graphic. I decided to trade in my two 50% mounts and purchase this new warg, saving myself 5p on the return of my old mount, as well as getting the status back. Not that I need status for anything, but it’s always nice to have a little extra coin in my pocket.

Misako got level 54… I quested a little, and decided to do Hidden Cache with a friend. She also almost hit 52 ap, I’m heading down the int line for some nice debuffs.

With the new update yesterday was also a better chance for useful items to drop on your instance runs. Some people were complaining, because it does not seem to be 100% chance for a useful item to drop. More like 90% chance. I did Obelisk of Blight, where shadowknight boots dropped (and the tank was a shadowknight from guild who could use them, thankfully) and I also did Valdoons, where ranger forearms dropped, and low and behold, we had a ranger in the group who could use them. I had Dasie tag along on all these runs in the hopes that a piece of templar gear would drop… of course it didn’t happen that way but oh well I’ll just have to keep trying. I’m looking forward to being able to bring the defiler on these adventures.

Level 52, 53.. and it’s time for new digs

Misako, sporting her new cobalt armor and a matching spear and buckler set

I slacked with the defiler, I admit. I leveled her to 52 wearing level 20 gear. I did upgrade her spells and she has adept1 of everything, made adept3 of everything important (which so far has been nothing except her 52 ancient teaching’s spell). I used her as a heal / buff bot and some dps with her doggy, but she rarely quested or did anything more. I didn’t join groups outside of my guild specifically because there’s no way she’d have the capabilities to keep up a “regular” player in her icky gear. So when she hit 52, I decided to go all out, and get her geared up incase opportunity ever arose that I actually wanted to, you know, PLAY her.

So I splurged, and spent about 11p. It was well worth it though. I bought 7 cobalt clusters and had a friend make me a full set of brigandine armor (which has +12 stam / int / wis) leaving them with a 2p tip for their prompt service. Then I bought 8 pearls, and made myself earrings, bracelets, rings, a necklace, made myself a belt with a scaled pelt, as well as a tome for ranged. Bought a cobalt spear for 1p50g since I don’t know any weaponsmiths, and made myself an imbued ironwood buckler with one I had sitting in the bank. Also bought her some level 50 food and drink, even though I have a provisioner, I had no supplies and wasn’t really in the mood to craft. Besides, what’s the point of even having money in game if I never spend it. My three level 70’s don’t need any masters any more, and their gear is no-trade stuff from raids and instances. There’s nothing to shop for.

I spent the day working quests in sinking sands and wondering why I had put off questing with her for so long. Probably because boxing two characters through quests is not actually something I enjoy. Especially because I box on one computer with one monitor. So I have to constantly toggle back and forth between characters while questing, checking for updates and seeing which part I’m on next and what I need, etc. I use the defiler screen far less, since I pay the most attention to the tank character. I managed to get almost 51 ap, and she’s 66% into her level from those solo sinking sands chains of quests. I also intend on getting her started on her godking weapon (which really is still the best weapon non-raid obtained for a healer) and I traveled to West Freeport and picked up the starter to Claymore which is how I figure I’ll grind her through the 60’s. She still needs to do the druzaic language quest, as well as pick up to speak as a dragon, but those can wait. I’m also looking forward to hitting 55, means she can group with level 70’s and get quest credit, even if the mobs are grey’d out, that doesn’t bother me so much. She’ll also get ap for the names killed.

Hoping to take her through Hidden Cache today in Sinking Sands. I did the Tomb of Dust in the Clefs of Rujark yesterday, three named and a bunch of discovery, nothing interesting dropped but that’s fine. Still eager to get her out of the 50’s and into the 60’s! When I was solo’ing the quests yesterday I realized just how much fun the defiler really is. Granted, I say that about every single one of my characters, I enjoy playing them so much.

Game Update 34

*** Highlights ***

A new mount is now available. Tame your own fearsome Warg! Talk to Heinrich in the Loping plains to get more details. You can now share many of the quests in your quest journal with others. Even if you’ve completed them already!

*** Gameplay ***

EoF Fabled and Legendary class armor distribution will now consider the makeup of those who participate in the encounter.

Players who were originally citizens of Kelethin but then switched citizenship should now be allowed to return.

Tired of that ugly mummy or chubby ogre following you everywhere? Then try /pet hide.

Some NPCs that both offer and update quests for a player should now have the book icon above their head instead of the feather.

Further enhancements have been made for server performance.

*** Items ***

Orclord Ringmail armor has been renamed Orclord Stalking. All pieces are now properly flagged as leather and now have a more appropriate appearance. (No stats or class requirements have been changed.)

The Ribcage Scythe will now deal piercing damage and has had it’s +slashing mod replaced with +piercing.

Deepforest Fistwraps can now be equipped by Bruisers and Monks.

Plasma Boost and Plasma Amplification are now correctly modifying the amount of damage specified in the spell description.

The Crown of Enlightenment’s trigger proc now works correctly.

Plasma Boost (and similar effects) will no longer stop the triggered effect from the Robe of Alkabor from functioning.

*** Quests ***

All players above the level 20 can now assist Grot Leadarm in the quest, "Ill Communication" in the Butcherblock Mountains.

Significantly reduced the number of Enchanted Adamantine Ore and Enchanted Azurite Capillaries that Toranim Skyblade and Gogas Afadin want for the Ghoulbane Empowered subquests.

In Greater Faydark, The limecap mushrooms can now be harvested from a normal distance for the quest "Limecap Mushrooms".

Temporary items given when you start a quest will now be stamped with the name of the Quest.

Citizens of Kelethin can now do the Ties That Bind in Antonica.

Quest Sharing: – You can now share Quests (both incomplete and complete) with your groupmates using the new button in your Quest Journal!  When sharing a Quest, the receiver will start at the beginning of the Quest. You must have completed all the prerequisites in order to receive a shared Quest. If you haven’t, a message will tell you what you need to do. Certain types of Quests cannot be shared: Hallmark, Heritage, Signature and Betrayal Quests, plus the first Quest in each Deity line. Receivers will be granted any items that the original Quest NPC gives at the start of the Quest.

*** PVP ***

Citizens of Freeport, Kelethin and Qeynos who die in Azhar’s Penitence will now have respawn options in the Sinking Sands.

Fixed an issue where playing in third person combat might stop another player from using positional attacks on them.

You will now get a message to the general combat channel about why you have entered into combat.

*** Tradeskills ***

Fixed an error causing components to disappear if a player goes LD while doing commission work.

 *** Zones ***

The Estate of Unrest: Garanel’s Shade will no longer break the counter with /yell. Enchanted Lands: Pages missing from the Enchanted Lands book collection quests are once again dropping.

*** Broker ***

Containers can be flagged as ‘Contents not for sale’. This will hide the contents of the bag from any vender’s sell window.

Searching the broker is now more intuitive:

Each word you search for can appear in the item name in any order.

 Use a dash (-) before a word to indicate that the word should not appear in the item name.

*** UI ***

The Options window now has buttons for "Save Custom" and "Load Custom." You can use these new features to create, save, and load options profiles and switch between them on the fly.

Bags should no longer resize when you log in, from their previous size.

Fixed a number of cases where spells would give out unnecessary error messages.

Changing a container’s label is now done from the Bag Options window.

You can now select the primary spell for a macro that contains multiple spell steps. The icon tinting, reuse timer and tooltip are displayed for the primary spell.

No warning, but ah the possibilities

A break down of my defiler’s ap’s thus far

Things are going to be shaking up in EQII very soon (from the 25th and onwards) and I have to say I am very excited about the changes. Not only is there a new update going in with some very good changes that I am looking forward to, but as of the 30th, the PvP servers are merging (which may be an indication of lower populations, but lets just leave that topic for now) and also free PvE server transfers, and not only free server transfers but free account transfers. This means, well first of all, that I just spent money moving my characters to the new account when I could have held off had I known about this, but anyhow. It means that I can move around some more characters between accounts if I want. Why would I want to do this? Well, I wanted an order to my two accounts. I had two set ups so to speak. Either have all my healers on one account and all my dps / utility on another (Tank? What’s that again?) or the method that I was aiming for (which I’m unsure of) is to have at least one of each arch type on the accounts. So that would mean a healer / dps / utility on one account, and the same on the other.

The way my accounts are set up now is Account #1: Templar, Fury, Conjuror, Swashbuckler, Coercer. Account #2: Illusionist, Dirge, Defiler, Assassin, Berserker.

I’d like to move my Defiler over with the templar and fury. Mainly because I really like playing my illusionist, and the dps classes on the first account are not very high level. Where as the templar fury and illusionist are 70, the conjuror, dirge, defiler, and assassin are 50’s. I wanted to move the templar back over to the second account, so that there was a healer there, move the dirge to the first account so there was power regen there that I could play with the templar if I wanted. . . . Or is that all just confusing and makes no sense? Argh decisions decisions.

So I was having a set of cobalt armor made for my defiler today, being annoyed at the level 20 gear she’s been sporting for quite some time now. There were no messages about servers coming down — though later I did find this small post saying the servers would be coming down for two hours it sure would have been nice to have had some in game warnings. I just hope my cobalt pieces are all alright and my crafter wasn’t mid-combine. Hopefully I’ll see the results of that later today. I also went out and bought a handful of pearls so that I could make some mastercrafted jewelry for her. The level 20 stuff really was putting a damper on things. I splurged and bought a cobalt spear as well, they’re dang expensive at 1p50g. I dropped about 15p total for various things from 7 pieces of cobalt + crafters tip (they were a friend of mine, so I actually paid them 2p to make the armor for me) also bought 8 rough pearls (which are going for 70g-1p each on Lucan) and also bought that spear. Thankfully the buckler I can make myself with my woodworker, so that saved me a little bit at least. I’m going to work on making some adornments next, get some stamina so that my soul ward goes off for more, and some + to heals which is always fun.

I’m still looking for new places to level, the clefs are nice but I’m going to get bored there fast. I’m thinking I should work the Godking chain of quests for something to do, but I’m dreading it, and my chances of ever finding a Godking raid are probably slim to none. I know at the later 50’s I can start working on Cyclops, but until then every percent seems to drag.

Nomadic Gamer