Instances

Happy New Year

stargrace January 1, 2009 3 Comments

I’m not exactly a big fan of crowds or large noisy parties, so last night saw me in EQ2 for new years eve talking with online friends as I drank some sparkling wine (which was really good, the empty bottle attests to that) and today I’ll be doing the family thing and finish up putting together a plate of appetizers before I head out. Even under the influence of a little wine I still had good fun, and managed to do a few instances.

Petites headed to Deep forge to complete the daily double and I was really pleased to learn that I can obtain the shard quests at level 79. I thought they started at level 80. So now she has four shards in her bags waiting for her first piece of TSO gear. I’d never been to the deep forge and the group blew through it with no issues at all. It was a Shadowknight, Dirge, Troubador, Wizard, some scout DPS that I forget at the moment (I want to say Swashbuckler or Assassin) and myself as Templar. 20% experience later, we headed to the Obelisk that you find in the Moors. I needed it for my signature quest anyhow, and the chest within that zone drops a few plat for everyone in the group. Plus it was quick and easy even if there are no shard rewards unless it’s a daily double location.

After that we headed to Commonlands to help the coercer out with a quest update for the book of Thex heritage quest. You have to zone into an instance and defeat a named who spawns adds – without killing a single add. There are a lot of them, too. Apparently it was supposed to be difficult, but we had no issues. The coercer rooted the adds that spawned far away, and mez’d the ones who spawned close by. We had a lot of dps and that helped take down the encounter.

Earlier in the day I completed a tradeskill instance on my tailor with Kasul from guild, his carpenter hit 61 I believe. My tailor managed to slug her way to 67, three more levels and it’ll be back to writ grinding for me. I also logged in the alchemist late last night before bed and inched her to 66 and part way through. Made a few adornments to put on the broker, I’ve been holding onto the shards and dusts for a long time now stock piling.

All in all the evening was spent exactly as I had hoped. I wish everyone a Happy New Year, and may it be as wonderful as the previous.

Gaming

DING! Nostalgia hits 35

stargrace December 27, 2008 6 Comments

Yesterday Nostalgia hit level 35! I’m so exceptionally proud of Ecor and Kasul who have been working really hard to get us those levels. It was an important milestone, though it may not seem like it. First, it’s one step closer to 40, which brings us extra bank space, and it also allowed us to purchase two more guildhall amenities! They were expensive, but worth it. I’ve donated close to 300p towards the hall, and millions of status. Of course once we hit level 35 it was time to decide what we wanted our two amenity to be!

There’s the harvesting depot that the guild could really make use of, as a central location for craft supplies, as well as the hirelings that will go out and harvest for you. That was pretty high up on my list of things to purchase, but I think we’ll try to get some of that around level 40. So instead, we purchased (finally) a broker, and a hireling who we can sell looted items to – including all of those status items we gain from mobs. That means no more running around everywhere trying to find the proper merchant to sell to (or in my case, no need to head to Maj’Dul to use the faction instances to sell to since the merchants there also accept everything).

Our total amenities include: Druid porter (since we can’t afford to purchase all of those bells, the druid porters are great to get around Norrath), banker, broker, rush order writs, fuel merchant, and junk buying merchant. Since we are so small, and such a low level, we really had to be careful about where to spend the two extra items. They each cost 10p and 1,000,000 status. Kasul and I donated some more plat towards the escrow, and we still have 13 million status in there, so that should do for a while more.

Eyenstein and Albrta asked if Shadowgeist, Kasul and I wanted to do a few of the vampire instances in Nektulos forest for some aa. Of course we agreed, and it was a lot of fun, I gained 1.5aa with Arysh, and I also had the quest to receive vampire smite on me, I finally completed the chain of quests from the encampment by the waterfalls. I’ve only had that quest on me forever.

Kasul was also gracious enough to let Shadowgeist and I into his empty Crucible instance and The Deep Forge so that we could get the void shard updates (clickies) and earn some shards. Since Crucible was the daily double, we managed to get five shards without having to actually do the instances. I’m saving up to upgrade the shoes, gloves, and shoulders I have – which means I’ll be saving for a while, I need about 60 shards. Ugh.

Since I’ve decided (for now) to settle on Arysh as far as ‘mains’ go, things have been going really well. It’s easy for me to log her in and decide what I need to do. This week hopefully I’ll be getting both my tailor and alchemist to level 70, which means then it’s just a hop skip and jump with writs to level 80.

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend, I’m happy that the holidays are winding down a little bit.

Gaming

Not Quite Working as Intended

stargrace December 26, 2008 No Comments

Logged in to EQ2 yesterday and the MoTD mentioned something about all the dervishes losing their loot and the instance Hidden Cache being closed. I believe this has to do with the increased master drop rate – and not the fact that the drop rate was increased, because Scornfeather’s roost was not changed, not were any overland zones that are ‘contested’ but because of the way that this zone could be abused. Hidden Cache is filled with encounters, and unless you get a named you can kill those encounters (which were dropping an abundance of master chests) zone out, reset the zone, and head back in. Rinse and repeat. As long as you didn’t accidentally kill a named, you never set the lock out timer. I figured it was just easier to go to living tombs and kill to get masters, but apparently a lot of people were using this method. So for now the instance is out of commission. Since I got the rare masters that I wanted (a lucky drop saw me with Enraging Demeanor on Wednesday) I didn’t head back to LT to see if it was now heavily populated with people farming. I know the increase drop rate was intended, but I guess this specific zone was not meant to be used that way. If the drop rate was not meant to be increased, then I assume the other zones that are dropping masters like crazy (silent city, living tombs, scornfeathers roost, etc) would have also been changed.

Anyhow. Since yesterday was Christmas I decided to splurge and purchase three masters for my warden. I always told myself that I would settle on a main first before investing too much money into a character, but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never really settle. I enjoy the warden in every aspect on so many levels except the fact that they’re a popular healer, so it makes my chances of actually getting some where with them marginally small. Maybe I’ll get lucky.

Shadowgeist rounded up a few guild mates and I asked Kasul if he wanted to come do the daily double, which was Anathema, a zone I had only been to as a lower level character and not on Arysh. Seems the daily double quests alternate their rewards, and yesterday was 1p and 2 shards as a reward. That brought my shard count up to 15, which was a lot for me. I had a few choices. I could either upgrade my gloves to the greater version, or purchase a few more lesser pieces, and get the three set bonus. In the end that’s exactly what I did. The pieces themselves were not exactly upgrades stat wise, they all have less power on them, but wearing them reduces the recast of my spells by 5%, and gives my heals a boost by 3% (which also counts for overloaded heals) and increases my crit chance a huge amount (crits trigger my epic weapon). In the end I am at 9,400 power (self buffed with no food and drink) 8,500 hp (I’ll be getting stamina adornments) 8-10,000 in every resist, and sitting at 1022 wisdom.

For a non-raid geared person, I don’t think that’s too bad. I’m just touching 50% heal crit chance, which I know is still a little low, but I’ll get there eventually. I bought the shoulders, gloves, and shoes for the set bonuses. Now it’s just a matter of saving up enough shards to upgrade all of those pieces.

The master spells I bought were not that impressive, they were level 80 spells that drop quite frequently, but I was pleased none the less. I bought my level 80 fairy heal special for 16p, and I got a level 80 group heal for 22p. I also picked up my level 52 rare spell for 1p which is nice. Every healer comes with a single target “anti death” as I call it, basically if your target receives fatal damage instead of dying it’ll boost their stats and apply a heal. Wardens get a group version of this spell at 52 that gets no upgrade. It was well past time I bought it. Those spells can never be over used, they’re great in rough times. Kasul died due to some frontals eating through him, but the run was smooth and really quick. The group consisted of a Shadowknight, Dirge, Illusionist, Swashbuckler, Assassin, and myself as warden. Hope everyone had a lot of fun, too!

Now I get to decide what I’m going to use my $100 EBGames card on…

Gaming

A Night of Memories

stargrace December 21, 2008 No Comments

I know it’s hard to tell by the screen shot, but that blue x4 mob is one of the epics in The Sanctorium, an instance located in Sinking Sands in the Graveyard. Yesterday I spent a few hours on various characters being mentored by Siege again who were going after achievement points. When Echoes of Faydark released, the achievements were re-set, though they have not been re-set since, that means that a LOT of the T5-T6 content still has aa for people who have not been there in a while.

My bruiser reaped the bonus of this the most. I started out at level 57, and since she is on my ‘main’ account there’s a bonus of 40% experience. The account is also privy to the 5 year veteran reward that replenishes all of your adventure vitality, so once I ran out I clicked that and poof, back in business.

We killed the two x4 blue encounters within The Sanctorium very easily, no healer in our group. While they did reward aa, there was only two wooden chests that dropped. We also did Hidden Cache, which is another instance in Sinking Sands. Upon finishing those we went and took down Meathooks, who I remember being far tougher way back when. He’s the x3 raptor in Sinking Sands. Mind you we only had one group and we were blowing through things.

After that it was off to Pillars of Flame. We ran around looking for named that were up, and also headed to Ancients Table, and Cazels Mesa. Two instances that I remember doing a number of times when Desert of Flames released. It was really nice to see the old content, even if we were just blowing through it. Once that was done we headed to (of course) Shimmering Citadel, where we searched for names before heading into Poets Palace. Once that was cleared it was time for a break, and my bruiser who was 57, was 61.

Later on in the evening another group wanted to take down some content. We spawned and defeated the gold and silver dragons in Maj’Dul who rewarded no aa but each dropped a master chest with a piece of fabled gear inside. We headed to Thundering Stepps and the Cove of Decay to take down the Epic Angler, who wasn’t so epic after all. Then it was time to defeat Mjolni, you may remember them as the dragon from the prismatic 1.0 chain.

Not done after that, we headed to A Meeting of the Minds in the Ferrott, then to The Trembling Lagoon, and finally off to Lavastorm to down a random epic that was up in the zone. While the experience was nothing astounding since we were just taking down random epics, the aa was nice, and people seemed to have a good time. Apparently tonight since it’s a slow night Spirits of the Lost is on schedule. The zone is said to give between 3-5 aa due to the plethora of named located within.

When that was done we decided to call it a night, everyone having got their fix. It was fun, and nice to spend the evening walking running down memory lane.

Gaming

Anchor of Bazzul

stargrace December 19, 2008 5 Comments

Restless last night, though it was no fault of any games. Just too much on my mind as happens this time of year. First of all, happy birthday to Calreth a good friend of mine on Antonia Bayle. One of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I joked with Tipa about playing ‘eenie meenie miney mo’ to try to figure out which character it was that I was going to play for the evening, but it wasn’t really a joke. I couldn’t settle down so I logged off for a few with the intentions of doing some art of some sort. Took far too long to come up with an idea for that, and after fumbling around with an image I eventually decided I wanted to do, I was asked if I wanted to head to the Anchor of Bazzul, a zone in The Moors of Ykesha that I’d not yet been to.

I was asked to go on my troubador, who had not yet seen any TSO content per say. This zone doesn’t reward any void shards, but it was great aa and a few bits of interesting loot (that no one wanted). Goudia got her 141st aa (yes, I am that much of a slacker) and here’s the kicker – I JUST betrayed to a troubador and what do I win?

A DIRGE master.

GAH!

I swear, if I didn’t have bad luck in games, I’d have no luck at all.

The zone has a really fun encounter (that’s also sort of bugged) where you have to clear around The Keeper of the Banished, and then each member of the group clicks one of the cells where the Banished are being held, and morphs into the creatures much like you do for the Mark of The Awakened trials all uber and what not. You defeat the mob (and here’s where it gets tricky) once the mob is defeated you each have to click off the illusion, and then you have to defeat the banished guys that you just possessed. Apparently if it’s done correctly and all 6 of the banished forms are used, you’ll get a chest. More often then not though there is no chest reward at all and this is just a ‘get by me to the next stage’ of a zone. It was still a lot of fun though.

The zone itself was fairly easy. A few named have kickbacks and my Internet decided I was no longer going to play without LOTS of lag, so I left the group a few minutes to reset some computer stuff. Annoying. Everything worked fairly well after that. The final named required members to move three objects to the center of the room surrounding the named in a triangle pattern, we had enough dps that the group members only had to do this once. All in all fun zone even though nothing of any note dropped. A healer cloak that no one wanted, and a bunch of other trash.

It would be really nice if I knew which character to settle on, but as of yet that hasn’t happened. It’s really hard to gear up 5+ characters, get them all their epics, and make sure they can all handle whatever it is they need to handle based on their class. Getting masters is also frustrating. So no progress in that direction yet.

Still, a fun evening over all. I think the only instances I have not been to yet now are the ones in Loping Plains.

Happy New Year

DING! Nostalgia hits 35

Not Quite Working as Intended

A Night of Memories

Anchor of Bazzul

You Missed

Leveling Up With Timewalking

The Construction of Quail Landing

Making Gold – One Sale at a Time

Timewalking, Gets me Every Time