Melkior Whiteblade - Peasant Bane

Quest cleanups

2013-05-09T09:46:00.000-07:00

Last night I was able to get in a few quests, but nothing special.

The 2nd catacombs quest with my ranger/rogue. Once you know these, they can be very fast. I am hoping to get new end reward equipment with slots. Silver/ghost touch/undead bane with a red slot? Yes please! Even eternal rest would be nice, though I may farm devil assault for handwraps instead.

Shadow Crypt flagging with my Bard for favor and to be able to open for others. Got a +1 longsword of smiting as an end reward on one of them. That should see some use in Von 4 I think.

Then House of Broken Chains with my bard and guildmate barbarian to continue the Menace of the Underdark storyline. Next up is House of Death Undone, which was quite buggy when I played it last, and got me to TR not just once, but twice with my main. No special loot except a sapphire of protection +6.

One nice thing about the panthers from the Collectors edition is that they are gold seal, so we have a full party with just two of us, two panthers, and two regular hirelings.

Useful Tools/Sites

2013-05-08T12:52:00.001-07:00

I wanted to give a quick shout out to two very useful tools/websites.

The first is YourDDO.While some parts are now broken (the compendium parts) the API for some of the myDDO stuff works so you can see xp, stats and equipment of characters.

The other is a set of ios tools by jjflanigan on the forums. Not only that, he wrote a css style for the new web forum that makes it quite a bit better looking! It's available here.

My alt now has a voice of the master and is level 7. Only 20k to level 8, which should be a walk in the park. But in the meantime, get some other characters flagged for shadow crypt.

Alts and grouping

2013-05-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

One of my alts is quickly rising through the levels in an attempt to level up a static guild member. I won't call it a static group since we all have disparate play times and durations. Even more accurately, it's me and two IRL friends in the guild.

So I have a third life Monk1/FVS10, and 1st lives Bard20/Epic2, Ranger12, Rogue2/Ranger 4, and Paladin16. A few are banking xp but anyways, a good approximation of my range of characters.

I find grouping to be far more fun with people I know then people I don't, so I'm willing to run my level 6 guy through quests with a level 8 artificer to get her up in levels to help my third life out. I can still solo most content that I want to do, but having someone else can make it go much easier and usually faster.

Anyways my rogue/ranger is 20k xp away from 7 which should be a piece of cake. A priority is getting a Voice of the Master for the 5% xp, so just Delera's part 3 and 4 to go, and bravery bonus is a nice perk.

One thing I do like about TRs is the ability for premium players to unlock on hard (2nd life) or elite (3rd life+), which coupled with bravery bonus makes those lives a bit more tolerable.

I see the Otto's box is back, which is a little rich for my blood, but hey, I wouldn't be averse to trading something I got but didn't need for a box or a stone.

Shadow Crypt...Fail

2013-04-29T09:43:00.001-07:00

I finished flagging for Shadow Crypt but before I got the quest, I thought I better see if there is an LFM so I can save that flag for later, maybe open it up for some alts, what have you.

So I found one...Elite farm AFK start in 10 minutes. So I click join...and wait...and wait...and wait...like 15 minutes.

and I get accepted to the group. So it's just me and him and I grab the window for him since he was AFK inside. That's good, right? Maybe he was soloing before and opening it up for others, or maybe he was part of a previous run and wanted to keep running it.

So we go through, and those flame turrets are pretty good. Not quite like a firewall which I've used in my prior lives to own this quest.

So we get to the vampire and dps just isn't there. Chat says empty my blue bar into him, which would normally be a great idea, except my favored soul doesn't have a lot of damage spells, mainly crowd control. I alternated between maximized cure serious, searing light and deific vengance and scrolls of heal, but it just wasn't enough.

Get a few terse lines during and at the end of fighting, then a recall and a leave group. I guess if he was that uber he could just solo it? IDK. I had raise dead scrolls too...so?

So it seems spell selection will be important, which will take time to change on a FVS.

Divine Punishment, Cure Critical, Searing Light, Cure Serious, Deific Vengeance, Cure Mod, Nimbus of Light would seem to be the best ones to use, and max out the smiting line along with radiance and devotion items. And I'll bring a hireling with firewall. =)

Jungle of Khyber

2013-04-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

I just finished, as in within the last hour, Jungle of Khyber in a pick-up group on elite bravery bonus. Yay!

A few observations:

Traps are bad. If you have a rogue or artificer in the party, let them handle it. ( I know that most groups rush through the first trap while the trapper stays behind to disarm it, but that didn't go well so and leads to...)
Raise dead is good. Someone should either have scrolls or have it memorized. In this case, that someone should have been me, but since I solo so much, I never invested in scrolls. I now have 10. If I have to use more than 10 in a quest...ouch.
Beholders don't live long when rushed. That doesn't mean you won't die, though (see observation above)
Marut DR is tough! Make certain you have something that will work against it if you are melee. In my case, I had some spells and played the healer role while not blasting.

30k+ xp for about half an hour isn't bad in my book (thought I know that can be slow for some)

Next...Shadow Crypt?

The question of ranged combat

2013-04-26T14:36:00.002-07:00

I was having a small bit of altitus and decided to play my human tempest. I rolled her up at veteran status 7, so she started off with an odd smattering of gear, and a strange feat selection. I've kept her on that path but when I have exotic weapon prof: Khopesh, why would I take improved crit piercing? What is that path thinking?

Anyways, she's been banking level 12 for a while now so I leveled her up, and decided to run a quest. I wanted some adamantine ore so I could put the ritual on my main's crafted robes to help out with wear a little bit, so I thought Relic of a Sovereign Past on normal would be a good quest to try.

Everything went mostly smoothly, using my crafted keen khopesh of lesser vampirism and a festival icy burst holy of pure good handaxe, i tore through those Duergar without trouble. But I was running short on time so I rushed to the end fight, and never did shrine in the quest, so I ran out of sp for healing, and she's always been a favor runner so pots and wands were non existant.

So I was at the end quest, looking at King Dolgrim and thinking...maybe I can kite? And I did, and it worked, thanks to precise shot, diehard, an endless flask of rum, manyshot. and luck.

Running for a silver longbow will probably be in her future, even if I don't use her ranged abilities much. Or, if trying to get one, why not get three? (Then I can have two, one each for my ranger and fvs and sell one =) )

I also took a look at lamannia to see what a FVS monkcher looks like in the new enhancement system, and put it through it's paces.

First off, feat changes: Mental toughness is no longer required, meaning that you can get the feats you really want for ranged dps sooner. But Ten Thousand Stars is now a feat. So no net change there, except 10K stars can be a bonus feat, where mental toughness is not.

2nd, enhancement changes:
Current: You had to spend 16 action points if your a ranger, or 24 points if your a elf or half elf to qualify, and then spend 4 to get the arcane archer enhancement. (min level 6 or 8 respectively).

Alpha: Elf or Half Elf spends 10 points in tree and 4 AP to unlock AA tree. Ranger gets the tree for free.

The tree itself looks okay. If you don't need every single power (I doubt most people do), you can streamline it quite a bit I would think. I didn't do that, as I spent almost all of my points in the AA tree, to see how powerful it's ranged ability was.

I leveled up to 25 in the test dojo, got shridai champion, and ran chronoscope on heroic normal with a bow of sinew. I didn't have to melee at all except to get ki back for 10k stars (another problem, no points left for monk enhancements).

It went okay. I don't have much to compare it to. But I'll probably want an abishai set some day so I might start running that raid on live.

Overall I think the FVS monkcher will not die due to the enhancement pass.

Share plz

2013-04-22T15:32:00.002-07:00

by Melkior @ MelkiorWhiteblade.blogspot.com

So, Meloth the inept favored soul with an odd smattering of handwraps, bows, and a level of monk reached level 10, and I start looking at quests to run for elite bravery bonus, other quests to farm, and what gear I need.

Those updated fanged wraps from Tangleroot had caught my eye, so i ran that chain again and got lucky, getting the fanged wraps with ribcracker which is not too bad. 7d6 on crits, which without crit modifiers is about an extra point of damage per attack. With the removal of autocrits, this isn't as awesome as it could be, but oh well.

I then farmed Delera's part 4 for xp, and ended up getting the upgraded devotion handwraps as well. A third time through the chain to get all the first time bonuses gave me a pretty cool reward list, but I didn't see anything particularly useful that I didn't already have so I got the only BTCoE item, another set of handwraps and put them on the AH.

But while farming on my own I put up an LFM, to share the good times. I got a request to share Thrall of the Necromancer. "I can't do that, it's a chain quest," I responded. "Which quest is it?" I'm thinking...that's why there is an LFM up...it says Hard Farm, and the quest says Thrall of the Necromancer. Anyways, got it all straightened out, and finish out the quest. "I'll grab window" I put into group chat...and you can imagine my dismay when I see the two others sitting outside with me before I can. But I made the best of it and ran the chain again. By the way, thanks to DDOwiki for that new info on how to solo the water gate optional in part 2 with a hireling (summon monster for the win?)

I also ran Von 1 solo which was kind of interesting. I ended up joining a group later for von 1 and 2 on elite, and that went very smoothly, except I'm still not zergtastic. And don't even mention Claw of Vulkoor. I'd never taken a shortcut on that one, so I got quickly separated which isn't good for a squishy.

I figure the necro 2 flagging quests will get me to 11, at which point I can alternatively run von 3 or shadow crypt, and use my 100 roll on the daily dice 30% xp pot for some good times. (Fingers crossed for someone staying to grab window)

Tangleroot? Grey Moon Waning? Level 10?

2013-04-16T19:34:00.002-07:00

by Melkior @ MelkiorWhiteblade.blogspot.com

So I finished up Tangleroot with elite bravery bonus and got skunked on end reward list, considering that I really wanted the new Fanged Wraps, which are tons better than the old version. Instead I got that summoning staff with two augments. Maybe I can put some spell power into it and make it into a kind of caster staff, or just wait and see what kind of augments I get in the future to make it worthwhile.

Also got one quest to go on Grey Moon Waning, and after that I'm pretty much done with level 7 elite bravery bonus quests, so i can farm for fanged wraps, or Delera's for the updated Devotion handwraps.

After that...Necro 2 and VoN. Anyone on Khyber looking for a piker...I mean hjealer?

In other gaming news, played board games last weekend. A Touch of Evil, Elder Sign, and Maul of America. All good in their own way, but I think Elder Sign was the best of them.

Sentinels of Stormreach finished on E BB

2013-04-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

by Melkior @ MelkiorWhiteblade.blogspot.com

http://melkiorwhiteblade.blogspot.com/2013/04/sentinels-of-stormreach-finished-on-e-bb.html

I had finished bargain on blood solo elite before, and then I took a look at Lamannia after taking my TR character over to see what the enhancements look like. Once thing I am quite pleased about is that you can qualify for Arcane Archer sooner in the half-elf tree, but that building up in the tree now takes 5 points instead of the regular 4.

Imbues didn't seem to work correctly, but I went all out and took my level 11 ranger over as well, and trained up AA to cap. Seems to work pretty good, but I don't have a good baseline for comparison.

I also don't know how 10k stars will work, or Zen Archery, so I've got a bit of trepidation about the build. It sounds like a free LR might be given once the enhancement system goes live, as some builds might not be viable anymore. I'm not keen on Angel of Vengeance / AA / Some generic Monk tree but that will remain to be seen.

Anyways, I tried out ranged on my TR on the test server and wasn't really impressed, though my Ranger did do a bit better. So I felt ready to finish up the chain on Khyber this weekend. Got kind of skunked on end rewards, though.

Now to move on to other level 7 quests for my bravery bonus. I'm thinking Gwylan's Stand.

p.s.

Also, trying to get my feed working correctly with blog readers and such. Blogger doesn't seem to be as friendly as wordpress in that regard. But if you are having trouble, try the following feeds:

http://melkiorwhiteblade.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/

or

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MelkiorWhiteblade-PeasantBane/

New Delera's Loot

2013-04-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

The Update 17 end reward item updates for the Delera's chain are all very intriguing, even more so than some of the other stuff I've picked up here and there, and making a choice isn't as easy as it once was.

Even some items that get regular use got a bit of an upgrade, if only an augment slot. I don't yet have a silver longbow so Serpentbranch looks reasonable. But I also have the other items in my reward list that include two slots, which could come in useful:

They all have their uses, but at this point, I am leaning towards Serpentbranch. Thoughts?

Level 9

2013-04-08T16:48:00.001-07:00

I got my third life fvs/monk to level 9, which means heavy fort, rapid shot, and divine power. I also ran challenges to get the earth bow, and I crafted sonic damage and masterful craftsmanship onto it, so still min level 8.

I'm keen on getting some of the new augment slot loot from Delera's, I just have the last part to do. I'm also looking forward to running Sentinels on elite bravery bonus. Elite BB is sure lots of tasty xp, but I think it's much harder to solo! It's gotten me a little bit out of my soloing shell but that leads to my next point.

I've learned that I really can't zerg very well. I don't know if that is a build problem, or a play style problem. Survivability is a big issue. Some quests I do just fine, but with a full party zerging through or splitting up, dungeon alert means really getting slowed and bogged down. At least that is how it is for me. I'm sure things will be different once I get blade barrier.

OurDDO Feed

2013-04-04T10:56:00.001-07:00

Evennote from the myDDO blogs has put together a nice resource for those of that blogged (even occasionally like me) to keep all the DDO blogs together in one place, and I should be included in the near future. Check it out at OurDDO.

In other news
, my third life Favored Soul 6/Monk 1 is banking level 8. I don't know why; I don't have a compelling reason to, but oh well. To be fair, I never thought I'd have a capped character, let alone a third life character. The intent is to get a favored soul life out of the way, but have fun with Arcane Zen Archer of 10,000 stars. So far I don't even have rapid shot yet so it's handwraps all the way, though I'm debating using Carnifex or some other two hander to just make things go down faster.

Cannith crafted Holy handwraps of Undead Bane get the most use right now, but I also have Fernia wraps and I'd use Devotion at times but I am Lawful Neutral and my UMD isn't high enough yet to use them. Fanged wraps work when my Lacerating ones don't so I feel I have enough wraps for now.

I've been looking around for bows and other equipment, and started looking at three barrel cove for the first time since the new loot was introduced. I think I could make some of that equipment work, and if not for this life, perhaps another one. Another option is that bow from the cannith challenges

I was recently able to play Dominion, which is a really great (non-collective) card game. I'm looking forward to being able to play it more often. And this Saturday I might be GMing our ongoing Kingmaker game if everyone can make it.

I finished reading the last book of the Wheel of Time. Great ending, and some day I'll have to do a complete re-read since it's been a while between books. Next on my list of books to read is the Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

Third Life: Monk / Favored Soul/ Fighter

2013-03-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

I'm using wax_on_wax_off's monkcher build here (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=4222951&postcount=11) for my third life and so far so good. Between Fernia wraps and Fanged wraps I feel pretty good. Cha is dumped so I can't even cast yet, until I get to third level and my tome kicks in, and I can craft myself a +3 cha item, min level 3. That will last me a little bit.

Doing quests the first time on elite is a bit different than what I am used to, but it does bring a little bit of challenge to the game at the early levels, when usually having some twink items makes low levels trivial.

Don't Panic

2012-12-20T07:26:00.004-08:00

Lots of changes are in store for the new year, and I think it's important to keep one thing in perspective:

3rd Life and other thoughts.

2012-12-06T17:53:00.000-08:00

I know winter festival type stuff is approach soon, actually coins are dropping now, but grinding them out isn't much of a draw for me right now.

Losing my superior glaciation that i had ground out winter motes has given me a once bitten twice shy mentality about the whole thing. Submitting a ticket is supposed to get help, but with response times being so poor and having to be online at the time to get it resolved is annoying.

I did get mabar handwraps though, adding to my repertoire that I've been building up. I think my third life might be a favored soul/monk type character, but I'm looking for a build that can do both melee and 10k stars if possible, but if not, I'm leaning toward handwraps.

Mabar

2012-10-24T14:15:00.000-07:00

I know some people don't like Mabar but I find it kind of fun!

But the pressure is on this time around. I have robes, cloaks, wands, potions of various sorts, but I most keenly feel the lack of a docent since I TR'd my drow wizard into a warforged wizard. I don't have many high level robes, but what would have once been an easy upgrade from the level 16 to the level 20 robe is now a from nothing to level 20 docent. It would also be nice to upgrade my cloaks and robes for other characters so they can have longer lasting clickies and nicer effects.

I'm hoping segmenting out the instance levels and such will make drop rates better for motes, but that will remain to be seen.

Kingmaker, reaper, DDO, and other games.

2012-10-16T08:24:00.001-07:00

Haven't blogged lately, here's an update:

Kingmaker continues slowly but surely. Kingdom size still less than 10, but in looking the rules, it seems easier to have one large citystate type kingdom than to have multiple cities. But there is a loss of potential by not using the landmarks to discount buildings. A larger kingdom allows building to be built faster, and farms can help pay for large consumption due to edicts, so there are some benefits.

The Reaper kickstarter was an awesome opportunity to get some minis which I could not pass up. I see much painting in my future.

I continue to play DDO almost exclusively. The Menace of the Underdark expansion is awesome, so i bounce between my 2nd life wizard and recently level 22 bard. Got a t-shirt and swag from DDOCast, too!

I did get portal 2 and that game is awesome. Civ 5 also sees some play.

BTCoE vs BTC

2012-10-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, I was running my Bard 20 /Epic 1 / Fatesinger 3 in Eveningstar quests with a guildmate on her Barbarian 20 / Epic 1 / Fury 3, with the aim to get some loot, xp, and commendations, especially since the random encounters in the King’s Forest are still a bit buggy. I was tossing all my commendations her way, since I already have what I need for this character.

Fast forward to the Battle for Eveningstar, and either the wiki is wrong or I am misremembering, but I know I got the Drow smoke goggles, and I’ll swear it was the granary chest and not the end chest but oh well. I gave them to my guildmate because I already had the epic ring of the slayer and she still had my bloodstone I had loaned her, and she equipped them and went to town.

And then it happened…yep you guessed it. Drow Smoke goggles were on her chain completion end reward list, proving that the loot gods hate me, and reinforcing how awesome BTCoE is, and how lame BTC is.
Another plus in her column was enough commendations for Purple Dragon Knight armor. I know, heavy armor for a barbarian is less than optimal but for a casual player the free LR (which went off without a hitch) to restat/refeat and get heavy armor prof and overwhelming critical wasn’t awful and a stacking +3 to hit/damage for the set wasn’t going to be coming from something else anytime soon.

In other bad loot news, I still don’t have a complete sigil but I’m going to cut my losses and come back and get it later, so I can run litany unimpeded on my third life. Currently rank 90 and looking forward to running vale quests for xp. Not certain I can keep up my bravery bonus solo on those but I’ll see what I can do.

I did get a Turbulent Epee last night though, which I may have to test out, but compared to a dedicated DR breaker I don’t think this passes muster but as a generic DR breaker ‘just-in-case’ it may be okay.

Fatesinger

2012-08-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

Been running FR realms content on my Bard 20/Fatesinger. A few things I need to work on...

Get a perform +15 item. Stormsinger cloak won't cut it anymore.
Upgrade my silver flame pendant to a silver flame talisman. Protection from evil items are bugged though so that makes me sad. Greater command is not my friend.
Get more spell pen in my enhancements, and also look at shifting away from melee focus to cc focus and get spell pen feats too. Crafted an epic scimitar of cursespewing/improved shattermantle to help with OID at least, along with a spell pen buckler.

Animated Map of crucible maze

2012-07-28T16:35:00.000-07:00

Mr. Cow\'s/Ukenburgers excellent animated crucible maze map.

Terror Greatsword and how I didn't know what I was missing

2012-07-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

Back before Epic Destinies, and I was trying to get a light and darkness for my paladin with my capped wizard, I got a few nice end rewards from dreaming dark, some from the chest the old fashioned way with discs (even messing up once and having to get another disc because I left one disc in the bank...), and some from end rewards like normal.

So I have a lucid dreams waiting for an artificer, or at least an artificer 2 splash (any comments on artificer splashes for rune arm use?)

I almost got a regalia of the phoenix, but already had the epic cloak of flames so it was no longer the only item to boost meteor swarm, but decided to get Terror instead. It was kind of a hard decision, based on the review here .

I wasn't looking for specific weapons, I was looking for loot comparisons, so never did see all the other 'please fix terror' threads, the 'terror is worth it now' threads, or the 'Terror is the best!!!1111one!' threads.

But I had a wizard at 20, a stagnant paladin at 16 and a somewhat slowly leveling bard. I thought, oh well, at least I can beat down the mindsunder with it, as well as quori.

Just a few days ago, my 1st life bard got to the level 19 cap at level 17. I just haven't gotten around to leveling him up to 18 yet and getting my min level 18 gear out, including terror.

If I had known Terror was that good, I could have been running vale quests without a second thought (incidentally, level 16 ring of the stalker isn't bad). But now it is too late...

So alas, I will only know Terror post nerf, based on a review pre-nerf.

The Blood Stone

2012-06-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

[caption id="attachment_120" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The Blood Stone"][/caption]
Well, Desert Runs aren't a complete waste, now are they?

Challenges, New Computer, and TR

2012-05-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

So I've been grinding out challenge ingredients with daily tokens for a small bit now (seems like forever but I took level 20 on my wizard March 29th so it can't have been that long.) But it wasn't until crystal cove came around and I was able to get an epic ornamented dagger and epic spyglass that I was able to get things into high gear.

But, one thing that made a huge difference was my new computer. I had been playing between a 2006 MacBook Pro using Wine, a Toshiba Satellite Pro A210 and a Dell Mini 9, none of which were really up to the task of running DDO. I built my desktop, with the little APU that could, the AMD A6-3500. It meets my needs for now, as my only monitor is a 17" CRT, which works for now.

With new computer and epic level items in hand, the disruptor became pretty trivial for my wizard and now I have enough epic challenge ingredients to TR. I'll probably just wait for the expansion to check out the new quests, epic destinies and levels, and then TR into druid.

Challenges

2012-03-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been running the vaults of the artificers challenges, partly for favor and partly to get used to them and running them at 'epic' levels. I figure I'll want to TR my wizard soon, but I've never done a raid, and I don't even know if epic quests are soloable (like P Carnival), so the challenges are probably the easiest way for me to get epic tokens.

But until I get minimum level 20 stuff, I don't see the a good reason to go from level 18 to level 20. The wizard capstone is nice, but isn't necessary at this point for challenge resource gathering.

2012-03-03T11:29:00.000-08:00

Almost to xp cap on this character, and any character. The big boost that really got me going were crystal cove last year, the new quests and 10% xp weekend, and gianthold slaying.

Not certain what I'm going to do for the last bit of xp. I'd do the gianthold flagging quests but those are hard to solo. I might try the vale.

Even if I cap xp, I might not level up right away, so I can help out others on lower level quests more. Mostly because I don't think epic quests are my cup of tea.