There are times when you can see the situation your in is a losing one. The key to fewer deaths is seeing this in time to do something about it. Fist de Yuma has far less deaths that his contemporaries. This is mostly because I learned early when to run.
I would say I have more escapes with 5 or less hit points than I have deaths. The frustrating thing about playing a mage is his inability to escape from battle except by portal. A long time ago turbine changed the way portals work. Back then you hit portal and you were gone. Today it is slow and you can be killed even after it works.
Of course I had to die to find out about the change. I believe this change was made because PK's were using portal to escape from battle too much. A lot of the problems I have with this game stem from changes made for PK balance.
Anyway when playing mage I have to use a different set of rules. The concept is simple, getting the timing down is much harder. I'm finally starting to get a few rules that work. Of course there are rule runs and feel runs.
A run rule for me is two Corals. I have defeated two at once but if both get to me at full health I have to portal. Landing a yield IV and blunt VI, followed by a few shockwaves on one, before it gets to me, should let me fight two. A few resists and it is time to portal. One coming up in back of me means portal.
Bandies and Drudges tossed into a battle means it is probably a loser. They both toss de-buffs that will have a Coral eating me alive. I get hit for big damage by Corals without de-buffs. It is hard to land a spell on one without a de-buff. Toss bafflement into the mix and I'm done.
The reason I'm thinking about this was an adventure on the island. I was with a fighter who was mostly just watching. He had never taken a coral down and wanted to see me do it. Moving up the line of pillars a wasp came down the hill.
I like killing the wasps. No loot but they are easy to kill and are worth 10k in xp. Piercing VI voln and a Piercing war spell will kill one most of the time. Sometimes I need a second war spell but mostly not. The other thing is they don't support one another. This means you can kill a lot of them one at a time.
So I was not worried when I saw the wasp. When the second joined it I was still not worried. I saw the fighter's white dot moving rapidly off the screen. Before I got my first voln spells off three more joined it. Now I was worried. I got one spell off and decided this was a loser. I hit my LS recall hot key. I saw my health dropping fast from the cold spells. I was sure that I was late but somehow did not die. I arrived at the LS with 1 hit point.
I got back and the fighter was waiting for me. He said the wasps had killed him earlier and he was not going to tangle with them. I did not blame him.
I got revenge a little later. This time I was able to get close and kill them one at a time.
Another close call was when fighting with The Saint. He and I were in fellowship. I was de-buffing and he was killing. I would have liked to buff him but he was still red from the PK fun. We had killed three corals this way and was working on a forth.
I had started out as normal. Yield VI, imperil VI, Blunt voln VI. With those spells they fall fast to The Saint's attack. I would then do a stamina to mana and drain stamina from the coral. I was about to do that with everything froze.
I have been used to this. For over a month the lag made things less than fun. I was not worried until the red started blinking. I had come back from that before but then I heard the modem disconnect.
After that it was a total system crash. I tried to get it working but give up and rebooted. Finally got back and I logged Fist de Yuma first. I sent a message to The Saint asking if I died or not. He said he had saved me until I logged.
I was prepared to port out as soon as I logged in. It was a good thing as two corals were in front of me and one was in back. I'm glad I don't have the bug some people have. A few people permabuffed their robes a while back. Now when they log on all buffs are taken off their robes. I did not do that so I only took about 20 damage porting out.
Mage gets better
Of course right after writing the above I find things changing. As Fist can now stand in longer Mage is doing better as well. I found in my last trip to the island that I can take two corals. Manly because I'm not resisted as much.
My creature is a buffed 312. I land my yield VI more often than not. Life is 306 and I can get a drain without yield most of the time. What that means is after killing one I can get a drain of health and stamina to take the other, before I yield it.
I'm guessing that if both start chain casting acid blasts on me I'm in trouble that does not happed that much. Where I really felt good was taking four in a row.
It started out with me getting to the pillars just after a mob of players. I did not check their levels but I'm guessing a patron was taking vassals hunting. About 12 players were shooting, spelling and hitting a coral as I ran passed.
I killed one and then was on another when the mob ran up and attacked my target. I shrugged it off and moved on. They got tangled up with a bunch of stuff off the hill and I got ahead of them. Soon they were running and I never saw them again.
I saw a coral and hit my yield/voln right off. I blasted it and got a stamina to mana, stamina drain at the end. It was a good thing because a spawn in front hit as soon as it died. I switched to the new target and got the yield on. Then one spawned in back of me.
Now I had to keep close watch. There is a point where I will have to port out. I got a drain health after an acid blast and kept draining until I got a 30 return. Then dropped it with shockwave.
I turned and get a drain on the one in back of me. That got me to good health. As soon as I did this another coral spawned in back of the one I was fighting. I did stamina to mana and drain stamina and I was ready to go. Yield, voln and another drain. A few more drains and shockwaves to finish. Then repeated on the last one.
No good loot but over 100k in xp and about 20k in gems. The main thing is I kept my head and did everything right. A few panic moves will get you killed quick. The key is getting my creature and life to the point where I'm not resisted as much. Now I need to work on war.
Taping out
Mages tend to tap out at what they can do after resists stop. I'm about there with Mage. I need a lot more into war but the other skills are about where they need to be. After I get war/creature to 320 and war to 300 I will not get that much stronger.
Baz is over 100lv and easily had 20 times my xp. We toss the same spells for the same damage. There are new monsters that are much more resistance than before. Some are so resistance that even Baz cannot land a spell. We both avoid them so it does not make much difference there.
My friend Sidhartha might be the one that gains the most from the changes to the game. He is spec'd war.
Maybe the rumored level VII spells will make a difference. I think it will help the spec'd war more than me. I'm sure there will be no level VII spell for life or creature. I hope I'm wrong.
Project done
I got my last claw made this week. Between Damien Daring and family feeding me motes and what I got off of corals, I had more than enough for it. Now I can start collecting for others.
Got Elder to combine the bars for me. Then a short trip to the subway. I decided that 5 runs to Crater was enough. It took a while but I got a ride. Another person had a body there and was looking for a ride too. Darkside was doing the quest on the island. The Crater full of fire monsters sparked by the quest. That was what killed him.
I said I would help him right after I got my claw. I was overweight with the cash needed to make it. There was no need as his body was unguarded and he recovered quickly.
After getting the claw I went back to the hall to hang out for a bit. A 22 level non-family member showed up asking for help. He had died in LOD. I was glad to help him but first he needed armor. Poor guy was down to his underwear.
I logged a mule for him. I was hoping he was honest as the only BP I had the mule was a piece given to me by Jann. It is a nice BP that I wore for a long time. Now is it more of a sentimental item. Got him a helm and sleeves and we were ready to go.
A family member buffed him so he could open a portal. Recovery was easy as someone had killed the four that spawn there. I'm glad he looted fast. He had just enough time to give me back the armor I loaned him and port out. A worker spawned on both sides of where he was. As low as he is one could have killed him with a single blow.
I stomped the two Workers and headed down to the Noble. Not worth camping the Noble anymore but I had time for a single kill. Another fighter was there and he asked me how long I would camp the Noble. I told him just the one. I really wanted to see how fast I could take one down now. He joined in the fight so I never got the chance to see.
I muled back the loaned armor after returning to Lin. There is another House macro running but I have been using Blinks mule now. Been lucky lately. The portal is there as I run into town. Much faster getting to Lin from Awric than Mayoi.
Got bit, twice
It is bad when a game bug gets you, really bad with you get twice and lose good stuff for it. I was on the island and was going to kill a few Drudges. Yield on one sent three of them at me. A friend was nearby and he attacked one.
Fighting two was no big deal. The de-buff would have to be cleared after but that was expected. Half way into killing one I froze. When the lag cleared I was blasted by several fire balls and sent to the LS. I got back as quick as I could and found the body.
I did not want to lose the few items I had got off the Corals. I had a Magic ID VI ring and an Armor V ring and both dropped, along with 4 good death items. I recovered without problem and just had to clear the vit. Death removes all buffs so I had to rebuff first. It was slow with a lot of stops from the lag.
A little ways into it I froze again and this time was kicked. The server was doing a restart so I had a long wait. I kicked around a while on the boards and did a little writing on the column until the server was restarted.
I logged and I still had vit. So I figured there had been no roll back. I had just found a Life V staff and did not want to lose that. I then noted that my death items and the two good items were not in the pack. Darn there had been just enough roll back to have me lose the body.
First a lag death, then a server crash to steal my items. Well it is just stuff. I will just have to find some more.
Project 2 done.
I have been hinting on something I'm trying to do. I said in last post how the family was able to raise me a lot of pyreal to get something. Well that deal is still in the works but it will be for someone else. The reason is, I got my Mattie robe!
Mage has been using a buffed robe for a long time. I started searching for a mattie a while ago. Big trading list got nothing, not single response. About all I saw was for lots of shards. Boring hunts gets shards. I'm having too much fun to do a something boring.
After yesterdays crash I was checking COD before going over to FF. I saw Samsun putting out a mattie robe for 150 d-notes. I said if he gives me a few hours and a lock on the deal I could do it. He agreed and I put out the word. Shortly after he got better offers for the robe, but held to his agreement with me.
Family responded fast and with overwhelming support. Before the servers was up I had a pledge for all 150. He had logged for the night so I have to wait on pins and needles, hoping he did not change his mind.
This evening he logged on and we made the deal in two parts. I could only carry half the notes at a time. He trusted me to bring him the rest, which I did a short while later.
Did one test on the island. With fewer buffs I was taking less damage. I'm very pleased! Now if I can see the other deal though a very deserving family mage will get a robe. After that I have to work for one more. A great vassal needs one.
Acid Stone
The newsgroup was setting up a run to the acid stone. I said I would lead it for them. It has been a while since I have been to the Acid Vault. I had heard that is was a little tougher at the end than before. As I was almost bored there and could solo it with ease I did not think we could have much trouble.
Me met in Eastham. Like most quests it was running a little late. My vassal Maddie was there and Damien Darling. Mortok showed up later. Pantine was trying to make it but was having portal problems.
An old friend Mishi I had not seen for ages was there. We knew each other from the basement in Awric. There was a bug in portal storming that kept anyone inside a building from being ported. Corba La alliance (my first) was based there. We talked over all times and the people we had met.
The Cobra La alliance was a good one. A lot of high level people and alliances today were members of that group. Jann (my only other patron) and Wartorn were members. They are both in the top 10 of Morningthaw.
Cobra La still plays but restarts too much. He will get a player to a nice level and then restart. I figure when he gets it right he will be another player to contend with.
We were about to go when I asked the person with the portal if it was to the inside or outside of the temple. Makes a different to whether I buff before or after jumping into in.
Turned out he was not tied to the temple at all, he was tied to the Dryreach East Direland portal. I have made that run before and I assured him we would lose half the party before we reached the Acid Vault.
Mushi said he would run to the temple and get a tie. That made it much safer.
We got to the temple and I saw a bunch of people run to the exit portal. I knew that I had to lead the run to the Vault or we could lose someone. I chased after them. It turned out it was another group.
I got to the Vault with no de-buffs. I had resisted a lot of spells. I had on my Self VI and Focus VI as well as Magic resistance IV from my BP. Still only 187 but it was enough for this time.
It took a few minutes but we got everyone together. Lag was bad with 20+ people. Some were having big trouble with portals. I have read that being stuck in portal is a bad problem this week.
I led the group to the bridges with no problems. I was worried with the lag that someone would fall into the acid but we go over ok. With this many people the bugs fell quick.
Khe was asking if we had any life mages. I did not recognize the name as being a party member. I finally got the story. He had fell into the acid pit earlier and needed a life mage to keep him healed for recovery. I knew that it would take 5 or 6 life mages to do it. He had one.
I warned him not to do it as he was just going to leave another body. I would have stayed to help but we had some very weak members. A good hit by a Soldier might kill one. We had to keep moving.
We got to the acid river and I told everyone to buff up. I scouted the passageway and made sure it was clear. I got back up to the top and someone was saying to jump over the river! I shouted, "NO! Don't jump. We can go around!"
The jump over the river would not be hard for me but there is a chance an Olthoi will block you and knock you back. Pure death. Also not many have a 325 raw jump (395 buffed). Anything less than 250 would have a good chance of dying.
Having stopped that madness we went down the ramp, fought our way under the river and up the other ramp. After we got to the top I saw a small group still on the other side. Then a message "Khe died". I told him not to do it. (I got a message later saying his life mage fizzled on him. He got his bodies later.)
We fought our way over the bridges to the main room. A few comments like "O' my God" and like when they saw what was waiting for them.
I drew out a few which were quickly smashed. Then a longer fight in the main room. The weaker players went to the back of the cave. I said to let the weaker one get the stone and port out.
Now it was hellish. With Maddie on one side, Mortok and Damien on the other we held off wave after wave of soldiers. It was pure madness. No time to rest. I was drinking stamina potion after stamina potion. I started with 36 and was down to 12 at the end.
I was able to get away and rebuff my weapon in the middle of it. Lucky it only takes about 15 seconds for me to buff. Maddie told me she saw buffing was too hard and used her ravenous weapon. I will have to remember that.
Damien Daring is a life/fighter. He depends on buffs a lot more. I heard him shout for help once. There was no way I could help but someone tossed a heal on him. There was an Axe user there that was pounding Olthoi quite well.
I had a lapse by not writing down names. For those on the quest I'm very sorry for not including your names.
Finally everyone got a stone and it was time to leave. I could see that porting out was fraught with danger. If fighting you might die before porting out. If your out of comps you might get left behind. With these dangers on my mind I told everyone to that we would fight to the exit portal instead.
It was a good start but a bad end as we moved out. Players got cut off in the passageway. I fought until everyone was out and ran to it myself. I hit the portal but did not port. I was waiting for it to catch up when I saw I was nowhere near the portal.
If figured I was laged back to the hallway. I was trapped by at least 15 of them. With no way out so I did the hot key two step. 7, hot key for wand, 7 hot key for portal. I was pounding on the 7 key for all my life.
I took 110 points of damage for the few seconds it took for my wand to pull out and me to port. We were patting ourselves on the back for a great adventure and no deaths. I later found out it was premature. A few people had died just before we got to the main room.
A second group went back, recovered the bodies and got them their stone. My old friend led that party. Congrats to them for a second adventure. I'm hoping with fewer people the lag was not that bad. I cannot imagine the fight they had holding that room.
It is always nice to get a different point of view for the same event. Here how Maddie saw it.
Maddie's Story
It started with a message to the AC newsgroups by Kliza. She had some questions about the Acid Vault quest and the protections one would need. She plays on Morningthaw, so it wasnt very long before Fist volunteered to lead the quest. After some scheduling shuffles, a time and date were planned. The day of the quest, I messaged Kliza and asked her when we were leaving, she said, "In ten minutes." Doh. I had totally blanked on the time, and, as I had to run from Mayoi to the Eastham meeting Hall.
I didnt know if I was going to make it. Luckily I had just stocked up, so I was good to go. I made it to the hall with plenty of time as the portal didnt open for another 10-15 minutes. I should have known these things never go off on time.
The group was large. At least 15-20 people, most of them over 40. With Fist, who had soloed the place, leading, I didnt think there would be any problems. For the most part I was right.
After jumping through the portal and making the short run through the swamp to the vault, lag set in. And stayed. There were times when it seemed as though I was getting 1 fps.
After everyone had made it to the entrance room we set off. With so many players, the few bugs we saw on the way down lasted just a few seconds. It was rare for me to get more than one swing per soldier. When most of the group made it to the room with the acid pit in it, we stopped for a bit to let everyone buff, and to let the stragglers catch up. A few people were asking about making the jump across the pit, but Fist made it clear that there was a less risky way across (at least I thought he made it clear, apparently one person didnt see the message and tried to jump. It was the only death of the trip).
With everyone ready we set out for the stone room. Crossed a couple of bridges beating down the soldiers that spawned until we got to the last large room before the stone. I looked at my radar, and the top 1/4 was orange. There had to be at least 30 soldiers waiting for us around the corner. LOL. The noise was incredible.
Fist ran around the corner and drew 4 or 5 soldiers back, we dropped them and he repeated a few times. The herd of bugs was thinning so we pressed forward into the cathedral like anteroom. At this point my buffs dropped. I had a feeling this would be a problem, and I was right. There was no time to buff, so I switched to my ravenous sword. It doesnt do as well as a buffed rapier, but it does a heck of a lot better than an un-buffed rapier.
We cleared the big room and the group made the dash across and set up shop in the cubbyhole where the stone spawns. The lower level members of the group were setup to grab the stones first, while the rest held off the bugs. I dont know what the spawn timer for the soldiers was in the big room, but if it was more than 30 seconds I would be surprised. With 6 or 7 strong fighters we couldnt keep it cleared. The room was never empty. I dont think I lost more than 15 hit points at any one time, and when I did one of the mages at the back healed me, but stamina was a problem. I had brought my Nest norm of 60 stam elixirs, and by the time I ported I had 20 or so left.
On the whole, the trip was a success. Everyone got their stone and we only lost one person (who jumped into the acid pit). I wish I had written down everyones name, but I didnt think about it at the time. I know that there were at least two different allegiances represented, and players from level 30 to 68.
Next up is Damien Daring
Ok here is my perspective on the acid run. Without Fist, Mortok, and Maddie all of us who got our stones would have died. How is that for simple truth.
Fist was the lead the entire time. First we buffed before we portaled then we made the short run from the temple and buffing again inside. Fist led the way through a myriad of twists and turns, across bridges, near lakes of acid. Any soldier at this point that came near us was decimated in seconds, with 20 people hitting it.
As we are approaching the area where the stone is I look at my compass and all I see is a wall of orange dots. It was a solid line I couldnt even count how many were in there. Fist, Mortok, and Maddie led the initial charge into the room, with the rest of us close behind.
The lag was incredible, you would be fighting a bug at full health then the next breath it would be dead at your feet. Some of the weaker people got the stone quickly and portaled out. Others were more patient. I got mine early and gave Fist a tell, saying I wasnt leaving till he said it was time for us to. I figured I could heal others and fight, which I did.
With the incredible spawn rate you barely had time to re-buff yourself. Fist isnt kidding in saying that you need that many strong fighters to hold the line. You could kill a bug and two more would come to replace it. They were non-stop and no time for breaks. You grabbed a quick stam potion and kept on fighting. It felt like forever but it was probably closer to 12 minutes of this.
For me, I was fighting most of the time with no stamina. I kept up the side ramps not letting the bugs get behind me, and when I wasnt doing that I was hitting the bugs from behind that were attacking the main fighters. It is amazing to me that no one died. I credit and give thanks to Fist, Mortok, and Maddie for this.
Finally Fist said make a run for the portal. I tried to but the way was so jammed I had to climb the ramp and jump on the head of a bug...when it moved I did a short side jump and hit the floor running for the portal. I got outside and told Fist where I was at and he told me he had to cast a portal spell cause he couldnt make it to the exit portal. Before anything else could hit me I portaled to my AB lifestone.
Then I thanked Fist and told him I had to sign off. I was drained by that fight and can honestly say it is the toughest thing I have done at anytime playing AC. That jump room there makes the 3rd floor of OHN seem like a walk in the park. Ill go there again in about 10+ levels, to help out anyone else who needs it....but Im bringing Fist, Mortok, Maddie and an atom bomb with us.
The person who got this together writes.
We all met at the Eastham meeting hall on Friday night. Fist was already waiting there when I got there. We had about 20 to 25 people in the group between levels 30 to 68. It was a nice group and I was very optimistic until...
I was the one that was supposed to be supplying the portal to the vault. What did I do, I got the wrong portal. Note for self: In the future tie to the Swamp Temple portal not the East Direlands Swamp portal outside of Dryreach. Thanks to my Patron Sepria, she bailed me out again and was able to get the correct tie.
We took one of the surface portals out of the Swamp Temple and this is where things started to get dicey for me. All I saw was massive amounts of orange dots and a few whites. I just following the guy in front of me and hoped he was going in the right direction. Then it hit. lag. My screen gave that wonderful stutter affect and the next thing I see is all orange, not a white dot in sight. After running in circles a bit trying to find someone, I saw a portal on the radar and headed for it. I was not sure if it was the one I wanted or not but I didnt care I was getting hit too hard to stop and look around for another one. Luckily it was the right one.
Fist de Yuma had already cleared out the first room so the landing was not painful. We spent a little bit a time rebuffing getting ready for the trip down to the stone. Someone actually asked me if I was leading this merry band. I said yeah right, I would have a tough time leading people through the Drudge hideout let alone this Vault. With this many people the lag in the vault was awful, Fist moved on ahead to the next room. There were still people trying to get through the portal as the group moved ahead, unfortunately these folks were left behind. I dared not wait around myself because I have not fought even one olthoi before I got here and I was not about to learn how to do it with a new spawn showing up.
My viewpoint was one from a unique angle. I got to view the backsides of many people. Damien Daring and myself were basically casting heals on any white dot that even flinched. Man I wish I had life trained, I would have leveled on all the heals alone. I never played a life mage before so I was not sure the exact tactic to use to cast the heals efficiently for the group. Basically all I did was ID a member in the group and see if they needed healing and then cycled through the group using the next character key. I must have look pretty stupid spinning around in circles like that, but hey I got the job done.
Running through the vault was nuts. When we got to the final room, I never saw so many critters in one spot before. The main group of high levels (Fist De Yuma, Maddie, Praxeus, Diddy Kong and there were so many more, I apologize deeply for not having all of your names.) formed a wall between the acid stone spawn and the all of the bugs.
The one thing I dont understand was, I would have bugs spawn right next to me with no one else around me and they would go chase someone else in the group. Putting on that Deep Woods Off before I left must have did the trick.
Well I was able to get my stone, along with everybody else. We must have been down there at least 20 to 30 minutes fighting that outrageous spawn rate. I never saw so much loot on the ground! When I could I just picked up whatever was closest to me. I pulled out of there with like a 136% burden.
Everybody started running out of comps, stamina potions you name it we were out of it. The order was given for everybody to pull back and either hit the surface portal or LS recall out.
The mop up crew (Sepria, Wolfghost, Forseti II, Justis Pterus, Mushi (my old friend) and others I am sure) helped the folks that were either killed in the beginning or did not get through the portal in time before the main group left. They then lead the second group down to the lower room get their acid stones also.
All in all it was a good learning experience for me. I learned a lot about group tactics and how to deal with those bugs someday and oh yes I got my stone.
Kliza, Morningthaw
Level 31, Sword/Melee/Healing/Item
Damien Daring
Just to see if anyone reads it all. 10 things you can do on patch day.
10. Say hi to wife or girlfriend
9. Walk outside for fresh air.
8. Eat a square meal.
7. Go to WND and see who won the election. (it was a draw)
6. Catch up on e-mail
5. Go to gym for workout
4. Call parents to show them your alive
3. Sleep
2. Read missed Userfriendly cartoons
1. Catch up on all missed issues of Fist de Yuma
Enjoy the new Fellowships.
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