Fist de Yuma - December 17, 2002

Hard to hold standards Last weeks column was not one of my best. I knew that after it was written. I even decided not to post on the boards after I printed it. I think you will find this one much better. One thing that might also make up for last weeks bad column are two columns this week. The long awaited column on AC Vault has been printed. This one includes pictures and better formatting. I think I also did a better job of proofing that one. There are still errors but not as glaring. You can read that one at; http://acvault.ign.com/features/columns/fistdeyuma/changing_titles.shtml Battle Mage Other than a few exotic templates undoubtedly the hardest mainstream template to create was a Battle Mage. When it first came out players at 45 were considered high level. You needed to reach 55 for Creature because there was no skill credit quest and the one at 33 not was in the game yet. Leveling was not easy back then and there was little in the way of help. Even groups of mages considered it poor form to ask for buffs. For that matter buffs lasted such a short time they were not worth asking for anyway. Consider that the longest buff you could get was 15 minutes for main skills such as War and Life. For stat buffs such as Self and Focus they only lasted 7.5 minutes. There was much complaint on the boards that a mage had to rebuff after every battle. For this reason many mages had templates where they would take Lore, even spec it. As level VII spells did not exist there was only the economy advantage in tossing the spell anyway. Not that the economy was anything to laugh at back then. For those new to the game there was a time when the effect of spells changed over time. Level VI spells had a greater effect than VII's today. The fewer people that used a spell the greater the effect. A level VI buff might return 42 or more points. Turbine had hopes that the economy would have people hiding the results of their spell research. Sort of like the dark studies of some novels. The first to find a spell got full benefit of the buff. The more people who tossed the spell the less gain people got. The result did not pan out as Turbine had hopped. In fact so many people were using some spells that there was a negative benefit. At that point Turbine had to remove the economy and in time, research. When we started playing the big monsters we have today did not exist. I remember when Diamond golems were put in. An encounter with one was pure death for a long time. There was a big warning before a patch. The Dires were to become truly dire. We were warned to leave before the patch. New monsters, Bone Lords and Knights, quickly killed those that did not leave. Yes, the trash monsters of today were the killers of yesterday. There was another drawback to the BM template for a long while. Spec'ing did not have the advantage it has today. For some time there was only a 10 point advantage to a spec'd skill over a trained one. There was a lot against making a BM. Few monsters needed great skill to land on. The hardest ones were added a few months into retail, the Shadows. Of course today a well-buffed low-level mage can take on what would an old time mage had to run from. So there were very few players who were forward thinking enough to create a BM. There is only one that I know of. I remember a player telling me how the BM was a laughing stock because of his template. With buffs other mages could put on themselves he was way behind the curve. So sure was he that he would never make 55 he took Lore. Of course this same player was the first to be announced server wide during the Shadow wars. His getting that kill was the first hint that the BM template was going to dominate mages in the future. I'm not totally positive that I think that player is Elminster of Iceland. Also my information about him comes second hand from talking with others. When Aelinthe come out it was wake up call for mages. The xp required for a non spec'd mage to land was, for that time, out of this world. Og the One Eye created the first big template upgrade. Of course this is the Og template. I was one of the first to see the advantages of the Og template and created my own shortly after reading about it. I did see the BM template but felt the advantages of the template did not overcome the pain of creation. One of the those to disagree with me was Baalzevuv. Being that he was one of the most knowledgeable and arguably the best player to ever play AC, I should have listened. His essay was more on not liking the Og but at the end he pointed out where the BM was they way to go. I'm writing this because the latest changes have removed all the pain of creating a BM. The first big change of course is the ability to level at a far faster rate than ever before. My BM on WE had little trouble getting to 30+ with just a one day a week play. This was without outside buffs and only a few items to help me out. My Armorer/BM is doing it the easy way; I let Mage buff him with VII's. With a buff bot everyone can start out with more power than mid levels of years before. The ability to leave the two spare points during creation means Mana Conversion comes at 5 and Item at 16. With skill sell back there is no reason not to take Lore at 26. At 40 you can sell back Lore and be a full BM with little pain. So today a player can make a BM with few disadvantages, even if they don't get buffs or any help whatsoever. In fact a BM is even easier to create today than an Og, if you play and not macro. Few will debate that for pure power a BM is king. Nevertheless there are many sticking with the Og template. At high level there is enough War that Yield is seldom needed. When it is needed the Yield helps all mages, not just the Og. For big quests such as the Olthoi Queen and Garlean an Og is highly valued. Sticking with the Og also lets them add spec'd Magic Defense to the mix. I was strongly debating going the spec'd Creature/Life/Magic Defense route myself. After reading the boards I have decided that even the upper limit of Magic Defense will not work for what I need it for. I found that some of the monsters I wanted to resist have a magic skill of 450+! Unless that changes spec'ing Magic Defense will not be worth it for me. Of course if I was to go PK that would also change. When my Armorer/BM is finished I might change to that anyway. For now I need to keep the Armor skill to support the Alliance. So on the 26th of the month I'll make the change to BM. I'm adding to Life right now to have a balanced skill level. With the xp I have put into War I'll start with a 423-buffed skill level. My Life is at 412 so I need to keep adding until they are equal. I'll no longer be able to count on that Yield VII to put things in range. Garlean Quest We have had a weekly quest going with Elders. We are not restricting it as such but we are organizing it. The first few went off without a hitch. This one did not fair as well and I somewhat blame myself. One of these quests is in a column I wrote for the Vault. I posted the link at the beginning of the column. I hope you read that first but if not no big deal. That quest was one of the best because it was done with very few people. It was definitely a combined arms event. No one person could have been missed without it being a failure. This last one should have been a walkover. We had a mob and a half. If there had been even a touch of organizing at the end it would have been. I blame myself because I had a chance of doing it right and skipped it. I was overconfident because of the two pervious successes. The quest starts out at on Saturday10PM EST. That is 7PM my time. That is a hard time for me because we almost always have people over around then. Fortunately Rosa has been forgiving. Unlike the last time we got the portal right off. Last week we had to kill for over and hour before getting the portal. This time it only took about five minutes. It created some problems as there were still people running there. Everyone got in so it did not matter. With a group this big the only thing you need to worry about is it breaking up. If some start running ahead there can be problems. I warned them that it was not a race so we kept everyone together. We only lost one person at the start. I'm not sure how but Oldwiseone one ended up in Teth. That should mean he missed the riddle but he did not say. For some reason he could not get into the portal at Eastham. So he was lost. The next was when someone got run over by a rock. I held back the archers to keep the door down and he recovered ok. He ended up with good and bad luck. Bad to he killed by the rock, good in that he got the kill over Garlean. Other that a short hold up at the square puzzle we were moving fast. No one had a brain fart and tried to talk on the last part. We all got the gem and buffed up. Here we lost another player. For some reason MS could not get into the Library. It could have been a timing issue but we were mostly all on the same time scale. Why she could not get in we never figured out. I held everyone up and formed up the plan. This is where overconfidence struck. I only had a few rules. Chain Effect was going to do the de-buffing. The other mages were to get in one hit and then work on the trash monsters. (There is a rumor that the need to hit Garlean is not necessary any more. I'll check into that.) What I should have done was have a shield wall set up. With only one death in two trips and success with only five people I was not worried about the battle, big mistake. I forgot that the major part of the success with the five people was do to mages keeping the fighters healthy. MS had to heal Ironwolfe a lot to keep him alive. Garlean cannot hit me so a heal ever so often was all I needed. With two mages keeping three people healed it worked well. When there is a mob of people it is hard for one person to get help. If Garlean attacks a person for any length of time, unless they have very high melee defense, they are going to die. Like I said, we had the ability to make this safe, we just didn't think we needed to. As we started everything was working fine. I got a few token hit on him and started on the trash. Having already got the kill on him I wanted to be sure someone else got it. At least that part worked. The first thing I saw go wrong was when it was too late to do anything about it. Garlean rushed all the way across the room and triple struck Cat. It was "Where is he going?", then "Yell, Yell, Yell" and a dead Cat. I'm not sure of her banes or armor but that was all it took to get her killed. He killed another right after that and then MS's vassal. Death here means losing out unless you're lifestoned in Eastham and are very fast. At that point I told everyone to target Garlean. That may well have meant Harry or myself could have gotten the kill but Garlean was doing too much damage to let up on him. We lucked out and the Swordsman who was killed by the rock got the kill. I recovered MS's vassal's gear and headed off for the reward. We were a little faster than last weeks so I had to wait about 40 minutes before I got it. It was worth the wait. I got the Ring of Intelligence! I wish Turbine would start giving out bracelets as about everything I have is a ring. Still this is a nice one and I'll be passing it out between my players a lot. I'll have to add a little Lore to Fist's Armorer before he can use it but Lore is cheap for now. I have a Major Mana conversion helm that Jr uses. It is not the greatest armor so he only uses it for buffing. This ring will be a better solution. We all learned a bit from this. I mostly learned that we are going to need a shield wall when we have that ability. The mages are dead meat if Garlean gets to them. Leadership There are many of types of leadership. A type of leadership that is ideal in one situation may be a disaster in another. In the Marine Corp Staff NCO school we leaned of the different leadership types. One is a drill instructor type. This was defined as the worst form of leadership and only useful in boot camp. For some reason, even those who know better, use this type of leadership was used far to often. The type I tried to use was the Coach. I didn't order, I advised. Of course if that did not work I would have to fall back on ordering but that was very rare. I find that this type of leadership serves me well in AC. This means helping my vassals only when they need it. It may also mean creating a situation were they are forced to do something themselves they would rather have had done for them. Leadership is work. Most of the time is easier to do something for someone than help him or her do it himself or herself. Those with a lot of vassals know what I'm talking about. That said there is another branch of leadership that can come into play. A great leader in peace that is a coward in combat will not fair well. The problem is no one knows who will break and who will stand until it is time to meet the enemy. It is found that in a solders first combat experience very few fire their guns. After that they may be ok. This is why promotion of people to combat leadership positions is not taken lightly. In old time wars there was a very strange thing by today's standards. The higher your rank the greater chance you had of dieing in battle. O sure the number of privates being killed was far greater but there are a lot more of them. In the Civil war a General had a greater chance of being killed than a private. It was around WWI where the numbers of people in combat made it necessary that high ranking people say back from the lines. Also greater ability to commutate made it unnecessary for a General to get in range of Artillery. The reason I'm writing this is I have noted that some people react differently in combat that others in AC. This is not just a class thing though that will have and effect. When there is combat I tend to be like the old time officer. I'm the first in battle and leading the charge down the hall. Elder, on the other hand, will always take a second to evaluate the situation before jumping in. There are extremes of both sides and neither is bad, just different. Of course when playing Mage I have to play different. A mage who charges into battle is not much use to those who need support. It would be like Artillery trying to lead a Calvary charge. I think this is the reason the strongest class for some time never had overwhelming numbers of players. It may also be why many mages prefer to hunt alone. What the average player has to figure out is what type of leadership they prefer, what is natural for them. Leadership can be learned but it is far easer if you pick a style that fits your personality. The second thing to learn is how to work with other types of players. It also helps when deciding who to team with and who not to. Two "chargers" may understand and approve of each other but it might be better to have the "study" player support the "charger". Having a person attack that Drudge the first player did not see as they charged the Bandie could save their rear end. There is something else players have that is not something you can learn. I call this awareness. I first noted this is a player called Raja Shin. No matter what he was doing he also knew what others were doing. When someone got into trouble he was the first to be aware of it. What was strange was Raja Shin was a fighter. You can see this being a mage ability but how he was able to see so much while in hand to hand combat I'll never know. This is a player I sure miss. MS has this ability in droves. Being a mage she is one of the best support players there is. Any quest that she joins has a far better chance of success. Balash is a charger. Because of that I'm far better of playing mage when teaming with him. I play mage as pure support when teaming with Balash. With the improvements in sword he can more than supply the offence. Overall this is one of the things that makes AC such a great game. Different people leaning to work together to achieve victory, it cannot get any better than that. Return to Hollows I have not been going to fight the Hollow Olthoi much lately. Archers who tried to run people out is a small problem but it was more the lag for me. When on a dialup all that loot on the ground made for slow motion at best. With the change in drops and my sorely needing to rebuild my Sings back up I decided to head out there this morning. I still have the tie so it is just a matter of buffing up and heading out. I have three Cestus now. The CB one did well there before. I have a new AR one but was not sure which was better on the Hollows. With me hitting them very hard before the CB might be better. I also have a Cestus I got from Garlean last week. It is not all that great compared to the better weapons of today but has Olthoi Slaying properties. My experience with Elemental slayers was so bad that I did not think this was going to be very good. In fact I was a touch disappointed when I got this. Medium base damage, level VI spells and un-buffable it was nice but not as good as my other ones. The first thing I noted was the AR was better than the CB. I was not one hitting Olthoi like before but the base damage was such that they fell faster on average. I had the CB buffed but never pulled it. There was a Swordsman and Archer there when I arrived. The lag was manageable and I will turn on Decal next time I go. I tried to find a clear spot so I knew what to loot. I was having big trouble looting. With the piles of bodies it was hard to pick them out. If I had Decal on I would have been able to know what I had looted but I hadn't. The Swordsman left and a while later the Archer left. I had it by myself for a little bit. With me alone I could kill off the spawn and have time to loot but I had to be quick. I'm sure I had missed a lot of good stuff and left bodies unchecked. I also had a stamina problem until I unequipped my shield. With 450-melee defense and a good bonus on my Centus a hit was rare. A short time later a Crossbowman showed up. A few minutes later another one arrived. I tended to say off to one side and let the Olthoi come to me. This made it better for looting. With everyone keeping to their side conflict was a lot less. I can say that overall I even had fun. With five minutes left I remembered to try out the Olthoi Slayer. Holy mother of...this thing hits hard! With normal hits close to what the AR was doing I was adding in 200+ crits! At least for Olthoi this is far better than any weapon I have ever seen. I don't even have to buff it. I sure wish I had used I had been using it all along. Overall my loot was a lot less than I normally get. I only got one Sing, 200k and around 12 material items. Nevertheless it was better than normal because I had fun. When you look forward to going back you know something is right. With Decal on I'll be able to loot better and faster so that will improve as well.