Fist de Yuma - January 28, 2003

Hot knife through butter Many years ago I had a friend I played chess with. I was a few years older than him. I was in high school and he was a touch short of that. When we started playing chess I always beat him. After a while he started winning one game in three. They started a chess club at my high school. I started playing much better players and did a lot of studying. This improved my game and made me more knowledgeable about my strength and weaknesses. I had not had a chance to play my friend chess during that time. One weekend he asked me to play him a game. I warned him that he would not do as well as he had. He was sure that he could hold his own. He lost so easily that it was embarrassing. I'm not sure if he ever played me again. Going up against harder competition made me far too strong for him. I was reminded of this when I went for Pincers this week. I had been hunting the upper tuskers for a while. New armor and weapons had to be acquired to survive. The xp pass-up to Fist and Mage improved their skills as well. The first to go was Deadeye. He was wearing my new set of armor, which is passed to all but Fist. Deadeye has always hit Olthoi strong but even with fairly good melee defense had been hit hard in return. With the new armor I barely noticed the damage I received while knocking down EVs with 4 arrows. Jr was next. It was not long ago when fighting an EV Olthoi without landing Imperil was a long drawn out process. This time I had a well tinkered AR Cestus and of course the new armor. I found that I could imperil with little trouble. They rarely resisted me. I also found that with my improved skills I did not really need to bother with Imperil/Vuln. I was hitting so hard that the time it took to draw a magic item and imperil was not worth it. I had fun imperiling for others not so fortunate. Mage of course had little improvement, not that he needed any. With the new armor he seldom had to heal. With Spec'd Mana Conversion he never had to worry about mana. Given that he can vuln/blast one shot them it was fast and easy. Last was Fist who has melee defense far above anything they can hit. With the Olthoi Slayer and higher skills he was killing them with little trouble. I remember a while back taking about tactic to fight large numbers of EVs. The main trouble was stamina recovery. I was killing so fast that even larger numbers never had me worrying about stamina. It was a touch strange in EVL in that there were few people there. In fact when Fist arrived he had it alone. Not one person was there as he traversed it to the bottom and back again. Even then it only took him 15 minutes to clear it, get a pincer and then clear it again on the way back out. I can only imagine the boredom of the chain players at this point in the game. My skills are not even close to the leveling cheats and stuff like this is far to easy. Skill improvement When the patch finally got installed I was in a rush to get the changes in. With the two-week wait between use I wanted to get the gems as fast as possible. I was assuming that there would be a different place for stats changes than the skill sell changes. I got the coordinates to the stats changes and immediately recognized it as the same place as the skill change. After I got there I looked in all the rooms without finding anything resembling what I was looking for. I was about to port out and look elsewhere when someone exclaimed, "Aaa there they are." The gems I was looking for were in the main room. If they were snakes I would have been poisoned. I got the endurance gem and ported to Lin to run to the subway. (Fist is first to get changed.) From subway I took the Qbar portal, then west to the Landbridge housing portal. A short run later I was over a big jump. If I ran the long way I still had a little ways to go. I decided to take the jump. Everyone I knew who tried this jump failed but I felt I could do it. I took around 150 damage but that is only about half my current points. I quickly got in and grabbed the coordination gem. I decided maxing out coordination would be better than strength for the first one. Both strength and coordination added three point of UA but coordination added points to about everything else as well. Of course strength adds damage, which is more important than any of the rest. From there I logged Mage and did the same with him, lowering strength and adding endurance. He took a little more damage than Fist on the jump but did not come close to dying. Lastly is Deadeye. He is getting close to where magic will start being important. He will be picking up Life at 75 and I have enough creature items where he can start be self-sufficient. I really hate doing one hour at a time hunts. Of course with VI items rather than VII spells he will be a touch weaker but that will be repaired quickly with longer hunting times. Of course I did not count on the fact that Deadeye has considerable less jump and hit points than Fist or Mage. He was ok for the first two bounces but died on the third. After getting some armor replacement he cleared vitae and headed back. With the snow it was hard to find the right spot to get down. I found myself at a dead end. I decided to jump from there. It was a close thing. I stopped bouncing with about 20 hit points left. My body was only a few feet from were I landed so recovery was easy. I got a lower strength add focus gem. I did not use it as this is something I want to do later. I figure I'll keep adding to strength so lowering it will not affect me much. Valley of death I was in The Slot cashing keys. I still have a lot of scrolls missing so this is a weekly event for me. I save up keys during the week and have Mage to cash them for scrolls. I was lucky in that I got several scrolls I was missing for Fist. I'm still missing some key ones but this filled a few holes. My pack was about full when I got a tell from William the Bat. He wanted to know if I would like to fight some of the new monsters. I had come across a few of the newer Shadows and was not impressed. They died about the same as the old ones. I had heard a touch of talk about the "Valley of Death" but I did not think much about it. I still had 20 minutes on my buff so I said sure. I met William at the mansion and he made a portal to the Bore where we took the exit portal. I was surprised to find the North Obsidian Rim portal was our goal. I was also pleased; as this is a spot I know well and can get to. We ran by some stuff that last month anyone would have stopped to kill. This month they are just run by it stuff. William got a touch sidetracked and we had to use portal recall to start over. We finally got there and started to battle three of the new bandies. Nasty stuff. William charged in and was fighting all three. They were very fixated as my de-buffs and blasts never moved them off William. I'm not sure what William did wrong but after we got one he died. I was lucky in that only one charged me. With my new armor I was not taking massive damage. I found that even with a mostly dead bandy I could grab 60 points of health off one with a fast drain. With a lot of de-buffs keeping my health up was key. After a lot of blasting I killed it and William said that cleared his vitae. They have really high experience but given the time it takes to kill one maybe not worth hunting. Cat showed up a short time later and joined our fellow. Also about 10,000 others hit the valley and it was hard to find a clear spot to hunt. I got a twisted key off of a Tommie and was told to carve it. That got me a Marble key. I did not find a Marble chest but was told it would fit the Oak. A while later I had time I used a chest. By this time I had used up a lot of the mana stones so I had room in my pack. Gaerlan's wand eats mana far too fast but I needed the 398 War it gave me. With the added room I was able to get most of the loot. It was high value stuff but nothing extraordinary, not even a minor. I hunted with William for a few hours. We were doing around three million an hour, not great but not bad. I found I was most effective when in support mode. I could kill about everything we faced, including the Grievvers, but de-buffing so the others could land was more efficient. Most there had little experience in fighting things above their abilities. A lot of high-level chainers were running and dying. What surprised me were people with far less ability then me trying to fight them. We had an 80 lv mage with us for a time. He must have a very exotic template as he did not have Life. It was funny to watch an 80th level mage lying on the ground to recover mana. I had to go a touch deeper into my de-buffing tricks to let him land but he would stand in there. He needs a little more experience but I think the guy is going to be a good one. We lost him when a Bandy would not leave him alone and he had to do an emergency portal. The next day I tried it solo. I could take down everything but it took a while. The worst thing I faced was a Lich. Level VII de-buffs and hit hard with spells. Of all I faced this was the only thing I would not fight two at once with. I had problems with mobs a lot. It was hard to get them one on one. Fortunately I could fight two at once if I had to. It took a lot longer as I had to heal a lot more. The ones that ran half way and started tossing spells or missile weapons were the worse. I found that even with a sliver of health I could get a 60-point drain off them. With 10,000 hit points even 10% is a 1000. If they stood off a ways and tossed missile weapons I could not drain. Drawing I grew up in an era where you had to draw. Melee had no way to fight big mobs and few had any way to attack them from a distance. Missile and Mages had it a lot easier but there is still skills that today's players are lacking. With the new heavy hitters these skills are now needed and few have them. I noticed this quickly. Today's melee's always fought in the middle of the spawn. Mages were overwhelmed and died or were running around making it harder for others. A few base skills prevent this. Melee still have problems. Getting close enough to draw is a hard. When you are close enough they tend to charge as a group, which defeats the intent. The idea is to hit one and then run a ways. Keep doing this until out of range of the spawn site. Having it right on the edge of your radar should do. Keep hitting the same one. With a little luck all the rest will return to the spawn site and you have a one on one battle. This is not 100% but will mostly work. Mage/Missile is the same with the added benefit of not having to be so close to the spawn site. It still takes some flexibility and discipline to do this right. Many times your first target will return to the site. You have to be ready to abandon that battle and switch to one that stayed. In some battles you have to switch several times. In a few you will have to start over completely. In any case standing still and hoping to fight many at once is not smart. Today's players are use to overpowering the monsters. Trying that in the Valley of Death will quickly lead to your defeat. I think this is why I see so few solo players there. The rule is gangs of six or seven 110+ players. Good By Quest My brother is set to leave for the Middle East at any time. While he is ready to go his wife is ready for a nervous breakdown. Fortunately she will have a lot of support both from the Marines and her family during her ordeal. During the last Gaerlan MS said it would be great to help Jeff got the kill. We waited until the patch so it would not be an all night wait with a horde of jumpers. It was decided that Monday would be the best day. Jeff had a day off, one of his few. We met up at the mansion. I was thinking it would be a group of six or seven people. I was surprised that we had two fellows of high level Elder's for Jeff's support. Of course a lot of people means harder control but the trust factor was there so keeping everyone together was our only worry. I was hoping to have William the Bat as my other in the shield wall. Balash was also to be there which would make the wall tighter. William could not make it so our only two melee's were me (Fist de Yuma Jr) and Balash. I was a touch surprised that Elder has changed from a mostly melee alliance to a mostly mage/archer alliance. Things tend to change without your notice. The new setup for the start of the quest was great. No more boring kills for hours on end. Moby Dick and Xan had already got the portal going so it was just get there and jump in. The only boring part was waiting for everyone to buff. First golem fell in less than a minute. We got everyone the nugget and were off to the maze. I played sweep. No one lagged so it was just follow the group. In the rock quarry we had a whole lot of deaths. With everyone LS'd in Eastham they got back quickly. Recoveries were made with only one or two suffering multiple deaths. I picked up a mod 130 crossbow and some great frogs to help out. I was doing 50 a hit with some crits added in. Other than Balash getting left behind in the square puzzle room we had no troubles after that. We got everyone to Gaerlan ready to fight. I asked Balash to set up on the right side. I figured that Balash was an old timer and should be familiar with shield walls. It was a bad assumption. Balash had never done a shield wall before and had no idea where to stand. He was game and did his best but an opening formed and Gaerlan got loose. It is really hard to get a shield wall with only two people anyway. The big problem was Jeff was one of the first killed. After we got everything under control Balash and I got our wall going and MS helped Jeff get back. It seems Jeff left his armor on the body and needed help getting past the golems. Meanwhile Balash and I are taking a beating. I was ok against Gaerlan when clear of de-buffs. After the Golems and Gaerlan started piling on the spells it was not so easy. The mages kept us healed up and the archers kept the Golems to a minimum. Still there were some tight times. Balash was taking a far greater beating than I was. He has melee trained and was more in range of Gaerlan. As bad as we were taking damage the others were doing even worse. Any archer or mage that got too close to the shield wall found Gaerlan has a long reach. Snip, snip, snip, dead mage or archer. We lost several people that way. Finally Jeff got back and started in on Gaerlan. Even with him hitting from 200 to 400 per spell I never saw Gaerlan move off 100% health. Jeff said that every time he had to recover mana Gaerlan was heal completely. We had been fighting Gaerlan for around 20 minutes. The mages had to rebuff Balash at one point. I had around 5 minutes left on my buffs and was ready to call for everyone to start swinging on him. My hopes were that Jeff's accumulated damage would give him the kill, even if he never moved him off below 95% health. I'm not sure what happened next. Neither Balash nor me were swinging so we should not have moved. I'm think lag or a server hiccup. In any case I found myself a step of more in back of where I should be. Gaerlan was not loose but he was darn close. I tried to push forward to get back into place but was not making any progress. I figured if I hit him that would push him back. Bad idea as he pushed me back and was loose. Jeff was one of the first to die and arches/mage were being laid out left and right. Remember we only had two melee. To compound the problem I had my cestus not my Katar in hand. I did not figure to fight so I never bothered to buff the Katar. Even with an Armor Rendering 22 to 40 I was not doing much damage. I called for Moby Dick to vuln him for bludgeoning and that fixed it. I was doing 50 a swing with 200 point crits. My sincere hope was that Jeff's damage counted as he had done enough to kill him twice over if not for Gaerlan's healing rate. Well best laid plans and all that. Gaerlan fell and Balash had the kill. He did not want to take Jeff's kill but we had no choice. Jeff was not bitter about it. He had a blast and said was his gimp self that failed, not us. Here is the letter he posted on your board Jeff's letter I want to take a minute and say thank you for everyone letting me be a part of Elder. I am most thankful for being a part of the guild. There has been a lot of Elders to help me from time to time and we all know who they are and my deepest gratitude goes out to them all. I also want to thank by name, and I hope I miss no one, if I do I am truly sorry. These people are; Fist de Yuma Jr. (my brother), Silenta the Quiet (Kirstin), Balash (Joel), Fair Ellen, Yanaba (Linda), UA Babe, Deciet, Miss Smurfette (Marie), Looie Woo (Jeff), Dark Onslaught, Moby ( I wish I could remember his 1st name), Xan'daran, and Illumini. These people all went on the Gaerlan quest to try and help my lame butt get the kill, I could not get the job done though. I guess it was not my day. Thank You all of you from deep within me, and with great appreciation for the help that all of you gave me and the support on the quest. As you all know I am in the Marine Corps and I leave in about a week to go overseas and do my part in the war effort. I will be gone a good amount of time and will miss my surrogate family. I hope you are all still here when I get back, as I will have AC withdrawals bad. If I do not see you all again, god bless you all and take care and once again thank you for making me feel appreciated in the guild. Signing off for now. Jeff Sailor Bane aka Mage Sailor Bane aka Jeff