Fist de Yuma - July 13, 2004

This and That Barring a miracle, this will not be one of my better columns. As I sit to write this, it is Sunday morning. I normally have half or more of the column written by Wednesday. The first thing I will write about took place almost a week ago. I'm bound to miss some important points. It will also be hard to image the frustration of that quest. One of the reasons for the delay is a moral issue. When I started this column, I could express anger at people. I named names and had no qualms with bringing my conflicts to the column. As I matured, I slowly got away from abusing people with the column. I have gotten to the point where I have a hard time writing about an event where someone messes up, unless I'm the one who messed up of course. (g) Even without naming who did it, I hesitate to write anything bad about someone who is not trying to hurt others, but hurts them nevertheless. That is one reason for my delay in getting the column started. The others are pure laziness and the Tour de France. In my last column, I wanted to point out that the Tour de France had started a few days before. Given that the Tour is only really exciting when it hits the mountains, I decided to wait until this column. I'll have my take on this years Tour after the AC stories are over. Gaerlan I was just hanging at the mansion. One of the drawbacks to hunting my salvage mules, for hours on end, is cleaning up afterwards. I collect a lot of bags that need to be used on weapons, DI's and armor. I need to sort out other bags of salvage and transfer them to the proper tradesmen. Good items need to be stored and successful tinkers need to be exchanged for the lesser items. All this takes time, which was what I was doing that evening. I saw an allegiance tell about doing Gaerlan. I pointed out that if you had done the quest before, you could go directly to fight Gaerlan. I also pointed out that was a one time deal. I told him of my troubles fighting Gaerlan a short time back. I had hopes that they repaired his healing rate with the hot fix a week later. Even with that fix, I was not sure of our ability to defeat him. His armor is too high for the melees. We have a hard time inflicting damage above his healing rate. Even if he did not heal, it takes a lot of 50-point hits to equal 40,000. I was wrong about one thing in that last column. Gaerlan has 40,000 hit points, not a million. I'm not sure if it was Mage Killa or Kulkulcan I was talking to at the time. Both decided to join up with me for an attempt. One of them recruited a mage named Archaicus. As we started to work our way to Eastham, Dread Lord Buba Fett logged on. He also wanted to go but was not sure of how to get to Eastham. He took what he thought was a short cut, and died. (g) I gave him a good route. He was thinking he could not make it but I wisely encouraged him to join us after recovering the body. I gave him a simple, if long, route to get to Eastham. Meanwhile I entered the dungeon and did a test of Gaerlan's abilities. I landed a piercing vuln and imperil on him, and started the fight solo. I was doing good damage, and started to see his health drop, only see it start jumping up a short time later. I never got him below 99% and had to stop when the de-buffs ran out. The other three joined me. I figured that with a mage de-buffing him, we could do this. This is where things started to go downhill. I cannot say what the problem was. Communication is important when going into a hard fight. People can draw on each other's experiences and knowledge, but only if you're willing to listen. I knew a few things from my last battle with Gaerlan. A mage will do more damage with war spells than the melees with weapons. His healing rate must be de-buffed to have a chance to defeat him. A mage can now survive an attack by Gaerlan. His armor is so high that even with full de-buffs, melees will not do much damage. Our mage landed the vuln and imperil but then settled in with heals and other support. While that can be commended in many situations, this was not one of them. He finally started tossing wars at Gaerlan. This is where we discovered something else that is different. Our attempts to wall Gaerlan were not working. A good wall of melees would always block him in the past. It did not work at all this time. A few micro ticks after he would start running against us, he would break through our wall and attack the mage. This happened several times. I cannot be sure if there was some weird lag problem, or if Turbine has stopped letting us wall monsters. In any case, it appeared to un-nerve our mage. He did not die but he did stop using War spells. He then ran down the ramp and started tossing War spells from inside Gaerlan's room. I was doubtful his War spells were hitting from down there. Looking at the list of de-buffs on my Hud display, I saw that his health and healing were not de-buffed. I asked the mage to apply them. There was no answer or spells forthcoming. At one point I wanted to get on my knees and beg him to toss the spells. He either did not see my text, or did not have the spells. Maybe he did not understand what I was asking. In any case, he never tossed the spells. I watched Gaerlans health slowly drop, and then rapidly rise until he was back to full health again. You cannot imagine the frustration I felt. On a side note, we changed to slashing and did a much better job at damaging him. Archaicus was able to hot buff my slashing weapon for me. At last, Dread Lord Boba Fett showed up. Now we had a chance at taking Gaerlan down! We only had 13 minutes on our buffs, and I knew that was not enough. I told them to run down to the end of the hall, while Gaerlan was attacking me. My intent was to have them all break clean of Gaerlan, and then make a fast escape myself. I knew from last time that I could run away from him and take minimal damage. Some of my member's lack of experience showed here. They did not run away far enough. One kept attacking. The result was Gaerlan chased them down the hall instead of sticking with me. We got all the way to the ramp. I had everyone stop attacking and just heal. After a few swings, Gaerlan ported back to his room. We all buffed up for a second attack. This time we decided to not draw him up the ramp. We could not wall him, so it did not matter where we fought him. I asked Dread Lord to supply the proper de-buffs. I finished buffing first and moved down to confront Gaerlan. Just for kicks, I tried to yield him. For some reason it landed! They may have made his armor to high, but his magic defense is pathetic. I think my Creature is around 340. While that uses to be high, it is about 100 points lower than a mage of my level. We restarted the battle. With the proper de-buffs on Gaerlan, we quickly had him on the ropes. Dread Lord parked at the hall exit and started pumping war spells into him, as us melees applied our nicks and cuts. I did not see what the other mage did. I cannot say how much time it took in total but it was clear we were going to win in the first minute. I know that Dread Lord had to reapply the de-buffs at least once, and possibility two or three times. So I would say from 10 to 15 minutes. Finally, Gaerlan fell and a portal was created. As I expected, Dread Lord got the kill. A quick run got us to the rewards. I was hoping for another mana conversion ring, but got a lore ring instead. It is an almost useless item, but at least it is out of the way. Next time I might get what I want. I stored the sword on a mule for when Fist's Armorer gets to 125. 80+ Matron I had Salvage Mule two in the 80+ matron this week. The first thing I noted was a lot less Steel and Granite. The advantage was picking up a lot of majors. Of course they were all worthless. Getting a major quick on a lame staff is not something to be happy about. If finding a useless major happened every so often, that would be ok, but every item I found this week was useless. It was either a useless major (lore) or on an unusable item. Mostly it was both. So on balance, for loot, I felt I was better off in the 60+ than the 80+. Nevertheless, except for granite, the potential is far better in the 80+. It also helps that the xp is twice or more what it is in the 60. Leeches One of the drawbacks to the 80+ Matron is something I hesitate to talk about. I first noted this shortly after arriving at the 80+ with SM1. I quickly noted that there were a lot of archers hunting there. This surprised me. I felt it was too much work to hunt Deadeye Fist in the 80+ Matron. I had to admire them for being willing to fight in a place so unfriendly to an archer. I rounded a corner to a dead end spot, and saw an archer standing there. I did not think anything about it. I am looting and rending loot, so standing on one spot for a few seconds is not a big deal. About 10 minutes later, I rounded the same corner and saw the same guy in the same spot. Now I had to think about this. Is he hunting, or just leeching? He was smart enough to move after I caught him the second time. Almost every time I see him in the dungeon, he is in one of the side passages and not hunting. What is really lame is he is a 126+ level archer. If he had any skill whatsoever, he would be welcome in Caul. Instead he is leeching xp from 80 to 100 level players. Another archer really got under my skin. The first thing he did was start spamming the fellow asking for majors. Now if I found a major, I'm sure not going to give it a total stranger. Everyone ignored him. Later, I was ending a battle. He runs up and fires one arrow into the one I'm fighting. He then asked if I have seen any majors, and starts looting my kills! Now I understand that many players do not loot in the 80+. He may have felt I was one of them. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and just asked him to please not loot my kills. A short time later he was at the start, begging for someone to buff his bow. It did not take long before he was on many players black list. Those that would add him to the fellow, quickly ended up dropping him. This is not common but it happens enough that is sticks in memory. It is hard to be an archer today. They are far better off outside, and/or working with a mage. Their attack power and range is next to none. Unfortunately, there is no better xp spot than the one place they have trouble hunting in. Those willing to work are welcome; those who want the rewards, without the work, will quickly destroy their reputation. Dad Blab it As I have said before, hunting with my mace mules in the Matrons is more relaxing than work. Even with minimum melee defense, I'm never in much trouble. As long as I don't let them on my back, the hits are below my healing rate. It is rare that my health falls under 100, and those times are mostly because I'm talking too much. With a 100-focus start, I have good healing skill. Even when falling below 100, I'm successful at healing more than not. I was in the west side of the Matron, where the two ramps descend into the acid pits. I was at the foot of the right hand ramp. I had just killed one and hit the key to kill another. Nothing happened. I noted that my health was dropping rapidly. I backed up and hit the hot key for a heal elixir. Again, nothing happened, and I died a short time later. This all happened in around 3 to 5 seconds. I looked at my screen to see where I was getting hit for so much. Other than an abnormal hit for 15 ever few lines, most of the hits were the normal 0 to 1. In any case, they did not add up to the 219 it took to kill me. At worse, it only added to 100 or so. When I died there was only two Olthoi on me, and both were in front of the shield. Normally I can go AFK with out danger in such a situation. (Never would, but I could.) Of course I had never expected to die with this player. I had no DI's to speak of. Fortunately he has low value armor, so all I lost were my shoes. Just the loot items I had picked up covered the rest. I don't now what the bug was that got me killed, but I hope to never see it again. Harbinger Molcavian wanted to do the old Harbinger quest. The reward is a potion used on a sword, or turned into a NPC for 10 million XP. A long time ago, this quest was the climax to a months long story line. Several items needed to be collected to form an item used to create a portal to the dungeon. Of course, Harbinger is now in a different spot, so Turbine placed one of his followers in his place. At the time of this quest, and up to just a few months ago, I was on a dial up account. Things in this dungeon were such that a dial up account was suicide if you dare enter. It did not help that a hundred people would jump into any portal created. So it was a few days, if not weeks, I don't really remember, before the Harbinger was killed. On MT, Elder and Heideggar were members of that group. To do the quest, they had to invite the best players, and move to a secret spot. If they made the portal anywhere near other players, a mob would rush the portal and spoil the quest with massive lag. So after many years, I had yet to do this quest. When Molcavian asked me to advertise the quest, I was more than willing. To insure we had a good turn out, we gave it a week's advance notice. On Sunday morning, (It was 6pm Molcavians time.) we met at the mansion. We had the expected turn out. To help, we had another group from Aka-Hung go with us. Aka-Hung is the largest allegiance on MT, and one of the best. From our allegiance we had; Soul Riper (126+), Pethor (109), Molcavian (119), Dread Lord Boba Fett (126+), Ken' (126+), Ivan Slpoheklmnuov (96), Fist's Armorer (123), Enosh (90), Hot-Shot (200+), Kulkulcan, and Uil (114). I did not get the names of the other fellow. I only had time to grab a quick screen shot to get the names I did get. After we got together, Molcavian used the item to create the portal. He first warned us to watch for a black on black portal near the drop. It would be easy to wander into that portal and end your quest. Molcavian asked if anyone knew the dungeon. The silence was deafening. It takes two groups to do the quest, because of a switch. Molcavian nominated me, Ivan and Hot-Shot to hold at the switch. He explained the route I would have to take. The description did not make sense to me, but I was willing to give it a shot. He said, west, west, west, over a grate, down a ramp, and east, east, east. I was trying to figure out how I would go from west to west or east to east. I had to guess the passage would turn and you would always take the west route if there was a choice. In any case, it all became moot. After a series of battles we got to a door. Molcavian sent a fellow tell saying to toss the switch. The only problem was, we were standing next to him at the time. We somehow missed it when Molcavian told us to stay at the switch. I remembered the switch in the middle of the room, but did not think it was where I should stand. In any case, it was easy to back track to the switch. I had us run back fast in hopes of beating the spawns. We mostly did, but there was a lot of monsters in the switch room. I pulled the switch and beat feet back to the door. Ivan got into a little danger, but got away ok. The main danger to us was the damage the floor gave us. I had to keep healing to stay out of danger. One person got complacent and dropped to 40 before healing. Molcavian led me, Hot-Shot and Ivan to the second switch, mostly it was to just show us the switch I think. It was clear he had the ability to do it on his own. It is good leadership to involve others like that. We got to our destination. This was a big room below a long drop. When Elder and Heideggar fought the Harbinger, it was far more deadly. Not only did they have to fight the Harbinger, but also a mob of tough monsters, such as Black Breaths. Each Mage had a healer during that battle. They had to jump on top of a statue to get out of the range of most monsters. This allowed them to just fight the Harbinger. Even with someone doing a constant heal on the mages, they had deaths. That had to be the only time Elder played support to Heideggar, instead of the other way around. (g) I expected to be fighting Black Breaths, and possibly other hard to fight monsters. While there were Biles there, I did not see anything of great danger, and no Black Breaths. A player did impress me. There was some hesitation about jumping into the room. After all, no one knew what to expect, and there were a lot of dots down there. So who volunteers to be the first down? Ivan, the second lowest member we had. Ivan has had his temper problems. At one time I thought we might lose him as a member. I'm sure glad we didn't, as I love the way he plays, fearless but not stupid. I'm going to have to team with him more often. Molcavian asked the mages to pick a melee and play healer as they jumped. I targeted Molcavian and announced it. They jumped down and started the battle. I healed Molcavian several times, mostly for zero. There was a 30 and a 90 so I expect he was glad I was there. By the time I jumped, it was almost over. I helped clear the handful left. We all grabbed a potion. The monsters were on a fast spawn, but with our power, they died fast. Even the Biles dropped before they could do much damage. After everyone got the potion, we recalled out. I took a subway portal to Glendale Woods, but was not sure were the NPC was. I noted that there was an allegiance member hit on Bandit. I selected him and noted the direction as it flashed the pick. He was well out of range, so I only got a flash. That got me a direct route to the NPC. I'm not sure if you could fellow the reward. I should have given that a shot before turning it in. Ten million is nice, but I would have been better off sharing it would one of my Tradesman. Tour de France Lance Armstrong is going for an unprecedented sixth win in the Tour de France. I cannot help but think about the what ifs that make this so exciting. Greg Lamans is one of a handful of riders with five wins. He could well have had twice that many. Before his first win, Greg was a member of a French team. Their main rider was on his way to winning his fifth Tour, when Greg started beating him. The team manager talked to Greg, and convinced him to back off, and let the other rider win. The reward would to be a total focus on Greg in the next Tour. You cannot win the Tour without a strong team in back of you, so it seemed like a good deal. Greg agreed, and it turned out to be a big mistake. To reward his loyalty, they fired him. Cannot let one of those unclothe Americans win our Tour, can we. Greg got on another team and won anyway. During the next off-season, his brother in law shot him in a hunting accident. He came back but knee problems cost him another year. He then came back to win four in a row, including the most exciting ending to a Tour in history. (He overcame a 40 second deficit on the final day, a Time Trial event, to win by 8 seconds. The closest margin in the history of the Tour.) Aaa but for what ifs, this years Tour would not be as exciting as it is. Lance would not only be trailing in Tour wins, he would be trailing in American wins. (g) The Tour starts with a short ride, just to get things going. Lance took a 16 second lead on his main opponent. I had to wonder about this. Did Lance take this lead because he is that much better? Or did he push harder than he should, because he doubted his ability gain time later? I was not sure. I'm still not sure. The next events are kind of strange to those who don't follow bicycle racing. Several people can ride faster than one person. At speed, most of the work is spent overcoming air resistance. If you can tuck behind someone, you can go as fast as they go, with far less work. The more people in front of you, the less work you have to do. On relatively flat courses, people can pack into the group, and go very fast, with very little work. The ones at the front will push hard, and then drop back to let others do the work. This sharing of the work can make a group go very fast. You can also imagine the danger of riding inches off the back wheel of someone. They do this, at high speed, and, many times, in rain and high wind. If someone in front of you falls, there is little room to avoid going down with them. From this formation, you can have attacks. This is where one or more riders race ahead of the pack. If the pack wants to work harder, they can easily pull the attackers back. In a single day race, people are not allowed to get too far ahead of the pack. Things are different in the Tour. The Tour is a three-week race. There are many riders who will finish hours behind the leaders. When the Tour hits the hills, the sprinters and other specialists will fall out of the running for the overall winner. Being a long race, teams do not want to wear themselves out on a single day, or even a single week. Pacing is the key to winning. So, if a handful of rides break away from that pack, and no member of that attack has a shot at winning the Tour, the pack might let them go. It is not uncommon to see a group of riders ten minutes or more ahead of the pack. Most of the time they are reeled in before the finish line, despite the big lead. Sometimes this can backfire. There was one Tour where a break ended up with a half an hour lead. By strict rules, the entire pack should have been sent home for not making the time limit. Of course that was ignored. Even with that big of lead, they had no chance to win the Tour. To the best of my memory, no member of that attack finished in the top 10, let alone came close to winning. There is something else that greatly affects the Tour. This is being in the lead for a time. The leader has a yellow shirt. There is a lot of status to be wearing the Yellow, both for the rider, and his team. The team will work hard to keep him in that position, even if they understand there is no chance he will be the overall winner at the end of the race. Every day they can hold the yellow, is an increase in team status. What this means is the team who has the yellow, is forced to defend it. If there is a break, they will push to the front of the group, and force a faster pace. They cannot allow a break to get so far in front as to threaten the position of their rider. Of course, if all members of a break are too far back to matter, they are let go. Riders who are far back might try a break for single stage win glory. This being forced to defend the yellow, allows stronger teams, with a real chance to win, to back off and save their energy. They don't have to wear themselves out catching breaks, because the weaker team will do it for them. So it can be a big advantage to let a weaker team hold the yellow for a time. There is another type of event in the Tour. This is Time Trials. There are two types; individual and team. A TT is run without the pack to help break the wind. They race against the clock instead of in direct competition. The eventual winner has to be good at this, and the mountains, to have any chance to win the Tour. The team TT is where the seven-man team races against the clock, with the time stopping as the fifth person crosses the line. This year, there is a limit to how much time you can gain in the team TT. I'm sure this is because of how dominating US Postal was last year. They were just as dominating this year. US Postal's TT win put Lance in the Yellow. There was no advantage to being in the lead at this point. The team did not defend the yellow in the next day's event. The result of that decision is someone with no chance to win the Tour is wearing the Yellow. That means a weaker team is doing most of the work throughout the rest of the week, and letting US Postal save themselves for the later parts of the race. It is said that Lance must have a dominating lead going into the last TT. His main competitor is expected to beat him by over a minute in that TT. After the first event, I'm not sure if this is true, but it is what the experts think. It is expected that Lance will have to win big in the Mountains, to win overall. Last year it looked bleak for Lance as they started the mountains. He had lost time on the first TT, something unexpected at the time. Lance had always dominated the TT events. He did not do as well as expected in the first mountain stage. Many felt that Lance was going to fail in his fifth attempt at a Tour win. Lance shocked everyone with a Tour winning ride the next day. From there he cruised to victory. Gad it was exciting to watch, as Lance blew the peloton apart and sealed the victory, with that one stage. This week will be telling. The first mountain stage will be on Wednesday. If Lance is on, the Tour might well be decided on that day. If not, well, he might do it on another day. It is possible that the Tour stays close until the final TT. Not being sure is what makes this years Tour so exciting. There have been a lot of crashes in this years Tour. This is a dangerous sport. People have died by crashing in the mountains. Several riders have been forced to withdraw with injuries already. Last year, Lance had to use his off road skills when a rider crashed in front of him. Street bikes are not made for off the road riding, but somehow Lance traversed the center of a switchback, and got back on the road. So there is also a lot of luck involved, both good and bad. One last comment. There is another American, by the name of Hamilton, in the race. He is likely to be second or third, if not first. The other spoiler is a German named Ullrich. He took second last year. Ullrich has had one win and three seconds in the Tour. He has had the bad luck of riding in the same era as Lance. The winner will likely come down to these three. The experts are worried about Ullrich poor ride in the short first stage. His big advantage last year was his TT ability. He has not had any chance to perform since that first day, so a lot is unknown. Hamilton has had a lot of bad luck. Crashes and flats have hurt his team. Despite this, Hamilton is well into the hunt. At this point, I feel Hamilton is the threat to Lance. The real question about Hamilton, is how much damage he as taken from the crashes. Bad luck has haunted Hamilton. A crash broke his color bone last year. He rode for several days after, but was forced to withdraw. I for one will be cheering Hamilton, next year. If you feel like reading the action as it unfolds, you can get minute-by-minute updates at. http://www.tourdefrancenews.com/tourdefrance