Fist de Yuma - July 22, 2003

This and that I've done a lot of work getting ready for Rosa's return. So much work in fact that I over did it. The next day I could hardly move from muscle soreness. Of course the fact that I can now walk to the back of my den is a big plus. (grin) The Library should be happy with several boxes of books. Some are outdated Windows 3 stuff but a lot of the programming books will be useful. I still have a lot of work to do but the main parts are done. Of course my work might have gone over better if I had remembered to water Rosa's plants. Hell cannot have me remember everything. (grin) Mostly I forgot to water them as I never do much walking around outside. It hits on average 115 in Yuma and walking around my yard is not an option. I go from an air-conditioned house to an air-conditioned car, and I do that as fast as possible. Rosa was to get in on Sunday morning at 1:11am. It is a half an hour drive to the station and of course I wanted to be early. After spending an hour waiting one of the train people checked to see if Amtrak was on time. Of course it was running five hours late! I'm glad I was passing the time by making small talk with the people or I would have had a long wait. So I drove home and got a few hours sleep. I drove back to the train station at 6am. Rosa is home and AC is on hold for a while. (grin) On a side note, I stopped smoking cigars four days before she got home. I ran my industrial air cleaner in the room for a week. I got a special air freshener that they use and sell at Mike's store. (www.mdcigars.com) This item works so well you cannot smell the cigars in Mikes store. The first thing Rosa complained about was the cigar smell. (sigh) Correction I have gotten many PM's and posts about the XP from an Obliterator. I'm thinking the 600k xp reported was passup from Raven. If it came in a second after the Obliterator XP it would have replaced the Obliterator numbers. Thanks for setting me straight. Kirney Slane pointed out that she was not screaming very much in our EVL battle. As her voice is female and what I was hearing was a male scream, I mistook my screaming for hers. (grin) Problem Solved (red faced) There are those who seem to think I have this tremendous EGO. Of course we all have one and the lack of EGO is as bad as too much of one. I have met people with big EGO's and admitting a mistake is not on their list of things they can do. If they discover a mistake, especially a big one, it is never brought up. They hope with the public's short memory it will be forgotten. That said here is my big EGO buster. I have for weeks been ranting about how bad the Olthoi have gotten in EVL. A letter I'm including later in the column got me looking for some other reason. Of course observer error by other players contributed to my confusion. It seemed everyone agreed with me that the Olthoi have gotten stronger. Hints from Turbine also moved me in that direction. If not for those I might have looked for the real problem earlier. So when someone did a real test and said there was little difference from before I knew there was something wrong. I had to start checking for a problem. (A big EGO would not do that. They would assume they were right and dismiss anything that conflicted with their belief.) As I have stated in the past I use Nerfus Buffus for buffing. There was a problem with this plug in after a patch that caused me to delete my EVL setup. I recreated it but somehow neglected to add the Life spells! So of course I had my head handed to me. (DOH) A big thinks to Myphri of Solclaim for making me look for the problem. EVL is now safe for my Mages again. Spawns The new developers notes confirmed something for me. When fighting in The Slot I had noted a very fast spawn rate. I was having a hard time looting. Winter Raven's death was caused by a re-spawn that came far faster than normal. It seems that was indeed a bug. Re-spawns were happening far faster than they should have. I'm happy that Turbine is fixing it so I can loot. At the same time the xp flow was a bit better because it. I'll miss that. My main reason to hunt The Slot is loot so I welcome the change. With all the RL stuff, Rosa getting home, family coming over and my brother Saul playing Tiger Woods Golf, with me I've played AC a lot less than normal this week. This has allowed me to publish things sent to me. I still have some backlog that I'll try to work in next week. Meanwhile enjoy other people's adventures in AC. Guest Writer: Moriah Hello Mr Fist. Here is my next composition of a recent adventure and mishap in the world of Dereth(Solclaim). It's your to publish, ignore, laugh at or whatever, but I hope you and your readers will enjoy it :*) Bad BO Day. So I had just returned to the Death Valley Lifestone with a bag full of salvaged Gold. Moriah is doing quite well there lately with his Life Bolts. There is the odd Crystal Shard that needs her Ravenous Staff to be taken care of, but its no big deal really. Anyway, time to apply the bag of gold to another Death Item. No biggie, done it before, move along ... The incoming /tell was from Aelric the Red. "Are you a tinkerer?" "I am, what can I do for you?" "Well, I have this sword to be imbued ..." And so it began. After a brief conversation about the risks and the need to keep a backup weapon, we decided to meet at the Marketplace. My Magic Item Tinkering character is called Delta and thus needed to swap over a few times. His alternative character was Sidhe, also the monarch of Aelric the Red and he too needed to swap over a few times. Delta has already imbued countless items. Weapons for the clan, Xbows for her monarch, Wands/Orbs/Staves for Death Valley fellowshippers (some of which ended up killing a Tremendous Monouga) and tinkering craft(3) magic items to 9 tinks. So Delta ends up with a bag of Black Opal and a decent sword. This is the BO in the title - Black Opal. The sword was not the best, but good enough to hold back for a rainy day. Imbued it could be very reasonable in the hands of an able swordsman or swordswoman. After a brief session of buffing and getting her Magic Item Tinkering skill up to the 430+ level, I'm all set to hit the imbue. The Black Opal was in slot 2 of Delta's backpack, the sword in slot 1. But after the few hours of hunting with Moriah, I was somewhat tired. Thus a "brilliant" idea hit me, let's equip the Focusing Stone. This put Delta's Magic Item Tinkering skill at 462. This also made me un-equip my Major Fealty Nabut, causing the items in the backpack to shift over by one place. The nabut was now in slot 1 and the sword in slot 2. I didn't notice though. It all happened so fast. I was dead set on going through the sequence in 0.3 seconds. When I hit the imbue, the local message was "Delta successfully imbued ..." and I felt relief that the imbue stuck on the sword. Then the realization hit. Shock! Horror! "Delta successfully imbued the Ebony Nabut ..." Oh NO !!! This can't be happening! I expressed my deepest regrets to Sidhe. But knowing that I goofed, I had to make up for this. Moriah had several partial bags of Black Opal on her. I told Sidhe to hang in there and quickly got them. Sidhe was wondering if I was going to screw him (Sidhe could be female, I didn't notice his/her gender). So I had to be quick. We got another bag of Black Opal together, but when Delta tried, the message came up as "Delta fails ...". Ok, take a deep breath, at least it was an honest attempt this last one. Sidhe still had another sword earmarked for an imbue, but didn't have enough Sunstone for it yet. Back to Moriah. Grabbed a small partial bag of Sunstone. Sidhe gave a Delta a lightning sword. "Delta successfully ..." Phewww. In the end, Sidhe donated a bag of Opal with a workmanship of 8. I felt awful taking this after my initial mistake and subsequent behavior, but I knew under the circumstances that I could not refuse it. While thinking about this for the next few days, I learned a few lessons. - Always take your time when crafting, for yourself and for others. - Never craft when you're tired, under pressure or intimidated. - Use a middleman if you have to, at least to verify your reputation and your intent. - Have a backup plan. You never know when things fall to pieces. Yours sincerely, :*) Moriah. Guest writer: R. Scott White (I'm including several of Scott's stories in this column.) (This is about fighting in VoD, something Scott does solo daily.) This is specifically for my mage friend Podo Hardbottle but can go for anyone else as well. Remember that all comments coming from me are based upon a battlemage who as my patron Fist can tell you hunts alone 99.927% of the time. First off, buff and bane for everything. The main reason is that because of the way monsters might be chasing you, you might run into a group doing different damage types. Also, if you have it make sure your life/war/creature are as high as possible. The monsters there have a nasty resistance to deal with. Mana charges and DI's are your friends so don't forget them. Mind you I'm now 112th and I wouldn't think of hunting there without my moderate mana D necklace and my mage armor. But that is because I go after the Virindi and need every edge I can get. As for the monsters to go after, since you're below 100 I would go with the lower end monsters of the VoD, like the Knaths (jello molds) for example. At your level the jello can kill you but simple tactics can make you some decent exp when solo hunting. For them I always yield first, but when you do that always, repeat, always have one finger on your alt key to be ready to side step cause as soon as you throw a yield or imperil you will have multiple bolts and volleys flying to skewer your ass. (Editor: I use a tree, no possible slip up.) With Knaths I've found lightning does the best DoT, this goes against the ac monster plug in but I don't think that has been updated in a while. After you land your yield and/or imperil then make sure you are standing at nearly full radar range. I do this for one reason. At that distance you can first throw a bolt spell, then an arc and they will land together. The nice thing about this is that the monster will only throw back one spell at you, which is one less thing for you to have to worry about. Mind you that as soon as you kill one of them, they will all let the bolts/volleys fly again. I do this till I clear the spawn. If one of them starts moving at you, don't worry. They won't throw spells anymore, at that point the stupid AI makes it attack with bludgeon damage and you could stand there nude and not die. While the loot isn't the best it is good enough over time for you to still make money. There is one other spell I use with all other monsters I fight in the VoD. I can't remember the name at the moment but it is the spell that lowers the healing rate. The monsters in the VoD have a huge healing rate. I found that by using this spell I could dramatically lower the duration of a fight. When you build up your life/war to buffed 400 I would start going after the undead/drudges. While they have nasty de-buffs, the 500k that they are worth makes it fun to hunt them. For both those monster types I throw yield, healing inept, fire vul then start blasting away. Like everything else sometimes you'll have the entire spawn chase you down. Don't switch targets, just run and come back, sooner or later as you keep blasting the monster will come out one on one. At that point you should be able to kill it. One more thing I'd suggest for fighting there and that is gems of stillness as well as chorzite potions to remove de-buffs. Even with my magic d at 349 the drudges can hit me for 180 points of lightning damage when I'm de-buffed with lightning vul 6 even through lightning pro 7. One spell to add to your hot key or your spell tab is stam to health, even at level one it will give you back more than drain health other will, that is if you a decent stamina, mine is pretty high right now so it has saved my tush many times. I admit it, I love the VoD, for a solo hunter it is a place of strategy and testing ones limits. Knowing when to fight as well as where to fight is great. I avoid the lugians at all costs, as well as the Obliterator, if you don't know what that is, it is a level 999 Tusker, that smacks me for 30-40 points of damage when I've got no vul's/imperils on me. Now for those rare occasions that you might hunt with a group as I have done, I did something to help with that for my own sanity. I used the #4 spell tab and set that up with every de-buff of creature spells I have. This will save you from having to search for them on multiple tabs when you hear from some whiney archer "lower its missile", or "lower its strength". I've still got the vuls on my magic attack tabs, in my case that is #'s 5 & 6. At your level you might not be able to land that often but your help in healing as well as returning stamina would be greatly appreciated. In that case get yourself a good wand with high mana C on it, at least 6%, tinker it if you can, as well as throw the conversion spell on it. The wand Fist help tinker for me is only +13% to mana C but it buffs to +22%. That would give you plenty of mana for healing when needed. Ok I've rambled enough. R. Scott White I was interested in Fist's column this week. (Editor: A few weeks back I had a bit on people I would trust with beside me in a RL battle.) He made mention of who'd he'd want with him if he were in trouble. It made me think, that if we had all the abilities, attributes etc that our characters in AC have who would I want with me. I came up with some interesting choices and the reasons why. First would be my soul brother Frank. Frank is a lot like Fist is very conservative in nature, likes to be prepared and will plan things out, basically a younger version of Fist. I've gamed with Frank for over a decade, and our styles together are interesting. When he is using strategy it lets me sneak through openings in the defense. And by me doing that it distracts the enemy off of him, allowing us both to live longer....(remember Smash TV brother, big money big prizes I love it). Frank is the one who got me off of EQ to try out this new game called AC. The way their minds work compliments me well because where they strategize I will go where angels fear to tread and somehow make it out alive. Next would be Fist of course, one of my oldest most reliable friends left in the game, for the same reasons as Frank. When I think of Fist I get the mental image of a grizzled old warrior who's seen it all. I'd want Balash there as well, only because he is even crazier than I am. He would give you the shirt off his back, then walk into battle naked, and let me tell you, the sight of that alone is enough to scare the enemy (grin). I'd want Nabby there for moral support and cooking, after all in this day and age I believe in chemical warfare and her cooking qualifies, also she is at heart a reliable soul who will do whatever she can when she is needed. She would either be there as Nabby or Sil. I'd want Jeff there, only because we'd have fun recovering his many corpses...sorry Jeff (grin). When I think of Jeff I always think of the kid brother, you know the type, the one who is always hanging around. You want to shoo him away but don't because you see in him the things you once saw in yourself, just a bit green around the ears. It wouldn't matter if he would be his swordsman or mage, just having him there would be fun. Finally, I'd want my oldest friend in game Paul, playing one of his many gimped characters, from his dagger toon to his archer he's been around from retail, and I've always been able to count on him to give me a good laugh or something to abuse him about. That is who I'd want if AC was reality. R. Scott White Yesterday I had to use a vacation day, and since my tee time wasn't till 1:45 I decided to play a bit. I was halfway through my buff cycle and headed out to the VoD to do some hunting when I ran into a fellow Yuma named Soul Riper. (Editor: Congrats to Soul Riper for making 126! All on his own.) We decided to fellow and started buffing so we'd be on the same schedule. At this point a group comes through and asks us to join them. One of the people was Murron so I thought about it. At first I was hesitant but said ok, so Soul and I joined them. Now just so you know, I don't hate Murron, but I can't handle someone that happy all the time (grin). We were hunting and doing very well, enough of us were spread out in the area so if we found any Virindi we could pounce on them. I've been averaging 15 an hr alone but we did nearly 21 per hour, which pushed me to my next level (Yippie). After I had leveled the group started breaking up, people had to leave. So I portaled out after earning about 42 million for a couple hrs work that was fun, even though I died twice. Damn Virindi decided it would be fun to vul me and critical (shake fists). It wasn't too bad, all things considered. I knew that my timer was up on tusks so I did the only one where there were people in the dungeon, the rampager of course. That gave me an extra 8 million even though that doesn't add to my patron I know he won't complain about the amount of passup he got yesterday (grin). So now I've got to do a couple of the other tusks. This level will be to bump life/war another two points each. I'm really giving consideration to taking magic D down to trained again and bumping creature up. With where my creature is now after bumping it I'd land a lot better in VoD. Even at 385 buffed creature on a lot of monsters I've got to go 3-4 times before I land the yield I like to have on them. R. Scott White Guest writer: Myphri of Solclaim I noticed in these last 2 columns of yours your mentioning of olthoi being stronger in ways. I had been concentrating on leveling my newb mage in tusker dungeons and decided to break out my Life Mage to do some testing. She has 309 health fully buffed so I guess is comparable to your mage .. health-wise. She's lvl 94 right now with life skill that buffs to 393 with the auroric helm and minor will boots. I was downright frightened by the prospect of stronger Olthoi so I went into my full bug fighting gear just in case. I wear GSK, with major pierce, acid, and fire wards. Gaunts are un-tinked 200 armor, boots are un-tinked 120, and I wear the auroric helm. Guess you could call this a poor man's set-up, even though it took me a very long time to build. I fully baned for pierce, acid, and slash of course ... the norms for EVL. I decided to test it out right away and just let the first one I found down the hall pound away on me. First hit was 12 ... my thoughts, omg he's right, these are tough bastages! Then what followed were 3, 7, 4, 2, etc. They weren't hitting any harder than any other trip I've had in there. I proceeded down towards the pincer room and was worried about taking on the large groups that were just ahead and down the ramp. I took it cautious and faced only 3 at a time since they blocked their fellows behind them. Still, no difference in damage taken .. just the normal bink bink bink of them hitting armor, but at a slightly increased rate with 3 of them. After I killed those I decided to really give it the full test. I ran full out down the hall and around the corner and halfway to the ramp. At this point I was totally surrounded on all sides with no maneuver room. Well of course my health was going down much quicker with 7 of them playing the part of a mad cuisinart. But it was nowhere near the panic stage. At no time did I face death if I failed a drain7, nor did I have to fall back on drain 1's, healing, or healing spells. It really was the same old ho-hum drain7, drain1, lifebolt7, death sequence I've always used for evis. Now obviously you had greater responsibility and thus greater danger since you were sheparding a lvl 50 to his/her pincer and had to keep them alive as well. It is very much a challenge to keep an archer type alive and well on that type of journey, I offer a few of my hints that I use since I help on that quest quite a bit. First, make sure they stay behind you, less chance of them getting hit multiple times or surrounded. If you can't keep the olthoi from going past you, have the archer quit attacking altogether. It takes no time at all for a mage to basically spell-strike their way through any number of evis. Also, if the archer is amenable to it .. have them equip a shield and a dirk or any weapon. With a baned shield you take very, very little damage from ANY olthoi (including mutilators). Have them post just ahead of you or to one side as a meat shield, decoy. You'll increase their effective armor, decrease the attacks on you, and be able to essentially "shield" block the corridor preventing any rear attacks. Obviously be sure to check on their health occasionally to heal if needed, though in general, it's not with this technique. I really do not know why you are taking such damage in EVL. I can honestly say with confidence that I could bane my canny robe right now and walk my way to a pincer. It requires a bit of technique and know-how in the fighting to prevent a swarming but it is not like the place is devoid of nooks and crannies to utilize in order to reduce olthoi effectiveness and disrupt their movements. In a canny robe I can take 3 at a time .. 4 is touch and go. In my full fighting gear evis will not kill me unless I get a nasty lag attack and can't do anything for 20 seconds. I've done much exploring these last couple days including a trip to the olthoi tunnels. It was quite fun in there. It has been updated as well with another add-on dungeon and has scads of swarm evis and the lvl 79 soldiers. I had to use my FS and then was still resisted 25% of the time when I was imping for my 2 dagger buds (lvl's 52 and 96). I was very nearly ripped to pieces there on the spot when I was surrounded by swarm evis. I was in panic stage at that point and had to chain heal and chain drain to stay alive when I was surrounded. Thank god Joki and Fizzelot poked their way to my rescue! Looking back over the text log I saw I was taking bludgeon damage! Geez, I didn't know that swarm evis did that and had not baned for bludg or cast blessing of mace turner. After the banes were applied, they were once again rendered back to the near-tame category ;) Warriors are a bit different story, more than 7 or 8 becomes very dicey, but 6 or less and they are xp-kabobs spitted and waiting to be devoured. Mutilators are just plain downright deadly to mages. 3 will kill me if I don't land the yields on the first try. 2 is painful but doable, one is not worth comment .. they don't hurt THAT much by themselves. All my hundreds of hours fighting olthoi are screaming to me that they are not any stronger than before. The new types (mutilators, guardians) are certainly stronger than evis, but I see absolutely no increase in damage taken, nor is there an increase in attack skills of olthoi than before. I use topheron's doom to find those numbers and can confirm that part at least. Have you switched armor? Perception error? Low res to acid? Its their main attack in a 4:2:1 ratio acid:pierce:slash I have approx 27,000 evis damage data points as to location and damage types from monster monitor. Did you forget banes on one piece of armor? Also, this last piece of advice. If you choose a shirt to wear for just it's added protection value from imp'ing it, then choose one that protects the lower arms and not your abs, unless you have really bad ab armor. From the data I have evis hit lower arms twice as often as the abs. (Editor: Standard for me. Always cover lower arms.) Sorry this got so long, just my observations and some misc data I had sitting around I thought I would share. Lemme know if you want any of the damage type/location data I have for monsters. Some are more complete than others depending on my leveling history and usage of the plugin. Thx for the awesome articles -Myphri of Solclaim EVL Returned As stated in the opening section, I had no life protections. No armor, Acid, Slashing or Piercing protection will quickly get you in deadly trouble. It is a credit to my armor that I was able to fight at there at all. The true test for me came this week. It was Pincer time for Fist and Mage. This time with my life protects in place Mage had little trouble. I think it is time to delete my NBII setups and redo them anyway. Most were created for several different situations and no longer fit my players. Meanwhile I can hunt EVL without danger again.