This and that.
I knew I was in trouble on Wednesday.
I was hoping that a bit of scheduling luck would help me out but it was going to be painful no matter what. I have a problem with sinus infections. When I got them I'm in for a painful week. The only way to cure it is to take a lot of drugs and wait a week.
The scheduling luck came in because I had a doctor appointment set for the next morning for something else. It generally takes a week to get an appointment so I was getting the drugs a lot faster than normal.
The trouble came in because I had my sleep study set for Thursday night.
The sleep study takes months to schedule so I really wanted to keep it. At the same time clogged sinuses might make the study invalidity. I decided that taking the drugs just before going to the study would work.
I arrived at the center at 9pm. This time I was more knowledgeable about what I would need. I had my pillows and a thick blanket I got in Korea. The last time I did this study I had problems sleeping with their setup. The pillows are foam whereas I use feather pillows. They had the air turned down very low and only a thin blanket.
My sinuses were clear when I got there as I had just taken the drugs. The tech hooked me up to the wires again. This time I counted them. There were 17 wires attached to me.
The difference between this study and the last was I would be using a mask that blows air. That positive air pressure keeps the throat open so you don't stop breathing. There were several masks to choose from. I had read about the Breeze system and wanted to try that first.
The Breeze system has two nose plugs instead of a nose cover. It was highly recommended by people on the boards. After a half an hour of it I had the tech pick another system. It was putting pressure on my upper lip that hurt like hell after a short time. I have a feeling it was a size/fitting problem but I'll likely not try the Breese system again.
The next one worked well. It did not hurt and kept sealed ok. I would have to manually adjust it a few times during the night. Given that it was not adjusted over time it worked very well. It made me look like someone on their death bed but I could care less at that point.
It did not take long for the aspirin and other drugs to ware off. My sinuses started to clog badly. At this point I was allowed to turn on my side and sleep normally.
The tech wanted me to sleep on my back for at least two hours. I sleep on my side so this was not fun. My back and knees hurt. That along with everything else made for a miserable two hours.
Turning on my side let me sleep but now I had another problem. I would turn on my left side and everything would drain down. One sinus would clog while other got dry. The dry side would start to sting and then burn. At that point I would turn to the other side and repeat the process.
Turing involved getting around all the wires. The one that bothered me the most was attached to my index finger. The hose was a little of a problem but not as much as I was afraid it would be.
At around 3am the tech came in and adjusted the mask. She then asked me to sleep on my back again. What that did was clog both sinuses.
The pressure from the mask kept me breathing but it was not fun. I really felt like I got little or no sleep the entire night.
Like many things in this world perception is not always the truth. The tech said I had sleep well and deeply. That was a far cry from my first trip.
That night I was able to read about the first test I took. There are a lot of numbers and stuff about oxygen levels but the summary was easy to understand. I would stop breathing 20 times an hour. The longest I would stop was 49 seconds. My oxygen level would drop well below normal.
Even though I felt miserable and such the study was a success. The mask will fix the problem. It even will help me breath when my sinus are badly clogged. Now I have to pick a system and work out getting it with my insurance. I know I will have to spend a minimum of 20% of the cost. That will stretch the budget a bit but it is important.
While I'm not looking forward to using this stuff I am looking forward to a good nights sleep.
It is likely you'll be seeing me playing a lot more after I'm set up with everything. It is hard to get motivated to play when you are dead tired.
Sick as a dog
I'm not sure if it what happened. I'm guessing the trauma of the sleep study combined with my sinus infection made me even sicker. I started coughing the morning after the study and it got worse and worse.
I spent most of the weekend in bed. Not that I slept much as I would go into coughing fits every few minutes. My voice got rougher and deeper to the point no one could recognized me on the phone. I had to convince Jeff it was me.
It is Monday and I had another appointment with my doctor. It seems I have bronchitis. I got a bunch more drugs to take. I'm still feeling bad.
In any case there will be little adventure or even much writing in this weeks column. Sorry but being sick sucks.
Scroll of Dark Rain
As you know I have been in search of a scroll of Dark Rain for some time now. Fist is three points short of maxing magic defense so the scroll is worth about a billion points to him.
I got information last week that they could be found along the Plains River. This is the river that flows around the Obsidian Plains. It is a rather strange river in that is flows in a circle but a land with magic will have some strange things.
To test this out I buffed up Fist Sunday morning and ran there. The first thing I saw there was a Dark Myrmidom. While close it is a Dark Inferno that I need. I ran around the total river picking a few fights but mostly running. I found two more groups of Dark Myrmindom's so whoever advised me about getting the scroll there might have mistaken it for a Dark Inferno. I hope they are wrong as Fist is not made for OP.
It is hard to tell because the current line on a Dark Inferno is they are all over the dires. Personal experience tells me they are only on the Plains.
Sea stories.
Rosa said I should start writing the stories I tell people. I have a lot of funny stores I tell to Marines and those interested in war stories. The Marine term for this is Sea Stories. I'm guessing because people would make up stories during dead times when at sea. Whereas most Sea Stories are made up or loosely based on facts my stories are totally true. Real life can be much more than made up.
The people on my e-mail list will get these stories as they are written. If you are interested send me an e-mail and I'll send you one or two of them. If my being sick prevents me from having an adventure to write about I'll put one here. I want to avoid that as this is an AC column for the most part.
Damage types
Last week I reported that I was doing twice or more damage to Falatacots with an Acid rend wand than a Fire Rend wand. While I have doubts that melee and magic rend would be different someone did get different results than I did. Here is their e-mail.
I'm sure it's much harder to quantify for mages, but your article made me buff up my acid sword and compare damages.
Both swords buffed to -67 damage...it's easy to tell the damage modifier by looking at the crit.
Fire Render, Crit was 187 at full power.
Acid Render, Crit was 179 at full power.
And for those of us trying to figure out what the SOLH does, 156 at full power.
Armor Rending fire was significantly worse then fire rending.
Please report so people wont go all ga ga over the ubah damage:) Fire IS the best way to go for melee. And as always, Armor Rending is the better way to go if you are working with a mage who will Vuln.
==Aelryinth
I was doing around 130 damage with my Fire Rend Wand and from 250 to 450 damage with my Acid Rend. I'll leave it for others to do more intensive testing.
State of PK on DT by Shizzuh
Hi everyone. I'd like to share some thoughts about the current state of the Darktide server since not many of the inhabitants spends time voicing our opinion in a manner you guys can relate to.
FYI. I am currently playing on the Darktide server, and I've done so for around 3 years. All this time, I've played my mage, and my 2 melee characters (a dagger character who later became an archer, and an axer).
Throughout the post, I'd like you to keep in mind, that when I talk about PvP - I'm talking about PvP on Darktide. Not going red on any other server, and especially not going 'pink'.
For the last couple of patches, there's been added an increased amount of "PvP-related" content. PvP is not the same as it was 6 months ago.
Before this 'new' wave started, tinkered weapons made suddenly made the relatively useless melee characters viable - giving them a real chance to compete with mages. But these new opportunities didn't come free. To compete, you'd have to acquire (and successfully imbue) a weapon - and then you could work on improving it with Granite / Iron / Velvet / Brass. This, as you might know, took a lot of work - but it was well worth it.
Suddenly, we saw a whole new balance between the classes on Darktide. Archers were now shooting through the mages banes. Melees were doing the same to a certain extend. Mages still had the upper hand in the one on one situations - but the archers and melees
played an essential part in any group fight. However, with all this melee/archer-love going on, mages didn't get left out in the cold completely. They got to imbue their casting devices, to increase their damage a tad. A move that seemed only fair, seeing as melees and archers had received a substantial increase in damage output.
But Turbine was definably not done 'fixing' the balance... And as such, they began walking down the path to the state we're currently in.
They implemented the Sanguinary Aegis, giving the melee characters the ability to absorb magical damage. The effect of this was, off course, that mages had a harder time killing the melee characters - in group fights as well as in one on one situations. We also saw more and more melee characters settling for high endurance templates, leaving dodging skills on another planet, since they simply weren't needed if one had the right template. Especially not in group fights. The best part of it all was that the Sanguinary Aegis didn't drop on death. In the true spirit of Darktide, less death items were now needed to cover ones essential PvP-gear.
As more and more players became interested in PvP combat, they also discovered that their opponents had the opportunity to escape using an exploit referred to as the "jump-spin"-exploit - or by simply logging off while in portal space (or quickly logging off under open air). 'Off course', they pleaded Turbine to 'fix' these opportunities. And that's what Turbine did. They made it virtually impossible (compared to before the 'fix', at least) to escape once you were engaged in combat by adding 'pk-logoff'-timers as well as a huge stamina loss for jumping while engaged in combat. Now, the melees didn't only deal large amounts of damage, they also made their opponents stay to receive the damage. This, off course, goes for the archers and mages too - with the only difference, that their attacks where dodgeable.
They gave us an improvement of the Greater Shadow Hunter armor - the wards. Any players that had worked hard to gather a set of minor wards (or even harder to gather a set of major wards) could now put that set aside, as it was obsolete. The Shadow Hunter armor cast the best wards, the major wards, and had an armor level that made almost anything possible. Also, the Shadow Hunter armor did not drop on death. Again, less death items were needed to cover the essential PvP-gear.
Still, Turbine was not satisfied with the state of PvP combat - so they decided to get together to create some genuine, hardcore, PvP love.
The result of that get-together, and the downfall of the wonderfully fitted balance, came in-game; the weeping weapon. Weepings were fitted with the "Human Slayer" property, and as such, they were 'the' item to use for maximum damage output in PvP combat. They still are. To obtain a weeping item, all you had to do was to run a quest. A quest that you could almost run with your eyes closed (on your mule), mind you. No more working for creating the 'perfect' PvP weapon was needed - and no reason to use death items anymore - because the weepings were, off course, made no-drop. Furthermore, the melees' and archers' weeping weapons were made 'shield hollow', making the tactics of good lure-use completely obsolete.
And now the cycle seemed complete. The inhabitants of the Darktide server had gotten total no-drop outfits that worked more than great in PvP combat. Furthermore, the varieties of weapontypes/armortypes used were eliminated since only one type of weapon/armor was needed. And on top of that, the melees' weeping weapons were dishing out damage that made the damage dealt by fully tinkered weapons laughable.
But if we, in the state mentioned, took a jump to any carebear server - we'd learn that they were still stuck dueling each other, as opposed to fighting in groups. And the melees, though they were defiantly powerful, still had 'a hard time' fighting mages in one on one situations - so the carebear melees pleaded for Turbine to tweak their weapons... And Turbine followed orders.
However, if we jump back to Darktide, this didn't have the same 'wonderful' effect as it had on the carebear servers. Why? Because the inhabitants of Darktide, as always, were not fighting exclusively in one on one situations - and with the melees' weeping weapons, the melees didn't only play an essential part in group fights... They absolutely ruled group fights.
And this is where we're at today. A group is not a group without melees. To win a fight, all you need to do is have the mages cast an Imperil and a Vuln - and the melees can mash the Delete button to win the fight with their weeping weapons while the mages heals and dispels them (using the Awakener, for example). There are little to no tactics involved in comparison to 'the old days', because there is only 3 viable elements; Piercing, Slashing and sometimes Bludgeoning. Luring shields, a tactics that a good player would make use of in 'the old days', is obsolete. The archers are in a very boring situation, because either their opponent has Missile Defense (in which case they will be virtually worthless), or they haven't (in which case they will be virtually destroyed, shield or not).
I sincerely feel that adding new items is not the solution to our problem; and yes, it is a problem on Darktide. A huge one, too. To add diversity to the PvP, the ideal solution would be to remove the weeping items altogether. That would promote some very positive things, like:
- Increased usage of tinkered weapons, the best addition to Asheron's Call ever, in my opinion (thank you God?).
- Risk of dropping the essential PvP-gear (ie. tinkered weapon/casting device), adding a serious consequence of death.
- A slight (and I do mean slight, tinkered weapons hits HARD, but not as hard as weeping) decrease of the melee damage over time; promoting long, good, group fights where the smartest team wins rather than the team with the most melees.
- Lures being useable again. I must admit that I think making the weeping bow/melee weapons shield hollow is the worst decision I've seen in a long time. It simply does not make sense. It took lures out of the game, and with that, a more narrow array of tactics as a melee.
Now, I know that melee's will have a hard time killing a mage in a one on one situation if weepings are removed. But I must admit, as a melee, that I seriously don't think that's a problem. A mage should be able to kill a melee in a one on one situation, that is, unless there's a big level difference or the melee is extraordinarily skilled. A melee should be able to kill an archer in a one on one situation, without having to spend 6 credits on Missile Defense. An archer should be able to kill a mage too, unless the mage has good player skills (ie. good at dodging arrows while being aggressive).
With that said about one on one situations, I could most defiantly handle if the one on one situations were like that - because it would mean a world to the group PvP; the essence of Darktide.
Thanks for listening. Constructive input is very much appreciated - flames are ignored.
I would have liked to spend my normal hours of editing on this. Standard for me is to hit the computer at 10 to 11pm and post around 3am. That time is spent re-reading and re-writing while trying to eliminate as many errors as I can. Without that time I'm sure I'll leave a bunch of errors on. The only savior might be that I did not write much to begin with.
In any case bed is calling so I need to post this column and get to where I belong.
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