Fist de Yuma - November 19, 2002

Not your fathers Dearth Of course there is a lot of changes this patch. Combine these changes with a few other changes this year the Mage profession is becoming a touch more dangerous. I read about the hard hitting Tuskers and the 440 magic defense. I figure the new island will be a playground for Jr and Deadeye. There might be a problem with Deadeye, depending on how high a combat skill Turbine gave the Tuskers. If really high the Archers are going to need a meat shield in front of them. At this writing I have not headed over there yet. I tend to let the Dweebs rush in and do their thing or a while. When the rush dies down I'll go there. If the xp load is what they say it is the Dweebs might not leave. That will be ok as well, leave the rest of the land to the players, not the bean counters. The first thing I did, when I had time to go hunt, was head to north ML. I heard the only change there was some new pigs. It was said that they had the same or better loot but more xp. I encountered one of the new pigs right off. Vuln, blast, blast. Normal pig is one blast so it will be a touch harder but not much. Only 18k xp but that is a lot better than the 5k the other ones give. I moved off to feed on my normal diet of Vapors and Virindi. This is where things got touchy. Of course I'll have to do this a lot more to be sure but the spawn rate seemed far faster with more danger than before. I could barely loot before new spawns of nasty stuff would be jumping my back. I had one spawn that hit me with two Observers and an Exec. It was close after the last battle so I ended up being out of mana with a hand full of hit points. I was running fast and weaving back and forth. My luck was bad and I weaved into a Virindi's blast and died. After that I was a lot more cautious but fast re-spawns had me doing a light tap dance for the rest of the trip. I was looking for the new pigs as I'm hoping the loot on them will be better than the lower ones. As the lower ones have loot far in excess of what their level should provide I was hoping the new ones would drop some major items. I found one with about two minutes left on my buff but unfortunately it was right next to a pack of four more. I had taken on ten plus of the lower ones so I did not think anything about taking on five of these. After a lot of healing and getting one of the five I ended up doing a fast recall to stay alive. Likely the problem was a lot of de-buffs. Next trip I'll make sure I dispel before facing more than three of them. If that was not the problem I'll be playing hit and run on packs of these. Bad day in EVL Aaa, the boring pincer day. It is good exp for Deadeye and Jr so I'm still doing it. I fellow Deadeye with Fist and Mage so he ends up with seven million points. It is a good way to level him but boring for the most part. It is a good thing I get it over fast. I started with Jr. He has little trouble there but still needs a lot more Melee defense when trying to imperil. Pulling that wand gets him hit hard. I have to imp and bane all my armor to be able to imperil at all. In time Jr will have better UA skills than Fist but for now it takes him a lot longer to bring an EV down when he cannot use imperil. Any battle with more than two EV's means he cannot safely pull his wand out. I headed down and got to the first turn. There was a mage battling a few so I moved past. Several more were charging down the hall so I attacked one. The mage switched targets to the one I was fighting and hit it just enough to get the kill. He then proceeded to hit the rest in the same way so he could have all the loot. I thought this was rather lame. He clamed he was lagging and that made him switch. I guess he had no idea I played a mage and knew that did not wash. It was another unknown newby 126 leveling cheat. About the only satisfaction I got was when I saw his body in the room before the pincers. My mage had been taking on hordes of EV's for a long time now. Someone getting to 126 without knowing how to fight them shows the real weakness of the leveling cheats. The next Dweeb I ran into was right after a fight with six EV's. I was careful to move back a step between each kill so I could loot them after the battle. As the last one fell a 105lv player runs up and starts looting my kills. When I asked him to stop stealing from me he said I should have looted then within the five minutes I had. I said the bodies opened up in 30 seconds, not five minutes. He said I should read the notes as they stay locked for five minutes now. I suggested he read the notes again and sound the words out this time. It is getting so you can not go any where without stumbling over ignorant players with levels that are twice their IQ. Of course there are a lot more good people there than bad. Most are respectful and helpful. Strangely most of them are far lower level than the problem people. It used to be a high level player had experience and could be counted on. Today a high level is likely a leveling cheat and not to be trusted. The good players are mostly in the middle levels. We Mage sells back a skill. I decided to head over to the skill sell back place with my We BM. It had been a few weeks since I had a chance to play him. He is 33lv and starting to do a lot better. Still has problem with stam to mana/revit but that will get there. I can do V spells, which is not bad for a mage with no Creature buffs. It was sort of tempting to unspec Life or War so I can get Creature faster. With selling back Personal Assessment I only need seven easy levels to get Creature. Getting there was a short but dangerous run for a 33lv. My house on MT is very close to the skill sell back dungeon so I know the fast portal route. The only real danger is the 10-click run from the housing complex to the skill sell back spot. I decided to keep killing as I want to gain a few points. My run was very low and without Creature I was crawling. As I killed I added points to my run and quick. I got it to 120 by the time I was done. Not fast but a lot better than it was. I got to a spot and Sixth Sense hit on a Horary Mattekar. There was a chance I could get a robe out of this trip. I carefully killed the spawns around it and got close enough to start my attack. I made sure I had a full bar of mana, such as it is. Fire Vuln, resist. Fire Vuln. Blast, resist. Blast for 90 points of damage. Spawn sound. Surrounded by frost Elementals. Bad damage from spells and the Horary. Run, Run, die. Well that sucked. Taking on the Horary was not going to be easy. Adding a handful of Elementals into the mix and I did not have a chance. I buffed with a few lower life spells and headed on back. Luckily the Elementals were gone. Unfortunately so was the Horary. I had run far enough to be out of the spawns so recovery was not bad. Getting to the sell back place was not hard but staying there was. People kept dragging everything there as they moved in. I am careful not to drag stuff when I run. I will run away from the group or stop and kill before moving into the group. I guess others could care less about dragging stuff. I rebuffed with V's and had to keep a close watch on what was attacking the group. I had picked up one comp before I left. That comps name at the sell back question begins with a "P". I kept clicking on the statue until I got the right question and then gave the comp to get in. I carefully took care of the Golems before jumping down in all but the last one. I was not sure if I could attack Obsidians Golems and not be resisted. I jumped down and hit the portal before they could stand up. I have six skill points now and get one at 35 and 40. Having a fully done BM at 40 will rock. It will take me a while after that to get the skills up there but after Creature it is downhill all the way. Off to the island to the island we go I was going to do a little hunt in "The Slot". It sure is nasty out there. Some spots have a re-spawn rate so fast that looting is a big problem. With the changes in loot drop it is made worse. You cannot wait for the bodies to rot and have Sixth Sense sort out the loot for you. There have been times when I ran in and grabbed choice bits of loot while getting pounded on and then ran out. That option no longer exists. I did find a few spots where the re-spawn rate was not as fast as others. I'm not sure if this is a bug or deliberate. I guess time will tell. In the second spawn point a Tusker Shrine dropped down as I was looting. I thought, "What the hell" and ported off to the new islands. I found myself in a little garden. There was a portal at the end. That led to a little town. I did not explore the town much. I might check it out a bit later. I decided to head towards the sea and see what was there. The first things I ran into were new. They were somewhat like the island armadillos with a range weapon. They were not worth killing so I moved on. The next thing I saw was a pack of Reedsharks. Not a small pack either. There must have been 15 to 20 of them. I killed a few of them but the loot/xp was not worth the effort. I could only kill one or two per pass and a pass involved a lot of running on my part. They did not hit me hard but they hit fast. Add 5 or 6 of them and the damage adds up fast. I knocked off a few Armored Tuskers, great xp but nothing worth looting. Buffs were dropping so I moved back to the town and logged for a bit. When I got back I got a tell from Bleu Sky. Murron's son had a body deep into the island and needed help. There was a gang forming to help recover. Sky got me the coodi and I started off. Running straight northwest I ran into huge packs of Tuskers. Sixth Sense was ringing like a fire alarm with Armor and Plated Tusker reports. The lag was super bad. I was worried that I would be crushed before I hit a safe spot. The lag was as bad for the monsters as me so there was not a lot of danger. As long as I kept running I was ok. It was a bit strange, slowly lopping between three mass's of yellow dots was laughable but not fun. I finally hit the sea and the lag let up a touch. I got to the coodi and could not find a body using the "[" key. There was a mass of players a little later so the body might have been a little outside from my detection range. I found I really needed to watch the Tusker Worshipers. They did not seem like much until one tossed a level VII imperil on me. I dispelled it but getting that spell in the middle of a battle with an Assailer would be pure death. I started killing Assailer's. They were not easy and the packs of other Tuskers with them did not make it any easer. To land my 392 War I had to toss a Yield. I'll be happy when and if I change my spec Creature to War. They hit hard, I mean really hard. Any error on my part or a touch of bad luck put me in trouble. Finally my luck ran out. I found that unlike the Armor Tuskers I could drain an Assailer. This changed my tactics a bit. The first few I fought I healed well before any danger. This meant that the battles were longer than I wanted as I would have to heal between blasts. With drain I could do the Yield and Fire Vuln, then drain before blasting. I hit one with Yield and three Assailers and a bunch of other Tuskers charged. I got the Fire Vuln on and hit drain. The Assailer I had targeted ran away so my drain failed. I quickly switched to the next Assailer and hit drain. It too ran away and I was dead before I could hit heal. Now I had a problem. I had no idea how to get back to the Island. I re-buffed and hit The Slot in hopes of finding another Tusker Shine. That was no go. Sky said there was one near the Skill sell back spot. I ran there but no Shine or Tuskers. In between this I had to get Dinner out of the oven and spend time with the family. I headed back to The Slot and cleared where I found the Shine before. Nothing spawned so I moved to the next spot and cleared that. I cleared a few spawns in side passages but still no Shine. It was getting frustrating. Finally I moved up to the plains and started running around trying to luck into a Shine. Nothing there. With the increased spawns things got very busy. Even when I could clear a spot stuff would re-spawn before I could move to take on the next in line. I saw a guy running around so I said "Hi". I always try to greet other players when I see them. It does not take much effort and makes for a friendly relationship. After talking to him a bit I asked of he has seen a Shine around. He said no but he had a tie he could summon. I was a touch surprised as I heard there were no ties to be had there. He made a portal and I lost my subway tie to get it. I found myself in a dungeon. I asked where the portal was and one person said there was none there. That did not seem right so I started to explore. Going straight I ended up at a dead end. I backtracked but did not see any portals. Finally an Elder told me he knew the way. There was a side passage I had missed. There are a few twists and turns but I have a good memory for routes. I was sure I could do it again if need be. That got me back to the garden and from there Tusker Island. I re-buffed as lagging and dropping buffs on a run was not an option. This time I moved to the sea and traveled the beach. The lag was bad but nowhere near as bad as before. My body was easy to recover. From there I decided to take a few more Assailers. This time I decided to move away from the spawn after the Yield. The idea was to kill the Assailer and heal. The rest should return to there spawn after a few token hits. This would have worked except for the extend range of some of the monsters. As I moved away from the one spawn I got into range of two more. Before I knew it I was knee deep in Tuskers, Reedsharks and Tusker Worshipers. There is nothing worse than watching a slow wind up on heal VII as your health drops to zero. Healing is starting to look like a skill I really need. I still had banes so the re-buff was fast. With a tie I did not have to worry about finding a Shine so this death was not as bad as the last one. As I ported into the dungeon I saw I was alone. I'm not afraid of Tuskers Guards but there was a whole lot of them. The Tusker Worshipers made it even worse. I finally had to switch and kill off the Worshipers before killing the Tuskers. From there I just ran through. I was lucky and did not make any wrong turns or get trapped. If trapped you are in for a long battle before you can fight free. I did the beach run again and got back to the body. My intent was to keep at it and see if I could come up with a safer way to take on these walking xp machines. I decided to take on some along the beach with clear spots I could run to if need be. That worked. I was a touch lucky here. I tried to Vuln and Assailer and got a missing comp error. Somehow I had run through 1200 tapers while hunting. I was lucky in that I could easily have ran myself to zero rather than three. It would not have been nice to be in the middle of battle and run out of tapers. With no tapers I would not have been able to port out and /house recall was not something I would survive trying to do. Overall I don't think Tusker Island is for Mage, at least solo. I can kill fast but I take too much damage. Also Mage is my cash/Item player. I depend on his loot to keep my other players supplied. While xp is nice on Tusker Islands the loot is nonexistent. Fist will not go there much. At 126 he is not seeking xp. He goes with people on quests and has fun. I'm not sure if Deadeye's melee defense is up to going there. If it is I expect to do a lot of hunting with him. The one I think will be there a lot is Jr. He is still pushing the xp. He has the melee defense to take on the big ones. I have a feeling that his Life skills will not be up to tossing Imperil above Armored Tuskers but I'll be willing to try. His Life is at a buffed 345 right now but I was having trouble getting 410 to land. That was strange I had a few sings so I decided to go cash them in. Normally I go north along the beach from AB and find a trove in a few minutes. At one point my way was blocked by a Master Virindi. They die fast and I normally don't even look at the loot. For some reason I did check this body. There to my surprise was a Sing key! I'm guessing this is a very rare event. I never found a trove. You can bet I check all the Masters I kill now. Even more Template thoughts My intent with Mage at this point is to make him into a BM. This will lose some of his ability to de-buff but gains in pure power. With a little work I could have 440 in Life and War. If anything can resist that they are not worth fighting. There is as a side thought that came to mind. With Life costing 20 (12/8) and Creature 16 (8/8) that leaves me with 14 points of speculation free. (50 point limit.) This means I could spec magic defense! Of course the biggest problem would be getting the 12 points. I will have 4 when I reach 125. I can get 4 more when I dump leadership. Dumping Armor tinkering gets me there and I get to keep Lockpick. The only problem with this idea is losing Armor Tinkering. I don't have a mule with the capability of doing that and don't expect to have one any time soon. I'm the alliance's main Armor Tinker right now and rather not lose that. Well one of the nice things about skill sellback/spec is nothing is set in stone. I can always change things when I get a mule up there. The second though is with Fist. I'm really tied of hitting stuff for under 10 damage. Selling back UA would give me six points and Sword would cost me 16. I need to take a look at his skills but I think with losing Missile defense I can take sword and still train Life. Again it is only a thought at this point. One man's trash. There is an old saying that one man's trash is another man's treasure. This was brought to mind when I saw a list of UA weapons a guy was selling on the VN board. Every one of the weapons I would and have sold to the vender. For me at least a weapon I would save has to be worth infusing. This means worst would be 3 points below the max damage. In this case anything below 13 damage is not worth saving. Some of the weapons were as low as 11. That opened my eyes a bit. I really wish I had room to save stuff I get so I can give them to others. If people are willing to pay for weapons I send to the vender or not even pick up, I might be better off dropping them in front of the mansion.