Fist de Yuma - September 14, 2004

Lacking information Many of us like to crunch numbers. We like to fiddle with things we can fiddle with. We like to understand the inner workings of things. To do this, we need all the information. For some reason, Turbine has left out our ability to gather certain critical information on vassal/patron experience pass-up. This could be deliberate, but it is short sighted if it is. There is no way for someone to find out how much time a vassal has been sworn. This includes both real time and game time. I agree that it was the chains working such numbers into a system that almost destroyed AC. Given that the new system seems to have stopped most of the abuse, and what abuse there is, is mostly done by macros, I see little reason to keep the information hidden any longer. Those that want to maximize xp passup, will have their vassals players use legal macros. The macro does not need to do anything, just keep them online. After a month or so, they can feel confident of getting great passup. Normal players will not do this. So the exploiters don't need the information and this change will have little effect on them. Having this information will not effect the manipulation, but will help the normal players. Those of us with long time vassals, vassals who never log, will not be dropping them just because of this. Patrons that would, have already done so. I call on Turbine to add this information somewhere on the screen. It will not change anything, but will make information hungry players happy. As both these timers are important to us, there should be no reason to exclude them. Cliff Bowman I was hunting the Matron with Cliff Bowman. His ability to hunt in the matron was created by two things. One, I added some to my melee defense. I think I was at a buffed 435 before, and I moved it to a buffed 440. The second thing was a new bow I created. I collected a bunch of +12% bows, and set them up for Rend. Of course, it was the worst of them that finally hit, but it was still a fair bow. My intent was to add some tinks to the melee defense bonus if +12% was not enough. Instead I'll be adding more Mahogany, as the +12% seems to be working ok. I'm still getting hit, but now it is only by Muts. I will also evade the Muts a bit, which cuts down on the damage considerably. Before this change, I was using up a healing kit an hour, and not enjoying myself much. The bow does not have the greatest mod, only 145. I still have a few tinks, so that will go up. I'll also be adding to Melee Defense, so I can use the higher mod bow I have. Whereas I'm still not into mage territory, as far as magic is considered, I have enough to buff with only a few handfuls of fizzles. More important, I can use my better buffing program. Before, it would default to using level VI spells. For those looking to be self-buffing, look for around 250 base skills. Yes, it is possible to buff with far less, but I would not recommend it. Those that brag of buffing with VII's using buffed 280 skills, don't have much understanding of the game. My only real problem is what an archer always has to worry about. That is Burden. I started with 100 Strength, and have dropped that to 90 so I can add to Focus. I'll be putting a few hundred million into strength over time, but it pains me to have to waste points on a non-combat skill. Blackmire Four While hunting in the Matron with Cliff Bowman, an old friend was talking about how he ran Blackmire Four a bit before. He started talking about going again, and welcoming us to go with him. At first I was reluctant, as I have leveling goals to finish with my players. I figured I might not have a chance to go on this quest soon, and I would need to learn it for our allegiance runs. I logged off Cliff Bowman and swapped accounts to Fist de Yuma. After quickly unloading some loot, and making sure I was stocked with comps, I hit the Temple portal attached to the mansion. I was at the meeting spot, but there was no one there. I was wondering of I was late or early. I waited a short time, and another person showed up. He was going too, but was not sure if he was early or late. Finally a big group ported in, and the quest was on. There was a small problem. The first group has so many people that there was no room in the fellow. I started a second fellow, but was not so sure if that would work. This is a fellow quest, and a second fellow might not get anything. Still, I was mainly there to learn the quest. I had three people in my fellow. There was also an allegiance member trying to catch up. The main fellow was starting to run off, so I had no option but to follow. The group was running across the Dires, but I had no idea where they were going. I just kept then in sight. I was amazed to see a new monster. Big and ugly they are. I saw what looked like a temple, but the group ran past it. A short time later, they reversed their direction and ran back. One of my fellow members was having trouble finding the temple. I give him the location, but it did not seem to help him. It turned out that he had a land block problem, and really could not see the temple, even when it was right in front of him. I ran up a ramp to a big pit. I jumped in and started using the ] key to find whatever ported us in. I found a vine and used the R key to activate it. Inside they said to run left. I followed them through a passageway. There was a bit of fighting, but I was never threatened. I was a bit shocked to go, miss, miss, miss, on one of the big ugly things. With a base 513 UA, and a +29% bonus, I don't expect to miss, let alone three times in a row. We all were waiting for an item to spawn. My fellow member said he was in a temple, so I ran back to help him get forward. Halfway back, he found he was on the wrong temple. At that point he logged, and my fellow was down to only two of us. After we all got the item, we headed back, and this time took the right passage. That got us another item, which combined with the first. At this point, the fellow leader counted heads. At first we split the fellows into two teams of five. After we lost one more person, we made one fellow. That was a relief, as I was sure we could not do the quest with two fellows. We turned in the created item to the statue back at the start, and were ported to the next part. The fellow members were; Reya (122), Ashtar (126), Fist de Yuma (126), Dendarii (105), Rage Kage (126), Slipknot the killer (126), Backup (126), Shaggy Led-Li (126) and our fearless leader - Nickolas Wolfwood. As we ported in, I noted a few white dots off to the side of the screen. One of them asked of we knew the route through a maze, as they had been stuck for an hour. I'm not sure of they were able to make it out, as I was following our leader, and not able to help them. We ended up in a big room. There were exits, but one was blocked by some pillars. Some players were lined up in front of the pillars, so I joined them. I learn out later that there is a route using your jumping skills from that side. The leader directed us to the opposite side of the room. We entered a maze filled with lots of nastiness. With our power, we cleared it all out, but had problems with people lagging out. We found a ramp and followed that until we found a few switches. That got us behind a door, where it was safe to re-buff. I still had 21 minutes left on buffs, but I always try to keep in cycle with a fellow I'm a member of. Nothing is worst than having to stop every 10 minutes because someone needs to buff. I saw that we were about to enter a hall with the slow moving daggers. I pointed out that I sort of hate those. They said there was only one hall of them, and we would be quickly past. We got into a room with a portal and several statues over narrow walkways. I noted that there seem to be a piece missing to the walkway, but people were having no trouble walking over the holes. The leader told us to hit the eyes, and to not dispel the de-buffs until after entering the portal. I quickly did as instructed, and was into the Trials part. Of course, we had some who were having trouble with that part. I don't know what their problem was, but it took several minutes to get them to us. The leader asked me and one other to follow him to a statue. That ported us to a passageway that opened to a room on either end, and a statue back in the middle. He said we needed to draw a few monsters out, and search the bodies for an item. He was getting that item, so I was just there to kill. I was finding my Magic Defense to be effective. After my debacle with the humans in the SIK dungeon, I was not taking that for granted any more. I had no trouble killing them with my Fire Rend and did not take any damage that I noted back. After collecting what we needed, we headed back to the statue. That returned us to the main group. Now the leader and I took the opposite passage, and then left after a T passage end. I clicked on a statue and got a bag, and a message. We went back to the T and took the right turn this time. That got us to a bunch of Urns. I got an item out of an Urn and added it to the bag. From there I was asked to wait at the statue that gave me the bag. I was to give the statue the bag when they give me the ok. There is a 15-minute timer from completion of a trial, so we wanted to have them all ready to go, before doing any. I waited while others tried to figure out the jumps in the final Trial. Being a team player, I tried to remember some college cheers. I'm not totally sure, but think I said, Go Go Go, make that jump make that jump, Go Go Go, make that jump make that jump. (g) See, you can have fun, even when just waiting around. While I was waiting, a guy came by and clicked the statue, disappearing. I sort of scratched my head over that. Then he came again, and again. I'm not sure what he was doing, as I never saw him after that. After turning in the bag, I ported to the rest of the group. We did another buff, while the leader explained what we needed to do. I have seen other write-ups on this quest that does it different, but this way worked out very well. He told us to target the door. After the door comes down, all monsters but the main boss will die, and we can get the reward after killing him. The leader did something, which ported the group in. It was a mess of monsters and players. I ran to the door and started swinging. It did not take us long to get the door down. All the monsters died and the passage was clear. In the excitement, many of us ran to the end, totally forgetting that there was still a boss monster to fight. I realized my error and headed back. I know we were going to use slashing on him, so I had my CB Katar out. The first few swings were with the wrong element. I forget that was on fast speed, so I was hitting with piercing. I hit the speed bar so I would use slashing, and my damage picked up. The boss monster died fast. Just out of curiosity, I checked to see who got the kill. Humm, for some reason I did, to my great surprise. As I joined late, and used the wrong element for several attacks, I did not expect to get the kill. I'm guessing that the melee defense on this is really high, and others were missing. We ran to the end of the hall, and were ported into the reward room. I think I have the BP for this armor from another adventure. I know I have the bracers. I'll have to do one more of these quests to have what is missing. I liked this quest a lot more than the others I had been on. That was likely because we had so much power that the monsters never got in they way, and we could just enjoy the adventure. I'm not sure if I'll use this armor, but it is really not bad stuff. You know from last week what I think of the spells, so I will not go into that. Get this column sent directly to you each week and give me beer money. (Ok I lied; I'm saving for a Kayak.) Any donation will do. https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=csd2@adelphia.net - Fist de Yuma