Fist de Yuma - September 9, 2003

This and That This will very likely be one of my shortest columns on record. It will also likely to have a number of mistakes, errors and blunders. I have a good reason and that reason is Star Wars Knights of the Republic. Between server crashes and SWKoR I find myself sitting at the computer only a half an hour before midnight. As I prefer to have the column out by 1am I don't have much time for editing or even writing. If I was smart I would delay the column until tomorrow afternoon but I need to take my spaceship to another planet and find the next map. So let's get started and see how I do. Most Amazing sight While waiting for the Bobo quest to start a bunch of us were at the island drop. There were seven or eight people besides me. Without warning they all logged at the same time. I also got a message that the fellow leader had logged off a few seconds later. We figured that half the server was booted. Very strange. Of course that was the second time this week that the server had crashed. Both times I had an amazing amount of luck. The first happened just after I had hunted for over three hours with Deadeye at the Matron. The second was just before we were to start our run for Bobo. A little early on the one or a little later on the other would have resulted in a lost body for sure. Deadeye Fist (As you read the below keep in mind that I prefer versatile players. Focused players made to hunt Olthoi or to take on one-on-one stuff in VoD are not my style. They have their use and can be fun to play but they're not for me.) It is not often that I take out Deadeye Fist for a hunt. The main reason is he is not self-buffing and needs to team to be effective. I know some will raise an eyebrow over this but I think an Archer is best when teaming with others. My reasoning is simple. With no shield an archer is far better off with melees in front of them. With the slow exchange of wands and bows it is far better to have a mage do the de-buffing. A properly de-buffed monster dies so fast to an Archer it is not funny. I find that Sword melees have caught up with Archers damage wise but they still have to get close to hit. With hitting power and range Archers are unparallel in inflicting damage. That is good because they are not so great at absorbing damage. With changes in the melee system I find monsters that could not touch me before are having little difficult today. "M" are eating me up and I only suffered an occasional hit from them before. With Fist's close to 500 melee still getting hit Deadeye will never be free of this problem. So melee defense will not be the savor in close combat it was. On the other side are magic attacks. A tank archer has a hard time getting enough points for all their skills. With spec'd Melee Defense and Bow it will still take until 105 to complete a tank bow's skills. Some have overcome that with training melee defense but this creates far too many problems for me, especially today. With all that there is no way they can spec magic defense. A mage and melee both have the points to spec magic defense. Admittedly it limits secondary skills but it is possible. Fist de Yuma has spec'd magic defense and most Wars are resisted. Turbine needs to fix Creature and Life because it is almost impossible to resist monsters with those skills. A pure melee can absorb more melee damage because of the shield. Healing kit and elixir use are more effective because the shield limits the damage taken. An Archer is lucky not to have lost as much health as they gain by using a healing kit in really big battles. This problem is such that I think I'll spec healing with him at 125. (Ok years of but I think long term.) A Mage can drain and heal far more effectively than a melee or archer can use a healing kit. That is good because Mages take massive melee damage that will almost never miss. With high natural stats towards magic defense they can avoid some damage the Archer and Melee have to eat. Lastly there is endurance. Standard today, with the notable exception of PK, is to start an Archer with 10 endurance. With a lot of points needed into quick and strength there is barely enough points to get any focus at all, let alone endurance. Melee share this problem but are less at risk because of the shield. Mage's today would be smart to start with 100 endurance. That was not wise in the past but recommended today. Archers have gotten by in solo by killing faster than anyone else can. They inflict so much damage that many monsters don't even reach them, those that do die fast. With massive hit point, fast and hard-hitting monster old tactics like this need to be reexamined. Nevertheless when an Archer can get a shield wall in front of them and Mages to apply de-buffs all but the hardest monsters will melt away with little risk to the Archer. So getting back to Deadeye Fist. My intent was to take him to the Matron, get a Carp and leave. When I arrived in the Matron room it had around 5,000 people standing around in it. Ok, I'm exaggerating but it was nine or ten. In any case getting a Carp was not an option. I decided to go hunt. I was hunting the right side. I would use the corners to limit the numbers and tried to always have an escape route planned. If the M's started to stack up on front of me I would have to run fast. For this reason I would target Ms, even if they could not get to me at that moment. I was surprised to be having trouble hitting Ms and Warriors. I had 405 bow skill at the time and was using a full pull. Nevertheless I would still miss more than hit. Five misses in a row were not uncommon. Of course with over 100 thousand in xp and good loot they were well worth fighting. I met two nice guys who's names I did not take down. We fellow'ed up for the next few hours. Like I said, my intent was to only stay for the one buff and get a Carp. With the Matron cave full I had to extend that for at last one more buff. After I get into a fellow I tend to try and stay. Call it a misplaced loyalty or just habit after I get into a hunting fellow I'm generally the last to leave. So I ended up hunting there for three hours. It was good that the fellow broke up at that point because the server crashed shortly after. With the fellow I got to explore a lot of the Matron. I think I have been all over it now. I found several acid pits with Olthoi eggs in them. On the other side there is grubs I did not know about. The only thing I have not done there is use the exit portal below the acid pit. While away from the fellow, working my way back to the start, I ran into a little spawn that kept growing. I was doing ok until three Ms got to me. My health was dropping fast and I was working hard to get it back up. I sucked a lot of elixirs and hit the healing kit but they were knocking my health down faster than I could raise it. With over 100 points left I was not desperate but I guess I should have been. I had found the time to hit one M a few times and it was dead. That was why my health had fallen to that point. Before I could suck another elixir the two remaining Ms chopped me into little bite size pieces. From 100 hit points to death before I could suck one elixir. I told the fellow what happened. I figured I would need help as the body was deep in and I only had a general idea where. They met me at the entrance and we quickly swept our way through the dungeon. We found the body on a ramp, only a short way in. It seems I had almost made it out before getting trapped and killed. Between taking a lot of damage and missing more than hitting I think I'll leave the Matron to Jr for now. I just got my sunstone gants infused with a bow amulet so I can toss my minor boots and gain five points of bow. For the next few levels I'll be adding to bow. When I can hit around 75% of the time I might hunt there a lot. Jr makes the big move After what seemed like forever Jr finally made 125 and switched to sword. Abin did a big hunt in VoD and that, combined with Deadeye Fist's three hours in the Matron, gave Jr a big bunch of xp when he logged in. It pushed him over the top. I dropped lock pick and moved UA to trained. That twelve points combine with the four I had let me spec Sword. I have also been lucky with my weapon mule. I'm the proud owner of a full set of RR swords. Some are great and others are average but none are bad. My first test of my new skill was not a good one. I needed pincers and there is no bludgeoning sword. My piecing RR sword still did as well or better than my old Cestus. I guess over three times the stats will make up for the off damage type. Next up was the Tuskers. This is where I found a sword starts to match up with a bow. I was not keeping track of damage over time but I'm sure that sword and bow are quite close today. There were a few people in the 80+ Tusker but it was still a fair test. I had little trouble getting my tusk out of there. I still had to use a lot of gems but even Fist would have to do that. I'll really get a test when I head out on some of the harder quests. With the ability to imperil and a hard-hitting RR weapon there should be little I cannot wade through. Tusk day for Jeff Jeff sent me an e-mail on Sunday. He had duty all day (and all night) and would be home on Monday. He wanted to get his Tusks. He had finally got Bobo out of the way so he could get to the island with the spell now. We met up around 1pm. I might have gotten on faster it not for SWKoR. Of course I might not have gotten angry at the stupid arcade section and been even later. SWKoR has five fighters jumping you when you fly from planet to planet. I did not know it at the time but it is a random thing. From now on I'll save and just restart if it happens. Getting four of them was not hard but the last one needs pure luck. Half the time it ends up killing the ship and forcing me to go back to my last save anyway. (If anyone has a hint here I'll be glad to listen.) I was surprised to see Jeff on as I felt he would still be asleep. Duty can wear you out. Of course Sunday is a slow day so he might have got some sleep. No posts to check on this base so if nothing happens there is little to do. At least that was how it was 14 years ago when I retired. I met Jeff on Tusker Island and we buffed up. I have a set order for getting tusks. I go Silver, Armored, Plated, Rampager and leave the Assaulter to the end. Other than a little lagging Jeff kept up with me through it. Jeff was disappointed to find he still had 5 days on some tusks. In the end I think he only got the Silver and Assaulter. Still the Assaulter was his main goal. This was his first attempt in the 80+. He had no idea how hard this one is. The big black monkeys hit fast and hard. Being Mages we were not going to be avoiding them. (I was using Fist's Armorer.) I know I had my work cut out when I found he did not have any gems with him. Gems are really needed for a Mage, unless you're a lot better at jumping over the traps than I am. I'm sure there are some who can get through this without needing gems but I will use up a handful with each trip. Fortunately I had a lot of spare gems with me. I gave Jeff six, just in case. The second problem is how I do this dungeon. All the rest I fight my way through. This one I try to run through. That tactic takes a good knowledge of the dungeon layout. My knowledge is hard won and holds me in good stead. When you have someone with you running through will likely not work for two reasons. The first is how hard it is to keep close to someone running through a dungeon. With all the twists and turns it is very easy to lose your partner. The second reason is Tuskers will pile up in back of the running player, blocking the route for the following player. So we had to fight our way though if Jeff was to make it. Jeff was shocked at how hard they hit. LOL wait until he faces Ms. With RR fire wands things were a lot simpler than before. It would generally take three spells to kill one. Given that most of us have higher War skills than Life there are less resists than before. A few times Jeff was trapped and would stand there healing. I picked them off. It was a little funny how they mostly ignored me to pound on him. In little time we got to the end and got our tusks. We fought Tuskers for ten more minutes or so. Jeff leveled to 90 during that time. After Jeff left I rebuffed and headed to off to EVL. I was almost there when I had a DOH moment. My Bludgeoning RR wand was on Mage. Still no biggy as I just did it the old way, vuln and blast. While moving to the Leg I ran into three groups of Broods. None of the 12 dropped anything good but it was a fun fight. Some of the older quest are getting really easy. As the weapons and armor have improved we are hitting harder and absorbing more damage. EVL and others were made well before tinkering. Given that the new Olthoi dungeons have been upgraded to take this into account I expect that EVL and others will seem some upgrade soon. This and that part II Well glory be, It is 1:13 am and I have a 2.9k column done. If I can keep my eyes open for another hour or so I might even remove most of the errors. I'll give it a good shot but if you found more errors than normal I'm sorry, SWKoR and bed are both calling. February 17, 2004 This and That You may note that I usually try to let others take the lead. This is not because I hate leading. In fact, I feel more comfortable when leading. Letting others do things their way is not easy. It would be easier to use my position as monarch or because I'm the highest level to always lead. Nevertheless I constantly try to get others to lead in my stead. There is reason for my madness. If I always lead others will never learn to lead. If others see me sharing leadership roles they might be less inclined to try and dominate when they are in a position of power. Others, as in the case of Nene, might be as good a leader as I am, which lets me play what I do best, support. My point is you should not get the idea that I don't like to lead just because I normally push others into that position. I think that idea was what prevented me from assuming the leadership of Elder when the time came. I also want to get other people in positions of power to share more. Not doing so is a major factor in monarch burnout. If you ever go on a quest with me as the leader you'll find that I have a different style then. Quests are for fun and it is not fun to wait for the unprepared. It is not fun hearing people argue. It is not fun standing around wasting time. If you go to on a quest that I lead you better be on time because we will not wait. You better be stocked with Tapers and Stones because we will not wait for you go buy them. You better have your armor ready to go because we will not wait while you go mule. You better be prepared to listen and do your job because you will not be invited back of you can't. Fingers 1.0 A while back there was a post on the Utilities board about a Decal Replacement called Fingers 1.0. As I was happy with Decal I saw no reason to even look at it. In a Dolt moment I realized it was a joke. Fingers 1.0 is not a program but instructions to use your own fingers to buff with. (grin) So if you seen a reference to Fingers 1.0 you know what they are talking about. Big Thanks to Soul Riper Getting the mules outfitted with Majors is a big priority. I've hit the 40 million a point mark so any Major I can get cuts months off of goals. My current goal is 610 on my Armor and weapon mule. This will allow me to get the 10th tink with wms 4 items. Today Soul Riper got me a Major Focus item! That is the equivalent of over 300 million points of XP towards my goal. I'm sure he could have found a good use for it or made a ton in a trade. Instead he selflessly gave it to me! Thanks again!! Math Errors Last week I pointed out that the calculator program that comes with Windows lacks commas, which contributed to my math error two weeks ago. It is also rather lame in total, which may be why it is free. It prompted me to go find something better. That better is Moffsoft Freecalc. I'm pleased with it so far and it is free. There is also an upgraded version for 20 bucks. You can download it at; http://www.moffsoft.com/freecalc.htm Caul Adventures Caul is quite an adventure these days. With the double spawning in the Bore even getting there can be an exciting activity. Three of us decided to go. It was not the best mix, being all mages. The best groups are combined arms, but you have to go with what you got. It was Fist's Armorer, Nene Romanova and Dirppen. I asked if we were going to rush the Bore or fight our way through. Nene said to rush it. We got a portal from Z. I was first in and rushed through to the Caul portal. I was waiting for them, but they failed to show. Nene said she had ported out and Dirppen said he had to run to the north Dires portal to escape being splattered. Their next try at rushing through the Bore was even worse. Nene again had to port out and Dirppen died! So we had not even started and it was a body recovery. I did a last portal recall and started fighting my way through. We would have to clear it to recover Dirppen's body. I fought my way forward step by step. If you have not fought there, it is more than mess. Shadows, Tuskers and Virindi come at you in waves. You are de-buffed badly, which allow the Tuskers to pound you as flat as a penny on a railroad track. It really requires a combined arms attack to be safe. My poor mage body was being tossed around like a rag doll for much of the fight. Fortunately the Virindi and Shadows are very susceptible to my attacks. After they were eliminated I could start to whittle down the Tuskers. They are so big that only two could attack me at a time. I kept looking for Dirppen's body but was not seeing it. I was joined by Dirppen, Daemon Bane and Nene at the very end of the passage, just before the portal. I was grateful to see them as the back spawn was starting to show up, and things were getting tight. Just before the portal, I saw Dirppen's body. We fought off the Virindi and Shadows while he looted. Dirppen then hit the portal, but he just ran through it. It seems that Dirppen was not flagged. With three mages and an archer, we had a tight group of destruction. We quickly cleared the Tuskers/Drudges/Hollows from the south passage and jumped into the pit. We laid waste to everything that tried to hinder our progress and got Dirppen flagged. From there we recalled back to the start and rushed through. For once we all made the run and were ready to try Caul. Nene led off. We killed off a few mobs and were making good progress. After fighting off some Dark Zefirs I saw a Biaka Margul. I had heard that this was one of the biggies as far as loot was concerned. We ended up killing six of them so we all got to loot two. At this point Dirppen and Daemon Bane had to leave. We picked up Frequency and Anjeon, two 126 players. This meant that poor old Fist's Armorer was the lowest player there by quite a bit, with less than half the xp of the rest. We were on a lava flow that had a lot of different monsters. My main target was the Biaka, but that also brought the Helcans charging out. Both the Biaka and Helcans have a lot of hit points. They both toss level VII wars and de-buffs. The Helcan seemed to be especially nasty with the spells. There were a lot of times when their chain casting had me in trouble. To my surprise, I picked up my first useful major in a long time, a Major Sword coat. The value was a touch high and the requirements were doubly bad. The rank 8 and high Missile requirement would have normally made the coat useless. With a little tinkering by my mule, I was able to remove the Rank and change the Missile to Melee. That left enough tinks to get the armor to 313. That is about 100 below where I would like it but it is nice to have a Major item I can use. I tinked up a set of leggings and dyed them the same color. All I need to do now is finish tinking up the gaunts and shoes and finding some red plants. When done I'll have another set of armor for my players and one less toon to swap items with. A short time after that we started getting deaths. Frequency died multiple times. I was starting to feel a bit full of myself after a while. Here I was the lowest one of the pack and not even coming close to dieing. Of course, that meant they were just setting me up. (grin) I was fighting a Helcan. It hit me hard. Normally I start healing any damage I take as soon as I am hit. It is really easy to take a lot of blasts in a row so healing before you're in trouble is the best policy. As I healed I was blasted again. I healed again and was blasted again. My heals were getting behind the damage. With a heavy de-buff the blasts were doing more damage than my heals were recovering. I think I healed five times in a row, but it did not do any good. I was blasted back to the LS. It is clear to me that a Helcan can kill anyone in any battle. All they have to do is decide to spend the mana. It was late and I was tired. I gave Nene permission to loot my body and got ready to call it a night. Nene showed up at the mansion saying all of them had died. LOL. He gave me what he had left of my DI's, three of them were on his body, and I logged. I got the last three from him a day later. VoD Night We have set Wednesday as our VoD night. We have been starting at 9:10 PST, which is a bit late for out East coast members. Our thoughts are to start earlier and have the 9:10 group join up with them later. Cher'okee was having connection problems and was thinking of taking a pass. We convinced her to give it a try. It was not long before she lagged out. After getting back she was in freeze mode a lot. She said it was just too bad for her and she recalled to the mansion. Annunaki the sad did not want Cher to miss out on hunting so she recalled back with her and they hunted in a less lag afflicted location. That allowed us to add a non-allegiance member to our fellow, Wil Travell, a 126 archer. After the second buff we started losing a lot of members. Many were East coast and it was hitting 1am or later there. We ended up with an Archer dominated group. The Archers were Red Dominion (83lv), Wil Travell (126lv) and Horror Sparrow (102lv). Mirax Terrick (67lv) was our healer, and I did the mage work. It was a great team. Archers can inflict a lot of damage. While I have not see it I'm told that under the right circumstances they can hit for over 1100 damage! MT is an outstanding healer. How she keeps up with all the players I'll never know. Whenever I take damage, I can be sure it will get healed up before I have to worry. Of course, this made me very busy. De-buffing means a lot of spells. About the only spell I could pass on was a melee de-buff, as we were lacking in that attack skill. On average, I had to toss five spells per monster. There were many monsters where I had a lot more. Even with 425 Creature I had many times when I was resisted over and over again. Even after a Yield I could count on a few resists. If we had a big mob attack us, I might have time to toss a few war spells after de-buffing. Most of the time, all I did was de-buff. We did that for an hour and it was a blast and a half. I tend to be go, go, go when I hunt, and the team backed me well. A good group is worth its weight in gold. Everyone had to go when we hit the third hour. I ported back to the mansion with no idea what I would do next. I had taken a long nap during the day so I would be fresh for the VoD hunt. Early Morning Adventures Annunaki has a mule she is converting to an Archer. She had leveled it to around 80 using her trained dagger skill. With seven skill points she was just short of having enough to train bow. She had not done the Skill Quest so she headed out to the Plateau. About this time Dread Lord Shang used the /a to say he had died to a pack of Olthoi at VoD. I figured if his body was camped by Olthoi he would need a lot of help recovering. There are many monsters there that are best fought from behind a shield. I loaded up Fist de Yuma Jr and transferred the piercing sword from Death Mute. (Death Mute had done Pincers that morning.) DLS and Jr headed out to find his body. The second we hit VoD we ran across an Obliterator. We decided to toss caution to the wind and take him on with just the two of us. To say it was an epic battle is to understate the event. We used a classic tactic. We got in front and back of it. When it switched we healed and recovered stamina. I started it out by using Imperil VI. I figured the battle would go longer than a VII spell would last and I have better luck landing a VI than a VII. To my surprise I landed on the first try. I've been working his Life magic but it is still rather low for VoD. Mage will get resisted with 425, so having a 375 land on my first try was a pleasant surprise. I'm getting very pleased with my Life/Sword template. It took about 5 to 7 minutes but the issue was never in doubt. Sword hits hard and Archers hit even harder. Of course the Obliterator hits hard as well. I took a 70+ shot and that was through a lot of armor and protects. When you have double banes and an al 500+ shield you don't expect to take those kind of hits. DLS spent a long time looting it. I'm guessing that they have improved the loot these hold as the last one I looted only had a key and one item. We killed a few other things along the way until we found DLS's body. It was within range of a Raider Justicar. I did not have a Lightning sword buffed so I figured I would just distract it while DLS looted. He recovered the body and we took off running. With that big hollow axe I did not want to pull out my wand to escape. The reason I was in a hurry was there was another problem that needed my attention. Annunaki had found the skill guy. Cher'okee went to the plateau to help her out. Without de-buffs she could not hit it. With a lot of attackers Cher'okee could not keep her healed. So we needed to recover the body and find a way to let her kill it. I got the coordinates to the body. I was still buffed so there was no delay. My LS is next to an ML portal so it did not take me long to find it. Cher'okee was waiting for me. My first test was to see if I could land a Yield on the Hunter. With Creature only trained I buff to around 330. While not enough to dent anything big ML was created when the top mages had around 350 skills. I landed the Yield with the first attempt. I knew then I would be able to de-buff it without having to log one of my two mages. Cher'okee and I decided to clear out everything around it. The Elder Shamans are not easy to fight, and there were a lot of them. A few Turkeys were also within range so we killed them off as well. Annunaki got a set of buffs off the Bot and joined us a short time later. I had spent the time putting the de-buffing spells on my bar. I lowered its strength, melee defense, coordination and Quick. I hoped that would allow Annunaki to hit it. Then I hit it with a level VII Imperil and Fire vulnerability. Annunaki charge out and I went with her. I figured there might have been a re-spawn of the guards and I would need to clear them. Cher'okee kept healing Ann. It was a good plan as three Elders Shaman did spawn as she charged. Despite me slashing at them they all charged Annunaki! Of course the Elder Shaman charging Annunaki gave me back shots. Without their drum I was getting big hits and quickly chopped them down. Annunaki was swinging away but not hitting. She finally got a hit in, and that was all she needed. With a double de-buff and a good dirk it only took a single hit to finish him. We escorted Annunaki to the skill guy and she got bow trained. The plan now is to have her move Life to trained so she can spec bow. It will take a month or so but Annunaki will soon have a powerful melee to play with. Tusker Hammers Hands One of my monthly things is to go collect Pincers and Tusks. With seven players it is a two to three day event. I do this first thing in the morning and keep at it until I'm too bored to do it again. This morning it was Fist's Armorer's turn. He had no trouble at all getting the Pincers. I'm saving up the Pincers until after the patch. Each of my below 126 PPLs are sworn to a mule now. By waiting to cash the pincers until after the patch the mules will get more xp. I'll find time to fellow the mules when my high levels turn in the pincers. Of course if the news from Turbine is true this will be a lot simpler now. Turbine is removing the range restrictions on fellows during Pincer and Queen head turn ins. The reason for this is the tent for the Queen Quest is on a different land block. Someone a few steps away is considered out of range and gets zero XP. Because of how they are fixing this I can fellow with my mule at the mansion instead of running them ML. The Tusks are not something I get for all seven players. Three of mine are over 126 and don't gain anything from the tusks, other than a gem and I have a lot of them saved up. Owanda and Death Mute have not been getting Tusks. I stopped playing Death Mute for a while and Owanda has never killed a Tusker. I'll likely change that but for now he has ignored Tusker island. The two that are grabbing Tusks are Fist's Armorer and Deadeye Fist. Both are over 100 and the tusks are worth quite a bit of xp to them. Deadeye has been saving his up and has 11 in his pack. I'll likely wait until 110 before cashing them. Fist's Armorer had no trouble getting the first group of Tusks. He has very high magic defense so he can resist the traps a lot of the time. In the 70+ he had to use a gem to dispel the bludgeoning vulnerability. The tuskers hit far too hard and there are far too many of them for a mage to fight with that de-buff on. On the way to the 60+, I noticed that I was only had two gems left. Normally I will use two or three in the 80+ alone. I can generally get away with only using one in the 60+ but that left me with too few to attempt the 80+ with. I decided to try to get through the 60+ without getting a de-buff on me. That I possible as I know were all the traps are. Unfortunately even knowing where they are does not always mean you can avoid them. There is one trap in the center of a passage through a wall. You have to do a tap jump to get over it. If you try a full jump you hit the ceiling and spring the trap. Another trap is on the bridge over the fake lava. This one is very hard to avoid. I had to make a very short jump and then kill the Tuskers around me. Then I did a full jump to get over the trap. So I got through the 60+ without using a gem. That left me with two for the 80+. With well-timed jumps or a resist or two I should be ok. The big black Tuskers hit far to hard to even think of letting a Vuln stay on for long. I cleared the start and jumped over the first trap. I cleared the trap on the ramp. That one I will generally hit but I lucked out this time. After clearing the tuskers I decided on a fast run to the end. The next trap had a lot of Tuskers around it and I could not jump over it. I failed on the resist. I figured to run until I got to the end and then dispel. If I got trapped I would dispel and fight. I got to through two sections before getting trapped. I hit the gem and was ready to fight. Unfortunately I had failed to note some very big hits I took on the run. As I got ready to fight out of the trap I only had 10 hit points! Needless to say, I quickly dropped. Now I was in big trouble. I knew from experience that I couldn't keep ahead of the spawn rate in the 80+. That is ok when you are running to the end but not so good if you need to recover a body. I logged a mule and grabbed 10 gems off of it. I buffed up while asking if there was anyone who had time to give me a hand. Dread Lord Shang said he owned Tuskers and would help me out. After finishing my buffs I ran back to the 80+. DLS had not got there yet so I figured to clear a bit. To my surprise my skills had improved enough that I was killing over the spawn rate! This meant that, while darn hard, I could recover on my own. I advanced slowly from point to point, killing what seemed like a never-ending stream of Tuskers. I jumped over two traps and resisted one. I got to a position in front of the body but it was a major feeder point for tuskers. This meant that, while I could clear it, I only had a few seconds before they would start re-spawning. To make matters worse my body was on top of a trap! I would spark the trap with each grab of an item. Dread Lord Shang showed up about this time, much to my relief. With his help I recovered my body and was ready to push on to the Tusk. I rushed up the hall expecting DLS to follow. He did not. I got to the last hallway and had Tuskers on both sides of me. When I had a free second I sent him a tell, "Are you ok?" A short time later I saw his death message. It took a while before I could clear my attackers and backtrack to his body. Wouldn't you know it, his body was right next to where mine was. It was also sitting on the trap! It took me five minutes to clear and loot his body. The run to the end was a bit better. I did not get trapped. Of course the end is a nightmare of boundless tuskers so I was not out of the woods yet. I dispelled the vulnerability and started in on them. It took a while but with me in a tight corner there was not much danger. I did hit 45 hit points once. That is a little scary because I'm often hit for more than that. I finally cleared them and got my tusk. Despite all the trouble the reward is more than worth it. I think I got over 30 million for the morning. The next thing to do was break out Deadeye Fist for Tusks and Pincers. Pincers are easy because his melee defense is enough that EV's cannot touch him. I was a touch worried about the 80+ after my mornings adventure. After getting the Pincers it was time to fix dinner, so I left him at the mansion to finish up that evening. When I started in on getting the Tusks I noted that I was not getting hit. My buffed Melee is 434 with a 25% bonus from the bow, leaving me with a 542 effective. I was hoping that would extend to the 80+ dungeon, but was doubtful. I started ignoring the Vulnerability and just killing and grabbing the Tusks. I did take an 80-point shot from a Rampager but that was about it. I made sure that the bludgeoning vulnerability was worn off before hitting the 80+. To my surprise I was still not getting hit! It seems my adding to Melee defense was paying off. I was still careful to dispel the de-buffs but I had a lot less to worry about. I was able to run through the dungeon without getting trapped. With me evading most of the hits I only had to dispel at the very end. Gems are cheap, but I try not to waste them. I found that Deadeye is hitting hard enough with his fire bow that he is clearing the tuskers faster than Fist's Armorer did. Of course FA needs a heal or two between blasts. I'm getting more and more confident with Deadeye Fist these days. He gets to self-buffing in one level. It might take a few more levels after that before he can toss VII's but I expect him to be one of my strongest players in time. If he could find a way to resist spells, he would be my best player. Guest Writer; R. Scott White In doing some exploring on Caul I think they've got it set up with three hunting levels, easy, medium, and hard. The easy is the first area when you port in. Stuff you can't die to unless you're either un-banned, lagging, or sheer stupidity. I died twice because of the last one before Decal came back.....THANK YOU DECAL!!!!!!! When you head north, to that area I told you about, like the slot and flows, there is another way to go. If you head east for a bit you'll see to the north a way through, this is the medium danger hunting area. The monsters are harder than the easy and provide exp in the range of 100-500K. The marionettes were done very well, but those damn mites make me turn down my speakers (grin). De-buffs there can kill you and, as a mage, you've got to be fast on the drain. In this area the monsters will hit you with level 7 vuls/imperils but only level 6 (so far that I've seen anyway) de-buffs of focus/will/life magic ect. I went and bought a bunch of chorzite potions for dispels. In this area they aren't mandatory but still good to have. This is the area that you'll find the niffs that drop the shield shells & pearls. The loot is very good especially on the monstrous mites. The dolls there are easy exp but come at you in droves. The thing to watch here is the narrow alleys, if someone comes running through they will be dragging a bunch of nasties with them that could suddenly turn on you. This is rough when that person is trailing say oh 5 zefirs, like last night. I was in deep in the hurt locker and got lucky that after a few seconds of blasting me from here to tomorrow that they went back to spawn point. The best advice for anyone hunting any of the areas on the Caul is think old time hunting, edge of the screen type, using your magic's to their best advantage. When I'm hunting dragons I try and run, dragging one as much as possible. In hunting I was doing about 7-10 million an hr while looting, which is about the same I do with Gonder. I'd do better in fellowships but I think it will take a few weeks before people are comfortable going exploring far here. There are so many twists and turns that I wasn't even sure where I was, not a good thing to have happen when you die. Speaking of death I also had to bring up why I'm now doing armor tinks. Using the fingers 1.0 plugin, it seems to have had errors in banes, yes I forgot crucial banes and lost critical items in armor including my major life girth. After crying for about 10 minutes I realized I had good armor but I needed it to be even better. So I looked at who I knew that was on that could tink for me...dammit no one was on. I looked at my credits which I was planning on putting to spec'd magic d when I could and used 4 credits and 80 million into armor tinking. I turned my leggings from ok at 224 to over 300 and the same with my solls. My top was fine and I can't tink my sunstone gaunts, so I went back and got the goods. So if you need armor tinks and Fist isn't on I'm your guy. Until I buy some more armor I'm doing the Fist routine of swapping armor between characters as needed. As a battlemage I'm torn on the issue of rending wands. I have a bludgeon wand right now as well as the critical blow and, being honest, on the Caul with the monsters having high health I'm more likely to go with vul/war than war/war as my attack. I love Caul. It's has given me a reason to hunt with Abin again. The battlemage templates have always been about being a solo player. It is their greatest strength. While they can fellow effectively it isn't as much fun when you constantly read damage hits others are doing vs the same damage you've been doing since 55th level. They need to add a spell that allows mages to do the same type of damage when fighting, but only against monsters, mages don't need anymore help in PK or PKL in terms of damage. Feeling a bit like Bal. I decided to do some exploring. Granted I didn't do it naked with tuskers hitting me but these monsters hit a lot harder than tuskers do. Anyway I went to the area that looks like the flows and looked across it. There was a small group that asked me to join and I politely declined. I saw that there were two towers at the far side of the flat area. I decided to run it and see what would happen. Granted I expected to die but hey dying and recovering on your own builds character. I reach the towers, having been vul'd, imperiled, debuffed, beaten, whipped, spit at and you get the idea. I catch a breather and go to the top of the tower to look around and get a better feel for the place from the higher view. I nearly die as I didn't wait long enough for the nasties to go back to spawn points. I was hit by a flame arc for 190 points. Can we say OUCH, I knew you would. I heal and scan the area. I see a break in the mountains that looks interesting. It reminded me of the way to my favorite hunting grounds in the VoD. For those who don't know the VoD has a mountain plateau that you can get onto if you jump through a "V" crevace in the rocks. Fist knows where I'm talking about, he saw me one day while he was on the ground level and looking WAYYYYY up at little old me. So I take a running leap and jump most of the nasties to get to this crevace. I jump through and follow the curve of the mountain and see a bunch of spawns. After looking around I realize that I had been mistaken when I previously wrote that there were three different monster grouped fighting types, easy, medium, hard. This area I found was easier than the flows, but only because the spawns were smaller and you could use the environment to your advantage. I never saw some of the monsters before, doomsharks, dammed marionettes, some other virindi. It is a battlemages paradise, I can't wait to drop magic/armor tinkering and get magic d spec'd because then it would just be awesome. So here is Uncle Abin's hunting tips for this area titled - So you wanna hunt the Caul - Battlemage tactics, (grin). Hey I'm bored at work already I have to write about something I know (grin). Ok, first tip, like you really need this one, but BANE BANE BANE, and then BANE again. You're going to be hit with so many vul's that you will need them all. The main damage types I've seen are fire, acid (the little dragons love these two), cold (marionettes), slash (Virindi Paradox's love these like they do in the VoD). Hellions are vul to cold, Biakas are vul to cold and lightning, Marinonettes are vul to bludge and slash, the dogs are vul to bludge, rifts are still vul to pierce, Zephirs are vul to slash and bludge. Some of these I've got to do more tests on to find the best damage overall. I'm going to tell you different than most of the guides out there but drain health 1 is not only your friend, it is your life savior. Time and again I'm hit with war shots for 120-180 points, a quick drain gets me high enough where I can take another one and still fight. Magic yield is another friend, get to know it well (grin). When fighting the high level dogs always do it from extreme range, except for the one your fighting they will always run back to spawn point. Abin wears the +10 upgraded mage armor leggings and they hit hard through them. Even unvuled I can get whacked for 30 points a shot and they hit fast. They have usually one or two pieces of good loot. The hellions/biakas carry good loot/salvage. The Biakas are like opening a sing chest. The zephers carry crap, the marionettes carry a couple good things on average. Virindi Paradox's carry the same as VoD and the rifts drop anything from gems to majors. The place is a soloists dream as well as great for fellows. It is nice to hunt a place without bugs like they've got in the VoD. There is reward for the effort put out as well as the high chance of dying (gotta love that!). For those that feel the game is too easy should check this place out and find an area that is challenging, rewarding and just plain fun.