Himi Passes 2nd-circle Fighter's Test

Another milestone reached

I decided to get out of the library for a bit of exercise and training when I reached another milestone with Evus. I should have about 62.5 atkus training so I decided to try the 2nd-circle Fighter's Test.

Even though I still couldn't hit the feral dummy underneath the Fighter's Hall I realized that I had to wait until the ferals swung twice before I attacked, not once. After figuring that out defeating them was no problem at all. Aside from the usual whiffs. Atkus is evil!™

Easier than expected!

I tried the 3rd-circle Fighter's Test and defeated the two vermine easily but the two orga were much tougher. I couldn't defend against their blows or hit them even after they swung so it'll take a little while longer.

I went to see the next set of trainers even though I have no intention of ever training with them directly.

Detha: 10 - 19
Balthus: 50 - 99
Regia: 50 - 99
Darkus: 40 - 49

In addition to the 1st-circle Fighter trainers.

Atkus: 50 - 99
Swengus: 100 - 149
Histia: 50 - 99
Evus: 250 - 299

My total training is 50 skea and 250 - 299 evus. No languages, baking, brewing, pathfinding, or anything else besides pure fighter training.

My goal is 400 ranks with Evus before I decide to switch to Swengus for better balance or whether I stay with Evus.

Evus is awesome!

I've mostly been in the library studying up on the basics of fighting, and when I leave usually stick to the farms where I still dispatch rats and vermine.

It's rather relaxing and yet invigorating at the same time to be able to kill Giant Slugs and Giant Vermine that used to be such a bother whenever I wanted to explore. Now I don't have any fear of them at all.

So far I have between 200 and 249 Evus in addition to the 50 Skea I got right after I reset. I was going to keep detailed track of the skills that make up Evus, but found out Gorvin already did so and far better than I would have done. I decided to just focus on killing stuff.

Right now I have a little bit over 3 swings which is far reduced from the seemingly limitless amount I had before. On the other hand I rarely miss so the swings are more effective. I've also discovered that if I swing twice and run away to recover I don't get hit often so even though I don't have any Troilus I don't have to wait too long for my health to recover.

I knew the number of swings would decrease with the Atkus in Evus, I just didn't think they would decrease so quickly with so little training. At this point I'm going to keep with Evus until Atkus is at 100 trainings which should be at 400 Evus precisely. I'll evaluate the number of swings I have and will decide then whether to train with Swengus or not.

What's really great about Evus isn't his rank bonus (although that's great) or that he trains in 2nd-circle trainers before you can get access to them (any extra Detha and Darkus is great), but that he trains in a balanced way.

The way Jeanne trained in first-circle was to get a bit of Atkus when she needed to hit better, and then Swengus when she wanted more swings, and then Histia when she needed more defense. At each point she was weak until she could get caught up in what was holding her back. Even though I'm progressing slower by comparison I'm doing so in a much more even tempo. Maybe I'm not describing it well, but I feel a lot stronger than Jeanne did at this same level.

I still can't hit Ferals though, not even when they swing once.

Atkus is evil!

Why I haven't been going on hunts (long, semi-ooc)

A pause in the action.

It's kind of strange that the entry following the one in which I exalt at Jeanne finally getting out of the library I'm explaining why I haven't left the library at all in the past two weeks.

I'm going to be using some OOC (out of character) terms and explanations because I don't want to bother with finding an IC (in character) reason. Even if I did it might just muddy the issue which is contrary to what I want.

For a few weeks I have gone on Azel's Estuary Hunt from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and then Mujin's Hunt from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. That's a minimum of 4.5 hours every day devoted to Clan Lord and I began to feel that was too much.

Plus, I was getting a bit bored with healing in Ash City. There was some excitement, but there just wasn't much challenge. I could entertain myself with reading blogs or sites at the same time but can't easily do that on the computer I have. It's an old PowerMac G4 and a small 17" monitor and I have dial-up all of which add up to not being able to see the Clan Lord screen and the browser at the same time and any time I open up a web page that means I can't do anything in Clan Lord due to lack of bandwidth.

The only job I have that does pay me money requires me to write news articles and seeing an article I wanted to write get snatched up by someone else, thus denying me needed dollars, was painful.

Yes, I know I need a new computer but I also need a job and finding work is damn near impossible.

Besides, even if I could do this I'm not sure I'd want to after seeing Lorikeet standing off in the corner while fighters fall left and right and me being unable to keep up with the damage being done. That always frustrates me and I don't want to mimic that behavior.

Frustration is why I haven't been going to Azel's Estuary Hunts either. I found myself becoming very negative and saying only negative comments, especially to Azel, and I don't want her to think that I'm only thinking negative thoughts or are a negative person.

I just don't like the tagging mentality hunts seem to always have. It's tough enough having to keep in mind what you've tagged so you don't do too much damage before everyone else has tagged. Plus you have to remember what you haven't tagged so you can tag it before everyone else kills it. Then there's Mujin-kun who basically can kill everything in the Estuary just by looking at it and there's no telling when she'll decide something has to die even if it's at high health and you're trying to get to it to tag it first. There have been many times when I've been running to a beast or two trying to be able to hit and just as I get to them, Mujin-kun kills them before I have a chance to swing. I don't expect her to remember what everyone has or hasn't hit but she can see me running up to her if she's paying attention. Maybe she thinks "I don't need Jeanne to help me kill these things. I'll kill them before she gets here!" while I'm thinking "I haven't hit those things. Please don't kill them yet!

The tagging mentality also means that no one pays much attention to anyone else. It's as if the only things they see are themselves and the beasts. It doesn't matter if they make it difficult for you to get out of their way, thus trapping you and making you fall and miss tags. It doesn't matter if they lead a bunch of stuff to you which makes you fall and miss tags. It doesn't matter if a bunch of stuff is on red and attacking the healers because they've already tagged it. Then when you kill the stuff on red to help the Healers they then kill the stuff you haven't tagged before you can get to them. It's as if the minimal strategy Clan Lord has is just thrown out of the window and it's a purely chaotic environment where no one tries to work with anyone else. As long as Lorikeet and Mujin-kun are up they could care less about who else misses tags as long as they get theirs.

It makes me frustrated and it's no good asking people to be more considerate because the only thing they wait for are Rangers getting their last hits. If a Ranger wants to get a last hit on something it's even harder to tag because people will be focused on keeping that person alive and everyone else doesn't matter. I admit to doing this on Moon Kitty at times although I've tried to put a stop to it if there's a lot of stuff so the fallen doesn't miss out on too many tags.

It's not that I don't like missing tags because of the missed experience, although that's why I'm there in the first place and that is a factor in my frustration. It's just that after a certain amount of missed tags one begins to think that it would have been better to just stay in the library and that working so hard for no return is a waste of time and effort. One also thinks that they're not needed on the hunt at all and that maybe one's time is better spent elsewhere.

Although missing tags and experience are frustrating, I think that not being able to use all of the Bloodmage abilities is even more so. It seems like being able to use my Bloodblade damage as a big hit or over time could be useful depending on the circumstances. Being able to add extra damage with hemorrhage and weaken the beast with disable and/or cripple could help with healing. None of that matters because I have to keep on control mode to avoid doing too much damage, reducing the strength of a beast doesn't matter with regards to Mujin-kun, and hemorrhage uses more spirit than what I can replace with blood.

I'm reduced to running around desperately trying to hit everything before I fall without regard to tactics or what's stronger and should be killed first or the people around me and what they have or haven't tagged because I can barely keep up with my own tags much less everyone else and I can only hope I am not too inconsiderate in the process even though I try my hardest not to be.

THIS IS NOT FUN!

Anyway, I'm considering returning to Azel's Estuary Hunt but on Moon Kitty and not on Jeanne because I know that as long as the hunt contains Rangers who need last hits and taggers, it will continue to be frustrating for me. I also need to return the armor she borrowed from Azel. Well, Azel will have to accept me back of course and considering I disappeared without a word she may be very angry at me and not want me around. If that's her decision I will just have to accept it as my due for being an inconsiderate jerk.

Jeanne may as well be retired and I may just use her for role-playing purposes or if I want to revive the Sun Dragon Clan and/or Catenae for anything or if I want to go out hunting for coins. If I have the opportunity to go on a tactical hunt instead of a tagging hunt then I'll certainly go but I doubt those exist at all. I still like the Bloodmage class and it has a lot of nifty tricks and tools no other class can even approach, but being on a tagging hunt fills me with a murderous rage that can only remain unfulfilled.

Once Himitsu gets to a higher level and becomes a Ranger herself she'll be much more fun to run around and kill stuff with. Unfortunately this won't happen for a long while. I should give her some coins so she can spend time in the more expensive library.

As to Mujin-kun's hunt I'm less certain I want to return simply because her hunts are longer. Going on one 1.5 hour hunt every day is acceptable but then going on another hunt immediately after for another 2-2.5 hours is too much.

Therefore I think I'll apologize to Azel and ask to return on Moon Kitty and tell Mujin-kun I won't be going to her hunts.

Gosh this was a long post.

Monkey Line

Megan got her Gloaming Wendecka morph!

We went to the Metz Rainforest for the last time in a while as Mujin-kun's hunt is going to go to Ash City from now on. Apparently it's better experience there and since more people will show up that equals more tags which equals more experience for everyone and especially Mujin-kun.

We went to the Rainforest to get some more jungle vines to get access to Ash City (although I don't see why we just can't go in through the Rebel Cave) and to get Megan her Gloaming Wendecka morph which has the atkus she needs.

I immediately thought back to the accusations Asparagus had against Mujin-kun at that Estuary hunt and chuckled. How many other people would go to a place just to get someone a morph so they can go to where you want to go when you don't particularly need them there?

We all wanted to get a phial of disgusting liquid.

It's true that more people want to go to Ash City if this line is any indication. I can't recall seeing as many people in a Rainforest hunt so Ash City must be better experience by far or at least more interesting.

On this hunt I was able to free a slave and get to the Scrap Metal guy and turn in a shank thanks to Mujin-kun, but it wasn't enough. Even though some of the Rebel's messages changed I still can't get to the Rebel leader and need more esteem. I'm not even sure there's anything there worth getting besides more talking and being able to turn in the Phial of Disgusting Liquid for experience, coins, and more esteem. Of course I did miss two Blue Skulls which might have made a difference but oh well, there will be plenty more of them.

Since I'm going back to Mujin-kun's hunts I haven't had the time to spend more time on Himitsu aside from collecting her Evus ranks and writing down the messages from Atkus, Histia, and Swengus. Right now I've learned that 18 Evus = 10 Swengus which is close to Azriel's numbers. Maybe Evus hasn't been changed at all since he last researched him, but that's what I want to find out. Even if it hasn't I am going to stick with Evus since 125 effective ranks for every 100 trained is too good to pass up.

Random Pictures

Even Mystic parrots have healthy egos

 Asenath came on a recent trip to the Estuary and was lucky enough to find a parrot in the very last section. I thought we would leave empty-handed but fortune smiled on her. Later the parrot wanted Tequila and even nipped Asenath. I hope the parrot isn't too hard to handle.

50 Skea at last!

It was only 50 ranks and I got them quickly. I just didn't like getting ranks without getting stronger as well. It occurs to me I could have gotten 50 pathfinding but after getting Trillbane on Jeanne and Moon Kitty I really don't want to go through that a third time. I had one chapter of Book 1 before I reset and it just didn't seem worth it to continue. Maybe when I get stronger and the Rat Towers don't seem so overwhelming I'll reconsider.

I'm going to be training with him for a long time.

I wish Jeanne had trained with Evus instead of with the individual trainers. He has such a good bonus that it just doesn't make sense to train with anyone but him and Swengus for a long time. Too bad there's no a good way to selectively untrain and I don't consider the trainers in Trainer's Grotto a good way.

Two Pictures

I don't usually see such a strong reaction from her.

On one of Azel's Estuary Hunts it seemed Mujin-kun wasn't coming so Tabatha asked and got permission for Asparagus to come. I knew he used to be Blindkan-C (aka BKC) and a Dwarf, which I always thought was a really strange name, until he changed both his name and race. I didn't mind him coming and kind of hoped that his change was an indication that he was a nicer guy. Even though my interaction with BKC was limited he seems to be the same pompous and arrogant person he used to be.

Seems he gave Mujin-kun a ton of bad karma and criticized her on her style of leading groups previously and did so again in this instance. He actually said that she didn't wait for Rangers to get last hits which made me chuckle. It's true that when we're overwhelmed she'll kill everything and not wait for last hits, but she's actually very patient when it comes to Rangers. Sometimes a lot more patient than I am feeling at the time. Generally speaking I think she does a good job between enabling Rangers to get last hints and preventing the entire group for falling and having to depart. She's not perfect, and sometimes she kills when I think she could have waited, but she's a lot better than most other group leaders and fighters when it comes to last hits.

Anyway, Asparagus and Tabatha finally left after some awkward moments and the hunt went smoothly after that. I think Tabatha has bad taste in men but I think it's a combination of "It's okay if he treats others badly because he treats me like a princess" and "My love will make him a better and kinder man". So far her love doesn't seem to have made much of a dent in his personality.

My first day as a fighter!

Just in case you needed proof that I really did reset. Here's me as an undisclosed fighter.

Himitsu is Reborn!

Today I finally reset Himitsu after making some visionstones of the Mystic Garden, Academy, Pub, and Butterfly Hut. Then it was a quick visit to the Fairgrounds to reset and I came out a new woman. I've decided to keep my race undisclosed for now as I'm not sure which one I'm going to choose. I definitely don't want to be a Halfling again and there are way too many Fen'neko around. I'm leaning towards the human because they have the most variety in clothing and I like being able to wear a dress or pants as the mood strikes.

You might be wondering what led me to reset when I spent so many months being indecisive about doing so. It was a thread on the Sentinel about why the mystics suck. In the thread they talked about some history that I had forgotten and which made me realize that I didn't want to be a Full Mystic anymore. Specifically it was when Nyssa was promoted to Full Mystic and then visited Untrainus to get some more illusion breaking ability. She thought she had prepared by checking to see how many times she could untrain before losing her Full Mystic status. Unfortunately after only doing it once she was demoted to Journeyman Mystic.

What I didn't know at the time was that Nyssa was expressing some displeasure with how things were being done in the Mystic Council which made some of the members worried. They thought she might try to make her own council and when she was demoted they were all relieved and refused to promote her again. Eventually she left Puddleby entirely and hasn't been seen since. Way after the fact Helpful GM said that she should have been reinstated but it was too late for Nyssa.

What does this have to do with me? Well, I have a lot of dissatisfaction with how the Mystic Council is run and disagree with the amount of information they keep from each other. I think promoting Apprentice and Journeyman Mystics should be more uniform and not based on whims and there should be better communication. However, a person with these beliefs is not likely to be promoted to Full Mystic and if they do that person is not likely to be listened to and will probably be ostracized.

In other words, there's absolutely no reason for me to stay as a mystic because any desire to get promoted and take my place on the council has completely evaporated. Being a Full Mystic isn't something that interests me and playing politics is not something I'm good at.

Anyway, I reset and got the ten ranks with Skea needed to become a Fighter. I thought it was 5 ranks in anything but either my memory is wrong or the requirement got increased. The rat towers are as boring as I remember them and if it wasn't for Stora being around it would be a lot more tedious and time-consuming. I was going to go do some of the mystic quests for some extra experience but I quickly put that thought aside. Even if they do give experience why would I want to go through that kind of agony again? I don't need the doodads you get before choosing another path. I'd just end up throwing them away.

The dagger is a big improvement over the club and I should miss a lot less often when I come out of the library tomorrow. My first goal is to get to 50 skea and then switch over to Evus for the near future.

Firstly I want to get the skea out of the way as soon as possible because it's very low slaughter. When I'm able to kill stuff with fur I want to be able to get the coins. Then I want to update Azriel's Trainers Notes with what Evus trains since that hasn't been updated in a long time by training with Evus until I can get to 2nd circle before training with Swengus. I have a more detailed guide to becoming a Ranger which I'll post a bit later.

To summarize for the moment, I plan on training with core fighter trainers for a very long time even after becoming a Ranger. It will either be Evus + Swengus, Bangus + Swengus, or Farly + Swengus until 5th circle. I'm not sure how many studies I'll do in preparation to pass the fighter tests but as I don't place a high priority on them I don't think I'll do very many. I don't intend to waste ranks on studying the greymyr family just to pass the test but the noid family might be worth it generally so I probably will study them. I won't get movements until late to avoid a waste of duvin and won't get morphs until later. Of course all of this is up in the air but I'm okay with acting like a regular fighter for a long time.

Update

I haven't written in a while and don't want this to be one of those Clan Lord journals that end up dusty and forgotten so I'll tell you what's been happening recently. No pictures though, sorry.

Moon Kitty

I've stopped going to Mujin-kun's Rainforest hunt because I've been much too busy writing, but I've learned that she's disappeared suddenly and hasn't been around for three zodiacs. We all hope that she's doing well and will be back soon.

Her absence did make Azel's Estuary hunt more difficult since we didn't have strong fighters and so stayed in the first area. On the plus side that enabled us to find more Reed Cats for Azel and since Tabatha hasn't been showing up we didn't need to get to the frogs for her to lasty. However, I advertised and we've been getting some strong fighters recently including Stinkfist, Ravenstorm, Kalian, and Hel so it's been going much better. I hope that continues as it was easy to take Mujin-kun and her immense strength for granted.

Azel is down to less than 120 Reed Cat lastys so she'll get the morph soon. She said that once she gets the morph we'll continue the hunt and that I can switch to Jeanne and she'll bring out one of her healers. That would be nice since as much as I enjoy healing, I miss being able to kill stuff too and Jeanne has improved as much as possible while being stuck in the library.

My training is going well as I've been with AnDeux Faure for a while and will be training with him for a long, long, long time to come. What he trains is 2 respia and 1 faustus for every 3 lessons with him which are precisely what I need. I started out with 300 faustus and 800 respia which is pretty low for my level and when I'm done I'll have 400 faustus and 1,000 respia which is much better.

I don't know what I'll do after that though I have a few ideas. My original idea was to alternate between Sprite and Respia with some extra Horus every now and again but I'm not so sure now. My 500 horus is more than enough, and I don't really want to be a rod and many healers never heal me anyway even if I'm at low health so my 600 sprite is probably enough. I'm not sure if I want to focus on improving my radius healing since it is situational although I do have 100 ranks in it already. I was thinking of doing AnQuart Faure (4 respia/1 faustus) and/or AnDeux Faure and Higgrus for better healing and survivability. I really don't know how I survived with 300 higgrus all this time as I really underestimated how powerful having lots of health is and overestimated how much damage I can avoid by having lots of proximus. I still love proximus, don't get wrong, there's just too much stuff that ferals and no reliable way of tanking. Anyway, it'll take so long to get to my goals that I'm sure I'll think of what I'll need when I get there.

Jeanne

Not much has happened with Jeanne since she's been stuck in the library working on getting her Bloodblade to 200 ranks so she can then further increase Cryptus and work on other Bloodmage skills before returning to the Bloodblade to get a total of 400 ranks. Primarily I want to get enough Bloodblade to have the atkus to hit anything whether on high or low health and get most of my damage through hemorrhage.

This will take a long time and while I try not to be impatient, because without going on daily hunts to places with good experience such as Estuary, Rainforest, and Ash Barrens the amount of experience gained is small. However, I don't think I'm at the point where I'm ready to go on hunts to those places until I get the 200 Bloodblade and all of the Bloodmage skills that will make me useful in a group. Maybe once I get the Cryptus, Dantus, and Crato and am working on my second 200 ranks in Bloodblade I'll try to get in a regular higher-level hunt but I doubt it will be easy. People would much rather me bring Moon Kitty out than Jeanne.

Himitsu

I still haven't reset her but I'm pretty close to doing so. I just need a good time when I can devote some hours to taking her through the rat towers.

Preparing

I took another step closer to resetting and becoming a Ranger by transferring everything I wanted to keep to Jeanne and Moon Kitty so that the only things I have are my mystic tools and yellow outfit. I auctioned off my phantasm books which actually sold even though I didn't bother to get very many phantasms. Jeanne has a bunch of ethereal amulets and ethercles which can be used if we ever want or need to explore the Ethereal Plane again. Maybe one day we'll rescue Tenebrion and find out if he's really dead or alive. I gave Moki my wooden parrot which she is going to treasure since she's a pirate. I think she's been standing up a little straighter with it perched on her shoulder.

I know I should have reset ages ago, but was waiting for something to convince me that I shouldn't. After all, there aren't very many mystics that have full ethereal training and even though I haven't been to the ethereal plane in years and there's no real interest in it I was telling myself that maybe one day I'd be needed. Plus, I have good training in everything except boosting and I think it wouldn't take a lot of training in order to get good at that too. I didn't want to throw all of that away even though there's no real need for any of it. Plus, I kept on thinking maybe there would be more added for mystics but it'll probably be added for Full Mystics with Journeyman and Apprentice Mystics left behind.

Of course, I haven't really left the library much lately and that's required to be promoted. As with all mystics that's always the goal especially since you're not really considered a Mystic until you're a Full Mystic but after a recent trip I started thinking that maybe I didn't want to be a Full Mystic after all.

For one thing I'd have to play politics and probably would have to change my entire personality to be considered the right kind of Mystic to be promoted. I'm not one for politics and I don't care if I'm the right kind of Mystic as far as they're concerned. I think it was talking with Rincewind that really sealed the deal though.

I was talking to him about the parrots that are found in the latest area in the Estuary as well as Tart'targ who's also found there and who refuses to teach us because we're too young. He was telling me that the other Mystics refused to share any information because they were playing politics with what they know. I then asked myself if they were the people I wanted to call my colleagues. What's the point of being accepted into an "elite" group dedicated to knowledge if they won't share knowledge with each other? I can understand why they'd want to pick and choose with what they tell other classes but with each other I thought they'd be more honest if only to have a united front. I probably learn more about mystic secrets by just inviting Mystics to the hunts I'm on and asking them questions then I'd ever get by being a Mystic myself. That's so bizarre I can't quite understand it.

I'm not quite ready to hit the reset button but I'm very close to it. It's just a lot harder to do than I expected. Even if the only thing I got after years of effort is useless junk, it's still my useless junk if that makes any sense at all.