Debuffs on the way?

Repairing my Sungem.

I finally reached the 900 respia message after reaching 350 faustus which took a lot longer than expected. I had no idea my respia was as low as it was as I thought it would have been a lot closer to 900. That might explain why my self-heal was a bit poorer than expected as well.

I'm on to training with Higgrus now with my aim getting to 450 before returning to AnDeux Faure until faustus reaches 400. I think I need the extra health as my self-heal isn't one of my strong suits. My sespus is low and compared to other healers so is my respia. I have no plans on getting a lot of additional sespus, although I may get to the next message, and I think 50 higgrus will help me out a lot more than getting 50 respia.

Estuary is going smoothly. It seems that even if I hadn't decided to switch from Jeanne to Moon Kitty I probably would have had to anyway. The numbers of healers has not been high lately with just Lorikeet and myself many days. Even though Azel told me she'd switch to her healer that would have swapped an excellent fighter (Azel) with a mediocre Bloodmage (Jeanne). Even though Mujin-kun doesn't need anyone else to dominate anywhere she chooses to go most of the time, I prefer to enjoy fighting not watching someone else do the fighting while I lay fallen.

The next expansion has all of the required materials and I'm looking forward to it being done. Based on what Yappy has said on his blog, that is still being worked on which makes me happy just to know what's happening. So many GMs refuse to talk to the players that it's easy for me to think that no work is being done at all.

In fact, Slartibartfast actually posted on our forums to tell us that he's working on the debuffs as promised. All 3 debuffs in one trainer and he's tweaked the blood so that we get more spirit back based on our health. That means even if it's a slaughter we'll get more blood back than we used to which means we might be able to debuff at weaker areas even if we don't vanquish the stuff there. I say might because I don't know if anyone's tested it (I really have to do that.) which may mean our debuffs will be usable in more areas. It would be great to be able to debuff and use hemorrhage in areas where I vanquish stuff without running out of spirit.

Even though Jeanne is still going to get to 100 Crato Defeal (spirit trainer) because better to be safe than sorry if the numbers get tweaked as Slartibartfast threatened to do if they were too good. :-(

Time to go to bed. Sweet dreams!

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.

Jeanne gets out of the library!

I've included a few pictures of today's hunt to the Estuary and you'll see that it's not me as Moon Kitty, but Jeanne. Yes! I've actually been able to leave the library as Jeanne and go on a hunt where I get kills and vanquishes. I can still scarcely believe it myself but thanks to Azel's generosity it's possible. She said that after she got the Reed Cat morph that she'd switch to her healer and I could bring Jeanne instead of Moon Kitty as a reward for my (mostly) reliable healing. Ironically enough, we've had so many healers lately that Azel hasn't needed to switch at all.

I'm still not incredibly good as either a fighter or Bloodmage, and I still need a lot more ranks in the Bloodmage skills, the Bloodblade itself (200 is too low), and more health and regia to be a force to be reckoned with. Right now I have the following planned out as to what I want to get and when with the numbers in brackets being what I currently have.

1. Cryptus to 100 (20 - 29)
2. Dantus to 50 (0)
3. Crato Defeal to 100 (50)
4. Bloodblade to 400 (200)
5. Stedfustus until Troilus is 50 (30 - 39) or Histia is 400 (300), whichever comes first
6. Troilus to 50 or Histia to 400

However this plan was made on me spending most of the time in the library and from my experience in the Estuary some skills will be more useful sooner rather than later.

I think that instead of getting cripple to 100 I'm just going to get it to 50 and wait until the debuffs get reworked to put any more ranks in it or disable. I'm also going to get another 50 Crato Defeal sooner rather than later because feign death and cripple take up a good amount of spirit, and I've had to stop using hemorrhage on a regular basis because of it. Inferno is a good ability under the right limited circumstances. Circumstances which don't usually happen in the Estuary so I can put that off until last. I'd like more hemorrhage but that takes spirit and if I don't have the atkus from enough Bloodblade I won't be able to use my special abilities so I can put that off until later as well.

The question then becomes do I get Bloodblade first or Stedfustus, keeping in mind that it will take quite a long time to get noticeable ranks in whatever I choose. On the one hand I have enough atkus to hit everything in the Estuary but fall a lot so more health will be useful. On the other hand, I tend to not get healed much over red health so how much usefulness I get out of the extra health might not be that much. However if I want to go to places where I need lots of atkus it would be good to get the Bloodblade sooner rather than later.

1. Cryptus to 50 (20 - 29)
2. Crato Defeal to 100 (50)
3. Bloodblade to 300 (200)
4. Stedfustus until Histia is 400 (300)
5. Aneurus to 150 (100)
   
6. Dantus to 50 (0)

It'll take a long time to get here and I'll probably adjust it over and over again along the way but I think it's more realistic than the one I had before.

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.