The perils of Ranger studies

I decided to quickly leave the library to verify Stylunk's correction of how it handles female Fen'neko hair dying and got pulled into an adventure.

At first it was just Gremlins, Eirian, Mork, and myself heading to the Basalt Passes (I'm not sure if this is the official name) on Metz. Seems that Mork wanted to study Ancient Greymyrs in order to get the full family bonus on Earth Elementals and had been working on it for quite some time.

There's an Ice Greymyr in the 8th-circle Fighter's Test, but you can't just study the Ice Greymyr and get 100% of your Gossamer bonus on it. There's actually a Captured Ice Greymyr in the test which means that you need to study other beasts in the same family in order to get a maximum of 50% of your Gossamer bonus with 5 studies. Ice Greymyrs are in the Earth Elemental family and there are very few of them which is why Mork wanted to study Ancient Greymyrs.

At first it went well and we made our way to the Basalt Passes with little difficulty. Then there were two greymyrs and a bunch of Twilight Wendecka and Gremlins and Mork went this way and that and both fell. I grabbed Eirian and fled to the cove only for her to have to leave.

At that point Stinkfist came on and I asked him to help. Baffina came along with Brahtz at her heels and then Eirian decided to come back. We slowly made our way to the Basalt Passes. Very slowly, even though we had more people and another healer. We made it to where we fell and I grabbed Gremlins and Mork and Brahtz and was heading south for a triumphant chain run victory when disaster struck. Suddenly there were Twilight Wendecka all around me and since I was too close to a wall there was nowhere for me to run to. I then fell and decided to depart along with everyone besides Stinkfist and Mork.

It went much better this time as we lured the Twilight Wendecka out and managed to kill them. Mork was difficult to raise but a potion got him up. Stinkfist was more badly fallen so Baffina got Great Pumpkin out of the library. I wondered why she couldn't have done that for Mork, but didn't say anything. Finally we could focus on the reason for the trip in the first place, Mork lastying Ancient Greymyr.

I directed Stinkfist to use Disable in order to make it easier for Mork to hit. The first greymyr didn't go smoothly since Stinkfist killed it even though it was on yellow. He was pretty surprised because he had his Bloodblade on Control mode. I reminded him that he did have 900 darkus. I also should have reminded him that yellow health is a huge percentage range so it could have been barely above red health, but I forgot.

With that lesson learned we lured the second greymyr and this time Stinkfist used Disable when it was at green health telling Mork to hit it right after he did. Stinkfist hit, the greymyr was surrounded with blood, Mork hit it, the greymyr fell down, and finally, victory.

It looks easier than it was.

More Fun in Estuary

Tabatha: Mirror Pond, Lorikeet: Bruised Sapphire, Azel: Floodwater, Moon Kitty: Gathering Dusk

Talas: Deluge

These are some of the pants you can get with a Caustic Gland (drops after you kill the Lord of the Undermarsh), Tangleberry, and 1500c. Both the name and the color are random, although he's only made shades of blue so far. You can see all of them on Stylunk, except for Deluge but it should be added soon.

Back to AnDeux Faure

Moon Kitty reached the 450 Higgrus mark a few days ago and is back with AnDeux Faure (2 respia to 1 faustus) until Faustus reaches the 400 message. After that I'll return to Higgrus until 500.

Borzon must be awesome at parties.

Lasties make hunts challenging.

Azel was afk and came back to this.

We fell to lack of oxygen. Sligh was never raised.

The first sighting of a Snowcat. Tabatha later learned the morph.

People still like hiding Stora. Why?

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!

Bloodmage's new debuffs

Slartibartfast wrote on the Clan Lord Sentinel:

* Big changes to cripple/disable as discussed in the other threads. High level summary is: New ability called hamstring which reduces DPS and speed, some number tweaking on the other abilities, and now training in either ability helps all three equally. (So if you had 30 ranks in cripple and 40 in disable, you effectively have 70 ranks in cripple, disable, and hamstringing now.)

* Inferno adds a bit more darkus to your inferno swing based on your health, per rank in inferno. The bonus darkus is about what one rank of bloodblade gives.

 I had given up all hope that the changes to the debuffs would ever actually happen. I had thought that Slartibartfast had stopped all work on Clan Lord entirely and was a bit upset, but tried to accept it. Probably it's why I started played Moon Kitty more often as well as being more wanted as a healer than as a bloodmage.

Now though, the changes to spirit makes me really eager to find a way to use Jeanne in a hunt. No, I'm not thinking of going back to the Estuary hunt because the thought of having to be more concerned with people's tags instead of fighting is too depressing. That and I need a ton more ranks!

Still, I think I will try to do something. These changes make being a Bloodmage sound exciting or, at the very least, less annoying.

Thanks Slartibartfast!

My first visit to Lugubrion's Castle

Lugubrion's Castle has two entrances. One is, I believe, somewhere in the Marsh and requires you to be a Thoom to use. The other is found in the Mountain Glen and requires a Mystic with sufficient illusion breaking skill to allow anyone to enter.

Recently Stinkfist had a Pirates of Lok'Groton & Friends Fun Fun Lootin' Time and I attended to lend my healing support. I'll put some pictures I took a bit later but I wanted to write down my thoughts and impressions of the castle before I forget.

Firstly, the only information I had about Lugubrion's Castle was from the Thoom hunting party that used to explore there. Maybe the Mystic illusion wasn't always there or maybe people just didn't know about it. The impression I got from reading their reports was that the castle is a dangerous place and the water guardians are tough. When it was suggested as an idea as a possible location for our small group I was a bit wary, but figured that departing was worth it to be able to go to a new place.

The gardens outside the castle were lovely and really connected you to nature. The rain added to the peacefulness and tranquility of the scene. I would have liked to explore more but we soon went to the castle itself and passed by two large lion statues. Feodoric explained that there several instances of lions used in the castle. I wonder why Lugubrion picked lions to decorate his castle.

Once in we discovered that Diotima didn't know much about the castle aside from pointing out one set of doors we shouldn't go through since they lead to the Ethereal Plane. Grateful for the warning we headed west and went in one door after the other.

For the most part Lugubrion's Castle was empty. Every room and hallway showed signs of extensive water damage. Sure it was raining outside but that didn't explain why so much of the floor was rotting away or why rooms were flooded or why mushrooms were allowed to grow.

We eventually ran into a few employees who weren't happy to see us. I guess they keep on doing what they were hired to do even though Lugubrion himself seems to have left the castle a while ago. We did find a weapon's room with a great looking glaive which I think we all wanted. Sadly they weren't selling them for any price.

We wandered around more and surprisingly were able to stick together for the most part. The few Watery Guardians and floating Watery Bolts were dispatched with ease. They probably would be more dangerous if we had a lot more of them, but then again I was the only one healing and we only had Stinkfist and Gremlins as our fighters.

Lugubrion spent a lot of time and effort making a gigantic castle only to fill it with absolutely nothing of importance and then he's letting it all go to waste. Is this on purpose because he has somewhere more important to be and figures he can just repair it when he gets back? He allowed Thooms to gain entrance which means that if he didn't want us exploring he could have shut down that entrance as well as the illusion that enables anyone to enter. I wonder if we'll ever get the chance to find out.

Regardless we eventually found our way to a huge library filled with all manner of books. Some were making noises, others were glowing and a deep mist covered more. There were books covering many different topics from navigating the water to the Ethereal Plane, magical barriers, creation myths, and more. Unfortunately some books were ruined by the water and others couldn't be read due to the language or them being blank.

We were gathering to leave and explore some more when we found something new and amazing. We found 2 scrolls and a book lying on the floor able to be picked up and read in-depth. One was on "Dwarven Satire & humor" another on "sylvan carvings and carving" and I have no information on what the third one was.

Stinkfist decided to return to town immediately and give them to the Castle Alliance which is looking for books to build a library. However, we ended up going back to the entrance and then heading east to explore a bit more but skipped going into the side-rooms along the way and didn't find anything of note.

After gathering in the Castle Alliance we found Dekkins the librarian to be eagerly awaiting our arrival, although he was a bit shocked at us stealing the books from Lugubrion. We assured him that if he came back for them we could handle whatever he threw at us. Dekkins turned out to have a bookish sense of humor, which makes sense given that he's a librarian.

He told us that we could keep the books while he prepared the library to keep them. Apparently he has let all of the shelves get dusty and damp and they were in no condition to hold books or scrolls. We also got some bonus experience for science.

Stinkfist decided to hold another book hunting party next Saturday at 2 p.m. and you can use this time link to find out what it is in your time. We have a list of possible places to find books and will decide where to go based on who shows up.

Not sure why the special scrolls and book decided to make an appearance now since Stinkfist told me they weren't discovered before. It has been a few years since the Thoom group explored Lugubrion's Castle so maybe the magic of the place just took longer to work. Whatever the reason it was exciting to be present for Pirate Science.

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!