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.

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.

Ranger Training & Paths

This is one idea for the training a new player can take right from the moment they land on Puddleby until they become a Ranger and beyond. I'll list what to train and why and different paths a Ranger can take.

1st Circle

1. Start training with Skea and become a Fighter after 10 ranks to get the Dagger. You can get 10 ranks in anything to qualify, but Skea will be the best investment. Don't bother with Bodrus because you'll get something better as a Fighter. Everything else you could train is just fluff and a waste of ranks.
2. Continue with Skea until you get 50 ranks. This will serve you well in your career as it will enable you to skin almost all of South and North Forest and get a reliable income. This is an annoying time as each subsequent rank takes more kills to get but you're not getting stronger. Trust me that you will really enjoy the 50 skea later.
3. After you finish with Skea you can now start on your Fighter training. You have access to Atkus (accuracy), Swengus (balance & balance recovery), Histia (health), and Evus (everything). You want to train with Evus and only Evus for a long time. Evus is a really good trainer and teaches you every skill, including a bit of Detha and Darkus, two trainers you can't get access to until 2nd circle.
4. You will find yourself gradually losing the number of swings you have, but your balance regeneration will be increasing and you'll miss less often so each swing will be more valuable. If the number of your swings becomes too low then train with Swengus. How low is up to you, but I think that maintaining 4 swings is a good number to have.

2nd Circle

1. When you get access to 2nd circle you'll find four more trainers; Detha (defense), Balthus (balance), Regia (balance regeneration), and Darkus (damage). You might be tempted to stop training with Evus and/or Swengus and learn from one of the new trainers. DON'T! Evus and Swengus will be the trainers you want to stay with. Evus has just the amount of Detha and Darkus you want and if you want better balance it's far better to train with Swengus. If you want better damage later on it's better to wait until you become a Ranger when you get access to Bangus. I know it's tempting to change trainers, but you'll regret it later when you've missed out on the bonus Evus gives.
2. To repeat, STAY WITH EVUS AND SWENGUS.

3rd Circle

1. Now you can start preparing yourself to become a Ranger by qualifying for the Gossamer. You do this by killing stuff in one hit which usually means rats and vermine. Yes, now that you don't get any experience from them you're expected to go back and kill them. There's a Vermine Tree with a lot of rats and vermine that is a good place to go to. Just spend a few minutes every day, because it will take a long time to qualify.
2. Once you qualify for the Gossamer buy it if you have 5,000c. You should be saving all of the coins you have earned and with your 50 Skea should be close to this amount. If not, go out and kill more, find stuff to sell, beg in town, ask for a loan, gamble, and do anything to get a Gossamer. Once you have it train 100 ranks in it and use it as your main weapon from now on. Not only does 100 ranks enable you to qualify for Ranger but it will also conserve balance on the killing blow.
3. Now that you're stronger and can go to more dangerous places, you might want to train with the Marsh Hermit in pathfinding. He teaches a maximum of 100 ranks and enables access to the pathfinding books in the Slate Caves and Trillbane. You absolutely don't need to get pathfinding or even all 100 ranks if you get it at all. You could get just 50 ranks and be able to go to Northwest Forest and the other paths in the forests which can be useful. Just keep in mind that getting above 100 pathfinding is a royal pain in the butt and requires a large group for Book 2 and Trillbane.
4. Continue with Evus and Swengus.

4th Circle

1. You get access to the best trainer a fighter can get and that's Rodnus, who's unfortunately located in a rather hard-to-get location. Just find a stronger fighter or two and a healer or two, some pathfinding and go to the Trainer's Grotto. Rodnus enables healers to heal you more efficiently and some health as well. All fighters should get this asap.
2. Do some of the fighter hunt challenges (rat, large vermine, island panther) as the rank you get is worth more than the rank you would have gotten if you did it earlier. I've also heard that this counts toward qualifying for Ranger.
3. Train another 100 ranks in the Gossamer as 200 ranks is a good amount to have and is about what the average Ranger has.
4. While you could have become a Ranger in 3rd circle I think most don't until 4th circle at the earliest. The reason being the higher circle you are the easier it is to qualify for a sub-class.
5. Continue with Evus and Swengus.

Ranger

1. Now you're a Ranger and you have many options ahead of you as well as some goals and items to work towards. The charm (enables you to briefly run fast), belt (enables studying creatures), and extra study slots (you start with 1, can have up to 4).
2. You can switch your main trainer from Evus to Bangus (offense) or Farly (health/troilus). Bangus has troilus and a bigger damage range than Evus but with morphs you'll be able to make better use out of troilus than other fighters.
3. You can also decide as to what kind of Ranger you'll want to be. One type is the High Gossamer/Studies Ranger who has more than the 200-250 Gossamer most Rangers have and focuses on studies rather than morphs. They get most of their power from the Gossamer. Another is the Core Fighter Ranger which gets most of their power from fighter skills and only gets the most powerful studies and morphs which means they have fewer than the average Ranger. Other Rangers pick a theme and try to get morphs out of that family. Gremlins with his spiders, Azel with her cats, and Super Chicken with his birds. Another type is the Morphing Ranger who gets morphs with the atkus that will enable them to get studies and tougher morphs. As an example if you have 200 Atkus when becoming a Ranger you'll pick a morph that you can hit but which gives you more Atkus than what you have. I've heard Jade Noids or Valley Panthers are good first morphs which can give you up to 400 Atkus. With this you can go to tougher places than you normally would and enable you to get even stronger morphs. Many Rangers get the GCP as a tagging morph. There are also Fighter Test Rangers who get 5 studies in a family that's present in the Fighter Test to enable them to use the 50% family bonus and pass the test. I put them separately because if it wasn't for the test I doubt anyone would bother with studying greymyrs. There are Defensive Rangers which use the Gossamer for offense which frees up their ranks to train with Histia, Detha, and Balthus. Which one you want to be is entirely up to you.
4. Just be sure to train in spirit and spirit regeneration once you start getting studies, befriends, and morphs because after getting hundreds of last hits to get a morph you'll want to be able to use it. Until then you don't need to as you won't use spirit unless you've studied a creature's movements.

As to myself I'm leaning more to the Core Fighter Ranger and I might not get any studies at all until 5th or 6th circle. It's possible to pass those Fighter tests with only core Fighter ranks as I did it on Jeanne with a Longsword so you don't need to get studies with families you don't want just to pass them sooner. After 4th circle the only thing you get from passing the tests are a new belt (which doesn't really apply to you since you'll be wearing your Ranger belt) and at 7th and 8th circle you can change your weapon's color to gray and black respectively. I'll be going through the families and deciding what the weakest creature I'll study, if I decide to do it at all, and if I can't hit them reliably then I'll just get more fighter skills rather than more studies.

You might think this is a bit silly. Why become a Ranger if you're not going to take advantage of studies and morphs as soon as you can? Well, to qualify for tougher morphs you need a certain amount of ranks and I'm not sure if Gossamer ranks count. In other words if I spend Duvin getting studies on a weaker creature which I don't need and which I'll eventually hit well enough with the family bonus and core fighter skills, I'll eventually need more core fighter skills to qualify for the studies and morphs I do want. In other words, why waste Duvin on studying Artak Cougars? I'd rather get advance slower and get movements on powerful beasts than Duvin on weaker beasts just to be able to fight the powerful beasts sooner just to have to train extra Duvin to study them.

The same thing with the fighter tests since most of them are for bragging rights anyway and not of any practical importance past 4th circle. You can pass all of them with only core fighter skills and from my experience with Jeanne only the 7th and 8th fighter tests really benefit from sub-class skills. I'm not going to go out of my way to study a useless family just to pass those tests sooner. It seems a waste of time and ranks.

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.