Stargrace

Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible

There’s only one main down side I have to having so many characters in this new TSO expansion. Because everything is purchased with void shards or Far Seas Tokens, I have shards spread out on multiple characters but no one character has amassed a large amount. There’s about 20 crafting tokens spread over 5 characters, and 10 void shard tokens spread over a few characters as well (I know, I have been slacking in the adventuring department). A few people had raids cancelled so they asked me if I wanted to head to Everfrost and do an instance with them. Sure! The group was made up of a Shadowknight, Assassin, Templar, Dirge, Fury, and myself as Coercer. Albrta and Eyenstein both went, something that has been rare as of late, and we had a blast.

We had a great amount of DPS and the mobs dropped easily enough. When you zone in there is a hallway to the left and the right, and you’re offered a quest right away too. We cleared all of the rooms along the way on the first floor, headed upstairs and took a right. We cleared the rooms there and then it was time to place the little statues. If you stand in the center there are special windows that you can look through that tells you where to place each statue. Easy enough. Killed the named and nothing too impressive dropped, but it was fun. We had to be careful of some minor AOE’s.

When it came to burning the room of named down to 50% before placing them over their little coloured platforms, we had a lot of fun. I wasn’t sure if we burned just one to 50, then put them over their stand, or burn all to 50 and place them. Turns out they all come. We had the shadowknight tank all three of the name (who also spawn adds during the fight) and then once we worked them all down to 50% we moved them over to their proper coloured platforms and there they stayed. The named talked for a bit and then we took him down as well. He does have some aoe’s. Seems like everything has aoe’s these days.

Nothing really phased us until we got to the final named, we did die once because we forgot to pull the named out of the center so that people can see the books and scrolls that spawn on the floor. We had the dirge and assassin on book duty, this allowed us to slow our fight down enoough not to be worried about when the items would spawn. You just have to click them, and as long as you have two people in the center who have their effects on high enough to see the items drop, you’ll be fine. Make sure they grab the torches first. There is an aoe that goes off just before the scrolls and books drop in the middle, so if you’re not sure when it’s about to happen (even though it’s every 20%) you can always look for that. The adds that spawn after the books are clicked are single one up mobs, the dirge and assassin in the center took care of those while we continued to take down the mob.

There are other methods of doing this encounter. You can stun / stifle the mob so that his text doesn’t go off and he doesn’t spawn the books. You can put up an aoe avoidance spell so that the aoe doesn’t touch you. Or you can just have two people click the books, which is really the easiest way to go. Slow your dps right down and just take it easy. We didn’t have any issues with the named once we set our book clickers in the center while we were off to the side, but I realize that since I was with 4 mythical geared people (templar and myself are not raiders) the encounter may not be as easy for everyone else.

A nice legendary earring dropped that was an upgrade for Shadowgeist, it was nice to see since it’s rare that any of the raid geared people want something from the zones. We also got our void shard key on one of the very first mobs, and the chest was on the main floor, so we got our shards after not even clearing the first floor which was nice.

The mission sends you around the zone to click items, chests and book pages. By the end of the evening I walked away with two void shards and had a lot of fun with good friends. It was nice to see a zone where you don’t HAVE to have an enchanter along to beat it. I did no mezing at all. However, I would say that this zone does need two healers. Deep Forge is the only zone I’ve been in so far that we didn’t take two healers (I solo healed it with only one death on the warden).

I am enjoying how each zone has a different feel, and looks different, and has a different puzzle. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do the Guk ones before too long, as well as the loping plains ones, I haven’t been there yet.

Experience and Sebilis

Yesterday was another great adventure in EQ2, and not all of it (again) was spent in TSO, which is something that I’m enjoying quite a bit. Gnewton created an alt on Najena (his home is typically Kithicor) and played the monk halfling for a while, it’s always great to see people in guild. We’re still really small (and casual) so there’s not a lot of people on. We did manage to hit level 31 though, and are well on our way to 32. Kasul helped me get some experience on Petites (my templar) in Jarsath Wastes. The quest grind there is just as boring as I remember it though. I used to be able to play for hours on end with no issues but as of late I need a lot more breaks before I start getting bored. It was still a nice chunk of experience though for the time spent.

The alchemist (along with carpenter) also headed off to a tradeskill zone. I used a potion and moused over my experience during the process. Not bad! I gained two levels, sitting me at 63. The group instance yesterday was the Firemyst one, where you have to gear up a few dwarves, and I encountered my first ‘bug’ though it did fix itself. Sort of. When the army was finally geared up, they got cold feet, and refused to follow their Commander into battle. For five minutes or so I stood around waiting for the end encounter to happen so that we could go get our chest. After a few minutes the Commander (sans army) ran off after the bad guys who instantly died the second he got close to them. Powerful fella. Even though the script didn’t run properly, the chest did spawn once the commander made it to the end of the field. A piece of rare wood, an artisan item, and the tailor item that I’d already gotten were the rewards. There was also a new solo tradeskill quest that I picked up yesterday that requires you to harvest some items in the Fallen Dynasty zones. Didn’t have time to complete it because as soon as dinner was done it was off to Sebilis!

Azztec is a friend of mine from Antonia Bayle, actually an old guild leader. The guild I raided with fell apart when some officers took control and made some choices that not everyone agreed with. They sacrificed friends and a friendly atmosphere to ‘go after the prize’ and shortly after that I moved to Najena. A few months later Azztec followed. He has a few level 80’s already, but a little while ago started up a templar. I was impressed by how fast he leveled, and before I knew it he was asking Shadowgeist for help with his epic. So yesterday Shadowgeist, Azztec, Kasul, Gellawyn, Mindblade, and I (on Silhouette, the coercer) headed to Sebilis to finish the last few bits he needed. Along the way we hit every named that was up for aa points, which was great. We also took down the named that dropped the tunic on the right hand side, except Azztec rolled greed instead of need (ack!) and I rolled greed (even though everyone else declined and I should have declined as well). This is just another example of why I absolutely love customer support at SOE. I have petitioned them for two pages worth of things on my main account over the past few years and have never had an issue with them so long as I wasn’t asking for something impossible, and I wasn’t rude. I petitioned last night to see if there was any way that the tunic could be returned to the rightful person, and less then 20 minutes after I had sent in the request I noticed that there was a blank spot in my inventory where the item used to be, low and behold, Azztec had it. Thank you! Between the guide events and the customer service, I really think SOE has done things very well. I realize everyone has their horror stories, and I’m really sorry for those who have had bad experiences, but my own personal ones have been nothing but good.

Azztec finally got all of his Sebilis updates with minimal pain, and the group split up to take a break. That wasn’t the end of the adventures though, a few hours later I headed off to Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible, which I’ll write about more later.

Guide Events and New Gear!

Did anyone lose a baby dragon last night? As I was running through South Qeynos, I stumbled upon this little baby dragon who was frolicking by the mage tower. They seemed friendly enough, so I looked at the tag they wore around their neck and found out that they live at 14 Karana Court. Well, there’s no telling what a stranger would do to a cute little innocent baby dragon (before you know it they’re a purse!) so I lured them with cake back to their home. This was no easy feat, they ran off after everything that moved, butterflies and other creatures that were outside. Eventually I managed to get them in the door, and in thanks I got the dress pictured below.

I love EQ2’s guide events, even if we don’t hear about them that often. That’s part of their mystery. The reward for this event was a frostfell dress, which can only mean one thing, that the holidays are fast approaching. I like the colour of the dress, even though it doesn’t exactly match Stargrace. It’s tradable, and I’ll probably give it to another character who can make use of it. The event was fun (although short) and I had a lot of fun talking to the ‘baby dragon’ and roleplaying leading them back to their home.

The whole reason I was even in South Qeynos to begin with was that I was headed to Sinking Sands to work on the signature quest that sends you into the home of Lucan D’Lere (evil) and Antonia Bayle (good). I thought maybe the guild could benefit from the status that’s given with these quests, plus the story line is fun to read. Once I’d completed the first chapter on Stargrace I decided to log over to Arysh and poke around the Void Shard Merchants.

I had 7 shards saved up, and while I should have checked out the ‘lesser’ void shard armor merchant first for upgrades, I went to the jewelery ones first. My wrist pieces on arysh have needed upgrading for quite some time now, and while I’d love to be able to afford the infused pieces (they’re 15 shards each from the vendor, 2 shards less then that from crafters) I did find a few upgrades on the regular jewelery merchant.

Next was to find someone who could craft me the piece, and I was in luck because that happened to be one of the books that Kasul looted last time we did a group instance. The jewelery is only 5 shards to begin with, have a crafter make it for you instead and it’s a total cost of 4 shards. Not bad at all considering how much of an upgrade the piece for me was. The void shard gear is really nice, I’d say every piece of the legendary ‘greater’ set is an upgrade for every one of my characters. Getting into groups to do these quests is the issue. Especially since I don’t know the zones well at all. Half of them I’ve never been to before, and I hate coming off like a poor healer simply because I don’t have the faintest idea what’s going on in an instance. There’s also a lot of druids out there, which adds to the issue slightly. I think I’m determined to stick with mine though. Even if there are a lot of them, I enjoy playing mine, and I personally think I play mine well. If a wayward shadowknight can find a home after searching for three years, my druid should be able to as well (sure, I know I’ll switch mains again after this post, I always do).

Kasul crafted the piece for me, and he also got a discovery for the item which was a nice little bonus. The void shard armor can be crafted via the commission system, although before you craft for someone else you may want to make sure you put your own personal void shards in the bank. That warning comes from EQ2 traders and their post about void shard gear. The old bracelet I used to wear was treasured and had an overloaded heal proc on it. If you recall, overloaded heals used to be zone wide (making fights like one particular one in VP easier) but it was nerfed in GU50. Rumor has it they’re changing them again in GU51, but they still won’t work zone wide. Anyhow, it was a piece with lesser overloaded heal, which means the proc was just over 100 points.

Speaking of which, I decided to completely re-do my wardens aa’s. She just barely hit 140, and I decided to drop a few of my regular aa and switch them over to the shadow lines. I also decided to give her a melee spec. Warden have a str line that gives them a heal based on melee attacks, they can also turn their spells into CA’s, and they have ‘stances’ in their shadow line. My warden only has 155 strength though, something I plan on fixing. She has over 1,000 wisdom and almost 10,000 power with no raid gear. There’s no reason why I can’t switch some of that out for a little strength, or at least have a melee / solo / easy group set of str gear and then have my ‘hardcore healer’ gear as well. Carrying two sets of gear is annoying, but hey I’m interested in seeing what I can do with the warden. We’ll see how it goes.

Into Chardok We Go

Yesterday was a great day for EQ2, and it wasn’t really because of anything in particular, but it was just one of those days. It started off with doing a tradeskill instance on Ellithia. Duo’ing with a carpenter, they each gained two levels which puts her at level 62. I haven’t even made any combines from the past 12 recipe books or so, there’s a lot of experience saved up if I want to use the supplies I have saved up. I’m so glad to have gotten through the dreaded sinking sands era without having to actually use any materials. From 70-80 I’m going to level up doing writs, no doubt the guild status will come in handy. Nostalgia hit 31 thanks to Kasul heading out on some pick up raids, he had a pretty good time. Anyhow, an hour later the instance was complete and we got a really nice chest drop. It had a legendary provisioner piece (which I won and gave to arysh). For once luck was on my side, and I won not only the legendary piece, but another manual (that puts Ellithia at owning two of those, which is great because she’s on my second account) as well as an extra Far seas token that was in the chest. She doesn’t have the faction to purchase anything yet, but she does have 10 tokens. If I had only done the solo quest on the first day when it gave 25,000 faction she’d be all set. I still don’t like doing the instances on level 80 crafters unless I have a full group.

A call came out early that evening from Azztec, a friend who used to play on Antonia Bayle but moved to Najena when his guild started going through some major issues. He’s a great player, and leveled up a templar not too long ago. He was working on his epic last night and needed the update in Chardok. I decided to tag along on Stargrace, who is still only level 78. I find it amusing that the online persona I use is one of my lowest level characters.

I died three times, one of those times was a wipe on the bridge. Someone managed to catch the attention of a golem who was standing off to the side and I got punted (and one shot) into the waters below. Being such low level (the encounters were orange to me) it was not exactly surprising. Stargrace ended the evening 66% into her level, maybe one of these days I’ll actually hit 80. Azztec got his update easily enough. Chardok is a fun zone, relatively empty these days with everyone doing TSO instances for their void shard bits. We first had to collect books upstairs and then pass them off to the NPC pictured above, who then opens and unlocks the doors for us to make our way to the library.

Earlier in the day I also wandered around Cazic Thul, three boxing. It’s not an event that occurs often because lets face it keeping control of one character can some times be hard enough, two is do-able. Three is just hectic. I had two accounts running on the PC, and a third on the laptop. My newly betrayed arasai (used to be a brigand, is now a swashbuckler) is now level 49, and lots of fun to play.

For some reason my computer is still having issues ever since TSO released. I find it amusing that I can play VG now on fairly high settings with no issue, but a few hours into EQ2 and to image to the left will happen. The entire computer will freeze for a good solid 30 seconds, and then everything will become distorted in some weird 2nd world way. Yesterday the wood in South Freeport changed into icons of death, patterns of bones, skulls, and chicken beaks. The NPC’s wore bright green clothing, and Shadowgeist (who typically is dressed in black) was sporting a bright shiny metallic garb. I already underclocked my video card and turned the fans on it up when I was having crashing issues in WAR and scenarios. This fixed the issue. I never used to have issues in EQ2 either, but since the day TSO went live, I’ve experienced it. It’s typically in TSO zones, most commonly the crafting ones. Yesterdays happened to be in CT though. I get no other errors or messages from my computer along with it, just this oddly scary version of EQ2. My text also messes up along with all spell icons so it typically always requires me to restart my computer, of course not without taking a few screen shots of the changes to post here (or send to friends) while I giggle and wonder what exactly is going on. Stargrace pictured in the 2nd shot looks like she’s been coated with a nice layer of some sort of acid. Anyone else experiencing this? I haven’t bothered looking at the forums because when it comes to technical issues everyone seems to experience something slightly different and the solution that works for one doesn’t mean it will work for everyone.

A few other events took place yesterday, I’ll write about those a little later today.

Boats move, and Faction in Tehatamani Harbor

Just hours after I made this post yesterday about how someone had parked their boat right on top of the riftway and I found it frustrating, I came back to the harbor to find that they had moved their boat (or someone had moved it for them, either way)! It made me giggle and I just had to get a screen shot of it.

I did the first two quests in Tehatamani Harbor, turned them in and got two shards. Right clicked the necklace I had also gotten from the Lucent Circle and it upgraded the piece for me. Went to a new NPC, picked up two more quests. These quests only reward coin, and they appear to be repeatable tasks. One makes you kill 100 creatures around the pyramids, and the other makes you collect 50 vials of liquid from these same creatures. As a blood mage I’m primarily a healer, but it’s basically a necromancer healer. You heal via life taps off of mobs. If I’m not damaging mobs, I’m not healing. The mobs are level 46 or so around this area, at level 43 that’s red. Still, they’re two dots and can be taken down, it just means that my spells don’t always land, and the fights tend to be a little drawn out. I killed the first 100 mobs and gathered my 50 vials in about an hour and a half, maybe slightly more. Went back to the NPC who gave me my 5 silver (ew, repairs were 9 silver) and gave me the exact same quests.

Double ew. I wasn’t sure why they were just giving me the same quests over again, so I checked online and it looks like I need level 44 in order to move up in the ranks.

That’s alright. I headed off next to Vsurog Moor, which is where I’ll be living pretty much from 45-50. At level 45 I can begin to work on faction for the swamp armor that everyone talks about. I’ll be going into more detail about this when I get there. It’s pretty nice armor, and should keep me fairly busy. Rumor has it that Growlius (Dreadknight partner in crime) may be coming back to the game this weekend. That would totally rock, I may put out some nice dps some times but I can’t actually tank, being a cloth wearer and all. For the odd person out there who IS playing VG (I know the numbers may be few) if you’re looking for a friendly guild with a very active player base, check out Safe Haven on the Seradon server.

Safe Haven has branches in multiple games (like a lot of guilds do these days) and have been established for quite a long time. In Vanguard there are over 585 members (as of today, yesterday someone deleted a few alts if you recall it being at 588!) and there is typically anywhere from 7-20 people on every night. I’d like to say ‘most’ people are PST, but there are a good amount in other time zones too. They’re friendly, organize guild events, and have a guild hall. They also have the trophies that get placed in halls, giving members some awesome buffs. You can either group up and hang out, or just do your own thing and have a social network, either way it’s fantastic. Just be careful, I hear Joodah bites.

After the few brief quests I did yesterday along with the killing, I’m 40% into level 43. I can’t complain that’s a pretty good portion into the level. I know 40-50 takes the longest, but I’m confident that before too long I’ll be there.