Author: Stargrace

Trying to take advantage of the 50% bonus in Vanguard before they take it away (I’m dreading that) so I decided to shuffle my crafting around a little bit. Satia was a level 13 tailor, making bags and light armor, but I decided to switch her completely to an artificer, and make jewelry. Stuff that’s useful to all classes, and not just a specific class. She’s now level 10, which is great. I’ve been making necklaces, rings, and earrings that cost me 4silver each to make, and selling them (well) on the broker for 20-25silver each. Nice little profit there and it’s very easy to make. It does require me to harvest gems, but I don’t mind that at all.

As a kojan artificer I could learn all styles of gems (for jewelry) but only actually form pieces from the marques and oval shaped ones. I decided to head to Thestra and learn their two styles as well (which let me use dex and str, the kojan one is con and vit). I headed to New Targonor, managed to find Linnike Velra some how (the starter person of the quest) who told me to talk to three other npc, and make three wooden staffs and then I’d learn their style.

Thank goodness for Randolph. I flew to Bordinor’s Cleft (which is BEAUTIFUL, nestled in the rocky hills as dwarves reside there), spoke with Brondar Northwall, from there traveled to Leth Nurae, and spoke with Tirarre Welsare, and then finally ran to Teln Oshken in Tush. Returned to NT, and recieved my 50 faction with the Thestra Artisans as well as the ability to learn their jewelry style – only one issue.

To actually buy the recipes, you need 100 faction. Easy enough, headed to Stormwatch and completed a couple of single light blue work orders for the faction I needed. Also managed to ding level 10, and picked up the new recipes. Woot.

Crafting is a game all in its own. Sure, now I can make the Thestra stuff, but there’s also Qalia that I have yet to do (which you also need to work 50 faction for to buy their stuff) and I’m level 10, which means at 11 I’ll be doing my tier quest and the continental style of crafting is something you have to learn every time you reach a new tier. So if I want to make the Thestra jewelry for level 11+ (or Qalia for that matter) I’ll have to do a new quest.

There’s also quests for crafting gear, quests for faction, so many wonderful things. For anyone who’s just starting to get into it all, I highly suggest checking out this crafting site here. I wanted to make sure I got the crafting stuff done also before they took away Randolph, who makes it easy for me to travel around (ack, gotta pick up the rest of those rifts on a few characters too!) and I just had a good time making items that were actually useful. I still haven’t figured everything out yet, like where to put points and what to decrease in points, and what gear to focus on, but I am having a good time. Which is the most important, right?

Wow. Why didn’t I make a bard in Vanguard before now?! Ok, not exactly true, I did make a bard at release, but I found them very confusing, and since I was already trying to learn how to play, it was just not going to do for me. However, now I find them fascinating. A bard in Vanguard is how you’d expect one to be. Much like the EQ1 bard, EQ2 even. With some very unique and specific features that I just fell in love with.

Number one would have to be that you actually compose your own songs. The screen shot above shows this. You basically have a song book, that’s made up of (for now, I’ve got no idea if it will get more, lyrics were new to me at level 6) 3 components. Melody, Embellishments, and Lyrics. You can also put ‘rests’ into the song under embellishments, which will lower the energy cost of songs.

Not only do you compose your own songs, you actually name them, and make up descriptions for them. I’ve named mine, but have yet to feel creative enough to make the description. When you mouse over your song buffs, the name that you’ve created shows – as does it show that way for anyone in your group. As you level up, you unlock more melody / embellishments / lyrics thus being able to compose a variety of songs. For example under melody right now, I have a small renewing heal (80 hp every 4 seconds) the anthem of war which is a + dmg / str / int / AC buff, and my 29% run speed buff (which is nice at level 6). I can add any ONE of those to the melody, and then add three more song components.

Once you’ve created your song and saved it, it’s added to the list of songs that show under ‘currently playing’. You also want to make a macro for these, so you can play them – there’s no cast time, you simply switch from song to song. The macro’s are quick and easy to make, it’s simply a text command /playsong “Minxes’ Song of more Stuff” and that plays the song for you. I’ve got no idea if you can add a macro with two /playsong commands and if that will alternate two for you – I need to find myself a good bard site.

I know bards also work crowd control, and a great bard (I’d assume) can work great crowd control will still maintaining their group buff songs.

Not only do they have those songs, but they have melee attacks that do quite a bit of dmg, especially when I’m playing all of my + dmg songs at the same time, at level 3 I was taking down level 2 three dots with no gear. Which is really nice. I’m hoping maybe I get a snare, so I can kite, but I’ve got no idea, I haven’t checked into it. Even if I don’t, it’s still very nice. Bards wear medium armor, and can duel wield and all that good stuff, so today I’ll be making a set of gear, some bags, and weapons to get by the lower levels. I think finally that I’ve found a class that is complicated enough for me to stick with, but still really fun and can get things done just fine. Granted, this is just me rambling at 6:30am about a level 6 character, so we’ll see how it goes. In the mean time, LOTS of fun to play.

Screen shot is Satia looking at one of the player made ships (no idea which one it is, or which craft style it is either) that are in Vanguard. Oh, and it’s raining out, though that’s slightly hard to tell in the screen shot. Vanguard has a weather system in place. Storms can roll through areas, including snow. Granted, it’s a little odd to see it snowing in Qualia (which is a desert theme area) but it’s still fun. A lot of people complain about the weather since you can’t toggle it off and apparently there’s some lag issues or something associated with it, but I find it fun and very easy to immerse myself into the world of Telon. When you’re running around on a mount the snow speeds up as though you’re flying through it, and it can practically blind you as you run about. The ship is a great unique aspect to the game that I’m looking forward to owning one day. There are some ‘fleets’ of ships that will be hosting parties on the 31st (New Years Eve) and sailing around to all of the ports as an event (player run) that I think is just plain interesting.

In Vanguard – Satia actually completed one of the United Races of Thestra quests that Ardwulf has been working on, rewards you with yellow gear (level 12-18, but hey, it’s better then the level 6 gear I was wearing). It had quite a few steps to it, but they weren’t especially difficult. Once Randolph poofs I know they’ll be harder. I had a lot of fun working on it, though at times I wanted to smush the other players who were close by quite soundly. Hard to work on quests when everyone else is working on them as well, and they’re reluctant to group up to try to get it done quicker. It was still a lot of fun though, and I’m glad I completed it. It didn’t reward me with much experience at my level, but hey it was just nice to feel like I was making some progress again.

I also managed to get Satia to level 13 tailor, which is the farthest I’ve ever managed to get. She’s been selling bags at a constant rate, and is up to 4g and some change now, makes me feel rich. I made some bags for Lemissa, who’s another friend that’s been playing VG a little. The bags cost me about 5copper to make, mostly just for the small amount of fuel cost, and I’ve been selling them for 20-25silver each on the Kojan market. Word of advice, don’t shop on the Kojan side, while it’s great for sellers, for people who don’t know about the three continents system it can be mighty expensive. Those same bags were going for 7silver on the Thestra side.

I also managed to get Arysh to level 15 warrior, and Faralithe is a level 13 psi now. I’m looking to get Arysh to 16 today for some new skills, and maybe a few more crafting levels since she’s a slacker at level 12 or so. I’d ideally like to see her crafter level above her adventure level, but I’ll have to actually spend some time leveling it. Not to mention I want to get into diplomacy – I have a good (apparently) site address written down in a note book some place but I’ll have to dig it up so I can refresh myself on how to play.