Gaming – Page 680 – A Pixel Nomad

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.

Round Two: Cavern of the Afflicted

That’s always the way it happens. Monday the ‘daily double’ (which seems to reward 2 shards for some people, while others only get 1 shard) was Cavern of the Afflicted – which is the zone I did Tuesday. Tuesday’s daily double was Halls of the Forsaken – which is the zone i did Monday. Ah well. I dusted Arysh (warden) off after dinner and headed to the zone. At least the zone in issues seem to be slightly under control. It does still take a few minutes to get anywhere, but it wasn’t near the 10 minute mark from the night before. Cavern of the Afflicted is a shadowknight’s dream. This zone has so many mobs. Warlocks love it too. We constantly pulled 2-3 groups at once and Shadowgeist was parsing 8-14k an encounter. Very fun stuff.

I want to thank the people at SOE who linked my site on their Tuesday Town Crier (it’s posted weekly) with six of my posts. I really appreciate the EQ2 community and readers.

I’m collecting a fair amount of void shards now, I’m almost up to 10. I haven’t even looked at the merchants to see what they offer and what would be upgrades. I believe that there are some pieces that cost less then what I have right now, so I should look into it today. I also want to find a crafter who can make the pieces for me so that I don’t have to pay extra shards. A lot of the crafters that can be hired on Najena are asking for 1p per piece, and I’m of two minds about this. The craft books are not especially hard to get, and they cost practically nothing to actually craft the piece. On the other hand, money is not hard to come by in EQ2 especially from level 70+ so why shouldn’t they charge this amount. I’m still hoping I can find friends and guild mates who have the books rather then paying coin for simple combines.

Cavern of the Afflicted is a fairly easy zone, though I was reminded some times how frustrating it can be to play a healer. During one encounter (the one that burrows) group members are hit with a noxious dot. This drains your power, and it drains it fast. The problem is that my group did not have a group noxious cure. The way I typically fight this worm is to bring it upstairs to the room with the well in it, and any time the worm ‘burrows’ and it’s stone shield is up, train it around the room in circles so that players avoid the nasty things that happen (knock backs, aoe’s etc). When they do this, their noxious aoe also goes off. One of the group members said in group that if the group didn’t get cured fast enough (while we all had the dot of course) that we’d not have any power, and would die.

Well, I know that. However when an entire group is spread out over a well, some times not everyone is range. Not to mention we’re constantly running around for that encounter, and I have to cure everyone one at a time. I wish I could do it all but alas it takes a second or two. For the most part I think I am fairly prompt on the cures, they’re one of the most important aspects for healers in EQ2 especially from level 70+ if you’re not curing things are going to go bad, and fast.

We defeated the encounter, and got the same cinch that just dropped off of another trash mob, even though the encounter was a named one.

Ugh. Transmuted it went.

Unlike my first trip through the zone, we found the key for the treasure chest at the end of this one along our way, and each of us got our two shards. Now it’s just time to find something to spend them all on! I’m still debating leveling up my templar, but I think I’ve come to an easier solution then just quest grinding in RoK or even TSO. The templar is sitting at level 77 and is on my ‘main’ account. She gets a 30% experience bonus for adventuring due to the others on the account who are already max level. I have been looking for an excuse to level my swashbuckler (newly betrayed from brigand) on the 2nd account. Swashbucklers get stances (All dps scouts do, except bards) and taunts, making them some what effective tanks, especially at lower levels. She’s 45, and has a lot of leveling to go. Even if the experience is significantly reduced for the templar, leveling along with a 45 dps is better then leveling alone, or leveling through more quest grinding. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy the ‘questing to level’ method that’s implemented in EQ2 (I know a lot of people are quite tired of that) and I love seeing my achievements from leveling. Some times, I just want to play EQ1-style. Find a nice camp some place, sit down, and pull to the location for hours. EQ2 doesn’t do this very well, groups are constantly moving. Also not a bad thing, just different then another game.

Hope everyone else is having a great week thus far, happy gaming in whichever game you happen to play!

Exploring Tehatamani Harbor

Screen shot is of someones annoying boat. The fact that they own a boat is great. The problem is that they parked it RIGHT on top of the riftway (that red column in the back end of the ship). When you port in, you end up getting a ‘you are on a boat wee’ compass that shows up and if you’ve never been to this particular area before, it’s annoying. Have a little curtsey and park your boats some place else! Like NOT right on the riftway. Shesh.

I began my slow trek to 50. On some advice of a friend I made my way to Tehatamani Harbor, although I’m too low to get most of the quests there the area DOES have a fantastic story. The chunk itself is located in Qalia, bottom left hand area. A little piece of land that juts out into the ocean. It’s beautiful. There’s a group of people who belong to the Lucent Circle hanging out, they have a little camp all set up. The very first introductory quest gives you a necklace (well, it gave me one at least, two choices of them) and as you work on tasks for this group of people, you can combine the shards (rewards from tasks) and upgrade your necklace. I’ve only done the first few quests so far, but the necklace is already an upgrade for me.

The Lucent Circle is made up of Paladins who are there to right wrongs and do all that good holy stuff. Apparently they have opened recruitment to anyone who wants to help, and not everyone within their ranks are happy about that. The Lucent Circle is there to fight against the Tehatamani Empire. Basically like an old Robin Hood story, the Empire steals artifacts from other cultures and takes them for their own. They ransack and pillage civilizations and cultures, amassing great wealth. The Tehatamani are at war with the Vakrin, who were the last civilization that they stole from. They managed to get some sort of sacred artifact that gave them huge powers that they shouldn’t have.

The first task sent me to learn a little about their history, and then head off to some pyramids in the distance that were surrounded by snakes and bugs. Apparently their grounds keepers are on holiday and they want me to kill the diseased creatures. I did notice a raid mob also pathing around the pyramids (or maybe it was just a group mob, I forget what so many dots over the mobs heads mean now, it was at least five) and I stayed well clear of them. I killed 12 creatures, learned my history lesson, and upgraded my necklace. I love these types of quests, and the story is pretty good. I need to earn more rank with the Lucent Circle, so I picked up the next round of quests. They’re level 46 though, and I’m level 43 which means they’re red to me. They want me to kill more creatures, and I think I should be able to do that easily enough. I’ll need a few more levels before I advance too much further, so I’ll have to find some place a little lower to gain some experience. The next round of quests sends me back to collect some vials of liquid and take care of 100 of the icky creatures that surround the pyramids.

The kills all net me faction with the Lucent Circle as well, and there’s some nice heroic gear on a vendor if I turn in tokens to them. We’ll see how it goes!

A Night of Instances

An ogre, a Tier’Dal, and a Gnome all walk into the Deep Forge, and the gnome turns and looks at the ogre and says ‘Oy, is it hot in here or is it just me?’

Ok lame attempt at some humor there, but that was the beginning of my night last night. There are some pieces of void shard jewelery that would be an upgrade for me (except I don’t have the book quite yet) that take relatively few pieces of shards to make / purchase (remember, this gear is cheaper if you have a crafter make it then if you find a merchant) so I was eager to add a few more bits to my collection. I didn’t end up doing ‘the daily double’ as they call it on Najena, but I did head to Lavastorm and get to wander around Deep Forge, which is a zone I had been to in beta only. I love the way the new TSO zones look, and Deep Forge is very nice and small. It’s one of those ‘quick if you know what’s going on’ zones. Of course, having never been there myself I didn’t have the faintest clue what was going on. Zones like that are the best zones of all. I grabbed the quests outside, and I think I grabbed a quest inside the actual instance too. The group consisted of a dirge, shadowknight, troubador, warden (me), illusionist, and wizard. The best part was after we had killed something (a named?) the GIANT group of giants (I crack myself up at 6:30am what can I say) down below in the pit of lava got flooded out. I tried to take a screen shot of their desperate cries before the lava swept them away, but alas, I was not so lucky.

We saw a few ornate chests drop in the zone but nothing astounding. The final named of course decided to port me into the center of the lava pit while we were fighting, so we had a few deaths right at the very end. I wasn’t expecting it, and no one (cough cough, Shadowgeist) told me it would happen, so one minute I was healing my little heart out and the next minute, bam into the pit I go. Woopsie.

I did get a pretty nice charm slot upgrade from a quest involving the zone. I can’t remember if this quest was given to me outside or if it was the one I found inside, but it’s nice none the less. There’s also a melee version. The only thing I dislike is that this isn’t really a healer version (and there wasn’t one). The wisdom and power on a charm item really makes me happy. While playing in these zones with friends, I realize just how under geared Arysh is. The downside again to having so many alts, not concentrating on any individual one. Yes, Arysh does still have her claymore, and I do have her fabled epic, and she’s close to 10k power self buffed with 1k wisdom, but it’s the +heals and +heal crits and all of the other little unique bits that make a character ‘good’. She doesn’t have M1 of her spells, etc. So now I’m contemplating settling down, especially if I want to work on void shard quests. I love playing my healers. I’m GOOD at my healers. The problem is that my ‘main’ healer is a warden, and they are everywhere. So my line of thought says that I should try to get my templar her last few levels (she’s sitting at 77) or my defiler (even further behind, at 73) and work on one / all of the healers. I love my coercer a great deal, but I’ve played healers primarily in every mmo.

Deep Forge also has a heritage quest associated with it – IF – you can see purple shinies. There’s a new quest implimented in game in order to obtain an item to see these shinies, so if you don’t have it, look into getting it.

Once we were finished in Deep Forge I took a few hours and headed over to Vanguard, then was asked if I wanted to go back to EQ2 and do another instance. I decided sure, why not. I haven’t really been to too many of the instances honestly. The group decided to head to Befallen: Halls of Forsaken (it may be halls of the forsaken, I can’t quite remember right now). This is in the Commonlands, and I’d never been there before. I wanted to do Cavern of the Afflicted (one since I’d been there before and was comfortable with it, and two because it was the daily double yesterday) but the group decided to go some place new. The zone again was quite beautiful, and we had fun figuring out what to do. Thankfully two people had been there before even if I had not. The zone wasn’t especially hard per say, we did wipe once, but only because half of the group charged ahead to destroy a statue while half of us stayed back and I wasn’t really sure what was going on. The group was a shadowknight, inquisitor, swashbuckler, illusionist, warlock, and myself as the warden. We did see a lot of ornate drops, and I did actually get a secondary item upgrade to the shield from RE2 that I was wearing. It’s one of the few upgrades I’ve actually had drop lately. The zone mostly decided it was plate night, and nothing was an upgrade for our two plate wearers. Thankfully, Arysh is a transmuter.

The nice bit of gear to the right also dropped, and this is why I wish there were more instances with smart loot. Perfectly good piece of fabled gear – that got transmuted (and it was a server discovery) because we didn’t have anyone in the group who could use it. I heard my little 61 necromancer cry from across the account. C’est la vie though. We got an infusion from that, my bank is filled with them so I just left it to the others to random on. The zone also has a few quests related to it, and I believe one of the items is an upgrade, or will be at least when I figure out how to complete it. So far I’m stuck on a few portions.

All in all it was a productive night. When the instances were complete I logged over to Silhouette to make some of the void shard armor for Shadowgeist. The only downside to owning the books on one character or another is that I can’t craft the items for myself because the characters are on the same account I use. Solution? Have one character on each of my accounts with all of the books, so I can craft for everyone. This is a perfectly good solution seeing as I am taking my time getting the shards to begin with. Misako already has one book, and Silhouette has another. Kasul and Tipa each have a book as well, so I know who to bug for future pieces.

Hope everyone else had a fun time in Norrath last night too (or whatever game you play!)

The trek to 50

The blood mage is sitting at level 43, and I’m eager to begin the trek to 50. I’ve never been end game in Vanguard before although I did make it a goal of mine some time back. Now that I’m back in an active guild (7-20 people on throughout the day and evening at any given time) I’m excited to see what I can get done. My partner in crime (Growlius, plays a DeathKnight) has not returned (yet) but I have my fingers crossed. A tank would be nice.

I’ve been looking for places to level. I found a few posts and forums mentioning areas, and I plan on checking them out. I have a few 50% potions left to save up for quest turn ins, even though I don’t have any 100% ones. I used those ones for crafting, of course. Plains of Anquish is where I was to start I believe, but I didn’t finish all of the quests there, so I’ll have to head back.

Level 40-50

Thestra:

—Plains of Anguish – A good place to quest & level for early 40’s. There’s also a cool skeleton illusion quest that provides a nice piece of armor for your class, and it would lead you back into Graystone to finish one part of the skeleton illusion quest. So before going in to Graystone, it’s a good idea to get this quest started in Plains of Anguish.

—Lost Canyon – You’ll find quite a few quests here in your early 40’s. You should at least have a partner to do these with.

—Ruin Falls – Once you hit level 41, you can do the quests available here. These quests will eventually lead you on down south to do the faction armors.

—The Fallen Cove – There are quests here you can do to pad some levels, since you need level 44 to start doing the faction armor quests.

—Vsurog Moor / Floridiel / Ichtakhta – These 3 zones contain some quests you can do at around level 43, and once you hit level 44 you can start doing the faction armor quests. They provide you with some really nice endgame armor, it’s worth doing and will require a group for many parts. Many players do these faction armor farming all the way until level 50.

—Swamp of Rumog – Once you hit level 46 you can head to the outpost in Swamp of Rumog and quest there. Right here you will encounter high level 40’s mobs, but many are soloable if you can kite. There’s also a dungeon with high level mobs for group play, with quest npc’s outside so make sure you grab them before entering. The famous single group Hegnerian encounter is located in this swamp dungeon, and the encounter is on a 2 hour respawn timer. Hegnerian drops nice items, and is needed to finish your faction chest armor since it drops the Core of Ezigoth. It’s a fun encounter, definately take a group in there and check it out.

Qalia:

—Razad – Lots of new quests were added to Razad for the early 40’s. There’s also a new Trickster’s Haven dungeon in this zone that you can take a group in to. It’s a fun and rewarding dungeon.

—Sunset Pointe – You should be able to find a few quests here in your early 40’s.

—Stranglewater Shore – You will find the Xenn dungeon here, a great dungeon for the early 40’s to take a group to. It’s a fun and interesting dungeon, definately worth checking out.

—Rhaz Inkur – You can do quests here starting in your mid-40’s, and you can head inside once you get level 46+ with a group. Be aware mobs are mostly immune to movement debuffs and mezzes here, so don’t try things solo.

—Afrit – You can quest here starting in your mid-40’s, it has armor quests here, you should grab at least a partner to do these quests.

—Tehatamani Harbor/Temple – Lots of quests here you can do starting at level 40. There’s a lot of faction farming you need to do, and many things require a group here. You can get really nice epic items by questing here.

The leveling guide is a little out dated, but I’m thinking that most of the places will still work. Razad is about the only place I’ve been to in any depth, remember I stuck to a mid-high 30’s area for my last level and a bit, using potions to enhance the experience gain. It worked out great, after turning in 20 quests or so I managed to ding 42, even though none of the actually mob encounters gave any experience. I’m also getting close to 50 artificer (mineralogist). It will be nice to hit 50 in both spheres at almost the same time. I’m 10% away from 47, which is a huge accomplishment for me. Still trying to decide which crafter I’ll level next (yes, I do plan on leveling another one). There are some fantastic changes coming to Vanguard (including fishing and Galleons) in December, a week or two away. Looking forward to experiencing these first hand, and I should have some more write ups soon.