A Pixel Nomad

 

Vanguard is finally down for patching today, where they’re removing Randolph’s ability to fly (pouts) and I believe also reducing the bonus exp they had running during the holidays (double pouts). I’ve come to the conclusion that Vanguard is one of those games where you want to focus on one character at a time – if you plan on working all of the spheres. Other wise, you just end up standing at the same level on all three (or more) characters for far too long. So after some contemplating, I’ve decided to (mostly) stick it out with the blood mage. She’s getting re-geared (slowly) as I do gray quests in the mean time. Who wants to play a character that’s got no gear after all. I switched her crafting around from tailor (which would only be able to make bags and light armor – not useful to all of my characters) to artificing, so that I could make things for all of my characters. I also switched to lumberjack as a harvest and quarrying so I can get some gems.

I spent 30 minutes killing stone golem guys around the Three Rivers area yesterday in Thestra, and managed to harvest FOUR rare T2 gems, which was great. I already had one on me, so I can (eventually) make some pretties with them. I’m only level 12 at the moment, so I find everything difficult to make pristine.  I’ll just do those work orders and try to get a few more levels before I want to risk using my rares.  I’m also working on some crafting quests, or trying to at least. I need better gear, I don’t quite understand the whole.. where to put my points thing, and the other tab that lets you lock some skills and decrease / increase others is a bit muddled to me as well. I’ve read the crafting forums but I haven’t made much sense of it yet. I have decreased carpentry since that’s not the line I’ve chosen to go down, and I know that will move my points around for me. I know my ‘shaping’ skill is hurting me right now, but the Kojan market has absolutely nothing for sale, so I’ll have to check out the other continents and see what I can find. I’ve been working on a crafting quest for Tush that gives me two tools and two pieces of orange gear, so I’m excited about that. I need to look up the quests again and see some other fairly simple crafting quests I can do to earn some gear and tools. I know you can get them with the work orders too, but mine have not been rewarding very many useful items like gear (even though I make sure to get B-A quality on them all, I do dark blues).

I did more of the URT (United Races of Thestra) quests yesterday, getting Satia her shoes and shoulders – the gear is level 18 and she’s level 23, but it’s far superior to what I was wearing. I have the pants quest still on me, and I believe I am missing a few. Or maybe they get unlocked as I work them, I’m not certain. I know there is also a level 18-20 set of gear in Qualia that I can quest for, called hunter’s gear I believe? I’ll have to look into that as well. It probably requires a group for most of it or something. Then there’s also these quests that I see people LFG for all the time, called “TK” which I’ve asked the guild about a little. Looks fun. So I’m going to stick it out with the healer (even though there’s a need for tanks as well) and see where I go with her. In the mean time, safe travels, hope everyone else is having a blast too.

 

Arysh was not her father’s typical daughter. She was the youngest of 8, all girls. While the others were dressing up in fancy clothes, and gossiping about scandalous things, she was outside tumbling around in the mud. A disappointment to her family, who had such high expectations of her. At the age of 10 she’d taken to spending most of her days along side the local weaponsmith, watching eagerly, her bright blue eyes devouring the molten metals and learning how to shape and meld it to her wishes. The amount of control it required sent shivers down her spin and she could imagine herself doing nothing else. Of course her family thought other wise.

They tried numerous times to get her interested in the ‘typical’ girl things, to no avail. When she turned 12 she left home – that young, to study with the weaponsmiths of Tanvu. Her family at that point had all but given up on her, and over the years often forgot she even existed.

Arysh however, did not mind. She was a fierce young woman and rarely let anything get her down. With her trusty weapons strapped to her side she had nothing to fear. By the time she reached her 17th birthday she was more then capable of taking care of herself and earned a living selling her wares on the Kojan markets. When she’d reached apprentice level she decided to branch out, and explore the lands of Thestra, and later Qalia, to learn their weapon styles. There was so much to learn and it rarely ever sated her appetite for more. She dreamed of studying with the great Masters, though that was still some time away. It was a quiet life despite her work, and at times she stared up at the stars wishing for something more. Each month she sent a portion of her earnings to her family, to thank them for what they did for her – and to try and help them get over their disappointment. She’d never be what they wanted, but it could always be worse.

 

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.