Tag: EQ2

Stargrace Dings Level 80 (finally)

I finished the bards betrayal back over to Troubador, made all of the skills she’d need in adept3 (that’ll have to do for now) and then felt a slight ‘ping’ some where that I had not yet gotten Stargrace to level 80. Stargrace was my ‘main’ a few years ago when I was in a raid guild called Torrent Knights, on the Lucan D’Lere server. I don’t recall if she was actually called Stargrace at the time, I don’t believe so. Since I’ve moved servers a few times I’ve had her name changed (and the wardens, and the templars, and the defilers). I remember doing EoF raids with her, Inner sanctum and Freethinkers Hideout. I was so excited, and I was parsing really well (for that expansion). 

When I move to Antonia Bayle and joined Arsenal I switched to my bard. Then eventually switched to my warden, and then just after dipping my toes into RoK raids (T1-T2) I stopped raiding all together and moved to Najena. It was just too much drama, too much time to devote to it. Stargrace became a much neglected character, sitting on the back burner while I played other alts and crafters. She’s been an 80 provisioner for months now, being one of the easiest skills to level up. She’s had a wonderful 5-room home in Qeynos that hasn’t been re-decorated for two years now and basically is a giant sized dust collector. 

I’ve been at 40% experience for a few weeks now, having no wish to grind out that final 60% doing quests that I’ve already done on a number of characters. Looking at the best plan of action, I decided to work on Jarsath Waste quests, the repeatables. They give roughly 10% when you turn in each round. Shadowgeist came along after raids, I was 80% into my level and he suggested we head to the Moors because the quests there were very quick and easy to do. 

Finally, I dinged the illusionist level 80. Woohoo!

So what’s the big deal? Well, number one she’s the 4th character I have to reach level 80, so that gives me a 40% bonus experience on my account for adventuring. It also means she can work on getting void shards, and get into instances with groups easier. She had every M1 from 70-80 but I’ll have to make those all into adept3 because even though the damage may be greater, so are the resists from the previous tiers masters. I bought 30 tynnonium cluster last night and I’ll set my sage to work today. 

Ok so it’s not THAT big of a deal that I reached level 80. It means I have a 5th epic to obtain (I have warden, coercer, dirge, troubador epics) and it also means that if I really wanted I could start working on getting the templar to 80, she’s been sitting at level 77 for months now. That’s even more painful then leveling up the illusionist though. 

I’ve been spending a lot (and I do mean a lot) of time thinking about what to do in regards to raiding. Do I want to join a hardcore guild, or do I want to start from the ground up. WHO do I want to raid with (which is the most difficult question of all). People typically respond with a “play whatever is fun for you” but what if all of your characters are equally fun, or if you’re simply used to bouncing around to alts over and over. It’s been years since I’ve settled on a ‘main’. 

Anyhow, I’m happy to have finally reached 80 with another character. I’ve had doppelganger (the level 80 illusi spell) for almost a year now, waiting in my bags to scribe. I also got to put on a few new pieces of gear. Can’t get any better then that really!

AGAIN?!

Ever since 2006, I’ve been betraying my ratonga bard over and over. This is probably the 8th time or so I’ve switched her, if not her class then her city. Why? I’m not quite sure it’s just one of those things. Alts and betrayal quests. I’ve betrayed every single one of my characters at least once at some point in their EQ2 careers. 

I even own both the dirge and troubador epics already, so it doesn’t matter which class I play, I won’t have to worry about that quest. I’ve got both of the mythical quests on me as well, which you can actually complete each of. If I ever get to that point. 

Which brings me to my next point, raiding. I think I want to raid. Well, I’m going to be left with a lot of very lonely empty nights alternating every week every month starting in January. Winter is already dark and lonely enough without anything to do, so I’m thinking of getting into raiding and wasting my time that way. We’ll see, I haven’t made any solid decisions yet (like who to raid with or what guild). It’s just been something I’ve had on my mind. I don’t even know how to get started any more, or if I’m too far behind. I’ve got the 80 troub, warden, and coercer, as well as the 79 illusi and 77 templar just waiting there, and the 74 defiler on her way up. I’d like to settle into raiding with one character. I don’t want to raid 6-7 days a week, but we’ll see. 

Hope everyone else is having a wonderful Wednesday!

Mmm Frozen Goblin Popsicle

Yesterday it was time to finish off the set of Frostfell gear for my berserker, Sharatan. The character was level 40 when I started and by the time I finished purchasing a bp, legs, forearms, shoulders, shoes, and gloves she was level 42 and a good portion of the way through it. The gear again is quite an upgrade and it is nice to have a (reasonably) alternative to the mastercrafted I typically put my characters in. The box on the right is Shadowgeist’ main inventory, who I used to complete those icey keep runs. As you can see I’ve managed to collect a huge number of tokens and frozen Popsicle goblins for him – which he has no real use for. So what does that mean for me? A lot of tradeable house items can be purchased from the Frostfell merchant, and so some time between today and January I’ll be using them all up and buying a couple of hand fulls of those items more then likely. Of course since the berserker was level 5 last weekend, and is now 42, I haven’t kept up on her skills. She doesn’t know what vitality is. Her aggression skill is something like 15/220 which means I still have lots and lots of room to work on the character. Thankfully, I can also go borrow a dummy in the Siege guild hall and work a few skills up that way. 

You’d think I’d be tired of running that icy keep instance, and in truth I guess I am a little bit – but not because of the instance itself. I’m tired of running it because of the lag. The lag is painful. The only reason I use the shadowknight and box this instance is because I know it’s the only character who can fight through the lag and still win once I’ve paused for 20 seconds. I even attempted the heroic version and managed to solo the first four named (gate keeper, trio, melee immune and spell immune) who reward 5 tokens as opposed to the easy version which rewards one but it was VERY painful and slow, and the lag made it all kinds of ‘not so fun’.

Today I think I’ll betray the dirge over to troubador. Those loams in my bank are taunting me. It will probably still be quite some time before my swashbuckler, paladin, or berserker need T8 adept3’s and when that time comes I’ll either go harvest some (hah, right) or have the money by then to buy more. 

One a completely random seasonal note. We have about a foot of snow on the ground already, and another 5 inches are due today (I woke up wondering woah, where did all THIS come from!) and my Christmas tree made it past the first night with the cat. That’s always something I have to question each year, whether or not I’ll wake up to the entire thing on the ground with ornaments strewn about everywhere. I live in an apartment building that doesn’t allow real trees (fire hazard) so I’ve just got a 6 foot fake one. So far she’s curled up under to sleep with the presents, but hasn’t chewed on too many candy canes. 

OH! Before I forget!

Huge hugs to Gidgit from the Najena server who sent me a tell saying hello yesterday! I always love chattering with people who read (or who I read!) and that really made my day. Thank you!

Baby it’s Cold Outside

I didn’t play very much yesterday, but when I did play (aside from a brief session in Ruins of Varsoon helping Gnewton level up his monk) I headed over to Frostfell. The gear sold by Gerbi Frostfoot was a huge upgrade for a number of my characters (ones lower level where I haven’t particularly paid attention to their gear). It scales up every tier, so there’s gear at 22,32,42, etc. My paladin was level 50 and bought all of the level 52 gear. Legendary and – wait.. why does she have snow flakes stuck THERE?

Anyhow. The paladin managed to get from 50-52 while doing the quests to get tokens for that armor. I bought her a full set (which dropped her saves vs. heat down to 0 but oh well) as well as a sword. Ideally I’d like to get the shield and the bow too, but I’m not sure I can handle doing that quest any more. I ran it a LOT yesterday. It’s nice to see my paladin in real gear though.

After the paladin had her turn, I took the swashbuckler for a few runs and bought her the chain bp, legs, and shoulders. Ideally I’d go after the full set the dagger and bow as well, but again that’s a LOT of frostfell runs. Swashbuckler went from 52-53 after running the instance twice. I love the experience given in these instances, though I have a nagging feeling that these may be ‘adjusted’ in the future. The quests are rewarding 7% aa each time you run the zone which takes roughly 10 minutes or so. 7% every 10 minutes is pretty hard to beat. 

Anyhow…

Then it was time for the berserker who hit level 35. This is the one who went from 5-30 on Saturday with the level 80 mentor group. She’s got no gear at all so I’ll probably focus my efforts on getting her some, though I’m torn between getting her the level 32 gear or just leveling her to 40 and wear the new tier of gear. We’ll see!

The tailor and alchemist both hit 65, five more levels and I’ll go back to grinding writs for the final push to 80. That’ll be 7/9 of my crafters at level 80. The armorer is still stuck at level 41, one of these days I’ll have to just get her to 50 so I can do the crafting instances. I don’t plan on leveling up a weaponsmith, but I may level up multiple other crafters on my 2nd account, so that I have crafters on each. I haven’t really decided quite yet. 

I’m creeping up on my 1,000th post (10 posts from now I believe) and I’m pretty excited about it. I’ve also posted every single day for the last three months, which was one of my ‘goals’. Everyone is getting ready for the holidays and I’m excited to see it.

Crafting, Instances, and Betrayal?

Yesterday compromised of a little bit of everything. It was great. I can’t think of one particular thing that stood out aside from the three hour nap while I was loaded up on extra strength tylanol but that had absolutely nothing to do with gaming. I think.

The 70-79 channel was particularly rude for no obvious reason I could figure out. You would think that people would be feeling more festive towards one another, but it turns out that this is not exactly true. I did two tradeskill instances, bringing my tailor to level 64, and the alchemist to levle 65. Five more levels or so to go and then I’ll go back to grinding writs for my experience so that Nostalgia can get some levels instead of leveling them through the wonderful instances. Oracia got herself a rolling pin that dropped from the instance. In all the time I’ve done them I’ve never seen that item before. It has a 3% increase to tradeskill experience, I wonder if it stacks along with the other bonus’ in game. I’ve been saving up a lot of transmuted parts, so I’ll probably put a mass of those for sale before too long. I have far too many that I’ll never use. 

I spent 100p yesterday on silicate loams. I know, why? Well. I’ve been thinking about betraying the dirge back to a troubador. I know I rarely play her, so why drop 100p? I doubt my reasoning will make sense to anyone other then myself. I changed her to a dirge thinking to myself ‘well, if I’m not going to raid with my bard, why not play something that has more group utility’. Hate transfer, rez, heals, etc. Turns out there are a billion dirges on the server right now and I don’t play her as a dirge, either. So why not go back to troub if I’m not playing and then maybe I at least have a chance at wiggling in on some raids. I have both of my epics for troub and dirge, and if I were ever to raid with her I could complete both mythicals at the same time, heh. Sort of funny (and sad). 

Aside from the crafting and spending much money, I did an instance or two. The VERY nice charm item above came from – you guessed it, The Crucible. An instance I’ve done so many times now I could sleep walk my way through it. The quest related to the zone yesterday also required no killing, just some clicking, so I ran my alts through and got them all their void shards. Later on in the evening Hellsong needed an update for chapter five (the final zone it sends you to) and off we went. In The Obelisk of Ahkzul (which is where we were) there is a named who drops two chests. Second last named. The first chest holds a legendary of some type, and the second one holds between 10-20 plat. 

We got 12 plat from the chest and some change, which was fantastic. The zone is quick and easy and Hellsong got his update just fine. 

It was starting to get late but I wasn’t tired yet, so I stayed up and did some of the Frostfell quests with Goudia. Even if I don’t decide to betray her, I have a paladin and a berzerker and a swashbuckler who could all make use of the loams eventually. I ran the Icy Keep instance a few times amassing tokens to purchase the charm item that everyone is talking about. Still lamenting over the fact that there’s no healer version. 

All in all, a really nice weekend! Hope everyone else had a great one too.