Leveling – Page 8 – A Pixel Nomad

Laying Down on the Job

Another run at Fear (no choker for the summoner yet) and another run at Vault (no guard) but my 79 mystic hit level 80! This is a bit of a milestone for me. Not because I don’t already have level 80 characters (I now have 6) but because she’s the only level 80 on my 2nd account. It means that the other characters will get at least a 10% bonus at all times. I realize it’s not THAT big of a deal, but hey every little bit counts. I’m thinking of leveling up my dirge next, I’m not sure yet. I do need to work on the shaman’s gear.

Guild was nice and active yesterday, Hamal (new ranger) managed to get to level 32 (I believe?) with some help of 80’s mentoring, along with Dweezel who has so many alts with different renditions of his name I don’t have the faintest idea who he actually played in group. I want to say paladin but maybe that was the night before.

I also managed to create a few pieces of void shard gear for the mystic, you can start obtaining the basic void shard quests at level 75, level 79 for the daily double quest. Needless to say I had a nice little stash waiting for me. Since I barely did any RoK questing on her she still has a lot to do, but that can come in time. For now it’s just nice to be level 80.

I didn’t get anything done this weekend that I had set out to do, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Of course it means that now that the weekend is over I’ll have to get moving on stuff, but isn’t that what the weekdays are for to begin with?

Since I started playing on Kithicor I’ve noticed how prices can change drastically depending on server population. Antonia Bayle and Najena pricing are significantly lower then Kithicor and Oasis for example. AB and Najena are also far higher populated servers then the other two. On Kithicor things I put for sale (no matter the tier it seems) can sit, some times for a long period. On Najena where the market is constantly active things moved far quicker. This is neither good nor bad, just an observation.

I hope everyone else had an amazing weekend, no matter what game you played. I’m looking to get further into LoTRO, things lately have just been too hectic for me to stick to any more then one MMO. While I find that I work better under pressure, and I’m learning how to manage my time properly, it still leaves very little free time.

So Close to 80

It was bound to happen, I could feel it. How long had it been since last time? Only a few months. Not even. It was like some disease slowly washing over me and I’d pick at it a little bit, and then a little bit more as time went on. No one who reads this site will be surprised, in fact I can hear Tipa shaking her head at me from here. That’s right, I did it.

I betrayed my level 79 defiler over to a mystic.

I had a good reason though! Well, I figured it was a good reason. I looked up the defiler epic quest (keeping in mind this will have been the 7th fabled epic I obtain) and then looked up the mystic fabled epic quest. Yup, that’s what I based my decisions off of. Without getting into too many details, I’m happy with the choice. Plus, who doesn’t like bolster?

This weekend has been one of the most relaxing days in a long time. Everything is out of my hands until Wednesday, and while I don’t know what the result is yet I needed these two days or I was going to go insane. So I’ve gamed, went out for some food, hung out with friends. The weekend has been great. The conjuror and shadowknight from guild and myself decided to trip Crypt of Agony, Vaults (in Jarsath Wastes), and Shard of Fear on Friday night. For laughs, we dragged along my (at the time) 68 coercer, more as a power bot then anything else (that’s her in the robe above). Because the coercer is on my main account with the other level 80’s, and had full vitality, she managed to ding level 70 in those instances, and a good portion into it. I decided she had gone long enough without her sokokar quest completed so those got taken care of.

The defiler mystic managed to snag four more void shards yesterday with relative ease, bringing the total up to 8. Since I’m not even level 80 yet I think that’s great. I’ll have some void gear waiting for me when I finally make it there. A slow process but I don’t mind. 50% away from level 80, and starting yet another epic. It’s going to be great.

Kasul also came to Kithicor to play for a little bit on a ranger alt he created, it was nice to have him meet the guild I’ve been playing with. There’s no way I can afford to move off of Najena especially since the automated transfer service is still down (le sigh) but kithicor has been a nice change of pace. Shadowgeist also moved off of Najena to join a new raid guild and I hope he’s doing fantastic there. I think it’s important for players to keep in mind (in any game, not just EQ2) that YOU pay your subscription fees (in most cases) and that means playing in the method that is best for you. Don’t feel bad if you decide to act on that, in the long run your gaming experiences will be far more fulfilled.

Safe travels!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I think it’s great that we get the choice of some pretty nice armor in Frostfell this year. It’s easier (or at least cheaper) for me to work my way through those instances and collect tokens for gear rather then paying for all of my alts to wear mastercrafted, and it’s certainly on par with MC gear as long as you don’t mind having 0 saves vs. heat. That does mean the fire traps hurt a LOT when you open a chest, as a word to the wise. The only thing I don’t like, is that you can not turn off the graphic effect of the gear, even when you wear it under regular appearance stuff. It also causes a lot of lag, and if you run around on full settings like I typically do it’s a little frustrating. It looks like Stargrace needs to shave or she’s got some very bad rabies going on, and has skin care issues. She’s wearing the level 72 cloth dress, the +spell crit was a fairly nice upgrade since I’ve barely worked on gear for her.

My paladin is wearing the plate version of this gear and has the same snow flake effect, it surrounds the flower (she’s a kerra) she wears in her ear and when she’s in combat it looks like a huge abnormal growth glowing on the side of her head. My bruiser is also sporting the gi, the effect on that gear is slightly different. Instead of snow flakes you are morphed into a giant ball of snow that dusts constantly, and that’s all you can see. It’s a lot more lag then the snow flake one.

I’m hoping we’ll have the option to turn this gear off in the future, or maybe once Frostfell has passed the effects will be toned down. At least let me hide it under my regular appearance gear.

Game wise, yesterday was fairly quiet. I took my paladin to Sanctum of the Scaleborn which was completely empty. She gained a fair amount of achievements, and hit level 62. It still feels odd to have a tank this high in levels, and I’m enjoying it a good amount. I was going to do some crafting instances and get some experience on Ellithia (65 tailor) and Goudia (65 alchemist) but instead headed off to some DoF instances on my (at the time) 53 swashbuckler. She’s now sitting at 55.

It’s almost difficult for me to play a melee character now, after spending 7 years playing ranged mages and healers. It feels like I always have to be at ranged for some reason, and I have a difficult time positioning myself. Something I’ll have to work on in the future.

Tomorrow is Christmas eve! I’ll be here at home for the day and then heading to my parents place in the country. However, we are due for a huge snow storm (again) so plans may change and I may be spending Christmas eve here at home depending on the roads. Driving through 20cm of snow at 7pm at night is no fun. I hope everyone has an amazing holiday no matter your plans, get some family time in and many hugs to you all!

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!

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.