Tag: WAR

What an unfortunate nick name to get stuck with. At times though, that’s exactly how my Archmage feels, especially in scenarios. The first few times I run one it goes fairly smooth, I stand at range, slap on some DoT’s to up my heals, and then heal until there’s a lull, then put out more dots. Things go fairly quietly for me until they (destruction in this case) realizes that the person they’re fighting keeps getting healed – how annoying is that! 

Exceptionally, apparently. Because before I know it, a whole swarm of destruction has come swooping down, ignoring the one they were fighting only to pummel me into the ground. Ah, such is the life of a healer. Once destruction has figured out who the healers are things can quickly go downhill. Especially if there are no tanks playing on the order side of things. Last night I had a scenario with 5 healers and a bunch of dps – but no tanks. No one to stop the swarms from attacking us and be out there in the front lines. We were vanquished, easily. 

I’m still dissapointed that females can’t be tanks on the destruction side. I understand all of the roleplay reasons behind it (( and LORE reasons.. I get it, 25 year old game yada yada )) but I think it’s really just… I want to say stupid but that’s not the right word. It’s really not nice. I realize there shouldn’t be such an issue with me playing a male character if I want to tank destruction THAT bad, but call me weird, I don’t want any danglie bits. I also realize it probably won’t be THAT much of an issue because lets face it, there are just less female gamers then there are male. 

I started a Zealot on Ostermark, which is a heavily populated Rp server. I didn’t get to play much last night since I had other things to attend to, but it was still fun even though I’m not particularly fond of the Chaos starting area. I hear it’s one of the more popular. 

Despite some bad comments about the Tome of Knowledge – I think it’s fantastic. I love to keep track of things, be they quests or roleplay stories or whatever else and this little thing does it all. I love the fact that there’s a built in bestiary and a way to check my titles, and more importantly – a place to read the chapter stories. They’re categorized not only by chapter and ‘main’ story, but also by public quest, and the stories associated with them. I don’t have the most amazing of memories, and it’s nice to be able to flip back to chapter one and read about what was going on. 

A few other people have mentioned this – it’s one of the QUIETEST games I have ever played. Do people all talk on some channel I’m not aware of? No one says a peep. Where’s the general chat? Maybe I have it turned off but it says I’m joining and leaving channels each time I move to a new section of land. I’ve barely heard anyone say anything, unless it was the roleplay stories I’ve stumbled onto simply due to the servers I play on. Who knew one day I’d actually complain that a game is too silent. I’ve heard a handful of people talking in scenarios but even then it’s typically quiet. 

I know I’ve been writing a lot about WAR lately, but keep in mind that I’m waiting on the newest game update for EQ2 as well as the expansion – I have multiple level 80’s there and I’ve just been slightly burnt out. So for those EQ2 readers, no worries I’ll be back, always am. Should get some time to play Guild Wars again this weekend too, which I’m excited about.

I admit now, I’m feeling pretty silly. Here I was, thinking I wasn’t getting any reward at all out of healing my arse off in scenarios when it turns out that I’m actually gaining way more then I thought. See, that first column says rank. I always figured it was my rank in the scenario vs. everyone else. A marking system if you will. Well, upon closer inspection, that’s just my level stated compared to everyone else. Duh. 

The second number is the total number of people I helped kill. Then my total deaths. Then the amount of renown I earned for the scenario (which I rank first in), I forget what the next number is for, then my dps, and my heals (nice number for that one) and finally the amount of regular experience I earned. I’m still figuring everything out but it’s a little less frustrating knowing that I’m at least being rewarded for my healing efforts. Even got some tells tonight thanking me. Of course after 4-5 scenarios the opposing team (which consists of the same guild over and over) catches on and heads straight for the healers. Ouch. I can’t heal when I’m being smashed to the ground. 

I also found a few (small) things to do between pvp to keep my interest there. Number one. Those public quests that are always empty still reward you with influence if you partake in them. Stage one is always very simple, a kill amount (or at least they have been in Chapter one and two thus far). Stage two is taking on some + and ++ mobs (group mobs typically unless you’re a few levels higher). Anyhow, I can hang around those empty public quests (every single one I’ve encountered aside from the first one so far has been empty which is really a shame) and kill at my leisure, and earn influence. Then I can head off to the merchant and get some pretty nice gear. 

I’ve also taken up salvaging and talisman crafting. This requires me to basically disenchant items (as like every other game out there who has them) and I can make talismans that get applied to particular pieces of my gear. It’s rare for me to get green+ gear so it takes some mindless farming and grinding easy encounters to get items to salvage. I think my salvage skill is sitting at around 10 and my talisman crafting skill around 5. I haven’t found any new merchants besides the ones in early chapter two. 

I’ll be writing up another roleplay story tomorrow. I’m still playing very much my own way, and it’s going pretty well. I don’t have a guild, but hopefully I’ll find one before it becomes too much of an issue. I did play EQ2 this evening, and it was great to hit level 28 with Nostalgia.

Not quite so bad, since there’s another archmage in this scenario with me, I’m rank 6 here again. At rank 6 I have two heals. One does a  very small direct heal for 80 points or so (depends on how many nukes I’ve cast ahead of time) and the other is a 212 HoT (heal over time) that also is dependant on nukes I’ve cast ahead of time. 

While it IS important to land a few dots to up those heals, my number one concern is always watching the health of everyone else. Notice my damage output? This scenario it’s a grand total of 406. Pretty cruddy. We won this one too though. Notice my rank is only 6? Well, heals are not going to bring in huge numbers if that’s all you’re concentrating on. That’s part of playing a healer though. 

There’s a few things to keep in mind, for archmage specifically. Please remember there are different types of healers – archmage is a cloth wearing RANGED healer. That means I’m pretty much never supposed to be in the front line. I hang back, way back as far back as I possibly can and cast my heals from behind everyone else. I can see pretty far away, and make sure to have the healthbars of everyone turned on, so I haven’t had any issue. One thing I made sure to do / change right away is the fact that you HAVE to be able to toggle through friendly targets. This is my Q key, right beside tab which toggles through my evil targets. 

Of course, after a while people realize that the healers have to be taken out, and you’re going to get a good swarm of people on you. My typical responce to this is to dance around and heal myself as long as I can, staying out of range, my back not to the opposing side, and hope that someone on my team will notice I’m getting smacked around and come hit the person while I’m trying to avoid them. Some times it works, some times it doesn’t. Because I stand so far back it’s rare that I get a whole gang of people on me unless I’ve some how managed to wiggle my way to the front by accident. It happens, especially if I’m trying to heal someone whose main goal is to run to the head of the pack and try to play hero by taking on 10 at once. 

I’m not good at figuring out who is who yet, aside from the white lion people and ranged dps because they have lions and bows. I suppose I’m alright at figuring out who the dps casters are for my side at least, but it takes some getting used to. I did three other scenarios, and the heals looked about the same, we did lose, once. Each scenario was with a guild (or it seemed at least) called ‘Raiders’ and I’m not sure if they were coordinating their moves or not, but it was still fun. 

Ah, right. I don’t like pvp. Like I said in a previous post it has nothing to do with not being good at it, because I don’t suck. It’s just not my thing. Despite this post (and the others that will follow) it’s nice to at least take advantage of the rest of my ‘free’ month though before the account expires, and who knows.

I’m Satia in the list – and the very last column is heals. While I like to think I’m a pretty good healer, I can’t heal an entire scenario all alone….Oh, I’m rank 6 here, and we won. Too bad heals don’t give as much renown points as actual damage does or I might have gotten a higher rank.

 

(( In an effort to make this game actually fun for myself, I’ve decided to give up playing like everyone else plays, and play my own way. Having a lot more fun with it, and I’ll see how it goes now that I’m not trying to impress anyone, but just have good ‘ol gaming fun the Stargrace method. I rerolled on a roleplay server – Avelorn. If any one is keen on playing with me you’re more then welcome, just drop me a line. )) 

 

I remember what they said about me when I tried to get work as a swords woman. It ranked along the lines of ‘too small’ and ‘she’d collapse as soon as she lifted one!’ behind the snickers and grimaces. My own parents stood in the background, my father nervously wringing his hat in his hands. He’d hoped to sell me off to some fancy man no doubt, but I had squashed those thoughts pretty quickly one evening when I returned to him after meeting one of his ‘prospects’ and slapped the gentleman’s beard in his hands. He was lucky it was only the beard he lost. 

The problem was one every child experiences. High hopes by adoring parents while my own cries went unheeded. So I rebelled in the best way I knew how. I didn’t even really WANT to lift some ugly sword over my head and swing it, and the crowd gathered was probably right, I WOULD collapse beneath that massive thing, my frail body mushed into the ground. 

I had a secret though. A talent that none of them knew about. I kept it that way on purpose, secluded from prying eyes. I knew the instant my family found out about it that would be the end of my freedom, and oh how I valued that little bit of freedom I had. 

I barely listened to the rest of the meeting. I didn’t care what the outcome would be because I didn’t plan on being around for them to decide. My bags were packed and I was eager to begin my journey on my own. My family had 6 other girls, there is no way they’d even miss me. If anything they’d be thankful to have one less mouth to feed, and when I didn’t contact them they’d assume I was eaten by a harpy or some other creature. Childish dreams at the time, I know. ‘What could possibly go wrong’ was the answer to every worry I had tucked away. Anything for the freedom to make my own decisions. My life, my friends, my career. Whichever path I ventured down I was sure it would be better then being sold off to some stranger. With the dark elves moving further in each day of course I had a little caution – but very little. Time would decide the rest for me.