User:Floppie
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[edit] My EQ Inf0z
- Character name: Floppie Obsidian (Magelo)
- Server: The Seventh Hammer (UCS namespace "seventh")
- Guild: Savage Arms
[edit] My EQ Blog
[edit] November 22, 2007: Back to Full-Time
Well, with Thanksgiving over, I should finally be back to normal play times, with time to write here every couple days again. We managed to get some raiding done...totally ripped through DPoB stuff until, two nights in a row, the zone crashed while we were doling out loots on Hatchet. Seems like a bug. Maybe it'll get fixed in Monday's patch...I won't get my hopes up on that one, though. Next week is bubble week, expecting Sullon Zek and Suchun to both go down pretty easily, given the progress we'd made previously. That'll put us in Deathknell for some easy upgrades. The Performer should also be pushed the last 6 minutes that we need.
That aside, I reactivated my Shaman, Tomazoak. I found that a level 79 Monk, with a level 70 Shaman healing, does not have much trouble working his way through the Fennin Ro script in Doomfire for exp. I also found that the pair has a tough time doing two mobs at once in a static Katta Castrum task. Especially when one forgets to turn of attack during enrage on the Monk ;)
I did the Oil Cans quest with a group the other night. The quest was, for the most part, not difficult, although it was a bit lengthy. It got more difficult toward the end, with the nasty Cog Marauders. They had roughly 600k HP each, spawned two adds at 50%, which were equal in difficulty to normal zone trash, and didn't have a safe camp, so generally there were other adds to deal with on top of it. Then, to top it all off, they rampage and deal some pretty hefty DPS.
More info to come, now that I'm back ;)
[edit] November 17, 2007: The Grind Continues...
And some more grind...to start the day I was 5% of the way into 78. I wanted to get as close to 79 as possible. So I joined up with a group making a run through an Evidence of Unity mission. I figured, alright, quick exp...that's the best kind of exp. Well, I was wrong...our DPS was pretty beat, so the complete mission clear took us two and a half hours. It was so painful that I refused to go back to Thalassius for the rest of the day ;)
I got some more steps of Vrald's Lost Brother done. It's been pretty easy thus far. I was even able to solo the little goblin named, Shadowloper. Then I got a group a little later that was hunting some stuff in Loping Plains. We didn't do any of the Vrald stuff, but I managed to get a couple steps done on some other tasks I had. Eventually that group broke up, right around the time our Bard officer was getting a group together for another Fortress Mechanotus mission. We ended up doing the first Gyrospire Zeka mission, with a most humorous (and bizarre) name; Did we forget the cheese.
The mission really was not difficult. The Cleric was a little light in the mana pool, but once the Shaman got there to back him up we were solid. Again, had to kill 35 steamworks...then had to run up the spire to the refueling room, get a bunch of oil and coal, and use it to ruin the cheese that Meldrath and his higher-ups were supposed to eat at their meeting. There were two nameds; one in the refueling room whose name escapes me, and Chamberlain IX. Both were much easier than Chamberlain I, from Scout Gyrospire Beza.
So the mission was pretty nice exp, and I ended the night at 74% into 78. Going to try to get 79 before raids resume tomorrow. I don't think it's too lofty of a goal ;)
[edit] November 15, 2007: My First SoF Mission!
Well, to start out the day I did a couple kills in Halls of Honor to round out the Heightened Learning I had running from yesterday. Blew up a few mobs, got some halfway decent exp due to the hot zone modifier, then eventually ended up with an invite to another officer's Valdeholm group. That was pretty fun, camped the room with the mob that drops The Guardian's Pouch, pulled anywhere from 2 to 8 at a time and decimated everything that moved.
I bailed on that group (not without making sure everybody was alright with it, of course ;)) to go join another officer's new content group. We tried out the Scout Gyrospire Beza mission. It wasn't difficult. A halfway-skilled Monk/Bard will make most of this mission trivial (a lot of "go to this location" objectives). They have a little failsafe in place for that, but it's only "kill 35 steamworks", so it's really not that much of a hindrance. The named mob (Chamberlain I) is pretty easy. Spawns three weakish adds throughout the fight. Take care of him and his adds, then go back and hail the clockwork gnome who gave you the mission. It was easy. The exp was pretty good.
Then we tried the static version of Gyrospire Zeka, to no avail due to slacking group members ;) we replaced them, tried some named gnome in Fortress Mechanotus and got our asses handed to us...mob hit for 4100 max on a 34% shielding Monk. We had a Shaman healer...it wasn't going to happen. So we rezzed up and headed to the Hills of Shade, which were nice and steady, fast exp. I got 78 there, camping the undead pirates to the north. I'll definitely exp there again.
So, all in all, I'm still pretty happy with the expansion's content. I'll be happier when spells get fixed, but it's not a dealbreaker.
[edit] November 14, 2007: More expansion stuff
With the new day, it was time to log on and do some more stuff in the new expansion. However, I got an offer for a group doing Evidence of Unity missions, and the allure of leveling more quickly was just too great to resist. The selling point was that I knew it would be faster exp than Bloodmoon Keep or some other zone. Doing full clears of the instance (we made a right at the ZI and looped around to come up the other side, hitting the library along the way) yielded 53% of level 76 per clear with 30 minutes of doubled exp (I still had half of my Ceremonial Elixir of Scholarship, popped it once per clear), and that was with 10% going to AA.
The group I was in was completely ridiculous (me and the SK were the highest gear level in the group, at DPoB-ish level), doing full clears in roughly 45 minutes apiece. I was able to do two and a half clears before having to leave on a work emergency for the night. More on the new expansion coming tomorrow; I'm planning to solve some of the solo tasks I did half write-ups on last night (this morning).
[edit] November 13, 2007: Secrets of Faydwer released, time to do some Live server exploring
Well, Secrets of Faydwer came out today. You can read the patch message at Patch:November 13, 2007. Some classes made out very well with their AAs, some got a mediocre lineup, and some got totally boned (Monks, Bards, and Berserkers got totally boned, as far as I can tell, if your class got boned but isn't on this list I probably just haven't seen the list/feedback yet); some classes deserved their sets, some did not. However, one thing that you cannot ever say is that Nodyin does not give it everything he's got. Even if some classes did get boned, he was very receptive of feedback from the community for the entire beta process. Communication was always open with him, and he did what he could to get all classes what they wanted; but sometimes, it was out of his hands.
Disciplines and spells, however, are another story. They pretty much all suck, and they will stay that way until Prathun finally pulls his head out of his ass and patches them all...which will then, of course, require some rebalancing and retuning that will probably never happen. Monks, for instance, received two pretty cool abilities...neither of which will see any real use without retuning, however. We received a new DPS discipline that costs twice the endurance that the level 63 discipline did, and doesn't even exceed its DPS; in many cases it falls short. And it's like that for every class. All I can say is wtf, Prathun?
Now, with the bad and the ugly out of the way, it's time for the good. Heroic Items look very promising. And the content...the content thus far is stunning. I've been exping in Bloodmoon Keep all night and I'm having a blast. The pulls are challenging, there are Rogues who hang around in Shroud of Stealth just waiting for unsuspecting players to run by, and there are at least three nameds that are within pull range of the zone-in, which drop sets of visible gear (divided up, as expected, into silk/leather/chain/plate); each mob drops items that go in a different slot, including BPs.
All the zones (at least the ones I've been in thus far) have been very well designed. Pathing isn't even that buggy, which is saying something, coming from a puller who plays a programmer on TV. There are abundant mini-quests (see Category:Secrets of Faydwer) to augment the level grind and make it a little less painful; I've found 7 or so in Loping Plains alone. One of them yields a 50% coin reduction, 100% weight reduction bag...10 slots, giant capacity, and 0.1 stones. Most of them also yield some faction with the Fang Breakers, which is probably a low-end progression line. I'll be messing around with these tasks tomorrow. Stay tuned; I'll probably be doing a mission or two as well.
