It’s taken a month, but in the next day or so I should hit 28 on my current life. The Artibard (or Bardificer as I’ve seen it called) is still a ton of fun to play, more so this time round as I made sure to put points into Perform (I just didn’t put anything into Spot – we know where all the traps tend to be) so I’ve managed to get it into the mid 70’s. When I hit 26 I also changed my enhancements to remove the rune arm from my Swashbuckler tree, going to the more traditional buckler usage and bringing Low Blow into my available skills. (Well, Turbine fixed Trip so I needed it!)

Had to get an armour kit – the dragonscale docent is ugly!

It’s also been a good week for running epics, as we caught up with our guildie Aldrac at around the level 20 mark. Or maybe he caught up with us then overtook us… I forget. Anyway, whatever, we could group together. He’s running a Paladin/Fighter build, so with him & Rach as her pure Paladin we just jumped into the epics on eE from the start.

This isn’t something Rach & I normally do. We probably could run eE as a duo but it would take longer. I’m happy to admit that my builds are not “uber” and running through on eH is fine with us. But Rach’s Paladin is a complete rock. She can just stand there and take anything thrown at her, she’s saved my arse several times this life with her Lay on Hands, so even when Aldrac wasn’t around we continued with the eE’s. Made a nice change for us – and a lot of XP quickly.

The Thrill of the Hunt, Wheloon

What Goes Up, Storm Horns

When we hit 20 we made the effort to flag for the House Cannith raids for this life. Both myself & Aldrac want some alchemical gear. I’ve been meaning to do it for several lives but never seem to get around to it. So last weekend we attempted a 3 man run of Master Artificer. It went really well – until the last fight. It took a while to get the Titans beaten down, but once we did we didn’t have the range DPS to get Toven down. The Titans came back, we decided to leave.

Lord of Blades – one of the prettiest raids in the game

Master Artificer – take 2

This weekend, with a few more people around, we ran both Lord of Blades and Master Artificer. The Lord of Blades was just Heroic Elite, in order to get Tier 1 crafting materials and was really easy. Master Artificer we ran on Epic Normal, again for the materials we needed, and damn me if an alchemical quarterstaff didn’t drop for me! Just what I wanted – the DDO loot gods must have been feeling generous 😀 I think I actually have what I need for the Tier 1 upgrade so hopefully I can get that done this week.

Now to upgrade it

Since the builds are working out so well we’ve decided not to TR immediately, but to spend this week trying to get some gear together. I’d like to pick up a Celestia for the next few Bard & Artibard lives, so that means running Caught in the Web. Both myself & Rach would like to run the Thunder Peak raids if possible. So we may actually have to pug this week – shocking! 😛

Mobile App Update

Did I mention I’m terrible at motivating myself outside of work for writing code? Well, I am. The app hasn’t got very far 😦 However, I had an idea for another app which would be smaller, so easier to write and a good way to get started. I’m not going to give details yet, because although I’m feeling optimistic this week there’s still a good chance I’ll find other things to do…

Like raids 😀

But I will try my best to make some progress then share with you.

Have fun, see you around!