Caught in the Web – Finally!!

Posted on by

I did suggest, via twitter, that I might do something different for my blog covering yesterdays events. However, I didn’t get it finished. In fact, I think it might take longer than I expected. So I’ll keep working on it & hopefully have it for you in a few weeks. Then again, it will probably end up on the pile of things I have to do, along with iPhone apps, 2 novels, floors I need to put down… 🙂

So instead – my normal format.

Yesterday was our now normal weekend routine. We ran around with our TR characters until mid afternoon when the Defense Guild members turned up. We didn’t actually get that much done with the TR’s, but it was possibly the easiest Crucible run we’ve done yet. I think I may have run round that maze way too many times 🙂 And Hymm has now taken level 16.
Continue reading →

Saturday Update

Posted on by

Firstly, apologies for the lack of a blog last week. But Samius did a fine job of covering for me 🙂

During the week I’ve been running my main TR, Hymm, on Sarlona. He’s taken 15 and will probably be taking 16 soon, so looking at getting the Gianthold flagging missions out of the way.

The twice weekly runs on Orien continue. Monday we ran VoN 1-4 which, regardless of a few hitches with traps, went very nicely. Thursday we reran Deleras Tomb. As my artificer had already run these I switched to my light monk, which made a nice change 🙂
Continue reading →

Weekly Catch Up

Posted on by

Well, it’s been another busy week in real life but I’ve managed to get some decent gaming time in – here goes 🙂

During the week I’ve been running my main TR, Hymm, on Sarlona and had a few nights running with Micki & Dom on Orien.

Because both my TR’s had hit level 13, but two of our guildies are not really playing at the moment, the other 3 of us decided to switch which TR’s we were concentrating on. Hymm is my main guy that I like the most 🙂 He’s now at level 14 and with 15 banked.

Thursday night I ran the Phiarlan Carnival chain which went really well. Though Micki has no idea how to find her way around A Small Problem 🙂 Friday we ran The Pit & Gwylans Stand. I got to run these with my level 8 light monk I’m experimenting with on Orien and yay! I didn’t die 🙂
Continue reading →

Catch Up

Posted on by

It’s not been the most exciting of weeks, so I haven’t much to pass along. But I’m going to bore you all with it anyway 🙂

Our 5th guildie finally got his internet sorted out, so managed to get a few days of Mabar in with him before it dropped. Unfortunately all my farming plans seem to have gone out the window, I think I’ll have to get serious with it when (if?) it comes back later this month.

We’re gradually getting back to running our TR’s, who are now at 13 (Hymm, with 14 banked) and 11 (Fyrne with 12 banked).

I do miss my light monk though. So I cheated and created a Vet II light monk on Orien to try my whirlwind build with. He doesn’t get played very often, but it’s nice to jump on with him now & then.

Yesterday I realised that there is one mission in the whole of DDO that I actually hate. It’s the Claw of Vulkoor. Why you ask? It’s the damn Priestess Ionna! She sounds like Michael Jackson, whispering in my ear. Bugs me! lol

OK, that’s me for now.

Have fun, see you around!

This week in DDO…

Posted on by

Well, nothing especially exciting has happened in the last week or so, but here’s a quick recap anyway.

Hymm, my 3rd lifer, is now a level 12 barbarian (I think I have level 13 banked… if not I’m close) and I’m happily running around bashing things over the head with great axes. The team has a nice combo going and we seem to be able to cover all the bases (healing, trapping, cc etc). We even did Hold for Reinforcements at level, on elite, over the weekend. I hate that guy… did you know a fire mephit only has to LOOK at him and he dies?!? However, kudos to my missus who spent the 15 minutes of the mission stood over Coyle with her paladin, healing as required, while we killed 🙂

My second 3rd lifer, Fyrne, is now a level 6 fighter. I’m getting good dps from him too. He’s not quite as much fun as the barbarian though… and I’m seriously considering LR’ing him to add a splash of rogue. This is partly because we are definitely lacking rogue skills from this group. And yes, I know, if you know where the traps are you should be able to avoid them etc but where’s the fun in that? Plus, I like the idea of having evasion. I think that sorts my lunch break at work out – playing with the character planner 🙂

My dark monk has finally switched epic destinies, from GMoF to LD. But I will be switching back every time I do anything that won’t be giving me much XP. Which gives me a reason to run Lord of Dust even more 🙂

On non DDO news, I’ve just picked up Drake 3 for the PS3 nice and cheap. I love Drake 1 & 2 and from what I’ve heard, 3 is just as good. So I may actually drag myself away from the PC for a bit when it gets delivered….. but I don’t imagine it will be for long 🙂

OK that’s me done for now. Hope you’re all having fun in game. See you around!

*** EDIT ***
Well, look at me forgetting the most important thing that has happened this week!

There’s a good chance we’ll hit level 70 again tonight, as I’m not sure we got enough of a buffer in place for todays decay to hit – but woohoo anyway 🙂

A quick round up for last week

Posted on by

This week in DDO….

The TR’ing continues. It’s been a bit slow as we TR’d last weekend because we were bored, but one of our guild was away doing family stuff so he missed our mad dash from levels 1 -5. So we created 3 halfling monks and a dwarf cleric and ran around with him this week catching him up.

This is my first halfling character. I’ve never really been interested in playing them before (apologies to Samius & geoffhanna) but wow – they are fast little buggers aren’t they?! I fully intend for this character to become a bank character, but I may consider a halfling monk in a future TR build….

This weekend, one of our other guild mates was off doing real life stuff so I broke out a character I haven’t played for a while, my khopesh wielding barbarian. Boy have I neglected him! He needs gear (I appear to be still wearing the goggles you pick up from Korthos island!) I got him up to level 18 just running IQ on normal with my partners artificer. It was a nice easy set of missions, perfect for a Sunday. And as they are both 1st lifers we don’t have the ‘urgency’ to run on elite with these characters.

One of the nice things about getting to 18 was he could now wear the Elocators Habiliment. The bad thing about getting to 18 is that he is now wearing the Elocators Habiliment! I mean – have you seen it?!? lol But the displacement clickie is nice, my AC goes up, and due to the lack of attention I have given him it’s the best he’s got. Now, do I think about running some Siber Atoll for Dragontouched armour, or wait until level 20 and get him the Druid set from Eveningstar with PDK helmet & gauntlets…?

Meanwhile, things got back on track with the TR train yesterday afternoon. We’re now all at level 6 with level 7 banked. Splinterskull is out of the way – and even though it was fairly quick to run with us all I’m really hoping we can avoid repeating it for XP needs. I’ve got another Visor of the Flesh Render – I don’t need to run it again just yet thanks 🙂

However, we did run the Sharn Syndicate quests – when did they change the sound effects?? If you don’t know what I mean, I suggest you go kill a female halfling in there (Binders is a good mission for them). They sound…er…well… a bit rude we think! Are they channeling succubi? 🙂

And just for the record, the current TR group is (and their previous lives):-

  • Hymm – half-orc barbarian (human monk/human monk)
  • Cedarian – human paladin (half-orc barbarian/human fighter)
  • Antaka – half-elf ronk/mogue whatever 🙂 (half-elf monk/halfling monk)
  • Korvisa – elf artificer (elf ranger/elf ranger)
  • Ventenar – elf favoured soul (half-elf favoured soul)

Um.. I might have got some of that list wrong 🙂 I’m sure my guildies will let me know if I have!

From human monk to half-orc badass – I mean barbarian

Posted on by

*Hymm was wandering around House Jorasco enclave, minding his own business, when he tripped over a rather large stone. This struck him as strange. His training as a Shintao monk had made him graceful on his feet. It was unlike him to trip over anything.

Curious, he stooped to look at the object that had caused this uncharacteristic event and was surprised to see that the stone had a large label on it, reading “property of Kruz”.

Hymm picked the stone up, thoughtfully weighing it in his hand. He was acquainted with Kruz. Thanks to him he had taken his training as a monk one step further and become more powerful. Was this a sign….?

Deciding to find out, he changed route and loped across to where the mystic orc was to be found. “Kruz”, Hymm called as he approached “I think this is yours!”. He tossed the stone to the orc who deftly snatched it from the air.

“Ah, my friend, you found it” Kruz grinned. “It is time for the next stage in your journey”.

“So soon?” asked Hymm, “I thought I would have more time to prepare…”

Kruz shook his head “No my friend, I am sorry. The stars are aligned, your comrades are ready, it must be now”. Hymm sighed “So be it”.

Kruz closed his eyes and muttered an incantation under his breath. A slight smile played around his lips. “Why are you smiling?” asked Hymm suspiciously. “You’ll see” replied Kruz.

An intense burst of pain coursed through Hymm’s body. Although he had been through this before, it seemed stronger this time. He gasped slightly as the searing heat spread through his body, burning his form to ash to feed Kruz’s tree, then creating him anew.

Becoming aware of himself again, Hymm looked at himself. His arms were larger than before, well muscled, and he felt larger, both in body mass and height. Licking his lips he realised he had tusks and after a few seconds it clicked. “Half orc?” he asked. Kruz clapped a hand on his shoulder, stretching slightly to reach. “Yes my friend. This body will suit you well. You are to learn the ways of the barbarian. You will smash & hew your way to glory. You’re comrades await you – go!”

With a flash of light, Hymm found himself aboard his guildship. He friends stood before him. Grinning, Hymm knew the adventures were about to start afresh.

* I decided to do this in the style of krissonofpark. I hope I did him justice 🙂

** And if you hadn’t guessed, yes I have TR’d my main guy. In a way I’m kind of sad because I really like my light monk. But I have my dark monk to feed my need to punch bad guys and I know that overall, this will make Hymm stronger 🙂

The Last Week in DDO

Posted on by

Apologies for the delay between blogs. Real life is unfortunately being a bit of a pain at the moment and making me do other stuff 😦

However, I have managed to get some quality game time in. Last week our current guild grouping hit level 20 (I was going to say capped but I guess that doesn’t apply anymore!) Which has made me really happy because it means I have a high level dark monk character I can play while I work on my multiple TR’s for my light monk. Although I did start playing around with the idea of TR’ing the dark monk build and including a splash of another class to see if there was a way to incorporate more feats… Damn I should have bought more Hearts while they were on sale!

Anyway, since the 5 of us have hit 20 together we decided to start the Eveningstar quests again. And it was great! It was like playing them as new (apart having a good idea of tactics this time round) and we all really enjoyed them again. Mind you, I do think they are some of the more fun quests in the game anyway 🙂 My dark monk now has his Ancient Gemstone docent and Grave Wrappings. I’m just working on building up commendations. I think the healing amp on the Purple Dragon Knight Gauntlets will come in very handy for him. Also, his current equipment appears to be kind of sucky…

Also, we have dragged our 5th guildie kicking & screaming through the Shroud with us. Ok maybe not so much kicking and screaming, but he did have to get himself flagged. So we are now running 5 man Shrouds every 3 days and the extra DPS is cutting the run time down to about 40-45 minutes.

Most excitingly, yesterday we attempted our first VoD. Only on normal, again only 4 of us, but it went surprisigly smooth. And I got the Enlightened Vestments (bonus – they actually look nice)! It took longer to find the entrance and get that middle button pressed! Which ended up being lit completely by accident when a tiefling ran across it while trying to get to one of us on the far side. I’ve read that a summon monster should work, but we haven’t been able to work out how you get the monster to spawn on the switch – none of us could target the switch. So if any of you guys & gals have a reliable way of hitting it – could you let me know?

Well, I guess that’s my ramblings done with. Hope you’re all having fun and I’m looking forward to todays Update 15 🙂

See you around!

Third Life TR Talk

Posted on by

In our guild, we tend to try and TR together to make it easier for levelling up. Overall, it’s a lot easier to get through missions when there a few of you, plus it’s always a laugh 🙂

We are now looking to start on our third life TR’s. The problem I had is that I have a choice of two characters:-

Fyrne, currently a warforged Favoured Soul. This guy is my intended completionist, although I’m not sure I’ll complete with every class 3 times, or just the once (does that even class as completionist?). Anyway, I’ll be honest – I don’t like playing this character at the moment. The favoured soul class is doing nothing for me. Which does make this guy an ideal candidate to TR into something else to try. However, I also have…

Hymm, currently a human light monk. This is his second monk life and I love this character. To be fair, I love the monk class anyway. I have a dark monk build that is about to hit level 20 that I also really like playing and he can fulfil my need to punch things while Hymm TR’s. My plan for him (or Hymm :-D) is to try and get 3 x barbarian, 3 x paladin & 3 x fighter lives. Whether or not I manage that many lives is yet to be seen….

After careful consideration I’ve decided to TR Hymm. Because when it gets right down to it, I like characters that can hit things 🙂 Fyrne is going to have to do a sorceror, wizard, cleric & bard life at some point…. and I’m not sure I’m ready to handle that just yet (even though I have a wizard, bard and cleric in my alts) lol

Decision made, the next steps are:-

  • Use this checklist!!
  • Make sure I’m stocked up on House Cannith marks
  • Get some low level armour & weapons crafted (Hymm also happens to be my crafter)

Just for giggles, the rest of the group are:-

  • Antaka (light monk) who is TR’ing into a paladin
  • Willowing (rogue) who is TR’ing into a rogue ( my partner does like her rogues 😀 )
  • Korvisa (archer) who is TR’ing into an artificer
  • Ventenar (favoured soul) who is TR’ing into a favoured soul

A nice mix there I think. Now we just have to coordinate the actual step of TR’ing.

See you around!

A little bit of everything…. #gangnamstyle

Posted on by

This is going to be a random blog about all sorts – apologies if it’s boring 🙂

Didn’t get to play much this weekend as we had family visiting but by Sunday afternoon we were free to do what we liked. Jumping on we (that’s me and t’missus) found a couple of our guildies on and decided to attempt another 4 man Shroud but on hard…..hmmm…Harry took out the cleric very quickly on part 4 due to some major lag. We got him down to about 1/4 but couldn’t quite manage it. My partner decided she had had enough and went to watch the olympics. The rest of us jumped in a Shroud pug…and I’d forgotten what they were like. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great group & everything went smoothly. But we spent 10 minutes waiting while they chatted (they obviously knew each other) and waiting for those last few people to turn up.

I was going to turn in for the night when a ‘Caught in the Web’ LFM went up. So we decided to jump into that. They were a great group of guys, loads of fun, but we had problems as we reached the portal keepers and ended up wiping. So, that was kind of disappointing – but we’ll get there eventually.

Yesterday, I came across a Korean music video that I went on to tweet about. It’s the craziest thing I’ve seen, not my type of music at all, but very addictive. Since then, Cordovan has tweeted that it’s doing the rounds at Turbine, MarDeRoam has put it up on the forums and I’ve decided I’m going to subject you all to it too!!

PSY – GANGNAM STYLE

Oh and by the way – that’s me on Twitter. If anybody wants to follow me @grimorde you’re welcome to. But be warned, I do occasionally tweet about non DDO stuff like work!!

See you around!