Upping the Epics

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Last night we decided to take our epic runs to the next level – Epic Elite!

Since one of our guildies has lost his VIP for the moment, but has the MotU expansion pack, we started with the first mission of the first chain in Eveningstar “Impossible Demands”.

And, surprising to us, it went quite well. A few deaths, sure, but we finished it without too much trouble. So, daringly, we decided to attempt the next one “The Unquiet Graves”. With my partner running her rogue and bluffing the incanters out that also went quite well… until the sneaky run for the end chest in an attempt to get it without having to trigger the remaining drow running around 😦 Fortunately we had the xp & favour so it wasn’t that big a deal.

More excitingly, I had a +3 INT tome drop as a mission end reward. Although my monk doesn’t really use INT, eating the tome takes me to an INT of 11 so I can now drink Silver Flame pots without ship buffs and not worry about running around helpless for 30 seconds 🙂

Overall, a fun night and hopefully we’ll be continuing with the chain tonight!

See you around 🙂

Catch Up & Thanks

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My monk Hymm (and several of my guildmates) has now hit level 25, although I’m currently sat at 24 until the guild are available to run the Forgotten Realms challenges at level, so we can get the most XP possible towards our epic destinies. He’s moved from Grandmaster of Flowers to Legendary Dreadnought. Not sure where to go next though….

Meanwhile, my artificer, Othala, has reached level 21 and is ploughing his way through his Draconic what-you-call-it destiny 🙂 Actually, while running him through the Demonweb chain of missions he’s picked up some nice armour for my fighter and barbarian characters. Guess I better spend some time with them then 🙂

We ran another Shroud last Friday. Ran a bit smoother than our last run, though we’re still perfecting our prep and separation of the red names in part 2. At least this time they didn’t have to abandon me to the wall in part 3 🙂

This picture is especially for Evennote. We were dancing, but those damn blades kept interrupting us while taking the picture!

OK, maybe Antaka wasn’t actually dancing, but he is nekked!

And I managed to get some time to play with my dark monk builld this weekend. He’s just hit 14 (he’s been a bit neglected recently for Faerun missions) and I’m really liking how he plays. Plus, he looks kinda awesome don’t you think?

Finally, I’d like to thank the person who sent me a tell to say ‘Hi’ while I was running through House K on Friday night, because they’d read my blogs. It made my night! 🙂 Just hope I can try and keep the stuff entertaining for you all!

See you around!

Quick Update

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Just a quick update as I’ve not written anything for a few days.

Three of us have now hit level 25, though we’re still sitting at level 23 as we’re not entirely sure the bugs for taking level 24 have been fixed yet. We’ll see what happens when this weeks (?) patch goes live.

We had another attempt at getting a shard of the envenomed blade for my partners rogue by running Servants of the Overlord on Epic Hard, doing all the optionals. We got a few scrolls, but still no shard. She is now starting to think the shard doesn’t exist….

For a laugh on Sunday, four of us ran VoN5 on Epic Hard. It’s a good job two of us are monks with Abundant Step 🙂 And it was a very welcome 92K xp. However, VoN6 on Epic Hard didn’t go quite so well… lol well it was worth a try.

And I’m still loving the new stuff. I think I might try and spend some time roving around the Underdark this week if I get a chance. Although I seem to have a list of things I need to do (finish Underdark explorations, get the last of Elminsters messages, get a few Epic Cannith challenge items now that my monk has had to re-jig his equipment) and not enough time to do them 😦

I’m also thinking of TR’ing again. I just cannot decide whether to start on my monk (who I want to have 3 x barbarian, 3 x paladin, 3 x fighter) or my Favoured Soul, who I’m just bored with and is intended to be my completionist… arrgh!

Wow, I rambled on more than I intended to then. That’s me done for now. Hope everyone is still enjoying the expansion and the bugs are not bugging you too much 🙂

See you around!

4 Man Shroud

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Last night we decided to attempt the Shroud. With just the four guildies that were still online.

Let me start by saying that I don’t think that we are uber or elite, and EvenNote’s excellent post yesterday really covers why some of us don’t tend to pug or raid a lot. We tend to keep to ourselves, have fun, work out how to run missions, epics etc with what we have.

But, with running the new expansion pack over the last week, we’ve hit level 23 with our main characters and we just thought it would be fun to see how far we could get on a Shroud (normal – obviously!)

So, we stepped in with Hymm (light monk), Antaka (light monk), Willowing (rogue) & Korvisa (ranger). Yep, no cleric. Which is why we didn’t make it past round 4 🙂

After we died part way through round 4, we decided to try again, but with Willowing swapping out for battle cleric Nightley. And Nightley has come across criticism before in the Shroud, someone blaming a party wipe on the fact that there were two battle clerics doing the healing. Pppttff… load of rubbish if you ask me 🙂

Because we got through part 4 with no trouble. It took three rounds of Harry beating, but he went down a lot easier with a cleric healing us instead of having to stop to drink silver flame pots. And round 5 went even easier.

It was a long haul, and I know other people have done it – probably faster or with less people – but it was a big deal for us!

MotU – Again!

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So I’ve been pretty much been doing nothing but the expansion pack for the last 3 days. Actually, no, that IS all I’ve been doing!

I’ve been playing my light-based strength build monk and have got him to level 22. I have a few nice items for him that have put his stats up nicely (I can now hit 600+ very comfortably)


Unbelievably, I had someone send me a tell in the harbour last night asking me how I was level 21 when the cap is 20….. {shakes head in disbelief}

But more than anything, I still really love Kings Forest. Unfortunately this picture does not do the sunset justice 🙂

Epics….

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Our guild has regularly been 3-5 manning epics for a few months now. Not a big deal to the majority of DDO players I would imagine – you’ve probably been doing it for years! But we’re a small guild of friends and we like trying to do this kind of thing together to ‘learn the ropes’ as it were, rather than making complete fools of ourselves in a PUG 🙂

Up until now we’ve been running House P, House D & Red Fens. Last night we decided to try something we have not done yet – House K. We decided to start with Tharashk Arena.

The first attempt ended at Gate 1 when the trolls coming from the room got slightly rowdy, out of control, and we just couldn’t put them down quick enough. hmmm… so regroup, rethink on the tactics and back in again. I should mention that the party make-up was 2 light monks, one cleric and 1 ranger.

This time round, the light monks cookie doughed (sorry – that’s what we call Kukan-Do :-)) two of the trolls in the doorway, stunned two more with Stunning Fist, effectively blocking the doorway so they couldn’t all charge out at us. That made it nice and easy for us to stay all together to make it easier for the cleric as well as controlling the mob.

That got us to the arena itself. And this is where we discovered something we didn’t know. The rooms the monsters come out of can be accessed, if you get in there when they are coming out. Which meant, for the second round when you get the mephits, ogres, minotaurs & kobolds all at once, we could actually stagger the intake of monsters to take out by luring them apart.

So, we finished Tharashk Arena on epic for the first time last night. It took some planning and thought, but I love that this game allows you to think of strategic solutions to the high level content, rather than having to rely on certain party builds!

I’m baaaack

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OK, so I’ve been a bit remiss by not updating my blog lately. To be honest, I didn’t think people would be interested in hearing the exciting adventures of my TR’ing my monk (into another monk) so soon after TR’ing my Paladin (into a Favoured Soul).

However, I capped my monks second life at the weekend and I’m quite chuffed at how he’s turned out on his second life. I think, as a guild, we will probably concentrate on running epics & challenges for the next few weeks to crunch out some gear, ready for the expansion pack release. And here’s hoping the release is on time as the majority of my guild have booked that week off work…. 🙂

Dreaming Dark Dreams

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This weekend, the guild decided to hit the Inspired Quarter with our capped characters to try and do some grinding for loot and ioun stones.

It was good to be back playing my monk. I haven’t played him for a while and I really enjoyed beating the !$&@ out of the Devourer of Dreams 🙂

It appears we weren’t the only ones to spend the weekend doing this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so many people in the Inspired Quarter or on the Isle of Forgotten Dreams. So, hope you all got the loot you were after if you were out there too!

On a quick TR update, we’ve finished Gianthold Tor, elite streak now at 176 and starting the Orchard of the Macabre this week 🙂

#20 Shroud x 2

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In the last week both of my level 20 characters have completed their 20th Shroud run. And both were interesting in their own way….

With Hymm, my monk, we had a fairly steady run on normal until we hit part 4. Part way through beating Harry down, half the party died. Suddenly. All that were left were myself, another monk, a cleric and a caster. (I think….there may have been another but it’s been a long week!). But, we still managed to take Harry down. It took 3 rounds, but we got there. And a nice +3 strength tome at the end for my monk was well appreciated.

For Fyrne, my Paladin, we were on an elite run. It’s my first elite Shroud, and it was very intense! I haven’t felt that worked up about a mission since I first entered the Shroud. But it was a good group, very few deaths, and a bonus drop of an epic dungeon token from killing the lion in part 5 for several of the group. And I got a +3 charisma tome for when I TR as a bard.

Oh and to round it off, my level 6 had a purple ioun stone dropped in Swiped Signet last night!

So all in all, it’s been a good week for DDO for me 🙂