I have all the Mabar: cloaks of Night I want. Here is my review of what I've got, what I don't and why.
Cloak of Night level 4:
This humble cloak is spectacular for self-healing melee. When hit you randomly turn invisible long enough to cast a few uninterrupted self-heals. Note that the cloak casts IMPROVED invisibility -- unlike regular invisibility, you can do anything without breaking it. You can fight, pull levers, open doors, cast spells, cast torches anything!
Additionaly, the invisibility looks cool -- dissapear in a swarm of bats. Perfect for showboating for the noobs in Waterworks.
Cloak of night LEVEL 8.
I choose not to own this cloak. Dusk is a nice upgrade but I zoom through this level range so quickly I didn't want to devote a precious inventory slot to this and the level 4 cloak. That said, it's also a sound choice to pick Dusk over showboating in Waterworks
Cloak of night 12:
Deathblock is the killer app on this cloak. There are other places to get deathblock but none is so convienient as this cloak. Deathward is generaly superior to death block, but deathblock is specifically Beholder-proof. Additionaly level 12 cloak is harmless so you can use it without worrying about accidentaly slaying something.
If you only get one cloak of night, LEVEL 12 is the one to get.
Cloak of Night level 16:
Two great upgrades: Ghostly and Nightmare guard. Ghostly thwarts the incorporeal miss chance that certain monsters have. Nightmare guard procs two attacks force and phantasmal killer. Phantasmal killer is great because it's instadeath. Force is great because it's seldom resisted. Finaly, this cloak gets a 1% dodge.
Ghostly is a huge upgrade for some types of characters but moot for others. I've been missing the level 16 cloak for a year, swapping in ghost touch gloves and stuff and I really really missed this cloak.
Cloak of Night 20:
Gains DR 5/good (which is basicaly DR 5 because honestly, who throws a shoe!?). The Dodge 1% upgrades to dodge 2%. That was a huge upgrade for me when I got it, but now that Dodge works the post-MotU way, 2% dodge is only 1% better.
I'm happy to have this cloak but it's not a big deal on my current chararacter (Paladin Tank). That said, on my first life this cloak was tremendous -- the DR 5 really takes the sting out of papercuts.
Cloak of Night 24:
I own, but haven't played much of the MotU content yet. I was too busy using the Stone of XP to enjoy the endgame. As such I'm not sure how big a deal the extra Dodge and DR is for a "typical" player. But since I plan to keep TRing I don't have much use for Epic!-level gear.
TLDR; Cloak of Night is perfect for self-sufficent melee.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
I return to Epics after many months of TRing.
Von 5 EN, Von 6 EH. It's new to me.
I've never, ever seen the giant iron golum fight so long. Usualy he drops instantly. But on EN he was punching back for a quite some time. Is there a taller humanoid in Ebberon? I can't think of any....
Anyway Von 5 was really fast, and Von 6 was the fastest I've ever seen. I don't understand how everyone runs so much faster than me. Is there some sort of Epic destiny or does everyone splash monk? barbarian? I don't know. Anyway the speed difference really showed up running to ice base and back.
But once I was inside I had an unexpected surprise. Our leader said to stay in front of Velah if you have either more than 650 HP or Evasion. (I've got both).
The fire breath did absolutely no damage to me thanks to evasion. Has Velah's breath always been so harmless? I thought she used to pass out a special debuff that made the second blast do 1000+ damage. Anyway, the fight lasted longer but was much less dangerous than I remembered. I got nothin but an Epic Raid Token, which I'll swap for an Epic Dungeon Token so I can get a TR heart.
I'm happy to be 1.87 tokens closer to TRing again but this sort of speed run left me cold. I didn't particularly enjoy it, however efficient it was. Does that make sense? It's not that it was too easy (since it's too hard to do on my own) but I dunno. I guess I'm just a TR guy instead of an Epic guy. Or rather I like dealing with the chaos of a sloppy run. Oh well, I'll be PUGing in the Halls of Shan-to-Kor soon enough! :D
I've never, ever seen the giant iron golum fight so long. Usualy he drops instantly. But on EN he was punching back for a quite some time. Is there a taller humanoid in Ebberon? I can't think of any....
Anyway Von 5 was really fast, and Von 6 was the fastest I've ever seen. I don't understand how everyone runs so much faster than me. Is there some sort of Epic destiny or does everyone splash monk? barbarian? I don't know. Anyway the speed difference really showed up running to ice base and back.
But once I was inside I had an unexpected surprise. Our leader said to stay in front of Velah if you have either more than 650 HP or Evasion. (I've got both).
The fire breath did absolutely no damage to me thanks to evasion. Has Velah's breath always been so harmless? I thought she used to pass out a special debuff that made the second blast do 1000+ damage. Anyway, the fight lasted longer but was much less dangerous than I remembered. I got nothin but an Epic Raid Token, which I'll swap for an Epic Dungeon Token so I can get a TR heart.
I'm happy to be 1.87 tokens closer to TRing again but this sort of speed run left me cold. I didn't particularly enjoy it, however efficient it was. Does that make sense? It's not that it was too easy (since it's too hard to do on my own) but I dunno. I guess I'm just a TR guy instead of an Epic guy. Or rather I like dealing with the chaos of a sloppy run. Oh well, I'll be PUGing in the Halls of Shan-to-Kor soon enough! :D
Sunday, October 28, 2012
LEVEL 20: Third time's the charm!
Today I hit level 20 for the third time. Here's a pic of the moment it happened in The Mindsunder. The last few levels are really a slog, lucky for me Mabar was delayed for a +31% Heroic XP Boo-nus.
I'm very happy with what my Defender of Siberys Paladin Axe & Shield tank has become, but the journey here was really tough. I abandoned my original goal of staying Pure Paladin -- the importance of evasion cannot be overstated! Evasion is really that good!
I took Rogue levels so I could dump 16 skill points into UMD. I'm not impressed with the results. Honestly I'd rather depend on the Paladin's arsenal of healing and a few good clickies than try to deal with all the UMD stuff.
My first paladin life was much easier. The great DPS from Two Weapon Fighting made it a quick and fun. That said, I'm really enjoying the durability of shield and evasion this time around.
For my third and final Paladin life, I'm leaning towards yet another Paladin 18 / Rogue 2, but this time I'll forget about UMD and focus on traps and open lock. Those are very important skills for the kinds of PUGs I end up running with.
That said, I'm not sure if I want to do my Paladin life next. The additional +5% healing amp is tempting, but I'm gonna miss playing Paladin when I'm done, especially since the enhancement pass is scheduled for later this year. I'm not sure if I'll stay at cap for a while or try something different entirely. I'd like to try Druid, Monk, or even Artificer if I can get the house C favor. Until then I'm going to be farming Epic dungeon tokens and messing with my gear.
The biggest change I foresee is putting my Tharne's Goggles in the bank. My intimidate is so reliable I never get a chance to benefit from the sneak attack damage. As an easy swap I'm going to try to find +15 intimidate goggles to free up a ring slot (where my intimidate is currently). I'm also toying with the idea of a steam guard item for the solid fog. Supposedly GS solid fog is better and longer lasting than other clickies.
This life felt really rushed because of the Stone of XP. First I rushed into it by TRing before I had everything farmed. Then I rushed to reach level 8 before the stone of XP expired forever. And now I'm hurrying to grab up all the easy favor I skipped.
I'm very happy with what my Defender of Siberys Paladin Axe & Shield tank has become, but the journey here was really tough. I abandoned my original goal of staying Pure Paladin -- the importance of evasion cannot be overstated! Evasion is really that good!
I took Rogue levels so I could dump 16 skill points into UMD. I'm not impressed with the results. Honestly I'd rather depend on the Paladin's arsenal of healing and a few good clickies than try to deal with all the UMD stuff.
My first paladin life was much easier. The great DPS from Two Weapon Fighting made it a quick and fun. That said, I'm really enjoying the durability of shield and evasion this time around.
For my third and final Paladin life, I'm leaning towards yet another Paladin 18 / Rogue 2, but this time I'll forget about UMD and focus on traps and open lock. Those are very important skills for the kinds of PUGs I end up running with.
That said, I'm not sure if I want to do my Paladin life next. The additional +5% healing amp is tempting, but I'm gonna miss playing Paladin when I'm done, especially since the enhancement pass is scheduled for later this year. I'm not sure if I'll stay at cap for a while or try something different entirely. I'd like to try Druid, Monk, or even Artificer if I can get the house C favor. Until then I'm going to be farming Epic dungeon tokens and messing with my gear.
The biggest change I foresee is putting my Tharne's Goggles in the bank. My intimidate is so reliable I never get a chance to benefit from the sneak attack damage. As an easy swap I'm going to try to find +15 intimidate goggles to free up a ring slot (where my intimidate is currently). I'm also toying with the idea of a steam guard item for the solid fog. Supposedly GS solid fog is better and longer lasting than other clickies.
This life felt really rushed because of the Stone of XP. First I rushed into it by TRing before I had everything farmed. Then I rushed to reach level 8 before the stone of XP expired forever. And now I'm hurrying to grab up all the easy favor I skipped.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Non-Mabar fun.
(say) Me:"Today I'm playing Mabar!
(say) Kids: "But..."
(say) Me: "Mabar!"
(say) Wife: "Let's go..."
(say) Me: "MABAR!"
So they left me alone except to bring me spiced coffee and hand drawn crayon art of the spooooky gibbering mouther.
Of course I *COULD* have told them that Maybar was canceled but what fun would that have been? So here's what I did this year while I was "playing Mabar." /wink
+Greater guild bonus+
I honestly don't know where this thing came from. I was standing near The Twelve campfire and suddenly, a "Greater guild bonus" was applied to me. The text ascended from my head, and then I got a fancy gold icon on my buff bar. The timer said 4:20, and that it paused in public areas.
+Giant's Vault+
I can complete this in about five miniutes. Not a world record, but it's still the fastest way for me to get guild renown. I only had 4:20 on the timer but with any luck I might beat my average by 40 seconds and get some much deserved favor.
As it turns out the guild bonus was four HOURS and twenty miniutes. Sometimes I get tired of Giant's Vault but last night I was still having fun when the ransacking occured.
+Dreaming Dark+
It's right next door but I didn't get much favor. Too much fun getting the Iouns I wanted Deep Red for twink Dex +6 and exceptional +1 dex skill for Open Lock, Scarlet and Blue for INT / disable device. And finaly, Pale lavender: spell absorption. Then the group fell apart so I was stuck with three unsupressed stones.
+Vision of Destruction+
I got to tank, but I guess tanking isn't really required anymore. I had Suulumades under control most of the time, but when he broke loose it wasn't a big deal as far as I could tell. Same thing with the rednamed orthons. They don't do much damage or present a unique threat. I'm glad my intimidation was high enough for hard but I missed the teamwork-or-die aspect. And I don't think that we succeeded because of battle hardened vets since I personaly rescued 6 of them that got lost while jumping past the buttons. But in the end, we won and I got that shield I wanted, the "Vengeful Protector" with a low roll of 24/100. :D
+Dreaming Dark+
Back to unsupress my three Ioun Stones.
+Subterrain+
Farmed 12 shards while waiting for a Stealer of Souls PUG to fill. I need more bags!
+Stealer of Souls+
Took three hours and three tries to shortman this quest on Elite at level. First run we disadvantaged ourselves by wasting 10 miniutes waiting for someone to grab their 3 essences and 3 gems. We ran out of time and ended up panicing into error and aggroing thirty giants a dozen air elementals. I alone survived.
Second run was faster but we failed on the ice part. I died first, I got air jetted into a stuckspot. I couldn't "/stuck" because the pummeling interrupted it. So I tried death, but then I still couldn't move and "/stuck" is not alowed when dead.
Third run was great. We sped through all four elements and finished with 17 miniutes to spare. The xp was great and for fun we tried beating Sorjek but we abandoned before he was down to 50%.
In short, I had a great time playing DDO on the first day of Maybar -- and there wasn't even any Mabar! Most things are not like that. I wouldn't enjoy cruizing down the highway at 90 MPH without a vehicle for example.
When Mabar does finaly happen, my main goal is to pimp my Cloak of Night. Currently I've got four of them. Can you guess what the problem is? My four cloaks are level: 4, 12, 20....
...and 12. :D
(say) Kids: "But..."
(say) Me: "Mabar!"
(say) Wife: "Let's go..."
(say) Me: "MABAR!"
So they left me alone except to bring me spiced coffee and hand drawn crayon art of the spooooky gibbering mouther.
Of course I *COULD* have told them that Maybar was canceled but what fun would that have been? So here's what I did this year while I was "playing Mabar." /wink
+Greater guild bonus+
I honestly don't know where this thing came from. I was standing near The Twelve campfire and suddenly, a "Greater guild bonus" was applied to me. The text ascended from my head, and then I got a fancy gold icon on my buff bar. The timer said 4:20, and that it paused in public areas.
+Giant's Vault+
I can complete this in about five miniutes. Not a world record, but it's still the fastest way for me to get guild renown. I only had 4:20 on the timer but with any luck I might beat my average by 40 seconds and get some much deserved favor.
As it turns out the guild bonus was four HOURS and twenty miniutes. Sometimes I get tired of Giant's Vault but last night I was still having fun when the ransacking occured.
+Dreaming Dark+
It's right next door but I didn't get much favor. Too much fun getting the Iouns I wanted Deep Red for twink Dex +6 and exceptional +1 dex skill for Open Lock, Scarlet and Blue for INT / disable device. And finaly, Pale lavender: spell absorption. Then the group fell apart so I was stuck with three unsupressed stones.
+Vision of Destruction+
I got to tank, but I guess tanking isn't really required anymore. I had Suulumades under control most of the time, but when he broke loose it wasn't a big deal as far as I could tell. Same thing with the rednamed orthons. They don't do much damage or present a unique threat. I'm glad my intimidation was high enough for hard but I missed the teamwork-or-die aspect. And I don't think that we succeeded because of battle hardened vets since I personaly rescued 6 of them that got lost while jumping past the buttons. But in the end, we won and I got that shield I wanted, the "Vengeful Protector" with a low roll of 24/100. :D
+Dreaming Dark+
Back to unsupress my three Ioun Stones.
+Subterrain+
Farmed 12 shards while waiting for a Stealer of Souls PUG to fill. I need more bags!
+Stealer of Souls+
Took three hours and three tries to shortman this quest on Elite at level. First run we disadvantaged ourselves by wasting 10 miniutes waiting for someone to grab their 3 essences and 3 gems. We ran out of time and ended up panicing into error and aggroing thirty giants a dozen air elementals. I alone survived.
Second run was faster but we failed on the ice part. I died first, I got air jetted into a stuckspot. I couldn't "/stuck" because the pummeling interrupted it. So I tried death, but then I still couldn't move and "/stuck" is not alowed when dead.
Third run was great. We sped through all four elements and finished with 17 miniutes to spare. The xp was great and for fun we tried beating Sorjek but we abandoned before he was down to 50%.
In short, I had a great time playing DDO on the first day of Maybar -- and there wasn't even any Mabar! Most things are not like that. I wouldn't enjoy cruizing down the highway at 90 MPH without a vehicle for example.
When Mabar does finaly happen, my main goal is to pimp my Cloak of Night. Currently I've got four of them. Can you guess what the problem is? My four cloaks are level: 4, 12, 20....
...and 12. :D
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Cannith Crafting: how I learned to stop worrying and love the cranking sound
At first I was planning to attack head on Cannith Crafting and bang out some levels really fast. I got a Royal Guard Mask for rapid transit to the house K Crafting hall (shoudn't that make it the Kraft-ing hall?) and a new bag as big as my greed for all the essences and shards I would soon have.
But despite all my effort my progress was unbearably slow. I still kept teleporting to the crafting hall, and I still jammed nearly everything into the hopper and ground it up for essenses. Occasionaly I crafted some lowby gear -- I especialy liked helmets, because there are so many styles to choose from.
Until, suddenly, something amazing happened. My bag overflowed. I didn't notice because it overflowed into my other bags, but I did notice last night because all four of my ingredient bags overflowed into my backpack.
So... rather than waste them I went on a crafting spree and gained twenty levels (distributed among all three schools) Ten in Arcane, six in Divine and four in Elemental. It was fun to see those numbers increment after an eternity of not doing anything. And of course, it ended far far short of the big numbers that the uber-crafters brag about. But something caught my eye that doesn't sound right.
The forum is filled with people complaining about running out of small essences and the laborious agony of grinding larges into smalls. ...but I still have plenty of smalls and it's the LARGES that I've run out of.
Am I doing something differently? (AKA wrong)
I looked for shards with a very high percentage of success, and crafted whatever gave the most xp on either the bound or unbound side. Then I ground all the shards back into essences until everything fit into my large ingredient bag.
Anyway now I've got 65/50/49 and I'm looking forward to grinding everything I own whenever the next bonus weekend is.
Oh, and I decided not to grind up all the Thorn Guard and Good Luck +2 shards. I think I may use them sometime....
But despite all my effort my progress was unbearably slow. I still kept teleporting to the crafting hall, and I still jammed nearly everything into the hopper and ground it up for essenses. Occasionaly I crafted some lowby gear -- I especialy liked helmets, because there are so many styles to choose from.
Until, suddenly, something amazing happened. My bag overflowed. I didn't notice because it overflowed into my other bags, but I did notice last night because all four of my ingredient bags overflowed into my backpack.
So... rather than waste them I went on a crafting spree and gained twenty levels (distributed among all three schools) Ten in Arcane, six in Divine and four in Elemental. It was fun to see those numbers increment after an eternity of not doing anything. And of course, it ended far far short of the big numbers that the uber-crafters brag about. But something caught my eye that doesn't sound right.
The forum is filled with people complaining about running out of small essences and the laborious agony of grinding larges into smalls. ...but I still have plenty of smalls and it's the LARGES that I've run out of.
Am I doing something differently? (AKA wrong)
I looked for shards with a very high percentage of success, and crafted whatever gave the most xp on either the bound or unbound side. Then I ground all the shards back into essences until everything fit into my large ingredient bag.
Anyway now I've got 65/50/49 and I'm looking forward to grinding everything I own whenever the next bonus weekend is.
Oh, and I decided not to grind up all the Thorn Guard and Good Luck +2 shards. I think I may use them sometime....
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Learn from my fail: lowercase-fail edition
+Raiding the Giant's vault+
For a year I've been doing it wrong. There are two rare chests above the silver key!
+Awesome looking Cannith Crafted heavy spirit crafted shield+
I thought I was being frugal by buying up a armload of cheapo shields from the venders and deconstructing all save the prettiest. Behold the trifecta of fail:
1. It's not heavy (it's light, but spelled lite)
2. It's not spiritcrafted (it's ML1 korthos stuff)
3. Not awesome looking. It's a little shield with a picture of an open mouthed skull. If the skull could talk, it would say "meh."
+Golden Guile gear swap+
I re-geared my character and slotted this in. Then, I used a Nyoko's invisibility clicky and spent a whole day wondering what the big deal is about Golden Guile's Improved Deception. It never did anything. It was almost as if I was wearing a Nyoko's necklace instead...
For a year I've been doing it wrong. There are two rare chests above the silver key!
+Awesome looking Cannith Crafted heavy spirit crafted shield+
I thought I was being frugal by buying up a armload of cheapo shields from the venders and deconstructing all save the prettiest. Behold the trifecta of fail:
1. It's not heavy (it's light, but spelled lite)
2. It's not spiritcrafted (it's ML1 korthos stuff)
3. Not awesome looking. It's a little shield with a picture of an open mouthed skull. If the skull could talk, it would say "meh."
+Golden Guile gear swap+
I re-geared my character and slotted this in. Then, I used a Nyoko's invisibility clicky and spent a whole day wondering what the big deal is about Golden Guile's Improved Deception. It never did anything. It was almost as if I was wearing a Nyoko's necklace instead...
Saturday, October 20, 2012
My first time: The Mindsunder
I've owned this pack for a couple months, but I didn't get around to running it until now.
I enjoyed the quests. My favorite feature is how each of the quests really changes environments. It helps that much of the action happens in a dream-reality where the rules of normal reality don't apply. But even so, I really appreciated how the adventure had parts, and that each part had a different setting. Changing scenes is a rudimentary storytelling technique but it's done really well in the Mindsunder quests. Bravo for an adventure pack that genuinely feels out of this world! :D
Loot wise, there's no "must have" named Dwarven axes but that shouldn't be a problem for anyone but me.
As far as XP, I felt like The Mindsunder was outrageously generous until I learned about the +25% xp bonus. Taking that into account the XP seems generous but not bonus-weekendly so.
That said, it could be that all the flattery heaped upon me by the other players made this a sweeter experience. My tank paladin was rocksolid through out the quests. I did switch my gear around a bit, I got rid of Kilau's band and necklace (+1d4 slashing, from ToD) an swapped in a otherwise plain +15 intimidate ring and a golden guile (for improved deception). I also swapped out the Madstone towershield for a cannith crafting heavy shield (+20% incite and lifeshield).
It feels like my intimidates are working more reliably although I'm still waiting for Defender of Sybris III when I hit level 20. I don't notice the lifeshield text that much, but it sure feels like I need way less self healing than before. Then again, since these are new quests I don't have a good baseline for comparison.
It makes me kinda wish I still had my stallwart trinket from Smuggler's Cove. Currently I've got an upgraded Head of Good Fortune (for the Heavy Fort mostly) but I wonder about putting the heavy fort somewhere else and seeing how that stoneskin effect changes things.
The item I want most is an upgraded Quiver of Alacrity but I've never completed Abbot. But that's a post for another day....
Long and short of it is that I'm very happy with the Eberon side of DDO. I'm so happy that I've totaly forgotten about all the newstuff going on in the Forgotten Realms.
...Gah! I see what I did there.
I enjoyed the quests. My favorite feature is how each of the quests really changes environments. It helps that much of the action happens in a dream-reality where the rules of normal reality don't apply. But even so, I really appreciated how the adventure had parts, and that each part had a different setting. Changing scenes is a rudimentary storytelling technique but it's done really well in the Mindsunder quests. Bravo for an adventure pack that genuinely feels out of this world! :D
Loot wise, there's no "must have" named Dwarven axes but that shouldn't be a problem for anyone but me.
As far as XP, I felt like The Mindsunder was outrageously generous until I learned about the +25% xp bonus. Taking that into account the XP seems generous but not bonus-weekendly so.
That said, it could be that all the flattery heaped upon me by the other players made this a sweeter experience. My tank paladin was rocksolid through out the quests. I did switch my gear around a bit, I got rid of Kilau's band and necklace (+1d4 slashing, from ToD) an swapped in a otherwise plain +15 intimidate ring and a golden guile (for improved deception). I also swapped out the Madstone towershield for a cannith crafting heavy shield (+20% incite and lifeshield).
It feels like my intimidates are working more reliably although I'm still waiting for Defender of Sybris III when I hit level 20. I don't notice the lifeshield text that much, but it sure feels like I need way less self healing than before. Then again, since these are new quests I don't have a good baseline for comparison.
It makes me kinda wish I still had my stallwart trinket from Smuggler's Cove. Currently I've got an upgraded Head of Good Fortune (for the Heavy Fort mostly) but I wonder about putting the heavy fort somewhere else and seeing how that stoneskin effect changes things.
The item I want most is an upgraded Quiver of Alacrity but I've never completed Abbot. But that's a post for another day....
Long and short of it is that I'm very happy with the Eberon side of DDO. I'm so happy that I've totaly forgotten about all the newstuff going on in the Forgotten Realms.
...Gah! I see what I did there.
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