Thursday 3/30/06

[Erudite]

So, umm, crap.

My sister called last night to remind me that she has an education conference in town starting tomorrow, so she'll be checking into her hotel this evening. Totally slipped my mind. :*

I don't know if I'll be able to make it in-game by 9pm tonight (or even at all), so please don't wait around for me to do anything.

[Raveneye]

OK, no worries. Gravenstone and I can grab henchies and attempt the Galrath quest. If you make it online, we'll grab you, if not, at least you won't have missed a plot mission.

[Erudite]

Sorry guys. Didn't make it home and online until just after Raveneye had logged, although I did catch GravenStone for just a few minutes. Exchanged hellos with Charinida (sorry for no extended conversation - I was out and about, trying to keep my henchmen upright against some elite birdfolk) and basically covered the things that GravenStone told me you guys had accomplished - opening Sanctum Cay on my map and finishing the The Royal Papers quest.

Also upgraded my chest piece at the armoror outside of Cay, but at 1pp per piece the others will have to wait a bit. It looks like some farming is in order, and since ettins aren't going to be too helpful splitting the cash with henchmen, I may head back to Scoundrel's Rise and see how hard the mergoyles are at level 18/19ish. Shouldn't be too bad, I wouldn't think.

I picked up a Cruel Hammer Haft - lengthens deep wound duration by 33%. Hollar if you want it, Raveneye.

[Raveneye]

Cool. As you obviously heard, we didn't do Galrath last night. I tried to get us down to Sanctum Cay by using the 8 henchies out of the Temple becuase I'd done it earlier with only 6 out of Fisherman's Haven and knew it was a tough road. That did not work as well as planned, we ended up getting into enough debt that the extra henchies were useless.

So, we mapped to Haven and picked up 6 henchies and fought to the Cay. Thanks to a nice respawn post-TPW on the far side, we made it. Did the Royal Papers quest (yo, I needz me some paperz fo da chronic, dog) and called it a night.

While we're all nearing 19th level, it's become increasingly difficult to do much of anything with even 15th level henchmen along. The large groups of 18-20th level monsters with liberal amounts of necro/mesmer/healer talents mixed in makes it almost certain that in any encounter you'll lose henchmen to DoTs that sap life faster than you can heal or melee mobs made nearly unkillable by their healers. I experienced a new level of frustration yesterday trying to open up Sanctum Cay solo.

[Erudite]

I experienced a new level of frustration yesterday trying to open up Sanctum Cay solo.

I had trouble with this at first, taking the obvious beach route. After a false start or two, I discovered that you can leapfrog some of the skale/drake groups along the beach on the interior lake by taking a path up to the ridges overhead, where inferno imps lurk - much easier, as they don't tap to negate your damage. You eventually get to drop back down, on the beach near Sanctum Cay. Still a group or two of the skales to deal with, but if it looks like trouble you can always just dash for the respawn shrine.

I also liberally used the technique of tagging a group and running back into areas I had previously emptied out, so as to avoid some of the pathing groups from wandering into the middle of my fights. A bit tedious, but generally much safer.

Edit - Maybe just a bit easier for me, too, as I can help heal my henchmen if necessary.

[Raveneye]

I use the pull-back trick when possible as well, of course, the foolish henchmen don't always savvy to that tactic...

A big part of my problems has been healing. The mobs will ALWAYS target the healer, and usually kill her if it's a decent sized group. At that point it becomes a war of attrition, can I and my henchmen put together enough hit points to outlast the mobs. I can heal myself, but only off corpses. Many battles will end with myself and a henchman or two still standing, and every corpse nearby, including dead henchmen ironically, exploited for health to keep me standing.

Perhaps because of the healing issues, I actually have LESS trouble with skales than with imps. The fire DoT the imps use decreses health a whole lot faster than the Lifetap the skales cast. Since I can lifetap as well, I can easily counter the effects of that, but I can't replenish health at the rate the imps fire attacks deplete it. It's an intricate game of rock-paper-scissors it seems, with some character types being more ideally suited to defeating some monster types. If only the henchmen were smarter, it wouldn't be an issue...like if the damn healer would just stay back with the Ranger and Mesmer...

[GravenStone]

Went a bit nuts this morning, opening up assorted Maguuma Jungle locales and knocking out all the quests I could find therein (leaving one). I opened the following cities:

Druid's Overlook
The Wilds
Quarrel Falls
Ventari's Refuge
Aurora GladeI think I picked up like 8 new skills, and cranked through about 6k experience. I'm now 10k and change from 20th. :floored:

A lot of these regions will be coming up as we progress the plotline missions, but I got antsy. :*

[Raveneye]

Jebus man, that's like a week and then some of progress for me...

[GravenStone]

Jebus man, that's like a week and then some of progress for me...

Well, considering I haven't played, aside from our Thursday night excursions for nearly two weeks, I don't feel so bad. :mrgreen: Seriously, I think that whole thing took me 4-5 hours total, once it got rolling.

Prize picks of the night were a new necro skill that creates an AE health drain centered on a corpse, currently can hit the baddies with -5 health regen for nearly 40 seconds. Also got a new Signet that can remove Poison, Disease and Blindness on the user - I fear this is gonna be rather necessary as we go along.

[Erudite]

Jebus man, that's like a week and then some of progress for me...

Yah, me too.

I loaded up on fire magic today and tried my hand at farming the mergoyles in Scoundrel's Rise without any henchmen. Surprisingly easy, and while they don't drop tons of gold (25-35, when they drop gold), they do drop lots of items as well. Two gold wands today, neither of which yielded runes. They both sold for ~70gp though, so in three quick runs I pulled in over 1pp and was able to mapjump down to Sanctum Kay and upgrade my pants.

[Raveneye]

I was able to play a little this weekend, and added the final plot mission area in Kryta to my map, Riverside Province.

One curious thing:I noticed that Guild Wiki lists missions in chronological order. But they have the first two Kryta missions (Gates of Kryta and D. Seaboard) followed by all three Maguuma Jungle Missions THEN culminating in the final two Kryta missions (Sanctum Kay, Riverside Province).

It looks like the White Mantle storyline takes a twist in the jungle. In the first two missions, White Mantle knights are friendly, same as in the zones surrounding those locations. In the final two Kryta missions it appears the Mantle become hostile, and I noticed they were hostile to me in the zones of Southern Kryta as well on my way to open Riverside Province.

So it looks like Gravenstone isn't jumping as far ahead as we thought, actually we've all jumped way ahead by opening Sanctum Kay and Riverside Province. What we should be doing is the D. Seaboard quest and then opening up all the Maguuma Jungle missions. This makes sense in context, as I was wondering what the hell some of the NPCs were talking about in Fisherman's Haven and Sanctum Kay when they seemed to be rebelling against the White Mantle and assumed I knew all about it.

[Erudite]

Raveneye, I picked up an Ebon Sword Hilt if you want it. It changes the damage type of your sword to Earth.

Also, a few staff wraps - Warding (+5 armor) and Enchantment (+14% duration on enchantments), neither of which I have a lot of use for at the moment. Speak up if they're useful to anybody.

I upgraded my boots today, so that just leaves the gloves before my set is complete out of Sanctum Kay.

[Erudite]

I picked up Rust this afternoon, using a Signet of Capture to grab it off of a Skale boss in Watchtower Coast outside of Divinity Coast. It's a fairly effective Water Magic skill. Target enemy and all adjacent enemies take three times as long to activate signets - which makes ettins a bit softer to take on, since they rely on massive amounts of healing from their Healing Signets.

Not sure it'll earn a permanent spot on my skill bar, but definitely a nice situational skill.