Catching some breaks

I never got around to blogging last week! Oh noes! And I nearly didn’t get around to it this week either… but for the best possible reason, because this past (extended) weekend was VACATION!

I spent four-plus days (Wednesday night through Monday morning) in New England. Had a mini Flower Sniffers meetup with Seki and Slvr, went to the New England Aquarium, rode lots of commuter trains, and got to spend Quality Time With A Guy. I even cooked dinner, which turned out – by my standards – surprisingly well (tasted good, no one died). And I leveled up in Pokémon Go, found some really cool stuff during a few thrift shop/flea market runs, and got my nails done by a professional for the first time in my life. So YAY vacation!

DDO, of course, had to pick THAT WEEKEND to offer a renown boost. I really didn’t want to take time away from Fun Vacation Stuff to play a lot of DDO, but I did log in every day for my double daily dice. And I ran Acanthia through the Deneith part of the heroic Pirates saga, ’cause she’d already done the 3BC part. And I turned sagas in. All told, we gained about four levels. If only DDO had put off the bonus ONE MORE WEEK! I’d’ve had a LOT more sagas done; got a number of toons who are only three or four quests short.

So since I neither ran much DDO nor blogged last week, this week’s DDO video is from last week’s epic Storm Horns questing, when we ran A Break in the Ice and Breaking the Ranks. Hence the blog title – plus, you could definitely say that getting to go on vacation qualified as catching some breaks.

Tuna should enjoy Storm Horns, considering it has TWO quests with “break” in their names – she does love breaking stuff. Or as she calls it, “SMASHING ALL DA TINGS!” I’m hoping to run her on the stream this week; she’s about 80K shy of heroic cap, so soon she’ll be able to run with everybody’s epics. Meanwhile, Zak is up to level 5 and completed his first successful four-skull reaper solos tonight. However, three-skull Redfang was just a bit too much for him. Sadly, I’m still a very, very long way from having enough reaper XP on anyone to get the reaper pets. *sadface*

Just because I think they’re kinda cool, I’m throwing in a couple of videos from my trip to the New England Aquarium. Here are some fishies… some probably very bored fishies. I mean, I’D be bored if I did nothing but go in circles all day. But at least they look good doing it.

And… JELLYFISH. OMG. I could’ve watched these little guys for HOURS. Except other people wanted to see them too so eventually I had to get out of the way, but I did buy a really cool hoodie with a glittery jellyfish on it from the gift shop.

Streamin’ with Even is live every Sunday night at 11 pm Eastern time on the official DDOstream! The show is also hosted on my own Twitch channel, but if you’re watching live and want to chat, DDOStream is the place to be. Videos are archived on my YouTube channel and/or on DDOStream’s YouTube. I’m usually on Thelanis, usually/often/sometimes on Evennote, and usually have room, so feel free to send me a tell if you’d like to join! I’m also definitely open to suggestions on what to run next. You can send ingame mail to Evennote on Thelanis, or email me at evennote (at) gmail dot com. Thanks for reading and/or watching! 🙂

Bracing for a new beginning

If you follow Players Helping Players, you may already know that my computer is being particularly temperamental right now, so my playing time until next Friday (when the PC goes in to be fixed) is iffy at best.

Tonight it seems to be running fine, although it took about an hour of running diagnostics and repair to get that way, and I figured I’d blog a bit because, well, I can.

My current project is completing as many sagas as possible on Even before Update 23 hits, because as much as she’s loved her monk life, she really, really, REALLY can’t wait to be a paladin again, especially with the paladin-friendly changes coming in U23. She’s got all of the epic sagas done along with heroic 3BC, so now she just needs to finish heroic Gianthold and the two heroic Eveningstar sagas.

Sadly for my other toons, they’ve been terribly neglected while Even farms sagas… poor Acanthia and some of her sisters actually went three weeks without being logged in. Once Even begins her third life (which will be my first-ever legend build – I don’t TR much – and will be as a Purple Dragon Knight; still undecided on whether I’m splashing fighter on her or using a heart to get rid of that first fighter level), everybody’s playing time should start balancing out a lot better.

In almost four years, I really haven’t done much reincarnating. Even did a greater reincarnate a few years ago, and Dissy did a lesser. Even and Acanthia have each done one epic TR, while Even, Jall, Chalei, and Char have each done one heroic TR. TRing, to me, is a lot of grinding with the alt-itis I have. When I find something I want to improve or fix on a toon, I tend to swap out a feat, or reset enhancements, or get some better gear… and that’s worked out pretty well for me so far. I’m getting pretty good at keeping pace with Vey on his multi-TRed legend builds. Even my gimpier toons can solo EE Rusted Blades and Impossible Demands the “easy” way… although the “hard” way is a totally different story for some of them. LOL

Trying to level up Char and Even at the same time after their TRs was a royal pain in the neck, but I think Char is going to TR once she hits 20. I actually felt she was stronger in her first life than she is now, and after watching Slvr eTR his bard into a swashbuckler, I MUST give that a try! Dissy’s a bit too Valley Girl to really be suited for swashbuckling, but I think Char will be a natural.

So I’m off to log Even in and work on the last sagas she needs, then I’m going to drink a renown pot and turn them all in. Hopefully my NVidia card will cooperate and not gift me with the joy that is multiple BSoDs (Blue Screens of Death) in the meantime!