The little cleric who could, except when she couldn’t

On Thelanis, I have Even, and then I have 18 toons in various stages of gimpiness.

And don’t even get me started on the poor, neglected, utterly incompetent toons I have on other servers, let alone my F2Ps. They’re probably better than hirelings (except Larafay, but c’mon – LARAFAY, dammit!)… but only probably. And not by much.

I’ve been working on getting sagas done on my epic-level toons. I don’t worry too much about Even; she can mostly solo her way to true elite completions. But the others… yeesh.

Sunday night, I figured, hey, I haven’t run Jalliria, my cleric, in a while. Don’t really trust her in EE content, but I could get some saga stuff done on hard.

It was the first time Jall’d been on the livestream. To her credit, she did not die. OK, she’s level 30 and we were doing Gianthold sides on EH (actually I think we did do either Foundation or Cry on EE). BUT STILL. No dings!

She, erm, may have allowed a few deaths to happen on her watch, though, which totally goes against her chosen role of healbot. I’m sticking with the excuse of “hadn’t played her in a while.” Yeah. That’s it. It’s not that she fails as a healer or anything… *koff*OKSHEREALLYDOESBUTIDON’TWANTTOHURTHERFEELINGS*

I really need to find ways to beef her up a bit now that hjealbots are becoming popular again thanks to reaper mode. Trouble is, I don’t trust Jall in reaper mode. I don’t even really trust her in EE.

Part of that is not playing her nearly as often as I used to and needing to get familiar again with what she can and can’t do. Sunday night, her playstyle consisted basically of:

1. Turn aura on
2. Try to remember to watch for aura to expire so you can turn it on again
3. Sometimes forget and watch hit points go down
4. Stand as far away from mobs as possible and blast the heck out of them with SLAs
5. Use Ruin for casters and crowns; Divine Punishment for bosses
6. Occasionally forget you’re not Even and dash in to melee stuff
7. Amuse mobs with gentle tickling sensation

I think the last time I seriously tried to play Jall was months ago, doing EH Vol with a friend… and Jall, who you’d think would be pretty good seeing as how she’s a cleric and all, barely managed to stay alive herself, let alone toss out any hjeals. To be fair, midway through the quest I bought a Topaz of Fear Immunity from the DDO store because she was mostly useless from being afraid, and that helped more than considerably. But she still wasn’t where I’d like her to be.

I hear there’s a cleric pass coming in the future – how far in the future, I don’t know, but probably later than “SOON*” ™. I’m not sure I want to do another cleric life on her; she’s on her second life now, both cleric. Maybe once the pass hits, I could try an epic reincarnation; her first heroic TR was long before there were such things as epic levels, so she has no epic past lives at all.

But part of me kinda wants to heroic TR her into a barbarian, because that would be totally, completely, indubitably, and a lot of other words that end with “ly” out of character for her. My toons’ personalities generally figure heavily into their class and build choices. I see Jall as the quiet, wise healer who speaks up for others but not herself, who puts keeping the party healthy above all else…

… which must really get boring and repressing after a while. I kinda think maybe a barb life might be just the thing to teach her that it’s OK to be kick-ass once in a while. And her scary Drow eyebrows are definitely more barb-like than cleric-ish.

And besides, when I first started playing DDO and knew somewhat less than nothing about playing a cleric, Jall blew a feat on khopesh proficiency and ran around swinging her khops as if she might actually draw blood once in a while. Most of those khops are still in her TR cache. Be nice to give her a chance to use them again!

Streamin’ with Even is live every Sunday night at 11 pm Eastern time, now on the official DDOstream! The show will still be hosted on my own Twitch channel as well, 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!  🙂

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Dragonborn-again heathen

I just love how I save some of my biggest snafus for the livestream. I mean, what fun is screwing up unless you can do it live, with other people watching, and leave a permanent video record?

Poor Zak. My gimpy Drow pale master has been on the stream once or twice before, I think, but this was probably his biggest moment. An epic reincarnation followed by a heroic reincarnation… and that’s where the glitches started. My ancient mouse double-clicked just as I was about to start choosing his appearance, so he started his warlock life as a plain, unadorned, boring beige Dragonborn – well, as boring as a Dragonborn can possibly be, anyway.

There was one other mistake I didn’t even realize at the time – can you spot it in the video?

So I gnashed my teeth a bit, because Zak’s appearance matters to him, and I knew he was NOT gonna be happy the first time he caught a glimpse of his own reflection. Luckily there aren’t many shiny surfaces in Korthos, where he (nearly) breezed through the village quests (had to get a Gold Seal barb hire and make a second run at Cannith Crystal, since the stupid cultists shattered the title object on the first one), then did the first three island quests to be flagged for Misery’s Peak.

He, um, might have gotten briefly lost – disoriented, anyway – after Heyton’s Rest. And there was much merriment had with some of Lars Heyton’s dialogue in that quest with the sahuagin.

‘Twas great to see both old friends and new faces in the chat! Thanks to everyone who showed up and cheered – or laughed at – Zak!

After the stream, Zak gobbled up the XP gems I’ve been tossing into the shared bank, which got him to level 3. Then I hustled his butt forthwith to the bank, where he had three lesser hearts of wood just sitting around collecting dust. I reincarnate so seldom that at least one of them was left over from the old MyDDO lottery, which has been defunct for at least three or four years now. Then it was back to Reincarnation Grove for no other reason than to make Zak look nice. You can see the new and improved Zak dancing in the above short video, while his trusty fiendling companion busts a move or two as well.

I checked the AH for gear and was rather appalled at the prices people set for starter-level stuff. Hundreds of thousands of plat? Really?! No experienced player is going to pay that for something they’re only going to use for a few levels, and no new player has that kind of plat. Probably the same people who put Tear of Dhakaan shards and Pit restart guides on the AH for exorbitant prices… but anyway. I’ve been working on Even’s crafting, and it occurred to me that I’d probably be able to craft Zak everything he needs.

Shockingly, I was right. I think this may be the first time I’ve ever crafted anything I was actually going to use; mostly I just decon a lot of stuff, and I spent half an hour and about a million plat buying, deconning, and making ML shards that I’ll never use, just to get her crafting levels up.

I was able to make everything on Zak’s wish list and then put almost all of it on gear for him. The only thing I didn’t manage to slot was heal amp – made the shard, but didn’t plan well and ended up with no gear I could put it on because the few things it would go on, I’d already crafted other stuff on.

Oh, and that other mistake I made while doing his heroic reincarnation? Totally forgot his alignment. THAT’S gonna have to change. He’s not the lawful type to begin with. He REALLY can’t be a lawful Dragonborn fiend pact warlock. Looks like I’m buying an alignment change the next time I log him on!

Streamin’ with Even is live every Sunday night at 11 pm Eastern time, now on the official DDOstream! The show will still be hosted on my own Twitch channel as well, 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!  🙂

Wraps and reapers

I was hoping to get on Lamannia and make a Dragonborn for this week’s stream, but either Lamannia’s down or it just doesn’t want to work on my extremely temperamental computer. So I decided to use my stream time to continue working on sagas (when the next renown weekend comes along, I am SO gonna be ready!). Even needed Sschindylryn and Druid’s Deep to mostly complete her epic Eveningstar sagas, and I was getting heartily sick of Drow, so I figured the vine horrors in the Druid’s chain would be a nice break.

And they were… but I’d forgotten about the wisps. The laggy, fear-inducing wisps. OK, Even doesn’t get feared, ’cause she’s a paladin. But still. Those damn things can take an otherwise manageable quest and turn it into a nightmare.

But I really wanted to get the chain done, partly because I needed it for sagas, and a little because, for the past few years, I’ve been trying to get Acanthia a set of Ivy Wraps.

Luckily Retsans joined Mock and Even shortly into Outbreak, and his warlock juju did a great job out-wisping the wisps while Mock wreaked havoc on the vine horrors.

The heroic normal version of the wraps frequently appears in the chain end reward list, but level 30 Acanthia won’t get much use out of those. Unfortunately all other versions drop only from the night hag rare encounter in Druid’s Curse, and in my experience, the hag is a very rare encounter indeed.

So when we got there and realized that the elusive hag was actually standing around in her swamp waiting to eat unwary adventurers, I appealed to the Twitch faithful for luck, karma, good vibes, and anything else along those lines…

AND IT WORKED!

Sparkling at me from the hag’s chest – er, her TREASURE chest – was a pair of Ivy Wraps.

Epic elite Ivy Wraps.

With a mythic bonus.

DAMN RIGHT I SQUEE’D.

After all my fruitless and ivy-less farming runs, I gotta give the credit for finally getting the wraps – and the best possible version of them, no less – to the good villagers of Twitchland. Thanks, guys! 😀

We followed that up with a surprisingly painless trek through Two-Toed Tobias on three-skull reaper difficulty. I wouldn’t have minded pulling another Jibbers blade, but all Jack had to offer was a Drowned Priest’s Torch apiece. Retsans’ Torch had a mythic bonus, which he passed to me. Might make a really nice weapon for undead specialist Riva; I think right now her only weapons are an EE Forgotten Light, a lootgen silver longsword, and… Muckbane.

I’m hoping U35 will hit soon, because after seeing VooduSpyce’s preview of Dragonborn, I can’t wait to roll one up myself!

I think I want to make a Dragonborn warlock… except I was already planning on TRing Zak into a warlock. And Zak is pretty darn Drow. I’ll have to have a chat with him and see how he’d feel about being Dragonborn – or I could just buy another character slot to give me an even 20, because alt-itis.

Streamin’ with Even is live every Sunday night at 11 pm Eastern time, now on the official DDOstream! The show will still be hosted on my own Twitch channel as well, 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!  🙂

Rockin’ out

I got 98 pets and a lich ain’t one.

But a pet rock IS!

No, I haven’t turned into Jay-Z. And I could’ve waited for one more pet so it would’ve been 99 pets to match those lyrics better. But unless DDO releases another pet in the reasonably near future, my next acquisitions will be the reapers, and I intend to get all four of those the minute I have enough reaper XP. (So, y’know, around the year 2031…)

I debated a couple of names and nearly went with TakenForGranite, but that just seemed sad – who wants to take their pet for granite, even if it’s a rock? And then AgateYouBabe popped into my head. If you don’t get it, clearly you need to brush up on your bad 70’s music.

Agate likes to do – well, mostly nothing. His favorite activities are the first three tricks in his repertoire: Sit, Stay, and Play Dead. He performs these with stunning skill on a regular basis. He can also Dance and do a Flip, but he finds those incredibly tiring and usually needs a good long stint of Sitting, Staying, or Playing Dead afterwards.

His favorite quests are Eyes of Stone and Palace of Stone… and that one part in Undermine. He used to like Dreaming Dark, but then he found out that it’s quori, not quarry.

Agate and his rock-solid brethren have been added to Even’s Guide to Cosmetic Pets, so that should be completely up to date. 🙂

Goals? Pfffft. KITTEHS!

Soooo many things I wanted to get done this past weekend!

Prettify OurDDO. Finish as many sagas as possible on as many toons as possible. Run the anniversary event a few gazillion times. Get a couple of toons leveled up.

Oh, and a fair amount of real-life stuff, too.

But… KITTENS. Because I have two of them, nine-month-old sisters. And they have to be played with and cuddled and loved and spoiled. BECAUSE KITTENS.

So what I *actually* got done was a teeny smattering of real-life stuff, one anniversary event run, and a couple of sagas done on Acanthia and Reera, and… yeah, that’s pretty much it.

BUT KITTENS.

Anyway, for Sunday’s livestream, I brought Even out after giving her some time off, and got in one run of the anniversary party before heading off to Wheloon for Through a Mirror Darkly. I’d run her through the first four quests in the arc on EE the night before, but I apparently still hadn’t had my fill of the damnable laggy pink fog.

Things actually went pretty well for the most part. And I always get a sense of accomplishment when that quest is over, if for no other reason than outlasting the pink Shadowfell lag and managing to use my mirror at the right times and places to get all the orbs.

But… it just felt kind of anticlimactic. Maybe it was realizing that, to complete the epic sagas, Even would have still needed to run 40+ quests. Maybe it was being generally kind of tired even before we started. Maybe it was all the stuff I wanted to get done but didn’t; even the anniversary party run – I originally intended to go through and get as many elements as possible on the video, but when push came to shove, I was all, “Meh, this is boring, let’s just go kill the stuff.”

AND KITTENS.

How could you NOT want to spend as much time as possible with those angelic faces? I don’t care that they stole my cell phone charger and hid it in their kitty bed, or that they hold nightly chariot races up and down the stairs starting around 3 am, or that my hands have an assortment of tiny scratches.

It’s totally worth it because I get to watch Charlotte watching TV. She LOVES TV; she’ll sit there utterly fascinated by it even if I’m just flipping through the guide. Fern’s not as impressed. She likes the Temptations commercial where the guy on the second-floor balcony is throwing treats to the kitty on the ground, and she got into watching some hummingbirds once.

And it’s worth it because when they get tired and need to recharge for the next round of shenanigans, Charlotte butts her head into my face and curls up while Fern flops down as close as she can get to me, and then they both start a purring marathon.

And it’s worth it because those scratches are from both of them grabbing my hands just to hold them in their little paws.

And because every night after the chariot races, they leave toys at my door.

Yeah. They’re kinda all that. ❤

(I do have a new cosmetic pet as well – my pet rock! I was going to work him into this post, but I think he deserves one of his own.)

Streamin’ with Even is live every Sunday night at 11 pm Eastern time, now on the official DDOstream! The show will still be hosted on my own Twitch channel as well, 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!  🙂