The Best Bug Ever

The Order of Syncletica

So I’ve been making many, many runs into “Good Intentions” to get the Legendary Magewright’s Toolkit (+4 Quality DEX) with Pynthetica.

For those not familiar with this quest, this revisit to the Saltire District (formerly trashed and haunted by Xoriat creatures and creations in the quest “Missing”) has you searching for three ingredient items for a Gnome that (as Gnomes do) didn’t consider that if something could be done, it doesn’t mean that it should be done.

Two of the items are in relatively fixed locations. The third is a pet of Durk the Deranged, a busy man for a crazy person, who’s part of this and two other quests (“Palace of Stone”, “Durk’s Got A Secret”).

His name is Nibbles.

He’s a squirrel.

He’s adorable.

And I couldn’t find the little bugger in one of the three spots he’s supposed to be digging for nuts.

I’m searching and using…

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Solo raids; Tempest’s Spine

Micki's Delirium

I’ve been working on a raid spreadsheet where I will add links to my videos, and I realised I did not have any video of Tempest’s Spine, heroic or legendary. I thought about it, and since Maidae is my solo raider, I figured it should be her that does the soloing. I started with a recording of the heroic version, which I just ran through, even did did some of the optional chests.

The legendary version required a bit more preparation. There’s at least one intelligence rune you need to be able to activate to get forward, and I needed around 37 int to be able to do it (34 was too low, 37 success). I checked all the chars I had available on alt accounts, and there was only one that could do it, Godscraft. Maidae could do the strength herself. I did several attempts where I for one reason…

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U32, a change to Cannith challenge gear

Tactalicious & Craftalicious

This falls into the category of good, bad. As I mentioned in my last rant is that pre MotU rune arms with crafting potential are now changing to be fully craftable with a ML set to what the rune arms drop as and where you as a crafter can now add prefix, suffix and extra slot. While the rune arm lose some features the core effects remain.

But there was another system that shared the same crafting potential – Cannith challenge gear. Once you upgraded an item to tier 3, it added some crafting levels. But it also made the item BTC.

As noted in the Lammania #3 release notes, they have now been key’d to the current system of setting the power level according to ML and gone are the crafting levels.

Take these old rock boots.

Back in the days (and still to an extent) these were…

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An infinite number of Evens, an infinite number of Jacks…

Even Now

There’s this theory that I heard ages ago. Can’t remember the exact wording, but it was something about how if you chained an infinite number of gibbons to an infinite number of typewriters, eventually one of them would churn out “War and Peace.” Or something like that.

Basically, the premise is that if you do something enough, you’ll get amazing results.

Well, I finally – FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY! – have run The Legend of Two-Toed Tobias enough. Because tonight, to my intense delight – not to mention overwhelming surprise…

I FINALLY PULLED A CURSED BLADE OF JACK JIBBERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

I almost didn’t even make my nightly Jibbers run. Been sooooo tired from real life, had just run Inferno with Seki and Rayne and Slvr, and I have a borrowed copy of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” that’s just BEGGING to be read.

Ah well, it won’t take…

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Pre MotU Rune Arms in Crafting 3.0

Tactalicious & Craftalicious

Rune arms in DDO have gone through 4 distinct changes and now entire a fifth or maybe 4.5.

In phase 1 and pre MotU rune arms corresponded very well to the Arti enhancement system. Since back before the trees an Arti could pick from one of several spell powers (and even before it was called spell power) including all elements. So it was entirely possible to do an acid based Arti. Not that it was functionally synergetic with any of the Arti’s spells (no acid based ones) but it did function beautifully with the better named rune arms such as acid and force based.

As I’ve mentioned before; only acid and force based rune arms used to track (that is still largely the case but Turbine have released some pretty cool ones lately that while force based have a completely different spread pattern).

All other rune arms (until the latest cool force based…

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MMO gamers, go ahead and complain.

Bio Break

I struggled a little bit whether or not to write a post on this, mostly because I don’t get my jollies off badmouthing others’ articles and I try to refrain from commenting on Massively OP’s competition.

However, I have to break my self-imposed silence on that site today because that site decided to dash off a quick five-point list in which the author comments on “Things MMO gamers should stop complaining about.” Now, I’m no stranger to making lists or even saying things that generate controversy, but boy did this article rankle — and for the wrong reasons.

So five quick rebuttals:

1. When an MMO news/opinion site that takes in ad revenue (not to mention “sponsored content”) from studios, you don’t really want to give the impression that you’re so far away from criticizing these studios that you’re trying to squelch the community for griping. Appearances matter.
2. Don’t ever,

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To BB, or Not to BB. That is the Question!

Citi Plays DDO

A Beginner’s Guide to Bravery Bonus

Let’s imagine for the moment that you’re a new player to DDO. You’ve created your new character, gone through the initial quest-learny-thing, and you kind of, sort of know what you’re doing. Maybe.

You’ve learned some new terms, such as AC (Armor Class), HP (Hit Points, or health), and XP (Experience Points). You’re ready for some new adventures, or maybe you’re run some already.

You may even already have yourself a nice, fun group to run quests with, and have gone through your first few levels with great speed. That’s great! However, you have a question:

You heard some people in chat talking about BB. What is it, and should you care?

As a “First Life” character, the short answer is: No.

BB, or Bravery Bonus, is extra experience you receive when you run a quest for the first time on higher difficulties. In…

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Crafting slot choices

Tactalicious & Craftalicious

This is a new excellent new crafting planner for the new system. You will note that it’s not covering everything, but it’s fairly complete. It will eventually be for all slots including collar and rune arms.

Anyways, I was sitting there and thinking what some good general stop gap gear would be, not low end and high end and it struck me that some choices were far more flexible (such as Trinkets) and others like head gear wasn’t.

Now, there is absolutely no reason why you can’t make lots of choices out of the combinations that you can, but it’s also true that outside individual abilities for specific classes or builds, some items are generally standard.

Assume that we’re making powerlevel 34 gear. If you look at helmet you have a few attribute choices, but we know that we can get better than 15 right now. This being level 30…

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Thoughts on The General Manager

Erdrique's Blog

I have always thought that one of the more interesting encounters I have come across with my various characters in DDO is when they first meet up with the GeneralManager.  If you aren’t sure about who exactly the General Manager is, you will find him in the quest Bargain of Blood which is part of the Sentinels of Stormreach story arc and is located in the Searing Heights.  The General Manager is actually not one enemy but two enemies.  These two enemies are quite an unlikely pair with the General being a huge and powerful minotaur while the Manager is a wily kobold shaman.  When you come across them at the end of Bargain of Blood, the Manager is perched on top of the General.  As you battle them, you first defeat the General which results in the Manager falling down and then you battle the Manager…

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Six Things I’d Have Changed About DDO From The Beginning

Bio Break

Because Monday morning quarterbacking is what all bloggers live to do, here are six things I would’ve changed or done differently with DDO from the start:

1. More info on building classes and better respeccing

D&D is, by its very nature, a complex game.  That complexity is part of its charm, but it also acts as a barrier to entry to those who are bewildered with terms like THAC0 and 3d6 and what a Fortitude vs. Will save means.  I think translating that into a MMO was a monumental task of which Turbine should receive a lot of praise for even attempting, but even their modified 3.5 ruleset was (and is) a little too unwieldy and prone to gimpage for the average player.

The sheer flexibility of the character building system in DDO is only matched by the vast ways you can make a less-than-optimal character and have no idea…

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