In the Beginning
A few posts ago I discussed the results of my efforts to craft my cloth Illustrious set. After about 500 gold, I was in a mixed group of pieces that because of the RNG side of crafting at this level, didn’t technically amount to a “set”. No set means, no set bonuses, losing the Arcane bonus from my previous set and having 4 out of 7 pieces be dead-end, not upgradeable to level 50 (Magnificent). That’s a bitter pill to swallow after pouring so much time and effort into acquiring the gold and leveling my tailoring profession. What now?
I was bust after getting all of the materials for that run at crafting a full set. It wasn’t possible to make other attempts or buy the missing pieces to get to 7/7 Ocean (upgradeable to level 50) or Stone (considered decent staying point for a level 50). Checking the Auction house prices to purchasing single pieces of Ocean put that out of my reach, with individual pieces going for 350 gold and up. That left me with attempting to craft them again but I didn’t have the funds to do it.
Keep it Moving
I spent the next two days scraping up every copper I could muster, including salvaging the full plate set I had been wearing to gain more crafting materials. I sold off excess produce of every kind. I ran trade packs until I couldn’t stand it. I could give it more but I was pissy about being in the mixed match set of cloth gear. One the second day I had the materials to craft two pieces again. I had to take a deep breath before unsealing them to see the result. SCORE - both were Ocean. Whew, that put in 5/7 Ocean but broke again. Hrm, now what?
After spamming trade chat resulted in zero offers, I put the two pieces I’d replaced on the AH along with the other two that weren’t Ocean. This meant I had no helm or pants. Then I remembered that had 3 pieces of Corrupted Paladin plate gear from GHA in my warehouse. Bingo, there was a helm and pants. That let me put the other two pieces I’d crafted that were Stone and Lake version, on the AH too. With 4 pieces of Illustrious on the AH I’d certainly have to net enough money to purchase 2 pieces. I didn’t want to battle RNGesus again to complete the set.
The Long Way Home
It took over 24 hours for the pieces to start selling. I was able to buy an Ocean Hood at a decent price -250 gold. However, there was only one pair of legs and they were listed at 650 gold. No fucking way! Grrr! Life moved on and I participated in the weekend of shenanigans wearing 6 pieces of Ocean cloth and 1 piece of plate, as you can see from the picture (can see I’m wearing greaves instead of a skirt).
All of my items sold which netted me a decent amount of gold. I kept running more trade packs and selling more produce than I normally would. Finally, more Ocean leg pieces were on the AH. I rushed to spend to 230 gold for the cheapest one. Yes, 7/7 Ocean and a couple hundred gold to spare but certainly not profit. I used the extra to upgrade my accessories and buy a level 44 Lute – stat stick mainly.
I’m rethinking my plan of attack for getting in Magnificent (level 50) gear. The base cost is 1K gold if RNGesus is on your side and you proc the stats you want on all 7 pieces the first time around. FAT CHANCE!! Earning 1K is no easy feat and knowing that it’s just the starting point gives me pause. However, the alternative, buying them all on the AH feels absurd when prices start at 700 gold per.
Late Sunday evening, a guild member asked for help in transporting 30ish trade packs from Hellswamp to Solzreed. The problem with large transport out of Hellswamp is that the Specialty workstation is inland. Unless you have property in Hellswamp, which is a PVP enabled zone, there’s nowhere to stage large expeditions. You have to craft the trade packs one by one and get them out to the coastline before they can be placed on a ship. This means running a Farm Cart brigade, if your guild is fortunate enough to have that many, and we do. *Smile*
Peacetime Masses
Trade Packs out of Halcyona, Cinderstone and Hellswamp pay well but can only be safely transported when those regions go into peace. When that happens, players who craft those items descend on the region like locusts. It’s a mad dash to get in and out before it flips back to PVP. Our guild arrived en masse with farm carts. For me, it was the first time transporting out of the area. I tend to avoid it and Cinderstone like the plague. Dodging the PVP war times in Halcyona are more than enough for me.
Farm Carts don’t like Hell-Swamp
None of us, including the guild member we were helping had ever transported goods out of Hellswamp. He did have the presence of mind to send someone on a mount to find the best path out to the sea. Unfortunately, things that looked innocuous on a mount were quite the opposite for a caravan of farm carts. We waited for the intel to come back on which route to take out of the area then lined up for an organized exit.
Vehicles in ArcheAge recognize various types of terrain. They can get stuck on bumps and not so steep inclines. They also reduce speed in mud and water. Hellswamp. Hell. Swamp. Mud. Water. It might as well have been quicksand. The base speed of the farm cart is 4 m/s up to 6 m/s with eco fuel. Even with eco fuel, which only some of us had, we were moving .04 m/s. POINT OH FOUR M/S through mobs. Yeah that’s right, level 35 to 40 mobs on your cart while you’re basically crawling and racing the clock on peace time.
Seconds after we drove down the mountain side, away from the Specialty Workstation where they packs were crafted, we were faced with a trek through swampy aka muddy terrain. As the farm carts hit the mud one by one, gradually grinding to a halt, the people in the back started asking why the hell we were stopping. Uh not stopping. No, driving through molasses and being attacked on both sides of the muddy fucking path.
The hilarity of it was gut busting. I could hardly talk for laughing so hard at the spectacle we were becoming. Players were stopping alongside wondering, “What the fuck are these fools doing?” A few helped by killing mobs for us. Eventually those of us with AOE came our senses and stopped our tortoise like progression long enough to cast a few AOE spells. Anytime there was a stretch of green grass we’d head toward it for a few milliseconds of driving at normal speed.
Wonky Zoning Physics
Finally, we reached the coast! After winding down a very narrow path along the side of a mountain –a huge thrill for those of us with a fear of heights, we reached the sea. Whew! Anti, the guild member we were helping, got off his farm cart and summoned his Merchant ship. The inlet itself was narrow but was more than wide enough to accommodate the ship EXCEPT for the fact that there were rocks on both sides. Really unfortunate we didn’t notice that while loading up the damn thing.
It wasn’t until we finished loading and the captain attempted to back out that we encountered dilemma number two. His attempts to turn in such a way that the back of the ship was in more water, the front of the ship breeched the invisible zoning wall into the nearest zone which WAS BACK IN WAR. And the front of the ship got stuck on the other side of the inlet in shallow water. Sweet baby … The ship itself and all the cargo on board, was now in a PVP war zone. Not good, definitely not good.
At first we’re calm about the situation until a red player arrived and lingered. Time to worry. We attempt more drastic maneuvers. I get on Fannel’s Clipper and harpoon the front of the Merchant ship and pull it forward, trying to help dislodge the back of the ship. Simultaneously, another Clipper is ramming the back of the ship too.
More reds show up while we’re doing this and have become spectacle part deux. It’s okay to panic now ‘cuz we’re fucked if shit goes down here. Most of us also have packs on their backs which greatly diminish your movement speed. You’re little more than a baby seal waiting for a clubbing with trade pack on.
Other guild members listening to our shenanigans on TeamSpeak arrive to help. Some start unloading the ship back into farm carts just in case. Moving them back on to the shore would put us and the trade packs, back into Hellswamp’s peace time. I leave Fannels clipper and summon my own to start ramming the front of the Merchant ship. Daedlock’s doing the same. Killset is pulling in his clipper from the other side. Now we have 4 Clippers trying to get the damn thing dislodged while the others are scurrying to unload it. I keep watching my back because I’m on the war time side, Halcyona side, of the inlet.
It’s not clear if the reds can tell for sure what’s happened. You’d have to target the ship or board it to realize it’s in a wonky zoning issue and no longer considered to be in Hellswamp’s peacetime waters. For all we know they’re just watching and thinking, “These are some dumbasses here.” We have guild members on the beach bracing for a fight just in case, when suddenly the Merchant ship starts rocking. Huzzah! A couple more rams and tugs from Clippers and she breaks free of the rocks. Killset’s clipper is able to pull the front of the ship, turning it toward open water. We quickly reload the ship and get the hell out of Hellswamp, with a few minutes to spare on the peacetime count down. Good grief and thanks be to …!
Bad Luck for you. Good Times for Us!
Just as we finished unloading Anti's trade packs we saw a "red" merchant ship in route to Two Crowns - probably. We chased it down, killed the owner and drove the ship over to our Guild Hall that's situated on an island in 24/7 PVP waters.
Before you can take trade packs from someone's farm cart or ship, you must destroy the vehicle first, which makes the trade packs drop, becoming free for anyone to claim. We'd claimed the ship and were damaging it when 3 other "greens" showed up, clearly intent on taking the packs. Two were from a guild known for PKing (killing their own faction) and had PKed some our ouf guild members.
Fannel game them a subtle warning as advice not to stick around after summoning his Cutter to help destory the enemy ship. Since they didn't take the warning and are known PKers, we decided we were going to Bloodlust and kill them once the trade packs dropped free. One... Two... Three... Bloodlust, you're dead. We grabbed the packs and race them to the guild hall. Greedy PK bastadards didn't prosper this time. It's kill or be killed around PKers. It was an apt ending to a comical and exciting journey, from Hellswamp to Solzreed. We danced it off at Banana's house, a local neighbor, before parting company for the evening.
On Saturday, we joined another naval PVP event hosted by Praetorian. We roamed in a much smaller formation this time. Instead of multiple Cutter-class ships flanked by Clippers, there was only one large ship involved, their Black Pearl, with 3 clippers in front sailing in an arrowhead formation. Assigned to one of the clippers, I was front and center for all of the action.
The evening started off slow with very few enemy targets in sight. That didn’t last very long. We went from single clipper encounters to multiple clippers to fishing raids to Cutters with their own Clippers. With two full raids of players, many of whom don’t play together on a regular basis, it takes a time for people to get into the rhythm of their roles.
We flubbed the first big encounter – 3 fishing boats with Clippers. When the command was given to change targets from the ships to the players, there was a lot of chaos. Most kept targeting the boats, which you do to keep them in combat and prevent them from being unsummoned. The confusion left those of us who were fighting enemy players severely out numbered. I hadn’t heard the command to unsummon our Clippers. I’d only heard to change targets. It was a bit disorienting to suddenly find myself in the water mid cast. I moved back from the fray and resumed fighting. I heard a lot of people say they were dying and why wasn’t anyone fighting.
I could see our clipper raid wiping. I saw our healer’s name go gray – dead. I had an enemy target arrow flashing above my head and was being focus fired. I swapped into Swimfins, cast ‘Shrug it off’ to neutralize the stun on me, cast a shield and drank a health potion then teleported toward the bottom of the seabed. From there I swam down for all I was worth. Arrows stopped hitting me in a few seconds. I swallowed another health potion before teleporting forward once more. Momentarily at a safe distance, I started casting Recall, praying all the while it would transport me away before the bodies I saw coming toward me were in striking distance. *FLASH OF LIGHT* I dissolved to safety. Whew! It was a very close call.
Hitching a ride back to my Clipper team
The rest of the evening went smoother albeit not picture perfect. I died a few times. There was another miscommunication as to which team was doing what. One of the two ships we were chasing got away and people died unnecessarily. But all in all, it was a very successful evening, full of excitement, thievery and lots of pew-pewing. Our Clipper even spotted a guild from our faction handing off trade packs to an enemy faction in a PVP zone. Some guilds participate in this trade with the devil to ensure save transport of the goods to the enemy continent for large shipments of cross continent turn-ins for Gilda Stars or Charcoal Stabilizers. Too bad for them we happened on their exchange. We engaged the “reds” while our back up arrived. The “greens” didn’t bloodlust to defend. We destroyed the ships and took the loot.
Turning in Marlin from a fishing raid we killed
Our guild is looking to participate with Praetorian on a weekly basis. Fitting into their schedule will be difficult for us other than on weekends because many of our members are Oceanic and Praetorian is a NA guild. Hopefully, we can work something out. This is what I want to do on a regular basis for end game and I’d hate to have to leave my guild to do it. We don’t have the numbers to support doing it on our own.
Asian MMO, you know the grind is going to hit at some point or another. To its credit, in ArcheAge, it’s buried much further into the game than the standard import. Leveling was a breeze. Making gold is straight forward. Obtaining decent gear via quests is cake-walk. I was sitting at level 50 in a blink of an eye, making a good income and in acceptable gear with reasonable effort and time.
If you have to have it
Because AA contains nonconsensual PVP, being in mediocre gear isn’t an option for me. I want to do large scale land-based and naval encounters. This need is what sets the grind in motion. The best in slot armor is crafted. Best in slot weapons require farming 650 of a specific token type, where the types dropped are random, can’t be traded and are farmed in a PVP zone. Best in slot accessories come from PVP honor. My first priority was best in slot armor because I can craft it myself, at my own pace and in my own time.
The first impediment to crafting better in slot, which for me means crafting to Illustrious, the equivalent of level 44 gear, are the materials themselves. I’m in level 50 plate gear via quests which is considered “starter gear”. However, quest gear can’t be upgraded further beyond socketing enhancements. I knew that and decided to get the plate quest and stay in that until I could craft a cloth set, which is likely what I need for the long term.
The Ladder
The painful part of crafting is that each tier requires the previous tier as a craft component. You can’t just jump to crafting level 44 pieces. I’ve been slowly crafting a cloth set upward for a few weeks. Two weeks ago I finished the Conqueror’s set and it was time to start Illustrious.
The sheer cost was staggering when I reviewed the materials needed. Two components contribute to the cost. Archeum which is dropped by mobs or salvaged from gear. And stabilizers which must be gotten from NPCs by turning in cross continental trade packs, which means PVP encounters and possibly having your shit stolen before you can turn it in. Until Auroria comes in and people can start placing property on which to grow Archeum trees, getting them is hit or miss and for many, will be acquired from the AH. The same holds true for the various stabilizers. If you’re not adventurous enough to be running packs across on your own or are in a big guild doing them together, you’ll also be buying these from the AH. These two items will be the most difficult to get for most crafters.
The Burn
The approximate cost for the materials to craft a set of Illustrious, if you have Conquerors in hand, is roughly 500 gold. I have multiple properties and run trade packs on a regular basis and that’s still A LOT OF GOLD. I crafted all but the crystals which can’t be crafted and so cost me 250 gold. That said, it still costs me that much money because crafting armor and weapons consumes considerably more labor. That’s labor I couldn’t spend on activities that earn me gold.
I was “okay” with the costs. I planned for it accordingly and in about a week I had all of the materials necessary to craft all 7 pieces. I crafted them one by one, and at this level and above, the item is produced in a sealed form which must be opened before it can be equipped. It’s not until the item is unsealed (opened) that it’s supplied with one of the possible stat combinations. The result of crafting my Illustrious pieces was Lake (2), Ocean (2), Meadow (1), Lake (1) and Stone (1) which equals 7 cloth pieces but not a full set of anything aka no set bonuses. Set bonuses are not trivial in AA. They are in fact, significant and important. Seriously??? BURN!!!!! Adding insult to injury is the fact that only Ocean can be used as a component to craft the next level of gear. Yep, you need 7 Illustrious Ocean pieces to craft the next set, Magnificent. Just kill me now.
I logged off immediately after opening the pieces. I was NOT a happy camper. It was a lot of work to accumulate the gold needed to get that far and while I knew RNG was involved, seeing it play out with my gold and time, was different than “knowing” it. The last thing I want to do when I’m playing AA is sit around spamming chat to trade into a full set for the stat combination I want. The odds of trading into Ocean are non-existent. My choices are to trade into Stone or Lake Illustrious (level 44 crafted) and stay there. Sell my 5 non Ocean pieces then buy the Ocean equivalent. Stay in what I have and save up to buy Magnificent pieces instead of crafting them. Quite the delimma. I need to think on it.
Praying to RNGesus
I don’t mind so much the grind to get nice things. I don’t begrudge the effort or the cost being high – to a degree. What I abhor is that putting in the effort doesn’t guarantee the outcome you desire for simply crafting the item. We’ll forgo the randomness of upgrading it, which can result in destroying the item, some other time. Another common feature of Asian MMOs. I can understand that – somewhat. However, I’m pissy about crafting expensive items that produce random stats effects that void set bonuses. I don’t like praying to RNGesus with that much time and effort extended.
Grrr
If it weren’t for the PVP I wouldn’t care. It simply wouldn’t matter to me as much. I can PVE just fine is decent gear. My gear is of little consequence farming on my own or in a group. Unfortunately, there are things I need in PVP zones. I may end up owning property in a 24/7 PVP zone. And want to participate in group PVP events. This is why my gear matters and I’ll have to address it one way or another. Being one-shot every time I poke my head out would get old really fast.
I was somewhere in the middle of this madness the other night. Three guild members and I went out to see the action and invariably joined the fight. We chased and killed a few clipper parties and stole their ships before joining up with the main fleet. The majority of the time after that I was on the Excelsior, handing out cannonballs, healing and throwing pot-shots at reds in the water. Our main objective was to stop the East faction from killing the world boss, Kraken. It turned into an epic griefing session that raged for almost 10 hours, guilds coming and going as afternoon turned into evening into night into midnight.
It was all fun and games until I DC’d. By the time I logged back in, I was leagues from the fleet. I gave up after three attempts to make it back to the frontlines ended in my death. The last time I was SO close before being stunned and then murderlized in the water. It was pushing 1 AM on a weekday and way past time for me to be in bed. I said my goodnights and called it game over.
From Pace22's POV
Popular AA Twitch Streamer - Plays on Kyrios | West Faction
A couple of stills from my POV - There's such lag and insanity during combat, no time for pics
I don't know how people have the balls to stream.
Between the lag and bumper cars collision detection it can be brutal
And in comes...THE KRAKEN
I was long gone before his appearance. Thanks to Pace22/Cosairs for capturing video.
If you play on Kyrios you should follow his YouTube feed.
One of the more unique ArcheAge crafting professions is Husbandry. Primarily, the profession consists of caring for, harvesting from or butchering livestock. It also includes the opportunity to breed two types of battle pets or mounts – Polar Bear and Yata. This is the first MMO I’ve played with a crafting profession revolving around working with animals and had to give it a try.
The Basics
Players are introduced to husbandry in the early levels via a Blue Salt reputation quest that has them care for chickens in order to obtain trimmed meat. The infant versions of livestock such as baby chicks, goslings, etc., are all purchased from the Livestock NPC. The prices ranges from 2 silver up to 4 gold. To pursue husbandry you need to own land, preferably a 16x16 farm at a minimum. An 8x8 will work for all but a few of the livestock. However, it will be hard to house the livestock and produce the grain and/or combined feed necessary to sustain them on a single 8x8.
There are (4) basic interactions when caring for livestock. Performing each of these provides increased proficiency (XP) in husbandry
Making Money
You can make good money using the husbandry profession by simply selling off what you gather from them such as eggs, leather, milk, feathers and fur. Many of the items are required materials in other crafting professions so are in high demand. If you’re going to do livestock and also crafting armor, be sure to include livestock to support your profession. Fabric can be made from sheep wool. Leather is produced from turkeys and pigs. Yarn comes from Yata fur + bear fur + goat wool.
You can also slaughter your livestock to sell the meat. Eggs, meat, milk and feathers are used in trade packs and as a result, are always in high demand. Meat is used for cooking recipes and trade packs and is equally profitable. When you’re trying to raise your husbandry proficiency however, I found slaughtering them for the meat was more expensive and time consuming. Buying and placing them again was more effort and cost. Consequently, I took selling trimmed meat out of my rotation.
Even with slaughtering for meat removed from my options, I still have two very profitable outlets from husbandry – trade packs and raw materials. I consume whatever results in the highest cost trade pack turn-ins and then sell the other products on the Auction House.
Make Animal Pens
As you progress in proficiency, you can start crafting and selling animal cages – coops, cages and pens. These allow players to house multiples of the same type of animal in a single feeding trough, cutting down the time it takes to feed and gather from livestock. The chicken coops, duck cages and goose cages seem to sell quickly but are the least profitable, at roughly 1.5 g profit each.
Due to the cost, people don’t move their goat, sheep and cow pens around much. You buy it once and leave it there until it completely breaks or you move on to something else. Also it’s not much of a bother to feed 4 cows individually versus 50 chickens or ducks. Depending on your server you can net from 3.5 to 5 gold per pen on the Auction House – if it sells the first time you list it.
Breed Pets or Mounts
Beyond the life of being a livestock manager, you can dabble in the highly random act of breeding battle pets and mounts. The bear mounts in particular are in high demand but are VERY hard to produce. Breeding requires that one of your cubs becomes a male, from there becomes a stud and then impregnates a female. I’ve been attempting to breed bears for several weeks and have only reached the stage of having a single male.
In my case I had 10 bears being raised at any given time. I would slaughter and replace half the females hoping to get another male. All the while hoping the one male I had would become a stud. After doing this for weeks I still only have one male and never a stud. The sheer randomness of breeding makes it a very expensive undertaking.
The larger animals take up more space on a farm and cost considerably more to purchase. With space being a premium, using farm space for breeding is costly in and of itself. Add to that the random nature and needing to slaughter females to increase your chances of getting a stud by having more males, it’s not something you should do unless you have gold and farm space to spare. I’ve recently reduced my operation down to just 4 bears and 2 yatas, reclaiming the other space for livestock that will generate gold.
Be a Beekeeper
The last part of husbandry I’ve yet to try is beekeeping to produce honey. Honey is expensive and used in alchemy and higher tier cooking recipes. This activity requires you to create nets, go out into the world to catch bees and then care for them in a beehive. Like breeding, this can be an expensive undertaking because the hives consume a lot of farm space. And while I have multiple properties, I only have one 16x16 farm plot which is currently housing all of my livestock. If I’m able to place a cottage sized farm house in Auroria, I may move smaller livestock there and give beekeeping a try. Or if/when I give up on the bears. *smile*
40K/60K
A few days ago I reached 40K husbandry which is no easy feat. It required a LOT of livestock management – time and gold commitment. One of the biggest challenges is maximizing your property as you gradually add livestock and produce to your repertoire, which typically happens over a period of time. As such, it won’t make the best use of the space because things vary in size and putting them down wherever you have space at the time, isn’t going to make best use of space. With produce, it’s not as big a deal because you harvest them regularly, completely removing them from the farm in cycles, which allows you do construct a new layout.
To maximize space with livestock means slaughtering them and waiting for them to mature all over again, which in some cases, is 2 days or more. As I added more livestock, I’ve had to slaughter my whole farm twice to move things around to get the best use of the one 16x16 farm I have available. That’s not cheap. The cages to bigger livestock are 2g – 4 g a pop. By the second time, which was earlier this week, I had enough proficiency to make my own coops and cages so that saved money.
It’s a Fun Profession
I’d recommend husbandry to anyone that would like to try a more novel profession. However, you have to be playing often enough to feed them on a regular basis. That or you could trust a friend to care for them when you’re not on by making a family and giving family members access to your farm. A few of our guild members do that to help each other out during the week.
Still having a Blast
I’m still heavily invested in playing ArcheAge even though I’m not blogging about it as much. The reason for that is very simple. When I have free time it becomes a choice between playing AA or blogging about it. As you can see, playing is winning in most cases. *Smile*
The AA game I’ve elected to play, farming and trade, comes with a decent amount of resource management. It’s not a matter of collecting materials and crafting them whenever I have the time or the mood strikes. On the contrary, it requires a consistent commitment to tending livestock, planting/harvesting crops and watching the trade market to know what’s most profitable for crafting into trade packs versus selling the raw materials to other players on the Auction House. Trade pack profitability can change hourly. And while the AH market changes more slowly, you have to watch the trends to get out ahead of them or end up losing profit.
The Inevitable
Besides my end game of farming and trade, I’m also working on getting into higher tier armor. I’m not much of a gear whore. I’m perfectly fine with have “decent” gear. Unfortunately, in a PVP environment, gear is more important than it would be to me otherwise. I want to have a reasonable chance at surviving unexpected encounters. Naval PVP is a lot of fun and I want to be a competitive contributor in those situations. AA is no different than other MMOs in terms of what you have to do to obtain the better gear. Having really good armor and weapons requires grinding. Be it instances, mobs or other players, there’s a time commitment required and I’ve only just begun.
Between property management, farming instances for gear and amassing gold for gear, I haven’t had time for much else. Don’t take my lack of posts as a declining interest. It’s quite the opposite. I’m digging in, in an attempt to bridge the gear gap I have before the release of Auroria. The highly coveted and brutally contested 24/7 PVP landmass being opened up on November 4th. Auroria is the only landmass with no housing zone guidelines (size or type). It’s also the only continent where you can grow and harvest one of the critical resources used in crafting armor and weapons, Archeum.
Waffling about Class Spec
Beyond “getting ready” to duke it out in Auroria, I’ve taken the lead in working with an alliance of other guilds in our faction to do another Naval PVP event. I’ve also started leveling three other skills trees. I’m still undecided about my final to class specs. I think I have eliminated melee altogether which would mean Paladin is now off the list.
My favorite in terms of play style is Justicar, which was severely nerfed, making it subpar for PVE and PVP. Justicar swaps the Battlerage (melee) tree for the Occultism (magic) tree. From a combat/skills perspective the moves feel most natural to me. Another strong contender is Cultist (Occultism, Sorcery, and Vitalism) which is decent DPS for PVE but is tricky to do in PVP because of the long cast times. Lastly, Battlemage is on my radar because it’s a good compromise between mobility for PVP and DPS for PVE, with survivability in both by replacing Vitalism with Defense. None of these combinations have strong escape mechanics which is a definite concern for PVP.
Missing Multi-Class Mgmt Features
None of these builds I'm considering are the current cookie-cutter win or even preferred builds. Even though you can play all classes, I don’t like the constant trips to swap between very different roles on top of carrying around multiple gear sets and weapons, when there are NO FEATURES to assist with managing any aspect. Consequently, I’m picking what feels good to me, comfortable for the way I approach combat and only requires carrying two sets of gear + weapons options + changing skills ad hoc + changing around your skill bars. That's enough in and of itself.
Without features to manage at least storing two builds, button click gear swapping and saving hotbar skill combinations, this is as far as I'm wiling to go. Yes, I’m making the choice to limit my options over the hassle. Other players are doing the same and only rolling variants that use the same armor and weapon combination because changing them around is annoying and expensive. I'd be more willing to suffer the cost if it was minus the annoyance.
Other Stuff and Halloween!!
Lots of other things have come and gone since I last posted. A few TIIL members have achieved crafting larger ships – cutter and merchant class. We had our first “all hands” guild meeting. I reached Veteran level in husbandry and commerce. I have to decide the third I want to advance to that level and which of those two to advance to Expert. The contenders are farming, harvesting and tailor, all of which are close to Veteran already. To help with crafting I also crafted a Regal Tailor workstation and Cooking Pot for my house. Both offer a few speciality recipes and eliminate the need to travel into a major city to craft even the basic recipes, as most small towns and outpots don't contain these workstations.
Thanks to guild members, I've also started a plushie collection of bobbleheads. Having to find a way to display them caused me to finally complete redecorating my main house. It cost a bit more than I wanted to spend but I did craft a majority of the items myself which always makes me smile.
Over the weekend I ran Greater Howling Abyss (GHA) with a few guild members and am now in 3/7 of the best instance armor available. GHA is a heroic dungeon and its armor is second only to crafted sets. It’s also way past time for me to start farming tokens in Hasla for the best in slot weapons and accessories. *shudder* Hasla is PVP zone where even same faction players will often Bloodlust to harass/kill each other on top of having to deal with the enemy faction.
Time to Decorate
Halloween came and I spent money in the Market Place for themed items. I’m a sucker for costumes! I’m not a fan of them only being available as random chest items. I decided up front how many chests I was willing to buy for a chance at getting one. Luck was on my side. I looted the Bloody Ball Gown in my second chest, having purchased 10 out of the gate. I elected to wear mine even though they’re selling for 1k+ gold on the auction house. From the 10 chests, I also received a dozen of the various hats going for 7+g each. I sold 8 and gifted 4 to guild members.
The MP chests and in-game quests have also provided a healthy supply of high stat potions I’m saving for special circumstances and lots of stat boosting candy. Beyond the chests, I had a ton of fun decorating my secondary house and one of my farms really cute items, including a coffin with animated bats and takes the place of a labor boosting bed.
Whew!
That about catches things up to where I am now. I really want to post more specifically about the crafting professions I’m doing that aren’t common place features in other MMOs. Along with discussions about the economy, trade market and the importance staying diversified in your pursuits. Hopefully, I can squeeze in time this week. In the meantime, here’s a selection of screenshots I’ve been holding on to for posts that never materialized. *sigh* Until next time!
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