Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Settar's Predicament...
While I have enjoyed writing and receiving the positive responses from the community, I've built myself up a burden. I hope you will all understand that while I will try to continue to add to the community's ideas on the forums and such, I can't be as active out-of-game as I previously was, I haven't yet decided the fate of this blog, most likely I'll bring my posts to 1-2 per week, but the possibility for cutting off postings completely is still there. Feel free to drop your ideas/comments, I'll update you guys later, thanks!
Friday, June 13, 2008
Spellweaving!
Hey everybody, as many of you know spellweaving is now "working" for us Tempests. This post is intended to give a breakdown of the buffs and effects of spellweaving. This not a "how to" guide as honestly I haven't used it much and it seems impractical in most situations.
First of all you get MANY smalls buffs from it, such as crits bonus modifier, crit chance, overall damage, AoE radius etc.
What's unfortunate, however, is the lack of "weaving," realyl what you do is click one button to gain it's effect while in spellweaving mode. Below I'll list the options for buffs.
1) Arcane Renewal, choosing this buff increases your stam regen by 199/3 seconds for 6 seconds
2) Arcane Surge causes all of your spells to inflict maximum damage for 10 seconds.
3) Set's Rebuke, for 12 seconds you have a chance when hit to send out a bolt of lightning at your attacker, hitting anyone in it's path.
4) Power Surge gives you a +50% damage multiplier for 10 seconds, but increases your cast times by 25% for the duration.
For each each stage of spellweaving you reach (each drains more and more hp/stam) you will get more and more damage benefits, every time you reach a new stage (or so it seems, every 15 seconds) you get to chose another buff to apply from the above list.
While spellweaving has some really neat effects, the only place I can see this being effective is in raids, if you have other team members healing you and restoring your stam you could stay in a spellweaving state and pump out some insane damage. Unfortunately it really has no place in pvp. Once you enter spellweave state you have to stay in it for 10 seconds before leaving. While it DOES make you immune to knockbacks as of today's patch, you effectively CC yourself in a root for 10 seconds. While the buffs may be neat, the fact that you'll get injured from it and the fact that a good player will simply run out of your stationary range, makes it lackluster in most situations that I've been in / can think of.
Thanks for reading everyone hopefully you have a little better idea about it now :)
Settar
First of all you get MANY smalls buffs from it, such as crits bonus modifier, crit chance, overall damage, AoE radius etc.
What's unfortunate, however, is the lack of "weaving," realyl what you do is click one button to gain it's effect while in spellweaving mode. Below I'll list the options for buffs.
1) Arcane Renewal, choosing this buff increases your stam regen by 199/3 seconds for 6 seconds
2) Arcane Surge causes all of your spells to inflict maximum damage for 10 seconds.
3) Set's Rebuke, for 12 seconds you have a chance when hit to send out a bolt of lightning at your attacker, hitting anyone in it's path.
4) Power Surge gives you a +50% damage multiplier for 10 seconds, but increases your cast times by 25% for the duration.
For each each stage of spellweaving you reach (each drains more and more hp/stam) you will get more and more damage benefits, every time you reach a new stage (or so it seems, every 15 seconds) you get to chose another buff to apply from the above list.
While spellweaving has some really neat effects, the only place I can see this being effective is in raids, if you have other team members healing you and restoring your stam you could stay in a spellweaving state and pump out some insane damage. Unfortunately it really has no place in pvp. Once you enter spellweave state you have to stay in it for 10 seconds before leaving. While it DOES make you immune to knockbacks as of today's patch, you effectively CC yourself in a root for 10 seconds. While the buffs may be neat, the fact that you'll get injured from it and the fact that a good player will simply run out of your stationary range, makes it lackluster in most situations that I've been in / can think of.
Thanks for reading everyone hopefully you have a little better idea about it now :)
Settar
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Settar's Leveling Build
O.K. everyone, after looking into many specs an testing ability after ability, THIS is what I've come up with as my final build. Before it's pointed out, of COURSE I've drawn on previous builds I've seen for this, Atomik's build was definately an influence, but I wanted to make some tweaks that made more sense (to me). The build is purely meant to expedite solo (and small group) leveling and as such you should take the points in an order that makes the most sense for solo'ing. Because you don't have the means to AoE effieciently until higher levels, I would suggest going down thunder/general first, and then filling in the lightning feats, you may choose to take points out of general or thunder in a high level respec to grab all of the improved storm field.
Questions:
1) Why get Power/Wrath of the Serpent Ring? This will help you with tough pulls and mobs, you'll find a detailed explanation of these feats in a post right below this one.
2) Why did you neglect a lot of lightning strike feats? Because when you're leveling, it's only a pulling technique (sometimes) and if you're on a PVP servers, for the random pvp encounters. Otherwise you'll be using storm field, healing, active blocking etc and the points won't be very "well spent" for leveling
3) Why do somethings only have a couple points in them? These were points I put in to allow me to move on to the next tier when the next feat I wanted required "X amount of feat points spent in Y" tree.
4) Why saintly warrior, instead of getting more magic resists in general? Because the amount of stam and mana returned from this feat is EXCELLENT and you fight alot more melee mobs opposed to casters while AoE'ing (and leveling in general).
5) Why did you take "the building storm"? Even for leveling, this feat is a great one to have for when you hop into a group for large scale grinding or instancing. You won't run out of mana if you're taking the hits, but in instances where a take needs to have aggro you'll enjoy the mana regen, and hey it's only one point.
More questions and answers can be added as they are brought to my attention,
Settar
Questions:
1) Why get Power/Wrath of the Serpent Ring? This will help you with tough pulls and mobs, you'll find a detailed explanation of these feats in a post right below this one.
2) Why did you neglect a lot of lightning strike feats? Because when you're leveling, it's only a pulling technique (sometimes) and if you're on a PVP servers, for the random pvp encounters. Otherwise you'll be using storm field, healing, active blocking etc and the points won't be very "well spent" for leveling
3) Why do somethings only have a couple points in them? These were points I put in to allow me to move on to the next tier when the next feat I wanted required "X amount of feat points spent in Y" tree.
4) Why saintly warrior, instead of getting more magic resists in general? Because the amount of stam and mana returned from this feat is EXCELLENT and you fight alot more melee mobs opposed to casters while AoE'ing (and leveling in general).
5) Why did you take "the building storm"? Even for leveling, this feat is a great one to have for when you hop into a group for large scale grinding or instancing. You won't run out of mana if you're taking the hits, but in instances where a take needs to have aggro you'll enjoy the mana regen, and hey it's only one point.
More questions and answers can be added as they are brought to my attention,
Settar
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Feat of the Day #7 Analysis of Power/Wrath of the Serpent Ring
Today I'm going to be talking about 8 points in the right hand side of the thunder tree, both Power of the Serpent Ring and Wrath of the Serpent Ring.
Power of the Serpent Ring, I'll refer to it as PSR in the rest of this article, is currently broken in terms of how it is supposed to work. It SHOULD make you immune (or near immune) to spells for three seconds. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work right now, you have to have it up BEFORE they begin casting their spell (or so it seems) for any damage to be mitigated, but with a 3 second duration, you're likely not to catch anything with this feat. Then why would you want to take it?
For Wrath of the Serpent Ring, or WSR. With 5 points in this feat you'll get a great damage increase (30%!) for 10 seconds, while 10 seconds may not seem like A LOT of time, it's plenty for column lightning, lightning strike or storm field pulses etc, you'll have plenty of time to get a few solid casts off. The best thing about this feat, as I mentioned in a previous write up, is it has a ONE minutes cooldown. Now, you won't have it up every time it's off CD, but in theory you're spending 1/6 of your pvp encounters with a 30% damage increase; thus an approximate 5% overall damage increase (30% divided by 6).
This is also a great feat for PVP specs that are built around burst, once someone gets low in, stun them and then throw this up to ensure your finishing blow does indeed finish them. Because of the amount of feat points needed (8) it's difficult to work this into a leveling build, but if you're leveling thunder you could skip the idol feats (since the CD and its being stationary makes it inefficient for leveling) and grab this, meaning you could burn mobs down quicker and take larger pulls when it's up!
Thanks for reading, if you have any questions about this let me know!
Settar
P.S. Look for my leveling build sometime tomorrow, I'll be posting it up tomorrow and explaining my choices for those ToS's not yet 80 (and from those who are 80, your input is welcome)!
Power of the Serpent Ring, I'll refer to it as PSR in the rest of this article, is currently broken in terms of how it is supposed to work. It SHOULD make you immune (or near immune) to spells for three seconds. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work right now, you have to have it up BEFORE they begin casting their spell (or so it seems) for any damage to be mitigated, but with a 3 second duration, you're likely not to catch anything with this feat. Then why would you want to take it?
For Wrath of the Serpent Ring, or WSR. With 5 points in this feat you'll get a great damage increase (30%!) for 10 seconds, while 10 seconds may not seem like A LOT of time, it's plenty for column lightning, lightning strike or storm field pulses etc, you'll have plenty of time to get a few solid casts off. The best thing about this feat, as I mentioned in a previous write up, is it has a ONE minutes cooldown. Now, you won't have it up every time it's off CD, but in theory you're spending 1/6 of your pvp encounters with a 30% damage increase; thus an approximate 5% overall damage increase (30% divided by 6).
This is also a great feat for PVP specs that are built around burst, once someone gets low in, stun them and then throw this up to ensure your finishing blow does indeed finish them. Because of the amount of feat points needed (8) it's difficult to work this into a leveling build, but if you're leveling thunder you could skip the idol feats (since the CD and its being stationary makes it inefficient for leveling) and grab this, meaning you could burn mobs down quicker and take larger pulls when it's up!
Thanks for reading, if you have any questions about this let me know!
Settar
P.S. Look for my leveling build sometime tomorrow, I'll be posting it up tomorrow and explaining my choices for those ToS's not yet 80 (and from those who are 80, your input is welcome)!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Latest Movie! : AoE Grinding Group Edition Now available on aocmovies.com
Hey everyone! Check out my latest movie of group AoE grinding (footage of my old spec in action before I hit 80). It's my last 'leveling footage' I'll post and I've included an explanation of the spec for those who missed it before the patch. Also, please note I've attatched the original AoE video for any who missed it, enjoy! Click HERE for the movie :)
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Settar's Raid Spec
Hey everyone, feat build discussion was requested in several e-mails so I'd like to start out with THIS one. The above is a tri-spec meant purely for high level pve endeavors, offering a lot of STEADY damage, +to electrical, and of course utility.
The main purpose of this build is to keep your mana up, and let's face it with all of the mana tap, natural regen, and the additional restoratives of Ether Discharge. You'll also notice "Building Storm" which, and this is my opinion, I would consider NECESSARY for any strong PVE spec...
Building Storm: Building Storm is, as the description mention, a channeled spell which you place on one teammate. That team member will recieve a 10% damage increase AND you will regenerate mana, in addition to this, after you finish channeling your nukes are reduced in mana cost by 100 mana for 10 seconds. But that's not the best part, no, a ONE MINUTE cooldown is what really want this. Now let's face it, with this build, you'll have cushy mana regen and you probably aren't going to need regen every minute, but spamming your Lightning Cast nuke once your heals are up can drain you pretty quick just due to its steep cost. And if you're out of mana, why just regen when you could be buffing someone else's damage AND regenerating at the same time? This is always a plus.
The main backing for this spec is the sheer electrical damage you recieve, look at it this way, you've got +57 elec damage in the general tree and +62 in lightning. Then you have idol of set, for each of your 6 group members (including yourself) you'll get +13 or so damage (stacking), then you'll get another 50 (I believe) from Idol of Set's Supremacy. In a large raid the one minute cooldown is hardly an inconvenience as most of the trash mobs take 30 seconds+ per pull.
Threat Feats: You'll see I have several feats to mitigate threat, one being and AoE, one being single target, they both have seperate 5 minute cooldowns. Another aggro feat is Grace, reducing hate by 3%. Now, it's difficult to test this to see if the tooltip is correct, or if it's even worth getting, but because of all of your lightning damage and say a large inner charge crit I picked this up to help me manage my hate. Also the feat Vindicator let's your tanks generate aggro faster while in defensive stance, unfortunately no number is given for this (unless I missed it) but it is unclear if the threat increase is significant or not.
Controversial Choice(s): I'd say that Power/Wrath of the Serpent Ring are largely underestimated. While PotSR is buggy (have to use before a spell is being cast) you take it for Wrath of the Serpent Ring, a 30% damage increase for 10 seconds, best part about this feat? Yet again, a 1 minute cooldown. Combined with Vengence of the Gods, call lightning buff, idol feats, overcharge + inner charge you can hit like a truck deep into long fights when aggro is secured on a tank.
QUESTIONS (I'll add the answers to other questions asked in comments or e-mails to this section):
1) Why no Storm Crown? Storm Crown is great, but in long range fights, it can't out damage the 30% increase for 10 seconds of each minute that WotSR can. The mana restorative is great, but this build already has enough mana regen/tap by far.
2) No Blood Mana? Again, mana regen that is not needed, you won't be running out enough to make use of this (Building Storm will be a better option with a lower CD anyways).
3) No Empowered Life of Set? Well, this one I'm not 100% on. While the extra 100-160 or so damage buff it gives your next attack are nice, you won't be spamming LoS (only when it isnt up yet) and so the overall damage increase in minimal, not worth it IMO.
4) Why Inner Charge? While the build does focus around steady damage, for just one point a guaranteed crit is a no brainer. You just have to be smart about when you use it, and if you're unsure if the tank has enough hate either A) Don't use it, or B) be smart and have your hate reducing abilities ready.
5) Why no Faithful of Set? This was included originally in my raid spec but upon testing I realized that even with 3 stacks of the buff up, it only increased the ticks of my HoTs by litterally just a few points, not worth it, I swapped the points out of this into inner charge and Coalesce Ether.
Thanks for reading and I hope some of you PVE'ers can take something from this, be sure to post questions, corrections and comments on this topic :)
P.S. As some of you know I'm more of a pvp guy, but with the pvp system not yet implemented I thought I'd share some pve ideas as this build seems to perform exceptionally in level 80 content.
The main purpose of this build is to keep your mana up, and let's face it with all of the mana tap, natural regen, and the additional restoratives of Ether Discharge. You'll also notice "Building Storm" which, and this is my opinion, I would consider NECESSARY for any strong PVE spec...
Building Storm: Building Storm is, as the description mention, a channeled spell which you place on one teammate. That team member will recieve a 10% damage increase AND you will regenerate mana, in addition to this, after you finish channeling your nukes are reduced in mana cost by 100 mana for 10 seconds. But that's not the best part, no, a ONE MINUTE cooldown is what really want this. Now let's face it, with this build, you'll have cushy mana regen and you probably aren't going to need regen every minute, but spamming your Lightning Cast nuke once your heals are up can drain you pretty quick just due to its steep cost. And if you're out of mana, why just regen when you could be buffing someone else's damage AND regenerating at the same time? This is always a plus.
The main backing for this spec is the sheer electrical damage you recieve, look at it this way, you've got +57 elec damage in the general tree and +62 in lightning. Then you have idol of set, for each of your 6 group members (including yourself) you'll get +13 or so damage (stacking), then you'll get another 50 (I believe) from Idol of Set's Supremacy. In a large raid the one minute cooldown is hardly an inconvenience as most of the trash mobs take 30 seconds+ per pull.
Threat Feats: You'll see I have several feats to mitigate threat, one being and AoE, one being single target, they both have seperate 5 minute cooldowns. Another aggro feat is Grace, reducing hate by 3%. Now, it's difficult to test this to see if the tooltip is correct, or if it's even worth getting, but because of all of your lightning damage and say a large inner charge crit I picked this up to help me manage my hate. Also the feat Vindicator let's your tanks generate aggro faster while in defensive stance, unfortunately no number is given for this (unless I missed it) but it is unclear if the threat increase is significant or not.
Controversial Choice(s): I'd say that Power/Wrath of the Serpent Ring are largely underestimated. While PotSR is buggy (have to use before a spell is being cast) you take it for Wrath of the Serpent Ring, a 30% damage increase for 10 seconds, best part about this feat? Yet again, a 1 minute cooldown. Combined with Vengence of the Gods, call lightning buff, idol feats, overcharge + inner charge you can hit like a truck deep into long fights when aggro is secured on a tank.
QUESTIONS (I'll add the answers to other questions asked in comments or e-mails to this section):
1) Why no Storm Crown? Storm Crown is great, but in long range fights, it can't out damage the 30% increase for 10 seconds of each minute that WotSR can. The mana restorative is great, but this build already has enough mana regen/tap by far.
2) No Blood Mana? Again, mana regen that is not needed, you won't be running out enough to make use of this (Building Storm will be a better option with a lower CD anyways).
3) No Empowered Life of Set? Well, this one I'm not 100% on. While the extra 100-160 or so damage buff it gives your next attack are nice, you won't be spamming LoS (only when it isnt up yet) and so the overall damage increase in minimal, not worth it IMO.
4) Why Inner Charge? While the build does focus around steady damage, for just one point a guaranteed crit is a no brainer. You just have to be smart about when you use it, and if you're unsure if the tank has enough hate either A) Don't use it, or B) be smart and have your hate reducing abilities ready.
5) Why no Faithful of Set? This was included originally in my raid spec but upon testing I realized that even with 3 stacks of the buff up, it only increased the ticks of my HoTs by litterally just a few points, not worth it, I swapped the points out of this into inner charge and Coalesce Ether.
Thanks for reading and I hope some of you PVE'ers can take something from this, be sure to post questions, corrections and comments on this topic :)
P.S. As some of you know I'm more of a pvp guy, but with the pvp system not yet implemented I thought I'd share some pve ideas as this build seems to perform exceptionally in level 80 content.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Ding level 80! And the final leveling journal...
Well jeez, took me long enough! With school and other real life obligations my leveling rate took a dive after EA weekend (plus I had to keep the site supplied with lots of info :)). But now I'm 80 and a whole new world is open to me, I'll be testing specs, strats etc for you guys in the weeks to come, but for now I'll give you my last few leveling experiences.
Levels covered: 76-80
Feat Build Used: You'll find that HERE
Groupings: Full group or solo.
After hitting 75 I continued to grind the Cohort camps in east Kheshatta, you just can't beat this place if no one is there to disturb you (with the exception of the deathmaster camps. I stayed here until literally one pull before 76 where I was rolled by a group of 2 80's with their app'ed up PLing group. I ran out of the city, where I rezzed, and killed two mobs in the east slums before leveling.
At 76 I actually headed back to Atzel's to finish up a few quests with nice item or xp rewards, particularly the one from King Conan. I got a little over half a level off of grinding various mobs and completing y quests before heading back to Khesh. I was found myself in a DM camps group after a few minutes of searching in OOC, deathmaster camps are the highly contested camps of mobs southeast of Kheshatta city. As anyone who's seen this before knows, the respawns, xp and sheer numbers are to die for! I rolled with this group all of the way to 77 and half way to 78 before they broke up.
Since we had fought off opposing groups, and my group was leaving, I decided to stick around at the camps in 'hide' mode and wait. It was amazing, a good minute went by without anyone passing, all of the mobs respawned around me. I solo'ed this place (and the animals around it when too much resistance showed up) and got my last half of a level in about one hour... which was INSANE.
At 78 my guildies were getting together their OWN death master group, so of course I jumped in! Luckily we had a PoM and so I just stood in the middle storm fielding/healing while the mobs dropped. With relative quickness, I was 79... ready to make the final push.
OVERVIEW
Levels covered: 76-80
Feat Build Used: You'll find that HERE
Groupings: Full group or solo.
After hitting 75 I continued to grind the Cohort camps in east Kheshatta, you just can't beat this place if no one is there to disturb you (with the exception of the deathmaster camps. I stayed here until literally one pull before 76 where I was rolled by a group of 2 80's with their app'ed up PLing group. I ran out of the city, where I rezzed, and killed two mobs in the east slums before leveling.
At 76 I actually headed back to Atzel's to finish up a few quests with nice item or xp rewards, particularly the one from King Conan. I got a little over half a level off of grinding various mobs and completing y quests before heading back to Khesh. I was found myself in a DM camps group after a few minutes of searching in OOC, deathmaster camps are the highly contested camps of mobs southeast of Kheshatta city. As anyone who's seen this before knows, the respawns, xp and sheer numbers are to die for! I rolled with this group all of the way to 77 and half way to 78 before they broke up.
Since we had fought off opposing groups, and my group was leaving, I decided to stick around at the camps in 'hide' mode and wait. It was amazing, a good minute went by without anyone passing, all of the mobs respawned around me. I solo'ed this place (and the animals around it when too much resistance showed up) and got my last half of a level in about one hour... which was INSANE.
At 78 my guildies were getting together their OWN death master group, so of course I jumped in! Luckily we had a PoM and so I just stood in the middle storm fielding/healing while the mobs dropped. With relative quickness, I was 79... ready to make the final push.
The Final Push
The final push for xp from 79-80 was almost exactly divided into two even sections. One, of course, was DM camp grind groups, the other however, took some planning ahead. One thing you'll notice when leveling in Kheshatta is the multitude of quests, save as many as you can. It's tempting to run out and do them for quick levels in your mid 70's (as I did for a few quests :P) but you SHOULd hang on to them. I had saved up lots of quests; Quests to kill Hyenas, quests to kill sentries, quests for gathering quests for freeing captives, quests for freeing horses, I had plenty :). For my last couple bars I, when I was out of quests, I headed down to the south west where some secluded tents of 4-6 mobs are (Not recommended unless no other spots are available as respawns are slow and camps involve a lot of running), until I had just one bar left. At this point I hopped back into a group for the exhausting final 5 minutes of my ToS leveling career. And that was that.
1) I've begun work with many new spec ideas and will share my findings.
2) I'll begin work on a short AoE video tomorrow, my last video of pre-80 footage.
3) I just did my level 80 destiny quest (for an epic ring!), look for a complete guide for this soon.
4) If you have any new ideas for the site, please e-mail me at settar3@live.com
Settar
1) I've begun work with many new spec ideas and will share my findings.
2) I'll begin work on a short AoE video tomorrow, my last video of pre-80 footage.
3) I just did my level 80 destiny quest (for an epic ring!), look for a complete guide for this soon.
4) If you have any new ideas for the site, please e-mail me at settar3@live.com
Settar
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
New Spec and "Content by YOU!"
First of all, here's the LINK
So I've decided to take the advice of an extremely respected ToS community member, Atomik. I'm now a build VERY similar to his leveling build. One difference you may notice is my taking Improved Lightning Strike over Grounding Charge: This is purely for leveling purposes (as the build is intended to be). Grounding charge (at 5/5) gives a 35% chance to root the target, unfortunately this pulls mobs out of the pack while you're AoEing and thus doesn't help much with gathering mobs. In pvp encounters it's arguable, as both feats could be helpful. I believe the tested damage increase on Lightning Strike with Imp. LS maxed was around 6% (not tested since last patch), while not a HUGE increase, it can make the difference between an enemy dying or sprinting away at 2% life to 'hide' and heal up.
I've been very busy lately but promise to get you plenty of new FotD and other write ups soon, (I aim to maintain one new article or video every 1-2 days, so there's always something new). While I have some ongoing write up series' going, installments like the leveling journal (obviously) won't be continuing after 80. In order to maintain a steady flow of content I'd like suggestions from YOU, e-mail me at settar3@live.com and let me know what you think would make for good write ups, movies etc. I look forward to the mail (although with the number of e-mails I've been getting I doubt I can accommodate everyone's request, sorry : /)! If your idea is chosen I'll e-mail you letting you know so you can look for it in the time shortly after, I'll be sure to give credit to the "inventor" of whichever ideas I write about :)
Settar
NEW SPEC
As many of you know I've always been a strong supporter of leveling thunder, and recently went "TLoS" spec for a few days... before it was nerfed. Let's face it, the damage (in groups mostly) was far beyond what it should be. Now the ability applies a ~3.5 second DoT, meaning no real benefit from Life of Set spam. The DoT does about 100 damage each tick (a per second) as opposed to the 150-200 per second it put out pre-fix. I've tried integrating other spells, active blocking etc while the DoT ticks, but it's just not what it used to be...So I've decided to take the advice of an extremely respected ToS community member, Atomik. I'm now a build VERY similar to his leveling build. One difference you may notice is my taking Improved Lightning Strike over Grounding Charge: This is purely for leveling purposes (as the build is intended to be). Grounding charge (at 5/5) gives a 35% chance to root the target, unfortunately this pulls mobs out of the pack while you're AoEing and thus doesn't help much with gathering mobs. In pvp encounters it's arguable, as both feats could be helpful. I believe the tested damage increase on Lightning Strike with Imp. LS maxed was around 6% (not tested since last patch), while not a HUGE increase, it can make the difference between an enemy dying or sprinting away at 2% life to 'hide' and heal up.
Reader Submitted Content!
I've been very busy lately but promise to get you plenty of new FotD and other write ups soon, (I aim to maintain one new article or video every 1-2 days, so there's always something new). While I have some ongoing write up series' going, installments like the leveling journal (obviously) won't be continuing after 80. In order to maintain a steady flow of content I'd like suggestions from YOU, e-mail me at settar3@live.com and let me know what you think would make for good write ups, movies etc. I look forward to the mail (although with the number of e-mails I've been getting I doubt I can accommodate everyone's request, sorry : /)! If your idea is chosen I'll e-mail you letting you know so you can look for it in the time shortly after, I'll be sure to give credit to the "inventor" of whichever ideas I write about :)
Settar
Monday, June 2, 2008
First Movie Pack Released on aocmovies.com! FotD 6!
Hey everyone my first video pack on AoC movies is up! This is a feat of the day video pack packaging the last two videos with a BRAND NEW video! You'll find the video HERE! Also be sure to rate the video (I hope you like it) after you download as I am participating in AoCmovies.com's Gore To Fame Contest! Notes about the video can be found in the video's description! Thanks and let me know what you think :)
P.S. The new FotD video will be posted to youtube later this week, but I suggest you download the high quality packaged movie first :)
Settar
P.S. The new FotD video will be posted to youtube later this week, but I suggest you download the high quality packaged movie first :)
Settar
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Leveling Journal Entry #5!
Hey all time for the next leveling journal!
OVERVIEW
Levels Covered This Session: 70-75
Feat Build: Click HERE
Groupings: Both Large Group and Solo
At 70 I noticed some of my quests were getting more into the orange/yellow range and decided to head off to see what I could get done. At the south end of the Atzel complex I found a quest-giver and a large amount of mammoths. I couldn't get any of his quests yet but had one to get ivory tusks and set out down the ravine blasting my way through. One thing to take note of is that your quest items only drop off of adult and Aged mammoths, anything but the "Young" ones. Since the mobs are non-aggressive you have to hit them to initiate combat, unfortunately their hitboxes are right in the middle of their rather large bodies, so AoE'ing these guys isn't really a good option. I just nuked them down with lightning strike, moving from mob to mob as quick as possible. I was already farily close to 71 from a previous AoE groups (movie coming out next week) and I hit 71 killing my last few mammoths. Since I leveled I was ready to go see what quests the guy I had passed had to offer, but not before grabbing the rez point down here (you'll find it at the bottom of some stone stairs in the ravine with troggs spawned near it). He handed me a request to kill apes and get their heads. I headed past the guy and up the hill to my right, where at the top I was greeted by two paths, I took the right (the left is some undead spawns) and found myself in MINEFIELD of apes. There are tons of them, both around and on the stone ruins in the middle, I spent the entirety of 71-72 grinding these guys, returning to the quest giver when I had completed another part of the ape chain (there are three I believe). If it's clear I strongly suggest grinding at least a level here, and if not try switching instances to find a less contested-for "Ape Field." At 72 I got into a group with three others leveling it Atzels and hit up the fortress again. Pulls are huge, respawn rates are insane, you can loop through this place without ever needing to stop (I was getting just under 1 million xp per hour). After an hour and a half or so, I had hit 73 and decided to move over to Kheshatta in Stygia...
While some may consider this too low to make the change, I was in need of some different scenery and i DO plan on going back to the zone (tomorrow in fact) to finish up some quests. One thing that may surprise you, as it sharply contrasts the zones you've recently leveled in, quests are EVERWHERE! It's like Tortage all over again, the only deterring factor of this zone is the enormous gank fest (at least on a pvp server). If you can, get a group to help you AoE the battlemaster camps in the south or try soloing some quests. I did a little of both to get me to 74. At 74 I wanted to save my quests for the rough levels ahead so I spent a good few hours grinding out 75. It was kind of boring but there are some good camps of "Set" humanoid mobs, as well as abundant hyena camps on the east border. After my boring (yet fruitful) few hours of grinding these guys, I hit 75 and prepared to head back to Atzel's (lots of new ranks of your abilities at 75 by the way).
Thanks a lot for reading guys, I planned on having videos up for you tonight but they aren't done being approved on aocmovies.com so I thought I'd better put out some reading material. Hopefully the movies will be ready and linked here by tomorrow!
Settar
OVERVIEW
Levels Covered This Session: 70-75
Feat Build: Click HERE
Groupings: Both Large Group and Solo
At 70 I noticed some of my quests were getting more into the orange/yellow range and decided to head off to see what I could get done. At the south end of the Atzel complex I found a quest-giver and a large amount of mammoths. I couldn't get any of his quests yet but had one to get ivory tusks and set out down the ravine blasting my way through. One thing to take note of is that your quest items only drop off of adult and Aged mammoths, anything but the "Young" ones. Since the mobs are non-aggressive you have to hit them to initiate combat, unfortunately their hitboxes are right in the middle of their rather large bodies, so AoE'ing these guys isn't really a good option. I just nuked them down with lightning strike, moving from mob to mob as quick as possible. I was already farily close to 71 from a previous AoE groups (movie coming out next week) and I hit 71 killing my last few mammoths. Since I leveled I was ready to go see what quests the guy I had passed had to offer, but not before grabbing the rez point down here (you'll find it at the bottom of some stone stairs in the ravine with troggs spawned near it). He handed me a request to kill apes and get their heads. I headed past the guy and up the hill to my right, where at the top I was greeted by two paths, I took the right (the left is some undead spawns) and found myself in MINEFIELD of apes. There are tons of them, both around and on the stone ruins in the middle, I spent the entirety of 71-72 grinding these guys, returning to the quest giver when I had completed another part of the ape chain (there are three I believe). If it's clear I strongly suggest grinding at least a level here, and if not try switching instances to find a less contested-for "Ape Field." At 72 I got into a group with three others leveling it Atzels and hit up the fortress again. Pulls are huge, respawn rates are insane, you can loop through this place without ever needing to stop (I was getting just under 1 million xp per hour). After an hour and a half or so, I had hit 73 and decided to move over to Kheshatta in Stygia...
While some may consider this too low to make the change, I was in need of some different scenery and i DO plan on going back to the zone (tomorrow in fact) to finish up some quests. One thing that may surprise you, as it sharply contrasts the zones you've recently leveled in, quests are EVERWHERE! It's like Tortage all over again, the only deterring factor of this zone is the enormous gank fest (at least on a pvp server). If you can, get a group to help you AoE the battlemaster camps in the south or try soloing some quests. I did a little of both to get me to 74. At 74 I wanted to save my quests for the rough levels ahead so I spent a good few hours grinding out 75. It was kind of boring but there are some good camps of "Set" humanoid mobs, as well as abundant hyena camps on the east border. After my boring (yet fruitful) few hours of grinding these guys, I hit 75 and prepared to head back to Atzel's (lots of new ranks of your abilities at 75 by the way).
Thanks a lot for reading guys, I planned on having videos up for you tonight but they aren't done being approved on aocmovies.com so I thought I'd better put out some reading material. Hopefully the movies will be ready and linked here by tomorrow!
Settar
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