I've continued to progress in leveling WHM since my last update, hitting 30 as of last night. All of the EXP was earned via the hijinks of the RoughnecksUnited group. Surprisingly, I didn't need to use Raise until last night when a Goblin Smithy brought our deathless streak to an end, using some curiously opportunistic AI to go after Murrdoc while the party was slept.
The roster throughout the week usually included Lexxi, Murrdoc, and myself, with a rotating assortment of LS members including Raikoh, Ahmber, Quan, and Maloc.As entertaining as the larger group was, I think the most comical night of the week was when our core trio partied with a spectacularly gimpy pickup. What made it so funny was partially sleep deprivation, but also the gradual process of discovering the gimpiness, combined with that unmistakable sense of overconfidence that clings to the newbies at these levels.
I'm not going to go into a ton of detail, but a sketch will make things pretty clear. We weren't sure what the BLM was actually doing in the party. He would alternate between overnuking, staring at the mob, repeatedly checking the party, and resting for huge stretches at a time. The WAR was hitting the Mandies like... a Mandy and wasn't using his hate tools all that much, favoring the /emote channel to lay down some Iron Maiden. Yeah.
When we eventually checked the two screwballs, the equipment definitely fit the picture. A /check on the BLM revealed that he wore mostly melee equipment, not a stitch of +MP gear, and sported a set of... Courage Rings.
The WAR/MNK, while seemingly aiming in the right direction with a Moth Axe (hadn't upgraded to a Neckchopper yet) and the right subjob for tanking at this level (which is a rare sight on WAR), decided to leave his Ear, Finger, Back, and Waist slots empty.
I was a little harsh when I told Doc & Lexxi that he seemed to have "purchased his gear from the I Don't Give a Fuck kit at the Warrior Shack", but in a sense it was true. If you bother to google your job (which can't be said for Mr. Courageous BLM), at least go all the way and equip yourself completely, otherwise your research is useless.
The rest of the EXP was accumulated with people who actually knew how to play the game, which was fun in its own right, though not nearly as comical.
During our Mandy-slaying grind, I've been using Barsleepra on the faith that it does... something. Can anyone attest to what this Bar spell actually does? Shorter sleep times? It doesn't seem to really "Bar" anything, but this might be the result of lower Enhancing Magic at these levels. I'll keep using it until someone tells me it's definitely worthless.
On Thursday night, Feon invited me to an Assault run on Lebros cavern, which went well. They chipped and DoT'd away at the walls, and I cluelessly followed them around, doing the same. At one point, I mistakenly followed Cozmos to the wall that she was supposed to solo DoT, but fortunately my brief error didn't ruin the mission and I came out with 1270 more Assault points. Around 6700 to go until I can buy that Chivalrous Chain.
After the Assault run, Feon, Audessa, Cozmos (piloted by John), and Ishy (piloted by Feon), kindly accompanied me to the Temple of Uggalepih to complete my WSNM fight with Yallery Brown for the Decimation weapon skill. The battle was over quickly and I blew my 2-hour on a final Rampage to kill it off (probably needlessly, but it's not like I was going to actually use Benediction on WHM). Although I technically have the weapon skill unlocked now, I'm ashamed to say I haven't used it yet but I do hope to get a screenshot soon.
On the way back from the WSNM, we killed the Goblin Archaeologist once again, but lost the 3 gold coins as we zoned to Jugner. -_-; We then headed to Davoi to kill an Orc NM by the name of Dirtyhanded Gochakzuk for Ishy, which didn't pan out because of some changes made to the area which prevents a straight pull from the fort to the Monastic Cavern zone (you can no longer drop down the ledges on the way there).
We eventually made a straight attempt with 4 (Feon, Ishy, Audessa, and me) by clearing most of the mobs on the way to the central room, but the fight itself was quite brutal, especially when the NM used Manafont, spammed -ga spells, and was nearly immune to Silence. Subsequent attempts might require Carby pulling the NM out of the central room.
All in all, a good, productive week, with a little adventure thrown in!
P.S. Yeah, yeah, pics will be up later.
3 comments:
Bar-status spells are supposed to help to reduce the amount of time you are under the negative effect. For Barsleepra you can get a "partial resist" to the sleep spell and it will hopefully wear off sooner. As you noted it is dependent on enhancing magic which is relatively low. I put up barsleepra faithfully when fighting mandies, figuring maybe someone will wake up a bit sooner. Honestly, though, you probably could live without it (and watch someone who reads more about the game come and contradict me *grin*)
So sorry for your "gimp" party. But at least you didn't complain in the party chat like I did once by mistake (was sending /tells to my friend and didn't notice I put it in party chat and said this NIN sucks! oh boy was that egg on my face).
Awaiting the pics!
Hey I just did that NM in Davoi. Yup we did go up there and slept the others in the house. Had 2 stunners to watch out just in case.
Darret is absolutely correct about the difference betweem bar-status and bar-element spells. ^_^ I agree that you can do OK without it, but if there is a Paladin there, it will stack with their Resist Sleep trait.
Of note is that all the bar-spells, both for status and element, seem to have specific tiers which affect how much resist chance you get. This is more obvious with measurable effects (like Store TP) but you might have heard of people who work on single-element resist sets being frustrated by hitting 299 (which is worthless compared to either 275 or 250). People argue about exactly where the tiers are. Unfortunately, there is no number displayed for the bar-status ones. I do not know if it tracks in a similar way to the bar-element spells:
(Enhancing magic skill / 5) + 40
To my knowledge, the only way to completely resist an effect is the aforementioned line of Job Traits, which kick in when you see "Resist!" but otherwise continually passively provide a reduction in effect duration similar to the bar-status spells.
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