A new Solo Purist was born

[mucco]

Lonely Sorceress is her name, and she is a young Elementalist.



Fox's idea inspired me to the point that I wanted to try it out. And while I wanted to play in Prophecies (so I could read Fox's tales and be prepared ), I only had caster classes left to play among the core ones. So I went with an ele... I know it will be hard but I'll do my best.

So, after the pre-searing prelude, I find myself in the burned Ascalon. I start exploring around and find with pleasure that most of the creatures in Old Ascalon are weak to fire damage. Obviously, I proceed to flare every insect to the ground with great pleasure.

The low level monsters don't deal a lot of damage, and my aura of restoration can keep up with it for some time, so I enjoy the damage of fire storm and lava font when enemies surround me. My damage is high enough, that I can kill off a group of four monks with heal other when I'm just one level above them.

As I push deeper into no man's land though, I find a new type of foe, which poses me problems: Grawls have degen and lightning orbs! And they're higher in level than me as well. It takes some time to get used to their behavior and to find a reliable way to kill them. I even try to venture north of the Wall for a quest before try to complete the Great Northern Wall, but at the first encounter with a Charr group I get smashed and have to forget about the quest, for now.

Well, I've made it to level 7 when I tackle the first mission in the game. The first part goes smoothly, the devourers are several levels behind and they pose no threat. My biggest problem is fitting the bonus items into the inventory! Between collector items, materials and loot I'm having a hard time especially since I have no bags yet. Even the few Charr who were so challenging in the Breach just a little before, now fall easily thanks to some careful pulling and wiser skill usage. While running around I find myself in a strange spot, which turns my cape yellow.



Some sort of curse hidden somewhere here? Anyway. I'm happily burning bugs until the cinematic pops up. I recall that the final part of the mission was just a quiet home run, so I'm not prepared for a bad surprise...

The countless Charr that spawn are only slightly behind me (well within earshot!) and immediately start chasing me. I run, and when some devourers pop up before a bridge just before me, I'm sure that I'm going to die and fail the mission. The devourers do attack me, but then while I try to flee they turn their attention to the charr mobs and luckily slow them down just barely enough to allow me to rush southward and complete the mission.



The Charr ran faster than me, so I was quite on my toes in the final part!

Next up: Fort Ranik.

[mucco]

Well, the next adventures in the seared Ascalon prove to be quite a bit harder than the flame parade the first mission has been. Around Fort Ranik, the environment is a lot more hostile, with higher-level foes that I have problems killing. In particular, the Charr rangers with their preparations are capable to deal a lot of damage, in comparison to the other foes.

Nevertheless, I bravely take my first attempt at the second mission at level 8, with half collector (only 21 AL!) half crafter armor. It is a pain from the very first steps. The empowered Charr groups provide great pressure, and as soon as my initial allies die, I'm on my own and I struggle to stay alive and in the meanwhile kill foes, which are of my level or just a couple levels below. This allows me to refine my fighting tactic, trying to make the most out of the few skills I have available. I prepare to the fights using aura of restoration and healing breeze, which keep me up in the first 15 seconds while the enemies are at full strength. Then I rush in and get in touch range, to be able to use Lava Font. At this point, with Lava Font, Armor of Earth and Fire Storm go up quickly and then it's Flare spam until death from either part, more or less. Luckily it's mostly the other part that dies

The almighty GoLE is immensely helpful here, as I cannot allow myself to put points into energy storage yet. I must save my attributes for the fire damage! Also, Armor of Earth is very helpful against all direct damage dealers such as rangers, warriors and to a lesser extent fire elementalists. Having 64 armor already is really a big help here.

Well, all of this doesn't allow me to get past a certain point in the mission, where I have to kill a powerful Ranger boss. The main problem is that I can't stand to resist his fire for long, and while I run behind a wall to catch my breath, he uses Troll Unguent and just heals himself back to full health. My strategy, while good, isn't enough to vanquish this foe and I must resign.

Fox tells me, "bring an interrupt!". Time to go to the wiki and search for every possible way to disrupt, interrupt, knock down I have available as an E/Mo. The research though has no result: the only knockdowns I can learn in the Old Ascalon are conditional: they only work if the foe is attacking. Obviously, when casting Troll Unguent, that boss isn't attacking, so I guess I have to grind myself up a couple levels else it will be a real pain to pass this mission.

Thus, I spend some time completing quests in Ascalon, to train myself up to level 10 so I can put some more points into Fire Magic and finally blow that boss down. After the training, I come back and this time there are no problems, everything blows up like the old Northern Wall times, and I can complete mission plus bonus. I feared I couldn't damage the two monks guarding the prisoners for the bonus enough, but in the end Fire Storm, Lava Font and Flare provide a very decent burst of damage and I can outheal them.

The panic comes when I reach the catapult part: I start fearing a mistake that costs me the whole mission (let me hate the length of Prophecies missions one more time), and I still remember the first time in this part: having bad luck with catapults, rushing in with my ranger only to let my henchmen die, and I had no hard resurrection skill. Killing that last boss took so much time... I remember using mending to stay alive! Good times. Anyway, I get scared when the second catapult doesn't kill the HUGE MOB around the fire at the wall. Then I carefully step in and aggro some of the mobs, who wake up and chas me for a bit, then go back and sit at the fire. Great! I use the catapult again and this time I get the mass destruction, and I can dispatch the last foes easily.

After that comes Ruins of Surmia. It's good to have an ally! Not. That Rurik is just plain stupid and sometimes rushes in the occasional big group of Charr, which I have a hard time killing because they like to target me more, no idea why. At least, Rurik does a good job of healing himself... once the battle is over. Before that, I have to keep an eye on him and occasionally cast a Healing Breeze on him to keep him alive. Sigh. I've just started burning down Charr, when the madman rushes into a group with two Chaots and an Elementalist boss. Wow, I say, I better run up to him quickly and give him some healing or else that boss will blow him up in no time. So let's start, Aura of Restoration, Healing Breeze, Armor of Earth... I walk up to the chaots, five seconds and I'm lying on the ground dead. Nice, so they have Shatter Enchantment, they could have told me before. I get angry... how to deal with those guys?

Today the answer: I'll just have to live without enchantments, and it will be a problem. So after another long trek with Mr. Leeroy, I'm back to that group and ready to use my new uber leet strategy: plain Flare spam
Well, mostly. I take the time to cast a Fire Storm beforehand so they get all hot by the time I start flaring them. Luckily Rurik decides he's too bored to help me with the killing and doesn't aggro the Ele boss. I'm equipping Orison for a 27 heal which is the best I can get without enchantments, apparently. Anyway, once I kill the Chaots, not without problems (I was down to half health), The Ele boss is a joke, as the rest of the mission is. It's just looong... After completing another very easy bonus, I take the time to kill every foe on the path before lowering the bridge for the prince. Then when the prince comes in, I fear he might run into the Charr encampment but even he recognizes it might be dangerous, and proceeds to run into a patrol I had missed. He doesn't die and I complete the mission. Blah.

More Ascalon the next time... let's hope I can do this Nolani Academy soon! Fox's tale has scared me a bit. And let's hope there is something screenshot-worthy, too.

[mucco]

Warning: high levels of roleplay ahead!

The brave Sorceress didn't feel the need for more training, before taking on the challenge of saving her Prince Rurik, trapped inside the old Academy of Nolani by the evil Charr. Her mission was straight-forward, she had to sneak out of thw fortified Academy and clear the way for her Prince.

Her Fire Magic prowess assured she would not have any problem with the Charr, who were only a mere nuisance, after long time spent in training. So were all the other creatures who populated those now dead lands. As the Sorceress was gaining more and more confidence in her abilities, she found a man deep inside the canyons, who needed help: she was asked to return a cursed tome to the place it belonged to, for many souls were restless because of this.

The Sorceress attempted to help the poor man, but she could not, because the restless spirits were hostile, and prevented her from giving them the peace they sought. It took the magician several tries before realising those forces were too powerful for her alone. She decided then to exploit what was left in that scarred land, drew the attention or a group of nearby Devourers and lured the spirits, so they could fight each other; while all of the powerful but fragile spirits were concentrated on the new Devourer menace, the Sorceress backed a few steps and cast the most powerful spells she knew, burning down both Spirits and Devourers. These left on the ground a lot of materials in their fiery death, the Sorceress knew they would be useful to her and picked them up.



The way was clear, and she finally could return the fallen their tome, and she felt a sense of accomplishement in doing so.

But it was time to finally clear the way for the Prince; and it was no hard task, given the experience the witch had gained in fighting so many Charr. Soon Rurik was able to walk out of the Academy, and he rushed southward, to see what was left of the former capital city of Rin. As soon as the door of the wall which separated Rin from the lands of Nolani opened, Rurik saw how the city had been burned down, and, enraged, he ran southward to sound the magical horn Stormcaller. The Lonely Sorceress knew it was a risky move, in which the Prince itself could have lost his life; and chose to walk another path, a direct passage leading right to the Charr army commander, Bonfaaz Burntfur.

The Sorceress, snuck behind the enemy lines, and had no choice but help a few Ascalonian civilians getting attacked along the way, but voices said the Prince was very fast, and once he would sound Stormcaller, there was no other way than to fight all the Charr who had resisted, keeping the Prince alive. So the magician made haste, and soon found herself face-to-face with Bonfaaz. The Commander was a magician expert in the same art as her, the art of fire, but she knew she was stronger. Without fear she started sending the Charr all of the fire she could summon, and he soon fell.



Burns the fur of Bonfaaz Burntfur! And after he died, the other Charr were lost and retreated from the city. What was left of it was safe now, but the threat of Charr was as strong as ever. The Lonely Sorceress witnessed a bitter argument between the King and the Prince over the state of the war. In the end the Prince was banned by the King, and voiced he would start a journey over the Shiverpeaks Mountains to flee from the Charr, with the Ascalonians who would join. The Lonely Sorceress joined him, and soon found herself in the first outpost into the mountains, Yak's Bend.

Chapter two: snow, dwarves and an even harder life than before.

The Sorceress started to explore the surroundings of the encampment, and discovered not only that the place was very cold and the journey would be very long, but the foes she encountered were far more dangerous than the puny Charr she had fought before. Dwarves, of the kind belonging to the Stone Summit, populated those freezing lands, and they were expert in arts the Sorceress had not mastered, nor was she prepared for: Illusion and Necromancy. Dwarf Wizards were able to shatter the defensive enchantments the Sorceress had relied upon until then; her Armor of Earth was easily stripped, and the Healing Breeze she called when in need was stopped. In addition, the hammer and bow masters of those lands were a lot stronger than Charr, and could inflict very dangerous blows. The Sorceress was found almost dead near Yak's Bend many times, before she learned how to properly face the powerful enemies.

She acquired the knowledge of a new skill, which allowed her to summon a fiery phoenix, inflicting a lot of damage. She had to let expert artisans craft more tools for her: a new Flame Eye so she could channel more power in her fire spells; and a special sword which, even if not used, granted her a partial protection against the Dwarves. She would acquire a very valuable object in her first adventures in the snow:



Thanks to this insignia, she could improve her weak chest armor and grant herself one more chance to survive in clashes. The fights were hard; many times the Sorceress had to resort to a sneaky tactic: she would lure enemy foes to the fringe of the area they could control, and kill them while they were undecided whether to go after her or to go back. This way she could keep at a distance the enemy spellcasters, but most importantly, fool the foes with the biggest life-threatening abilities, thus defensive enchantments were not needed anymore and the Sorceress could concentrate on her Fire Magic.

Just outside Yak's Bend, the Lonely Sorceress found a fellow acolyte of Fire, named Cynn, in need of help, so they teamed up in search of Cynn's mate Mhenlo.



Mhenlo was a disciple in the other art the Sorceress had decided to master as a side ability, which is the magic of the Monk. The two Elementalists' voyage proved to be hard, but in the end they found the dispersed man. He thanked the two girls and taught the Sorceress a new ability: a protective hex which forces one foe to not attack her for a period of time.

During the trek, the group of Ascalonians was blocked by the Stone Summit dwarves, and it was the Sorceress who had to clear the path to Grooble's Gulch. Her first attempt didn't end well, and she is now thinking about the best way to reach that place through Borlis Pass.

[mucco]

The snow storm was hampering the voyage of the wandering Ascalonians; though, not as much as the war between the Deldrimor and the Stone Summit dwarves. The Deldrimor faction, allied to the kingdom of Rin, had lost control of the area surrounding Borlis Pass; the Stone Summit were laying siege to Krok's Hollow, the town where Rurik and the Dwarven king Jalis Ironhammer were negotiating passage through the Shiverpeaks.

The first problem was the storm, though. Our by now well-known heroine was to clear a way for the Ascalonian settlers through the snow, by lighting the braziers which could show the path. It was no easy task, as this path swarmed about the kind of four-legged beasts called Modniir: experts in the art of fighting hand to hand, healing wounds but, above all, wielding a bow. The valorous bow-beasts were masters in the art of diverting the attention of their foe with their arrows, so that she could not complete the spell she was casting. It was a huge difficulty to overcome for the Sorceress, as she only relied on her spells to slaughter her foes. She had to employ a sneaky tactic, which involved hiding from most arrow-shooters while killing off one at a time, trying to to get distracted by their abilities.

Many fights were close and just barely won, but she had no idea or what was waiting for her. At the end of the path which led to the plain before Krok's Hollow, there was the commander of the Modniir forces, a Master Ranger, surrounded by a sizeable amount of bodyguards. Here Lonely Sorceress had to use all of her strategical abilities and weapons to eliminate all the guards one by one, without alerting their Boss. He himself was a really tough battle, which took Lonely a great amount of time and efforts. This formidable foe had incredible resistance to all of her magics, including her most powerful one, the invocation of a brief Fire Storm. In addition, he was taking advantage of a ritual which created an aura of Winter around him, giving him additional resistance to Fire, and of a special Unguent crafted by Trolls, which had surprising healing abilities. Moreover, the spell-interrupting skill all Modniir have was so mastered by this foe, that he could use it twice as many times, thus effectively fighting like two Modniir at once. Lonely could not prepare for all these difficulties. She knew she had the potential to strike this foe so hard he could not have time to respond, but in the first phases of the clash she always lacked that last bit of Energy which could have allowed her to end the battle.

It was an epic battle, which ended when Lonely Sorceress, tired of the skirmishes, gave up on her own defense, and charged right in to exploit her blast spell to its full extent. As soon as she could touch the dangerous foe, she made use of her Glyph of Lesser Energy to fool the foe into throwing away his debilitating interruption. Subsequently she unleashed the fiery Phoenix and quickly followed up with a Fire Storm. It was not over yet: the foe retreated and fled away from the storm, but she knew that would happen, and pursued him till he was blocked between her and the mountain snowy wall. Another Phoenix and Fire Storm invocation, combined with Lonely's most used spell (she likes to throw Flares at foes), was just barely enough to finish him off, despite the magical Troll Unguent.



All the beacons could be lit finally, but the way was not yet clear. The next problem would be the dangerous Stone Summit who were besieging Krok's Hollow. The lack of such adept Rangers though made things a lot easier for the Lonely Sorceress, and as she blew away all the dwarves in the area, she felt a bit like when she was in the scarred plains around Ascalon, killing wandering scarabs. The foes were even well-prepared for her arrival, and many of them had the ability to destroy any enchantments she would cast on herself; but she knew about this, and through a hit and run tactic she could vanquish the foes quickly without relying on enchantments. Sudden Fire surges were really unexpected for the mountain dwellers. They had learned something from the Modniir though, and guarded one small niche of their outpost with a powerful Ranger, who wasn't as able in spell blocking, but was terribly resilient, even to Fire Magic.



Lonely decided she didn't want to waste more time in the cold mountains and used her foe's slow speed to run past him. As she did this, she discovered a captive Deldrimor Dwarf, who told her about a terrible threat: the evil dwarves were about to unleash a fiery Drake on the Deldrimor stronghold. Lonely realised she had to slay the dangerous beast before it could provoke harm to dwarves as well as her fellow trespassing humans. She thus ventured into the hidden cave the monster was held in, and had to fight loads of nasty Spiders who had the nasty ability to steal health from her, as well as a handful of Hexes which had the effect of slowly eroding her health. She couldn't defend against this magic in any way, so she had to use up all her power as fast as possible before the Spiders has the chance to leech all her health off. The tactic was successful:



The Drake, however, was a completely different kind of foe. He had an array of powerful spells who could devastate an unprepared character. There was a Hex spell from the Water mastery line which slowed down movement considerably, making a tactical retreat very hard to execute. A powerful Air Magic damaging spell accompanied this Hex, resulting in a lot of damage. The foe was accompanied by two more of those terrible spiders, and the combination of health stealing, degeneration, slowing and Air damage was deadly. Once, the Sorceress gave up against this foe. The second time, she was better prepared and knew she had to fight on the fringe of her foes' comfort zone. This way, she could hit the spiders first, while letting their indecision mitigate the demage she would otherwise have taken, and it even allowed her to flee despite the Water slowing effect. Fortunately, the Drake had a weakness: he ran up to his foe to hit him with normal attacks, between one spell and another. This made it vulnerable to Lonely's Phoenix, which devastated it despite its very high health, once the dangerous spiders had been dealt with. The fight was exciting, though not as hard or long as the one with the Modniir Ranger.



Most of the effort was done. With the dangerous Drake dead and the Stone Summit outpost cleared, there would not be many obstacles between Lonely Sorceress and her goal: Grooble's Gulch. She had read of a legend about some terrible monsters who fooled their enemies and killed them subsequently; in these old writings they were referred to as the "Ice Golems From Hell". Lonely didn't find any trace of this legend though, and the few monsters of that kind were dealt with without a problem.



The rest of the trek was really easy. The few Stone Summit left were killed without any problems and the caravan safely reached Grooble's Gulch one the magical beacon had been lit.



Arrived in a safe place, the group could rest for the night. But that was the last friendly outpost they would have found on their way to Kryta; what was left of the mountains was a very long road to the Frost Gate, which sealed the entrance to the nation founded by Saul D'Alessio. Unfortunately, the way from Grooble's Gulch to the Frost Gate was completely under Stone Summit control and their chief, the Dwarf Dagnar Stonepate, brother of king Jalis Ironhammer, was ready to risk his own life to prevent a human caravan from passing through his territory. It would be a devastating battle, but it was for another day.

[mucco]

For a very long time were the Ascalonians forced to hide in Grooble's Gulch, while the war between the two Dwarf factions raged; they would not dare try to proceed forward, for the enemy forces were very impressive and seemed invincible to our heroes. But Lonely Sorceress didn't lose her temper. She knew she had the whole weight of a nation on her shoulders, and was paying close attention to the surroundings for hints of a slight weakness, a small gap in the enemy lines that could be exploited to slip past them. The information gathered by the Deldrimor scouts said that the only viable way to complete the crossing of the Shiverpeaks would be to reach the great Frost Gate which was located directly south of the Gulch. The Mage thought they would have to go through the Stone Summit defences to reach the Gate, but was there any other choice? Of course not, and she wouldn't have had the help of anyone else once again. But she had to do it, for her people's and her own sake.

Before finding the Summit fortifications, there were some aggressive minotaus to tame; they provided the Elementalist with some useful Horns as well as preparing her for the tiring battles ahead. The Stone Summit were not much further: soon hostile dwarves started charging into the Ascalonian hero, but her magic flames were able to withstand the assaults, albeit with some problems. Some of the dwarves were riding Dolyaks, huge beasts, and were able to heal their comrades with powerful spells. Lonely Sorceress knew she had to vanquish those first, or she would succumb quickly to the mauling; but this was not always the easiest thing to do for her, and many times was she forced to withdraw to prepare for a new assault. With experience, she slowly started to recognize the foes' weaknesses and her fighting style developed an instinctive pattern designed to exploit the weaknesses she noticed. She knew she could handle groups of three hammer warriors long enough to kill their Dolyak Rider, and then to burn down the fighters too; but she discovered the enemy Sages and Howlers, despite not having as strong attacks, were able to push her back if they were protected by a healing mage, because they could nullify with powerful black magic all the protections the Sorceress had learned to defend herself. Thus she needed to act very quickly - first concentrating her efforts on the enemy Monk to kill him before being damaged too much, then running back to make the enemy spellcasters lose her traces while she recovered hidden someplace safe; then charge in with a second outburst that would take the now unprotected wizards by surprise, and outdamage them with her mighty Fire spells.

The Ice Golems controlled by the enemies were not an issue, because they melted very quickly to the blazing magic of our hero; problems arised with enemy patrols consisting of one or more of the hammer wielders and the black wizards, supported by the Dolyak riding Monk. The force of the enemy hammer fighter was enhanced by our Sorceress unability to protect herself fully; she couldn't afford staying unprotected though. She noticed the enemy mage could only dispel so many protections: she carried many to the field, allowing her to still be able to use some while trying to break the Dolyak Rider. She could then burn the hammer wielder and the enemy mage with less difficulty. Another very big problem was a very, very powerful Ranger who had a strong way to recover from damage, a Troll-made cream. This mighty foe was able to force her away more than once, but his Unguent wasn't so strong that he could heal his wounds indefinitely with it. Thus, once Lonely Sorceress managed to kill his patrol mates, she managed to eventually break the defense of the strong archer.

Her job in this mission was simple. At the start there was a very long canyon, which was controlled on the high cliffs by enemy forces. Prince Rurik didn't want to risk the life of his people, so he didn't want to take part in the fight on the cliffs; he would travel through the canyon, and Lonely Sorceress was to clean the area of the enemies, who were threatening the Ascalonians' life with big ballistae. At one certain point of the canyon there was a big ice dungeon, and while the canyon continued under it, the Sorceress had to cross the cave. It was filled with nasty huge spiders, similar to the ones which were protecting the Stone Summit Drake, the one the evil dwarves meant to use for the Grooble's Gulch siege. The Elementalist was used to these foes, and had no problem dispatching them. In the deep of the dungeon she heard someone screaming! Who could that be? She went on to discover that it was a captive Deldrimor Dwarf, called Rornak Stonesledge. This fellow asked our hero to recover some battle plans from the enemy, and she wanted to help him because that would repay in part the debt the humans had with the dwarves. The only way to recover them would have been to destroy a gate with a ballista though, and that ballista was too heavily guarded even for the Sorceress' many trickeries and skills. She couldn't do this small feat for Deldrimor, and while she was sad for this, she knew there was no way possible. At least that very strong garrison left the rest of the passage open enough for her to continue vanquishing foes until the end of the canyon, where she met with Rurik.



The Prince knew what to do: the gargantuan Frost Gate could only be opened by activating three mechanisms nearby. Those were heavily guarded, but Lonely Sorceress was determined. She would do it for her prince, for her people! All alone against an entire army but she faced the danger without fear, and activated all the mechanisms. It didn't take long before the grand stone door opened, and the surviving Ascalonians ran throught it to safety while their prince guarded the backline. But suddenly, a roar shook the valley.



Dagnar Stonepate, the general of the Stone Summit! He cowardly let loose one of the barriers that were holding the snow piles, causing an avalanche right above Prince Rurik! The brave prince shouted not to try to save him, for he was doomed already. Lonely Sorceress hesitantly obeyed and left Rurik to face his doom, almost at the end of their journey, but not quite.

So Lonely Sorceress lead the refugees over to a friendly outpost, finally out of the Stone Summit controlled area: Beacon's Perch. They only took a small break, and our Elementalist helped out the local population while her companions rested. Then it was time to march west again. The scouts found Aidan, a Ranger who had found the way to Kryta, the promised land. Aidan had left traces of his steps through a very dangerous cave, populated by strong Ettins which caused some difficulties to our powerful but frail hero. But at the end of the dungeon! A beach, green lands again! Such sights had not been seen by any Ascalonian for too much time. The only spoiling element in the scene was that it was populated by nasty undead zombies. Fortunately, they seemed to burn well too so our Sorceress fried her way up to the next outpost, where people were very worried about the undead plague, because it had reached so near the city of Lion's Arch. So, apparently the capital city of Kryta was not too far away! Still, there were still obstacles in between... But that is the tale for another day.