Nudist Progression

[KingOfPain]

4 of us are are ready to do the first mission and hope to make it to Pikens tonite. Those who missed last week might want to log on a bit early and team up to catch up. We are not too far apart yet, so no biggie.


PS: Maybe we can get a team to clear out FoW in one sitting after the Nudist meet


KoP

[Seijin]

I might be on a little late because of work...I don't get off until 9pm PST.

good thing is it only takes me about 15-20 min to get home...so i'll be on ASAP.

If you take another healer instead...thats cool. I don't expect you to wait for me and hold up the group.

[Zed-F]

Err, well I'm expecting to be on around 8:30 EST, not PST. But Ember Buffy is all caught up and ready to go.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Well, our team (Soul Flayer, Wyrm, Zed-f) managed to get a bunch of quests done tonight, but still no missions. We did, however, run to Piken Square and also through Regent Valley to Fort Ranik.

Just noticed though, the split was alphabetical (Drasca, Hawk, KoP were the other team). Not planned that way, and not really all that important, but a neat little tidbit to throw out there.

On an aside, the E/Me combination is working incredibly well for me. The Inspiration skills are making me less monk-dependant with Ether Feast healing for 21/energy drained, total of 63; Energy Tap helping with energy issues (granted, I only get 5 energy from it, but it's enough to keep me running in most cases) and to make it so I don't need as many points in Energy Storage, and the indespensible Power Leak, which has stopped many a Lightning Orbs, Fire Storms, Weaken Armors (yes, you can get lower than 0 armor), and a few hexes (I don't remember if I had the timing right for stopping Conjure Phantasm, not surprising if I didn't since I haven't worked on my interrupt timing for quite a while now). Right now, my build is:
Inspiration: 3
Fire: 7
Energy Storage: 3
Res Sig
Power Leak
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Lava Font (despite my earlier hesitations about it, it's become quite useful)
Fire Storm
Ether Feast
Energy Tap
Mantra of Flame (haven't tested it yet, the Charr Fire Callers and Stalkers should make for a good opportunity though)

I did have Aura of Restoration in place of the mantra, but it wound up not really being worth it with the 10 ene cost. I had to either cast it well before battle to get the energy back for battle, or use it during battle and have a bit of a deficit. With only 29 energy, I can't really afford to keep it up and running all the time, esp since I need the glyph for Fire Storm most of the time. I'll also be adjusting the build as needed for party purposes (ie, if we go someplace where we know there will be an item to carry around, I can switch in Armor of Earth for better tanking, or for when we get to the Northern Shiverpeaks I'll put in Ward Against Elements), but for right now this seems to work out well.

Anyways, it was a good run tonight, and everyone is set for the first mission, hopefully getting done next week.

[Zed-F]

Conjure Phantasm has a casting speed of 1, so you won't be interrupting that very often. Probably not worth bothering. However, Imagined Burden (another Shatter Gargoyle favourite) is IIRC a 2 casting time and should be more easily interrupted.

Right now my Ele/R is running fire, wilderness survival, and a bit of energy storage. I plan for her to be less of an up-close nuker this time around and supplement ranged nuking with arrows. There are some wilderness survival skills that work well with arrows of even 0 marksmanship, and since I can't get a decent phys damage bow there doesn't seem to be much point in investing in marksmanship. I'll hopefully be able to take beast mastery instead and give that a shot. If Kindle arrows calculate AR vs. DEF based on wilderness survival rather than on marksmanship I may go with those plus conjure flame, but otherwise I'm more likely to go with poison arrows or ignite arrows. At least now that I can get free refunds I can test which arrow skills need marksmanship and which don't. Mana is not a big problem since I'm mostly shooting arrows and have the glyph for fire storm.

Current skills are: Ignite Arrow, Lava Font, Fire Storm, Glyph of Lesser Energy, Troll Unguent, Comfort Animal, Charm Animal, Res Signet.

I'll probably wind up replacing Lava Font with distracting shot, another arrow skill, or a pet attack. I would like to replace ignite arrow with poison arrow, but then my pet winds up running all over the place as I switch targets. As the enemy attacks get tougher we might have to start working on how to convince a pet to be a good tank, in which case I might need to sacrifice even more of my skill bar to feed the pet. Maybe I should have made a R/E instead of an E/R so I could get expertise to make those pet skills cheaper.

[Drasca]

KoP, Hawkmoon, and myself made it to Piken last night.

My highlight was discoving Gwen's Broken flute was guarded by several Charr, and a Charr monk boss, and regular healer in tow! Vengeance! We demanded vengeance! Thus, we had an epic battle that spanned much of ascalon and skirmished with 'jogger' charr that preferred running around to sailor songs to fighting consistently. Perhaps they were postmen.

We managed to distance the monk boss from his secondary healer just enough, by engaging both at once from a stretched distance. Hoo ha! We defeated the psycho-healers and recovered Gwen's Broken flute* as booty. Sanskirt will personally wield said flute until she finds Gwen's broken thigh bone

*Gwen's flute has zero armor or energy bonus. Perfectly suited for fashion and role playing purposes.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Conjure Phantasm has a casting speed of 1, so you won't be interrupting that very often. Probably not worth bothering. However, Imagined Burden (another Shatter Gargoyle favourite) is IIRC a 2 casting time and should be more easily interrupted.

Well, after refreshing my reflexes a bit against Orison, I don't think I'll really be having any trouble interrupting 1 second casts - so long as I'm paying attention. For the most part I'm interrupting when the spell gets around 2/3 of the way through, so who knows, I might even be able to pick off the occassional 3/4 second cast. I just have to make sure to counter an actual spell, since I do have have the habit of just throwing out the interrupt as soon as I see something going off.

My highlight was discoving Gwen's Broken flute was guarded by several Charr

Heh, those things show up all over Ascalon in the Ashford/Sardelac area.

[Seijin]

Just an update on where Zedf Ember Buffy, Angela Adams, and Shinju Hadaka made it this past nudist outing:

Passed:
Northern Wall
Fort Ranik

Completed some quests around Ranik.
Ventured to Serenity Temple, completed some quests there.
Obtained Rez for Shinju.

And big thanks to KoP and Drasca for helping Shinju get to Piken after missing last weeks outing.

Missions/Quests in log now or need to do for Shinju:
Surmia
Nolani
Cities of Ascalon
Charr Reinforcements
Fires in the East
Fires in the North
Regent Valley Defense
Supplies for the Duke
The Ambassadro's Quandry
The Charr Staging Area
The Duke's Daughter
The Red-Cloaked Deserter
The Siege of Piken Square

Nudes fixing the trebuche:

[Zed-F]

Hawk, I liked your journal entries for the Nudist Journal so far. Not sure if you're getting any feedback but I think they're good stuff.

[KingOfPain]

Ditto, that alone is worth playing a nudist.

Would be great if someone else can do the same for the "other" team....

KoP