Abuerean Irregular-20 Lou Evil Saves the Day

"What is that smell?" The thought tugged the young alchemist awake. Slowly his senses started to unravel the mystery of the various areas of discomfort. He was lying in something wet and sticky. The odor was a horrid mix of rancid meat and burnt flesh with sulfur thrown into the mix. His mind gave up trying to calculate a location for his damp, sore body. His limbs burned and throbbed as they began the once simple act of moving to a sitting position. Every movement was an agony of aches and stiffness. What had happened to him? His mind was awash with confusion. Wiping the mud from his face, he willed his eyes to focus. It was Omishan - that much was obvious. The fact he was only wearing torn trousers was less evident. Slowly he climbed to his feet, unsteady and weak. A branch nearby served to hold him upright. It looked to be near the Isle of Contention, which meant a portal would be just over the knoll. Knowing well the denizens of the area, use of a flask would be certain. Searching his muddy bed he found the Soulbound jug with the stopper still inside. As he picked it up, the familiar heft brought back a flash of memory. The subtle enhancement of a skill, the knowledge of the power it could hold, finally ready to test the mixture. His head ached with renewed pain as the memories faded as quickly as they came. Still standing and shaken he knew that Ikeras must be his next goal. There he could contact his guild and other alchemists to begin to piece together this bizarre awakening.

Fahrenheit lumbered towards the portal. Won't the people of Ikeras be suprized!

Living on the Edge:
It was the Tuesday night before the patch, 10:00 PM PST. One hour before shutdown. I logged in and wondered what to do that wouldn't put me in a bad spot for the patch. I know that the lake Artefon is going to be drained all the way so I logged Fahrenheit out floating in the water above the ancient town.

Next I checked my timers. Icefire was up. This gave me an idea. It was 10:10 and the server shutdown is at 11:00. Fifty minutes to kill. Or be killed. I decided to do the Icefire quest the hard way.

First the Relics of the Golden Age, then The Ancient Periapt, followed by Lodrog the Forsaken and finally Icefire. I made it with two minutes to spare.

The Golden Age solo has a lot of advantages. You don't have to wait for the party to all have the quest. And you can run past the mobs in the dungeon. The downside is getting the Obsidian Medallion piece can be tough. If you have speed and knowledge about how the Gurog chase you its not that difficult. I sprinted through the dungeon and got another flail.

I recalled to Linvak (what a great skill!) and blew 5000 gold on a fast mount. I did the Ancient Periapt in record time. Next, on to Lodrog's. This would have been impossible before the Soulbound Armory showed up. I got the three undead bones back to Lodrog and had 15 minutes left on the clock. I sprinted out to the Icefire and found a group that had just completed it. A couple of lugians agreed to help me kill the gig and another tonk who had lagged out before the group completed the quest joined in.

We nailed the gig hard and fast. It yielded the oil and I sprinted back to the Frosty one to gain access to the font. Inside I dipped my weapon and we were done. The Admin announced two minutes to go! W00t! What a rush!!

Patch day:
I couldn't sleep so at 4:00 in the morning I logged in and started the download. By the time I awoke the second time, my system was ready to rumble. I logged in Grasp first to see the movie, then came the fun part, logging in as my alchemist. With the changes in skills there was a hulk-like transformation that I just couldn't wait to witness. I had logged out high above the town and fell quite a distance. Gurogs are there! Yikes! Crap, I had a forced reset so I have no skills! RUN!!!

This turned out to be a pretty crappy idea. Luck was with me and I got clear of the nasties and snapped a few Screen shots. I went through and re-added my skills in and hulked up. Very nice effect even if there is a lot of missing animation (emotes for instance). I need to be able to do /teapot on demand. I explored a bit but it was too scary for Fahr. Grasp will have to run around there later. I recalled back to Ikeras and got some great reactions.

"WTF is that thing??" was my favorite. I typed gibberish and used emotes to communicate. When the transformation was completed, I started asking how long I had been out and what happened, and how did I get to Ikeras. It was a lot of fun. The Darkside skill also has a great flame breath attack with nice sounds to it. The auto attacks are hand to hand combat so to speak and I was hitting for over 400. Very nice! Can't wait to get Blood Feast now.

I found the lower level armor quest NPC after running around the dry lake with Grasp. I landed the quest and started looking for the tombs. I hit each of them with unerring accuracy. This sent me to a mine near Molwirth. First I decided to get the ferrous pyreals done. The general chat had found that Inferno Glooms drop them. I hit the prosper marshes and for every one I found on a Gloom I found another on the ground. It took about four hours of clearing everything to get all I needed under my belt.

The mine was next. I rode up and dropped off a ferrous pyreal. I handed an extra to an archer there and we went up to mine rubies. Between the two of us we slaughtered everything on the hill and mined our rubies.

In between I took a break from pyreals and logged in Fahr. I rode to the Mayoi water guy and got the quest. This was pretty much try to find the geyser. Along the way I found the flower for the quest, aconite. I found about 15 plants. Finally someone sprung the location on the G channel and then it was just riding out there and making the potions. I sold off my Aconites for as much as 10k each.

I ended up finding more ferrous pyreals on the ground then in drudges. When I finally had 15 pyreals, I headed to the ruby mine. I had to hand in the pyreal and fight off the mob. I was aided by an archer and we pretty much cleaned house. I found that killing the guard gives you the quest. Getting someone to mule all the rubies back and forth was a pain though.

Four against the MA:
I'm closing in on level 50 and my Mage Academy Quest timer was up. Stoney Ringshanks, a guildmate, was at the MA lifestone, along with two other humans, Rrrr and Ahr. We sat around for a good 15 minutes waiting for another to show. We found out our group consisted of three defenders and an archer/enchanter. We decided to try the quest as a quartet. Using the rattles I was able to take the lead without drawing everything after me. We made short work of the Rhetor's and headed up to see Rytheran about the conditions of his academy. We rushed in and died quickly. This infuriated me and I ran back through using a rattle. We gathered up our forces and this time chose to fight like Defenders. No special attacks, just focus on tanking and living. It was a longer battle, Rytheran didn't stand a chance.

Fahr makes the mid level armor:
After plowing through the lower level armor I decided to actually use a character that could use the armor. Fahrenheit is my level 31 Alchemist. He needs to use every trick in the book when soloing because I went pure alchy. The Ghost mine dropped plenty of easy-to-get white pyreals. I already had a decent stock. It was the backpack space that was killing me. The next thing that killed me was the mines. These are hell incarnate to solo at 31. After a few feeble attempts and deaths I called in a ringer, Shi Ahlran, from my guild. Ahlran is a Feral Intendent of the Lumbering tree. She cleared out the mine allowing me to get my sapphires. The next portion was a bit funny. I rode up the geyser and got my potions, then found I didn't have the imbue recipe. I headed to Mayoi to talk to Orlen Jarlins about this little problem. Next I found that I went to the wrong Geyser. It turns out for all three armors, there is one quest and one albemic that you have to take to one of three geysers, depending upon which protective covering you're making. That water gives you the proper imbue recipe. So I headed to the other Omishan geyser and dumped my old potions on the ground.

I had my sapphires and my pyreals all lined up. I was ready to find the tombs. Talk about nasty for a solo level 31. I ended up doing kamikaze runs at each tomb. I would line up, ride in, use the tomb and get shredded to death. I felt a strong need to get this quest done, so I died over and over again. I reached the last tomb and found it had Lectors and Gurogs all around it. I couldn't even get close to the tomb. At this point I was at 60% vitae and O'O from my guild offered to heal my vitae. I accepted and we met at the Crag nexus. It took him a few shots to get me back in the pink.

Nearby, Lou Evil, a level 49 Bezerker, was chatting with a friend. I had figured out a quick path to the various tombs I had been slaughtered at, so I asked him if he would mind helping me out. He agreed and we took the Cavendo back door to the tombs.

I got a few licks in on the Lectors and the Gurogs, but Lou cut a swath through them. Finally he was staring at the mass of dots on the radar. He seemed a bit daunted until he saw that the various undead around the tomb are level 30ish. I offered to have him agro and run off leaving me to get to the tomb in my now practiced manner of riding and dying (I didn't tell him I would be dying though). Lou stood quietly for a moment then said. "Naw, I'll just go kill them all."

And he did.

Level 50
I found that the boots timer and the gust timer had expired. I was about 50 million from leveling and could have gotten that hacked down further doing that. Something inside of me made me think that it would cheapen the experience so I abstained. Instead I went after Gurogs and Ebon pyreals.

You know, I really don't understand if people are prone to lie or what, but I keep hearing people picking up 15 Ebons in an hour. I spent four hours and only landed one pyreal. The rest came at a slow but steady pace. Arcus, Shi Ahlran and myself were hunting in the KvK area of Malthabor for Ebons when it happened. I had hit 50. It was a good feeling to burn off the 50million xp the old fashioned way.

I hit skills reset and distributed my skills differently due to the June changes. I maxed out Swipe, Shield wall, Bash, Expulse and Righteous Fury. Expulse I did just cuz I love the skill. I have a new hobby of smacking Gurogs off cliffs. Payback is sweet (and yet its sugar free). Shield wall is obvious, you need the protection and its too expensive to get Encase. Swipe will bypass armor and therefore be a big hitter. Righteous Fury has always been my main damage skill. Bash allows me a respite to fully heal up.

I dropped Bring Peace from 47 to 46. The heal timer will be increased but I don't anticipate it being that bad, after trying to self time-delay it. I upped Inspiration from 42 to 45, hopefully to offset the reduction in vigor a bit. It's an expensive skill and using the calculator I couldn't afford to put more into it and still spread the skills around. I have quite a few 40 level skills.

I am a pure defender, that is to say, no skills other then the defender branch of the tree. I have Emblem of Might in the hopes that it will become useful someday. With hitting 50, my armor is near 300 AR now and I have a sweet shield that does very good damage. I'd give you the stats but I forgot what they are.

-EE (still the Hero of Whitebay!)