Abuerean Irregular-23 Forced Relocation!

The noble warrior stood tall and proud, his grim visage surveyed the ice wastes of Gevoth. His fingers slowly wrapped around the well-worn hilt of his sword, clenching the pommel tightly with a steel-like grip. Slowly his hand relaxed and pulled free, still hovering ever so closely.
"Let us find someone to dip their ancient weapon in the Icefire!" he boomed.
"I cannot, for this same deed was done some three days before," the Tonk Wizard answered. "My timer needs to reset."
"Aye." The warrior spat upon the ground, the saliva freezing in an instant.
"Very well then, let's brave the Icy Cavern and seek the stone heart of the Gust Tyrant," the warrior intoned. "Then the valley of Tyrants will know fear as we take down many of their number."
"Alas, I have a vassal to whom I promised I would lead whence she returns from her daily labors at the "Bell of Tacos," The Tonk says sorrowfully.
"Rythrean! That foul undead has again thrown off the sleep of the dead. We shall head into his lair and smite him low!" The warrior boomed. "Er, friend Tonk, do you have the Lichtor Seal?"
"I do not, my warrior friend," said the Tonk, shaking his head sadly.
"Bah, the hunt for one would take up all the time I have left. T'would be better to hunt Gurog for their Ebon Pyreals!" The warrior's hand rubbed his breastplate armor of the ancient kings. The thought of hunting for more of the elusive rocks caused a wave of boredom to wash over him.
"We could seek another pair of the ancient boots?" The Tonk enquired hopefully.
The warrior scanned the group hovering around the lifestone and spoke across the ether to his allegiance members. "I fear we cannot get a group with the power to make the entire trek. I do not want to have the second part of that quest hovering over me unfinished again," the warrior said.
"Aye, that position has been mine before," sighed the Tumerok. "Well, my friend, I must hasten to the bidding of my mate, lest I find my night spent in the cold antechamber upon the chesterfield."
Sympathy born of spending many a cold night in the same way spread across the warrior's face. "Be well, good Tonk. Maybe yon morrow will provide us with better hunting."
"If you say so, Hoom."

Irregular Apology
I know that this column has been even less irregular than before. I apologize and offer that there are a number of reasons for that. Some of which may be resolved with the forced relocation coming up.

That is only one point though. My main character, Grasp, is a female Defender which is far and away my favorite class to play, and trust me when I say I have played a lot of different character classes as of late. The /skills reset command has allowed many of us to experience the various trees to a point where you never know if the people in your party have actually played a Tactician before. This quickly becomes apparent when you find someone explaining the basics to someone. Vigor management is the easiest clue to seeing if your fellow knows what they are doing or not. A seasoned pro will end a battle with one or two skills still available. A resetter will be well out early into the fray. When it's your sage or healer, things can get bad quickly. Having hit level 50 with Grasp and not finding another class to explore has left me with a conundrum; why bother to log her in? I have long established that while I am willing to participate in KvK, my skills in this area are less then stellar. Working down vitae and or trying to find a healer online is difficult these days. Other than helping out a vassal or lost soul, I can't seem to bring myself to log her in these days. The Hero game should provide for a happy time. Of course, I have three other characters, well, technically I have two. The third is my five-year-old's Lugian Bezerker. I have taken to leveling him and getting him decent armor and weapons, in a sense, making him one of my characters. My real two back up characters have been through hell with resets.

Fahrenheit started out as a mage. The range of mage spells and the lack of being able to solo made me change over to an archer, I liked the range but when those critters come in close it gets harrowing quickly. With the reset and the new alchemist animation, I couldn't resist and spent some time on the Darkside. This was a fun option and I had a lot of comments on how cool the Darkside animation was. I actually did well from level 25 to 35, then things started slowing down a lot. My damage curve seemed to go static and I couldn't hang with hunting groups on Linvak and the experience from Omishan was majorly slow. I opted to go pure ranger with the next reset. Some of the new skills are very nice, I like the traps and hunters intuition quite a bit. Britney, my Lasher, seems to be able to hold her own. I rarely hunt Linvak but I can solo if I am careful. The last reset I took the chance and went with Enchanter, the lack of range and damage spells quickly made this a choice I regretted. Soulbound staff anyone? I'm considering going back over to Alchemist for the hero system. Once I read more on it.

Eeriest Elk, has been through more different styles then anyone. Starting out as a healer, invoker, a spear thrower, a hive keeper, missile invoker, healer again, claw bearer, zealot, tonk mage. The missile invoker actually had some pretty decent times, the pets drove me nuts though. One pet is fine, three is just two damn many for me. The one that surprised me was healer; I actually got the hang of it and was doing rather well. Then I couldn't find anyone who wanted me in a group. If you think its tough soloing other classes, you haven't seen nothing until you try a level 36 healer against Burun. With the last instance of my reset I went with a full magic Tumerok, no specialty tree. Its been a bit disappointing that there are so many classes that cannot take down Burun of an equal level. With the forced relocation to Frost Fell, I'm hoping to reset one last time and be a healer again.

It seems to me that the Lugians have the best choices across the board and Tumeroks have the worst.

It could just be that I haven't played enough Lugian characters, I'm not sure. Think about it this way. Lugains have Melee sages, Tacticians, Raiders, Jugg's and Zerk's. Elementalists tend to top out early. True sages are a rare sight so I guess they are less popular for some reason, probably because you have to use the base magic attacks for Lugain and they don't seem to be up to snuff.

Tumeroks have the Feral Intendant. That's about it. Hive keepers and Claw bearers are designed to be a mage hybrid. You can't use any of the thrown skills with them. So you may as well untrain and go for the mage healing and vigor restore. The healers are nice but forget about soloing anything your level, also getting in a group is tough. Seems they want Sages no Healers. The Invoker is okay as well, but all the dang pets and the way they drag all the mobs to you is annoying as heck. I think pets all come with patricide programmed in.

Humans have the Defender class. Ranger and Alchemist have limited potential at the upper levels. Enchanter and Sorcerer need to buddy around with people to get anyplace. Bounty Hunters spend way to much time dead. Rangers rely heavily on their pet. You have to be ready to summon one right when the old one dies. The pet buff spells should be longer duration and a shorter timer. Right now they run out part way through your fight.

With the Forced relocation I'm hoping to use a couple of slots for some Lugians to try them out and get a better feel for them.

There was some great nostalgia with this last patch. I got to fight some Olthoi again. Bugs where my staple in AC1, as soon as I could solo them I was in the LOD (Lair of Death) and the BDC (Black Death Catacombs). Finally I made it to the Acid vault until the Hoard Lair came around. It was nice seeing some new varieties of them in AC2. I can't wait to see some Workers and Soldiers coming!

-EE