Bob the Archer goes Powerlevelling (Aube

Bob the Archer was excited, for so long had he awaited this day. The words of his father and grandfather echoed in his head of the lands of Dereth, the tales of the last days, the Fetterguard, the Golden Age, the falling of the kings; his young life had lead up to this moment. While he could use a Bow, Foci or Sword with equal ability, he was now leaning toward the blade. Naked steel, face to face with the denizens that held the lands of Dereth - that would be the adventure of a lifetime!

By the time it was finished, Bob had scarcely stepped out of Arwic and was level 20. Such is the magic of Dereth...

Ultia:
The 15 day trial has brought over a few friends from AC1. One of them is Ultia. Unfortunately the timing of this 15 day trial isn't the best in the world. With all the chat problems abounding there is a lot of focus on that over the graphics and playability. The other problem is in finding something to do. There is a rather epic quest on Osteth that involves the Drudge uprising and the Warders. This quest can take you all the way to level 16. There is one glitch though; if you are doing the Cragstone excavation quest with a group, only the person who gets the library plans will receive the next portion of the quest. So there are quite a few people who think that is where the quest ends.

The Drudge potion quest works the same way; however the Warder Captain does inform you that everyone who helped should contact her for a reward. I had a lot of fun helping out Ultia. I hope that there is something in AC2 that can lure many of the 15 day people into the world. In AC1 the constant influx of new people was sadly lacking.

Gusting a Tyrant:
With Grasp hitting the important level of 48, there was one quest I was really looking forward to, The Tyrant's Blood. Not only is this a 10 million xp quest, it also gives you a pet with awesome capabilities. This quest takes place in East Gevoth, (EGO) which is accessible via the Palisade. The Palisade is a kvk and pvp area. So getting to EGO can be dangerous. Supposedly if you're mounted or neutral you will be allowed safe passage. On Leafcull, the kingdom of Order likes to kill people as they step through a portal (also known as camping). I have had neutral and mounted characters killed by the folks in Order many times. So far, Shadow and Dominion have always let me through. From a role playing aspect you would think that Shadow would be portal gankers, and Order would be allowing you through.

So I hit EGO and make the run past the Carnage's to the portal for the Frozen Ravine. Inside there are quite a few Mountain Dillo's. As a Defender I can take down a mountain dillo, but due to the low damage output of the Defender, it takes awhile. As luck would have it, there was a gentleman archer named Zaki who was working on the second dillo along the passageway, I assume he took out the first one solo.

We joined up and with me tanking and him plunking away we made much better progress. The next part can be run through with very little damage, by making two left turns. This leads you to an open air ravine with carnage shreths at the bottom. If you stand near the edge, you will get nailed by their projectile weapons. Again you make a left at the ravine and another left into the side tunnel. This puts you face to face with the third mountain dillo, and possibly a fourth if you move up too far to engage. Again Zaki and I took down the dillo and ran past the fourth. The before-mentioned dillo is on the left side of a four way intersection.

Our goal was straight ahead and down a spiral ramp. If you run past that dillo and jump down the spiral ramp, you will be a short trot to the Gust Tyrant Chest where you can get your petrified heart. The next part seems overwhelming; get the blood of the following: Spindrift Tyrant, Crag Tyrant, Cloud Tyrant, Squall Tyrant and Storm Tyrant. In reality, there are many Tyrant fellowships north of EGO and by getting in one or asking politely after they finish of a tyrant, you can get the blood readily. The Spindrift Tyrant is the most difficult to get the blood from, because they are not hunted too much. All in all, this Quest is similar to the Osteth - Broth of Tanacha, and the Omishan - Cleanse the Burial.

Alchemy:
My Human mage, Fahrenheit, had finally gotten the explosion skill and I was excited and disappointed. While this is a nifty effect and a great party trick area of effect spell (AOE), it is not very powerful at a level of 24. It was fun class for a while, but you cannot solo and your spellbar is full of spells similar in damage and vigor use. The folks at Turbine had pity on some of the screw ups who play the game and granted us a second /skills reset command. I had been eyeing two of the more broken human skill trees, the Alchemist and the Bounty Hunter. At level 24 I could quite easily re-make Fahrenheit into either of these. As I pondered a decision, which included re-rolling him into a sage, I read in the developer's section that with some of the up-and-coming changes, one of the main folks was going to make an Alchemist.

This could lend some weight to my decision if not for the fact that in AC1 I knew two developers that played. One of them was a kicking mage who was always in demand, yet the other was a swordswoman who went the no-magical route. So devs may or may not be the best criteria for making a new char decision.

The more I looked over the skills, the more I thought that having an alchemist would be more fun. They have some great animation and something about wielding a bottle that looks like Sangria appeals to me. Further justification to me is that as a missile class, it is what humans are supposedly best at. Lugians have the two highest damage-dealing Melee classes bar none. Tumerok Invokers and Healers are arguably very good choices depending on your play style. Human archers, unless they are hybrid with enchanter and mage skills are not a great choice, the Ranger and the Alchemist class are almost invisible at high level. So the promise of humans being the missile deities of Dereth seems to need work. Thus my choice was alchemist. I decided to stack the deck a bit though, and before I did the reset I got myself the Osteth soulbound bottle.

Soulbound.
This quest is supposedly for a weapon that can be wielded at level 15. I defy a level 15 to get this piece of bric-a-brac. The primary source of the weapon emblems is the group of drudges across the bridge at the Drudge Citadel. Before the mounts, getting to the fort at level 15 was quite an accomplishment. So I logged in my defender and proceeded to clean house on drudges. Before too long I had a good collection of emblems, none of which would do me any good. I even pulled my new Gust tyrant out to feed on juicy drudge entrails (which I'm told tastes like chicken). Each group fell and fell again to my Linvak soulbound sword and more and more useless emblems dropped. Finally a Lugian strolled across the bridge. It was a patron in search of an Arc-Blade weapon for a Juggernaut vassal. I happened to have five of them and he had an alchemist vial! And a deal was made!

Gevoth three times:
Linvak Nexus Recall: A personal goal of mine. I braved the Palisade to obtain a Glyph and bided my time. I kept a close watch out on the /cg chat (when it was working) for groups forming. Finally I answered a summons. There were five of us without a healer. This is NOT the group you want for this. It's a portal space dungeon with multiple platforms affixed in the ether. I can't really tell you how to go through it because the party jumped down to the last level. To me this is a real gray area. Is it an exploit to use the dungeon's design to get past some of it? And the precedent was set in an earlier vault that required jumping down platforms. At this point, I'll just go with the flow and say we outsmarted the designers.

We faced down the Astra Tyrant and boy oh boy does it hit hard. We lost two people in there and the three remaining hit the vestibule. Now we have a nasty critter and no way to kill it. We gave it our best shot and pulled out bows (even though we were melee) and allowed it to pick us off one by one.

The next group was a few days later. I had secured two Glyphs this time and the group looked healthier; seven of us and a healer. We did the jump down again, (someday I'm going to need to go with a group that fights all the way down) and waylaid the Astral and got the key. I recall us loosing only one in this battle and we pressed on. The Celestial Tyrant awaited us with long, pointy teeth (make a "big teeth" motion with your fingers in front of your mouth)! Well, it has some kind of attack that just obliterates everyone. I got hit hard and spent a lot of time healing myself and the juggernaut. Finally the Dragon fell and there was much rejoicing (yay). Then the Dragon hits me for 560 after it's already laying there a corpse and I die... that sucked.

So, now I have the kill and if I can get past the Astral's door and get by the Celestial Dragon, I'm home free. Not bloody likely. I decided to take matters into my own hands. My plan is simple, get nine glyphs and have my Monarch get a group of ringers to take out the Astral dragon, buff me up so I can run past the Celestial. Someone in the military once said that no battle plan survives the first shot. In this case we get a group together and it turns out all but one person needed to finish the vault. Go figure...

Our group consists of Emapth, Olle, X'ile, Lilia, Roadog, Manger, Paco the Elf and Supremearrow. I LS summon the Gevoth vault life stone and we all head over to the entrance. With a few problems we all made the entrance. I was setting up for the first leap when I accidentally jumped. I missed the platform and figured I was dead, when far below, another platform loomed upwards. I ended up facing the Astral on one jump. This caused much amusement to my fellowship and they hurried to catch up. On the jumps Olle and Roadog both missed the platforms and died. This was a problem because Olle didn't have any Glyphs. I had four and was about to recall when Roadog informed us he had five of them. Unfortunately Roadog didn't understand that Olle needed a glyph and entered the dungeon. I recalled and retrieved Olle, who made the jumps this time. The Astral Tyrant died quickly and we prepared for the Celestial.

Everyone died. Well X'ile and I were all that survived the initial assault. Luckily Supremearrow got a mezz off and Roadog hit it with either mudball or a stun. I had a choice, join in the fray or play support. X'ile already had it down below half, so I went to support mode and kept him full vigor. Bezerkers can certainly dish out a lot of damage in a short time. Amazingly, it fell to the ground before the mezz wore off.

At the least the others in the group are flagged with the kill.

What to do till 50:
At level 48 there are four things you can do consistently to level; hunt tyrants, hunt dillos, hunt shreths and do quests. The quests are Tyrant's Blood (gust), Shades of the Lost Heroes (boots), Rythrean's Bane (MA) and Icefire (IF). These quests net you 10millon plus xp each and have a long reset on them. MA, Gust and Boots you can do without any preparation. IF has to be prepped or you have to have someone doing the prep for it.

IF or Icefire is the last in a series of quests to get a weapon that will nullify Rytheran's special 'Kill everyone' skill. There are two ways to get this quest. One is to have done Lodrogs successfully and show up at the Frost bound one when a group is there for the quest. The second is to get the Golden Age weapon and upgrade it doing the Ancient Periapt, then visiting Lodrog the Forsaken and gathering up some bones for him. Only then have you qualified to start the Ice Fire quest.

As I'm watching the general chat I see a lot of folks calling for Ice Fire quest but few of them have taken the time to run the three prep dungeons. My IF timer was going to be up in 20 hours, so I went out to do the three quests. Start to finish it was 50 minutes. I even picked up a Lugian named Jim along the way. I have always been a big proponent of knowing the quest and being prepared. This comes from the old AC1 days where you would be held up for 30 minutes while mages were getting components and archers were making arrows for said quest. Take the MA for example; one of the needed items for it is the medallion from a Rev Lictor. It isn't difficult to get one, but it does take time. I carry one on me now because more than once we have been ready to go and it turns out no one has the medallion. This made us all go hunting the countryside for Rev Lictors instead of running the quest we all had signed to do.

Lore stuff:
Saelar of Menilesh is with a group trying to usurping Geraine. They have had 15,000 years to plot and don't seem to notice Derethians as much more than a nuisance. There is a place called the Necropolis that is of great import, possibly Geraine's seat of power, the last of his Three Citadels or Lady Aerfalle's new palace after Bael'Zharon destroyed her old one. Saelar's faction are the ones who provided the Ice Fire that renders Rytheran's nasty abilities impotent. Of the Firstborn, Rytheran always seems to be the weakest. Geraine is currently sleeping, possibly recovering his energies from the falling of the kings. Then again, he has always been very good at hiding.

Till next time!

-Eeriest Elk The HERO of Whitebay!