Dizz's Diary - Dizz wanders around aimlessly (lower 20's)

Dizz's Diary - The diary of new Battlemage issue 6.

Diaries coming more slowly

As you can tell (I hope) the diaries are coming a little more slowly. There are several factors for this. 1) I hit 20, levels start to come a little more slowly. 2) Now that I can get back to Eastham with my clan I spend a lot more time standing around talking and acting stupid 3) Work and life are starting to creep into my playing and web time.

Hopefully by next week I'll be back on schedule and they'll come more regularly.

Where to hunt

What a dilemma, at level 20 I got item I'm all pumped and ready to travel around. But were to go? First thing I did was go from Mayoi back to my homeland, Eastham. It felt so good to be with my hommies again, of course it took a while to remind everyone that I was still haplo. And started asking all of them where to hunt. Some suggest Waijhou, Walled portals, Teth, etc. so I set out to investigate all of them.

Walled Portals

So I had heard all about the walled portals but never been there, so that was the first place to check out. I went to baishi got my Sake and was on my way. When I got there, there was all sorts of Archers and mages standing around begging each other for the next kill. Seemed kinda silly to me but to each his own. So I buffed up full using my new imps and jumped outside the bunker. At first I was really stoked about all the drudges about, so I logged out at the bunker. The next day I come back and the area is overrun with Banderlings. Ack! I can't take these things maybe I just got a bad spawn so I leave for a while and come back and it's the same situation. Analysis : Could be a great place for a BM at about 25-30 but just a little too rough in the early 20's. The area its self is great. Lots of flat areas to get good shots and it's easy to spot prey.

WaiJhou

Most people suggest this area for DM and to hunt on the building. What wusses, I set out to see what I could find in the area. I started at Small Black Hill and headed east into the wilderness. Lots of drudges, golems(copper, granite, and Iron), and some banderlings here and there. Not a bad area except that the land is a little too tortured, It can be hard to get a good Line of Sight on a target and you could be running and not now that you're running up on a griever. Analysis : Good area for this level, if you can find a relatively flat area with plenty of drudges you could get a good flow of xp here. But it still wasn't quite my taste. Also you'll want to get a land block away from the town to avoid the lag.

Teth

I hadn't been to teth in probably 6 to 8 months. The last I went there was with my mage on TD and when he left there he swore he would never go back. Of course that was before AB and that's where everyone hung out at. It was laggy and portal storms where always a danger. It's not as bad as it use to be but it's still not good, in town. I started hunting around the area south and east of teth. There are some great spawns out here but it can be hard to get to them. I hunted for about 2 days around teth trying to find a good spot, and I was about to give up till I found a spot about a click away from teth that was exactly what I was looking for. It has tons-o-drudges, flat areas and no one goes there. I'm in heaven for now. Plus now that I'm near teth my cash flow is starting to fill my piggy bank again so I'm really happy here.

How to kill a drudge

By level 22 I have almost perfected how to kill a drudge. You may be saying "Wtf is he talking about, you just vuln and kill" Well yes you can do it this way but there's a better way that keeps the xp flowing in at a regular pace. Ok so you see a pack of drudges 2 revs and 1 stalker. This is how it works, pick a rev Cast Fire 4, then Vuln 4. Wait a sec and see if he's going to cast a spell. 70% of the time he will and stop attacking you. So stop attacking him and target the closest drudge coming to you (dodge war spell if that's what the first rev cast) Vuln him and cast Fire 4. Then Cast your STM, then Drain Stam twice. If you need health bad do a STH, Now cast a Fire 4 to finish him off. Vuln the other drudge attacking you, Fire 4, Drain Stam, Drain Stam, STM finish him off. I hope this makes sense. At this point you should have 2 dead drudges and all your bars should be at > 75%. if your mana's a little low cast STM and finish the last drudge but don't finish him before you get his Stamina. After the last one most of your bars should be full, and you can move on to the next pack of drudges with 0 down time. Trust me when you can work this out you will feel invincible, it totally rocks.

The downside

Obviously This strategy doesn't work every time, It doesn't matter how good you are if a rev cast Lightning IV 3 times in a row you're and the one beside him does the same you're going to die. And this will happen.

The stats

It's now starting to get hard to raise stats as it cost so much. So get your base stats to comfortable levels and start concentrating on war and life. As you see from my stats I've raise almost every skill and have bumped focus and self considerably.

Portals

So I argued with myself about whether or not to learn Portal tie or not. After much deliberation I concluded that with all my other characters that have it, it would be kind of silly for dizz too. Not learning it has proved to be very interesting. The other day, after I had gotten a ride to teth, a good friend of mine wanted a portal there. So I created one for him. I was heading that way any way so I jumped in the portal too. Next thing I know I'm at waijhou, what the hell? How did that happen? Someone please explain how this works to me, as I don't have any idea exactly what happened. I tried to recall and I landed back at black hill. Ah well I recalled back home and was able to find a portal to teth again so no big deal, but it was very odd to say the least.

Original Article : http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=9515605&start=9515605