The Preparation (BM with creature first)

Previous journals:
pub55.ezboard.com/fdizzsb...=830.topic

pub55.ezboard.com/fdizzsb...=875.topic

This is a journal of a BM who took creature at level 20, rather than item.

Since my last update, Wulger has made a lot of advancement towards getting ready for new game. Namely Banderlings. All my experience made has been focused on getting ready for the carnage to come.

We last left off with Wulger killing an Umbris shadow to become level 26. He is now level 29.

Dungeon of Corpses

After turning level 26, I went back to DoC, to gain some fast experience. During this time I’ve perfected the art of close quarter drudge fighting. Given that I do not have item magic, I cannot easily recall out and buff up, so I’ve been buffing in combat. This was hard at first, since I was using most my mana in battle. So I had to learn ways to conserve mana.

I found with learning level V bolts, that I could kill a drudge with one drain health I, one shockwave V, and finished with a whirling blade V. I would also cast drain stamina II at the beginning of battle, and stamina to mana III after the battle. This always gave me more mana at the end of a fight than when I started. The battles also went faster than when I used vuln, because I’d have to drain stamina and cast stamina to mana twice frequently, or I’d loose mana. After doing this a while, I was easily able to keep up with the spawn at the bridge in the back, and in the room with the Virindi with time to loot.

Now that I had time to kill all the drudges, I started to fight the Virindi I came into contact with. To kill them, I’d yield I from around a corner, then vuln and blast until dead.



Focusing Stone

After spending level’s 26 and 27 in DoC, my friend and I decided to get her trade mule and myself a focusing stone. We decided the easiest way to do this was to have her and my main help lead our lowbies through.

So we set out to do the 3 towers quest. When we got there, the acolyte was not spawning, so we had to wait another day. The next morning the quest was fixed and we quickly ran through the quest without much of a sweat, EXCEPT at the end. At the end, where the high acolyte spawns, I walked half way up to him, and apparently the floor has a trap that spans a rather large area of the room that caused me to be chain drained over and over. I quickly ran back and regrouped, then ran up to him and killed him rather easily. We got a jeweled skull and was ready to do the focusing quest.

Now we took our mains and ran them to the mines of despair. We turned in the skull to the man in a hut behind the mine and went in. This tied my main to the dungeon so I could recall back to Mayoi and summon a portal for Wulger and my friends trade mule. We then buffed up both our young characters and our mains in preparation for the quest. That means all protections.

We unlocked the first door and ran in and took a left turn and jumped down into the mist with our two itemless characters. Those who know the quest will realize this was big mistake. We were supposed to take a right turn, and found ourselves trapped. I thought I remembered that there was a portal at the end of this wing, so we fought our way through and found there wasn’t. At this point, we got her main on (level 48 swordswoman) and she fought down to us and summoned a portal to get us back to the beginning. We then proceeded to take our lowbies down the right passage way and parked them at the closed doors.

Now my friends swordswoman went down the left passage and picked her way through the locked doors and pushed 2 buttons that opened the doors that our lowbies are waiting at. I logged on my main that was waiting at the first set of locked doors and opened them for her and ran through the dungeon to the hallway before the guy who has the focusing stone, and quickly logged on my Wulger and ran him to the same location. My friend logged on her main and cleared out the room as I fired a few shots from range. I looted the stone and stayed to get another for my friends trade mule.

To do the 2nd half of the quest in 2 stages. First I escorted her trade mule to just past the unstable magmas, and then her swordswoman escorted Wulger past the unstable magma. It seems Wulger actually killed most the mobs there, they didn’t seem to agree with her sword as well as magic. The 2nd stage was much more challenging. We had to face fleshless warriors which cast war and life inepts, as well as chain blast level V bolts. I was escorting her first, and I nearly died, but did happen to prevail. After getting those 2 to the vortex to finish the stone, we did it once again, with her main and Wulger. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do much at all to the fleshless warriors, and I was getting hammered fast. After seeing it wouldn’t work, I just made a beeline past the warriors to the vortex and finished up the stone without fighting anything.

I was pumped with adrenaline at this moment, and just so ecstatic to have finished the quest in one piece. We then made the effort to wield them. I was buffed with VI’s and had her cast the focusing stone spell on me to equip it. During all the excitement I never got a screenshot. L

The frost stone

The frost stone is a major part of this templates development. The stone allows me to make GSA unparalleled to cold damage, which in turn lets me tank banderlings thrashers. To accomplish this quest, I needed to raise my base jump skill to ~165 at the absolute minimum. So I set out to a new hunting ground, which was thought of by reading Diz’s diary, outside the accursed halls. This was a great spot for me, since it was with in running distance of Mayoi. I lifestoned in Baishi on the way to the drunken man. Out here I fought the same stuff I found near Teth. Mostly drudges, but golems and some besserker banderlings as well. Even thou I could fight Umbris shadow, I didn’t feel like getting life inepts without a way to dispel them. I’ll hold off on hunting them more until I get my creature buffed to 250 which should be around level 32 or so.

(notice I was casting the wrong spell, don’t mimic)

Tusker.jpg

LesserBandies.jpg


I fought for a level and put all my points into jump and coord and I got to 169 base jump. My friend and I ran over to Serac Vault immediately to get me a stone. She buffed up my jump, coord and strength by learning the spells. When learning the spells, you get a little more spell economy than casting a spell already learned. Had she already known them, she could have deleted them from her spell book first.

We now buffed up and went in. She and I fought at the entrance then I got on the rock on the right side of where you zone in. From there I jumped up onto the candle and over to a bridge.



From there, I just headed right then followed the path around and up to a room with a big pit below. I then jumped over the pit, and pulled the levers to open a set of double doors. The last time I was here, there was only one dark revenant, but this time, the room was full of them. Instead of fighting my way back, I bolted by them, picked of the stone and ran out. With my stone in hand I double clicked the first portal gem I had and quickly entered it.

With the stone in my GSA

Now that I have the frost stone in hand, I put it in my GSA and headed back to the accursed hall area to hunt some banderlings.

Thrasher1.jpg
Thrasher2.jpg
ThrasherHands.jpg

As you can see, he’s kicking their butt now. To fight them I lead with a yield I, then go right for the juggler. Noticed the 3rd picture. As you can see, when they hit my hands and feet, I take more damage than normal. This is acceptable, since they rarely hit those parts of the body, but they will on occasion.

I plan to fight the dires for the next 10 levels or so, and I now can fight it ALL, except for those Harrowers.



Until next time….

Wulger

Question and Answer : 

out of curiosity, why do you bother to yeild?

seems to me if you can hit them with critter the life and war should be pie. if you cast yeild and get resisted a few times it will raise the bander's magic def and you wont be able to hit him at all....

-Jelik- the graduated battlemage of the auberean guard

About yield,

Most mobs don't raise their magic d as fast as some. Getting a magic yield on, even if a little difficult, will make the rest of the fight go easier.

Against Thrashers, I yield them as they run to me. This will make the 8 other spells I must land on them go much easier, and lower my chance of death. As the number of spells you need to cast to kill a mob decrease, the lower the value yielding becomes.

Against the Virindi, it basically is the same, except that indoors, in DoC, I don't want them hitting and blasting me as I get resisted 5 times in a row. So I can yield and vuln them from behind a wall, then run up to them and kill them in 1 or 2 tries, reducing the risk of death.

ADD: for more info

Also realize, at this level, my creature skill is only 12 points behind my war/life skills. The spec curve has not kicked in yet.

New info. Since I wrote this I started hunting Thrashers a lot more aggressively and have found it's best to get a yield IV on. With just the level one yield, resists are a little uncomfortable. I'll usually start step the yields with a yield I, which is my tag spell, followed by a yield IV

Hey, Zanten,

Thanks for keeping up the journals on taking creature first, especially writing with a good amount of detail so that others who want to take creature first know what they need (shivering stone, etc). I thought the DoC entry was funny because I realized that I never found the exit portal in that place (well...I mean after jumping off the ledge, I never found another exit portal), so I ALWAYS used Item magic to portal out of there, so now I'm thinking I should go back there and tank the place and find another exit just for the fun of it. I wonder if you would actually stick to hunting the shivering stone dungeon at higher levels to work on the dark rev.'s with your higher war and life buffed magic. Also, are you using the magic yield frequently, and if not, do you think having high rank items would be almost equivalent to what you can buff to with creature? Just wondering how the power you have at lower levels due to creature is similar to those that use rank items (I myself do not use rank items, not that I have anything against their use, I'm just too lazy to set up the ranking thing).

Tehanu of HG (lvl 41 BM)
Isidri of HG (lvl 38 Archmage)
Kunan'n of HG (Gimp)

Thanks for the kind words :)

I've been though all of DoC and there is only one exit, but there is a way back to it from all parts of the dungeon. If you are coming directly from the big pit you see when you first zone in, you can enter the only hallways in the room, and follow it to a fork in the road and take a right. Follow that to another fork and take a right once again, and take the next left you see. Follow that up until you come to a dead end and a jump down. From the jump, turn left, and follow it up, and take the first right, and you'll be right at the beginning of the dungeon.

There are other areas where you must navegate and jump down to get back out of as well. It's a great design, if it wasn't for all the drainers (which seemed to have been lowered a great deal since my first mage there).

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On the creature magic effectiveness...I didn't use yield much up until I started fighting Thrashers and Shadow. I used it occationally in DoC to take out a Virindi as well. For the most part, I don't use yield. However, I've recently started hunting a lot of Thrashers, and I'll continue to yield them for a few more levels, and I'll do the same with Shadow. The battles last long enough, that the lowered resists make a large impact on those fights.

As far as using rank wands and jewelery vs. creature...I'm sure it helps a lot, but even with those items, you'll have about 10-15 less skill than someone with a focusing stone (thou war would be closer with Exarch, something I won't use until I get item magic, except for buffing). You will also have to switch from wand to wand to handle some of the tougher mobs you face.

I couldn't imagine draining down a thrasher and having to switch to a war wand to finish. That time could get me killed. Thou it could be easier than I imgine it to be.

Hope my ramblins made sense.

I don't remember exactly what vulns/imperils the outdoor banderlings cast, but are those pics with them on?

Obviously staying away from Niffi to avoid Feeblemind won't impact your xp at all, so that probably isn't a factor, but do you deal with Virindi and their bludgeon vulns?

How much exp per hour do you think you're getting, considering it's probably close to capping?

Thanks.

The enforcers cast imperil VI and vuln V if I recall. They chain blast it whenever you hit any of their friends, so it's pretty much impossible to avoid. Those picture are taken after the imperil/vuln's.

Currently at level 30. I'm making about 400-500k per hour. That should continue to climb all the way to 50. By 35, from my last mages average, I should be doing 600-800k per hour, and over a million by 40. I won't be capping out, because there continues to be more challenging ways to make more exp as I go up and right now, I'm pretty slow killing thrashers.