A Day of Rage

There was a new patch to download this morning before logging in to Last Chaos, one of the substantial ones which requires me to "pause" the Kaspersky Anti-Virus protection before I can grab it, on the newer computer - the third patch in a week. This one is supposed to make the Merchant House system less laggy by removing the option to search for a specific item - not an option I knew was there - and some other techno-magic designed to get rid of "the black screen of Randol" Sunday evening log-in problems.

But once the patch was downloaded, both SirDarth and SirPerivale were able to head out to Merac, and the Berserkers, and it wasn't long before Darth's drake reached level 24, and Peri's reached level 35.

After coffee, it seemed like a good idea to take Rage out to the Sphinx Fighters and their friends, since the 30% experience boost I triggered yesterday evening lasts for 24 hours. MrChuckNorris went along too, of course, but I made it a Combat party, so that, with that 30% boosts for Rage and the way a Combat party favours the actual damage-dealer, he was only getting about an eighth as much experience as Rage. TinySickNinja was there too for a while, and came into the Combat party, but she left before very long.

SugaRush arrived a few minutes before I finished; it seems that she isn't giving up on the Sphinx types entirely, despite the sterling qualities of the Tomb's Screaming Zombies, as she needs some more skill points. The Sphinx Fighters, I find, are no longer red-named for Rage after yesterday evening's levelling-up, so that is visible progress.

Chuck added 10.61%, while Rage added 34.40%, along with 1020 pet points; they each added 7 skill points, too. - rather less than Rage would have got in a solo party, which demonstrates that trying to get Suga into a Combat party wouldn't be a good idea.

So, Rage got a lot more experience from that session than from her Tomb time yesterday. The Elite Sphinx Speer Man is listed as giving 636,593 experience, compared with a Screaming Zombie's 4,501,053, but if you factor in a party size of four to six, and the additional time it takes to kill a Zombie, then things change. It might be different in a Combat party in that part of the Tomb of Theos, as I suspect that Rage was the biggest damage dealer in the party and would have been rewarded accordingly, but you'd be unlikely to get the other prospective party members to agree to something like that.

After the lunch break, Chuck and Rage went back, and enlisted TinySickNinja into the Combat party when she arrived - but she suggested a move to the Tomb of Theos. At level 62, she could solo the Screaming Zombies, but having two people with Snare would speed things up and be rather safer. So, with Chuck having added another 4.66%, and Rage 13.14%, and 3 skill points each, our time there ended. Chuck logged out, and SirDarth logged back in for some further pet levelling, which got his drake to level 25... and Rage teleported to the entrance to the Tomb.

When we got there, Tiny (who did mention later, "I'm a dude" - but we generally stick with the gender of the character) recruited another rogue of a similar level, Crowdsroar, and between them decided that we could do better than the level 100 Screaming Zombies - instead we'd run down to the large room with the level 104 Sphinx Fighters, which give 5.5 instead of 4.5 million. I was slightly doubtful that I'd get there alive, after Kaerella's experience at a similar level, but with a potion of haste and carefully following Tiny, I go there safely.

Unfortunately, before long Crowdsroar got killed, and had to leave us - but Tiny knows plenty of other people, and the level 54 specialist sorcerer Zanderloft joined us instead.for quite a long time, long enough to reach level 55 in fact. It was certainly easier when he was in his knight form, rather than the red devil, but we kept going despite the occasional death - not me, luckily, as the ranged attacker I was usually left alone, and when I did get attacked I was able to run to the safety of the wall.

Zanderloft was succeeded by the level 74 elementalist sorcerer (the type that still has earth, fire and wind spirits, rather than transforming himself) Myrddin; by then Rage had levelled up to 59, so was just within party range without being "capped". He did tend to use a lot of the large type of health potions, but fought very effectively, generally targeting the level 106 Anubis Spear Man (yes, they spell it correctly) boss monsters, who give almost 19 million experience each, but take a bit longer to kill of course. His one death he put down to paying too much attention to the guild chat channel, and not enough to his health bar.

We also recruited the level 65 rogue HeRsHeY, of the DamonBlut guild, who I'd seen many times at the (open-air) Sphinx types, though she wasn't as skilled a runner-down as Tiny, and arrived with a mob of Sphinx Fighters on her tail. We had to avoid them until they got "reset" to their original positions, but it was a bit of a shock.

The party kept going nicely, though Tiny did have to leave. I went on past my usual food break time, but finally Myrddin was running out of pots, and decided to call a halt. I was on 98% at the time, so he and Hershey kindly volunteered to kill one final Anubis Spear Man - and that got me up to level sixty! A whole level in one session, and only using the 30% experience boost, was excellent progress. In all since lunch Rage had added 152.96% experience - the skill point total remained at 3 unsurprisingly, but 2033 pet points had been added.

Reaching level sixty meant that Rage could now learn the passive skill Fatal Attack, previously known as Fadeil Attack, which "permanently increases your physical attack while wielding a crossbow" - the five levels I was able to learn cost 889 skill points, but increased my physical offence stat by 156, a little over 15%.

Taking Rage and Chuck out to the Sphinx types after the food break certainly demonstrated the difference Rage's new skill made, as the Sphinx Fighters, when targeted, died before they could reach her, and the damage generally was usefully improved. The 30% experience boost was still running until nine o'clock; as Rage was now 11 levels ahead of Chuck a Combat party wasn't possible, but that was okay as it was Chuck who needed the experience most, so an Equal party was what we required.

I had the place to myself, except for a brief appearance by the royal knight KingTrill, who arrived, gave himself horse buffs, attacked the Elite Sphinx Speer Man... and did get it down to about a third of its hit points before dying and vanishing. Why he doesn't just try a few of the regular Sphinx Fighters or Sphinx Speer Men I don't know... But anyway, Rage added another useful 26.86% experience and 1667 pet points, plus 15 skill points, while Chuck added 62.08% more, and 14 skill points. It shouldn't be long before Chuck reaches level fifty, and is able to learn the passive skill Fighting Spirit - for the five levels it's 573 skill points, and gives an extra 100 to attack, 150 to defence, and 20 to evasion, which sounds rather useful to me.

The day ended as it began, with SirDarth and SirPerivale peacefully pet-levelling. Darth's drake is well into level 25 now, while Peri's should end the evening at least a third of the way into level 35.