Saturday 12 September 2009

Skill Point Farming


The pet-levelling dynamic duo had another successful night, so that by breakfast time CaptainScarlet's drake had just reached level 32, and SirPerivale's horse was safely into level 23. It looks as if that will be the last double-overnighter for a while, which is a shame as it makes the room nice and warm, these cool autumn mornings.

After yesterday's evening in the Tomb of Theos, it was time to get back to my new knight, RedRackham, who we last saw early yesterday evening at level 3. Getting his quest rewards from Healer Yabo for the fox and deer killing got him up to level 4, and then it was time to kill wolves. It didn't take very long to get him up to level 7 - it was only just before my early evening food break that Ratel pointed out that we had been on 50% extra experience all day, as the Aeria people had kindly forgotten to turn it off after the US version of the Friday "Happy Hour" last night.

At the start of the fox-fighting I assumed that I was bugged in some way, as I got very little experience, perhaps 10% of what I'd expect, and often the fox's health-bar was still at around 50% for me when it died. I suspect the only person I noticed around there, by the herb patch, a mage called Gertraut, of actually having a bit of fun with my noob character by surreptitiously hitting every fox I started in on. It didn't last long, and she did buff me after that, though.

At level 7, Red would be able to team with SirPerivale, since they'd only be 15 levels apart, but first Red needed to make the trip out through the Dratan desert to Prokion Temple, to get its location onto his memory scroll. That wasn't too easy at level 7, but using a potion of haste, and the one small healing potion that he'd picked up fighting berserk wolves, got him past the sand golems and the clever foxes of the desert, but it was a close-run thing. He got Shuraine's spot onto his scroll, and continued to the Temple, and then, once he had that on his scroll, logged out, to move across to the older computer.

Red borrowed some medium-low-level armour pieces from SirKitBreaker; he also enrolled with Kaerella as his Guardian, and then teamed up with SirPerivale. Previously, Peri has tended to take his junior level-uppers to Merac, and fought Berserkers, which had the merit of meaning he could continue to level his current pet, except for Leo, who we took to the Temple, ending up just outside our favourite back room. This time we used one of the earliest rooms in Prokion Temple, and RedRackham just nudged up against the wall only a few yards in from the main front hall - and, with Peri fighting level 23 Orc Soldiers, it didn't take a huge amount of time to get Red up to halfway through level 18. By then Peri had put on 68.95% experience himself, so there was just time before lunch for him to spend his 50 skill points back in town, and then run about in Prokion Temple without his armour, picking up unwanted gold drops and giving the Divine Shield armour buff to the other players busy there, and getting killed by the various types of Orc enough times to change that 68.95% into 0.00%, so that he is ready for a future similar task.

After lunch RedRackham was able to team with Galahad, who is level 33, who took him to the back room, helped along by the armour from horse buffs, and moved him on to level 20; Galahad gained 4.27% from that, plus 21 skill points and 47 guild points. And then MistressSabina was able to take over, at last having a suitably low-level character to team with. She had recruited Red into the Discipline guild, and set his experience gain to 50%, like every other member except MistressBlaze at the moment. She still had four super skill pills to use, giving double skill exp gain, and used two of them - the first gave her 172 skill points, and the second gave her 154. Still, by the end of the session Sabina had added 27.04%, 356 skill points, and 419 guild points.

We were generally undisturbed, but who should pop in for a chat but the mage Gertraut - Iris is a small world. I don't know if she noticed or remembered Red in his corner, but she did remark on the fact that Sabina was a witch rather than a wizard, as she was using a wand rather than a staff, and kindly gave me the buffs which I am generally too lazy to add myself.

Afterwards RedRackham, who had reached level 23 and gained 213 skill points, was able to get the final level of Canid Fencing, and all five levels of Vitality Control, so was reasonably well set up for his pet-levelling future, with 70 skill points still in hand.

There was a lengthy pet-levelling break over the evening food time, with Ratel back in the solo party after some time off. He had headed back to Egeha for some more drop and skill point farming, but also found a new friend called "XxOn3xX", and sometimes his attempts to whisper her appeared in the party chat by mistake. There was some talk of me lending her some items, since Ratel was unavailable to trade things across while he was in Egeha, but apparently she did have everything that she needed

My evening plans rather depended on whether my preferred back room was still free - and it was, so MistressSabina and RedRackham were able to continue where they left off. Sabina used her last two super skill pills, which brought in 169 and 165 skill points, and I kept going after that, so that in all 401 more skill points got added to her reserves. She's safely over 9000 sp now, which ought to be enough to take her a fair way - and she does have just about all the special skills maximised, so if necessary one day a skills reset card can be bought, and the sp banked there moved to more useful places.

Ratel was joined in Egeha by our favourite level 92 knight, BasheR, who we see in-game too seldom these days. Bash tried to help Ratty to gain experience, but unfortunately, as far as I could tell from their party chat, the Boucu Demon spot we go to was already occupied, and so they had to go to somewhere else a bit more dangerous. Skinwalkers are not aggressive normally, although they are protective of the Boucu Demons, which is why they can cause problems at our usual spot if they happen to come a little too close... but when Ratel used some self-buffs to prepare for whatever they were going to do, that apparently attracted the Skin, and in three hits poor Ratty was dead.

As that spot had proved too dangerous, they were out of luck generally, and BasheR soon departed... so it had been a few wasted minutes for the pots that Ratel had got running, and a couple of skill points and 2% experience lost. Still, it didn't take him long to regain what he had lost, and he was comfortably into level 59 by the time his blessed iris ran out. He reported that it did "stack" nicely with the extra 50% experience we were getting, although the figures were suspiciously similar to what he would get from a blessed iris plus a 30% elixir. These add-on bonuses do vary, I find, sometimes they add together, and sometimes one just multiplies the other, so you can't always tell if two 50% things, for example, will become 100% or 75%

RedRackham, despite being 50% frozen on the experience gain side, continued to level up in the evening session. adding 218.88%, so that he's now a little past halfway through level 25. He has added another 234 skill points to the 70 he had left - I see Wall of Belief, at level 32, needs 327, so he has almost enough for that, though it would be good to get Divine Shield (130 sp) to be able to give people an armour buff, and preferably Uncanny Movement (97 sp) to increase his movement speed. Ratel has more ambitious plans for his pet-leveller Leopardknight, and hopes to max out all the available skills, which explains why he hasn't been willing to let MistressSabina use today's method to level him up.

MistressSabina went up 31.70% in the evening session; she earned 491 guild points for Discipline, while RedRackham earned 372. Sabina probably has another three hours of work with the Orc Sergeants and Orc Axemen before she reaches level 36, at which point it will definitely be time to move on, as even with a lower-level companion the Axemen, at least, won't contribute much experience or skill exp then. Next time she teams with MistressBlaze at the Sphinx types, she won't be on the 50% experience freeze, and she won't be in a Combat type party, so she ought to move up a few levels relatively quickly.

As usual the day ended as it had begun, with SirPerivale back to his mundane pet-levelling duties in Merac, along with CaptainScarlet. By the time I'll be heading for bed Cap should have got that drake past the halfway mark in level 32, and Peri's horse should be two-thirds of the way through level 24.

No comments:

Post a Comment