More Levels, and a Better Bow

RedRackham did in fact get his drake into level 42 before he logged off last night. It looks like time to see which of my characters needs to have a higher-level pet to follow them around.

There was time for some moving of loot around this morning - and I was also able to trade some skill point restoration scrolls across to RedRyder on Sarissa, as my merchant character there had got some, so that she is now protected against losing skill points if she gets killed. These scrolls are cheaper than the full resurrection scrolls, and mean she would lose a couple of percent of experience - but at least her stash of skill points will be relatively safe.

The Cariae Tomb of Theos was down to 40% on its Condition chart after coffee, but over on Auzura things were relatively comfortable, at 80%, so MistressDomina and Kaerella headed for that corner of the corridor with its two anubis spear men for MD, and a supply of sphinx fighters for Kae. I got the impression that the Condition did actually improve during the dungeon time hour, as the damage MD's terra spear skill did go up to about its maximum - though reaching level 98 must have helped, since that meant I could put three more stat points into intelligence.

MistressDomina used 41 experience boosters while the platinum blessed iris lasted, alongside the berserker, crit and platinum adrenaline potions, and they moved her up by 22.92% - the majority of that in her new level, 98. Her total experience gain, including a few preliminary kills before the hour started, was 27.07%, plus 3 skill points and 1212 pet points, while Kaerella earned 4.92%, 4 skill points, and 1166 pet points.

After lunch, the Tomb on Cariae had sunk to a deadly 10%, while Auzura was on a luxurious 90% - so there are no prizes for guessing that Barbarienne didn't get a chance to fight the anubis spear men on her server. Instead, it was my Auzuran +14 weapon-equipped pair, Kaerella and MrChuckNorris, who headed for the Tomb of Theos, for one of my "double header" power hours. Power-levelling two characters at once would be almost impossible with the anubis spear men, particularly with a melee fighter like Chuck involved, one would spend too much time having to fight the sphinx fighters even if the spear man room was entirely clear of other players - instead it really does have to be the ancient grey mummies. They may give slightly less experience, but at least they die a bit faster.

There was already a mage there when I arrived, on level 103 presumably farming skill points, and assisted by a rogue; the mage did sometimes gather up four or more mummies to deal with, but was careful to leave Chuck his next target. To avoid any shortage of mummies, Kaerella tended to aim for ones at the start of the corridor, so everything went smoothly. The room is nice and safe, since there are only mummies there, passive and non-protective of each other, except just by the corridor, where a screaming zombie, and just beyond it an ancient screaming zombie or two, can be seen.

Kae and Chuck started a few minutes before the hour, and then began their platinum blessed irises and various potions when the dungeon time bonus was announced. Chuck gave Kae the two buffs, for attack and hit rate, and gave himself the attack buff, and re-applied them every twenty minutes. In total Kaerella used 53 experience boosters, and went up by 72.31%, taking her well into level 93; MrChuckNorris used 5 less, and went up by 47.48% in level 94. Kaerella's drake, SirFrancis, added 1312 pet points, and Chuck's drake added 1361, which were enough to get it into level 39. Both Chuck and Kae added 13 skill points.

That took care of the first half of the afternoon; once again the third level of Maargadum Jail was free when MistressSabina got there, partied with RedRackham, at about 3:15, UK time. Red gave Sabina the divine shield buff, and hurried down to the fifth floor, for a pet-levelling session, and then Sabina began her hour of skill point farming, with a pssp. By the end, she'd gained 4.93%, 143 skill points, and for her drake 1005 pet points.

Chuck hadn't yet learned his level 94 skill, so, back in Randol after the break, he spent 408 skill points on the sixth and final level of Focus Mastery 2, "increase attack hit permanently" - what it actually did was increase his hit rate by 70, almost 10%, which has to be useful. Next up, at level 96, comes a boost of 180 to his health, currently 6000. Curiously, Kaerella doesn't get a new skill at 94, she'll have to wait for level 96, when the fourth levels of both Deadly Shot 2 (450 sp) and Vital Spot Blow 2 (500 sp) come up, to increase her chance of making deadly and critical hits.

Kaerella on Katar, my level 43 archer, headed out to Maargadum Jail just before six o'clock, for the last few minutes of the dungeon time hour, with its 50% experience bonus... and then, a couple of minutes after it ended, the 100% extra experience "Happy Hour" began. Curiously, the total experience per kill seemed the same - the dungeon time extra multiplies the basic figure, so that double, from the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, becomes treble, while the happy hour boost just adds on...I think...

So, Kaerella busily killed the canines and the beast scythes on Katar-5, while RedRackham continued his pet-levelling on Auzura-4. And then, at seven minutes past seven, I had a whispered message from [GM]Awesome, to say that it was Kaerella's turn to have her master stones applied, and for that, I needed to log out so that she could log in, on the same account but over on Auzura. Checking my email, the confirmation was timed at just one minute later. "Congratulations and thanks for using our Loot Forge! With our infusion power we have upgraded your weapon to your desire. A combination of potions and crystals has allowed us to upgrade your item, although we had difficulty adding the spiders into the mix for upgrading. Go forth and smite those who ever thought to question your glorious might! None can stand against you!! Well expect (sic) for a bunch of Flutons but what are the chances of that happening... WOOT! Feel free to contact us if any issues arise once again."

I left it for a few minutes before logging in again, and found that Kaerella on Auzura was now indeed the owner of a Soulful Rainbow Bow +18, with an attack power of 409 + 866, +75, taking her physical offence stat up to 2152. The attack power when it was +14 was 409 + 574, while a +15 one would give 409 + 640 +75, so Kae's bow is now pretty powerful.

Kaerella on Katar's session, therefore, ended with her on an 18.64% experience gain (after 0.23% from yesterday's MMS), plus 70 more skill points (after 1 yesterday) and 594 pet points. RedRackham was almost a quarter of the way into his drake's 42nd level by then - but he too had to log out, to allow MistressDomina to get back online.

MistressDomina was able to spend 1000 skill points, and 2.5 million gold, on level six of Chaos Nova, taking its "power" from 560 to 600. This final level also decreases the amount by which the target's attack is temporarily enhanced from 70% to 65%.

Once that was sorted out, MistressDomina and MistressBlaze headed for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, and its screaming zombies, and joined in the general fighting at the start. As usual MD did much luring, and did her best to distract any zombies that were chasing lower level people. MistressDomina only added 1.71%, plus 8 skill points and 1112 pet points, but MistressBlaze added 59.25%, and 786 pet points. She reached level 60, and so got the freebie +5 set of armour and weapons; I had made sure that there was plenty of space for its arrival.

[GM]Darasuum was in the forum shoutbox at one stage, and someone asked him about the absence of loot at yesterday's Mad Monster Spawns that he hosted. I entered the conversation, regretting the lack of a general loot distribution, compared with what [GM]JediMike managed, to which his response was "I'll hunt you down Kaerella." "Well, hunt down JediMike, if he shouldn't have given us Hands... but he does love seeing us scramble to pick up the loot", I responded. More seriously, the GM did say that "We had an issue with the prize handing out, so he just used the old style. He learned from my horrible experience."

I added that "Hands are a lot fairer than just a few item-drops, the time it takes for the hands-loot to become pick-up-able means everyone gets a chance to grab stuff. He also remembered the official 'Thanks for coming out, the event is now over', announcement, which always tells people that the thing is over." I hope the message got through, that otherwise people stand around expecting more stuff to happen, and end up drifting away feeling that things are unfinished.

So, a varied and productive day, with levellings-up, upgradings, chats with GMs, and more. And tomorrow we'll see what the overnight maintenance and new weekly patch brings us. There is a 100% rebate offer on ten spins of the loot wheel per character to get sorted out too - I've done a little preparation, in trying to make sure that I have ten Records slots free per account, but the spinning itself must wait until the morning.