3 Good Excuses for 1 Bad Night

Yeap, it was bad. Being a healer is all about keeping the group alive, and when the group wipes, at the final boss, of a simple B-rank DB run.. well, probably you are having a bad day night (*).

You need a hug. A big hug. And a kiss.

(*) The explanation of "having a bad night" is only valid if you usually do better. In the unlike event of this being a regular night, then you are probably a bad healer. And under-geared. And you suck. Better stop gaming.

Still though, since this can happen, here are some ready-made excuses for you to use:


1. The dps was low.
Yeap, it does make sense.
Low dps => A long time fighting => No skill reuse, mana depletion.
It's only natural that your healing gets worse as time passes. You use all your "tricks" (skills) and so do all group members. So you can not repeat your DP skill, you can not do the 6m cooldown groovy heal, the ranger/sin can not escape any more attacks, the tank has no other armor to use. Thus the same healer, who does very well with a high dps group that kills in few minutes, might fail when the dps is not enough. Same goes for mana - sometimes all the pots of the world are not enough, you even get a crystal, and yet..



2. You (or the tank, or someone else) lagged.
Well that needs no explaining. Obviously if you lag, you are reacting late and probably wrong.


3. You had a pug/noob/new group member.
You can blame  him or her for everything! Examples include:
- No armor (e.g." the ranger took a lot of damage in each hit, he would die if you didnt spare him a heal")
- Bad gameplay (e.g. "the ranger did not know to avoid hits/reflects/*")
- No weapon (e.g. "the ranger did not do any damage, what the heck?")
- Lots of dying (e.g. "the ranger died 5 times - the sorc lost so much time rezing him and i had to heal at least once - we better leave him dead next time")

So there you go - you have some suitable, fit-all, ready-made excuses ;-)

I dont want to PvP! .. do I?

See, I'm no-use in PvP. I do suck bigtimes. And hating too. Especially if the other person is peacefully doing his quest. I have only killed in mass PvP (by mistake, probably) or defending myself (oh well, they did deserve that! trying to kill a cleric.. tsk tsk).

The CanadianRainwater comic describes it pretty well - I couldn't possibly kill a noob of the other faction!

Click on Picture to Enlarge

Still though, yesterday I found myself in Asmodae with a buddy. It was quite fun! Assaulting Asmos, trying to get them killed, devising strategies(*) to win. And these Asmos were expecting us (after the 2nd or 3rd time we attacked them, they ought to be expecting us!), so I dont consider it .. wrong. Just playful!

It has just been announced that Aion 2.0: Assault on Balaurea is on its way (coming on Sept 7th). Could this possibly mean a temporary truce in order to attack the Balaurs? And - equally important - will we get any stains? :) :)

(*) Wishful thinking.

Do you want to date my avatar?

Since we are all waiting for the servers to come up again, here's a suggestion for you!

Have a look at the latest episode of The Guild, a webseries about all us MMORPG players. For those of you who don't know what The Guild is (omg!), better start with the first episode of the first series (noobs!). For a detailed explanation of characters and plot, check The Guild at wikipedia.

The same people have produced "Do You Want To Date My Avatar?" a super awesome videoclip :)

What's in a name?

Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase
Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze

I'm a sensitive soul though I seem thick-skinned
And it hurt that my friends never stood downwind
And oh, the shame {Timon: He was ashamed}
Thought of changin' my name {Timon: Oh! What's in a name?}
And I got downhearted {Timon: How did ya feel?}

That's from Hakuna Matata, the main song of Lion King. Remember?

Well yes, i thought of changin' my name! No, not MY name, just one of my alts.. Let me explain the reasoning:

1. Our server will soon (14/7) merge with another server.
2. I hate this @*($WR(*(@R* tank called Nodar.

thus...

I will create a character named Nodar on the server which

will be merged with ours (an Elyos actually, as is Nodar).

Can you imagine what will happen?

When the servers merge, there will be a name conflict (ofc). Thus both "Nodar"s will be renamed, and we will both get a name change ticket. Whoever manages to change his name back to Nodar first, wins. Guess who this will be :-)

There are evil-ier scenaria! Note a pri-existing conflict (mm tell me, is there an "Ayase"?) and use the name ticket to change your name to that. LoL. All that thanx to the brilliant elf who pointed the hole to NC's algorithm.

Let me get my plan to work.. The last days have been pretty awful, I'd better do that than commit suicide.

Rifting and Rescuing

Yesterday we went to Draupnir Cave. It's an awsome instance in Beluslan, available to both Asmodians and Elyos.


The Rifting Part

1. We use the Indratu rift (= no 7) to infliltrate, which ports you some distance from the instance entrance.

 

2. We avoid and dodge the mobs, which works pretty well until there are some spike lags.  

 

2. It was a matter of seconds to have my screen frozen, loose control of my toon, die miserably and dc. And you know what happens when you dc? You are revived back to your bind point - for crying out loud! 

3. So scroll to Heiron, use waterfall, run from bridge to rift (shields, heals, prays and scrolls) and ta-dam back to Beluslan. Meanwhile my friends have started on the instance - after all it's much safer *inside* Draupnir Cave for an Elyos. 

4. Running like hell (shields, heals and scrolls)(no time for prays this time), I come close to the entrance, but there is a 50 Asmodian with full Abyss 50 gear, looking at me with a sardonic smile. And lots of damage. I am lucky to have all my shielding up, still though my hp is dropping fast as I run.

 

The Rescuing Part

1. That's when you need a hero, isnt it? When you are run down, hit and about to die. 

He has to be strong and he has to be fast,  

and he has to be fresh from the fight!

2. Here comes my savior, running from Draupnir Cave, towards the Asmo, passing by me and taking the aggro. It's the British and dearest tank - and boy was I glad to see him! Rescued! I owe him bigtimes!!

3. The rest of the group appears, my friends, hunting down the enemy, who now flys away wounded.


Thank you!

An acceptable decision

Well, there is the blog back to "acceptable" design, no more color-spree.

I still think the happy orange lunime petals were better though.

Jeshuchi, Zapiel and some invisible bridges

You know about the invisible bridges, hanging in the empty space, going from one island to the other? Well you need to climb on those if you want to kill some pretty-awesome RBs like Jeshuchi and Zapiel.

To get there:

1. Port to Heiron
2. Either run to Kishar Camp or fly directly from heiron
3. Use the waterfall (need Hokuna Matata for that)
4. Appear on rock bridge
5. Glide to the rock opposite
6. Get out of the hole -grrr
7. Walk around the rock that looks like a bone (that's a left turn)
8. Walk forward to get to the chain
9. Walk upwards on the chain, till the n-1 point (on the last one, you fall down).

10. Take a deep breath.

11. Aim to the [right of the] tree you can see towards the islands (on your right).
12. Land on the hill
13. Walk to the cliff that is closer to the 2 mobs guarding the (invisible) bridge
14. Glide towards the 2 mobs
15. While you glide, the moment you get an updraft, do a 90 degrees turn to the right, and aim between the pillars sticking out from Jeshuchi island against you
16. You should land on the bridge to Jesuchi.


Well, i cann't really do that. I want to help my friends, the few times i have time, but I rarely make it. Usually i fall in any of these steps. And as if that's not enough, usually half the legion plus some more people are there, watching you fail miserably.

I really really need to improve my gliding and flying skills! 
Click to Enlarge Pic

Lumine petals applied

Well yes, exp is important, raids and kinah too, but right now I am too busy applying lunime petals to both my armor and my blog! What do you think?

Wait, better not answer that. I will change the blog (at least!) back to something more "appropriate" soon - just for now though, few days of color-spree!

 Click Pic to Enlarge

What the F*@$&??

Oh gosh, i guess game-friends can be as silly as rl-friends!

Now if the same person is both game-friend *and* rl-friend.. endless potential!

Yesterday we wanted to do Azoturan Fortress (remember where you did Fragments of Memory 3? same place). BTW it got much easier after the 1.9 patch! There drops a shield I want, and lovely rings for everyone. The so-nice elf and the dearest british thought of the idea, especially since they know how much i need a shield.

However 3 ppl are not enough for the fortress. We spoke to legionmates, even asked one of them to repeat our call in vent. A group was formed, and we farmed the 2 bosses multiple times (yay!!).

Just after the 2nd time, I receive a whisper from a close legion-mate, rl-friend and ofc game-friend:

"You are so "LOL" all of you, going there to farm the fortress in utter silence and secrecy -were you afraid we will steal your loots?"

What the f@()$* - why did he say that?! True, i didnt explicitly ask him to join us - but that's only because he would probably say no. Why on earth he was so rude?

"What's up with you, why are you so rude, is it something i did?" --me

After some heated discussion, he admitted he "didnt mean it like that" etc etc. Oh yeah? how did you mean it then?

"Oh, how did you mean it then?", I asked

He responded something about "just saying so" and "playful" and "joking".

I am not sure I believe him though :-( I think he is still angry with all of us. Pittttty! :-(

The chosen comic demonstrates how a complex relationship can indeed form online, be it a friendly or a romantic one. Oh and it's funny too!

Crowd Control please!

Tooo many mobs around! Too many players too! CC urgently needed!

And let's say we can handle the mobs. Actually this is the easy part - hack and slash, rinse, repeat, done!

But the players? How can we possibly handle all these ppl?

Oh I don't want to control anyone (well.. let's say I don't, for the argument's sake).

I don't even want to manage anyone.

I would like to.. mmm.. let's say encourage people towards the right direction, or at least what I perceive to be the right direction. Oh don't be hasty to judge. Told you, no control 1984-style - just making sure they all know the advantages of the option presented in a Brave-New-World-style.

Current problem pertains to legion members collaboration, group formation algorithm, balance. I guess you have already seen this kind of problems:

• few chanters, few clerics
• two groups (e.g. for DP) forming concurrently
• person X wants to go with Y but not with Z; while Y wants to go with Z, doesn't care if K joins, but Z waits for K and L because last time L helped him and anyway she is nice. Perfect sense, no?

So.. nope. No-one went to DP. Gosh!