Mabar

I know some people don't like Mabar but I find it kind of fun!

But the pressure is on this time around. I have robes, cloaks, wands, potions of various sorts, but I most keenly feel the lack of a docent since I TR'd my drow wizard into a warforged wizard. I don't have many high level robes, but what would have once been an easy upgrade from the level 16 to the level 20 robe is now a from nothing to level 20 docent. It would also be nice to upgrade my cloaks and robes for other characters so they can have longer lasting clickies and nicer effects.

I'm hoping segmenting out the instance levels and such will make drop rates better for motes, but that will remain to be seen.

Kingmaker, reaper, DDO, and other games.

Haven't blogged lately, here's an update:

Kingmaker continues slowly but surely. Kingdom size still less than 10, but in looking the rules, it seems easier to have one large citystate type kingdom than to have multiple cities. But there is a loss of potential by not using the landmarks to discount buildings. A larger kingdom allows building to be built faster, and farms can help pay for large consumption due to edicts, so there are some benefits.

The Reaper kickstarter was an awesome opportunity to get some minis which I could not pass up. I see much painting in my future.

I continue to play DDO almost exclusively. The Menace of the Underdark expansion is awesome, so i bounce between my 2nd life wizard and recently level 22 bard. Got a t-shirt and swag from DDOCast, too!

I did get portal 2 and that game is awesome. Civ 5 also sees some play.

BTCoE vs BTC

Not too long ago, I was running my Bard 20 /Epic 1 / Fatesinger 3 in Eveningstar quests with a guildmate on her Barbarian 20 / Epic 1 / Fury 3, with the aim to get some loot, xp, and commendations, especially since the random encounters in the King’s Forest are still a bit buggy. I was tossing all my commendations her way, since I already have what I need for this character.

Fast forward to the Battle for Eveningstar, and either the wiki is wrong or I am misremembering, but I know I got the Drow smoke goggles, and I’ll swear it was the granary chest and not the end chest but oh well. I gave them to my guildmate because I already had the epic ring of the slayer and she still had my bloodstone I had loaned her, and she equipped them and went to town.

And then it happened…yep you guessed it. Drow Smoke goggles were on her chain completion end reward list, proving that the loot gods hate me, and reinforcing how awesome BTCoE is, and how lame BTC is.
Another plus in her column was enough commendations for Purple Dragon Knight armor. I know, heavy armor for a barbarian is less than optimal but for a casual player the free LR (which went off without a hitch) to restat/refeat and get heavy armor prof and overwhelming critical wasn’t awful and a stacking +3 to hit/damage for the set wasn’t going to be coming from something else anytime soon.

In other bad loot news, I still don’t have a complete sigil but I’m going to cut my losses and come back and get it later, so I can run litany unimpeded on my third life. Currently rank 90 and looking forward to running vale quests for xp. Not certain I can keep up my bravery bonus solo on those but I’ll see what I can do.

I did get a Turbulent Epee last night though, which I may have to test out, but compared to a dedicated DR breaker I don’t think this passes muster but as a generic DR breaker ‘just-in-case’ it may be okay.

Fatesinger

Been running FR realms content on my Bard 20/Fatesinger. A few things I need to work on...

Get a perform +15 item. Stormsinger cloak won't cut it anymore.
Upgrade my silver flame pendant to a silver flame talisman. Protection from evil items are bugged though so that makes me sad. Greater command is not my friend.
Get more spell pen in my enhancements, and also look at shifting away from melee focus to cc focus and get spell pen feats too. Crafted an epic scimitar of cursespewing/improved shattermantle to help with OID at least, along with a spell pen buckler.

Animated Map of crucible maze

Mr. Cow\'s/Ukenburgers excellent animated crucible maze map.

Terror Greatsword and how I didn't know what I was missing

Back before Epic Destinies, and I was trying to get a light and darkness for my paladin with my capped wizard, I got a few nice end rewards from dreaming dark, some from the chest the old fashioned way with discs (even messing up once and having to get another disc because I left one disc in the bank...), and some from end rewards like normal.

So I have a lucid dreams waiting for an artificer, or at least an artificer 2 splash (any comments on artificer splashes for rune arm use?)

I almost got a regalia of the phoenix, but already had the epic cloak of flames so it was no longer the only item to boost meteor swarm, but decided to get Terror instead. It was kind of a hard decision, based on the review here .

I wasn't looking for specific weapons, I was looking for loot comparisons, so never did see all the other 'please fix terror' threads, the 'terror is worth it now' threads, or the 'Terror is the best!!!1111one!' threads.

But I had a wizard at 20, a stagnant paladin at 16 and a somewhat slowly leveling bard. I thought, oh well, at least I can beat down the mindsunder with it, as well as quori.

Just a few days ago, my 1st life bard got to the level 19 cap at level 17. I just haven't gotten around to leveling him up to 18 yet and getting my min level 18 gear out, including terror.

If I had known Terror was that good, I could have been running vale quests without a second thought (incidentally, level 16 ring of the stalker isn't bad). But now it is too late...

So alas, I will only know Terror post nerf, based on a review pre-nerf.

The Blood Stone

[caption id="attachment_120" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The Blood Stone"][/caption]
Well, Desert Runs aren't a complete waste, now are they?