Jeanne and Moon Kitty

 The first Dun'ilsar held in months and months is happening right now. I upheld my duties as High Benevolence of the Sun Dragon Clan and reported it to our new clan group (even though everyone read about it on the Sentinel already) and prepared to get on early enough to talk strategy with whomever showed up.

Naturally, I overslept and missed the entire thing.

It's typical that I would miss out on the one time that I could have build a closer connection with my clan. The clan that I am trying to revive and build.

I can't even handle waking up on time.

Generally speaking I don't keep grudges and am usually calm and don't take what people say personally. With few exceptions people mean well and don't intend to insult your intelligence when they give you advice. They want to help you and while sometimes it can be irritating to have to explain yourself to them, they genuinely mean well.

Like everyone else I have my own share of pet peeves. I don't like it when I can't tag mobs on an open hunt because they die too quickly. I don't like it when I can't hit anything despite all of the Atkus I've trained. I don't like it when I'm traveling with people and they disappear which leads me to be either lost or trying to find them.

Yet tonight's open hunt has to be the most irritating I've ever been on with regards to pet peeves.

Daimoth invited me to a Metz hunt which surprised me a little since I don't know why he'd want me along when he knows so many exiles who are much stronger than I am. Not having much of an opportunity to go to Metz (at least as Jeanne, Moon Kitty has gone there many more times than I have) I leaped at the chance and quickly traveled there.

Everything went relatively smoothly as we traveled in the jungle areas and I quickly found myself underpowered. I managed to avoid falling too many times (I hope) and killed or vanquished everything I was able to hit. I think that if I wanted to contribute to any future hunt that comes here I'd need to have much better Bloodmage skills. My 400 Atkus was able to hit the small cats reliably but anything else and it was down to luck. Fortunately I was able to get quite a few vanquishes which pleased me. The variety of beasts in the Metz jungles is truly impressive. I'll bet Rangers love it there with so many powerful morphs accessible to them.

The real problem came when the fighters got into a circle to share since a healer left. You all know how unlike a circle these fighter circles usually are. So after a bit, which turned out to be less than a minute, I helpfully told the fighter that they were my share. I meant nothing bad about this. I just wanted to be helpful in case they didn't realize I was who they were supposed to be sharing with.

KABOOM

That was basically the reaction from the fighter. First he told me who I should be sharing with which I didn't connect to what I told him so I admit to getting a little testy. Why was he telling me who to share when I've been doing that since the start? Then he admitted it was in response to me telling him to share me and he went off on a diatribe which mostly didn't make much sense. In the end, before I ignored him, he suggested that I spend some time in the library and find out who I'm hunting with.

On the one hand I can agree with that advice. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of those I hunt with helps the hunt. If a person is a good brick I know to dump stuff on them. If a person wants to get lasts on a certain mob then I know not to attack when it's red. If a person hasn't tagged I'll pull them so they get a chance. If a person is a Bloodmage I try to make sure they have room to retreat when necessary. It's all part of a good hunt strategy and something you can find out by just paying attention and asking questions. Quite often the person will volunteer such information, especially if you haven't spent much or any time around them.

But good grief, how am I supposed to know about someone's pet peeves if they don't let me know about them? I don't agree with Lorikeet's and Desdemona's pet peeve against being pulled, especially when it's useful in not falling or when they might be in the path of danger or when it's simply the fastest way of getting around. At least they didn't jump down my throat when I did it. It almost makes me sorry for refusing to go along with it since I will pull them if I deem it necessary.

Yet this fighter simply went unhinged. I didn't tell them to share me because I thought they were incapable of reading or they didn't know what CW (clockwise) meant. I was just trying to be helpful and he took it as an insult. I didn't need to be verbally assaulted for thinkto after thinkto after thinkto about how awful I was. How was I supposed to know that he'd take what I said so personally? How is staying in the library going to teach me about who I'm hunting with?

So please, if someone says something or does something that pushes one of your buttons and you're ready to unleash all of your anger towards him take a step back and realize that they probably didn't say that to mock you. They probably were just trying to be helpful and don't deserve you raking them over the coals. No one does.

P.S. I stopped training with Swengus because, after seeing Stinkfist in action with his awesome Bloodmage skills, I want to be just as powerful as he is sooner rather than later. I'll get Swengus up to 1000 eventually but my balance situation is pretty good (2 swings with a 3rd a second later). It'll be a long time before I can become a good and useful Bloodmage but at least I'm heading down that path now. I just could really use more reliable hunts. The library just isn't helpful anymore.

I went on Blindkan-C's Interior Kizmia's Island (KI) hunt yesterday since it's been months, if not years, since I last visited the interior.

I was astonished to find that I have nearly outgrown it. Everything was slaughters except for Cold, Orgaberry, and some Thunder Lyfes. Later I went to the KI Cove at night and only slaughtered the weakest mobs so it's clear that I'll only get any experience at night, and not from everything even then. I did get experience from the few Scaramis we fought but they've always been very tough.

After I realized that I wasn't going to get much experience and almost everyone else was, the only time I tried for a tag was when I thought the lyfe was one of the few I didn't slaughter or when we needed everything to die quickly.

Despite the lack of experience, it was great seeing KI again. I only wish C.O.N.G.A. was still around with Manx, Hidden, Michael, Crunch, Kiriel, and myself. I finally get strong enough to not slow down a KI hunt and the very group I was trying so hard to be a contributing member of has been disbanded for years and most of the members gone.

I also learned that the strategy I was using in the 7th-circle fighter's test was wrong, as I was beginning to believe. The old tactic of sitting on the southeast corner behind the barricade and fighting one mob at a time isn't going to work. I thought that I was just doing it wrong but now I think it's impossible with these particular set of mobs.

The problem I was having is that while I can brick the Orga Frenzy (or some other large red orga) it's hard to keep the other mobs away or, even worse, from trapping you. The greymyr throws a boulder and trying to avoid that means that the arachnoid will often slip past him. The arachne ferals which means that if you go too far to the left or right, he'll see you and then you're trapped. Next time I am able to take the test I'm going to keep on running around the room. I'll probably kill the noid first since I think it's the fastest, the orga, then the greymyr, and finally the arachne. Honor says I remind him of who passed so if I get correct tactics I should be able to win.

Under the cut are the images of when I became a Bloodmage. I'm anxious to begin my training in the Bloodmage arts and so waiting until I get 1000 Swengus is difficult. I'm even thinking of not training with Histia as I was going to, at least not right away, just so I can get some more Bloodblade skill.

I know this is somewhat of a change from the last entry where I was negative about the Bloodmage skills, but after the recent changes to spirit (skills cost less and we lose less when we fall) as well as seeing Stinkfist in action made me think that properly used the skills can be very effective. What I was considering was 250 Bloodblade in order to hit anything that I possibly need to hit (I do have 400 Atkus after all), and then train with Hemorrhage for the extra damage since it's supposed to be more effective than either Darkus or additional Bloodblade training. I don't know about the debuffs but they're supposed to be very rank efficient with only 50 ranks required to see a significant effect. After I get some Hemorrhage I'll consider training with them but it depends if I'm able to get into a hunting party and what they need. Now all I need is time to get the ranks I need and one day, hopefully, I'll be a true Bloodmage.

( When I became a Bloodmage... )

I've recently fufilled my dream of becoming a Bloodmage and it took a lot less time and effort than I imagined. I've been told by several exiles that the ease with which you qualify for a sub-class depends on how many fighter ranks you have and since I have a good many, it didn't take me very long at all to qualify.

Still, reading the Bloodmage forum on the Sentinel makes me realize just how far the Bloodmage and the Bloodblade have fallen. Originally the Bloodblade (there were no sub-classes when the weapons were introduced) was the most powerful weapon. You needed to fight on red (as you do now), but the amount of Atkus and Darkus which it could provide were much more than any other weapon and much easier to get than training with Atkus and Darkus directly. In addition, the Bloodblade didn't have the balance penalty that training with Atkus and Darkus give so it was efficient training as well.

The Gossamer was just something fighters used to kill trash they had enough natural Darkus to one-shot. For most fighters that was usually GCP, rats, vermine, island panthers and other beasts of a relatively low level.

Now it's quite the opposite. Sure it takes time for Rangers to learn the beasts they want to study and they have to have enough corresponding ranks to have a suitable number of slots to study everything they want at the same time, but it's hardly a horrible sacrifice. After all, if you're hunting in a location anyway and can get last hits you can get an Atkus and Darkus bonus on them and a smaller one for all beasts in the same family with no negative aspects. You don't have to befriend the beast to get this bonus and you don't have to get the morph to get the bonus, but only a relatively small number of last hits and every party I've been with has been very accomodating.

The Bloodmage still has to fight on red to get the Atkus and Darkus bonus and the sub-class abilities (Immolation, Hemorrage, Cripple, Disable, Feign Death) are all dependent on who you fight with. If you fight beasts that everyone can hit than Disable isn't needed and if you have good healers and/or the beasts don't do a lot of damage before they die than Cripple isn't needed. Immolation looks like it would be fun but it requires a lot of work (a few beasts close to the target beast and the ability to find something that you can one-shot before it one-shots you) so if you really need to do damage to many beasts a Champion's Lava Cloak is the best bet. Hemorrage adds additional damage over time on top of the Bloodblade damage which I think is supposed to be more effective than Darkus or Bloodblade ranks because all it does is add damage and none of the Atkus that Bloodblade ranks do. If I got any skill this probably would be it just because it seems to be effective. Feign Death can be useful but it's also situational and you need to be able to spot your imminent demise to use it effectively to preserve your spirit.

That seems to be another sticking point with the Bloodmage class. You have to use spirit for the special abilities and if you don't have spirit you don't get the Darkus bonus from the Bloodblade but when you die you lose your spirit. Do Rangers use their spirit for their abilities (besides Befriend which I doubt any Ranger uses aside from giggles) and do they lose their spirit when they fall? Since we're on the verge of falling whenever we use the Bloodblade being penalized for falling and having to go to such lengths to get our spirit back (collect blood from beasts we dispatch/kill/vanquish or get healed to full and then bleed to red) seems rather unfun.

Right now, it looks like there's no reason to train with any of the Bloodmagic trainers. I'm going to finish out my training with Swengus and probably get a bit more Histia (350 message) and then 50 Crato (for when I learn a Bloodmage skill eventually) and put ranks into the Bloodblade itself. At least if I find I don't need or want the bloodblade ranks I can unlearn them and put them into something else.

I'm a bit disappointed. I figured I'd use my regular fighter ranks for the majority of any hunt  but if something needed to die I could use my Bloodblade and quickly kill stuff. Yet the more hunts I'm on the more I think that Rangers can do all of that without needing excessively large amounts of training in the Gossamer and without being in danger of falling since they don't need to be at red health.

And there's so many things that can easily kill a person on red even if they have perfect reflexes and an eye for danger. Multiple feraling beasts is the biggest danger since you can't tell who they'll attack and so your only recourse is to stay away from them which is difficult but also hard to do if you want to get up close and hit them. Then there are beasts who target exiles on low health, webs, fire, lightning, and more that you can't dodge no matter what.

In other words it seems like the Rangers got all of the offensive power without any of the weaknesses that Bloodmages have and Rangers can morph into beasts for even more bonuses while we have debuffs of dubious use and short duration, an aoe that is extremely difficult to use, and a dot which does good damage but is only effective on beasts that don't die in a few seconds. Besides, if you really need something to die fast you'd probably just want Bloodblade ranks for the most damage in one swing.

So I guess my training is going to be:
Swengus: 1000 message
Histia: 350
Crato: 50 (for future use)
Bloodblade: 200 message

Then I'll decide whether to get further Bloodmage training depending on whether I can find a regular hunting party and can tailor my training to the areas I frequent and what the party needs.

It's a little depressing to be honest. I thought I'd be more excited about being a Bloodmage and more eager to train in the new abilities rather than training more with regular fighter trainers.

I know that in my last entry I said I wasn't going to update the journal to include the pictures I took, but I decided that I couldn't just leave them broken like that. So I went through every entry and put back the pictures. I also cleaned some of the entries up a bit so they're easier to read.

I also moved all of the pictures to one gallery and while I might go through and organize them (Bawkmas pictures into their own gallery as an example), right now it's easier to just put them all into one pile.

I updated my ranks on the PSA Rank Tracker and included those links on the sidebar to the right. Many of the numbers I include are based on the messages so I don't know precisely how many times I've trained with each trainer.

Right now Jeanne is training with Unrastin (the Bloodmage ring trainer) and Moon Kitty is training with Radium (the Asklepian radius healing trainer). Neither will help with passing the next circle test but I'm not concerned about doing that at this time.

I think Jeanne needs more practice in controlling the mobs and getting them properly trapped and probably is killing them in the wrong order. Aside from getting some more Swengus to improve defense and perhaps get a third swing, I think her training is adequate to pass.

Moon Kitty has a tougher time of it because so much of her training are in areas that can't be used in the test. Her 300 Proximus and 500 Horus do absolutely nothing and if those ranks were put in Sprite and Respia she would have passed ages ago. On the other hand, being able to cad everyone within eyesight and help raise exiles who thought they had to depart is worth much more than passing a test so I can get a new color shirt. I do intend to resume my Sprite and Respia and Horus training after I become proficient with Radium and eventually I will pass the test but it is not a priority. I think people appreciate my healing style now no matter what circle I'm in. That's the most important thing for a healer.

Now that I've finally finished fixing everything, I can post actual journal entries.