The Gaming Den

Those [EDITED].

But what is a katana then?

ckafrica: you have to refight a lot of the same things, although admittedly in bigger groups. Like, the Ash Zombies, they attack you in swarms of 8-10. And the giants, to their credit, are giant. Probably Gargantuan in D&D terms. The dragons are pretty massive, too. And it feels cool when you're fighting Devils, running about and smashing Erinyes and Legion Devils and the 20' tall shock trooper devils that look a bit like red Cornugons.

Character development is... at level 4-5 you've finished the tutorial and are a real character. After this you get to choose things, but you have 2 At Wills, an Encounter Power, a Dodge thing, and a Daily Power. All at rank 1. Every level, you get to rank a power up (they go from 1 to 3). Various "Class Features" (such as "Your healing is more effective") also need to be bought and ranked up in this way. Every 5 levels, you unlock a couple of new powers, and though you can only buy one at a time, you can still get the others later on.

You can only actually "prepare" for use: 2 Daily, Dodge, 3 Encounter, 2 At Will. Oh and 1 Artefact Power (when you equip one). So you'll end up with a bunch of powers you keep in storage. It's rather 4Ed in that respect.

And starting at level 10, you get feats, which are all ranked from 0-5 and come in tiers (once you've scattered 5 points in a tier, between the 3 options, you get the next tier). Feats are mostly bonuses on stuff, but some of them are "X now procs Y effect".

Also starting at level 10, you unlock your "special ability" that changes how you do things. So as a Cleric you can build up divine energy by hitting things, then enter Divine Mode to boost your Encounter Powers, constantly drain HP or heal allies (and yourself). Rogues get Stealth Mode etc.

So when I run into a group of enemies, it looks like this:
1. Go to maximum range and lay down the AoE trap card. This smacks all of them and binds them in place.
2. Dash into range and use the AoE Sun Blast. This hurts all of them and heals me.
3. If available, use the AoE Artefact Power.
4. If they're not dead, activate Divine Mode and start HP-draining while running about to avoid injury.
5. If they're not dead when Divine Mode ends, use the AoE attacks again.
Sometimes if my Daily is ready I lay down the massive AoE Flamestrike somewhere in the mix - after Binding enemies, as it has a delay where they can run away.

If I approach a single tough enemy, it instead is:
1. AoE trap card.
2. Hit them with a DoT effect that also reduces their damage output.
(Back before I decided I need more AoE I also had another Encounter power I'd use here, reducing their defence then hitting them with damage when it ends)
3. Astral Seal (At Will) so my attacks also heal me
4. Other At Will power (current one lowers damage output and does DoT)
5. Use my other Daily, to reduce incoming damage while I hit them hard
6. Divine mode, run about like a moron while draining HP

And for bosses, which summon minions, you get to do both at once!

Oh, and constantly chug potions.

Yeah, that's the thing. Beyond bastard being an actual word with a non-profane definition, it's not even profane, just rude, akin to calling someone a jerk. And beyond that, there's an actual D&D piece of equipment called a "Bastard Sword."

Anyway- I'm trying out a control wizard. It is very much 4e, but it's an MMO, which is what 4e wanted to be, so that's not even an issue, so far as I'm concerned. The mechanics work, and there's even some stuff that could be stolen for tabletop, like the fact that rogues have an explicitly non-mundane shadow step type ability. I don't know if fighters get something explicitly magical, but it would be nice.

I really regret not doing the Yuyushiki thing for my character.
Student: What do you name your characters?
Teacher: Eh? Oh I just use my own na-
Student: -ked boobs

Maybe if they add a class that actually has Charisma primary, I'll make a Tiefling one of them called Nakedboobs.

Prak, hurry up and get to level 60. Cleric is a shitty class for solo play, I am not getting anywhere and need someone else to deal with groups while I kill bosses.

Edit: at first I didn't know whether Clerics sucked in this because of MMOs or because of 4th Edition. Then I remembered that's the same thing.

I'm still waiting to get my first companion. Rogue and Wizard both have some trouble dealing with large groups of enemies (of course single enemies are laughably easy, even small groups are kind of pathetic). I've been playing more. How much point is there in following the story quests as opposed to just playing in Foundry quests? Because going through the same quest twice just because I'm working on two characters kind of blows.

Story quests give you more XP and money (from actual Quest rewards) as well as items that are actually useful to your class... but half the time you already have better gear from random drops. Foundry quests are more fun and give you astral diamonds (via Rhix Daily Foundry).

Skirmishes (and Dungeoncrawls I guess, except for them taking so fucking long) are also good for XP and Astral Diamonds (Rhix), and you even get XP (and Rhix' Astral Diamonds) for PvP (but no actual gear).

Also, what? Wizards are like the best AoE class after level 10 or so.

Maybe I'm playing the wizard wrong. The main problem is that, at least with how I've spec'ed, I rely on Conduit of Ice and Ray of Frost, but that tends to leave a number of enemies un-dealt with as even with Spell Mastery CoI only spreads so far. I tend to not use Ice Storm (my daily) unless I really need to clear out a large number of enemies quickly. Maybe I shouldn't be so sparing with it.

Edit: well that was a quickly tested hypothesis. Yeah, I should really be using my daily to soften up targets and hitting them with CoI and Entangling Force and Chill Strike and just using Ray of Frost in between which nicely refills my action points...

Yeah, they're really not "Daily". I quickly learned that you should use them heaps, and just recharge. Indeed, in the Feywild, half the shits there can drain your AP so you should always unleash a Daily if you have it ready.

And I seem to have just fucked up on the "here's how you enchant" story quest and cannot reset it, only abandon and restart, because the items you need to complete it are given at the end of the previous quest...

I might try it out this weekend. Normally I play paladins, but I see they didn't bother to include them. Would a Guardian Fighter or Cleric be closer?

Both flavours of fighter work pretty well for "tanking" as the kids say these days. That said, I think the Great Weapon Fighter might do more of the smiting thing while Guardian has better defences and shields allies more?

Guardian it is then.

Incidentally, the Daily Domination thing is a quick way to get astral diamonds, but don't take it seriously: it usually takes 1-2 minutes for one team to jump ahead by just 50-60 points and at that point you already know who the winner is.

Is that the PVP thing it wants me to do as a quest? Yeah, I've been ignoring that.

I'm at level 21 now. If I can get four other schmucks players I'd like to do the capstone "kick orc ass in the Tower District" dungeon.

Just queue for it, it'll come up eventually.

And yeah, Domination is... they run a quest for you to see what it is (you just have to talk to the NPC there, you don't have to actually do it to make the notice go away). And each day, Rhix pays you astral diamonds if you do X number of Dominations (starts at 1, but at level 60 it's 4 - note that Foundry and Skirmish also start at 1/day for the rewards but scale up to 4/day, and that's just a pain in the ass. The Dungeons instead just get longer and harder and more annoying).

Generally I make a strong start in Domination, and then if other players drop out or we just suck, then when I die I tab out and do something else while waiting for the enemies to win (occasionally going back in to move a little and not get autokicked). On the other hand, if we get that early lead, I keep going and we all win and yay yay.

The lockboxes are definitely a pain. I have 32, and just unlocked one. A better way to get Zen is to do surveys on the Perfect World site for usually 98 zen a pop. Of course for every ten you attempt about 1 will actually let you do the whole survey, at least in my experience.

I just sell my lockboxes to the vendors now, I don't even pretend that I'm going to unlock them. After putting a small amount of cash in, and generally doing stuff that grants Astral Diamonds, I had bought a bunch of keys, and for ages the unlocks actually provided enough diamonds to fund more. But that well finally dried up - and I got some good stuff out of the deal in the meantime (new mounts and companions, level 60 equippable items, good quality Leadership materials etc.)

For the record, the best equipment (barring lockboxes and Epic events) is found by actual adventuring. Right at the start you might want to spend some copper on replacing "Rusty dagger" with "Sharp dagger", but very quickly you will find better gear on corpses/in chests than you can buy in stores, and unless you craft like crazy and never adventure, I guarantee it's better than anything you can craft.

And late-game you'll have Purple gear and you can't craft that at all. So don't waste your time crafting weapons and armour. For professions, you might want to invest in Alchemy (you can make some dyes, and also produce your own potions, including the temporary stat boosting ones), but you definitely want to mainly go Leadership. For every character ever. Leadership gives you astral diamonds and actual character XP, so it wins.

When I made my second character, I received a "Welcome Back to Neverwinter" package that had a no level req. Purple Orb. It's been better than every other orb I've found adventuring so far.

Yeah, I've been doing leadership and Artificing. I'll probably switch from artificing to alchemy just to get dyes, since that's, so far, the only way to make your shit look different from everyone else.

Because I will always be the pretty princess, I dyed everything with Sune packs. So it's all in shades of pink and purple.

Not sure what I'll do for the wizard and rogue - though admittedly, in their cases, they don't have much gear at the moment and it'll always be getting swapped around, so dye is pointless at the moment. Besides, I unequipped their trousers so that, given the armour basically ends at the waist, they're running about in their undies. Although I love drow as much as the next person, it works better for the moon elf. Not just for the >moon bit, but because creases show up better on pale skin so her ass wobbles nicely.

I just went with a green and purple scheme because that's what I got from my welcome back pack. I'll have to see what's available when I can.

Also, it's nice to know, Koumei, that some of the women I know are bigger perverts than 90% of the men I know.

Downloaded it and have been playing around. Got my fighter to 16. It's using Special Ed rules, but it is still close enough to remind me how much I miss tabletop D&D. What time do you guys play?

I hop on for a few minutes just after waking up (to invoke to deity, start quests, refresh professions), but I actually play... generally starting 4PM. It's something like GMT +10 over here.

Also Prak, do a bunch of Call to Arms battles. Not just for the rare Swashbuckler companion (I got it on second playthrough), but their dye packs are pretty cool.

Soon as their maintenance is done I'll check it out. I wanted to, but then I saw it's skirmish and.... I'm so introverted I shy away from playing computer games with real people I don't know.

But I should check it out, the new companion would be cool. Do you know what token it has for Sword Coast?

edit: I usually play in the evenings (PST).

I kind of want there to be a Gaming Den guild...

Prak_Anima wrote:Do you know what token it has for Sword Coast?

In order: Oghma (Magic/Thievery), Oghma, Lolth (Thievery/Combat), Shar (Perception/Thievery).

I assume you know this, but by rank 30, all companions have 4d12, with:
2 faces of X
2 faces of Y
2 faces of 2X
2 faces of 2Y
2 faces of XY (and yes, that counts for both at once)
2 faces of Critical Hit (choose between all 4 possibilities. If you choose X or Y, it's 2 of them).

If X or Y is combat, multiply the result by 3. So you can roll 6Combat on 1 die.

My Sylph and Honey Badger are at that level where they can handle everything, but the next two are only at 20, which is merely 2d8 - and much like 4E skill challenges, you have to include a full party and you can't skip a turn, contributing failures.