log d.

Thursday, 11 November 2010

PVP team changes

After my (failed) exploration to use wizard for PVP, I didn't have to look far to go for the popular Catherine Torsche. Since I sold my Catherine Torsche card the day she came out, I had to buy a fresh card, but the price has considerably gone down and it wasn't very painful to the pocket.

The first issue was armor. I had a friend who was selling +5 ELB fighter def+2dr 1s for a very cheap price (as cheap as a +0 crap stat), so I quickly grabbed the armor. After some painful chipping, the armor replaced def+2DR many times until it got 3DR (only). I was kind of disappointed and wanted to rechip but I had other things to spend my resources, so I settled. I succeeded on the first try and only took 4 Socket Tranquilisers to open the 2nd and 3rd sockets. I had made some great spodumenes myself and have been saving them for such an occassion. Catherine's armor was good to go (and she wasnt even in barracks yet). I then upgraded her armor at a much later time to 15evasion 18mspd 3DR. She can now reach 67 evasion without using Assassin Boots.

The next item was a 2nd dagger. My old (but dependable) dagger was passed down to Catherine. The money I got from selling my forest whisper allowed me to acquire a +7 Black Dagger 3S and I used what I packs I have and aimed for pvp stats. I had to stop at 30atk / 60Human since I was left with 4 level 100 chips and 4 Enchantment Tranquilisers. (I sold alot of my excess level 100 chips earlier that day to a friend so that I can buy more enchantment tranquilizers. He chipped 3x atk 9x Human on his +7 Black Dagger with my lucky chips. I felt happy and sad at he same time ~~and slammed my face on my desk~~).

Accessories were set since I can recylce my earring, necklace, belt, boots and gloves. It took me quite some time to train her to master 10 100% to maximize the power of her summons.

Torsche Lloyds are powerful at level 130.

I teamed Torsche up with Romina-Flintlock and Scout for a few reasons. One is that I've been told that this mcc3 performed well in kGE Cross Server PVP, another is that a friend of mine also uses (or intends to use) this team.. I beat him to it.

I easily saw why this team can function well. Romina and Scout have high HP and very sturdy. Both has resuscitation which is vital. Catherine's Death Stunt can hit flying / evading / blocking opponents. The best reason is that these three can stack:

With HP and SP draining, a slowed down opponent with reduced AR/DR/Def will quickly go down.

Rosalia gets bullied

I still have a lot of room for improvement in using these 3 characters together. Equipment plays a big role in PVP, but skill and quick reaction speed will definitely aid in bringing down opponents that are stronger than me.

sGE Renaissance : Raid Galore

With the recent update of sGE to v5.0 aka the Renaissance, new content has been added including Castilla and Bounty Hunter Raids. These raids can be done anytime and have decent returns if you are able to complete them. The roulette system is applied to Castilla and Bounty Hunter Raids, which makes it ok to raid within a large group.

Bounty Hunter Raids can be repeated several times by doing them in the correct order and paying the npc silver bars. My group of 4 usually does veteran and above BHG raids, and we do them in this sequence:

Chaos Requiem
Bahama (pay npc to be able to redo Chaos Requiem)
Skullic (pay npc to be able to redo Bahama)
2nd Chaos Requiem
2nd Bahama (pay npc to be able to redo Chaos Requiem)
3rd Chaos Requiem

Aside from 12 roulette chances, clearing mobs if time permits enables us to get even more veteran tokens from Jack Spade (the npc inside BHG, dont miss him!). As for now, the only good thing I buy from him are Basement Treasure Box Keys for Torsche Mansion Raid Roulette and Tough Leathers for crafting. Skullic level is 100 to expert 1, Bahama is expert 1 to master 1 and Chaos Requiem is master 1 to master 10. If you plan your teams and training correctly, you can use the same characters for Skullic and Bahama (expert 1) or for Bahama and Chaos Requiem (master 1).

Loots worth mentioning from Chaos Requiem are 32AR items, Elite 96 Armor and Weapon items, Cut-grade Necklaces, Gold/Silver Earrings and Artisan-grade Recipes. Bahama also drops Elite 96 weapons (armor unconfirmed) and Refined Room of the Dead Key from Skullic. ASO boxes, tokens, reputation cards (medal of honour), veteran boots/gloves and level 100 items are common drops from all three.

Castilla Raids is the expansion of the storyline (i think, i dont really read much of it). Castilla can be accessed from the Ticket Seller at Port of Coimbra (where tickets to Bahia and Ustiur are bought). Castilla Mine is free to enter daily. After finishing Castilla Mine, you'll need a few Ancient Relic Piece, Ancient Relics, Ancient Gold Relic Piece and Ancient Gold Relic to progress further.

Medals can be acquired through completion of quests such as killing the bosses, however getting the "quest kill" is not 100%. I myself took 6 tries to complete the first quest and gain my Chaos Steel Ararat Medal. Medals dont really do much (as far as i know) so theyre just for bragging rights / sense of completion. It's possible to power through these quests and finish them quickly but as I see no need to do so, I'm taking my time and only doing Castilla Mine daily if time permits.

Medals are used for...?

Since I've only done Castilla Relic once and not even stepped into Castilla Temple, I'm unable to share possible loots from those raids. So far, Castilla Mine is confirmed to drop DHr, but other than that nothing really amazing.

My personal recommendation for efficient Castilla Raids are musketeers + 1 tanking family/character, preferably with provoke. Squad buffers like Rio, Grace and Elementalists are also welcome if you feel your group lacks strength in weapons. For the more powerful and eager raiders, castilla mine is soloable with 2 musks and a scout or STW equipped with good armors and racial weapons.

Monday, 8 November 2010

Little Alexandra, the Wizard

When I first started the game, I made one of each stock character and played around until about level 50 to see which ones I would like best. Fighter and Scout were easy choices. Musk was easy to use and Elementalist was good at nuking, but I really didn't feel any calling to use the Wizard. So I deleted him.

After about a year of playing I decided to try play a wizard again, this time for low level ST only, to serve as a another trial as a wiz user as well as training ground for my (lack of) wiz skills. Debuffing was quite fun, making the opponent helpless as you stack debuff upon debuff getting ready to make the kill. Turn invisible for a quick escape and watch how the confused enemy tries to look for you.

Little Alexandra for Lowbie ST

I decided to push my wiz to my main pvp team. Luckily, an ELB Wiz was available for her, as well as a very good Forest Whisper. I used the wiz for several raids including Argus and Ice Wizard Tower, but had very little chance to user her in PVP. I went to PY/ST a few times to practice using a Wiz - Scout - Nar team, but it wasn't fruitful as most people who go there now are only for Hero Seals / farm sunstones and not for PK.

Little Alexandra all grown up

Darkness stance is quite powerful, which skills at level 10 having a 90% chance to connect. Deep Sleep is enough to stop anyone in their tracks, ready for a deadly skill from Nar. At this point I considered having Nar go ahead (since he is really really thick) to lure enemies to debuff them easily. Or I can also put the wiz ahead and debuff 1st, and let Nar finish the rest. Deep Sleep -> Whole Cancellation -> Improved Disease -> Curse -> Nar power = kill.. in my head at least. But it only worked that way for about 2x. Players are dynamic and dont always behave the same way. A good wiz user SHOULD be able to handle all threats with all her various debuffs but alas, I am nowhere near decent with the wiz.

I sold off my Forest Whisper and kept my armor since I can still use the wizard for raids. I went back to my Romina - STW - Nar team for PVP.. but I was still looking for a change in PVP lineup.

Instanced Mission : Arsene Secret Vault Revisited

Refer here for previous article.

A minor change to this raid is that the final boss (Celine) now drops the following in addition to the usual Magical Amethyst, Liquefied Gas and Piece of Trump Card:

Ancient Star Orb Box x3
Ringmaster Arsene's Secret Key (for the regular Arsene Raid)
Level 100 item

The ASO box drops in many instanced raids including Torsche Mansion and Bounty Hunters. This helps cover some expense considering the huge amounts of ASO needed for expert stances.

Instanced Mission : Dr. Torsche Mansion Basement Revisited

Refer here for previous article.

With the update of sGE to v5.0, some changes have been made to this mission.

Torsche Liberation Buff now lasts for 3 minutes instead of 1. - This greatly reduces the amount of Otite Pieces used as well as decreasing the difficulty of the whole raid.
There are now 2 Victors instead of 3.
The last room now has a roulette chest, which needs a key that can be bought from bounty hunter guild shop using 3 veteran tokens

Despite the reduction of vet chips, pure gold bars and reputation cards, the roulette chest at the end increases the potential loots from this raid. Possible loots include: