Blew One, Enhanced another

So...NCSoft, we all know how they giveth and they taketh away.

I've been grinding the two quests by FG and Devastated Castle now for a few weeks and finally managed to get enough mats and the rec to craft an a grade accessory. I was about to craft my first Majestic Earring. 70% rec, and POOFTIE! ZIP ZILCH NADA BUPKIS! oh well...what a pain.


So, I decided that I was just going to quit. Lemme blow my duals and be done with it, and what do you know....they made it to +11!! This completely made up for failing my 70% craft- woohoo!!! A new personal record for me. I know it's only a matter of time before they blow.

Smoke and Mirrors

I just wanted to take a moment off to comment about how beautiful the game is. I can't even image how many weeks or months went into having an art department working so close with a programming staff to pull this game off. I just love the way the lighting effects are rendered in the game in realtime. Below is a pic of one of the new mobs in Goddard Region which uses SS, you can see the shot charging on its weapon. Also note the lighting on the frontside of the mob, which is being caused by an impending hit or, the declination of the previous hit from our party. It's just amazing.

Here's just a small shot of me and telly over the dead mob. Very shallow DOF, crappy bokeh. My guess would be photographer took this one at 1/60 or slower at about f/4 or so with a cheapie lens.

And lastly, I had a little fun with the letter event. Too bad S's are so hard to come by or else I could've finished it properly!

Dark Elf Fashion Show

Recently we've been having some chatter on our alliance forums about who's the sexiest.

After looking a female Dark Elves, I don't know how anyone could even question it!

Here's Aleena in two of my favorite A grade outfits, Tallum Robes [you can see marthax in the back pacing eagerly in my Tallum Plate- can't blame him though...it looks like ass on DE males!], and Majestic Light [Thanks BloodPledge!].




This is just a photo for no particular reason taken after a rift party.

OMFG WTF H4X!

Been a mixed bag of a week to say the least. We're kind of at war with Stormbringers now over a pricing error on an item. An untagged toon named larson has been pk'ing our members out at FG lately, we've been having teams hunting Stormbringers people randomly as well.

Dusk Wins! Wow, there's a rarity. Thor seems to have done a ton of festivals and Dusk for the second time in my memory has control of the necros and catacombs.




In other news, I've maded level 66 this week. I also managed to bring my TSU*SLS back up to +10. I think I'm done enchanting now, 10 seems to be my limit before I blow things up. But it's a great place to be...with the +10s and the new dual sword masteries, this brings my buffed p.atk up over 1000!! woohoo! finally managed to break the ceiling!



It's been a pretty profitable week also. I spent some time in the rift, and at the level 70+ rifts with a bounty hunter you can spoil EWA Scrolls, which sell for 6-8m each. So when they went to bid at the end, each party member ended up making about 2m on this run. With the adena I ended up buying some additional letters for the L2day event. No ring of the ant queen, but I did get ALOT of scrolls. A few BSOE's and BREZ's, as well as the standard might/shield/emp/ww/focus/guidance/acu ones.

One night in Giran I also managed to see SEVEN (7) +16 or better weapons. The red glow was unmistakable. One dwarf had 3 of them, she was selling two and one was wielded, one c grade, and one d grade as well as the duals she had on her. I saw PlutoVII with his +16 homu again, another dwarf with shop using his red and two other random people just running around Giran with +16. I don't even see them in the field that often let alone seeing 7 of them within an hour.

[this image is a composite of two images...just displays better this way]

More overenchanting

Welp, I did it again. I've been addicted to OE'ing still. I can't bring myself to bring my own duals past +9, however I did pick up another pair of b duals cheap that I brought up to +7 which is pretty cool I suppose.

WOOHOO!! The event is starting soon...I hope I can get one of those rings of the ant queen or earring of orfen...that would be SOOOOO amazing.

Weekend Recap

Wow it's been a pretty decent weekend,

• I overenchanted my duals to +9 this weekend MUCH against my better judgement, but I swear those EW-B's are worse than crack. I get within a few minutes of Giran and I just get the itch. Tried a new one this time, stood outside of Witch and OE'ed it in the middle of an SOE for kicks.
  
• Crafted a Doom helmet this weekend, I had a rec for a 60% craft of it and I had helm designs from spending all that time in DVC lately or FG [dont know which]- and it actually succeeded! woohoo! I have a doom helm. [I was SURE that the craft would fail, but at least that would free up the space in my WH]
  
• I made level 65 during reagent quest on the 11th floor of ToI [have an ok screenshot of me standing over the dead angel that gave it to me]
  

• I've kind of been on the "give bots a chance" kick lately. I've learned from hunting in Witches alot that some bots will surrender a room to you if you manage to figure out who the leader is and PM them. I've been fairly successful with this the last few weeks [not ALL the time, mind you, but more than I would expect]
  
• Erpiel lost his duals to some bots in Apostate when he died, but the bots DID return his duals. So, as much as it's become a national sport in Aden to train a bot, they're not ALL bad.
  
• I almost died in ToI 9 this weekend...half party got ganked cuz someone lagged and accidentally pulled a train of tribesmen and angels [asshat]. I ran down and managed to shake all the mobs except one, end even with UD he almost killed me...one of the archers made it out and help bail me out at the last minute.
  
• The recipe quest is excellent. Once you guys hit lvl 63, you HAVE to get it. It only takes a little more than an hour to finish from start to end. It's a solo/last hit quest so...unfortunately buffers and healers can't really do it, but all melee characters should be able to do it with ease. Go to buffer hill, buy 20 minutes of buffs from whoever's selling and just go at it! The drop rate is fairly high, you can get this quest from the head magister in the dark elf guild in Aden.
  
• The accompanying quest at lvl 60 for a grade mats is kinda fun too, it's all the way up at Devastated Castle though and you're not always assured there'll be anyone selling buffs there. However, I think this is a group quest so quest items will drop in party inventory. You can get this quest from the High Priest in Aden.
  
• Partied with the new SK a bit, Shi. OMG. Have you ever seen an SK pole before? This is a first to me. The lvl 69 SK came bounding up to Witch with a pole that had some uber-glow to it. A +13 Lance. scary. [Shi is a character based on a popular comic book by William Tucci - I have a #1 authenticated and autographed from Bulletproof Comics in Brooklyn when I lived there - those of you that follow Shi, there's also a Tomoe in the game too]

Welp, I guess I've been TOO lucky this weekend so something catastrophic is bound to happen to me this coming week. w00t for catastrophes!

The addiction of OverEnchanting

Overenchanting is SOOO addicting in this game. The allure of quest of the glowing red weapons is much like the cliche quest of the moth for the flame. Here's a piece of history on my first major success in OE-land:

a first try



can't stop now



one of the last times I saw my +10's