Anyone mind going Luxon and joining alliance with
Zealots of Shiverpeak (ZoS)?

Comments?

KoP

That's right, folks, Adventure Seven opens today. Have fun!

Gah, finally went and pretend to make a pvp character, on live, to see which runes I am missing.

Seems a lot missing unlocks from the list, but more unlocked than I thought. So the rune farming begins. I have unlocked 5 sups just last night (including a sup Abs )

Here's a list of what I am missing, so if any can spare some ID'ing this way, or need some....



Sup Vigor (Unlocked)

Major Prot (Unlocked)
Sup Heal (Unlocked)
Sup Smiting
Sup Divine

Sup Fast Cast (Unlocked)
Sup Domi (Unlocked)
Sup Inspiration

Major Soul Reaping (Unlocked)
Sup Curse (Unlocked)

Major Earth (Unlocked)
Sup EStorage (Unlocked)
Sup Fire

Major Tactics (Unlocked)
Major Sword
Sup Tactics (Unlocked)
Sup Axe
Sup Hammer

Major Expertise (Unlocked)
Sup Wild (Unlocked)
Sup Beast
Sup Marks


KoP

I'm a little confused right now. I was playing as the aztecs and was fairly far ahead of everyone in score. I decided to have a little fun and declared on Huayna. I didn't really have much of an offensive military, but I did send two jags to go pillage his closest cities. I noticed that he only had one longbow in his border city. After a couple of turns he moved the longbow out and replaced with a axemen. Then the next turn he moved the axemen out as well leaving the city unguarded. This was not just a size one city either, it was a size 8 city that I had been considering capturing before. In fact he had a size one city right next to mine that was guarded by two knights. Huayna was also probably slightly ahead of me militarly at the time, which makes it even more confusing. Will someone please tell me whats going on here?

Hi guys,

As many of you know, I've been doing Tae Kwon Do for a couple of years. Well, today is the day for the Black Belt test. 5:00 pm, to be exact. Yikes! My stomach is doing backflips...

I wish you could all be there.

Hi guys, it's me again. As you may have guessed, I (we) have been throwing the idea around of getting some new blood into the guild and also re-vitalising the members that are already here. As a first step towards that, I made up a quick survey to see where peoples' interests lie. If you can fill this out and get it back to me either via reply or PM by next Friday (May 8), I would really appreciate it.

(Please note that making up surveys is not one of my strong points)

General Information:
What time zone are you in? (Please give your relation to GMT)

How many hours per week do you play the game?

Do you plan to increase/decrease that amount during the next few months?

Would you be willing to commit to a regularly scheduled playing time (i.e. every Tuesday from 9-11:30 PM EST (GMT-5)), if it fit in with your schedule?

Please list any regular playing times you find yourself playing the game (i.e. 9-midnight on weekends).

---
In-Game related:
What roles are you comfortable with (i.e. tank, monk, shutdown)?

Are you interested in PvP?

If so, does this interest extend to wanting to be competative on the Guild Wars ladder or something similar, such as attempting to hold the Hall of Heroes or claiming a town in Factions?

Do you feel you have the necessary skills and items unlocked in order to be a contributing member to a team?

If not, would you like help from the guild to become so? (This would be either by guild members travelling with you or by providing you with the information to do so.)

Are there any PvE goals you would like to accomplish?

Are there any build/variant ideas or suggestions you would like to share with the community?

---
Other:
Would you be interested in receiving a newsletter about the various activities of the guild?

Are you willing to take time to spend with other players in order to involve them with the guild?

What direction would you like to see the guild go in? (i.e. more focused on PvP, more variants)

Would you be interested in being a mission/team leader for the various guild activities?

Would you be willing to write an after-action report for guild activities (primarily for PvP, but can be useful for other types of play) on occasion?

Is there anything else not covered in this survey that you feel needs to be discussed?

Oh yeah, baby. Oooooh yeah.

</brag>

The Guild Hall has been upgraded! It now boasts the option to have various merchant services that, up until now, have been available only in major cities (LA, Drok's, etc.). The options are (prices listed in platinum costs:
Xunlai Agent - 10
Dye Trader - 50
Crafting Material Trader - 100
Rare Crafting Material Trader - 100
Rune Trader - 25
Scroll Trader - 50
Skill Trainer - 100
Priest of Balthazar - 10
Merchant - 25
Weaponsmith - 10
Canthan Ambassador - 10
Guild Emblemer - 10
Festival Hat Keeper - 10

The ones listed in bold are the ones that have been purchased. All we're missing now are the Material Trader and the Scroll Trader.

[Edited to reflect the options we've opened up.]

Another option added is the scrimmage battle, where we can fight each other for practice. Doing this every now and then could really be fun.

I still can't connect to the server

I hadn't done one of my Tomb runs with Somewhat Zen in a while and somehow guild chatter from Fox Bat got my interest renewed again. Only this time I was determined to try and get through instead of merely farming the first area or two.

The Build



Basically going back to the same old archer/healer build I've been using since the early days, this one differs in that I'm using Distracting Shot where I would often place Storm Chaser in the past.

1.) Distracting Shot. This skill had a workout mostly against Wurm Seige and Meteor Shower. Primarily Meteor Shower needs to be stopped. Missing the interrupt can lead to significant DP attrition as the henchies stand and get wiped.
2.) Whirling Defence. Grasps occasionally come through and being able to hold them off for a few seconds helps imensely.
3.) Barrage. Damage dealer when not healing.
4.) Healing Seed. As an enchantment it seldom makes a combat appearance, but once the Scythe of Chaos and Dream Rider class monsters are taken care of Seed can prove useful. It's especially handy to plant on whoever's tanking when a 4-pack of Grasps without caster support start wailing away on the group.
5.) Healing Breeze. Another enchantment rarely used. The points might have been better elsewhere, but again, once the Mesmer type enemies are down it becomes a handy addition, particularly when henchies are spamming big heals and starting to tangle with player heals.
6.) Heal Other. Slow, but economical healing for the big hits the henchies take on the way to the Hall of Heroes.
7.) Rebirth. Bread and butter resurrection for this area.
8.) Heal Party. Frequently used, incredibly useful. Between Meteor showers, Cryof Frustration, Energy Surge, Wurm Seige, multiple Empathies, this is indispensible.

Attributes
Healing 12 + 2
Marksmanship 12
and the remainder in Divine.

I usually only run Healing to 11, but in this case the Heal Party spamming makes it important, while Divine Favour is simply not eficient enough with the skills I'm using to worry about.

Henchies
Healer
Healer
Fighter
Archer
Archer
Mage
Mage

Only one frontline unit. I chose that to reduce the problem of kamikaze runs that wind up dragging Zaishen Healers into suicidal rezzing tactics. Picking up one warrior with Rebirth is much easier than having to fluff around with two that are out of reach and the extra Mage is generally left in a better position if she dies than the warriors are.

The Game

Underworld is fairly conventional. Target the Scythes first before the Grasps. Target the Dryda's first before the Dream Riders. Trip the spell casters into dropping CoF or Energy Surge on you while standing just behind Acolyte Chigo to add a decoy and save the henchman DP for later.

Scarred Earth gets interesting with the addition of the Chaos Wurms. Early on after the Tombs update I found that it was easy to drag them under the bridges where they don't fit, pop out the top instead and you can pull them apart by just hacking at the tips of their tails poking down through the bridge. The two Mages screw that trick though. Their DoT attacks send the Wurms scurrying, but ultimately there's enough damage output to over come the Wurms on their brief appearances anyway.

The Drydas up on the ledges are tricky, but played carefully these aren't too big a problem with only the one Fighter trying to reach them. Stripping away the two on the right first clears half the problem, then there's a safe zone with which to strike at the Grasp patrol behind them, although sticking to the cliff edge is important to avoid waking the nearby Wurm.

Striking at the left side triggers the Fighter to run around and this can be used to lure the Dream Rider/Dryda patrol into a fight outside the entryway out of range of the Dryda pair up top. Once the two sides are clear it's plain sailing.

The Courtyard and Hall of Heroes are also fairly conventional although one has to be extra cautious of popups and patrols. Entering the long passage in HoH was easier than expected since the huge mob just split up into several small packs when lured out onto the bridge. The other end was a tricky problem since I had to bow pull with seven groupies, but once back back down the tunnel with Grasps in tow it became a whole lot easier.

Just after that I bagged my second Ecto.

But that's not all!



Anyway, the Darkness were easy. Well coordinited henchmen only slipped up in that the patrol woke up and chased us back to the bridge, but I had Victo's Bulwark scooped up well before then 30 seconds is plenty of time to sort out any further drops anyway.