Wednesday (23 May) - Riding out the String

Wednesday (23 May) - Riding out the String

Wildshard and JB have been taking it easy for a number of days now and are pretty much ok about that. Happy was running our of herb bags, though, and on Tuesday managed to rouse JB long enough for her to gather up some mats and send them over to Wild. Wild waited until after his siesta to check in. While in game he checked on the status of guild raiding. There were few guildies about, none of whom were in any of the guild raids. Wild learned a few things just poking around on the raid calendar, though. By the way, Wild never did get any responses to his guild website post letting folks know Wild's non-raiding status.

All three of the guild raids remain active, but there have been some changes. The weekend G3 continues to refer to themselves as "still forming" but Sb is determined to make it work. Wild helped out a couple of times before his temporary retirement, but we spent almost as much time trying to fill the raid as we did on bosses. The G1 appears to have lost their raid leader. Can't tell if the change is temporary or permanent, but the RG2 raid leader, Bd, is leading the G1 raid this week. G1 is apparently undergoing some rebuilding as well. Lady Hunter is running RG2 this week. None of the raids have more than a handful signed up.

JB participated in her last guild raid on 14-15 April with G3. Wild's last guild raid was on 18 April with RG2. It was on 10 May that Wild officially informed the guild that Wild was "greatly reducing" his WoW time and would not be actively raiding.

In the opening sentence I mentioned a "number of days" away from raiding. The actual count for Wild is now 34 days. And counting . . .

As for BW, he has reached level 30 and killed the spider woman and Azmodan. There are some interesting developments at that stage, but I won't spill the beans. Jewel crafting may actually be a useful thing to train up in. For example, the skill can be used to craft Flawless type gems. One such gem, socketed in a weapon, adds 20-30 damage. BW ratcheted up his rare one-hand from 39 to 44 damage and I don't even have a flawless gem yet. Sockets are the way to go, and lower end gems are used by the jewel crafter to make higher end gems.

Barbedwire Update: BW has pushed forward to level 32 and has cleared Act IV. Well, almost. Everything is done except for that last task. Silver knows what that is, as I saw that her toon has reached at least level 50 (level 60 being the max level). BW failed in two attempts to finish Act IV. I could have kept throwing BW into the ring and eventually the odds would grant me a win, but I decided instead to do a little farming and try to earn some additional gear to make the fight a little less dependant on health pots. I've been using a heavy +strength build for faster killing, but I felt it was time to start upping BW's health for the tougher battles to come. BW was already starting to die more than I wanted, so it was probably past time to change up the stats. Those mobs with the big, thunderous slams were taking big chunks out of BW, and he was having trouble living through stuns/freezes that have been more and more of a problem.

I've also decided to give the Enchantress follower a chance to prove herself. I thought I would have to level her up, like I did Templar, but apparently they level up even when they aren't played. I wish I had noticed that. Anyone playing Diablo should upgrade the gear of all three followers as you advance. I was only interested in the templar, and let a lot of gear go by that the other followers could have been using.

That hurt the Enchantress. I didn't keep any of the staffs that dropped, so "Tress" (BW's name for her) will be weak in that area until one drops for her. The reason for trying her out is that she has some interesting group attack and defense skills that could be helpful. BW needs extra help staying alive. Her much lower armor, though, could mean she'll die a lot more, which of course won't help BW. We'll see.

Update #2: BW took Tress out for spin, redoing some of the dungeons that lead up to the final battle of act IV. Tress did well. I like the abilities she adds. The only problem is that she often Fears mobs that BW is actively trying to kill, forcing BW to change targets or, more often, chase down that fleeing elite I almost had killed.

Frankly, banging through old dungeons was a lot of work with not much gain. BW made it to level 33 and almost halfway to 34. The gear drops have gotten really pathetic, though. Not a single rare dropped, and three out of every four drop were useless gear for witch doctors, wizards, and monks. I'd like to finish Normal before moving up to a higher difficulty, but maybe BW should go pound in the next higher difficulty level and then drop back to finish normal.

Well, better get this posted or I'll just keeping adding things ...