Zakum Helm

Well - after hitting level 86, I did an impulsive thing and contacted hefferheffer about getting a zakum helm. He gave me a price - which I was a few million short on. I got a short term loan from a guildie and bought it.

The next night, I was in the first run, but lagged out. On the second run, I lagged out again. Blah.

Anyway - hefferheffer went on for me the next night and got the helm for me. I can definitely say that if I were to ever get cash shop items, this might be the time for it - because while flashy - it is rather annoying after a few minutes. I'll consider it later though.

Anyway - the stats are pretty average - an extra LUK, 3 extra Wdef, but one less Mdef. This puts me at a total of ~500 Wdef and ~300Mdef. At duals - this means I am taking less than 600 per hit (down to as low as ~550). Since I am now broke though, and I need to repay that debt, I am actually training at Kappas again for a bit. Profit there is even bigger than before (they do a whopping 10-18 damage on a bump and I 1-2 hit kill them), so it shouldn't be long before I get enough to go back to duals.

In other news, I've been pretty sick lately, so I haven't bothered playing much poker. As I get better of course, poker will increase and Maple will decrease again. Ebb and flow type of deal I have going here...

That's it for now.

Duals and more duals

Well - I haven't played too much since I last updated. Lately though, I've been capping off my night with 5-15% or so at dual ghost pirates - so I'm slowly making progress.

For the most part though, I've been playing poker to take up my time. I deposited a little back into my Stars account and turned that $100 into just under $900. I'm hoping to let it grow until I am able to make a difference on my monthly bottom line (paying off bills and such) and withdraw the excess each month in that case. Unless I hit a major tournament win though - I'm still quite a way from that goal. For now - my goal is to get to $2000 online and reassess at that point.

In Maple, I've been going back and forth on what I want for my character. On the one hand, getting a zakum helm would make a lot of sense - it would boost my ACC up to around 150 - so I could switch some of my dex-based gear to str-based. It would also boost my weapon and magic defense by a fair amount. I think I'm still a little short on the funds though - so I need to get back into selling items that are sitting around - most namely my old attack glove and my 2 60% scrolls for staff magic attack. With those sold - I think I have enough.

On the other side, is an attack shield. I very nearly dumped half of my funds into a +8 str, +8atk shield with 2 slots left. It was a very good deal - I just couldn't justify it - since I have so many other items that are on high priority too. Since I wouldn't feel comfortable enough to finish scrolling it - I decided it probably wasn't the best idea for now.

Other than that - Darius (lvl15x paladin) convinced me I should be using a katana rather than a khan - and after seeing the difference first hand - I am amazed I didn't notice the difference when I first switched. The katana he gave me is a bit better than my previous one - but still 5atk, 1 str less than my khan - and still gets better DPM.

As of this post, I am level 85 with 77%. I'll probably finish off the current level at duals and try out dual birks with a ice/lightning buddy of mine.

Relatively Recent News

And now for something - slightly - different.

Ok - first off - MapleStory. I'm doing fairly well at just keeping a steady progress. I'm now most of the way to level 82, training mostly at Water Goblins. I have spent some amount of time (~12%) at ghost pirates and some time (~10%) at wolf spiders and determined the exp rate is nice but that the money is still too high to justify - especially with my savings plan... For the most part though - water goblins, at ~8% per hour, is still my steady income and exp place to train. Last night I had to get more potions, so I am contemplating heading down to Cold Cradle for a little while for a change of pace.

I am steadily growing money in order to afford my zakum helm. I am sitting on about 42 mil in pure mesos, with another 6+mil in items being bid on. I probably could get another couple by just NPCing the rest... In other words - progress is steady but not fast enough to get me a helm yet.

In other news, for D&D, I entered the Master DM Competition (#37) and finished 3rd out of 10 entries. Satisfying to place bronze, but I do see a few areas to improve upon. I do like the fact that I placed highest of all the entries in the "Creativity" entry.

Additionally, I'm gearing up a new campaign for table-top. The party so far is a little weak on the front line - but it should be an interesting group. There's a potential for up to 6 players and of the four that I have gotten information from - I am looking at the following:

1. Goblin Bard - this one is almost certain. He's already sent off a quick background for the character and is very well developed already - I certainly like the concept.
2. Elf Sorceress - some possibility for variation here, but most likely elf in any case.
3. Dwarven Necromancer
4. Druid - this player has been tossing Ranger and Sorcerer as other possibilities as well.

The other two players have not confirmed if they are even interested in joining in, and if they aren't - I'll probably look around for 1 or 2 more people to make the group a little more stable (in the case where one player can't make it).

Recent Events

Well - its been a while since I last posted, but it doesn't mean I haven't been playing or just doing other things.

Anyway - my main character is up to level 78, and is only 12% away from 79. I have been training mostly at Water Goblins (Kappas) in the Vanished Village. Training there is very fast for me and very profitable, so I really can't complain.

In terms of drops, I have been well blessed in recent days:

2x 60% scroll for Overall Luk - sold 1 for 3.15mil
4x 10% scroll for Bottomwear Def - keeping
1x 60% scroll for Shoes Speed - sold (not traded yet) for 230k
2x 60% scroll for Wand - sold both for 525k each
1x 60% scroll for Staff - sold (not traded yet) for 1mil

4x shinings (2x 79, 2x 83) - NPCed the lower ones, sold one of the 83's for 250k
1x serpents coil - sold for 800k
1x Gold Crow (78atk) - trying to sell on Basil.

and 4+ blue oriental helms (all NPCed), 4+ white polyfeathers (trying to sell one on basil - but NPCed the others), 2 Green Ice Queen tops (NPCed), 2 Two-handed sword Stimulators and probably more that I'm forgetting.

Other than that - it is more of the same. I've decided I'm going to save for a Zakum helm - and my target is around level 90. I'm doing well enough right now, but most of the creatures I "should" be training on in my 80s will probably result in a money loss - so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to work towards my goal. Right now - I'm sitting on about 24mil and with recent sales and drops - I should be getting close to 30mil.

Tim's reached level 91 with his main and started another character to try out an assassin with a bit of funding (heh - 2 sets of Ilbis he found at Wolf Spiders...). That character is already up to level 47 - but he still has 2x Exp, so there's good reason to be moving along that quickly.

Level 74 and NLC

Been a busy couple of days, so I've just been training when I can and trading what I can.

I managed to finish off Level 73 at Camp 2. Once I did, I decided to head over to New Leaf City. I like some of the new things, but for the most part it isn't that impressive to me. I managed to finish a couple of the quests though, so some progress was made, even if I only managed 5% in a couple of hours.

After that - I returned to Victoria and headed down to the Sanctuary with Tim, hoping to train for a bit on Macis and Spears. We found the rate of exp and spawn was actually quite bad though (we expected it to be suboptimal - we found it atrocious...), so we settled in on Cold Cradle for Ice and Dark Drakes.

That screen has improved with just a couple of levels, and I'm glad I went. Though clearly slower exp than say FoG or even Camp, it is a place that we can both train well together (Camp is much too slow for Tim at level 80 and FoG is busy enough that training together is tough unless we force someone out of a map. Earned probably 12-15% there before Tim was done for a while, so I headed back to Sleepywood to restock and sell Etc items and then down to FoG to see if I could find a spot.

I found a spot pretty quickly and kept it without issue for probably 15 minutes when a low 7x 2-handed sword crusader with a doombringer and a better speed tried to evict me. Let's do the math - he has a faster speed, but a slower weapon. We both kill Mixed and Dark golems in two hits... who gets to kill more?

Me. I got about 75% of the kills on that floor as I was constantly able to kill things faster with my faster weapon. Anyway - I didn't stay much longer even though the guy wouldn't leave himself, I just needed some sleep.

In terms of trades, I've been getting a few done here and there to help keep funds coming in and funds going out. Nothing really notable lately, though I did start scrolling my Goblin Cape - it is up to +7 str with 3 slots left. I've also been picking up reasonably priced 30% cape str scrolls to try to improve on the goblin later.

A buddy of mine sold me a bronze kalkan for level 90, plus I'm bidding on some more Kahns and watching the prices on accuracy boots. I'm planning on heading to Ghost Pirates around level 80, but with a little more accuracy, I might be able to manage as early as level 78-79. I'm a little concerned about being able to consistently knock them back, but we'll worry about that when I get there.

In other news, MegaMek has just entered the test phase for the new cycle. This means I might head over there every once in a while to help them test - taking away some time from Maple Story. With Tim already 6 levels ahead of me and with a double exp card to boot, he's entering the "sweet spot" for crusaders, so I pretty much have no hope of catching up to him to train with - leaving me the option to train solo or to find a few more people in game to train with who are not morons...

I'll probably just play Mega Mek again though. There's nothing like blowing up some oversized robots in a strategy war game...

Well - that's enough for now.