Thursday, January 24, 2008
Perfecting the Ashu Talif
When we started doing regular runs of the Ashu Talif quests I didn't think we would be able to pull off wins with three people. When we did these quests the first time we had no idea what was going on. Even with six people we lost the first two more than once. Going back didn't seem like a very good idea, but Suiram had a plan so it was worth a try. We started with Royal Painter Escort. While challenging after a little bit of practice we were able to pull it off with little difficulty. We were often able to pull it off perfectly with the occasional minor hiccup. Earning three chests was great, but the items that came from them were lackluster. The ??? chests rarely appraised into anything of value and the single yoichi's sash we did receive took forever to sell at a price lower than what we would have liked.
We decided to expand. Scouting the Ashu Talif is the most difficult of the three quests, but also offers the best rewards. The much coveted star sapphire. It makes lots of great items and is extremely rare. A perfect draw for our trio after the depressing results from the yoichi's sash. This one took quite a few tries to win with a win/lose ratio not favouring us. At a certain spot Swiftwinged Gekko would hit us with sleepga, paralyga, bindga, or gravitga followed by lots of fomor or imps jumping on our puller ultimately killing all of us. We could recover, but always needed another sixty seconds or so to finish off the quest. The loses were uninspiring, but we are getting much better.
We decided to add Targetting the Captain to the mix. I had started leveling dancer and decided I wanted the pants from this quest. Nivlakian and Suiram thought it might be fun. Doing Scouting the Ashu Talif and Targeting the Captain would speed up our overall time doing the quests. We use to have to run back Nashmau and activate the second quest then return to the Ashu Talif after completing the first quest. This added a good fifteen minutes or more to our travel time and was pretty annoying. Doing two quests lets us start one quest right after another.
While we haven't perfected our strategy on Targeting the Captain yet we are working towards all three chests from the quest. With me kiting the captain while they kill Bubbly we should be able to pull off three chests in no time. I have no confidence in myself to pull the captain successfully for his chest, so Suiram pulls and I try to hold hate while I kite.
Around the time of realizing I wanted the zereh's from the third quest matron's knife started to look like a great weapon to have for dancer. Killing Gekko seemed impossible for us because we were still having a hard time even completing the first quest. While it would be nice to have I kept to being realistic and not working up my desire for it. But we have been doing better. We have won three or four Scouting quests in a row and this made us wonder if we could do all three quests successfully with the maximum number of chests from each. Targeting the Captain is only a stones throw away, but would we be able to kill Gekko?
We only have five chances of about ten to fifteen seconds each to kill Gekko before it disappears. Would that be enough to kill it? Initial tests showed us a big maybe. Nivlakian was mostly useless. If we are lucky he would be able to get one or two asuran fists on Gekko. It would be up to Suiram and I. There are three easy pulls where Gekko spawns by itself, where if we are all ready and in position before it spawns we can all do a little bit of damage. Two pulls where Nivlakian has to pull and run away to ensure he doesn't die. One of these I have to watch Nivlakian's hp to make sure he doesn't die. This gives me four opportunities to make use of chainspell blizzard III and I can use it three times with the two revitalizers I get. If I am paying attention and remember to put on all of my elemental, int, and magic attack bonus equipment my spells will do around 200-400 damage and I am able to get two to four spells off depending on my positioning. It would seem I have to do the majority of damage because Suiram simply does not have the casting range I have available.
We have made one serious planned attempt so far, but a few minor screwups caused us to miss our prey. We weren't prepared for the second Gekko spawn. We had forgotten to hold the last imp and I was out of range. On the fourth Gekko I should have been standing with Suiram and Nivlakian, but was off to the side hoping that it would give me another cast or two on Gekko. Gekko decided to attack me and quickly moved out of range for Suiram and Nivlakian. I believe these mistakes are the reasons we failed to kill the imp. We brought it down to 9%. Next time we will win. I can almost taste the matron's knife.
We decided to expand. Scouting the Ashu Talif is the most difficult of the three quests, but also offers the best rewards. The much coveted star sapphire. It makes lots of great items and is extremely rare. A perfect draw for our trio after the depressing results from the yoichi's sash. This one took quite a few tries to win with a win/lose ratio not favouring us. At a certain spot Swiftwinged Gekko would hit us with sleepga, paralyga, bindga, or gravitga followed by lots of fomor or imps jumping on our puller ultimately killing all of us. We could recover, but always needed another sixty seconds or so to finish off the quest. The loses were uninspiring, but we are getting much better.
We decided to add Targetting the Captain to the mix. I had started leveling dancer and decided I wanted the pants from this quest. Nivlakian and Suiram thought it might be fun. Doing Scouting the Ashu Talif and Targeting the Captain would speed up our overall time doing the quests. We use to have to run back Nashmau and activate the second quest then return to the Ashu Talif after completing the first quest. This added a good fifteen minutes or more to our travel time and was pretty annoying. Doing two quests lets us start one quest right after another.
While we haven't perfected our strategy on Targeting the Captain yet we are working towards all three chests from the quest. With me kiting the captain while they kill Bubbly we should be able to pull off three chests in no time. I have no confidence in myself to pull the captain successfully for his chest, so Suiram pulls and I try to hold hate while I kite.
Around the time of realizing I wanted the zereh's from the third quest matron's knife started to look like a great weapon to have for dancer. Killing Gekko seemed impossible for us because we were still having a hard time even completing the first quest. While it would be nice to have I kept to being realistic and not working up my desire for it. But we have been doing better. We have won three or four Scouting quests in a row and this made us wonder if we could do all three quests successfully with the maximum number of chests from each. Targeting the Captain is only a stones throw away, but would we be able to kill Gekko?
We only have five chances of about ten to fifteen seconds each to kill Gekko before it disappears. Would that be enough to kill it? Initial tests showed us a big maybe. Nivlakian was mostly useless. If we are lucky he would be able to get one or two asuran fists on Gekko. It would be up to Suiram and I. There are three easy pulls where Gekko spawns by itself, where if we are all ready and in position before it spawns we can all do a little bit of damage. Two pulls where Nivlakian has to pull and run away to ensure he doesn't die. One of these I have to watch Nivlakian's hp to make sure he doesn't die. This gives me four opportunities to make use of chainspell blizzard III and I can use it three times with the two revitalizers I get. If I am paying attention and remember to put on all of my elemental, int, and magic attack bonus equipment my spells will do around 200-400 damage and I am able to get two to four spells off depending on my positioning. It would seem I have to do the majority of damage because Suiram simply does not have the casting range I have available.
We have made one serious planned attempt so far, but a few minor screwups caused us to miss our prey. We weren't prepared for the second Gekko spawn. We had forgotten to hold the last imp and I was out of range. On the fourth Gekko I should have been standing with Suiram and Nivlakian, but was off to the side hoping that it would give me another cast or two on Gekko. Gekko decided to attack me and quickly moved out of range for Suiram and Nivlakian. I believe these mistakes are the reasons we failed to kill the imp. We brought it down to 9%. Next time we will win. I can almost taste the matron's knife.
 |
A great knife. I'll be the envy of lazy dancers everywhere. |
Labels: Assault
# posted by Mazzic @ 12:44 PM 
