Castilla Ruins and Other Little Things..

Hello again lovelies! I decided it might as well be time again for my weekly/monthly/bi-monthly/random-time-of-the-year blog to finally be updated. I've pretty much lost track atm of where exactly I was when I posted last (Character-wise) so all of this will be one big ol' lump of 'guess what!' news.

First and foremost - the detested Castilla Mines have finally been done away with! Luck tripped across the Family's fortunes while checking the MM the other day and found quite a number of Gold Relics for 1m ea. After buying a few (the Family has been saving up what one's they could get a hold of for some while now) they were exchanged for the last two quest items required for the CM part of the questline.

Yes, yes we do have something.

Finally, after I-have-no-idea-how-many months, that quest can finally be put to rest. In exchange for their hard work, the Family received two new medals, and Anwen (Romi) got a snazzy new costume so now she can hide in plain sight whenever she visits the Ruins.

..Actually come to think of it.. it's been about exactly a month since I last posted.. funny that. xD

In more recent news that may or might not have been reported thus far:

- Finished the Viron questline (well, almost), acquired Raven (who was consequently named Auberon), got him to Vet and there he has sat in my quarters since. Shortly thereafter Valleria was finally rescued from the prison, also Vetted, and allowed to retire upon a comfy couch in a very empty looking quarters to rest her sorry bones from the shackles that once held them, and for some relaxed chatter with Auberon while adjusting to her new name of Elsie.

- With a bit of luck, some chips, and an assistant to help flirt with the Enchantment Lady, nearly all of the family's e100 arsenal has been rechipped to much more acceptable standards including a recently crafted Eye of Veilant, for Asoka.

- Also in regards to the Family's white-haired greatsword-weilding companion, an ESA was crafted, chipped, and +6'd, also in addition was it's sister-recipe, the magic belt from the halloween event, was also managed to be crafted and chipped to an imprintation of 2 dex, to which Zinnia was quite delighted.

- Margaret was finally granted an Augury stance ring crafting, which was intensified shortly thereafter. It's a huge help from having to switch between Ele Pen, Barsel, and Flare rings depending on what was required.

In other news....

Yup, it's true Ladies and Gents, Sword 2 has x-world pvp.

Lately, as you can tell ^ x-world has been finally added to the Sword 2 servers. It is a bit buggy in the sense that one has to try repeatedly before actually being successfully sent to a match. 90% of the time the player merely receives a 'Server Closed' message and you have to shut down the game and restart it again. That is unfortunate, however, the matches themselves? Quite a bit of fun. Above was a screen from the Family's first match, which.. strangely proved to be surprisingly easy. The match in the screen below, however, proved to be surprisingly hard. xD

Two Soso's face off while a Val and Catherine observe how it's done. :3

On that note.. there seems to be an awful lot of Catherine Torsche's in the rankings now. A lot of teams seem to be composed of a Sco/Val + Cath + ______. Frankly, I can't blame them. Cath is awesome <3 Also on the note of wcpvp, I'm not sure what all the numbers mean quite yet. No idea of exactly how the promoting works from Squire to Gallant either..  but I'm sure they'll be explained with time. 

- - - - -

On a side note, I've come to realize I'm only a month or so shy of being in the Family's current clan, for nearly a year. Interesting, that. I intend in a future entry to look back at where the family was then, and see how far they have come since. I must say this is the first true year-long bout of S2 playing that I've actually done without taking a x-month long break at some point. Back then Nar was the newest shiny character to be added, trump weapons were uber shiny, elite trumps were too much work, Circus was a brand new (painful) raid for the Family, and Equites was the first (of what would later be many) Expert stances to be learned by the Family's members. Funny to think also at that time, e92's were out of reach, the Family was *just* finishing their first full set of e84's, and 5.0 was the new shiny update lurking just around the corner.

Gah! I'm almost launching into said entry already. @_@ Must.. save.. for.. later.. Fates, it's late enough atm as it is.

Next update:

- CR mauling

- ToC poking

- CW shenanigans

- ET crafting?

- Equip scheming

Stay tuned :3

~Alze

When Lady Luck says "Rain"...

This weekend after a very busy week IRL, the Family was able to attend two weekend Halloween events. They seemed laggier than the Oktoberfest events, and it was still quite a wait to get our prize boxes from G1's Fynlo and Cresius, but overall well worth it.

The total tally from both Saturday's and Sundays events prize boxes are as follows.

10 AM Boxes (5 from each day)

3 Citadel of the Gods pases (1 day)
10 socket flux
10 shiny crystal chests (2557 total)
10 AMs boosts
40 vet chips
1 const box (Aries)
1 magic leather belt rec
1 elite schiv armor rec

10 Jeepers creepers boxes
2 pumpkin hat
12 reventant temp back costumes -.-
20 red lollis
20 pink lollis
1 witch hat

The day before this the Family was granted 1 GQ spod and 2 GQ obs in a row from the exchanger, and more recently won an fc for an elb scout recipe. From the halloween in-game quest event, the Family has acquired an assortment of rings including Barsel, Prelude, Principal, Logistics, Rouse, Croissment, and several Occultism, Death Chopping skill rings just to mention a few. Needless to say the Family has been thoroughly relishing this event. Granted the yeilds from the AM boxes, it seems a lot of crafting is in the near future.

Alze note: On a side note, these are totally the kind of reports that make me want to rage quit some days. On the flipside, these sort of memories are also what keeps me going. On a funny note about that magic belt rec - I don't even *have* a belt. I smell crafting shenanigans. Lulz. Until later.

~Alze

Break

I think I'm going to be taking a partial break from this game. Not that I'll completely leave for a time, but rather I've about had it with trying to level my higher lv chars and gear them. With the streak of bad luck chipping/selling chips/raid drops coupled with a number of fail runs in the very recent past in a number of different raids, I've just plum run out of energy to keep pushing myself and pursuing a loftier goal.

For instance, I've gone through 70+ chips on my xbow and not once gotten any sensible stat. By that I mean a stat that wasn't poison, stun, or some sort of ele/mental atk. Some had only speed, never saw even one atk % stat. Not even a low atk/low speed combo. I even tried using EBs at one point - 15 chips of solid poison/stun/ele/mental atk stats.. and absolutely nothing useful.

These are chips that have been tested on 5 or so seperate occasions. In my experience if you use about 10 or so chips, and get a hint of something good - you can get a good combo within a few chips more. Finding only junk stats you won't get anything at that time, try some other time/map/channel. This time has been nothing but the same for over a week.

A crafted golden feet for Soso chipped the same way. Fortunately I had the sense to stop on the best mod I'd yet to see after xx chips - 27% atk speed. That's it. /rant

Instead (as pushing myself is only draining my already meager interest and morale) I will be leveling nub chars to vet, farming shinies, selling starters, and doing other nabbish things. Screw this trying to chip 32AR weps and sell chips for elb funding. I've had it. I'm done.

Until later
~Alz

Castilla Ruins and the Tower of Chaos.

So another part of my little updates was this little deviation. After a (for me) fail run to King Henry at CW, a number of clanmates decided to run through the Castilla Ruins. I'd never been then before, and I've yet to go again since, though I'd love it. In short CR is a *lot* like the Castilla Mine raid, only its considerably shorter, and the bosses are a lot meaner.

Of a potential eight, five of us banded together for a run. Suicide run mostly, as (at least I for one) we weren't sure how far we'd get or if we'd even make it. The details are a little fuzzy, but if I recall it costs a gold relic to get in, so it can be a little spendy. As soon as you go in you earn the [Castilla Relic Explorer] Medal.

A map for convenience.

1. The first boss is the Diablo of Chaos, and he's rather huge, as most all of the bosses in the Castilla Ruins are. 

2. The 2nd is called Wetis of Chaos. Wtheck a wetis is, I've no idea, and I'm not too interested in finding out. But he looks a little like this.

Behold! The fearsome Weits of Chaos.

A little bit beyond that is this pretty little scene..

The last calm, serene view before many a pioneer's demise.

3. Arito of Chaos is the next boss you get to meet. Looks liek a seriously old man in epic armor. Kinda spiffy looking, if I may say so myself.

4. Part four of ze tour is a very small boss called simply 'Nana'. A small young red-headed female who packs quite the 68 AR punch.

Coincidentally, she's also prophetic.

5. Here is Tempest. A giant armored knight with purple glowing eyes and an arsenal of pain that will make most anyone become very friendly with their Soul Crystals. At 69 AR/DR, there really was nothing the Family could do that the time to damage it, so the time was spent best running around and ressing our teammates when possible. For that large area right before where Tempest arrives? You need that space to defeat the other bosses. Yes, the other bosses you just defeated. You get to defeat them, again, all at once.

The mighty Tempest in the vast Arena.

The roulettes seem to vary between dishing out more e84 items (yuck >_<) to gold bars, lv 100 items, and even some rings. Given our moderate success at Castilla Ruins, our group continued on our adventure even further - into the Tower of Chaos!

- - - - -

I've heard a lot about ToC, and seen a lot of pretty pictures from there too. As far as I know, no-one has yet completed ToC. I know it *has* been defeated in like.. one of the versions/servers for Granado Espada, but not to my knowledge has it been done on the Sword 2 servers. It cost.. actually.. I don't recall what it cost. But it involved gold relics and it was spendy. Regardless, we were fortunate to have enough with us so everyone could enter, so in we went!

Just a short ways in, but already a gorgeous interior.

One thing of interest to note, is Tower of Chaos absolutely reeks of exp. Granted I hadn't tried vesping before this point, but it certainly isn't anything to thumb your nose about. It's very nice exp - assuming your party can survive long enough to get it. I wouldn't advise trying to bring a nab to plvl though. Now when I went in I brought in a Lv 1 Master scout, Lv 3 Ele (cringeworthy, I know), and a Lv 1 Master Soso. Their exp % was 15, 63, and 91% respectively.

A thing to note is that - for starters - ToC begins with 68 AR/DR mobs. By the time we reached Einschwer of Chaos, (Einwind, essentially), Niyone was up to 30%, Margaret my Ele up to 96%, and Mei (Soso) was 6% into the next level. On that note, Ein completely slaughtered a number of us, but it was fun all the same.

Tanking: It's srsbsns.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. Personally, I can't wait to go there again. xD It's freaking expensive though. @_@ But the experience was worth it, and I'm not referring to the character %'s either. I've no idea when the next time I'll be able to/can afford to go to CM let alone ToC, but I'm looking forward to it. I have this thing where if there's a boss that's tough and hard to beat - I just want to defeat it all the more. So with that in mind - ToC is like a ideal *cue angels singing* challenge to me. Teehee, can't wait.

~Alze.

Alze's Update (Pt. 1)

Sooooo... I haven't actually posted on here in a heck of a long time. Time to fix that. Last two months have left this blog pretty barren save for Character promotions/levels updates on the side bar. Au contraire to these blank pages, the family has actually been very industrious in the New World. Allow this simple narrator to present to you, one of no doubt several, updates. Ie: A Pic-spam of Events.

Now last time we left off, the family was struggling on several points. LoD wasn't completed. Soso was a fresh Master, RE was undefeated and the best gear avaliable to the family was some trumps. Oy, surprising how much can change in two months.

- Aquired and maxed Flintlock, Hapkido,
-Completed the LoD questline. Aquired Kurt's character card.

A bit of exploring was in order.

- Crafted a Rosario, which after 100 chips, has yet to yeild any DR.

With Viron's release a new area was added to the new world. Along with it came daily Viron raids, maps, as well as weekly clan missions and Party Arena, a clan vs clan version of TA.
I gotta say - one thing I really like about Viron (similar to Castilla) is how much movement and animation the npcs have. It's so pretty. @_@

- Maxed Hapkido + ET turned out to be the solution to defeating Reckless Emilia. She was renamed Elena and added to the family. She underwent vigorous training and reached Expert within a week. 23 Chimera keys when into farming up an Aries for Madness, which she maxed in 2-3 days in Skele SA.
- Rio's questline for his expert Stance book was completed. Now just to actually get him to expert.

 - - - - - 

Now that was everything that happened until I was able to switch from playing on my lappy (faithful old thing it is) to my desky. Oh happy hd pretty-ness! The day I finished it, the clan was embarking on several Clan Raids. Thanks to the much bigger resolution I was able to use, I was able to take much prettier pictures! Enjoy some shots from our exploits. :3

Raff at it's finest.

Mad Uraeus rises once-more from it's bathwater.

Mad Griffon in all his raging glory.

The ever-vigilant pioneers.

I'll add more pictures about Red Forest after next week's raid. So far it's given me both a DHr and an eLB scout recipe. :3 The wraith-y things at the end drop elbs at a pretty nice rate.

- Mastered Niyone

- Attempted Valeria's quest. 

- Found and turned in a Snake Scale. Serpent recipes are now avaliable.

- Aquired and maxed SS on Zinnia (Caly)

- Promo'd Caly to Master

- Crafted first Serp weapon, a Whisper of the Forest. Fortune shined and granted a low atk + decent human racial mod to it.

- Crafted first ever eLB fig. Also, an elb scout dropped for me during a Red Forest run.

- Explored the maps outside Viron, and in turn found the infamous RedHair Fighter.

- Completed and recruited Catherine Torsche. She was renamed Caroline. Anyone who's played Portal 2, can recall the storyline, and has enough brain cells to rub together should be able to appreciate the irony. They're a bit stretched, and somewhat inverted by comparison, but it's by far enough to make me giggle.

- Went Vesping for the first time ever with a borrowed bow from a clanmate. During the 1-day pass a leveling extravaganza occurred. Margaret (Ele), and Jisket (Musk) were leveled and promoted to Master. Isabel (Helena) gained two levels. Circe (Asoka) gained two levels. Amelia (Lisa) and Caroline were promoted to Vet. And Caly went from fresh Master - to 60% into lv 5. Family level increased to Lv 35, and added enough % to leave it at the same percentage the Fam level had been when I first started vesping during fam Lv 34.

More goodness to come. :3

~ Alze.

Aqua! Travels and Flintlock.

((Alze Note: This was orig. written some.. two weeks ago? It has a healthy bit of ramble/rant so I figured I'd just post it anyway vs letting it collect dust in my draft bin.))

Ah, it feels good to be back again! Of late life's been very busy as some much-needed planning is kicking into high gear. In the meanwhile the Fam has been taking an extended snooze in the barracks while IRL I've been having my own off-the-wall *ahem* adventures.

An old note:
"I've been mostly awol during the last few days as I've taken off traveling cross-country. Until I return home I will stay equally awol until further notice! This includes a healthy presumption that nothing more goes wrong with my traveling, no mufflers falling off, no sensors freaking out and drying to drown the engine in gas, and no dead deer on the road to get in my way. It's a long story, but I had to be towed the last 40 miles of my journey. Oh joy."

That was part of the original message I had saved in this post when it was still a draft. On the return trip, I still ended up stranded on the side of the road and had to have a family member drive out some 300+ miles, hitch up a trailer, and tow the damn car allllll the way back home. Good news? Nothing was terribly wrong with it. Fussy news? It was just the right part to go haywire to mess everything up. Well - in terms of being able to move forward when you press the gas pedal at least.

Sword-wise not a whole lot has been happening. The Family is currently hinged on needing to complete the LoD quests, and I've yet to have the spare day to do it in. Beyond that the Family has been firmly lodged in a deep debate of what to do with their chip sales. Prices are.. pathetic.. considering they can be gotten from boxes while people spam away for _____ high item. It's still possible to make a reasonable profit given one has the opportunity, clannies/friends, and the time to do so, but time is of the essence as symbols are also tied into this deflation of prices. Namely - Libra. Aka: Shadow Sting FTW. Good news - it's uber cheap now and probably only going to get cheaper. Icky news - I'm about 50m short of one and chips don't sell, dag nabbit.

Bet you can't guess what my main source of income is.

I really do hate those boxes sometimes. They flood the market with all the stuff I sell to make vis. /QQ.

Either way - armor, weapons, and symbols need to be aquired. The which/what/how/when/now? debate still rages from time to time. Lately the Family purchased a small stockpile of cheap (for recent times) Mysterious Powders in preparation for tackling the LoD quests involving Kurt and Eduardo. I still have no idea which of the two I'll go with. They're identical - save for skin and summon color. But.. stiiiiiiiilll. *fidget* I can't decide.

In other news the Fam got a cheap Aqua some weeks ago, and so Jisket (Musk) still has a nab Flintlock level as I haven't the time to level it properly yet. Also got the new costume hair for Nar, and hair and costume for Ania. Now if only I could find Nar's costume for uber cheap.. buuuut.. I'm not sure that's going to happen. We'll see. :3

Kinda interesting to look back, back when I'd QQ about how many stances I didn't have. As of now I have pretty much all the ones I wanted to get, and then a few extra. Funny how that goes.

A Month Later.. Wait, what?

Ya know I've come to the conclusion I make far too many drafts, and not enough posts. Anyway, nutshell bite-sized edition of what's been happening since my last successful update/post in no particular order. This isn't meant to be of any great nutritional value. Just reporting ze events so I don't have to later. :3

Since April:
- Made a ton of black oxides from a crud-ton of rings that'd been hoarding. We're talking some 50+ rings of nab stances I've been collecting since the uber nub days x-years ago.
- MAULED Katovic for cabbages. Was able to make a snowfield soup. One quest done. Just need to farm up even moar cabbages for Garcia. -.-;;
- Finished the Ania and Andre quest - made a Fig Dignite Costume. It's.. it's ok. Might make more later when I'm bored and rolling up to my gills in Amritas.
- Spent oodles of time hunting angler and voila! Persistence pays off. Managed to find a Scorpio for Niyone, which is now only a Lv 16 Enhanced Tactics. People weren't kidding, it really is a bish to level.
- Also got a DHr from angler, now affectionately dubbed 'Ann Geller' aka 'Annie G'. Took a lil while - but crafted it too. It's now sitting in storage, collecting dust until the Family can acquire a recipe worthy of said item. We're hoping for an eLB (fig, ideally) but it might be a while before such an item is crafted and chipped into something usable.

- Found a Cut Phys Res necklace in Sewers while helping a clannie farm seals. Bought a phys necklace from BH, got a made recipe (and crafted it) from Errac. Now the hunt is on for an Enhanced Phys necklace to make the cut version. I should go farm for it.. KoC timer is silly easy to get if you have the time for it. On that note..
- Got a cave piece, now I need a snake scale to be able to access recipes for the Serpent series. No I don't want to pay 15m for the drop. Cheaper, damnit. Yes I'm a vis-pincher! (ha-ha... x.x) This might actually wait a while. Got started because of debate over what to do with the DH. I wanna maaake somethiiiiiiing ;~;
Also: a Story as told by Sierra:
"Long ago, the underground cave was covered by a lake. There was a large snake, called the Sworn Guardian, that requested sacrifices every year. But, in return, the Sworn Guardian gave the King many treasures. But, the King was not satisfied with the amount of treasure he recieved from the Sworn Guardian. The King even tried to have it killed, so that he could have all the treasure for himself. Unfortunately, for the King, the Sworn Guardian got angry and swallowed him and his people and then shrank to the bottom of the Underground. Do you think the Sword Guardian is still alive?"
Que curioso. King of Greed, indeed.
- Family finally managed to defeat the Phobitan General in the Castilla Mine.
- Iapetos (Nar) and Rosaline (Sum Cath) were both promoted to Veteran.
- Wanna find a Caeromia costume. For cheap. Saw one the other week for 20m, haven't found one since. QQ. Got Wild Blare for Iapetos. Now just to wait for his costume to come out.
- Tried and completed (a) Vergo Instance mission. V is a bish. Do. Not. Like. Didn't really break even, though chip prices were faceplanting at the time. If only I had the dps for raff. @_@

- ASSOOOOOOKKAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (yes she qualifies as her own bulletin point)

Introducting: Circe! She's shiny @_@

- Circe was quickly Vetted and then given Sidewinder to level. Much debate happened about what to do with the 950 some Caeb cards the Family had stashed away. It was decided to let Circe sit as she was for now, given the Family seriously lacks in gears as it is, let alone having a decent GS for this lil specialty. She'll be a project continued at another time.
- Got a taste of the whole auto-red thing first-hand. (As I understand of the issue, it's still a bit fuzzy to me). Conclusion: It's a bish. I say if you're going to turn red and kill me, then switch back to blue a minute later, is cowardice. If you're going to  be red, stay red damnit. I don't give two excrement lumps if you* can mop the floor with me, at least be a sport if you want to pk. -.- (* using word in general to avoid naming names. Gotta say it knicked off some previous respect I had for said subject. Trying not to associate the disapproval to the rest of said player's clan. I dislike judging a group by one player's actions but.. still. Not. Cool.)
- Stuffed said hoard of Caeb cards down Soso's throat instead of Asoka's. 10 Hours of leveling later, Mei was promoted to Master. This makes her the 3rd Master of the Family.
- Started and completed the MMA questline in two tries. The first failure happened quite on accident on the last boss before Fritz. Overall - was much easier than I anticipated. Also - ET saved my bacon so many times it's not even funny..

Victory Stance after xx-pics of bosses and fighting. Soso + Ice = Love.

- Kicked Sharon's butt in Caebolan, but however got butt kicked by Reckless Emilia. Here's the funny thing - Soso managed to single-handedly take out a bit over half of RE's hp by herself in an initial test run. Haven't been able to do *nearly* as well since. It's.. a bit silly in an absurd sort of way. No special buffs either. Not even ET. Wtf?

Actual reading-quality posts later. Til then. :3