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

Past Two Weeks

 Well the last two weeks have been.. somewhat monotonous game-wise. RL has taken a liking to mauling my better senses so everything is pretty much jelly atm. Stresses aside, at least Sword-wise there's been a few note-worthy remarks to be had - so without further adeu!

- Went Vesping for the first time ever and Italy found out what an uber pain Armor Crasher is. I've never pot spammed so fast in my life. Well, maybe that's not quite true, but it's up there.
- Got to help take down a Heaven Giant Keeper though trump blunts don't do very much in ways of damage. Got a Magic-spelled Amethyst and a Liquid gas and some chips for my (not so useful) involvement. On that note - Vets were total derps and kept running in the way of the vesps and getting themselves killed. -.-

It was a race to see who could inflict AC first. :3

- A friend lent the Family some gear and so fresh Masters Anwen (Romina), Italy, and neglected scout Niyone set off for round two of the Holy Water Chamber quest. :3 It's amazing what the right gears can do. The first attempt took 30 minutes to get by the first boss. This attempt? Just eight minutes. Eight. That's absurd. I was giddy but died a little inside at the same time. Surprisingly gear+buffs alone (not ET or FF) Romi had 68 AR 65DR, and Italy had 67 AR/DR.. and that was without a shield. With 32 minutes left on the clock (and only 2x minutes fighting) Jorgen went down as well. :3 After that the rest of the quest went pretty uneventfully.

Boom! (Knockback was still a bish x.x)

- Rest of the Caeb SA pass was spent in a card squad. All cards were used on Soso who reached Expert. She's Exp Lv 4 now. :3 Leveling her is a bish x.x She has worse survival luck than Caelan (Vincent Rio) did while trying to level him to Veteran back in October.

 Random Clan Shenanigans. You can guess what was actually happening.

- Discovered Italy can now thrive in Circus, not completely fail at damage. Her weapons are pretty generic currently, but she can tank just fine with her existing gear. Hitting 67 DR with a shield isn't much of an issue anymore. ^^ Now if only she could hit that kind of survivability without one.. *dreams a little more*
- Tried using a crafted key for skele - silly simple fight - no frenzied ravyn. QQ

Castilla Mine Phobitan Imp General still eats the Family for breakfast.

- After numerous unsucessful attempts at chipping *any* DR on our own e92 ERS, the Family purchased a +5 3DR ERS instead. Finally, Niyone won't be stuck wearing e84 armor at best anymore. Will work on +6'ing it later. Now just to get a Scorpio.. *dreams*

Lady Luck Strikes Again

Tonight I tried rechipping an Elite La Luna that the Family was very kindly given not that long ago. The first few chips yielded a sole stat of 34% atk, which was fine for the time. Having hoarded up a few more Lv 96 chips (after foolishly selling the sizable bunch I had >_<) I decided to try rechipping on a whim. I'd been upgrading to break items into chips and had gotten several +6, and even a +7 earlier this evening, so I was feeling a little lucky. Apparently, tonight I was.

First chip. o________________o

I tend to have terrible chipping luck. Been pouring Lv 92 chips into an ERS to no avail yet, so I've hardly attempted chipping weapons. I'm not very familiar with socketing, so a 2nd and possibly 3rd will have to wait until later. I mean sheesh..  It's been a while later and I'm still gaping like an idiot. It even +6'ed on the first try. I must say, I do believe I know who will be the next Expert and possibly Master in the Family. Errac Dias slayer anyone? 

<_<

>_>

<_<

...

*giggle*
~Alze

First Masters! ..and HWC quest.

Oooh so much has happened in the last month! Both in and out of game, but I'll just stick with the relevant stuff. ^_~

Since my last posting, Zinnia, Margaret, and Anwen were sent off to Skele AA to level their way to Expert. About exactly two weeks later all three were promoted to Expert within a few days of each other. There was a bit of QQ over the lack of a Libra for Shadow Sting for Zinnia (Calypso), but Margaret(Ele) was given Occultism (and later also Augury). Neither stance has yet to be maxed.. yet. Lack of decent damage dealing items makes them a bish to level. Also found an e92 3DR robe for cheap. It was upgraded to +5 and left there for the time being.

Margaret ponders the Family's next move.

Anwen learned Equites and so her and Italy (Fig) were set loose into Baha SA. This worked well for a time. Curious thing about that map, decent spawn only lasts in the 1st area. In the hallways? Pfft forget it. At best (of what spots weren't taken - even in what I was later told were 'ideal' spots) spawn rate was too slow to keep them busy and at best they got around 2% an hour. Italy called bs and so they moved out to Murky. The experience there was excellent as long as they weren't afk killed by an Angler or dragged away to their deaths by Angler Hunters. There they got about 6-8% an hour. Shortly after on another player's suggestion the duo tried leveling in the Underground Caves. Oy! 10-12% an hour there, and so they camped. :3

Now during this time Italy went on a stance leveling extravaganza. During the past couple weeks she maxed Defender (which had been sitting at lv 20 for forever), and acquired and maxed the Expert stances Hanging Guard, Crusader, and Tronada Cruz. She's only lacking Peltast, but Scopio's are expensive and Niyone has first dibs. Anwen maxed Equites. Over the last weekend Italy grinded her way to Lv 10 - 100%. A soloing Romina quickly closed the 1 1/2 level gap and caught up. With the help of some cards in time for some BH runs, both were promoted to Master within the same day.

Master at last! Huzzah!

It's been a while since Italy was promoted to Expert back in September. Exactly seven months and a day later she's now reached Master. Anwen took a little under two weeks. Found out they each gained two AR/DR for their promotion.

- - - - -

- Found and killed first ever King of Covetry in Baha SA. It was muuuch more successful than the first try. The Family couldn't even dent his hp at the time. This wasn't exactly a cakewalk either, but they finally succeeded!

Proof! :D

- Accidentally made a +8 BFG while trying to break lv 92's for chips.
- Joined in and completed first (and second) BH Caeb run with my shiny new masters.
- Found an Old Chess Piece in inventory. Noooo idea how it got there, nor when, but whooohoo! Is also the first OCP I've ever found.
- Bought a Ruined Ancient Rosario and gave it to Reina (Emilia) so she can level her other stances. Bought her Tactical Assistance. Makes her the second TA user in the Family next to Niyone(Scout). No intent to chip it (being it takes vet chips ;~;) but the lv 92 rosario is out of the Family's reach at the moment. The LoD quests will probably be happening shortly.

- Attempted the HWC quest with Masters Anwen, Italy, and Expert Jisket. It... wasn't pretty. It took about half the time to get past Ortega alone. Jorgen is totally tankable by Italy, with or without a shield. (with = 66 DR o.o;;, w/o = 63DR). Jisket easily died multiple times during the attempt, even in an +6 3DR e96 coat. The quest also nearly ran the family out of hp pots. They easily ate up some 800+ in the half hour alone. Maybe that isn't uncommon, but it is the highest pot burn in one shot the Family has seen yet.

As you can tell.. Italy wasn't too happy.

Maybe if Jisket could've stayed alive, they might've had a shot. As it was with Italy and Anwen, the two couldn't even dent Jorgen's hp. Whatever minuscule dent there was, it was quickly reclaimed by regen. Also - discovered ranged characters are wonderful for this quest, if not absolutely vital. The knockbacks by Ortega were super annoying, and Jorgen's debuff even more so. I've concluded that even if the MMA quest is completed (whenever Mei (Soso) reaches Expert/Master) that with Jorgen's 67/67 AR/DR and the difficulty that posed, working on improving the Family's weapon arsenal will be the next priority. Without that, Jorgen, (and not to mention) Catherine Torsche, and Reckless Emilia (we won't touch on Valeria) will be next to impossible to beat in the current circumstances.

Next up:
- LoD quests.
- Expert Mei (Soso)
- Angler Hunting.
- Weapon chipping?
- STo revisited.
- Caeb/Baha/Skele BH mauling.
- More CM runs?

Wish me luck. :3
~Alze