Contests, Treasures, Pears, Overalls, and Other Levels

'Tis been some productive times. And some less productive. ;-)

Exploring Guild Maps

As many have noticed, I've occasionally posted articles where I explore the various guild maps that exist in EL. Only seen by people if you know where to find them, or someone tells you, they're mostly just images for those who'll never see them.

I finally got around to doing a seventh one: LotS - Legion of the Serpent

I have quite a few more to do. No, I don't know where every single guild map is... yet. ;-) But my boredom hunts for them have proven fruitful for well over half of them. More exploration posts to come.

Dead Leonard

It's been quite a long time since I even attempted to hunt Leonard. But curiosity got the best of me since it had been so long, and since he'd had upgrades since I got my 92 kills on the counters.

So... I made that 93. Wasn't the cleanest kill, didn't have much left on him, but I know I can still do it at least.

Burn the Treasure Hunter

I've hunted treasures on random occasions, but never regularly and thus don't have a system for it like some do. But I did manage to find one for the first time the other day.

Burn the Acelon Bag Hunter

...And Acelon had a hyperbag hunt contest. I found the last of the three bags.

That's 10kgc, 3 Black Dragon Scales, 1 Titanium Serpent Sword, and 1 Gatherer Medallion.

The Newbie Breaks the Quest

Last update I finished the iron-to-titanium armor break quest. This time, I'm finally finishing the newbie break quest.

I've started the Dragon Armor break quest though nothing broken yet, just got my red set fully degraded.

As for weapons, still have the Dragon Blade left of the first quest.

Die Hard the Pear Hunter

It's been low on my priorities for a long time, but I took it back up for a while just for a change of pace. Since I took it back up, I've had about a 90% successful find rate, much higher than normal.

At this moment, I'm holding back on it as I've been ill, and trying to hunt while randomly sneezing and coughing and blowing my nose is posing to be annoying.

And actually, getting a bit bored of it again. I may or may not just stop again as I did before. My stash will last quite a while.

OH, RIGHT.... LEVELS!

It's not an update without the almighty leveling.

Attack and Defense

Still primarily leveled via dailies. I have done some training on rare occasion plus plenty of random experience during attempts to break armor/weapons and such.

You advanced to level 137 of defense!

You advanced to level 137 of attack!

Summoning

This skill continues to get the heavy treatment even though it feels like levels are slow-coming. Keeping the god until I get at least to 100 so gotta work on it if I wanna do a god switch anytime this year.


Four levels since the last update...

You advanced to level 70-73 of summoning!

Harvesting

This continues to be an "if it happens, it happens" skill, since I stopped trying to level it back at Harv 110 (yew level).

Keeps happening though. In this case, I was actually hunting a pear when it poofed a level on me. (And of course I found the pear.)

You advanced to level 120 of harvesting!

Crafting

My other "power level while I have the god" skill. Hasn't been worked on as much as Summoning of late, but that's about to change.

Still, 2 levels since last update.

You advanced to level 81-82 of crafting!

Engineering

Not a focus anymore, but I do try to stock other ings in relation to how many amber I have in storage. That way I can take advantage of engineering days when they happen, if at least for a while.

In this case I only took advantage of a couple hours, as I needed to go to bed. Otherwise I could have easily gotten another level after this.

You advanced to level 111 of engineering!

It's Magic

I put my attempts to level this on the backburner to focus on other skills, planning to hit it again later.

But that doesn't mean I don't use magic... especially with pear hunting, hydro runs, stocking from NPCs. I do an extensive amount of stuff that sees me hitting the portal room a motherload of times on any given day. Plus of course, healing. And occasional popping out spells when I have mana to waste while mixing.

This level caught me on an NPC run.

You advanced to level 87 of magic!

Ranging

An ignored skill, only touched on ranging day and then only when I can afford it. I could afford it a bit this time.

You advanced to level 69 of ranging!

...And Finally

Yeah, these levels come around on occasion as well.

Your overall level is now 168!

That's all, folks!

My Point Is Defense

My point is defense... and no, I don't mean I've been leveling my defense. ;-)

Priority seems to have taken a sudden change since the last update.

God Change - Having determined I could do some really heavy leveling in it now, I chose to drop the Potion goddess and take up the Engineering god again. And did so.

Current gods now: Alchemy, Manufacturing, Engineering

Massive Engineering Leveling

The method: Mixing Energy Essence in the Bethel Feros cave. Heavily stocked tiger lilly in Naralik first. Using the iron and silver in the cave, mix 550 per trip. Repeat.

For bone powders, I've been trying to hit the PWs daily. On a full run, mixing bone powders while waiting for them to respawn, I can get about 650 bone powders or so per trip. And well, the normal 10-12 S2Es and collection of AEs is nice, too, heh. Oh yeah, and the gc. Can't forget that.

Together, they make Point Defense.

As such, I've been stocking up, and mixing those in the Eng school on both Eng days and School days.

It's paid off as seen below. I started off with a huge number of critical fails, but even still it was the cheapest and quickest method to leveling, the ing loss not bothering me so much since, well, as shown above it wasn't costing me much but a little extra time.

The Plan: Continue these through level 80. Around then I'll start testing Failure Predictors, though I expect the "fails" will have me continuing Point Defense up to level 90.

Engineering is expected to be my 6th 100+ skill at this rate.


Achievements: And I got the "Medium Level Killer - Rank 1" achievement from spending all that time kicking PWs (with gargs and skeles on the side when I felt like it).


Other Projects: So much I wanna do, but since it all takes time, just working on them as I can.

1- S2Es - Besides from the PWs I've been kicking, I'm working on collecting ings to mix them myself as well. I need several Nexus to be a true all-rounder that has the ability to do everything. Specifically, I'll need two more artificial nexus to have the ability to finish the Engineering tutorial (to mix the Night Visor). My aim is to buy those through hydro projects. I'm currently halfway to buying my next nexus.

2- Essies and Potions stock - I plan to have a stock of (almost) all essies and potions for an "Ing Exchange" I'll be setting up... I'll provide finished product for ings + food. Common and less common essies and potions will be available for that. Only a few will be left out for specific reasons... Spirit Essence for example is much cheaper to buy from the magic shops than to get the ings for.

This means mixing anywhere from 2k up to 20k of each planned essence, the number determined by their demand.

If this works with essies and pots, I may expand it to include bars, as well as manu and eng items.


And of course, I gotta do some stuff to keep up the gc to afford to burn stuff off at schools, so gotta take time for earning that as well.


At any rate, here's the levels since the last post, in order...

Ranging - Haven't focused on but took some time on a ranging day to finish off a level.

You advanced to level 48 of ranging!

After which, the first wave of Eng-mania started. A school day resulted in:

You advanced to level 67 of engineering!

You advanced to level 68 of engineering!

You advanced to level 69 of engineering!

3 Eng levels, and the school day wasn't over. I wanted to take advantage of the final hour, so rushed over to Glacmor to do something I hadn't paid any attention to in quite a while... Crafting.

I didn't have enough sapphires to do the normal polished saps in the school. However I did have plenty of emeralds, so did as many saps as I had and switched to emeralds for the final two trips to the school.

You advanced to level 70 of crafting!

It would be several more days before I'd be leveling again. Doing the usual dailies, restocking Point Defense ings in Bethel feros cave and hitting PWs...

Then an Engineering day came. I was ready. I'd also stocked some ings in a hidden-away hyperbag for 800 H/D indicators, and did those first.

You advanced to level 70 of engineering!

[No image to keep the location undisclosed. Not that there's anything there now.]

You advanced to level 71 of engineering!

You advanced to level 72 of engineering!

You advanced to level 73 of engineering!

And that's just the way my Eng levels roll. ;-)

Well, those last 4 levels also included getting the Eng tutorial started. Did everything on it from start up to just before magic arrows, the first item to require a rare ingredient. I need to stockpile my rare ings before I can continue it.


Oh yeah, it's not all mixing. Still get dailies done, and do the occasional Lenny/Joker combo hunt...

Ooops, Burn returned, hehe

Spent 6 months away... comp died, leaving me with only a laptop that couldn't handle EL, and a lack of funds to get a better comp that I could play on. Well, that's finally dealt with!

Day 2 of my return now. It took me quite a while just to try and remember what I was doing before I left, as well as catch up on everything new. Frost trolls... haven't tried them yet but look interesting.

New perk Dedicated Harvester - at only 10kgc, no pickpoints needed, and the fact that I never harvest without a harv medallion, this was a no-brainer to immediately take.

Hello Lenny! - While trying to regain my bearings, getting used to the maps and what to wear and kicking critters and mixing and stuff, I decided to go for a stroll at night on c2 and see if I could find my favorite kitty. He died before we could play long though... :-(






First Level in half a year! - Was close to a harv level, and the triple harv exp day showed up. Combined with the new Dedicated Harvester perk and a rare sitting at dung, I quickly hit it.

You advanced to level 109 of harvest!

The Potioner in Me - I finally figured out what I was doing in December the long way... I needed to stock leather, thread, and wine. Things I usually do via mule, but I noticed I was out of creature food. I decided to make creature food, only to notice I already had all the flowers to mix 3k of it. Aha, that's what I was working on!

So I mixed those, and muled up to stock up. Today, I added to that by stocking my SRs (2k) and mixing some BRs for gc since I had the ings for them (and I was close to leveling after the CF/extract mixing).

You advanced to level 110 of potion!

Where to go from here? Well, I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things, so focusing mostly on stocking needed supplies, by purchase or by mixing. My gods lie in alchemy, potion, and manu so I'll be looking mostly at those three skills, though I'm considering getting some levels in a few others. I would like to get all skills 50+, which would mean 3 more ranging levels and 9 more in tailoring, but at least the latter would take a while due to cost.

Eng level, Quests, Lenny, and Such

Gotten a bit done in-game of late, though I've been off more than on...

1) Quests ... finished the medallion quest, and gotten a start on the latest Novac critters. 4 of the 5 have been kicked, only 1 to go on that.

2) Helped Lenny kick the bucket twice while out hunting Novac critters. ;)

3) Found a new Joker location in the process as well to add to my limited list of those.

4) Got an Engineering level, mostly from Eng dailies and as well exp from finishing the above-mentioned quest. (Screenshot not available unfortunately.)





Most of my time has been working on Alchemy. Tons and tons of health essies as well as energy essies when I have the iron. Down to just 1.7 million exp needed for an alch level now, which isn't bad considering the full level is about 6.4 million exp! Focusing on getting ings and bones for mixing the essies rather than gc.

Though I've kept some essies stocked on my bot for sale for gc... had to buy some more books, and will need to again before the week is up.


Continuing to do dailies, attempting to finish the latest Novac, hopefully finally break my damaged iron greaves (gah!), and mix-mania for alch leveling.

Latest status update, done. ;)

The Brief Update...

Had another short period of offline time, but back today, heh.

I made some changes in my path since I last wrote.

1) Focusing on mix skills.

I may go kick chims as a break from mixing and harving, but not planning to do any a/d training for a while. Sometimes as an all-rounder some skills get prioritized over others, and I got a ton I want to do with mix skills. So taking a break from a/d training.


2) Dropped Defense god, took up Manu god.

To go along with my mix focus. I really wanna get the perk that comes with finishing the manu tutorial. In order to get it, I need at least 20 more manu levels, and as well I'm reading a ton of manu books (dragon armor construction) to prepare for it.

3) "Burn found an Animal Removal Stone."

Found one, sold it for 950kgc the same day. Spent the majority of the gc the same day...

a) Bought 30 Archery AP potions (which will take me to the maximum 60 AP when I use them. Waiting for the special day to use them so I might save a few, sell the remains on my bot.)

b) Bought 120kgc worth of manu books.

c) Bought a steel set to eventually degrade and break for the armor breaking quest.

d) Stocked some NPC-only supplies.

In the end, was left with about 100kgc of the 950kgc, 2 hours after getting the gc. :P


All-rounders just can't keep money around, hehe.



I've also killed Lenny about 8 times since my last entry, with hopes that a Lenny achievement had been added. No messages.

But, I haven't logged in yet, and I see that there's new achievements on a server update today. Here's hoping... :P

Real Life Slows Me Down a Bit

That mean, evil thing called real life has kept me preoccupied of late, and thus less posting here. I've been on every day, though much less than before and afk-ing more on top of that.

I've pretty much abandoned "long-term plans" for a while that were keeping every skill being worked on. At least for the time being. I've been focusing more on specific skills, and/or whatever I felt like doing based on a special day or such.

Crafting

Of late, crafting has been getting a lot more attention than I've ever given it before. I was leveling it before like all my other skills, but it wasn't really actively. Now that I've got the crafting god it's getting more attention, but almost exclusively the past few days...

You advanced to level 60 of crafting!

That one was a surprise via reading a crafting book, I wasn't actually mixing at the time.

You advanced to level 61 of crafting!

You advanced to level 62 of crafting!

62 was gotten in a school during Day of Schools for triple experience. Really couldn't afford it, but can't pass up an opportunity for at least some kinda bonus experience, heh.

You advanced to level 63 of crafting!

After wasting away what I could in the school, I went back to my usual moon medallion mixing for the 63rd level. Gonna need the gc to help pay for the school time.


Alchemy

I've been mixing loads of HEs to sell on my bot. As well, loads of silver, iron, steel bars for moon medallions and S2Es. And of course a random assortment of other things, particularly energy and matter essies.

You advanced to level 117 of alchemy!

Sweet. ;)


Summoning

Not spending as much time as I'd like mixing stones, mainly because it gets tiresome done for long periods with the constant gypsum trips. Nevertheless I got the god for it so doing what I can to take advantage of that.

You advanced to level 47 of summoning!

That was a Scholar's Day with 30% or so bonus experience, so I used up my stocked gypsum on it.

You advanced to level 48 of summoning!

I'm contemplating much heavier working on this skill now, as my bot is still buying tons of LEs for it, and I need to make the stones to put those to use and as well pay for them. :P


Other Skills

I've touched engineering occasionally, but not really enough to get me to a level. It'll get more focus soon.

A/D has barely been looked at. I've spent maybe 2 hours at most kicking chims the past week. Short of managing to get a spawn on sun tzu, I don't see me working on this much in the coming weeks either. It's on the backburner while I focus more on skills I have gods for.

Potioning is being done. I mixed a batch of BRs for some extra gc once, but for the most part I'm in the process of making a load of SRs for future summoning stone making.

Tailoring and Ranging have been ignored for the moment. My gc is spread pretty thin and I can't really afford to work heavily in either of these skills for the time being.

Harvesting is done as needed. I'm doing nothing any more to intentionally level it now that I've hit 100 in it. It'll always be needed, I'm just not thinking of it as a skill so much anymore.

Manufacturing, other than own-need stuff like S2Es, is dead for now. I don't even think about it. It'll get more attention at some point in the future.

Leonard and Joker

Out of mixing boredom, I've gone Leonard hunting a few times the past week. Usually empty-handed, but managed to get him a couple times.

In the process, found Joker once:



The number of Joker "spawn" locations I know can be counted on one hand, and that happened to be one I already knew of.




Probably a lot more has happened that I'm forgetting now, but such is real life interference. Ah well. I should try and update this more to avoid such forgettings, heh.

God change, OA 142, and 5th 100+ Skill!

Just been too preoccupied to write of late. Just a temporary thing.

Time to play catch-up...

The two biggest things:

You advanced to level 100 of harvesting!

5th 100+ skill! \o/

Your overall level is now 142!

And I wasn't kicking chims when it happened, hehe.


Other Levels...

You advanced to level 46 of summoning!

You advanced to level 54 of engineering!

You advanced to level 36 of tailoring!

Sweet.


Lenny and Invasions and Quests

Got Leonard twice, both times in Palon Vertas after having almost walked into him while harving coal.

Participated in the global (well, multi-map at least) invasions. The only kind I participate in these days. Well, hidden ones are fun too, if just for trying to find the invaders...

Two new quests with a server update yesterday... both done. Back to only needing to kill off the ice dragon for the first Novac quest to have all quests done.


God Change

Even with the new "Day of Magic" or whatever it's called, I was just tiring of trying to level magic, needed a break from the constant essie mixing and bear kicking.

So I switched magic for the Crafting god. Means I got a lot of WEs to make (bleh), but it's a change of pace.

May still work on magic, besides normal use, but not in the near future. I really don't "need" a higher level than I have now, though it would be nice to have. We'll see...


Priority Increase - Archery AP

Decided to get my Archery AP up to the maximum 60 as soon as possible. Been slowly adding to it, but thinking to work on more gc now to buy the potions faster. I do all my range training in the arena now, so killing off "training" critters to quick isn't an issue anymore.

It will, however, help with killing off larger creatures during invasions and such.



Anyway, that's the update. Not feeling too well, so I'm off...

My Second 100+ Skill!!!

You advanced to level 100 of potion!

Wooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooooooooooooo!


Just got that less than an hour ago, during a 39% Scholar's Day. Mixing like a madman, and advertising like crazy on market to get ings, but it came through with a few minutes of the special day to spare. Yippeee!



Time since my last post has been mostly harving and mixing, with a several hour break to hunt invaders, especially of the invisible kind.

Found 3 of the invisible rats, getting Hellspawn removal, fast regen removal, and 10kgc from them. Unfortunately lost a brick walking right into an ice dragon the second I entered a map, didn't even have time to restore. Brick. :/

During the invasion, I also found a kitty cat in Hurquin...




Went on to later mix moon medallions out of silver bars/medallions I'd mixed earlier.



You advanced to level 46 of crafting!




Sweet. Just nowhere near as wait as friggin' potion 100! :D


Hmmm... after that rush, I'm lost as to what to do next... gonna harv a while, heh.

Hydro, Fluffy, Stones, Overall, and Lenny

Spent yesterday morning doing enough hydro runs to get over 500 ores. Took quite a while, but no interruptions by braindead pkers at least. Not to say I didn't see anyone along the way... one trainer in the fluffy cave as expected, couple others grabbing hydro but only saw them actually at the hydro, and one pretty-much-newbie actually out in a pk area who should be quite thankful I'm not a pker.

I also noticed as I forgot my green cape doing the runs that apparently I've passed the fluffy ignore level. Only thing the green cape is useful now for is chims.


The stones, the stones... been harving for my next 1/4-nexus batch of S2Es. In the past two days I've gotten 2 bindings, 1 reasoning, and 1 will. They just keep coming, heh. Now if only I could find a few nexus stones... :P


Did a bit of mixing bars in the mine at the iron, however it occured to me that my overall was close enough to leveling that just an hour on the feros would do it. So... I took a mining break and went to NRM.


Your overall level is now 132!




Was really just taking a break from mining and mixing, not planning to train, so I headed to SRM storage after that.

But... someone was outside the storage waiting for me.



Nice way to celebrate my OA, giving Lenny a big bash on the noggin. :P


Well, today it's back to the iron. After which time to work on that one nagging potion level that'll make it my second 100+ skill.

Iron, Attack, Leonard

Yesterday was lots of iron mining. Spent a few hours mixing steel bars at the iron. Got tired of that and just hauled some while I was surfing.

Bored with that, I did some more "secrets" exploring.

Oh yeah, in 2 days I got 2 binding and 2 serpent stones. Go figure. ;)

Not to mention an EFE while mixing FEs yesterday morning before I started the bar work.


This morning I needed a harving break, so went to train...

You advanced to level 96 of attack!




Left the Bethel cave right after and read Leonard was in Bethel, so hunted him and got him while I was there, hehe. Fitting way to celebrate an attack level.


Now I'm back on the iron. Still need about 2.5k then time to get all the mixing done of the bars and S2Es.

Not sure what I'll work on after that... either some potions, or a crafting level.

It Was a Good Day 2 Level

Yesterday, that is.

Seriously doubt they read this, or give a rat tail what I think, but thanks to the TPTB anyway for yet another invasion-free day. Just might actually look forward to the next one.

Gotten the urge to a/d-train again, at least. Been so long that I forgot my timing for dissing the clops, and sometimes coming close to forgetting to restore. :P Fortunately would catch it just in time.

And it became a massive day for leveling...

You advanced to level 84 of defense!



Which got followed not long after by:

You advanced to level 84 of attack!




And oh yeah, the restores I almost forgot stopped being forgotten to end up with:

You advanced to level 52 of magic!



Woohoo, no-fail trips to the portal room. Handy when trapped in an invasion, assuming the portal room isn't invaded as well, hehe.


Not content with that, I hit the cinnabar to finish off a harvest level...

You advanced to level 88 of harvesting!




And just because I could, another trip to the manu school...

You advanced to level 62 of manufacturing!





'Twas a good day to level, indeed. And just for fun, well, I was still in gear when I hit the cinnabar, and ran across a "dear friend" in glacmor on trips there, just before he was going to head for bed...





Just some icing on the cake for quite a busy day. :)