Doddler's RO Journal
And now back to our regularly scheduled programming
By Doddler on November 2, 2007 in category 'MVP'
I finally regained access to my other accounts now that my checks cleared with the bank, so I decided on a whim to do the sign quest on the LK.
I actually quite enjoy the sign quest. Its long, it can be annoying at times, but its one of the few quests that feels like a real story is being told.
RO isn't going to win any awards for good literature, but the Sign quest is start to finish, an epic quest. It tells a decent story based on norse mythology, and your choices and options throughout the tale affect the outcome you recieve. The characters that partake are not overly three dimensional, but the motives that drive them are also interesting. By the time you finally get to the confrontation with Serin, you feel like you actually have something to stand up for.
And of course, I get a sexy accessory from the whole thing.
I decided to try out Doppelganger a bit earlier when my LK account was dead. He hasn't changed much, atleast not at full HP. His spiral pierce hurts, but what really hurts is his power up. He changes from a weak little swordie into a massive steamroller of sodomy. The bad kind of sodomy.
I did get him, although let me tell you it wasn't easy. Its not really worth doing on a biochemist... the vit nerf really messes things up. However, it was fun, so thats ok. I might try him on my LK later if I can bring myself to buy some assumptio scrolls.
Speaking of scrolls, the new dungeon teleportation scroll is crazy. It does feel a little p-server ish, but if you're willing to spend that 5 cents, you can get to the lower levels of most open-access dungeons in the game. Its usefulness cannot be overstated, I'll have to watch out that I don't use too many of them.
I took a little bit of time to check out osiris as well. His meteor assault is strong, and his power-up makes it one shot me. Luckly his power up has a pretty high delay, and you can wait it out if you need to. I don't think it would be possible to do it without assumptio though. I would kill osiris more often but one big issue I find with a good number of MVPs is that I can't hit them once they agi up. I whipped out my Gungnir to finish off osiris but its still troublesome to do.
I found 3 atroce spawns later this evening. Since alpha people generally suck when it comes to MVP'ing, I had to again try at it solo. I must be particularly crazy to try to kill him using just Lord Knight, but overall it went pretty good. Once he uses two-hand quicken you have to ream that white pot key as fast as physically possible, and sometimes it still seems as though it might not be enough. I think with a bit more armor defence I could get pretty efficient at killing him. I took down all three atroce with only one death. Not so bad.
And what would a journal entry be without our favorite little queen bee? I used my last three bombs killing her today, so I suppose I'll have to go on haitus until I can afford to get more to hunt her.
This feels like its a daily event isn't it? I never get tired of trying to open these things.
Deathword... not particularly useful, but its more interesting than the past bunch I've been getting.
Bonus for the day:
Too bad it wasn't that Teddy Bear card I was looking for!
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An MVP Rant
By Doddler on November 1, 2007 in category 'Ranting'
I'm going to warn people in advance, there are no pretty pictures this time, and for the most part its one giant post of bitching and complaining. You've been warned!
So I've got a bit of a bone to pick with the recent boss buffs. In particular, they're stupid.
To some extent, I think its understandable. Boss monsters in RO have fallen behind the times, and for the most part were quite easy. This wasn't helped by the myrad of exploits that allowed people to kill bosses easily, and there were some boss monsters that were still incredibly hard, but most of them were fairly simple.
However, I do think that balance wise, this was intended. The MVP game as it were has been about controlling a number of boss monster times while competing against other players. Since the majority of boss monsters you have to kill dozens, if not hundreds of times in order to gain anything of remote value, there was a sort of requirement that an MVP player would attempt to kill as many as possible.
Unfortunately lots of the MVP changes don't make much sence. The lower tier MVPs are ok still. Hatii, Stormy, Phreeoni, Maya, Eddga, to some extent Moonlight Flower, havn't changed drastically enough to be a big deal. Moonlight Flower's behavior is actually considerably different, but with her new skill usage she uses killer skills, like her mammonite less, so it may infact make her easier than she was before.
But I'm talking more about big MVPs. Baphomet, RSX (or any MVP that uses earthquake for that matter), Lord of the Dead, etc. The changes don't make any sence at all. Orc Lord atleast makes sence... they gave him a fancy new axe, and while not that great of an axe, it drops often enough to feel rewarding to kill him.
But take Baphomet. He's gone from one of the more unhunted mvps to being neigh impossible, and definately unworthy. He will kill outright any unprepared player, and even those that are packing the best-of-the-best gears will be challenged to take him out. His drops are worthless, unless you think 2% on majestic goat and 2% on crescent scythe is worth killing a painfully challenging MVP.
The day of the Biochemist is long gone. MVPs now heal while you're off screen, making hit and run worthless. Baphomet and RSX for example heal 10000 hp every 5 seconds. Even escaping from their earthquake and coming back can cost your. In the case of RSX, I basically decided he's impossible for biochemist now. I used 100 bombs (3.5m in cost) the other day to try to kill RSX, and he was still at half health (the maximum he'll heal to). Infact my encounter with RSX was the reason why I'm writing this rant. You just can't hit and run MVPs anymore. And even if those 100 bombs were enough to kill him, do you really think its worth it for the 1/200 chance that you MIGHT get something decent? I don't mind MVPs being mind-bogglingly hard if you were actually rewarded for the challenge.
The earthquake skill doesn't really make sence to me. Earthquake does three separate hits at roughly 1000% attack power, which is split across all players in range. The problem here, is that even with a sizable party, that amount of attack power is completely unreasonable. First off, no one in their right mind is going to take a party of 5 to baphomet or RSX, and even if they did, they wouldn't survive earthquake anyways. The thing about existing MVP skills like the elemental attacks (which usually are 500% attack power), is that they only strike the main tank, and the damage can be reduced using a correct combination of resistance equipment.
You can't do that with earthquake. The only reduction gear against earthquake is the ghostring card, and golden thief bug card. These cards are insanely rare, and insanely expensive. It shouldn't be a requirement to go fight boss monsters to be equipping some of the rarest equipment in the game. And even if your main tank with 15000 hp can survive earthquake, there are many character classes that are alienated by the skill. Snipers and Assassins for example cannot attack while using a shield. These characters have lower HP usually, and there's honestly no way in hell they could survive the skill.
I wouldn't mind earthquake of course if there was much of a point. Valkyrie Randgris drops almost all parties with her earthquake... its simply unstoppable. You require an incredible party to take her down now... and the rewards are just the same as they were back when you could kill her in 10 seconds without looking twice.
Don't even get me started on Lord of the Dead. He is truely the lord of death... he kills most players right off the bat with his Hell's Judgement. His power-up boosts his attack power to terrible levels, and his agility up makes him impossible to hit with regular melee skills. And if you manage to take down this newly strengthened beast, whats it to you? The highest chance you have at getting anything of value, is 1/1000 chance for the icepick. Is that REALLY worth it?
I don't really think so.
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For Great Pumpkins
By Doddler on October 31, 2007 in category 'General'
This is my story. Two of the three accounts are down and I can't pay for them. Hopefully I get paid for my recent work soon so I can get them going again. 
So I decided to upgrade festival pumpkin hats. I grabbed 5, and started going at it.
One down...
2 more down...
Two made it to +7 out of 5. Not so bad.
However, determined to never make a profit in RO, I decided I should take one to +8 instead of selling it.
I decided it was an upgrade worthy of Enriched Elu!
Life sucks. 
Atleast I still have my other +7, which I will be keeping.
So after feeling all crazy, I decided... I would go kill Tanee again!
... Big mistake.
Atleast her rewards are pretty decent, but they really, really arn't wroth the nearly two hours I spent and 40 bombs to kill her.
Its that time again!
I'm satisfied, atleast its not a peco peco card.
I have way too much crap to sell now... unfortunately no one ever seems to buy any of this stuff. Look for my shop if you're on loki! 
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Love Letters and OCA's
By Doddler on October 30, 2007 in category 'General'
So I woke up today, and decided I should check my mail.
...
I must admit this isn't the first time this kind of thing happens... but it does suprise me every time it does! Those fans, they're cool, but they can be scary at times.
So I decided I havn't done anything really sadistic lately that would cause any self loathing since my last Baphomet run. Mistress isn't giving me enough troubles lately, so I decided to check out the second most annoying MVP in the game, Lady Tanee. I don't have access to my LK account since I can't afford to pay for it so I took out my basic gear from storage (including my supersexy +7 pumpkin hat), and went down to Ayothaya.
The before shot... 43 bombs, 8:26am.
She honestly wasn't that bad. She didn't teleport quite as often as I expected her to. I got exiled a few times, but overall, it went pretty smoothly. She does hurt though.
13 minutes from start to finish, and 24 bombs. Atleast I break even with the Gakkung Bow and Elu.
I decided to go kill Dracula. Dracula didn't drop anything, but I got tights from a random Jakk. What luck.
Just a random thought, Shikieiki looks pretty good in green.
I did go kill Mistress. Of all things, there was competition again, they happened to be there when it spawned. I owned them pretty good though, only took me 2 minutes to find her. And again, I got another OCA.
I can't resist. OCA's are worth so much to sell... but they're so shiny and the prospect of getting a good card is just too tempting. I could really use a GR for mvp hunting...
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
That's 2 pecopeco cards in a row from OCA's.
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