Kuratla's ESO Journal

Kuratla · September 2014

Journal Update: September 4, 2014

This update should be fairly short. I've been busy working all last week and the one day I had off, I had to go into Bangkok. So, overall, not a lot of time online playing and advancing my toons.

I did get Sartori up to vet 2 as I raided vet solo dungeons looking for 9 skyshards so he could get to 3/3 hireling in provisioning. I got him up to Provisioning 50 the previous week but didn't have the skillpoints for the hirelings. I think that puts me at 5 toons with 3/3 provisioning hirelings now. Haven't really put much interest into provisioning but I may in the future if/when provisioning gets revamped and stuff like using food and drink together is possible. Then we'll see drink recipes and drinks for sale more often and commanding higher prices. I'll be another path to revenue for me. Just stockpiling provisioning mats now and I got tons of the stuff clogging up my bank.

Montador got up to level 39 and is almost finished with Malabol Tor. I had fun playing him, especially on Saturday night. I was in Greenshade at the time and heard a shout to join a fight against one of the world bosses. I needed that world boss (the crocodile one... forget the name) so I grouped up. Just Montador and another nightblade. Did the job, thanked the NB, left the group and went back questing. Then I heard another shout to group up for the dolmen southeast of that crocodile. I needed that anchor as well so I grouped up again. We got 4 people in the group, including that same NB. Did the job, thanked the group, left and continued questing.

Then it was my turn to look for a group. I shouted in zone chat if anyone wanted to do the public dungeon. That same NB replied "Sure, we've already two things together already". So she joined (can't remember the name but it was a female character) and got two others as well, a templar healer and a sorcerer dps. We kicked the public dungeon's ass and the healer guy had some addon that showed the location of each boss in the public dungeon so we cleared it completely... achievement and all.

Then we said, let's continue. Want to do the group dungeon? I was a bit concerned because it was 3 dps and a healer; we had no tank but it ended up being great. We did the group dungeon in Greenshade and then went on to do the dungeons in EP and CD as well (Crypt of Hearts and Arx something). Several hours with that group and it was a lot of fun. Great group, lots of talking and joking around. Everyone did their jobs well. I've had such horrible experiences with pickup groups in the past that this was really a breath of fresh air. It made me see how fun dungeons can be if you got a good group.

The healer and Montador hooked up again on Sunday and we did some POIs in Malabol Tor and the public dungeon there as well... just the two of us. Again, getting the full achievement. And last night, being more open to grouping and dungeons, I joined another PUG and did Tempest Island and Darkshade Caverns as well. Not as fun or communicative a group as on the weekend but still ok. We had a vet 6 leading the charge so it was pretty easy. And Montador actually ending up getting some dungeon achievement and I'm fairly sure that I've never gotten a dungeon achievement before... Dungeon Marauder or something like that. Even Kuratla has only just reached rank 3 in Undaunted and there's a ton of dungeons (normal and vet) that he hasn't done.

Been thinking that once I get Montador to vet 1, I'll work on Heals-Your-Pain and get him as perfect a healer as possible. As a devoted healer, shouldn't be too difficult getting groups and I'll aim to do every single dungeon (public and group) with him. The other idea is to go pvp as a healer. My main problem about pvp is that my home life makes using teamspeak and other such programs impossible and groups want (or usually require) some kind of verbal communication program. That fact of life has burned me in EVE Online, in SWTOR and now in ESO. But it is what it is and play around that restriction.

Montador is becoming a lot of fun to play. I made him a Night's Silence set and he always has Concealed Weapon slotted so he is stealth moving about the same speed as he would while running. He's got all the medium armor passives to improve sneaking and 2/3 in the Bosmer racial passive for sneaking as well. So he moves very fast and he can literally walk right up in front of a mob before they see him. Montador isn't vampire 9 yet but I've been working on it and eagerly awaiting adding the vampire passive to make him move as fast as a horse. I even took the Alliance skill "Rapid Maneuvers" but that uses up a ton of stamina and I'm thinking about changing my Thief mundus stone to the Steed.

It's just really fun. Moving around a high speeds, pretty much unseen. I can avoid a lot of the mobs if I don't want to fight them and get to the quest objectives faster and ultimately complete quests faster this way. Montador has been using stealthed mark target + snipe attacks to almost one shot a mob and then finish him off with a venom arrow. Then concentrate on bringing down the other mob or two before they close to me. The other thing I found out about the nightblade is that stealth attacking with a weapon and sneak attacking with a nightblade class skill like Concealed Weapon is not at all the same thing. The damage modifier for the sneak attack with a NB class skill is much higher than stealthed bow attacks, for example.

I found that out when I was sneaking around, turned a corner and almost walked right into the back of someone. Since I was close, I attacked with Concealed Weapon. Bam! 1000+ damage. I was confused. Stealthed mark target + snipe does around 800 damage right now for Montador. The base damage listed for Concealed Weapon in the skill description is two hundred and something while it's close to 400 for the Snipe. Yet Concealed Weapon is doing 20% more damage. So the damage modifier for sneak attacks with NB class skills is much higher than your standard stealth attack with a weapon.

So now Montador is sneaking around and one shoting everything he can. Now that I think on it... the assassination ultimate, which does close to 300 damage but up to 275% more if you have the ultimate charged up more should work the same way. I'll test it out and begin boss fights with a sneak ultimate, if possible, doing.... what?... 2000+ damage? One shot a boss? Well, we'll see.

So, yeah, having fun with Montador. I'm still not understanding all the complaining you see on the forums about the NB being the worst class. Sure, they don't have the sustained attack of a sorcerer but they don't need it in many situations. They seem to be all about the burst damage. Bide your time, get into the right position and rain death. Makes total sense... they are supposed to be rogues/assassins/sneaky types anyway. If you play the nightblade that way, they'll perform better and it'll be a lot more fun. Kinda makes me want to level up Mordeus now since he's a dual wield NB... all melee, no ranged. Alas, so many characters to level, so little time.

I've continued along with the guild trader and making gold. I try to keep at 30 items listed at all times. I'm using a Storekeeper addon that shows me what gets sold so I can replace items at the same cost almost immediately if I am online. Otherwise, I check my guild store for other items of the same type that I want to sell and I undercut by 1 gold (usually) and post my own. I would feel bad about undercutting my guild mates but they do the same thing to me. It's pure competition. When I left for work this morning, I was at 1.75 million gold. I didn't keep track of my hireling loot last week but it still must be pretty good as I'm always able to post more gold improvements for sale once the ones already posted sells.

At least I'll have the gold to buy nirnhoned traits when they come out in patch 1.4 and whatever new motif books drop (in whatever new patch down the road). Or, who knows, maybe I'll be grinding and find that stuff myself. Eventually, I'm going to get all of my 8 toons to vet 1 (or, I guess level 50 when they kill vet levels) and endgame stuff will be the only thing I can do. At which point, I'll need to learn to love the endgame or.... end the game (i.e, quit playing). But that's still a long way off. Wildstar has been out a while. I didn't leave ESO. Archeage is launching in a couple weeks. I won't leave ESO for that. Who knows what's coming....

Well, that's it for today. Thanks for reading. I'll tell you all about sneaking around fast as a horse next week. Take care.

Kuratla · September 2014

Ah boo. Just read PST patch 1.4.2 notes. They are nerfing the sneak speeds. You'll only be able to use Night's Silence or the vampire passive, not both at the same time. So looks like Montador has a few weeks to enjoy sneaking around fast as a horse before it gets nerfed. Oh well.

Kuratla · September 2014

Journal Update: September 11, 2014

Hi again. A couple things to write about today - Montador almost getting to level 50, sneak speed insanity, and guild bank robbery.

I didn't attempt to do every quest in the Dominion with Montador. Rather, I just tried to do all the major quests (a lot of which gave skillpoints as rewards) and tried to keep my quests yellow (in other words, doing quests at my current level instead of doing green or greyed out quests and get a lot less exp). So basically trying to fast track Montador's exp.

He finished off the main quests in Reaper's March and went off to Coldharbor. Coldharbor, as it turns out, is a really a nice play to grind levels. There's a few areas with lots of fast respawning mobs and you see people grinding on them. I did it just a bit myself and noticed a good amount of exp. And doing the Village of the Lost and the other POIs in Coldharbor are also good for fast leveling. Montador has only completed a couple of the quests there (included the main one of the eastern side.... saving that arrogant "Protect me while I cast this amazingly complex and impressive spell" mage and destroying the Great Shackle) but he has still reached level 49. In doing the stuff on the western side, Montador will get to level 50 (aka, Vet 1) pretty quickly... probably on Saturday.

Then I'll make him some new gear for vet 1 and send him off to explore Craglorn a bit and get access to the Arena crafting station. Currently, that's the only one he doesn't have access to. So, once that gets done, I'll be able to (over 3 different) make all 8 trait gear in Woodworking, 5 items in Light Armor (currently researching 3 items in Medium armor at 8th trait), 5 items in Heavy Armor and one handed sword (and currently researching 3 other weapons in 8th trait as well). So lots of crafting potential. I'll be looking for nirnhoned gear (the upcoming 9th trait) as soon as it's released and I'll start 9th traits as soon as I can.

I currently have no idea if 9 trait gear is going to be craftable in the next patch or if they are going to wait till patch 1.5 but, either way, I'll work on 9 traits asap. If 9 trait craftable gear is going to be released (and it's good gear), then being one of the first players on the server able to make the gear bodes well financially. People will want new set gear and will pay well for them (especially if said 9 trait set gear give awesome stats).

Montador did get rank 9 in Vampire (and later rank 10) and I bought the Dark Stalker passive right away. That used in conjunction with the Night's Silence gear and Concealed Weapon slotted is crazy fast. People say it's stealth moving as fast as a horse but it seemed to be faster than a horse.. at least my horses. It was so much fun zooming around and, with every possible passives taken in stealth, Montador could literally run inches away from an enemy and they wouldn't see him. Even if they did, he was gone before they could react.

It basically meant that he could quest a lot faster. Didn't need to fight his way through tons of mobs to get to whatever quest objective. He could just circumvent a lot of that fighting. Saved a lot of time as the big exp in questing is in turning in the quest itself, rather than the fights along the way. So Montador enjoyed that super sneaky speeds for a while.

However, when he got to level 44 and it was time for me to craft new gear for him, I opted not to make another Night's Silence set because I didn't want to get used to the sneak speed because it's being nerfed. Instead I went with Hunding's Rage and Ashen Grip for the weapon damage boosts. Actually put him into soft cap for weapon damage at level 44. I found out melee NB class skills, like Concealed Weapon, even though they use the magicka resource, do damage based on your weapon damage, not spell damage. And weapon crit, not spell crit.

I thought that was rather nice because Montador is built for weapon crit and weapon damage. I was doing something like 1350 damage with a sneak concealed weapon attack. That attack generally one shot standard mobs until the mobs I came up against had 1359 health. It was funny. They were left with 9 health after the attack so I had to put an arrow into them to finish them off. I remembered that number... 9 being a lucky number and all... well, at least here in Thailand.

However, when I upgraded my old level 30ish jewelry to level 45+ jewelry and added strong weapon damage glyphs, then my concealed weapon damage went up by 100 points. Then I figured out that weapon damage is the determining factor in NB melee attacks. So now Montador is back to one-shotting standard mobs again. Generally, he just sneaks right up the enemy, Concealed Weapon one shot, back up and light bow attack + venom attack on a second mob. That guy is dead by the time the 3rd mob reaches me and then it's a couple bow shots followed by Drain Essence to finish off the guy and restore health and stamina.

Once Montador reaches vet 1, I'll gear him up in mostly purple gear, probably the same set gear as he's using now but I won't immediately finish off Coldharbor and kill Molag Bal with him. I've been itching to use my pure healer: Heals-Your-Pain. Even though I have a couple of toons who use restro staff, it's always as a back up and I really don't have much experience in healing. So it'll be interesting to put most of my skillpoints in restro staff actives and passives and the Templar healing skill line as well. He'll, of course, need to put some points into dps as well. I can't heal enemies to death. Heals-Your-Pain will most likely do a lot of dungeons, group and public, as a dedicated healer. Shouldn't be too hard to find groups as a healer and I'll be able to do full clears of the public dungeons with the APB (All Public Bosses) add on that I downloaded and installed the other day. Montador needed a couple bosses in 2 public dungeons in AD to get the Conquerer achievement and a new dye so I got the add on for that purpose.

I'll eventually use Ignisia (in EP) and Heals-Your-Pain (in DC) to complete all public dungeons for the other two achievements and dyes as well.

And on to the last topic of today - guild bank robbery. So, a few days ago, our guildmaster said in guild chat that one of our guild mates removed the entirety of the guild banked items. 490 items in all. Then he quit the guild. I hadn't noticed myself because I don't use the guild bank... for putting stuff in or taking stuff out. There are ranks in the guild, the lower ranks don't have permission to withdraw so the guy had to have been in the guild long enough to gain ranks in gain guild bank withdrawal privileges. I took the issue to the forum and posted his name, what happened and a general warning to watch out for him. Within 10 minutes of posting that, 2 people replied that I needed to be careful and should read the forum's code of conduct about naming people. Apparently, I could have gotten myself banned because I write the guy's name in the post. Naming and shaming? Smear campaign? Ruining people's good name?

So, the issue wasn't that great that I would risk a ban so I immediately deleted the title of the post and the content of the post as well. I'm disappointed that it is this way though I do understand the reasons why the forum has those rules. To prevent against slander... fair enough. Us in the guild don't expect to get anything back. That's not the issue. I just wanted to warn the community about a guild bank thief but the rules of the forum prevented me from doing so. Oh well, I tried. "No good deed..." bah, you know the rest.

Financially, I have been buying a lot of ores for Kuratla to refine. Not because I'm interested in getting rich from alloys and grain solvents but because he needs to refine 3000 times to get an achievement dye. Normally, if you were doing all crafts on one toon, then that would basically be 1000 ores, 1000 woods, 1000 clothes but I do those 3 crafts on 3 different toons so it has to be 3000 ores because I don't refine wood or cloth on Kuratla. I do this zone pitch a lot "WTB all ores. Paying 1500 gold per iron ore stack. And an extra 50 gold per tier above iron ore." A guy yesterday wanted 3000 gold per stack of voidstone (which would be worth 1900 by my system above). I just said "no" instead of getting into an argument about how voidstone doesn't refine any better than any other ore. The increase in price by 50 gold increments is only because I can sell higher tier ingots slightly better than lower tier ingots in the guild store (they all vendor at the same 400g per stack though). And, even then, you aren't getting tons of gold selling voidstone ingots... certainly nothing to warrents 3000 gold per ore stack. At least, not in my opinion.

Sometimes I get no replies. Sometimes I get a guy selling a ton of ore. It has certainly cost me a lot of gold and, upon leaving for work this morning, my gold total was just over 2 million. Which is really good to have 2 million but it wasn't as much as a weekly increase as I've usually been getting. And, I do believe that that gold total is going to drop a lot because I'm pretty sure that I'm going to buy my 8th draft horse for Heals-Your-Pain and max out my bank space. It's like 55k to go from 170 to 180 and I think the max is 240 with 5k increments so.... 490,000 to get to 240? That's fine. May as well get everything maxed space because there doesn't seem to be much value to the gold that I have. Can't really buy anything. I believe that the gear you get from trials (which I've never done) was changed a while ago to be auto-bound so I don't see much advertising for dropped gear. As a crafter, I generally don't pay much attention to dropped gear anyway. So I don't really know what's out there.

Well, that's about it for today. Thanks for reading. Catch ya next time.

Kuratla · September 2014

Journal Update: September 18, 2014

Hi all. Ominous feelings as I begin this journal entry. When I tried to log in to ESO this morning (to check hireling mails, guild store "item sold" mails and restock my guild store items), I got the wrong version of the game message. So some quick patch came overnight. I went to the launcher and updated the little patch (it was less than 100 MB) and then went back to run the game.

This time, I saw the normal screens and when it came to the point where I was supposed to put in my username and password, the screen went black. Totally black. I could still move my mouse around and I saw the cursor moving and I heard the normal music but everything else was black. So I couldn't log in.

Then I had to leave for work with this problem unresolved. All I can hope is that this problem gets resolved through other patch fixes in the next two days before I get back online on Friday night. Or maybe it's just a temporary problem on my computer and it'll be fine on Friday. We'll see.

So, this last week saw patch 1.4 coming in. Some of the highlights included vet rank increased from 12 to 14, Upper Craglorn quests (by the way, Upper Craglorn is just extending the Craglorn map a bit on the northwest part of the old Craglorn map. It is NOT an entirely new zone), a new trial, Dragonstar Arena, new 9th crafting trait (nirnhoned), easier enchanting ranking up, and your usual balancing changes and fixes.

And, as usual for big patches, bugs. Some bugs that I know of are the Night's Silence set gear getting broken, a display error when you craft stuff and, I believe, either a bug or a nerf in that refining mats have been giving extremely low returns of purple and gold improvements. I refine mats all the time (due to getting tons of raw mats from hirelings and actively buying ores) so I have a pretty good idea about how often purple and gold improvements drop (despite the inherent randomness of the system.... our RNG). With my understanding of average returns, I saw a huge decrease in returns after patch 1.4. For example, one time refining, it took me 400+ iron ore to get a single grain solvent. Asking in my guild chats, other people also complained about a refining returns decrease.

Is it a bug or a silent nerf? It wasn't listed in the patch notes that they would be reducing refining rates (though I guess I could have missed it when I read them). Until I find out what is going on with refining, I have stopped refining all mats I get. So just going to stockpile them until the bug is fixed or the nerf is acknowledged.

I did send Kuratla over to Craglorn to have a look at the new content. I thought that Upper Craglorn was going to be a new zone so I was confused to find that no new zone was on the world map. Instead they kinda stretched out the old Craglorn map to the northwest and called it "Upper Craglorn". Looks like the only new things is a small town (Dragonstar), the Dragonstar arena (to the north of Dragonstar), a new trial and maybe some new delves (that I didn't look into). And the Upper Craglorn quest line which is apparently the only way to get nirnhoned gear right now. Kuratla walked into the arena by himself and just wanted to see what was going to happen. He died in the first match (of course).

I haven't felt motivated or really interested in doing the arena or the quest line but maybe I'll build up that motivation sometime soon. With the majority of patch 1.4 being Upper Craglorn stuff, it basically means that this patch gave me nothing and feels like a filler patch. So, are we going to get a good patch followed by a filler patch and repeat? Patch 1.3 was a great patch with the dyes, the guild traders and the changes to the set gear while Patch 1.2 gave almost nothing (only new content was a single vet dungeon) and Patch 1.1 gave Craglorn itself (which was a lot of new content). And here we are with Patch 1.4 and just a tiny bit of new content. So good odd number patches and even number filler patches? Given that these major patches are coming out around 5 - 6 weeks apart, I guess that means we'll get a good patch update every 10 - 12 weeks. At least, patch 1.5 should be good (if this trend continues) and should be coming late October or early November. *I'll predict October 27th for patch 1.5, right now. We'll see if I'm right*.

Only took me a couple hours on Friday for Montador to hit vet 1 and I made him some new gear for vet 1 and he ended up with a higher weapon damage than Incantratrix (who uses Hunding's Rage 2-hander) at the same level. I did not complete the Coldharbor quests and go after Molag Bal with Montador (same as Incantratrix). Just got him to vet 1 and sent him to Craglorn to find the crafting station. So he can craft everything in the woodcrafting line now.

Then I had a decision on how to proceed with the game and I chose to start leveling up my healer, Heals-Your-Pain. After having one of each class to vet 1 or higher, the only thing I'm lacking at vet ranks now is a dedicated healer. Heals-Your-Pain was level 6 at the time but well skilled because he isn't a crafter so I could put skill points into passives and actives and he could be at the top of his game skillwise. I got him up to level 22, completed Glenumbra in its entirety, and completed all skyshards, public dungeon and most of the POIs in Stormhaven (along with Wayrest and Darkshade dungeons last night). I'll do that last dungeon, Elden Root, when I get back online and work on Stormhaven's quests. I will attempt to be completist with Heals-Your-Pain because he's my only DC character.

I have been enjoying Heals-Your-Pain a lot. At level 22, he's already around rank 34 or 35 in Restoration staff. I use the staff in both skill bars. Generally he runs 3 heals (Healing Springs, Rapid Regeneration, Combat Prayer) and 2 dps (Sun Fire (?) the morph that hits several enemies and Biting Jabs (?) the morph that heals yourself 40% of the damage). I forget the exact names on the dps ones. When Heals-Your-Pain does group dungeons, he'll go with 5 Heals including the instant heal Templar spell (Breath of Life?) and that warding spell that gives a damage shield but more of a damage shield depending on how hurt the player is. Plus he'll take Practiced Incantation for the Ultimate. 100% healing with the group dungeons and I've had no wipes in the 5 dungeons I've completed so far with Heals-Your-Pain. He only died once when the final boss in Spindle pulled him in and killed him with an AOE before he could get away but no party wipes. Pretty good so far.

Heals-Your-Pain is using a lot of magicka reduction stuff (Seducer, two rings, light armor passives) and magicka regen stuff (Seducer, mundus stone, light armor passives, restoration staff passives and enchantment) so he has not yet run out of magicka while group healing in a dungeon. It's a lot of fun running a healer... don't know why I didn't level one up before. Heals-Your-Pain's survivability is huge and it's only going to get better. He'll have access to stronger damage shields and, of course, very powerful healing so shouldn't have any issues soloing quests and even public dungeons. I asked for a group for the first public dungeon in Glenumbra (I forget what it's called... under the roots of a big tree) but no one wanted to join so I went ahead and did it myself. Soloed the entire thing, all bosses, group challenges and quests... and Heals-Your-Pain was level 9 at the time.

I did the public dungeon in Stormhaven, partially with another person because he needed some of the bosses while I needed them all and we did the ones he needed and then he left the group. So I can't say that Heals soloed that one. But it is completely done and I'll definitely be getting the conquerer achievement and that blue dye once I get the next 3 zones' public dungeons completed. My plan is to do all POIs first (public dungeon, dolmens, WBs, skyshards, solo dungeons and group dungeons) before doing the quests in a zone. Heals is shy a couple WBs in Stormhaven. Other than that, all the POIs are done so he just needs to run through the 60+ quests (*sigh*) there.

Another good development of this week was that, while doing some cooking in Vulkhel Guard (I got two new toons to rank 50 provisioning this week), I saw a guild ad for the Iron Bank of Braavos. They have had a guild trader near Merchant's Circle's guild trader in Rawl since the beginning so they are a strong competitor to our guild. I jumped on the chance to join a second guild with the best guild trader location in the game. I immediately posted 30 items for sale on their guild store and my "item sold" mails have been great because I've always got 60 items (30 in Merchant's Circle and 30 in Iron Bank of Braavos) for sale at the best spot in AD's economic capital.

Unfortunately, the patch nuked my add ons so my Storekeeper add on isn't working so I don't know what is selling and where. Makes it more difficult for me to resupply items in the guild store when I don't know what sold. However, it is still going well. I did spend that 490k on maxing out my bank space (which maxes at 240, in case you didn't know) and another 42.7k on my 8th draft horse for Heals-Your-Pain and, after all of that, I was still at 1.8 million last night. Not sure how much I sold overnight because I couldn't log in this morning. Hopefully by the time I get online on Friday night, most of the 60 items in the guild stores will have been sold.

So 2 million last week, minus 490k (for bank space) and 42.7k (for a horse) and getting at 1.8 million this week means I earned around 330k. Pretty good. And I only joined the Iron Bank of Braavos on Tuesday so next week should be even better. And, again, another "however". The more I sell, the faster I will run out of quality improvements to sell. I have no tempering alloys or kutas to sell now. Only a handful of rosins. Still a lot of wax but the prices for those are dropping. I'll need to rely on good RNG for my hirelings in obtaining purple/gold improvements. Looks like refining isn't going to be an avenue to wealth anymore.

Pretty sure I'm going to take Heals-Your-Pain straight to vet ranks and hopefully it'll only take a couple weeks to do so. After that, I'll have Mordeus, Ignisia and Vatcher only at less than vet one. Then my decision will be to bring Ignisia to vet ranks (she's my DK Dark Elf fire mage) or continue in the vet ranks with Heals-Your-Pain. I want to do all dungeons in the group and I think the best option to do so will be with Heals-Your-Pain... including all the vet dungeons so he'll need to get stronger for those. Mordeus is dual wield NB (but already got a bow NB - Montador to vet 1) and Vatcher is 2 hander DK (and Incantratrix is 2 hander) so those two may never reach vet ranks. Well, maybe Mordeus but Vatcher will be the last, if ever.

If I continue to enjoy Heals-Your-Pain, I'll level him up through the vet ranks, doing all the new dungeons in the vet zones and eventually attempting trials and arena with him. Since I've gone through the solo content of the game so many times, it's just getting easier and easier with additional toons. Everything with Heals-Your-Pain has been so easy so far. I think he literally died twice so far - once in Spindlecrutch and once against a mini-boss I was soloing in Stormhaven's public dungeon. He could end up being my favorite character and the one that I do the most content on. Still not interested in pvp but I'll take Heals, if/when I get ever interested in it.

Well, that's my update for today. Here's hoping I can actually play the bloody game when I get home on Friday! Thanks for reading.

Kuratla · September 2014

Journal Update: September 25, 2014

Welcome back. So, when I got back online on Friday, I had the same issue... blacked out log in screen. I went to the forums and asked for help. And, quite quickly, someone gave me some advice concerning changing my UserSetting.txt file. Following that advice, I was able to get to log in and have had no issues at all since then. So that's all good and excellent to get quick replies and help from my fellow forum users.

I'm gonna talk about three things in this update: 1) nirnhoned stuff, 2) animation canceling (AKA clipping) guild debate, and 3) experiences with Heals-Your-Pain over the last week.

Once I got back online on Friday evening, I asked around about the prices of nirnhoned gear and was told that people were selling them in Craglorn for another 50k each. Apparently, upon completing those upper Crag quests and getting a piece of nirnhoned gear, people would decon it with a secondary alt (so needing like 6 hours to get the trait learned) and then they would farm harvest nodes in upper Craglorn to get the nirncrux trait stones, and make and sell nirnhoned items for 50k. Fair enough.

I went over with Kuratla and asked around and ended up buying 3 woodcrafting items (bow, shield and resto staff) at 50k each and immediately started learning those 9 traits on my woodcrafter, Montador. I wasn't interested in researching the trait on a different toon and then farming for trait stones. I avoid farming or grinding as much as possible. Later on, I ended up buying a greatsword, one handed sword and light robe as well. Pretty much, every time a research item is up on Kuratla, Montador or Incantratrix, I will look to buy a nirnhoned item I don't have and get the 9th trait started. At worst, I'll need to buy 3 per month per craft so I don't mind the prices being expensive (and the prices are going to drop anyway... they gone down from 50k to 30k in a few days already).

Of course, right now, there are no 9 trait crafted gear in the game so there's no current good reason to learn the 9th traits on item. But, given that they have put a 9th trait into the game, it is only logical to assume that 9 trait crafted gear will be put into the game at some future point. Putting them into the game now isn't necessary because no one will have a 9th trait learned not until around 3 weeks from now anyway. I'm guessing that the next new zone (whatever that will be) will have a crafting station which needs 9 traits to use. Or maybe the Thieves' Guild or Dark Brotherhood's crafting stations (assuming they will have one) will be 9 traits as well. Since the Mage's and Fighter's Guild have crafting stations, it makes sense that the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood will as well.

The next topic today is animation canceling... clipping. So, here's the story. Monday's patch added a change in heavy attacks where completed heavy attacks restore a certain amount of stamina or magicka, depending on which weapon you are using. We were talking about it in guild chat and everyone agreed that it was a great change and all were happy to see it. Well, all but one. One guy said that he wasn't happy to see this new change because it was a nerf to his dps. Several of us, including myself, typing in "How so?"

And then the conversation of clipping began. So, what's clipping? I'm sure a lot of MMO users already know but I didn't myself. While I do play a lot of games, I don't consider myself a hardcore player and nor do I (nor will I) use every trick and tactic in the book to squeeze out every extra point of damage I can. I am simply not competitive in that way. I play to enjoy the game, enjoy the storyline, enjoy the exploring and adventure, enjoy developing my character, etc. Clipping (I was told) is animation canceling where you do a heavy attack but you don't follow through with the heavy until it completes. Instead, you use a spell to cancel out the animation of the heavy attack. I don't know how much damage you get from the heavy attack (is it the full damage? is it partial damage?) but it's certainly added to the damage from whatever spell you are casting. In other words, you are increasing your dps by clipping.

Apparently, clipping is the thing to do for dps users. I said in guild chat that it sounded like an exploit to me and I was told that I had no clue what I was talking about. I agreed on that point because I had never heard of clipping before but upon being told what clipping was, it did sound like an exploit to me (and after learning more about it, it still does sound like an exploit). Whether it is an exploit or not, whether ZoS considers it an exploit or not, doesn't matter to my feeling that it seems like an exploit to me. But on with the guild debate. The guy explained clipping said that this heavy attack restoring stam or magicka change was nerfing his dps because if you clip, you are not completing a full heavy attack and thereby not getting the resource restored.

Not a single person in the guild chatting at that time agreed with him that it was a dps nerf. He tried to explain several times but the rest of us still didn't agree. He can continue to clip, as he did before, and he will not benefit from the resource restoring. In other words, absolutely nothing has changed for him, his dps and his playstyle. If he stops clipping, does full heavy attacks and gets the resource restore, then his dps will drop... but he doesn't have to do the full attacks. He can still clip as he's always done. So, basically, ZoS created an alternative option to clipping. You can do either one. If you continue clipping as you always have, where's the nerf to your dps? He failed to explain this point and several people pointed out he didn't need to do full attacks and he'd be in the exact position as he was before the patch (i.e., no nerf at all) but he then got aggressive and called us stupid and uneducated for not understanding how his dps had been nerfed. I guess I'm a moron because I still don't know how his dps has dropped.

The interesting thing is that that guy seems like a nice guy, is very knowledgeable about the game and is generally helpful with advice in guild chat. The debate did end peacefully enough and we were talking about other topics later on without any hard feelings.

Lastly, my experiences with Heals-Your-Pain. I put in a lot of time with him and he fully completed Stormhaven and fully completed Rivenspire and partly done with Alik'r (sp?) Desert as well. He's currently at level 38. Heals-Your-Pain turns out to be an absolute powerhouse and easily the most powerful character I have... even at his low level. Against mobs, he pumps out AOE damage to around 1000 - 1200 damage per sound... and that at levels in the low 30s. I think a few things came together here that makes Heals-Your-Pains completely owning the PVE experiences I've been facing. 1) Heals is my 8th character so I've had a lot of experience in playing the game. 2) Top quality gear - I always gear up Heals in high quality gear. 3) Improved game performance in patch 1.4 where the game moves and reacts a lot more fluidly so I can heal or dodge or block or whatever to avoid disaster.

Heals-Your-Path has been doing very well in dungeons, public and group. I soloed both public dungeons in Rivenspire and Alki'r Desert. The desert one was really interesting. There were a couple of really tough fights and Heals performed amazingly well. One of the bosses was a gargoyle with 12k health. Immune to all CCs, a ton of health and hit like a truck. In public dungeons, I take an AOE skillbar and a solo target skillbar and switch back and forth depending on if I'm fighting a trash mob group or harder targets like gargoyles, trolls, or bosses. It took quite a while to kill that gargoyle boss because I used up so much magicka healing myself... only attacking when I got a bit of a break from its attacks. So often, I got down to 5 or 10% health but managed to heal up before death and took the beast down without dying. After such a long fight, I probably wouldn't have tried again if I died but didn't need to re-try.

The other fight in that dungeon was a humanoid boss who constantly shield bashed me, requiring me to break CC and use up a ton of stamina so I could block or dodge roll. He had 10k health. Another long fight but easier than the gargoyle because he didn't hit as well. I did need to leave the dungeon and look for help for the group challenge because it literally needed two people. There were symbols on the floor that we had to step on in the right order to activate the group challenge boss. That done, Heals left the dungeon with a full clear. I just need the 5th zone's public dungeon now for the DC conqueror achievement and a new dye. Heals is also working on DC exploration and quest achievements as well. So far he's got all the quests done in previous zones and all those cave or delve or whatever explorer achievements.

The group dungeons have been all good as well. Did the three ones from the 3rd zone and Tempest Island and Direfrost Keep last night. Just need Volenfall (sp?) to complete all the group dungeons up to his level. Generally I've been getting good groups and we blaze through the dungeons without issue. Deaths are rare and usually only happen when the tank gets one shot or dps guys are standing on AOE damage circles and don't move. Then they take a huge amount of damage and I can't heal them fast enough. Practiced Incantation ultimate has saved my group from wipes a couple times as, with some bosses, they go nuclear just before they die and just spread out huge amount of AOE damage. I pop my ultimate then to counter that damage and the dps / tank finishes off the boss. The last storm atronauch boss in Tempest Island is a perfect example of that.

Around every 5 levels, I make new gear for Heals. I do it every 5 or levels so I can update the glyphs I'm using for him as well as higher tier set gear. So each time I get new gear, his magicka and health go up, his spell damage and magicka regen goes up. It keeps him in top form and makes questing at his level a piece of cake and helps him handle difficult content like public dungeons solo. I recall the group that did the 3rd faction dungeons with me. We were around level 26 - 27. One of the Nightblades was poorly geared and only had around 600 health (while I was around 1000 at the time). He probably wasn't using food either. He died several times to heavy attacks. I can't heal and save people when they die to one attack. Proper gear (and food) makes a huge difference in ESO. The difference between death or success and the difference between content being easy or difficult.

Heals got all skills in Restoration Staff taken and morphed. I really like the last skill where you siphon life and magicka off a single target. It's great for the boss fights because the group are healing every time they attack and that takes some of the healing strain off of me. And you get back some magicka too so they helps improve dps as well. Great spell.

Heals is in the high 30s in the three templar class skills so he hasn't gotten the last skills in each yet. Looking forward to them because I either didn't get them or didn't rank them up enough to morph with Incantratrix so there are some templar skills that I'm still unaware of.

Last thing to talk about today is ESO live. An email came the other day about the first ESO live video on Twitch. I watched it and enjoyed seeing how tuned in the community devs are to the community. They talked with other devs and some players of the game and had lots of different topics to talk about. It will be a bi-weekly thing so that's something to look forward to with the game. They gave some teasers about patch 1.5 and, unfortunately, it seems like patch 1.5 will be another filler patch. From what they said, they mentioned a new vet dungeon, werewolf changes and that NPC facial improvements they mentioned at QuakeCon. Nothing was said about spellcrafting or Justice System or Champion system or a new zone. Unless they are keep some stuff secret for now, I am not currently optimistic about the new content coming in patch 15.

Well, that's it for today. Thanks for reading (as always).

Kuratla · October 2014

Journal Update: October 2, 2014

Hi readers. Just a short update today. Nothing really comes to mind as interesting or noteworthy over the last week for me to write about here. No drama, no new experiences, no insights into the game.

I put all of my time on Heals-Your-Pain and he went through the desert of Alik'r as well as Bangkorai completely. All quests, all POIs, all exploration points. He got all Daggerfall Covenant achievements... like the public dungeon conquerer one, the Covenant Hero one, the master explorer one, etc. So I did unlock some new dyes from that. He's also done all non-vet dungeons in the game so far and I'll get into the vet dungeons once he gets to whatever level is needed for those.

Heals got to around rank 3 1/2 in the Undaunted skill line from all of the dungeons completed. He's also got some dungeon achievements like damage dealer, dungeon ruler, and dungeon healer but I'm not sure if those achievements advance the Undaunted skill line or not (I'm assuming they don't). I'm looking forward to getting rank 4 in Undaunted for the Bone Shield spell as that will become a very valuable spell for Heals to use in group dungeons.

He did the three zone 5 group dungeons over the weekend and the only difficult one was the one with the pirates because it was just 3 of us doing it. The leader was a vet 9 or something and he said that we did't need a 4th player because of his level. He was wrong. He died often enough and we got several group wipes simply because a vet 9 is NOT equal in damage, blocking and healing as two level 40 whatevers. We really needed that 4th player to deal damage and to absorb damage. We just ended up being overwhelmed sometimes.

However, we did manage to complete the dungeon but it wasn't pretty. The last group dungeon I did was the Vault of Madness yesterday and it was a full group of vet 1s in Coldharbour. It was quite long for a dungeon but it was really easy. Only two deaths in the whole thing, but Heals didn't die and no party wipes. One death was a one shot (so nothing I could do) and the other was the guy was running around a lot and got out of my healing range so I had to chase him down to heal him but I couldn't get there in time.

Heals was level 48 1/2 when he finished off the DC stuff and headed to Coldharbour. It didn't take much work to reach vet 1 and I got Heals some new gear made and he's around (with food) 1850 health, 2300 magicka, 1100 stamina, 90 spell damage, 40% spell crit, 135 magicka regen. He's into softcap for magicka and magicka regen so I may change some glyphs around to reduce magicka and increase health and reduce magicka regen and increase spell power.

At vet 1, Heals went off to the Village of the Lost public dungeon in Coldharbour. For once, while I was there, I saw no one else. I guess probably because it was the afternoon my time so the middle of the night in America therefore not many people around. So I went about trying to solo that dungeon... which is the first time I've tried on any character. I couldn't find the location of one of the bosses (but I'll get back to that on the weekend); otherwise, Heals completed the entire dungeon. He did die a couple of times until I got the correct skill bar set up to handle both the mobs and the bosses. The group challenge was the easiest thing there. It was one of those titan daedra but it didn't move. It just sent out two light attacks and telegraphed a large heavy attack which was easily dodgeable. I just ran back and forth, attacking and healing until I whittled it down.

I am looking at a long road ahead for Heals because I want him to be my primary character and I am completist with him. He's going to go through the entirety of Cadwell's Silver and then the Gold. All quests, all exploration, all POIs, all dungeons. That's going to take quite a while. It took me around 2 1/2 weeks to complete Daggerfall Covenant from start to finish with Heals. Not sure if I can do AD and EP in an equal amount of time or if it'll be faster or slower. If equal, it'll be around 5 weeks and plus I need to finish off Coldharbour as well.

By then, Heals will certainly be around vet 11 or 12. I believe Kuratla was around vet 10 1/2 once he finished Cadwell Gold and he wasn't completist. After Cadwell Gold, I'll try to get Heals to do the Craglorn quests but I'm doubtful about that due to the fact that it is so difficulty getting groups for that. If that doesn't pan out, he could always just grind Craglorn to hit v14. I definitely want to do all the vet dungeons with Heals and the trials and the Dragonstar arena. All that endgame stuff that I never did with Kuratla.

Last thing to talk about today is a bit of news. From guild chat this morning, I learned about the ESO guild summit which is, apparently, a 2 day summit for some 20 guild leaders and online community leaders about the state of the game and what's in the works for ESO. I always like reading about these things and seeing what I need to look forward to. Of course, the haters (AKA internet cowards) are all over it already complaining about how ZOS spent money on this when they should be hiring more staff to fix PVP or (not about the summit but another hater) about how bad the Ice Wraith pet is. They give something for free and these idiots complain about it. Unbelievable.

The summit is a prime example that ZOS is moving forward with the game, continuing to develop it and spending time and money to include their playerbase in their discussions. That is excellent, in my opinion. The online communities are already posting info about what was discussed at the summit so that info will very quickly become common knowledge for anyone who wants to know. Yet the haters are going to find ways to turn all that positive stuff into a negative.

Well, here's some of the info. Firstly, for the crafters, like me, a 9 trait craftable set gear station will be introduced in Upper Craglorn with patch 1.5. I predicted as much because by the time patch 1.5 comes, a lot of people will have 3 items at 9 traits learned per craft so it'll be possible, with some cooperation between players, to get a full 5 piece set made (or even one player can do that if he's mixing and matching armor types). The 9 trait set is called "The Twice Born Star" and it will be: 2 piece - Increase Health, 3 piece - Increase Stamina, 4 piece - Increase Magicka, 5 piece - allows two mundus stones to be used at the same time. This set opens up a lot of possibilities and I think it's going to be popular so the people who can craft pieces for it will be making some coin for sure.

Other info: Dwemer crafting style is coming.. so dwarven armor. Not idea what that will look like but more crafting styles is always welcomed. Provisioning will be revamped and new v10 recipes will be introduced. Undaunted dailies are coming but no info on what the passives will be for that. Spellcrafting, Poison making, Jewelry making and Mount racing are all coming but most likely far down the road. Details on the Imperial City has been given... which seems like a mostly 1 - 2 player PVE zone inside a PVP zone (which is nice for me personally because it's PVE and potentially soloable or only needs 1 other player to group with).

Info on the Champion system was given as well. Stats will be multiplied by 10 so it'll be easier to see small increases in your stats (like a small % increase from a mundus stone now seems really small and meaningless) and soft caps will be removed entirely. So, Heals, at 2300 magicka now, would be 23,000 magicka and, with no soft caps, I could go with 7 magicka glyphs and set gear bonus to really get crazy numbers but I'd be trading off other stats to do so. Looks like the idea is that you are more free with your own builds but you'll need to do your own balancing.

One thing that concerns me about the Champion system is when they said that earned vet ranks will convert into Champion system xp but there's a cap on how much exp they will give. So people with multiple toons in high vet ranks may lose out, it seems. One reason why I have stopped at vet 1 for most of my toons. The idea of grinding levels to see it lost doesn't sit well with me. They will introduce the Champion system slowly and eventually phase out Veteran ranks completely. Patch 1.5 will have some elements of the Champion system in it.

There will also be rested exp in a new system called "Enlightenment".

That's some of the info I read about for the 1st day of the summit and more stuff on classes, dungeons and the Justice system will come tomorrow. But I won't write about it (if at all) until next week's journal update... unless I get to read that new info early enough before I head home.

Well, that's it for today. Cya next time.

Kuratla · October 2014

Journal Update: October 9, 2014

Not much of an update today. I got a lot of work to do today so I'm not going to sit here at my computer for an hour or so trying to think of some content to write about for last week.

Just quickly: I finished off Coldharbour with Heals-Your-Pain and killed Molag Bal. It was a complete piece of cake with Heals. Then I went back to the Anchorage and talked to Cadwell and started Cadwell's Silver... which was vet zone Aldmeri Dominion. Now, I've done AD a bunch of times because most of my toons are AD so I knew exactly what was coming. Only difference was the level of the mobs and the world bosses and the dark anchors are definitely more difficult than non-vet levels but still doable solo.

Heals did all of Auridon (still being completist and doing everything) and also did all of the POIs in Grahtwood and currently doing the quests there. Probably a day or two to finish all the quests in Grahtwood and then on to Greenshade. Heals is at vet 3 currently and he's been experimenting with different weapon types. I figure that I may as well train up other weapons (other than my standard restoration).

It's actually very easy to get to at least rank 40 in a weapon once you are in vet zones and doing quests. I just put whatever weapon and skills from that weapon into my secondary slot and switch to that weapon once I turn in a quest and it zooms up in level. I've already got to around rank 40 in One Hand and Shield and got all 5 skills taken and all morphed except the last one. I did that in case of future desires to tank with Heals. I also added one piece of heavy and medium armor so he can slowly rank up the other armor types as well (he's been rank 50 in light armor for a long time now).

Once One Hand and Shield was around 40, I got a destruction staff made and now he's around rank 35 in that and most of the skills taken and morphed. The difference between One Hand and Shield and the Destruction staff is that Heals is actually using the destruction staff and skills in his normal skill bar. I'll leave Restoration Staff for when he is healing in dungeons.

Ah dungeons. Heals did attempt one vet dungeon (Fungal Grotto) but it went badly. I had lag and our group didn't mesh well anyway. We tried, and died, against the first major boss a couple times before one of the guys got fed up and disbanded. One of the attempts, my skill bar was completely greyed out. It was weird... never seen that before. I couldn't heal or use any spells... only light or heavy attacks.

So, before I get back into trying vet dungeons (and I really do want to do them for the achievements, skillpoints and Undaunted exp), I need to make sure that my connection is solid and I'm not experiencing any delay or lag. Back in the non-vet dungeons, sometimes I would experience some lag but it wasn't fatal. It seems that in vet dungeons, it is. Things need to be done pretty much perfectly there.

No official news from the forum about what's coming in patch 1.5 nor a time expectation for that. I'll certainly write about my thoughts on patch 1.5 when I get some solid info.

Last thing, before I go, is that I think I've figured out the Enchanting hireling issue. A couple of things are important in getting consistent Rekutas or Kutas from the hirelings. First, being vet 1 or higher is important. Second, having 3/3 in Runestone Extraction is crucial. My off enchanters like Montador, Sartori, Incantratrix (and now Heals-Your-Pain) have been getting the occasional Kuta from the hirelings once I put 3 skillpoints into Runestone Extraction. All of those toons are vet 1 or higher.

Heals-Your-Pain also has Aspect Potency 4/4 (which those other 3 toons don't) so I'll give it a week or two and see if Heals consistently gets better hireling drops than the rest. If he does, then I'll know that Aspect Potency is also a strong factor. Right now, with 6 toons at 3/3 enchanting hireling (all with 3/3 Runestone Extraction and 2 of them maxed in everything for enchanting), I'm getting around 2 - 3 kutas per day from the hirelings. And an equal amount or more of Rekutas.

Mordeus has been using those kutas to make a lot of vet 14 gold glyphs and I've been selling them for around 5300 gold each (depending on current prices) on my guild stores so a nice bit of consistent income from that. Mordeus is maxed in Enchanter but only level 11. He still gets some Kutas so being vet 1 isn't the only issue in the hireling drops. However, given that a lot of my vets with a lot less skillpoints put into enchanting than Mordeus get kutas with around the same frequency as he does, it is not a bad idea to think about leveling up Mordeus now. But I still want to work on Heals... still want to get him to vet 14 and for him to be my primary character.

That's it for today. I need to get some work done... given as I'm at work and everything. Catch ya next time.

Kuratla · October 2014

Journal Update: October 16, 2014

Hi again. I'm working 7 days a week currently so getting less time online than I would otherwise like so Heals-Your-Pain is progressing a bit slowly. He finished off Grahtwood and all of Greenshade and now on Malabal Tor. He got most of the POIs there done as well as a lot of the POIs in Reaper's Marsh as well. When I got closer to vet 5 rank with Heals, I started trying to clear POIs for faster exp (doing all the solo dungeons, dolmens and world bosses) and I even spent some time in Cyrodiil doing one of those 5 or 6 sets of PVE quests out of different towns.

I think there is around 10 - 12 quests per town area and I completely one of them completely and also did the solo dungeons in the immediate area as well. I eventually need to do all of those PVE quests in Cyrodiil anyway because I need them for the Tamriel Hero achievement. And I cleared two of the solo dungeons of their bosses as well. I guess it's a bit tricky to get those dungeons (or caves, I guess) done because there is a long respawn time on the bosses. I've done some on other characters and found the mobs and bosses difficult but doable with characters vet 1 or lower but Heals (now at vet 4 and just a tiny bit from vet 5) blasted through the content without issue. Cyrodiil mobs are vet 5 and Heals is vet 4 so there's no difficulty issue.

It'll just take time but I'll get it done eventually. Getting all the skyshards in Cyrodiil is a different issue because some of them are hidden close to each faction's starting areas and are not accessible unless your faction is beating down the walls. I'll need to get into the right campaign at the right time so it's not something I expect to do anytime soon.

Concerning crafting and hirelings, I've had a full week of enchanting hirelings from Heals and I see no difference from his drops (at Aspect Potency 4/4) and 3 of my other vet toons (at Aspect Potency 1/4). Certainly the Runestone Extraction 3/3 skill is the key skill in getting good hireling drops. Other the last week, I've gotten up to 4 Kutas (and 2 Rekutas) in one hireling event but generally get 2 or 3 Kutas per time. So that's 4 - 6 Kutas per day which is really really good. Actually, right now, I'm getting more Kutas per day than I am getting any other gold improvement.

Mordeus is making a lot of gold vet 14 glyphs and once I sell one in either of my two guilds with guild traders, I'll make another and post it. Despite making and selling gold glyphs a lot, I'm still stockpiling Kutas and I'm getting more than I'm using. I think Mordeus is holding on to 15 right now. I'm getting Kutas a lot faster than I'm getting Kuras or Kudes so I've been forced to buy Potency 9 runes to keep up with the glyph demand. I may end up actually selling Kutas now. So... for people wondering about how to get good Enchanting hireling drops.. 3 things: 1) Hireling 3/3. 2) Runestone Extraction 3/3. 3) Vet 1 or higher toon.

So, patch 1.5 has gone live on the PTS, patch 1.5 notes have been posted and ESO live (I watched the 3rd episode on Youtube this morning) gave quite a bit of information about it. I'll write some of my feelings about patch 1.5 here and that'll conclude this week's update. Not much is going on in the game for me, nothing new in my guild's and Heals is just doing AD zones now (albeit in vet difficulty) and I've done AD so many times that there's nothing new for me.

Highlights of Patch 1.5 (and my thoughts):

1) Vet Dungeon - City of Ash. This will be a vet 14 dungeon and since I've yet to do any vet dungeons with Heals so far, I wouldn't be looking at this dungeon anytime soon. So, meh on this.

2) Dungeon and Instance scaling. This means that when you go back over zones and do stuff you passed over, the mobs will scale to your current level. And dungeons will scale to the group leaders now. Sounds like a good idea to me. For example, if/when the Thieves' Guild or Dark Brotherhood quest lines comes out, the majority of players will have vet toons and at least the quests and mobs will be challenging and not like starting the Mage's Guild quests now at level 45. Since you'll always been fighting things at your level, you'll always be getting exp and always be getting loot. So sounds good to me.

3) Two kinds of daily quests - Undaunted Pledges and Crafting Writs. For Undaunted, you can do 1 non-vet and 1 vet dungeon per day and you'll get bronze, silver or gold keys (depending on if you do bonus objectives, etc) and can use those keys to open chests and get rewards. New set items being available. For Crafting Writs, you get crafting quests to make and deliver items and get exp and crafting inspiration plus the chance to get a survey map which is a high-yield node and a chance to get nirncrux trait stones for maxed crafters (and high vet level toon as well, I think). 6 quests per day... one for each type of craft.

I like both of these. It'll give me more reasons to do dungeons and will make it easier to group for them because so many people will be wanting to group for the Undaunted pledges. I harvest nodes every chance I get so definitely will be doing crafting writ quests daily. I'll check them out and see how much I like them (or how beneficial they are and how long they take) before decided to run through the quests with all of my toons. I'm currently deconning all items I get with Heals from the vet mobs because I want to get to rank 50 in all 6 crafts with him. That is something I haven't done yet (maxed in all crafts on one toon) so Heals will be the first. This whole crafting writ and survey report thing may be another reason to max out crafting on all toons for me.

4) New motif style - Dwemer. From the picture I seen, it looks a lot like the dwarven armor from Skyrim so that's pretty cool (at least the heavy armor does). They are doing something new here where, in addition to finding the motif book, you can also find chapters from the book which allows making just one type of equipment in Dwemer style... like bow or heavy chest. So getting all the chapters equates to having read the whole book. For crafting traits, you need to get scrap metal from dwarven automatons in Dwemer delves and refine them down to whatever trait is needed. Personally, I'm going to take the time to find the location of dwemer delves in each zone and write them down so I can jump around to different dungeons in the hopes of finding the book and/or chapters. I'm assuming that dwemer delves are going to have a lot of people in them so it'll be good to know where to go and change locations in the dungeon you happen to be grinding in becomes overpopulated. As a crafter, I definitely want this style.

5) Chat bubbles and NPC conversation facial animation improvements. Since my main focus in the game is character development, crafting and wealth, improvements that make the game look better and more beautiful are nice and all but not something that I spent too much time looking into (or at, I guess). Sorry but that's just me. I appreciate that the game is beautiful and I really like the fact that the entire game is voice acted but it's the character development that makes me log in everyday.

6) Stamina-based weapon improvements. They've done a lot to build up the bow, 2 hander, dual wield and 1 hand and shield weapons to make them more balanced against the magicka-based weapons. There's a ton of patch notes about the changes they've made. It's great that they are improving stamina users and good that the game will be getting closer to their motto of "Play as you want to play", instead of "Staff and dress regardless of what class and race you are". I personally didn't listen to that anyway and did fine in PVE making builds as I wanted to make them. Of my 5 vet characters, only 2 are staff and light armor. The other 3 are stamina builds.

7) Werewolf revamp (yes, pun intended). They made 3 new skills so you can have a full 5 skillbar now. One is a heal. One is an AOE knockdown. One is an AOE damage over time. They've made changes to some of the passives as well and the one change I really like is making Devour easier to use, not being interruptable, usable on new types of mobs and shorter cooldown. So, used properly, you should be able to stay in werewolf form for quite a long time now. Kuratla is still a werewolf and he'll be getting 12 free skillpoints (since he's vet 12) so I'll use those for the new werewolf active skills and spend some time on Kuratla ranking them up and seeing what they morph into. The other option is to get Heals infected with lycantrophy but I'm divided on that. On the positive side, he's an Argonian so he has racial resistances to poison so the werewolf drawback won't affect him so much but, on the negative side, he is a magicka user and he'll need to invest a lot of skillpoints into the werewolf... and those skillpoints I really want to put into crafting instead.

8) Vet changes leading towards an eventual removal of the Vet system and replacing it with the Champion system. In patch 1.5, vet points will be removed and replaced with experience points. Characters will get a skillpoint and attribute points for each vet rank they gain (or have already gained) and a set amount of 1.4 million exp is needed per vet rank. Heals, at vet 4, needs something like 1.8 million vet points now to reach vet 5 so the new change will make it slower to hit vet 2 and 3, around the same for vet 4, and then get faster in hitting vet 5 and so on. Overall, it'll be much much faster to reach max vet ranks... which is great from my point of view because I have no toons at max vet ranks. I never bothered to grind up Kuratla to vet 14 though I do play to get Heals there.

9) Changes to class skills, weapons skills, fixes to zones and quests and dungeons and trials. All the normal extra stuff to comes with a patch and this patch has a TON of stuff in the patch notes.

So, overall, I like it. I love that I'll be doing daily quests in for dungeons and for crafting. I want to see what the new werewolf skills are like. I like that vet ranks will go faster because they are horribly slow now. Of course, I am disappointed to not see a major addition to the game like the Justice or Champion system or one of the new guilds but we can hope for that stuff maybe in patch 1.6 or early in 2015. Maybe they'll give us the Justice system as a Christmas gift?!

That's it for this update. I believe I'll be working hard (ie, 7 days a week) for all of October so I don't expect much progress in the game over the next few weeks. However, I have committed to using some of the money I'll be earning to buy a new computer early in November. Currently, my home PC is an ancient piece of technology which CANNOT run any new game at all (for example, I can't run Watchdogs or Shadow of Mordor or the new Need for Speed game on it... even on the lowest settings) and I am forced to run ESO on medium quality.

I'll put down the cash and get a new computer specced as high as I can get it. Hopefully, then I can run ESO on ultrahigh quality and I'm sure the quality difference and the look of the game will amaze me. Plus I'll be able to try out some of the PC games I've been unable to play which will give me a break from ESO and that's all good. It doesn't do to burnout on a game and a break can be good from time to time.

Adios. Thanks for reading and cya next time.

nun_nonrb19_ESO · October 2014

Hi Kuratia,

Care to help me out getting into Iron Bank of Bravos guild?
I'm into 3 trading guilds but one is a very very slow mover and I'm in search of a good guild to be able to sell all the pretty things I loot here and there. My guilds aren't able to keep up with the amount of loot I pick.

Kuratla · October 2014

Hi Nun_Nonrb19,

I'm not an officer in any guild so the best I can do is for you to contact me in-game and I'll give you the name of the guild leader and you can contact him. It's up to him to invite you into the guild or not.

Cheers.

Kuratla · October 2014

No update today

October 23 is a holiday in Thailand (something about one of their previous kings) so I did not go to work today therefore no time to write an update.

I'll have too much work to catch up on tomorrow so no time then either so cancelling this week's update (sorry to leave my readers hanging... like all 10 of you or whatever... lol) and back again next week on the 30th.

Kuratla out.

Kuratla · October 2014

Journal Update: October 30th

Hi there. Happy Halloween for tomorrow (for those of you whom enjoy that holiday). I loved Halloween growing up in Canada and it's sad that it isn't celebrated here in Thailand so I can't expose my own children to that cultural aspect of their heritage.

It's been two weeks since my last update and not really a lot has happened in that time. Heals-Your-Pain is up to vet 8 now and has completely finished Cadwell Silver and is onto the Ebonheart Pact content for vet 6 - 10. I did quite a bit of the POIs from all of the 5 zones to gain exp (err... vps) quickly and get skyshards for skillpoints. Only yesterday did he complete the first zone, Stonefalls, and he's on to Deshaan (vet 7 zone) even though his level is well into vet 8.

In the last two weeks, Heals has been infected by vampirism and I got the rank to 10, cured himself of it (because vampirism didn't really help him much) and then got infected with lycanthropy and also got to rank 10 in Werewolf. Due to racial Argonian poison resistance and the changes to werewolf coming in patch 1.5, I have not cured Heals of that disease and am going to keep it and looking forward to getting the new WW skills. He's got the ultimate morphed and rank 4 already and have morphed both Pounce and Roar (though the morphed version aren't rank 4 yet due to extremely slow leveling for those skills).

I've been working on as many achievements as I could with Heals and he's somewhere around 6300 total achievement points (compared to 4800 for Kuratla at v12). Mainly because I'm building up Heals as my primary character so I want him as well-rounded as possible. He recently got rank 50 in Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworking (both for the achievement points and for the crafting dailies coming in patch 1.5). He's already had rank 50 in Alchemy and Provisioning so only rank 50 in Enchanting is left for him to get and that's a total meh... as we all know. I will do it though but only after I have all 8 toons at rank 32 Enchanting which 3/3 hirelings and 3/3 runestone extraction. I'm not that far away because only 1 toon, Vatcher, is NOT rank 32 Enchanting yet. Once he is, then I'll work on Enchanting rank 50 for Heals... for the achievement points and because there'll be nothing else to do.

I have been fairly bored with ESO lately and patch 1.5 can't come fast enough for me. I want new content, dailies, a good reason to do dungeons, etc. I still play ESO every day and certainly log in twice a day to get my hireling mails and try to keep my guild trader items stocked. Though I play a lot less per day and I get bored quite a bit faster than before. After doing a series of quests with Heals, I'll lose interest, log out and do something else.

Generally playing a lot of Hearthstone but now playing Civilization: Beyond Earth. That latter game I got a few days ago and was happy to it actually works on my ancient computer. It is quite similar to Civ 5 expect with an alien landscape, alien NPCs and resources. It took me a day or two to get into the game but I'm quite interested in Civ: Beyond Earth at the moment. That creates a pro and con situation for ESO. It takes away some game time on ESO but that is probably not a bad thing. I've played ESO pretty much straight and consistently since April so taking a break for ESO is probably healthy. Sure I'm not leveling up another vet toon faster than I could be but who cares. I'm not in competition with anyone.

As long as I'm enjoying my time gaming (regardless of what game it is), then all is fine in my world.

We are past my previous prediction for Patch 1.5's release of October 27 so here's hoping it comes next Monday. For sure, if it's not ready and still buggy, then, no, definitely don't release it until it's ready. I'll probably spend a minimal amount of time over the coming weekend on ESO as I'll be experiencing more of Civ: Beyond Earth (which I am not going to critique or explain or review here because this isn't the place for it). If patch 1.5 is not released next week, then I'll see how motivated and interested I am in ESO to continue doing the EP content with Heals.

Mid-November, I will be buying a new computer and that is going to change a lot for me... for ESO and otherwise. For ESO, I should be able to run the game smoothly on high quality or even ultra-high and that will give the game a new skin and hopefully make me appreciate the beauty of ESO more (which is hard for me to do currently running the game on medium quality). Secondly, my gaming experience on ESO is rarely smooth. There are lags and delays most of the time. For example, I can move around fine but almost all of the time, if I'm running or on a horse which is running and I try to turn left or right, the game delays and I get stuck running forward for a couple seconds. Then I end up somewhere I don't want to be.

As well, in fierce combat situations where I'm moving around a lot or dodge rolling, I often get a couple seconds of nothingness which sometimes leads to my death. If it's against a boss, then absolutely leads to my death. I am unsure if this situation... which has persisted for the entire time I've played ESO... is a result of my crappy computer or of my internet connection. If it's my computer, then my characters' reaction speed and responsiveness should be better. If that's the case, then I'll be more interested in doing group content.

Currently, that lag situation has prevented Heals from doing vet dungeons. I tried once and it was a disaster. The game didn't respond, several group wipes occurred and people are angry at the horrible healer they have. It would be even worst in trials, Dragonstar Arena and PVP in Cyrodiil. I'm half okay with the lag in solo content because I'm the only "victim" but I don't want to waste other people's time in grouping up with me if I can't pull my weight because of lag and computer freezes. So, I really really hope that this issue is resolved once I get a faster computer. If it isn't and it's shown to be a result of my Thailand internet connection, then I'm totally boned. ESO will most likely begin to die for me because I'll be resolved to solo content only (which I've already exhausted).

Additionally, getting a newer and faster computer means that all of the triple A games currently out and coming soon (I'm looking at you, Dragon Age: Inquisition) will be playable by me. I already have a stockpile of games that I have acquired but have not been able to play on my current computer (or the gaming experience was horrible thus making it virtually unplayable... Shadow of Mordor or Watch Dogs being two examples) so I'll have a ton of games to play through when I get my new computer. This, of course, will eat into my ESO time.

So a new computer potentially will make ESO a more beautiful game for me with better responsiveness so I'll be more keen to hit group content while, at the same time, distracting me from ESO due to a lot of other games (not MMOs... just PC games) that I will finally be able to play. So, I'm really looking forward to mid-November and my new computer.

Well, the only other interesting thing going on is Gamergate but I'm not going to talk about that. The only thread I found about it here was locked by the mods... citing it wasn't related to ESO. While I have strong feelings on Gamergate and I've been looking a lot into it, I don't want my thread here locked or banned or whatever so...........

Nuff said.

Thanks for reading. Catch ya next time. And... keep fighting (...like monsters and stuff... who know... daedra and scamps and stuff like that...)

Kuratla · November 2014

Journal Update: November 6, 2014

Hi dear readers (both of you...) Well, Patch 1.5 came on Monday so that will be a focus of this journal update. Plus I did some stuff in the Alliance War (which is a total first for me) and finally got my last toon to 3/3 hireling in Enchanting. That puts me at 8 toons with 3/3 hireling in all 5 crafts each. 40 hireling mails every 12 hours. Given that, I've started recording the purple and gold mats I've been getting and I'll release the findings after a sufficiently long period (maybe 50 hireling events... which'll take about a month) and see what kind of averages we get.

Let's talk a bit about Cyrodiil first. On Saturday, I decided to take a break from questing in EP and work on the Cyrodiil PVE quests. I need to get them done eventually for Tamriel Hero so I went over to Heals' home campaign (err... can't remember the name but it's dominated by the Blues). I figured that since it was dominated by DC, that it would be quiet PVP-wise and I could quest in peace.

So, I was surprised when, taking a quest in Chey, I saw a red guy... also taking a quest from the same quest-giver. We looked at each other and seeing that he was vet 12 (compared to my vet 8) and the fact that I have zero experience in PVP, I did not attack him and went on my way. He must have had similar ideas because he backed off and immediately stealthed so I lost track of him. I was concerned that he was going to track me and go for a quick kill so I horsed up and left the area.

I continued on with the quests in Chey but I ran across that same guy again... in a cave delve. I knew that someone was in there ahead of me because all the mobs were dead on the floor... but didn't know if it was a friendly or an enemy doing the killing. I followed the bodies and saw the same red guy fighting some skeletons. He saw me too and stealthed again after killing them and he hid around a corner.

His unwillingness to fight (AKA cowardice) emboldened me and I tracked him down. I walked right up to him and he walked through me and headed towards the exit of the cave. Do I let him go or take my chances on 1vs1 combat to the death? A split second to decide: I attacked. Turns out he was a Dragonknight and his Standard of Might ended up killing me but the funny thing is, his ultimate killed me after he was already dead.

Heals went full on psycho on him and dps-ed like a madman. He died quickly but not before getting in some strong hits on me and dropping his ultimate. When he died, Heals was very low on health and I... stupidly but perhaps understandably because that was the first time I ever killed someone in PVP... didn't leave the area of the Standard of Might. 2 tics later and I was dead. Being a PVE player, I'm used to stuff (like spells) disappearing once the enemy dies but it's clearly different in PVP. He died, I looked at his body and savored my first PVP kill but then fell to the Standard of Might. I guess he got credit for killing me too.

I respawned and continued on questing but didn't run across him again. On Sunday, while questing again, I saw two Reds on horseback heading towards a cave delve that I recently came from. I gave a shout out in zone chat about them because nothing was going on PVP-wise and maybe some gankers would be interested in the kill. I lost track of them and went to the cave. They were not around so I went into the cave to see if they were there (just recon for the potential gankers). However, both of them were just inside the cave entrance. Crazily, I attacked. 2 on 1. And, believe it or not, I actually killed one of them before the other one took me down. Granted, they were both only vet 3s but still... two vet 3s should be able to handle one vet 8.

I respawned and headed straight back to the same cave because I wanted to get there before the dead guy returned and kill the other guy. If I could kill one of them 2 on 1, then 1 on 1 should be simple. And it was. The other guy was actually stealthed outside the cave and surprised attacked me as I was approaching the entrance but I still beat the crap out of him. He should have waited for his friend.

So enjoying Cyrodiil more, I ended up finishing all of the Cyrodiil PVE quests and joined in some of the alliance war stuff over the week. Took a keep for the first time. Took some resources. Defended keep. Killed one more guy in the chaos of battle. Healed a ton of damage on allies. And died more than a few times. Got up to rank 3 in Alliance War.

All of this might be meh for you readers but it was all new stuff for me. I've been 100% PVE in ESO since April so it is reassuring to me that I can contribute in PVP and actually get some kills in. Frankly, it was fun. In defending a keep, it was sometime like 10 on 10 (EP where trying to take back one of their keeps in Eastern Cyrodiil) so it was balanced and the fighting was fierce. I'm sure other PVP encounters where one side is zerging the other sucks balls (for both sides) but I didn't have that experience. So despite completing the Cyrodiil quests, I think I'll be taking Heals into Cyrodiil a few times a week and see what's going on. May as well get more ranks in Alliance War. There are a bunch of Alliance War skills that I'd like to try out.

So, on to Patch 1.5. It came on Monday and it didn't finish patching for me until 2 a.m. (my time). I really wanted to check out the crafting writs so I stayed up, instead of going to bed earlier. The certification stuff ended up being simple and so are the writs. I got quite lucky at the beginning because I got around 5 surveys out of the first 7 writs I completed (all from maxed crafters) so I was under the impression that the % chance to get a survey is really high but since the first day, I've been getting surveys less and less so the % chance is under 50% from my experience so far.

The first writ I completed was Blacksmithing with Kuratla which yielded a survey in Craglorn and I got a total of 5 nirncrux from that. Again, I thought that nirncrux was now going to be ridiculously easy to get and the prices would plummet but my first impression was misleading. Montador, with a Woodworking survey only got 1 nirncrux and Incantatrix, with a Clothing survey got none. Further woodworking and clothing survey in later days yielded zero nirncrux and I haven't gotten another Blacksmithing one yet. I've gotten several Enchanting surveys but the best thing I've gotten is Denatas from them. My provisioner is only level 12 so his Provisioning survey was low level and Alchemy is currently bugged so no good info to report on those crafts.

For maxed crafters of Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodcrafting, you put in more mats than you get out, even if you do get a survey. No survey and it's as total waste except a bit of exp, I guess. With a survey, you got a chance to find nirncrux and that's profit so, for now, I'm only going to do Blacksmithing and Enchanting writs daily (on Kuratla and Heals as they are both maxed) until they confirm (or change) that the nirncrux drops rates for Clothing and Woodworking are almost zero.

Even if the benefits to crafting writs were strongly, I still wouldn't do them all with my toons. I can do 48 writs per day over all my toons (well, minus the bugged Alchemy ones) and that's way too much time and resources used. So I'll limit myself to the ones that I feel with get the most benefit.

I have not... as yet... tried the Undaunted Pledges and I will probably hold off until I get my new computer (which'll hopefully be before the next journal update) to make sure that my system is performing perfectly and mess ups are my fault, not the fault of shoddy technology.

I scouted out and wrote down several Dwemer delve locations but I wasn't the only one. Pretty much every delve I found, there was already 1 or 2 or 3 people already inside and the urns and jars and such already all empty. I took me a long time to finally find lootable urns and I did get one Dwemer motif chapter: Shields. I later bought Bows and Staves to complete Montador's Woodcrafting with Dwemer and someone in guild chat was selling Swords for 16 wax (and I got wax coming out of my ears.... pun intended) so why not? I did make a Dwemer bow for someone and it looks really really good. Easily the best bow animation. The swords look very wide in the link animation but I am loathe to use a frame to make a sword just to see how it looks.

Beyond this initial rush to get Dwemer motifs, I think I'm going to slow down and wait for people to grind the crap out of them and drop the prices to reasonable before I buy more... unless people want crafting mats and then I'm happy to trade.

Heals took the 3 new Werewolf skills and I got them in my secondary skill bar and always switch bars before turning in quests so they are ranking up. Unfortunately, I haven't had enough time to get to see what morphs are possible. He's rank 4 in all three so hopefully Friday or Saturday will see the morphs. I'll write down the choices and let you know next update. They reduced the werewolf timer so it ticks down rather fast but made Devour easier to use so you really need to kill, eat, kill, eat, etc... almost like a rabid monster (oh wait...). But, luckily, with the new skills and especially the heal, you can mow through mobs in PVE. I actually got the WW ultimate up and transform often... mostly because I want to test of the WW's new strengths and weaknesses. Before I would never do that because being in WW mode wasn't viable... you'd die more often than not, especially against 2 or more mobs. Now, you'll be fine.

So... Patch 1.5.. writs, WW, Undaunted Pledges, what else? Vet levels changing from vet points to exp and needing a base 1.4 million exp to level. People have been complaining that this is making it lower to level up now (not faster as ZOS said it would be) because we are getting a lot lower exp for POIs, quests, etc than we used to get VPs. Well, my two cents. Heals was just over vet 8 before the patch. After the patch, he was vet 8 and 600k exp (for some reason). So just 800k to reach 1.4 million and vet 9. I had two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) after the patch and I did some Dwemer grinding, completed the Cyrodiil quests and some alliance war stuff and maybe around 10 - 15 quests in Deshaan. He got that 800k and is vet 9. Seems pretty fast to me. By the old system, he would not be vet 9 now... not even close.

I haven't looked into the stamina changes yet because Heals is a magicka-user. I'll have something to say about them once I get back onto Kuratla, Montador or Incantratrix. Toying with the idea of sending Montador in Cyrodiil for some sneaky PVP-goodness. We'll see.

But, for now, still want to max out Heals. He's vet 9 so he's getting close. And he just needs to complete the EP quests now to get Tamriel Hero (which I will wear proudly). As my new computer should be ready soon, that will potentially change a lot of things as well so we'll need to see how it goes.

Thanks for reading and catch ya next time.

Kuratla · November 2014

Journal Update: November 13, 2014

Arggh! Real life problems. So, it's likely that I will lose my job the end of December (I'd say 90% probability but I'll know for sure the end of November). As such, I had to cancel my ordered new computer as it would be irresponsible to spend a significant amount of money on new technology when my future employment was in question.

Otherwise, I would be playing ESO (and a bunch of other games right now) on a next gen computer right now. But I'll need to hold off until I am sure about where (or if, I guess) I'll be working next year.

Enough of real life problems. Back to the game. So, the main topic to discuss today is the horrid patch 1.5.3 that came on Monday and broke vet leveling. The patch actually didn't do anything it stated that it would (like fixing the Alchemy writs and making the nirncrux drops equal between blacksmithing, wood and clothing surveys) and it, in fact, broke stuff. In particular, what I call the "vet leveling bug".

I experienced the bug on Tuesday when Heals-Your-Pain, at vet rank 9, finally reached 1,432,550 exp and it was time to level up to rank 10. He didn't. He remained at vet 9, didn't get a skillpoint or attribute point, and couldn't equip vet 10 gear. That was the biggest issue for me. I specifically made a new set gear for him. I bought Dwemer chests and helm motifs for that purpose and made Dwemer heavy chest and heavy helm, along with 5 pieces of light armor and upgraded most of it to gold quality as I figure it'll take a while to go from vet 10 to vet 14 so he'll get lots of use out of it.

But I couldn't equip it and see how it looks. It's also a change in armor types for Heals who has always used 7 pieces of light armor. I want to try out 5 light and 2 heavy instead. Heals' magicka recovery will drop a bit but he'll add quite a bit of armor. The added survivability to his healing power should make for a stronger overall character.

The forums are saying that tonight, on Thursday, they are going to run patch 1.5.3 again (correctly, this time) to fix the problems that weren't fixed on Monday and to fix the problems Monday's patch created. I continued to play on Heals every though he couldn't level up and his experience total kept rising above the max of 1,432, 550 xp. They said on the forum that this extra exp will not be lost once the bug is fixed. We shall see. I have written down Heals' exact experience total which is 1,699,815 / 1,432, 550. So, assuming my math is correct, he should be vet 10 and 267,265 / 1,432,550 (or 1,000,000 as I believe they are reducing the exp needed to vet level to a base 1 million) once I get back into the game on Friday.

So, somewhere around 20% towards vet 11.

Heals has completed Shadowfen and on to Eastmarch now (vet 9 zone). So just two more zones of quests to complete for Tamriel Hero achievement (as Cyrodiil is already done). Last thing I did last night was the Hall of the Dead public dungeon full clear so I need just one more public dungeon (whatever the one in the Rift is called) for all 15 public dungeons fully cleared and corresponding dyes. I ran through the dungeon by myself and cleared out all the mobs but the bosses proved too difficult to solo so I asked for help in zone chat and 3 of us did the full clear. It was ridiculously easy with 3 characters. I remember back in the day with Kuratla doing the same dungeon (but it was a vet 4 zone for him) and we needed like 8 - 10 people to clear it. I guess the difference is a combination of vet zone content getting easier and people getting better at the game.

Also yesterday, because I was a bit bummed about not being able to level up, I didn't feel like questing in Eastmarch so I messed around in Craglorn with Heals. Did some exploring and got some skyshards. I went into a couple of the dwemer delves there because I was hoping to find a motif chapter or two (but I didn't.... though I did find the Axes motif in Avanchnzel in the Rift) and I still needed around 300 more constructs killed for the achievement (eventually going to get the monster killer achievement as well). These are vet 11 group delves in Craglorn and, amazingly, I actually cleared one solo. You get dwemer spiders, spheres and centurions all attacking you at the same time. Maybe 1 centurion, 2 - 3 spheres, and 5+ spiders so it's pretty insane.

I did find the best combination of skills and basically just stayed in the same spot gaining a ton of armor and some magicka regen while hitting them with self-healing spears and blazings shards. Lots of AOEs and a damage shield ready to use if needed... which it often was. Clearing out one mob of constructs emboldened me to continue. This was in the dwemer delve to the NE of the main city in Craglorn... forget the name. Eventually, I cleared out enough to see the boss. It was a 40k health huge spider construct which has a couple centurions and spheres near it.

I totally didn't think I could handle all that by myself but I wanted to continue looking for urns and stuff to loot so I tried to sneak past the boss into the next room. I was detected and bolted for it. I ran into the next room and all of the adds from the boss followed... but not the boss itself. It's maybe a glitch or the bloody thing is too big to go through the hallway. In the room, I barely survived wave after wave of constructs but managed to kill them all.

The adds cleared, I went back to see what the boss was doing. It was sitting there all alone. So, why not? I attacked and managed to kill it. Without adds, it was doable. And yeah for my first Craglorn delve completed. I tried a different dwemer delve (this one on the west end of Craglorn) and I had thought that I completed it when I killed one boss but it wasn't the main boss. The main boss was further along and was a 55k health massive spider. That boss I didn't even try against. Heals is a werewolf without any poison resistance glyphs (he relies on his Argonian resistances) and I would have been slaughtered solo.

Still, these few experiences in Craglorn have made me see that Craglorn isn't so hard after all. I'm assuming that the quests there are of equal difficulty so you probably only need 1 (or maybe 2) more players to have a good go at it. And getting a group of 2 or 3 shouldn't be that hard. So I'm definitely going to hit Craglorn with Heals once he's done with Cadwell Gold.

On to crafting stuff. So, I've been doing 5 daily writs with Heals (all but the currently bugged Alchemy) and 2 with Kuratla (Blacksmithing and Enchanting) and 1 with Incantatrix (Blacksmithing). Doing all with Heals because I'm after the writ achievements and not doing wood or cloth with other toons because there's no reward worthy of doing them. Even when you get a clothing or wood survey, you don't get anything good. However, with Blacksmithing, you get nirncrux. In the last week, I've gotten 6 Blacksmithing surveys for a total of 30 nirncrux. Consistently getting 5 nirncrux each time (usually 1 potent and 4 fortified but sometimes 5 fortified). With Clothing and Wood, I've gotten a grand total of 1 nirncrux from all of them.

One of the things in the patch that wasn't fixed was changes to this and to make it equal between the 3 crafts concerning nirncrux drops... which probably means they meant to drop blacksmithing down to 2 or 3 nirn and raise wood and cloth up to 2 or 3 nirn. But it didn't happen. Surveys after the patch gave the same amount as surveys before. Maybe it'll be changed after tonight's patch. Until it changes, I'll be doing mostly blacksmithing writs which is becoming a real pain because voidstone ingots are almost impossible to get now.. or people are charging 3000 gold per stack in guild stores.

I have found a reasonable solution though... grind in vet 9 or 10 public dungeons and you'll get a nice amount of voidsteel weapons and armor in which you can deconstruct and get some ingots back from. Or just your generally farming of nodes. Still takes a bit of work because any given writ will require approximately 100 ingots to complete so the more toons you do it with, the more ingots you need. I'll be more than happy to see the blacksmithing rewards dropped while the cloth and wood increased because the market for tier 9 will stabilize. It'll become more expensive than it is now but at least voidstone won't be ridiculous.

I'm still keeping track of my hireling mails and have written down the purple and gold mats obtained over the last 21 hireling events. It's getting interesting how the patterns are emerging. For example, I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear that getting Kutas is more common than getting any other gold mat. Once I get to 50 hireling events (approximately 3 more weeks), I'll post the results here.

Last thing to write about is the werewolf morphs. Heals got them all morphed and they are around rank 3 in morphed form now so close to maxed. He hasn't spent much time in werewolf form though. 5 skills is better than the previous 2 only allowed but it must be those 5 skills. I much prefer being able to mix and match skills but that's not an option with the werewolf so it's likely I won't remain werewolf with Heals. I'll max out the skills and then get cured of lycantrophy. If I'm not going to be using the werewolf, there's no reason for me to keep it with the poison penalty.

So, here are the morphs:

Hircine's Bounty morphs to Hircine's Rage -> Heal self + increase weapon damage by 10% for 17 seconds or Hircine's Fortitude --> Heal self + adds a heal over time for 8 seconds.

Piercing Howl morphs to Howl of Despair --> Physical Damage and knock down + allies get Feeding Frenzy synergy which increases basic attacks by 10% for 15 seconds or Howl of Agony -> Physical Damage and knock down + 30% increased damage against Feared enemies.

Infectious Claws - morphs to Claws of Anguish --> Physical damage and Disease damage over time for 10 seconds + targets affected receive 40% less healing or Claws of Life --> Physical damage and Disease damage over time for 10 seconds + player receives heal over time equal to 50% of the damage over time.

That's it for this week's update. Catch ya next time.

Kuratla · November 2014

Journal Update (kinda): November 20, 2014

Hi all. I'm kinda in a fight on Facebook with a friend over #ShirtStorm right now so my attention is divided. It's ok because I really don't have much to write about in this update anyway.

Heals is up to vet 12 now. He's got about 15 more quests to do in the Rift and he'll be done with Cadwell Gold. Looking forward to getting the Tamriel Hero achievement. Unforunately, a dolmen bug prevented me from getting another achievement "Savior of Nirn" yesterday. After doing the last dark anchor in the Rift, I looked at my achievements and saw that I only needed 3 or 4 dolmens from Cyrodiil for the Savior of Nirn achievement so I headed over to do it but dolmens are bugged all over the place after patch 1.5.5 and mobs and pinions are sinking into the ground. Can't complete... no achievement.

Only news to talk about today is the patch 1.5.5 changes to survey rewards in Craglorn. Previously, BS surveys gave 5 nirncrux stones. Woodcrafting 99% of the time would give 0 (1% for 1) and Cloth always gave zero. The patch notes said that they would balance that. Some people thought (pessimistically) that would mean that BS would be nerfed down to the same level of Wood and Cloth but I was optimistic in my last journal update and thought that each Wood, Cloth or BS would give 2 - 3 nirncrux each. Boy, was I wrong.

After a week of doing crafting writs (6 per day on Heals because I'm after the 250 achievement) plus the 3 main crafts on Kuratla and 2 with Incantratrix, here's my conclusion. Each and every Wood and Cloth surveys in Craglorn gave 0 nirncrux... so, no change from pre-patch 1.5.5. I got 3 Blacksmith surveys and I got 0 nirncrux, then 2, and then 1. So, let's average that out of 1 nirncrux.

Basically, BS surveys got nerfed down to an average of 1 nirncrux per survey while Wood and Cloth remain at zero. Conclusion, I'll get the 250 achievement with Heals doing 6 writs per day and then stop doing them altogether. I won't do anymore with Kuratla or any other toon because it using up materials and, more importantly, my time in return for no gain.

Well, back to Facebook.

Sorry for the short update but, as I said, really not much going on in ESO for me last week anyway.

Catch ya next time.

Kuratla · November 2014

Journal Update: November 27,2014

Oh no! I'm late. It's Friday. Generally I post these updates on Thursday but I was unusually busy at work yesterday and could not find the time. So, it's late or never and I figure late is better.

So, what's been going on? Well, Heals-Your-Pain has completed Cadwell's Gold and got the Tamriel Hero title... which I wore proudly for a short time until changing it for a different title. You see, after Cadwell's Gold, Heals was around vet 12 and 1/2 so I was looking at 1 and 1 / 2 levels to grind out till rank 14.

One of the first things I did was head over to Craglorn and try to get a group going for the quests and/or delves. No luck. No one was interested... and no one was grinding either. So I attempted to do the quests solo but didn't get very far because they are group quests and need a group... like 3 people to stand on tiles on the floor and a 4th to open a door. Impossible to do solo.

So Heals felt a bit depressed because he wanted to grind to max level but couldn't see any reasonable way to do it. I looked at his achievements and figured that maybe I can keep busy by doing achievements and gaining some exp at the same time to get him closer to the goal.

I had to wait until the patch on Monday to do the dolmen achievements because they've been bugged and, in Cyrodiil, you sunk into the ground while doing them. The patch on Monday fixed that and Heals finally got to complete all the dolmens in Cyrodiil which gave him the "Savior of Nirn" title. I'm not keen on the word "Savior" so I didn't even bother to wear that title but worked on the next achievement - Monster Hunter.

But some pvp news before I move on. When I was doing one of the dolmens in Cyrodiil, I saw an EP guy on a horse watching me doing the fight. Maybe he came to do the dolmen too but changed his mind once he saw me there. He stayed horsed and watched. He didn't join in to help nor did he attack me while I was fighting the daedra. After the fight and collecting the chest, I looked back in his direction and he was still there. I ran towards him and then he bolted to run away. A couple of spells knocked him off his horse and I finished him off with a Soul Assault ultimate. Poor guy was only vet 1. What did he expect would happen?

Also joined in some fun pvp when zone chat announced that a group of 6 - 8 EPs were camping a lumberyard near one of our captured keeps. So zone chat got organized and around 10 of us arrived. What ensued was a back and forth battle for that resource. It was a lot of fun. Caltrops on the ground, siege engines on both sides firing, I put up a lot of Propelling Shields to negate some of the damage on our side and I healed a ton. Also got in around 4 or 5 kills as well... most kills in one setting that I've ever had. And, of course, I died a few times as well. The battle ended at our choosing when we finally decided to push forward and capture the resource. Before that, it was just give and take, killing and dying and earning APs.

I'd like to gain more alliance ranks with Heals and get access to the skills at rank 6 Assault and Support but that's quite a bit of pvp work needing to be done. Guess I'll work on it bit by bit.

As for Monster Hunter, I checked my achievements and I wasn't that far away. I needed to spend an hour in Auridon killing mudcrabs on the beach to finish the Nature one as well as the Undead one by killing some ghosts in Auridon. The Daedric one took the most time because I needed to kill around 60 Frost Atronauchs and 150 Flesh ones. Found out the best places for that and grinded it out. Now Heals is a Monster Hunter and he wears that title proudly.

I attempted another achievement - Explorer - but that's a huge pain. I have all delves and locales in the faction areas done so it's just 3 or 4 delves in Cyrodiil I need to finish. I went several times but everything I go into a delve, the boss I need to kill isn't there. Maybe I wait for 10 minutes... 15 minutes... 20 minutes.. and he still won't spawn. So I get bored and leave.

I guess I'll keep trying. I'm really close to finishing it so not going to give up now. It's just really annoying how long you need to wait for Cyrodiil delve bosses to respawn. The last achievement I looked into was Enemy of Coldharbour but I gave up on that. I need to finish around 150 more dolmens (which would easily put me to vet 14 if I did them in the Rift... vet 10 zone for Heals) but that's way too boring for me to consider.

I did end up doing one or two quests and a few delves in Craglorn by lucking into getting groups. First group was a lower Craglorn group and I got to complete a couple quests and we did around 3 or 4 of the delves. The second group was in upper Craglorn and it was tough stuff but a lot of fun. I was the dedicated healer and boy do you need one with upper Craglorn quests and delves.

It's a real shame about Craglorn. The quests and delves I've done there are really fun and challenging but it's difficult to find groups of people who want to do them. The devs have put a lot of work into Craglorn but it goes undone by a lot of people and a lot of people don't see how much fun it is because of the necessity of grouping and the difficulty of getting groups for it. Heals can grind out dolmens until he reaches vet 14 but I don't want to do that. I want to experience more content and all the content I've not yet done in the group is group content. Haven't done vet dungeons nor Dragonstar Arena yet and only got a tiny bit of the Craglorn content completed.

For many different reasons, endgame content designed for groups fails. We need more stuff designed for solo play at endgame. Not everyone has a group of friends to play with. Maybe you live in a time zone where they server population is low so that makes finding pick up groups particularly difficult. I'm a perfect example. I live in Thailand and I'm asleep during server prime time. Maybe you don't have x number of hours to devote to group content and you don't want to join a group only to leave before the job is done and end up being an A-hole. There's lot of reasons. More solo endgame content is good for everyone. Even the players who group mostly would not not do the solo content but mainly solo players end up missing out on the current endgame group content.

Yes, it's an MMO, blah, blah, freaking blah. We all know the old tried argument that you should group in MMOs but the argument fails. Making endgame content necessary to group for it is different from you should group in MMOs. Ideally, in an ideal world, living in the ideal time zone, with an ideal internet connection and no job to go to, I would group all the bloody time because grouping is more fun (hands down more fun) than soloing. But it isn't an ideal world, is it? Sometimes solo is the only option and if's there's no endgame for solo play and all my toons are at endgame levels, what do I do? Grind gold in a game where gold is basically useless?

So Heals will hit vet 14 soon enough. He needs 3/4 of a level so that's around 750k xp. I'll try to group in Craglorn for the groups and delves and gain exp that way. I'll also try to complete the Explorer achievement so I'll be getting xp in Cyrodiil. The question is what to do once he hits max level. Once the Champion system comes into effect, then I'll be happy to run on a maxed leveled toon because they'll be getting CPs (Champion Points... if that's what they will be called) to put into perks and such to improve the character. Even though they are maxed level, they would still be advancing, improving and getting stronger. I'm 100% for the Champion system and think it's a great response to endgame issues (though I really hope that some new content is provided along with the Champion system.... preferably solo content but I'm not getting my hopes up).

In all likelihood, Heals will take a vacation once he hits vet 14 and I'll work on another toon. Haven't really thought about what toon to work on though. Either getting Mordeus to vet levels or the beautiful Ignisia (actually forget how to spell her name... it's been so long since I've used her). Or option is to work on achievements with Heals. That's a real possibility as I've enjoyed the achievement hunting over the last week.

Heals is 12 days and 47 minutes old (game time played) and at vet 13 and has 8845 achievement points. Quite happy with that. Kuratla, who I've put way more time on (maybe 20 days or more) only has around 4800 achievement points so Heals is definitely the more well rounded character and my primary toon.

Well, enough of a rant for today so I'll leave it here and catch ya next time.

Kuratla · December 2014

Journal Update: December 4, 2014

Hi all. So it turns out that this will be my last month at my job and I'll need to find a new job in January. I'll be looking for a new job in Bangkok (for several different reasons). This will affect my ESO gameplay as my work schedule will change and, as I'll be moving, there will be some amount of time (perhaps a long amount of time) when I'll be offline. I need to move into a new place and get internet installed and that will probably take time in 3rd world Thailand... ok, maybe not 3rd world but close enough.

Perhaps a break from ESO will be a good thing and I can jump back into the game after some time off with vigor. We shall see.

So, enough about that. In the last week, I've had limited time online due to dreaded RLPs (Real Life Problems). But I did get Heals-Your-Pain to vet 14, for my first vet 14 character ever. I specifically made Heals a set of gold Seducer v14 gear and upgraded a set of gold Healer v13-14 gear before he was vet 14 so that it would motivate me to continue the grind to maxing out.

Heals added one more title, Explorer, to his list. It was a pain but I did it in combination of making his v14 gear. I parked Heals in whatever Cyrodiil delve where I needed to kill some boss and logged out to a crafter who was making some gear for the v14 set. Log back to Heals and catch for the boss? If it spawned, kill it. If not, log out again and go to a different crafter for a different piece of gear needed. Repeat until gear is done and the bosses have been killed and Explorer title obtained.

It was the only way for me to do it because I simply can't just stare at the spawn space for a boss for 10, 20, 30 mintues, etc, I get bored way too easily. If I'm doing things with other toons, it makes it easier and I'd recommend that way if you are trying to complete the delves in Cyrodiil.

After getting Explorer, Heals was around 1/4 of a level shy of v14 so I ended up going to Craglorn and hooked up with another guy (only a vet 3 but he played and fought amazingly well) and the two of us grinded Spellscar. It only took around an hour for Heals to get the level he needed. At v14, I immediately quit Craglorn and equipped his new gear. I've always enjoyed getting to whatever new level and trying out new gear sets. In addition to the 5 piece Seducer and 5 piece Healer, Heals has 1 gold armor glyph put onto the neck slot. That, along with 2 heavy pieces and 5 light pieces of armor, puts him into soft cap for armor and soft cap for spell resistance (around 2050 for both). He's at around 2550 health, 2550 magicka and 1450 stamina (which food running). In Cyrodiil, health jumps to 3000+ but all other stats drop a bit (by around 50 - 100 each).

I'm quite happy with those stats and feel that Heals himself is more than capable of handling endgame group content. My own lack of tactics and knowledge of endgame content and an iffy internet connection, however, will limit Heals' potential. I did spend a couple nights doing Craglorn quests and delves and it was good fun.

Additionally, I did my first daily Undaunted Pledges with Heals on Tuesday night with a group from a new Aussie guild I got in with. 3 v14s (Heals-Your-Pain healing, DK tank and DPS... forget if he was NB or Sorcerer) and 1 v5 dps. The v5 was set as leader to make the dungeons v5. The dailies were Darkshade normal and Banished Cells vet. We did both. Darkshade was really easy (even at vet 5 difficulty) but Banished Cells was tough. We were just shy of getting the gold key. Rilis died with 2 daedra alive but we needed 3 for the gold key. Heals performed very well healing-wise but I still feel that I need more practice so I can get the perfect skill bar.

We wiped a few times on the last boss, mainly because of the blue fire AOE he drops on the ground and people out of stamina and unable to roll away. That fire did huge amounts of damage and whenever people got caught in it, I had to spam Breath of Life to keep them alive and would run out of magicka and then need to use heavy attacks and potions to get my magicka back up, continue healing all the way trying to stay alive myself. The group complimented me on a job well done healing and the tank said "The main issue with tanking is finding a good healer." So I appreciate their praise.

I need to go through all the vet dungeons (BC is the only one I've ever done) so there will be learning pains along the way but once I've gone through them all and learned the boss patterns and strategies needed, then I'll be a lot more confident with Heals. I got the news about my job yesterday so I didn't do the daily pledges on Wednesday as I was not in the right mind but I did want to go through the pledges with Heals... both to get the skillpoints for the vet dungeons and the achievement points. Maybe once they are all done, I'll either slow down or stop doing them altogether... or continue until I get whatever rank in Undaunted I want.

Last thing to look at today is the 50 hireling event mails is done. So compiled all the data of gold and purple mats received after getting 50 hireling events (which took around 1 month to complete). This is with 8 toons, each toon with 3/3 hireling passive in all crafts (including enchanting and passives to improve hireling drop chances). So, here's the results:

Enchanting: 59 purple, 95 gold (approximately 1.2 rekutas and 2 kutas every 12 hours)

Blacksmithing: 110 purple, 38 gold (approximately 2.2 solvents and 0.8 alloys every 12 hours)

Clothing: 186 purple, 86 gold (approximately 3.7 mastics and 1.7 rosins every 12 hours)

Woodcrafting: 85 purple, 62 gold (approximately 1.7 linings and 1.2 waxes every 12 hours)

Getting tons of elegant linings and waxes are not surprising but getting more kutas than waxes was surprising. The smallest amount being tempered alloys and that's not surprising either.

So, let's see what the (admittedly approximate) value of all this is. From MC and Iron Bank guild stores, I have a good idea what the values of these are.

Rekuta: 900 - 1000, Kuta: 3000 - 3200, Solvent: 800 - 1000, Alloy: 3000, Lining: 500 - 600, Wax: 2500, Mastic: 700 - 800, Rosin: 2800 - 3000

So, taking averages, rekuta x59 x 950 (56,050) + kuta x 95 x 3100 (294,500) + solvents x110 x 900 (99,000) + alloys x38 x3000 (114,000) + linings x186 x550 (102,300) + wax x86 x2500 (215,000) + mastic x85 x750 (63,750) + rosin x62 x2900 (179,800) = 1,124,400. Let's round it down to 1 million then.

So, 1 million value in raw mats per month in free stuff given by hirelings which requires around 15 minutes every 12 hours of logging into 8 different toons and collecting it all. Pretty damned good income for doing basically nothing.

Granted, my bank account isn't increasing by 1 million per month. A couple of reasons for being I don't actually sell all of the raw mats I get (but I do keep my guild stores well stocked) and I use quite a bit of those raw mats for my own use. Heals is wearing full gold gear now with all gold glyphs. That's a lot of money in mats but all the mats were free so I guess it was free. A non-crafter (if any exist) would have to pay hundreds of thousands of gold to get the gear Heals is using.

All in all, crafting is a key to money. Both by getting free (and highly valuable stuff) every day and also by saving a lot of gold because you make and upgrade your own gear.

If you aren't a crafter, why not?

Thanks for reading. Catch ya next time.

Kuratla · December 2014

Hi all,

I've been playing less and less ESO lately and have gotten quite bored with it. There are several reasons for this but I won't go into it. Since I haven't been playing much, there's not much for me to write about so I'll be putting this Journal Update on the back burner until I get back into the game heavily... which'll hopefully happen with the next patch (1.6) which should be coming in mid or late- January I believe.

Until then, happy holidays and enjoy your gaming.

Kuratla · January 2015

Well then. I'm unsubbed to the game. The reason being a combination of boredom from the game (though patch 1.6 would solve that issue) and the fact that I am now offline 5 out of 7 days per week due to work commitments. Seems silly to continue to pay money for a game that I hardly ever get the chance to play anymore.

Hopefully, down the road, my offline problems will get resolved and I'll return to ESO. However, I do have a horrible habit of once I quit a game, I never return to it (I'm looking at you EVE Online, SWTOR and WoW). Guess that really depends on if any other interesting new MMOs come out in the first half of 2015 or not.

So, this is most likely the end of my little blog. Adios all.