Illonna
Preliminary Notes - Update 9 Against the Shadow
Well the first public Beta of Update 9 has hit the Bullroarer Public Test Server for all to test out. I stopped over there last night to give it a run. Fortunately, the five characters I imported from Live to Bullroarer for the Rohan test were still there. While not up-to-date (not finished all of Rohan as on live) Illonna was 85 and had the Hytbold Huntsman armour. Here are my first impressions
Instance Cluster (Part I - three Small Fellowship Instances)
All were run at Level 20 Solo, while I did try Seat of the Great Goblin at first at 50 but got had difficulty with the Troll Grudom to make it through.
Iorbar's Peak
Nice terrain, running up the mountain in a corkscrew type pattern fighting Giants, Dourhands. Bears, Goats, Mammoths, and Sabre-cats. Two named Bosses Guthfinn and Helf (final). There are about 50 or so landscape mobs. Instance requires you to kill the bosses and check out something on an 'alter' (?).
Seat of the Great Goblin
Somewhat reminisent of the current current The Great Goblin's Den and other areas in Goblin-Town. You make your way up a tunnel defeating Goblins of many types, Wargs, Bats and Boggart's. Most are along the main channel though some are hidden away in small side coves that seem to be jail cells. The main area at the rear has a Gate that would not open so you needed to go up ramps and kill more mobs, The ramp on the right dead ends, while the one on the left does get to to another chamber that has a foot bridge that leads you to the the Goblin King and his two guards. You cannot attack him and he summons a Sapper that blows the 'bridge' out from underneath you. You fall down into a garbage pit. More Goblins (emaciated) and the giant Troll Grudom; stuff falls down from above on areas marked as 'fire' zones like in Fords of Buinen and Attack at Dawn. Once all the Goblins are killed, Grudom aggros and attacks you and also pounds on the ground causing more stuff to fall into the pit; he reverts to unattackable a few times, then re-aggros. When all is cleared out there are two exit-ways. One leads to water and Gollum's island. No one home there but some Goblins Bats along the way and seemed to be no way out. Well anyway I could never find a way back up so I quit the Instance. Instance requires you to kill Gundom and the Great Goblin. There were about 80 landscape mobs to where I quit.
Webs of the Scuttledells
Run through a forest to free ten Malledhrim Scouts from cacoons. You fight Crows, Black Dogs, Orcs (in some of the cacoons), Skeletal Warriors/Bloated Woodmen, etc., and spiders of all types (Hatchling swarms, Hunters, Ambushers, etc.). You need to kill the draug Beremud, and the great spider Digelir. Digelir is the last boss fight and you need to navigate to him/her over web walkways. The loot chest worked by giving you loot appropriate to your class. If there were more than one character in this, the others would get remote looting of items compatible with their class. It goes right into the Pending Loot Bag (I could not get it out however). In comments about Instance loot the developer did say that the drop rate was made high in test so that everyone could see what could be gotten. I received a purple-class 'knife' and a gold-class knife called the 'Dagger of the Exemplary Hunter'. Stats were pretty good: 189-315, 132.6 dps, +101 Agi, 320 Power, 352 Crit, 352 Physical Mitigation. There were about 100 or so landscape mobs.
Bree/Archet Revamp
Very nice looking with plenty of vendor booths strewn along the alleys, streets and, plazas. Definately more life to the town. Guards have dogs with them. The Vault/Bank seems to have been moved closer to the West Gate and has mailboxes and I think an Auctioneer. The AH has a vault. Class Trainers consolidated, Scholars Walk moved along with the 'cat' house. The Combe Gate is much more grand in scope with higher and thicker walls and buildings. The Crafting area has Superior facilities and a Relic-master and Forge-master have been added to the town.. There is a gated area guarded by dwarfs - no one has any idea what those dwarfs are up to behind that gate (probably digging for Mithril under one of the buildings). All in all the town looks great. It is more vibrant and feels lived in and a great hub of commerce.
Crafting and XP
You now get Craft XP for farming nodes and for reading recipes. The big BIG change comes with granting regular XP for crafting. I created a character from scratch and selected Armourer as the Vocation. Lets just say I was pretty much able to get the character to 45 by just crafting in a few hours. I concentrated on the Prospector portion of the Vocation. Rather than bore you with all the numbers of ore/smelts needed here is a summary of all the levels. Except for the Westfold and Riddermark levels where there is no smelting and it is process High and Low grade ore, the XP numbers refer to producing Ingots from ore/smelting into higher quality Ingots
Apprentice Mastery Level 9 48/37 XP
Journeyman Mastery Level 13 97/73 XP
Expert Mastery Level 17 152/115 XP
Artisan Mastery Level 20 220/166 XP
Grand Master Level 23 290/218 XP
Supreme Mastery Level 27 415/312 XP
Westfold Mastery Level 31 556/418 (High-grade/Low-grade Skarn)
Eastemnet Mastery Level 36 1101/828 High-grade/Low-grade Riddermark)
Observations
- With a Rapid Boost after prep you can be at Level 10 in under 2 minutes
- Your pick will break before you are finished a level so if you are on the Rapid Craft path, position yourself so you can use the Forge and have an NPC dialog open at the Repair Tab to minimize time lost for the repair
- In general when you leveled up the craft, once you achieved Mastery you were pretty much done with crafting at that level unless you need to craft something or process something. Now with getting regular XP, you can still earn something while you do craft items or process mats
- You will quickly outrun rest XP is you get it unless you temper your levelling
- You may want to level up all three professions at the same time to prevent disappointment with the XP you get for one profession at a substantially lower level than a profession you powered up
- It may cost you main some pretty penny to provide the mats off the AH if you are power levleling that character.
- My Scholar, level 32, made Eastemnet Hunter Tomes, a few stacks Scrolls, and Bow Chants for Illonna and was level 34. This was only to produce items needed and not to power level
- If you plan to do anything other than crafting with a toon, on power level sessions you will probably need to get a ton of Skills afterwards from the Class Trainer and you will be far behind with virtues and Race traits.
More later.
by Illonna on 2012-11-28 01:58:58
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