Sunday 25 August 2002

Pic of the day: Me and my pet elf just inside the cave opening.

Spraggon Den

Truth to tell, I played games almost all day (when not sleeping). Mostly Dark Age of Camelot, which for some reason suddenly became interesting again. Actually, I think it was because of the Spraggon Den. It is a dungeon in Hibernia, with very good experience for characters in their early twenties. I was not aware of this; but one day I stopped by the game, some guy asked me to come with him to Spraggon Den. It is great! Then again I play an enchanter with 100% specialization in Enchantment. My pet is super-powered!

I have referred to myself as "the eternal newbie" for a reason. This is actually the first character I have reached level 25 with, and I've played since last December. Others would have maxed out long ago, but I just start over trying new classes and new combinations of skills and races and realms. Actually, I started a new character this weekend too, a Druid, but that's not really experimental. I know they are good, not as easy to play as an Enchanter but they have the ability to raise the dead eventually. Spraggon Den had lots of dead people, for some reason. I guess other classes simply live more dangerously than an Enchanter with a super-pet. I died once in Spraggon Den so far, and that was the first hour when I did not know my way around and was just trailing a Hero. Needless to say, he died too.

Here is what I do to play successfully as an Enchanter:
I specialize in Enchanting. I mean, if I wanted to use any other magic, I would choose another class. Enchantment lets me cast power-up spells on other people, and my pet. I use the armored pet (Compatriot) now that I have it, and fight very little myself. The pet is there to do the fighting, I am there to make my pet super strong and fast and healthy. I don't join groups. When you bring a friend, the monsters are more likely to do that too. When you come alone, and approach slowly, often only the first monster will fight. You can take them one at a time with your super pet.

Even if I don't join groups, people will still love me. Only Enchanters have Damage Add spells in Hibernia. And only those who specialize in Enchantment get the powerful spells like Glowing Arms, which lets my staff hit for nearly 30 points extra with every hit. (Actually it adds less if you use a faster weapon, so the add per minute is constant.) Newbies love that spell, because they can go on a rampage and kill everything they touch. With a damage reflection shield too, they can kill things that touch them, too. Be generous to people because you never know when you will need others to be generous to you.

Despite my benevolent influence, Hibernia is steadily losing to Albion. Albion advances on all fronts, taking keeps and yesterday taking like 3 relics - their own, Midgard's and Hibernia's. This is almost funny: When I played Albion, the Hibbies had us under their thumb. When I moved to Hibernia, somehow I managed to end up on servers where Hibernia was fighting for its bare life. And now I moved to this server (Bedevere) where Hibernia was clearly superior. Now the tables are turned, and Hibernia is being soundly spanked. I am a walking bad-luck charm in DAoC, it seems ... Or perhaps a single 25th-level player which is online mostly in weekends doesn't make a lot of difference on a server where more than 1000 people are online at the same time? Perhaps I'm kinda insignificant and it's not all about me? But don't tell me that to my face ... ^-^