123178-morning-coffee-3mar2015-did-you-know-edition

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Good Morning Everyone!
 
Help yourself to some coffee and breakfast.
 
 
Did you know ... ThaydFest II is in 12 days?!! I am so excited the best and most fun event of the year! There are many different contests that you can enter to win all kinds of prizes! Quantum State Radio will be there with the music and doing announcements. See the official ThaydFest thread for more information. https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/121133-thaydfest-ii-official-info-thread/
 
Did you know ... Zero to Fifty starts at 11am PST and is going to be going to some houses today? Yup! Tony will be showing off some of the player's houses live on stream today! You can put your name and house in the post and he will try to get to everyone. Read more about it: https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/123153-zero-to-fifty-calling-all-builders/
 
Did you know ... that I have no idea how to replace a link with just words? No? Hmm I must have hid it well! :D
 
Did you know ... that coffee may be good for your heart? Well, according to Korean scientists the caffeine actually may help keep the arteries 'cleaner'. But have no real foundation for saying so. Oh well, we can dream :) Read the article. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31690358?ocid=socialflow_twitter
 
I logged in last night just to show Hubby my latest additions to my house. Then logged out to spend some couch time with him.  :wub:  Had a great night just sitting there with him. I enjoy the small things in life so much ;)
 
Will be logging in today for a bit. I am home today with a sick daughter, so plenty of play time.
 
Hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!	
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Nom nom nom - thanks
 
Been enjoying Nexus - fun doing it with 2 lvl 50's - one gets to see things one missed. Also nice to seeing that new blood is arriving in wildstar every day. Now to carry on gem hunting and finding more stuff I missed.	
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Good Morning Everyone!
 
Help yourself to some coffee and breakfast.
 
 
Did you know ... ThaydFest II is in 12 days?!! I am so excited the best and most fun event of the year! There are many different contests that you can enter to win all kinds of prizes! Quantum State Radio will be there with the music and doing announcements. See the official ThaydFest thread for more information. https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/121133-thaydfest-ii-official-info-thread/
 
Did you know ... Zero to Fifty starts at 11am PST and is going to be going to some houses today? Yup! Tony will be showing off some of the player's houses live on stream today! You can put your name and house in the post and he will try to get to everyone. Read more about it: https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/123153-zero-to-fifty-calling-all-builders/
 
Did you know ... that I have no idea how to replace a link with just words? No? Hmm I must have hid it well! :D
 
Did you know ... that coffee may be good for your heart? Well, according to Korean scientists the caffeine actually may help keep the arteries 'cleaner'. But have no real foundation for saying so. Oh well, we can dream :) Read the article. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31690358?ocid=socialflow_twitter
 
I logged in last night just to show Hubby my latest additions to my house. Then logged out to spend some couch time with him.  :wub:  Had a great night just sitting there with him. I enjoy the small things in life so much ;)
 
Will be logging in today for a bit. I am home today with a sick daughter, so plenty of play time.
 
Hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!
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Going to see how many times the pbgs pop for the lvl 20-30 bracket.
 
I know not everyone does pvp, but you might want to go get this item anyway. The warplot vendor sells it, it's under Elder warplot Gadgets.
 	
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			The patch notes from today's patch should make the PVPers a little happier...	
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Very happy about today's PvP patch.  I went and got my esper her kit and hope to have more luck with butt kicking in the future.
 
Had a good night experiencing the pleasures of Ohmna.  No kill but solid progress on all phases of the fight.  Need more people to utilize their snares for the add phases.  Threat seems to be pretty wonky too.  After a "bored" phase, the two other tanks often see the top threat bobble.  We'll think one person has threat (even with the target of target picture) and then the other person gets the devour phase.  Very odd.  Definitely not a show stopper as any of us can adequately handle it, but it'd be nice to know exactly who Ohmna is looking at.
 
So, another raid week begins with our "helping all guildies" night tonight.  Always fun, and lots of dungeon work.
 
Bought the Rally Uniblade because... well why not? :-).  I figure it must go faster than everything else because it's red.  It'd go even faster with flame stickers on the sides.  I can't believe no one on Nexus has heard about this.  (I may also be delusional ;-)).
 
Carry on.	
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Very happy about today's PvP patch.  I went and got my esper her kit and hope to have more luck with butt kicking in the future.
 
Had a good night experiencing the pleasures of Ohmna.  No kill but solid progress on all phases of the fight.  Need more people to utilize their snares for the add phases.  Threat seems to be pretty wonky too.  After a "bored" phase, the two other tanks often see the top threat bobble.  We'll think one person has threat (even with the target of target picture) and then the other person gets the devour phase.  Very odd.  Definitely not a show stopper as any of us can adequately handle it, but it'd be nice to know exactly who Ohmna is looking at.
 
So, another raid week begins with our "helping all guildies" night tonight.  Always fun, and lots of dungeon work.
 
Bought the Rally Uniblade because... well why not? :-).  I figure it must go faster than everything else because it's red.  It'd go even faster with flame stickers on the sides.  I can't believe no one on Nexus has heard about this.  (I may also be delusional ;-)).
 
Carry on.
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Sounds like good times! :D  I know I need to get my head wrapped around how to lead a vet SoTR.  It's in organization that we end up getting bronze rather than silver, and that's on me.
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Oh, Siege of Tempest Refuge.  I actually like this one a lot of the adventures.  Ran it a lot.  Here's what I'd suggest as a going in position:
 
1)  Tank and healer take center.  Assign your strongest solo DPS to one side, the other two to the other side.  I don't know if there's a preference north or south, they're both fairly close, but I tend to solo north lane and duo south lane.  Solo lane helps to have either high dps, or some self heals (esper has great solo sustain for example).
2)  For the men, I recommend 1 north, 1 south, 3 center.  The North and South side I tend to level them up towards Shocktrooper.  This gives a shield buff to PCs in the vicinity of the guard, and they have minimal tanking ability.  For the center, there are a variety of strategies.  I'd recommend at least one Pyro (anti-personnel DPS) and 1 Medic.  The Medics if I remember correctly will interrupt too, so you'll get some of that benefit during boss fights.  None of the NPC abilities are overpowered, but they're sort of a nice oomph at random moments.
3)  The main Gold-award breaking issue is Saboteurs and they tend to show up frequently and often times while other events are in place.  Make it the tank (and possibly medic)'s job to head back to the generator.  Engineer Particle Ejector is great for ferreting out the stealthed sabos.  Priority MUST be on the bombs.  You don't have to kill the Sabos immediately and you don't have to find all of them, just find the ones that can satchel charge the generator as fast as possible.  Then the tank can hold them while the DPS finishes up what they're doing and comes and kills them.
4)  Make sure people are bringing your snares.  Esper Restraint is great for this as it is a root.  Engineer tank Shock Pulse is a snare.  If you have voice comm going, try to make sure people aren't using their root/snare abilities all at once on the same tank... stagger them.
5)  For add phases, it can get overwhelming.  If necessary make sure your DPS know they should aggro the adds and drag them to the center for the tank to pick up if it becomes overwhelming.  Add quantity per lane is random.  I've seen 0-4.  Anyone with an empty lane CAN help the others, though a full North to South run is frequently pointless and puts everyone out of position for the next wave.
6)  Healer at center can feel somewhat free to roam as long as tank is not strained.
7)  Know the boss abilities, know which abilities to interrupt.  
8)  If you get SPECIALISTS, kill them as fast as humanly possible because there is a very high probability of getting a bunker buster next.  Also dodge like crazy as their flash bangs blind in the most annoying way possible.  Very difficult to tank these because of the flash bangs.
 
Overall, the main trick is making sure people know their jobs and stick to them and not losing your head.  LoneStar Heroes can rapidly screw up Tempest Refuge.  It's a team effort.  If someone doesn't like their assignment, either tell them where to stick it, or if there's a reasonable accomodation, make that.  Lots of PUG groups failed due to this.  "Oh Person X doesn't need any help, I'll just play the roaming DPS".  Then Person X gets overwhelmed and dies and the roamer is over by the solo DPS who is managing herself nicely, and it turns into a cascade failure.
 
Having a plan and doing it by the numbers leads to a super easy gold Tempest Refuge.  Hope that helped!
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Soooo happy that the nameplates are getting fixed today. They have been the source of several near-deaths or actual deaths in-game because I couldn't for the life of me FIND THE PLAYER IN THE MOBS. >_< Now I can go back to not feeling like a crappy healer yay.
 
I spent most of last night finishing some cover art for a friend's novel, but once that was done, there was still time left in the evening. It was hard to decide between RP or doing some instances, but instances won out for once. Well, instance. I guess people got tired, cause we only did one. xD Wanted to do Malgrave Trail afterwards but no takers. Ah well.
 
I spent a good 45 minutes trying to figure out rune sets. Ended up just throwing my hands up in surrender. xD	
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Sure.
 
If sabos come up while anything else is in progress (and they do tend to show up with relative frequency during tank fights) you and MAYBE the healer head back to the generator.  If the DPS is dodging well the healer SHOULD come.  The reason it's a little iffy is the two satchel charge question.  This is very possible, and you can only defuse one of them.  If the healer is with you, you can both defuse and it's okay.  If the healer is managing the DPS on the tanks, one satchel charge is probably gonna blow.  This is not something that happens all the time, but it IS possible and good to be aware of.  So... DPS should be damaging, rooting, snaring and blowing up the assault tank.  (This goes for any tank too by the way.).  If for whatever reason you are absolutely necessary (for CC) of a tank, make sure one person knows it's THEIR job to defend the generator against saboteur satchel charges.  Preferably the tank though, because you are not damaging the tank (yo dawg, I heard you liked tanks, so I put a tank on the tank).  Again voice comm helps with this for general callouts.
 
There may be a gear and skill check a bit in this adventure, primarily at the end, due to reduced damage from fatigue.  Hopefully everyone knows how to play their class to the best they can.  Gearing has a lot of ways to improve through crafting and PvE vendors.  
 
Bosses
 
This is not an exhaustive list and unfortunately I do NOT remember them by name.  I just remember my own mental name for them (which can range from unintelligible to anyone but me, to amusingly strange).
 
*  Sister Sonic -- Best dealt with at range.  Sends out probes that do momentary disorients near them.  Mostly annoying for the tank and healer because of her other ability.  This is a conic shaped pulsing knockback/knockdown.  Best strategy I know of for dealing with this is to dodge FORWARD through her the instant you see the cone.  If you don't get out of it fast, you will be flung back over and over again without a way to recover.  Healer should stand near enough to the tank to heal but avoid the wandering disorient robots.  She also does some sort of weird resonance bubble which does some damage but I honestly don't know what it does and I've never found it to be particularly an issue.
*  Pack of Four Buttheads -- Mainly you want to mark them so you can focus fire one down at a time, and these can be a pain at the end waves.  You can devise your own strategy for kill order but I think I usually go Saboteur (has an annoying knockdown/disable or something) then the Shaman (big AOEs of CC and pain) and then... the other two.
*  Giant Fighting Robot -- He does absolutely nothing interesting.  Cheer if you get this one for the final wave.
*  Massive Assault Tank -- Also MOSTLY uninteresting, however watch out for the flash-bang blindes and the slow charge.  The latter almost always follows the former, so if you get blinded as the tank, get the hell out of dodge because you're probably going to be run over while blinded.  You can also play amusing games with the tank and the little fence post near the first NPC position.  I like getting it hung up on the fence :).
*  Colonel Pain -- He has one ability that really must be interrupted.  It's very important.  Fortunately it's called The Big One and is very easy to see.  It's harder to interrupt because he does a knockback and slow right before he does it.  Again, gotta love espers in Siege because you have 100% full range on Colonel Pain and can interrupt it from range (also great for Sister Sonic)
*  Sneaky Ass Dude -- Interrupt Shadow Mines.  Otherwise, cluster up for heals.  Think he teleports occasionally and backstabs someone.  Clustering is good for this too.
*  Engineer Noname -- Interrupt his robot casts for a fun achievement!  Also tank him away from the machine guns in the refuge (side of the wall works alright) because he can remote control them.  Wish WE could remote control machine guns.  I don't have that ability anywhere in Assault/Support or Utility.
*  OMG ITS THE CHUA FROM HELLLLLLL -- Mark this butthead ASAP.  He has a number of super annoying abilities for melee (and tank).  1)  He is constantly summoning spikes under melee and tank's feet.  2)  He makes copies of himself that confuse the situation (this is why you mark HIM).  Healer will be spamming melee and tank with heals.  Fortunately very easy for ranged to deal with him, aside from knowing which copy is the real Chua.  I believe his clones also disorient just to make things eve more aggravating for melee and tank.  If the tank holds perfectly still though, this works out okay, just don't try to dodge the spikes.  Healer needs to really keep up here.
*  Red Fire Wizard -- Pretty dumb one, though I've been caught offguard once (and only once) by him.  Has a mechanic where tank has to run from him.  Also does Flame Wreaths around the party.  Spread apart.
 
I think that's all I can remember right now on the bosses.	
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Ohhh... I remembered something about the Pack of Four Buttheads
 
They bring a healer with them.  THAT's the one you want to kill first.  He will throw out first aid kits onto the ground and the NPC enemies WILL go after them after a moment.  Player characters and NPC allies (sometimes) can get them first though.  So, run around and heal yourself up.  Kill the healer, then... either shaman or saboteur for the next two, then the basic warrior guy last.	
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I understand what you're saying.  Especially as the tank I feel like I need to know exactly what every little trashmob does, every nuance and twitch of a boss, where the soft and hard links are and so forth.
 
Fortunately Tempest Refuge can be more or less simplified by what I said first and then gaining a little experience on the bosses.  Have a plan for the 1-2 major situations (initial layout, known bottlenecks like satchel charges during a tank burn) and you can largely freehand the rest.  And it's not entirely up to you either, the DPS and Healer need to perform their roles well enough.  You all will get there I am absolutely certain of that.  I have always thought that much of Wildstar isn't nearly as intimidating as people BELIEVE it is.  That belief is more the problem than the actual difficulty.  Break it down, make a simple plan with robust expansion, go in and kick butt :-).	
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Almost finished roughing out the exterior of the ship.  There are a couple more elements that I want to add and I'm considering adding a second level to the bridge but it's close enough to "done" that I need to start thinking about internal detail.  The plot currently weighs in at 550+ exterior pieces mostly because we only have square tiles (floors).  If we had 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, 1x8 tiles (same goes for the tube and glass pieces) I could probably save about 200 items. 
 
Kind of in a funk today.  I'm down to detail work on the big ship which isn't as fun for me as creating structure.  CREDD pricing just took a dramatic jump.  I came to the realization that my gear is at the level where I need to be running at least Vet. Dungeons for a reasonable chance of an upgrade.  Content and RP events are starting to conflict.  Basically I'm to the point where I need to start making some hard choices.
 
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Maybe some of this gets better as the group upgrades in gear and those tanks aren't making it almost to the generator; we can then spare some people to round up the saboteurs a little faster.
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Runes are nice. Also rune sets. It's pretty surprising how much of a difference a fully-runed set makes.
 
So, good afternoon everyone! Got a bit of a stomach flu the last two days but that blew over pretty fast thankfully. Lately I've been doing some alt levelling! Both solo with a Mechari medic and co-op levelling with a friend, using a Cassian warrior.
 
And then I ended up doodling said warrior.
I needed the face practice (and drawing practice) anyhow, it's been a while since I've drawn.
 
So yeah, medic's Annihilation is awesome, warrior's Tremor is pretty cool (Though I hear that T4 tremor and T4 rampage in tandem will be pretty awesome when I hit that), and I can't wait to get in game so that I can make use of T8 Vitality Burst without it screwing up my spell surge.	
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			I got coffee	
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