The one about Rapiere a.k.a. poke-me-with-the-rapier

So this one is relatively easy to get, you only need symbol of taurus, which can be obtained by killing Treasure Golem, or buying it for 50-75m (I bought my symbol for 75m, next day it was 50m in Market manager -.- )

The rapiere stace is a stance for the rapier users i.e. Andre, Miss K, Gavin, and the Baron brothers. As far as i can thell, the Baron Brothers pwn with this stance, because their stance must include their self-buff, in exchange for a weak skill. Aaaaand.. since your self-buff is hopefully already on lvl 10-11, you have enough skillpoints to max all other skills.

The stance itself grants you: +10 Accuracy, +25% Attack speed, +18%Critical rate (with Baron brothers you ding 21 of pure critical rate, and If youre lucky enough, your two rapiers both have +12 on critical (muahaha) ding-ing 45% Critical rate which is more than Lisa/Calyce, and much more than Selvas Cauchemar), block +30, Penetration +20.

It's attack consist of 2 pokes, or poke and a slash with the rapier, so the minimum attack speed is 20. Combining that with 45 Block rate, it's survivability can be compared to Equites.

Yes I know it sucks, only Equites has Immunuty so far : /.

I'll let out the first one (Soul of Grim) since you already know what it does.

The skills are pretty much straightforward, only thing Rapiere is missing, is a good AoE skill, and a skill that causes stun/poison/Mortal Wound/Enervation or sth.

Not really worth getting a Ring, for this buff, it only lasts 15 sec, and grants you +10 on accuracy.

Otherwise the stance is a must for Edward/Kurt users. It's cheap, and it brings those characters on a whole new level.

The one on Equites stance a.k.a. return of the swords

So After a long night of negotiations for the Saggitarius symbol, (really don't know why did they give Saggitarius for a melee stance, since it could have been for Flintlock), and 6 pieces of growth stones, I was finally able to buy the Expert stancebook for the Equites stance. The symbol itself is dropped from King of Greed (Raidable in bahama caverns spawn every 3 hrs I believe). If you buy it from a player it can cost from 450-700m (I was lucky enough to persuade my seller to drop the price to 450m, but it's still too expensive).

Getting a +6 Pioneering Epic sword was easy, enough, but it took me 8 days and 1 Tactics manual and about 120 Training pots to get it to lvl 25. It levels very slowly since it's meant for Experts (but in leveling this stance i actually enjoyed). So for expert stances, Tactics manuals actually come in handy, and as a player informed me, getting a expert stance from level 1 to 25 would cost you 400 Training potions (large).

The Block is nice, the attack speed is nice, the critical is nice, not to mention the pentration (ignoring a certain % of targets block/evasion) and Immuninty (chance to ignore targets DEF/RES). The accuracy adds a bit of a "kick" to the stance, since the damage isn't stable anymore, and now instead it fluctuates from 55% of max dmg to 100% of max dmg. (with AGI 6 and no aiming gloves)

And here are the skills. I advise you to leave either 1st or 2nd skill on level 8.

The only AoE skill:

Here you have a self-buff, that grants you a new type of "element" that can't be resisted, and adds Accuracy (and +1AR on lvl 11)

The flashiest of skills :D (my personal favourite), strikes twice at the enemy, then turns the back to them, and stabs him from behind he he.

The last skill with the jump-strike he he:

So is it worth it? Well.... if you think swords are under-rated, and if you have a STR or STR/AGI or AGI build on Romina, you will fu**** get this stance. it's awesome! By effectivness of dps and block, it can easily be compared to Selvas Rapida Espada stance.


But if you don't have Romina, have a HP build on your stock fighter, and you don't intend to use swords alot, then forget it. It's waay too expensive, atleast now when the symbols are like 500m+. It's not one of those vet stances you buy "just-to-see-them".

The one about Occulta Dungeon

One of the highlights of this week, was getting GP's in less than 24hr (thats a record for me), boosting my equips, and spamming ABS to get Te/Ti runes. (notice: 5 of Te are needed to enter the dungeon in night time, and 5 Ti are needed to enter the dungeon in daytime).

I got really lucky, that for a change I turned the /broad messages on, and saw someone broading that he's looking for party for Occulta. (Silly me I actually wanted to solo the dungeon, and then I was glad I didn't because the mobs there are lvl 121-125 I think. )

Our raiding teams consisted of 2 squads with 4 members. (Those other members (I'm talking about Kazel's LUXORY's and Tsumasa's (I believe it was spelled that way) )were really tough, I felt like a newbie there eventhough I used my expert team: fighter/ele/Brunie). Almost everyone in team got like +6/+7 Serpentine stuff O.O

The point of doing this dungeon was killing 10 Werewolf Elders for the last part of Nar's quest, and getting the rare drop of the Diary which unlocks the Expert stancebook purchase option.
As far as I was conserned getting Nar's option was enough, because people on the forum were complaining that they farmed there for 9hrs before getting the Diary.

The first room of the dungeon was packed with headless tanks/shooters/fighters (big ugly mofo's that can hit hard). After a few minor slip-ups we killed them and proceeded to the second room filled with Spike traps (mobs don't trigger them), and an upgraded version of Jack's turerts that were shooting lightning orbs.
That part was painfull, but if you stick to the wall, no bigger harm will be done.

At that point we already killed 10 of the Elders, so I was already thinking of going back.
With the next kill Diaries started to drop.... most of the people got it in like 20 minutes after in the dungeon, and after being there the 2nd, 3rd time.

Again, I got lucky and with next kill I ding-ed the diary, weee:D. Then we stayed a bit longer and helped everyone to get the diary... and that was the painful part... a very unlucky familiy named LUXORY (i think), was there for the 3rd time, and it still took us 3hrs to get his diary....

from that poin on, we decided (I mean they decided I just tagged along lol) to get to the Necroshaman. But before that, we had to cross the Great Rotatin Blades room. a room, full with lvl 161 (!!!) Great rotating blades, and mobs cruising among them, was just too much. I used 24x Soul Crystals to get to the other side, just to get ganked by same mobs as in first room of the dungeon. (that just sucked, because everyones healers were dead, and most of us ran out of SC).

At that point I relogged back in, finished the quests, got rewards from both quests: 6x Veteran Exp cards (every card gives 10% of a vet lvl, or 1% of former vet lvl), Nar card, and epic glaziums.

And ofcourse the ability to buy Expert stancebooks, weehee:D.

Now all I need are symbols of Leo, and Saggitarius....

The one about STR vs. AGI

No ofcourse, everybody is confused wether to add AGI or STR to his/her char.

Well it's simple actually:if your char uses block or evasion add AGI. if you're vet-ing any character that uses: rapiers, daggers, sabres, one handed swords, pistols, gaiters, knuckles, and you plan to use only those weapon till expert, go for AGI.

in terms of DPS-ing, go for AGI.
in terms of pvping alot, go for STR.

Now lets rewiew the DPSing part, shall we?

We have a character with a small weapon (previously described ones), that has an attack speed of 20, and deals 1000 dmg per hit.

meaning: 1: 0.20 x 1000= 5000 DPS (damage per second)


now, at vet level, if you add STR:

1:0.20x1200=6000 DPS (As we know, adding STR, adds 20% of damage, therefore increase from 1000 to 1200)

and if you add AGI at vet level: (Adding AGI at vet will add 10% attack speed, and 10% attack if youre a light weapon user, not to mention it increases Evasion and block)

1: 0.18 x 1100= 6111 DPS

clearly the DPS IS higher. Now in terms for raiding, and generally afking, having stun/poison on weapon, for christ's sake, add AGI to your char!!!!

If you're PVP-ing alot, go for STR, because the 20% STR bonus affects your skills also, and in PVP you use skills, you don't DPS the enemy. (If you're dpsing the player, you've got bigger issuses to think about, than what stats to add at vet heh)

Hope this clears some stuff out :)

The one about the ingame economy

This one has kept me up, one too many times. I think a lot of people together with the same goal, can make a change. I've noticed the effects of this one, about a year ago. It affects all of the players, and it affects the server economy. Exactly one year ago, (January-ish 2008), the prices of items were the following: lv. 100 enchantment chip piece x1 [~70m vis], lv.96 enchantment chip piece x1 [~40m vis] and lv.92 enchantment chip piece x1 [30m]. At that time, you could still go to IOF, hunt a hour or two and still make a fortune. The people got greedy (I still remember @ that time i was selling 92chips, I needed the vis, so I decided to give them for a lower price, normal was about 25-30m, I was selling them for 19.999.999 vis, the next morning i woke up, checked the Market Manager, and saw that the price has fallen to 16m.... all of that just over the night!!!!) (And I'm sorry for that one, it could'ev been my fault he he)

so I developed a theory about that one. (I think my theory may be similair to a crowd or a chaos theory, but it still works in the same principal, that people are like sheep in large numbers, and players are no exception)

Now what you need:
A few players (5-10, the more the merrier^^)
lots and lots of megaphones

now lets take an item for example, that's currently very expensive, but in quite it's common. Let's say we take rhodolite. First prices for a piece were 50m, and now they're down to 10-12m.

We take this group of people, and start making "ghost" transactions (why ghost you say? well because, a) the buyer will be selling via /broad the Rhodolite for an extremely low price lets say 4m, and the minute hell get some pm's about someone buying it, he'll just say it's already been sold to this-and-this player.In fact you don't even need the "imaginary buyer", but it's a safety precaution if someone decides to check on it.)

now do this transactions, using different users, for some days, and sooner or later, the real rhodolite sellers will start selling them for these low prices. It works on the previously described principle that people are sheep, and don't want to deviate from the larger group of players, that has it own standards. If you do deviate and don't show conformistic behaviour, the group will think of you as an outsider, and will probably try to have as little contact with you as possible. (an example about this one is: "legit" players (as the larger group), and "un-legit" players, a.k.a. botters. (the smaller group). e.g.: everyone hates botters, because they used illegal paths to achieve power. (anyone who studied sociology will get what i mean.))


so anyway... the power of a smaller group, infiltrating a larger group, to change it's ways, can be used for both good and bad purposes (you can try and boost your prices if you want, or try and break down the ingame market and economy.)



as for me: I'm currently powerlvling my Angie, and Karja, since my cath needs some backup when she's plvling (I'm not thinking of getting Nar, until someone tries my method, or the prices drop because the lack of sales he he he), and I need a crafter to craft all of those AA's hearts and stuff.

Cyu around till next time;)

The one about botters

So with v3.0 every sGE player was blessed with another gift: being unable to report/being reported as a bot, resulting in mass botting by 72% of the servers population. Joining which ever map you chose, the best places were takenby botters, especially those with fast/semi-fast spawns.

Skull dungeon 1 was full till the last spot. Topolo was full, IOF's were full. (I remember this one guy that spend like 6 days in the Topolo spawn, next to the stairs of hell, using jack, musk and a fighter.)Seriously, spending all those Toolboxes has to hurt yet budget, no matter how many lvl you gain. I can't even imagin what it looked like in AT/FT territories. (no I mean seriously, I was out in the cold for like 5 hrs, and I'm a bit under the influence of certain liquid substances, which were the only thing keeping us warm).

Anyway... hope tomorrows maintenance will fix some things, especially those with bot report windows, and certain GP stuff. Which was another smooth move by IAH : release this and this many "extra" items and "free" characters, or "increase" drops in certain games, and then make then unable to be used lol. (If I'm speaking about my example, my purchase at offgamers.com was like... well... held back as I may call it, meaning: the day IAH said that every purchase of GP's will get you extra 14kGP's until the end of stock, I bought 2x 70k which should result in extra 28k GP...buutttt.. as every scientist knows, theory is different than practice, my order was held long enough, for them to "just run out of speciall offers", so I wasn't given a right to get my extra GP's lol :D)



among other things: Selva is just nearing her 90, can't wait to use all of those exp cards on her (got for about 28mil exp), to boost her lvls with only clicking :D.

The one about getting Selva

With 22nd of jan. sGE servers were blessed with v3.0, which brought us expert stances, 3 new rnpcs, and other sweet things:)


The char that i was looking forward the most, was ofc Selva.combined with Gavin& edward she's the tank of the team.

So, 1st thing you need when you recruit her, is to finish ALL the Pioneering quests, Bahama Quests, Katovic quests, need to have Gavin quests done, and you need to complete Tierra putrefacta quests. (It's alot of prequisits, but it's worth it.)

So selva is one of those "free" rnpc's that are free to recruit, but need Gpoints to craft her glove to get her exclusive stances. (Smooth move IAH, smooth move ^^)

So the quests starts (after you completed all of her quests), in auch by Leonore. you need 2x Hero's seal. (so tough luck if you used all of them in hunter missions or you never went to PY)

-Go to Port of Coimbra and talk to Nunez.
-Go to Gehenna Bridge, the last level of Prision de Jaquin, and talk to the Gatekeeper to open the entrance to Corridor of Assize. You need a Key to Corridor of Assize to do so. The key is a rare item drop from bosses in all levels of Prision de Jaquin and from Bellem Boxes. (4hour respawn time on the raid boss there)
-Enter the Corridor of Assize, kill the Chrysalis, and the subsequent Dr. Fran. The Corridor of Assize is a non-instanced raid, and the Chrysalis can several hours to spawn depending on when the previous Chrysalis was killed.
-Return to Nunez.
-Go to Katovic Snowfield and talk to Ludeza. You will receive a Ghost Nucleus.
Go to Frozen Plain. Drag 1 Ghost Nucleus from inventory and drop it into Rynn's Heart. The purpose is to summon a lvl110 quest version of an Avalanche Apparation. It can take several attempts before the Apparation is successfully summoned, so keep inserting the Ghost Nuclei one by one until it appears. Should you run out of Ghost Nuclei, you can exchange for more from Ludeza at the cost of 20 Wolf Meat and 10 Elviot's Leather each. Wolf Meat is a common item drop from Artic Wolves in Katovic Snowfield. Elviot's Leather is a common item drop from Elviot in Frozen Plain. (the aparittion has a 2hr respawn time, so do check both channels, if you get a "too early to summon" error) for this part you probably need squad, unless you're imba, cuz the boss is rather annoying (7mil HP, 58 AR/DR)
-Kill the Avalanche Apparation.
-When the Avalanche Apparition is dead, Montoro will appear near the entrance of the cave of Rynn's Heart. Kill him as well.
-Return to Ludeza.
-Go to Frozen Plain and talk to Invierno to start an instanced mission involving combat. Within the mission, defeat Selva to proceed.
-Talk to Invierno again.
Go to the Laboratory in Dr. Torsche Mansion and talk to Dr. Torsche.
Click on the bookshelf along the southern wall of the Laboratory to start an instanced mission. Inside the mission, click on the statue to get the next quest. You can leave the area once you get the quest.
-Go to Frozen Plain and talk to Invierno.
-Collect 10 Philosopher's Stones and 1 Katovic Soup. Philosopher's Stone is a common item drop in the Katovic Region. Katovic Soup is a normal consumable item that can be obtained by using Invierno's cooking pot. To cook the soup, you need to complete the Katovic quest line to gain access to Invierno's cooking pot, as well as to collect another 20 Golden Apples (from Eltetah trees in Katovic Snowfield and Frozen Plain), 50 Wolf Meat (from Wolves in Katovic Snowfield), 50 Beet (from Gorillas in Frozen Plain), and 50 Cabbages (from Lazim Lams in Katovic Snowfield). (Katovic Soup is/was also available from Adelina's Booty Search in sGE.)
-Talk to Invierno again.
-Return to Dr. Torsche's Mansion and reenter the instanced mission with the statue. Click on the statue again to start an easy combat.
-Talk to Dr. Torsche to receive Selva Character Card, Cauchemar Stance Book, Rapida Espada Stance Book, and Recipe - Selva's Armshield.

if you enchant your armshield and fail, you can always buy more recipes for it, by talking to dr. Torsche.

after that, return to barracks, and create Selva [RNPC Initial level: 60] x1 ^^




now, when you vet Selva, you get to learn the both stances. one of them is for tanking, and the other one is for dealing large amounts of dmg, thanks to 30% crit bonus from her stance >.<
(getting hit by that will probably hurt you plenty)

when you Vet her, either give her STR bonus (for 20% attack increase, and all skill related attacks), or give her AGI, which will provide a 10% attack bonus, to all her skill related attacks, Attack speed, and Block chance. (i'm gonna go with STR/AGI one at vet lvl, one at exp level.)


PS: Kudos to bookofthewind, for providing the quest guide, you trully rock man ^^

The one about my absence

So yeah i guess I was away for a month or two, but I didn't expect those shocking changes. Nostalgia has fallen apart, people moved on, I'm still stuck in the stupid jail, because I can't read korean.

crap.

Anyway, Happy new year to everyone, sorry I wasn't online with you guys, I was stuck @ work for the evening. Which sounds worse that it was. ATM I'm studying my ass off, since my exam era just started, but I promised those NoS ppl I'll join them ASAP.

So I'm really looking forward to seeing the v3.0 in the flash, I'm really looking forward to using Selva, since I almost broke my nerves doing the Gavin quest :D. Not to mention the all of the new places in GE. Aaaaaand I'm reaaallllyyy looking forward to spending Gpoints which I will buy as soon as i get paid for the month.

so this was just a small update, and to announce that I'm working on my second F.R.I.E.N.D.S. part duo project.

just a little insider: I't will contain: A hyperactive-never-fully-grown-up Artorian (Stock Fighter), anorexic self-destrictive CleoPetra (IBS), and a robot Eva (CTS) that wants to take over the world, by killing all humans (If you're lucky she'll keep you as a pet) :D.