Ashs Adventures

Blaugust Post #10

Last night, our Monday raid beat up Bismarck (Extreme). It helped a lot to have Belghast, who cleared it with the Wednesday group last week, but it was still the first kill for 5 of us. Bismarck is one long DPS check, but more than that it’s the kind of “controlled chaos” fight that the Monday group excels at with AOEs flying everywhere and weather changes that have to be reacted to appropriately. Clearing this fight opens up our way to Thok ast Thok (Extreme) and the hardest current encounter in the game outside of Alexander (Savage).

1-2-3

As suits his music, Ravana asks you to dance. It’s the kind of intensely structured encounter where you need to know what’s coming, as reacting to it is generally not going to be fast enough; it’s kind of like Titan in this sense. In addition to his normal abilities, Ravana has a series of attacks called “Liberations” (Prelude to Liberation, Liberation, Swift Liberation, and Final Liberation). Each of these is a 15 second cast (he takes bonus damage while using these) that ends with a very choreographed attack pattern. These vary in difficulty from “You remember Ifrit EX, right?” to “What madman came up with this nonsense?”.

Fortunately, all is not lost, and Someone came up with these simpleanimations to show one way of dealing with what’s going on. I love it when players do awesome things like this, because trying to explain Final Liberation in just text requires a lot longer than the 54 seconds of this video. Understanding how and why it works that way isn’t really something you can get from the video, so there are some drawbacks there too.

Blaugust Post #9

One of the experiences from my childhood that I remember strongly is during a neighborhood block party, my mom rented a projector and a whole bunch of people watched Star Wars in our basement. I was always fascinated with the planets, and space, and astronauts; I even went to Space Camp when I was 10. It might come as a bit of a surprise that at this point in my life, I vastly prefer Fantasy to Sci-fi.

Really, it’s the Dragons

I know Medieval Fantasy is standard and boring to a lot of people, but if it has swords and magic, I’m still interested. I just like the concept of doing things that don’t really need an explanation. Magic in most settings is internally consistent, but doesn’t work based on any real world principles, and I actually enjoy that. Likewise, fantasy opens up possibilities for things that can’t exist according to physics. Dragons are chief among these, but most of the monster manual qualifies. My initial qualifier, “has swords and magic”, doesn’t lock down medieval settings, as Shadowrun and The Dresden Files also qualify.

Like a Marshmallow

There are exceptions, of course. I’m a big fan of both Star Wars and Mass effect, but neither of those really fits into the realm of hard Sci-Fi. (In fact, both of these settings qualify as “has swords and magic”.) Things like 2001: A Space Odyssey or even Ghost in the Shell tend to lose me after a bit. Star Trek is somewhere in between, because it chooses to disregard odd parts of reality while still feeling like Sci-Fi.

Blaugust Post #8

Grace called it a blogging disease, I think of it as more of a chain letter. Either way, thanks for the Liebster award!

Here are my 11 random facts:

1. I am the youngest person on the regular cast of Aggrochat.
2. I’m a decent ice skater, and used to play hockey.
3. However, if you put me on roller skates, I just fall down a lot.
4. I will admit to liking a single song by N’SYNC. Said song is produced by one of my favorite EDM artists.
5. I was given my first computer (a laptop the size of a briefcase) when I was 4. I could barely carry it.
6. I have beaten Mega Man 8 more times than I can count. While in school, I beat it every time I came home, which meant about twice a year.
7. WoW was technically my first MMO (and like Grace I didn’t play before Burning Crusade), but before WoW I was in the beta for Wish.
8. I have an irrational love for shapeshifter characters. This has manifested in me playing a Druid whenever it comes up, but it isn’t limited to just that.
9. I buy rulebooks for Pen and Paper RPGs I’ll likelyneverplay, just to see what’s interesting in them.
10. As far as food goes, I believe that cinnamon makes almost everything better.
11. Despite claims to the contrary, I’m not a robot.

And here are Grace’s Questions:

1.Why do you blog?

I blog to get my thoughts out to whoever might be interested in reading them. In some ways the podcast serves as this, but the blog helps for more long-form thoughts.

2. What was your favorite childhood cartoon show?

The answer to this question depends on how you’d like to define “childhood”. I remember really liking the Powerpuff Girls when I was younger (It premiered when I was 7). Later, I was part of the Toonami generation, and really liked Dragonball Z.

3. Fantasy or Sci-Fi?

Fantasy, full stop. Exceptions are made for Sci-fi that’s really just pretending to not be Fantasy, like Star Wars or Mass Effect.

4. What’s the most amazing place you’ve ever been? I was too young to gamble (or anything else, really) when I was there, but I really loved Las Vegas. It’s just an amazing spectacle, and I haven’t seen the like anywhere else.

5. Pizza: Chicago or New York?

In general, Chicago Pizza is better than New York Pizza. However, it’s nearly impossible to actually get good Chicago-style pizza outside of Chicago while a bunch of places do a decent imitation of New York-style pizza around the country, so in most locations the opposite is true.

6. If you could only pick one game genre to play for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I’m a big fan of Action-RPGs. If I can stretch that definition far enough to fit Diablo, Kingdom Hearts, and Elder Scrolls under the same umbrella, so much the better.

7. What inspired your character name?

This one’s easy. There’s some more story there, but that’s the name I took for my Druid in WoW when we started playing Horde-side, and it ended up sticking.

8. What is your greatest gaming moment or achievement?

I like soloing ridiculous content, and every so often I drag other people into it. I managed to solo the first boss of AQ40 at level 80 (it required a silly amount of Nature Resist gear), but I’m more proud of getting enough people in to clear the instance. I’d previously had groups that even at level 80, could not get past Twin Emperors, so doing it with a few guildies was a pretty awesome experience.

9. Do you share your love of games with your real-world friends and family, or keep it to the internet?

I keep a Pikachu Amiibo on my desk at work, so my love of games isn’t exactly a secret. I’ve gotten into discussions about games with family and co-workers, but a lot of my current co-workers play World of Tanks, which I don’t have a lot of interest in.

10. Have you ever had a really weird pet?

Nope. I had a dog once, and when I move somewhere that allows them, probably will again.

11. What is your favorite type of environment/biome in-game and IRL?

I’ve always been a big fan of forests. I grew up in a location where nature trails were readily available, so I spent a decent amount of time walking and riding through shaded areas in the summer. In games, forests (but not jungles) tend to be relatively quiet and mysterious, but they sometimes have the “twisty little maze of passages” thing going on. My tolerance for that trope depends on how much you’re expected to rely on trial-and-error.

And 11 more questions:

1. Why do you blog? Yes, I know it’s a repeat. Deal with it.
2. What’s the first game you remember playing?
3. Dogs or Cats?
4. Do you have a favorite villain?
5. What are your thoughts on escort missions?
6. Borrowing from the “stereotypical interview questions” list, What would you say is your biggest weakness? (I did actually get this question a lot last year.)
7. What character archetype do you find yourself playing most often?
8. Other than games and the means to play them, do you own any gaming-related items?
9. Because I know who these questions are going to, I can ask this one: What’s your favorite system for Tabletop RPGs?
10. What upcoming games (if any) are you looking forward to?

Because Thalen hasn’t beaten me to it, Tamrielo and Kodra, have fun with this one.