Lance Berg
2008-01-16 23:14:55 UTC
So A few months ago, I inherited an account with a 68 beastlord on it.
Trouble is, I've never played a BST past 17 or so, and it developed that
I wasn't good at botting it, my attention was split and my instincts
were all wrong.
I guess I could have played the BST solo for a while and learned the
class, but instead I went the other direction; there was a shortage of
clerics in the guild at the time, and I figured I could bot one for my
SK while soloing and bring it along on raids.
Well this worked pretty well, and I learned a lot about botting while
working the cleric up. I've spent years playing clerics in the past, so
what I really needed to learn was just botting.
Got the cleric up to 70 and the most needed AA's (Darb, RC) and in some
decent gear.. but at the same time we managed to recruit a bunch of
clerics so he wasn't so often needed on raids, and my SK got a couple
thousand more HP and a couple hundred more AA and didn't really need a
healer so much to solo.
Bot started gathering dust sitting in the GL in case a rez or Conv was
needed by a guildmate.
Another class I enjoyed playing in the past was a bard; I got up to 57
before being forced to quit due to wrist stress; five twist three
juggle... well I'm not that young and I blacksmith for a living IRL,
wrist already taking a beating.
I toyed around some with a bard alt when they first came out with
melody, but had some other main and melody didn't work all that well
back then, miss a note and you stopped playing.
More recently, I experimented again, when they changed it around so it
just retries a song till it sticks. Thats viable. But I was on my SK
main by then and working hard to actually see all that high end (for
Combine server) content I'd never gotten into when the expansions were
released the first time.
Now though, I can potentially play a bard while continuing to work on my
SK. Started a bard, did the tutorial, then twinked him some and had
him gather exp while I farmed Tinkering goods in Gunthak. 40 levels
went by fast, especially once he could actually stick AE Dot song to
mobs; I'd pull a ton over and lock aggro, then just stand there while my
DS did the damage and he scratched them all enough to get the killcredit.
I actually kept it up to 43 doing that, past the point where some mobs
started to go green... but I was still farming so it was essentially
free exp for him, slow but something.
Then I took him over to Dulak and then Torrigan's Mines where I got the
next three levels while getting him his LOY songs.
At 46 I was able to group him with me, and the gloves came off, sort of.
I have several friends in need of Silverwing drops, so we'd group up
with our bots and go do the zones that were at least LB to the bots as a
group. Not fast exp, but essentially free. Velks, Deep, Droga, NC and
he was up to the mid 50s.
At 56 I went out and did his epic. A mage friend went in to COTH him
down to the Phinny spot so I could set up a watch...and Phinny popped
while she was there. I'd barely zoned in with the bard (Phinny turns
out to be bard trackable from zone in) when she'd killed the Fish, and
hey, backbone. So that was that. She also managed to call in a favor
and get me a white dragon scale. The rest of the epic was easy, up to
Eldrig. Looked like he was going to fall into my lap too, when the bard
managed to High Sun his PH within 10 minutes of my arrival... but then I
sat there killing PH's for 28 spawns till he finally popped. Grabbed a
group of friends including the mage and went down to the UDB (Trakanon
kill message was seen the day before while bard was on his way to
Phinny) and took him out. Elapsed time from start was 26 hours,
although I went to a movie and slept 8 hours in the middle of that
somewhere.
Bard epic is great for lazy botting; its all 4 instrument types plus a
mod for singing. Many songs don't really benefit from instrument mod,
and you can always hold one in your off hand, so no more swapping.
Better still, instead of working three skills while afk (sing,
instrument, brass from POJ mace) you can easily set up a melody to twist
all five.
I work instruments in the GL, where I can get my dex up to cap by
singing chant of battle and sword dancing, which stack; in the GL they
don't fade, so sing them once with the good drum in,then run the 5 song
melody nd leave it run any time I'm afk. Skills still going up terribly
slowly, but better than before.
Then we went and did some WOS and RCOD, got him up to 59. At this point
I managed to get some guildmates who were available to group with me
while they were afk or doing TS stuff, four plus my SK was enough to
Gimp him into HOH.
We rotated some other people in and out of the group, or I'd solo,
quickly enough he hit 62 and could zone in without gimpage.
Today I logged in in the morning before the patch and got him to 63,
this afternoon after the patch got partway to 64.
At this point he's actually become a boost; a haste song (60%) better
than my clicky (40%) or the top end potion (50%); plus a 25% overhaste,
plus 53hp a tic and 22 mana a tic regen that stack with any buff or
potion I can find... I can run a 5 twist fairly well with him, so I have
him running Sword Dancing for his own dex (his skills have lagged
appallingly) and a DS song to boost my own DS (two or three mobs beating
on me at a time, with over 100DS, isn't a bad boost)
As I'm lazy, I don't like to swap his melody's around, prefer to leave
him running full time... i got around this by making a melody hotkey
that occaisionally swaps in the long duration selos; a slight skip in
the steady flow of tunes but this way when its time for me to run off
and pull, there's always a nearly fresh selos on me
/melody 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 6
Another trick I found was that its often a good idea to have him be
invisible, when I'm pulling mobs with FD or travelling, for instance;
any time the mobs around aren't see invis, his invis song can be a real
help... or so it seemed. Trouble is, if the SK gets aggro and his invis
song lands on me, any aggro on me transfers to him despite his
invisibility. Luckily, just as this problem loomed up, Combine unlocked
the PORo expansion.. .which includes the ability to block buffs. I had
my SK block bard invis, problem solved.
Now I can have him stationed or following me, and aggro mobs, wait till
they are on top of me and in smacking range of him, FD, and he doesn't
get aggro.
I went into POT and sat for 30 minutes clicking on the spinning book
with a lockpick in hand, singing my dex melody. Skillups slow, but you
can pick 100 times a minute, so up it comes, I went from (1) to the
(236) cap in a half hour. Then I went to chardok, pleased to find I
wasn't KOS due to all that time in Droga, and went down to the bottom
(Goblin Runner aggroed for some reason, had to kill him, but nothing
added and no other mobs aggroed) and opened the doors so my SK and a
cleric (in goblin rogue shroud form) could get to the king for his epic
kill.
I've found a few traps while travelling around, and worked disarm a
little, seem to get a skillup every time but sadly I'd eventually
succede and that was the end of that. I need the trap equivalent of that
spinning book!
He's currently sort of on a par with being raid buffed, and fragile and
leeching some of my exp away. He's missing most of his 61+ songs
though, and levels, I'm hoping that in a few more days he'll be a solid
net gain in capability, with a credible slow there will be a lot more I
can do.
Still won't be close to what a real bard can do; botting, I find, costs
me half the effectiveness of the bot and makes me only about 90% of my
own usual effectiveness... but thats still 140% and thats not counting
hopefully synergistic effects.
Trouble is, I've never played a BST past 17 or so, and it developed that
I wasn't good at botting it, my attention was split and my instincts
were all wrong.
I guess I could have played the BST solo for a while and learned the
class, but instead I went the other direction; there was a shortage of
clerics in the guild at the time, and I figured I could bot one for my
SK while soloing and bring it along on raids.
Well this worked pretty well, and I learned a lot about botting while
working the cleric up. I've spent years playing clerics in the past, so
what I really needed to learn was just botting.
Got the cleric up to 70 and the most needed AA's (Darb, RC) and in some
decent gear.. but at the same time we managed to recruit a bunch of
clerics so he wasn't so often needed on raids, and my SK got a couple
thousand more HP and a couple hundred more AA and didn't really need a
healer so much to solo.
Bot started gathering dust sitting in the GL in case a rez or Conv was
needed by a guildmate.
Another class I enjoyed playing in the past was a bard; I got up to 57
before being forced to quit due to wrist stress; five twist three
juggle... well I'm not that young and I blacksmith for a living IRL,
wrist already taking a beating.
I toyed around some with a bard alt when they first came out with
melody, but had some other main and melody didn't work all that well
back then, miss a note and you stopped playing.
More recently, I experimented again, when they changed it around so it
just retries a song till it sticks. Thats viable. But I was on my SK
main by then and working hard to actually see all that high end (for
Combine server) content I'd never gotten into when the expansions were
released the first time.
Now though, I can potentially play a bard while continuing to work on my
SK. Started a bard, did the tutorial, then twinked him some and had
him gather exp while I farmed Tinkering goods in Gunthak. 40 levels
went by fast, especially once he could actually stick AE Dot song to
mobs; I'd pull a ton over and lock aggro, then just stand there while my
DS did the damage and he scratched them all enough to get the killcredit.
I actually kept it up to 43 doing that, past the point where some mobs
started to go green... but I was still farming so it was essentially
free exp for him, slow but something.
Then I took him over to Dulak and then Torrigan's Mines where I got the
next three levels while getting him his LOY songs.
At 46 I was able to group him with me, and the gloves came off, sort of.
I have several friends in need of Silverwing drops, so we'd group up
with our bots and go do the zones that were at least LB to the bots as a
group. Not fast exp, but essentially free. Velks, Deep, Droga, NC and
he was up to the mid 50s.
At 56 I went out and did his epic. A mage friend went in to COTH him
down to the Phinny spot so I could set up a watch...and Phinny popped
while she was there. I'd barely zoned in with the bard (Phinny turns
out to be bard trackable from zone in) when she'd killed the Fish, and
hey, backbone. So that was that. She also managed to call in a favor
and get me a white dragon scale. The rest of the epic was easy, up to
Eldrig. Looked like he was going to fall into my lap too, when the bard
managed to High Sun his PH within 10 minutes of my arrival... but then I
sat there killing PH's for 28 spawns till he finally popped. Grabbed a
group of friends including the mage and went down to the UDB (Trakanon
kill message was seen the day before while bard was on his way to
Phinny) and took him out. Elapsed time from start was 26 hours,
although I went to a movie and slept 8 hours in the middle of that
somewhere.
Bard epic is great for lazy botting; its all 4 instrument types plus a
mod for singing. Many songs don't really benefit from instrument mod,
and you can always hold one in your off hand, so no more swapping.
Better still, instead of working three skills while afk (sing,
instrument, brass from POJ mace) you can easily set up a melody to twist
all five.
I work instruments in the GL, where I can get my dex up to cap by
singing chant of battle and sword dancing, which stack; in the GL they
don't fade, so sing them once with the good drum in,then run the 5 song
melody nd leave it run any time I'm afk. Skills still going up terribly
slowly, but better than before.
Then we went and did some WOS and RCOD, got him up to 59. At this point
I managed to get some guildmates who were available to group with me
while they were afk or doing TS stuff, four plus my SK was enough to
Gimp him into HOH.
We rotated some other people in and out of the group, or I'd solo,
quickly enough he hit 62 and could zone in without gimpage.
Today I logged in in the morning before the patch and got him to 63,
this afternoon after the patch got partway to 64.
At this point he's actually become a boost; a haste song (60%) better
than my clicky (40%) or the top end potion (50%); plus a 25% overhaste,
plus 53hp a tic and 22 mana a tic regen that stack with any buff or
potion I can find... I can run a 5 twist fairly well with him, so I have
him running Sword Dancing for his own dex (his skills have lagged
appallingly) and a DS song to boost my own DS (two or three mobs beating
on me at a time, with over 100DS, isn't a bad boost)
As I'm lazy, I don't like to swap his melody's around, prefer to leave
him running full time... i got around this by making a melody hotkey
that occaisionally swaps in the long duration selos; a slight skip in
the steady flow of tunes but this way when its time for me to run off
and pull, there's always a nearly fresh selos on me
/melody 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 6
Another trick I found was that its often a good idea to have him be
invisible, when I'm pulling mobs with FD or travelling, for instance;
any time the mobs around aren't see invis, his invis song can be a real
help... or so it seemed. Trouble is, if the SK gets aggro and his invis
song lands on me, any aggro on me transfers to him despite his
invisibility. Luckily, just as this problem loomed up, Combine unlocked
the PORo expansion.. .which includes the ability to block buffs. I had
my SK block bard invis, problem solved.
Now I can have him stationed or following me, and aggro mobs, wait till
they are on top of me and in smacking range of him, FD, and he doesn't
get aggro.
I went into POT and sat for 30 minutes clicking on the spinning book
with a lockpick in hand, singing my dex melody. Skillups slow, but you
can pick 100 times a minute, so up it comes, I went from (1) to the
(236) cap in a half hour. Then I went to chardok, pleased to find I
wasn't KOS due to all that time in Droga, and went down to the bottom
(Goblin Runner aggroed for some reason, had to kill him, but nothing
added and no other mobs aggroed) and opened the doors so my SK and a
cleric (in goblin rogue shroud form) could get to the king for his epic
kill.
I've found a few traps while travelling around, and worked disarm a
little, seem to get a skillup every time but sadly I'd eventually
succede and that was the end of that. I need the trap equivalent of that
spinning book!
He's currently sort of on a par with being raid buffed, and fragile and
leeching some of my exp away. He's missing most of his 61+ songs
though, and levels, I'm hoping that in a few more days he'll be a solid
net gain in capability, with a credible slow there will be a lot more I
can do.
Still won't be close to what a real bard can do; botting, I find, costs
me half the effectiveness of the bot and makes me only about 90% of my
own usual effectiveness... but thats still 140% and thats not counting
hopefully synergistic effects.