How I hit 50 (And what I've been up to since then!)

The night the 1.3 updated dropped for Rift I managed to ding max level, 50. Interestingly enough I did it while trying out the new open world PvP quests. That night the quests directed everyone to Stillmoor for some random objectives along with a requirement to kill 25 Defiant players. While I recorded much more of this fight, it is available on my Youtube channel, I took this small snippet because I managed to reach max level after about one hour of fighting.






Good times that, the music coming through the background is from my Grooveshark stream, at the time I had no idea Rifts built in video recorder would also include it. Got my first copyright violation from Youtube over it ;)

After I leveled you can see my happy happy joy joy reaction with my guild mates over it. Even though I was not able to get to 50 before 1.3 I am still happy because I got to ding while being one of the first to enjoy the new open world PvP.

Since then I have done A LOT of rifts, Daily Raid Rifts, Daily Expert Rifts, Crafting Rifts and just running around closing Rifts. I know I should be grinding out Teir 2 gear so I can get raid ready but I am just having to much darn fun ^_^

I think once I max my reputation with the last two orders I will buckle down and just concentrate on grinding out some good Tier 2 gear. My guild, Virus is going to want to start raiding soon I can feel it. We've managed to pick up quite a few level 50's the last few days, some of whom are already geared out after running Tier 2 dungeons for awhile.

On the menu for tonight? The Daily Raid Rift is a water one in IPP so I am hoping I can convince my guildmates to take a small break from dungeon grinding and come with me :)

End Game - Where the real playing starts.

What a blur of a couple weeks it has been! I managed to hit 50 of course, though I did it the night 1.3 dropped. Just could not get it done before hand. Speaking of 1.3 the world event has been a blast so far. Lot's of new daily quests to do, at this point Phase 2 is going on and the second set of dailies are in full swing. Judging from the length of time between Phase 1 and Phase 2 the next Phase (3) should be here any day now.

Now, end game... What a complete change in tempo once you hit 50! I went from mindlessly grinding quests alone to constantly bouncing from one group activity to another with my Guild Mates. Between doing the daily Expert Rift or running down defiant with the new PvP dailies it's been none stop group fun. I have even managed to get my gear to a point where I can get into T2 dungeons. I can't tank them yet though, only run DPS as a MM/Ranger or Support as a Bard. But I must say I like how Trion did the dungeons.

Each dungeon is available in "normal" mode while you are leveling up, and each one has a set level range you can play in. Once you hit 50 and can enter Tier 1 or Tier 2 dungeons you are basically repeating the first ones, however they are extended with more boss encounters, in some cases extending the story lines as well.

There are only two things I have not had a chance to do yet, Raid Rifts and Raid Instances. Both require a few more geared out level 50's than my guild can field right now and getting into a PUG for either one can be very hard.

I have a video of me hitting level 50 however I have not had a chance to upload it to Youtube yet, once I do though you can expect to see it here :) Until then enjoy this nice image of Sanctum castle post 1.3

Sanctum Castle after 1.3 changes

To 50, and Beyond!

Well, the new patch and all the exciting changes comes out tomorrow. Before it gets here though I would LOVE to make level 50. I am currently level 48 and roughly 3/4's to 49 so I believe it would be totally doable for me to make 50 tonight if I really push myself and don't get distracted with playing the Auction House ^_^


Speaking of the Auction House, how much fun is that! I must have spent 50p in the last two days getting my Apothecary skill up to max level so I could start pumping out the black and white dye. And now that I finally can I have been spending much of my time "playing the auction house" as my guild calls it. Buying materials to make Dye as cheap as I can then selling Dye and undercutting other sellers so mine will sell. Fun times even if I don't seem to be making any money. :(

For tonight though, I want to focus on Questing and Dungeon runs. I have yet to play through AP or CC so I have the quest bonuses for those two dungeons to look forward to. And I still have some quests in Stillmoor I can work on. I am up to the large Caldera where a death rift looms menacingly. I am told that area is Solo content even if it does look tougher than anything before it.

Well, here's hoping my next post brings good tidings and an annoucement that I made level 50 :)

Invading the Enemy

It finally happened, I went on a mad killing spree in Stonewood the other night. Many Defiant lost their lives (or at the very least had to respawn). My favored tactic was to come up from behind and send my Wolf at them while I flung arrows from a safe distance. The astute reader would know of course that I was in the low level Defiant zone killing "lowbies" a most dishonorable act.

The PvP die hards know though, you roll on a PvP server and this is what you need to expect. Some wild crazy higher level player just running up and stomping on you from out of nowhere. Well, this weekend, that wild player was me!

The festivities of that night culminated when a massive invasion started in Stonewood. I sat quietly and waited while the Defiant players fought back invasion forces and closed Rifts, then once the boss appeared I decided it was time to reveal myself. Of course being the ONLY Guardian there I focused on attacking the boss instead of trying to get any more kills. I figured even if I was double their level they would dominate me through sheer numbers at that point. I even managed to capture the boss fight ^_^







While I did participate in the fight I was not awarded an achievment for beating him :( Oh well, I still enjoyed myself and managed to get away without getting mobbed by the horde.


Another interesting video I took over the weekend was during an invasion in Moonshade, once the boss spawned everyone raced to him and began taking him down. The best part was a rather large army of Defiant players came as well, you can see everyone kind of popping shots at one another through out the fight. And look for the moment when I realized I could use my AoE skills and damage the Defiant tanks as well. Afterwards of course a rather fun fight broke out between both factions, good times all around I'd say!






End of Weekend Level - 42

Ding! Level 40!

As anticipated I managed to hit level 40 last night! YAY ME! Of course the first point of order was to purchase a new (faster) mount. I opted to purchase one using the Favor I accumulated playing PVP, 13k Favor vs 35 platinum. My choice was limited to one "style" however I cared more about moving faster than I did about looking pretty.  One of the draws to an MMO is earning new gear and I must say I grabbed that carrot pretty hard last night.

After purchasing my new mount I made an expedition trip into lands held pretty tightly by the defiant. While I did gank some poor lower level player (mid 20's) for the most part I just rode by people opting not to fight and just enjoy the thrill of being in enemy lands. I managed to make it just inside of Freemarch before I had my first rude awakening. NPC Guards inside Freemarch auto crit for over 5,000 damage. Up until that point I rode past them without incident, however once inside Freemarch that all changed. The first one I rode by one shot me and that was that.

I am planning another foray into Defiant lands tonight, this time I believe I will record some parts of it. There will also be more blood split of course ^_^  Last night was about how far I could get, tonight will be a full on one man invasion! While part of me feels slightly bad for the lower level's that I will walk on, the other part is giddy with the anticipation of open world PvP at it's purest. I will just have to remind myself that THEY picked a PvP server for a reason. And while I have no doubt that some of them will start to call for reinforcements my tactic's will be from Sun Tzu himself. I will attack without warning and from an unexpected direction. Quickly with drawl and attack another location at random.


Actively invading the Defiant controlled lands will probably set me back a day in my goal to hit 40 before the 1.3 patch lands on the 22nd however I am confident that I will still have plenty of time to make that goal while having a little fun on the side.

To those Defiants who will die tonight, I salute you!

Been a little longer than I wanted since my last diary entry. Nothing really spectacular to note, oh wait... YES THERE IS!!!! I am on track to hit level 40 tonight!!! And as I have been finding out that means I should be getting another mount, one that is presumably faster.

While I suppose I should be buying it with good old fashioned platinum and gold, from what my guildies have been telling me I can in fact purchase it with Favor. And since I have roughly 50k saved up I think I will use some of it ^_^

While not much else has been going on I have taken a couple more videos, while I have not gotten a really good one uploaded to youtube yet I did manage to get 3 more.

Trip to Meridian Postponed

In my last entry I was thinking about going to the Defiant capitol of Meridian. Mostly for the fun of it of course, not looking to "grief" any low level players. Unfortunately I found out some rather disheartening facts, even though it would be in the Defiant starter zones I would still get flagged for PvP and the NPC guards would automatically attack me. Considering I am only level 32 at the moment I figured I should probably postpone my little trip until I get to a higher level and have a chance at surviving. :)

In the mean time I have been playing a lot more PvP while trying to finish up quests in Silverwood. I know the XP gain in Silverwood is little for me now, most of the mobs are grey to me, but it lets me enter and exit PvP with little chance for zoning back on top of some beasty with my pet dead and me not long behind them. I also believe there is an achievement for finishing all the quests in Silverwood so there is that to look forward to.

As for PvP I have finally decided that Ranger is probably the most fun, and rewarding, soul setup available to Rogues. Others might argue that Assassin's would be, but there is something extremeley satisfiying about KIT'ing a real person, unlike simply sneaking up behind them and bursting them down. Playing as a Ranger also affords me the chance to send my pet after someone while running away ^_^ Nothing worse than having some random razorbeast attacking you from behind is there?

Trion recently added an incentive to use the random dungeon finder, a chest at the end of the dungeon that awards you an item for your class. I must say this has reinvigorated my interest in the instanced dungeons. Even though I normally only do one dungeon a night I find myself looking forward to them more often.

I have taken some more videos of encounters with boss level monsters however I have not had a chance to upload them to Youtube yet. Hopefully my next post will be filled with some great videos of Telara.

End of day level - 32