Darkfall Day 23-25

Mostly stuck around the elven lands this weekend, alternating among farming trolls, killing zombies, and gathering, with a little magic practice thrown in for good measure.

I've gotten pretty good at handling the PvE at the level of monsters I'm dealing with. Using Mana Missile has three basic tactics you can use depending on what the monsters are doing: if they're coming right at you or running directly away you can spam it over and over; if they're moving at an angle towards or away from you, you can gauge windspeed, relative humidity, and the average walking speed of a fully-laden Greek troll and try to lead the monster enough with it to actually hit them; or, if they're moving erratically, as they often do, you can make a wild guess and try to hit the ground near them so they at least suffer splash damage. So you hit one try out of five and count yourself lucky. The Mana Efficiency - Lesser Magic skill is helpful since you end up wasting so much mana.

Of course, I've continued to use my mace and its skill level is slowly creeping up. Melee involves constantly circling around the monster to avoid its spells, a tactic that is surprisingly effective, as is jumping up and down a lot when you're at a distance and they're casting at you.

I don't mean to suggest I don't enjoy the PvE, because I do, but it's something like building a house with nothing but a pipe wrench.

At any rate, I've been able to gather a good bit of spell components, which I then burn slowly raising my spell levels. The most recent patch made it so that you can't gain skill while wielding the newbie staff. The main advantage of using the newbie staff is that it can't be broken. So it's a minor inconvenience, but now I have to stock up on real staffs to use while skilling up, ones that break occasionally. Fortunately my friends the trolls also drop a good many staffs, so I'm not hurting for any.

On the PvP front, I'm still aggressive only in the noblest of ways: a true sign of the carebear :P For instance, two new, no-clan players starting attacking a third at a zombie camp the other day. He wisely ran off, but I attacked and killed them both (with some help from the zombies, of course). This is less a testament to my uber skill than to their lack of same. Still, it was satisfying, and the would-be victim and I teamed up and chatted for several hours. So don't let anyone tell you that Darkfall is all survival of the fittest.

I also ran across a pair of Alfar hunting players around the same area. I was able to creep along behind them without drawing their attention, shadowing them as they moved in to kill some humans and elves. I arrived to find one at low health standing over the grave of a victim, but I didn't see the other. Still, having little on me, I figured I'd give it a go, though I'd never survive two players who know what they're doing. I was able to sneak up behind and kill the one character after a brief chase in which the skeletons of the area were helpful. I saw his friend briefly, but he slunk away. I figured my time was short until he made a counter-attack, but the same skeletons who were so helpful earlier were now in my way getting to his loot. I was able to grab some of it, but was fighting off skeletons when the two came back. I can't imagine where they were bound that the one I killed could make it back so quickly. The nearest chaos stone is a good hike up the river, and as far as I can tell they were never mounted. But anyway, as I predicted, two-on-one was my downfall and I lost what I'd looted from him, but nothing really of my own except some resin I had on me and some random pieces of armor I was wearing that I'd got off some goblins.

But each time I engage in PvP I'm learning a little more. I'm using mainly Mana Missile still, a weak weapon if ever there were one, but ranking it up has helped expand the area of effect and damage from it. Still, it's nothing compared to an archer with a bow, so accurate and fast. I'm hoping the attack spells in the elemental schools, should I ever get to them, will finally put me on a par with them.