Note: Apologies to those living in the Bukit Timah area, both the married and unmarried. After all, my cousins are also living there.
Add note: Jokes made at the expense of the rich and reckless aside, we should just let the traffic cops do their job. They're paid to do something right in the same way we're taught to do something right. Hopefully, the SPF can wring a statement from the driver, damning or otherwise. No "you know who I am" jokes, please. I'm not interested in the next Enemy of the State ever since Wolverine cut Will "the Man in Black" Smith and Gene "don't have hacker's genes" Hackman down to size.
Siege
Don't you love the Siege of Neverwinter? After such a long time (albeit compared to the Respen event, it's not so long), we're now treated with a fortnight's worth of siege warfare and whatever siege mentality propaganda propagated by the Lord Pretender himself.
My first impression is that it pales in comparison to the recent Respen event. The loot drop has gotten better (conversely, it also means your chances of getting a Battle Medic has been nerfed due to the Stronghold daily quests that will give you 5 defense supplies per go). However, the same can also be said for the Respen event. In addition, there's nothing new about this current edition. Perhaps there are one or two new heroic encounters, but that's it. The most challenging one is still the dragon advisors (i.e. nerfed version of Tiamat's draconic heralds. After all, she's the boss of the cult, not the other way round).
We have too many gamers entering the fun. So much so that every heroic encounter becomes nothing more than a mere formality. General Sabine may talk like Hillary "I will never kill my Bill" Clinton (and trust me when I say General Sabine's full name may verily be Hillary Sabine Clinton), but she actually exaggerated the danger in the same way Donald "yes, I know Jews are (technically) Asians just like the Chinese and Japanese" Trump employs hyperbole tactics at every turn. Try doing a draconic adviser heroic encounter where you have no less than 7 players with a median item level of 2.5K to even 3K. Gone in 60 secs, you don't even need to worry about the breathing cannon.
On the Stronghold daily quest, there's a bug. A tell-tale sign of quest impossibru lies in whether you'll see a yellow square diamond above the guard nearest to the Master of the Coin. If the answer is yes, congrats. It means you can do the quest. If not, then congrats as well. It means you'll need to abort and restart the quest. It can quite tedious at times since you may need more than 1-2 restart, but I guess we have to wait until the next patch this Thursday (Singapore timezone).
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| Hopefully not like this... |
Barring the bug, I really like the daily Siege quest in the Stronghold. After all, you can get 5 defense supplies per day for every character. For all its failings past and present (not to mention in the future as well), Cryptic has done well in learning from its mistakes incurred during Mod 6 and 7. Mod 8 was a great blast of Russian vodka while Mod 9 is aging nicely like a bottle of vintage Bordeaux wine. And it really helps that the devs may have reviewed the difficulty level every now and then (if so, then they should have done that since Mod 4 lol).
And yes, There's those Stronghold vouchers in blue as well. Little wonder why so many players are into the current siege.
Note: Due to high availability for defense supplies, it also means getting a Battle Medic is now harder. Bummer that you can't get an epic Medium Black Horse now.
Add note: Unless you have zen to burn, it's recommended that you try buying the Battlefield Scavenger's Pack. This is to ensure you can get at least both the Neverwinter Guard Archer and enough Writ of Commendation to buy a Neverwinter Champion's Charger. Or at least the latter since this is your best shot at getting a blue mount without burning your ardent coins (alternatively, you can pray to Sune for another Summer Festival event this year). Quartermaster's Enchantment at rank 7 may present an unwanted monster in the near run though.
Tanking
There are two ways to do tanking. Either as a tennis player or a MMO player. My personal experience in playing the tanks has been nothing less than a fun ride. While I'll only go further in terms of details in a future post, let me just say that playing the tank means having a headstart in doing epic dungeons via matchmaking. In every epic dungeons, the matchmaking system will ensure 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 dps. In any case, the dps is only seen as vital support. Something to make the tactics click, but not an individual to make the party click. An effective dps game will ensure a more efficient victory, but an efficient tanking strategy will ensure survival (in other words, the tank is the bedrock of every victory). As a dps, Arylos will always run the risk of getting a bunch of misfits. The same goes for Myrreas as well. Sheallyn and Kariss are a pair of no-brainers. As for Cyrea, it really depends on the tank. See where this is going for Bhaasmond?
That magic wand
I really like the *insert your fave element* Seeker's Wand. Out of the four Elemental Evil zones, Spinward Rise remains as that most difficult place for mote farming. Apart from the two Assault heroic encounters present in any given subzone, the rest are unplayable without a good party. Mistral Point, in particular, is really hard. 15+ participants recommended sounds like a mere understatement at times. Thieving Birds have that damn unkillable bird tank as the boss. Cloudkill is all about giants stoning you and you getting stoned by frequent lightning bursts. As for Eyes of Limbo, it's actually solo'able. Just that it's not so solo friendly compared to Air Cult Assault and Elemental Assault.
Enough on the griping. Let me just say that the Air Dowsing buff is NOT just about getting motes on a 100% success rate per completion. It actually makes your life easier by having an easier time completing the heroic encounters. It may be just me, but Air Dowsing buff actually gives the user bonus in movement. With one charge alone, I've already farmed 5 motes. Which means a single wand can fetch me 20 motes at this rate. Otherwise, I'd struggle to finish 5 Assault heroic encounters in such a short space of time. Hopefully, all I need is 2 more wands. Not a problem for me since I've got no immediate use for my 160 Tarmalune trade bars left rusting in the bank.
P.S: Seeker's Wands, in general, may have gotten a nerf in the auction house price. 20K for Air Seeker's Wand atm where the cost would have gone as high as 40K to even 60K a few months ago. Seems that the in-game economy has gotten another overhaul for the better this time round. Positive signs on that via the zen-astral diamonds exchange rate. More favorable to both parties instead of just either one.
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