KIndhearted Iiwar

The other day we went to pay a visit to Bworker. We were a really overkilling team: two sadidas, two pandas, cra, enu, eni, and me, feca. With this team we could not only immobilise every creature in the Bworker’s throne room but were capable of pretty good manipulation of the battle field. However, we almost died since soon after the start of the fight Iiwar found out she was too kindhearted and merciful to help us to defeat Bworker. Instead of throwing us out of bwork’s  boss range she allowed him to punish both sadidas. Thanks Gods, she was the next to get acquainted with Bworker really close.

We were left five against eight monsters, including their really fast and agile leader. Without sadida’s dolls, with one of the pandas being rendered useless our usual strategy based on total immobilisation of all and everything couldn’t work. We were really lucky to bring cra’s new husband — a panda — with us. Usually we ask sram to help out, but that time she didn’t feel well, or more likely she was just lazy, and we invited our unexperienced friend.  It was the first time when the responsibility for the team’s safety was almost solely his. And I must admit he did great. He literally saved us.

We can’t, and, honestly, never bother, to lock Bworker with one of his Elemental Bworks. We do it a straightforward way: we just don’t let the bworks to come close and reduce their abilities for range combat. This is surely not the fastest way but the least painful; in fact, eni often complains she is unable to use her vast healing powers and has to resort to brute force in order to be somehow useful.

That day everything went wrong. We couldn’t stop the assault and we had no room to retreat and regroup. We almost gave up, but not the panda. He was always in a right place to throw Bworker as far as he could and at the same time keep it in cra’s range.  And while he was unable to completely isolate the threat or deal any noticeable damage his role is hard to overrate, especially when old lady’s efforts to prevent Bworker from moving had from little to no success.

After we were done with Bworker we asked Iiwar to explain herself. She told us it was totally unfair that a poor old Bworker was one against eight of us. So she decided to even the numbers…

Dragoturkeys Breeding Basics: Part I

I just realised how much I write about breeding. But I’ve never written about the basics of breeding. I’m going to make amends for this negligence.

Part I. Obtaining the First Pair

Old Realm

Obtaining the first pair of birds in an old realm is pretty easy — just go to the pet sellrooms and find two non neutered dragoturkeys of desired colour. Of course, some breeds can be harder to find than others, and purebred dragoturkeys can be rare and a bit more expensive than the ones with the mixed trees. However regular market check usually results in finding a desired bird.

New Realm

Things are a bit more complicated in a new realms. Breeding is either non-existent or monopolised by a small group of people. All dragoturkeys on sale (if any) are neutered, overpriced, and belong to low generations. Pretty much the only way to obtain a breedable pair is to tame some wild dragoturkeys.

Learning a Taming Spell

Taming is not as easy as it may sound and requires some preparation. First of all, kaliptus flowers and leaves should be collected, 50 of each. Oshar Marif will be glad to teach you a mount taming spell in exchange for this plants, which he needs for his herbal tea. I have no idea why he wants others to bring the ingredients for this tea. He lives in the Koolich’s estate and should have access to them. I guess he is as lazy as one sadida I know… Anyway, in order to talk with Oshar the would-be breeder should go through the caves full of cave gobbals (a special breed of these fluffy creatures, much more dangerous and unpleasant than their relatives in Taneila), encounter various koalaks and Koolich himself. And, of course, before it all becomes possible the adventures must find their way through Wild Canyon, which can be incredibly annoying if they can’t dodge aggressive monsters.

Koolich is not that hard to defeat if the team is able to deal with cave gobbals fast, when buffed by their master these creatures can run fast and hit hard. It’s also important to avoid being linear to old smoker as he can attract the victim and transform her into a gobkool (unfortunately harmless).

I believe the best strategy for this dungeon is to rely on my favourite immobilisation. It can be done two ways: real immobilisation using spells (sadida and cra will be the best for this task) or blocking the movements by surrounding Koolich with summons. As Koolich can’t deal damage (I heard he was a pacifist) any summon will do. The former method is still better, as nothing will be blocking the sight and everyone will be able to hit Mr. Pacifist. However, the second method works pretty good if the team relies on 3-4 heavy hitter.

Capturing a Wild Dragoturkey

When the taming spell is aquired it is time to capture some birds. Wild dragoturkeys live on Koalak Mountain and in Amakna, Scaraleaf Plain. Scaraleaf plain seems more accessible, but golden dragoturkeys can’t be found there and any breeder will won’t (and need) to have them.

Taming spell is not the only condition to capture a wild mount. A caster should also have simple capturing net equipped (it is easily obtainable — Smakko, near Breeder’s Village zaap sells nets for reasonable 10 kamas). Also the caster should not have any mount following, i.e. each captured dragoturkey should be placed to a shed before attempting to tame another one.

Wild ginger and almond dragoturkeys aren’t a real challenge. It is not so for wild golden dragoturkey. This mount is a local boss, it’s faster than the others, has much more stamina and agility. Immobilising with spells is impossible (even with the all sadida team), and the only way to do it is to surround it. Surrounding is the best tactics, as dragoturkeys can unbewitch spells increasing range and tend to run away.

Needless to say that taming spell doesn’t guarantee mount’s capture from the first try. Several attempts may be needed to achieve a result. Therefore it is better to attack big dragoturkeys groups and have as many people with the spell and nets as possible — the chances to tame a mount significantly will be significantly higher.

The more mounts are captured the faster breeding will go, so I would recommend not to stop after 2-3 captured mounts. It is also important to remember that wild dragoturkeys, unlike domesticated ones, can be mated only once. One more moment to consider is inability to determine the dragoturkey’s gender prior to its taming. A beginner breeder should be prepared to spend quite some time fighting birds.

The Jellith Dimension

I can’t say I like jelly. But I definitely like our visits to the Jellith Dimension… Royal Jellies look hilarious with their tiny crowns and funny faces. However, the main reason for my attitude are drops.  Today, for example, we found three gelanos. And we made only two runs through the colourful country.

One thing about this place is that I’ve never managed to understand how it works. Sure, I know that I’m supposed to collect pools of each colour. If I manage to collect more than 10 of one colour I will be able to fight a Royal Jelly of the same colour, if more than 10 of each colour — two Royal Jellies, if more than 15 of each colour — all four Royal Jellies.

I can choose what Royal Jelly to attack if I collect less than 10 pools of one of the colours — just talk and choose to attack the corresponding royal thing. And this would be really handy if I was looking for particular Magesty. However, we need to collect plenty of royal souls, so we prefer to attack as many simultaneously as possible. Unfortunately, we can’t choose which two kings (or queens?) to fight and we never managed to collect 15 pools of each colour to get a chance to fight all four of them. Well, I believe our greedy grandma can collect up to 20-25 pools thanks to her chest, but I really doubt she is able to kill all Royals and capture their souls at the same time. No matter what she says she is unable to fight effectively someone who has 70% resistance to water magic…

I still hope next time (or next after next) we will be lucky enough to fight four Royal Jellies. Last time we were there we were missing only one blue pool. Theoretically it is possible, but luck plays the major role: there are eight rooms, the biggest possible group of monsters is a group of eight, which gives 64 pools. Therefore even if we not always choose the biggest group we still can collect 15 pools for each four colours.

Anyway, experiments with pools require Multijellies, so we will be fighting regular jellies a lot. Nonetheless it’s still less than we would hunt them if cra didn’t reconsider her “brilliant” plans on obtaining vitality bonus.

And more jelly pictures:

See you soon!

Kwismas Is Here

Kwismas Island is accessible for almost a week now and despite being busy with the preparations for the holidays we’ve managed to get there.

Unlike previous years Kwismas Island is divided into three zones inhabitant by the monsters differing in power (see map). The monsters in the green zone are relatively easy and don’t have any special abilities, or I haven’t noticed them. Yellow zone is inhabited by stronger monsters: they have more stamina, hit harder, and have some tricks in their sleeves. For example, Ice Cracklers gain mobility when get hit with fire. The red zone is the hardest area. However, they are manageable if the team can stay out of range and immobilise them. Well, immobilisation works well against almost all monsters.

Kwismas dungeons have been changed as well. If before there was one entrance for all three dungeons now all three dungeons have separate entrances. Moreover, the key is no longer needed if one has the Bunch of Keys. These dungeons have the same monsters as monsters in the respective zones. Hence it could be a good idea to fight a couple of big monster groups before attempting the dungeon run. Besides the regular monsters all three dungeons have bosses, who can summon any monster from their zone.

By completion of the first dungeon all participants learn the basics of presenting gifts. And while it’s not really needed skill it’s still fun.

And, of course, Kwismas Island is the place where one can get loads of presents. In one evening I managed to collect about 100 presents, and I was one the less luckiest. Enu was the absolute champion in our race for presents (not with the help of her chest which, I suppose, has stolen some boxes from me). We haven’t opened the boxes yet, but I really hope this year they will contain less rubbish and more useful items.

Royal Bird

As we all perfectly know tofu is the most fearsome monster in all world of Twelve. Hundreds of brave adventurers died trying to fight these creatures. Tofus wouldn’t be so hard to defeat if not for their amazing mobility and speed, only those warriors who excel in ranged combat can safely engage into struggle with the yellow birdies.

Royal Tofu is no exclusion. In fact, it is even more annoying, unpleasant, and troublesome than its subjects. Not only it is really fast and agile, it also can hit pretty hard and several people at the same time. Moreover it casts the spell that diminishes its opponents stamina. However, the throne room is not big enough for the Royal Tofu to avoid all the hits and safely kill its enemies. While being pretty painful His Majesty is not invulnerable. It can be killed one of two ways: either surrounded so it can’t run or killed by ranged fighters like cras, sadidas, and enutrofs.

Nonetheless tofus and even their sovereign aren’t the worst nightmare of Tofu House, they are nothing compared to the maze room… No, there are no scary monsters there, nor the maze itself is hard to find a way through. BUT! the room is teemed with tofus! The second you start a fight with one of them the next takes its place. And unlike other places here tofus are aggressive, so it’s quite problematic to complete the maze fast. The only more or less efficient way to do it we’ve found is starting a fight with one member of the group. While tofu is busy preparing to defend the rest of the team quickly moves ahead. Onу person should wait for the fight to end and attack new tofu, so the first person who let everyone to move further can go, too. This way there is no need to wait till tofus move, and number of fights can be minimised. However this tactics doesn’t help if someone in the group is blind or believes he or she can fly, they all end up in the holes and have to start the maze from the very beginning.

This place is cursed, but we still have to pay more visits there. First of all, Otomai has asked for Royal Tofu souls and we don’t want to disappoint him if we plan to get dofuses. Another reason for these visits is Vibrating Royal Tofu feather. This feather doesn’t look like something special, and very similar to regular Royal Tofu feather. However, it is much harder to find and only it can be used to craft some equipment sadida is looking for. So we are doomed to spend some time visiting Royal Tofu and its hospitable subjects.

The one really good thing about this place is bird meat. Yesterday we got over 600 bird legs. They cannot be considered as a source of good edible meat, but raw they sell well and should pay us nicely for the trouble. Cra and eni are also happy with the regular Royal Tofu feathers which are needed for good patters.

Golden Dragoone: Quick Start Guide to Raising

Golden Dragoone is a soul-eater pet. It feeds on temple dopple souls. Theoretically it is possible to fully train a golden dragoone in 60 days, if one can kill all the dopples and doesn’t skip a day.

There are two main strategies for defeating dopples:

• Kill them faster than they can kill you. This strategy works nicely for heavy hitters.
• Prevent them from hitting you.

In our particular case the responsibility for training a dragoon belongs to cra and sadida. Both can’t deal incredible damage for various reasons, but they possess the abilities to immobilise dopples. Cra’s main strategy is to immobilise an opponent, push it if he or she managed to come too close, and occasionally to reduce opponent’s abilities for ranged combat. Sadida’s favourite tactics is summoning dolls to distract the opponents, to immobilise them with the soothing bramble, and running in circles. Perhaps, strategy like this requires more time, but it guarantees a sure win and highly reduced bread costs.

Even if the core strategy is the same there are some special tricks for each of 12 dopples, of course (I saw the fights almost only with the strongest dopples, so my recommendations are based on this observations and can be unreliable for weaker species).

And Another Bounty: Mr. Penguin

Being pushed by Ki and old lady our team continued to look for the Frigost bounties. A little trip to the lake and we saw Mr. Penguin, who was in our bounty list. We were lucky he had only one friend with him, so the arrest went smoothly and without any unneeded complications. Well, probably, one thing prolonged the fight a bit. It appeared that Mr. Penguin could heal himself. Of course, it didn’t help him, just made old lady grouse slightly more that usual.

The dirty work was done quickly and we had offender in our hands, planning to share the bounty. What was our surprise when we discovered seven more Mr. Penguins waiting to surrender.

I really don’t get it! Why they always wait nearby and then surrender instead of fighting for their freedom? Surely I understand the idea of cowardice, but they will be imprisoned and should’ve been terrified by this perspective. But no, they just walk into our hands… However, one of them managed to escape from our xelor friend. She is young and inexperienced, so she attacked too powerful for her monster and while she was busy fleeing from it her Mr. Penguin escaped. Enu was incensed — the bounty reward was about one forth of a million and old miser could bear the thought of the loss. Now she plans to go back to the lake to find the escaped bird.

And here is the picture of us surrounded by dandy penguins. Ki has such a funny face!

We Are Bounty Hunters!

The other day we were paying visit to the militia on Frigost. And we found an interesting room there! It was full of pictures and promises of rewards.

We had some time, so we decided to hunt some mastogobs and see if we can find a brown rowdy. To our surprise he was waiting us near the town walls, and not alone. Oh, I’m not talking about 7 of his twins hiding nearby, we couldn’t see them until we defeated their leader. He convinced several mastogobs to help with the fight. They fought fiercely, but we overcame and outnumbered. I even feel pity to them, it wasn’t their fault their brown relatives were criminals.

Anyway, the brown thing (I failed to remember his name, as I often do with names) proved to be a serious opponent. He possessed enough stamina to last against 8 of us long enough to summon mastogob warrior. Of course, it couldn’t kill us, but definitely added a few unpleasant moments. I don’t know what he can do in melee combat as cra and sadida immobilised he almost immediately. I never understood why they were doing it, but they really preferred ranged combat, and none of my and sram’s  complaints could change their tactics.

Well, in 5-10 minutes we were done. How we were surprised when discovered that there were 8 brown mastogobs. As I mentioned before 7 of them were hiding nearby and  surrendered the moment they saw the fight was over. Cowards! Although, it was for the good of our finances. The jailer in militia was kind to offer us 200’000 or 230’000 kamas for each of them. I’d say it’s not that bad to earn almost 2 millions in a matter of minutes.

Since that day old lady wants all of us to become bounty hunters. She says  it’s fun and easy way to increase our wealth. And she doesn’t tolerate the idea that we may be less lucky next time. She almost forgot how much time it took us to be done with the bounties in Astrub. And I think she still hasn’t caught a squirrel. But I’d better drop this issue, enu is old and because of it she is sometimes totally unreasonable, especially when money is involved.

Cra made a picture of our company and a flock of brown mastogobs we acquired. I think I look pretty nice. However, eni looks somehow better, and of course sram and sadida couldn’t miss a chance to show their… hmm… charms off.

Seeking for Explosives

Who could think that explosives can be used in craft of the shoes? Despite all the logic ten measures of Gourlo’s Explosive Powder are needed for each pair of Pierced Boots, and we want at least two pairs (one for me and one for eni). We managed to collect 10 measures during the Dungeon Race, but we need 10 more, which means more fights with Gourlo the Fearsome, and he is very stingy when it comes to the explosives. Not to be unjust to this brave captain I have to say that he generously treat guests with rum, each time he has an opportunity he offers them a barrel.

In our previous visits Gourlo tried to avoid contact with barrels, but if we could somehow immobilise him near one of them he would become weaker, I guess he just didn’t know where to stop when drinking. Nowadays he is affected by barrels only if he shares them with someone. And this someone should be real, he refuses to see summons as appropriate company. So, these days we always have to have someone drinking with Gourlo and sometimes it ends with both of them being dead, although, with a team like ours it’s not crucial.

I think in a couple of days we’ll be back to the pirate’s boat. It’s always nice to talk to an old friend, and captain is one of them.

Madness Is Over

I’m so tired, I haven’t slept normally for three days. And why? Just because cra decided that we were participating in the Dungeon Race. Of course, she did it in the last second and we had no time to prepare. She even convinced Ki and Kanni to take part in this madness.

I am not sure we have a chance to win. We couldn’t do much in 2 days especially when the world had changed so much. I think that monsters also feel a bit uncomfortable as they behave differently from what we used to. Nonetheless we managed to win 8 times against Kimbo, 21 times against Gourlo the Fearsome, and 17 or so times against Great Coralator, not bad if consider we had almost no souls in reserve.

As I said the world had changed, and I don’t mean that the communication with Frigost was reestablished. Changes go much further, and in fact Frigost became available after this change, and I suppose it was needed for the island to be accessible. Some changes are good, Soft Oak dungeon, for example, doesn’t have maze and transformation rooms anymore. But some changes are not so plausible, switching of the Kimbo’s behavioural patterns is one of them.

Kimbo used to summon his disciple in the beginning of the fight, and in its turn disciple was casting a glyph web every time we hit Kimbo. Nowadays it doesn’t work like this. Kimbo can skip one turn and summon his apprentice the next turn, or it can do it 30-40 minutes later. We failed to find out what caused the delay. Kimbo’s disciple is no better than its master. Several times it didn’t cast the web. To tell the truth once it saved us as we were unprepared and could all die on glyphs, but in all other cases it just prolongs already tedious fight.

Another ruined pattern is Kimbo’s habit to push and hit enemies when they surround it. Now he uses teleportation and then runs away. Therefore it’s not possible to lock it as we used to do. The battle field changed also and not in favour of locking strategy. By trials and errors we found more or less acceptable strategy. We wait when Kimbo runs away, assume formation to avoid death from glyph,  immobilise Kimbo (cra and two sadis can keep it from moving forever)  and then just kill it. Important part of this strategy is constant control over the disciple, probably, enis are the best for this task. Of course, if there is no one to control the summon it is still possible to win with the similar strategy, but it’s absolutely necessary to watch for disciple’s actions and change formation accordingly.

I guess other monsters also have changed, yet I had no time to check. Now, when the event is finished, we can start to rediscover the World of Twelve.