Role Reversal

After priesting for Draco’s sin a bit, I realized just how dull and unexciting the job can be. So boring and dull, that it doesn’t feel like it lasts very long. Time flies when you’re having fun, but time also flies when you’re bored out of your mind. Draco on the other hand has been having the exact opposite problem. After a mere 15 minutes, he felt as if hours had gone by already. To be honest, I don’t know which of us is suffering more. Then again, why are we leveling Draco’s sin? What happened to mine? And why are our priests white? To answer that, we have to go back in time to two days ago!

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Monday came around, and Draco and I grinded through our daily routine of 10% a day for my sin. This particular day was a turning point for us, as we were finally hitting the 50% mark. On schedule and on track for 5 more days of leveling, we signed off for the night, unaware of the news maintenance would bring.

I was the first to log on after maintenance was over. Paying no heed to the fact that the patcher was patching quite a few files, I parked my screen on the char select and went to get a bite to eat. It was Draco that alerted me about the summer event that was patched just today, which included summer clothes, clothes dying, and most importantly (to us) 2x exp! We both got on and began the final countdown…

Just for the record, the summer clothes for guys are pretty cool. Cool towel’s become my new favorite gear for afking in town. Female summer clothes on the other hand…

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Male priest clothes dye is pretty neat. The light blue collar and cuffs match feather berets and white is always a nice color.

The Seventh Wonder of ID3! Ghost Gazetis!

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Did I mention how much I like the summer clothes?

Crowding around Gro, even though he’s afk ;]

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The original plan was to get 10% that day, but with a 2x exp event blowing on our backs, we decided to go for the gold and pump out a full 50m exp in a single day. In essence, I was 99%’ing 5 days ahead of schedule. Of course, I wasn’t the only one 99′ing.

My trusty Vanilmirth sidekick, *judgemental staring eyes*, was 99′ing as well! Unlike my sin, it didn’t take long for him to sport his shiny new slime trail.

 

Gah, crappy stat gains for that final level. Not even a single point of int, dex, vit, or luk. Truly a failure of a vani, but I still adore the little bugger.

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Meanwhile, my sin continues his 50m rampage. This being the final push towards 99, I felt no remorse in taking out my last couple battle manuals. Using a new leveling technique which Draco and I developed, called “aggresive leveling”, we tore through ID3 at a rate of nearly 12m exp per hour. Four hours later, we still couldn’t believe the rate I was going.

Finally within an arm’s reach of 99!

We were planning to get to 99.9% and kill something special/pop a few DBs to 99. As soon as I hit 99.9%, I logged to check the exp: 99910000. I figured I could afford to kill another Ice titan and checked again: 99950000. I make one last decision to kill just one more titan. However, during the last exp check when I logged out, a titan had spawned on Draco’s priest. Having hit Draco, the titan was now exp tapped with 25% extra exp. Killing it had a small consequence.

Nuuuuuuuuu! Ah well, I can’t possibly be angry that I’m 99 ;D

100% pure effort by Draco, any priests I’ve partied with (as if), and I. As an added bit of trivia, I’ve had that very same party since I started going to ID 27 levels ago!

Four months after first creating this character, its journey has finally come to a close. Through sheer determination and will, this sin has conquered all the odds, passed all the tests, and 99′d. This is the end of the line for Project SVN, but the story of my second trans is about to begin. Would you say Project SVN was a success?

Click for a higher definition!

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Not content with wasting the rest of the 2x exp event, we decided to work on Draco’s sin next. And to be honest, we’ve been on Warcraft III longer than we’ve been leveling his sin today .-. Details at eleven!

4 Days in, 40% done

Keeping up with my leveling schedule is one of the few things I can say I’m proud of being able to do. After all, I did plan my original monk’s 98-99 leveling plan too (even if it was a 3 month leveling plan at 2% a day at a 1m/hr rate). Back then, I was content with leveling as slowly as the monsters I was soloing, only grinding about 2 hours a day. My current plan has me leveling a grueling 3 hours a day at 10% a day. But this time, I needed a priest to accompany me as well.

Ah, I’ve taken for granted all the benefits monks have over other melee type classes. Being able to heal one’s damage off free of charge, building one’s stats around the concept of always having buffs on, being a monk, agi no less, was a luxury in itself. My sin on the other hand chugs pots for sustinence, despite having 63 hp regen, and has to rely on a priest to get full damage benefits. Soloing an agi monk in TI2 costed me nothing in upkeep. Soloing my sin anywhere drops my emergency zeny to 0 in a flash.

Which is why I also had to have Draco “help” me on his priest. I use the term “help” very loosely, because in all honesty, he doesn’t really want to “help”. Leveling in ID3 is a boring business, and Draco gets nothing from it. However, as far as priests go, Draco is the best priest for the job. I’ve partied with multiple priests in the past. Some would use every buff in the priest skill library, but get caught in skill delay and forget to heal. Others would drag multiple monsters on me, scared of even the slightest touch of a monster, only for me to spam pots because their heals can’t keep up with 6+ monsters on me (my safe limit is 3). A few others were simply undergeared, underskilled, or simply unattentive, dropping dead in two hits of an ice titan, dying to a pack of gazeti because they didn’t pneuma, or dying to a simple icicle due to position lag. More often than not, I come out of the party an hour later, but with 4 less verdue

Having a priest myself, I often push my strategies and techniques onto Draco, helping him become a better priest. Some of those things include:

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-being able to handle one or two monsters on your own, but knowing your own tanking limits

-using magnificat while your leveling partner is getting pummeled by hits is a bad thing and will likely result in your partner’s death. If you’re out of sp and mag is off, you should’ve magnificated at a safer time earlier

-pneuma your leveling partner when there are two or more gazeti on him/her. Not many people know it, but offensive bless also works on them, cutting their stats, lowering cold bolt damage and making them easier to flee

-it’s not a problem to me, but when you see a snowier casting a hammerfall, be ready to stat recovery your partner, especially when he/she has more than just the snowier attacking him/her

-don’t be a minimalist, heal your leveling partner whenever a heal would bring them close to full. There is always a chance that your partner could stun or freeze and take a bash or two immediately afterwards. If your partner is near full hp, he/she has a better chance of surviving

-know your leveling partner’s limits. If he or she is already tanking multiple monsters, hold off on dropping more onto him/her until it clears up a bit. Unlike you, your partner won’t have a shield to reduce damage from extra hits

-don’t try to mob

-if your gears are below-par, you can still tank gazeti using pneuma. Just hit it once and pneuma yourself while letting your partner handle titans and snowiers first

-as far as what skills you should have shortcutted: heal, bless, agi, mag, stat recov, and pneuma are the most basic and necessary skills. Res and tele are situational. If you need those two shortcutted, something is wrong with the party

-and remember, these priest tips are for priest/sin duets in ID3!

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If enough priests become competant at priesting, maybe I can actually get parties with positive exp gain!

Top 3 Songs I love

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Click the link first and right click and select “Save target as” in the following page to download!

*yawn*

Okay, time for me to stop sleeping 16 hours a day and get back into my regular schedule of updates and RO. So I’m going to cut back on 3 hours of sleep to make time for leveling my sin!

In a previous exp/hr test, I figured I was making around 3m exp/hr. At a rate of roughly 3hrs a day for 10 days, I can get within a porings’ worth of exp just before September. The turn between August and September has a lot of meaning to me both in RO and real life, so expect me to 99 then!

A repost

Someone called a copyright on one of my Youtube vids and it got removed (the song, apparently). Since I didn’t put it up on filefront to begin with, I decided to reupload it there for the hell of it. Cheers.

http://files.filefront.com/hefinalwmv/;11523127;/fileinfo.html

Where’s Waldo?

He’s enjoying his summer like me ;]