Asherons Call: New Fist de Yuma Posted!

This and that
I've been doing a lot of things this week, both in game and out. So the column is only and average length. I also got involved watching a movie so I was late to the computer. I

Calls for help
Been a lot of calls for help this week. The first came as I was about to log, after hunting one of my salvage mules. A VoD group we had running had run into the Big Boy and needed help taking him down.

I had Mages armor on FA and the Jr account was loaded. I decided to grab Jr and use him instead of a mage. I figured they had an overload of mages anyway. I asked what element they were using and quickly buffed up.

They were going to use cold and slash on him. I only buffed my cold sword. My VoD swords were in storage so I had to make due with a Rend.

None of my swords are all that great. I've found a good sword from time to time but they all blew up. The ones I did get imbued are not worth wasting Granite on so they are even lower than most.

I got there just after the battle started. Balash was there, doing his Richard Hatch routine, fighting naked. My hits were not as good as I expected, though I had some nice crits. I figured if I had a good CB or CS sword things would have been a lot better. As it was, the Big Boy fell quickly enough.

I was wrong about the party being fat with mages. It was just the opposite. The one or two mages in the party were being overworked, as almost everyone was a melee. Surprisingly, a melee heavy VoD party will work very well, especially when you have a crazy man like Balash leading the way.

I had a little surprise. I expected to be taking a lot of damage, at least as much as I took with Mage. I understood that the melee damage was going to be curtailed by my shield but I was under the impression that most of the damage inflicted on Mage was from spells. It is amazing how you can get the wrong impression.

I did a little scouting around and was able to defeat a Lugie with little trouble. I need to work up a wand with melee defense. For now I have to use the Gaerlan wand. Someday I'll find a MCI (Magic Casting Item) with Major Life on it, and Jr will be even stronger.

My buffs were running and I needed to get on my bike before it got too late. I ported to my house and got my CS/CB weapons out of the chest. I buffed Fist de Yuma Jr and parked him where I could join our VoD group that evening.

Later that night I logged expecting to join our VoD group. It was not running. I later found out that Rene's computer was having troubles, and no one picked up the slack.

I ran to VoD to try my luck at solo. I found that I could fight anything without a shield. I'm not sure what Item skill I'll need to de-buff a shield, but I did not have the spells on my bar anyway. I'll change that later this week and see if my 339 Item skill is enough. I'm doubtful it is high enough, but I cannot fight high hit point monsters that use a shield until I can de-buff them.

Second Call for help
The next day I was doing a little leveling/salvage gathering with Salvage Mule two. I had finished up an hour and was ready to rebuff. I got a call from Cher'okee saying my help was needed.

It seemed an old friend from Elder had died in a bad spot. Caul is a nasty place to die. The lava fields are the one of the worst places on Caul. As it turned out, it was even worst than that.

My friend's current player is Mastacasta. He said he could meet me in the sub and get us a ride to the Bore. Our bot was down because of the patch so my normal route to the Bore was not available.

I quickly swapped accounts on both computers. I had to transfer my armor off of Fist's Armorer to Fist de Mage.

Mastacasta made a Bore portal. I ran to the Caul exit. As I arrived, I get a message from Mastacasta. He had died before he could start his run.

I recalled back. There was nothing around his body. I looted it and Mastacasta ported in. He was lacking armor so it was important I had it clear before he came in.

Mastacasta suggested we make the Caul run in relays. I ran it, and he let it settle down, then he ran it. It was a smart way to go when two run it, one can get trapped.

First we cleared Mastacata's vit by killing a handful of Dark Zefirs. I did not expect to draw six of them, but we did not have too much trouble. Next we ran north. After a few jumps we hit a canyon. After a short run through it, we hit the lava fields.

We killed a few Biaka but could not find his body. Some of the battles were close things. When you hit 49 hit points and are caught in the middle of a war spell wind up your odds of living are low. One spell or big hit can end it. You have to wait for the war spell to go off before you can even start to heal. Fortunately I was always able to recover when I hit the danger point.

When faced with several, Baika I would toss a war spell and then a heal spell. I would do this even when I was at full health. Most of the time I took big damage just before the heal hit.

I was able to keep Mastacasta alive by pulling my drum and clearing his de-buffs. I also tossed a heal on him from time to time. I created Mage to be a support player, so that is what he does best.

We got the center cleared but still could not find his body. Mastacasta had lost the location when he died in the Bore. Mastacasta decided to make a wide run to search for the body. That worked. He found the body, but it was in a very nasty spot.

There was a fellow working one side of the field. They had about six members. Mastacata asked if they would help with the recovery. To my surprise they declined. A short time later they all started to die. I guess it was Karma. (g)

We were trying to work our way around the edge of the field but kept getting overwhelmed. We ran off one side to escape and clear some chasers. There we found some help.

Vulno II was the first to volunteer. Then two more joined us; Chewie and Winga XVI. My old friend Rival was the last to join us.

We started working out way around the edge to the body. It was slow and filled with danger. I was on the edge of death several times. Winga XVI did die but was able to make his way back.

We also had setbacks. We got within striking distance of the body once. A back spawn of Baika and Virindi got us into a massive battle that I have no idea how we survived.

I noted I had two minutes on my buffs. Mastacata discovered that he had been fighting without buffs for a time. In the middle of a massive battle we started buffing. We really had no choice. There was no place to go, and the battle was going to last longer than I had buffs.

We were having a big drop in frame rate. It is something I have observed on the Queen quest before. This many monsters and a large number of spells make things slower and slower. Fortunately, it never got to the complete stop it gets on the Queen quest.

I kept my finger on the heal hot key and my mouse hovering on the pause buffing button. I only had to use it once. When I finished buffing the battle was still on.

We finally cleared it and advanced a few more steps. For once we got a break. The spawns were all just outside of detect range. This was good because there were last least 5 packed spawns of monsters around the body. If even one was close enough to detect Mastacata looting his body, we would have had to fight them all. I'm not sure if we were up to that.

Much to my surprise, we ended up pulling a record in XP, for me at least. 32 million an hour is far more than I had ever gotten. I'm sure I would have done well with loot, if I had been looting.

As Mastacata has a lot of majors, something I mostly lack, it might behoove me to take Mage or Fist's Armorer to the lava fields a few times a week. FA might be the best choice if one comment I heard is true.

Just before I was ready to leave, someone said that Spec'd Magic defense rocked there. I was de-buffing war skills and resisting a bit but not as much as they made out. Mage does not have spec'd Magic defense but it is maxed. Of course I could have been resisting the one I de-buffed and was taking damage from others. It got chaotic in most battles so it was hard to tell.

FA has Magic Defense spec'd but lacks the ability to de-buff their war skills. If he can resist without having to de-buff their war skill, he would more than rock it. I guess I'll have to take them both there from time to time and see which is better.

We all need help
I read this today and it fit so well I had to share it.

When you do mess up. . .

1. Be thankful that someone good and kind took time to point it out to you.

2. Do something about it to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

3. Whenever possible, clean it up.

4. Don't get mad at the person that told you that you messed up.

5. Don't wallow in the mess.

6. Don't encourage others to mess up just so your mess up won't look so bad.

7. Look at the habits, training and history that caused the mess up.

8. Work on erasing the habits, training and history that caused the mess up.

9. Admit it. You messed up!

10. Understand that everyone messes up and the more you do, the more mess ups you'll have. If you don't write, you won't mess up writing, you won't offend anyone, you won't get in trouble and you won't get criticized.

Life is about improving.

If you are a writer, you need to KNOW and FOLLOW the rules. If you do deviate, you need to do it on purpose, not out of ignorance or laziness to learn the rules but to make a point or deliberately create a style.

All humans react negatively to being corrected.

You do, I do, everyone does. It's natural.

We have to fight to smile and say "thank you for telling me that."

We all want to hear the praises and "job well done" speeches but no one wants to be corrected.

Some will even say, "don't correct me." After they say that, you won't.

Whoever corrected me, I thank you, for it shall make me a better writer starting right now. I actually planned to take a college course on writing just to brush up on old skills. It's been so long since Strunk and many of the things simply get rusty from lack of use.

People often say that practice makes perfect but that's not true. If you continue to practice without correction, you will only become perfectly wrong.

Practice with correction makes perfect.

In case you didn't realize it, the ten rules don't just apply to grammar.

Whoever you are, thank you for telling me that and I mean it.

~A MountainWings Original~

Guest Writer: R. Scott White
This weekend I just felt like various killing. I needed some variety in the death and destruction I was causing. So I had to take Abin out to play on the Caul.

I haven't played Abin much for a while now instead focusing on Gonder and Toro. I went out to my favorite spot on the Caul. I call it the slot like, Fist used to call his favorite hunting area. In there I get most of the high level nasties that drop good loot and give great exp.

I've found I love killing the Hellion's and Biaka's the most. They are challenging. I have to use a lot more spells on them than I would on anything else. I even get to kill Virindi Paradoxs.

I was doing real well, venting a lot of pent up frustrations, and I get a major out of the deal. Well, actually I only pulled it as Cher now has the item. It was an ugly set of koujia leggings in rust orange with major willpower and with a melee requirement.

Now I could have given that to Toro or Gonder but I refuse to wear something that ugly, not to mention expensive. When Abin died it dropped, along with 13 other items much more expensive.

We also learned something else. Fist was on and I was fighting a biaka, so I asked him to tell me how much his exp went up with my passup on this kill. Now for anyone who doesn't know, a Biaka is worth 1.5 million exp, and Fist got 700K, a 46% passup.

Not too bad but it makes me wonder where the rest goes. What I mean is that when I look at my screen showing the passup, it goes up over 1 million. As it was Fist told me that he got over 30 million in passup, and most if not all of it had been from me, which means I earned over 65 million. Damn I knew the Caul was good but my God.

Actually I knew hunting there, if I could find a spot with a bunch of the hellions/biaka's, I could make 23-27 million per hour. I was hunting for multiple buff sessions. I start out with about 2.5K in tapers and I'm salvaging as I go. I had close to 30 bags of
salvage, about 6 filled fully of all the different items. Now I'm not salvaging useful items but the heavy expensive armor that would just go to waste. I love the new mana stones, they are great.

Debates
If you like honest non-flaming debates on current and past events I have set up a list for it. Each posts arrives in your e-mail. To join send a message to the below address.

Fist_debate-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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If you enjoy this column and feel it is worth a small donation I have set up an account at;
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=csd2@adelphia.net
So far this year I have received $45.00.

Sea Stories
I've posted my Sea Stories on my allowed storage. The first two are posted and I'll try to get off my end and write some more. I'll also be posting some things I write on other subjects.

This story is about my first Thanksgiving in the Marines. It also points out why I'm truly thankful when this holiday rolls around.
http://users.adelphia.net/~csd2/thanksgiving.htm

This is a story about a nasty little job I had at one time.
http://users.adelphia.net/~csd2/Nasty.htm

Personal stuff

Mountain Ride
It was in the low 90's so I knew making my goal was not going to be easy. I had decided to take advantage of the fact we were not into the 100's yet to take a hard mountain bike ride.

The ride is not easy. It starts after a two plus mile street ride to a gravel road. I hope to take a cheap web cam I have, that also takes pictures, out with me. It is light so I can take a few pictures of the road. Then you can see what I'm talking about. It is very low quality, but it will be a while until I can get a good camera.

The gravel road is a mix of hard packed sand, loose sand and spots with deep gravel mixed with sand. While not hard to ride, it will eat up your energy.

That ends at a hard dirt and stone road for a few hundred yards. Then it hits stones mixed with sand. Again, it is not hard to ride, but will wear you out.

That road ends in a big section of flat hard packed sand. A short way over that the road picks up again.

Now it gets hard. This is the flood plain. Every few years we get a big bunch of water. It flows over this section as a wide river. The road is goes in and out of small washes that are left behind.

The washes themselves are filled with baby head rocks. Fortunately, they have sunk into the sand or it would be almost impossible to ride over them.

In spots there is deep sand. If you have never ridden on sand it is a balance. You have to have speed and power to the rear wheel. If you don't, you'll sink in and stop. You cannot go too fast. If you are going too fast, any minor deflection of the front wheel will send you off line. Attempts to correct will have you making S turns and until you crash.

There are a lot of problems to overcome. The rocks are best road over as fast as you can. Going down into the wash is not hard if you are in the right gear. You have to have power to the rear wheel or the front end is too heavy. So you combine keeping your weight back as far as possible and keeping up your spin.

Where things get hard is when in the wash and trying to climb out. The gear for going over the rocks is different from going into the wash. The gear for climbing out of the wash is different still, by a wide margin.

So in a matter of seconds I have to swap gears several times. Climbing out requires a double shift down. The shifting system on my bike is made for doing a double shift so I can do it.

Shifting is almost an art. You cannot have too much pressure on the petals when shifting. This means you have to anticipate the gear you need before you need it. Trying to shift down while climbing may not work. I have a good (expensive) system so I can get away with stuff that others systems might fail with.

One thing that will help you get away with things is speed. If you have the strength and guts, you can blast through parts that you may not have the skill to cover at a lower speed. Of course the problem there is when you do crash, you crash hard. (g)

My goal for this trip was no daps. A dap is putting your foot down. Going through the flood plains will require fast thinking, good endurance, strength, speed and a touch of luck.

There is one other section that is hard. This is a long S turn moving from rocks to deep sand.

Well, I failed my goal. Just before the end of the flood plains I hit a patch of deep sand while climbing out of a wash. My balance was not correct and I swerved off line. I was heading towards some rocks covered with cactus. I tried to recover and just S turned to a stop. I guess I was lucky not to have crashed or run into the cactus.

I learned something years ago when racing motocross. While focused on riding you can move to total exhaustion and not know it. I remember coming into the pits after playing tag with a friend. We both fell off our bikes when we stopped. We had drained ourselves. While focused on our racing we had no idea how tired we were. It was funny. We laughed as we crawled to out trucks.

Well, after I stopped I was not exhausted but I was darn tired. I was sucking air and my entire body hurt. (g) I pushed the bike over the sand and climbed back on. I was into hard packed dirt and gravel so I took it easy until I caught my breath.

I was feeling ok when I hit the last hard section. This starts with a steep, rock fill path into the wash. You have to make a 90 degree turn on baby head rocks. These stick up a little more so it is a bouncing ride. Crashing is not an option.

That goes for about 50 feet to another 90 degree turn and a climb back to the road. This turn is filled with deep sand. It takes a light touch to make the turn. Try to turn to fast and you'll flip. Again, you have to keep up the speed and spin.

I chickened out. I had a time when I could shift my weight and spin around the turn. Lack of practice and being tired kept me frozen. I never turned at all. I just ran off the road. I had to stop and manually turn the bike.

The last two miles were a suffer time. The ride was not hard but I was hurting. When you're really tired it is hard to go fast. Mountain bikes work best at speed. The slower you go the more you'll feel the bumps.

Overall it was not a great ride. Given my time on the bike, the hardness of my route and the heat, it was and an accomplishment to be proud of. I would have like to ride it clean but two daps are not bad.

As it is getting hotter I'll likely keep the road until November. At that point I'll be taking some exciting rides.

- Fist de Yuma