So What's on the Agenda Now?

Well since my adventures on Cypion have gone to the backburner, I’ve re-dedicated myself to the characters I had put on hold back in Bijou.  When I left them my alts included a level 95 archer (Faytal), a level 86 cleric (FatylLace) and a level 87 fighter (WinterLace).  Since coming back and focusing, I’ve gotten both my cleric and fighter to level 90, and progressed my archer even closer to prestige at level 98.  As of this writing, she’s about 30% away from hitting 99!  Woohoo for progress!

As much as I enjoy playing my fighter and my cleric, I’m kind of at a crossroads.  At level 90, they’re both just about to level out of Dragon’s Tomb, one of my favorite maps.  It’s a shame because I absolutely love playing both of these classes in that environment.  Both really test your skill as a player, especially if you have party-mates that are not quite at the same skill level.  Dragon’s Tomb is a great environment to teach other players the intricacies of playing their respective classes as well.

Now that OutSpark and OnsOn have redistributed the mobs in Swamp of Dawn, those players that have leveled out of Dragon’s Tomb face a new challenge;  endless, mind-numbingly boring, grind sessions.  Gone is the cushy 7 million experience repeat, present is the mountain of experience you will need to grind out since your quests only account for about 10% of your total experience requirement for that level.  A daunting task and one that has retired many a player to this point.  My two alts face that same mountain.  So, I’m really in no rush to level them out of the Tomb.

And that leaves my cute little archer, Faytal.  More than capable on her own, a soloing player’s dream.  So why do I personally find it so boring to level her?  Kiting.  I really do enjoy playing the archer class, they’re a fun alternative to the other 3 classes with a completely unique style of play.  However, it is that uniqueness that also puts me to sleep.  People think kiting is so great, that it’s the easiest thing in the game to do.  And to a certain extent, with the right gear and mindset, it is.  The only challenge for me is keeping myself awake in the process.

 I would tend to argue that Archers really are the easiest (PVE) class in the game to play.  This idea may come under fire from Archer lovers everywhere, to which I am also one, but hear me out.  There is little to no skill involved when kiting.  You scroll up, set your auto-run on and go to it.  Piercing Shot, Nature’s Mist, Piercing Shot, Nature’s Mist, Piercing Shot, Nature’s Mist.  That’s all you do for the next 30 minutes before you have to replenish your meager supply of HP and SP stones.  Again, highly repetitive, agonizingly boring, the perfect recipe for insomnia.  I had a bit more fun when doing the Jewel Tree repeat as I would just use my mover to gather as many Magmatons and Jewel Trees as I could find and just stand there and AOE them to oblivion.  Running around in circles for a few hours is not really all that fun, nor challenging.  Of course I could, and do, go after higher leveled mobs, but usually that requires me to Cookie (50% charm) or at least Charm (20% charm) to do so.  I’d rather save money where I can so I end up kiting lesser fare for free.  The experience gain isn’t much different anyhow (Fire Shellas vs. Big Mud Men) unless I’m missing something.  As it is currently, there is zero risk grinding off of Big Mud Men just with my normal compliment of scrolls.  With Shellas, cookie’ing is a must.

I guess the term ‘easiest’ has many different definitions one could apply, whether it means cheapest in terms of SparkCash and equipment, then probably a Cleric would be the consensus.  Easiest as far as killing mobs with little fear of death, then probably a Fighter would win out.  I’m guessing that most people would be in agreement that a mage is the most difficult of the four classes to play well.  And by ‘well’ I don’t mean those fat, lazy mages I eluded to in my AOE guide.  I mean those mages that solo AOE, or attempt crazy duos, pushing their abilities and resources to the limit to see what can be accomplished.

Okay so anyway, back to the Agenda… as it is now, I intend to get my Archer up to prestige before going back to Cleric or Fighter.  I will just let both of them sit happily at 90 until then.  I’m thinking I might be able to hit 100 over the weekend, but we’ll see.

So what am I going to choose once I hit 100?  I’m still unsure.  Skillwise, I prefer the Ranger class, with skills like Hide and Entrap, but at the same time, I’m so in love with the costumes of the SharpShooters!  I love their outfits and the beauty of the higher leveled bows.  I don’t normally use a bow, preferring the massive damage the Xbow dishes out while AOE’ing, but the bow is just more elegant, more feminine, and irresistibly deadly as a single target weapon.  I used to use both weapons up through level 90 until I got my Hellgait Xbow.  I’m really not even sure if it’s mine, my husband handed it to me one day, I don’t know if it’s still guild property or if this was intended to be mine, but I love it.  A part of me wishes that the cap raise would come so that I could better see the delineation of the classes before making a choice between Ranger and SharpShooter.

Another player posted images of the two classes from one of the now defunct private servers, I was fortunate enough to save the images before they were taken down off of the OutSpark forums.  So here they are:

 Sharpshooter

 

 Higher Level SharpShooter O.O

whoa, bewbs!

Ranger

Don't care for the butterflies honestly.