Trickster Chronicles: To Fifty and Onward

Well it's been about 10 days (wow 10 days? really?!)  since my last Trickster update.  Again, I missed out on most of the EXP boost weekend.  *sigh* But, I was still able to make some progress!  My downright refusal to engage in any powerleveling is slowing me down a bit, but at least I know I earned every bit of experience along the way. 

So what have I done, where have I gone?  Well for starters, I decided on a build.  I'm going with a 1:1 DEX:STR build.  I know, it's not ground-breaking or revolutionary, but it accentuates the strengths of the Trickster class.  Again, I'm not a believer of using stat points to cover up your weaknesses, in my opinion, it's better to use the bonuses in enhanced gear to do that.

As far as skill empowerments go, I haven't yet decided on whether I'm going to stick with Claws or Dual Swords.  I 'm leaning towards the Claws at this point, but until more is known about the differences at Prestige, I'll keep my options open.  I've spent 15 empowerment points, maxing the CDs in Claw Swipe, Laceration, and Intimidation.  All 3 skills are soul grabbing, so it helps to maximize CD in each.  Claw Swipe is a Claw-only skill, Intimidation is its Dual-Sword counterpart.

I used Dual Swords from levels 30-40 since a guild member was kind enough to donate some ZK Dual Swords to me.  They were +0 and extremely fail, I think they were INT/SPR or INT/DEX.  But the damage at +0 was decent, so I went with that.  Again, I wouldn't be spending too much time at the 3x levels so having a super-godly weapon wasn't too important.

At 3x I didn't try boss farming at all.  I just didn't think my defense/HP would hold up against Zombie King, especially if I got poisoned.  Farming in +0 Whites with a +0 weapon just didn't seem like a good idea.  So I waited.

 In my last blog posting I mentioned saving my quests while grinding in Abyss, and that's exactly what I did.  I saved many of my Vine Tomb quests and hit them all at once to save on travel time and also giving me some upgraded skills for when I decided to finally go out there.  I completed most of my Iyzel Tower quests solo or in a duo.  Again, usually taking 4-5 at a time.  If the one that I was currently on was too difficult to do solo, I just saved it until later. 

I did finally break down and activated a 30-day 100% EXP Boost card back on April 1st, so that has helped me tremendously in Abyss grinding.  About 5 days later, I went ahead an activated the HP/SP Booster and Blessing of Teva.  Also idiot me lagged a bit while I was trying to move stuff outta my premium inventory into my regular inventory and mistakenly clicked on another 30-day EXP Boost card.  *RAGE!!!!*  So yeah, now I have another 30-day taking up precious inventory space.  I'm so worried that I'm gonna either A) accidentally discard it or B) accidentally activate it.  I've tried burying it all the way in my last page of inventory in hopes that I never click all the way back there.  So far so good!

 Inventory.  Blah!  Juggling five characters with tons of production materials, multiple sets of gear, and some permanent SC items is really getting to be a chore.  My poor characters are stuck hauling so much stuff that I'm forced to NPC or vendor mats that I would usually use myself simply because I don't have the room anymore.  I did use that 15-day Old Bag that was either a quest reward or a Mystery Vault reward, I can't remember which, it's actually both I think.  But anyway, since I activated that, it prevents me from buying an Iron Case because I'd max my inventory pages and I couldn't discard the Old Bag that I already activated.  Or so I thought for nearly two weeks.  Again, idiot me forgot that with the addition of pages 5 and 6 of the inventory, that I COULD still activate an Iron Case on my Trickster, giving her 5 total pages.  So, I went ahead and bought an Iron Case.  Whew!  I can breath again!

With my 15-day Old Bag winding down, I move all my non-essential stuff to that last page so when it finally expires it's not too big of a deal.  I move my mount back there since it can still be activated from my hotkeys (hoho! sneaky!), along with Mystery Vault rewards that I haven't yet used, like some wings and costumes.  I ended up dumping a lot of my 1-day Vault stuff simply because I don't have the inventory space, and I don't want to carry all this stuff for 30-days before I can use it.  So Phino pet got the boot as did the 3-day 20% EXP Boost card (if this was really +120% I'm gonna scream).  I think there were others, but I can't remember what they were.  Strangely I still have the Sakura costume, I thought I got rid of that, as well as the 7-day Raccoon.  I always keep the Red Elderine costume as this is still one of my favorites.  I went ahead and activated the Corrupt Angel Wings (1 day) last night since my White Angel Wings expired over the weekend.

 Okay, back to grinding!  I've gotten PKed a total of only 3 times so far spending the majority of my time in 4x and 5x.  In 5x I got PKed by a 'friend', or at least I thought he was, but he didn't know it was me I'm sure, and I still didn't reveal it to him.  He was powerleveling some nubs on his 6x Archer and killed me while I was grinding in one of the two big rooms.  There was no way for me to win standing there in +0 Whites trying to chase someone down on T3 Speed.  So, I logged out after I died, ran my 66 Mage in there and since she's mostly gearless, just killed off the two people he was powerleveling.  One of em called me 'pathetic', but hey, they just did the same to me, so fair's fair right?  On the way out, he used his 66 Fighter to kill my Mage, but no matter, I don't level her anyway.  I logged back in to my Trickster and found another room in 5x to grind in.

Hitting 40 was a revelation.  I finally got to use +9 Claws which I spent 7 gold on @ +0.  They're really nice GGK claws.  Despite my misgivings with the whole enhancement process, I knew I had some T2 stones left over for probably a couple years now and decided I may as well use them now.  So I went ahead and enhanced my Claws and it didn't turn out so badly.  I had heard rumors that you can +10 some tier2 weapons, so I tried since I had about 60 Karis raking up inventory space, but it didn't let me.  Oh well, no biggie.

Hitting level 40 also allowed me to use the Chaos Rings, Cursed Tooth Earrings and Bloody Gem Necklace I'd been holding onto.  A definite improvement over the ZK rings, random Silver Necklace, and Kebing Passion Earrings I had been using.

At 41, yeah I know, late, I figured I'd go try out Zombie King.  I caught some heat from a 3x fighter in there calling me fail for farming ZK at 41, but again, dude, I'm in whites!  Tricksters at this level, and at this early in their existence, just don't have the access to godly, much less, enhanced gear like all of the other classes do.  At 41, the drop rate was just fine.  I farmed a fail, but better than my White, 35 blue Trickster Top and a ton of rings and weapons.  Anything decent I kept and since I'm lazy to vend these kinds of stuff, I ended up just giving them away in Elderine.

When giving stuff away, I usually look for non-SC players that don't have enhanced stuff.  If pepole ask me for stuff, I'm not gonna give them anything.  But just finding random people that are truly appreciative of what you've given them for nothing really makes me smile.  All told, I probably gave away about 10g worth of stuff, not much in the overall picture, but to the people I helped, it meant a lot.

So anyway, 40-50 wasn't very exciting apart from my adventures in 5x Abyss.  I mostly grinded there, found out that I can solo GGK with a +9 45 shirt and T2 Scrolls.  My hubby bought a really nice 45 shirt for me and enhanced it himself.  Wow!!  And who says he's evil?  xD

I was also able to find some 'meh' 45 Assur boots to match.  The stats aren't good at all, but the 2-piece effect on Lacerate is awesome!  The 2-piece effect minimizes the Cooldown of the skill by 20%.  Coupled with my already maxed Cooldown via empowerment, and the skill is pretty much spammable.  That means lots of souls really quickly.  If you can get your hands on 2 pieces of this set, it's HIGHLY recommended.  I'm pretty sure I can use this set for a while.  I'll have to see how I fare against Torturer King now.

So there's my update.  Got to Fifty, no big deal so far.  Having trouble locating TK/CG Claws/Dual Swords, so I guess I'll stick with my GGKs for now.  I'm glad to be done with the Goblin Camp quests.  I still have a few left over, like Goblin King kill for example, but I'm on to bigger and better things in Collapsed Prison and Scaffold Execution Ground!