Forever questing Pt 4

https://republicofotters.blogspot.com/2019/07/forever-questing-pt-1.html

https://republicofotters.blogspot.com/2019/08/forever-questing-pt-2.html

https://republicofotters.blogspot.com/2019/08/forever-questing-pt-3.html

Okay, Part 4 is here. At the same time, the lack of (?) is now official. The reason why? The fact that there's no way for you to try doing every quest possible/available without hiring the expertise of the Chronomage near your home. At this point, John noticed something interesting. Namely, Google ratings for the specific games. If you think this kind of thing is only for Avengers: Endgame and Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, you're wrong. In an era where Google is the legal version of Big Boss Paul and the real-life version of Big Boss John, video games are not spared from Google reviews as well.

Now the reason why John L'Otter is saying something seemingly unrelated is that he decided to snoop around (legally) for Google reviews. After all, he's only doing this for fun. You'd think both Everquests would have an approval rating of 80% to 90%. After all, the first Everquest came out in 1999 while the next version came out in 2004. At the same time, World of Warcraft would always be the defining title of the MMO industry as we know it. So imagine John's surprise when he realised the Google approval rating for WoW is currently at 88%. For a series of its calibre and global reach, that felt... underwhelming. Further "investigations" reveal some interesting results as well.

TERA: 83%
Neverwinter: 90%
Path of Exile: 90%

Now it must be stated that Google reviewers are (most likely) your average folks working either 6 days, 5.5 days, or 5 days per week. They don't earn millions, let alone being CEOs or politicians. Very likely, they don't work for names like IGN and Kotaku. Like those in the Steam community, they play video games because they're... well, gamers. This comes to mind how the Steam community ratings have changed throughout the years. In the beginning, they're most likely more hardcore than just giving a 7/10 rating for the many, if not most. Now it seemed that Google users are pickier. If Steam decided to rate a specific game on a less than 7/10 scale, you know things aren't going right. Interestingly, Path of Exile is the only game John searched that has a 9/10 rating.
[Note: Rift has a 73% rating while World of Warcraft Classic got a whopping 95%. For some weird reason, however, Google seemed to have taken down the info.]

So why did John mention this? Weird things do happen in life, believe it or not. While this means you're not going to see a descendant of Tokugawa Ieyasu living in Singapore without knowing who he/she is, it did just enough to warrant a 91% Google review rating for Everquest 1. Everquest 2? 92%. Now it must be stated that to rate a game, you have to play it. If you want to knock it, try it first. The player base of any MMO title would always dwindle as years progress despite WoW's status as that defining title in the industry. For the two Everquests, it's a case of dwindling player base due to circumstances both unavoidable and avoidable. Therefore, there's no way one could assume a sizeable number of reviewers deciding whether to do a Borat thumbs up or the Roman thumbs down for these two games. Because that'd possibly be one of the dumbest moments in the history of intellect. The funny info Google ratings gave actually reflected the fact that both games were (and most likely still are) unable to draw in a new crowd. That's all. But TERA's drop in ratings was nevertheless surprising given the high previous ratings from both Steam and Google. It makes one wonder whether the Korean rack truly sells. Actually, we all should know the answer by now. Of course, this is not to say only Koreans are obsessed with the oppai. No, it's not a typo. This is oppa while this is oppai.

At least she's not a case of Korean virtual anatomy.

Back to reality (i.e. #respawnlol)

The thing about spending too much time solo'ing zones below your level is this: You're bound to face reality sooner rather than later. After some time of not respawning, reality came back to Layes Wolftree. In Everquest 2, the quirky part about respawning was that it's incorporated in the background world instead of just only the gameplay. Whether or not this was intended to avoid any psychological impact caused by in-game death remains debatable (?). The hard landing (no pun intended for those who died because their mounts happened to run themselves off the cliff) first came up in Rivervale. Not this one but that one.

To highlight how insanely difficult Rivervale is even for a level 40+ character, you can try challenging yourself only to risk multiple moments of #respawnlol in one single session. Unlike other zones, the mob in Rivervale have a high tendency to zerg anyone either reckless enough to engage an individual target or just SoL enough. The Stone Hives near the Drafling Tower is a notable exception to this rule. Otherwise, taking quests in this zone means dealing with the aggro consistently (i.e. fight instead of flight). The tainted maidens along the river are particularly nasty in this aspect. In fact, John suspects the corrupted halfling mobs are not even half as bad. But they're not the worst-case scenario because any desecrated vale oak you find is definitely worse. If you want to progress enough to enter Everfrost and/or Lavastorm, you're better off doing quests in both the Enchanted Lands and Zek. In fact, there's only one questing zone in the Enchanted Lands outside Rivervale. If you don't want to waste your time running all over the place, then Steamfont Mountains should be a good zone for you to run about. After which you can decide whether or not to enter the Lesser Faydark and face those AMDK residents. And that's not mentioning New Tunaria where you have to face those equally AMDK elves (Note: To understand the real-life circumstances happening in the fictional realms of Lesser Faydark and New Tunaria, please refer to this).

A piece of advice from John: Do NOT try to solo the dark side of Shire unless you happened to have a mercenary. Even if you're beyond level 40, Rivervale still presents a bigger challenge than Lavastorm and Everfrost. This was meant to be strictly a heroic zone and it most likely still is. If you think solo'ing the Barovia zone in Neverwinter was already tough enough, try the Ravenloft version of Shire.

Another piece of advice from John: Due to the creature catalogue quest for Enchanted Lands involving around half of the list in the Rivervale zone, the only way to get it done via solo running is to get in and get out. So please know beforehand where your targets are spawning because the only way to get things done is to risk unwanted aggro. Also, please make sure you have the means to teleport back to any city. You'd need that unless you want to #respawnlol.

Note: Interestingly enough, not every nymph is an angry nymph serving the wrong cause. Apparently, the vale nymphs you see in the forest areas are allies to the correct group.

Lava and Frost

Lavastorm and Everfrost are two interesting zones. One can only be effectively done during the day, the other being the most ideal zone to run night questing. In Norrath, day and night matter quite a great deal. Unlike Neverwinter where day and night affects the challenge level of the AI in the Barovia zone, Everquest 2 is all about visibility. In short, it's far easier to run outdoor quests during the day due to normal visibility. Once night arrives, that's where visibility becomes an issue. And in Lavastorm, this cannot be any truer.

If you think visibility in Thundering Steppes was already bad enough, you haven't entered Lavastorm yet. Even in the daytime, visibility remains compromised. This may result in first-timers wondering how to reach Blisterzonk to start questing.

John forgot whether this was during the day or night. Also, the timing was brought to you by S(melly)**T(hings) Happen.

To reach Blisterzonk, you have to scale the outer part of the Sootfoot mining area. In fact, the entire area is a basin where Blisterzonk is at the outer high ground. At this point, it's advisable to complete the mount quest in the Butcherblock Mountains zone since the resurrected fossil mount can leap onto the high ground in a single try. The same couldn't be said about horses.

If you have stealth, then use it. While the Sootfoot mob have a low chance of aggro compared to other non-critter enemies, there's always a chance of it happening. Otherwise, you really have to risk the aggro. One particularly annoying thing about fighting Sootfoot mobs is that the gatherers have a high chance to knock you back, which in turn would result in a potential stun-lock situation. This is not to say you can't get out. Just that you'd need to have a decent level of stun-resistance.

Note: If you have the Karana familiar quest, try to wait until you're level 53 or so before attempting it unless you want to trial, error, and die en route to Sumarvaldr. John isn't interested to know whether it's possible to run along the mountains to prevent the aggro.

Everfrost is... well, fun in the sense that you can't just run the zone at early level 40s. While this doesn't apply to the ice wolves along Bitterwind Trench and primal frostfins swimming in the sea, pretty much 90% of the mobs are unsolo'able to any characters below level 45. However, there's a way to level up to 45 asap. At the docks area, you have a guy fishing for fish. This barbarian dude would offer you a fishing quest. All you need is to harvest some fish for him. So long you know how to run away from the sharks (in particular the ancient frostfins since these bigger sharks can dizzy you in 60 seconds), you're safe.

So how to dodge the sharks if you're unlucky enough to attract one? Firstly, the sharks aren't aggressive unless it's that annoyingly dangerous Dreadwake. Of course, there's still a chance of an ancient frostfin targeting you as if you're a bloody prey. But chances of that are... well, slim. Secondly, all you need is to swim towards the part of the docks area where a lone quest giving NPC is standing. Assuming you're facing the guy, aim for the right edge instead of the left. Make sure to hold space once you're nearing icy dry land. The reason why being that sometimes you'll end up under the docks instead of being able to move up onto it. If Dreadwake is chasing after you in this case, then congrats. It's SoL for you because that thing is an epic boss requiring two parties to take him down. Just ignore the fact that this deadly sharknado is a level 42. The challenge level barometer doesn't work conventionally.

Interestingly, you can try solo'ing a heroic quest intended for two players if you manage to meet the criteria below:

1. You're at least level 45.
2. You're a druid due to that underwater breathing spell.
3. Either that or you have the Fishbone Earring.

It's not a joke. John was able to solo Ebon Tooth. The first try was a failure minus the respawn. Layes got dizzied and half of his HP gone. Thankfully, the shore was nearby and the escape was a success. The second time around, casting Cure after getting hit 2-3 times somehow resulted in immunity. Apparently, this is how you go about taking down those ancient frostfins because this was already tried and tested before the first round. This move turned the second bout to Layes' favour and he managed to complete the impossible+unthinkable+unconceivable. Credit to this vid below for showing this half-Ainu sea otter from Hokkaido where to swim.

Note: Plenty of stuff did change over the years. Like less than 5 years to be exact.

In case you're thinking whether this is the only fight that would fetch you a green slot neck gear, the answer is no. You can get one either from Blisterzonk or helping the chivalrous barbarians to remind the valkyries of an age-old alliance. Although to be fair, those guys have to do it in order to survive and thrive.

The correct treatment of women

Recently, a river otter called Adam got himself into trouble. While it's high time we should just swim on, this comes to mind another episode. John is not about to take sides here. After all, he's just a half-Ainu otter who should have been born in Hokkaido instead of Singapore. But he still did have something to say.

Examples of dark fiction include this, this, and that. Half-Ainu or no half-Ainu, John should have been a Japanese sea otter from Hokkaido.

Enough about being a dark knight instead of a white knight in shining armour. The final part of this post involves a question: Is there such a thing called an unorthodox approach in Everquest 2?

The reason behind this question lies in using a Paladin. It's very easy to say tanking+damage, male or female. Under the Crusader section alone, we have four out of five trees considered as orthodox. The reason why?

1. Avenger is all about dealing damage via DPS and cooldown reduction. At the same time, it synergises very well with threat generating so long you have two taunts on standby. No defensive options are available for this tree, though.

2. Cavalier and Sentinel are the tanking trees. The Cavalier tree is all about holding the mob aggro while the Sentinel tanking game is more about survival. For the best tanking effect, Cavalier+Sentinel should be the ideal choice. 

3. Fourth is the Knight tree. Possibly many Paladin users' attainable dream, this is all about frontline combat support. You have the defensive, offensive, and the fact that every party would want to have you leading the line.

4. Legionnaire. This is the unorthodox option. The reason why being that it merely gives you an alternate source of damage. Who would be insane enough to attempt this tree since nothing about it is related to what a Paladin is expected to do? Definitely not a river otter. But no one ever said the likes of Emiya Kiritsugu and Goblin Slayer are river otters.

As you can see, this sea otter decided to go unorthodox. While John L'Otter is no ally of justice or the frontier's kindest, that doesn't mean he can't have role models. If you don't have brawn, get a degree. If you don't have both, then play it like this John.

So how exactly was John able to make the unorthodox work? The downside of the unorthodox lies in not being able to be considered the accepted specialist. This would be the strength of the orthodox. As for the downside of the orthodox, it's all about having too many options to consider. This is where the unorthodox shines: You don't need to think much about your move set. On the defensive end, just go for Knight's Stance. There's no other option. Worried about unwanted aggro? You have Subtle Strikes. Having to maximise the only thing that makes the Legionnaire work? You have Righteousness, so make sure you max out Legionnaire's Smite as well. The only dodgy part lies in using Legionnaire's Conviction since it only applies to magic damage. Legionnaire's Mercy? You need that. Like full 10 points. If you're using multi-heal as a bailout option, then Legionnaire's Mercy is your BFF.

This ultimately results in one problem: You most likely have no choice but to max out every AA. That is except for the final one that gives you double cast bonus. If you want to max out the alternate damage, then you can just throw full 8 points into it. Shunning this option, however, means you can afford to be more tactically and strategically versatile. Tactically because Paladins don't get many spells in their black book, hence making other options viable. As for the strategic end, it means you have more space to focus on the orthodox aspects. Because Legionnaires aren't specialists in tanking or damage dealing by default, maxing out Trample under the Cavalier tree can help a lot. To make this work, you have to place at least 1 point into Swift Attack so that you have better chances of multi-hitting. If you're lucky enough to harvest a Primordial Adornment of Carnage shard, that's going to be the best lottery your Greco-Roman knight can get. Whatever you do, make sure the AoE auto-attack game is up to scratch.

10 points into Battle Leadership, that's vital. In terms of party buff, it gives your Legionnaire better value. At the same time, Battle Leadership doesn't require concentration. What this means is that your power gauge won't go down that fast. Trust John, anything requiring concentration is bound to affect your power depletion. He knows because Layes is a Fury and it's been verified through trial, error, and the occasional #respawnlol. Battle Leadership is the backbone of every Knight. It buffs your party members and it also buffs you as well. Damage increment is always much welcomed for any Paladin using Knight's Stance. Again, it's vital for any Legionnaire.

Defensive wise, that'd be the defensive increase under the Cavalier tree. Damage wise, critical chance is important. So 10 points into that under the Sentinel tree. If there's anything left undone, it'd be 4 points into Crusader's Faith. With 94 points currently all spent on the Crusader end, John may end up spending the last 4 points into Swift Attack. Because the faster you hit, the more times you can proc Trample.

Impact so far

Above is all that's left to round things off for this build. The combination of Blessed Weapon training and Divine Inspiration focus is meant to up the damage without worrying about power usage. Yes, it's probability-based. But that's why Knight's Stance is so important. This isn't about getting things done asap, but doing trench warfare. Which was historically what the Romans were known for. The good thing about Paladins is that they have an effective AoE two-hitter. Ancient Wrath>Holy Circle is an effective tactic to weaken mobs. Against trash mobs, this can result in massive damage.

Note: For some weird reason, there were moments where Viaa took down like half a mob with a single hit. Granted the aforementioned two-hit synergy was utilised, but that's before the enemy ranks broke down at least by half. Possibly a case of Trample if you're to ask John.

P.S: We all know the common attribute of every distressed merchant waiting to be a gratified merchant. That is, the oppai. Granted it's not Korean, but that's still oppai. In a twisted moment of accidental humour, there's actually a distressed merchant waiting to be a gratified merchant having the same sprite as Viaa minus the arms, armour, and a more realistic bustline. The one to save her? Not some noble member of the Qeynos Guard but a bastard Fury. This is the reason why John called it a twisted moment of accidental humour. And he's not joking like an Adam.

Add P.S: There's nothing intentional about attractive gratified merchants with a female barbarian's bustline. Refer to the third meaning.

Final P.S: If there's anything worse than being Adam Khoo or Jay Chou at this point in time, it'd be getting yourself arrested in an incredibly stupid way.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfGod

Breaking character and blaming Steve

This is John L'Otter breaking character for this post, therefore I will be using the first-person POV. Recently, the Media Literacy Council upped a post on Facebook which caused a stir. While I shouldn't have reacted like John Constantine, the fact was that I had to edit it because I was typing like a genius Scouser who was nevertheless not as famous as Superman and Batman. In Zatanna's own words, it's called playing fast and loose. Seriously, she did say that concerning John Constantine in DCUO.

Just a distraction here before I continue: Should Batman have enjoyed eating steamboat all alone by himself?

I suddenly have a crap idea here. Seriously, it's total crap. Batman should consider inviting John Constantine if his friends aren't invited.

Maybe DC should start a detective agency helmed by Batman and John Constantine

Okay, back to the topic. Despite the absurdity surrounding the question of whether Singaporeans are academically smart but still utterly stupid, I realised I actually committed the mistake of seeing satire as the real deal. In fact, I wasn't the only one being fooled. As you can see by now, human intelligence is never absolute. But should the MLC have consulted the public to ensure that Singaporeans aren't stupid? The irony of this episode was evident in the sense that the person who fooled me was a girl. A local Singaporean girl, to be exact. I swear if this post goes national, it means I have to find a way to apologise to her. And her BFFs as well in case there's a need to avoid a lynch mob from India.

So why do I blame Steve?

To be honest, it's a joke based on what he once famously (?) said to me. Namely, I shouldn't be so obsessed with anime if I wanted to know members of the opposite sex. In NSF speak, it means you need to be cool in order to get the girls. And Steve Ang was the coolest guy in now-defunct 32 SIB@Clementi Camp. But what if the intellectual level of Japanese visual media can be way higher in value than works like Crazy Rich Asians and the Ah Boys To Men series? This post will be about stuff related to Steve's comment on why I was (and still am) not the coolest guy in the country. Actually, it'd take either a global miracle or an utterly stupid girl for me to get an actual smartphone instead of a pseudo smartphone cursed with zero net accessibility.

Seriously, I doubt my ancestor was the Sage of Strategies or the Falcon That Shines From The East.

Before I begin, it seems that something funny is about to rise from the (Far) East

This past one month or so seemed terribly weird. Not in a nation giving birth to a unifier named Lee Kuan Yew but that other nation giving birth to another unifier NOT guilty of invading the salty Koreans. Three weird things, to be exact.

The first weird thing involved the Showa Emperor becoming as emo as Winston Churchill. If the reason behind Winston Churchill turning emo was a deadly cocktail of Singapore and depression, then for the Showa Emperor, it's this. Now it must be stated that when you signed along the dotted line, that's it. In other words, you can't blame people for reacting in a way that's... well, angry. The anger directed towards an Emperor (in)famous for starting a war shouldn't be dismissed as emotional issues. Yes, we're now living in an era where the closest thing to a Japanese invasion would be Ambitious Abe's intent to amend the post-war Constitution. But that doesn't mean we should dismiss history as if our ancestors were a bunch of Vikings sailing all way from Saxony. While hypothetical analysis should be perfectly okay, it's important to state the hypothetical as... well, hypothetical. This comes to mind a very interesting question: Why the timing? Mind you, the entry was dated 7th April 1987. That'd be like two years before he passed away. In the aftermath of his demise, we have brave people behaving like every brave Ainu and equally brave Ryukyuan. Simply put, someone has be responsible for the greatest shock in Japanese history since Crown Prince Naruhito married a feminist N years before his father decided to abdicate in the name of irony (i.e. the reason behind Emperor Emeritus Akihito's abdication was the reason why the Meiji government decided to ban every Emperor from ownself fire ownself). As if this wasn't enough, it's implied that the Showa Emperor did have his own BFF. I'm not spreading fake news and neither am I out to spread satire. In fact, this real news came from the unlikeliest suspect otherwise known as the South China Morning Post. I have a decent guess on who this unknown BFF was. Unfortunately, certain things cannot be said because there are families in Japan which you cannot afford to piss off.

The second weird thing would be Robert Kuok agreeing to an interview with Asahi Shimbun. At first glance, there's nothing weird about Asahi Shimbun doing a Robertayaki. Excuse me, Mr Kuok, so you're telling your fellow Kuok that Asahi Shimbun should be given the right to interview you ahead of the likes of Bahasa Melayu Mail and South China Sea Morning Post? I don't want to react like a brave Ainu or equally brave Ryukyuan, but I'm sorry to say that it's illogical. Shouldn't the right to do a Robertayaki go to news media owned by your people? I'm not being a protectionist, I'm just trying to be logical. And besides, something else happened involving another bunch of salty East Asians. Moral of the story? It takes a brave Japanese to do a Robertayaki.

The third weird thing actually happened like a year ago or so. Now the good thing about me being myself is curiosity. So far so good, I've yet to exercise my cremation rights. That is a good thing because that means I can keep on being curious until I run out of respawns. This is also the reason why I have the ability to obtain knowledge through wiki sites. The same couldn't be said about my fellow Singaporeans, though. If you're a Hokkien, it means you're forever a Hokkien. This may sound straightforward, but the region where every Hokkien hailed from was also the most vulgar place in China. Just when optimists believed such vulgar days of vulgar people and vulgarities have ended due to names like Xiamen University and Yi Zhong Tian, the Japanese Imperial family was given a dose of classic Hokkien education. Funnily enough, the Imperial Household Agency had no comments. Sounds logical? Considering the Imperial Household Agency has always been dogged by a reputation of being control freaks, that's illogical. Not even a statement striking a diplomatic tone was done. Sounds illogical? Well, it's more illogical than Asahi Shimbun given the right to trademark the Robertayaki

Reason for recommendation: It teaches you the other side of humanity

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Reason for recommendation: It teaches you to get a sword before following the rainbow




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Reason for recommendation:
It teaches you that a saint is still a sinner, so no point trying to impress Monica Baey






Reason for recommendation: Refer to the video below






Reason for recommendation: It teaches you why tribalism exists










Reason for recommendation:
It teaches you how scary a world without God can be.
Not to mention as well it being part of Singapore's banhammer list.

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P.S: Okay, gonna cool things down with this last song.

Le Bâtard

Update: John just came back from work and the two matches are now underway. Hence, he has no choice but to up this without editing. With that being said, someone mentioned something a bastard once did before. The bastard John L'Otter was talking about?

History repeating itself?

Two defeats for the red half of Manchester. Will it end up as something more than just two blips? Below are the teamsheets during the last two blips.

Versus Wolves

Versus Palace

Within 180 minutes in total (minus stoppage time), Solskjær might have gotten tactically wedgied. While it's right to say football is a human being's game, there's nothing humane about the lack of intelligence coming from a bunch of people. Let's get straight to the point here: Did these fans know anything about the opposition? No one is saying a penalty miss or two wouldn't cost the team, but the whole incident was effectively a case of the dog eating the homework. Below are the teamsheets of the opposition during the two blips.

Wolves' teamsheet

 Palace's teamsheet

If Man Utd fans were guilty of sniggering at Liverpool two seasons ago, then retribution may have arrived a tad too early. Be it 3-4-3 or 4-5-1, it's obvious the opponents were out to prevent Utd from creating any semblance of offensive momentum. We all should know Roy Hodgson by now, he's no believer in footballing aesthetics.

Erm, no. John isn't referring to this.

As for Wolves, the Man Utd match wasn't the first time Nuno Espírito Santo deployed a 3-man backline. In fact, he's been doing that since day 1 when Wolves were still bumming around in the Championship. Simply put, one could say he's a back-3 specialist. The defeat suffered was no coincidence. If you have a back 3, it means you should be preventing the opponent from starting the counter-offensive from the middle 3rd. If you're someone who tried the fish-and-chips football, it means parking the humongous fish-and-chips van in front of the goal so that Jesse Lingard couldn't do a single thing despite allowing so much space to run. Solskjær's inability to break down either a stubborn midfield or an equally stubborn backline comprising of 9 outfield players shouldn't be dismissed as just two blips. The other bunch of red shirts should know what John L'Otter was referring to.

Two seasons ago, Liverpool got a problem with Die Gegenpress. Against teams NOT out to park a cluster of rocks in front of goal, it can easily work wonders. Against teams choosing to do so, however, was a chief factor behind the Kop having to wait for another year. Actually, the correct duration in silverware purgatory should be 2 years. Champions League didn't count in John's books because the red bird bottled it again like its blue brother in Wales. To be honest, last season was worse than Stevie G's fall from grace considering how close last season's team was compared to Brendan Rodgers' era.

Well, at least Liverpool got itself a smaller pot of gold after following the rainbow. The leprechaun was too strong in his native cluster of rocks, though.

The possibility of Man Utd staring at the start of its own Liverpool shouldn't be dismissed. Looking at the starting lineup actually exposed the fallacy of Old Trafford's Jarl. Against teams out to emulate Trump by building a wall, it's only logical to utilise a master passer of the ball. This is NOT to say there's no Plan B. It has always been there, we're talking about this guy below.

Granted Solskjær might have preferred his football to be faster and prettier, but the question here should be this: Is there any other player in the dressing room able to prove his class by stabilising the game, dictating the tempo, and passing the ball? Lingard isn't that kind of player while Andreas Pereira only featured once. Incidentally, that's the only match Utd won so far out of three.

This was the starting team against a team which got sucker-punched 4 times.

Going by this article, it seems that Pereira does have the potential. The problem, however, would be his nerves.

How a bastard's strategy can work

A bastard's strategy involves three lines: The first would be the artillery, the second would be the infantry, and the last line would be the cavalry. While Scottish McTominay's presence should be more than capable of freeing up Le Chevalier Noir deployed alongside with him, the question would be whether there's a need to add in one more ball anchor. It's one thing passing the ball from the deep, quite another to split open the defence with a single pass. Focusing the fulcrum of passing at the four by two is nothing less than a risk. All the opposition needs to do is to look at the teamsheet. John wouldn't be surprised if Nuno and Roy were emboldened by seeing Lingard instead of... Pereira? If Mata is to start, then the most ideal formation may well be 4-2-3-1 instead of 4-3-3. Then again, 4-2-3-1 is more of a variation of 4-3-3 and 4-5-1. One of the challenges behind making a strategy focusing on all-out mobility offensive would be coming up with an effective ball anchoring approach. When you have four such players plus a black knight, it's inevitable that the one in charge of distributing play would be under a lot of pressure. It's up to Solskjær to decide whether Scottish McTominay's youth would result in composure. It's actually a gamble which may well make or break Utd's season within one-third of the fixtures. Whenever they say if you're good enough, you're old enough, it's nothing more than one side of the quarter. The other side? If you're old enough, it means you should be good enough.

No one says they're good at duels

In another part of the English north, Middlesbrough may well be staring at a hard fight ahead. Ask John and he'd prefer Woodgate to be given two seasons to reach promotion. At this point, we're not good enough. Why get up there only to fall back down? It's like skydiving. You don't assume you won't die if the parachute is faulty. Actually, you'll die. One aspect of the match stats has to be the most disturbing moment for any Boro fan. Including John.

Let's be honest here. Do you think Boro deserves promotion if the aerial duels win rate stays this way? While there are indeed teams in the second flight out to prove a point by going against the norms (Eddie Howe has to be the most famous name under this category so far), the breakneck pace of the game there means aerial duels are a must for every team. To highlight how bad things can be if nothing is being done, consider the fact that Blackburn's manager is Mogga and we all know how insanely swashbuckling his brand of football can get. If West Bromwich under him could get relegated due to idealism, Blackburn winning aerial duels could easily say something about us.

This comes to mind whether goals come easier under aerial pressure or the other way around. There seemed to be something shaky about the team and you can't fault Woodgate for giving the team something to grapple with. In fact, John wouldn't be surprised if losing aerial duels was the driving force behind our sluggish start so far. And that's the one thing Woodgate needs to address. In fact, if there's only one thing he could afford to do so, it'd be this. Considering that Woodgate effectively inherited Pulis' backline, losing aerial duels looked more like an absurdity than at least 3 blips in a row.

Case in point: If Blackburn could win the aerial duelling, then so can Bristol City.

How a bastard's strategy can work

Boro's form so far is a tale of two Northern Irish. It's nice to see Woodgate attempting a 3-man mobility offensive in the form of Britt Assombalonga, Ashley Fletcher, and either Marvin Jonno or Mr Browne. But you don't expect offensive momentum to go your way if the backline is unable to send a message of motivation and assurance. After all, it's only human nature to watch what's behind.

And speaking of the backline, Woodgate may have pulled off a strategic blinder by deploying his fellow Jonny at the right back. A central mid by default, who'd imagine Howson to operate efficiently at a position which he never tried before on a competitive basis? John may be wrong here, but he didn't remember Howson playing anywhere beyond the middle 3rd. Woodgate might have discovered an effective way to play the ball from the back. Imagine what's going to happen if this didn't work out.

Depending solely on Howson in this manner is not going to solve the aerial duelling problem. If Woodgate wants to play the ball from the back, he'd need a ball-playing centre back to compliment his fellow Jonny. Do we have such a player? The answer is yes, he's Big Fry. But there's a problem: He has to prove his composure first.

In the midfield, Woodgate would most likely have a decent idea on his permanent 3. That is if there's anything to go by from Vickerman's article. Add in Lewis Wing and we'd have a promising engine room raring to go. However, that's not going to solve the aerial duelling conundrum. This could be where Georgie Saville comes in.

Right now, the ball anchor comes from the right side of the defence. After all, Howson's most prominent strength may possibly be his passing game. But that's not going to address the question of who should be the midfield ball anchor. This comes to mind whether Woodgate would have to swallow his pride.

The attacking 3 has to be the most consistent fixture in the team so far. If there's any reason behind the jitters and creepers in the final 3rd, it's very likely due to the backline unable to ease the pressure off them. It's very clear for all to see what Woodgate wants in terms of the firepower. One central striker (i.e. Assombalonga), one fast winger (i.e. Fletcher), and an attacking midfielder (i.e. either Marvin Jonno or Mr Browne). The last part of this mentioned attacking 3 is what John was talking about just now. Should he slow down the pace so that the team can have a better time in keeping calm and composed? Or to put it simply, should Georgie Saville start as the third man in the attacking 3 alongside the other two?

Yes, you can say he didn't have a decent game against Millwall. However, his energy and ability to play in a false 10 role mean the ability to hold down the ball effectively. But there's a problem: He's a left-footer. This means the question of whether Fletcher can be deployed at the right even though he's more commonly known as a left-winger. Apparently, the answer is yes.

Assuming we're talking about a middle 3 of McNair, Clayton, and Wing. this means we're looking at one defensive mid deployed nearer to the back 4 due to Paddy Mac and L-Wing belonging to the aggressive type. Simply put, there has to be a ball anchor somewhere in order to maximise the efficiency. With Saville playing as a false 10, this means taking the pressure off the back while enabling two running men to boss the show in the middle 3rd. Adding in Howson and Big Fry at the back and we'd have three ball anchors instead of just one. Would the offensive momentum be slower? Yes. Would it contribute to easing the pressure off the back? Hopefully so. Would we have less problem scoring goals if stability from the back to front can be achieved? You can bet Hodgson's tenner on that.

Inspiring songs

It's been a very Singaporean week or so. John is pretty sure the video was done slightly more than 7 days ago. In the classic river otter manner, sex and race were involved. Of course, this is not to say John L'Otter is a saint. Because he's not. In fact, sea otters are capable of being equally bad, if not worse than the river otters.

In other news, two notable satirists voiced their views in two very different ways. In his blog, Der Smong decided to mock (?) the self-righteous nature of his fellow river otters from Nanyang Tongkat University to National University Sialah.

Herr Braun, on the other paw, was less generous than Der Smong but at least he didn't hit below the belt by using the term Nanyang Tongkat University.

Now why John L'Otter call this a very Singaporean week due to this incident is very simple: Remember Kevin Kwan Kong? He's Singaporean. Remember Crazy Rich Asians? That's Singaporean. Remember Jimmy Chow Yang, the son of Mr Ken Chow?

Because this particularly Singaporean episode was at least as offensive as Havas Atas Tapas versus the Super Nair Siblings, John decides to take things into his own paws. This post will contain zero Singaporean stuff. However, the videos will (hopefully) give out a vibe of positivity. After all, Daily Nas isn't the only person capable of spreading positivity.

A level results a bit rubbish? Don’t worry. I got a C and two Us and I’ve rented this place for the summer. pic.twitter.com/tJNmJNv14X

— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) August 15, 2019

For starters, allow John to demonstrate positivity through the culture of China. As offensive as it sounds to the typical angry river otter, the below video can be very inspirational. That is if you understand Chinese. Wait, someone else already mentioned China before John.

To the river otters who only can only understand Chinese and some Hokkien vulgarities, the above song is actually Cantonese.

And yes, there are more to come and none of them is done by Singaporeans.

Note: Yellow blood in the lyrics refers to the blood of cowards. So no, there's nothing racist about it unless your English isn't good enough.

P.S: Okay, it's getting late and John's brain has started losing its functionality. Before he ends this post, allow him to post two more inspiring songs. The first is for all the romantic ones out there, the last one is for all the broken ones out there.

Seriously, they played this song during John's sister's wedding.

Forever questing Pt 3

9th of August, National Day. John suddenly has the mind to share a video accidentally Singaporean.

The reason why John pulls off this stunt is very simple. For some funny reason, Japan has gotten "quite" obsessed with Singapore. John has to add the quotation marks for a very good reason: It's Japan where gaijin politics don't matter much. Yet, this was no excuse for Japan to showcase the correct Yui in a kimono displaying the full glory of Singapore. Weeks later, Dr Tan Cheng Bock was given a similar treatment at the hands of Nikkei Asian Review (also known as the Bloomberg-WSJ of Japan). Dated 4th of August, you may think it's no big deal. Wait till you noticed these...

1. Coverage of opposition politics in Singapore has never been the forte of the international media even though this should be even more important than what the likes of TOC, TRE, and Alex Tan said.

2. The neutral guy called Reuters last covered Dr Tan in July while Nikkei Asian Review actually posted a later version at Aug 4th.

In fact, an effort made by the unusually generous Japanese before the 5 days prior to 9th Aug was noticed by these river otters.

Moral of the story? Maybe someone should invite the big kahunas of Nikkei Asian Review for next year's NDP.

A furious Fury?

Okay, it's official. Layes Wolf*bleep* is now officially Layes Wolftree. The reason why John decided to do that was that Layes was, after all, a bastard.  To give a terrible (?) analogy, such a person is NOT like a child born from a local Singaporean woman and a white foreign guy but rather a bastard born from a Japanese guy and an Ainu woman. If this sounds offensive, please understand that Rhaegar can be seen as the Westerosi equivalent of a Yamato while Lyanna can be seen as the Westerosi equivalent of an Ainu. Hence, Jon Snow can be seen as the Westerosi equivalent of a... Yamainu?

Anyway, Viaa Bellerouge was intended to be seen as a daughter of nobility. Quite obviously, she didn't agree with her parents on the social straitjacket (i.e. something that Antonia Bayle was immune to for obvious reasons). But that doesn't mean the name of Bellerouge shouldn't be used. As for Wolftree, it's equally obvious that this is an English last name, unlike Viaa's French last name. Thank you, all you Western European sons of a Germanic gun. You made John L'Otter recognise the difference between a high-class name and a middle to low-class name.

Useless fact: This sea otter actually read this during his days at Gan Eng Seng School when such stuff wasn't cool with the river otters.

While this post is mostly about his experience of using a Fury, it's possible that he may add in a few bits on using a Paladin. To cut short the chase, is Fury a viable choice for first-timers? Below are two links which may make you think twice before investing your time, life, and possibly money on the A-bomb class.

https://thelastchapterguild.wordpress.com/category/everquest-2-fury-mana-issues/

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/fury-play-style-question.405528/

The biggest challenge in using a Fury is this: You need to play like Batman instead of Superman.

We all know what Goblin Slayer and the Notorious UBG are famous for. Apart from traumatising people with graphic content (for some funny reason, the Japanese are very good at that. Just ask Isayama), there's the Japanese Batman trope. Case in point: Goblin Slayer is the epic fantasy Batman while Emiya Kiritsugu is the contemporary fantasy Batman. Wait, does that make John an ally of justice or an anti-rape vigilante?

Apologies to the river otters who keep black cats at home. You're definitely not Guts.

One thing John noticed about the relationship between survivability and playing a Fury is the fact that you really need to have a staple control move that either slows down the enemy or (better still) immobilise that fellow. The reason why is that the risk of using a Fury lies in fast mana usage and being less than ideal on the defensive side. While being a Priest class, Druids can't wear full metal jackets. This makes them less bulletproof than guys and girls like Templars and Inquisitors. While being able to wear leather armour, they're not Scouts (i.e. they can't dodge like Bruce Lee on exobytes). It's quite obvious then to see that any defensive aspect lies in the buffing. For Wardens, this shouldn't be an issue since this is the defensive half of the druidic coin. For a Fury, it's healing and... more healing? That is unless you opt for a slow/stop-and-destroy strategy. But there's another problem...

No nukes for you until you're old enough

The challenging part about using the Fury is the same as the challenges of being a minor. Below the legal age? Sorry, that means you can't booze, have sex, and watch The Sexiest Canuck Alive in M18 mode. Below level 32? Sorry, no nukes for you.

One major (and massive) difference between using a Paladin to survive and doing the same thing for a Fury is the fact that Paladins have the famous two holies: Holy Circle and Holy Wrath. The former is an AoE hit-and-heal while the latter is an AoE hit-and-stun. Needless to say, the duo makes for a very good bread-and-butter AoE synergy. So what does a Fury have? The need to have a tactician's mindset. Killing stuff and enemies in Everquest falls under two possibilities: Either you go one on one or you go one versus a mob. That's the issue with using a Fury in mob fights. A Paladin is like an A*STAR scholar while a Fury must be like Batman graduated from ITE.

If there's something that worked for John like a dual-edged sword, it'd be NOT using slow/stop control to shape the fight. Rather, his bread-and-butter control tactic remains as Death Swarm. Or otherwise known as the most druidic holy spell (i.e. Druids are not known for holy damage). Why it's called a dual-edged sword is very simple: While it gives Layes a higher overall damage output, it also results in the need to go melee and hope he can outlast the opposition like how Archer famously outlasted Gilgamesh in the Great Heroic Bailout). Thankfully, John managed to invest that one AA point into Kudzu-kun.

John doesn't know how many Fury first-time users are capable of having to revive no more than five times or so while below level 20, but he hopes there are quite a number of them. The reason why being that... well, Layes actually revived like no more than five times while below level 20. Considering how difficult it is to level up in this game plus the fact that things could/would go rough when running Thundering Steppes at any level between 20 to 25, that may sound crazy. Hopefully to John, that is. After all, it'd be very awkward for him to be called Batotter.

Why you have to be an animal 24/7

Why do you need to be an animal 24/7? This is NOT a question involving otter nature and what Isaac Asimov once famously said. This question is about being a Fury and how to survive any aggro before you can unlock Starnova. The answer is very simple: 1+1=2.

In Everquest 2, the allocation of AA points is done on auto-pilot mode. This is not to say you can't do anything about it. You have three personal unused slots, so use them. Wisely and properly, that is. At the same time, left-clicking an AA power on the right column would result in a rollback. What rollback does is to revert your AA powers back to the relevant point. John knows this is nigh impossible to explain, so allow him to use the Mr Bill analogy: It's called the Everquest version of system restore. Those who understand how Windows work would tell you that to create a system restore, you need to set a system restore point where you can revert your OS back to when it used to be up till the system restore point. Rollback works in a very similar way as in any changes made to the AA powers would only take effect as far as where you set the rollback. Sounds confusing? Let John give a clear(er) example below:

There are ten AA powers on the right column. John clicked rollback on the fifth AA power in the list. This should and would result in the AA powers starting from the fifth to be reset. In other words, any new choice of AA points allocation would start from the fifth to the tenth.

This is very important because Everquest 2 is all about trial and error. If you think like a typical river otter, then please don't bother playing this game. If you think like an insane river otter, then (perhaps) this game is for you. Thankfully, it took John like level 25 or so to get the trial and error right. So why so much seemingly hoopla over this?

Because as a Fury, you'll need to max out Shapeshift.

Running in animal form is vital in surviving mobs. The reason why is that in animal form, you take less damage. This is especially evident in winter wolf form (John will elaborate on this later on). As a Fury, a maxed-out Shapeshift would result in two awesomely unexpected consequences:

1. You won't turn into an animal once you enter shapeshift mode.

2. This has to be arguably the most important aspect of a Fury's game: You can trigger BOTH Peerless Predator AND the shapeshift form of your choice.

How does John know that? By doing a trial and error like an insane river otter. See why he says this game isn't for the typical river otter? Although to be honest, that was an accidental discovery since his aim was only to max out Shapeshift. Talk about the next best accident since Sir Alexander Fleming discovered the medical version of 007 otherwise called penicillin.

Note: Please be aware that the dual animal logic only applies once your character hit level 25.

Not literally having to be an animal btw

Peerless Predator grants you the form of Singapore's favourite animal. Namely, the lion. While this is the best shapeshift form a Fury can get prior to level 25, it must be stated that being a lion alone won't bail you out from sticky situations. Actually, John doubts you can survive the Crypt of Betrayal by being a fearless lion alone. In other words, you have to choose a second form to act as that vital compounding factor. It's like asking John why the Japanese were able to win the Russo-Japanese War despite suffering a higher body count. His answer would be this: Because they won the fight on the infantry side even though the war was focused on the naval end.

Same logic here. The lion is to be your navy and the other shapeshift form is to be your infantry. So which infantry should be your choice as a Fury? Now before John starts, allow him to point out that any increment on the attack and defence will NOT show on the character sheet. Any changes seen is the result of what the tooltip says, so please don't be bluffed. Again, this discovery is brought to you by Trial & Error.

Tiger:

This is the dps member of the trio. Fast attacks plus a 10% chance of triggering a specific attack called Tiger Bite that deals slashing damage. But there's a problem. The tiger does take more damage than the other two members of the druidic trio. This is effectively your light assault infantry.

Winter Wolf:

This is the 50-50 member of the trio. The reason why John says that is because despite giving you a 3.5% bonus in critical chance, the dps value is lower than the tiger. However, it's definitely higher than the treant. This is effectively your medium vanguard infantry. If you want to play it rough in group PvE, then you'd want to seriously consider this option.

Treant:

Furies, please take note of this walking plant. If you need any reason to become Treebeard's mini-me in your quest to curb stomp every orc and goblin you come across, look no further than two things: The increase in base incoming heal shown in the tooltip and the defensive increment NOT shown in the character sheet and the tooltip. Furies are not as defensively resilient as their Warden counterparts, so the defensive synergy can be very good. Actually, it's very good. This one has to be your heavy defensive infantry. If you want to play it safe or just way too lazy to switch form like John, then this one should be your choice.

Shapeshifting and three basic archetypes

Personally, John does feel that playing a Fury does offer you three archetype choices: hammer, caster, and spell-sword. This is apart from the commonly (?) stated healer, damage, and healer-damage archetypes.

Hammer relies on combat arts and auto-attacks. If you want to go on this path, please max out Nature's Blade. That is because this combat art gives you the Haste effect. Combine Haste status with Primal Fury and you're on your way to be Wolverine. This also means you'll need to max out your mitigation and possibly blocking chance as well. This can be done via maxing out the physical damage mitigation AA in the Dragon tab and the elemental damage mitigation AA under the Hierophant tree in the Druid tab. After that, depending on your secondary shapeshift form, you may want to focus on other aspects of defensive AA, not the least the five-pointer blocking AA under the Shadow tab. If you're running as a tiger, it's strongly recommended to focus every AA point on the self-defensive ones, after which you can move onto the offensive. If you're running as a winter wolf, you can afford to free up more AA points for the offensive ones. But please still focus on the mitigation. Not only that, you'll need to come up with an effective mitigation synergy where stuff like wards and damage debuffs are equally important. You may have to trial and error for quite a while though. Not to mention the possibility of this below.

Caster can be very straightforward. In this game, you have five attributes. Strength, Stamina, Agility, Intelligence, and Wisdom. Out of the five, only Stamina and one attribute relevant to the class are important. The rest is moot. That is until you notice the first tab of the AA section indicates which tree is under which attribute. Using the Druid AA tab as an example, the list looks like this:

Naturalist-Strength (i.e. for all the hammers out there)

Animalist-Agility (i.e. best self-defensive option if we're talking about the final tier AA)

Serenicist-Stamina (i.e. the one with a must-have AA power related to critical chance)

Hierophant-Wisdom (i.e. survival spec tree which is also known as soulforged druid)

Stormcaller-Intelligence (i.e. nuke and heal)

This implies that each Druid AA power would be affected by the relevant attribute, so it's up to the gamer to try guessing what the attribute would modify. This is also the reason why John said the caster archetype can be very straightforward. Because spell damage for Druids is based on Wisdom, maxing out Stormcaller's Control (i.e. the second AA under the Stormcaller tree) means jacking up the base spell damage via Intelligence as the second spell damage mod.

If that's your cup of herbal tea (no intent to advertise Game of Thrones and Emileesi Clarke btw), then please maximise the firepower by selecting the Intelligence increment boon under the racial tab of your character advancement. As accidentally racist as John may sound here. The first two selectable options should be choosing between Intelligence and Strength. If you're a hammer archetype, go for Strength. If you're a caster archetype, go for Intelligence.

Spell-swords are quite interesting. They don't necessarily need the resilience required from the hammers or the high damage of the casters. They are basically the adjustable scale where you can opt for a 50-50 balance to your best of ability or rig the balance towards either end like Will Raj. As a result, spell-swords don't have to be choosy when it comes to the gear. You have gear which gives you bonus spell skill, you have those which give you bonus defensive skill. Then there are those giving bonus offensive skill. Spell skill bonus improves your spell casting while defensive and offensive skills should be self-explanatory. For Layes Wolftree, it's a case of gravitating towards the caster end. Of course, this is not to say melee doesn't feature half as much as it should. A simple trick John discovered (again?!?) here: Death Swarm>Thunderspike. Due to the presence of Primal Fury, this means he doesn't have to worry much about Haste. That is, for now.

Solving the mana death riddle

Since survival is of utmost importance to a Fury even more than a Ranger, the question should be what can be done to up the efficiency. The answer is very simple. Just do something about your in-combat health regeneration. Ideally speaking, you should be having two characters in your roster slot unless you're willing to pay according to the aggressive terms of the Daybreakers' business model. If you're going to main the Fury, use your alt to craft imbued rings of Stamina. This is definitely the main source of in-combat health regeneration since the percentage triggered is like 14% or so if you're running a character of at least level 20 with an imbued ring of Stamina at level 20. At the same time, having little to no options in the AoE department means higher chances of triggering the effect even though the probability stands at 3%. That's pretty a lot even for a level 30 since we'd be talking about accumulative percentage in actual circumstances. Depending on your personal preference between playing it safe like Zhuge Liang or taking risks like Guo Jia, you can choose between having two imbued rings of Stamina or just one. For Layes, he decided to be a son of a gun by choosing one imbued ring of Stamina and Demini's Class Ring. Works very well so far.

In-combat health regeneration can go a long way in preventing death by mana death. The reason is very simple: The more you're pinned against the ropes, the more mana you have to use to keep yourself alive. That's not cool. At the same time, using treant as your secondary shapeshift form means better insurance while keeping your mana bank account healthy.

This comes to mind the question of how many healing spells you'll need to keep your Fury in optimal shape after every fight so that he/she doesn't have to spend too much time bumming at the same spot in order to allow the health and mana bank accounts to self-refill. For John's bastard Fury, it's three direct heals, one HoT heal, and Sylvan Touch. Out of the five, two direct heals are used for bringing the HP bar back to a healthy state before using the lone HoT to push it nearer to 100%. The third direct heal and Sylvan Touch are for bailout purposes with Sylvan Touch as the one-shot bailout while the third direct heal is to be used as what John would call a four-spell sequence.

Note to Furies who want to take the imbued ring advice: If possible, craft an Imbued Gold Band of Stamina due to the zero hate mod. Or basically any tier 2 imbued ring of Stamina depending on the crafting level.

P.S: Let it not be said that John doesn't endorse the river otters' spirit of positivity.

https://naruto.fandom.com/wiki/Tailed_Beast#History

Forever questing (?) Pt 2

This is insane. Originally, John should have finished the latest edrafted chapter of A Requiem From Winter Past. Unfortunately, he pulled off a cop-out amounting to a massive case of procrastination. Quite obviously, John L'Otter would want to blame the Norrathian trinity of Qeynos, New Halas, and Kelethin for this. If there's anything John is thankful for on this matter, it'd be new ideas amounting to a semi-Total Recall. In the words of this vid below, "Thank you, Isayama". Actually, John doesn't know how much an Isayama he's going to pull off.

So will Eren die a savior's death with Reiner becoming the true hero by delivering the killing blow? If so, then... "Thank you, Isayama, for your *bleep*ed sense of irony".

But why mention cleavage since it's an Everquest 1 kind of thing?

John L'Otter wants to ask everyone else (not him because he knew the answer already) an interesting question:
Would you still want to play video games if cleavage isn't part of the deal?

It's like John asking whether you'd still support He Ying Ying if she didn't don a low-cut dress during this year's Star Award. Of course, the textbook answer should be yes. The keyword being textbook. Everquest 2 also features cleavage. Can you believe John only realised Antonia Bayle was the poster girl after he started to play the game? Yeah, that sounds terribly fake since many guys tend to prefer boobs to the type of anti-Singaporean stuff shown below.

Server bait and switch

Okay, John attempted a stunt shortly after he finished Pt 1. Apparently, server sharing can be done by selecting the correct server. In John's case, that'd be the Antonia Bayle server. So what this means is this: John deleted Daeni the Human Berserker and chucked in an equally female Human Paladin named Viaa. After all, it'd be too boring using two male characters. Female characters can be every bit as good as their male counterparts when it comes to character creation and using them properly, you know. Never knew a female Paladin can be so good to use, though.

Currently lost (?)

The fun thing about choosing Qeynos is this: You have plenty of options when it comes to questing. In fact, chances are that you're bound to get yourself neck-deep in quest backlog. That's how insane things are if you decided to start off at Queen's Colony and end up in Qeynos. For a bastard named Layes Wolftree, the choice of starting city was New Halas. Or otherwise known as the most boring starting city. For Viaa Bellerouge, it's Queen's Colony.

[Note: Wolftree is 100% English while Bellerouge is 100% French. Maybe John should try Wolfbaum. Wait, Wolfstaude sounds better in German. Thank you, all you West European sons of a Germanic gun.]

Currently, the Half-Elf Fury is starting to get himself neck-deep in quest backlogging for a very good reason: Kelethin and Qeynos offer recipes for adornments and sprockets crafting, but not New Halas. Choosing between Kelethin and Qeynos wasn't that difficult. After all, it's a case of personal whims more than the fact that Qeynos is one hell of an extensive Queen's territory. Those who played the game N years ago (i.e. the majority of the existing gamers in Norrath) would tell you that navigating Qeynos is a nightmare. If you don't know how to use the zone bell, then good luck in trying to find your way here and there. If you know how to do it, it's not even half as bad as what John said. With that being said, John lost count how long it took his Paladin to discover a way back to Queen's Colony just because he assumed the Total Recall command would take her back to Queen's Colony (apparently, there's some problem trying to get back up on dry land after getting stuck at Razortooth Falls). To make things worse, using Total Recall just like that would port your character to the Qeynos Harbor. Simply put, trying to find the global bell requires the internet and Google. Actually, the global bell could be found just at the end of the Qeynos Harbor. No matter what, it makes one wonder how crazy MMO gamers were 15 years ago when there's nothing childproof and padded about navigation. Try finding the Crypt of Betrayal from Vermin's Snye, John dares you. Unless you're looking at the right place, you're going to end as a hamster stuck in a wheel. In fact, some of the quests can easily take you days to more than a week depending on the zone. The swimming trip to the bottom of New Halas would have been one of them if not for the internet, Google, and the wiki, Thundering Steppes in general is... well, aggro friendly when it comes to the Skeletor brigade even though you're no He-Man or She-Ra. Seriously, they're one of hardest dudes to take down in Thundering Steppes unless you break the level 30 ceiling. And to think it's considered a level 20-30 zone.

To be honest, this game is fast looking like a monster requiring an insane amount of time and effort to deal with. Who'd have imagined the questline system being absurdly non-linear?

[Note: Interesting fact about the real (?) Skeletor brigade can be found here.]

Running here and there

So far, Layes has journeyed only to the Thundering Steppes while Viaa is currently running around in Kelethin with one eye on Qeynos. If your character chooses Queen's Colony as the starting city, there's a chance of the Goblin dropping either the quest for Goblin language, Goblin lore book, or both. To make your life easier, take a trip to Kelethin asap. There are two Goblin territories, one at a lake and the other underground. You should be able to complete both quests or either in this way depending on your situation. Beyond that, it's up to you to decide whether to upgrade your enemies to the Crushbone Orcs since you can farm stuff for the Orcish language and lore book quests.

No matter where you start your level one, it's advisable to choose New Halas as your secondary city to travel. The reason why being that the Norrathian version of Hokkaido is easy to navigate. This is very important as every city will give you two crafting quests (one for adornments and the other for sprockets) and one transmutation quest. You need the transmutation quest to level up your transmutation. This is vital because you'll most likely need adornments once you start going into the level 20-30 zones (i.e. the real test lies beyond Antonica and the Commonlands save certain parts like Stormhold). As for the two crafting quests, they give you plenty of crafting XP. This is worthy of note because crafting in Everquest 2, unlike some (?) other MMO titles, is a necessity. From level 1 to 20, it may not be that evident depending on your class. Once you enter level 20-30 territories and even some of the quests in Antonia and Commonlands, that's where your crafting comes into the picture. At least it's a better investment than buying gear and weapons from the vendors since purchased stuff doesn't give you bonuses beyond mitigation and damage (spell skills if it's stuff like wands and symbols).

This comes to mind a question: What if your starting city is the Ezoland of Norrath? Just choose Qeynos as your secondary city. The reason why being that Qeynos got plenty of quests for you to run. In this game, levelling up requires plenty of time and effort since the only thing childproof and padded would be the presence of the wiki site and those crazy fellows. Seriously, use those resources unless you're the kind of gamer who doesn't mind spending money to watch Aerith die since you don't need money to do an image search for Tifa's boobs. Of course, you'll need to run around and familiarize yourself with the city. Again, use the wiki if your attention span isn't the Witcher 3 gamer type (i.e. the gameplay, NOT Triss' cleavage). The convenient part about travelling in Qeynos has to be about the inter-city portal travel. Of course, the Irish folk also got their own inter-city travel in Kelethin, but that requires the fact that you cannot fall off the bridge. That plus the Irish portals look like a manhole cover. Not that it matters anyway.

[Note: Despite the combination of man and hole, there's nothing gay about a manhole.]

If your starting city is Kelethin due to being a Hibernophile, then use Qeynos as your post-20 questing hub with New Halas being your crafting XP convenience store.

At the end of the day, New Halas as a crafting XP hub is for those who favour convenience over the joy of travelling within Antonia Bayle's fortress or the Tuatha Dé Danann version of Gardens by the Bay. If you're either semi-retired or totally retired, then it's a different story.

Holy Fire and Fury: First impression on using a Fury and Paladin

Let's start on the Paladin first. Actually, Viaa Bellerouge is only 20 (i.e. the level, not her age).

Yes, John knows she looks 20 as well. Let's not make that a distraction, shall we? Anyway, this Paladin is still a work in progress. John won't be surprised if using a Paladin means having two loadout slots unless you're a PvP'er. But F2P games are not known for having even half-decent PvP gameplay balance due to a lopsided balance between the spenders and non-spenders amounting to the haves versus the have-nots.

A brief look at the Crusader tree (i.e. that's the category the Paladin is under together with his/her antithesis the Shadowknight) reveals a very straightforward build planning. So far, Viaa is far more a Crusader than a Paladin. The reason why being John chose to invest all the Alternate Advancement points thus far into that area. John is a firm believer of the whole "If you want to win, you have to survive and not do things like a suicidal bastard" gaming doctrine. While he used to play it overly cautious like J.Mou when he first started off by playing Neverwinter (please note that Neverwinter was the first game John played seriously on a prolonged basis because he spent like only a year playing Marvel Heroes before that as Black Panther plus his two female bodyguards compared to five years serving the Lord Pretender Dagult Neverember himself). Then slowly but surely, he started gaming like this German lion below.

Wonder if Joachim der Löwe can still maintain Germany's fast passing counter-offensive philosophy after three amigos got the Teutonic war axe.

The defensive base is still there, though. After all, John L'Otter has never forgotten his pragmatic roots like Didier Deschampion. This makes Viaa Bellerouge rather easy to use due to high mitigation and Holy Circle (i.e. Viaa's staple/only AoE move). Initially, it seemed that using only one healing spell should be enough. Running two quests involving the area surrounding Crushbone Keep taught John one very important lesson: Never go with just one healing spell (Faith Strike doesn't count in John's tactical dictionary btw). Due to John's main being a certified bastard (i.e. that's what Half-Elves are, to be politically incorrect), it means plenty of time to mess around with things.

At the same time, Knight's Stance is absurdly useful in solo PvE. You'd think Wrath Stance is good. And John believes so as well. But surprisingly, the daughter of House Bellerouge (?!) operates better as a lady knight. John actually tested it during the Orcish Information questline. The damage pacing was much slower, but the balance between defense and offense was much better. Of course, this is not to say Wrath Stance suck. You just need to strike a balance between the defensive and offensive. Which is quite dodgy for now because John doesn't really know how to do that. Actually, he doesn't know how to do it at all. Then again, those guys at the Crushbone Keep region (i.e. the area surrounding the actual place) are basically Orcs high and angry on steroids. You'd most likely see quite a number of yellow ranked enemies bumming around at level 20 there. Considering the fact that the quest given by Elonca Nusback was set at level 17, the whole process felt more like running a heroic than a mere solo quest. Seriously, don't try running this zone unless you really have to. If it's the final part of Orcish Information questline, then just go in, get out, and keep your fingers crossed (i.e. please sprint instead of just walking once you enter the area in order to minimize the risk of unwanted aggro). This zone isn't meant for anyone below 20 unless we're talking about Fighters. Due to the gear, you know why these stand-and-fight fellows can afford to do it. And even then, you'd be a suicidal bastard to think your level 20 Fighter can survive the actual Crushbone Keep. There's a reason why John chose not to continue Nusback's questline.

[Note: You'd most likely need to hit level 25 or so by John's estimation in order to survive the Crushbone Keep region if you happened to be a non-Fighter character. The info given by the wiki was clearly outdated when it states a Crushbone Centurion to be at level 17-18. The whole process actually involved a level 18 character running around in a level 20 zone. Completing both the third Orcish Information and Nuback's first quest, however, can easily give two levels' worth of XP if your level is near 20 due to the overall AI difficulty level plus the fact that they go around in groups of two or beyond. Needless to say, this logic only applies to Fighters with a good defensive game.]

P.S: Okay, this post is getting too long now. Might as well do a Pt 3 in the future.