Oh my! There are indeed some pretty potent tank passives in there - don't leave home without 'em.

Poor Eolan! He must be pretty tough!

Forgot to mention this.

At the start of the Midyear Mayhem, I sent Unna into Cyrodiil (to get some skyshards more than anything) and she came back with out crew's first Hakeijo rune from the second Boon Box. So now we have the false impression that they're common in Cyrodiil.

Well they're certainly uncommon elsewhere. So relatively speaking....

At least Laurie was able to cash in one of her pending Master Writs. Still has another waiting, which Blossom will probably do, so that she "learns" it in the process.

Always good to get a Hakeijo! Congrats to Unna!

Unna went collecting the remaining parts of the Precursor, and installed it at Cat Man Dhou's home at Sleek Creek. We'll make that the primary residence for a while, in case anyone else wants to play.

Sleek Creek has the three equipment stations now, which fills in a bit more of the blank space. We borrowed a brazier from Mathiisen Manor for now, but will probably use a different one that's more style-neutral. We're also trying to pick the right planter (and plant) for the balcony. There is foliage but no flowers, so a bloom is a must.

So with Fjotreid having finished leveling Jewelry Crafting a while back and both Ruben and Lucius nearly reaching 40, all that will be left will be to finish research on Ruben and Dravean. Still haven't gotten a Swift necklace to drop but I guess I have time, since Dravean still has the Bloodthirsty ring to research.

That aside, crafting writs will be made less annoying tomorrow so there's that.

Is it just Jewelry crafting writs that get changed, or did I miss something?

Laurie just completed her largest so far - 267 vouchers! - so now we're trying to decide what to do with them.

All the crafters have their home workbenches, and Laurie has made a robust dummy already. Attuned stations are a large commitment, if we start down that road, we'd want to make them all, and mALX already has them. There are a couple of motifs for sale for vouchers, but I've been buying only what I need for writs so far, and those haven't been on the radar. The gold furnishings don't appeal (yet) as we're still making the ordinary stuff for the crew's homes, constrained by the materials (and plans).

Most likely we'll sit on them until a real need arises.

----

And now for something completely different. I've noticed a couple of new Buffys logging in and out recently. Buffy the Shadowdancer and Buffy the Small both seem to be low-level, and so presumably newish. How many incarnations of Buffy are there now?

Hee! Buffy can change class like she changes hairstyles. Currently:

Magic Templar healer CP780 Dame Buffy
Magic Sorc dps CP780 Buffy the Stormbringer
Stamina Sorc bow/bow CP780 Buffy the Butterfly
Stamina Nightblade bow/bow L37 Buffy the Shadowdancer
Stamina Warden bow/bow L21 (resting) Buffy the Clouddancer
Magic Nightblade dps L16 Buffy the Small

She also wanted to try being a main tank . Understandably, however, that is just a bridge too far for the fragile little elf. So she made poor old Sir Acadian manifest as a Dragonknight main tank (CP780).

They finally fixed the max tier Provisioning writs so that the old (CP 140) max tier recipes weren't included and also fixed them so that they have a cycle again. They've been broken for almost 2 years now (since the max tier writs were moved from Orsinium back to Belkarth, whichever patch that was). They also made it so that you only need to craft 3 items for equipment writs, like the max tiers, so that's less gathering and inventory space taken up.

==

Anyways, finished researching Swift ring today and WOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOOO!

Can't wait to be harassed by nearby randos to craft them things every time i log in.

So today Buffy took a big step (for her). She did a solo no death run on a group dungeon. One of today's pledges was Wayrest Sewers 1 so that is what she did - normal of course. It was a nice confidence booster for her, sort of like the first time she soloed a dolmen or a world boss. Well, technically I guess it wasn't solo since she had Drusilla (Twilight Matriarch summon) with her - but hey, Dru didn't die either.

Wow! That is Awesome! Congrats to you!

*mALX turns green with envy...*

I gather that part is the harder achievement. Extra grats!

Congratulations to Grand Master Crafter Dravean! Are the sweet hammers the reward?

Congratulations to Buffy and Dru on their solo dungeoning! That is tremendous!!

Ohhhh, congrats! Soloing those bosses can be a pain since you're basically chipping away at their huge HP pools.



Yeah! The title unlocks the Skyforge Hammers outfit style for one-handed weapons. Dunno how i feel about blunt things replacing sharp ones but eh. It's new.

==

Anyways, I remembered that the Wolfhunter patch added foul water spots to Summerset so I took Hates out to finish her collection. It took a while to realize that they didn't replace any existing ones they just added new ones, but through only the two at the bottom of the sinkholes near Rellenthil I quickly fished up all 3 rare foul water fish. I'm glad the Pickled Fish Bowl exists

So that's done. I wonder if it's time to take her to the Imperial City and find those fish once and for all.

I haven't even got one rare fish in Cyrodiil, lol.

Blossom is trying to get some Spriggan's pieces to go with her Hunding's, and she wants jewels and weapons in particular. She's been visiting the dolmens in Bangkorai, mostly the one outside her home at Mournoth. Naturally, RNG has provided a lot of Vampire Lord, and Seventh Legion instead. She has managed to get several green rings - all identical - and a pair of blue boots from somewhere else.

She could upgrade the boots, but would prefer not to displace the crafted set, as monster head and shoulders won't leave slots for a full five. She can't upgrade the rings (no Summerset) and we've not seen anyone else around the zone's world bosses to help get the weapons. We're in the Catch-22 of needing the pieces before we can solo the boss who drops them.

Currently just doing the local dolmen whenever she leaves home, and it's in progress. We're doing some Undaunted to get a chance of a useful monster helm, (and some trophies for the wall). She has a couple of monster shoulders from that, too, of course, and will have more to choose from as we progress. I may buy another home storage unit to hold those.

She's on the right track - that northernmost dolmen in Bangkorai is very popular for Sprig Jewelry farming due to nearby wayshrine. There seems to always be a few folks there to help. When Buffy's doing the bow route (stamina), she runs Spriggans and Hunding also - a nice combo that's easy to get. Gets the Sprig jewels from that dolmen and can cheaply buy a couple armor bits with the right trait from the guild stores.

And Blossom did Mournoth Dolmen again last night, and did get a Spriggan's piece this time!

But it was yet another duplicate green ring. Marginally better than a Vampire Lord one, but not much.

Most of our time was spent making items for research and passing them around. Laurie got a couple more staves from mALX to complete her nirnhoned woodworking line, She's researching one of them now, and waiting for a slot for the other. In turn, she made a couple of pieces of armour for Blossom, who made some for Cat Man Dhou, etc.

Most of Laurie's in-progress research will take her from 7 traits to 8, except in wood, where its 8->9. She has a significant number of master writs that need either nirnhoned, an eight- or nine-trait set, or even both. And a few for Imperial, which we're still hoping to find, rather than buy.

Blossom is about one trait behind her, and Cat Man Dhou one behind that. They both have their Level 50's, but CMD is holding his crafting rank back to what he uses at playing level 32, just so that everyone doesn't use the same top-end materials. Unna's at 50 in the three Equipment skills, plus Enchanting, just from the days of making her own, so she contributes to the drain on Ruby.

Those four are passing all their deconstruction down, and Taminwe's been doing it, and rising rapidly as a result, so now she's started raising her passives, and researching more. Just as I moved her up a level or two to reduce competition for materials (Jute especially), they changed the writ quantities, and now the lowest level pays back more than it uses, and it becomes irrelevant.

Hey, I have a question. What happens if you are in the middle of some battle like this one, and you make a save in the middle of it? I mean, CAN you make a save in the middle of a PvP battle like this one? What happens if you do? Will your character wind up in the very spot where the save was made (just ... there might not be any battle going on in that area)? Or are you "forced" to return to a different area of the game, where there are no other PCs?

Uh... five questions. Not A question.

You never have to save; the game automatically saves everything constantly on YOUR hard drive (so if your game crashes you can't lose more than a few seconds at most). Unfortunately, that also means there are no "do-overs" if you don't like the way you handled something in either PvP or PvE.

You can close out your game anytime and will come back to wherever you were EXCEPT in PvP (because when you log out in PvP zones, your character is automatically shipped back to your regular server. (The PvP zones are all on different servers than the PvE zones).

That way the PvP server isn't loaded down with characters that are logged off; it frees up room for others to come fight. (the PvP servers can hold X number of characters at each instance; so they can't be bogged down with logged off characters).

You have a choice of servers you can go to in PvP zones, I usually chose the ones with the fewest members on them (and occasionally have logged out in my (safe zone) and when I logged back in my character was still there. There are some dungeons in Cyrodiil that you can log out in and find yourself still there in a less busy server; and places like Weynon Priory, etc. On a busy server you will always be kicked back to wherever you were when you traveled to Cyrodiil or the battlegrounds.

Also: You can't log out while you are actually in combat; but you CAN log out while your Keep is being attacked as long as the enemy is not in personal combat with you.

Some of you may know that I entered my Princely Dawnlight Palace in the DDA Garden Contest over the weekend. While I didn’t win (I didn’t expect to, with the high level of talent in this guild), I got lots of positive comments. And one of my friends in DDA made this video, using the story I posted about the entry.

Please enjoy! Three Banners Conservatory

Why, what a delightful vid showcasing your wonderful palace and neat little story!

Wow, you did an amazing job with the camera and editing on this! I can't get over how well the vid captured the beauty of that place, it is so amazing in person - but it did!

Great vid; and an AWESOME job you did decorating it!!!

I will pass your praise on to Delphinnia - she is the one who did the video. She is developing quite the side hobby of videotaping others' homes, and this is the first one of mine that she did. She also did the one of that amazing Great Library of Alexandria that another of my DDA guildies created at their Topal Bay. It inspired me to go visit it, and it is a truly amazing experience.

And thank you for the decorating praise. I had a great deal of fun doing this, and had more than a few friends help with input and advice and inspiration.

She did a really great job on that vid! By the way, I spent 183,000 on Alinor furniture crafting plans at DDA's guild trader yesterday! Lol.

You found our robot, then? It’s adorable!

And my guildies thank you! It’s tough funding a housing/decorating addiction. . .

In other news:

Some of you may have heard of JHartEllis, who is one of the GM’s for Spicy Economics, one of the biggest trading guilds in ESO. He does a Twitch stream (which I follow for crate drops), and hosts a Live Luxury Furnishing Showdown every Friday night. Three players get 30 pieces each of that week’s luxury furnishings (it was Craglorn serpent chair, Craglorn standing urn, Craglorn coffer, and Craglorn Display Case). Each player has to build something, anything, with just those items in 30 minutes. Heard about it ever since I joined DDA.

He was on DDA chat yesterday afternoon looking for his third competitior. I said what the hell, I’ll do it. So I went to JHart’s ColdHarbour property and participated. One contestant built a really cool scorpion. Another went crazy with a Dune-style Chairworm attacking a bunch of Case People. I really didn’t know what I was going to do, so I just started stacking cases on top of each other in a horseshoe shape. Ended up making a Mad Healer’s MultiModal Scanner to scry patients with. I was not expecting to do well, especially with two others I knew to be especially talented decorators/builders.

To my surprise, I won.

WOO HOO!!! Congratulations Haute!!!! I am so glad you took the step of joining the contest!

I heard about JHartEllis and this contest from LordHakai; the GM of Ancient Traders and Akaviri Exchange = he just joined DDA if I'm not mistaken. His designs have kept all his various Guild Halls looking Awesome, and he has really improved with each one he has done this past year (so I'm sure he will do well with DDA too).

I'm wondering if you are doing another Christmas Saturalia party this year? That tree you made last year was amazing!

For those who don't believe until they see it, see it here winner announced about 0:50:00.

Wow, NinjaMonkey was one of the judges! That really adds to the honor of the win; he is an amazing designer! Get him to show you his sometime, he took me on a tour about a month ago that floored me!

I went to that website where the previous winners of this contest are on display; it is amazing what some people were able to do in 30 minutes!

Awesome job, Haute! (although on the vid they said you prefer "Rider," some old habits are just hard to break, )

Woo, fantastic job, Rider! Congratulations!!

Why thank you all so kindly!

Thanks for pulling up that link, ghastley. I was waiting for it to be posted to his YouTube channel, since I figure not everyone has twitch accounts.



I'm fine with Hautee (one of the DDA "officials" loves to play around with that name - she calls me Haute Stuffs sometimes). But Rider is what I use in the game, and it's how I sign my in game mail. So no worries, you can keep calling me Hautee!

If there's interest in another Saturalia party, I can host one. If I do it at the Palace, though, I won't put in a decorated tree -- the place is full. I can still do it at Pariah's, which is more seasonal for the Northern Hemisphere folks. Or I can decorate Serenity Springs (warmer, with waterfalls) for the Bosmer ladies. Up to all of you!

Ooh, a decorated tree again! (that's my vote for a Saturalia party) - but if you wanted to hold a party or event at the Palace anytime else I def want to go to that one too! What if we hold a Guild Meet there? And I haven't seen your Serenity house yet!

*mALX shamelessly invites everyone to your houses*

(But you are the best and most excellent party host for huge events; and your tree last year was spectacular!)

I'm starting to grind Cat Man Dhou up to champ level, to join Unna, Blossom, and Laurie. I'm not sure whether to do the Main Quest, or go collect all the skyshards from the delves in the regions he's "done". With all the CP, and being a tank, he survives very well, but the tankiness also means that progress is slow. Everything takes forever to die.

We did a bit of dolmen work to get an appropriate set of jewelry, which also helped raise his level. I'm starting to wonder if doing more of the same is a better way to grind levels. At least the train of other players farming the jewelry means he's not doing all the work.

On that subject, Laurie found herself soloing a dolmen last night. It was on the way to the Undaunted daily delve, and she dived in before we noticed that we were alone. Slow work, and hard to remember about Static Charge when you're a tank who's used to standing and holding.

She's getting more Master writs as her motifs and traits accumulate, so we need to think about what to get for the vouchers. Maybe the Glass and Ebony motifs?

Yeah, I hear you about remembering to change up your tactics when you’re solo as opposed to being part of a group. Last night my Argis the Bulwark (my staff Templar) took on a Dolmen solo, and he cleared it with little trouble. He did have to switch to his healing skills when his health got low, but the boss was already pretty well worn down, so he was able to finish on the back bar even with the decreased DPS.

He is now my fourth toon to solo a dolmen. I’m very proud of him, he’s typically a lazy butt.

On an unrelated topic, my original plan for today was to spend the day pushing Argis through the rest of Reapers March. He is now in Rawl’kha ready to start the quests there.

However my calendar this morning gently reminded me that tomorrow is Julian’s second anniversary in ESO (as well as mine). Since I’m supposed to be working tomorrow, that means we need to celebrate it today. I typically take that toon out on their anniversary and have them do whatever they want to do for the whole day. For Alise, she went to CWC. For Argis, he spent the day fishing and cleared Glenumbra from his Master Fisher achievement list. Phae got to go to Coldharbour and beat down Molag Bal.

Argis has kindly offered to take the day off so Julian can do whatever she wants to do. Hmmmm

What a cool tradition, I love this! Boy, I'll bet it left you worn out though! Having to beat down Molag Bal is a day in itself, lol.

Happy Anniversary, Julian and Rider! May you have a marvelous time doing whatever you like best. Hmm, I think there is some 2nd Anniversary Jubilee cake here that would be suitable for the occasion! *brews kahve*

Ohhhhh, congrats, Rider! I agree with mALX, coming NinjaMonkey it must really mean a lot.

===

So today ends my seemingly endless Jewelry Crafting grind. I mostly stuck to just crafting writs for Lucius and Ruben, but since they both reached 48 I decided to give them a final push and finish. Lucius still needs a bit more to hit 50, but it's nothing a few intricates from the daily writs can't fix.

I think i would have been done earlier had I not basically stopped playing ESO beyond a few daily writs lol

Not having Summerset, I collect those from random drops, and can't benefit from them. I smell a trade, if you're not already past the need.

---

The mention of daily crafting writs reminds me: when they changed the writ quantities, I stopped running of Jute all the time, as that gets returned faster than it's used. Now I'm always short of Ruby Ash, and keep needing Oko runes and Blessed Thistle, too. At least there are plenty of Alchemy and Enchanting surveys on hand.

I am past the need, but thanks for offer.

Now my only goal is tracking down the Arena Gladiator Costume's Runebox for Lucius. I can never find one on TTC.

Is it possible for anyone to have it yet? I read that you need to collect 50 tokens from daily quests, which means it would take 50 days minimum.

So yesterday marks a new milestone for my laziest toon, Argis the Bulwark. It has been a long journey from his start on Bleakrock to the final goal - the day he finally earned the right to wear a silly hat.

The first screenie is dated 1/30/17, his first day in ESO. The second is from yesterday, 8/30/18. It has taken him over a year and a half to complete his Caldwell's Grand Tour. Along the way he met new friends, gained a BFAM (brother from another mother), got a new house, and gained new experience in a different style of fighting (staves, vs. the old sword and board he used in Skyrim).

Most importantly of all, he gained a new hobby. Master Angler, here he comes!

*edited to fix broken link*

We were just discussing how some hats make your character go bald. Does Cadwell's really go the extra mile, and have the effect last past taking it off again?

P.S. the "silly hat' pic url gives me a 403. None of the others do.

Yay and congrats to Argis the golden Nordic Templar!

Buffy's been tinkering a lot in Snugpod. Amazing how such a small place can occupy so much time! She finally divested of all the 'Bosmer' leather over bone/ivory furniture and asked the pod to grow her some new organic 'Telvanni' style furniture. She also replaced the central campfire with one that actually cooks. Snugpod is her primary residence so feel free to pop by either to look around or as a convenient port to Elden Root.

In related news, Buffy now recognizes the existence of the Green Pact - though she is not bound at all to it. She understands that most of the Bosmer tribes cut a deal with Yffre to resolve the 'Wild Hunt' problem. Happily, the tribes of her clan (Clouddancers - extra small elves that live high enough in the graht oaks to dance among the clouds) cut their deal with the Nirn Mother and Sky Goddess instead. That is, they revere nature but happily use its bounty without waste as they need - that includes wood and vegetation. That said, like all of her clan, Buffy is basically carnivorous and requires meat to survive. Her mouth may enjoy Tamika's wine, sweetrolls and strawberries but her little body needs meat to sustain itself. Being a small elf, she generally prefers small game - rabbit and fish.

I am getting that same error on the hat screenshot, but can see all the rest = and like Ghastley, I am dying to know how he lost all his hair! He looked so young and pretty in the first screenshot, boy did that fight with Molag Bal age him!

This was so cool to see him grow up right before us though; it is touching to go back through your character's screens and see them going through those early stages again and remember how it felt to see these quests for the first time! Nice, and thank you for sharing it with us!





Green Pact = I'd personally like to take a weedeater to Grahtwood's jungle,

I've come across a Wood Elf berating a poor Khajiit for picking flowers and about to kill him for it if the Player doesn't intervene! I just can't get into the Green Pact as an immersive part of the Wood Elf culture. I think ESO did a much better job immersing us into the Hist in Argonian culture, or the Clans in the Orc culture. With the Wood Elf they just dumped that one random encounter and gave us the Green Pact armor, without giving us any reason to feel tied to the Pact or defend its existence. So I'm with you one not going all "Green or Die;" and so much prefer the idea of respect and proper use of Nature's Bounty. I'll join Buffy in her pact!

Oh! I forgot to mention that this morning in my daily writ rewards I was shocked to get a "Swift" necklace! Woo Hoo!

Thanks for letting us know about the Swift necklace. Jewelry writs are the source but, apparently, waaaayyy too rarely awarded.

Okay, everyone, I reuploaded that problematic hat to my Flickr. Please try the link again and tell me if it works!

Yesterday Phae got down to business with her Silver. She slashed and smashed her way through eastern Stonefalls and is now resting in the Fishy Ambience that is Argis's old inn room in Ebonheart.

On the way, she happened to be the first one to notice this feature. I'm amazed that I've been through Stonefalls so many times and never noticed the rocks.

Heh, silly hat works fine now - but Argis doesn't look too happy wearing it!

Neat rock formation! Never noticed it before either.

I'm still getting a 404 error on that hat picture for some reason.

Oh, that rock formation is the Strife Brothers! I love that whole questline, and the rock formation! Really well thought out story! (and well done rock formation to depict it!)

I also got the 404, but it showed me some of her other pictures, including apparently the one it couldn't find!