Well, it had to come to pass. I really was trying to avoid one, figuring out any excuse of not starting yet another character. But that open slot was calling me and pretty much I gave in to temptation and started a Berserker. I feel a bit dirty considering that I see Berserkers all the time in the leveling zones, all the bots forming their little worker lines like ants to a bit of food. But it honestly looked too fun to pass up and just the little time I spent, I already started to enjoy the class.
So the primary reason I started a Berserker was that I said fuck it and didn’t want to do Tortoyk again as I had completed East Luterra on my Glavier. I asked myself do I want to spend the next few days just re-doing content or can I just skip and get my Glavier started with some T1 stuff? Part of that decision was influenced by collecting my 3k or so gold from all the Una Daily Tokens. So I figured while I’m waiting around deciding whether to push my Artillerist any further, why not just at least go ahead and not waste more time on low level content with my Glavier since I got to a satisfying point in understanding the basic class.
Before I delve more into my current state with the Glavier, I will admit that I tried playing my Deathblade a little too. There’s something off by that character compared to the rest I’ve played. I noticed that her damage was pretty subpar despite having fairly good skill levels and reasonable gear. What I believe the issue is comes from the back attack requirement. She feels as though she hits like a wet noodle and in a lot of normal fights, I don’t really think about how to position her compared to boss fights. But I figured that at least with regular mobs, the damage should be negligible with regards to the back attack mechanic. Nope. Pretty much you’re going to be a bit hampered so I need to re-think how I play her because otherwise this will not be a fun experience and there’s a chance I might just get rid of her and replace her with a Destroyer when he comes out in a few weeks.
But in the meantime that just motivated me even further to get started with the Berserker. So I might just hold off on the Deathblade and see how far I can take the Berserker. Something I read that has enticed me is that the Berserker, while having HP anxiety issues, does take reduced damage but can use lower level potions to compensate for the smaller health pool. Not to mention that despite being melee, his attacks have pretty good AoE and range for their striking distance so this class might be a ton of fun to play.
With the rest of my characters, I’m pretty much just doing the daily grind for the Una reputation. I managed to score a few completions today as well as one Island Soul. So moving forward, I’ll have to think of other dailies to change up. I might start looking into the timed dailies like Tooki because I haven’t done a lot with them or stuff related to Pirate Coins.
The big accomplishment today was getting my Gunlancer to ilvl 960. So I might have to push him through Feiton starting tomorrow to get him working on the Feiton dailies. The thing about those Feiton dailies is that they’re really quick and provide the ever necessary Leapstones. I was going to grind just Yorn dailies but one of them is so horrifically painful that I decided to flat out skip it. At this point, I think the terrible stealth quest in Feiton is more preferable than the collect 60 materials in that cave quest from Yorn. Not to mention there’s nothing really worth getting from the reputation for the Yorn dailies at this stage whereas progression of my characters’ ilvl means I’ll be able to solo more content like Guardian raids, etc.
On the other hand, my Sorceress is still wallowing in T2 with the struggle to get to ilvl 1060. She’s probably 2 items off right now from hitting the final Feiton Chaos Dungeon level. But most of her issues are materials related. As of this point, I can see her taking at least a week before she can get to Punika without opening up vital resources.
This also poses a dilemma since that also should mean my Shadowhunter moves to Yorn. It shouldn’t be hard but it’s more of a question of motivation. And while she sits around in T1, I need to pick another character to move up. I’ve gotten my Scrapper passed ilvl 500 but she’s not super important to me nor as fun as say my Gunslinger. So I might start funneling more mats towards my Gunslinger to push her into T2 (since that would have been my Deadeye’s position).
Speaking of Deadeye, I might just use him to buy up the weekly Guild vendor materials for whoever needs it. I have zero desire to play him any longer so might as well use him as a mule for now. My Paladin, on the other hand, continues to be a lot of fun to play. It just feels like a well balanced class and it’s a shame that SmileGate decided that it should only be relegated to a support class. There is a DPS option but no one will take a non-support Paladin (or bard for that matter) seriously.
Another cool little thing that happened was getting a Protection skill rune from Phantonwing Island today. It was the first time I did that island and definitely it was worth it. I completed all the island quests and got some nice Pirate Coins along with all the Mokoko seeds. So that only leaves the Island Soul as my last reason to show up.
I did try to sample Crescent Isle. There’s only one super easy quest. But the real grind is getting the Island Soul, which requires a ton of hunting. The drop rate on the crystals required to purchase the Island Soul is pretty low and the situation becomes annoying because of the sparse population of rabbits that take a little bit of time to respawn on top of having a few angry mobs that you’re forced to occasionally eliminate. So I figured that if I want that Island Soul, I’ll have to do it when I have absolutely nothing else going on.
Something else that I’m working on are the next level of tools for gathering. I did manage to craft both an epic shovel for ore mining and the gloves for gathering flowers/plants. But I need a LOT more rare relics to get the rest. Pretty much the trick to this is going to the Dark Garden and just wandering around in a loop to find relics. But this will be productive since I will also need the relic materials for honing down the line.
Another thing that happened the other night was that I ended up getting the Vanquisher Starter Pack. The biggest thing to me was the Crystal where I used some to pick up a very handy skin for my ship. The auto sailing and pick up are amazing. I think if I put some effort in upgrading a few ships, I will eventually be able to do some of those sailing events. And there’s a few that I’ll need for the specific continental pirate coin currencies.
Beyond that I mostly have to stop being lazy. Dailies are easy content for me and I really enjoy them along with stuff like Field Bosses, Chaos Gates and leveling up new characters. Chaos Dungeons are fun but they are starting to wear on me. Also, I wouldn’t mind doing more solo Guardian Raid stuff but the loot to inconvenience ratio just isn’t there for me at this moment. Not to mention there’s other more critical things to work on such as Collectibles, skill points, runes, etc.
I think the next time I write another Lost Ark post, I will talk about my class evaluation. I will be missing a few because I either haven’t played them, played very little of them or have zero desire of playing them. But it will just be me going through the existing, playable classes from North America. If I can get the Berserker to around level 30-40, I’m sure I’ll be able to write more confidently about him. I would like to do the same with the Deathblade but I think Berserker will have higher priority in the short term. Also, I plan to push my Gunslinger a lot harder to make up for lost time on my Deadeye.
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