Diary Of A Gamer

I got the pleasure of doing Maligo Base in Plateau with a couple of stand-up players the other night, and I can honestly say that it was probably the most fun I’ve had in an instance in a long time, likely ever.

The group consisted of a 33 sniper, 33 spy (Seijaku), and a 33 demo (myself). Due to bugs with clan wars, I wasn’t able to heal or resuscitate anyone. It was also new to me to have sentinels beam in more mobs, and I know the spy and sniper could hold their own, but I sure didn’t want to let them die, if I could help it. I mean, if I couldn’t heal, all I could use for protection was Shield Extender and Reality Ripper. If I had to do it over again and could only bring one of those skills, I would choose Reality Ripper without hesitation. Shield Extender helped out a lot, but against 20+ mobs, the Ripper is simply unmatched. Especially when paired with a shotgun.

Controlled Fission was again quite useful. In-game voice chat has become a boon when teaching others to play with your class, especially if you need to tell others which mob to whack, or they would like to tell you. Either way, I wouldn’t change that run. Maybe remove the group bugs due to clans in separate wars (our clans weren’t warring each other).

I’ve been hiking towards 33 pretty diligently. Well, aside from playing a couple of alts for clan reasons, and have had 2 items in my sight that the next level would bring me: new polarity guns and Controlled Fission 5.

Polarity guns are great but for me, situational. Ammo-wise, my shotgun has been doing excellent, and unless the mob is uber tough, more than I need. And for times that call for a Reality Ripper, it’s all I need. But that new damage tier for the guns is great, and I’m excited to start using the newer ones, as my 28’s aren’t holding up so well in Plateau. The new ones should wok out just fine.

The major motivation has been the last pump in Controlled Fission. This is a phenomenal skill and any demolitionist that neglects it better have an explanation. It’s such a great skill for small to medium groups of mobs, or for big game like stalkers and juggernauts and named mobs. One of my favorite things to do is toss it on a named mob with some henchman around them, and go to town with whatever weapon works best. Usually, the henchman are toast when the fission goes off, and if not, they’re just a shotgun-blast away from it. And that was pump 4. The pump that netted me 49,000 damage on a stalker with a level 30 EMP bomb, at level 30. I’m excited to see the damage increase in the skill and the wider radius.

Together these skills are mean. Reality Ripper (to 3, anyway) is a necessary skill as well, and all 3 combined make for a big party that you just look forward to. And if you aren’t careful, they’ll get you killed. Don’t get me wrong, these are all great abilities, but the joy of the demolitionist comes in knowing when to go AE crazy and when to slink back with your rifle / polarity gun or do some pistol / shotgun fighting in close. The aggro you can generate with Controlled Fission is the downside. If you aren’t careful (in CP defense, especially), you can make yourself a corpse real quick. It’s an art I’m still learning.

I’m meeting with the clan leader tonight, and he’s got a sapper that he’s aiming for demolitionist with. I think I’ll let him game on my toon abit tonight and get a feel for what’s ahead. So far, this is the perfect class for me. Totally enjoying it, and yes, I’m always having a blast

I made 32 yesterday in Mires. I can say I’ve been pretty happy with the zone as it currently is (those that knew it before the “optimization” may disagree), and it’s probably my favorite one so far. And it’s easily the buggiest one I’ve come across, but that’s not the focus of this post.

One of the major things I like about Mires is that I can easily get my modifier to 200% or greater with ease. There’s a place just south of the entrance from Incline that I motored from 29 to 30 at, and would gladly do it again. There’s a seemingly endless supply of bane that make this enjoyable.  It’s much more fun to grind here than cp’s simply because if I do want to currently run missions, I have that choice.  And that’s the other facet I’ve been enjoying.

Some of the missions are great, they give good exp and even open up the Brann hybrid (which also gives you a clone credit). Other missions are overly burdensome without a 2-way way-point. The best example of this are the ones that take place in the fluxite mines area to the north-west, causing you to run back and forth along the same route at least 5 times.  My squad was thankful for the squad way-points I had on hand.  I would have been, too.

After running many quests yesterday, I found myself about 55% of the to 33.  Considering that means new polarity guns and pump 5 in Controlled Fission, I feel like I want to push even harder for it.  Unfortunately, life is another matter and it might be mid-week before I make that next level.  That’s OK though, as I find I have more fun as I don’t over-indulge myself in what I want to be a casual game.