As we approached the gate out of the city, I spoke up. “I don’t know if either of you left the city yesterday, but the zone transition can be a little unnerving. Expect a moment or two where time seems to stop and you cannot move.”
Ace shrugged and Ka’Moni nodded. “Yeah, it’s not even noticeable, really, if you go out solo. At least, I didn’t notice anything. But I heard it can be disorienting in a group,” she said.
“If it's available, I’m going to choose the private training instance,” I said. “It’s a bit less experience, I guess, but no competition for spawns, so it should balance out.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ace said. “A private instance means no kill-stealers or griefers, either.”
“Ugh. Can’t they just code something to stop bad behavior?” Ka’Moni muttered.
“It would be nice …. Usually easier said than done, though,” I said. Unfortunately, the solutions usually presented additional problems or exploits of their own. For instance, Heralds of the Eastern Echo had naively tried a “you can’t damage other players” approach. That just meant griefers positioned themselves between the attackers and their targets, making attacks bounce off or fizzle off the griefer rather than the target. It became very difficult to play an archer or caster in HEE. “No, the best way to deal with jerks like that is to do what you did, Ka’Moni.”
“Me?”
“Yep. Beat them at their own game. Hold on, here we go.”
This time, the transition from city to training zone took no time at all, perhaps because I had selected -- via intent -- the training zone before even getting to the zone border. There was no pause required for me to read the list and make a choice.
The gate guards on duty today were less talkative than Gren and Virgil had been. They just waved us on with a “run back here if you get into trouble” comment. I pointed out the poles marking the border between where the guards would assist and not, and both Ka’Moni and Ace nodded their understanding.
I also made sure to tell them about how to consider a target. No sense in a repeat of yesterday’s matriarch battle.
Fortunately, our first fight was close to the boundary. It was just a level one Big Bad Rat, nothing special. But, we didn’t have a true shieldwall, so I wanted it to be easy for us to escape if we had to. It was a different mix of abilities, and we hadn’t played together before to be able to anticipate the others’ moves the way the others and I could -- especially Mika and I.
But … it also wasn’t a challenging encounter, nor was it supposed to be. Since the rat was neutral, rather than hostile, we could get into place and start from an advantageous position. Ace’s five little wooden golems surrounded the rat. Their purpose was to keep it occupied and be a makeshift shieldwall. Ka’Moni was near enough to leap into combat -- literally.
Ace and I were further back, close enough to them to provide direction to their golems and close enough for the golems to still be in range of my healing spells, but far enough back that we’d have time to react if the little monster decided it hated us more than the golems or orc. I kept Daybreak Gleaming out of the fight, positioned roughly midway between us and the rat. She was the reserve, ready to intercept the rat if it broke toward us, and ready to intervene if adds came our way.
The fight took a bit longer than the ones last night, but it was three-v-one instead of five-v-one and we didn’t have the raw damage-dealing power of an offensive caster like Jazmyn. Ka’Moni’s kicks were powerful, true, but it still took four of her fancy kicks plus all the little golems bashing on the rat before it keeled over.
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One rat was all it took. I was surrounded by a spiraling glow of green light that shot upward accompanied by a short fanfare of flutes.
“What was that?” Ka’Moni exclaimed.
“I reached level one, finally,” I said.
“It was just one fight, though,” Ace said.
“Plus all of yesterday. Gimme a moment, this shouldn’t take too long.”
One stat point, one development point, and one ability point. Leveling up wasn’t terribly complicated, but it gave a way to start diversifying builds early. Me, however … well, there were no other High Priestesses of Sirae (and probably very few High Priestesses in general), so I wouldn’t have to worry about my build being similar to others’ (not a very big worry, granted).
Stat point first. That went into Spell Power, bumping me from 29% to 32%. It would be a long time before that went from Moderate to the next higher tier, but none of my stats were going to increase any time soon.
With all the leveling up the girls had done yesterday, I had already had plenty of time to contemplate where my development point was going to go. I was, for the most part, content with the array of spells I had to begin with, so rather than taking a new spell, I used the point to increase the Tier of Wyld Regeneration, increasing the effectiveness of the spells in that ability and, in theory, allowing me to choose higher-tier spells in that ability at a future level up. That was where Wyld Regrowth, Wyld Berry Aura, and Prayer of Wyld Recovery were -- my main spells -- and thus the ones I wanted stronger sooner.
The ability point, however … that one I couldn’t plan ahead. The game presented me with a random selection of three class abilities that I could take. And … all three of them were good.
> Charismatic Auras (passive) (x)
>
> (requires Divine Conduit) A High Priest or High Priestess is a conduit for the powers of the divine to flow through them to their group. Your presence enhances all beneficial auras affecting allies within (radius) by 5%. Higher tiers of this ability increase the radius and extend the benefit to all active buffs. At extremely high tiers of this ability, your presence suppresses harmful auras and debuffs within the same radius by the same amount.
> Daughter of Nature (3)
>
> (Chinookan Pacifica variant) Sea, Sand, Shore, and Solitude, the Daughter of Nature ability grants the priest or priestess a balance of water-themed offensive spells and sand-themed buffs and debuffs.
> Sustained Faith (passive) (x)
>
> (requires Arcane Faith) Faith is the essence and foundation of hope. A Priestess’s faith sustains not just her but her friends, peers, colleagues, and laity. This ability allows you to temporarily reduce your max FP and max SP in order to boost the SP of members of your group. Higher tiers of this ability improve the FP reduction and may allow more than one SP to be shared.
Okay, all three were good, but two were clearly better than the other. There was nothing wrong with Daughter of Nature, but I was a healer rather than a combat priestess, so taking an ability that was half-focused on offense wasn’t my cup of tea. I didn’t need some holy smite of my own when Jazmyn, or Ka’Moni, or Ace, or someone else would be doing the damage for the group. And I most certainly didn’t need to be spending all my faith on offensive spells, leaving nothing remaining to heal with. Probably not a bad ability tree for a less group-oriented player, however.
Noa, as a Tactician, provided the group with buffs, both via auras and via the little short-duration reactionary buffs she could provide depending on the situation. I also had to assume that Mikachu would have buffs and maybe sustained powers of her own to make her statue (sorry, totem) better able to hold up against the onslaught of little monsters. Even Jazmyn had had an opportunity to take an aura-granting ability. Then there was Ka’Moni, who besides fighting via kicks had her other cheerleader powers, sustained or not.
So I asked Ace and Ka’Moni and sent a message to Noa soliciting input. Their responses were … unanimous.
Ka’Moni was in favor of Sustained Faith: “Five percent doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, and it doesn’t sound like that part gets stronger as you do, but giving everybody else in the group an extra spot for a sustained spell, that enables much more teamwork.”
“The first sounds good, but more long term,” Ace said. “But each of my golems requires an SP to summon. Going from five to six golems is a much bigger increase than just five percent.”
>> That first sounds like it requires a lot of investment to be worthwhile, though I definitely like the idea of a five percent boost in buffs down the line if it comes up again. However, doubling the number of auras I can maintain right now, that’s MUCH more than a five percent boost. It is a pretty big cost for you, as opposed to doing nothing with the first, but I think it is worth it.
Well, it’s a good thing I asked, as my initial gut instinct was to go with a fire-and-forget five percent.