I -hate- Geonids

[Itek]

TheWife made her 7th shawl last night. (finally)

She'd had everything to make it except the swordfish tooth for months. So finally we dusted off my enchanter (main) and headed over to Siren's Grotto.

First we did all the combines up to the need for the Burin. Took a bit but she didn't fail one.

Then we got to SG, and the revamp has made it LOTS harder than I remember. My pet didn't do a lot against the FIRST trash mob, which also turned out to be a HEALER! *sigh* So I dismissed my pet and charmed the enraged molkar (or whatever) and we were going to move on.

(Funny aside, after I dismissed my pet the mob started casting, then I charmed it. Moments later my NEW PET nukes me. No kidding, nukes me. Luckily I get a message "so and so tries to cast a spell on you but you are PROTECTED." HEHE!! Take that pet!.)

We drop into the water right at the entrance, looking to pull one or both of the two swordfish we see hanging out nearby. (We'd been planning on having to go a bit farther in to find swordfish.) And suddenly we have THREE mobs on us. We nearly panic evac'ed but luckily I was able to lock two down and get far enough away from the last one to stop taking damage before I died. (Thank goodness for the MGB of Kazad's Mark before we left PoK had hit me.)

So we kill those 3. Recharming the pet at one point, which was HAIRY. Then we pull one swordfish. No tooth. Pull the next one.....

TOOTH!! .... We gated back to Great Divide.

So a couple of combines later... She's got 7th shawl. No failures on ANY of the 7th shawl combines....

Now we come to prep'ing for the 8th shawl. Time to gather components. We find 7 Velium Hound Fur in the Bazaar. (prices up to 1k) And buy them all. 4 successes and 3 failures. Ouch... Moving on....

Time to hunt for the GEMS. I hate geonids. They hate me. We like dragons. Dragons don't kill her and almost like me. Time to bust up some rocks....

HOURS later, and silly multiple pulls, a near evac, two near deaths...

We've gotten 3 diamonds, 7 emeralds and 6 sapphires. Since you only NEED 2, 3 and 3 respectively if you don't fail any we felt safe. Lucky we waited to get that last diamond as she failed one diamond and one emerald in the etching.

Then, after a bit of confusion, she made her 8 velium rings, 15 sheets and had a few tempers and blocks left over. (Why on Agnostic's white Velious breaking down a BLOCK yields ONLY ONE Large Brick I'll never understand.) Lucky for us our twinks had spent the last 4 levels hunting in Crystal Caverns.

Back to the Bazaar. Lots of Velium Hound Fur for sale. Some (2) at 700 plat, and 7 more at 1k. So I encourage TheWife to keep buying them and attempting soft fur padding till she has 10. Only NEED 8, but safer to err on the side of caution. No failures in 6 more attempts.

Now it's time to raise her Smithing from 111 to (at least) 163.

When I told her it would likely take her at least 6k more plat to get the skill up she nearly broke down in tears....

And our guild broke up (down to 23 characters, including at least 7 alts and 5 who haven't logged on in 3 months) so the Shawl-Crawl might be problematic...

/ooc Looking for 6 65+ people for a shawl crawl, anyone interested /join TheWifeCrawl



Oh... TheWife got 3 points of tailoring on shawl and soft fur combines. Skill to 161 or 162, can't remember.

And I spared you all the cussing and yelling I did during the Geonids. The air around our computer room will probably remain tinged with blue for a few weeks. (my enchanter spent 40 HOURS there, mostly solo, and lost almost a FULL LEVEL due to deaths)

I don't like diety-forsaken incestuous sub-intellectual Geonids.

My feelings for Geonid Shaman can't be articulated fully EVEN using profanity.

I go out of my way to kill Bixies. And Geonids. They are a stain on Norrath.

"Your faction with Geonid Collective could not possibly get worse."

GOOD!!!

[Akishka]

Congrats TheWife on the 7th shawl

What server are you on? Perhaps some of us could help with the crawl?

[Ngreth Thergn]

I hate the geonids... because I had 4 diamonds 13 emeralds... and 2 saphires.... before I got the final third saphire... UG!

[Myrron]

I actually liked the geonids. I first went there when my druid was in his mid-50's and was able to solo 3 before the first would respawn. Slow, but it worked.

Over time (and levels) it got to the point where I could single out any geo, anywhere, and single pull it and kill it in under a minute. Between that ability, invis, and tracking, I could port in and kill all the shimmering that happened to be up within minutes. But of course that took a lot of levels and a lot of practice. I've been raidleader for many walks too, that part was also a lot of fun.

I still have nightmares of the 5th shawl, personally. That was my least favorite of the eight.

--Myrron Lifewarder

[Cerpicio]

I've blocked out the whole process entirely. I got my shawl, and that's all she wrote.


Although, I have a sick urge to start on the Aid Grimmel quest...



-- C.

[Mester]

Yeah, I'm not liking the geonids right now either. So far I have 10 emeralds, 2 sapphires and 0 diamonds, not fun.

The prices on velium hound fur aren't so bad on Stromm. I can usually get them for under 700p, a lot sell for around 500p.

I did the Phenocryst Focus quest, so I had good faction to start out with the geonids. It's fun to slowly watch them start to hate me.

I can usually clear the east room of geonids, before re-pops, with a charmed pet when I solo. If I don't have Virtue, a charm break has a good chance of killing me.

And more congratulations to your wife on the 7th shawl!

[Ravenswood]

I stalled after my 4th Shawl. Since I'm a Ranger it isn't a must-have item; I'm just doing it for fun (!?).

At the risk of being of being condescending (I really don't mean to be), if you're willing to spend all that money on Velium Hound Fur, why don't you just buy the gems as well? That way you don't even have to say the G-word again.

[Maevenniia]

I stalled after my 4th Shawl. Since I'm a Ranger it isn't a must-have item; I'm just doing it for fun (!?).

At the risk of being of being condescending (I really don't mean to be), if you're willing to spend all that money on Velium Hound Fur, why don't you just buy the gems as well? That way you don't even have to say the G-word again.

You haven't read the quest write up all the way to shawl 8, have you? The gems that are required drop off Shimmering Geonids and are NO DROP (except on the FV server, I suppose, due to theuir different ruleset.)

[Serenya]

I stalled after shawl 7 because I couldn't face farming geonids as either a soloing cleric or 2boxing with my younger warrior, nor did i want to drag my guild out there for weeks on end. For whatever reason, the geonids were what broke me.

So, congratulations on getting the gems

[Katalaeia]

I got very, very lucky while farming geonids for my Cleric's 8th shawl. I only wound up with two extra gems, and I had another character camped there to loot extras.

I carried the armor with her and etched the gems as I looted to ensure I would not have to go back.

[Ravenswood]

You haven't read the quest write up all the way to shawl 8, have you?

I stalled after my 4th Shawl...

[Itek]

Hehe...

Even if the Gems weren't No Drop I doubt their would be a big farming community for them. Most people don't like losing Geonid faction unless they have to. (e.g. if you are killing Geonids you want the gems for yourself) The Geonids don't offer anything attractive for farmers of exp/loot so even if the gems became tradeable I doubt you'd find many for sale. (I did mention that the furs were not exactly a prevalent item?)

I gave up on Gimmel before I really considered starting. Of course I said the same about the shawls back when I learned I needed to learn fletching for the 7th shawl. (before Luclin) So in 2 or 3 more years I'll probably be able to reach PoP tier-4 content.

[Moraganth]

Make friends with a wizard... seriously.

Me and a wizzie guildmate went in, and my pet was tanking while myself and him nuked (myself being a chanter, i'm sure that scared the genoids /sigh). After the first clearing, my friend got a bit impatient i think, and told me to sit down.. he procceded to quad them around the circiles of tunnels.. /sigh

So, i sat.. and chatted.. and looted on occasion...

[Itek]

Hehe, great suggestion.

I have a number of wizzie friends. In fact my best bud has a 58 Wiz with the Crimson Robe of Alberwhomevery (Fear drop, pretty darn rare, especially when he got it... Pre-Kunark.)

But they will have to drag ME there rather than the other way round....

Friends don't make friends camp Geonids!

[Umatilla]

make friends

Make friends with a wizard... seriously.

Make friends with an enchanter with DC. My then-60 druid had an enchanter friend DC the wounded storm giant in WL....surprisingly, he fits in the caves. We parked right at the ent to Pheno's cavern. Seems that most of the shimmering pop within easy reach of that spot. No problems, no deaths. And over 1k in trash loot/gems in an hour. Had to do it twice, after the General warped to the first encounter and got pasted.