| Intro to Mayoi |
| The following is taken from a message I sent to
my vassal, Eagle Ib, last night while waiting for the update to download.
It seemed that perhaps it would serve as a decent introduction for
any new mage, so I thought I'd post it here. Please comment or correct
as required. |
| Yes Mayoi can be fine for a L5 mage. The beaches
have plenty of people on them and even if I'm not around, you should
be able to find people who will go out with you. And there are a ton
of Source members who are down there. I just saw Nansen and Farik
Il'Kadar, both L11, down there yesterday (or was it the day before?)
and Nansen is a mage. So there are others who can show you the ropes
or help keep you safe down on the beaches. |
| When I was L5 I ran down to Mayoi on my own from
Nanto so I know its possible, but you need to be careful because your
Run skill probably isnt' that high. If you can, find someone of higher
level who is going S to Mayoi (just ask in town or watch the southern
road). Chances are they'll be happy to help you get through. Usually
just having a high level char run through first kind of whips up the
monsters so they don't follow you. It seems like once they get far
enough away from home and their target isn't available any more, their
primary concern becomes returning to their station. So if you just
run behind some high level chars you should be fine. |
| But talk to them first and make sure they know you're
taggin along because if they have a good run and leave you in the
dust then that might be a Bad Thing. Anyway, the road isn't really
that dangerous, just that there are a couple of Hunter Shreth along
the way (L10 and fast) that would make your life miserable. But most
of the way is clear. Heading S on the road out of Nanto, you come
to a T. The Western road leads to Lin, the Southeastern to Mayoi.
From that point on the road is really not dangerous at all. The road
winds through a mountain pass and then comes to a lifestone. You can
attune there and you'll see the town stretching out in the valley
to the east and beyond the ocean. |
| Explore the town and have fun. The lands immediately
around the lifestone have drudges and such and make a nice change
of pace from the beach life. Especially if drudges are what you're
used to. But you can't beat the beach for experience. |
| The best beach for you initially is the one heading
N from the Mage Tower at the far E of town. From the Mage tower head
E down the other beach till you see the lifestone there. Attune and
then turn N. There are some drudges and shreth right at the start
of the beach, but they are just random and you'll usually just ignore
them. |
| The beach has Golems, Mud and Water. Both are susceptible
to Fire and Lightning although I prefer fire against Mud and Lightning
against Water. These are why you are here. They are slow and are (I
think) L11. They hit hard so don't let them hit. When they close,
turn and run. If they follow make sure you get far enough away that
they aren't going to hit you in the time it takes you to turn and
fire. A good bet is to catch them as they return to their spot. Killing
L11 golems mean you are getting great experience. You'll go up a level
a night if you play just a couple of hours. And they can leave decent
loot like gems and jewelry. Occasionally you'll find a magical item.
Often they just leave powdered gem spell components, but this patch
is supposed to improve treasure so we'll see what happens. |
| Also there are very quick and dangerous Lurkers
and Shallows Sharks, both of which are weak against piercing (Force
Bolt). The problem with them is that they hit quickly and for enough
damage that you'll be dead by the time you've killed them with L1
Force Bolt. So at first just run from Sharks. You'll probably end
up putting some exp into your Run stat so that getting away gets a
little easier :-) |
| You'll also see L8 Blue Wasps (use Shock Wave) which
can be annoying. Especially because they can fire a Flame Bolt II
at you which can be deadly. And they're really fast--you won't outrun
one, just leave its territory. You'll just have to see if you can
go toe-to-toe with them by yourself. They are probably the easiest
creature you'll see on the beaches |
| Oh and there are also Azure Gromnies. Oh boy, what
to say about them. If you do the beach at all, you'll learn to hate
them. They have an Acid attack that will probably eat you up -- 20+pts.
If you can, cast Acid Protection on yourself when these things threaten.
They don't always hit you with acid, but they always seem to use it
when you're turning to run away. Thats when you hear the *pop* *whoosh*
and you're "polishing the lifestone". |
| Which brings up another point. Don't worry about
dying. It happens. If you don't venture too far away, it shouldn't
be that big a deal to recover your body and there are almost always
some high level chars in town that can help. And you can always call
in The Source to help with a recovery. If you do die, just recover
your stuff and return to a relatively safe area where you can work
off the vitae to get your skills back to maximum efficiency. You should
have no fewer than three different mindsets available to you in the
game: the earn lots of exp mindset, the get lots of cash mindset,
and the work off vitae mindset (probably should be a have fun with
friends one too, but I said at least). Make sure that when you're
working off vitae that you don't expose yourself to unnecessary danger.
|
| One great thing about Mayoi as opposed to Nanto
or Yanshi is having access to tapers. Tapers will allow you to learn
the L2 war spells. Go ahead and learn the spells as soon as you have
the extra cash to buy one or two of each taper and a couple Iron Scarabs.
Use the formula for your L1 spell, swap the Lead scarab for the Iron,
and insert one of your tapers between the scarab and the herb. See
the web site for links to better explanations of learning L2 spells.
But get them right away and give them a try. |
| You'll see that they fizzle a lot more, they are
slower, and that they are resisted some (or at least some more than
your L1). This is why you want to raise your War skill as high as
you can. You want to cast L2 spells. There is nothing on that beach
you can't handle with Fire II, Lightning II, and Force II. Just use
your best judgement about when you really need to use the L2 and weigh
their utility against their cost to you in timing, fizzle-potential
and pyreals for burned component replacement. |
| Response from Rojon |
| What a great story. I love reading good stuff, and
the longer and more detailed, the better. |
| I'd just like to add a couple of comments from a
scrub point of view. I learned the hard way the golems use magic,
especially the water golems and last night we were attacked by ice
golems on the north beach for the first time! Lvl 16 and very nasty.
|
| The other thing is the roads to Lin and Mayoi from
Nanto seem to have gotten an upgrade, with Lin having multiple active
adult Reedsharks which the lower level characters will want to avoid
at all costs. |
| Hope this helps, |
| Response from Khali |
| Good points Rojon. And thanks for reading. |
| I should have mentioned the Reedsharks. Yes they
are a pain. And yes that is why I prefer to run from Nanto. It is
harder from Lin, but it can be done. If your run is low, ID the monsters
before you get close enough to activate them. And then run around
them leaving the road but keeping it in sight and running roughly
parallel. I have taken L1 mules back and forth this way but it is
kind of scary. |
| As for the magic spells that the golems throw and
the missles that the luggies throw, you have to learn one thing: slide!
The keyboard keys 'Z' and 'C' slide your character left and right
respectively in the best DOOM tradition. (Note that these are really
just an extension of the W-A-D-X cross which serve as alternative
directional keys which are _extremely_ useful if you want to move
and mouse with your right hand. If you don't know what all the keys
do--study your chart now. They're all useful. Except maybe 'V', hehe).
If your firing your own magic or missles from a distance, then watch
the golem or the lug carefully and you'll see the missle coming. Slide
to the side as it comes towards you and you can avoid it altogether.
There is a skill based check for hitting but it only applies if you
are where the spell was cast. So don't rely on your magic or missle
defense to do the evading, do it yourself with your keyboard! |
| One thing to note is that if your busy (like casting
a spell or firing a bow) then you probably won't have time to slide.
Since you don't want to just wait around for the creature to fire
at you, the thing you'll need to learn is when the AI likes to shoot
spells and rocks at you. |
| With golems the moment is usually when it turns
its attention to you. Watch it carefully. If it starts walking toward
you then its not going to cast spells. If it turns to face you and
_doesnt_ start walking--be ready to dodge the spell. Sometimes they'll
cast Creature spells instead of War spells and since they aren't LOS
you can't avoid them, but if its a War spell, you'll see something
streakind toward you. Simply slide to one side and commence firing.
|
| Lugs are harder to see because they degenerate to
the point of not being rendered at a full screen distance. The answer
is to get a little closer so that you can see the Lug drawn on the
screen. You'll see him rear back with his hand when he's throwing
a rock at you. But if you waited that long to move its probably too
late. Your best bet here is to anticipate that you've ticked him off
and been standing there for a second or two and so you better move.
|
| 'Course be careful not to move right behind your
friend. But maybe an enemy?.... |
|