Sorry I have not been online much/posting much to the mail list lately. To
my chagrin, decorating my new flat has turned out to be far more time
consuming than I possibly imagined. After four days I have not even begun
painting. This is going to drag out for some time, I fear...

As a result, I had not read any of my mail for three days prior to Fight
Night, did not know who I was fighting, had not been online for four days
and had 4% vitae from the Citadel on arrival. And to up the pressure a bit
more, my (new) boyfriend Matt had decided he wanted to watch. He sat beside
me in RL up until after the match with Mizu-No and Zak.

ME vs HERRIMONE

I chatted to Dhali briefly before this match and he confirmed my attack plan
which was vuln, drain, bolt bolt bolt. He told me to drain until she was
below half - he thought it would take two or three drains. I was planning
to only do one. He also suggested I used Life Magic Mastery as my fifth
buff (my others were Imp, Armor, Mana Conv and War mastery). I discovered I
hadn't learned Life Magic Mastery and quickly learned level II. I didn't
have Split Pea at home so couldn't get level III - oh well.

The fight went more or less according to plan. The vuln stuck first time.
I drained more times than I intended, once because I clicked Drain by
accident, once because I didn't realise how low she was until I saw that I'd
only drained her for 7 or something. She was very close to me so there was
no risk of missing her with war spells. I used acid because I figured most
people would go for fire or lightning prots, if they used prots at all. And
besides, I *like* acid, I love the word "corrode" :-)

When I eventually bolted her, she died as soon as it hit! I wasn't
expecting that at all :-)

Loved all the "wow"s from the crowd, not to mention the fact that Matt was
really impressed, thanks a lot everyone!!

Lesson: when a melee is toe-to-toeing you and you're not in desperate
danger, use war spells. They're less mana and they hurt them more than
drains.

ME and ZAK vs MIZU

Zak and I discussed strategy beforehand, but unfortunately we couldn't do
what we wanted due to the fact that I didn't have Split Pea. I didn't know
Piercing Vuln at all and I only knew Force Bolt II. Forward planning would
have helped immensely here... my apologies to Zak for not having been around
enough for us to discuss in advance.

Zak had no elemental arrows so all my vulns were useless. I planned to
Imperil then start draining and not use vulns at all. Zak would engage him
and I would heal Zak/drain Mizu as appropriate.

In actual fact, this didn't work out too well. The Imperil stuck first time
but then Mizu kept running around. I needed him to be still in order to hit
him, so I figured rather than just stand here, I'll Acid Vuln him so that
when he starts on Zak I can bolt him. I fizzle at least once, he resists at
least once, and after about four tries I hit him with the vuln. Then he
stops at last and starts attacking Zak. This is fine with me and I begin
draining. He starts running again and several of my drains miss because
he's out of range. Grrr.

Then I try to Drain and it says "You do not have enough mana to cast this
spell". I glance at my mana for the first time this match and it says 7/137
or whatever. I think "OH CRAP, OH CRAP" now what??? It's bad enough
running out of mana in the Lug citadel, let alone here!!! Thankfully Mizu
starts running around again and I'm able to cast Stam to Mana while he's
running. I figure Drain Stam, then Stam to Mana again, it'll be okay. I'm
now very worried about mana - this is going to become a problem very soon.

He comes back for Zak. I drain Stam off him while he fights Zak and try to
bolt him but he resists. About now, Zak dies. Mizu is at about 3/4 health
- he has been healing when he runs off. This is very bad, and I know I
can't win now. But I'm going to give him a run for his money.

I switch to bolts. He is acid vuln III'd and a few bolts will really hurt
him. They also seem to use less mana than drains.
All my bolts either fizzle, miss or he resists. Except the last which hits
him for 35, which pleases me immensely even though he kills me shortly
afterwards.

Lesson: WATCH YOUR MANA. Do not cast spells that will likely miss. Do not
cast Drain from too far away. Do try to work as a team (to be fair, we
would've done this if we could - I blame my schedule for this).

MINI WAR (me, The Catt, Matah, two others... sorry, can't remember, it was
3am by this point) vs ZAK, ARABICA, some others ...

Our strategy was kill the mage.
Their strategy was kill the mage.

I thought this would be their strategy so I planned to Imperil as many
people as possible before I died. I tried to imperil Arabica and fizzled.
I tried again and hit. By that point I was on 20 Health. Stam to Health,
Heal Self III, Heal Self III, Heal Self III, Stam to Health, dead.

Zak did most of the damage. He hit me for 14 early on and then again for 18
later on, plus assorted bits and pieces in the middle. The rest of my team
died shortly afterwards, not really sure what happened because I wasn't
there. We did kill Arabica though :) We were going to kill Zak next but
didn't get that far.

Lesson: In retrospect, I think I should've used different buffs in this
fight. I think I should've cast Imp on my robe, Armor Self, Endurance Self,
Quickness Self, Sprint Self. Forget trying to imperil people - just try to
distract them. Have the rest of the team stabbing at Arabica and Zak whilst
I distract them running around. If their strategy is kill the mage, the
longer I can keep their attention, the more time we would have to finish
them off. Standing there healing I was never going to last for long,
running may have been better.

Alternatively I could've tried bolting several of the lower levels to take
them out. I took at least 30 miscellaneous damage from lower level chars
who must've then started on the rest of my team - a couple of acid bolts
would have removed them from the field.

Anyway, I had a great time again, and I think I may have got Matt hooked.
He was muttering about getting his own AC account and he hasn't even played
yet. Bwahaha ;-)
Sorry I haven't written commentary on the other matches... my paintbrush is
calling me, sigh!

See you all soon, Dhali I can't make it online tonight, I'll try and catch
up with you soon though.

Cheers,

Alice
Mhali