Hi everybody,

Little background so you know where I stand: I played dragonrealms for 13 years (96-09). Wonderful game, but my friends have left and as much as I love the learning/experience method, I am bored of it now. During that time I would spend a couple of weeks at a time playing around in gemstone. I've tried most classes like warrior, bard, rogue, sorcerer, wizard, ranger, and empath all into the teens over all of those years. Well my favorite character by far is my empath and he's very close to titling (I'm SO excited about that!).

So here's my problem. I live in Icemule. I pretty much don't know any other part of the game. I've done a few characters to about level 8 or 10 in the Landing, but I always move them to Icemule because it's the place I know. I have never been anywhere else in this part of Elanthia. I'm about 10k exp from level 19 and I'm finding that most of my bounties are taking me into the urchin, grahnk, worm, and spider area. That's not a good place for me because spiders and worms don't have bones. Or I get a bounty for skins which are apparently beyond my ability. If I get a gem bounty I drop it immediately. I don't know where to find gems, and even though the wiki says you get a bonus to finding that gem I spent DAYS looking for a particular gem hunting mobs that I know drop gems and didn't see a single one.

I don't really know this game at all. I don't know if there are other areas I should be looking at in Icemule. I don't know if I'd be better off somewhere else in the world? Also, please keep in mind when you share advice. I'm effectively very new to this game and I know very little about it other than basic mechanics. I do use Lich (although probably not very well) for go2 and narost.

Advice?

First welcome to GS. Part of my answer will depend on your time of day. The best way to meet people and find those willing to help is Town Central and or try the amulet network. Sadly as mentioned both are time of day dependent. You can always come ask us mentors for advice by ringing the doorbell at Silverwood Manor (type dir silver inside the town for directions).

As for your question have you tried arcane blast? https://gswiki.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Arcane_Blast

it may help you get over the hump of a few hunting areas early on...maybe not. I admit i have not used a pure caster since that spell came out so someone else may chime in.

Pup's player

Thank you for the replies so far, I've found them to be helpful.

One thing I'm wondering is what areas do empaths like around titling levels? Is Icemule worth staying in? I have a bounty now to kill 26 arachnids. That will take me a couple hours because with 89 total mana at level 18 I kill about 2-3 with 111 each time I go down there. It just doesn't feel very efficient or fun. Most of my bounties take me to this area, and most of them I just have to drop because worms aren't affected by bone shatter, empathic assault isn't great against them, and fire spirit doesn't do much damage either. I guess I could try wither. Grahnks and urchins aren't too bad, except for the swarms. I'd almost rather take my chances with wights.

First of all, head over to the empath folder and ask there as well for advice. The specialists there may be more precise.

The Landing has the larger population; you may find more folks to interact with there and the trip is fairly fast. Note: get an escort or travel guide, since the frost giants/titans you will encounter en route are level 36-39.

To get more detailed responses, we'd have to see your stats/skills. For now, I am assuming that you are 2x in spell aiming and have decent MIU skill, and have by this time dropped weapon use. As mentioned, consider that you are similar to a young wizard, in that using wands to attack will save mana and extend your hunting time. Silver/iron wands are fairly useless except to finish off nearly dead foes, and aqua should not be used vs cold creatures, but gold, coral and crystal should do well (you will need a lot of MIU to activate crystal/blue wands reliably, however.) Note that blue wands, casting a cold spell, are somewhat unreliable vs cold using creatures. They aren't totally useless, though, since they sometimes cast an ice lump that does impact damage. You can also ask a friendly wizard to embed spells in blank wands/rods for you. 904 (minor acid) is pretty strong and relatively easy to activate since it's a low level spell. You could also experiment with sorcerer wands. You will have a lower CS using these than with your own innate CS based spells, but you can still probably score some hits.

Ok, I've read this advice already about using wands. I'm fully doubled in spell aiming, and fully singled MIU at level 18. I love the idea of using wands with minor acid, but how do I go about asking someone to do that for me. Also, how much should I tip for such a service?

As to using arcane blast, I use it as a finisher. I don't know if it's intended to be used at level 18 much, but mobs have a significantly higher TD against it (20ish points from my recall) compared to my empath spells. In the bolt form, it doesn't do as much damage and forcing me into a 5 second RT in offensive as a caster would make using arcane blast painfully slow. I'd rather go back to a node and wait out mana regen than use arcane blast in the bolt form honestly.

I don't feel like I'm having a mana issue. It's that my spells don't seem to work against urchins, worms, grahnks, and arachnids on thurfel's island. But that's where about 90% of my bounties are taking me right now. Just wondering if this is the result of "growing up", or if I'd be better off somewhere else. Maybe this is a better question in the empath folder since it's kinda empath spells-effective-specific.

>> It doesn't cost a wizard anything to embed a wand except mana, so if you supply the imbeddible, they will probably do it gratis. Likewise they can dupe fresh wands that you find on critters, doubling your wand supply.

If you are in Icemule just ask Faulkil to do it when you see him. He is generally at White Haven's service night every Wednesday evening from 9pm - 10pm EST and would be happy to do that for you then. If Faulkil isn't there then one of the other White Haven wizards should be and can do that for you as well.

-- Robert

Bazzelwyn says, "Maul maul maul maul maul maul maul."
Bazzelwyn says, "The answer is maul."

And eat your loaf of manna bread.