I haven't been chasing the pages this week. Whether that's because it's PvP week, or I just don't care for the Tharn style, I'm uncertain. I did pick up a couple for tickets, as I'd hit the cap again (too much cake).

The only venture into BG's was Wizwen, who needed Warhorn, and hadn't quite got it.

Unna went exploring Elsweyr on the PTS. She found all the wayshrines, and one of the skyshards, did a delve and checked out the gates to the adjacent zones. It connects to Reaper's March near Fort Sphinxmoth and Grahtwood near the Goronir Estate, but we haven't looked at the locations in live to compare.

I think the latter gate previously led directly between Grahtwood and Reaper's March, but now there's more in between. I should check the previous gate in Reaper's March to see if it's still there.

We also previewed the Grand Topal island, and swam all the way around it. There doesn't seem to be any way to access the volcano half, but the space is huge! I could put all my other properties on the beach. If there was a way to purchase for gold, we'd be on it.

That triggered off a desire to make some Argonian woven furnishings. Laurie knows a couple of Murkmire ones, but they need Hackwing Plumage, which can only be obtained by deconstructing Elder Argonian armour, and the few pieces she had didn't yield any. We did get some crocodile leather from the Dead-Water pieces, but that drops in the crates, too, and you don't use it for furnishings. Fortunately, the plans calling for the Hackwing Plumage only need one.

With no discount sales of Elsweyr in sight, I caved and bought it at full price. Most other chapters i was...apprehensive about, to say the least, but tbh this is one Chapter I'm kind of okay paying full price. Bring on the Cats.

I'm also not doing the Event until the last week

I am super excited for cat land!


My laptop just can't manage this game any more, so Jerric has been binging on cake for tickets and doing a few writs every day to stay "active." The crew did a couple of delves and I think one Cyrodiil scouting mission before deciding to wait for a new machine.

The PTS runs better for me, so maybe I'll fool around there for a bit.

HOLY CRAP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you have Master Merchant or Tamriel Trade Center add-ons installed; they use a whopping amount of resources. You can remove them and just Google Tamriel Trade Center for prices or you can link the item in chat and say "Looking for Price" (or LFP) in the chat box to get prices.

I've dropped down to just one character using Master Merchant; and that has helped the other characters move A LOT better. (just make sure the character with Master Merchant isn't one you want to play with, or it will be jerking the frame rate to the point it will make you have motion sickness. A bank mule would be best for it).

And if you don't absolutely need them, remove them completely; don't just turn them off in game. They use too many resources even just sitting.

Harvest Map also uses enormous resources. If you don't need it, take it out; but if you want it you can also set it to only show markers in your current location = that frees up your game a lot too.

"Idle Animations" add-on can eat some resources too. I've taken it off my main Player characters.

"Dressing Room" add-on is extremely bad on your game.

Also, in Settings you can change your graphics to medium or remove things like god-rays, grass, blooming, etc.

NVidia has a way you can set it to "Performance" rather than "Quality."

You can try cleaning your internet cookies; do a disk cleanup and defrag your hard drive; run an error check on your hard drive. (all that should be done monthly anyway as regular maintenance; but maybe it needs some extra help right now).

Try running a full system scan with your antivirus, and if it has a performance cleaner run a scan with it too.

If possible; put your laptop on an elevated rack with a grid surface like you would use to cool cakes on and put a fan nearby to blow under the laptop to keep it cooler = never let it sit on any type of rug or bedding; they overheat it and the static from them messes with laptops.

Lastly = right now the game is lagging due to so many people on for these events = the servers are overloaded. My game is so choppy right now that it is making me seasick; so like you I have just been logging on and doing writs and using this time to clean out my inventories.

It should ease up when the events end. (It will get bad again when Elsweyr drops; but only for the first week or so).

I need to review my Add-ons, too. I suspect that I can remove the libraries, as the add-ons are supplying their own copies, and not using the "common" ones at all.

I have the Harvest Map, which I was trying out to optimise the search for the Briarheart Rings for Taminwe, but she has enough now, and I can probably drop it again.

The Skyshards one I couldn't live without, but the surveys have become so familiar that I'm not sure I need them on the map any more. I've never added Lorebooks, as they show up often enough that I'm not hunting them.

Craft Store is still in use for tracking what research pieces I need. I may change to a different one just for writ simplification when the rest of the crew fills in their trait grids. But once I get Jewel crafting, I'll need it again.

I need to learn how to make to most of EHT. I'm using it mostly to have a home per character, instead of just for the whole account. /sethome and /home get a lot of use.

Personality Idles may go. If my character is idle, I really don't care what they do, and nothing would be fine. There are a few that it uses that get annoying, and they are used at inappropriate times, like while talking to the banker. Wizwen pulled out a torch and stuck in his face recently.

Have they started supplying their own libraries again? They used to, but suddenly last year they decided it was easier to post the libraries separately so several different add-ons could use the same one and not overload your add-on folder with numerous copies of the same library. It seems like just months ago that I had to download a bunch of libraries to make my add-ons work again.

I'm like you on the Skyshards one, it is probably my most necessary add-on.

Idle Animations = can't use it if you play a Tank; they start going into animations while you are taunting the bosses. I've taken it off all three of my Player characters; only my bank mules use it.

Taking out Personality Idles has revealed why only Floozie was spinning to face the camera in menus. PI stops that, and she was the only character not using one. Now they all annoy me.

Some redistribute the libraries because they depend on the latest versions. Others are less sensitive, and use the shared ones. I had to leave them in place.

I’m using the Minimum setting and only have a handful of add-ons. Trait Buddy, Master Recipe List, Map Pins, and Lazy Writ Crafter. Jerric has a fishing one, but it’s disabled for everyone else. They seem to have switched back to separate libraries.

Is next week the return of the Craftpocalypse Writnado? I’ll drag Jerric’s crew around the stations for that.

I want to have a new laptop by Elsweyr. I am so excited to meet all the cats!

Yup, next week is the 5th and final week of the anniversary event - May 2-9. Any / all dailies from previous weeks are fair game (writs, delves, etc) and I think the Empressario may offer styles from all four of the Companions.

Supposedly every style of the Five Companions will drop from any source, so it'll be the best time to catch up if you missed any. I just hope they reduce the drop of Prophet style pages from crafting. :T

I've noticed Büffy and ßuffy online recently. I was surprised to see new incarnations so soon before Necromancer class is introduced. One was a Warden, didn't catch the other. What gives?

If I had my way, I would name them all Buffy. Since each name must be discrete however, I've used all kinds of variations. Finally, I discovered alt codes and how they allow much more subtle variations of Buffy instead of having to give her a prefix or suffix of some sort. Name changes have resulted in three of them with alt code tiny variations to Buffy and a fairly recent mag warden was created after my discovery. So of the 7 Buffy's, only 3 remain with multiword names.

In summary, we have magplar, magsorc, stamsorc, magwarden, stamwarden, magNB, stamNB. All are ~CP1100 except the young magwarden. She moves among them changing 'classes' as readily as she changes hairstyles or outfits. We've no plans for any more Buffy's at the moment.

AHA! So that is why some of my characters spin and others don't! I hate that spinning!










Bold: Wait, you didn't want to name Acadian Buffy!!!


That sounds Awesome! But can you tell us how you did it in more detail in case any of us would like to do it? What is this "alt code" of which you speak? Lol.

If there's a character you want to type, that's not on your keyboard, then there's a sequence starting with Alt, and using the numeric pad, that you can use instead.

So Vicuña had to be typed with ALT+0241 and Büffy has ALT+0252. They didn't work with Skyrim chargen, but ESO is more forgiving. The "Character Map" utility on Windows will show you the codes.

I'm not sure what the character set permitted actually is. I don't think it includes Greek or Cyrillic characters.

Ghastley is right. You can get the codes as he said or easily google them. Once you know the desired code then you:
- activate your numbers lock
- hold down alt key while typing the code using the numbers lock portion of your keyboard
- release the alt key and your symbol will appear.

Thank you very much for that tip! I will put it to use immediately.

First day of inventory management hell, and two days worth of writs to sort through. Times like these I wonder why I don't just subscribe. I don't because I feel I don't play enough to justify it (as in I usually don't do much beyond daily crafting writs), but then again that on its own would make a LOT of use of the Crafting Bag.

I dunno. I got a few Tharn pieces and a Sai Sahan one. Maybe I'll get one of the 2 Wolfhunter motifs eventually before the event ends.

A friend of mine was in the same boat as you are = work keeps him too busy to spend much time on to make it worth the Plus membership even with the annual or semi-annual discounts. What he ended up doing was buying extra memberships during these sales when the base game is under 20 dollars; then creating Guilds with the extra members and filling them up with his own 10 accounts to get the Guild Banks. That gave him 500 extra slots per each Guild Bank (plus his character's personal bank) and he never had to pay again after he bought the accounts.

Of course, that doesn't help him when it comes to furnishing his houses; when he only has half the inventory allowance compared to how many the Plus memberships get. And he can only hoard 100 Transmute stones instead of 200. (and doesn't get the extra XP boost). Not to mention he is juggling like 10 accounts to get all that slottage,

But that said, it was a pretty slick idea. (and actually, I think he split the 10 accounts with his wife so they each only handle 5 accounts).

PTS had reset when I went over for an Elsweyr run, so I created Vicuña to make sure I could use the name. A similar name with "ga" in it doesn't get past the censor.

Of course I made her a necromancer to see what the class lines did, and started her off in the tutorial, rather than use a template character. They've improved the tutorial, so that it actually tells you how to fight, block, interrupt etc. But then you're dumped into a zone where there aren't many resource nodes, so equipping yourself is reliant on drops. I haven't yet checked if you can certify in crafting there, but she could deconstruct the unwanted drops anyway. Still didn't get enough back to make anything. Killed mostly Alits and skeletons, and so haven't got any leather scraps.

I probably won't have much time to play her further, as the evening sessions during the work week will get used up by the crafting/undaunted rounds for the event content. We nearly have all the style pages, but the extra motif chapters and furnishing plans are a draw, too. And doing all the writs is giving us more sealed writs to do. We're close to another table for the guildhall.

Crafting Hell's over, Time To Cosplay

Technically, Cadwell is the one Jo'zira should cosplay but he wasn't one of the 5 and only his pot hat is unique.

Nobody wanted to be Abnur?

And was anyone else disappointed that the Lyris outfit doesn't make you taller?

Yes! Buffy was very disappointed when she tried on her Lyris outfit and still only came up to an Altmer's waist!

I'm mostly disappointed you couldn't get Sai's beard or head thingie

But I guess you gotta keep them unique

OMG, is that Jo'zira? That must be a disguise then!

I went back to continue playing Vicuña on the PTS, and discovered that they'd reset again, so started her over.

She's now at level 12, and building up bow and 2H skills along with some necro ones, especially taking those passives as soon as they're available. I want to find out how the class performs using skills I already know, so it's easier to compare. We did crafting certification, but haven't enough materials to start doing writs. I was surprised not to be able to certify in Jewel Crafting in Elsweyr, but that is consistent with Summerset not adding in in base game areas. We did a trip to Alinor to get that, and came back.

That, of course, lets me know how quickly I can do the same if and when JC gets added to the base game.

I had the same thing = reset the necromancer template I'd made, so I had to make another. The first one I made was melting enemies left and right; and I built this one the same but it wasn't doing as well. I think they toned them down this week's patch (toned down from last week) just like they did with the Wardens just before they launched.

Have you noticed that the "Hide Helmet" feature is not working for some reason on the PTS since Elsweyr was patched in? I've put in two bug reports on it.

Also, I haven't tried any of the illegal necro skills yet; have you? What race and combat styles did you find worked best with them? I've only tried Magicka based High Elf mage so far. (both times).

Vicuña has her helmet hidden, but I can't remember where I did that. Probably in collections, but I'm unsure. It may be back like it original was when they added outfits: works one way, but not another.

Same as you with the illegal necro stuff. She really hasn't been around enough to try that yet.

That is where I found the "Hide Helmet" feature; but it didn't work any time I tried it on the PTS the past two weeks. (it was working before then when I got on the PTS).

Both of my characters on there the past two weeks has been walking around with the head of an alligator (Slimecraw). Yesterday I broke down and put her in an outfit just so I could stand looking at her head; but she still had to wear a hat and had no hair due to the hat. So I'm just really hoping that Elsweyr isn't going to break the "Hide Helmet" function.

The positive aspect is that it may mean they're trying to enable the generic "hide slot" feature for outfits at last. Since helmet is the odd man out, it figures that it would cause issues.

That would be Awesome if they put it back into the "Settings" again! I'll have to check!

Since raising Undaunted with just Bolgrul's daily delves was too slow, I started doing some pledges, and it's even slower. It took about half an hour in the queue for a DPS (ok. so Laurie only took three seconds as a tank) which meant that I had to stay on with the same character until it popped.

Five hours of just queuing to run the whole crew is going to be prohibitive. We'll go back to the dailies, which can start immediately you pick them up. On the other hand, we do want to go get some dungeon set pieces for some of the builds, so we'll just have to plan the weekends for those.

Well we didn't exactly go back to just Bolgrul. Since the tanks queue for only seconds, they're doing the normal dungeon pledges.

Laurie had a fun run through Crypt of Hearts II. We were fighting The Chamber Guardian, one of the mini-bosses, when he pushed her through the wall, and the two of us ended up fighting outside the dungeon. He died slowly, of course, and then I couldn't get her back in. We had to /stuck and use the portal to rejoin he others, who hadn't waited, and were getting killed at the next boss.

We did finish eventually, and now Laurie has a set of Ebon Armory if she wants to use it. We checked that it does do the whirly-ball thing, even with a costume, and put her Song of Lamae back on. We're still not very good at bar-swapping and using her whole range of skills, so the selfish set will work better for now. I should probably adjust her stats for some magicka and stamina, too, or review her other set (currently Green Pact).

Most of Buffy's variants have leveled undaunted almost exclusively via Bolgrul's daily delves. We find them simple, fast and fun. Sort of like horse training - just a daily chore for young characters, lol.

Bolgrul has 5 dailies from each alliance he chooses from. If you're <L50 he only gives you delves in your alliance. After L50, he includes the other 10.

And they get faster every time you do them. I'm having to slow down and make the extra kills that advance FG where applicable, rather than run past and finish the dungeon. Some characters just port back to Snugpod as soon as the boss dies, and some walk out so they can get some more FG points, and it's a chore remembering which is which.

I was surprised a couple of times recently, when a character found a new skyshard. After the 15 have come round a few times, there is still a chance that one of the ten hasn't been to that particular delve before. And I even had a "not been in that zone before" situation a couple of night back. So that made a short delve into a long circuit of finding all the wayshrines, and the above-ground skyshards, before doing Bolgrul's, and collecting the skyshard in that. By the unwritten law, the skyshard was not on the shortest path to the boss that the other characters knew so well.

Last night was my first with access to Summerset, so my whole crew of ten has done the trip to Shimmerene; ridden across to Alinor, finding the wayshrines on the way; certified in Jewel Crafting with Felarian; done their first JC writ, and then deconstructed some loot to get them to JC level 3.

Now we need to plan out who does what. Laurie needs to go as fast as she can, as the main crafter, so she'll research anything with a new trait (once she has an open slot) and the others will get samples from her. The exception to that will be Bo, who can make best use of the Instant All Research scrolls as soon as she has the maximum 10 concurrent traits to do. As the youngest, she also gets all the log-in reward riding lessons, to help her catch up.

Any advice on efficient JC levelling is appreciated.

No, it is still not working on new characters. Someone told me to bring her to an Outfit station and do it there and it should work from then on = haven't tried it yet.

I am LOVING this Chapter! I am so in love with the beautiful terrain and gorgeous realistic feeling dungeons in Elsweyr! They really look and feel like they were carved out of the hard desert clay! And the Khajiit everywhere; their personalities = it is Awesome! I am VERY prepared to totally immerse myself into the Khajiit culture here; really excited about this Chapter!!!

The first thing I did was bring Misa over to explore. She got: the "free" inn room first (3000 gold) just to have some way to get out of any bad situations she might get into. It is a really nice room, and just outside the door is a wayshrine = perfect.

Misa was going around getting all the Wayshrines and Skyshards when she came across a small group that was going around getting all the World Bosses; so she joined in and got them all completed. Then that group formed an even bigger group that was going around getting all three of the dragons; so = she joined in. They killed each of the three dragons at least once last night before she left the group.

I'd never killed or fought a dragon in Skyrim = (really didn't want to). So = Misa killed her first dragon ever in any game last night.

It took @ 50 people to bring one down, they are NOT like Skyrim dragons AT ALL where one person can kill them without dying. There were @ fifty of us at each dragon; and we all died numerous times in the process.

These dragons have some wicked combat weaponry; especially the fire dragon that has a reddish colored skin. All of them have powerful AoE's that can melt a player in seconds; and they don't stay taunted for long. (Misa isn't a Tank, but she did use her Fighters Guild Silver Leash; which causes a critical hit that acts as a taunt temporarily).

Anyway, I'm glad to have done it at least once, (and glad it was in this game, where the dragon really felt like a force that needed a full army to stop). VERY realistic battle, Awesome!



In going around with Misa and seeing all the Khajiit = I was really wanting to start a Khajiit to explore Elsweyr; it would have felt just perfect! The reason I didn't = really didn't know what kind of fighting style or Class I would want them to have. I'd always pictured a Khajiit being more of a stam-based character; and that they would make perfect NightBlades - but I already have 5 Nightblades; and REALLY don't want another one.

And I also wanted to try a Necromancer; but wanted her to be a magicka one. (so wanted a magicka based race). So last night I started a little Dark Elf Necro-girl = Nina Tessla. She looks like a darker and shorter version of Pia (my High Elf Templar).

Nina went through the Elsweyr tutorial; (which was Awesome!) then the Coldharbour tutorial. Then I got her started in Fighters Guild; Mages Guild; and Undaunted just to get those skill lines opened up and started. She got to do one Dolmen; but other than that she just did a lot of exploring to get Wayshrines on her map and pick up Skyshards.

So far she just has one skill from the Necro line; and one from the Destro staff. The rest of her skill points have all gone into passives. (Class, armor, weapon, racial, etc).

(That is kind of how I like to roll a new character = give them no more than two skills to defend themselves; and round out their passives thoroughly first).


Anyway; I was just getting her certified for all the crafting when her game suddenly started crashing every few minutes to the character screen = which wouldn't have been bad except that it kept wiping out everything she had done back to the point where she had reached level 8 (meaning she had to repeatedly do those 6 certification quests). The third time it happened I gave up and logged out.



Troubles with the game:

Add-ons:

Yesterday morning when Elsweyr first dropped and I went over there with Misa, everything was working perfectly = no problems at all. I had updated my add-ons before logging in the first time; and everything just worked fine.

But sometime yesterday afternoon they ran a tiny patch to repair something (it didn't require downtime that I know of) and when I got back into the game the add-ons suddenly weren't working anymore.

The Skyshard add-on worked fine for Misa in Elsweyr yesterday morning; but last night when the Necro-girl got there; the skyshards in Elsweyr weren't showing at all. (however, they DID show in the other provinces for her).

Harvest Map suddenly needs 11 new libraries; several others need new libraries (just not that many).


Craglorn:


After that afternoon patch = no one who had a character in Craglorn could log them on. You could travel to Craglorn; just couldn't log on a character who was left there.


Logging on issues:


Several people in several different parts of the country couldn't log in yesterday evening = although at least one of them had all their characters in Craglorn, so it could have been that same issue above causing it.



Anyway; despite these issues I am still in love with this Chapter. I don't know how much I will love the Necro Class; but so far Nina is a lot of fun!

OH! And did you notice that we can share Skyshards among our characters now? (for a fee, of course).

Thanks for your insights, mALX! Buffy will wait at least a couple weeks for some of the novelty to wear off before she heads over there.

Dragons: Ok so I've only done Elsweyr on PTS, and didn't buy the chapter. I ran a new character (twice, because they reset just after I first created her) through the tutorial, and on into the new zone quest line. At level 12, it had her take on a dragon solo. Now I don't know if that was just because PTS has a much lower population, and you'd normally have a lot of others fighting with you, but for my game, she was alone. The dragon could one-shot her behind a rock.

I gave up. The next time I went back to PTS, they'd re-copied from live and Vicuña didn't exist.

Re the helmet, I think I did it at an outfit station.

Crafting Certification: I looked for Jewel Crafting certification in Rimmen and it wasn't available. It looks like JC is part of the Summerset DLC, and has not been brought down to the base game. But Vicuña did get her others there without any issues.

The skyshards are only available as whole-zone bundles, and all of my characters have one or two from each zone, as they grab the above-ground ones when they first go there. That makes the bought ones more expensive per new shard, as they'd be getting ones they already found. It would make sense for a new character like your Nina who just hasn't been to most zones at all. And any new Necromancer is going to be thinking the same.

On that line, the riding lessons in this month's log-in rewards are obviously timed to help a new Necro character, and encourage you to create one. I'll be using all mine to let Bo catch up to the others. Bo lives in Craglorn, at the Domus Phrasticus, but she usually gets left at Sleek Creek, so she can reach a stable quickly. I would switch that to Snugpod, which is even closer, except that she frequently needs the crafting stations, too. So we didn't notice any Craglorn log-in issues.

Hide Helmet: My new guy is using the Collectible that's found under hats. It works. (The whole crew has that hot-keyed so they can take off their helmet/hood quickly in town.)

Someone else said to use the Outfit Station too; so I took her to the Outfit Station at the old Hunding House (since she was skyshard hunting there) = and on that Outfit Station there wasn't any options to Hide Helmet anymore!!!

Anyway, while standing there at the Outfit Station, I did try (again) to hide her helmet by going through the Collections menu; and this time it worked. I am sure the problem had to do with new characters; and maybe it had to do with her being in Elsweyr when she tried it all the previous times. Or maybe they fixed it! But anyway = I'm VERY happy to say that she is now helmet-less! Woo Hoo!!!





Oh, and the Craglorn problem was fixed = I was able to log those 5 characters of mine in today; and at least one of the other people I know personally (in IA) that had the problem logged in today while I was online. The other (in TX) hasn't tried to log in yet; so don't know about his game (but sure it is fixed now).








Grinding up (deconstructing) jewelry that is intricate; improved; higher level than the character; or made by someone else is the quickest and fastest way to get it up to 50. (I don't raise my character's SKILL level in any crafting until they reach level 50 in that skill because it makes everything they grind up equal to or over their current level = more XP points for deconstructing items over your character's level/skill level then you would deconstructing anything beneath that level - and can't get any lower than zero).

We're currently using all the jewels we have for research of the basic three traits, and can only afford to deconstruct pieces with no trait, or the Intricate ones that all get passed to Laurie, as chief crafter. When everyone has those three on both items, we'll grind up what's left over (and all the drops thereafter).

We also need to find time to explore the zone, and do some quests!

Khajiit really, REALLY likes the new start screen music.

I have all my crew through the first quest of the Psijic line, so they can see the Portals. We havn't got enough pulverized Aurbic Amber to make a single unit yet. It will come. We did get an Exemplary Necklace, though.

So now we're doing a lot of dolmens, as that increases Fighters Guild, (and a lot of them need it for Dawnbreaker), as well as giving a guaranteed jewel to deconstruct. Laurie has just reached Silver (level 27) and is hoping we have enough of it to do her first writ. We traded the Exemplary Infused with the Guild Bank for a similar Harmony, and she's got that in research. Once we can make our own research pieces for the other traits, she'll do the ones that Bo and Blossom learned.

Plus the daily Bolgrul all round. Nobody's reached level 10 yet, and only Unna's past 7. That's from starting late, and not realising that it was a time grind. The tanks could do the pledges, too, if we have time for them. Queues are too long otherwise.

We're looking at what we want to do before getting Elsweyr. There are a lot of side-quests we haven't done on Summerset, and so Unna may do enough to buy the Alinor Townhouse for gold. I keep feeling there should be more to do. Morrowind had Battlegrounds and Warden as well as the zone, and Jewel Crafting doesn't match up to those two, so I was expecting more from the zone itself. Some of that may come from doing the PTS testing, which made it seem less 'new" when I got it on live. So that makes me worry about Elsweyr being the same.

Laurie is also adding furnishings to the homes as we find plans that suit. Taking it slow means not running out of the furnishing-only materials. However, we're concerned that some of the plans are rare enough that we may have to buy them.

ETA: Psijic Portal coughed up a whole Aurbic Amber for us, so Bo made Laurie a ring to research.

Unna spent a lot of time on Summerset this weekend. She got the fan from the Vaults of Moawita quest, and did enough side-quests along the way to qualify for buying the Alinor Townhouse for gold. So we did that, too, but without any Alinor furnishing plans, it's a bit totally empty. Emptier than when we got it, as I removed a barrel on the top floor that didn't fit my plans for that area.

In the process of all that, she cleared out one of the Public Dungeons - Karnwasten - and got some more achievements from it. There were Skyshards involved, so she has a surplus of skill points at the present.

Jewel crafting is grinding along, and Laurie's reached level 37 and has her 10th research in progress. Everyone has done the basic six (Healthy/Arcane/Robust on both ring and necklace), and Bo and Blossom researched Infused while Laurie did Protective. Then they swapped (as much as the materials allowed). Prices on the Exemplary pieces don't look prohibitive, even after buying a house, so we may get the rest from guild stores.

The youngest Buffy just bumped up to L50/CP810 yesterday. I put her in big girl gear and tried her out vs some WBs without the baby battle leveling. I'm very pleased with her damage, satisfied with her sustain but not thrilled with her survivability so adjusted her monster gear for a shot of health and a shot of dual resists and am reasonably pleased with the results.

She is a magwarden. There is another version of Buffy who is a bow/bow stamwarden. I must say I'm rather pleased with both of them. Their buff up sequence is a bit tedious but they do well and I like the bear. Beyond that, I'm please that they both feel pretty similar to each other and moving from one to the other is easy and natural.

So, in order of how much she likes them and their overall capability, Buffy can go out as a:
Magplar healer
Magsorc dps
Stamsorc bow/bow dps
Stamward bow/bow dps
Magward dps
Magblade dps
Stamblade bow/bow dps

She's pleased with all but the Nightblades. She gave them a good fair shot and has concluded she just doesn't care for the class. She's glad she gave them a try though.

Acadian exists as a DK tank and though he is pretty capable at what he does, his value has been primarily to let Buffy see what it is like as a tank and, therefore, how to better support tanks as a healer.

Ooh, does this mean we can all come visit you and turn into monkeys?

The Augur of the Obscure now lives on the bar at Unna's home - Autumn's Gate. Since we just got the fan, I'm still deciding where it should live. That will probably be in the courtyard at Hunding's, where there's room to scamper, although the grounds of Mathiisen Manor would also work. It could be both, of course.

ETA: It's now sitting on a barrel by the keg at Hunding's (which is my default residence). Since Laurie hasn't done much furnishing there yet, there's plenty of space. She still lives at Twin Arches, so she's in no hurry to clutter up the Palatial Hall.

We got another whole Aurbic Amber from a Psijic Portal - and we still don't have enough pulverised to make one. So Bo made a necklace with it, and Blossom got to research it.

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to acquire the other traits. Buy an Exemplary, buy a pewter one someone else made, or try to farm one. Then after the first, the trait materials are as hard to get as the jewels, so do I purchase/farm on, or buy the trait mats and make them? The answers may be different for each trait, as I suspect we'll farm for Harmony, sending the tanks on Undaunted pledges.

I'm also starting to reconsider the whole project. Laurie would like to master the craft, but we're not sure if the traits are worth learning for actual use. Once she's able to improve jewels, and make set pieces, the usefulness of the skill is complete. She's researching her 11th trait of the 18 right now, with no more in the pipeline. We're looking at what sets that allows her to make jewels for, and whether more traits are needed just for the count.

---

I fired up the PTS and was surprised to find I still had Elsweyr access, even though I haven't bought the upgrade yet. Since it provided me another character slot, I created a female Khajiit necro (Gal Ore) and took her to Kenarthi's Roost for some easy quests and skyshards to level up a bit. She's researched all the alchemy ingredients, as the craft bag gives her a leg-up there.

I have her at level 7, wearing only boots and bracers, and wielding a bow. She's not yet had to avoid any skill choices that would be criminal, but that's imminent. We'd probably pass those up, and take weapon line skills instead. I'm tempted to give her CP instead of armour for a while, and see how she does. Since a character grows out of their equipment so fast, she may do better without any, if she gets a lot of resistance instead.

And because it's on PTS, she can be a complete failure, too.

Dropped in to check on Hrolf's crafting research. He has run through all the exemplars Trey created for him. Dropped 3 sealed writs into the Guild Bank where I hope they will be helpful- 2 Woodworking and 1 Clothier.