User:130.58

Formerly known as anonymous user 130.58.235.187.

Real Life
I am a Computer Science major with an interest in robotics and distributed systems. My current research and thesis topic is network RAM for clusters. I'm also interested in security, but haven't really had a chance to study it.

I play Guild Wars fairly obsessively whenever I can, which, during the academic year, means that I end up playing sporadically, at best. While I like PVP and dabble in it, I'm mostly interested in exploring the world and creating the most stylish characters.

My primary hobby, however, (sorry, Guild Wars) is playing D&D with my friends. I've GMed several Eberron campaigns over the last few years, though I'm thinking of moving to using the Iron Heroes ruleset with a homebrew world.

Guild
The Seven Seas Socialist Party is a tiny guild created by a group of friends at Swarthmore College.

Generally, we've focused on exploration and farming so far, with rather disorganized individual forays into the world of PVP. Our dream is to one day play a bunch of Guild Battles, but membership makes this impossible without henchmen, so we're trying to get good in the 4-man arenas first.

Our other dream is to do generally piratical things, such as dancing jigs, saying "Yarrr!" a lot, keel hauling Charr, and doing our "Pirates Rock!" musical number in towns. We are much further along on this one.

Unfortunately, most of the folks I play with have gone off to play WoW, at least until Factions is released. This makes me a rather lonely GW player, at the moment... not that I have time to play Guild Wars at the moment, anyway.

Characters
In order of creation...



Akasha The Shadow /
History: ''Akasha has had many forms since I first created her for the public alpha preview, where she explored the world a lot and managed to scrape together enough materials to make herself some fancy boots, then spent the last hour of the game PVPing, where Akasha, two Rangers, and a Warrior racked up 37 consecutive victories in the random arena (I played a healer with lots of Soul Reaping). I did the same thing during the beta previews, pretty much. When the game was actually released, I focused on Blood Magic with some secondary healing. I soon got tired of just manipulating hit point totals, however, and, thus, Akasha was reborn as a Necromancer/Mesmer. I tended to use Illusion Magic heavily through most of the game, but really fell in love with Curses and Inspiration as I went through the campaign.''

Akasha specializes in Curses, using them for both direct damage and weakening the enemy. Pretty much all of my PVE builds use Spiteful Spirit (even my MM build), but I tend to prefer Feast of Corruption in PVP. Akasha pretty much always has high Soul Reaping and Inspiration Magic for energy management.

Akasha's primary weapon is a Defensive Wicked Staff of Fortitude, dyed a beautiful shade of silver. Together with her Necrotic Tunic, this gives her 15 more armor than most Necromancers, particularly against elemental attacks. Fanatic's Gloves and Bonelace Leggings provide additional defense against archers, and Bloodstained Boots assist her in creating minions and wells. I dyed the set using blue for the extremeties and silver/blue for the main body, and am quite proud of how carefully chosen peices from different armor sets ultimately ended up looking much better - not to mention working better, too! - than any full set of armor in the game.

* See my common builds for Akasha.



Amelyssan The Shade / (/)
Amelyssan is my warrior. She originally used Mark of Pain for damage and Parasitic Bond for healing, but I've since switched to mostly running a pure warrior with Plague Touch, since so many Tactics skills are just too great to pass up (I'm rather infatuated with "Victory is Mine!" at the moment). She still uses Virulence or Life Transfer in PVP sometimes, however.

I'm currently a bit disappointed with the armor sets available for warriors, which either look bad or have subpar stats; getting Amelyssan some nice shiny new armor will be one of my first goals in Factions.

Amelyssan's current weaponry includes:
 * A Zealous Longsword complements my playstyle rather nicely, especially if the build relies on having a spell as my elite or using a lot of spammable attacks with Warrior's Endurance. I'm also rather fond of the look of collector swords (though Factions swords have me drooling right now).
 * A Sundering Longsword, which she has had since Lion's Arch. Mostly just used for situations when I don't want the energy degeneration from Zealous.
 * A Crimson Carapace Shield (of the Lord Dorn variety, of course). These things are wonderful and look quite nice if you're handy with dye.
 * My Thorgall's Shield is used strictly for builds that use Strength but not Tactics. (I generally dislike greens, because you can't really dye them or modify them.)
 * A Shocking Storm Bow, selected because it looks really great, is my preferred method of pulling monsters, since it makes for fairly good aggro control and can be used from long range. (Big, glowing bows are best because they naturally remind you to switch back to your real weapons when it's time to fight: it's too easy to forget to do that and end up plinking away at the enemy for only 2-3 damage a hit sometimes.)

* See my common builds for Amelyssan.



Aeryss The Serpent /
I primarily use Barrage and Judge's Insight with Aeryss, though I often run trapping builds with her as well. I created Aeryss mainly because I like the feeling of power one gets from having a very long-range bow, wanted a second character who could lay down a perpetual storm of area-effect damage, and wanted to blow 100k on some really fancy armor (that's her, looking awesome, on the armor page).

My standard Aeryss skillbar has Barrage, Favorable Winds, and Judge's Insight for damage, Distracting Shot for interruption, and Throw Dirt and Whirling Defense for self-defense. The seventh slot is generally taken up by Purge Conditions or a low-cost offensive spell like Scourge Healing. Despite my love affair with Vengeance, Rebirth is my standard res. When playing alone or in small groups, I often redistribute Aeryss' attribute points into Healing Prayer and pick up Vigorous Spirit and Live Vicariously for self-healing.

One of my favorite things about being an archer is collecting bows for multiple situations. Since she's all about range, all of Aeryss' bows are flatbows. Currently in her possession are:
 * A Zealous Ascalon Bow, her primary bow, works beautifully with Barrage: I actually gain energy with each attack, which is quite useful since Judge's Insight requires more of it than something like Conjure Flames.
 * A Fiery Ascalon Bow, from when I tried Ranger/Elementalist briefly and found that I didn't like it, is Aeryss's typical single-target bow. It's fairly unimpressive but useful, particularly fot getting a bit more damage in against Warriors.
 * Drago's Vampiric Flat Bow is also wonderful with Barrage, though seldom used unless Aeryss is near death. Generally, the energy gained from the Zealous bow is much better than the health gained from the Vampiric bow, especially if you already have Vigorous Spirit or Live Vicariously to heal you for more than 100 hp on each attack.
 * A Smiting Staff is very nice to have around for dedicated trapping. Since I doubt Aeryss will ever be a truly dedicated smiter, the choice of type is mainly just for looks.

There's almost nothing more ego-inflating or gratifying than seeing a ranger Barrage a horde of undead and do over 200 points of damage per arrow.

* See my common builds for Aeryss.

PVP character /
The name varies, but is often comical. I tend to make short, ugly-looking people and name them Popeye (my girlfriend has claimed all one of the good silly PVP names we've come up with for herself, despite the fact that she seldom plays). Generally, this character is male, like me in real life. The only true constant here, however, is his stylish pirate cape.

Planned Factions characters /, /
I want a primary monk, so I'm going to make a Mo/Rt or a Mo/E to unlock some skills for a profession I haven't much yet played yet. I'll probably switch my secondary to Mesmer (for energy and fun) once I complete the game. I really like Smiting Prayers. Protection also intrigues me, but I've sucked at it royally every time I've tried it.

My other character is probably going to be an Assassin/Elementalist (the goal here being to unlock all the skills in the game with at least one character): there's some interesting potential with skills like Burning Speed here, I think. Or I might run A/W, since I have a nice idea for an axe build. The temptation to just get an Oni Blade (Hmm... the one I found looked different from the picture on the page) and go Swords is quite high, however.

Things in this namespace:
 * builds
 * sandbox (feel free to play in it)
 * sig