Rolling hills and upper-class twits

I feel like I should apologize for the last two posts. It's only now that I realize how utterly boring Holtburg was. Maybe it's the repetition. During both of my previous ventures to Dereth, I started characters in Holtburg, so maybe I'm tired of the content there. Or maybe it's the fact that the dungeon design, while competent, was so bland and unremarkable. I didn't realize this until I was able to contrast the experience with Lytelthorpe which, though less developed and less challenging, was quite a bit more inspired.

The definitive feature of Lytelthorpe is a castle. I forget the lore, but I believe this is an actual lord's castle, rather than a fortress. The lord himself, Aleval by name, seems to have fallen on hard times. He's working for the Explorer's Society to make ends meet, and I find him in the keep, decked out in that ridiculous green outfit of theirs. I must say, the view from his room is quite impressive:

In fact Lytelthorpe is, in general, very scenic. The rolling hills outside town have enough trees to look alive, but not enough to get in the way of good screenshots. (Note the tiny bunker in the background of this shot. Foreshadowing!)

The outposts are east and west. I go east first, and meet up with a guy named Ercel, an amatuer entomologist who wants me to do the same thing I did for that guy back in Nanto: fetch his lost book.

You know, I'm aware that inspiration strikes in odd places, but I think it would be a lot easier for the writers of Dereth if they would learn to use desks. Like the one over there by Ercel's bed, maybe?

Following his directions, I find the dungeon, which is apparently some abandoned Empyrean temple complex. It's also very, very green, a nice contrast to the brownish dungeons around Holtburg.

In terms of action, it's pretty much drudge city, with the occasional shreth or wasp thrown in. Nothing serious. With that in mind, I say phooey to Ercel's breadcrumb trail and explore the place myself. This turns out to be a good move, as I find several worthwhile chests off the beaten path. Unfortunately, I also find something I'd rather not see:

Yes, that is an altar with human remains on it, and yes that drudge was standing behind it when I walked in, facing some other drudges on the opposite side. I think I just bashed my way through an evil drudge cult.

In any case, I find Ercel's book in a storage area deep in the dungeon. The place isn't too confusing; Even ignoring the path entirely, I'm still able to keep properly oriented. The book babbles some inane nonsense about Pynthos Wasp wings and seems like generally dull reading. So, I bring it back to Ercel and... hey, wait a minute...

That is not the same guy that gave me the quest. WTF? Did he, like, put on a wig and fake beard after I left to screw with me? Step out for a smoke and leave Biff the Understudy in his place? Get abducted by Virindi and replaced by a robotic duplicate with bad hair?

Well, whatever it is, I'm done here and have no patience for this X-Files nonsense, so it's off to the west outpost. The quest here is to retrieve a shirt with sentimental value from a monster-infested ruin. I follow a line of apple trees to get there, then a line of candles through the ruin itself. Despite the fact that it's currently nighttime, the apple trees are not hard to spot:

Y'know, this is vaguely insulting. Okay, yes, I get pissed when an NPC gives me directions and they don't get me to the destination. But still, first quest: line of statues, then line of stones. Second quest: bleedingly-obvious line of apple trees, then line of candles. I don't need to be led by the hand, people.

As soon as I walk into the dungeon, I hear a huge clump of monster-spawning sounds, which worries me. My suspicion is soon confirmed: shreth dungeon in breeding season.

Fortunately these are just Gnawer Shreth, the grown versions of which have been newbie food since release. No big deal. I try to go off the beaten path, like before, but this dungeon is a lot more twisty, so I eventually find my way back to the candle trail and stick to it.

This quest, when you think about it, is a retread of the Holtburg Redoubt: abandoned underground settlement overrun by monsters, adventurers sent inside to recover left-behind objects. The difference is, while the redoubt looks like a place that was lived in, this dungeon looks like a generic cave. Or at least it does until I get down to the lower level. Then it proves to be a much bigger and fancier version of the redoubt, apparently built to hold many more people. Highlights include the spacious dormatories with working fireplaces:

Fully-stocked kitchen:

And private bedrooms, presumably for important officials:

Honestly, I like the redoubt better. That dungeon gives you an impression of people doing their best to get by in dangerous times. By contrast, this is rather cozy, which clashes with the "fight for survival" theme running through the backstory. And by the way, about the shirt which I'm here to find:

LIES AND SLANDER! That shirt is very clearly blue!

In addition to the experience reward, both Beltslora and Ercel gave me recommendation letters to take to Lord Aleval. From him I get the third quest: fetch him a drink. Not just any drink, mind you. He wants a rare spirit found only in a nearby Empyrean distillery. At this point I finally put it all together: Luxurious disaster shelter + Beautiful scenic surroundings + Big castle ruled by lord who pays adventurers to  fetch him obscure alcohols = Lytelthorpe is the gated community of Dereth. I've been running errands for a bunch of upper class twits.

But hey, exp is exp. Aleval doesn't have the directions (although now that I think of it, I could probably have picked it up at the local tavern), but fortunately I spotted the place earlier when looking for scenery shots. (Foreshadowing payoff!) I step inside and find one of the best representations of a natural cavern I've seen yet in Dereth.

Not too far inside the scenery changes to something that really does resemble a brewery, complete with industrial sounds from the big vats.

The quest itself is unremarkable. Stroll through the scenery along a mostly-linear path, beating up low-level drudges and shreths, negligible threats at this level. In an interesting twist, it tries to fake you out. You find the Distillery Nectar about halfway through, but that's not the end: you also need to find the Distillery Ambrosia, deeper inside. Most players won't be fooled, since you haven't yet used the key Aleval gave you by the time you find the nectar. Finding both with little trouble, I head back to Aleval for my reward:

What a cheapskate. I thought you were supposed to be rich, dude? But, on the other hand, the loot I've picked up in this town, added to the rest of my stash, is enough to get me an MMD.

Lytelthorpe was a pretty interesting town. The hand-holding on the outpost quests is annoying, but someone clearly put effort into the aesthetic design, and it pays off. Next up: Rithwic!

A man's got to know his limitations.

The night turned out to be harder than I expected, and I'm beginning to question if the Finesse template is viable. The drudge hideout was not so bad, being mainly a mix of weak Drudge Robbers and slightly stronger slaves and servants. My goal was three stolen bags of grain and the head of the drudge leader. You can see one of the bags in the background here:

Some weird mojo is working on those bags: They're almost half as tall as a human being, but weigh only 10 burden units. Not that I'm complaining. With my strength this low, I can't exactly handle heavy quest items. In any case, the dungeon is fairly unremarkable. A brief, mostly-linear crawl ending with a fight against a renamed Drudge Slave:

There were also a few chests with higher-tier loot. I'm starting to get a little annoyed by this. Newbie dungeons seem to enjoy taunting me with badass-looking gear that requires 100 points more Arcane Lore than I could possibly have at this point. At least it's worth good money. Adding insult to injury, Alfrin's reaction to my turning in his much-needed seeds is distinctly bored. But, hey, exp is exp, so I boost my Strength some more and set out for my next objective: Holtburg's Lost Light Key. Like in Yaraq, the dungeon is not easy to find since the Barkeep no longer sells the rumor. But I remember that the dungeon is somewhere in the muddy area along the river. I get a rather good scenery shot along the way:

Just over my shoulder you can see a puff of light blue that I though was a landmark for the dungeon. In fact, it's a woodsman selling house decorations, but the dungeon is within sight of his little shop. Inside it appears to at first be another brown drudge dungeon, but after a few rooms things get interesting:

Armoredillos. Worse: just like the shreth from last time, they're breeding. I kill the first batch of three, but take significant damage doing so. Having learned my lesson from last time, I crack open my Lugian gems before moving on. The dungeon is well-decorated, with lots of bookshelves and tables, (I think the lore has it being an Empyrean library,) but the layout is a real pain. Large rooms are connected by tunnels that twist and branch confusingly. Brown drudges are everywhere, which is good for me because it means good exp and Gold Letters. Killing one, I'm surprised to hear a low, deep gong sound. I found a rare!

Not bad. I put it in my backpack, leaving the decision of whether to keep it for myself or sell it in the trade channel for later.

Deeper in the dungeon, the drudges thin out in favor of more substantial enemies. A Limestone Golem proves a poor match for my daggers, thanks to the closed door between us. The Jade Gromnies are a bigger problem, but fortunately my Lugian gems keep me relatively safe. Behind a locked door I find a tunnel leading down, with a warning that I decide to heed for now:

This is the point at which the limitations of this template start to really bug me. Quite aside from the fact that I can carry so little loot, my weapons are also nowhere near as strong. You'll remember that when playing Elderwulf, I noted that the shield meant taking more damage, since without the offhand weapon I couldn't kill enemies as fast. Kalixia dual wields, but Finesse is much weaker than Heavy, so the same principle applies. There is, however, a compensating factor in the form of Multi-strike. I find a dagger with this property in the dungeon, and I'm somewhat surprised when it double-strikes at minimum power. I was under the impression that this only happened at near full power. Of course, Heavy weapons have multi-strike too, so... I should probably post on the forums to get some confirmation about this.

Despite guzzling a lot more potions than I'd like, I eventually manage to find the key. I didn't get a screen, but I think it was on a Swamp Rat. However, I get a feeling that there's more to this dungeon, so after /lifestoning to sell loot and restock on supplies, I head back in. I nearly get killed on the second run, because my Lugian gem buffs expired. Being an idiot, I didn't notice this until I had chugged 2/3rds of my potion stash. I thought I was just having bad rolls. But I manage to clear pretty much everything but the off-limits area.

The third run takes me down into said area, and I'm somewhat disappointed to find that it contains only low-level Undead.

Granted, Undead have War Magic, but they also fall pretty quickly to even Kalixia's less-than-optimal offense. It's nowhere near as challenging as the gromnies and armoredillos I had to fight to get to this point. On the plus side, there are a lot of sarcophagi down here, which would be good... if I could actually carry the loot.

But, I clear the area successfully, and declare the dungeon itself done. Before logging for the night, I take a side-trip to Shoushi to turn in a Armoredillo Spine I picked up:

Uh... 60 Speed? Really? Needless to say, I toss this to the provisioner for a few extra pyreals.

Overall, a less-then-steller day. While I did find a Rare and a bunch of Gold Letters, I was greatly disappointed in Kalixia's performance. I'll spend a few more days on her, but I don't think the possibility of greater power at high levels is worth putting up with this much tedium. I'm a "play for today" kind of person, you see.

Oh yeah, this game is multiplayer...

Al-Arqas was supposed to be next on the list, but, tired of playing with Elderwulf, I decided to skip ahead to my next character. Kalixia, the Dual-Wielding Finesse fighter, portalled into Holtburg and was immediately assailed with intense lag. I was suddenly reminded that, oh yeah, other people play this game.

Some of those white dots on the radar are actually buffbots, but still and all it was encouraging to know Dereth is not as empty as the critics say. Holtburg was always Dereth's most popular town, probably due to it being first on the list of potential starter towns in the early days. It's also pretty well laid out:

Holtburg sits on the side of a hill, with an upper level and a lower one. The basic services: archmage, weaponsmith and jeweler, and healer, are all down on the lower level, along with a cow for tipping purposes. (Surprisingly useful, but too boring and grindy for me.) Up on the hill is the tavern with all the newbie quests, the lifestone, and the traditional hang-out spot for buffbots and social types. There's also the Pathwarden, whom I get my armor from after the usual haze-the-newbie runaround. Before portalling in, I ran the training academy to get used to how a finesse fighter plays. Surprisingly well, it turns out. She does just as much damage as a heavy, and with faster feet and animations. However, the Pathwarden quickly acquaints me with the drawback: cripplingly low carry weight. I pick up the hauberk and I'm immediately at 256% burden. Even after putting all my academy exp into strength, I'm still at more than 110% with just the bare necessities. The other flaw is that, since I'm pumping my strength, I still have very low health. Maybe cow tipping isn't such a bad idea after all...

But never let it be said that I back off from a challenge. So, I grab my twin Academy Daggers and head out to the first stop on the Holtburg newbie tour: The good ol' Holtburg Redoubt.

The redoubt is fairly indistinct in terms of level design, but a lot of work has gone into the lore. The sign by the entrance gives the summary, and the inside looks like a place that's actually been lived in: Storage rooms, desks, bedrooms, and cooking pits now being used by drudges. And also signs of struggle. This is the inside of Brogard's quarters:

Note the bones and the Tumerok skull on the floor. The drudge is my personal addition to the decor.

Kalixia is damn good with her daggers, and her Melee Defense is good too, but the burden limit rears it's ugly head again. Not only can I only take small loot items, but I was unable to bring any potions. I do okay on health, but since dual-wielders swing twice as often I'm soon running very low on stamina. Fortunately, I find the old bunkroom, which has no enemies and closeable doors. This allows me to sit down and have a rest. Potions are so inexpensive that everyone forgets you can just sit down and wait a bit to recover stamina.

Anyway, I clear out the dungeon, grabbing all eight of the necessary items and managing to grab some valuable loot items from the last room. With the experience from turning in the quest items, I boost my Strength to the point where I can stock up on basic supplies. Then it's off to the next stop, the Cave of Alabree. As soon as I walk in, two complications become apparent. First complication: the shreath are breeding.

See, every spring, Turbine gets into the spirit of the season by having the less-than-sapient creatures of Dereth have babies. So for a while, chickens have small chicks with them, bunnies have baby bunnies, and shreth have shrethlets. Bottom line: there are three times as many enemies in this dungeon as there should be. Since my Endurance is still gimped, this is a huge problem. Fortunately, complication two benefits me: I'm not the only newb in this dungeon.

There's a War Mage running around here, a guy named Grenlock. He doesn't say much, probably because walking/fighting and talking at the same time is a tough skill to get down, but we both have the same thought: safety in numbers. So, we wordlessly agree to team up, and proceed into the dungeon, me pulling aggro and and him sniping shreth with his War Magic. We make a pretty good team, and soon find the first objective in the cave: a letter from Brogard to his wife and daughter. The second objective is Brogard's Axe, unfortunately neither of us knows where it is. After wandering aimlessly for a bit, we find a tunnel sloping down. Looks promising. Unfortunately, at the bottom is a huge nest of shreth and shrethlets. We put up the best fight we can, but we're overwhelmed and I get sent to the lifestone.

So, my first death. I'm not too distressed about it, since the dungeon wasn't fair during breeding season, but I do kick myself for A) being so focused on Strength that I forgot to boost Endurance, and B) forgetting all about my Lugian gems. But, no sense sitting and whining, so I remedy these problems and head right back to the cave. Grenlock is nowhere to be found. I find no corpse either, so I'm guessing he retreated rather than get killed. If you're reading this, Gren, thanks for the helping hand and I'm sorry for my screwups.

What I do find, however, is another ally:

I didn't get his name, but he was playing one of the new Lugian player characters. Alabree's popular tonight, lucky for my gimped self. Between the two of us, we're more than capable of handling the shreth. Unfortunately, my friend turns back at the tunnel down, leaving me to retrieve my corpse on the own. Fortunately, I notice belatedly that the shrethlets only aggro if you attack mommy, otherwise they just watch her swinging on you. So I take the hits from the adults while looting the chest, only to discover that the axe isn't here. Well, now I know why the Lugian turned back.

I wander the dungeon for a while, searching for and not finding my new friends. I manage to avoid any major fights, but I can't find the blasted axe anywhere! I'm out of stamina potions and just about to give up when I notice a door I had missed earlier. It's named "Armory Door". Ah-ha! Inside, I quickly shut the door, so that the shreth inside and I aren't disturbed.

After finishing them off with minimal trouble, I look around and find the axe right there on the floor. Success! I take the axe and the letter back to Flinrala and get experience in return. She points me immediately to the next quest. A farmer named Alfrin (hanging, like all of the Holtburg questgivers, in the bar), has had his grain stolen by some drudges.

By now it's getting late. Mindful of what happened in Samsur, I call it a night.

All in all, a satisfying evening. Nice to play with other players once in a while. Kalixia is clearly going to take some getting used to, however. By this point with my other characters, I was putting exp into Arcane Lore, yet with the finesse template every point that doesn't go to Strength has to go to Endurance. Once my Strength is good enough, I should be able to catch up, but it remains to be seen if a high Quickness is better than a high Strength in the long run. The template is definitely a challenge at levels this low, though.

Keys are key

So, we left off with me having apparently wrapped up things in Yaraq, but it turns out not. I had forgotten two things: the old newbie quest and the Lost Light Key. Unlike in Shoushi and Holtburg, the old Yaraq outpost quest was not worked into the new version. Instead, Turbine redid newbie Yaraq rather extensively, and left this bit behind. It's not hard to see why. The quest is two quests which are identical, but mirror images of one another. And both versions are 100% FedEx. Starting from either outpost, you take a letter from the questgiver to the questgiver at the other outpost for his signature, then deliver the letter to Mara al-Luq in Yaraq proper, then take her thank you note back to the original questgiver, who gives you a few potions, a few pyreals, a little experience, and an apology for wasting your time with this nonsense. At least the finished letter is good for a laugh:

Left tantalizingly unclear in all this is just what Mara is being congratulated for. She doesn't seem to have a career or anything, so the two ideas that immediately spring to mind are "engaged" and "pregnant". Leaving aside the obvious absurdity that players have been running this quest for 12 years and counting, the fact that Nasun is implied to be in love with Mara makes it odd that he would celebrate either. Unless it's really his love child, conceived out of wedlock. Or maybe in adultery against Mara's husband, Mustafa al-NotAppearingInThisGame. Scandal!

Anyway, I move on to the key, which proves to be a bit of a problem: I don't remember exactly where the dungeon is. Naturally I check the local barkeeper for the rumor, only to discover that the rumors aren't there. Turbine removed them during some update or other, perhaps by accident. Well, hell.

I vaguely remember the dungeon being atop one of the ring of mountains surrounding Yaraq, so I decide to do some mountain climbing. Fortunately, the mountains are not as obnoxious here as elsewhere in Dereth, so it's pretty easy going. There actually turns out to be a lot of stuff up there: I find some settlement portals, a chessboard placed dramatically at the edge of a cliff, a Mukkir nest that I give a wide berth, and two unrelated dungeons before running into the right one: the generically-named Yaraq Tunnels.

Aesthetically, this dungeon is one of the better ones. The opening room looks grandiose and awesome without being overmuch. Past that is a series of corridors filled with brown drudges. They put up a good fight, but are no match for my shillelagh-and-closed-door style.

The central room of the first floor is a big dining hall with balconies overlooking it. Balconies, as we should all know by now, equate to enemies dive-bombing you from above. So I have to bash my way through a substantial horde of drudges. Afterwards, it's more fighting through the kitchens and upstairs then, satisfied that I've explored the entire area, back to the dining room to check the far door. Unfortunately, since I dallied a bit too much in those other rooms, the respawn timer catches me and I have to re-fight half these drudges. Despite using a few more potions than I'd like to, I make it through and the corridor leads me down to the next floor.

The second floor isn't too bad: a lot of drudges rushing me, but the layout is pretty linear. When I get down to the third floor, however, things get tricky with a confusing array of twisty tunnels. After stumbling along for a while, I hit a room full of Hunter Shreath, which I clear out with some difficulty. Past that is an area full of cells, and here I finally find the key:

I'm tempted to stick around and explore the rest of the dungeon, since there are some side-areas I missed, but being low on potions, overburdened with loot (I've been drudge-bashing literally every step of the way), and confused by the layout, I decide enough is enough and /lifestone. Despite the confusing map, I am quite pleased with the Yaraq Tunnels dungeon. I came out with enough coin for an MMD, plus a pile of Lucky Gold Letters. Having finished Yaraq for real this time, I move on to Samsur.

If Yaraq looks like a strip mall, Samsur looks like the traditional kind. Nestled in a river valley, it tries for an "oasis" feel. It pulled it off in the old days, and in long-range screens like this, but these days it's too crowded. Not with people, mind you: with buildings. There's a lot of them cramped tightly together, which I admit has advantages. It makes for easy shopping. Like Nanto, Samsur was mostly abandoned after the newbie towns shifted. In the lore, they've fallen even further, since this town was the original capital of the Gharun'dum lands until it moved to Zaikhal. Turbine put an NPC here whom I imagine still gets visitors, though:

This guy trades incredibly powerful items for Writs of Apology. In case you don't know, Writs of Apology were given out by Turbine back in 2008, as compensation for a period of truly awful server instability. I believe they've also been given out now and again since in recompense for the devs screwing up something serious. Say this for Turbine: they've always strived to have an amiable relationship with their players.

Anyway, in search of adventure I head for the northwest outpost. I get sidetracked several times along the way by wrong turns, a farmhouse taken over by drudges, and a torn note that turns out to be a Lost Light clue I already knew. But I finally reach the outpost and meet the questgiver, who turns out to also be the local explorer society rep:

I talk to him and, as you can see, he immediately shoves into my hands the usual junk: Teleportation device, two books, and a key for the quest I'm actually on: raid an old rich dude's former library for some of his books. It's a long walk to the house that holds the portal (especially with me having only 10 Quickness), but I find it with little trouble.

The dungeon itself is not too remarkable. I pick a locked door early on and the game yells "Ha-ha!" and whacks me with a Lightning Bolt trap and an empty chest for my trouble. Fortunately, I don't die, and the other chest in the room has decent loot. A little further on I find a door that opens to my key and figure I'm at the end. Turns out there's two more rooms, though. One is a pretty good-looking library, the other is a tomb where I find the book I'm looking for:

Yes, the philistine drudges have been using the leftover books for fire fuel. Burning books. I RAAAAAAAAGE and massacre the entire room, but it's not like I wasn't going to anyway. On the way back, I browse the book. It's the story of how a clever Gharun'dum defeats a fire demon:

Not bad, as folktales go. But this quest being over, there's no reason to stick around here. So it's off to the other outpost. I get sidetracked again (Samsur seems to be a good place to get sidetracked) to a dungeon along the roadside, which is generically titled "A Ruin". You find dungeons like this from time to time around Dereth. They've been around since release have no lore or real treasure to speak of. I'm assuming they were added so that Microsoft could have a certain number of dungeons on their list of bullet points or somesuch. This one is pretty decent, if disposable, but the only significant feature is that the sole portal out is non-functional.

Well... eff. It's no big deal, since I can /lifestone, but it annoys me since I have to retrace my steps from Samsur proper. Anyway, after being sidetracked again by a Mu-miyah milling about on the road, I reach the outpost and get the quest from this unsavory gent, who used a tent flap to hide from my camera:

It takes me a bit of running around to find the dungeon, since in this game southwest never means completely southwest. There's always either a bit more south or a bit more west than you expected. This is more aggravating than usual thanks to the 20ish spawns in the area. But I eventually find it. The dungeon is rather well-done: misty all over, as you would expect from a damp well, and extremely vertical in its orientation, which is uninque.

By now I was getting kind of tired, so I didn't take many screens. Basically, you have a tunnel leading down, then splitting into three paths which continue downward, each of them bringing you to the same large room from different entrances: One up in the rafters, one in a pit, and one on the main level. The well water is inside a side room. It's locked, but the key I got from the questgiver opens it. Annoyingly, Turbine tried to fool us with a normal flask of water right in plain sight, but the radar reveals the real deal cleverly hidden under a mat. What the point of that is, other than to trick newbs who don't use the radar, is beyond me. Also in this dungeon is a lever-operated door leading to a chamber deeper underground, where I duke it out with an Ethereal Wisp and earn myself a chest full of loot. Back at the outpost, the dude reveals that he's running a bizarre bottled-water scam on rich and gullible Derethians. Seems to me there are a dozen better ways to get rich selling quack medicine, most of which don't involve sending adventurers to risk their necks, but I guess they don't have late night Enzyte commercials in a fantasy environment.

With that done, I set out for my main goal in Samsur, the Lost Light Key within the Dungeon Manor. Since I was already tired during the last dungeon, I should have probably left this for next time, but I wanted to wrap up Samsur. Truthfully, I thought the next Lost Light Key was in Al-Arqas, otherwise I would have gone there first and saved the big dungeon for last. In any event, my recall of the events suffers, which is a shame because this dungeon has some unique scenery. For example, one room contains a peddler who actually seems to be eeking out a living here:

Near him is a room full of crates, where you have to use your jumping skills to get inside and claim the treasures laying on the floor. Deeper inside is a weird altar with a floating gemstone. You can't interact with it, but you can loot the chest in the corner.

Unfortunately, I'm too exhausted to enjoy it, so after bashing a lot of drudges and finding the key, I /lifestone out. I then log for the night, before even selling my loot.

All in all, a good session. The newb dungeons were newb dungeons, but the key dungeons were action-packed, loot-packed, and scenic. I have nearly a full pack worth of Gold Letters now. I really shouldn't have pushed myself, though, as I couldn't properly enjoy the last dungeon. Sorry guys, I'll have more restraint in the future!

Elderwulf fared a lot better this time than last one. He's proved his worth, but I have to say I'm still not fond of his style. He has to chug potions a bit too often, and I'm still far from convinced that the shield makes up for the inability to kill enemies fast. The template is viable, but I think I can do better.