hagfenharpies

[hagfenharpies]

tonight i cleared my first veteran trial! it was sunspire, which is an "easier" trial (relatively speaking), and we didn't do hard mode, so it may not be impressive to some people, but still. it's my first clear! i only started doing trials at all in november, so i think this is pretty good progress. i've been working with a prog group for the past few weeks to improve and work up to veteran/hard mode trials, and i think the work is showing.

i also should point out, i've been doing these trials/prog group as dps. i am a healer. but that's how the group worked out. my dps numbers are abysmal but they're literally doubling every week, so... i'm improving, i'm just not where many others are. but also, i usually get my highest dps numbers with my sorcerer, but i'm rebuilding her as solely pvp (at least for now) so i've been learning warden dps, a new thing for me. and tonight, i finally passed my highest sorcerer dps, so yay! still the lowest dps in the group (but hey, at least i'm still above the tanks and healers!) but it's literally four times higher than what it was a few weeks ago. (also, hey, i finally got eso logs to work!)

not where i want to be, but happy with my progress.

[hagfenharpies]

i've been working on making pantherfang chapel into my own little take on camelot -- where the pagans and druids live alongside the knights peacefully and happily. my favorite parts, of course, are merlin's -- the little ground-floor apothecary, and his tower of magical artifacts.

it's designed to be a fully functional house. every crafting station is worked into the design, and you can even get married in the chapel.

it's still a work in progress, and i've hit the item limit many times (mostly because i have... a lot of plants i can thin out if necessary), but i'm happy with how it's coming along!

[hagfenharpies]

tonight i got an achievement i've been working at for a WHILE... feels good. now i have to decide which furnishing folio i want to save up for first now that i can buy them. i've narrowed it down to: dark elf, dragonhold, elsweyr, morrowind, or summerset. it's a tough choice from there, though. honestly, i want the crafter's furnishing folio but it's 1,100 writ vouchers and let's be honest, i'm probably not going to be patient enough to save up for that for a while with all these other shinies still to get. so many items would be great for the apothecary i'm making, though!

oh yeah, i've been working on making an arthurian/camelot inspired home out of pantherfang chapel... i'm not done, but it's coming along nicely, but also i hit the item limit so i'm struggling against that lol. but it has caused me to go hunt down some quests/achievements for specific "collectible furnishings" (that don't count to the regular limit) that fit what i'm going for. i found something existed at 4am the other day and just had to hop on and do the quest to get it... but it's PERFECT!

[hagfenharpies]

tonight i dipped my toe into a veteran trial for the first time. it was an "open trial" in the guild, basically a learning experience for those who haven't done vet trials before and a helping experience for those who have. there's no expectation to clear the trial, even though that would be nice, but to put our best effort in.

for those unfamiliar: standard trial comps are usually made up of 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 8 dps. and i pretty much only do end game content, especially regular trials, on my healer. I can mess around in dungeons with my others, but warden healer is the only one I'm actually confident with. but, two healers had already signed up before me, so... I ended up respeccing my warden to dps through the trial. sure, I could have played on a different toon, I guess, but... I'm more comfortable with warden skills in general, especially since I had to run her as a dps when I had nobody to run content with before joining the guild. (and besides which, my sorcerer has been unlocking PVP skills specifically and is out of skill points at the moment.)

anyway, it was an unfamiliar role for me for trials, never mind that it was my first *veteran* trial, but I think I did okay. my dps numbers are nothing to write home about, but I learned a lot, and I don't think I held the group back or anything. we didn't make it through the whole trial, we got hung up on the second boss (the twins in maw of lorkhaj), and it took me a few tries to really understand the mechanics and do them in practice, but we did eventually beat that boss, and that felt really good. we took a break after the first few attempts and I used that to watch a video guide, which helped a ton (as well as asking questions. always ask questions!!), so I should definitely incorporate that into my prep routine lol. (but to be fair, the video guides don't tend to help me much until I've had a few tries and see for myself what's going on.) also, I've really only done this trial on regular mode a couple times itself, I probably would've understood mechanics faster if we had done it half as many times as we've run dreadsail reef (normal) in the past three months 😅 we run that almost every week (and yet, somehow, I still need gear from it!).

anyway, even though we didn't clear it, I feel really good about how I did, especially considering that I had to change my role and skills completely. on the plus side, now I have a dps setup saved in my armory so I might to tackling some of our weekend (regular) trials as dps if we have two other healers interested... I don't think I'll ever "main" content as a non-healer, it's just more fun for me, but it's good to have options. (I also just made a new character the other day that I plan to turn into a tank... we'll see how that goes lol)

anyway, I'm glad I joined this guild for a number of reasons (fun and friends), but I'm especially excited to be getting into this much harder content and really push myself to improve. you know me, forever a capricorn: always in a competition with myself to be the best I can be.

[hagfenharpies]

baby’s first scroll run! this was a lot of fun, and 30 of us piled up on each other crouching behind a tree was hilarious.

bonus: kisses for the homies later that night.

[hagfenharpies]

double xp event stacking with experience scrolls (and having approximately 134 of them in my storage) means that i've finally put time into getting my other characters to 50. erato isn't quite there yet (tomorrow, probably), but to give an idea: at the start of this event, free sha va ca do was level 34, morwen was level 17, and erato was 9. so... yeah, it's been a lot.

i didn't play free sha much outside of running dungeons, and didn't have to do a whole lot of that considering she was relatively high level already. honestly, i should play her more in general because i want to do more with the thieves guild/dark brotherhood, but i've been busy finally doing zone stories (for the sake of achievements/furniture, of course) on my main.

but this has given me time to learn sorcerer (morwen) and necromancer (erato), and... i'm actually really bored with sorcerer? i'm sorry, it's BORING. i mean, sure, it's "good", but at what cost? i've recently swapped out most of her sorcerer abilities to undaunted abilities because they "fit" her dark, gothic theme better, so we'll see if i enjoy that.

i've recently gotten into pvp with my guild, although i do it veeery casually so far, but it's alliance locked and my only DC alliance character is morwen, so that's another reason i've been playing her (and was trying to get her to 50 asap). however! one of the guild owners was really nice and bought me an alliance change token for christmas so i can play galatea (my main, warden healer, and i love her so much) in pvp with the guild!

i haven't changed galatea's alliance yet, because i want to finish up some alliance things first, but i'm excited about it. especially since i found sorcerer to be boring and making a "good" pvp build means sticking to all the good but boring stuff (hopefully pvp will continue to be fun enough to make up for it), but i know what i'm doing with warden and am confident enough in it to mess around from the "standard" once i get a solid understanding of pvp.

but necromancer... i had erato made for so long and never played her at all. and now i'm glad i finally have. because necro is SO MUCH FUN. i love it so much. it's got me thinking of making more characters with the more "unique" skills. vampire might be next-- probably will be, once i decide on what i want the actual character to be like.

[hagfenharpies]



i got quite a few gift cards for christmas that i could use to buy crowns, so i finally got a LOT of things on my ESO wishlist. i'm so excited to finally own the snowglobe home... i started playing last year during the new life festival and fell in love with this little house, but didn't know it was only available for a limited time, so i've been waiting all year for it to come back. and it's finally mine!

of course, decorating is still a work in progress (and will be for a long time) but i'm happy with what i've managed to do in the past couple days. the front room is all cozy and decorated for christmas, even if it is a little short notice. the basement "bedchamber" has three little nooks, and one is the perfect size for my aquarium setup. doesn't falling asleep to the view of fishies sound so calming and pleasant? and, because i'm me, there's also a little reading nook complete with a fireplace. okay, it's not complete yet (books are missing, for starters), but the concept is there.

i was also able to get the pantherfang chapel... i really wanted this, but thought i wouldn't be able to swing it (until i unexpectedly got gamestop gift cards from my godmother today). i bought it unfurnished, because i thought the furniture it came with wasn't worth the 3,000 extra crowns, but... it's BIG so it's going to be a loooong time before it's fully decorated. still, i'm very excited about it!

[hagfenharpies]

today i got enough gold to buy the coldharbour surreal estate!! (also i belatedly realized that i forgot to turn in the quest for the shipwright trial but oh well, i’ve done it before and i got the gear i wanted lol.) this is just a start, a VERY very early start, i need more materials (stendarr stamps ugh) and a million more of those moonlight bridges, but i’m excited for it. shout out to the luxury vendor for having a whole selection of glowy crystals that are perfect this weekend. 💜

also tonight, i joined my guild for my first pvp night, and honestly had WAY more fun than i anticipated. friday nights are mostly a social night and not taken seriously, which helped, considering my only character in that alliance (daggerfall) is level 20 and i never touch lol. but there were about 30 of us chatting and telling jokes in vc while we made a loop around cyrodiil claiming turf, and that was super fun.

a good night.

[hagfenharpies]

I recently spent a couple weeks saving up to buy the gorinir estate (and doing the achievement to unlock it) for my little bouldertree refuge to expand into upon hitting the item limit there... but i surprisingly found myself at a loss of what to do with it once i got it.

but, i then had an idea for another type of house, one that wouldn't work there but would be perfect for the unique piece of land that is coldharbour surreal estate. a lot of people use the atmosphere to go with a dark, gloomy type of build but i'm going to go in a completely different direction and i'm pretty excited about it!

i just... now have to save up the money to buy this one. 😅 i've made it a little goal of mine to buy every house in the game that can be bought with gold, to buy them with gold instead of crowns. saves me money AND gets me doing actual quests for the achievements and good loot to sell!

it would've been nice to have this idea before i bought the gorinir estate (literally thought of it later that day), but hey, i've already got 300k of the 1 million needed to buy it after just a few days.

it's funny how my desires for housing have changed in the game. when i first got the game and was touring available homes, i saw CSE and was like, "there's no building! who would want just an empty plot?" but now i get it... and my first house was the alinor crest townhouse, i bought furnished (thus with crowns, i only just made this goal of buying achievement houses with gold) and that was nice at first, but it's pretty boring tbh and i'm excited for the complete makeover i'm planning for it (crafting recipes and materials pending). i definitely prefer getting the houses unfurnished now for that blank slate.

i have a separate post to write up of thoughts about the housing plots offered in the game in general (and why i now think CSE is great) but that's for another day.

hopefully the remaining 700k to buy this comes quickly... wish me good sales in the guild trader!

[hagfenharpies]

some crafting recipes i’ve picked up in the past few days -- finally getting around to grinding the dailies in high isle and galen for the furniture and stendarr stamps, and getting lots in solitude and the reach during this dark heart event! in particular, i’ve gotten a LOT of the markarth structure pieces, which is nice because my next housing plan involves building something entirely from scratch on one of the empty plots of land.

and one wish list item that i’m hoping i can find in the wild and not have to pay for at the guild trader:

i dream of the day i have all the recipes and supplies (oh, the lack of heartwood!) that i want... but it’s not today.

[hagfenharpies]

this week's event in ESO has me visiting an area i haven't really been to in about six months. the blackreach caverns are gorgeous and it's been great to be reminded of them again.

[hagfenharpies]

day | night

work in progress fairy house in eso