Thursday 1 January 2015

The Irda Gift

The real Santa Claus in HOTL3 was not stationed in a remote corner away from the record workers along the descent to hell. Instead, you'll find him loitering in timely precision between the holy grounds of Canterbury and the sinful heights of the Hotel 81. Occasionally, you'll find him lying dead naked at the heels of the sentinel of Midgaard, after the Archbishop decided he had imposed long enough and rid of him with his holy smites. Santa was of course, Reines. Some regarded him as a time lord, a traveler from the future, roaming the corridors of the long past in ataraxia. Judging from the way he casually tossed me the Irda he conjured, I would have thought he was Fizban.


I'll just settle for Santa.


With an Irda, my HOTL3 adventure came to a complete halt. Prior to that, I had never expect there would be a day I would get a chance to play this spec race. It felt like a hot potato in my hands. I didn't know what to do with it and left it for a few days until the New Year. Then I decided to level it up first, then decide what to do with it. Many valid suggestions was offered. That went to show how versatile and powerful the race was - to open up so many possibilities.


I do not know if it is just my imagination. Interestingly, the Irda was powerful beyond my expectations. High stats aside, during my leveling at the lowest levels, it seemed to hit more accurately and a tad faster than any other races in Gen 1 that I tried leveling before. Though, these differences seem to fade in mid levels but eventually became apparent when I qualified for the epic skill - drain, which boosted my survival-bility. For a new player who chose a fire month Smurf with 300 HP as his starting character, an Irda felt like Normal Mode, with the smurf experience being Hell or Hardcore mode. Having said that, the tnl of the Irda was high. I might have leveled 3 Gargoyles to L45 with the amount of experience I gained with the Irda. I guessed that was how the differences were compensated. Designing the character plan aside, another tricky issue was how to fuse. With an Irda, it would be twice as hard finding the correct fuser, especially with a small pool of players at the moment. That probably explains why many Irdas remains low gen as players are reluctant to fuck the Irdas up. Unlike another race, we can simply re-roll and restart. 


So what would it be? Go thief, go earth, go fire, go anything but poison because it is so weak. The many opinions only add to the confusion. But it's a happy problem. I'll ponder that over the new year.


Thanks Santa.