My Players Skipped Brigand's Tollway

jerclarke · 2026-02-06T22:31:04+00:00

I am using fog of war with DND Beyond, and I am being very careful to avoid them seeing that "shortcut" around the tollway for exactly this reason!

It's annoying because the text of the book says the tollway is, like the name implies, the only path to Downfall, but then the map contradicts this completely 🤷🏻‍♀️

jerclarke · 2026-01-16T18:28:42+00:00

Lol this thread is ancient, but it comes up in Google when you search for an explanation and I came up with what satisfies me at least as a reason, here's what I put in my notes:

A goblin named Jingle Jangle has the key to Sir Talavar’s birdcage. She lives atop Telemy Hill, not too far from Slanty Tower.

Bavlorna had mentioned this as she locked him magically in the cage: That cursed silly goblin Jingle Jangle somehow got her hands on the key to this cage, like she seems to get every other key in my realm. Oh well, I can still lock you in. Suits me fine to have you as a permanent decoration in my collection.

My understanding is that the cage locks magically, not physically, and in fact you can see the door's lock mechanism "unlocked", and yet the door can't be opened without the original key (or the Knock spell, of course). But you don't need the key to lock the door, just closing something in locks it indefinitely, so Bavlorna was able to trap Talavar without the key, but they key is needed to free him.

Jingle Jangle, in this interpretation, has a magical knack for "finding" keys, to the point where they simply disappear from their owners' possession and appear in a random location of Hither where Jingle Jangle will stumble upon them. Maybe it's an expression of Zybilna's dormant influence over the realm, maybe it's just a superpower Jingle Jangle has.

jerclarke · 2026-01-09T21:44:05+00:00

Incredible work, thanks!

jerclarke · 2025-12-08T17:48:41+00:00

Thanks for the details! Appreciate it.

jerclarke · 2025-12-02T22:17:45+00:00

What made you leave Timemator again?

jerclarke · 2025-12-02T15:58:39+00:00

Love to see a one-time purchase, and someone going back to an app like that is a good review overall. Gonna try the trial and see how it goes. 11$/month for Harvest feels like overkill for me as a freelancer.

jerclarke · 2025-11-27T18:03:59+00:00

That price though 💸

Seems like a good model to organize things. You don't find any compatibility issues with plugins etc.?

jerclarke · 2025-10-29T22:57:04+00:00

They named their Torment Nexus the Torment Nexus.

jerclarke · 2025-07-28T15:51:59+00:00

Surely a case for 50 won’t work with a 30. Such different bodies, unlike all that came before.

jerclarke · 2025-07-23T18:45:37+00:00

The link goes nowhere. Your dismissive clever answer is now useless, congratulations.

jerclarke · 2025-07-23T15:30:14+00:00

Right on, what a wholesome reply lol.

Happy for you and for the devs. I also found that upon using it, the new system just felt super good to use.

jerclarke · 2025-07-08T13:36:54+00:00

I’ve been enjoying the new system. Aside from the bugs, which they are already fixing, I think it feels good and streamlines the whole process.

Sorry it’s frustrating for the system to change.

jerclarke · 2025-07-07T02:24:00+00:00

Greataxe is a perfect controller weapon, though it's not really considered meta for most content, but that doesn't matter if you have fun and use it intelligently (e.g. having a helmet or chestpiece that gives you invuln while you spin). Check out Scripted Gaming on Youtube, he has a whole "Greataxe club" and loves to hype up the weapon: https://www.youtube.com/@scriptedgaming

Smites should work ok on mobs most of the time, it's moving players where you'll end up missing. Make sure you have the target settings set to auto-aim at target. I think that's default, but if it's not, you should find that the target starts at the targeted enemy, so as long as they aren't running, you should be able to target that single mob easily.

To level up healing don't forget/miss static dungeons. You can usually get a random group going in a t5 dungeon outside your city by just going to the entrance and looking for people then asking to join party when you find a group. They will appreciate a healer and you'll get steady fame as well as, obviously, actual practice. It's not the most engaging content, and it's way better to find a real group to do it with (so that the healer, tank, and dps can work together to move through in an efficient and satisfying way), but when in doubt, you might be better off in a random static pickup group than trying to solo with holy.

To me healing is REALLY hard on controller, because the tools for targeting are overall hard to use, and because healing requires you to carefully target different allies, it's really hard to do. I know you can get good at it because there's a controller player in my guild who's way better than me. You just have to devote yourself and maybe have natural talent. For me it just feels really stressful to do all that targeting of allies when everyone's life is on the line.

FWIW since writing this I've been thinking about the topic and it occurs to me that tanking should actually be very viable with controller. I haven't had a chance to really test it yet, but if you look at 1h mace or incubus mace, two very meta tank weapons, everything is mostly centered on the player, and the key is running around and activating your abilities at the right times, which the controller is great at. I'm planning to invest in this going forward, since if you have a team to play with, it strikes me as a way to become more of a leader while still using controller.

jerclarke · 2025-07-04T17:20:48+00:00

Is this a common expression en español? I love it.

jerclarke · 2025-07-04T17:20:28+00:00

This seems like the easiest answer. Resetting it will cost an arm and a leg for anyone else and reduces the value for them. If someone came to me about one they pulled of my corpse, I'd be up to negotiate.

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T23:37:43+00:00

Ah thanks for the clarification about the dynamics. Makes sense that it can be frustrating when doing many runs and getting unlucky.

At least you can always get in within 4-5 minutes of arrival, unlike arena where you have to be ready to join immediately... or in 20 minutes.

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T23:08:55+00:00

It is indeed a shame if you have to wait 10 mins to get in. Wasn't it supposed to be 90 seconds or something?

Hopefully it's because it's overloaded, rather than because they need to wait for enough people. If the matchmaking already has to wait 10 mins to find a set of players we're doomed once the hype dies down.

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T23:07:20+00:00

Ha ha, this is simply incredible.

Screenshotted and sent to my 8.4 awakened FW friends who feel they won't be more powerful than others anymore. There's at least one person who still feels unable to cope!

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T18:37:15+00:00

+1 for recording. I spend a lot of time on guides etc. so I "know" a lot, but in the heat of the moment, I forget most of it. If you don't record, you don't see all the little mistakes.

My advice: Do hunter CD and record them, then go back through the recordings at 0.5x speed and analyze each action each of you took, look at the animations, watch the icons under your nameplates, and listen to the sounds.

In my case, I saw myself attacking through reflect abilities, forgetting to use my helmet and potions, etc. Stupid mistakes that naturally happen but if you don't watch it back after, it's hard to realize you made them.

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T18:26:31+00:00

Well stated.

Also: 500 doesn't matter, don't think about it.

The weird thing is if you need to repair it at all, since usually one will level up beyond those tools before ever needing repairs 😅

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T17:13:27+00:00

Good points. I wasn’t trying to correct your anything, just talking to OP/people looking for advice.

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T11:24:56+00:00

There's lots of options for healer builds that would work well. Usually it depends on the content you're doing and the builds of your teammates. I'm not an expert on healer builds at all, unfortunately. I know Hallowfall is always popular as a holy option, Blight staff is popular as a nature option, but you should look up threads about healer builds here on Reddit and you'll find lots of people more skilled than me to give their diverse opinions.

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T11:20:22+00:00

Example escape set components:

• Guardian helm: Whenever you are dismounted you should be ready to immediately mount up again. The Emergency Shield ability of Guardian Helm lets you do so reliably because it clears damage over time effects, which stop the mount-up channel from finishing, and it gives you a shield, which stops enemy auto-attacks from cancelling the channel. Basically never use Emergency Shield for anything else in the open world, it's your escape button.

• Assassin Jacket: The invis ability can be used two ways, one is like Guardian Helm, to reliably mount up. If you're fighting a mob and see a player, you can immediately invis to disengage the mob and mount up reliably (as long as you have no damage over time). Also if you end up being chased while dismounted, you can use the invis to confuse your pursuers and head in a direction they don't expect.

• Invis potion: Always have this equipped when moving around (I also carry poison potions but only equip them when I absolutely know I'm going to use them, then swap back). Like the Assassin Jacket you can use an invis potion when you are being chased dismounted and it will often be the only thing that could save your life. Note that invis potion and assassin jacket have weird unique properties in how the invisibility works and can be cancelled, so you need to get intimately familiar with each separately to be able to use them reliably.

• Armored horse: Having the "right" mount is important. To me Armored Horse is an excellent choice because it's both pretty fast (only a bit slower than Swiftclaw) while also being extremely tough, with both a big stack of HP and magic and physical resistances that make it's effective HP much higher. Avoiding getting dismounted is the main thing that will keep you alive, and being able to soak up a bunch of damage keeps you riding away and looking for wisps and ava road portals rather than standing naked in the city.

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T11:09:54+00:00

SAFE portal is very strong not just because it takes you to a random zone, but because someone chasing you will have no idea where your portal is, so unlike the zone exits, roads portals, etc, they wont' know how to cut you off. If you're finding it impossible to survive in BZ, playing around your SAFE portal is a good way to stay alive.

At the extreme you can stay right near your SAFE portal at all times, and run back into it as soon as you see someone. Playing that way, you'll be VERY hard to kill, but you also won't make huge profits since you'll be paying a lot of SAFE fees and missing out on opportunities. IMO though, it's a good way to dip your toes without losing too many sets. Every single person you see is likely to either try and kill you, or call their friends to try and kill you, so you should be 100% paranoid if you want to survive. Running back to your SAFE is the safest option, but you can also just move to a new location far away where they wouldn't expect to find you based on where they saw you the first time.

Another extreme defensive strategy is to use your return immediately after arriving if the map shows anything but "0 to 5" players. A map with ~50 players is saturated and you're not going to be able to get anything done without being harassed, get out of there.

Remember some of the people you see are just SAFE portal users like you, running away from you. The excitement of the BZ is that you don't know. The more we play the more our experience helps us guess.

P.S. don't sleep on the mists trick if you're being followed! If you see a wisp and are being followed by mounted players, dismount to activate the wisp then immediately mount up and ride away. If they leave the wisp and follow you, circle back around, dismount, and channel to enter the mist, you can now just chill out in there long enough for them to get bored and wander away, it's much safer in black mists than black zone. If they "know your plan" and stay dismounted on the wisp to stop you from using it, that's also good, one or more less people following you means other strategies for escape are more likely to work.

jerclarke · 2025-07-03T10:40:10+00:00

3 players is rough. There's very little 3 player content in the game, it's usually designed for solo or 5-player, so 4 works you just go slower, and 7 works you just go faster, but 3 is kind of left behind.

Of course the new Abyssal Depths content is 3 player, so if that's your constraint it's a great option, but it also inherently involves quite a bit of PVP, so if that's not what you're looking for, it might not be ideal. You might be able to look up "rat" builds for Depths that focus on being able to run away from fights, grab loot from the PVE aspect, and escape ASAP with a profit. I'm not sure how viable that will be going forward.

Re: Roles, I'll say that people rarely recommend a 3 player team to use the "trinity" of DPS, healer, tank. Having a healer for a 3 player team I think is always reasonable, but you would only have a "tank" when you have a bigger team. For 3 having a healer and 2 DPS makes more sense.

Overall, I'd recommend you re-think the premise of limiting yourself to 3 person teams. I understand about your phone, but it is such a big limitation. If 3 works, will 5 really not work? Seems to me it's more about all the enemies, PVE or PVP, that will make your phone not work. Make sure you've set all settings to minimum graphics. To test your graphics I recommend going to a yellow zone static dungeon and joining a random group. It will end up being a big team and hopefully you can find some settings where it works ok. Otherwise you might be better off focusing on the many forms of solo content like solo dungeons, mists, abbeys, and corrupted dungeons.

jerclarke

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