May: Spring into Action

Hello, Nekos!

It’s that time again! Please read below for an overview of the current tate of the guild, this month’s Neko hero candidates, and this month’s goals. As always, you can skim this message by reading the items in bold, and click any image to enlarge.

This month’s goals in brief:

• Continue raising the number of mortars and divine+ galleons
• Improve overall Gear Score of members
• Engage in more large-scale world events as a guild

This month’s Neko Hero candidates:

• Venumos

Neko Fleet Goals

Our last newsletter was in March, with a goal of increasing the number of vehicles in the guild. Since then, many of you have acquired mortars, cars, and improved ships. Here’s the rundown on what we accomplished:

• About a dozen mortars (including ironclads), useful for world bosses (especially Hanure), mass PvP, and the DS Fortress
• One full divine/epic galleon, and two others at or near full divine, viable for Abyssal Attack, Ghost Ships, or ocean PvP
• A number of epic clippers, improving the speed with which we can engage in ocean actions
• A full divine merchant ship outfitted with lightweight crest boxes, allowing fast, efficient trade runs
• At least 4 submarines outfitted for ship salvage
• About 6 cars, and a number of haulers and “X-wing” freighters, improving our ability as a guild to make money via trade runs

Many of you are still working on ships and mortars, and I highly encourage you to keep it up. I’m pleased with what we’ve accomplished so far, but I want to see nearly twice the current number so we can take on the relevant content at will in various time slots. With nearly 50 active members (not including alts), I think this is doable.

Gear Goals

In addition to continuing to increase our land and sea fleets, we need to push for gear improvements. We can have the strongest ships on the server, but if the players manning them are weak, we will still get flattened in both PvP and PvE.

With this in mind, I am asking members to push for the following goals this month:

• If you are below level 55:
  Click for instructions
  Please make a push for max level. The first thing you should do when logging in is ask if anyone is available to help you run Golden Ruins or Library dailies, or possibly a dungeon or two. We can’t help you if we don’t know you need it / are available for it. Officers should also make a point of asking periodically if this is needed, but you shouldn’t rely on them to broach the subject. As a bonus, you can gather your obsidian mats while running these dailies.

• If you are currently at or around 3k Gear Score:
  Click for instructions
  Please reach between 3.5-4k. Anything lower is simply a liability. 3.5k GS is the cutoff for usefulness in most 50+ dungeons, and anyone below 4k is targeted first in PvP. 1st-3rd tier obsidian at Celestial grade should bring you here.

• Those at or around 4k:
  Click for instructions
  Push for 4.5-5k. This is the time to get your gear to tier 4 and start gemming. Consider now whether you will stay at Celestial for a while or push to Divine, so you don’t waste upgrade materials or gems.

• 5k and beyond:
  Click for instructions
  I’m not going to give a numeric goal. By this point, you know what to do. Now is the time to tier up to 5, start upgrading to Divine armor / Epic weapon, and get serious about gemming.

Everyone, remember these few tips for upgrading your gear:

• Try to keep your weapon one grade above your armor. For example, if your armor is primarily Celestial, your weapon should be Divine. Accessories are important, but should be last priority.
• When gemming, it’s the most cost-effective to put one crafted gem in first, then fill the rest with unbreakable luna scales, purchased with prestige.
• You can make your own mana wisps cheaply by crafting and breaking down Illustrious+ gear from scratch.
• Consistency is key. With a regimen of regular gold income generation and materials grinding taking up just a few hours per week, 4k is achievable even for relatively casual players.

Nekozerg v West: World Event Goals

As a faction friendly guild, part of our responsibility is to help our faction achieve victory against the actions of the West.

We do this frequently through small skirmishes: disrupting their world boss attempts, raiding their trade runs, and pirating their ships (especially those venturing into Eastern territories!).

Beyond this, we can and should help our faction at world events. Many of us already participate in world events such as Mistmerrow, and Abyssal Attack. I would like to formalize our participation as a standard expectation that the majority of Nekos online during these events make an effort to be present.

This will require some advance planning around the world event schedule, but I think it’ll be a lot of fun to show up in force and wave the Neko flag. It will also (1) give us a chance to practice PvP, (2) make us visible and improve our reputation as faction friendly, and (3) bring the guild together.

If you don’t enjoy PvP, you don’t need to participate; but I encourage you to give it a try, especially as your GS climbs past 3.5k. It becomes more and more fun the stronger you get, and the more allies you have around you to coordinate and watch your back.

Final Thoughts

We’re continuing to work with Awakening on content such as Abyssal Attack, Meina, Anthalon, Serpentis, and Red Dragon. Ask an officer for more details. Note that AW is not always faction friendly; if you find yourself in any situation involving purpling greens, make yourself scarce ASAP and do not get involved.

We’ve been doing a lot of dungeons together lately; let’s keep that up. We still haven’t achieved our goal of running Serpentis regularly, so please be open to helping with this. We’ve also been able to run our own Hanure raids, with help from Anypost Owls and a few other friends. Well done!

Please keep your Picnic Basket full (follow the link for more details). If you join a guild raid without a full basket, inform an officer of what you are missing before the action starts so the guild can cover what you’re missing.

I want to give a special shout-out to the officers, and especially Officer Venumos, who has been doing a bang-up job of managing the guild first while I was helping Awakening and then while I was busy moving IRL. Despite having to step back for a time, I knew the guild was in good hands.

I feel a bit out of touch, but I plan to rectify that over the coming weeks. I want to thank all of you for your continued activity within and loyalty to Neko. The community spirit is going strong, and that makes me extremely proud.

<3,
~Azelle

Shortlink: j.mp/npmay2016
Please use this forum thread to discuss this newsletter.