I knew it all along. Video Gamers are the best employees

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/19/career-leadership-strategy-technology-videogames.html

But there is a growing school of thought
that says game-playing in moderation, and in your free
time, can make you more successful in your career.

We're finding that the younger people coming into the
teams who have had experience playing online games are
the highest-level performers because they are constantly
motivated to seek out the next challenge and grab on to
performance metrics

Ebon Guards? Signup for Darktide?

http://playdarktide.com

So if you are like me, and are still waiting for your Refer a Friend Ebon Guards, and would like another shot at them: Signup for Beta on Captains of Darktide.

In game we've seen a couple people that are now looking to trade these rare Ebon Guards, so it might make sense to check this out.

Cheatsheet to 35 : The fastest way to level to 35 in Saga

So my first army in 2008 was Light. I leveled 1-22 then stalled.

I know alot of people stall out, so if you are "rich" and want to know the ABSOLUTE best way to level the fastest in Saga, here's the cheatsheet.

Step 1: Pick any Army you like.

All of them are equally fast to level if you follow the rules. If you want to get the best, then pick War or Machine. Both of those armies have specific factional troops that make killing flying mobs easiest. This makes 27-35 faster.

Step 2: Buy Wargs

Honestly I could finish the guide with that statement. I decided to help my friend power through the 20s on his Magic army with my 35 Undead Army. I was opening Blasted Lands, and tanking while he power leveled killing Drakes. It wasn't bad, but I thought I could do better. I mailed him 36 Wargs, created 3 units, added tanks (Daemons), and proceeded to crush every mission with those Wargs. The wargs are so perfect for leveling they basically do your work for you.

Problem with Wargs? You basically have to open Rogue Factional packs to get them. $4 per pack, you need 36 Wargs. Horribly expensive. Sure I have them, like many others, but god, what a horrible price to play this game.

Step 3: Ignore the Economysim

One thing alot of players get all caught up in, is the economy simulation of this game.

IGNORE THE DAMN ECONOMY-SIM. Jesus, don't farm lumber raid for 10 days to build out your wooden walls, just level up. If you level, you can farm end game quests for 3-5k per quest, and buy the damn lumber if you want a pretty castle. If you want to play castle builder, I can show you several good free Ipod games to play.

Yes, yes, I know you want to open up your territories and get free stuff, but seriously, don't be that guy. Ignore the damn Economy (for now), and focus on getting to 27 asap.

Step 4: Early Levels - Win Trade

If you are at a point where you need more levels on your troops, then fight yourself on two accounts. If you have concerns about the legality of this: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/rating-means-nothing-pvp-for-fun.html (The linked article lists several posts from the developers that speak to what you can do with your accounts. )

Win trading is helpful. Because you can limit the damage of your new army by moving the troops around, you can level troops that level very slowly. For example, any melee troop.

There are many troops that you would love to use, but you only have a level 2, instead of a level 7. Well, just win trade yourself.

Step 5: Levels 1-20, Win Trade a high level army. (Or level quests).

Fight yourself, if you are killing high level troops, you can get level 1-10 in about 10 fights. If you don't have a high level 2nd army, fight a friend where they let you experience off them. If you don't have a friend, do quests. Low levels go by quickly.

Step 6: Level 20-27: Trial of the Gods quest.

This is a horribly annoying quest. Without Wargs and a normal 20ish army, I can beat it occasionally. With Wargs, you roll it everytime. Why do it? Because the waves are good experience, and doing this quest badly 1 time is faster then doing almost any other quest and winning.

Step 7: 27-35 Blasted Lands. Experience/Loot Farming.

This has been talked about in this blog. Blasted Lands makes solo leveling so fast, you shoot through these levels. Your Army should be 3 Warg packs, 2-3 human archer packs, and "Let Fly" spells. Start it with a heavy cav to run the stairs, or an Undead Knight, then flee him after the "Drakes are coming" step. 200k experience per run, 35 should come quickly.

Army Composition: Levels 1-35

Wargs X 3
Heavy Cav X 2
Human Archers X 3
Drakes X 2
Ice Drakes X 3
Rogue Hero X 1
Let Fly X 3

New fun Fact of this game is you don't really need to play with factional troops anymore. I personally only field Daemons when leveling Magic, and Humongous when leveling Undead.

Best tanking and damaging Armor

Looking over a couple days farming of items, I've been trying to figure out the new Items lottery design.

So far, these are my two favorite prefix/suffixs at this point for Plate:

For Damaging Troops, (ie glass dps cannons.):

"Martyr / of Ultimate Speed"

• This Prefix scales up to 90% damage with a higher level item

The negatives are the following:

• Bad DR - its glass
• Morale - who cares
• Light HP penalty. who cares, it's glass
• Decent Movement bonus
• Light ATR penatly. Not a problem if the weapon makes up for it.

For Tanking style Melee Troops:

"Raider's / of Lion's Pride"

• This item has 3 good stats + stamina
• I really like HP bonus on tanks. I've seen 11,000 hp tank units, and that really helps.
• Speed is important for melee troops, more time on target.
  

Quest: Mithril Mines, Melee Troop Leveling and Strategies

So since I've been back, I've been running lots of leveling quests.

One quest I did alot back in the day was Mithril Mines. Back in 2008 I did this quest differently. I would kill all the archers, then bug out all the mobs by sticking one of my units in a spot that would cause a pathing bug for all the mobs. This would get them all grouped up, then I would Fireball them down. As the fireball had a 1 minute refresh time, (unlike now, where you use it and its gone), I could rotate two sets of Fireballs to kill the mobs with no danger.

I wroteup the quest back in 2008 if you want to see even more info on it: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/who-loves-mithril-mines-everyone.html

So today's post is to talk about the differences, and why this quest is still excellent for leveling.

1. First of all this is not the experience farm the "Blasted Lands" quest is. Blasted is much better for leveling your Army from 27-35.
2. The problem with Blasted Lands, is it doesn't do a good job of leveling all your troops to troop level 10. It is best to run with Human Archers, or any troop that kills Drake easily.
3. If you need to level non-ranged troops, Mithril is better.
4. Blasted Lands runs faster, Mithril has a pause in the middle between waves, so if you are loot farming, Blasted is better

Strategies for Mithril Mines:

1. First of all, make sure you farm Blasted Lands first to get a good set of items for your troops in Mithril Mines. I personally like DR, hitpoints, movement for my melee that I level in Mithril Mines. This seems to make them survive long enough to get good experience.
2. I like to run mostly Melee troops in Mithril. Then, I stick them in Ranged Defense formation, and don't change that the entire fight. (Ranged of course increases their defense vs ranged attackers and gives a speed bonus, but penalizes them vs melee mobs.)
3. I hand select the target, and make all my units focus fire. Many of the mobs in Mithril have need 8000 hitpoints, so if you let your 400dps units attack them individually, it will take 20 secs to kill each unit, and you will get swamped.
4. The kill order is Melee troops, then ranged. Because you are running around in ranged Defense, the ranged archers shooting you are not doing very good damage. Kill those melee troops, they can hurt you the most. Fire your use abilities anytime you get to a pack of melee to quickly own them.

Overall this troop experience isn't great, but you end up leveling 6 troops at once. This is useful for getting your army to 10. In my last army, I ended up with alot of certain troops at 10, and alot at 5. I would rather take longer, and have a better balanced army at the end.