Training, Seeking, And Runaways

Daily Ramble 90: Training, Seeking, And Runaways

In today’s ramble I take a look at the Runaways on Hulu and so far I’m nicely pleased with how the show has been put together. I also get started working with Aloy for real in Horizon Zero Dawn and I’m starting to get her skilled up so I can better handle her spear and bow. Finally, I take on a mission in Secret World Legends to figure out who this Ellis Hill guy, I’ve been interacting with, really is.

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Ellis Hill isn’t who he claims to be

So I left off my spooky adventures in Secret World Legends with a question about Ellis Hill, the guy I met in the airport hangar. It appears that while he is “looking out” for the airport and trying to get things back up and running, he may actually be an agent with other motivations. I actually found a note indicating he may not even be Ellis Hill but rather an imposter.

Along the way to find out more, I reached my Skill Point cap and had to spend some of my points so I could keep advancing. Skill Points are used in the Passive Skill Trees of the various weapons and can be pretty useful to apply effects, increase attack or heal ratings, and enhance Active Abilities which use Ability Points to unlock. Since my current weapon focus is on Blood Magic and Assault Rifle, I unlocked the bottom branch stat booster which gave me +50 Heal Rating so I could make sure my survivability stays high. Then I added Soothe to get to the stat booster that adds 43 to my max health. Soothe will be good when I heal a group as it increases healing from all sources after Covalesce is applied from the ability tree.

In all reality, I’m still not great at figuring out what all connects to each other in the skills and abilities and have pretty much be able to get by with the basic abilities I started out with. Soon I’ll take a more serious look at DPS, survivability, and healing but for now, I haven’t had any trouble beating down the zombies so…if it ain’t broke, I’m not gonna fix it. Perhaps when I move to the next zone I’ll take a look at my build. Or when I head into the first dungeon – Polaris.

In any case, the 2 stat boosts were what I was after right now and then I added Runic Hex and Eldritch Scourge to my ability options. This puts me at the point where I will be able to build up to my Blood Magic Capstone ability which I’ll figure out what that does once I get there.

In any case, in trying to figure out the facts about this “Ellis Hill” guy, I headed back to where I found him and started following some track he left and in the car he drove, I found this set of GPS directions.

So I follow them and end up out close to the beach and I find more tracks. Whoever this guy is who’s impersonating Ellis Hill sure leaves a wide trail that’s easy to follow – he should work on his stealth before he starts taking on someone’s identity. Sadly, I locate a mound of dirt in on the beach and find an airport employee badge for Ellis Hill…

Perhaps they should have at least picked someone that looks a little like Mr. Hill to impersonate him. But since the guy I met was obviously a fake, I think it might be wise to figure out what he’s up to, and when I contact my Templar superiors they indicate thart he may be Phoenician. Hmm…another nefarious organization that I have to contend with but they seem to be racketeers more than anything else as far as I know at this point. I better keep an eye out for them though, in case they become a nuisance.

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Runaways on Hulu

I just got done watching the first couple of episodes of the Runaways on Hulu and I’m pretty pleased. The acting is pretty good, the script seems to follow the comic form the most part, and of course it’s set in L.A. which is something I don’t see much of these days.

I read the comics back in July and really enjoyed them and from what I’ve seen, the first episode does a decent job setting up the kids – Molly, Gert, Nico, Alex, Karolina, and Chase, while the second focuses more on the parents. Of course the big event of the first couple episodes is the same as the first few comics – the Pride’s mysterious ceremony.

The show’s got some familiar actors – Kevin Weisman (Alias), Annie Wersching (24), and James Marsters (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) so things seem to be in good hands on that front. The show runners are from Gossip Girl so they’re more than capable. And with Brian K. Vaughn who wrote the comic helping out, I think this could be pretty good. At least the first couple of episodes are enjoyable.

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Skilling Up and Heading Out

A lot happened during the training montage I mentioned in the last installment of my Horizon Zero Dawn journal. Aloy grew up and now she’s on the last stretch of preparations for the Prooving. She’s learned to use her bow and spear to deadly results and has honed her ability to climb, rappel, and be stealthy. I’m pretty impressed with her but as I get ready to finish up training, with only 2 days left before the Prooving, Rost has gone missing from the home.

She’s attained level 3 and I take her out to find what’s up with Rost and why he’s gone off without her. But before I head out, I’ve got 3 Skill Points to use so I can enhance Aloy’s abilities. Right now, I’ve got options for 9 different skills but I want to get stuff that’ll help take down the machines quickly and give me a leg up long term. After examining the possibilities, I take Silent Strike, Concentration, and Gatherer.

The Silent Strike ability conveys the capability to hit small machines and humans silently and stealthily and take them out in one shot. It also does a bunch of damage to things that don’t go down in one hit. This should help in situations where I know I have to get close to something but don’t want to attract attention when I kill it. From the look of the skill, I think this uses Aloy’s spear.

The Concentration ability grants the option, while aiming with Aloy’s bow, to slow down time. This give a much better opportunity to pick out weak spots on the machine to hit. I figured this’ll give me a leg up with my bow and I always prefer long range attacks over melee.

Finally, I took the Gatherer skill since the game seems to focus on crafting. From what I’ve seen, there’s a bunch of stuff to pick up off the ground and extract from machines that I’ll be using to make ammo, weapon, and armor so I figured getting more stuff whenever I forage would be a good bonus.

So now that I’ve got my new skills, it’s time to head out with Aloy to find Rost.

Well, other than using my Gatherer skill to pick plants and such, this part of the quest was pretty straightforward and easy. Rost was just looking out over the valley below waiting for Aloy to wake up and get going.

But first he’s got a mission for her. It seems Rost wants to make sure Aloy has the ability to craft Fire Arrows so he sends her down into the Embrace (which is the area the Nora live in) to gather the ingredients for Fire Arrows.

But beyond that, Aloy and I are concerned that Rost is worried about what things will be like after Aloy wins the Prooving. Since Aloy will be a brave and part of the tribe and Rost will still be an outcast things may get a bit strained. Hopefully Rost knows that We’ll always be willing and able to talk with him – he did raise Aloy after all.

In any case, Rost also wants us to gather some food for Odd Grata. So I mark up our map and head on out to the Embrace.