Strayed Captain

After weeks of gathering the most useless drops my champion, Erechir, finally finished a hundred tasks. Huzzah! On to another hundred (and another and another …)

To task or not to task?

Seeing as there is a deed associated with tasks the choice is simple – do the tasks. Granted, 500 tasks sounds horrible, more so if you realize you can only complete 5 tasks a day (at least at the beginning and barring the use of Store-bought items), on the other hand it’s less of a struggle compared to some slayer deeds. The tasks are more similar to the enmity deeds since the regions don’t matter. Not that a deed on its own would convince me but there are cloaks to be had as well as fancy titles. The title for 100 tasks completed is Up-and-Comer, no cloak though as those are available for the last three stages (300, 400 and 500 tasks completed). There is also another reward that makes the next deeds easier to complete:

As I’ve told – the daily limit for tasks is 5. However after you complete the first hundred it’s raised to 6, then to 7 and so on up to 10.

The maths

I once calculated the amount of days needed to complete the 500-task deed to be 78 days if I recall. That’s assuming you will always do the maximum amount of tasks but won’t buy task resets or limit increases from the Store though you will use those you find in the reward. That was shortly after beta and I didn’t know you’d be rewarded a task reset as well. So let’s do the math again:

• 19 days of tasking, 5 tasks per day, 95 tasks done
• 1 special day (107 tasks done)
• complete the daily 5 (100 tasks done) and receive Task Rewards
• use the limit increase first and complete 1 additional task
• use the task reset and complete additional 6 tasks (that’s 12 tasks in a day)
• 15 days of tasking, 6 tasks/day, 197 tasks done
• 1 day (208 done)
• complete 3 (200 done), get Task Rewards
• use limit increase, 1 task
• reset, complete 7 tasks
• 13 days (299 done)
• 1 day (309 done)
• 1 task (300 done)
• increase, 1 task
• reset, 8 tasks
• 11 days (397 done)
• 1 day (410 done)
• 3 tasks (400 done)
• increase, 1 task
• 9 tasks
• 10 days (500 done)

And there you have it, it will take you a minimum of 20 days to do 100 task but then, thanks to increases and resets, the next milestone will come sooner. The second hundred will be completed on 36th day, the third on 50th, the fourth on 62nd and finally the five hundred tasks will be completed on 72th day from the start. And you’ll even have 11 additional tasks to complete on the last day. 72 days is not bad, on the other hand I don’t play every day and I don’t always play my champion.

The dark side of tasking

There are several things that can make tasking a rather unpleasant experience. I’ve talked about the task limits but I don’t think there are bad per se, maybe I’m just used to the daily caps on class deeds.

One of the problems is that tasks are only available close around you level – that is 2 levels above and below. If you’re level 50 you cannot complete tasks in Lone Lands and the tasks items from Lone Lands aren’t usable in Angmar (or other level 50 area). This is bad if you overlevel an area but still want to complete the quests there, you cannot get the tasks done. Now if accept a task beforehand you can outlevel it but even the quest log has limits.

The other thing is that a) there are no tasks above level 50 (so far, it might change with Isengard) and b) experienced people (as opposed to those new to the game) generally level quite fast so completing all the 500 tasks might be a bit of a problem (it certainly is possible to reach 65 within 72 days). I think my champion started doing tasks around level 30 and he’s now 45, I plan to complete all quests in Forochel with him so I might reach onto 200 but I won’t be able to finish the 500. My Rune-keeper didn’t even finish the first 100 and by now he is in Moria. My hope lies on my level 14 Lore-mistress who might have enough time to finish this.

I guess the last problem is meeting the quota if you want to be efficient. Sometimes it is hard as the items simply don’t drop, or you need specific items which are kinda far from the hub and you’re lazy to travel there and sometimes you have plenty of items but the tasks for those are only available in a distant outpost. An example of the latter is the Great Ear, albeit rare the thing drops off almost any beast in Angmar, Forochel, Misty Mountains and possibly Eregion. However the only place where it can be handed in is Hrimbarg, deep within Misty Mountains. Now that I am able to do 6 tasks I day I’m not sure I’ll be always able to (or want to) keep up.

The brighter side

Fortunately there is a way out of this – Epic instances. A single instance (like the False Trail or Fire and Ice) will usually get you an amount of task items that will suffice for two or three days. Tasks may also provide reputation and while it is only 300 points per task it can help in the long run.

All things considered tasks don’t really provide much on the other hand they aren’t meant to. One could even say that tasks are a second hobby after fishing. As far as I am concerned I’ll try to do the 500 tasks with one of my characters (to get the cloaks at least) but I’ll probably leave them after that.