Everquest Southern Armada Raids Week Nine

28/04/03 Week Nine

Well, this week was one of extremes. EQ is getting a bit like that at the moment. You either have a fantastic week or a completely crap one. My week started off really badly. Logged in for the Monday Raid, Couldn't join COD warm-up (Fuckit Im going to organize to do the Non Flag key Quest this week) then headed off to HOH to do a couple of the Loot Trials. Just before HOH started I began to go LD.

Now when I start to go LD its not just once or twice, it's constantly. So after my 6th LD in an hour I decided it was time to give up. I logged in for the 7th time to find SA had finished up and headed to PoTactics to drop TZ. I was so pissed off I didn't even say good-bye, just logged. What is most frustrating about my LD issues is that it has nothing to do with me. I cant do anything about it. I run a dedicated gaming machine set up to do nothing but play EQ, I read the tech boards constantly, I peruse all the gaming boards and I have tried everything anyone has ever suggested to fix the problem. Nothing works.

When I start to go LD the only fix is to give up and log off. Here is where Sony's completely crap Tech support comes in, I am not the only one who has this issue. They have been detailed at great length on the Tech Support Forums. I have had the same issue on 3 different physical machines, 3 dial up modem's, 3 ISP's, an ADSL account and 2 different OS's, AND YET according to Sony Tech Support this problem is entirely my fault and I must be doing something to make it happen. Strange that I logged on the next night and it didn't happen, and it didn't happen the night before either. What did I change on my system in those 3 days?, you got it, FUCKING NOTHING!!!

So during the week I did some basic XPing in POTactics where we killed us many many Piggies.

At some point it was decided to go and Keel us a Dwagon for an Epic. So we all ran off to Emerald Jungle (Where even with a damn in game Zone Map I managed to get lost *sigh*) and proceeded to engage Severilous. This is how the fight went for me:
Engage Called
Cast Splurt (4sec cast time)
Resisted, Bugger
Begin to cast Touch of Mujaki
Oh never mind he's dead.

We nailed Sev in about 10 seconds tops with 2 groups *grin* we rock!.

So after a server down on Thursday morning we all logged in slavering with anticipation for the Friday raid. Surely there MUST be something decent up!. First off we head to Akheva Ruins for a little IV action. The Itraer Vius just makes for such a perfect warmup, he's like a perfect woman, he's always there, always willing and goes down as fast as you can get in the room!. Fat bastard REFUSES to drop my damn spell though. Oh yes, he drops lots of bloody Zevfeers Theft of Vitae, or Gift of Ageolisim, but will he drop Funeral Pyre?, no he damn won't.

We also had one other little detail to clean up. Shei Vinitras had evaded us on our last 3 trips to AR, so we headed down to his room to try out the Tactics we had worked out during much discussion on the Message board. The pull team worked its magic and Shei proceeded to fall over on his four armed ass. I saw a post on The SafeHouse about Shei, where the writer said once you figure out the tactic, Shei is a gimp fight. Once you separate Shei from his guards....

the writer was right. Shei dead, one SA death.

With Shei dead and the raid nicely warmed up it was learned that the Avatar Of War was up so off we went to Kael Drakkal. SA hasn't been able to get at AOW since Kunark came out, now we get him twice in two weeks!. Once again the pull team does a marvelous job and we down in rapid succession:

Derakor the Vindicator

Statue

Idol

And finally the man himself....

A perfect kill, only one death in the whole sequence. So after AOW we were really buzzed up, we had nailed two mobs that have evaded us for ages and were slavering for more. NOTHING was going to stand in the way of Southern Armada tonight!. So off we went to visit Rydda'Dar in the Halls of Honor. Now this dragon is another target that seems to be perma dead on Prexus so we were itching to get at him.

Unfortunately once we got there we found that about 15 or so people with us were unflagged. After about 30 minutes trying to get everyone in under the 85/15 rule, Kez said "Fuckit lets go kill AD" So off we headed to Plane Of Valour. We took down Aerin'dar a hell of a lot cleaner this time than last time. Another efficient take down later and AD was sitting in Dragon Heaven wondering what the hell just happened.

At this point the Little Red Fire Engine had to log, something about his hamster being stuck up somewhere?. So I only managed to get the two shots of his dead and rotting body!

LRFE 3
MOBS 1
Something is definitely wrong when the LRFE gets a 3-1 ratio, must do something about that.

So after everyone was flagged we headed back to HoH to nail Rydda'Dar. Unfortunately this was where our unbroken run ended, but RD was at 40% when we wiped. That's cool, that makes him a very killable target by us. A little refinement of our tactics and he will fall, oh yes he will!.

At this point it was close to 3:00 am so I logged and headed to my little beddie byes for a good nights snoozin. So we got some awesome PhatLewtz! during the week. Unfortunately the GF was determined to limit my EQ game playing over the Easter/ANZAC weekend so I didn't get to do a lot of XPing. Then on Saturday it all changed!. I logged in early Saturday morning and sent Big a tell in BOT, he invited me to head over there and join his XP group.

So off to Bastion Of Thunder I headed. We were killing stuff for a while when the Druid in the group popped up with "Nameds up". So since BOT was pretty empty we dropped the nameds in East, West and North. Unfortunately I only got pics of the one named from North.

At that point the group started to break up and I went off looking for some more XP and boy did I find it. I found one of those rare, fantastic when they happen, rotating XP groups in the BOT courtyard. Most hardened EQ players will tell you that the average pickup XP group seriously sucks ass. Then, every now and again you get a good one, even with people rotating in and out of the group, you always seem to end up with decent players who know their jobs and are there to have fun.

I started Saturday at 63 +45% and ended it at 64 +7%. While in was in this group Unity and SA were joining up to drop Rydda'Dar, Tallon Zek, Rallos Zek etc etc. When those raids were called I was still slogging through to 64 and for a Necro, good XP groups are like hens teeth. You hang on to them as long as you possibly can. So I passed on 3 good raids, but I got 64 so its all good!! *grin*

So the week on the whole was a mixture of Good and Suckie. I got 64 but missed 3 raids, I got to go on some fantastic raids but missed the first time SA dropped TZ. Hopefully tonight (Week10) will be a good night as well.

Southern Armada Everquest Raids Week Eight

17/04/03 Week Eight

Well after last weeks efforts, we reviewed our procedures, prayed to the Gods of EQ, and after much soul searching decided that it was the Pally Sacrificing that wasn't working for us. So we have switched. The official SA raid Sacrifice is now... Shaman!. Kezlar manfully stepped up to the plate and volunteered to be the guild sacrifice and what a marvelous job he did!

The beginning of the week was a little slow. We all logged in on Monday and the scouts went out, what was up?. Nothing, Nada, zip, zilch. Everything worth killing was dead. So we did the SA default raids and headed for the BOT Tower bosses.

First to fall was our old friend Auliffe Chaoswind, he dropped some DAMN nice gear.

To be honest I always thought the Tower Bosses dropped only Melee stuff. I didn't realize they could potentially drop caster gear as well. WOOT I will certainly be a lot more enthusiastic about nailing them from now on! After Auliffe we headed across to Brynju Thunderclap. Thanks to the "new!" "Improved!" pathing the pull was a bit odd, but he died anyway.

And low and behold, MORE caster gear!, the melee's were cursing by now *grin* so off we went to Eindride Icestorm.

I hate Einride, getting to him is such a pain in the ass!, There are so damn many giants in the way. But he died anyway and we figured what the hell, and set off for the earth tower. Now I've never done Earth tower, I've killed lots of Earth Giants in the 4way room, but never been in the tower. So we head in and start killing giants and associated beasties.

Now I still maintain that the easiest way to take a Giant out of the fight would be just to jump up and rip out that nipple ring. For some reason Pooby refuses to try this, he always mutters something about "tweaking nipples is just so ghey dude" and proceeds to beat the crap out of the giants in the traditional manner.

We also had a couple of baby nameds pop up in the run up to Kuanbyr Hailstorm.

Hailstorm is a fun fight as he pops almost immediately after a place holder so you really have to be ready for him.

Well that was that for Monday. A clean sweep through the BOT towers!. I managed to pick up a Sandstorm Gem during the raid, so I think I am now only one gem short of a tower key. Still need two spheres for Agnar key though. Nothing else was up so we said grats to the Loot Winners and we all went to bed.

Tuesday we learned that the server had come down during the morning our time, so we all logged on for a little impromptu raidage. I was XPing in BOT when the call went out. "AOW is UP, get yer asses to KD!" Wooot!, I've never killed the AOW!, I've seen him taken down but never been part of an attempt! Apparently he is pretty much perma dead on Prexus so SA had never had an attempt at him either!

So we headed off, formed up and in quick succession Pulled and Killed all the guards and nameds. Then came:

Armor of Zek

Idol of Zek

Statue of Zek

And Finally, The Avatar of War!

Its a long fight, one mistake and your raid is toast. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Avatar of War's Corpse!.

Mewkus was MA for the bulk of the fight but with 20% to go he went down. I was in the Cleric channel, poised and waiting for someone to call for mana. So I was watching when with a 3 second CH chain going, as soon as Mewkus went down the Clerics switched to The Little Red Fire Engine without missing a beat!. Awesome job from everyone involved. What a team is SA!

Now normally here is where I would have a link to a dead Little Red Fire Engine image. However I have a sneaking suspicion he has started to bribe the Clerics, as he didn't die. Hmmmmm, wonder how much its going to cost me to get them to start letting him die again. Damnit the Clerics in SA are going to be making out like Bandits!

So instead of a dead LRFE, I give you a LRFE with a Blade Of Carnage!! Fantastic Job mate!

Grats to all the winners of the PhatLewtz! The loot from Kael Drakkal certainly made up for all the caster loot the night before!

As we now had a full sized raid force and we were all buzzed from the kill we headed off to Ssraeshza Temple for another MOB thats pretty much perma dead on Prexus, Xerkizh the Creator. There was a bit of confusion during the run in and we had a delay as we were waiting for people to be dragged and rezzed. (sorry for the confusion Mewk). We cleared through to XTC's room killing a LOT of snakes in the process.

Eventually it was all good and we moved forward to engage XTC.

Now a lot of Melee hate the Ssra fights as they pretty much position themselves, hit attack and go AFK. I can see that would be boring as hell. Unfortunately casters cant do that, we actually have to pay attention to the fight, refresh spells, watch for resists, manage aggro etc etc. So this is what I looked at for the 8 minutes or so of the Xerkizh the Creator fight.

If you want to know what its like to stare up a snakes ass, watch that picture for 8 minutes and you will know exactly what its like. Anyway, he died and he dropped some damn nice PhatLewtz!. Unfortunately Southern Armada currently owns no Mages. That sword you can see in the above pic is this. Grats the destroy button. What a waste.

Well we decided we still had a bit of fight left in us. It was getting damn late for me as it was about 1:30AM Tuesday morning at this point, but I made a coffee, threw some Incubus up in the MP3 player and we headed up to the High Priest of Ssraeshza. I think at this point everyone was just getting tired as it started to get a little messy. We cleared to him, had the room adds under control and isolated and it all started to go wrong.

Unfortunately at this point my Girlfriend got home, it was 2:30AM and I got "the look" (which any EQ player with a partner knows well) so I was forced to log , go and be very contrite and try and get some sleep at the same time. I felt like absolute crap the next day and wandered through my work day in a bit of a daze, but it was damn worth it.

Now I have been seriously considering the outfitting of Ulaa in the last couple of weeks. This is what Ulaa currently looks like:

What I would like to do, and of course this is going to very much depend on drops, luck, raids held and my available merit at the time of drops, is this:

Primary: Bone Bladed Dagger
Secondary: Pus Covered Beetle Carapace
Range: Mind Puncture

The major reason for that is a BBDagger is probably the best prime/offhand weapon I am likely to see for a long time.(I cant believe I wrote that, holy crap 5 months ago I wouldn't have even dreamed of a primary Item better than my heart!!)The Carapace (apart from looking cool) has decent stats and has Affliction Efficiency IV.

For a Necromancer the four foci you really want are Affliction Efficiency IV, Affliction Haste IV , Extended Range IV and Extended Affliction IV. These four foci would mean my DOT's are cheaper to cast, cast faster, cast from a longer range and last a lot longer.

MindPuncture is simply the best caster Range Item I've ever seen or heard of. That basically sorts out my Prime/Off/Range for the foreseeable future and gives me one of the 4 focus Items I really need to be operating at Max efficiency.

I have currently borrowed a Ceramic Gavel Of Justice for my range slot, this item also has AEIV. But its not mine and I would need to replace it eventually. AEIV has made a massive difference in the amount of available mana I have during raiding. As the bulk of what I cast will always be DOT's, the reduction of the mana cost on all dots by 25% is a HUGE saving. Thus I always have that much more mana to throw out mana dumps or spells like MindWrack, Nukes etc.

I have all the bits to finish the quest, unfortunately Gnomes don't like me a lot, so its off to do more faction farming. Damnit I hoped I was through with all that after the 3 weeks spent killing Goblins every damn day in Droga for Chardok faction. However the Cloak is worth it.

Mobs 0
Little Red Fire Engine 2
LRFE survived untouched.
If it wasnt for all the PhatLewtz this week i would suspect that there was a fundamental imbalance in the laws of the Universe.

Well Fridays raid sucked. We formed up in POD for my first run at Grummus. I was sooooo excited as I have never killed the fat bastard before and unfortunately today wasn't going to be the day either. Apparently the fat bastard's spawn was changed so we had to figure out the best way to pull him and try and kill him at the same time. They only changed 2 things it seems, how far you can pull him out of his room and the speed of the repops of his guards. Piss me right off, I want that damn flag. I am so sick of sitting outside COD waiting while the guild kills stuff in there.

Unfortunately those two little things caught us by surprise both times. So we formed up and headed to the castle in POD. Ran in (with the aid of a massive train) and setup to kill Gryme.

Now Gryme went down faster than the Little Red Fire Engine normally does. So we moved further in and nailed Aramin. (My GF was behind me yelling "kill the spider kill the spider!")

We moved up to Grummus's room and after pulling and killing all his guards...

we were ready for Grummus. We pulled him and he yo-yoed back to his room, first surprise there. So we figured we would have to rush into his room to be ready for him, In went the Zerg rush, aggroed a healer, lost control of aggro, wipe. Bugger, reform, race back into the castle, kill down to Grummus room, race in, fight is going well,,,,

and the damn room starts to repop. He was down at about 50% when I got nailed from behind by a Guardian Knight of Pestilence . No-one was expecting the repops to come so fast. Thing they changed number two. After that we were all pretty buggered so the raid pretty much broke up.

For a little light relief and just to make us all feel better about ourselves we headed off and put the hurt on our old friend Chaoswind.

This weekend was a long weekend (Easter) and unfortunately for many and various reasons I didn't get on much, when I did the damn server crashed. SA set up a pickup raid on Monday night and went off and nailed the Cursed. there was much PhatLewtz! (which I cant link cause they havent updated the main page arrgh!) to be had, but unfortunately since no-one rang me up and told me that the raid was on I wasnt there so Im not going to write about it. *pouts

Southern Armada Everquest Raids Week Seven

14/04/03 Week Seven

Well the early week didn't go well for SA. First off we headed to Akheva Ruins to have a go at our old mate Shei. Of course the Itraer Vius died on the way and kindly dropped the monky thingy.

We did a lot better than last time but still got nailed. As my guild Leader put it so eloquently in a wrap up discussion of the fight: "I (Kezlar) will personally spit on his corpse when we drop him" and I (Ulaa) will clear the way and polish up the corpse so you can mate. This little bastard is going down next time!.

So then it was off to POTactics for a charge against Tallon Zek. I really like the POTactics zone. Its one of the best looking zones in the game in my not so humble opinion. The new mobs in there are cool as well. Here are a couple of mobs we ran into on the way to TZ. Diaku Elite Sentry, Diaku Elite Guard, Hendin Deathbringer, Hendin Assassin and Gindan Flayer. Its a pity those weapons they are carrying have such crap stats cause they look cool!.

Now we only had 32 people at the time so the actual chances of us dropping him I think were slim to none. But it was our first run at him, so as a learning process it was great. I died early on in the first attempt * Damn that AOE is NASTY!!* and had to log. SA went at him a second time with about 28 people and took him down to 80%, so he is definitely doable by us.

The following raid day was a lot better. We headed off to POTactics again cause the Diaku Overseer was up. Again it was our first run at him, the AOE rampage caught us by surprise a little and we wiped the first time. The second time he fell over like he never engaged at all. Bloody AOE got me twice. I couldn't back up any further or I would have been outside and aggroing the wanderers *BAD idea*. However he was kind enough to drop the Blood Bladed Dagger for me. I don't think anyone else wanted it *grin* Thank you Kez!

So after the Diaku Overseer bowed before us we went off to the Deep for a warm-up against the Burrower.
All the wizzies were away, we have no mages, he still died. I think we could do this with about 20 people!. Since we were in the zone and he was lolly gagging around and stinking up the place, the Thought Horror Overfiend was next on the list. Of course a lot of Elder Thought Horror's decided to get in the way. We convinced them this was a bad idea.

We smacked the Elders around and soon enough the THO was in the process of snuffing it.

I still think he is one of the coolest looking Mobs in the game!. During the fight it was announced that Prexus was coming down in 30 minutes. So we killed him, looted and were on our way out when the damn zone crashed. It looked like we were in danger of losing all the PhatLewtz! that he dropped due to a roll back. But the Prexus GM/Guide staff did the right thing and everybody got their Loot back.

That was kind of the end of it for the night. We had one more impromptu raid on Saturday evening. We decided to have a go at the Ring of Slime event in Cazic Thule. Basically you kill 3 triggered MoB's one of which is an Acidic Mass. If you ever want to do this ring, bring along a LOT of DPS. We did it with 2 groups. This fat swine has a LOT of hp. I have seen it estimated at 1 million points and I would be tempted to agree.

I had to log after this kill. I was buggered, buying a house is a long and stressfull process. So I just needed sometime way from it all. Everyone was out on Saturday night, so I calmed myself with a few Rum and Cokes and watched crap TV for a few hours. It was a very pleasant evening. Sunday I was doing some XPing in the Pit (Plane of tactics) with some guildies (thanks for the group guys its fantastic XP in there) and got a few more Screen shots of some cool looking MOBs, so here they are. A Warboar is first. Anyone who has ever been pig hunting will appreciate just how nasty these things can be.

And a War Wraith.

Now the Little Red Fire Engine has taken to calling this unbiased, well written, well researched and perfectly accurate web site - "www.ulaaslies.com". Now since he is claiming I am lieing, I am going to have to PROVE that the little red fire engine still knows he can, and one day will survive a fight with an orc camp. So from now on I will try and get screen shots of any Little Red Fire Engine deaths I am present for. And so, thus is born the Deaths of the Little Red Fire Engine web page!

Southern Armada Everquest Raids Week Six

04/04/03 Week Six

Quote of the week from Burrower raid:

Kezlar tells the raid "Pooby behind Gar, assume the position"
Kaalana tells the Raid " methinks gara be assuming the ogre cockwarming position then :)"

Thanks for that Kaalana, I think my monitor will still work after having a mouthful of coke sprayed all over it!.

Well the week started off really well. Normally I am the only SA member playing on Saturday day. So it was really nice to get a tell from a member of Unity (who shall remain nameless) along the lines of "If any of you guys want to join us for a raid today, join this channel"

So of course I promptly joined the channel and learned that Unity would be doing the PonB hedge maze run and then dropping TT for flags for their members. I asked most politely if it was ok if I came along (as I don't have the flag) and was most politely invited to join. WOOT! A Flagging! *Insert rude Python-esque word play here*

For those who have never done it, basically the PonB (or Crypt of Terris Thule" flag battle involves keeping this guy alive as he walks through waves of nasty monsters.

Now, he's not very bright and my level one pet could take him, so you have to be awfully quick on the Crowd Control and good DPS to make it to the Boss Mob. The final battle is against A Construct of Nightmares. Now this is one seriously weird and ugly looking Mob. Not tough but a buttload of hit Points!. But he died, I ran back to POT and got my Flag!

So since I now had my PonB flag it was kinda logical to join up with a Unity raid to go and kill Terris Thule. Now as those of you who have been following the continuing adventures of Ulaa the Necromancer are no doubt aware, I have failed against my last 2 tries against TT. The people I have been with haven't failed, I have. First fail, wiped and had to go to bed *Boo, hiss, you big girl!*, 2nd try went LD and got ported out *Sad*.

So joining up with Unity to do this seemed a good idea. Now, a couple of other SA had logged in at this point so there were now about 4-6 of us on this raid. We formed up in PonB and headed to TT. Unity bitch slapped her and I got another flag!. Two in one day, woot!. Thank you very much to Unity. They rock!. Im going to try and hook up with them again this weekend, if they will have me.

When GOOD textures go BAD!!.
Running through Lavastorm the other day, something went very very wrong with the ground.

We have had another Server transfer, a 65 Pally called Kemdal came across. So we organized a wee raid on KD to Kill us a Vindicator and get Kem a shiny new BP. Now this goes to show that even the bestest, tightest group of people can have an Off day.

Attempt 1: 15 people. Vindi pops with a buddy. Wipe
Attempt 2: 20+ People. Vindi pops with a buddy. Wipe.
Attempt 3: 25+ People. Vindi pops with a buddy and adds, at one point we had 5 giants in camp. Wipe.
Attempt 4. 35+ People. Vindi comes alone. He dies.

Now, SA is MORE than capable of taking Vindi with 15 people even with adds (Particularly the people there at the time) but for some reason we kept dying a lot. Like I said, every guild has an off day, that was ours. It was still a lot of fun though and Kem got his BP in the end. :)

So, now its raid day. First call is BOT for a Tower Boss. So we start to form up, then the call is changed, A Burrower Parasite is up! head to The Deep. So off to the Deep it is, my second time there and I remembered the way!, well pretty much, only got lost once. We fight our way in (I managed to NOT fall off the bloody bridge this time) , start the Ring and away we go. It seemed to go down a lot faster this time.

Maybe it was cause we had 5 Necros there!, Ive never been in a raid with that many Necros!. In fact Ive never been in a Guild with this many Necro's. On the way in there, Wolfe also was kind enough to let me have my 63 pet! So now all I gotta do is power to 63 this weekend and Ill have 2 (count em) 63 spells to scribe !. The 63 pet cant tank at all, but for Guild Raids its an awesome damage dealer if positioned behind the mob.

So it was all going well, we had a real tank, everyone is rocking along, Rangers chugging out arrows, Nec's Dotting and Nuking, Tanks smashing, Wizzies Nuking, Clerics Healing etc etc. Then, suddenly, a tragic loss!. Just before the Burrower took a dirt nap, The Little Red Fire Engine went to his god in the sky. *Sad*

Much Good Phat Lewtz, was had from Burrower (We got another Robe woot!)

Then, one of my favorite things, a Flagging!!. Behemoth is up. Everyone heads out to POI and forms up. We run into the Factory and head out to Behemoths room. Now last time, we had a fail, I still don't know why, but we were determined to take him this time. CC groups are doing their thing and suddenly I go LD *sigh* *FuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuck*
Zone back in to find out Im just in time *phew*. Behemoth becomes targetable, tanks and clerics race in, casters head to back wall.

Nukes go in, 20 seconds later, dead Behemoth. A Flagging!!.A Flagging!!. So I am now flagged for PoTactics!, woohoo!, doesn't mean Im going to get groups in there of course but at least I can join the guild for raids!. :)

More Good Phat Lewtz from the Behemoth. Hopefully next raid day is either Grummus or AD (Neither of which I have killed yet, and I want to see em die) or a Mini in Luclin (Drop my damn spell you swine). I still want to kill Shei Vinitras as well cause he wiped us once and we need Vengeance!

Little Red Fire Engine 0
MoBs 2

Well this update has been a little late, but I am in the middle of buying a house so its all been a bit frantic.

First off we headed to Plane of Valour to visit Aerin'dar the crystal Dragon. Now I havent gotten to kill a lot of Dragons so every one that goes down is still a real thrill for me. It was a bit messy (did they Up the power of his AOE?) but he still died good and proper.

Since he went down so quick (and dropped the Phat Lewtz!) and I got flagged to Halls of Honor! Kez made the call that we were off to HoH to do the first two trials. We couldn't do all 3 because Rydda'Dar wasn't up. So off we went, Im not going to go into too much detail here suffice it to say both of these are damn fun fights. Kudos to VI for going beyond the Pull MoB and kill it type of combat. I particularly liked the Village people fight.

Basically you clear a bunch of MoBs until you only have one left. You kill the final mob when you are ready and the trigger mob spawns. Kill the trigger to start the event.

Once a Custodian of Marr is dead the flag fights start. Once you have killed a butt load of nasty multi spawning MoBs ( you need damn good crowd control for these fights ) you then get a bunch of nameds spawn.

Once you complete the combat phase you hail the Planar Apparition and you get 2 of the 3 Character flags for the Temple of Mithaniel Marr. One of the nameds in the 2nd flagging was also kind enough to drop an Ornate Silk Robe Pattern. I think Kez was embarrassed that one of his Necro's was still wearing a Bonecasters Robe and he was kind enough to award the pattern to me. For those who don't know, 500pp and a lot of help from a high level tailor and brewer you end up with this.

Holy Shit it is a nice robe!. There are better robes out there, but not very many and most of them drop off MoBs like the Emperor or in VT. I remember reading up on this robe and the other Ornate stuff while I was on Karana and thinking I would never get to see any of it. Now I am wearing the Robe!. /Hug SA. The only pieces I have left that I still need to return to people in SA who have loaned them to me are, one earring, both bracers and I still need to find me a pair of Boots and Im wearing all my own gear again!

So after we got 2/3 flags for Mithaniel we headed off to BOT for some tower killing. Two tower bosses died in rapid succession and dropped Nada
/rude VI

Next week our raid night is immediately after the Patch! so there should be LOTS of good targets up WOOT!

Little Red Fire Engine survived all the fights cause he wasnt there :)