Everquest Southern Armada Raids Week Twenty Three

30/07/03 Week Twenty Three

I had an unpleasant interchange with a person on Monday night which caused me to log out immediately, or I was going to say and do very nasty things. So I logged in on Tuesday feeling a little down, but after a chat with a couple of people (thank you) I perked right up. I was looking forward to Tuesdays raid because I was fairly sure RZtW was going to be up. There was in fact much PoP goodness up, but Kez first called the raid to the Plane of Disease for a little FatBoy back flagging.

I of course did the obvious and ran straight to the Crypt of Decay for "I have no ears" Banord Paffa. It wasn't till I zoned in and was wondering where the raid was that I realized.. DOH!

This was as clean a Grummus kill as I have seen so far. Absolutely flawless. I think we lost a hippy treehugger during the Grummus kill itself but that was it. First up of course we needed a key so Gryme the Crypt Guardian had to die.

Then a quick run up the stairs, smacking some nasty undead about (I couldn't even get a nuke off they were dieing so damn fast) and it was Aramin the Spider Guardian's turn.

Finally we ran down and Grummus died. I think from entering the zone to Grummus down was 45 minutes tops.

One thing I did notice about Grummus this time that I have never seen before. When he runs, he prances!. I have my suspicions that our friend Grummus may in fact be a little light in the loafers! No real bloke would ever be caught dead running like that. I wonder if he and Berty get together and have little pajama parties now and again?!.

In the 5 or 6 times I have now seen Grummus Killed I have never seen him drop a Pus Covered Beetle Carapace. Finally last night he did, and I won it woot!. So now my transformation to a warrior has begun!. I have the Sword, I have the Shield, now all I need is the Body Armour to complete the look! Well technically the Body Armour is a robe but dribble dribble drool drool anyway.

Next is the MOB run we have all been waiting for. Southern Armada's first run at Rallos Zek the Warlord in the Fortress of Zek. We formed up and set up for the kill. We managed to get to the 2 triggers with little or no effort.

Decorin Berik

That's when it all started to go wrong. It was announced over and over and over how the next part of the script was to go, it was announced again and again to turn attack on assist off and many other things were heavily repeated. These things were still happening. If you don't want to pay attention during the raid, why the fuck did you turn up?. The Necro channel started to get very pessimistic before we had even pulled Tallon Zek. First run was ugly and we wiped nasty style.

Fast reform, re-pull the triggers and Tallon Zek again. This one was Flawless. This is the Southern Armada I LOVE to watch. Everyone pays attention, does what they are supposed to and the MOB dies like it was an Orc_Pawn_01 in East Commons.

Perfection. Unfortunately the script was bugged to hell and within 2 minutes we had Vallon, 4 Guards and 5 MOBS between us and Vallon's room on top of us. Second wipe. Ah well, reform and getting ready to go again, Vallon back in his room, rezzing happening, and POP, the dead Tallon is on top of the raid, where he had no right to be. Third wipe. At this point it was determined that there was 2 Vallon's up and Tallon was back again, so we decided to call it a bugged script and settle for the night.

S.A headed out at this point to drop Tower Bosses in the Bastion of Thunder, it was close to 1:30 AM again, so I logged. We were hoping the Emperor was going to honor us with a visit on Wednesday night, unfortunately he declined. There was lots and lots of Ssra flagging going on as well, unfortunately I was in the first XP group I had managed in 3 weeks and I wasn't going to give it up. I am really hoping that we get to take a lot more runs at Rallos Zek. I am elemental flagged and all that, but I really really want to drop him with SA. Kill him a few times, a bit more back flagging and hopefully we can move on to Sol Ro's Tower and Sol Ro himself!.

Always Remember: Everyone comes along for the ride.

Friday, bottle of Rum and 2 bottles of Coke, Ice in the Ice bin, and I'm good to go. First off is a quick run down to Kael Drakkal for some killing of Giant royalty. Now personally I am never happier than when killing Giants so I was really looking forward to this. A quick port to the Wakening Lands, and its time for mass giant death. One of my favorite calls in EQ is "inc lots", the pull team didn't fail us and brought pretty much every giant between the Throne Room and the Wakening Lands zone line.

I remember seeing one of the Karana server Uber guilds in action about 2 years ago. I was just hanging at the zone line when I heard Novae were incoming to kill Tormax. At the time I needed the faction hits so I contacted the raid leader and asked if I could hang out for faction. The raid leader kindly acquiesced and I stayed to watch them enter the zone. Thing that amazed me number one: One of their Monks hung out at the zone in at Wakening to tank the two guard giants, why?, for fun. I was stunned, a Monk tanking a Giant?!, wow.

Thing that amazed me Number Two: Their pull team just pulled everything in the zone including Tormax and killed it at the zone line. At that point I had never seen anything like it (considering my guild had just graduated from killing Vindi for the first time). Now I not only get to see the same thing I get to participate, which is even better!. I often wonder is there some young (60-) toon standing around watching us do the thing's we do and saying to themselves, "Wow I wish I could do that some day!" and being amazed at players who can take MOB's like Tormax out with such style.

Tormax, King

I am about to bring my Warrior across from Karana (Put the application in on Sunday). I will have to park him in KD just in case Vindi's breastplate drops!. All our tanks have better and Derakor the Vindicator is such a sucker...

Next up, a quick run across the world, damn I love the POP book system, and up to Terris Thule's hangout. Quite a few of her Guards decided to dispute our right of passage. This was a very, very foolish idea as they died thick and fast.

I so want this model as the 65 pet. And I want my horsie to look like this when I go into Skelly form while riding. Somebody at SOE make it so please.

Terris was the first mob I ever experienced a wipe with, with Southern Armada so she holds a special place in my heart *sigh*. Not enough to stop us Ganking her though. I really enjoy this fight, it's a lot of fun.

Terris Thule

Once she was dead and the PhatLewtz had been handed out, we had time for a quick Zek smacking in the Fortress of Zek and Tallon died hard. I didn't even cast on the bastard, had full HP, didn't get near him, I was just taking an SS for this weekly tome and the bastard detonated on me. I think I'm just going to stay outside the room from now on, maybe run in when he is 50% and he is fixated on someone else. I WILL figure out how to survive him!

We then headed to the Crypt of Decay for an attempt at Bertoxxulous. I was really looking forward to this as last time I never got a chance to actually see him in action, this time I was planning on wandering around the corner to get a screenshot of him.

Unfortunately as a Necro you don't get to see a lot during the Bertoxxulous ring fight. Its basically face the wall and Nuke, or if it gets really interesting you get to mezz a mob for 5 seconds until the Chanters get to it. I did manage to get one screen shot of one named King.

Kavilis Adan

SA was not on form during the fight. I kind of compare it to a drunk professional boxer facing off against a talented amateur. The amateur is still going to get his ass kicked, there is no doubt about that, but he manages to get a few damn nice smacks in against the Professional. It was messy, lets say that.

When I write these weekly ramblings I tend to try and be as general as I can about the encounters we do. I don't want to give away tactics or specifics about an encounter in case I spoil it for someone. However I think I can safely say this without ruining the Bertoxxulous ring event for anyone. When you finally get to Bert himself and you move to his room for the pull, don't get up and stand on the fucking tombs. Try it, its not nice. Wipe. Damn it two hours, 144 Man hours completely wasted. Ah well, shit happens and we will get his ass next time.

Wipe out...

Saturday was fun. I joined up with the kind folks over at Unity for my first run at the Elemental Plane of Water. WOOT! My first time raiding an Elemental!. We formed up in the little beach thingy and moved into the tunnels. As would be expected in such a place most of the MOB's are water based creatures.

A Barracuda

A Great White

Now the MOB's themselves aren't too hard, yard trash is a bit like the BOT Giants in terms of hardness. What makes this zone tough is the fact that its all underwater. Go and get your Enduring Breath item now. Maneuvering and positioning in here is a whole new ball game. You have to be tight and well controlled as moving through the zone is all about short sharp moves. If this was a regular dungeon I would say its a well designed dungeon crawl. The trick in here is to keep moving or you will never beat the re spawn.

First named up was Grioihin the Wise. He isn't that tough but he's got a NASTY AOE unresistable stun that makes it hard for the tanks to hold aggro and the clerics to keep healing the tanks.

Incoming Grioihin the Wise

He went down, messy, but he died. Half the raid wiped, we started rezzing people in, make sure the first thing you do is loot your EB item, or like me you are going to die and have to be re rezzed *self-smack*. We reformed and ventured even deeper into the zone, we got lost at one point and had to backtrack but we ended up visiting Hydrotha and nailing his fishy ass to the wall. This guy is tough, he has the HP of some of the Ssra mobs with 5 times the damage output and a slow proc on the MT.

We ventured even further in and found this guy. Fishlord Craiyk. I don't know if he summons mobs, just agro's them or is just a pain in the ass. But DO NOT talk to the little bastard. Someone did and we ended up with a nasty named and half a dozen of his friends. That was the end of that and it was a rez at the GY time.

At that point I had to log, so I got my rez and headed out after DMFing the entire raid again. I am off tonight to go camp the words for GDMF *sigh*.

I also managed to get into a Sol Ro Tower group or two this week, killing a lot of these guys.

A Sentry of Ro

Someone asked my why I never have spell effects turned on during my screen shots. They said that the pics would look really cool. I do have all models turned on which is tough enough, but with spell effects on you get the following. This is a screen shot with only one party casting on the mob.

With a full raid casting, quite often you simply cannot see the mob. It disappears in a welter of spell effects. It is pretty, yes, but it also turns my PC into a slide show, and my box is reasonably high end.

Everquest Southern Armada Raids Week Twenty Two

24/07/03 Week Twenty Two

Well Tuesday was not a good day for the Guild. We logged in and the scouts went out. Tracking Bots in Ssra, Kael Drakkal, The Deep, POD, POTac, HOH, POV, COD, HOT, Sol Ro, all reported back nada. There was nothing up anywhere at all. A whole raid of pissed off, mostly drunk, some slightly stoned Aussie's and Kiwis wondering what the hell to do next!!.

Kez sensed this (Jedi senses tingling!) and rather than call the whole thing off led us to the Deep where we proceeded to lay the smack down on the Burrower Beast.

Is it just me or is this getting easier and easier?. After that, and all of us praying for Rallos Zek the Warlord to pop (he didn't) we decided to hit NToV. Now normally I would be the first bastard in line to go and keel everything in NToV as I only ever did one (very unsuccessful) raid into there on Karana. I would love to have wandered through and slaughtered Dragons left right and center.

Problem is my Boots suck major assage. The two best boots in the game for Necro's outside of the Elementals are White Dragon Scale Boots and Decayed Shoes of the Plaguebringer. The Shoes of the Plaguebringer drop from Bertoxxulous and we are very very unlikely to see another pair. The Dragonscale boots require Ally faction to Lord Yelinak to do the hand in of Tormax's head. Guess what an NToV crawl is going to do?, you guessed it, trash my faction with Lord Yelinak. :( As I am far more likely to see KT's head than I am a pair of Bert's shoes, I decided to err on the side of caution and not continue the raid. If I ever replace my crappy boots and they call another NToV raid, I will be there.

So very reluctantly I logged out and went to bed. I surely hope tonight brings us more luck.

The raid continued on and thoroughly trashed everything in NToV, drops are were fast and many and Grats to those who were there.

Well Tuesday night once again the scouts went out. The Euro/American Guilds again hadn't left us a lot. Mithaniel Marr was up and The Emperor was due but that was about it. We formed up in Crypt of Decay for a little early Paffa Gankage. I don't think the fucker drops the Earring anymore, this means he needs to be killed over and over for sheer vengeance.

Fat Waste of Time Bastard

After that we hung about for 5 minutes or so while the officers decided what to hit next. The Blood popped in Ssraeshza Temple and that made up their minds, off to Gank the Emperor!. So, much porting, running, galloping later (did I mention my Black Horsie!? WOOT!) and we were formed up in Ssra. Fight up to the third floor and kill off as many named's as we can for an hour two and get a few more final key pieces.

With a couple more keys done and the raid numbers expanded even further we moved into the Emperors Room. Set up, pre target, move in and Kez tells Hilly "Bring me Snakes :)".

Doesn't he have a way with words !! Arrows fly, the Blood of Ssraeshza comes, Crowd Control does their thing, Hilly calls Assist, the Blood dies, adds under control, Emp due to pop. Kez goes LD. Err bugger, never mind, we know what we are doing right!?.

Clerics move to Position, Lucina is in place and ready with weapon shield, Pooby has Def ready and AE taunt good to go. POP Emp is here.

Err aggro?, who has it?, oops Malina down, where's Page?, its on that druid, err no its not cause he's dead, now its on that cleric, err nope he's dead too. Pooby runs over (Cause Emp is standing with the casters) and tries to drag him off and over to the fight spot. Nope he doesn't want to move, he seems happy where he is.

Where is healage?, its dieing a lot from Rampage it seems. Necro's are rezzing, damn out of EE's, Pooby down, Hill tanking, Emp in with the healers = BAD, move his ass out of there, Pooby up, buffed and gtg, Necro's dumping to Healers and CC as they come back from Rezzes, also keeping damage streams on the Emp at the same time.

Pooby gets aggro, healers get back online, CC seems in control, Necs have a chance to med, Wizzies are just doing the wizzie thing and nuking the crap out of Emp, Necs have start an LB chain, rangers are going hard out, a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat again.

The PhatLewtz flowed from both the Blood and the Emperor himself!

Now one man has moaned, whined, bitched, yelled, screamed, niggled and just generally annoyed the hell out of everybody about a particular piece of loot for the last 5-6 months. Well last night he was rewarded (after the Necro's spent most of the night telling him how it wasn't going to drop cause we/he sucked) with Koadic's Robe of Heightened Focus. Grats Xinen mate!, well deserved! The Necro's as a group (Bar one cause we couldn't let him have it completely unopposed) all stayed out of the tells for that one cause we hate to see a grown Wizzie cry, Druids on the other hand....

Before Die Job

After Die Job

In fact that means Xinen has had 2 drops from successive Emperor kills! Lucky bastard!. Kodiacs is easily one of the top three robes in the game and every dress wearer in the guild is envious as hell.

We succoured out to the Zone line and started to form up to have a go at the Cursed. I was quite ready to hang out and stay for this one, but prep time stretched and stretched and I realized it was after 1:00am and I was just about asleep at the keyboard. So I called my Goodbye's, logged and headed for bed.

This weekend was awesome. I didn't get on till late as I had to do some remote work in Whangerei (don't worry most Kiwis can't pronounce it correctly either). Once I had finished the work I logged in and checked in with the nice folks in Unity. They were just forming up in Tactics to hit Tallon Zek. I figured what the hell, today is a good day to die and joined up with them. They formed up, fought their way in ( HATE those goddamn splitters and their damn debuff's) and promptly dropped Tallon.

I am actually seriously considering buying or pursuing the words for Group Dead Man Floating. DMFing 70+ raids one by one is a pain. But its kinda fun to get buff requests as a Necro. Those who do it all the time probably hate it but as a Necromancer I kind of enjoy it.

I survived Tallon!, that's twice!. I think I get it now. No DOT's, just Nuke the hell out of him and FD a lot. I got caught in the periphery of one of his blasts but tapped the hp back and it was all good. Not a lot else was up and Unity leadership was casting around for a target. I was on my hands and knee's in front of the PC praying to the Gods of EQ that Rallos would pop. We had a sacrificed a pally (or three) to them during the Tallon Zek fight so I figured that must be good enough!.

Nope, still not up so they decided the next fight would be in Halls of Honor to visit Mithaniel Marr. Just as I was about to zone into Halls of Honor and head to MM the officers called "Rallos Zek is UP!!"

Woot! so we all run back to Tactics, the call is going out in /GU and Southern Armada members start to head towards Tactics. As we zone in we realize that there are a number of Talionis people formed up in zone as well. The buffage was short and sweet and we start to head up towards RZ and the triggers. Words are exchanged at various points by Unity and Talionis until it is requested in /RAID that no-one says anything to any member of Tali.

I believe the raid leaders comments were something along the lines of "Let our deeds speak for us not words". Good call. Much negotiating went on in the back ground, at one point we were waiting with the TZ trigger and Tali were in the other corridor with the VZ trigger. In the end the Unity and Talionis officers worked out a deal. Unity and SA all zoned/gated out and waited for Talionis to take a shot. They took out Tallon and then failed on Vallon. Now it was our turn.

First up we cleared through to the triggers, pulled them and had them in place. Unfortunately the Chat Channels chose that point to go down. Oh well, we continued on clearing trash, then it was discovered that there were 2 Tallon Zek's up. It was looking remarkably like the script was bugged. Of course at this point I am sitting there sweating, sooooooo close to Rallos again, and with all the grief from Talionis and SOE side problems it wasn't looking good for the kill. So we all logged out completely to try and restart Channels and reset the script. It worked yeah!.

Tallon about to die....

Vallon's about to die....

Rallos is about to die...

And finally the big bastard himself!

And that was that. Rallos Zek the Warlord owned, the Planar projection hailed, the Chief Librarian informed of the Death of Rallos, the Seer consulted..

and for the very first time I zoned into the Plane of Earth,

then the Plane of Air,

and finally the Plane of Water.

I did a quick check of the Guild to see where everyone was and noted several people had also zoned into POEarth. So I headed back there to see what they were up to just in time to see them kill a few MOB's from the Plane.

A Needlescale Hatchling

A big tree who's name I didn't get...

After that I was a bit lost. Unity were continuing on raiding but I didn't really feel like doing that. So I ran about to various places looking for a group. Sent tells out to all the guildies I could and got "No, FG" all round. Ah well, these things happen, checked all the solo camp spots, all taken, everyone on my friends list is either FG or otherwise occupied. I keep trying to get groups in Sol Ro's Tower. Not so much because of the Ornate drops (tho they are a bonus), more because the zone just looks so amazing and I really want to see a lot more of it. I cant wait for SA to start hitting the place regularly so we can have a good look around.

I had a good chat for a couple of minutes with one of the Unity officers while I was sitting in POW wondering what to do next. Finally Boobs saved me! "Come help me with my Epic" she says!. So we ran around to 4 zones, handed stuff to various Scouts which spawned various Monsters, which we promptly killed.

BIG Spidey!

BIG Doggie!

That last one was actually a pain in the ass. He managed to kill me twice, I really hate MOB's that Blind. Reminder to self, never go up against a MOB half assed, especially one you don't know!!. Once the MOB was deaded, Boobs looted it, we got some bit's, we ran back to some other guy and handed it all into him. I wish the bloody Necro Epic was even half that easy. That was a fun way to fill in an hour or two and once we were done I decided to head back to Sol Ro again and try my luck.

I met up with Mallee and she showed me how to aggro kite the nasty Guards around the lava fountain. That was fun till we ran into two bugged 20K hitting, summoning MOBs in a row and that was shut down rather rapidly. So its back LFG. I ended the evening soloing in Halls of Honor for some reasonably decent XP.

I have a problem. I have now achieved nearly everything I ever wanted to in EQ. I have killed the Emperor, I have a Black Horsie, I have a (near as makes no difference) full spell book, I have zoned into the Elemental Planes. The only thing I haven't done is fought in VT (coming soon). I have never really even considered zoning into Time, it was always just an impossible dream, now its actually possible I will have to think about it.

The only other thing I have really really wanted is to break the 3K HP mark, but that's really a loot-centric thing and its just not me. I need a new goal for Ulaa. I'm currently doing my VP key (somebody tell me there is a secret way to spawn the bloody Pained Soul Puleeeeese!). Maybe my goal should be to max out AA's?. maybe to lead a raid?, I shall have to think about it.

Everquest Southern Armada Raids Week Twenty One

07/07/03 Week Twenty one

Due to unavoidable RL shit I had to miss Tuesdays raid. I elected to log for that raid and deal with said RL shit rather than ignore it and maybe have to deal with it during the Rallos Zek hit.

I managed to tag along to the first kill of the night. Mr Overlord Banord 1/33 Paffa still has no ears, *sigh*

But that was it. I helped a few new guild members make it to the HOH zone, made sure they got into the raid and there was someone to look after them, basically made sure all was good and had to log. Unfortunately real life intruded on EQ and I had to go and sort it all out. So no Update for Tuesday.

There was a failed Lord Inquisitor Seru raid in Sanctus Seru the Sunday before as well. Please let Pooby get aggro, please please please. Don't cast until the assist is called. If that means that the MT forgets to call assist and you never get to cast anything. Then so be it. Stand there with your thumb up your ass but do not cast.

Wednesday we formed up about 3-4 groups and headed into The Temple of Solusek Ro. I have only been into Sol Ro's tower once before. I managed to hook up with an SA group to pull some stuff around the entrance for a couple of hours. This time we ventured quite a distance in and headed to the lair of Xuzl. He's a bit of a girly man really, but he, and the area he is in look awesome!. Sol Ro's Tower is just an amazing zone to be in. I would like to spend a lot more time in there, organising groups for the Tower is, however rather hard.

Xuzl

It actually went a little sideways on us at first, but the recovery was brilliant once again and we took him down with true SA flair. I am not sure exactly what happened but the raid leader called for us all to get out of the room and prepare for a wipe. So I headed out of the room as per instructions, then the call came to all run back in, get up on the platform and continue the fight. We did exactly that and he went down.

So that's one less Flag I need towards an Elemental plane. 4 more SolRo Minis to go and its time for a run at Sol Ro himself!. I hope Kez is back tonight, we miss you kez, get your ass back online. We will be doing more back flagging tonight I think. I logged on last night to help out with Bastion of Thunder Giant killing and back flagging and that issue that I thought I had dealt with on Tuesday night came back to bite me again. So after about an hour of Giant killing I had to log again.

The GF is out for Friday's raid, so as long as I have a good connection (and with the servers as shitty as they have been lately there is no guarantees) I will hopefully be online for the whole raid. What annoys me most is that I make a commitment to help out, to be online and do something for other people and I get interrupted because its "just a game and you can turn it off anytime". No amount of explaining that there are 40-50 other real people also involved in what I am doing ever seems to sink in,

Kez is back!! woot!. Welcome back boss!. I logged on and straight to Overlord Banord 'My ears fell off again" Paffa (1/34) in the Crypt of Decay. Guess what, bloody Cloak. I am beginning to believe that the Earring has been removed from the Drop Table. Either that or its so stupidly rare as to not be worth killing him for.

Since we were in Crypt of Decay anyway we decided to take a run against the Carprin Cycle. We kicked off the cycle, the pulling team and off tank team did a marvelous job and Carprin Deatharn and his assorted undead buddies went down in quick succession.

Next up is the Mob I've never seen and the Mob that gives us the most trouble out of this whole run. Once again we wiped against him and had to fight back to Ahvi Escron's room. As is also standard practice, the second run against him he was dropped with no problems. Next up is the massive damage output of Raex Pwodil. SA handled him beautifully and he snuffed it fast and clean.

Then comes Vindor Mawnil (I can now spell both of those names without having to refer to Allakhazam's first!). Both of these two can pump out huge damage. One Rampages a lot the other Flurries a lot and both of them are capable of one rounding a fully raid buffed main tank if your heal team is not very very tight.

Then its a quick run around the corner and drop the rather pathetic Bishop Toluwon. If you can take Vindor and Raex this guy is gimp. We had a monk tank and dropped him rapidly.

Then its the final MOB in the run and the flag boss, High Priest Ultor Szanvon. In comparison to Raex and Vindor he is a girlyman.

Ding!!, a bunch of people got flagged for CODb!. Yay!, less back flagging to do later!. This whole run is a classic example of how SOE fundamentally doesn't understand the bullshit they constantly spew about "Risk vs Reward". I don't know whether they think the flag is the reward or not, but for the difficulty, damage output and level of the MOBs in the cycle, they should drop something halfway decent. Instead you punch your way through the whole cycle and get stuff that goes straight to the Guild Mule because not even the Newbies want it. Its utterly ridiculous.

Next up, Halls of Honor. We figured since we were on a flagging run we should do it properly. We quickly ran through the Princess Trial (4rooms),

Then the Villagers (12man) and finally Rydda`Dar. I still love killing this dragon. I get the butterflies every time we engage because he will still own you if you make even a little mistake. It was a messy take down for us. But a kill is a kill.

That was about that for Friday. Lots of back flagging got done, grats to those who finished up their flagging and thank you to those who made a special effort to be there for the back flagging session as well.

Well Saturday was both a lot of fun and one of the most frustrating days I have ever spent in EQ. It started really really well, I logged in and joined the Unity raid channel to see what was going on. Unity was prepping to kill Grummus. Now I haven't killed the fat bastard for a while and it was that or more camping the Pained Soul in Trakanon's Teeth. So I rang an NZ SA member who I knew needed Grummus and told him to log on. We headed out to Plane of Disease, formed up, ran in, and the first to die was Gryme the Crypt Keeper.

Up the stairs, through the door and Aramin the Spider Guardian dies.

Finally a very quick prep and in we go against Grummus.

Next up we were going to hit Carprin, but oops, SA had dropped him the night before. Then it was maybe HOH, but OOPs we cleaned that out as well. So they called Aerin' Dar and off we all headed to the Plane of Valor. The first attempt was made up just about entirely of Unity alts and it failed. After a fast reform and rebuff the second attempt was perfect and AD went down cleanly.

After about 5 minutes waiting around the Unity raid leaders called Rallos Zek!. Holy shit!, he wasn't supposed to be up for another 24 hours as far as I was aware. I knew Unity had dropped him for the first time the week previous, I had never even seen him so I decided to hang out and see how they went. Everyone logged their alts, brought in their Mains and we formed up in Drunder. For Unity this was a damn fast form-up. Normally they take a while to get sorted but this was lightning quick. I should have known at this point that this wasn't the same Unity I had experienced in the past.

We fought in, grabbed the two named triggers and when in position Unity dropped them. Tallon Zek was inc. Now this is where I have seen the previous runs I have been on with Unity fall apart.

Not this time, this kill was smooth as silk. Next up, Vallon Zek.

Again, went down like a virgin on prom night. Unity lost 3 people in both fights. Now one of the interesting thing's about being a server transfer is that you don't know anything about guilds and reputations on a server. You don't know the servers "History" as it were and people are very often willing to tell you all about a certain guild or toon. Now I had heard that Unity was originally neck and neck with Keepers of the Faith for the number one position on the server. They had a bunch of core people leave all at once and were severely knocked back.

I have also heard it bandied about in exp groups (by people in Guilds I have never heard of or who are nowhere near the level of Nameless Order, KTF, Unity etc) that Unity was finished, their Glory days were over and they may as well give up. I will tell you one thing, based on what I saw Saturday, those people are about to be eating their words because Unity's performance against Rallos Zek was easily one of the smoothest demonstrations of Power I have seen yet. I really wish I could have seen them at their height.

Unity is definitely back and headed to Time. If they can continue the current level of dedication and discipline then IMHO Unity are definite contenders.

Finally we made it to Fake Rallos, engaged, handled the adds beautifully and all Evac'd out to the Zone in ready for real Rallos.

Not a single death in the whole fake Rallos fight, clean as a whistle. Raced in and down to Rallos Zek the Warlord. Sorted charming, add teams in place and off we went.

We made one mistake. The Raid leader forgot to call Full Burn. That was it. We failed with Rallos at 8%. Unity decided to make another run, it was very very late for them so all Kudos that they all stuck around. We reformed at Zone In and raced for the triggers again. There was initially some concern that Tallionis were in zone and forming up for a run at RZtW as well, but they were in fact after the "real" Zek brothers.

So after a bit of pissing about we headed back to Tallon Zek.

Then big brother Vallon:

Back to Fake Rallos.

This one was a little messier. Unity was getting tired and it got a bit sloppy, but we were back at the Zone In in good time, reforming ready for the run at RZtW...

Link Death.

The whole fucking raid went Link Dead, in fact I think most of the population of EQ went LD all at once. I spent 20 minutes frantically trying to get back in to rejoin the raid. I got 1018 errors, 1017 errors and 1001 errors. In fact the entire gamut of errors. I finally checked into CHAT to find the whole game LD. At this point I logged in frustration. I knew the raid wasn't going to complete as the timer would have run out.

The penultimate of EQ is the Elemental Planes. I need one more Flag to make it into the elementals, Rallos Zek the Warlord. I never even dreamed I would be this close, never in my wildest imagination did I think I would make it to the Elementals. To be that close (Unity took him down the next day, first run, so we would have taken him out on Saturday) and to have it snatched away was frustrating beyond belief. I logged out and walked quickly away from my PC before I decided to break something.

The next day (when I cant logon, Sundays are GF time) Unity and SA took out Rallos and about 15 people from SA were Elemental flagged. I was so frustrated when I read that, that I couldn't logon. I logged on again on Monday, died to an LD on a pull and logged out again. Raid night is tonight and I will be there. I wouldn't miss it for the world, but my tolerance for general XP'ing (and all the frustration with constantly being knocked back when trying to set up/join groups) is very very high right now. Most nights I just end up camping some piece of shit key mobs or doing Green farming anyway, there isn't a lot of fun in that