This weeks images are a bit larger than normal. They are all still under 20K and the same size as usual , but it was a flagging night, so I tried to get decent close ups of stuff. Apologies to those on Dial-Up. First up, a quote from group chat a week or so ago. We were forming up to venture into CODa and Elly got a little frustrated with his 2nd PC's logon time.
For those who (Like me) need glasses.
Ellyrion tells the group: "My 2nd PC is slow as fuck"
Metalex tells the group: "upgrade"
Ellyrion tells the group: "I've seen old ppl fuck faster"
Caniella tells the group: "I really don't want to think about that"
I have to agree Cani, I really don't, but it gets quote of the month from me!!.
Well last night was an adventure!. We had examples of Southern Armada at our best and at (from what I have seen so far) our worst, sometimes at the same time. First up. Shei Vinitras. Flawless kill. I LOVE running all the way through Akheva Ruins and just AOEing all the trash on the way.
Next up Agnarr!!. WOOT a flagging, a flagging!. So we form up outside BOT in the courtyard. Someone manages to aggro the statue's. Not sure how that happened but we quickly dealt with them and started to move in. Geno DA's in and pulls the trash out from zone, we deal with the Portals and adds and turn on Evynd Firestorm. It was a bit messy and at one point I seriously thought we were going to wipe. We had adds all over the place, uncontrolled, Pooby down, Hill down, Nym tanking the Named, healers going down. We brought it back under control and I hoped that would going to be the shake down of the night and it would be nice and smooth after that.
So we take down the first level of the tower and rez, rebuff ready for the second. Geno DA's in to pull trash away again and goes down!. Pooby is on the named and keeping it entertained, CH chain is flowing nicely. 30 casters are standing there, thumbs up their butts looking for a target, no Second Assist!!. I am standing around ready to unleash some serious unpleasantness, I'm FM and can see at least 3 targets that the Chanters have under control and cant do nada!
It got sorted, Pallies stepped up and we rapidly took out the whirly stone thingies and started on the named. This is a fun kill. The AE's are so nasty that its really a ranged fight. So with the target designated, Pooby keeping aggro I just chain dotted the hell out of him, ended the fight at about 30% mana.
Image shamelessly Stolen from Illia's cause I didn't manage to get a good one.
Emmerick Skyfury
We got a "well done, as flawless a kill as I have ever seen" from Geno!!!!. Wow!. Finally we make it to Agnarr's floor. Everybody knows what to do, we are fully buffed, we are pumped from the last couple of fights, Geno calls it and we Engage!. Of course it all goes completely tits up. Pooby down, Cani and Trundle down, Geno down, confusion over Second Assist calls and targets, most of the Rangers and Druids kiting Agnarr down, Wizzie's down, half the Necro's down. We have 4-5 uncontrolled Adds running amok inside the raid, Agnarr wont stay controlled and Hilly and Panolen are doing a fucking beautiful job kiting him.
I looked up and less than a third of the raid is still standing, bodies everywhere, Agnarr rampaging, adds just dropping people in one round all over the place. We are fucked. Then, the Guild took a collective deep breath, dug deep and recovered. This is to me the difference between a Guild and a Raiding Guild. We may only raid 2-3 times a week, but nothing gets in our way. Thats our reputation. We are the little guild that does more with less. The only difference now is we arent so little. People stepped up to do their jobs, thought outside the box and just said to themselves "This is NOT going to beat me". Many many guilds would have just taken the wipe at this point or had somebody do something stupid and complete the wipe. Not Southern Armada.
I was dragging (trying to, consent damnit), Combat rezzing started, Necro's are dumping to Clerics and throwing out Dots and Nukes as the off tanks got the Adds under control, Malina did an absolutely fantastic job keeping the named Giant out of the way, Panolen kept Agnarr occupied until Bilb (after his Rez) could get his AA boosted root on him and fix him in position.
Slowly we dragged ourselves back from a wipe, toon by toon we came back, until we had a room clear of Adds and Portals, Agnarr rooted against one wall and a fully rezzed and ready to go Raid. I couldn't believe it. I was fully stunned, that was a better feeling than dropping Ryd'dar the first time, that was Southern Armada in action. Kez was right to stop recruiting after all the guys from Xev came across, to allow everyone time to get to know one another. If last night was anything to go by, I would say the shakedown is nearly complete and SA is close to being ready for Rallos. Having said that, we should never have gotten that close to a wipe in the first place. No ones fault. Geno's strats were perfect. I think with Kez away and others having a rest, the few left in the officer corps are just about stretched to the limit. Once we were recovered however, Agnarr didn't even rate a blip on our radar. He is another one who spawns adds as his health drops :
The final add is Hibdin Cyclone and he is apparently a major pain, un-slowable and a massive damage output. Geno tanked him and we just blew him away.
Finally the swine we were there for, Agnarr the Storm Lord. Ganked.
So we all ran upstairs to see Karana. It really is a kind of a cruel joke on the part of SOE to make the most hated God in the game, be the one you have to rescue. I was so looking forward to killing Karana for all the times I spent lost on his Plain's or just going round and round in circles in his damn rain.
This week we have a patch Wednesday night and a raid Thursday night so the pickings should be good! Well last week's Raids sucked ass in the end. Patch Wednesday was delayed to Thursday, so the raid was delayed to Friday. Then of course SOE fucked up the patch and had to emergency patch on the Friday. By the time the servers came up I was asleep. So sometime in the week I went along and helped drop Trakanon again and that was about it for raiding this week.
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