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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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