Everquest Southern Armada Raids Week Fourty Four

24/12/03 Week Fourty Four
Well a very lite week for raids due to it being Xmas. So the only raid we had was Monday this week. It turned out that I was to be getting an early Christmas pressie. Vex Thal, the zone I keep missing the raids for, was not only up but fully populated. I sat waiting for the raid call, hoping and hoping for Vex Thal.

The raid leaders however decided that there weren't enough keyed people online for VT, so the first call of the night was to the Elemental Plane of Earth as there appeared to be several Rings up. Now I wasn't thrilled with that, a fully popped VT just sitting there waiting to be killed! However where the officers say, I go and with a smile on my face. So off to Earth it was, to face the mindless and relentless hordes that dwell there.

First up was the Ring of Mud. For some reason SA was not having a good night at the start. We got ourselves set, people dribbled in over the course of the early pulls and the MOB's came in slowly but surely. Then came the slightly more complex bits of the ring, the Sludge Lurkers and their multi spawns.

We were still doing reasonably well at this point, stuff was dieing, none of us were. Then suddenly and for no readily apparent reason, it all turned to shite.

I think that simultaneously the members of SA went AFK, fell asleep, grabbed a drink, lit up a smoke, turned to talk to their flatmate's/wives/girlfriends, scratched their ass, surfed to a really good porn site, turned their brains off (I was guilty of this one) etc etc. Whatever happened we took our eyes off the ball and what should by now be a clean easy sweep for us, turned into a CR and rebuff.

Whatever happened and for whatever reason, it seemed to wake us all up a bit, we reformed, sorted out buffs, pulled and cleared our way quickly past the boss of the ring.

At this point I was resigned to doing the rest of the Rings, as I understood that at least another two were up. So I was settled in to a night of wall watching and nuking on inc when the raid was called to VT!. *does the happy AHR dance*

So a quick port, run to Vex Thal and COH later we were engaged with Kaas Thox Xi Ans Dyek and beginning our journey into the depth of Vex Thal.

Now, never having done VT before, I had no idea what to expect. I had this update all planned in my minds eye, names places, loot dropped etc etc. Then of course the reality of VT hit. Essentially we pulled lots and lots of MOB's with completely incomprehensible names, all of which were identical to each other. Most of them also have some nasty AE's so caster's have to stay away from them and getting good screenies was a little difficult. So rather than screenies of each and every kill, here is a Named, Diabo Xi Xin Thall.

Then of course there are the many trash MOB's. Here is a Pli Thall Xakra. Imagine 4 hours with at least 3-6 of these in camp at all times and you are in VT.

At this point it was getting very, very late, like 3.00am kind of late. I started to get tells from a couple of people along the lines of "Hang in there, we are nearly there" and "You still awake?, don't worry not much longer". They kept sending me little tells of encouragement throughout the night. To those who sent me such tells (and you know who you are) thank you very much. I probably would have logged a lot earlier than I did without your encouragement.

Finally after hours of trash clearing we get to the first really interesting MOB of the zone Va Xi Aten Ha Ra. 

She is colloquially known as "Mini Aten" and drops the Sanguine Robe. Unfortunately for me she chose tonight to not drop it. That kind of sucks after SA getting 2 out of 2 robes in the last few weeks. I had actually sent a tell for an item earlier and then backed out of it, I figured that I would rather take the risk and wait and see if a robe was going to drop.

The three best caster robes in the game short of the third tier Gods of The Elemental Plane of Time, are the Sanguine Robe from Mini Aten, the Robe of Secrets from Aten ha Ra and Kodiacs Robe from the Emperor. Each robe is desired by a different silk class for different reasons. For Necro's its the Sanguine robe. Although it has slightly worse stats than the other 2 robes, it comes with Regen. For Necromancers far more than any other silk class, HP is all, because for us HP=Mana.

So I was a bit disappointed when Va Xi Aten Ha Ra didn't drop the Sanguine, but them's the breaks. I got to see her die and I got Screen shots so I was happy. We get to hit the Emperor a lot more often than we ever do VT, so maybe one day I will send a tell in for an Emp Robe, and if I am very lucky I may even win it. It is after all still a mighty fine robe.

Finally we reach the mighty Aten Ha Ra. She stands there proud, defiant, just aching to have her ass kicked by us.

Which we then proceeded to do. I must admit after all the clearing to get to her she was a little bit of a disappointment. It could also have been the fact that it was 5.00am at this point and I knew I was getting up at 6.45am to go to work. She died absolutely flawlessly and to be honest I wish she had been more trouble. Hell, killing Terris Thule is harder.

Aten Ha Ra is one of those MOBs, like the Emperor that you just have to kill in order to say you have fully experienced EQ. She is the kind of MOB I came from Karana to Prexus and joined Southern Armada to be able to see and kill. So I am damn glad I hung out till 5.00am to kill her. However the chances of me hanging out till 5.00am on a week night to try and get a Robe again are very very slim. So I did it once and I'm glad I did. But damn I felt REALLY bad on Tuesday morning at work.

/wave Aten Ha Ra and have a good Christmas all

Everquest Southern Armada Raid Week Fourty Three

16/12/03 Week FourtyThree
Just to confirm that everything is not perfect and life can still conspire to kick you in the teeth. I went LD while XP'ing in COD about 10 minutes before the Monday raid and managed to wipe out my group. Really sorry about that guys.

Monday was straight into Fire. We managed to get set up and pull the birdies without aggroing both of them this time, thus they died rather efficiently

Criare Sunmane

Dawneyes

Once again General Flamesinger decided to give up his MezzBreaker to us. He decided to charge the raid, 1 against 60!, a nice lad, but not too bright.

Then it was on to Air. I knew tonight's raid wasn't going to be a big one for me because I figured that we would have Vex Thal on the following night. Of course that was going to depend on whether there was going to be a nasty unannounced patch. So I was planning on logging about midnight, the officers had called an attempt on Sigismund and I knew that would run to at least 2am my time, so I figured I would hang out as long as I could then log.

So we zoned in and killed the nasties around the ZI.

Various other named's came along during the course of the next few hours, all of which we down without too much trouble.

Baltaldor the Cursed

Calebgrothiel

Melernil Faal' Armanna

The only MOB we had any issues with really, was the Avatar of Mist who didn't seem to want to be pulled. The Pull Team did their usual marvelous job and ultimately brought him right to us.

Avatar of Mist

The Avatar was my last kill of the night and I logged off about 12:00. The plan was to have at least one early raid night so I could stay late for a full Vex Thal pop, and to placate the GF due to there being 3 full raids this week. It was a good plan, and was going well, right up until 2 other guilds stepped in to fuck it up.

They cleared VT, it popped way to early and as we were watching they downed the entire zone, one MOB at a time. That hurt, it really did. So my "early" night was a complete waste of time. One good thing is that there is a random spawn time being added to VT in the next patch, which is Thursday, so chances are, if we sacrifice lots of Shammies (and we did last night) to the Loot Gods, we may get a decent shot at VT on Friday.

Last night as those two guilds were clearing VT, 2 other guilds were watching in Water for Coirnav to spawn so they could race for the kill. That left a close to fully popped Fire with no-one to clear it except us.

So after ending up incredibly late due to my group having a wee speed bump in an LDoN adventure, I managed to make it a few minutes before the first kill of the evening. First pull was Babnoxis the Spider Bitch. I hate this MOB, she has an evil evil mana drain DOT. Usually I end up sitting on my ass OOM for the last half of this fight, but once again the improved dps of Southern Armada reared its head and I was actually only OOM for the last 10% or so of her life.

Babnoxis the Spider Queen

Next up was Magmaton. Easy pull, hits like a truck, died quickly. 'Nuff said.

Magmaton

Next came Quavonis Firetail. This MOB has to be a joke. SOE obviously designed this with the express purpose of killing Monks. I can just see the designers rubbing their hands with glee and cackling "Oh so you think you are great pullers do you?, well pull this!."

I cant see any other reason for the length and difficulty of this pull. Quavonis Firetail caused our pull team quite some trouble and most of them died at least once getting the feathered swine out of his hole. Once he was out we nailed him, but what a pain in the bum.

Quavonis Firetail

So next its time for my favorite Model and its Blazzax the Omnifiend INC. I still maintain these are the coolest looking mobs I have yet to see in game. I have been told that the butterflies on her island and Xegony herself are pretty cool, but we haven't tried them yet.

Blazzax the Omnifiend has a fire shower

Finally we got our 3rd shot at Reparm. He popped as we were killing Quavonis Firetail woot!, that makes this close to a full fire pop!. The only thing we were missing were the two Phoenixes, but we seem to get them quite often so we weren't really too fussed at them not being up. Mr Reparm came in hard and fast. For those who have never encountered him he is easily the toughest MOB in the Planes short of the Elemental gods.

The first pull went badly wrong with Pooby dropping way to fast, the remaining tanks stepped up valiantly, the heal switches were pretty damn clean (with one or two wee booboo's) but we just lost too much DPS too fast. The Clerics were camped and the raid wiped with him at approximately 45%.

Repram

So we reformed, got ready, pulled and splat, he came in with 2 friends, Chanters were valiantly trying to get them in control but they started dieing until we had no live Chanters and 3 MOBs in camp.

Reparm and friends

So the raid leaders called camp and get ready for pull no# 3

So the third pull it was decided to try something a little different. ***EDITED: OOOPS apparently this was a leet strat, bugger I didnt realise, it just looked like common sense to me, Leet Strat removed.***. It worked.

General Reparm went down, slowly, but smoothly and close to flawlessly. I think everyone was just getting pissed off with dieing so much to a mob we have creamed in the past. They put their game faces on and we whacked him with typical SA style.

Dead Reparm

One of the reasons there was so much "wooting" going on when we found out that Reparm was up was that he drops this. It is just about the Monk equivalent of the Blade of War for the Warriors. Basically once you get one, you can pretty safely put all your other weapons aside. So Grats to Zarthaz on your new Shiny Flaming Fiery Staff of Zha.

And the final raid of this week will be Friday after the next patch. Patch days can be a mixed bag for us, some-day's they are awesome, some days they suck. I am crossing my fingers, toes and eyes and praying to the loot gods for a VT pop. I wonder if sacrificing a Gnome would help?, hmmmm come here Anobis...

Friday;
Well the fuckup fairies visited SOE again. The 18/12 patch is going to go down as one of the worst patches from a company already notorious for its inability to patch its own code. They are still trying to patch the patch and whatever they are trying to fix is either still broken or they are finding more stuff they broke in the original patch. I don't know what's going on, then again I suspect SOE doesn't either.

Whatever is going on they were "emergency" patching again on Friday, so with an immanent patch looming and sod all up to kill we were faced with a paucity of Targets. The call was to head out to Ssraeshza Temple to drop the Emperor. I was happy, at least we had something to kill rather than sitting around with our thumbs up our butts. So we all toodled off to the temple, got set up and headed out to the third floor.

We began the traditional farming of the third floor for remaining key parts (4) and it was pointed out that although the Emperor may in fact be up, the Blood of Ssraeshza wasn't. Bugger.

That in fact left us one, (count it, One) target. The High Priest of Ssraeshza. Now its been quite some time since we did him and the last time we did it with about 28 including bots. This time we had a fairly hefty raid and we have upped our DPS considerably. The raid leaders were also a lot more relaxed about killing him this time. We formed up in the jail pulled the various Guardians, assisted for the Banishment of Shadows targets and went in.

The last time I remember it taking ages to kill him. His HP seemed to drop soooo slowly, Fridays attempt at him was such a difference. He took a little longer to kill than Rallos Zek the Warlord, but not a hell of a lot longer.

I don't even think the CH chain clerics were really even trying and they certainly weren't stretched at all.

So we killed him, looted and gated about 5 minutes before the patch and that was that for the evening.

Everquest Southern Armada Raid Week Fourty Two

10/12/03 Week FourtyTwo
I was very tempted to just lead off today's update with a lot of swearing, I had this loooooong list of abusive terms like "Cock Smokers", "Cum Guzzlers", "Butt Monkeys", "Ass Clowns", "Piss Stains", "Anal Tears" and they should lick my sweaty under nuts and other nasty and unpleasant terms of that nature.
Why you ask was I in the mood to say abusive things like "Smeg scraping small dicked no necks" about such a marvelous company as the monolithic, monopolistic anti-competitve assholes over at Telecom?.

Well basically because after 3 days of being dicked around by them I finally proved what I have been telling them for the last 12 months.
THERE IS A HARDWARE PROBLEM YOU WANKERS
No it is not my PC, no I didn't suddenly completely change all my settings and install an application that is taking up 50% of the ADSL bandwidth the moment I turn the PC on. When I go link-dead ten times in a night I am NOT imagining it (One asshole actually asked me "are you sure" when I said my connection was dropping every 10 minutes)
So there are no updates this week. I have missed 3 raids due to no internet connection at all. That includes 2 full VT raids where they have had Robes of Secrets and Sanguine Robes dropping like candy!. Along with the Emperors Robe they are easily the best Robes in the game short of Quarm and Time. 

However all is fixed now. I shall be online for Fridays raid, and if I am very good VT will pop for us next Tuesday!.
Friday
This weeks quote of the week is brought to you by the Tower of Solusek Ro and, what I can only assume is just way to much beer!.

For those who cant read writing that small, I shall translate. 

Axixs tells the group: I suck MAJORLY
Firkasse tells the group: I swallow

I'm sure you two boys will be very happy together :) I'm still laughing over that little exchange!.

Next up is a shot of Nobby in his new robe. The Sanguine Robe is one of the top 3 robes in the game for Necro's as it comes with good stats, hp and a decent dose of Regen. Nobby received his during a late run into VT (woot I get an SS of AHR this Tuesday I hope!). Now Nobby and I work together, so for the last week I have had him walking past my desk, stopping, doing a little dance, and walking on. Every time I talk to him he starts the sentence with "By the way, did I tell you about my new robe?!"

By the way did I tell you Gnomes suck! Grats Anobis, you look very seksah in your new robe mate!

So on to raiding!. First call Friday was to the Elemental Plane of Earth where we were going to spawn the Arbitor for some more POEb keys. The pullers started and the fun part of POEa began, the AOE pulls.

Typical SA Monk pull "Some inc"

After we had dropped at least one ringboss it was decided that none of the loot mobs were up. So we would essentially be doing all 4 rings and the Arbitor for no loot at all. At this point the raid leaders decided "stuff this" and took us all off to the Elemental Plane of Fire where several nice, fat mobs full of loot awaited us. I was happy about this for two reasons. Firstly as I may have mentioned in passing, I hate POE. Secondly I had a mate with me who was watching over my shoulder to learn a bit about EQ and raiding.

Standing staring at a wall for 4 hours wouldn't have kept him all that entertained. So showing him the pretty Phoenix's and what came after was a far better way to get him interested!

Criare Sunmane

Sunmane died fast and clean. I'm not quite sure what happened next but somehow we got aggro from Dawneyes. Within seconds of Sunmane dieing Dawneyes was inc. We weren't really setup for him but what the hell we tried it. He was at about 45% when we wiped.

After the reform we nailed Dawneyes hard and spat on his corpse just to say 'don't do that again!'

The final kill in Plane of Fire was our old friend the inimitable General Druav Flamesinger. No offense to the good General Flamesinger but we want Reparm!, we want Reparm!. Reparm is always dead so we don't get many shots at him.

Then there was the call I really wasn't expecting, with a mate with me and eager to chat and a skin full of Bourbon, to be honest I really wasn't to sure how I was going to cope with it. "Rallos Zek is UP, get your asses to Tactics!"

Now we haven't had a chance at RZtW for a while, several people still don't have his flag and we need several more BoW's for the guild's warriors. So Friday's hit on him was gong to be a good way to wrap several things up at once.

So of course after a fast form up in the entry to Tactics we headed up, grabbed the triggers, pulled em to the engage spot, killed em and ganked Tallon Zek. I think a couple of people died but I'm not sure, we may have gotten though it unscathed.

Next of course was Vallon Zek. We cleared his body guards away and he came alone. The off tanks handled the splitters beautifully and he went down just as fast as little brother Tallon.

Now its time for Rallos Zek. We clear up to his room, form up against the wall and he is INC!

I don't think he like his picture being taken. About 2 seconds after I took this shot I ended up on his 'Page list and ended the fight as a thin red smear. Not sure how I ended up on 'Page, I hadn't cast on him, I was even in the top ten people into the room, I didn't think I was that close to him. Must have done something to piss him off tho as I had to sit and watch the fight from my spawn point.

So then of course its down, into the pit for Rallos Zek the Warlord. Pets were grabbed, kiters assigned and he was pulled.

Now all the way through this cycle I had been mildly surprised at the speed and efficiency with which we were killing mobs. When I saw the speed at which we were dropping Rallos Zek's HP bar I was, to the say the least, amazed. Rallos had time to spawn one wave of adds which were easily handled, before we watched him die. He went down easier than the first beer of a Friday night!. Several weeks of farming the elementals have increased our DPS and efficiency to a huge degree!

He was also kind enough to drop a Blade of War for us!. Grats Firky on your new Pointything!.
That was about it for me. Auckland has been insanely muggy the last few weeks. Its running about 25C at night and 80% or so humidity. I had been sitting in a small room, with another person for nearly 7 hours without moving. It was 1:30AM and I was just dieing, hot, sweaty, uncomfortable and just a wee bit pissed, so even tho it was rather early for a Friday raid I headed to bed.

Over this weekend, inspired by the fabulous Xardan the Mad, I decided to go hard in Miraguls LDoN adventures and get Horror. So Saturday I pushed really hard for Miraguls groups and thanks to all the people who hung around especially for me to get the final points, I bought Horror late saturday afternoon!.

Coming to you next Tueday, VT VT VT VT!! Woot!

Everquest Southern Armada Raid Week Fourty One

03/12/03 Week Fourty One

I used to hate Tuesday. You are always kind of mentally prepped for Mondays, first day back etc etc, Wednesday is the middle of the week so its all downhill after that. But Tuesday is like the last hump before the top of the hill when you are cycling, you can see the bit where its all going to become downhill, but you still have some pain to get through first.

Now I have something to look forward to on Tuesdays, Raiding!. I'm completely fucked on Wednesday mornings but its worth it.

First up on Tuesday was a little jaunt into the Elemental plane of Fire. We were only there for the one evil target of Quavonis Firetail. Now there really wasn't a lot up anywhere, but we were waiting and hoping for a VT pop. An impromptu raid of ours had managed to clear VT last wednesday and bring the potential NEXT pop into our time zone, so a full pop was due anytime soon. Pay attention, there will be a test on this later.

Next up was the traditional banging-of -the-head-against-earth. I got a bit too excited about the AOE call this time and forgot to get a picture, which was a pity really because the first pull was possibly one of the biggest we have ever tried. The best part was we lost all our Chanters during the pull, but no-one else!. Woot a Successful Pull!

A Rock Monstrosity

After hours and hours and (did I mention the) hours of killing we finally got a named. Mr Peregrin Rockskull then laid down his life for the general betterment of Southern Armada.

One of the best looking Mobs in this zone, is to me A Vekerchiki Warrior. Especially when they get Mezzed and they just hang in the air waiting to die. They look so cute. All the rest of the mobs are pretty boring, rock man, mudman, croc etc etc. At least the Verchiki are a little different.

So we had cleared the Ring of Rock, and again we may have actually done more than one ring, sometimes its damn hard to tell as they come in so thick and fast. Then I saw Geno call something so crazy I figured I had misunderstood it and I had to ask for confirmation. Boiled down it came to "incoming CROC" . I'm sorry you what?, you are pulling Tantisala Jaggedtooth to Zone Out? Geno you are certified Fucking nuts.

Once again the Pull Team and Genosin in particular proved me wrong. I've said it before and I'm sure I will say it again, we have the best pull team on the server!.

After a couple of minutes of Trash Clearing(tm) it was Croc INC and she came roaring in! She went past so fast all I caught was this!.

That was it for POE so we headed back to the Plane of Fire where the track team had detected the emergence from his hiding place of the Arch Mage Yozanni.

We formed up, casters to one side, tanks and healers to the other so us casters could avoid his damn AOE mana drain. I ran as high up the wall as I possibly could as some of these guys have massive ranges to the AOE's. We pulled him, we killed him, it was all good.

Then suddenly my night perked up hugely!. The good Mr Arch Mage was kind enough to drop an Elemental Silk Hat!. I saw it drop, saw the call to send tells, and thought, Yup, that's a significant upgrade on my current headwear and sent a tell.

I was actually in the middle of a conversation with a recent transfer to Prexus from my old server, I was explaining the differences between how we do stuff in SA and changed form Prexus to Karana, the differences in even simple things, like the Acronyms used to describe a location, can be quite daunting when you first move.

It wasn't ill I saw "Wolfestar taps his feet impatiently and looks at Ulaa" out of the corner of my eye that I noticed something was happening. I saw all the grat's scrolling up, saw Xinen loot, paged up to see "Grats Xinen and Ulaa" WOOT! ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou!.

Damn!, and I wasn't even paying attention!. I did a quick backflip in my seat (quite a feat for those who have never tried it) and looted the pattern for my new Miragul's Crown of Risen Souls. Man that one floored me, I REALLY didn't expect that to come my way at all!. I figured I would be at least a month or two before being eligible for anything!. *Ulaa Does the Happy Dance*.

Thank you Mr Poofy Boy!.

We gated out of Fire for the next target, I asked politely if I could consume a couple of Xardan's Ethereal Silk Swatches, ran to the bank and then did my hand in. At this point it was getting late, I couldn't wait any longer for VT to pop so I headed to bed. I knew that if VT popped I would hit it with the raid. It was already after 2AM and a VT clear was at least 2 hours minimum. I would seriously pay the price both physically and from the GF if I stayed up till 4am.

Annoyingly VT did pop after I went to bed. The raid hit it and cleared it by 630AM my time. You know what, I would have stayed for it if I had known. I would have gotten my screenshot of Aten Ha Ra and been happy, even though I would have had to log off, have a shower and head straight to work. AHR continues to elude me. Bitch.

And we thought there was sod all up on Tuesday. The main-line guilds left us very close to absolutely nothing for Thursday night. First up we headed to Kael Drakkal for our old friend, and a MOB we haven't seen for a while, The Avatar of War. Of course we have to clear our way through Derakor the Vindicator first.

Then the Idol of Rallos Zek...

Then the Statue of Rallos Zek...

and finally the Avatar of War was inc!

He still looks tough, but somehow once you have killed his boss he just doesn't seem all that anymore.

There was a guild already in the arena who had wiped to Vindi just as we had started to zone in. I'm not sure who they were, but there were a couple of ANON people hanging around as our pulls were inc. Just when the Avatar himself was in sight, something happened and he charged off at the ANON peeps instead of heading to us. Not sure why, benefit of the doubt and all that, but dodgy all the same.

So now it was time for Fire. Both Birdies were up so we all headed out to ss1 for the kill. I had to log off just after I got to ss1, as I had to dial in to work to check on the progress of a job I had running. So I missed the first pull and only came back for the tail end of the death of Criare Sunmane.

So after dropping two birdies it was time for a shot at General Druav Flamesinger.

And the final hit of the Night was the Lord Solusek Ro. Once again we had to do the Dance of the Flagless, but we seem to be getting better at it because its definitely getting faster. Mr Ro himself also seems to be getting easier each time as well. Its amazing what a few weeks of Elemental farming can do for the overall damage output of the guild.

It actually ended up being a very quiet evening. Mr Ro was the final MOB of the night and we finished about 1am. There was just nothing else up