Monday, December 01, 2003

Everquest Southern Armada Raid Week Fourty

01/12/03 Week Fourty

Quote of the week:

Pooby had just won an Elemental Boots from Sunmane, done the hand in and received this in return. After Pooby had showed it to us in /GU, Sanfy's immediate comment was:

"Dang Poobys got more stamina in his boots than I have in my Pants"

You said it Sanfy!.

I went to Sydney for the Annual Guild Meet (Pics aren't Up but they will be there when they are.) I got to meet all of the mad bastards who are behind the Toons I see online everyday. We had a blast!, headed over to Ometiklan's for pre party drinkies the night before, then to Avelocs place on the day. I met many, many good people and talked to as many as possible. There were still some faces I saw that I never actually managed to exchange words with, but that's cool, I will save that for the next AGM. Those who missed me are probably the lucky ones anyway. SA is full of some really cool people.

I had an awesome time and I hope everyone else did as well. I would also like to say thank you not only to my Guildies who said very, very nice things about this web site at the AGM, and the weekly (If I can) updates I try to provide on the state of the game for Southern Armada. I would also like to thank those who send me occasional cross server tells, or even e-mails to say how much they have enjoyed this site.

Thank you all for the great comments you guys have sent me. It makes keeping this site up a lot easier to know that people are actually enjoying what I do.

To be honest I wasn't going to Raid on Tuesday. I flew home from the AGM in Sydney, touching down a little before midnight Monday. By the time I got home and into bed it was around 2am. I got up at the usual time Tuesday morning to go to work so by raid time Tuesday Night I was pretty buggered. There was a patch scheduled for Tuesday night, so it was going to be a short Raid anyway. I was planning on logging on briefly, saying hi to everyone and then logging off. However once the raid started, I just kept thinking "Just one more Mob" until well after midnight.

First up was birdies in the Elemental Plane of Fire. Unfortunately there was only one of them available, so taking what we could find we pulled Criare Sunmane and with malice aforethought, smacked his ass down.

I like Sunmane, he charms the puller, so we send in a Druid holding two mugs to pull him. *Smack* A_Druid_01 has hit you for 2 points of damage! Eeek ooo ahh I'm scared I'm scared.

Next up was Blazzax the Omnifiend. Now the first time you see this model it looks really cool. By the hundredth time, after you realize they have simply re-used the same model for about 50 new mobs, both named and trash, it does begin to pall a little. Blassax is a bit girly but he is a nice rest in between the tougher MOB's in this zone.

Finally we get to one of the nastiest MOB's in the Elemental Planes. General Druav Flamesinger hits like a Train, one of those really really long ones that take about an hour to come to a complete halt due to their sheer momentum. This is our second encounter with the General and we are now two for two on him. This kill actually went really well. We still ended up feeding tanks to his rampage but it didn't come down to a race between our DPS and his damage output this time. He went down fairly smoothly, like a premium tequila, you know its got a bite but that just rounds off its sweetness.

That was about it for Fire so we headed to Water. Now you would think that as we had just dropped one of the toughest MOB's in the planes, we would have no problems with Grioihin the Wise would you?. Unfortunately he got pulled a little early, and with no warning, and before we were prepped.

The SA machine swung into action, tanks stepped up, the heal chains kicked in, fast heals started. Unfortunately it just didn't quite work. I got nailed with the Wise at about 50%. I ran back in from my spawn point, started to loot my body and the 2K AOE went off and I was deaded again. (Unbuffed, no gear HP is 1077)

So I left it at that and waited for the kill to fail, as it was certainly looking like it was going to. Once he was out of the way I ran back in to rezz a Cleric. I looted my bags to get EE's, told Trundle a rez was inc, cast, waited for him to accept which he did. Unfortunately I Rezzed him directly into the path of a roamer shark and he was immediately dead again. DOH so sorry Trundle.

So we formed up again. Rebuffed, got ready, pulled and lost the MT within seconds. Heal chain switched to secondary but he went down too fast to be saved. So once again we made ourselves look like a bunch of silly noobs and wiped to Wise. Again I ran back in after my initial death, grabbed gear fast this time and started to cast on him as the fight was still going on. This time I got smacked down by adds from the rear.

So again I ran back in, cast a Rezz on Trundle, this time I got smacked down by the wandering shark ( I think it was the same one) only seconds before Trundle zoned in after the rezz. The shark then immediately turned on him, so I managed to kill our lead Cleric twice in less than an half an hour! DOH! (Sorry Trundle)

I ran back again and offered to rezz Trundle a third time but this time he declined and said he would wait for the rest of the raid. I'm not surprised really. All of this went on in the last hour before the patch. So after we were all rezzed we had about 10 mins to go so it was logoff time.

Friday. Full bottle of Rum. Several full bottles of Coke, lots of ice. 500 MP3's lined up one after the other, I am good to go for a night of Raiding with SA. I used to think that drinking alone was a sign of alcoholisim, but are you really alone if you are online with 65 other people?. Now there is a question for future generations!.

I logged in a little late due to having to do some faction work with the GF. First call was to Fire. I love this zone, it not only looks cool, but for the amount of effort you have to put in for what you get out of it, it really is candy land. I didnt do my usual and hang out at the zone in for a while to DMF people, I just headed straight to ss1.

We were nearly formed up and ready to go and *SMACK* we have not one, but count 'em, two Phoenixes kicking our asses at the same time. Someone (I'm not saying who but it wasn't a member of SA) managed to aggro both birds onto the raid.

After recovering from the first wipe we were nearly prepped and Kez was calling for the Good to Go and *Smack* it happened AGAIN. An unfortunate person (again a non member of SA) who was tagging along on the raid, had his PC lockup on the run through to us and managed to bring us both birds again. He was most apologetic later on. Ah well Shit happens.

So once again we formed up, got ready, and this time pulled just the one Phoenix. After all the little niggles of two rapid wipes this kill was damn near flawless and Sunmane went screaming back to his Master like a little GirlyMan!.

Next up of course was Jaxoliz Dawneyes. Hey if you are going to do one ya may as well do both right!?.

Another flawless kill and that was it for Fire. Unfortunately the other guilds on Prexus don't leave us much to kill a lot of the time. In a lot of ways that's a bad thing. In some ways its actually a good thing. SA is still one of the fastest prepping guilds I've seen in action. We have our moments where it takes a while to get underway, but on the whole we are pretty damn quick to get raid ready. I think that actually comes from having to be on the move and ready to "Go" as fast as possible all the time.

Next up was an old friend we haven't seen in some time. The Burning Prince himself, Solusek Ro. We all headed up to his Tower and started the usual "dance of the flagless" trying to get everyone in. This is such a pain in the ass and a real waste of 45 minutes or so, but ya have to do it.

When I was on Karana after "The Silent Watch" split up, a bunch of us attempted to restart the guild as "The Second Watch" trying to embody what "The Silent Watch" had meant on the server.

The unofficial motto of T2W was "Everyone comes along for the ride". We wanted to make the game and the raiding fun for everyone, not just the chosen few (which was partly why TSW had broken up) and we were willing to work hard equipping lower level people to minimum standards, so the whole guild could move ahead together.

I am so glad the leadership of SA has generally the same belief. If you cant have your friends along with you to celebrate when you kill something hard (Rallos Zek the Warlord) or achieve something insanely frustrating (Vex Thal key) then what is the point of playing at all?.

Enough Ranting. We pulled him, we killed him. It was all good!.

I still think he is one of the coolest MOBs I have seen so far

He died. He tried really hard to survive, at one point he even tried to run away!, we were all very sad, there was much sobbing and mourning of Solusek Ro's death and then we were over it and decided to go to the Plane Air for a while.

So after the usual TL out, we all ran over to Air, sent in a Monk to make sure us poor defenseless dress wearers weren't going to get smacked by something wandering past, and zoned in.

As usual Constable Alranderisan was on the receiving end of one of the early smackdowns. You would think he would have given up by now and to just run away when we enter the zone!.

Then there was a MOB I have never actually seen before. Inlokher the Warlord, he came as an add so I wasn't sure if he was deliberately pulled or accidentally. It didn't really matter, he died to fast for me to get a decent screen shot of him. So here is an SS of his corpse in a hedge.

After that it was the usual parade through Air. Lots of trash interspersed loosely with the odd named.

Finally we made it to the Avatar of Wind. Kez sat on his fat ass and said "I'm tired, I'm not going any further, bring me stupid looking models" So we did and the Avatar of Wind died.

At this point of the night I had just been rezzed back in from my second summoning death and figured it was time for bed. Normally if you aren't skirting being summoned as a Necromancer, you aren't doing your job properly. However I had been summoned and killed twice and nearly killed a third time due to simply making stupid mistakes. So I figured it was time to go sleepies and headed to bed about 2:15AM

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