Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Everquest Southern Armada Raids Week Sixty Nine

22/06/04 Week Sixty Nine
We had cleared all the way through from Tiers 1-4 last week so we only had two targets in 5 to clear. We headed into Tier One and encountered a wee booboo. I was doing the Fire event and we were doing OK till the named spawned. Then we encountered a small problem, you sort of need a Chanter to help debuff the named so the poor little Necro's can actually land any sort of spell. More importantly you need them to help keep the adds under control. So after wiping in Fire, (my first Tier One fail actually) replacing with a new group set and just scraping through under the time limit we headed up to Tier 5.

We had to clear out the remaining God's armies, which we did in our AOE Chanter killing style. Once we had the trash clear it was time for Mr Cazic Thule.
Mr Thule really isn't a challenge anymore, we didn't even Sacrifice a Pally to him!.

Next up was our current bugbear, we have been very hit and miss with Innoruuk. However, much like Rallos Zek, being able to corner him made all the difference. It wasn't a perfect kill, it wasn't flawless, but it also wasn't even a close fight.

The Lord God of Hate is now on the Pharm list. He will be dropping Lewtz for us for some time to come.
With Inny down, that really only left us one remaining challenge in the whole Planes of Power. Quarm.

The last time we tried him we got him to 78%, which to me was a definite proof that he is killable by us. This time we spent a lot longer forming up and getting ready. The strat was tweaked and we had a much better idea of what to expect going into the fight.

With very little further delay we launched into it. The First head went down fairly fast, shortly after I got summoned and nailed. I'm still not sure if I just missed an FD fail or what but with Quarm smacking me with hits of 3400 I didn't survive long at all. I popped in the Plane Of Tranquility and ran back in. I timed my entry to just after the AOE DD which gave me enough time to get my corpse, loot my HP gear and throw myself back into the fight.

By then Quarm was at under 50%, 2 heads were down and although DPS appeared to be slowing it was still there. 40%, 30%, 20% At this point we were dropping like flies. Tanks and Clerics were going down. I was OOM and meddling just to be able to run out and Tap Quarm.

The last tank went down, I got splatted again at 18% and that was that. We were so damn close and it was so frustrating to walk away from him but we didn't have a choice. It was just after 1:00am and we would have had to wait at least an hour for MGB's to repop. So we all quietly logged off, knowing we would be ready to go again the following day.
Tuesday night we initially thought we were going to have to go through Tier 1,2,3 again, but we had the timing a little off and we headed straight up to Tier Five after clearing Tier One. This time we prepped a lot more thoroughly, we waited for all Discs to be available, we waited for more people, we waited for all MGB's to pop. All up we sat outside Quarm's lair for about 35 minutes.

The strat was called, rehearsed and called again. Groups were rebuilt and everyone was completely aware of their job.

It was go time. We burnt him fast. Even with 500 resists across the board I still got hit with that stupid Poison mana drain DOT. I was OOM at 50% and medding to even be able to cast taps to be able to stay alive. That DOT needs to be cured fast. He lost a head, then another, then another, he hit 15% and just hung there.
I was OOM and at 50% health. I had one thing left to throw at him. So I kicked off a Life Burn. I was only going to hit him for about 3500+1500hp or so from the DOT but with no mana it was all I had left. The LB landed, I hit FD and went down hoping that the recourse DOT would kick in before he did another AE.

After checking to make sure the FD was successful I looked at his hp just as they ticked over from 1% to 0%. Up till this point I had been relatively calm, just trying to stay focused on taking him down. Now the adrenalin kicked in and I was utterly focused on that little hp bar. We have lost against MOBs at 0% before (Ryda'dar being a good example) so even now it felt like we were balanced on a knife edge. People were throwing everything they had left at him. This was SA zerging at its finest!

Tick, tick, tick and his hp rolled from 0% to -1hp and he went DOWN!. I present to you Quarm the dead 4 headed Dragon!
Southern Armada has now officially beaten the Planes of Power expansion! I have to say its an expansion I have thoroughly enjoyed. Its probably the first expansion I have personally experienced from the beginning to the end game and I have loved every second of it. The story line was good, it was complex and difficult and gave a good sense of satisfaction for having completed it.

Hell my heart is still racing just thinking about beating Quarm on Tuesday.
I have to say the final piece of the story is pretty naff. After going through all the Gods and Quarm, you free Zebuxoruk, he walks away, Druzzil Ro shows up and resets the path of time to just before you got your Time Key. Its the "Bobby Ewing" ending to a story and is a bit weak.
In Revenge for the crap ending Nym was sent in to punch him in the Bollocks, a mission which she duly carried out.
We had very cleverly set ourselves up to have a full pop (-CT, Inny and Quarm of course) on Thursday. So once again we formed up and blasted through Tiers 1,2,3,4 and 5. We left the Elemental plane of Time completely empty at the end of Thursday night.
Tallon Zek waiting on us
I think we proved that Rallos is on the Pharm list good and proper last night. We dropped him with the loss of one tank, which is as close to flawless as you are likely to ever get with him. To thank us for coming to see him again he was happy to drop not ONE but TWO Elemental Plate Breastplates!

I've never heard of that happening ever! Grats Alone and Nymeria the Pink Tank on your New BPs!

We also had a drop of the Symbol of Ancient Summoning, this seems to be an extremely rare drop and it makes every Necromancer, Beastlord and Mage in the game start to drool. Grats Xardan!, see I told you!.

Next week is looking very like we will drop Quarm, Inny and CT and then start in on GOD. Rondo will die again, and then on to a Tier 1-5 clear on the next raid day.

I am still utterly amazed at the Phat Phat Lewtz that flows into the Guild with every clearance of Time. Pretty much every raid is 30-40 drops of fantastic Lewtz, IE on average people are getting Time level lewtz once every two raids. Hell even if people don't want to do GOD raids and just want to help clear Time, if they keep showing up for Time raids we will be kitting people out in fantastic gear for months yet. That is just utterly fantastic, SA has begun to take a huge leap up the ladder in power and strength. I think very shortly we are going to qualify as an Uber Guild.

Time will definitely be a one day clear within a month and I can see us taking on the early GOD raids in the same time frame.

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