I've been trying since my 30's for my epic. I got some folks from my first
guild, Knights of the Wolfpack, to come help me camp Lord Bergurgle deep
underneath Lake Ratheater. In fact, I had to camp LB twice because I messed
up the turn-in the first time. In this endeavor I had the very patient
assistance of Kayia Giantbane, a guildmate and friend who was several levels
higher than me and was willing and able to cast Enduring Breath and sit with
me for hour after hour as we tried to get LB to spawn. She also helped me
camp Lord Gimblox. She was in the impromptu group I put together to kill
the Plasmatic Priest in Solusek Ro. And she was part of the massively
over-attended pick-up raid I organized to take down Ixiblat Fer.
After killing Ixi, my epic hunt came to a screeching halt. The problem: the
Overking. Buried deep within Chardok, he required an experienced raiding
guild to get to him. My guild was *not* experienced at raiding, and we made
several aborted attempts. Once we got as far as the hallway outside the
Overking's room, but we had tremendous difficulty pulling his guards away,
and we didn't have the chanter firepower to just rush in and mez everything.
Eventually we wiped when the Overking and five of his guards pounced on us
during one pull attempt.
Finally, after many many months, our guild got a mage that was non-KOS in
Chardok (he became quite expert at clearing out Nurga). We teamed up with
another guild that had a non-KOS rogue. The rogue and mage traipsed merrily
into the castle, where they set up a Call of the Hero link. Our collective
forces were CotHed in. I was in a particularly foul mood that time; I had
been so jaded by past failures that I was fully expecting everything to go
wrong. And every time something *did* go wrong - when someone died or went
LD or whatever - I became more and more convinced that we were going to
wipe. Getting past the library was particularly nasty, as a couple people
fell through the trap and got killed, and some people kept going LD, and we
were having a lot of deaths, and we ended up having to clear the library
spawns *twice* because of all the delays. And then, just as we were setting
up in the hallway outside the Overking, we got a Systemwide Message: Servers
coming down for Emergency Maintenance in fifteen minutes. I exploded into a
fit of self-pity. To his remarkable credit, the raid leader acted quickly
and well. He told the chanters to get ready, then had our monk pull the
entire Overking throne room into the hallway. The chanters frantically
mezzed and everyone pounded on the Overking. To my utter amazement, the
Overking went down. After I had looted (a tense minute and a half while
everyone tried to fight off the guards that had broken mez), the raid leader
called for an evac. Of course I was disconnected during the evac - standard
procedure when the server will be coming down shortly. But when I logged
back on after the patch, I still had my Overking drop, so I was very very
happy and more than a bit sheepish over my own behavior.
Now that I had my Overking drop, I was ready for the final step: Ragefire.
However, just a few weeks earlier, my server (Drinal) had instituted a
Ragefire list. That meant that clerics, rather than trying to kill-steal
each other and create an atmosphere of unpleasantness, had decided to create
a list that allowed us to pool our resources and assure each cleric on the
list that there would be no kill-stealing. Of course, our resident
uber-guild said they would not support the list, and of course, they did
manage to kill-steal Ragefire on one occasion. But for the most part the
list was working very well; people were getting their epics without the
stress of competition.
However, the list was quite long. When I joined, I was twenty-eighth on the
list. Which, by my calculations, meant my turn would come sometime around
Christmas. This made me a bit unhappy. I almost preferred the angry
unhappy kill-stealing atmosphere; that had to better than waiting another
five months for my epic. I would rather have tried my luck at camping the
Ragefire spawn hour after hour, gambling that my forces could arrive and
kill Ragefire before any else's could.
But there was a list, and I had to honor it - because I respected the people
on the list and what they were trying to do, and because I couldn't afford
to have myself and my guild blacklisted because we refused to honor the
list. So, with a bit of grumbling (see my previous newsgroup posts ranting
about Ragefire lists), I settled in to wait.
Then came the Xev Incident. Due to a Customer Service screwup of epic (no
pun intended) proportions, the lead GM decided to spawn Ragefire four
consecutive times for four guilds on Xev. I went ballistic over this. How
can it be fair that some players can become so unpleasant and create such a
headache for Verant that the GM's *give* them Ragefire while I try to be
fair and work with the community to overcome the Ragefire unpleasantness and
I have to wait five months? I was really mad and upset. Again, I vented,
both on alt.games.everquest and on the cleric boards.
Then came a curious message. One of the regulars on the cleric boards had
the ear of Rich Waters. She shared with us parts of an email in which Absor
stated that there was a change coming to Ragefire. This despite Verant's
assurances at the recent Boston Fan Faire that they would not be changing
Ragefire anytime soon. No indication in the email of where or when the
change was going to take place; I braced myself for a long wait.
Absor himself followed up with a post on EQ Clerics. Amongst the many
things he talked about, he mentioned that the Ragefire camp would be changed
*next patch*. This excited me *much* more than the information about new
spells and whatnot. They day before the patch, I camped Monual in Skyfire,
close to where Ragefire spawned.
Come the day of the patch, and I sit at work constantly checking the cleric
boards. The patch message confirms a change to Ragefire. Someone finds a
warder standing where Ragefire spawns. The warder will only talk to a
cleric with a Swirling Pearl (and are thus on the last step of their epic).
Those people she gives a box and instructions to collect four pearlescent
shards and to return to her.
This is exciting. A new development in the epic quest, and I'm following
along as people uncover the new information. I remember browsing through
the Beastlord boards (I have a low-level BST alt) and reading through as
people slowly worked out the BST epic quest. There was a tangible thrill
associated with all the posts that I envied at the time. Now I was
experiencing it myself.
Someone manages to farm all four shards in a few hours. They confirm that
handing in the farmed items results in Ragefire being *triggered*. Woot! No
more kill-stealing, no more days of camping while staring fixedly at one
point. And the drops appear to be plentiful. I can't wait to get off work.
Alas, the servers are brought down for an emergency patch. And my fears are
soon realized: they nerfed the drop rate on the shards. This is as it
should be; these things should be at least somewhat difficult to farm.
Still, I'm disappointed that I couldn't get there before the nerf.
After work I log on Monual. I talk to the warder and get the expected
response - and a box with four slots. I send out a call to my guild, asking
for help. Very soon I get people gating to Skyfire to help.
The farming has begin.
For the first two hours, nothing. We find a good spot on the east wall of
the zone, north of the OT entrance. Plenty of blues within range, few
chromodracs and their annoying dispels, no adds to worry about. The word is
that the shards can drop off of any mob, so we pull everything. I'm so
excited about farming that I don't even bother at first to get the new
cleric spells. Finally, after a couple of hours, I break down and gate
quickly up to the Nexus and zone into Shadowhaven to buy my new spells. Then
I run back to my waiting group and resume farming.
I quickly decide that the mobs here are much easier than I expected they
would be. I don't have KEI or any form of chanter clarity, but I have no
trouble keeping up as we chain-pull mob after mob. Finally, after another
hour, a Bottomless Feeder drops a shard. Woot! Less than an hour later,
another Bottomless Feeder drops another shard. Double-woot! I'll be epic
tonight.
As we camp more, I test the new cleric toys. Summoned hammer is cool. I
try to melee a bit, and find that it procs much less often than I had been
led to believe. Yaulp is... weird. Cleric self-only haste? Who'd'a thunk
it. The new heals are minor upgrades but appreciated; I play with the group
Elixir and like it, and I finally have an upgrade to Remedy.
A further four hours of camping fails to produce another shard. I have lots
of help from my guild - at one point I have eight people gathered around me,
not even worried about XP, just helping me kill mobs as quickly as possible.
As some people have to log for the night, others step in, including Kayia,
who went with me from Knights of the Wolfpack to Avengers of Honour. I am
extremely grateful for their efforts. Finally I give up for the night.
The next day, I wait impatiently for work to be done. I chech the cleric
boards - ah, the emergency patch nerfed the proc rate of the summoned
hammer. Rats. After work I rush home. Again, I ask for assistance, and
again, it comes immediately. We begin camping. It starts with just me and
a 60 Warrior. A 57 ranger soon joins us. I am without any kind of clarity.
A chanter that is helping his cleric to farm near VP announces in /ooc that
he will give out free KEI. I lead my group on over, anxious to get the
extra mana regen to help speed up kills. On the way we pass a Bottomless
Feeder. Since my previous two shards came off that mob, I have us move to
engage. Alas, we get a chromodragon add. And a wurm add. And another
Bottomless Feeder. We frantically root-park and try to take down the mobs
quickly, and I'm regretting my decision to engage this mob. Finally, we
manage to kill all the mobs. I loot the corpses, and lo and behold - the
chromodragon dropped a shard. Only one more to go!
I get KEI from the chanter. We set up shop near VP, but the chanter asks us
to move, as his group is hunting in that area. Since he was nice enough to
give me KEI, I agree to move. Besides, there are too many chromodragons
around. We go back to our old pull spot and set up shop.
We have help. More folks arrive, and the mobs begin to drop quickly. A
guild druid arrives and begins soloing mobs near us, with the promise to let
me know if a shard drops. A necro needs a rez; I give it to him. He offers
me some spells he's looted and some plat. I refuse all compensation, which
is my normal modus operandi. This time I have to be honest and admit that
I'm hoping for a specific concession from him, and I get it without asking:
he'll let me know if a shard drops while he's soloing. Later on we
accidentally agro a mob that yet another druid is kiting. I talk with her
and we give her back the mob and work on how we're both going to pull the
area so as not to get in each other's way. She volunteers that if she finds
a shard, she'll give me a tell. So at one point, I have four different
folks or groups farming mobs for my drop.
It seems to make no difference. Hour after hour after hour we pull, and no
shard drops. Meantime, another cleric gets his fourth shard, so he gets his
guild in place and pulls and kills Ragefire - the second RF kill that day.
I'm happy for him, but I can't quite beat down the surge of envy. I am *so*
close; that oughta be me.
KEI lasts a surprisingly long time - the chanter must have had some AA
abilities that extended the duration. I develop a rhythm for helping to
kill the mobs: MoK, MoR, summon hammer pet, Yaulp V, begin melee. This is
fun and leaves me almost FM at the end, but I soon give it up - I'm so busy
concentrating on bashing and Yaulping and positioning myself, I twice almost
let the tank die. I revert back to MoK, MoR, hammer pet, and Judgement,
with perhaps a few melee blows to help finish off a mob. I get my 1HB up to
147, my Offense up to 197, and Bash up to 30. Oh, and my conjuration goes
up as well - I end up summoning an awful lot of pet hammers.
It's getting to be two, three, four in the morning. I have work the next
day, but I don't want to give up - I only need one more shard! Kayia logged
in at midnight and is now at my side, along with another guildie paladin and
a guildie warrior. The soloing druid guildie eventually apologizes that he
has to log for the night. I tell him there's no need to apologize and thank
him profusely. I'm wondering how far I dare push myself, and when the
announcement comes that the servers will be coming down at 5am for another
emergency patch, that decides it for me. I'll stop for the night shortly
before the servers go down.
At 4am a guildie chanter logs in and asks what's up. I ask him to come help
for an hour, and he agrees. When he arrives, I do a /who and find that
there are six people in the zone - my group and the soloing druid I
mentioned before. We get the chanter grouped with us, he gives me C2, and I
try to focus (I'm dead tired by this point). We begin one last push.
During a pull, I get a tell from the soloing druid: "Come up the valley
towards RF." I make sure my group is at full health, then abandon them
halfway through the battle, telling them I'll brb. I run along the wall
towards the dragon statue where Ragefire spawns. I run across the druid -
Sylvann. She then says, "Hail, a skyfire drake's corpse." I loot the
corpse - and, as I suspected, there's a shard on it. After eight hours of
camping, and thirty minutes before the servers are due to come down, I have
my final shard.
I thank her profusely, of course. I run back to my group, who of course saw
the looting message and are ecstatic along with me. We finish off the last
two mobs. I thank everyone for coming to help, and we begin to plan the
Ragefire kill. Clearly we can't do it then and there - too close to servers
going down. And the next night is my monthlyish D&D night, or what I call
my MMORPG night (Minutely Multi-player Offline Role-Playing Group). We make
plans to meet after I finish my D&D group, around midnight. I can't help
but be struck by the novelty of being able to take down Ragefire at my
leisure. I go to bed and manage two hours of sleep before I get up to go to
work the next day.
At work my head is filled with visions of getting my epic. I'd resigned
myself to having to wait until Christmas, now I was going to get it *today*.
I didn't think about it much during the D&D group, as that was a very
pleasant diversion itself. On my way home, however, I found my anticipation
building more and more. I was a little late, delayed by, of all things, the
inability to find a parking spot in front of my apartment building.
I rush to log on. Monual is in the bazaar - stupid me forgot to park him in
Skyfire. No problem, I get a gate very quickly. Turns out the guild is
waiting for me, with only a few stragglers yet to pick up. I set down to
the task of assessing our forces. Downsides: no MB wizzies, and in fact an
overall lack of high-damage classes present. No other 60 cleric, which
means Aego will be my sole responsibility - still 11 AA points away from
Mass Group Buff, alas. Upside is that we have thirty-nine people present,
including two 60 warriors. That should be quite sufficient.
Organizing groups for a raid has never been a favorite activity of mine, but
I set to the task. This involves do a /who guild, writing down names,
classes, and levels on a piece of paper, the writing small numbers next to
each name as I try to make groups. Finally I announce groups and we begin
the buffing task. This takes a while as I have to BoA each group, which
takes a lot of mana. Oh, we have no mages either, so I don't get any mod
rods. However, the chanter present hit 60 just hours before the raid and
had KEI ready to scribe, so that helps a lot.
I finally cast my last BoA, about 45 minutes after I had arrived in Skyfire.
As I med up to full, I make a small speech, dedicating the Ragefire kill to
Kayia, who to my great happiness is present for the raid. This leads to
much cheering for Kayia, who is well-thought of in my guild anyway.
Finally, I grab the Main Assist and we move down to the warder.
I hand in the recombined shard. I was hoping for some new text from the
warder, but she simply disappears, replaced by the human form of Ragefire.
I immediately backpedal as the MA begins attacking. The human form takes
slightly longer to kill than I had anticipated, but it goes down without a
problem.
The dragon form of Ragefire spawns. I yell at everyone to let the MA build
agro and wait for assist; the MA yells at everyone to back off so he can get
a clear target. I send in a few heals from a distance, at one point getting
summoned by Ragefire as I stupidly try to sit down to regain mana. I back
away without incident, and the MA calls the assist. The whole raid wades
in, and I'm a fair distance away trying to keep everyone in my group alive.
The new healing spells are a big help with this. At one point I quickly
assist the MA to see what Ragefire's health is at; to my dismay it's at
eighty percent. I target the MA again and concentrate on keeping him alive.
So far I have decent mana and everyone's alive, but I'm already trying to
figure out how to get some healing assistance if this fight goes on for too
long.
Then, unexpectedly, Ragefire dies.
Evidently I had been too far away to get an accurate reading of Ragefire's
health. (In looking back over the logs, I saw that I completely missed the
Enrage message, which would have clued me in to the fact that Ragefire was
about to fall.) There is much cheering and whooping and hollering, which I
take a small part in. I get inundated with tells, not just from the guild
but from people all over the world as news spreads. It's a pleasant burden
trying to answer all the tells while staying on top of loot.
The loot, alas, isn't so great. After I loot the heart, we have some minor
armor stuff and a diamond. No Cloak of Flames; no red dragon scale. Ah
well, we weren't here for the stuff anyway.
I rez the dead - only a couple, good healing by the clerics and druids
present. I reflect that this may be one of the last times I cast this spell
from my spell gems. A few people want to go with me to Timorous Deep,
including Kayia and a 52 bard guildie - Laya. The bard is welcome news;
this will make getting to the island much easier. I've had to make the long
swim several times, and it's always a long dull journey.
We make our way to the Oasis. I turn on /role, not wanting at this
particular moment to deal with tells for rezzes - I wanna get my epic
quickly. The raft soon arrives and we get on. After zoning into TD, I
immediately begin running to the island, the bard in tow. Alas, it's
raining, and I manage to lose most of the rest of the party right away. We
rendezvous back on Ogre Island. The beastlord (Revanche) and warrior
(Oludas, who was the MA on the RF kill) decide to pull the Great Oowomp for
fun. After that, we begin our run. Having the bard is great - we cover the
distance quickly. In fact, I overshoot the island altogether, passing right
by it in the rain.
While I'm running, a cleric friend of mine sends me a tell: "Turn off
/anon - I want to see you in TD." I smile and comply. She's on the final
step of her epic and is farming shards in Skyfire; she's having fun
vicariously following my progress.
Getting everyone inside the dual cones turns out to be quite a chore, as it
is the first time swimming in to this place for a couple of my party
members - they've either never been here or been CotH'd in for Fay raids.
While I'm herding folks inside, Oludas buys ale in great quantities from the
inn and passes it out to everyone in the party. Everyone except me manages
to get good and drunk - I do quaff a couple of the ales to be companionable.
Finally, once everyone's in, I do the first hand-in, getting my last orb.
Kayia points me to the new NPC spawn, and I hand in the three orbs to him.
My party begins cheering, thinking I've got my epic now, but I tell them not
yet - one last turn in. Kayia then says, "Avatar of Water?" and faces the
lagoon. "Avatar of War?" says Oludas, followed by "All Assist me on this
Avatar of Water!" Clearly everyone is having fun.
The Avatar of Water, makes his way over to the shoreline. I wait for him to
stop, then do the final turn-in. I immediately equip my epic, amidst much
cheering from the group. This spreads to cheering from the guild - our
first guild-earned cleric epic (just a week before we'd invited someone into
the guild that already had their epic). This spreads to a few more tells
from around the world, including the cleric friend who has been impatiently
awaiting for me to do this.
Laya immediately runs up to the inn to attack an NPC. She wants to be the
first person I click. The NPC's are more than willing to oblige, and her
corpse is dragged back to me for clicking. Click-rezzes take slightly
longer to cast than regular rezzes (ten seconds compared to seven seconds),
but I find that I can re-click instantly compared to the annoying
fifteen-second recast time of regular rez.
We spend the next few minutes taking group pictures. Finally, I contemplate
the task of getting out. I only now realize that there are no gaters in the
party. I actually have no idea how to get back - I've always just gated
away. Kayia, however, knows where the firepot room is. After once again
having difficulty getting people out of the volcano, we run to the firepot
room. I put on auto-follow and admire the stats of my epic. Okay, the new
summoned hammer may be a better melee weapon, but I don't see myself
unequipping my epic any time soon.
Kayia takes us down to the firepot room - a place I've never been to before.
Kayia indicates which pot goes where, and one by one my group members take
their leave. I remain behind and stand facing the wall and use third-person
views to admire my epic close up. I'm disappointed a bit by the particle
effect, but what the whole graphic signifies - that I'm epic and able to
click-rez at will - is enough to fill me with deep satisfaction. After
about ten minutes, I decide I've had enough virtual narcissism for one day
and log.
Subsequently I've had a couple of interesting experiences with my new epic.
I took part in a HoT raid with another guild, and during the course of the
evening they wiped three times. With my epic, recovery was *so* much
simpler. For me, raid CR in the past meant cast cast cast, med med med,
cast, med, cast, med... over and over. Now it's just click click click
click click... and I'm recovering mana while I'm doing it. Already my
quality of life has gone up.
And then came the day when I had Real Life issues and couldn't make it in
time for a PoA guild raid. It had been called off because "there were no
clickers". That gave me great pause. Suddenly, I'm not the guy who
struggled through sixty levels and worked hard at trying to be a good healer
in a variety of situations. I'm just a clicker now. I'm defined by my
epic. I'm no longer Monual, I'm just EpicCleric_00. That's a sobering
thought.
Still, this is the end of a very long journey for me. I am happy beyond
words to describe to have achieved this, and quite grateful for all the
assitance I received along the way. Some people are a bit contemptuous of
the changes to Ragefire and believe that the cleric epic is now too easy to
get. Perhaps, but my thought is that any change that can make so many
people this happy is well worth the tradeoff.
Monual is epic at long last. Now, on to the next challenge.
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
High Priest of Rodcet Nife
Avengers of Honour
Drinal server
This page is Copyright by Skaarak; Everquest (TM) is property of Sony Online Entertainment
All stories and art work are Copyright@ by the origial owner/writer.
Most, if not all stories, were taken from newsgroup alt.games.everquest (AGE), I recommend that anyone who gets a chance to read it should!