So last night I log on. I ask if Vex Thal is up, and am told that it likely
is. However, our guild leader soon uses the /guildmotd to tell everyone to
get to Terris Thule. Our guild officers have been having much fun with
/guildmotd since it became a broadcast tool. For example, one day I logged
in, said hi, and immediately a new /guildmotd flashed across my screen:
"Monual - get to Vex Thal". Our officers have also found that you can use
%t in the motd and also link loot there, so they've been using it award loot
as well. Occasionally the officers will use the guildmotd to talk back and
forth. While this might sound annoying, it's actually usually pretty funny,
and the officers are self-aware enough not to go *too* overboard. Or, as
our guild leader once said in a guildmotd: "Abusing motd since February
2003".
Terris Thule, hmm. It seems awfully retro to me. I was certain after we
killed Mith Marr and the Keeper of Sorrows that we'd begin attempting Rallos
Zek, but instead our officers have been revisiting all the gods we've
already killed in an attempt to get everyone caught up. The message has
been sent out fairly consistently: if you aren't flagged, find a way to get
in on these raids because it may be the last time we do it. Terris Thule
annoys me because it was the first PoP god I fought that summoned adds
during the battle. Even if that tactic has become de rigueur on many PoP
boss mobs, Terris Thule still annoys me for being the first to introduce it
to me.
I zone into PoK and make use of my new toy - a drogmor. With 170K in the
bank I decided I needed to spend it on something, and a faster-than-SoW
mount seemed like a good enough purchase. I spent a long time agonizing
over which one to buy, since there are rumors that the color of the drogmor
mount you buy might have some side benefits - white mounts increase health
regen, green mounts increase the powers of DoT spells. I choose a black
mount because the rumor is that it decreases aggro radius. Dunno if it's
true, but it's worth it just in case. Oh, and at first the vendor wanted to
charge me 110K for it; then I equipped my Grandmaster's Smithing Trophy (+50
CHA) and the price dropped to 103K.
I've subsequently found the mount to be mildly useful. It's nice to run at
super-fast speeds. It's annoying that I can't stop on a dime, though. The
biggest benefit is getting sitting mana regen without getting sitting aggro.
This was very useful on a BoT XP group I was on. The biggest drawback is
not being able to interrupt a spell cast unless I dismount. It's gonna take
some getting used to, but overall I like my new mount.
So I summon my leezard and take off for the Plane of Nightmare. I zone into
PoN, rez a couple of dead people at the zone line, then take off for PoNb.
Alas, my drogmor takes me straight off a cliff and into a river. When you
find yourself swimming, your mount disappears - so here I am swimming across
the river with some fish attacking me. I get to the other side, begin to
summon another mount - and get killed by some land-based mob. OK, time to
not get cocky just because I have a mount.
I manage my own corpse run without incident, re-summon my mount, and crash
him headfirst into the gate that leads to PoNb, clicking madly all the
while. I then run up to the raid, which has already begun clearing the way
towards TT. Once I get there I get a raid invite, then look around to see
who else is LFG. To my mild surprise I see a cleric from the uber-guild
also LFG. I surmise that he must be part of the "Will CotH For Flags" deal
we have with the uberguild. I invite him and a late-arriving necro into my
group. Soon after the cleric joins the raid, our guild leader must get
inundated with tells because a new guildmotd flashes across the screen -
"Yes, we have a uberguild member in our raid".
We set up for TT. It's been a long time since we've done her, but I'm not
worried - we have an incredible number of folks here. Raid attendance has
been particularly strong of late, and we have about 75 folks here. Some of
the people have to drop from the raid momentarily, so Gomotron volunteers to
drop. Oh, Gomotron, haven't talked about them yet - they belong to an SK
that joined our allied guild. His name is Gomorrha, and he is well known on
our server for six-botting. That is, he control six different characters at
once - he's his own group. I first encountered this in CoM, when I saw six
people all standing in a corner, staring straight ahead, not moving, and was
told by someone in my group that they were all being controlled by one guy.
I have to admit I had deep reservations about a six-botter joining the
alliance, but he's accepted his role well - his SK is expected to be present
at raids. He never brings his other bots the first time he goes to a mob,
but once he knows what to expect, he'll drag the rest along. And he keeps
them well controlled, quiet, and out of the way. We call his bot squad
"Gomotron" and they've actually contributed to our raids. It also helps the
Gomorrha is a very bright, friendly guy that everyone likes. Six-botting is
his normal modus operandi; he says he can do it without even thinking about
it. So far that's proven correct. As we've been getting everyone flagged,
Gomotron's been tagging along getting flagged as well. A six-botter in the
elemental planes - whoda thunk it.
Gomotron drops to make room for others in the raid. We charge TT - me on my
trusty leezard. The Weasponshield ranger engages long enough to get TT
debuffed, then hands aggro off to the Main Tank - without dying, the first
time I've ever seen that happen. We deal with the first set of adds easily,
then MGB key buffs when TT hits 50% health. I am reminded of why we are
doing this when one of our cleric recruits exclaims, "Hey - all my buffs
went away." At 25% the gargoyles are kited away, and TT goes down without a
death.
Loot is announced, but none of those neat masks with Improved Healing IV.
So I pass and gate back to the Nexus to finish a smithing order. As I'm
getting paid, the announcement goes out - Agnarr next.
Agnarr definitely wearies me. We *just* did him a couple of days ago. And
the fights are annoying things, with adds and charmed pets and whatnot to
worry about. But still I trudge on over. We kill the first boss mob, zone
up, kill the second boss mob, zone up, and engage Agnarr. The engage is not
our best - lots of clerics die initially, and during the rezzes Agnarr
aggros the camp, killing lots of folks who just got rezzed. We get it back
together and engage him intelligently. I, of course, am on my mount,
getting my good mana regen as I heal the MT. I am in the hallway that leads
to the stairs, in the vain hope that I won't get hit by Agnarr's AE. At one
point the MT drops while I'm in the middle of casting a Complete Heal. I
dismount, duck, target the new tank, get a couple of heals in, re-summon my
mount, and fall through the floor.
I watch in horror as Agnarr rises above me. I drop through the second
floor - with the stars, where we killed Emmerick - and find myself dropped
into the lava surrounding the bottom floor. My drogmor disappears and I
instinctively cast Divine Barrier while I decide what to do.
There are mobs up but they don't seem to be aggroing me. I climb out of the
lava and look around - and lo and behold, Askr the Lost is still up. I use
my Gnomish Vanishing Device and carefully path over to him, trying not to
aggro any of the elementals. I hail him but he doesn't respond - oops,
invisibility is still up. I drop invisibility, ask him to transport me, and
find myself on the second floor. The portal to the third floor is still up,
so I run over to it, right-click - and I'm back in the Agnarr area. I
announce I'm back and resume healing the MT. Lesson learned, be careful
about where you stand when you summon a mount.
Agnarr dies, and our guild leader announces loot - two swords. So each
guild gets to award a sword to its members. Then one of our officers says
there's been a mistake: it's not two swords, it's a sword and Karana's Tear.
This nifty little item has an effect: Haste of Druzzil. People ask what
this is and one of our druids confidently states that it's spell haste on
detrimental spells. I don't think that's right, so I alt-tab out of EQ and
bring up Lucy's. Lucy says it's Spell Haste on everything except Complete
Heals. Allakhazam confirms this. I alt-tab back into EQ and announce my
findings. Other people confirm that, and our guild leaders announce that
everyone should once again send in their tells, since clerics were not going
in thinking it wouldn't benefit them. I'm about to put my name in when a
guild officer calls a halt to the proceedings - our allied guild had been
under the impression that two swords had dropped. Now that they know
Karana's Tear dropped as well, and since they had first pick on loot, they
want the Tear. So we do, in fact, get to decide who wants the sword. I
sigh and gate out.
Our guild leader, meanwhile, brings up his ranger alt and announces that
Cursed and Emp are up in Ssra. So the word goes out: get to Ssra. Now this
is really, *really* retro. Haven't we done these guys like a thousand
times? Of course, but they still drop good loot, especially Emp. So
despite my personal impatience to move on to Rallos Zek, I head on over to
Ssra as ordered.
At first our guild leader tells us to head up to Emp, but other guild
members point out that trackers from other guilds are in Ssra, and that
while those other guilds are not yet capable of Emp, they are capable of
trying Cursed. So we decide to kill Cursed first. Down we go, and we
slaughter the cycle. Nothing interesting happens, except that a warrior in
my group gets charmed during Cursed and attacks me. His attacks don't even
interrupt my Complete Heals, and he only takes me down to 92% before charm
breaks. I have to chuckle - warriors just don't have the damage output I'm
used to when I get attacked by a mob. If you can't quad me for 900, what
good are you?
The loot is definitely sub-par. Cursed does drop a Goldenrod, which I'm
told is a terrific 2HS for pallies and SK's. He also drops some caster
leggings that seem pathetic - but when the winner links what was upgraded, I
am forced to admit that it was good we did the cycle. There are still many
folks who needs slots here and there upgraded.
On up to Emp. We have some concerns, since our once-might raid force has
dwindled a bit. An officer from our allied guild says, "How man Winter's
Light clerics are staying? Ours all just logged?" We have five clerics,
and in fact the allied guild does have a cleric who was just /roleplaying.
Gomotron offers up its cleric, too, so it seems like we have enough. I
volunteer for page / spot-heal duty. Everyone else gets grouped up, and we
pull Blood.
Blood dies without a problem. We get into position for Emp. We have a
ranger standing right in front of Emp, ready to engage him with Weaponshield
until he can get debuffed. This has worked just fine for us in the past.
This time, Emp ignores the ranger and heads right towards the crowd control
groups. He begins killing tanks in CC. The clerics try to start the CH
chain on the MT, but it's ragged since the MT is now out of range of some of
them. Emp kills the MT, then summons and kills a couple of the clerics.
This is looking bad.
As a clerical free agent, I move in and immediately rez the fallen CC tanks.
Then I get a target on the new MT and throw some heals on him as the clerics
get rezzed as well. The new MT, with some difficulty, manages to extract
Emp from the CC folks and pin him into his corner. To my mild amazement, we
seem to be on the path to recovery. I am flitting back and forth between
helping the CC folks stabilize while keeping the Rampage tank up. Alas, I
spend too long on one such foray into CC and the RT dies. A monk gets on
rampage, and since it seems like CC is okay, I focus completely on keeping
the monk alive. His hitpoints go down alarmingly quickly when page hits
him. At one point I send him a tell asking if he has Virtue up, and he says
he does. There's a marked difference between a monk and a tank on page, but
I'm still able to keep the monk alive without burning too much mana.
It takes a little longer than normal, but Emp goes down. I remark that
that's perhaps the worst start we've ever successfully recovered from, and I
am reminded of our first Agnarr kill - where we rezzed and rezzed and rezzed
and rezzed, and it took us a full hour to get Agnarr killed. Okay, that was
worse. This wasn't far removed, however. I see this as a good thing,
though - we didn't just give up when things went bad, we settled in and did
what was needed to recover. Such efforts aren't always rewarded - sometimes
you wipe anyway - but this time we pulled it together.
Loot is announced - some nice stuff, including the Shawl of Awakenings, the
subject of a previous post of mine where I went in on this shawl and didn't
get awarded it. Once again our guild gets the Shawl, and once again I put
my name in.
Meantime, something bad has happened in CC. They've been having a rough
time of it from the beginning, when two of their tanks went down. I run
over and heal - and find my heals ineffective. I Remove Curse a few times
to get rid of the Balance curse, then heal up their tanks. Alas, one of the
mobs was not positioned in the optimal way, and through some weird geometry
got pushed into a small space above the door - where we can't get to him.
Happy in his little cubicle, he begins summoning people. First a druid, who
then gates out. Then a tank, who tries to find a way out of the enclosed
space and falls to the basement and dies. Then a bard, who also is flailing
about. I run up to the door and manage to get a target on the bard. I
begin healing him - until he also falls to the basement and dies. Another
tank gets summoned, and I start healing him - and then I realize what I'm
doing to myself. I'm adding myself to the mob's aggro list and I'm
certainly climbing up it at a pretty good rate. Which means that I'll
probably get summoned sometime soon. Which means that I'll miss out on
loot - no way to get back into the room once I'm summoned out of it.
But what can I do? Ask another cleric or druid to take over healing so that
*they* get summoned and lose out on loot instead of me? Grimly I continue
healing, telling the tank to stand still and just take it - I'll heal him.
He does this for a while, then he falls into the basement. A wizard gets
summoned, and the tank remarks that he's still alive. Then he gets summoned
back. Now there are three people crowded into that space above the door.
The wizard dies quickly and I concentrate on healing the tank.
While this is all happening, the officers are debating loot. Then a message
gets displayed in the alliance channel - "Grats Monual Shawl." I tell ya,
I've never run and looted a drop so fast. I don't even bother equipping it;
I run back to the door and continue healing the tank. I do respond to the
many "woots" and "grats" I get, including a nice tell from a fellow cleric
saying that I deserved it.
Thirty seconds after I loot the Shawl, the tank falls through the world and
dies, and I get summoned. I find myself in a small rectangular space, large
enough for three people to stand in, directly above the door - in fact, I
can click on the door to make it open or close. The mob is beating on me
and I cast DA - a mistake, since the mob immediately summons somoene else, a
ranger. I sigh at my stupidity, click off DA, and heal the ranger. Now,
despite the fact that the ranger is attacking and I'm healing, the mob
decides to summon a third party, a tank. There's simply not enough room for
all of us and the ranger falls through the world. I heal the tank as he
attacks the mob. Eventually, the mob dies. Fortunately by this point all
loot has been awarded. The tank gets TL'd out and I find myself all alone
in that little space. I kind of enjoy standing there looking around - it's
like I found a secret room. Not a well-designed secret room - I can, in
fact, see all the way to the basement if I look at the correct angle. A
mage gets an eye next to me, invites me to a group, then at my request gets
a wizard to decess him so I can get summoned to the zone line so that I can
help rez folks whose corpses need summoning - ya sure miss the graveyard
feature sometimes.
As it turns out, another cleric is already there, and she cheerfully offers
to be the rezzer. I take this opportunity to finally equip the Shawl and
examine it. It's neatest feature is that you get an extra five points of
mana regen per tick, and this stacks with everything - VoQ, SD, AoZ, and
even whatever FT you have. I thought it was a feature you got when you
equipped it, but it turns out it's a right-click effect. I right-click, and
there's a new buff - Koadic's Heightened Focus. Cool.
So: an eventful day full of going back and revisiting old mobs. A bit of a
chore, but necessary in order to get everyone ready for Rallos Zek. And
it's not without its rewards - I got a cool new Shawl that should keep my
lust for loot satiated for quite a while.
Tonight, we clear Vex Thal. I think this weekend we're going to give Rallos
Zek our first try. Hopefully that will mean that soon I'll be seeing new
mobs to kill. Yay!
--
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Archon of Rodcet Nife
Winter's Light
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!