Well, not a lot's been happening in my side of the world. We've been
trying - and trying - to kill Rallos Zek. What Rallos Zek has taught us is
how much we really have to learn about serious raiding. For all that we're
(arguably) the second most powerful raiding force on Drinal, we're awfully
darned sloppy on our raids. People are not paying 100 percent attention,
are not listening to instructions, and are often going afk for extended
periods of time. We've survived that for things like Vex Thal and Mith Marr
and Agnarr, but it's really hurting us on Rallos Zek. We've started yelling
at each other, which is not a good thing. We've had several members leave
the guild - not because of the fighting, but because of real-life issues or
general burnout. However, if we'd been making good progress - if we'd
managed to kill Rallos Zek - I'm certain we would have retained at least a
couple of those people. One of the clerics in our allied guild talked about
how he was getting recruited by our server's uber guild - then, a few days
later, left to join the uber guild. Not a good sign.
We've also had people bind sight the uber guild on Rallos Zek kills, and one
of our guild members watched an RZ kill on her roommate's computer. We've
confirmed that our tactics are nearly identical - what they do better is
simple execution. They don't screw around in guildchat - something we do
quite a bit of, including heated debates during a boss mob fight - and
anyone who makes the slightest mistake gets yelled at quite publicly. In
short, they are incredibly more focused on killing mobs than we are - and
they succeed.
So the mantra has been "Focus... focus... focus." We try not to publicly
humiliate folks like the uberguild does, but we do need to keep a firmer
hand on keeping everyone under control. I wrote a short-length diatribe on
our alliance boards, asking everyone if they want to be more high-end
raid-oriented, or more social-folks-that-occasionally-nab-uber-loot. The
few that responded said they wanted to get into the elemental planes - now
all that remains is to see if we can bring the amount of attention necessary
to a raid in order to succeed.
Blah.
I have to admit it's crossed my mind to leave the guild and find one more
focused on the high end game. But... there *are* no other guilds. Except
the uber-guild, and I wouldn't be caught dead amongst their ranks. Besides,
I've done quite well in this guild - I've been awarded a lot of loot, and
they helped me out with my smithing - so I owe them a lot. For now, and for
a long time to come probably, I'll stick with them. But dang, I hope we
actually make progress on something, and soon.
I've been passing the time in other ways. Every day I go to the Nexus and
MGB Ancient Aego, just for fun. It's soft of like being in an AE group - I
cast an AE aggro spell (/ooc Will be casting MGB Aego in five minutes in the
center of the Nexus!), then see how many PC's I can pull into close
proximity. Then I nuke (er, buff) them and watch them all cheer me. On a
good day I can get 50 folks in one casting. And since Ancient Aego only
costs two peridots, it's not terribly expensive.
I've also been ramping up on my smithing, aggressively pushing my wares. I
wander from zone to zone - Bazaar to Nexus to PoK and back again - saying
"/auc Human GM Smith taking orders on Heraldic plate armor." Usually I get
many tells from people who A) can't afford the armor but want to know the
stats; B) people who don't realize that Barbarian Shamans can't use plate;
C) people who ask me if I have any Cazic Thule armor for sale. I don't,
because I don't have the patience to farm the rare drops in CT. Although
perhaps I should, because I'm getting a lot more tells about it recently. I
might try soloing there once to see how hard it is. Not that clerics can
solo, of course.
Amidst all the tells, I actually take an order or two. I've had to drop my
prices dramatically - the bottom's fallen out of the Human GM market. No
one wants the stuff any more, and there are *lots* of bazaar mules trying to
sell their outdated Heraldic armor. I do get one good order - someone wants
a complete set of Luminant Heraldic armor for their pally alt. After some
haggling, I agree to do it for much less than I used to charge, but at the
end I have over 100K in the bank. I'll probably stop pushing now - I'll
still take orders, but I won't auction any more. 100K should last me a
while.
I do some shopping. I buy Silent Command, a near-useless 65th level spell
that I nevertheless decide to add to my repertoire. Who knows, I may do AE
groups again. I also buy a spell I've been after for ages and ages - Divine
Intervention. These two purchases drop my down to 90K, but I'm happy - my
spell book is now complete, including Pure Blood, except for Hand of Virtue.
That sucker still eludes me.
Oh, mobs, we kill them too. One of our threads on the message boards talks
about a guy who leaves the guild in a huff, upset about a particularly nasty
fight that broke out after we failed Rallos Zek - an attempt I wasn't
present at. One of the things he mentions in his goodbye post is that some
druids seem to get awarded twice as much loot as he does. Our guild leader
responds by saying that the amount of loot awarded is highly dependent on
two things: raid attendance, and actually putting your name it. He mentions
that oft-times there are only a couple of names to choose from when the loot
council has to award loot. I find this information very interesting and
decide that I need to not be so discriminating.
So, during an Agnarr kill we discover, by mistake, an entirely new strategy
for dealing with him. During the beginning, all of our kiters die, one
after the other. This is the first time that's happened, and now we don't
have anyone running Agnarr and the others around in circles. However, the
enchanters manage to charm two of the storm comets, and we find that if
everyone stays way the heck away from Agnarr and the others, they'll happily
beat on the comets. So I'm chain-healing the chanter pets, and after the
kiters are rezzed, we manage to split off the adds and kill them until
Agnarr is alone, even if he does manage to kill one of the pets. Finally,
we're told to stop healing the pet and let Agnarr kill it, which we do.
Then we engage, and the rest of the fight goes according to plan.
At the end, loots are announced. One of them is an Orb of Thunderous
Spirits: +10 Sta, +12 Dex, +15 Wis, +10 Cha, +17 vsMg, +17 vsFire, +110 HP,
+110 Mana, Primary/Secondary. What's best about it is the effect: Speed of
Mithaniel, which is a 25% spell haste on all beneficial spells of 3 seconds
or longer. I'm not going to dump my Shield of Ssraeshza for this, but I
decide I wouldn't mind replacing my epic with this. Epic has slightly
better stats, but I could really use the spell haste. So when my guild
leader asks who would go in on it, I send in the tell, "I would - replaces
my epic, so not a big upgrade." After a few minutes, my guild leader
announces that I've won the Orb.
Happily I loot it. I'm immediately asked to equip it so that people can see
what it looks like. I do, then go into third-person mode. Wow, look at
that - my right fist is now glowing green, and has sparkly thingies pouring
out of it. It looks like I've equipped a green monk epic. I have an Eye of
Darkness that make my left hand glow red, so I try to get two glowing
fists - but I can't; if one fists glows then the other won't. So monks
still have the advantage of me there. I gate to the Nexus and have several
guild members stop by so they can see my new monk epic.
The spell haste is very very nice. With the Orb equipped and Blessing of
Reverence cast on me, Supernal Light now only takes 2.4 seconds to cast -
only six-tenths of a second longer than it takes me to cast Supernal Remedy.
Heck, even Gate now only takes 3.3 seconds to cast. So now I have BoR cast
on myself all the time, whereas before I only cast it during groups and
raids. And I almost never cast Supernal Remedy any more - by waiting half a
second longer, I can do a *lot* more healing. So far this hasn't proven to
be a fatal trade-off for anyone. =)
That's been the highlight of the past couple of weeks. I haven't made much
XP - so many clerics LFG in our alliance, and so far I've been unwilling to
just put on LFG and join a pick-up group. I've been doing other things to
pass the time - like helping people on PoJ trials, or helping a friend of
mine create a Mistletoe Sickle for the Solstice Earring.
Last night, I log on to see if we're raiding Rallos Zek. Nope - the
uber-guild killed him. No other raids are called, so I have nothing to do.
After typing "LFG" into the alliance channel a few times, I decide to do
something exciting - I'm gonna visit the Plane of Mischief! I've never been
there before; it ought to be exciting.
So off I go to the Temple of Vesheen. I swim through Siren's Grove instead
of using the well-known exploit; I'm uber enough to be able to survive the
attacks. My drogmor makes crossing Western Wastes easy. I zone in, then
alt-tab to my web browser and find all the information I can about running
to PoM. I ought to be able to do it with DB and DA. I check the map and
memorize the route - it's not hard. (Joke of the day: How do you find a
blind man in a nudist colony? It ain't hard. Ba-dum-bah)
I slowly creep into NToV. I've never been here before. I creep along the
corridors, following my map. I see a bunch of baby dragons. I con them,
and to my surprise they con as ally. I move past them to the arena area -
and the two guards there are KoS. I invis up and run past them, down into
the arena, then up to the edge of the huge hole. I peer over the edge and
see water far below. I follow the right path, conning mobs until I find one
that sees invis. I take a breath and mentally prepare myself. I end up
taking a second too long, because the see-invis mob aggros me. No help for
it; I cast Divine Barrier and begin the run. Instantly I realize my
mistake: I forgot to go outside and use my SoW potion. Hopefully Run3 will
get me through. I run up the path and get towards the top when DB fails. I
stop and cast Divine Aura without a problem. I continue my run, and now I'm
getting a *lot* of dragons after me. I get to the intersection, turn right,
run up the corridor, I can *see* the zone-in to PoM... and DA runs out. I
get stunned and slaughtered just a few feet from PoM.
Dang. I'd've been fine if I'd had SoW loaded. Also, I stopped and
hesitated a split-second in a couple of places, trying to visually determine
my path. That cost, too.
I had bound myself right outside ToV, so I zone in and buff up as best I
can. I load Pacification and test it on the first KoS mobs. It works
great, and I get past them just fine. Hey, maybe I can use this to get all
the way through. Alas, I forget how wide these mobs' aggro radii are; the
next mobs aggros me before I can even see it. I run back to the arena,
figuring at least I can make my corpse recovery easier. I try to gate but
get killed.
I zone back in, memorize my spells... oops. I lost a level. I can't
memorize Pacification any more. I try Pacify and Wave of Tranquility, but
neither of them work on these mobs. Dangit all to heck; can't even get back
to my second corpse. I try various experiments - root and atoning, for
one - but these mobs are much too resistant, and I have to make a couple of
hurried retreats.
No necros online, so I decide to log. Currently I have two corpses in ToV -
one of them tantalizingly close to the zone-in for PoM. Once I get rezzed,
I'll either wisely give up or foolishly try again, this time with SoW.
Right now I'm leaning towards foolishness. =)
Retrieving my corpses is a top priority, however. Need to re-equip my monk
epic, after all.
--
-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!