Well, being in the Elemental Planes (sans Fire atm, our resident uber-guild
is making it a point to kill Solusek Ro the moment he pops just to keep us
out of PoF, but that's fine since we're still in the process of
backflagging) is an interesting experience. First time I joined an XP
group, we killed a mob that didn't require any special effort - and got 3
percent AAXP. For one kill. Like, wow. No wonder everyone has an insane
number of AA's these days.
That first group also managed to wipe. Darned armadillos.
I mentioned in a previous post how we killed a very easy named in Plane of
Water that dropped a cleric weapon. We went back to Plane of Water, and
here we discovered who had Enduring Breath items and who did not. I have
the necklace you could quest from Katta Castellum by farming undead snakes
in The Grey, so I was all set. A few people still didn't have EB items, and
in the end the necro's DMF'd everyone just to be safe.
Exploring a new zone can be funny; you have to learn the mobs and the
pathing and the respawns and all that. Underwater, pathing is all screwy.
Soon after we zoned in we got a ton of adds. For the most part we handled
it, although I was rezzing a couple of chanters at the end. We were after a
named shark. We headed off in one direction, killed a bunch of fish, then
the monk said, "Wrong way!" and headed back out and into another tunnel.
After some more interesting pulls, we get the named shark and he actually
goes down fairly easily. Alas, his corpse promptly vanishes. Oh, it's
there all right - I can target it no problem - but no one can see it or get
close enough to loot it; it must have poofed through the wall of the
underwater tunnel. OK, lesson learned: make sure not to push these mobs
into the wall. We petition, and somewhat to my surprise we get a very quick
response, and before the corpse can expire, the GM summons it for us.
Forgive me that I cannot remember names of mobs sometimes. Sony has to go
through some interesting contortions to find names for mobs that aren't
already taken by players. So all I can remember is that we decide to try
G------ the Wise. I'm told he has an insane AE that does an incredible
amount of damage. I wonder how we clerics are going to deal with this and
am told to try and keep our distance. I'm not certain that we have any
realistic chance to succeed and evidently neither does anyone else; when
someone in the guild logs in and asks what we're up to, one of the officers
responds, "We're about to wipe in PoW."
Sure enough, the mob is pulled and does its AE thing. This also has a stun
component, which stuns the MA. G------ the Wise promptly moves in on the
clerics. End of raid. Oh well, lesson learned.
Last night we decide to try Plane of Air. We don't have a specific goal in
mind; we're kind of exploring. It's interesting to see how people are
afraid to venture more than two steps beyond the zone-in. We have no
experience in this zone, and no idea what dangers lurk, so we stick close
together. I get a tell from someone who wants me to make him a Black
Acrylia Halberd - I've got quite the reputation now as a GM smith. I tell
him not right now, I'm raiding, and he expresses great surprise that my
guild is in the elemental planes - he'd had no idea we'd progressed that
far. We chat for a bit while the raid gets together.
During the mobilization, a spider wanders into camp. Fortunately we'd been
warned about this (thanks James) and were expecting it. Spider goes down.
When enough people get together, we begin clearing the large white armored
things that are all around us. When these die, they turn into a few smaller
white armored guys, which love to beat on medding casters. I'm quite glad
for my drogmor mount, as I can med and not get sitting aggro. It takes us a
while to get used to this, but we do clear the last of the large white
armored guys. Alas, when that dies, a really huge black armored guy
appears. I blanche and stop rezzing dead people and start healing the main
tank. Fortunately this guy isn't too tough, and he dies. "Were we
expecting that?" I ask into the raid channel. "No," says my guild leader.
When everyone is rezzed and ready, we move up to this light blue tunnel.
Again we begin to pull, and the mobs sometimes come in pairs but we manage
them, with difficulty. Finally, the monks have cleared to another
mini-named and they pull it. As it approaches, someone says, "Add." Sure
enough, coming with the mini-named (another large white armored guy) is a
spider. Everyone starts beating on the white armor guy. The spider starts
eating chanters. When it's done with them it moves on to the shamans, then
roams randomly about the raid, killing whomever it feels like killing.
Tanks try to off-tank it, but it chews through them faster than anyone can
get them healed. Fairly quickly we wipe. As I run back to PoA, I comment
into the guild channel, "Note for future reference: spiders are not trash
mobs." 'Trash mob' in our lingo is a mob that might add on a pull but that
we're not too worried about because we can mez it or something. "No
kidding," is the response. There's several more comments about how bad it
was that the spider killed us all until a monk snaps, "GUESS WHAT? WE WON'T
DO THAT AGAIN!" Point made; we're all still learning about this zone.
We zone in, rez, and rebuff. This time the monks pull the spider first, and
it goes down fast now that we treat is seriously. Then we pull the named,
and it goes down quickly as well. Loot is dropping; I believe this
particular mob dropped a 14/18 1HS with some nice stats, including 4 added
magic damage that effectively makes it 18/18 against mobs that aren't immune
to magical damage. The warriors all have better stuff, but a ranger is glad
to loot it.
Deeper we go into the zone. We come across a nice courtyard area and into a
castle where all the furniture floats. I rather admire the scenery; the
most pleasant zone design I've seen yet. "This is like VT done in pastels,"
is my comment into the raid channel. We're still learning; we're getting a
lot of through-the-wall aggro that sometimes leads to four mobs in camp at
once. Mostly we can handle it, although we now have only one chanter. I
make it my duty to keep him alive, which sometimes means spamming fast heals
on him until I get aggro myself.
It's getting kind of late, and we're down to about 30ish folks, but we're
almost to another named - Queen Somebody. (Not her real name, I forget what
it is.) Monks try to pull her down the stairs, and appear to get her solo -
until two other mobs add. These two mobs plus the queen prove to be too
much; the adds chew up the clerics and the chanter, and while the tanks make
a valiant effort to tank-mez the adds and we manage to get the Queen down to
five percent, we wipe when I run out of mana, DA and DB are gone, and one of
the adds gets me.
Fortunately our guild cleric alt camped, and the mobs immediately reset. We
rez back in, rebuff, then decide to go up to the throne room instead of
pulling the Queen down from it. We go up the stairs, manage to get another
four-mob wall aggro, but deal with it. Then we pull the Queen and kill her
easily. She drops a nice priest/caster mask and a rune. Oh, I haven't
mentioned runes; runes have been dropping like candy in this zone. We still
have many mains missing level 65 spells (I have all of mine but I bought
them for a not-inconsiderable sum of plat), so this is very welcome news.
The officers take names on loot. I pass - my Cloudy Steel Mask from Vex
Thal is much nicer for the right-click effect alone. It's very late, so
some people gate out right away. Alas, we're *still* learning; someone
wanders around the throne room and aggros four more mobs. Alas, because
we're missing some key people who gated away, these four mobs are more than
we can handle. We slowly wipe, with the officers frantically trying to
award the mask to people, only to find those people dead. All clerics are
dead, all paladins are dead, and we have no necros on the raid. So now we
have no way to get a priest or caster back to the Queen's corpse to loot the
mask. We banter around ideas, but none of them are workable - alas, we have
no rez sticks. In the end, a monk loots the no-drop mask rather than see it
rot, even though he can't use it himself.
A mildly disappointing ending, but it's my opinion that what we learned was
more valuable than what we looted. We're already deep in discussion on how
to beat G----- the Wise. Once we finish backflagging, we'll tackle the
elemental planes in earnest. That oughta be fun. =)
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Archon of Rodcet Nife
Winter's Light
Drinal server
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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!