When I moved to Povar, I immediately sent in an application to a guild that
contains many of my former guildmates from Drinal. The recruitment officer
talked with me a bit, then informed me they couldn't allow me into the guild
until I had gotten all the signets required for Citadel of Anguish access.
To help out in this process, they created a channel for potential applicants
to try and help each other out get signets.
Alas, that channel proved an absolute failure. No one, but no one from the
guild I was apping to was willing to come help me and the others farm
signets. After a couple weeks of trying, I sent a tentative message to the
recruiter and creator of the "app" channel, asking about whether there
wasn't any other way to get help since the app channel wasn't working. Her
response was that it was not her responsibility to get signets for me, and
that if I couldn't get those for myself, then perhaps I should consider
applying to another guild.
A fair answer. My problem was that I *had* been trying. Honestly, I could
not get anyone - *anyone* - who would farm signets. I needed signets from
the instanced zone in Dranik's Scar and the two instanced zones in Ruined
City of Dranik. The problem is, neither of those places offer good XP
compared to places like, say, MPG or RS. And no one is much interested in
the lesser and minor runes that drop off the nameds. Day after frustrating
day I'd try to get LFG people to come help me farm runes. Not one person I
asked was willing to do it.
I set about trying to solo the Dranik's Scar instance. I could almost do
it, except that I couldn't snare and my level 65 Pacification spell wouldn't
affect the mobs, thus not allowing me to pull singles. I did the Caller's
event for many hours in Fungus Grove, and that got me one ten-charge snare
gland. But I still needed my level 70 Placate spell to allow me to get
singles.
After a month on Povar, I decided with great reluctance to try applying to
another guild. There's another high-end guild on Povar, so I went to their
web site and put in an application. In it I made it clear I didn't have all
my signets, but that I was flagged through Txevu, had decent gear, and had
300 AA's. I clicked on the send button and the app dropped into a well. I
heard nothing back at all from anyone in the guild.
I went back to trying to get a Glowing Rune. I decided to group exclusively
in Riftseeker's Sanctum. I still did MPG trials with one guy who, I
gathered, had about six different characters he was trying to get through
all the trials. I liked doing the trials, but they were time sinks that
didn't produce runes. I grouped in RS more and more, passing on augments
and Greater Runes and losing every roll on a Glowing Rune. Man, this was
getting frustrating.
Then, a week after putting in my app, I suddenly got a tell from an officer
of the other guild asking if I had a moment to talk. Sure, I said, perking
up; I was in a group but we were recovering from an MPG trial wipe. He went
on to grill me extensively about my AA's, my gear, and my raiding
experiences. I answered as best I could. His last question was to ask me
to state, honestly, how good a grouping cleric I was. I replied that I had
received nothing but compliments since coming to this server on my healing
abilities, and that I didn't two-box or let my attention drift, and that
Monual was my one and only character and I played him quite well. Alas, I
sent this response to my group instead of to the officer. The group thought
I was feeling defensive and guilty about the trial wipe and tried to console
me. It actually took me a couple of minutes to realize what had happened
and why I was getting tells from group members to "not worry about it". I
had to admit sheepishly what I had done. Then I resent the reply to the
recruiting officer.
He then began to tell me an extensive set of rules for apps. It was nothing
I wasn't expecting: no loot unless it's otherwise rotting; don't create
drama; don't use third-party programs like ShowEQ; do exactly what you're
told to do; have high raid attendance. Further addendums in my case were to
actively work on completing my signets and getting a lot more AA's. I
agreed easily to all the conditions. There then appeared in front of me a
guild invite, which I eagerly accepted. I was then told to join the guild
in Muramite Proving Grounds; they were setting up to raid the trials there.
I was already in MPG, but deep inside with many see-invis mobs between me
and the zone line. I gated out and ran back. While running I dusted off my
old raiding hotkeys and joined the designated channels - an app channel and
a cleric channel.
The guild proceeded to destroy three of the trials. My old guild on Drinal
had tried a couple of these towards the end of its existence and hadn't made
much progress. I'm certain we could have beaten them in time if the guild
hadn't died. This guild has done these over and over again, and the trials
were quite easy for the guild.
Each of the boss mobs dropped two Glowing Runes. Everyone in this guild
already had all of their level 70 spells/abilities, so I was allowed to loot
two of the runes. Hooray, I finally had my Placate spell and, more
importantly, Balikor's Mark, the symbol upgrade I had been missing.
The next day the guild decided to raid Anguish. Alas, I couldn't join. I
was told to get to Wall of Slaughter anyway so that I would get credit for
attending the raid. When they all zoned in I wandered aimlessly about,
eventually coming across a group in front of the wall that splits the zone.
I gave them all Conviction and did some out-of-group help with the mobs they
were killing, mostly just casting Mark of the Blameless. While I sat there
on my drogmor, one of the people in the group sent me a tell: "*The*
Monual?" She had read of my exploits on a.g.e and let me know she enjoyed
them. I appreciated the nice feedback.
I sent a tell to the recruiting officer, asking him if he really wanted me
to hang around here all evening while they raided. He told me that they
took hourly attendance, but if I wanted to go work on signets, he'd give me
raid attendance points for that. I immediately headed off towards Dranik's
Scar.
I buffed a couple of people near the zone-line and asked if they'd help me
get an instance. They agreed, and after a couple of attempts I got the
correct instanced zone: Murkglider's Cave. I thanked them and they
disbanded. I moved in and cautiously moved in towards the place where the
Signet Holder spawned, deep inside in a place called the Pool Room. Luck
was with me; most of the mobs couldn't see through my invisibility, and the
two that could I could easily circumvent. I found the pool room and saw the
placeholder for the SH.
I scouted the nearby areas, trying to find a place to fight. I found a long
tunnel that only had one mob roaming up and down. So I sat down, memorized
my soloing spells, summoned my ever-proc'ing hammer, stood up, took a deep
breath, cast Ward of Vengeance, and attacked.
Yeesh. This mob didn't do too much damage by OoW standards, but it
*quadded*. I was able to get Mark of Retribution and Mark of the Blameless
cast on the mob, but I spent most of the time healing myself, only
occasionally getting in a swing or two with my hammer. Fortunately my
damage shields and Ward were doing plenty of damage to the mob - the upside
to a quadding mob is that it does four times the damage to itself.
Eventually the mob got to 20% and began to run.
Quickly I clicked on my snare gland. To my great relief, it worked. The
mob stopped running. I beat on it with my hammer, and it took two more
minutes of melee to kill it - without damage shields, my DPS sucks.
Finally, though, it did drop, with my mana almost completely exhausted.
I medded up, then considered the placeholder. It was sitting right next to
a murkglider. I memorized my new Placate spell and cast it on the
murkglider, and it stuck. I then pulled the placeholder and went through a
very similar fight with it, except when it turned to run it resisted the
first two castings of my snare gland. Darn it; this thing only has ten
charges, I can't afford many resists.
I sat and waited. The roamer respawned and I killed it without incident.
Then, to my great joy, the Signet Holder spawned. I considered trying to
solo it, but it's an even con and I struggled to kill these dark blue cons.
I decided to wait until the guild was done raiding Anguish. When they were,
I asked if anyone would be willing to help kill a signet holder that had
spawned for me.
A rogue and ranger agreed to come help. After some minor mishaps (involving
them ignoring my instructions and running blithely into the see-invis mobs),
we pulled the Signet Holder. The ranger and rogue obliterated the SH in the
blink of an eye. Wow; and it had taken me five minutes to kill just one
dark blue mob. Happily I looted my signet. Only two to go now.
People were forming up various after-raid activities. Someone wanted to do
a "CoD". I asked what that was and was told it was a Dragons of Norrath
mini-raid event called Circle of Drakes. I agreed to come help. It turned
out to be pretty simple - just kill a bunch of mobs that come in waves. A
nice caster neck piece dropped, and I was told to go ahead and roll on it,
but I lost.
When that was done, I asked in guildchat if anyone would be willing to help
me farm signets in RCoD. I got no response, so I asked again after five
minutes. This got me a gentle admonishing from a fellow cleric in the
guild, saying that people would be willing to help but they didn't like
being pestered. Well, I kinda knew that already, but at the same time I
knew that being passive wasn't going to get me any signets either. I needed
to be aggressive. I asked the cleric who would be good people to ask, and I
got a list of names.
As it turned out, a paladin in the guild (whom I subsequently learn is one
of the best-equipped paladins in the game) had already agreed to help me
out. He got other people to come along, and we met up in RCoD. It took us
a few attempts to get the right instance of the Sewers, but eventually we
moved in. We invis'd up as far as we could towards the signet placeholder,
then started pulling.
And oh man, the pulls. The paladin would run up, aggro five or six mobs,
then pull them back to camp. The enchanter locked them down while the group
picked them off one by one. I am kept quite busy healing everyone. Someone
else in the group comments on the paladin's aggressive pulling style, and he
responds, "Just testing out the new guy." =) Hopefully I'm acquitting
myself well; no one dies and I don't run too low on mana to prevent pulls
from continuing.
We killed the placeholder, and the next placeholder after that. The third
spawn was the SH, and wed killed it easily. I got my second-to-last signet.
It's getting kind of late, but I push my luck and ask if we can move on to
the catacombs. Everyone agreed but the warrior, who has to log. I send him
my profuse thanks, then we left the sewers and moved on to the Catacombs.
After only two attempts we got the correct instance. The signet placeholder
proves to be not too far inside. We killed it once, twice, then two people
had to leave - again to my profuse thanks. After the third placeholder pop,
everyone else has to leave - I mean, it is 3am after all. I again thanked
everyone for their efforts.
The next day after raids I sent a tell to the paladin, asking if he can help
me one last time. He's heading out to play pool, though. I ask again in
guildchat, and this time a druid, ranger, and shadowknight all agree to
help. That should be enough. The druid formed the group and ported us to
the Bloodfields. We moved over to RCoD. The druid got the correct instance
of the Catacombs on the very first try. We moved in, and lo and behold -
the Signet Holder was already up. We killed it quickly and I looted my last
signet. Total time in the zone: three minutes.
I thanked everyone profusely, then alt-tabbed to Allakhazam's to figure out
my next step. Hmm, seems that I need to head to an NPC in RS. I alt-tabbed
back and ask in guild if it's possible to invis up to the NPC. The answer
is no, I'll have to get a group to clear. Drat. I was so hoping I was done
asking people to help me out with my signet quest.
It turned out another shadowknight was forming an XP group in RS. I asked
him if he wouldn't mine clearing the way towards the NPC with his group. He
agreed easily. I ended up having to fill in the healing gap when invis
drops at an inopportune time for their cleric. The NPC proved to be easy to
clear towards. I went through several pages of hails and prompts, and
finally got the signet case. I put the seven signets inside it, hit
combine, and handed the case back. I received a character flag; I am now
protected from chaos damage inside Anguish.
Hooray!
The next day the guild raids a DoN dragon nicknamed Vish. We try four
times, on the last attempt getting Vish to below 20%. This excites the
guild; they're certain they'll be able to finish it off next time.
Meanwhile, while official raids are done there's the nightly after-raid raid
for augments in Anguish. Happily I join this raid. After we form up and
get the instance, I click on the gate and get the message, "Zoning into
Asylum of Anguish". Whee!
The raid begins clearing. Another cleric in the raid tells me I won't be
able to loot any augments. I tell her I expected no less as an app, I'm
just here to help out. No no, she replies, it's not that the guild won't
let me. I'll be physically unable to loot anything in the zone until I get
fully flagged for Anguish. I blink, then try to loot something from one of
the trash mobs we've been clearing. And indeed, mysterious forces prevent
me. Heh.
That doesn't really bother me, though, I having too much fun being in a new
zone. We start clearing over a long bridge, and in the distance I can see
an ominous-looking floating castle slowly come into focus. I babble on
excitedly to the amusement of my group, for which all of this is old hat.
I'm told I'll quickly grow tired of it. Maybe right, but for now, I'm
rather enjoying myself.
At one point in the clearing, EverQuest completely locks up on me and
crashes. I start up again and it takes me a couple of minutes for the
server to boot off my linkdead character. I reconnect and rejoin the raid,
commenting on how odd that was; I *never* crash. I'm told it's fairly
common in Anguish.
I'm also told that as many as five augment-dropping bosses can spawn, but
this time, only two have. I ask if there's anything special about these
mobs and am told there really isn't, just that they hit for 4K and that I'll
need to spam fast heals. The first boss mob is pulled and indeed it hits
the main tank hard, but we keep him up easily enough. In the meantime the
raid is once again quickly killing it. I comment in group that this mob has
no hitpoints and am told it's just that the raid has very high DPS.
The boss falls and the augment makes my eyes bug out: +125hp, +150mana,
+125end. Holy cow. No wonder the guild raids these guys before and after
every raid.
The raid is soon over. I reluctantly leave the zone. My first foray into
Anguish was quick and relatively uneventful. I look forward to the more
serious raid encounters there.
But more than that, I look forward to raiding with this guild. They were
willing to take a chance on me and help me get signets - during my signet
quest, I was told by a warrior that I am the only app that wasn't already
flagged for Anguish. I truly appreciate the effort they put out on my
behalf. While I wanted to join my old guildmates in the other high-end
guild, it's this guild that took me in and helped me out. So it's this
guild that will get my loyalty and support. I sure hope I get past the app
part to become a full member; I think so far I'm doing well.
I'm just really enjoying being a part of a raiding guild again. Taking down
hard mobs, executing complex strategies, overcoming difficult obstacles - I
love that stuff. I love raiding. After six months, I'm so glad to be doing
it again. ^_^
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Prelate of Rodcet Nife
Povar server
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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!