Lance Berg
2007-08-06 12:26:10 UTC
So yesterday, we took on the Rathe Council once more. This time around,
we changed some things:
One, we went in fresh. 2pm EST Sunday rally and buff, by 2:30 we were
clearing POEb. We'd taken out all the mini bosses on Thursday, so this
was straightforward trash run, by 3pm at the latest we were dropping
down the hole to the CC cubby.
We'd also spent the previous week getting upgrades, which due to the
recent opening of the DODH expansion for Combine actually meant
significant boosts to gear for those who had had the time. For me
personally most of the improvement came in the form of AA; I've been
doing lots of MMs because its something my son's 36 mage and my 70 SK
can do to mutual benefit.
Armed with a suggestion from AGE, I loaned my Bioluminescent Orb to our
designated puller monk.
And we changed our OT locations.
First pull we worked as before, a process which meant a couple dead
rangers but the mob showed up on schedule and got under control. A
couple people died from failing to control aggro (a mob that puts out
over 10K in damage in a single round is not something you want to steal,
even briefly) but we got him down to 5%, backed everyone off but the MT,
let him slowly take it down to 3% and then mezzed. Someone (of course)
hadn't gotten the message and had laid on a DOT, but it was an SK
lifetap over time, so the remaining duration was short and we only lost
one enchanter to the mob (yep, mez break, chanter one rounded)
Next pull, the monk and I, along with a bard, went over and tried the
blind strategy. It failed to work as I understood it; we blinded a mob
at the 6 o'clock position, then monk FD'd and waited to wait for resets.
Instead of going over to past the 12 o'clock where I lurked in the
water, the mob walked due south. Bard was down there, though, and
easily single pulled the blinded mob as it was separated from its buddies.
Pull after this I went down and tried to help out, again the blinded mob
separated from the pack, but I pulled him too soon and got the whole
bunch. FD'd and the bard managed to get the single pull.
Fourth pull went smoothly. Fifth pull was a disaster of sorts, with the
monk dead, I ended up pulling the mass of mobs off the bard, who managed
to get his target far enough away from the rest before dying that a
ranger got it single tagged. I FD'd, and then sat there and watched my
HP bar trickle away from the 200 point per tic dot, hoping the council
would reset before I ran out of time. No such luck, I stood at 2% and
downed a HOT potion, but was killed by a remaining RC before I could
flop back down. Still, as disasters go this was pretty good, 3 dead and
the mob came single... that was pretty much how All the pulls were going
prior to the new pull plan.
Since I was one of the designated OT, though, I stopped getting involved
in the pulls at this point. Fresh buffs and stay out of trouble was the
order of the day, OT time getting close.
We parked the 6th mob, all in a row at 3%. Over to the far west side of
the RC circle, we started setting up our OT positions and going over the
plan again... when another glitch hit. One of the enchanters left at
the CC position went into a form of stealth LD: he couldn't control his
character or chat, but didn't really go LD so there was no LD tag to
suggest that trouble was coming. Sure enough, a short time later his
mob went uncontrolled, killed him, the bard who was on OT duty, the
paladin who was there to taunt loose mobs off the CC, and... well at
this point we were sending our spare bards over, and the CC team was
desperately trying to deal with one out of control mob and losing
control over another, and gradually over the course of a few minutes,
wiped in slow motion. We ended up dumping the whole setup, taking a
break to rez the CC team and rest up, before going again.
This time the process went even more smoothly, the monk/bard pull team
really got the new plan working. The mysterious non-LD happened a
second time to the enchanter, who said his cable modem was just
resetting itself for no known reason. He was put on backup and his
control targets reassigned to the now desperately overworked remaining CC.
And I had my big screwup of the night. I've long made a habit of not
turning off attack on enrage, but rather turning away from the mob. My
fingers are already on the movement keys, so this shaves a portion of a
second off the time it would take me to find my attack key and turn off
attack. I do that next, but it may take me a second or two as there's
no rush. Well, this time it probably took me more than a second or
two...in part because I wasn't paying a great deal of attention, a key
mistake in this LOOONG event. So I'm facing away, attack still on...
and something caused the mob to summon me in that interval, so instead
of facing away, I was facing him again, and swinging as the mez landed.
Mez broke, dead chanter, dire threats were made about using DOTS...
well I didn't have any DOTS memmed!
I'm not clear how I got summoned, I wasn't using any aggro spells per se
and shouldn't have been on top of the aggro list. My guess is that the
MT got banished and I was there due to proximity and having made myself
a nuisance with lifetaps and lifetap procs.
6 RC in a row again, we moved back to the OT game. Pulled unmezzable
number one over to the far west 3 o'clock position, MT and whole crew
other than the CC team beat him down to 3% and then let the first
designated OT take over, who carefully didn't do any damage, while
retaining attention of the mob and recieving heals from his healing buddies.
Pulled mob number two, who promptly goes over and tries to slaughter OT
number 1. Fortunately, we managed to keep him alive and his target
under control, and get the OT number two station set up and running.
Now my turn, mob number three pull... along with all of his remaining
buddies, who ate the MT and then chewed thru the rest of us and both OT
1 and OT 2 stations. Partial wipe... but the CC team was still
unmolested. We rezzed up and went for it again.
This time stations one and two set up smooth, and then it got to my
station once more. MT died. Several other tanks died trying to get it
under control before I grabbed it. I had a few seconds warning, and was
already prepared to tank this guy... so I popped soulguard, and then
Leechcurse, and clicked off my Bobbing Corpse so I could swig a HOT
(yep, no room at all for buffs plus the mob's DOT), chained lifetaps,
and hung on for dear life. The healers got together on me and dumped so
much fast healing that I managed to survive without even seeing my DI
fire. As the mob got damaged it dwindled in size and did less and less
damage; intially it was hitting in the 3000 range, and with only 10412
hp I could easily have dropped from one good quad, but I got lucky. We
got my mob down to 3%, rezzed up the team and got them rebuffed, and
then abandoned me to the mercies of my Tiki with but a cleric and druid
to prop me up.
I swapped in my sword and shield and turned attack off. We'd heard
about people removing all weapons and taking off their gloves so they
wouldn't do any damage on riposte... but earlier experience had shown
that minor damage wasn't going to do anything bad. I even lifetapped on
and off to help patch over rough spots in the heals. My mob regenerated
up to 4% and I got more serious on the lifetaps, and turned on attack
again till I got him back under 4%. As we got close to taking the sixth
unmezzable mob down, I went further and carefully tapped my way down to
1% on my target.
Finally the word was given, OT's kill your mobs. Unholy Aura, HT,
done... from 1% he didn't have that many HP to spare. I raced around to
the OT 2 position and helped chop that guy down, and the same at #1,
arriving just before the killing blow fell. On around the clock numbers
6, 5, and 4 were already down, and I got to the CC area along with the
rest of the raid. MT picked a mob, we all assisted and killed it,
although it ate a CC; we weren't being picky about making sure they were
properly taunted off before engaging. We took down the remaining 5 in
short and very sloppy order, losing several more people due to lack of
aggro control, but racing to get it all done under the wire. When the
last of these Tiki men died, we'd been at it for 5 and a half hours
straight.
A ragged cheer went up as the rangers were tasked to kite the Avatar of
Earth while we rezzed up, buffed up, and med up. Then they brought him
over to the raid force, finally reunited, and we took him out, again, in
the sloppiest imaginable way, flat out burn with GI Joe ping pong
action. Recognizing how tired we all were and how excited, raid
leaders didn't even try to restrain us... and we had all memmed every
last DOT at our disposal after 5 hours of not using a single DOT. Even
the dead were still laying on heavy damage. When he died, a ragged
cheer went out. We hailed the mob to get our shields ( they have aug
slots but no stats, whats up with that?), bid out the loot, and then
broke for dinner.
Were we in Time? No. Sadly, although we have the four drops we need,
we don't have the box to combine them in!
Projects remaining are some sort of tooth from POAir and some frog oil
from POWater. We've cleared both zones up to and including the bosses
several times on the way up, the GL swears he has seen a dozen of the
teeth but apparently failed to retain one, and the oil is from a part of
the zone that we don't have to move thru, haven't seen it drop.
Its tantalizing being this close; to me this, oddly enough, is the
pinnacle of EQ. I know, in newer expansions there are bigger and better
zones, tougher fights, better gear, bigger bosses. But this is the last
one where I know the name; I played in a small raiding guild in the POP
era, and Time was the big unattainable, something we just didn't have
the force for, something people left the guild for. On Combine, where
the top end guild is opening a new expansion every month, nothing
achieves this ledgendary status, because by the time we're close to
cracking it, there are already 3 expansions past it open.
Berg, 70 SK, EP Flagged
we changed some things:
One, we went in fresh. 2pm EST Sunday rally and buff, by 2:30 we were
clearing POEb. We'd taken out all the mini bosses on Thursday, so this
was straightforward trash run, by 3pm at the latest we were dropping
down the hole to the CC cubby.
We'd also spent the previous week getting upgrades, which due to the
recent opening of the DODH expansion for Combine actually meant
significant boosts to gear for those who had had the time. For me
personally most of the improvement came in the form of AA; I've been
doing lots of MMs because its something my son's 36 mage and my 70 SK
can do to mutual benefit.
Armed with a suggestion from AGE, I loaned my Bioluminescent Orb to our
designated puller monk.
And we changed our OT locations.
First pull we worked as before, a process which meant a couple dead
rangers but the mob showed up on schedule and got under control. A
couple people died from failing to control aggro (a mob that puts out
over 10K in damage in a single round is not something you want to steal,
even briefly) but we got him down to 5%, backed everyone off but the MT,
let him slowly take it down to 3% and then mezzed. Someone (of course)
hadn't gotten the message and had laid on a DOT, but it was an SK
lifetap over time, so the remaining duration was short and we only lost
one enchanter to the mob (yep, mez break, chanter one rounded)
Next pull, the monk and I, along with a bard, went over and tried the
blind strategy. It failed to work as I understood it; we blinded a mob
at the 6 o'clock position, then monk FD'd and waited to wait for resets.
Instead of going over to past the 12 o'clock where I lurked in the
water, the mob walked due south. Bard was down there, though, and
easily single pulled the blinded mob as it was separated from its buddies.
Pull after this I went down and tried to help out, again the blinded mob
separated from the pack, but I pulled him too soon and got the whole
bunch. FD'd and the bard managed to get the single pull.
Fourth pull went smoothly. Fifth pull was a disaster of sorts, with the
monk dead, I ended up pulling the mass of mobs off the bard, who managed
to get his target far enough away from the rest before dying that a
ranger got it single tagged. I FD'd, and then sat there and watched my
HP bar trickle away from the 200 point per tic dot, hoping the council
would reset before I ran out of time. No such luck, I stood at 2% and
downed a HOT potion, but was killed by a remaining RC before I could
flop back down. Still, as disasters go this was pretty good, 3 dead and
the mob came single... that was pretty much how All the pulls were going
prior to the new pull plan.
Since I was one of the designated OT, though, I stopped getting involved
in the pulls at this point. Fresh buffs and stay out of trouble was the
order of the day, OT time getting close.
We parked the 6th mob, all in a row at 3%. Over to the far west side of
the RC circle, we started setting up our OT positions and going over the
plan again... when another glitch hit. One of the enchanters left at
the CC position went into a form of stealth LD: he couldn't control his
character or chat, but didn't really go LD so there was no LD tag to
suggest that trouble was coming. Sure enough, a short time later his
mob went uncontrolled, killed him, the bard who was on OT duty, the
paladin who was there to taunt loose mobs off the CC, and... well at
this point we were sending our spare bards over, and the CC team was
desperately trying to deal with one out of control mob and losing
control over another, and gradually over the course of a few minutes,
wiped in slow motion. We ended up dumping the whole setup, taking a
break to rez the CC team and rest up, before going again.
This time the process went even more smoothly, the monk/bard pull team
really got the new plan working. The mysterious non-LD happened a
second time to the enchanter, who said his cable modem was just
resetting itself for no known reason. He was put on backup and his
control targets reassigned to the now desperately overworked remaining CC.
And I had my big screwup of the night. I've long made a habit of not
turning off attack on enrage, but rather turning away from the mob. My
fingers are already on the movement keys, so this shaves a portion of a
second off the time it would take me to find my attack key and turn off
attack. I do that next, but it may take me a second or two as there's
no rush. Well, this time it probably took me more than a second or
two...in part because I wasn't paying a great deal of attention, a key
mistake in this LOOONG event. So I'm facing away, attack still on...
and something caused the mob to summon me in that interval, so instead
of facing away, I was facing him again, and swinging as the mez landed.
Mez broke, dead chanter, dire threats were made about using DOTS...
well I didn't have any DOTS memmed!
I'm not clear how I got summoned, I wasn't using any aggro spells per se
and shouldn't have been on top of the aggro list. My guess is that the
MT got banished and I was there due to proximity and having made myself
a nuisance with lifetaps and lifetap procs.
6 RC in a row again, we moved back to the OT game. Pulled unmezzable
number one over to the far west 3 o'clock position, MT and whole crew
other than the CC team beat him down to 3% and then let the first
designated OT take over, who carefully didn't do any damage, while
retaining attention of the mob and recieving heals from his healing buddies.
Pulled mob number two, who promptly goes over and tries to slaughter OT
number 1. Fortunately, we managed to keep him alive and his target
under control, and get the OT number two station set up and running.
Now my turn, mob number three pull... along with all of his remaining
buddies, who ate the MT and then chewed thru the rest of us and both OT
1 and OT 2 stations. Partial wipe... but the CC team was still
unmolested. We rezzed up and went for it again.
This time stations one and two set up smooth, and then it got to my
station once more. MT died. Several other tanks died trying to get it
under control before I grabbed it. I had a few seconds warning, and was
already prepared to tank this guy... so I popped soulguard, and then
Leechcurse, and clicked off my Bobbing Corpse so I could swig a HOT
(yep, no room at all for buffs plus the mob's DOT), chained lifetaps,
and hung on for dear life. The healers got together on me and dumped so
much fast healing that I managed to survive without even seeing my DI
fire. As the mob got damaged it dwindled in size and did less and less
damage; intially it was hitting in the 3000 range, and with only 10412
hp I could easily have dropped from one good quad, but I got lucky. We
got my mob down to 3%, rezzed up the team and got them rebuffed, and
then abandoned me to the mercies of my Tiki with but a cleric and druid
to prop me up.
I swapped in my sword and shield and turned attack off. We'd heard
about people removing all weapons and taking off their gloves so they
wouldn't do any damage on riposte... but earlier experience had shown
that minor damage wasn't going to do anything bad. I even lifetapped on
and off to help patch over rough spots in the heals. My mob regenerated
up to 4% and I got more serious on the lifetaps, and turned on attack
again till I got him back under 4%. As we got close to taking the sixth
unmezzable mob down, I went further and carefully tapped my way down to
1% on my target.
Finally the word was given, OT's kill your mobs. Unholy Aura, HT,
done... from 1% he didn't have that many HP to spare. I raced around to
the OT 2 position and helped chop that guy down, and the same at #1,
arriving just before the killing blow fell. On around the clock numbers
6, 5, and 4 were already down, and I got to the CC area along with the
rest of the raid. MT picked a mob, we all assisted and killed it,
although it ate a CC; we weren't being picky about making sure they were
properly taunted off before engaging. We took down the remaining 5 in
short and very sloppy order, losing several more people due to lack of
aggro control, but racing to get it all done under the wire. When the
last of these Tiki men died, we'd been at it for 5 and a half hours
straight.
A ragged cheer went up as the rangers were tasked to kite the Avatar of
Earth while we rezzed up, buffed up, and med up. Then they brought him
over to the raid force, finally reunited, and we took him out, again, in
the sloppiest imaginable way, flat out burn with GI Joe ping pong
action. Recognizing how tired we all were and how excited, raid
leaders didn't even try to restrain us... and we had all memmed every
last DOT at our disposal after 5 hours of not using a single DOT. Even
the dead were still laying on heavy damage. When he died, a ragged
cheer went out. We hailed the mob to get our shields ( they have aug
slots but no stats, whats up with that?), bid out the loot, and then
broke for dinner.
Were we in Time? No. Sadly, although we have the four drops we need,
we don't have the box to combine them in!
Projects remaining are some sort of tooth from POAir and some frog oil
from POWater. We've cleared both zones up to and including the bosses
several times on the way up, the GL swears he has seen a dozen of the
teeth but apparently failed to retain one, and the oil is from a part of
the zone that we don't have to move thru, haven't seen it drop.
Its tantalizing being this close; to me this, oddly enough, is the
pinnacle of EQ. I know, in newer expansions there are bigger and better
zones, tougher fights, better gear, bigger bosses. But this is the last
one where I know the name; I played in a small raiding guild in the POP
era, and Time was the big unattainable, something we just didn't have
the force for, something people left the guild for. On Combine, where
the top end guild is opening a new expansion every month, nothing
achieves this ledgendary status, because by the time we're close to
cracking it, there are already 3 expansions past it open.
Berg, 70 SK, EP Flagged