EQIM has added a whole new dimension to my life. I use it to check up on
things from work. In a way, I am quite fortunate that my guild is in a
permanent alliance with another guild; we have an alliance chat channel we
use to stay in touch with each other. So I can use EQIM to talk in that
channel and find out what's happening.
Yesterday was a post-patch day, and high on our list was doing Emperor
Ssraeshza. We'd already killed him once - an intense fifty-minute battle
that saw most of our tanks die (some of them multiple times) until, with the
Emp at 2 percent, the last of our tanks died and our guild leader yelled
"ZERG" into the alliance channel. Emp went down and there was much
rejoicing. Alas, I had arrived too late to join and wasn't at the kill
myself.
I really wanted to be at this Emp kill, but I have to work until 6pm
Central. Usually that just means that I'll be late for the first of
whatever list of mobs we decide to raid on a particular day. For Emp it's
different; Drinal's resident uber-guild has had a stranglehold on Emp for
the past couple of months, and they still kill him for his loot. So now if
we want Emp, we have to race them. (We've offered several times to work out
a rotation with them, but they have flat-out refused to do so; they *want*
to race.) That means my guild can't just wait for me and others to log on;
they have to go as soon as they have the numbers.
Today, it seems like we'll lose the battle. The alliance channel is being
constantly updated with numbers. It starts early on with 4 alliance members
and zero uber-guild members. By about 3pm my time, it's over 40 alliance
members and 30 uber-guild members. It's looking grim for us, because the
uber-guild can kill Emp with 40 and we nearly wiped with 70. So the
decision is made to move up and at least take down Blood - we have the
numbers for that, and the loot is nice. So our alliance moves in, sets up
Crowd Control, and pulls Blood. The uber-guild is angry about this - and I
can see why, we've just delayed the Emp attempt for four hours because we're
killing the trigger mob - so a couple of their members begin dispelling our
mezzes. I can see chanters screaming in the alliance channel - "WHO'S
BREAKING MEZ?!". Fortunately Blood goes down quickly. Loot is awarded, and
everyone TL's out, leaving a few corpses to be summoned. Meanwhile, we
enter our first petition against the uber-guild for deliberately breaking
our mezzes.
So, now it will be four hours before Blood respawns (sans loot) and we can
try Emp. The alliance moves down to the basement to do the Cursed cycle.
The uber-guild follows us - they're still mad, and they evidently want to
disrupt our Cursed attempt even though they have no need for the loot. We
begin pulling the mobs necessary to trigger the Cursed cycle - but so do
they. I see in the alliance chat channel an order from our guild leader to
stay out of /ooc and /shout. I send a tell to a friend of mine, asking him
what's happening. Evidently the uber-guild is filling /ooc with all sorts
of taunts. A couple of people in the alliance are /reporting the taunts,
but not yet petitioning.
We kill by far the majority of the Cursed cycle trigger mobs, and in fact we
kill the mob that triggers the first mob of the Cursed cycle. However, the
uber-guild has people standing on the spawn point, and they take the mob and
kill it. The alliance channel is filled with outrage, and for the second
time, we /petition them. The second mob in the Cursed cycle spawns, but our
guild leader firmly tells everyone to leave it alone - they triggered it,
it's theirs to do with as they please. I'm honestly not sure if the
uber-guild leaves it up out of a latent sense of guilt or as a kind of trap,
to see if we'll pull someone else's triggered spawn just like they just did.
Anyway, after a while, they pull and kill the second mob, then the third and
final mob.
Meanwhile, Guides and GM's begin appearing. Two are in the zone, according
to folks in the alliance channel. As the alliance moves back up to Emp to
await the re-pop of Blood, we notice no less than five Guides / GM's on
Drinal - the first time we've seen anything like that in a long, long time.
Our guild leader announces he is talking to the Drinal lead GM and asks
everyone else to delete their petitions.
Keep in mind I'm following all of this over EQIM, with an ever-building
feeling of impatience for the day to be over. Finally, I cut out of work
fifteen minutes early and announce in the alliance channel: "Planning to
set land-speed records getting home. ETA 25 minutes depending on traffic
and possible repercussions from breaking the sound barrier." In fact,
traffic does hold me up and it's 45 minutes later that I arrive home and log
on.
I had camped in Ssra the night before, and not five seconds after I log on I
get an invite from our CotH link. As I accept, I ask what's been happening,
and I'm told, "You missed it all." What, exactly, did I miss? The answer
astonishes me - the uber-guild was, to a man, involuntarily TL'd out of Ssra
with a warning not to return for 24 hours or face getting disbanded.
Indeed, a /who uber-guild finds none of them in Ssra at all. Emperor
Ssraeshza is ours to do with as we please. Wow.
I have mixed feelings about that. I really hate being in competition for
mobs; I believe that working on rotation schemes and the like is in
everyone's best interest. Races just create all sorts of hard feelings and
I don't play EQ to cause anyone else some hardship. However, the uber-guild
was, in my opinion, acting quite childishly. They'd had exclusive access to
Emp and Vex Thal for months, and they've progressed much farther into PoP
than we have; what would it cost them to work with us on Emp / Vex Thal
rotations? A little maturity on their part would have gone a long way
towards resolving this problem. In the end, I think they got what they
deserved, but I really hope this doesn't turn into a running feud and I hope
we don't have to go through any such unpleasantness again.
I am summoned to the Emp portal and enter. I join everyone in the prep
corner and we begin buffing about twenty minutes before the Blood pop is
due. CC groups are formed, people begin acquiring targets - amazing how
much less stressful this can be without having to worry about beating
someone else to the pop.
One of the guild officers begins making a Planar Rift list. He starts by
asking who will need the rift for their last piece. I have a frame, a
luclinite orb... and only four shards. I'm feeling pessimistic, but then he
moves on to "Who has seven shards?" then "Who has six shards?" Finally he
gets to "Who has four shards?" and I quickly give him my name. I am put on
the list of approved Rift looters, which makes me happy - this I was not
expecting.
Blood pops. We move into action; the CC folks do a real good job, and Blood
dies without us breaking a sweat. Nevertheless, I can feel my heart
racing - my very first Emp attempt. We're told to move into our positions -
I am almost embarrassed to ask what my position is supposed to be. I am
directed to one of the hallways, and we wait.
Emp spawns. Quickly the Main Tank draws aggro. I'm on Rampage duty, and we
quickly identify the people who are on page - one of which happens to be my
guild leader. I target him and begin healing. As the fight begins, someone
mentions that pets do full damage, so I quickly sit, memorize Unswerving
Hammer, stand, and sic my pet hammer on Emp. I also spread my heals around
to others since page seems to be intermittent and quite manageable. I check
Emp's health and it is dropping much faster than I had expected. Sweet.
At just under 50 health for Emp, the Main Tank drops. Quickly we switch
over the next MT, and I begin throwing spot heals on the MT as well. Mana
is surprisingly good - our necros are doing an excellent job of pumping mana
into the clerics. People begin sharing information about what nukes and
dots appear to be effective on Emp. We have one minor hitch at about 30
percent when one of the necros lifeburns Emp. Emp immediately moves out and
kills the necro, and we have to beat him back into the corner. But it goes
well, the second MT never dies, and in less than 20 minutes, Emp dies.
This is outstanding, far exceeding our expectations. There is much
backslapping and rejoicing. The wraiths spawn and die and I run from corpse
to corpse, trying to find one that's not being looted. It takes a minute to
get one, but eventually I loot my planar rift. Now all I need is six more
shards and I'll have my Vex Thal key.
We do manage to make a pretty serious mistake: we kill the CC mobs before
loot is awarded. Suddenly the CC mobs are respawning and attacking and it's
beginning to fall to pieces. Loot is awarded, but I die trying to heal
folks. I get rezzed just after an AE TL leaves about 20 people stranded.
They begin rapidly dying. I find a distant hallway and sit and camp. I
make it out, then immediately log back in. I stand and watch for a couple
of minutes until the snakes reset in the center of the room. Very nervously
I creep along the walls and make it back to our prep corner. I begin
rezzing, a mage begins dragging the various scattered corpses, and we end
the Emp raid on somewhat of a weak note. We're still learning; we have the
Emp strategy down, now we just have to know how to react *after* he's dead.
It wasn't too long ago that Emp was considered the end-game mob. I realize
that's far from the truth now, and that he's much easier with a bunch of
65's landing 40% slows and the like. Still, I feel a tremendous sense of
accomplishment. We've killed Emp, and soon we'll be moving into VT, finally
accomplishing one of our major goals. There's still a lot of content for us
to conquer, but for now, I'm going to bask in the glow of my first Emperor
Ssraeshza killing. ^_^
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
High Priest 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!