We've been kind of at a standstill for a long time. Haven't really
progressed much - our server's uber-guild has a time zone advantage over us,
so every patch day they get into position to kill mobs before we can get
there. And we've had terrible, terrible troubles getting organized for
raids. Basically we still have a few members who aren't Elemental flagged
and we spend time getting people "gimped" in - having enough flagged people
in so that the unflagged can zone in. In two instances, while we were
struggling to get the unflagged in, the uber-guild zone in en masse and took
down the mob(s) we were planning to kill.
Our officers finally decided enough is enough. We went on a big recruiting
drive - and I mean a big one. We recruited lots of people, and made it
*very* clear - we would be doing all of the old Tier I and Tier II mobs once
and only once, and anyone who was unflagged at the end of that time would
stop raiding with us altogether. They've said this once before, but now
they really really mean it. =) We already lost two recruits who missed
flag raids. A shame really, because one was a cleric that I really liked -
good at his job, got along well, eager to participate. But after being told
that he needed to be at all the flag raids, he missed Bertox and deguilded
himself when he logged on well afterwards. I was quite sad at that, but at
the same time I believe the new policy was quite necessary - I'm sick to
death of having to spend an hour forming raids and disbanding raids and
forming them again in an attempt to get unflagged people into the zone.
So it's been familiar mobs again. I can't say it's been entirely
unbeneficial - I got a Tactician's Girdle during a Tallon Zek raid that
replaced the last of my Salubrious Heraldic armor. It's been interesting to
see the reactions of our recruits to the loot that drops - I remember when
my own jaw was permanently on my knees looking at the stats of the stuff we
were getting in Ssra. And Spectral Parchments, which had been rotting on
our raids for the longest time, are now being rolled on again. I've had all
my PoP spells for ages, so it's hard to imagine anyone in the guild still
needing 61 and 62 spells. But it's all good - we need these people so that
we can be more flexible in our timing and so that we can take down Xegony
and The Rathe further on down the road.
One mob that's been kicking our collective rear is Rallos Zek. We can
breeze through the early parts easily. In fact, during Vallon Zek one of
our recruits did not listen to the oft-repeated message not to attack or
debuff VZ until the assist had been called. VZ ran smack dab into the
middle of the raid and killed about half the people. We were down to three
clerics spamming heals onto the Main Tank, but we recovered and VZ went
down. This was followed by a very stern lecture from our officers about
listening to and following orders. One of our recruits was in my group, and
when VZ went down he asked where the Planar Projection was. I gently
explained that we had only just begin, and that the PP wouldn't spawn for a
while yet.
So we can get VZ and TZ and RZ just fine, and RZtW spawns in the pit right
on schedule. But the encounter has been changed slightly. Crowd Control
has only been a peripheral issue for me, since I'm just healing the Main
Tank. But evidently we've been preventing adds from spawning by killing the
corpses. This method no longer works. It took us two attempts to figure
that out, and two further attempts with alternate methods of CC have been
failures. Both times we got RZtW to under 10 percent before wiping - in our
last attempt we got him down to 1 percent before the last person fell. It's
frustrating to have a tried and true method, only to have it inexplicably
nerfed. Ah well, we'll get him next time, I'm sure.
So we've continued on in that vein - Grummus/Carpin/Bertoxx. The HoH trials
and Mith Marr. In one agonizingly long session we did all five minis in the
Tower of Solusek Ro, ending with Sol Ro himself. We had lots of people the
whole time, making all of the encounters fairly trivial. Again, we've had
to be on our toes because we're assuming knowledge our recruits don't have.
For example, towards the end of Rizlona, a wizard recruit in my group
decided that the hallway next to the door would be a good place to stay out
of reach of Rizlona's AE. The warders that spawned after Riz fell cast
their nifty little deathtouch on him and about half-a-dozen other recruits.
No problem, said a recruit rogue who decided to run, drag, and die (twice).
The recruit cleric in my group saw all the corpses and proceeded into the
hallway to rez them. "No!" I told her, and she smartly backed out of the
hallway *before* asking me, "Why not?" In the end, I used DB and DA to drag
some of the corpses, and everyone got flagged.
So: backflagging, backflagging, and the same old fire and earth mobs we
always farm. I think we're just about done - we need Rallos Zek the Warlord
and then a bunch of people will be Elemental-flagged. Hooray hooray.
Oh, and I got 7 AA's and a nifty charm as a result of the last patch. I
used the AA's to get myself SCRM - now my buffs last 50% longer. I'm also
only 7 AA's away from Exarch. I'm torn between getting Exarch or getting
some more-useful lower-level AA's. We'll see.
Mostly, though, the fun I've gotten from Everquest has been playing my alt.
Marrtuk is now 44 and very close to 45, which will be a very big step for
him. First, he'll finally be able to have KEI cast on him again. Second,
he'll be able to use his Deepwater Helm, which means unlimited mana-free
heals. Marrtuk's been having a grand ol' time. He solo'd through 40 until
the KEI nerf. I tried grouping him, with mixed results. The Dreadlands
groups were mostly disasters - a hodge-podge of classes that didn't
necessarily complement each other with sporadic DPS and scarcely more XP
than I could get alone. I've gotten into a couple of good Lower Guk groups,
though, with people who knew how to play their classes. In one of these
group I arrived only to realize that everyone else in the group were
casters - which meant I was the Main Tank. I think I did a fairly credible
job - I've seen what good tanks do and was able to emulate it with moderate
success. Stuns are a pally's best friend, just as I read on the Paladins of
Norrath messageboards. A few stuns and it's nearly impossible to lose
aggro.
The rest of the time has been spent soloing, however. It's darned slow
without KEI - I have to spend five minutes down for every five minutes up.
I've been spending a lot of time in the Safe Hall in Lower Guk. In that
place I've had the assistance of a druid who was power-leveling a enchanter
alt of hers. Every once in a while she would DS me or throw me a heal or
grab one of my mobs when I got an add I couldn't handle. It was nice to
have that kind of backup, and I ended up thanking her a lot. She would also
have her enchanter attack my mobs to get his weapon skills up - which
surprised me, because I thought enchanters didn't particularly need to have
their weapons skills raised. Ah well, maybe they have useful proc'ing
weapons.
Lower Guk can be frustrating, though, because quite a few times there will
be higher-level folks killing mobs for faction. They can clear out the zone
in almost no time at all, leaving me scrambling for repops. That can get
annoying fast.
The place I keep gravitating to is the Gulf of Gunthak. This place is
way-far removed from anyplace - the closest PoK book is in Toxx Forest. But
it's fairly self-contained, and the undead mobs on the beach are perfect -
they are easy to pull in singles, they don't cast (!), and they don't flee
when low on health (!!). They have more hitpoints then LGuk mobs and hit
slightly harder, but I'll take that over getting nuked to death by two
wizards or getting rooted by undead froglok who then proceeds to beat on me
from out of my melee range. So I've been wandering up and down the beaches
killing undead mobs. I even got a named skeleton to pop, for which I
massively over-prepared. Normally I don't bother to buff myself - my buffs
take too much mana and wear off too quickly to be of real use. This time, I
did the whole smash. I got myself up to sixty percent mana, full health,
made sure Lay on Hands was up, then attacked the named skeleton - and killed
him in thirty seconds. Ah well. Dropped some low-end caster arms that I'll
try to sell on my bazaar mule.
One thing I've been doing is collecting bone chips. It's always been my
dream to raise Monual's faction with Calibis. Calibis is the one major city
I have yet to explore. I could, of course, simply create a Iksar alt, but
it would feel more "in-character" if I could get one of my alts built with
sufficient faction. I transferred 200 bone chips from Marrtuk to Monual,
then on a whim bought 200 more in the bazaar. I went into the Field of Bone
and tried to find Trooper Mozo. While all the fighting I've done in Sebilis
has gotten me to indifferent with the Iksar warriors, all the other classes
are still KoS. Alas, a green shaman was standing right on top of Trooper
Mozo. I aggro'd him, then turned and ran away. I then tried to root him.
I made two-dozen attempts and he resisted every one. I ran clear into the
pit itself with this green shaman nuking me all the while - fortunately I
resisted most everything. The new spell interface helped - I decided to try
Atoning him. So while running I cleared a spell gem, right-clicked, found
Atone from the menus, then chose it - and I sat down and memorized it before
the shaman could catch up. Very handing. A few Atones and the shaman
forgot all about me and stood motionless in the pit. I ran back to Cabilis
and was able to hand in bone chips in peace.
Alas, I discovered that the bone chip quest had also been nerfed (a long
time ago, I subsequently found out). Instead of getting one faction
adjustment per bone chip, you get one faction adjustment per *four* bone
chips. Since I need about 2000 faction adjustments to get non-KoS, I'll
need to hand in 8,000 bone chips. Goodness gracious, that's a lot. I
handed in my paltry 400 and ran away, still firmly KoS with most of Cabilis.
There's supposed to be a new faction quest in Veksar that I may or may not
try out. I don't know. I do know that handing in 7600 more bone chips does
*not* appeal to me. I wonder if I can AE the outcast Iksar in Warsilik
Woods.
Morose, I did some smithing to make myself feel better. I've dumped a lot
of plat onto Marrtuk, and was down to a measely 28K on Monual. So I did a
big smithing run (which dropped me down to 20K), then took a quick order
that made me 22K. Nice to know that the market is still there.
So there it is: Monual's life these past few weeks. I'm very much looking
forward to ending the backflagging and making a serious run towards Fennin
Ro and Corinav and the like. It'll be good to do something new and
interesting with Monual. Meanwhile, Marrtuk is a refreshing change of pace.
He'll never be my main, but he'll always be a interesting diversion.
--
-Richard
Monual Lifegiver
Archon of Rodcet Nife
Silent Tempest
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!