Last night was a lot of fun. I spent most of the day at my parents place, watching the latest Narnia movie and playing W101, visiting and generally hanging out. Once I came back home it was time to make some dinner and get my Beckett stuff together, then it was finally time for a little gaming. There’s a unique aspect to the void shard instances and quests that I’m surprised more people are not taking advantage of. If you’re a level 80 character you can grab all of the void shard quests you have (and heritage quests and other goodies) and enter a zone while you are mentored, and complete it that way. You’ll still get void shards. You’ll still get quest updates for heritage quests and signature quests.
There’s a few tiny little flaws in this method, but it’s a lot of fun none the less. Number one, you won’t get level 80 loot – however if you’re just looking to accumulate void shards and don’t really care too much about the drops yet (you can pick and choose your zones for loot later) then this is perfect. It’s easier (I personally find) to mentor a lower level and do the zone that way. Last night my group mentored down to 52, we had two level 52 characters in group, and a level 55 character as well. The group consisted of an 80 shadowknight (mentored), 80 assassin (mentored), 73 defiler (me, mentored), 55 troubador, 52 warden (being boxed), and a 52 illusionist.
We headed off to Miragul’s Phylactery: The Anathema, and once we had entered the zone we unmentored the level 52 and mentored the 55 instead, so things con’d blue to us. The zone was fantastic and a lot of fun, and because we were mentored down doing the instance a lot of the loot that dropped were discoveries. It’s all legendary (that we saw at least) and no trade, and HUGE WONDERFUL upgrades for players. I’m looking forward to doing some loping plains instances with my 61 necromancer mentored down. The lowbies gained a lot of experience from doing the instances, the level 80’s gained their void shards as well as a lot of aa.
If you’re looking for a method of learning an instance before doing it with a full group of 80’s, this is perfect. I HOPE that this is working as it’s intended to, and that it won’t change. Kasul and Shadowgeist managed to get their daily double void shard quest done this way as well as their single ones. Some quest updates along the way too. Albrta and Eyenstein got lots of upgrades for their characters – and the instances also rewarded guild experience. Who doesn’t love all of that?
The Anathema has on portion of the instance that is blocked by a giant void creature. Once you’ve finished killing the named upstairs you can go downstairs and on the ground a barrel has spawned. This simple event had me giggling for most of the night. You click that barrel and find out it’s explosives. It moves down the hallway to the void creature and positions directly under him, between his legs. Setting it off causes massive shards of ice to fall from the ceiling and destroy the creature so that you can pass.
Great stuff!
Once we finished that zone we headed to Najena’s Hollow Tower. I had not been to either of these instances before, so my 73 defiler gained a lot of experience, three aa, and while I could not get void shards personally since I’m not level 80, I still had an amazing time.
Najena’s Hollow Tower was a complex zone for us, but still fun. The only REALLY difficult fight we had was with one Fitzfangle who bugged on us due to me going LD in the zone. This named spawns bombs every 25% and they tick tick tick tick and then BOOOOOM explode. Taking you and your entire group with it. The bombs spawn at each players feet, leading all the way back to Fitzfangle. Not fun. Our instance was bugged too, and the bombs that spawned were level 80 while we were all level 55. There was no way we could deal with this. After a bunch of deaths Kasul had to leave, so that left us one DPS short too.
We died 7 times on this encounter until Gnewton shared with me his groups solution. It worked wonderfully. The tactic?
Tank the named in one of the back corners, so that you have a clear path to run back to the entrance. DPS him down 25% and when he drops the bombs (WHEN he drops them, not before!) snare him, and RUN back to the entrance. You have enough time (at least we did, with 40% run speed) to make it to the entrance, and then those bombs will have gone off. Run back to the corner and continue dpsing him for another 25%. Make sure group members are all close by because those bombs drop where ever you’re standing. When he drops them the second time, snare again, and run to the entrance. When you’ve all reached the entrance head back to the corner. Continue this until he’s dead. He drops his bombs three times during the fight, and while at first we were under the assumption that this was a zone wide effect and we were screwed, we found out it was not.
This zone was great, and complete. There was one fight with a drake that ports you randomly into pools of lava that surround him. You spend your time running out of these giant pools searching for your group mates HOPING you have enough dps to burn him down before the 6 groups of drakes around the outside of the pool respawn. Now imagine this encounter with no dps classes, and one of us boxing. Painful!
We took it down the second time though, and got another legendary.
There’s also a named jailor, who was a lot of fun to kill. He starts off as an npc in the back of the room. BEFORE you even consider fighting him, clear past him. Down the hallway past the jail cells. He paths here when you agro him and the encounter starts. So clear all around him, and past him, then have someone walk up to him and the script starts. While we thought the encounter would be difficult, it really wasn’t. We all headed to the jail cells and we were aware he would drop little tornado type things along the way that would heal him and hurt us etc. So we had Shadowgeist turn walk on. He constantly walked the named up the hallway back to where we had first met him. Past the aoe items he was dropping. Kept him walking the whole time, and had no issues at all.
The zone has a cut scene movie you have to watch first when you zone in. Oh, wait you don’t HAVE to watch it. Hit escape to skip it. It makes you watch it EVERY time you zone in, which is annoying. Anyhow, standing on the bottom floor is Najena. I thought we’d get a chance to fight her, but alas she sends her minions after us. This fight was also a lot of fun, and GREAT for a shadowknight. She sends waves after waves of mobs at you. All I remember specifically about this fight is that you need to take down the Djin first. I don’t know why. We burned everything though, and then The Reformed Magolemus spawned. He also drops these swirling tornado things that have a huge power drain and an uncureable elemental. Each time he was getting ready to spawn one we all moved out of the way of the tornadoes so that they couldn’t hurt us.
Massive aoe’s were certainly our way to beating this zone with five people (and one boxing remember). It was great though. Kasul had to leave part way through since it was very late and he had to work today, but I hope everyone had a great time. Shadowgeist got his shard updates, and my defiler almost hit level 74. I love playing that class.
Today I’m hoping we can mentor down to my 61 necromancer, and hit up the loping plains instances. I don’t think those ones can mentor down to 50, but I could be wrong.
stargrace 
Yesterday Ellithia (74 defiler / 64 tailor) headed to The Village of Shin to work on the next crafting mission along with Kasul from Nostalgia. I’ve really enjoyed the amount of experience I get from running these instances, and I figure I’ll use them to get from 50-70 and then do writs (because they rewards a fair amount of guild experience) from 70-80. If I get that far, of course. Both the tailor and the alchemist have been leveling in this method, and next will be the armorer, if I can manage to get her to 50. 
Yesterday I didn’t get much time to play EQ2, but I did get a little after I got back from doing groceries (on a completely unrelated note, my mom gave me a bread maker and I am in complete love with this machine). Shadowgeist asked if I wanted to do The Crucible and try to help him get a fabled paladin / shadowknight shield that drops in the instance. Out of all of the instances I’ve done so far (and there are still a lot I’ve yet to do) I like this one the most. I’m not sure why, I think it’s just a good balance between a very short instance and a very long one. The puzzles are not too difficult and I like the whole frozen theme. Anyhow, we headed off with a troubador, dirge, mystic, shadowknight, illusionist, and myself as warden. NOT your typical group by any means. We had one wipe because one of the book clickers at the end couldn’t grab the torch in time, but other then that it was a fantastic zone. I like being able to know a zone well enough that it doesn’t matter what sort of group you bring in, you know you’ll win. 
Some time I want to update my houses with new crafted items, they’re getting out dated. I also worked on the museum a little bit and got two more rooms completed. Or at least almost completed. That will be a work in progress for a little while I think. There’s a chance I may be getting my mythical for Arysh, but we’ll have to see how that goes. 
Spent some time in Vanguard yesterday afternoon, between doing groceries, cleaning the house, and writing those blasted Beckett articles (for Vanguard, it counts as research, right?) that proved to be harder then I thought they would. Growlius decided to reactivate his account, and I was VERY happy. I leveled up my blood mage with his Deathknight pretty much from 20+ and it was always a goal of ours to hit level 50 some time. It took a little while for him to go through his quest journal and figure out what buttons did what (it’s been a few months) but before too long we were on our way back to Plains of Anguish to smite undead and save the town, 
