Thoughts on Raids, Characters, and Randomness
stargrace 
I’ve been doing quite a bit of raiding lately, nothing too heavy but still far more in the last week then I’ve done in the last year. There are up sides and down sides to this – it’s a lot of fun exploring content that is new to me but it’s also an indication of just how behind I am in some aspects compared to people who ‘really’ raid.
Because I have so many alts it’s difficult to gear them up – I have the mystic as the only character in her full T2 set, with shards to spare. She’s also on my second account, with no alts so there’s no one to take advantage of those extra shards. On the main account shard gear is spread between 7 characters, and of course I don’t have enough shards for all. Take into account that when I moved from Kithicor to Antonia Bayle I also switched from playing my kerran coercer to my dark elf (and then betrayed the kerran over to illusionist) the process slows even more.
In a lot of instances I can get by without having ‘top notch’ gear because the stuff I do have isn’t THAt horrible – but when those AoE’s start to rain down wow do I feel it.
Looking past the gear, there are the achievements. These are almost crucial to any group these days, and again the mystic is sitting at 174 (which is the most I have on any character) while my other characters hover between 120-150 or so. RoK almost completely ruined the “quest grind” for me – and after that expansion I pretty much never wanted to touch another quest again. The only way to level was by questing, and after doing that on so many characters I just completely burned out. As it stands now if I quest for any more then an hour or two at a time I can very literally feel myself falling into a coma.
Having so many alts again slows down the process of questing, as I tend to play whatever I feel like when the mood hits instead of concentrating on a main.
Gear and achievements are just two aspects of preparing for end game raiding – then there is also spells. Now, I easily have expert (the new adept3, crafted) spells of everything, on all of my level 80 characters. A few (the mystic mainly) have the majority of their masters, too. The important ones in any case. A lot of characters do NOT have many of their master spells though, and when you start trying to take down orange encounters, this again proves to be an issue. Master spells have a lower resist rate, and the higher level the mob, the more they will resist. While I may have been fully mastered in EoF – things have changed over time and that is certainly no longer the case.
Trying to gear up everyone, get aa, get spells – is an impossible task. What other option do I really have though if I WANT to raid? Realizing just how far behind I am is not fun. I’ve been exceptionally lucky to take some under geared characters along for the ride lately for raids, but I know this will not always be the case (not to mention my illusionist on Oasis is getting fairly well geared now, slowly. She just really needs to work on achievements and spells).
Last night I visited Korsha – and took down the Overking for my warden’s mythical update. That just leaves her with the Cinder Wasp Queen (and Leviathan in order to gain access to Veeshan’s Peak). I’m happy – but the warden is not a character I’ve been playing aside from these few raids, so she is EXCEPTIONALLY under geared, not even wearing T1 (mostly decked out in RoK quested legendary and some instance gear). After Overking was done and a quick Crucible run took place Paradise Lost noticed that there was a contested epic up in Fens of Nathsar – The Tangrin.
Short their real raid force, I tagged along first on the illusionist and then swapping over to the warden to help with heals. If they had of had their typical force on (Saturday nights are not a raid night for them usually) things probably would have gone different. After giving the mob a few shots, the other raid guild in the area managed to take him down. Ah well, that’s how contested work, and hopefully they will have better luck next time.
Friday night also saw me in Ward of Elements for the first time – the illusionist picked up a T3 chest piece as well as a T3 shoulder piece, and a necklace. It was an exceptionally fun run, and I had a good time. Of coures I had to stand way far back for the majority of the fights so I didn’t get killed at the start, but it was still pretty fun.
Hopefully everyone has an amazing Sunday, and has a great time gaming no matter where you find yourself. See you in Norrath!