A Night of Instances
stargrace 
An ogre, a Tier’Dal, and a Gnome all walk into the Deep Forge, and the gnome turns and looks at the ogre and says ‘Oy, is it hot in here or is it just me?’
Ok lame attempt at some humor there, but that was the beginning of my night last night. There are some pieces of void shard jewelery that would be an upgrade for me (except I don’t have the book quite yet) that take relatively few pieces of shards to make / purchase (remember, this gear is cheaper if you have a crafter make it then if you find a merchant) so I was eager to add a few more bits to my collection. I didn’t end up doing ‘the daily double’ as they call it on Najena, but I did head to Lavastorm and get to wander around Deep Forge, which is a zone I had been to in beta only. I love the way the new TSO zones look, and Deep Forge is very nice and small. It’s one of those ‘quick if you know what’s going on’ zones. Of course, having never been there myself I didn’t have the faintest clue what was going on. Zones like that are the best zones of all. I grabbed the quests outside, and I think I grabbed a quest inside the actual instance too. The group consisted of a dirge, shadowknight, troubador, warden (me), illusionist, and wizard. The best part was after we had killed something (a named?) the GIANT group of giants (I crack myself up at 6:30am what can I say) down below in the pit of lava got flooded out. I tried to take a screen shot of their desperate cries before the lava swept them away, but alas, I was not so lucky.
We saw a few ornate chests drop in the zone but nothing astounding. The final named of course decided to port me into the center of the lava pit while we were fighting, so we had a few deaths right at the very end. I wasn’t expecting it, and no one (cough cough, Shadowgeist) told me it would happen, so one minute I was healing my little heart out and the next minute, bam into the pit I go. Woopsie.
I did get a pretty nice charm slot upgrade from a quest involving the zone. I can’t remember if this quest was given to me outside or if it was the one I found inside, but it’s nice none the less. There’s also a melee version. The only thing I dislike is that this isn’t really a healer version (and there wasn’t one). The wisdom and power on a charm item really makes me happy. While playing in these zones with friends, I realize just how under geared Arysh is. The downside again to having so many alts, not concentrating on any individual one. Yes, Arysh does still have her claymore, and I do have her fabled epic, and she’s close to 10k power self buffed with 1k wisdom, but it’s the +heals and +heal crits and all of the other little unique bits that make a character ‘good’. She doesn’t have M1 of her spells, etc. So now I’m contemplating settling down, especially if I want to work on void shard quests. I love playing my healers. I’m GOOD at my healers. The problem is that my ‘main’ healer is a warden, and they are everywhere. So my line of thought says that I should try to get my templar her last few levels (she’s sitting at 77) or my defiler (even further behind, at 73) and work on one / all of the healers. I love my coercer a great deal, but I’ve played healers primarily in every mmo.
Deep Forge also has a heritage quest associated with it – IF – you can see purple shinies. There’s a new quest implimented in game in order to obtain an item to see these shinies, so if you don’t have it, look into getting it.
Once we were finished in Deep Forge I took a few hours and headed over to Vanguard, then was asked if I wanted to go back to EQ2 and do another instance. I decided sure, why not. I haven’t really been to too many of the instances honestly. The group decided to head to Befallen: Halls of Forsaken (it may be halls of the forsaken, I can’t quite remember right now). This is in the Commonlands, and I’d never been there before. I wanted to do Cavern of the Afflicted (one since I’d been there before and was comfortable with it, and two because it was the daily double yesterday) but the group decided to go some place new. The zone again was quite beautiful, and we had fun figuring out what to do. Thankfully two people had been there before even if I had not. The zone wasn’t especially hard per say, we did wipe once, but only because half of the group charged ahead to destroy a statue while half of us stayed back and I wasn’t really sure what was going on. The group was a shadowknight, inquisitor, swashbuckler, illusionist, warlock, and myself as the warden. We did see a lot of ornate drops, and I did actually get a secondary item upgrade to the shield from RE2 that I was wearing. It’s one of the few upgrades I’ve actually had drop lately. The zone mostly decided it was plate night, and nothing was an upgrade for our two plate wearers. Thankfully, Arysh is a transmuter.
The nice bit of gear to the right also dropped, and this is why I wish there were more instances with smart loot. Perfectly good piece of fabled gear – that got transmuted (and it was a server discovery) because we didn’t have anyone in the group who could use it. I heard my little 61 necromancer cry from across the account. C’est la vie though. We got an infusion from that, my bank is filled with them so I just left it to the others to random on. The zone also has a few quests related to it, and I believe one of the items is an upgrade, or will be at least when I figure out how to complete it. So far I’m stuck on a few portions.
All in all it was a productive night. When the instances were complete I logged over to Silhouette to make some of the void shard armor for Shadowgeist. The only downside to owning the books on one character or another is that I can’t craft the items for myself because the characters are on the same account I use. Solution? Have one character on each of my accounts with all of the books, so I can craft for everyone. This is a perfectly good solution seeing as I am taking my time getting the shards to begin with. Misako already has one book, and Silhouette has another. Kasul and Tipa each have a book as well, so I know who to bug for future pieces.
Hope everyone else had a fun time in Norrath last night too (or whatever game you play!)
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