Evernight Abby

Loot? Who needs it!

The enchanted grotto event was a little late coming into game yesterday, but there were posts on the forums that suggested it should be fixed by the 20th of next month, not to mention the fact that the events are in place for 48 hours each time (so you have until midnight tonight to adventure to the mushroom rings). For myself personally, I ran the quest with two characters who had never done it before (the “new” main, Sharatan) and picked up some nice house goodies along the way. One being the flower wreath that’s pictured to the right. I wish there were some sort of circlet option like the one you’ll find in the station market place, but I figure I have spent more then enough money on station cash this month (close to $200) in order to move my characters to their new homes.

Kasul was off watching Harry Potter and enjoying an evening away from the game (something I understand in concept even if I don’t actively partake!) so that left an evening with Calreth, Wpus, and Ultann – which we made great use of. I played both the coercer and the mystic, and ultann played his inquisitor at least for the first zone.

We decided to try Najena’s Hollow Tower first thinking perhaps the cloak would drop off of the water named (the one where you have to spin the valves each time the water begins to rise) but alas we got some plate boots that no one could use instead. The shards were nice, and thank goodness Calreth logged in during the drake fight because our dps was fairly low without him. I’ve gotten used to having either him or Kasul around, and understand only too well now how essential dps is to a fight.

Even though we saw no useful loot from the drake, there was still the final fight in the zone to bring our spirits up. Perhaps the ring would drop (yeah right) or at least that’s what we told ourselves.

Eventually the zone was clear, our only rewards being the shiny we could find, and the shards. Ah well. It was off to Evernight Abby for a bit of fun. Again nothing of use dropped, our luck persisted. I did manage to complete a few quests on Sharatan though who had never even been to the zone before. In fact she has never been to any of the TSO zones before, I stopped playing her just as TSO came out. She hit 140aa finally and gained a few more shards. I had time for one more zone even though my eyes were beginning to close on me, so we headed to Anchor of Bazzul where again nothing dropped but I wasn’t expecting anything by that point, I just wanted to collect the two shards so that I could have another piece of set gear made (a robe, finally a robe!) and then I crawled to bed.

It’s neat to be on a server where 1-9 is so full you can’t even enter, and I love the constant conversation that is ongoing – though at times it can be a little much and I have to turn off one or two (especially the crafting channel) simply because I miss too much in spam. It was still a fantastic night none the less, and I hope everyone had a lot of fun. It’s Tuesday! I hope everyone has a great one!

Home Sweet (new) Home

The screen shot is taken from Evernight Abby which my guild tackled last night happily. We didn’t get anything of use to drop but honestly that’s not a big surprise for us, and we’re quite used to it. We were having a few issues with heals on the final fight since I was not boxing my mystic and just playing the coercer, but I logged in Ellithia and we downed the final named without too many issues. The first time through we forgot to get the spell that casts holy water to prevent the massive AOE that pretty much one shot my poor enchanter.

Ultann managed to get his mythical last night – which means that TODAY we will be packing our bags and leaving Kithicor for good, moving to Antonia Bayle, a server I have always loved. I’m excited about it, eager to join friends and set down new roots. Hopefully we can find an alliance or two to raid with, and make some new friends along with the old. I will be moving my coercer from Najena along with the mystic from Kithicor, and then when I can afford it, I’ll move over my other coercer and (gasp) probably betray her to an illusionist so that I have one of each again. We’ll see. I haven’t figured it all out quite yet.

Aside from Evernight Abby we also did Obelisk of Ahkzul, no the shield did not drop, again. I think I’ve stopped wondering if it will. At least the zone is fairly fast, and we do get a shard from the final named. I still need to finish off the set gear on the coercer, and since I’m moving over a different coercer, she’s going to need her set, as she doesn’t have any of it at all. I started playing on Kithicor before I really got into TSO at all with any of my Najena characters.

Today is going to be busy, packing up and moving characters over, making sure nothing important is left behind. Hopefully it goes well. Fingers crossed!

Taking in the View

We (the guild of three plus one) may not have done as many instances yesterday as we did on Friday, but we sure did have fun – and still managed to get a fair amount done. While the boys headed off to Crypt of Agony for yet another ‘sad panda’ run as they’ve been termed (meaning no, the farseer did not drop, and nor did the cardiocutter) I stayed behind and played some Vanguard on the PC (more about that in another post). Afterwards we headed back to Evernight Abby to complete the bits that we didn’t do the night before because it was getting too late and I was feeling quite under the weather.

Well, lesson learned. It’s a bad idea to kill the first named in a persistent zone leave, come back, and think that you can complete the rest of the zone without any issues. Apparently killing the first named unlocks another named in behind the coffin room – and that closed up once we left the zone. We ended up missing him all together. After doing Guk the night before this zone was a breeze, and also a lot of scripted fun. During the later portion you turn into a vampire yourself to defeat the final boss, and you have to run away every time he calls forth the sunlight. You (as in the group) all also have to aquire special vampire moves that you use on him during the fight. LOTS of fun. We wiped once because I wasn’t curing the main tank when he got snared just before the sunlight hit, but once I started taking care of that it all went much easier.

I don’t remember anything of note dropping, but it was the daily double (or as my server calls it MoTD – mission of the day) so we got a fair amount of shards from it. Oh, also if you kill the key mob and then log out you lose your key and that extra shard too. Not impressed.

Having completed that zone and the quests from Loping that were associated with it (there are a few and they all reward really nice items) we took a bit of a break. Folks had real life to attend to (gasps, it happens some times!) and when we met up later in the evening we headed directly to Obelisk of Ahkzul and Anchor of Bazzul. These last two zones would give me enough shards to finally purchase the T2 breastplate for Ellithia (mystic) leaving only one more piece to obtain – the shoulders (and they’re a whole 27 shards so that will be a while). This also allowed me to finally get my 5 set bonus, which is a 2.4% chance to proc 15 seconds of 15% heal crit chance. Nice, but would have been nicer on a warden. My 5 set bonus used to do with overloaded heals but they changed it some time ago.

The coercer needs 5 more shards in order to get her 2nd piece of T2 gear. It feels like it’s taking forever but I have to remember that she shares the account with the bard, who was hording shards for a bit to get a few pieces of her T1 gear too. If I had not of been trying to gear up two characters on the same account at the same time it would have been a lot easier.

We keep checking on Venekor to see if he’ll drop a trophy for us but he’s apparently pretty camped on Kithicor. As the evening wore on I decided to stay put in the guild hall and work on transmuting some more (shudders) while the boys headed out to do those guild raids that no one does any more. They did all of the ones available I believe, and while they’re not a great deal of guild status unless you actually have 12 people, we did move along a little, and then of course there was achievement experience for defeating the named and completing the guild writs. I’m not sure if any armor molds or craft materials dropped, but I always thought that this was one feature in game that could use a serious overhaul and maybe more people would use it. I don’t even really know of any guilds who take advantage of the guild raids on a weekly (or 3 day as lock out timers go) basis. If you do, let me know!

All in all it was a nice day with a few instances and lots of fun. I got a few bits of upgraded gear (legendary) as did Wpus, but I think that was it. The really nice stuff still eludes us for now. It’s bound to drop sooner or later if we keep running the zones though! At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

Today the Festival of Unity begins at 3pm EST and you’ll find me there as Pensato on Antonia Bayle. There’s also a guild meeting later on for Safe Haven in Vanguard, so I’ll more then likely be boxing the two events, hehe. I’ll see you in Norrath! Or Telon!

Did We Just Pull That Off??

Yesterday was the first real day we’ve had Kasul around on his assassin and boy did we take advantage of it. I’ve been constantly grouped up with Wpus and Ultann (and Ultann’s boxed Inquisitor, Nocbot) since late December on the Kithicor server. By now we know how we group, I know what to expect. If things are too easy chances are I’ll go screaming into the next room shouting “BUGABOO” at the top of my lungs and training us. They know that.

Adding a fourth person to the mix (and thus filling out our group nicely since I box the mystic + dirge / illusionist) was something I had a few reservations about. Not because Kasul isn’t amazing but because we (the original three) know how to play together. We’ve been taking down content with three of us that I was exceptionally proud to do. We DID have a lack of dps though, and it was noticeable.

Last time we headed to Guk we couldn’t make it past the third named. Or rather, the stairs of mobs that would never end. It took forever just to get to that part to begin with, so we called it.

Yesterday we bravely headed to Guk once more – and WE CLEARED THE ZONE. That’s right. That’s how much of a difference it made to add a fourth to our 3. So now I call us the 3 plus one guild. Not only did we clear the zone but Ultann managed to get the fungus spores that go for 600p on our server, as well as a new master spell.

I was impressed. I was happy. I can only hope that the others were too.

That wasn’t all we did though, oh no of course not. We did our usual Crypt of Agony run and no neither item that we’re after dropped. After that I suggested that we spend our time doing zones that we don’t typically do. We’ll have plenty of time to do the ‘other’ zones while Kasul is at work. So we did Obelisk of Akhzul, Anchor of Bazzul, Najena’s Hollow Tower, Halls of the Fallen (Guk), The Crucible,  and then after all of that our little 3 plus one group headed to Evernight Abby in Loping Plains which was the daily double.

Unfortunately by the time we got there it was after midnight and I still haven’t been feeling the greatest lately, so we cleared the first named and then I camped out in the zone so that we could finish it off tomorrow (today). Not a big deal, and I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully everyone had an incredible time, even if they all teased me to no end. Why?

Well, throughout most of the zones (Crucible, Najena’s) nothing but the dirge, troubador, paladin, shadowknight loot would drop. Every single time. Of course I happened to be on my illusionist, which is ALWAYS the case, the dirge who didn’t play even got a master to drop while the illusionist has one single little master to her collection. Ah, the RGN is a cruel mistress some days. Wpus, Ultann, and Kasul had no end of material for teasing me. Each time we defeated a named it was almost guaranteed that it would drop loot for the dirge I wasn’t playing.

I did make off with two nice items, a ranged item for the illusionist as well as a new cloak with a void beast proc on it (that I adore, even if procs are going to be nerfed and it will no longer crit). It was one of those amazing incredible days that I love so much. Good gaming, good friends, great conversation and we got a lot done. Now I just need to work at finishing off those achievement points.

Happy gaming, and I’ll see you all in Norrath!