korsha

Exciting Events in Korsha (understatement!)

Calreth has gone back to his job at the army after a week off, leaving Kasul, Wpus, Ultann and I to hold down the fort in guild. We’re trying very hard to reach level 35 so that we can purchase a merchant and some bells for the hall. We need a fuel merchant, mender, and writ giver as well but I’d take those two first. The only thing I seem to miss from Kithicor is our level 51 hall (rightly so). Writs were run (it helps that most of us are from Freeport and can do them all together – I’m sorry Wpus) and then we decided to head to a “new to us” zone that we’d only attempted once before – Korsha.

While Ultann and Kasul (now named Hamal on Antonia Bayle) are both sporting their mythical weapons, and Wpus is wearing a full set of T2 gear along with some nice odds and ends, my poor little Sharatan (coercer) is still wearing most of her T1 gear since I’ve just started working on her again. I was a little worried that this would prove to be an issue, but it didn’t seem to affect our performance too much.

The first time we were in the zone we were unable to defeat the very first named because he reflects and we had no melee dps. This time around (thank you Kasul) we were able to take him down without any issues. He’s a huge golem who stands in the main hallway. The second named caught us by surprise, it is in the laboratory and the named just sort of shows up. Adds are called throughout the fight, but we held steady. Of course bard loot dropped, it always does.

The third named was where we started to have some issues. Because my healer was being boxed, as well as our second healer, it proved to be slightly difficult when we all got ported to opposite sites of the room, and were unable to cure ourselves. The noxious aoe wasn’t too much of a problem but the elemental one proved to be exceptionally harmful – so after wiping a few times we decided to continue on with the zone, and left the Sokokar named up. It was still not bad at all for our first attempts, we managed to get him down to 40%.

The mobs in Korsha all seem to stun, stifle, and power drain, making it exceptionally fun but you’ve really got to be on your toes. I switched my accounts around so that the coercer was the boxed character while I played healer. Typically you can stun the sokokar named as well but I was having issues healing plus stunning though I managed to keep up for a short while. Eventually we found ourselves face to face with the boss of the zone, the Emperors Weapon. We had done a little reading up on the zone by that point and after we were one shot the very first pull we decided to stand on the tables just off to the side and range fight the entire fight. The difficult with that is there is still a power drain / elemental aoe that goes off, and this is where the most epic of fights took place.

It was incredibly intense, and it was amazing. We managed to get the named down to 10% when suddenly we were all out of power, and five of us died – leaving Ultann to tank the named and keep himself alive all alone. We said not a word, but began to run back down towards the named room, I used channel on my coercer to feed a little power in the mean time (it balances out the groups power) though it barely made a difference because of the power drain dot.

Wpus and Hamal made it back to Ultann JUST as blood letter triggered (keeping the tank alive while taking the groups hit points) and I was able to run the rest of the way down with my two characters. I rez’d Noc (the other healer) and kept the group alive while we continued to work down the last 10%. The reason this fight is so long is because the named is rooted to his platform, and you have to range the entire thing. Being an Assassin, Shadowknight, Conjuror, Coercer, Inquisitor, and Mystic, our ranged DPS was severly lacking, especially since the named would go kill pets and pretty much anything that came near it.

After a very long, stressful, amazing fight we BEAT the boss. Not only did we beat him but he dropped a master chest with three pieces of loot – a master spell for the inquisitor (grats noc!) a bard only breast piece that I relogged my dirge to snag, as well as the fabled mage item pictured above that I won on Sharatan. It’s fights like those that I love, intense, amazing fights with friends. Sure, another group could have done it far easier then us but I never felt prouder then at that moment.

We decided to spend the evening doing something far easier (Obelisk of Ahkzul anyone?) but part way through Ultann lost his internet,  so we decided to take that as a sign and call it a night.

It was still amazing fun, I had an incredible time and I was reminded once more why I play this game. I hope everyone else had a lot of fun too!

Tonight? Who knows!

See you in Norrath.

We didn’t win – but we also didn’t care

First of all, congratulations to Wpus and Ultann for finally getting their guild to level 30! Yesterday when I logged in we were 10% from the level, and I grinded out enough writs to push us over the edge. I realize that level 30 may not seem like a big deal, but this is a guild made up of three people (myself included) with the occasional Kasul popping in on his ranger. For three people, this is a big deal just like it was a big deal when Nostalgia hit 30 and was able to purchase a guild hall. Which is exactly what Wpus did. Now proud owners of a guild hall in Qeynos, we spent some time yesterday fixing it up. Of course there’s a long way to go, but it’s beginning to fill out. Our amenities include a broker, banker, druid ports, recall to guild hall, and the NPC merchant that you can sell status items to. Not many, but it’s better then none.

Once the excitement of purchasing a hall had died down, we decided to do something ‘new’ – new for us in any case. I suggested we give Veksar: The Invasion and Sunken Theater a shot.

We actually did fairly well in the Invasion and would have done even better had the zone not been bugged and refused to drop the two keys you need to unlock the third door. No one had received them at all, and that is the portion of the zone where you unlock the chest and move the stick Indiana Jones style. I did get Ellithia a nice earring upgrade but was sad that we couldn’t attempt to go further.

We didn’t do so hot in Sunken Theater, although like the previous zone we did manage to take down the first two named. Once we got to the named that spawns those globes that like to heal him, well. That was as far as we could get. Still, for having three people in group and two of us boxing, we did surprisingly well.

More and more as I play I realize it’s NOT about winning, or at least it doesn’t have to be. There are plenty of things we can take down with our group including Maidens which we ran first. Sure we’re not going to be one grouping PR but as long as we’re having fun attempting what we do that’s all that matters. I keep reminding myself that my illusionist only has her T1 TSO set as does the boxed inquisitor, and I also don’t have my epic. Eventually I’ll work on that. Maybe.

After our Veksar attempts we headed to Korsha simply because none of us had been there before. It’s an absolutely beautiful looking zone and the danger levels are just as high. We managed to spawn the first named who is an enormous golem that reflects spells. Great!

Aside from the reflect he has a dot that instantly drains all of your power if not cured, and a stun, and a few little knockbacks. He’s actually not that difficult an encounter – except our group was completely made up of casters, even the shadowknight tank spends more time casting spells then CA’s. That meant we could do very little damage to him and could only stand and watch (and frantically heal) as things went wrong.

We quickly learned our limits on the zone and headed back to the guild hall broken and battered but with huge smiles still since we had such an awesome time. In the end that’s all that matters. Kasul has started playing his ranger again (though I believe he may switch over to an assassin) and it would be nice to fill the final spot in group with some DPS. We’ll see how that goes.

All in all it was a pretty full evening. I went to bed very early (still recuperating) and was awoken by fireworks at 4am. I realize it’s Victoria Day weekend, but still, 4am?! Gah.

Hope everyone else has an amazing weekend, see you in Norrath!