Tag: anchor of bazzul

Hunting those Elusive Shiny

I love the island of Mara. It was an adventure pack offered to players for $5.99 (at the time, and free to those with station access) that eventually became free for everyone picking up one of the newer expansions (RoK, TSO). There are a handful of quests that involve this zone, though it’s also known as a crafter hub due to the Far Seas taking up residence in the buildings by the water front.

I spent some time this morning running through the Forsaken City (which is a zone just off of Mystic Lake – off of the Village of Shin) and collected pages and shiny all over. The zone is gray to me now but I still really love walking through the hallways and just exploring. Being able to auto mentor down to the appropriate level will be very nice.

Yesterday was a mixed bag of activity. I spent some time questing on Antonia Bayle with Wpus, on his berzerker Ibeogur (yes, he’s an ogre) and we ran around Kunzar jungle trying to get our footing. I haven’t quested there in quite some time, well not since the last 8 times I did the zone at least..

Later on in the day I did a quick Obelisk of Ahkzul run on the mystic (don’t ask) and then headed back to OoA again as well as Anchor of Bazzul on the illusionist. Nothing of note dropped but it was fun to get a few shards.

I spent the remainder of my evening relaxing, and harvesting shiny bits to sell on the broker. I finished off the TSO ‘epic’ shiny quest which allows you to see the blue shiny in instances, which is fantastic. It also cost me 200p to finish that collection though. Yes, it was worth it to me but it put me a little lower coin-wise then I’d like, so it’s time to make that back. I could always just go try to solo or duo shard of fear and get a choker or two to sell. Those are still going for anywhere from 50-100p depending on the time of day the sale occurs.

Unfortunately I’m in a lot of pain today, so I don’t know how much gaming I’ll be able to accomplish but  I should be able to dip in a little later on. We’ll just have to see how it goes. The week has gone by fast at least. Lets hope the weekend decides to slow down a little!

Happy gaming, no matter where it finds you.

August 27, 2009 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In 2 Comments

Anchor of Bazzul? Don’t Mind if I do (times three)!

Yesterday was one of those amazing game days that are just packed from start to finish with good friends and great times. I don’t have a whole lot of those days any more, because people are busy with work, summer vacation, and other random things that get done over these months (not to mention my own work and the fact that I’m still getting back on my feet after being sick for so long). I’ve finally settled (some what) to 4 mains – two per server that I play on. Instead of playing on three servers, playing on two is going much better. I don’t feel quite as torn when it comes to doing things. The ‘mains’ are my coercer and mystic on Antonia Bayle, and my swashbuckler and illusionist on the 2nd server. The swashbuckler is only level 72 so that hardly counts as a main but she’s on my 2nd account and it simply makes sense (the only other character on that account is my mystic). Anyhow!

My illusionist started the day by doing Necrotic Asylum, which is a zone I really enjoy because you have to pay close attention. When you get to the bridge where the spirits are casting their lightning bolts of death you have to make sure your positioning is perfect (or pretty close). When you get to the huge creature you have to make sure you kill the chums. When you are defeating the mobs before the final boss you have to make sure if your tank gets cursed it’s cured right away or they’ll go down.

The final boss is an amazingly scripted fight. Everyone in the group will get cursed, and chances are if you only have one healer (like my group typically does) you’ll have enough cures to keep the main tank cured and that’s it. The curse lasts roughly one minute – but don’t worry, there’s a cure! At about the 25 second mark, I jump off of the platform where we fight the named (you have to be within a protective bubble the entire time or you’ll take constant damage) into a pool of goo down below. The goo refreshes this curse so you don’t explode. Then you run back up to the platform and continue to kill the named. Typically I have to do this jump run routine a few times before the named is down, depending on DPS. It’s great that so much is happening at once, and I really enjoy the fight. Of course the first few times I was in the zone I hated it.

The daily double also happened to be another favorite zone of mine, Anchor of Bazzul. This zone is simple and fun, so my illusionist also headed over there to grab her shards. The illusionist is my original “stargrace” though she had to be renamed, I haven’t played her steady in quite some time (since the end of EoF really) aside from reaching level 80, so she’s still working on her gear. She has her fabled epic, and some nice gear from palace (group zone) but nothing too special. Last night marked my first piece of T4 void gear ever – there are certain benefits of being “friends and family” in a raid guild (I myself don’t raid in the guild, though that may change). For 20p I was able to loot the forearms pattern pictured above – so pretty! Some raid guilds handle loot differently, and I was exceptionally happy to be given an opportunity to get these cuffs, especially since they are a piece I can’t get via T1-T2 void shard runs.

Back over on Antonia Bayle Hamal and Ultann were knee deep in WoE – a zone I still haven’t even been to. One of these days I keep saying I will. I decided to stick up the LFG tag and within a matter of minutes had an invite to do Anchor of Bazzul on my coercer. I have to admit, I was a little leery of the group, we invited a dirge named “Bzzzz” and then shortly after they joined while we were waiting for them to head to Moors they said that guild things had come up and had to leave. Wish they had of told us that before we waited for them.

We found another dirge, and were on our way. The run actually went very smooth – and to sweeten the deal the fabled void transfer earring dropped, being the only mage in the group I rolled need and won. Upgrades are always wonderful. Since AoB was the DD (no longer called MoTD like Kithicor names it) it was a great four shards for my coercer – she’s working on her T1 set still.

By the time I was done my instance, Wpus had woken up, Hamal and Ultann were done their raid and we had just enough time for an instance run before everyone would have to go their seperate ways for the evening. I suggested if they had not done AoB yet we should do that, for the shards of course. This time I would be going along on Arysh, my illusionist. Since she’s on the same account as Sharatan (the coercer) it would be a nice 8 shards for the day instead of just 4.

We picked up a brigand and a templar and off we went. Nothing of note dropped (sorry Wpus, still looking for the void transfer earring for him) but it was quick and painless, I really love grouping up with my regular guild mates. When we headed back to hall I had Kasul make me the T1 shoulders, and with one more void shard I’ll be able to purchase the gloves, completing my T1 set. Then it’s time to save up for the T2 set.

It was after midnight by then, so I called it a night and headed to bed, pretty sure I actually dreamt of gaming which is just an indication of how awesome the day went. Today is a holiday in Canada, so it should be pretty quiet before the construction across the street picks up once more. What a fantastic day.

August 3, 2009 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In No Comment

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!

July 21, 2009 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In No Comment

Over too Fast

Where has the weekend gone! It was over far too quick and now it’s back to the week day grind which seems to include the heavy scent of tar since they’re working on the school across the street from me and that’s pretty much all I can smell. Gross. Anyhow!

It was a productive weekend game wise, and Ellithia (mystic) got her very first book randomly mailed to her to add to the library! I was pleased as punch, and sent a little coin in return. I’ll be adding it to the library list and will probably go into more depth about it before too long. Again, if you have a book that is NOT on my player-written book list and want to donate one please feel free to mail it to Ellithia on Antonia Bayle and I will mail some coin back in return.

Since I had two carpenters on Antonia Bayle (one level 80, the other 66) yesterday I decided to respec the 2nd carpenter and change her to a woodworker. Thankfully she is on my main account, which grants the 50% bonus for having other level 80 crafters, and it wasn’t such a big deal to me to lose the 66 levels I’d already gained. I decided to make her a wood worker, since we don’t currently have one in guild. We do have an 80 tailor, sage, armorer, jeweler x2, and carpenter. All we lack is the provisioner, wood worker, and weapon smith. I also decided to just simply get it over and done with, and moved my final characters over to Antonia Bayle, which means I am now done transferring characters, and won’t be doing that any more. It cost close to $200 to move everyone but I’m really pleased that it’s over with and that all my characters are on their respected servers. I had no issues at all transferring – so you can now find me on Antonia Bayle as: Ellithia (mystic), Arysh (illusionist), Sharatan (coercer), Petites (templar) or Satia (dirge). I also have a little bruiser named Stargrace, but I haven’t spent any time at all leveling her yet, the others are all level 80.

Last night saw the guild all together for a brief time before sleep and work pulled us in different directions, once Ultann was finished with his WoE raid (a zone I still have not been to, nor do I even have access yet) and we decided to head to Anchor of Bazzul and see if we couldn’t get something nice to drop. I started out the zone on Satia my dirge but mid way through relogging to Sharatan the coercer because we were having some difficulty with the named that requires you to wear the special void beast suits in order to attack him. The encounter itself was not what was giving us the problem, but we agrod him early on and he bugs so that he refuses to move from the very start of that small section, creating issues when trying to pull. It wouldn’t be so bad but we were not done pulling the rest of the alcoves nor the mobs at the end. Pet pulling just created a mess with all of the encounters running for us, so I relogged to the enchanter and mez’d him so that we could continue pulling, and then we all climbed into our suits.

What an incredible change to have Calreth and Kasul both along, we have so much DPS in our little group now, it’s odd. I didn’t box (which in itself is new) and Ultann boxed his healer since mine is already wearing a full set of T2 shard gear, Noc needs a few more pieces (and shards). I’m slowly gaining shards enough to make Sharatan her set, which will be nice.

Nothing of note dropped this time around, but yesterday when we did AoB the helm pictured above dropped, which was (needless to say) a significant upgrade for me. Still no sign of that void transfer earring, which seems about typical with us and our luck.

We do plan on trying palace for the first time ourselves, I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble until it comes to Varsoon. Even if we can take down the other named, that would be great. We’ll just have to see how it goes!

I hope everyone had an amazing weekend, and I hope this week is fantastic. No doubt you can find me in Norrath!

July 20, 2009 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In 1 Comment

A little of this, a little of that

Having been on Antonia Bayle now for three days, I can say that everyone who moved over from Kithicor seems to be exceptionally happy with the change. While it was noted that there was a tiny bit of extra lag – I have not personally had to deal with any mishaps aside from my wireless going nuts yesterday during a storm. It’s been fantastic. There are conversations constantly, groups ongoing at any minute of the day (be sure to join both your highest level channels as well as the lowest to maximize this!) and the atmosphere has been great. Sure, there have been some rough groups here and there as we get settled, after all we don’t really know anyone aside from ourselves yet but we’re working on it.

Yesterday saw everyone on at the same time for once, Kasul, Calreth, Wpus, Ultann and myself. We headed to Obelisk of Ahkzul (before Kasul got home from work) and attempted to see if the shield would drop – which it did not of course. We also made short work of the Anchor of Bazzul which has a few nice pieces of loot (though we didn’t see any of those, either).

I was feeling slightly worse as the day wore on, and so the others went to do Maidens and Vaults of eternal sleep while I watched their excitement from the guild hall. No enchanter along with them and they still did fantastic. I believe a few TSO instances fell to Calreth and Ultann after that but it was past my bed time and so I called it a night.

I haven’t only moved characters to Antonia Bayle, but I also moved three of my characters (warden, illusionist, and troubador) to join a few other friends – the illusionist being the original Stargrace who was decked out in treasured RoK gear. I  have had a few chances to play her in between health issues and playing on Antonia Bayle, and she’s come a long way already. She is sporting both of the fabled wrist pieces from Palace, and the fabled earring from Anchor. Needless to say her luck on drops is better then any of my other characters. She also managed to finish off her fabled epic (I’ve lost count over how many that is now) and got her first mythical update which was Thuuga. Illusionists get lucky with their updates, all that is required is Thuuga, Leviathan (which you need to get into VP to begin with) and Silverwing (which you can get to right away if you have Trakanon access).

Needless to say things in EverQuest II have been very busy, and I’m loving every moment of it. Lets not forget that Monday is the 20th, which is around the time that the enchanted grottos and all of their quests should be making their way back into game for a day or two – if you’re into the house items (and lets face it who isn’t!) and want some good achievements, these quests are perfect.

Now if only I could convince myself to stop spending all of my money on player-written books. I must have purchased another 15-20 yesterday and my funds are quickly running out. I have been amazed at the creativity that I’ve found and it’s been fantastic to see so many books for sale.

Eventually, the new guild hall has to be decorated which is something else I’m not exactly looking forward to doing simply because I wish we could have moved over our entire hall from either Najena or Kithicor. Calreth has been holding down the fort in my old guild Torrent Knights, which is level 30 (almost 31!) while I’ve been on other servers and we purchased a T1 Freeport guild hall. Right now it’s a mass of craft machines and npcs as most of the furniture lays packed away in boxes, but I’m sure over time it will get set up nicely. I really miss having the level 51 guild with more amenity, the five we have right now is alright but having no merchant and no harvesters and no mariners bell reminds me of all the work we did on the other guild. Ah well, I doubt we’ll be leaving Antonia Bayle any time soon, so we have plenty of time to set down roots!

See you in Norrath!

July 19, 2009 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In No Comment

Wait, I won Something?!

This week and next week make up the crunch time before my next articles are due for Beckett MOG, so I didn’t spend very much time in EQ2 last night. I did get some nice time in Wizard 101, and once Wpus and Kasul returned from work (we can’t all play video games for a living!) we headed off to knock out a few instances before it was time for bed. We started out with Obelisk of Ahkzul – still aiming for that legendary healer shield that has yet to drop. How many months have we been doing this instance for now with no sign of the shield? I’m not sure, but it’s been a LOT. The instance is fast and it rewards a void shard so I can’t complain that much, but I’d still love to see that shield drop.

Afterward we wandered over to Anchor of Bazzul, this is a fairly simple and quick zone and it rewards two void shards at the end of it, making it quite worth while. Plus every so often the Gods of Norrath smile down on one of the group members – and a nice item drops. We got a lower level swashbuckler master which I’m sure was worth a great deal (congratulations Wpus on winning that) and the charm pictured to the right hand side also dropped. My illusionist has been under geared for quite some time. Not under geared in the sense that she’s wearing mastercrafted at level 80, but she’s only sporting T1 gear, owns 1 master spell, and only has 108 achievement points. She was power leveled to 80 and I’ve been slowly gearing her up ever since. It was no great surprise that one of her charm items is the caster reward from Everfrost with + spell crit on it, and the other charm was actually the mana battery which is a collection reward. No special stats at all and so I rolled need on the beautiful charm that dropped last night – what’s more, Wpus graciously declined, and I won it. Now, ideally I’d like an item that has + spell crit on it, I’m only sitting at 52% currently, and I have a long way to go. The stats on the charm and the 2% reduced cast time is very nice, and I won’t be complaining at all. We grabbed our two void shards and decided to head off to do the daily double before we called it a night, it was Deep Forge.

Deep Forge has never been one of my favorite zones. In fact none of the Lavastorm zones are that appealing to me. I’ve still yet to do the quests from the revamp (hey, maybe a goal for today!) and when someone mentions Najena’s Hollow Tower I visibly shudder. On the plus side as much as I dislike Deep Forge it is a fast zone and being the daily double meant we could get four shards from that one zone including some coin. Arysh also had not done the quest that rewards a fairly nice charm with +2 spell crit on it, so off we went. No deaths, and the final named dropped without too many issues (and also dropped that really horrible 2h hammer that always drops). Headed back to the hall to stash all of the no trade loot into my bank so I can transmute it one day in the future, and called it a night. Even though we didn’t play a whole lot, it was still fun and it was nice to finally get a nice upgrade.

Speaking of which. 20 more shards and Ellithia (the mystic) will own her complete set of T2 void gear (cheers) finally. Last night Arysh gathered enough shards to get her 2nd piece of T2 – pants. That just leaves the robe, hat, and shoulders left. I don’t even want to start thinking about how many shards that still is. I also worked on the TSO chapter quests a little bit, trying to inch myself closer to the rest of the guild. Hopefully we’ll be on chapter 5 soon where it makes us do all of the instances. Not my most favorite part, but it’ll be nice to be making some progress.

I hope everyone has an amazing week, I know it’s been filled with a lot of great stuff since E3 is going on right now and before you know it, Fan Faire will be on. I’ll see you in Norrath!

June 2, 2009 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In 1 Comment

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!

May 31, 2009 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In No Comment

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!

May 30, 2009 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In 4 Comments

Venril Sathir and Other Goodness

Pictured above is my paladin, with the amulet of necropotence and a nice sword from fear. She’s obviously got some personality good / evil issues, but I’m loving the new look.

Last night was a hodge podge of activity, starting with getting a few steps done on the mystic epic. I managed to get my three skeleton updates, with some help of course. They included skeletons in Jarsath Wastes, Karnor’s Castle, and Kunzar Jungle. Now I’ve got a group instance to do where I have to defeat some heroics, and then more NPC to talk to.

Out of the blue I found myself playing the neglected troubador I have, she’s been at 80 forever, owns both the dirge and troubador fabled epic, and yet I rarely play her. Not because I don’t enjoy the class (I certainly do) but having SO many alts means my time is always split between the flavour of the month. I wish I were one of those people who only had one or two alts instead of the massive army I have now. I’ve said this a lot. I’ve even contemplated deleting all of the ones that I have, but there’s been so much work put into them I can’t bring myself to do it.

The troubador headed to Obelisk of Ahkzul and then over to Anchor of Bazul, which is also within the Moors. I love Anchor, it involves fights that are more then just hack and slash. One of them requires you to possess the body of a void creature to defeat a named. Another has you form a triangle of void portals around a named as you fight it, dispelling its immunity.

In Obelisk I actually won a (useful) master! The first T8 Master I’ve seen in a very long time. Since that particular zone is on a ‘smart loot’ system, it was nice. Happens to be my group haste buff.

Nothing else of note dropped, but afterwards I decided to join in on a Venril Sathir raid.

I know, what was I thinking. It actually didn’t go too bad, even though we didn’t defeat him this time around. Let me explain.

There were only two groups, 90% of them alts to a raid guild. This raid is easier to do with less people, because the less people you have to worry about their power going below a certain mark, or not clicking statues, or not using a cube on the named, or any other number of things that can go wrong, the better. This was my first time doing this encounter, I’d never seen Venril before (aside from his home in EQ) and it was a lot of fun. The entire raid has to keep their power between 30-60% while Venril is ‘watching’ you, or you’ll cause the raid to wipe. You also need to instantly cure a noxious dot, or you’ll wipe a raid. While all this goes on, throughout the fight there are two other important debuffs that will land randomly on two players. One will decrease their power by huge amounts if they cast so much as a simple spell. The other does the opposite. Of course this means you’ll be unable to hover between the 30-60% so when you’re hit with these debuffs so you call it out in raid (typically) and do nothing for the duration. This also means that the remainder of the raid who does NOT have these debuffs can burn Venril Safely, as long as they keep watching their power and that noxious.

If  a single person is not watching everything that’s going on, the raid wipes.

We managed to get him down to 40% with our two groups before I had to call it a night. The raids started fairly late to begin with and since I’m always up exceptionally early I was starting to fall asleep in my chair. They’re going to make another attempt at it on Saturday I believe, adding a third group of guild DPS to the mix because the fight was taking a good length of time as it was. We had three healers, four bards, a few enchanters and only one brigand with no other DPS classes. It was still great fun.

You don’t always have to win in order for an evening to be fun. Especially since I’d never been there before. I understand that RoK raids are ‘old’ now, that there’s better raids to be had and better gear out there, but for myself it was still a great night with a lot of fun. I’m not sure if I want to get into raiding full time or just continue to pop in here and there when I feel like it (very casual), I’ll just have to see.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Friday today. I’ll be off to see Wolverine later on in the afternoon, woot.

May 1, 2009 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In 2 Comments

Anchor of Bazzul

Restless last night, though it was no fault of any games. Just too much on my mind as happens this time of year. First of all, happy birthday to Calreth a good friend of mine on Antonia Bayle. One of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I joked with Tipa about playing ‘eenie meenie miney mo’ to try to figure out which character it was that I was going to play for the evening, but it wasn’t really a joke. I couldn’t settle down so I logged off for a few with the intentions of doing some art of some sort. Took far too long to come up with an idea for that, and after fumbling around with an image I eventually decided I wanted to do, I was asked if I wanted to head to the Anchor of Bazzul, a zone in The Moors of Ykesha that I’d not yet been to.

I was asked to go on my troubador, who had not yet seen any TSO content per say. This zone doesn’t reward any void shards, but it was great aa and a few bits of interesting loot (that no one wanted). Goudia got her 141st aa (yes, I am that much of a slacker) and here’s the kicker – I JUST betrayed to a troubador and what do I win? 

A DIRGE master. 

GAH!

I swear, if I didn’t have bad luck in games, I’d have no luck at all. 

The zone has a really fun encounter (that’s also sort of bugged) where you have to clear around The Keeper of the Banished, and then each member of the group clicks one of the cells where the Banished are being held, and morphs into the creatures much like you do for the Mark of The Awakened trials all uber and what not. You defeat the mob (and here’s where it gets tricky) once the mob is defeated you each have to click off the illusion, and then you have to defeat the banished guys that you just possessed. Apparently if it’s done correctly and all 6 of the banished forms are used, you’ll get a chest. More often then not though there is no chest reward at all and this is just a ‘get by me to the next stage’ of a zone. It was still a lot of fun though.

The zone itself was fairly easy. A few named have kickbacks and my Internet decided I was no longer going to play without LOTS of lag, so I left the group a few minutes to reset some computer stuff. Annoying. Everything worked fairly well after that. The final named required members to move three objects to the center of the room surrounding the named in a triangle pattern, we had enough dps that the group members only had to do this once. All in all fun zone even though nothing of any note dropped. A healer cloak that no one wanted, and a bunch of other trash. 

It would be really nice if I knew which character to settle on, but as of yet that hasn’t happened. It’s really hard to gear up 5+ characters, get them all their epics, and make sure they can all handle whatever it is they need to handle based on their class. Getting masters is also frustrating. So no progress in that direction yet. 

Still, a fun evening over all. I think the only instances I have not been to yet now are the ones in Loping Plains.

December 19, 2008 December 27, 2019 By stargrace In 5 Comments
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