So last night I was running around Giant Hold solo or helping the wife’s acrobat get Tor flagged. And it was about 10 and Tobril finished what ever he was doing and joined group for voice chat. About that time I got the sudden urge to do something else. Always up for an epic (even the baby ones with me) Tobril was on board. Thinking he I and could just burn our way though a epic Bob we both switched to alts. I loaded up Samiusbot, Tennie for Tobril and I started to remember where spells are on the bars and whatnots…
Now Samiusbot has been re-tuned a few times since we got a way to do so. But for the most part he is a WF (pure) wizard Pale master. He has a 39 int, no really great items, a unlocked Deaths Touch and a mad trickery rod are in his hands most of the time. And only get pulled out if I am going to do a few epics or turn earth eleis into rocks to boost some items with low Hp/hardness. He is only so good, but in the house D epics he works fine. His Dcs/spell pen is way low compared to other casters that run this kind of stuff all the time, 40-43 for enchment/necro spells. (That is why I am working on Samius.)

Now I know that epics have changed a lot. I have played some epics since the change happed. Tobril is working on fleshing out his Red Fin stuff and I mostly help him if I am in the mood. So I know what my toaster can do. He can finger mobs with out SR hold the ones with good fort saves or web and pray to hold drow long enough to nerco bolt/blast/touch them down. I don’t epic everyday like some but often enough to know the drill.

Any way the Tobril puts up a group. Surprised I guess he wants to try and get a few done and is using the first run as a warm up. No big. We get started and I finger or circle a few guys, bolt and bast dps along the melees. Things are going fine. And I get asked for haste and rage. Well this shows up in the txt box. “haste??rage??” I say over mic, oh sure, I have haste/rage one sec here we go…as I find/ cast them. Some people run off and miss out. They must not have needed them… A sec or two later I get another “haste??rage??” I say, “I just cast them but be sure to be in range and I will go again” and rage/haste.

As that is going on, Tennie/tobril as picked up some agro while trying to pull a lever and asks for someone to pull the lever or take the agro. A blast or two later he still has agro so I move to finger mode and a person moves to help with the lever. Tennie regroups and then the other person joins us and we begain to move on, but the lever didn’t get pulled. So tennie goes back to get the lever.

Now there is a place where in BoB by the shrine where a red named cow can come up from below and attack the group if the group is standing around. So Tennie and I always move around the corner as quick as we can and clear trash as to not have to worry about the mad cow. I turn and watch the rest of the group (all good players according to Tobril) as the stand right at the little intersection right past the shrine, and they are fighting. Okay as long as they are fast is it fine. But the Cow has joined the fray. So I start on trying to control the cow and clear the agro and a air ele shoots down into the crowd below stirring up all sorts of trouble. I let tennie know that this half of the group is getting over whelmed and he runns back just in time for ding, ding, ding. There is lots of talk of reforming and trying again real fast. But tennie says no way there is a shrine right here we will salvage this as it will be faster. And we do and all is well.

We move on to the area where you have to shoot one of the two levers to open the way to the final boss and I am standing, waiting. And blades shoot out of the floor killing most of the group. I here an minor ass chewing from Tobril as to if you don’t know what lever to shoot then don’t… As the remainder of the group gets killed with out their healer healing them, as he is dead in the trap along with me and someone else. So reform.
While we are reforming I see this in the box. “As the healer, I like it when mobs don’t hit me back.” Now in a foul mood I take that has a slight and ask him if hold person got taken off his spell list? Thankfuly Tobril I think picked up on my mood and diffused me about to go off on this guy. We move along a lot better now, as I don’t care any longer and is mostly finger/circling/wailing like crazy. At one point a hold lands and the healer types “thanks”. Oh, boy. Never mind the all the other spells that are being cast, but a blue ring and the healer type is all warm and fluffy. Never mind keeping the party together or healed. Blue MOTHER F*ING RINGS…
Okay I am a big boy I let it go. And Tobril makes a joke about not hitting the wrong side like… “Lets hit the right side this time okay?” So I guess someone took him at this word and killed at least 4 of us…
At this point I didn’t care anymore. I got rezed and we recovered. And finished. But I had all the “something else” I could handle for the night. A fun 10-15 min epic took 2 tries, 2 full party wipes, 2 near party wipes, 2 recoveries to complete and 41 minutes.

*head shake*

I don’t know… Maybe next time I want to do something different I will suggest a first time abbot run or just use rusty nails and nail my wang to the chair. Sounds about the same amout of fun, atm.

After 10+ minutes of Tobril trying to convince me that this is not normal and most go smoothly I still don’t fully believe. I do know that I need some time, because if I get in another epic right away and it also goes poorly then I will be pissed at epics and swear them off for a long time. Same kind of thing happened to me with the Hound raid shortly after the F2P people started to get into it and I still hardly run it anymore. All do to a few bad runs. And I have 3-4 guys near their 20ths. And have been for little more then a year…

I just need to re tune Javabot or Buterz for epics. And take a break from being the “caster” people want/assume me to be with out asking or informing me that they want me to be. What i find to be funny 2 weeks ago we did a large handful of epics tennie + 3-4 wizards (short maned) and had 0 problems. Why do things become hard when you let 2+ melees and a healer in?

❤