Tag Archives: Raids

When Sam Says:

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Last night was the DG’s normal Wednesday a Web run and an Abbot run. Well I think we are back to normal Abbot runs for a while… I will but this out there again if you are on Sarlona, play during the US evenings and want to try your hand at running the Abbot you need to get in the Defense channel. That could apply to any raid really and soon it will apply to LoB as well but for now Webs and Abbots.

Anyway post raids; Tobril asked me what I wanted to do as I did the raids he wanted to do. I said I was up for almost anything but I would be all for Xping on my Arty some, namely in the FR area, as it would be cool to be running the Web on an Alt that gives a shit about Web loot. Right now that is the Arty and not much else…Right now in most webs I end up taking Samius so I can contribute to DPS while herding the cat… aka Anna. Or Java to help heal while herding Anna. Think you might be starting to smell a theme, I herd Tobril and Anna and he herds the pug unless things start to go pear shaped and then I start to yell. Yep I am turning into Oncler. There are worse people to mimic I guess.

So I swap and join the remains of our Abbot run that is going to tag along with us. Want to say Lost Legion guys/gals and had a good time. I let everyone know that I am way under geared for epics but I am a helper and link my lvl 10 repeater that I am still using because I can’t find anything else as good. I know crazy but Icy burst/blaze/pure good plus rune arm/deadly/Int damage equals a ton of dps with out needed a lot of gear and really what good would it be to farm/build a Hellfire when the Needle is floating around…

Soon as we steam roll the eH quests, the topic of conversation moves to gear and rings. Before long everyone starts linking rings and I link a +6 con ring with a yellow slot filled with +100 sp augment. Yep rocking the gear.

More time passes and we are making good progress burning through the Lord of Dust chain.  In the end fight of the Servants of the Overlord I shrined off my Death Ward and asked Tobril for a new one when the caster end boss starts spamming me then harms. There was some fun poking about being a level 20 arty and needed a DW (not to forget the whole being a WF I had to remind them about the massive harm spamming). Guess I should have dug up a DW goggle clickly. While I am at it I need to get the Haste goggle clickly also and a shield clickly. Maybe some other clickies…

During the Spinner of Shadows quest Rest, makes a comment about being slow because he had to drink a silver flame pot and that I could have scrolled him a heal. I say that I could if I had a heal scroll and laughs start to roll. Tobril says something like “When Sam says his guy has no gear he means it!” and that stuck with me some because it is totally true. On double plus life TRs I worry about gear a lot. Just because you will be playing that alt so much longer to reach 20+ again, but a second life guy?? I just don’t much bother with grinding loot out unless he is sitting on a pile from his first life. The guy has been a bank alt for a long time and going from Wiz to arty has some over lap but less then one might think.

Anyway other then Loth, webbing and killing me in that last quest it was all-good we ran all 3 quests before people’s ship buffs wore out. I picked up a few shards still no repeater (no base or parts). Went from 1 rank in Draconic to the second level in it so very nice xp. I haven’t really worked out a gear list for my Arty. Right now I am just trying to get some options to get some options (:-)) and I am mentally building a trapping/all ranged/thrower/buffing build to pair up with the wife’s dps TR project that she wants to play.

Lolz and <3s

Leading from the Middle…

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It was a low party size DG & HoDW team up weekend, which was nice and a little sad at the same time. It was nice as we always had room for the people that were able to log in for short bursts and sad because as a whole we had little focus and didn’t really raid much. But we did knock out a FoT where things got a little weird.

First of all with now 7 completions total, I can’t say I am super raid leader guy on this one. I do know a few things namely the order I like the dragon/giant combo killed and to keep the dragon away from it’s giant or vice versa.

So when Grim through up an LFM I was fairly pleased, I get a completion and she gets to lead the public group. We start to fill and then we are looking for healer types. The wife offers to swap and Oncler joins on his druid.

Some of you know Oncler from my stories about him before. I like him a lot and count him as a friend. But he has a tipping point where he will tell you what’s up and how to pull your heads out of your ass if you are having issues. Some people take this in a good way others in a poor way. 90% of the people that take it poorly do so due to his tone, which can be a hurdle… I do the same thing, but I try to temper my comments with humor but the goal is the same.

So raid forms up and gets started, no one is clearly tanking or separating things which in the last few FoTs I have run have been fine in those runs we had a lot more ranged dps people. With Tobril out and the wife in a healing role, I started to notice how many people were melee only… Aka the trash didn’t naturally split off due to IPS + manyshots…. About that time Oncler yells that there is a trash build up and that the trash needed killed. About that time 3 or 4 of the melees die.

And a mild shit storm starts. He also yells out that the Truthful one needs a kitter which I take over being able to mostly self heal via scrolls and take the nasty one to the other side of the room.

I kite this guy in a kinda oval path as if I get breathed on or caught with a stun or what not he can drop be before someone can help me out. So on one of my loops he breaths and catches part of the party were I get an earful of how I should kite again from Oncler. I explain how and why I kite like I do (and Oncler backs down) but I will try to back and forth in an alcove to point the nasty one away from the party as much as possible and promptly get stunned and eaten.

About that time one of the brits on teamspeak says I am sure glad that this guy is in charge, where I reply that he is helping. Over look his tone and hear what he is saying. The raid starts to get a little more organized then. I try to be heard in game some Grim is relaying commands or giving ones of her own and things are easing up. Then we have just the last two. And we are working on the nasty one and Oncler points out a trash build up and that it needs to be cleaned up when another batch spawns on my head and I just die from lighting bolts from their spawning.

But the trash gets cleaned up about the time I can be rezed. A few more destiny powered MMs chain missiles and everyone is prepped. I go a little spammy and get the kills on both the dragon and the Stormreaver.

Have to say I learned a lot more from this run more then some of the others. I learned that there is an AOE effect when the trash is spawned and that the more trash there is the faster they spawn. I also we need to work on the role department when natural kiters are not around and put a little higher kill value on the trash. Also I watched one fighter pull a giant to its dragon I am guessing to be closer to the healers???? But just about as he did so they summoned some trash and people died.

Over all it was a good run if it had its rough moments, to the point where the wife again swears off healing it. ☺

Think I will be out tomorrow but should be back on Wednesday.

<3s

Training Raid Night aka Long Night

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So last night was another one of the DG open Abbot training raids. I both love and hate these raids.

I like the idea that we are actually doing the raids and I even like having a larger population of people that can do more puzzles. But we start at 6pm my time and if I am lucky around an hour later we run the raid for real. Then sometimes like last night we run a second raid and before I long it is 10:10pm my time and that is all you have done. 2 abbot raids…..

Epic facepalm

I just hope that these training raids start growing the base of people willing to run some of the unpopular raids. That second run took a really long time to fill just because the lack of people willing to learn enough to get confortable with the raid.

I had a kind of mean rant here about taking the time to learn, but it was harsh and I don’t want that so let me just say people take the time to learn. It is worth it.

❤

My Name is Samius and I am the 31%

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It was a long but good weekend. You can see part of the fun threw Grim’s eyes on her DDoblog. But that only part of this lasts weekend’s story. It was XP time baby!

I was going to roll things back along the week but I am having issues remembering everything. So lets just say Litany was amazing as always. And she left me wanting more. And a bit of aside, I need to start calling my wife Litany so if I cry out in my sleep she will think I am dreaming about her. Man, Litany is the xp.

Saturday was Remmie’s (the boy’s) 13th birthday. Now he is a man if only he would act like one instead of running around and hugging his parents. On another aside I need to pick up a stun gun to keep him in check…. He will be as tall if not taller then me soon and as a father I need to be ready to fight dirty if necessary to maintain power.

So the wife and I had a bit of a short day to hang out with the Brits. But later that night Xp happened. Can’t say what we did or how much it was such a whirlwind. Also we had a few of the boy’s friends over and lets just say that party went late into the night while the wife and I hid in the game room and played. But Tobril and I had leveled to 18 at the end of the night.

Most of Sunday went as planed.

Raided with the Brits even if that meant doing a few more jobs at once then I was used to doing. Ie tanking both Horroth and Sully in ToD. Over all I think loot wises we had a good weekend. Tobril got at least 3 scrolls, Grim’s lady friend (Trapping- which I feel is strange nick name. I never saw her on a rogue, no were any of her alts name even close to Trapping and I think her TeamSpeak name was something like Willowing?? Will need to find a good nickname for her soon.) Got the Von Shield and my wife kicked her the shard for it. I got a the Demon’s Consort Bracers shard for myself in DQ and on the first 6 man flagging I got a Xuum shard which after asking if anyone had a need for it. Tobril said he had been looking for it as he has everything ready to go to make one for his CLr. And the wife said she would like it but had nothing for it. Like a fool I passed it to Tobril. Who can put the think to use any time and I should have passed it to the wife to sit in her bank forever to collect dust. To make it up to her on the second 6man flag we did I passed her my epic fragments. I only had to sleep with one eye open for a little while last night.

Once the Brits where done for the night, we had a fast lunch break and got back to the xps. Thought we would be able to wrap up the xp for this life last night. But as we only really had like 3 hours that was really ambitious. We did a lot of Enter the Kobolds and Monastery runs. And I logged at rank 93 and tobril about 30k behind still at 92. He is still mad that he let his xp pot run out during Kobold’s New Ring Leader and swears that is why I am still ahead. I think there is some of that in it, but I think it had more to do with me running in game 10s and him only using 20s, but I have more first time quests where I don’t loose my ship buffs. I am really good at Litany for example. ☺ So most of the time I am not that much behind despite the pot difference so when I do drink a 20 on high xp/min quests I make some gains.

But earning big xp during with a big bonus is real nice. Now if we can cap by Tuesday that should give me a little Mabar time before my trip next weekend.

<3s

Another Night in Stormreach

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After a quick Elite Pit run and a mad dash Tear run the TR train swapped to epics and raiding. Epice Tuesday is a maybe once again…

Anyway after swapping and forming up we ran a quick eSnitch. Had two scrolls drop, both for Brawn’s Spirts. And One for me. So double win. 🙂 Still can’t get the axe seal to drop though….

Then a quick eDA, two full tokens are tasty. Someone got a Devil’s Run shard but it wasn’t me. But I did get a ring clickly with 3 uses of Pro Evil level 1. Did I say it has a large Augment slot? No..

After eDA it was time for our “Teach Samius how to Tank again” Class. Aka a Tod run. This time with an Arty and me on Horoth. It went well enough. Damage in felt good, Damage out could have been a little better… I did get stunned a lot more then I would have liked but what can you do if there is not a light monk? Any way the hate is there just need to fine tune a bit more.

Got the AC to 89 with Haste and Bard song. That leaves me with 1 more from dex if I reset my enchantments and take the last tear of the more dex in armor line. +2 when I get my defender set put together, and +3 if I ever get the epic tower shield built. Hope that is still good enough with the new changes on the way.

After Tod, “Teach Samius how to Tank again” Class rolled on to a Hard Vod where we lost our Arty. So I was in power attack/double strike shield mode trying to hold agro with 15-20 points of damage with my hate sword. Did well expect once fairly quickly after a port I got chained and Dots or a rogue with his full hate on got it and I had intim. Speaking of intims, I had to do some running after a port to imtim. Casters didn’t want to bring Sully over or let me bring her to me via my silver bow 😦 but it was fun. And when it was all over I got passed an Omniscience, which will let me swap swords and keep my AC the same.

After Vod the guild formed up again for another eSnitch, Still no seal for the axe.

Finally before bed there was time to ransack the first chest in Servants of the Overlord. We even had a few goodies drop. I just really want to try and get that Shield done. To that end I will need to flag a few more guys to hit that chest and maybe even run the first one for seals some….

<3s