Being a relative newcomer to EQ, I have never been to the Plane of Hate. EE, apparently, used to raid there a lot right before I came on board, so took a long stretch off from it. Also, there was all that content on Luclin to explore and now PoP. However, there are several epic pieces that drop there, so it is time to start heading back there again. Yay. I am always interested in seeing new places, especially ones I can?t get to on my own.


So, meet up at 8pm in the Dreadlands for groupage and the port up to Hate. We had played a bit during the day, exping and the like. Nothing remarkable. Gaerett?s roommate had put in a server transfer for his 62nd level Halfling Cleric ?Ouchie?. That had been granted just an hour before the raid, so Gaerett had to go around and collect the gear he had stashed for Ouchie (no gear comes with you on a transfer) and meet up with us in DL.


For some reason (probably because I am expendable), I get selected for the ?break team?, the first to groups to port up. The zone has wandering mobs and the zone in is on a patrol route. So, there is a good chance of zoning into combat. Also, Hate, like Fear and some other zones has a very touchy chain agro effect. You think you have everything under control and then the train you didn?t know was coming arrives.


Well, we buff and port up. Sure enough, two mobs there. Immediate combat. There is some confusion, but we get them mezzed and killed in short order. Then the train arrives? 10-15 mobs, all dark blue to me, so nothing amazing, just too many to handle. Casters getting squished left and right. Bianca dies pretty quick, the camp call goes out. I got one before I died. Gaerett DAed, ran to what he hoped was a safe spot and camped. This turned out to save the raid.


Gaerett camps back in, rezzes a Cleric who can then rez the rest of the raid since Tinv has drug all the bodies to the safe spot. While everyone is medding and rememing spells, etc., we get a few new additions so we are ready to work again pretty quickly.

More chaos ensues and we smack down about 50 relatively easy mobs and then move to the Church. Lovely scenery. From there, more pulls of trash until one of the mini bosses shows up (the Maestro), that is a bit more interesting, then his hand, then a Deathrot Knight, then a little more trash. At that point, we had killed all the interesting mobs in the zone, so the RL decided to call it before we screwed up and got swarmed by the remaining smaller mobs.

So, that was my first Hate Raid. The moral of the story: buffing before the break is a waste of mana. Jump in and guard a Cleric who camps and a Rogue who hides. Let the rest die, be drug by the Rogue to the safespot and then be rezzed. Then buff and fight.