1. The MA's (main assist) job is to grab and hold agro. Everyone else's is job exactly the opposite. So, all melees should also keep the farthest distance possible from a mob to hit it.

2. Assist and then Attack ONLY AFTER the MA call goes out. If you don't see the call, DO NOT ATTCK. It will become apparent that the call was not heard when the MA is at 10% health and he is soloing the mob.

3. If you don't know, ask. If you don't know ASK. IF YOU DON'T KNOW, ASK. Do not assume anything, and DON NOT ask the Raid Leader, that is what your group leader is for, if they don't know THEY will ask the raid leader.

4. Between fights, hang near your group leader. They will be the target of group buffs and refreshes.

5. If you see an uninvited mob sneak in, TELL SOMEBODY. Piss it off, but DONT hurt it, Its not that mob?s time to die. Beg, taunt, non-damage spells, SIT ON IT if you have to. Taunt an add only if you have the HPs to survive a beating while the group focuses on another mob. Druids, mages, and wizards need not apply here, although wizard root is a viable option. Druid root has a damage component which will break an enchanter's mezz - don't use it for parking if there's an enchanter trying to do crowd control.

6. Backup to the Kill Area after EVERY kill. Doesn't matter if there are 3 more mobs mezzed and waiting. Move back to the kill area after each and every kill. If you are not sure where or what the kill area is ... see number 3. (Note this exclude the Pull, Mezz and Tag teams)

7. Less is more. lets keep our messages to each other clean and clear. 30 people in a channel don't need to see your 'assisting the MA' hotkey. It is expected. When considering your messages think about whether anybody will take actions based on your message. Please turn off your cute emotes, or limit them to your group.

8. If you have to AFK (and you will, this raid is too long), be sure to auto-follow a member of your group. Preferably a caster. And tell them so they know to not drag you into a pit or something. Also tell them when you are back :)

9. Casters move up to melee range to cast. If you get agro stand and let the MA regain, don't nuke early or too hard at once. And don't sit down right after casting either, you need to drift down the mob's hate list a bit.

10. When the raid leader sends out who the MA and SA will be over the channel, you should set up two hotkeys:
MA: /assist (MA's name)
SA: /assist (SA's name)

11. The three prime things to expect on a raid:
-- No loot
-- No XP (Kinda fixed with raid system)
-- Possibility of many deaths

12. /assist off should be everyone's default assist setup. That means when you hit assist, you don't automatically attack.

13. Do what the raid leader asks you to do without arguing about it. When he says, "Paladin, go help pull Cazic Thule and take the Death Touch for the regular pullers!", just go do it.

14. Listen and PAY ATTENTION - If you can't chat and watch for instructions at the same time, don't chat.

15. Be on time, Be On Time, BE ON TIME!!!!! If you are late, don't expect for your place to be open unless pre arranged. If you might be close to getting there on time camp in the meeting spot the night before. If you are late I will replace you with someone that can be on time. If you need a port, make sure you are on 30 min before the raid for a port, we won't send anyone for you 10 min before a raid, you'll have to find your own way.

Advanced Raiding tactics

Mob Positioning

Surround - This is typically done on smaller mobs. The smaller the mob is the more sides we need to be able to hit from in order to get all our melee in rage. The MA should be in the front, rogues will be in the back. Ideally they don't have to move. Now we will need the bigger tanks who can handle a little repost damage to be in the front as necessary to offset rogues and lighter tanks push from the back. As much as possible people should be fighting from the sides. BOTH sides to counter the push from the other. If you find yourself having to step forward into a mob, run around to the other side. In an ideal situation the mob doesn't move at all. At the least we must avoid moving it into casters (hard to walk over them), too far from the healers (healers hate that), or into a wall.

Pin - This is often done on really big mobs like wurms and giants. It can only be done in a place where the wall is flat. A curved wall of any sort and a pinned mob can be pushed through it, bad news. In this case again we will have the MA in the front, rogues in the back, and everybody else on the side. If the rogues are pushing enough that the MA is backing up, again we will want big tanks to move around to the front and help hold it steady. At times it will get pinned in the wrong spot, and we'll want to move it, these same large tanks should be ready to move to the back or front as necessary to move the mob, then off to the side when the position is right.

We will do this to the King.


Lag

As we get a lot of folks into the fight or group of mobs you will notice performance coming right to the ground. This will kill us. If a healer is lagged they won't see someone is hurt, CH circle will get behind etc. Even if a melee is lagged, you might not get the message that you are rampaged until you're actually dead.

We should all know how to turn off luclin models, spell effects, spell particle density, 3D sky, PC names off, dynamic lights off etc. One thing many people don't know about is a little file called 'datarate.txt'. This file lives in your EQ directory. By default it reads '5.0'. That's all there is in this file. This is set up for a dialup 56 modem. If you are on broadband, up this to 9.0. Trust me you'll be amazed. BTW, if you go over 9.0 it doesn't know what to do so it actually uses the default of 5.0.


Gating Mobs

A mob that gates away from a raid is BAD NEWS. The mob will then typically start summoning people and making a huge mess of things. First, to avoid gating there are couple things we can do. We can try to interrupt with bash. They won't stun mobs 55+, but it can interrupt. Watch for the gating message and give it a whirl. Second, we nuke. Mobs typically gate at about 10% health. The gate spell should take 4 seconds to cast. During that time we need to do 10% of the mob's damage. If casters save their nuking towards the end of a fight like this, we get fewer gaters.

The second part of this is what to do IF the mob gates. If you are summoned, let everybody know you've been summoned. Type /loc immediately. If you know your way back to camp, run. The raid leader will then either decide to charge or camp. If camp is called, you know what to do, park it and /camp fast. Then log in to an alt and join the raid channel. If charge is called, follow the puller and or the MA. Try not to pass them.

I couldn't get on until about 10pm, but we made the most of it and got about 1 AA in 2.5 hours. Not amazing, but safe and steady.

Keys, flags and quests. That is about all we are doing these days besides farming NToV. We are simultaneously working on VT Keys, Ssra Emp key, BoT key quest, HoH key quest, PoT key quest, I still haven't done much with the VT key and we need the ST key.

Well we got our BoT flag and checked that place out on a short little raid Wednesday night. What a scary place. We tried a tower boss and wiped twice. Ouch.

Hard grinding for the 2 nights we got a chance to exp this week. But, goal achieved, both Bianca and myself got the title of Baron(ess) for our 6th spent AA point. Now, step two :)

Krushh decides we need to hit Ssra again and get some insignias. We have never ventured that far into Ssra, but it's time to get some key pieces from the 3rd floor. That is a bit of a challenge to pull through. But we manage and we kill the three mobs that drop insignias. Very cool. We need a better system for Ssra and I think I am the one that is going to come up with it. We have to hit it hard and fast. For some reason, people don't like the zone and we need to have focused farming here or we will never finish.

Another romp through NToV. This time we get to split it with PE after we will Aary. We get Iky, Aary, Vyemm, Koi, Mir and Joeg. Notice, no Eashan or Nev? Not up, only to dragons that I want. /sigh

An emergency patch sent us back to NToV the next time. This one was a bit of pain, OK, it was a great deal of pain. We tried to rush and this caused all kinds of problems. One of them was that Iris and Ary died in WW enroute. Tinv decided to CR them while we were actively fighting and Mallo, pissed off or confused about the real issues, wouldn't let Tinv roll on uber_rogue_lewt01. This caused all kinds of hue and cry and, of course, Tinv left. The fireball on the boards over this could be seen for miles around.

While all this was happening, PE started zoning in and tried to leapfrog us. Then the screwed our pull of Aary and caused a wipe. Mallo talked it over with them and he decided that we would collaborate on Aary and then PE would take Left side and we would take the right. Lots of unhappiness here too. I didn't like it, but I felt leaving was detrimental to our overall cause and my personal goals, so I stayed.

We killed Aary and then proceded to kill the things that were up on our side. It was 'OK' after that, but we still wiped to Dargan by, IMO, rushing that pull. After the CR, we ported out, it was too painful (and late) to continue.

So, I am sitting in the Nexus chatting in tell with Seyah over the events and she invites me on a stealth run to kill Rhags 1 who is up in Ssra. Now, it's a bit after midnight already, but I am wide awake and Bianca is already sound asleep, so, I say sure. Our hand picked strike force of 9 zones in and attacks Rhags1. Well, it's so easy with 30 people, it takes quite a while with only 4 are melee classes :) Despite discovering that I can pull agro off of Ceaorn nearly at will, we get it done and Jaered wins the RGC drop we have been looking for.

We are standing around after the kill and Sparkes asks, "anyone want to kill a vampire for me?" Well, now it's like 1:30, and I am starting to feel tired. But, Sparkes is cool and has helped me in the past, so I say "sure", cusring the left coasters. Turns out the guy who needs to be dead(er) is the only thing in Katta that cons red to me at 60. Hmm...

Fortunately, only Jaered has been a bad boy in Katta and we can walk right up to him. No guards or anything and begin to lay the smack down on him. Well, remember the part where we have only 9 people? Still applies. Remember that Katta is a Luclin zone and Luclin bosses have millions of hit points? Still applies. OMG this takes forever. 29 minutes and 30 seconds to be exact. But in the end, Sparkes got this shiny new robe (+15 INT, +100 CHA). Now, it's 3 am, "Laenyel, bind please." Bye bye.

Time to work on these Lucid shards for the VT key. Vanelina and Turgut grabbed me and we headed to DSP to kill tribals and try to get the hoppers to spawn since they drop shards more commonly. Bianca wasn't home for some reason and so, I dual boxed her since most of this was green. I got Gaerett to join us and he mass pulled while Turgut and Vanelina AoEed the results. The best part came after sitting around deep in the caves chatting and such and waiting for respawns. After a while Gaerett goes off and says time for a run to the entrance and back. He is gone a bit and the says in group, "13". To which Turgut says, "no way." Gaeretts health takes a bit of a bump and her replies, "13" clearly too busy to bang out any real response. Before long he showes up with 13, basically all the tribals from the entrance to the main cave. Which we then dispatch in an amazing display of carnage. By this time I have Bianca's hot keys setup and she is AoEing in synch with Turgut, it's cool. Two shards dropped just on that pull. We never did get the hoppers to spawn, but we did get all three shards we came for, so all was good.

Then we set out for Seru to get the shards we needed there (5 in all). I had never been to that area of the zone, but I have long been interested in killing those sanctimonious bastards, so it was satisfying. It took a couple of hours to get all 5 shards, but we did manage it. Also, got about 1500pp in cash (those boys are LOADED).

Now, I have 3 shards and the orb. I plan to be done the key (minus the emp piece) by the end of June.

So, we were buffing up for a Junk Dragon Raid when Seyah starts chatting me up. We have had some attrition in the ranks, as is pretty normal and she is looking for a few new officers. I kinda see where this is going very quickly, but let the drama unfold. Seems that being an officer is pretty much what I imagined it would be: access to the GL, read the forums, advise, check out recruits, guild/deguild as appropriate, etc.

So, I say, "Sure, I'll do it, you can always fire me if I am too much of a Pain in the Ass." To which she laughs thinking I am not serious. :) So, next thing I know, boom, the little box appears, "Seyah is offering to make you an officer of the Elven Elite, do you wish this?" I click 'Yes' and away we go...

The raid was OK. Nothing in it for me other than killing lots of stuff fast and a dragon that needs feathered at the end. But I like the run. We are getting faster at this sort of thing.

Another random NToV run on patch day. Again we kill Nev and again the bitch doesn't drop my cloak.

This is how you get throught skyshrine. I am posting it here because I can't go there at the moment, and I am tired of having this piece of paper sitting around.

1. From Cobalt Scar, Zone in, and go across the dining room through the door in the back.

2. take the 1st right

3. You're in 3 big connected rooms. Go to the last one.

4. at the right corner, take the path, go in, take first actual turn, follow path.

5. at Room with the pool and many golems, there are some hidden stairs on the left. Go up.

6. take the ramp up to the left.

7. Follow until you see a big ramp on the left. take it.

8. Go past 3 wyverns and through the door.

9. Go over the green bridge.

10. Take big long ramp to the top. See a foggy door.

You're in the maze. You have to run over 4 translocators. Here is how you get to them.

1. stay on the right wall until the first one.

2. Stay on the left wall until the second one.

3. go straight to the third.

4. Turn around 180 degrees, walk out

you're now in a big room. Go out the big door, click the sphere, and take the next door on the left. Hail all the dragons until one mentions the right class. O, and be very sure to give them the gems unstacked.

YAYYAYYAYAAYAYYAAY

I know it's not the top of the game anymore, but it still feels cool. We leaned on some friends and got Ary and Iris to tank and heal for us to get that last 10% to 60 on PoS Desert Giants. Thanks guys!

Sadly, the dolt I am, I didn't have the level 60 spells on me. Oh well. But after dingage, Iris and Ary left us to our fates since they can't play too late. We filled the spots, again spending a lot of time recruiting, and kept at it. We did a whole lot of desert giants, something I am told normally takes 2 groups. /shrug

After the cleric and the random DPS person left abruptly for a raid, we decided that we were going to mess with the trash with just the four of us (QCenchanter on slows by then and Gaerett MAing). That worked well. Very well in fact, we got 1% regular exp per kill with no down time in between. Wow, that is nice. With it all EE and friends, there was no management issues and things went so well. I felt bad logging on that group, but until I figure a way to get paid playing EQ, I have a day job to worry about.

Overall, a good night, 32% regular exp. We switched to full AA at the end and got 2% per kill. Nice, I am all AA for a while now. Need some of those Ranger AAs.

We were cooped up in the house all day with two screaming (literally) children. So, it was with some relish that we turned on the PCs Saturday night. Stuff had to die in the virtual world, it was just like that. Bianca did her usual magic and got a decent group together in short order.

We headed to the BoT room in PoS and cleared frogs. I know what you are thinking, if you have never seen them. But they are big and mean. Max hit on me was 691. We did OK and learned this camp in short order. Unfortunately, since it was Saturday night, most of the guilds had raids going, including our own. But ours was in BoT, something we are not yet flagged for. So, people kept getting called away for raids and getting new people was slow. Exp on the frogs is pretty good, but our overall rate was something less than we hoped for. We ended the night in the desert area, but called it with 10% left to level. Somewhat disappointing.

Had the boys on Friday, so we didn't get started until they were settled down. Vanelina asked if we would like to help her and Turgut farm shards in the Scarlet Desert for a while. We were hoping to exp and work towards 60, but most people were busy already, so we said sure. This is something we want to work on anyway.

Turns out the SD was camped, so we headed to The Grey. The camp is pretty easy and I was able to tank the skellies no problem, especially with Vanelina slowing and crippling them. But, the drop rate was pretty slow. We got 3 shards in a little over 4 hours.

Last night we went back to clean up on the named that we missed last night and were left to us by the euros. This raid was somewhat less painful for some reason even though it was still a lot tougher than past NToV raids (and every bit as long). We got Koi, Lady Mir, Jor, and the triplets. We only left Vyemm up as we didn't have the DPS to take him down. Early on I was skeptical, but, by the time we got to the triplets, I argee, we were not fairing all that well. We had 2 gaters including Jorg.

Still, we survived and a decent amount of loot dropped although, not the better stuff in the loot tables for any of the named, as far as I could tell. I picked up as Baton of Flame from as the only other person who wanted had both claimed and won a roll already. Lots of the lower end loot is falling into the, "well, if no one else wants it" or "I will roll, but not as primary gear, I would use it for resists." I think that this is because many people spent their points early on and also they are seeing that PoP bosses and mini bosses are dropping as good or better gear. And, after 2.5 months in NToV, we are really about 3-4 clears away from getting the core group the stuff they want from here. Which is fine by me. This is uber Velious loot, but I think we should be harder in Ssra and pushing VT key farming. Also, ST keys and raids.

Last night was a little on the brutal side until the end. Guild night was planned to be a farming trip to Ssra. Camp the whole place and get key parts, ore and shards. We got on early and were going to help a friend in GoB get Faydedar for his wife's druid epic. But, he couldn't get the forces together, so we basically sat around in PoK for an hour+ waiting to see. I used the time to organize my spell book (kind of like the sock drawer) and buying the remaining 59 spell and all my level 60 spells since I am looking at hitting 60 this week.

We finally got moving to Ssra around 8pm and we got assigned the group to camp Com1 Left with Vlad, Rokken, Elelftheria, and Kyeneia. That went well until Vlad pulled his famous LD act on us. But, Bi could keep Rokken healed so we did it that way for a while. Then, Krushh wanted me to come to the basement and replaced me with Lilviati, or at least that was the plan...

Bianca didn't want me to go, for obvious reasons, including being short on DPS. But Krushh needed a tracker, so Rokken told to go, "those mobs don't see invis." Oh, yes they do. Bunglage on my part lead to a wipe on the group when Ele couldn't mezz the add and Bi could heal Rokken against two unslowed mobs.

The CR took almost an hour. I got pretty good at Gems, but a little frustrated. Seyah's Com1 Right camp fought over to us and got us up and sent me on my way with a ton of shiny new buffs. I met up with Inyiin and invised us up for the run through the basement. No problem, I am starting to get the hang of the tube thing. Headed to Krushh's camp in the mines, just as we get into the mines, it respawns, all of it. Inyiin, "hehe," and feign's. Dirtnap #2. Consent Inyiin, get drug to camp, rezzed and buffed. OK, that sucked, but I am at camp finally, after an hour. I immediately win an ore used to make bane weapons, so I am starting to feel better.

Time for the first AoE pull. Stand near the casters I am told. "These mobs have the undead UI," say Jaered, whatever that means. Well that means, hide behind the casters like a girl. Because standing next to them, but in front of them gets the everliving crap beat out of you. I was down to 400hps really really fast so I stepped away, and right into some stragglers. $%^@! It's not like I am a punk character anymore either, 4700 HPs buffed and over 1000 AC, poof.

Spiritene clicks me in and the room spawns, 5 sec total uptime on that one. OK, I have lost 2% in the last hour. I don't expect to get a lot of exp on a raid, even inhouse, but after the slow going up stairs, the long CR wait and 3 more dirtnaps, I am about done. Krushh switches groups with me, not real sure why right away. I get Turgut, Laenyel, QCenchanter, Spiritene and Vanelina. He get Jaered and Rokken. Well at least the cleric is in my group even if she will be watching Krushh.

Krushh goes out and pulls 10 skellies. Brings them into the enchanters. They alternate AoE stun which pulls them all in on the enchanters. Then Krushh goes and gets 10 more. Once they are in, he goes, "burn em." And they do. Turgut and Laenyel are criting machines and 22 skellies drop in 20 seconds. Just like that I am halfway back to Bianca, exp-wise. By the end of the night (about 6 AoEs total), I get 4% exp and 16% AA. Amazing.

While we are done there, we do the named Taskmasters as they drop pouches needed for the Emperor key. Usually you get 4 out of 7 and that is what happened here. Laenyel, Spiritene, Turgut and myself all got pounches. I need a ring from Com2 and an ensignia from some second floor mobs to complete the key. I would also *like* to get two more peices of ore. That way I can dual wield bane weapons and have a bow. By the time we are ready to do the Emperor, I should have at least AM1.

So, the evening sucked, but was made good in the end.

Last night was a little on the brutal side until the end. Guild night was planned to be a farming trip to Ssra. Camp the whole place and get key parts, ore and shards. We got on early and were going to help a friend in GoB get Faydedar for his wife's druid epic. But, he couldn't get the forces together, so we basically sat around in PoK for an hour+ waiting to see. I used the time to organize my spell book (kind of like the sock drawer) and buying the remaining 59 spell and all my level 60 spells since I am looking at hitting 60 this week.

We finally got moving to Ssra around 8pm and we got assigned the group to camp Com1 Left with Vlad, Rokken, Elelftheria, and Kyeneia. That went well until Vlad pulled his famous LD act on us. But, Bi could keep Rokken healed so we did it that way for a while. Then, Krushh wanted me to come to the basement and replaced me with Lilviati, or at least that was the plan...

Bianca didn't want me to go, for obvious reasons, including being short on DPS. But Krushh needed a tracker, so Rokken told to go, "those mobs don't see invis." Oh, yes they do. Bunglage on my part lead to a wipe on the group when Ele couldn't mezz the add and Bi could heal Rokken against two unslowed mobs.

The CR took almost an hour. I got pretty good at Gems, but a little frustrated. Seyah's Com1 Right camp fought over to us and got us up and sent me on my way with a ton of shiny new buffs. I met up with Inyiin and invised us up for the run through the basement. No problem, I am starting to get the hang of the tube thing. Headed to Krushh's camp in the mines, just as we get into the mines, it respawns, all of it. Inyiin, "hehe," and feign's. Dirtnap #2. Consent Inyiin, get drug to camp, rezzed and buffed. OK, that sucked, but I am at camp finally, after an hour. I immediately win an ore used to make bane weapons, so I am starting to feel better.

Time for the first AoE pull. Stand near the casters I am told. "These mobs have the undead UI," say Jaered, whatever that means. Well that means, hide behind the casters like a girl. Because standing next to them, but in front of them gets the everliving crap beat out of you. I was down to 400hps really really fast so I stepped away, and right into some stragglers. $%^@! It's not like I am a punk character anymore either, 4700 HPs buffed and over 1000 AC, poof.

Spiritene clicks me in and the room spawns, 5 sec total uptime on that one. OK, I have lost 2% in the last hour. I don't expect to get a lot of exp on a raid, even inhouse, but after the slow going up stairs, the long CR wait and 3 more dirtnaps, I am about done. Krushh switches groups with me, not real sure why right away. I get Turgut, Laenyel, QCenchanter, Spiritene and Vanelina. He get Jaered and Rokken. Well at least the cleric is in my group even if she will be watching Krushh.

Krushh goes out and pulls 10 skellies. Brings them into the enchanters. They alternate AoE stun which pulls them all in on the enchanters. Then Krushh goes and gets 10 more. Once they are in, he goes, "burn em." And they do. Turgut and Laenyel are criting machines and 22 skellies drop in 20 seconds. Just like that I am halfway back to Bianca, exp-wise. By the end of the night (about 6 AoEs total), I get 4% exp and 16% AA. Amazing.

While we are done there, we do the named Taskmasters as they drop pouches needed for the Emperor key. Usually you get 4 out of 7 and that is what happened here. Laenyel, Spiritene, Turgut and myself all got pounches. I need a ring from Com2 and an ensignia from some second floor mobs to complete the key. I would also *like* to get two more peices of ore. That way I can dual wield bane weapons and have a bow. By the time we are ready to do the Emperor, I should have at least AM1.

So, the evening sucked, but was made good in the end.

OK, our first extended exp session in Plane of Valor validates the rumors that we have heard: the exp there is sick. You can?t seriously consider exping anywhere else once you get a taste of Tier 2. There sessions over the last few days.

First, Iris and Ary took us on a guided tour of PoV and the usual camps so we would know what was open and what to look for. Then we camped ?LC? or left courtyard for about 2 hours. Even with extended downtime and slow kills due to (our) gimpness, we got like 14% regular exp.

Next, we join a GoB BoT key farming in progress that subsequently turned into a aborted raid on a mini-boss. Even with over 40 people in the raid we got 4% in 2 hours, unheard of. We have laid waste to NToV for over 4 hours and gotten 1%.

Finally, last night. A 4-hour bloodletting got us from 58.62 to 59.02 in easy fashion. We were camped in OC (outer cave) killing Razorfiends and tree frogs. We had our normal exp lineup (Bianca, Gaerett, Qcenchanter and myself) plus Foofy, a kooky cleric that we grouped with a few times before in PoD and Ckmonkey, a true nut case (I personally think it?s required for all high end monks to be like this). She pulled like a nut and good-naturedly resented every moment something wasn?t being slain. We went until we couldn?t take it and it was getting late for me to be getting up early. In addition, we netted 4 talons, 2 Eps and an assortment of other crap that added up to about 381pp. We will be back.

I can't see any reason that we will not be 60 by the end of the week. The exp is just that good. Then, it's all AA for a while. This ranger needs AM3 and EQ in the worst way.

It finally happened! Bianca and I got flagged for the Planes of Storms and Valor last night. That is huge accomplishment and a huge relief for us. We were coming up against the wall where most of the people we want to play with are flagged and we were not. It is tough to ask people to give up the accelerated exp of Tier 2 just to hang with us and we are really happy to not have to do that any longer.

The Plane of Justice is a pretty cool zone, maybe the coolest Tier 1 zone. I had only been there once to group with some high level friends and I had to be DotH (drag of the helpless) to the camp in Death Row. So I hadn't seen anything except the GY and DR. The trials 'room' is just amazing. No other way to describe the rotating star field with the Tribunal standing in frequent judgement.

The guild turned out big time to help 4 or 5 of us get flagged. Many to buff and many just to cheer everyone one. After each run, which takes about 10 minutes, there is a 30 minute reset time. During the break in the action the monks keep us amused by screwing with the Tribunal or warping in guards and kiting them around. I think they had rezzed Inyiin about 4 or 5 times when we left. Rokken only once, I think, hard to say, he never stands still.

Anyway, the trial, this cool. I sort of cheated a bit. Not much, but some. I was second in line to go, so I targeted our Guild Leader and trial cleric Seyah before she went in with group one and then cast Bind Sight to her. Now I could see the trial room. From her, I targeted the prisoner and bound sight to him and watched the show. Kind of exciting to see the executioner coming to kill 'me'.

Four waves of four spawns. When a wave spawns the executioner begins walking to the platform. If you kill one of the mobs, he warps back to the back of the room and begins again. Once the fourth mob is dead, he despawns. You get maybe 2 minutes between waves. After the last mob of wave four dies, the Prime Execution spawns and AoEs your ass with a 250 pt AC debuff. He is supposed to hit pretty hard, but our tank didn't lose agro during my fight, so I can't say.

I used the same Bind Sight trick to watch Bianca's fight too and help her with targeting. Not that she really needed it, but she was nervous and it gave me something to do besides chewing my nails.

Our buff team gave me full raid buffs plus Primal Avatar, usually reserved only for the MA/SA due to mana costs. All I can say is that I want more of that. It doesn't stack with Force of Nature (20 ATK ranger buff) and Wolf Form is not recommended in PoJ, even still I had an ATK of 1631! Parsed the logs from those 13 fights and I did an overall DPS of just over 60, with a range of 40 to 114. I was mashing the assist key the whole time to be sure I was always on the right target and hitting at the earliest possible, so that probably accounts for the low side results since the 'fight' as far as the parser is concerned starts with the attack command and I started many OOR for a bit.

Even with a team that was all 63+ other than me, it was still touch and go there at the fourth wave. This is not an event to take lightly. However, if you want fun, I would suggest that it's possible to do the trial for practice and exp. I would like to see the other trials at some point too.

Wednesday was Patch Day again (we just had one last week). The plan was to get on early (for the guild) and head to NToV, we need a few more full clears of that place to achieve our goals there. Got on as planned, about 5:30 and DBed Bianca through to ToV while she cooked dinner. As I half expected, we didn?t really get moving until after 8pm. Only a small group of AS got in to NToV ahead of us. They killed Ikatar and Eashen and then decided to try Aaryonar (with 23!) before heading out. They wiped and bid us goodbye as we CotHed in behind them. Nanbkek and Jaered did a good job of getting peeps out to NToV, setup and grouped. Mallo showed up just as we were ready to start on Aaryonar and got things moving.
Aary went perfectly. We had a clean pull, good positioning, and smooth engagement. I was on chicken duty, which is fine with me. Heck, I can even tank them if they are slowed, LOL. Went down by the numbers with NO DEATHS! He dropped Hand of the Master, Katana of Pain and Circlet of Summer.

The named Drakes were dropping stuff like mad tonight. They often don?t drop anything. We had Shield of Thorns (Kyenia), Runed Fang Necklace, Silent Fang Necklace (Jotaro), Bow of the Silver Fang (rot!), Shield of the Protector (Smekal), and Ring of Superiority all drop.

Then we set off around the ring to the right. Lord Feshlak was first on the menu. He was a push over, again, no one died. I brutalized him with my regular pull arrows and no Trueshot. He dropped Boots of the Dread Dream, Amulet of the Storm and Staff of the Silent Star.

Dagarn the Destroyer, however, lived up to his name somewhat. We actually lost 3 or 4 people on that one and it looked touch and go for a minute. I used Trueshot with the Silver-Tipped Wooden arrows, but it was ineffective. I think his AC is a lot higher than Feshlak. So, I ended up in CC with him.

Next, we had a long pull up and over the hump and down to Lady Nev. Easily the most annoying dragon in the whole place. That 600 hit point spinning AoE is a PITA. Fortunately, with my acylia arrows, I could stay out of range and use Trueshot to wreak havoc. Unfortunately, I used them all up halfway through and had to go to summoned arrows (much shorter range).

Lady Nevederia is holding a Cloak of Thorns for me. It is the only piece I am looking for from NToV and there are only 2 or 3 better ranger usable cloaks in the game. I have enough points saved up (73+) to beat almost any ranger/druid on the raid at this point since people have been claiming shit left and right. Unfortunately, she didn?t drop it tonight. /sigh. She did drop Nevederia?s Horn, Nevederia?s Claw and Nevederia?s Left Eye. I won the claw, I nice 17/11 1HS item. I need to parse some log action to see if it bumps my DPS over main handing Disembowler. If it does, then I need to figure out what to do with Disembowler, it is a really cool sword and highly sought after, so it has some prestige. And, it is droppable. I would never sell something like that though, but I would hate to give it away either. I may save it for Balinvar or leave it in the bank for some special person/situation and make them really happy.

After that, we pulled the two members of The Triplets that were up. First was the badass: Zlexlak. First of all, you got to love the name and the similarity to Exlax. Then the 1250 hit point AoE is special. We lost a few here, but not many. He dropped a Dragon Skin Bracer? I think. I wasn?t going to claim anything and I had won a roll, so, honestly, I stopped paying so much attention to loot.

We pulled Cekenar next and after Zlexak, he is such a pushover. A 125 hit point AoE (with mana loss), eh. He had a lot of HPs though, so it took a while. He dropped Meljeldin, Bane of Giants (which, curiously, isn?t bane damage) (Vlad) and a sticker that isn?t in the loot table I am looking at that defaulted to Pochette (who had won something earlier, I think the Runed Fang Necklace) since no other rogue wanted it. Been a good two EQ days for her as she just got her epic yesterday.
Edit: It was the Dragonspine Rapier.

Mallo was almost beside himself that stuff this good is starting to rot. But it is a sign that we don?t need more than 3 or 4 more clears of NToV before we are at the point of diminishing returns here. The only other named up was Vyemm, but we were an hour from him and it was already after 12:00am, so we called it a night.

So, we are talking 6 big named, 6 named drakes and a boatload of trash in a 3.5 hour romp. Easily, this was the fastest GoB has ever moved through NToV. Palou, Mallo?s preferred puller didn?t even die once. By the end of the run we had 61 people with an average level of 61. And, frankly, if we take 5 people out, that would have gone to 63 or 64. NToV wasn?t designed for teams this strong. Group chat, I mean group boom were KSing monsters. Laenyel and Spindley were both criting for 6K all night. They might try to get more tonight, but frankly, we got the cream of the crop. And, Nev is my target so next week is the earliest I am headed back to that zone.