Raids week 59

On Saturday I was on at exactly 9 pm (3 pm EST) and posted for baba’s raid normal. As always, after putting the lfm up, I wrote in channel which raid I had posted for and that the post was up. There seemed to be a lot of interest and we filled somewhat fast. One person asked me to save them a spot, so I ended up turning one person away… but then the person who was going to join realised they were still on timer, and I invited the one I had turned away to join us. As before I asked the party to split themselves for the puzzles, and things went quite good. The puzzles were getting done at a good pace and we didn’t really struggle at any part, except for in the last fight where I felt that people were too spread out, making it hard for me to throw heals and raises. We completed in 26 minutes and Suffering, the Half of Whole dropped.

Then on to the strahd raid. Most of the party stayed on, only 3 spots opened up and were filled quickly. Doobrey picked up the sunsword to carry until the end fight, and once we got there Ashgar offered to use it. Most of the raid progressed nicely and everyone stayed together. I died once from trash when we were looking for the torches, and once from the grip. This time we didn’t have to redo anything, we got the torches lit in one go and strahd and the brides went down at about the same time and the raid completed.

As usual I asked the party what they wanted to run, and Defiler was suggested. I usually switch to another char for the other raids, as Thaz has everything she needs from them, but I forgot this time. The run was pretty standard, we got everything down and we didn’t lose any archons. My computer froze in the middle of the raid and I had to restart, but the party kept everything running while I was logging back in. We completed in 24 minutes.

Next I wanted to do TS, and switched to Cerge to do so. I did give someone the star while switching, but unsure what happened in between, because I was told to repost. I posted for LTS R2 and soon had almost a full party. As we had both int and str, I decided to start when we had one spot left. The last spot filled just as we started. We had a good group and everything progressed quickly – except for the end fight. Normally I tell the party to turn off colors of the queen before starting the end fight, this time I did not. Sor’jek ended up resetting twice, the first time when he was at about 50%. I told the party to turn off colors of the queen, and after that we managed to get his hp down without him resetting. This time the raid took longer than it usually does with 38 minutes.

 

Someone had a post up for Riding the Storm, and they were sending me tells asking me and my party come join them. I didn’t want to join, but I asked my party if anyone wanted to join them for RSO, or would prefer to do shroud. I got a couple of votes for shroud, non for RSO… so I decided to post for shroud. When I do my raids marathon, I don’t really want to join other people’s lfms, as I post for raids one night a week and do this blog about them. Some other time for sure. I actually think it’s good for me to once in a while see how others do raids, but not during my raid night. Anyway, I posted for shroud, mentioned it in channel, we filled in less than 20 min. Someone that was with us in TS, had gone afk, and I kicked them when we had waited inside the raid for several minutes (after sending them a tell asking if they were joining us). Just as we step through the portal I get a reply to the tell, and they manage to join us before the raid locks (which is 1-2 minutes after stepping through the first portal). The raid itself progressed at a good pace, portals was over quickly, part 2 completed without issues, as did puzzles. P4 was a non issue, and p5 felt quite easy. We completed in 34 minutes.

Again I asked the party what they wanted to run, and someone said baba’s. I told them I had already run it, but since I was now on Cerge, and I hadn’t run it on him, I was up for another run. A few party members left and were replaced, but it didn’t take long. 15 minutes after the shroud completion we were in and ready to get going. I again told the party to choose side themselves, instead of me splitting the party in two for the puzzles. This seemed to work fine, just as it has done before. The party was a bit different than last time, and I didn’t have any insta kills like I do on Thaz, but we progressed at a good pace anyway. During the second time through the hut, someone mentioned that the wisps were missing. I hadn’t even noticed. Well outside the hut they did spawn, though. We finished in 20 minutes. The axe I’d like for Thaz dropped, but as I’m unsure if Cerge will have any use for it, I didn’t roll on it.

I asked the party if they wanted to do strahd raid as well and the answer was yes. Someone wasn’t flagged, someone was on timer, etc, I posted and about 20 minutes later we were ready to start. This time I got a volunteer for the sunsword right away, and we kept a good pace. The biggest issue I felt was the stairs, even though I asked the party to stay together, we got a bit separated and ppl died. I carried either the symbol or the icon and managed to rescue one person from death by the grip. I also found one of the torches and lit it when it was time. The end fight was really smooth and we finished in 19 minutes.

After strahd it was past 2 in the morning for me, and I was done with raids for this time.

Until next time.
Cheers.