Raids week 95

I had intended to do this blog a bit earlier in the week, but that didn’t happen. This is the blog for raids 95, Saturday 20 October. On my suggestion, this week Osi posted for Killing Time as the first raid, but as I logged I was told that Matrix had just filled a group for the raid. As we’re waiting with very few joiners I suggest we do something else in hopes of getting more joiners for KT when Matrix is done with their run. We switched to Baba and waited a bit more for a full group. For sides, Osi told me to go right and he’d go left, the rest got to choose side. We managed to split evenly and I helped with puzzles, but had more than one person on my side who knew how to do them. As for end fight, since Osi was ready to tank again, I wrote in party chat for the party to focus on baba. Half the party did, half went to fight shamblers. I was insisting we’d focus on baba, so I did so, ignoring anyone who went to shamblers. The raid completed in 36 minutes and Suffering, the Half of Whole dropped.

Next we did Strahd. I think everyone in the baba’s group stayed, some (including me) switched character. I brought Cerge for trapping. This week during stairs I was so eager to quickly do the traps that I ignored a living finger of death instead of fighting it, which lead to my death – and party having to wait for me to get back up. The rest of the stairs I behaved, though, and stopped to help fight instead of running ahead too far to deal with traps. Heart fight completed without any bigger issues, Devil stayed behind again while the rest of us d-doored and spread out by doors. We took a moment to make sure everyone was at a number, Osi had decided he was going to pull trash spawns to keep them from us. Doors completed quickly and we headed to end fight. Tahlua was Strahd tank and Fishgrinder on brides. Close to the end Fish dies and I think I told Osi to grab brides. We completed in the first try and Sanctity, the Morninglord’s Keep and Storm in a Bottle dropped.

Then it was finally time for KT. Some spots opened up, some people from the previous group stayed. I was stressing a bit about heals. Titus was to tank dragon and Osi shadows in ToD room, we needed someone to heal party and someone to heal Titus. Since I figured my character would fit the best as ToD heals, I wanted someone else to heal Titus. A cleric joined and got the job. Later Titus said that they’d been fine with e.g. a bard healing, that they weren’t taking that much damage. Note for later. This time during KT we wanted to progress the raid while doing the drop down rooms, so Osi told Tahlua and Devil to join him, Titus and Lizzie by the dragon, while the rest of us did drop downs. When the 6 rooms were done and we headed to the dragon, the first fight was done and the dragon moved. We learned that the dragon always follows the same pattern – starting north, then west, east, south to end up back north for the last part (LoB fight). We did the fights, the Marut room, ToD, LoB and completed the raid in 42 minutes, which was faster than last week. In ToD fight I for some reason decided to reply to a message off screen as the fight started, and was therefor the first person to die in that fight. We had two named items drop this week: Lightning Coil (Light mace) and Nullscale Armor (Heavy armor). A +7 con tome also dropped.

Defiler was chosen as the next raid and I stayed on Thaz because I didn’t feel like switching. We had some that said they hadn’t done the raid before, so I and Osi attempted to explain it somewhat. Osi again split the party for south and north portal – I was in the north team. Defiler is quite dull, especially on hard, but we got through the run without lag or too many deaths and all the archons were rescued. The raid completed in 24 minutes and Osi finally got his cloak – that he wanted to turn into a cosmetic. Resonation and 3x Countenance dropped.

I believe Osi posted for LTS for Niv. I switched back to Cerge for it, since ranged is better. Some people got left behind and didn’t know the way, Zzed went back to get them. In fire & ice I and a couple of others was focusing on killing off giants that came running up to the chest room, while the rest of the party continued. We (all three) died and couldn’t make it to the shrine. Someone (I think Zzed) came back to help, but the others had already used a Jibber’s (I don’t have one on Cerge) and we got to the shrine, while the giants walked back to their spawning point. I looted and picked up the rune, later learned that the rune respawns. Someone else had picked it up and passed it to me before the end fight, meaning I ended up with two. I completed the left side of the puzzle, used the rune and moved to the safe spot to shoot at Sorjek. Using the pale lavender I’m almost immune to Sorjek’s attacks and could just stand there while the melees would die one by one. The raid completed in 18 minutes and I think I got a named item that I offered for roll, but looted since no one wanted it.

It was getting a bit late, but the group was down for one more raid. MoD was suggested. I think it was Tahlua’s first run, so I suggested they get the goggles. I had to switch to Thaz, since Cerge wasn’t flagged and Maidae was only 20. I and some others stayed in center, Osi, Devil, Tahlua and Zzed went to do side rooms. Everything progressed quick and easy and we completed in 8 minutes. Knives Eternal and Circle of Malevolence dropped.

After MoD we were done for the night, I said thank you to the group and logged off.