Raids week 109

Last week Saturday when I logged on to DDO, there were 29 people in EEraids channel – in comparison to 36 in titan channel. As people noticed me I got some tells and I saw people asking about the raids in channel. Titus had told me just a few minutes before I logged on that there were 8 Sokos who wanted to raid as well. I invited Tahlua to my party then hesitated. Sokos + me and Tahlua leaves 2 open spots and there were 29 people in channel! Of course I didn’t know how many actually wanted to raid, but I still felt we had a problem. I messaged Titus and we came to the conclusion that Titus would do a separate post from mine this time, so more people could join. I put an empty lfm up, and as soon as I did, the outstanding list started filling with people. I took the lfm down right away to check that I didn’t have too many people. I also discussed the lfm situation with Titus. Titus told me to write on the lfm that we’d be two groups this week. I accepted everyone I had waiting, which was 8 people, then posted the lfm with “will be two groups today”, still without a quest selected. Titus posted as well and I believe filled their group right after we did.

 

Both groups started with Baba’s. Titus had mentioned on Discord that EEraids would be doing at least elite, so I didn’t want to let people down. Since Melubb has tanked for us before, I asked if he could tank the shamblers on elite. He said yes, so I stepped in on elite. I took a moment to pick the teams – after asking about insta killers for totems and then approached Baba to activate the raid. During the first fight I think the hut’s aggro switched at least 3 times. When I got aggro I winged away just as the hut was about to land on me and it seemed like it got confused as it stayed where it was and kept slamming down in the same spot. Then after a while the aggro changed again. During the run through the hut the left side said they only had one totem killer (they should have had 2) my side had 3 with me. The sides were somewhat even anyway and we didn’t end up waiting too much in the puzzle rooms. The second run through we had some people die from wisps, but other than that it was quite smooth. When we got to the end fight we did as we always do – kill wisps and red crows before attacking baba, then move baba north. When shamblers spawned they ran off at first but Melubb managed to get their aggro and move them south east. With two druids and a melee cleric on baba I figured I’d be best keeping an eye on Melubb’s hp while the rest worked on Baba. The rest of the end fight progressed without issues and we completed in 38 minutes. Everyone got 125 Hut runes and 24 threads of fate, but no named items dropped at all. Titus group who did hard got two named items: Van Richten’s Spectacles and Patience Through Peril.

Next I wanted to do Strahd, and without Titus I didn’t want to do a higher difficulty than hard. Erofen and Gen switched characters, the rest stayed. I stepped in early again to do the cards and grab one of the trinkets before stepping back again to buff. Intha grabbed the other trinket and Tahlua got the sunsword. When everyone was in we proceeded into the crypts and I waited for everyone there, then telling people to go for it – I wasn’t going to since I don’t like getting aggro of the red named shadows. The fight went somewhat well and then we continued killing the rest of the shadows before proceeding to the stairs. I told people to do the x x x in chat since I can hear the pling and react a lot faster – and this time I was also prepared for someone getting gripped right outside the stairs and managed to rescue them.

 

The stairs went quite well even though the trappers were running a bit ahead. I think we managed to save everyone from grip – and I don’t believe we had any deaths at all on the stairs. Even the heart fight completed without deaths and then Gen stayed behind while the rest of us d-doored, shrined and spread out. I didn’t find any card in my doors so hid in a tomb and helped call out which torch to light. We completed the cards quickly and gathered outside of Strahd’s tomb. The plan was for Tahlua to tank Strahd and Melubb brides. As we’re prepping to go in someone gets gripped and die. We pick up their stone and I tell the party to just head in so we don’t start getting picked off one by one. The end fight is going quite well and Strahd’s hps are dropping quickly. When we’re ready to take Strahd out we noticed that the brides aren’t quite prepped and the party heads over to them and I guess gets a bit over exited because one of the brides dies right away. I tell the party to reprep the bride and not to use any dot spells on them. When brides are prepped I tell the party to kill strahd and then we kill the brides. The raid completed in 30 minutes and we got 84 Strahd runes and 24 threads of fate. Fleetfoot Necklace, Storm in a Bottle and Echo of the Tome of Strahd also dropped.

I wanted to do Killing Time on hard, since I was sure that hard has a better chance of loot than normal and I knew the group could handle hard. Gen switched character again while the rest stayed. Melubb was to tank the dragon while the rest of us did drop downs and later rifts. During the first two dragon fights things seemed difficult and we had a lot of deaths, but I wasn’t worried – I’ve seen worse. As we get to the first rift I think this is where someone had gotten thrown off and died on a different platform so I went to get them. I didn’t realise I was carrying Erofen’s stone as I did this, so he ended up having to come along. I found the person and raised them, gave Erofen a raise too and then ran back to the rift to catch up with the party. Got there before they completed and got to shrine. As we got back Melubb was running out of sp and I suggested I’d stay and heal but Melubb got some sp potions and I was told to follow the group. In the second rift I told Tahlua to bring Nythirios next to the stairs so the rest of the group could stay safe. Erofen was shadow kiter and did a good job, I think we had one shadow stray but other than that the shadows stayed away from us, the party was safe and I only really needed to heal Tahlua. We completed and shrined.

 

The fight before the 3rd rift was somewhat quick and as the party stepped through I followed Melubb to the first island. As I landed the dragon was facing me and I got hit full on and dropped right away. I don’t know why, but Erofen ended up there too. Melubb then dropped because he was out of sp and after the death timer was up used a jibber’s but didn’t have sp to raise me. I used my jibber’s at some point, but it didn’t do me much good. Erofen used a self raise and raise me – the plan was to run away to heal but the dragon targetted me right away and was spamming lightning and lightning debuff and I didn’t last long. Erofen used his second self raise to pause the timer a little bit and give the group more time to kill LOB. Ero was supposed to be the dog kiter in LoB but now they had to figure it out without him. They managed to do this as well as kill LoB before the timer was up, and the raid completed in 50 minutes. Bracers of the Mountain, Tornado and a schism dropped.

 

I wanted to do RSO, some of the party I guess felt tired after the KT run and didn’t want to do more. 5 spots opened up after KT. I posted and in 15 min we were in and ready to start. We had some new or newer people in the group so I explained some of the parts a bit more than I usually do. I believe the hardest part of the raid is to learn how to stay alive. In most parts of the raid it just requires reacting to what’s going on – running across a rune to remove storm magic, running under the dragon’s wings during symbols and avoiding the white circles. For newer people this can be a challenge. We killed off the skellies, did the main area puzzles and headed up to the dragon. We had our first deaths here. When the dragon took flight I grabbed soul stones and ran east. I looked for people to raise while opening and doing puzzles. This run I believe I did more puzzles than I usually do. The puzzle part went well except for some party members dying a lot. We shrined and headed back to the dragon. The dragon fight caused a few more deaths – including me, but wasn’t really any more challenging that it usually is. We completed in 43 minutes and got skunked on named loot. 84 kor kaza runes and 31 threads of fate dropped.

The group got to suggest the next raid and Defiler was suggested. EE was chosen. Some changed characters and a few spots opened up. I didn’t feel like splitting the party and with Stitchz in the group I didn’t think I’d have to. We make it past the gate with no deaths, kill of a couple of executioners and as we’re fighting reinforcements things freeze. That is I can still type in party chat and channel, but I’m not moving, the mobs aren’t moving and we all think we’re dead since that’s usually what happens. Slowly though we see the connection symbol turn yellow and then red. I ask in discord if the server was rebooted or something since that was what happened last time. We wait to get booted and I restart the client – expecting the server to be down. The server isn’t down and as all get back in we find ourselves outside the raid with full hp and sp bars and no clickies used. Some claimed their looks even had rolled back to a previous look. We waited for everyone and then decided to try again on the same difficulty.

 

Second try, the fight by the gate lagged a bit more but we got through it with no or a few deaths only. We spread out by the portals and I stayed looking up at the sky for the light pillars. I helped a little with killing mobs, but the mobs in here have a lot of hp, there are a lot of them and I can’t insta kill them so my sp bar isn’t really enough. We killed off all the executioners and reinforcements and very soon I read “Final south” – that is the last 4 reinforcements before the gate east opens. We stopped only long enough to throw a few buffs, then headed into the end fight. The end fight was anticlimactic like it usually is and we completed in 21 minutes. We got 125 defiler runes and 14 threads of fate and Belt of Braided Beards and Countenance also dropped.

After Defiler I was done for the night.
That’s all for raids 109.
Thank you for stopping by.