The Reluctant Raider

Volt went raiding again the other night, DoV content. It really does show you how much work I have to do when I don’t even recall the names of the raid instances we went to (yes I could check, but that would make it look like I knew what I was talking about). One of them was Kraytoks I think and the other Throne of Storms? I CoV’d in to the first one as I was late turning up (thanks Gibraltar border queue!!) and the other I got auto zoned in from Eastern Wastes. The nights raiding went quite well I thought, although obviously I have absolutely no point of reference. Volt came out with two armour pieces, a War Rune and a belt, all nicely equipped and adorned. I was a little frustrated that I couldn’t get any DoV red adorns even though I have enough faction. It’s all down to not having enough of the raid shards just yet. In the mean time he has filled the red slots with the war rune I won and red slot adornments from Sentinel’s Fate. It’s a good job I have a lot of Seals of Arad left.

I’m a little surprised myself that I have got back in to raiding. I swore I wouldn’t do it. I don’t really have the time and had got myself in to such a relaxed zone that the impetus wasn’t there. I just wanted to hang out with my Bro and guildies and have a bit of fun, questing and doing instances. So why did I? Well, if you read my post here, you’ll know that my old syndicate went through a bit of a tough time recently and as such a ‘splinter’ syndicate was started and they needed a brawler. So I offered to help until they get a better one (I’m kinda surprised that hasn’t happened already). That’s how I got back in to it. I’m not sure how long this will go on, or how long I will be needed to help out, but at the moment it’s quite good fun truth be told. I have considered that the more kit I get, the less likely they will want to let me go. It’s never fun for a raid force to get someone all equipped and then watch them stroll off in to the sunset. I want to avoid that if at all possible, so it may be that I stay, or that I find them a kick ass Brawler soon.

One thing I will say about playing Voltaan in anger again in raids, is that it took me a little time to get up to speed with how fast things move in that environment and then on the opposite side of the spectrum, how long it takes sometimes to get to the killing (I’m not a psycho, I assure you). With being one of only three tanks, I was called to offtank most of the fights and it went OK. I was a little bemused that as the least kitted of the tanks I was called to OT, but Volt never shies away from a challenge (obstinate old fool) and his kit wasn’t too bad (143 crit mit). It went really well. A couple of times we wiped on first pull because I was learning the script, but mostly everything went down as it should.

One thing I should mention is the amount of adds that appear in some of the named fights. They seem to come in waves and with a higher frequency the longer the fight goes on. Now with not much hate transfer, two really hot Ranger dps’ers and a whole bunch of adds, it was a little like when you take the balls on a billiard table then bounce them all off the cushions at once then stand back and watch the chaos. Poor old Volt was running around like a headless chicken trying to gather the mobs up. Consequently he wasn’t doing enough damage to keep them aggroed as most of his damage comes from auto attack especially with group mobs and range was an issue, my AoEs weren’t catching all the mobs. Maybe next time I’ll be able to keep it a little tighter. It was a huge amount of fun, but also a little frustrating. The old raiding Volt would have had no trouble with that. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m just getting up to speed again.

In other EQ2 news, a quick mention about the recent re-itemisation. Last night my Bro and I were mashing our way through The Crypt of Agony and three times we came across anomalies concerning loot. Firstly, two of the named didn’t drop chests. Nothing at all, not even a small or treasured chest. That may be old school, but I have never encountered that in CoA before. Like I say, maybe that was always there and I’ve just never experienced it. Secondly, a neck piece dropped that was the exact same as another that Merecraft had looted from a completely different location. Not a big deal, just a bit strange. Lastly, a legendary item dropped for Mere and at level 65 it was far superior than the one he had equipped and that was a level 75 item. Anyhow, the main reason to report this is that the re-itemisation is obviously working out very well indeed. Well done.

Whilst I am on the subject, duo’ing CoA was a lot of fun. It’s one of my fave RoK instances and we enjoyed bashing our way through. But, (yes there’s always a but) the easy way with which we sliced through, like a hot knife through butter was a little, well, meh. Volt obviously can solo the zone nowadays, but even mentored down there was absolutely no challenge, and I miss that. It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t get my head around re-itemisation, levels 20-80. The content is so easy, there really is no need to make toons more powerful by implementing re-itemisation that seems to have beefed up items in my experience, not reduced them where appropriate. I don’t know, maybe I’m being an old fuddy-duddy but I’d kind of like the chance that something is going to destroy me and I have to use my skill both as a toon and player to get through. Maybe next time I’ll auto mentor to 5 or 10 levels below the content and see what happens. It’s a shame I haven’t got any level specific toons just to see how that pans out. Although from watching Mere and how he has no issue getting ^^^ mobs down, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Perhaps it is a good job I am doing x4 content again. I’m sure I’ll become accustomed to dirt naps again whilst raiding all too soon.

Be well.