Sirens Grotto. Those two words evoke visions of a place
that is far and away. Hidden with a bit of a mystical flair that is inviting
and very very deadly. At one time there
used to be two beasts that would spawn at the zone in
and actually made the venture there more dangerous than it is now. Saturday
Bamor, Aamadar, Galane, Garrobo,
Raljah, and Soulas ventured into the Grotto. The
Ulthorks have insane amounts of hit points and the casters tend to gate
and complete heal. My stuns were more often
than not resisted. I had one stun land in the casting
of literally dozens. It was apparent from the beginning that we needed
an enchanter. It was also apparent we needed a
real tank that could bash on a regular basis and still
dish out some good damage. But being typical Nox we adapted and overcame.
Bamor being a barbarian has the race
benefit of slam (same as bash) and resorted to using
this to interrupt the casting of the Ulthorks. It was not pretty but it
worked, sometimes. Soulas left after a few hours
and we were joined by Galane.
We got the hides from the Ulthork and now we needed a
swordfish bill or something. We tried all kinds of different strategies
to take the swordfish and kept getting trained
by the seahorses. We eventually settled on accepting
that we would have an add and dealt with it in typical Nox fashion. Everyone
in the group was completely buffed up
with hit points and symbols. Everyone in the group had
well over 2k of hit points and Bamor was just under 3k (barbarian stamina
gotta love it lol). So we got Raljah's pet in
the water along with everyone except me. I sat out of
the water on the ledge. People were watching the group chat closely and
not paying attention to their health. That
was my job. When they saw complete healing being cast
they knew to jump out of the water onto the ledge let the spell land and
jumped back in to resume fighting. Since
we had no taunters this tactic worked well and we were
able to overcome. We got everything that Galane needed for his next shawl
quest and actually did a bit of
exploring.
During one of these explorations I went from full mana
to ZERO mana keeping Galane alive as no matter how much damage was being
dealt to this one Ulthork it would not
get off of Galane. We even fought a rampaging pet that
unfortunately did kill Galane. Yeah a air elemental with a 500 point area
effect buff stripping spell that hurt even with
magic resistance of 100 or better. It flurried rampage
then cast its spell that was almost instant and with a final rampage on
Galane he fell before the heal hit him. Garrobo
made mention during that fight that it was about time
to start chain casting heals on him. I did and he survived but I was one
bub of health with absolutely no mana left to
heal at all. Bamor being the ever resourceful rogue he
is started binding everyone.
Lessons learned, the biggest is we needed a enchanter
and real tank (warrior). The next lesson learned is that we need to know
what mobs to use trash buffs against. In
other words fill up the first few slots with a wuss damage
shield see invis etc then lay on the good resist and hp buffs. This
guilds higher end characters are great at
outdoor encounters but gear wise we suck for dungeon
crawls or even to survive in a zone such as Western Wastes. That old Nox
ability though to adapt and work around
the barriers in place can only be pushed so far and frankly
we pushed it to the limits Saturday. Heck before we even entered the Grotto
I got killed by a charmed pc (ice
comet twice and both landing for full damage killed me
in my unbuffed state hehehe). Got charmed myself along with Soulas who
got charmed and beat on Garrobo. All in
all though we accomplished what we wished to do and that
was get Galane his stuff for his shawl quest. We also gathered up a few
armor quest gems that Raljah is in
charge of keeping. Armor quest gems fall here at a very
high rate and with a well balanced group we could easily get all kinds
of them for all of us. Yes when we have
enough 50 plus individuals to outfit two groups safely
and all on Dorf faction we are doing Kael arena for Armor quests.
There was enthused people wanting to know how the raid
went and all during the raid. If it seemed at times we took a while to
answer it was merely because a Ulthork or
Molkor or Seahorse was doing its hardest to wipe the
floor with us. I know Rosh and Nommad were particularly interested and
wanted to know what was going on and I
applaud them. Soon it will be viable for them to venture
there as well (with a good group).
Now for another point. I have gotten the Kromriff Military
Leggings for Hanorm. The stats on the leggings are ac14 str6 wis5 save
to two other stats. If any need help with
this let me know. You need a bloodwolf harness (drops
off the Drakkel Bloodwolf in Great Divide) and a vial of acid from Crystal
Caverns (common drop off any orc there
lore no drop). You get the harness and acid and I will
help you with the quest. These leggings now outfit Galane, Raljah, Aamadar,
and Hanorm (that I know of). Each race
has a distinct look as well on Aam and Galane they look
like biker pants on Hanorm they look like a fancy leather kilt with leggings
and on Raljah they look like pimp
pants lol.
Be well and safe all
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