Raid Run Report - the taste of failure

[RandomKeypress]

kk - formed up a 'flowersniffing' normal Master Artificier raid. All level 20s, with decent gear. My rogue was one of the lowest HP people there with only 407 HP (unbuffed). Two healers, two arcane, two artis, bard, the rest melee of various flavours.

Went through the manufactury fairly smoothly - it seemed balanced a lot like the sub - nothing too tough, but we did have to pause here and there to kill trash. Waited at the entrance to the MA raid until it opened and headed in. Our sorc was a zerger, which is annoying in a flower-sniffing party, and it caused a few problems. A small group got locked in a large room with a couple of titans and magefire cannon, so we let them sort that out and explored the rest of the area.

Pulled some switches and managed to get into the area with the big spinning crystal. We could not progress any further. Spent about half an hour in there or a bit longer, but it was boring pulling levers in different orders trying to get the barrier down. It looked like pulling the three levers on the north and south walls would unlock the two levers facing the crystal, but that didn't work. Pulling in odd sequences didn't do anything (colours in the rainbow, opposites, random, one side only, all six at once, etc.). Got bored. Exitted out, went to the LoB area.
The upgrade altars looked interesting, but didn't do any preparatory crafting, so couldn't try any of the upgrades.

LoB pre-raid wilderness was fine - nice area, some tough named (a couple of deaths - healing people when you can't see their health bar is hard). No special loot, no puzzle that stops progress.
LoB area. Got the scenic platform tour of the LoB fight area - nice, but could be speeded up a little, or have something to show for it. LoB looks really cool.
No-one had the intim or bluff for the WF extras - no idea what they do. We just killed them in the end.
LoB fight was very tough. Healers couldn't keep the tank up with the trash and dead tank = rampaging LoB. Hit my poor rogue with a stun and 480 odd points of damage, which was painful (and fatal). The trash took forever to take down but then we could focus on LoB. Recovered, got everyone back up, but the tanks had too many death penalties and LoB was still at about 90%. We decided to DD, repair all the damage we took from the LoB and the other raid etc. and then try again.

Some people left to be replaced by new (got a light monk for LoB stun), the raids got locked out, we got stuck in a load screen and I decided to call it quits.

General Observations:
Raids kill magefire cannons, not converting them.

Unless it's a guild run, I doubt anyone will bother with the explorer in the two pre-raid areas - fun and interesting, but people aren't going to wait while you read notes from the LoB saying how the forge has made him wonderful.

The big spinning crystal puzzle is annoying. I'm sure there's a really clever solution, but not many people are going to get it. Everyone else is going to look up the spoilers on the forums or on the wiki. Fair enough, but when a puzzle only pleases it's creator and a slack handful of others, maybe it shouldn't be pitched at an MMO audience. At least not without an alternative route.

LoB looks like an interesting fight. Shouldn't be too hard if properly prepared - need to pull LoB to one side with a dedicated tank, stun relief and a healer or two while the other side takes out the trash.

Eh - that's a long enough report to say 'we failed'. See you all around - I'm going to look up the solution to that big crystal puzzle on the wiki.

[KookieKobold]

The Master Artificer preraid currently has an issue, i've posted a workaround for it in the following thread:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...53#post4008953

[Ovrad]

General Observations:
Raids kill magefire cannons, not converting them.

I was in your party mate, and like I said at the time, disabling the cannons did not convert them, or even stopped them. They simply continued to fire on us even though the trap box was opened.

Thanks for taking the time to make a full report.

[RandomKeypress]

I was in your party mate, and like I said at the time, disabling the cannons did not convert them, or even stopped them. They simply continued to fire on us even though the trap box was opened.

Thanks for taking the time to make a full report.

Good point - I forgot to bug report that. Thanks for the run - it was interesting, if a little frustrating.

[CHARNAME]

Yeah, it was fun even though we failed. Boosting up in the center of the platform might be the key to succeeding though.

It's a shame about the MA. I wanted to try that one more than LoB. Oh well, I hope a party will form up tomorrow.