Originally Posted by
Vish
A tale of two raids
Omg what a day
So last nite I was 29, pushing to 30
Did r1 mines, then hopped group to do some memoirs and grim r4. Then they wanted to do a wpm, but I already did it earlier, on like r3 for first time, so I bailed. Then a r4 rage came up, but I hadn't done the first one, I thought I had done it in heroics, but no. And the leader didn't want to run the first again because he already had. So then I saw a r1 shroud come up. Got to Meridia and no one was there. That's when I realized it was a Strahd misspelling, so I went to first tavern. I had flagged in heroics, so I was good to go. This was being hosted by the roving guns, I sometimes run with them, and they were being led by a first life bard, but I think it was their guild leader. I have confidence in the guns, they a good bunch of players, and leader was using voice.
So we get into quest, rahadin and hates go down pretty easy. The hates cast a curse on you that lowers your hp, and I had my curse dispel with fists of light going on, and I was cycling it, but it didn't seem to work. So I got killed in the first fight. Sigh. But they cleared the room, and carried my soulstone. Then we got to the stairs. This turned out to be a challenge, we were halfway up when we got hit from behind, and lost like half the group. Leader said regroup at the bottom, and we did, and they drug the hates down there and we killed them. Then we worked our way back up. Got to the crystal, I got gripped along the way, so second death. I always have the luck of getting gripped. Never seems to fail. So then we rezzed and went into the crystal. I was doing fine, but was trying to dodge circles, and I guess I got killed. Not sure how that one happened. But I think I was the only death. So they carried me back, and we shrines, and I got back my death penalties. So now the real challenge, the card room. As usual we took up columns and opened when it was time. I found a card on b row. But ppl started dying, and we found all the cards, and they called out mine, but I had gotten swarmed by skulls and got killed. However, they were quick to recover, and got ppl up, and by the hair got all the cards in order. So that happened pretty good. So then we went to Strahd. It was a first time kill fight, I stuck on Strahd, they had very good aggro management. They had a tank for Strahd and a tank for the brides. They were very well separated. So we prepped the brides, and took down Strahd, and finished the quest. It went pretty smoothly overall. I got lucky and pulled sanctity. I offered it up, but there was only one taker. Llint, a player who only plays barbarian, and is known for his llint no do puzzles, got the sword. I was happy to pass it to him, so now he has a raid thf. You're welcome llint! So overall the raid was a relatively easy success, and I thank the roving guns.
So that got me to within a sliver of 30, and I realized I hadn't taken my heroic saga reward from ravenloft. So I grabbed that and capped out. Put on the trinket and goggles, and put last 2 points I had saved into grim, for the mdb and cap.
So then this morning I was going to do stats, but a raid came up. LH baba and Strahd. So I figured I give it a shot. Baba is always easy enough, but I'm always leary of Strahd pug groups. So we have a few of the knights running it, and some players i wasn't too familiar with. But baba is pretty easy, mostly a dps test. So it goes pretty smoothly, I helped dps totems and saved the frogs for the scarecrows. We had a couple fvs and a cleric, but the fvs on my side wasn't frogging totems so we just dps them. The puzzles went smoothly, had dedicated puzzle solvers, and got through just fine. Dps baba down and did it again. On the second run there were no wisps. This is second time now I've seen that, not sure if it's bugged or not, but made it pretty easy. Again though the puzzles, we were taking turns frogging. I have enough for like 10 casts? And you have wait the timer cool down. But it went well, and we were out to baba again. As it happens I get hut aggro right off the bat and have to kite around. Monks are fast, and I got sprint boost too, so no problem. We take out the wisps, take out the scarecrows, and just dps baba. Usually you take out the mounds too, but somebody was kiting them, and we just dps real hard and got her. So smooth run of baba. I didn't get any loot.
So then we moved onto Strahd. Had a few drops and a few pick ups, but I thought we had a decent party. But leader wasn't using voice, so I had my concerns. Usually the knights are talkers, but we were running silent mode. Just commands in the type. Also had a couple Chinese players with us. So we get in and get buffed and goto rahadin. Get him in the corner, take him down, and take down the hates. This time my curse fists were working. So I cycled that as we fought. Then we cleared the room and went for the stairs. Had a couple trappers, and they were leapfrogging. I am always dps. So I take the lead sometimes and take out the skulls or the skeles, and the hates. So we work our way up to the top pretty good. Had a few deaths but we kept everybody. So then it was crystal time. This time I did better and was able to dps and take everything out, but we lost like half the group. That's was an omen. So then we get the sunsword and go and use the shrine, and then prep positions for the card room. Seemed everybody knew what was going on. I took c column. Well as usual it's go time and we opened doors and I found a card and reported it. Was hanging out waiting to pull it as the others were found, but ppl started dying. Then I got some aggro, I can kill the skulls pretty fast, but the hates I can't handle one on one. So I ran to the SE, but we had swarms and I got killed. Ya it's a ***** waiting a 2 min timer. So we had 3 of 5 cards pulled, but when pulled the fourth, it seemed to be wrong one. So we had to reset, and then more ppl started dying. We had all the locs of the cards, and a couple ppl were working them to get it finished, but ppl kept dying. So then we wiped. Well we waited it a bit and got ppl off timers, and then started to Rez in the SE. But we had greater gates around and I was at 5 deaths, so that lowers your hp quite a bit. And we wiped again. Couldn't keep the area clear. So we reset and I took a turn to jibber, and raised a couple ppl, but still was having problems with the respawns. So others were raising and we kept at it, and someone got the cards in order, and we finally succeeded, but it was pretty rough cost. Most of the healers were half hit points, and we had to wait over 5 min to get everyone off death timers. Usually the raid ends in the card room on a bad pug, but this was a tenacious group and we kept at it. So then it was time for Strahd. Kilolal on his fvs had the sunsword and was tanking Strahd, but we couldn't keep aggro on the brides, so it was kinda a cluster. A few ppl were dying. And we got the brides prepped, and we got Strahd down to a sliver, then killed him, but I guess one of the brides respawned and we had to do it again. So there were some dead ppl, and we were prepping strahd, and prepping the brides, and it took some time, and finally got to kill Strahd, and then kill the brides, but we got the sword in too late, and they respawned again. So third times the charm right? So we went at it again, ppl were dying, ppl were rezzing, I stayed alive and stayed out of the mists, and just kept on Strahd, since I'm mainly dps. I would aggro the brides, but ki shout is broken, and I'm probably best use as main dps. So we go at it a third time. With about 3/4 of the group up. So again we prep the brides prep Strahd, and kilo goes down. So the guy with sunsword goes down, and all you can do is kite until he gets raised. Everybody is out of mana, working on lower hp due to death penalties, and I'm out of action boosts. So kilo gets rezzed, and we go at for the third try. Kill Strahd, but somehow one of the brides was killed to early and respawns. So at this point we been in the quest like 2 hours, and I'm thinking of just quitting. Because you know if you got it or not. But leader says one more try. We get most of the people up, we get to work on Strahd, and someone, one of the monks, kites the brides around. But kilo goes down again, and I have strahds aggro, so I kite in circles waiting for Rezzes. Most of the ppl are up, and kilo Rezzes and we take our final turn at Strahd. The brides are prepped, we take down Strahd we take down the brides, the sunsword gets plunged into place, and we get a victory!
I guess forth time is the charm. Everybody is elated, for a monstrous undertaking, and testement to the tenacity of players to finish. It really was a team effort to make this happen. So then we goto chest. I didn't get any loot. But a calamity dropped for kilo, but he put it up for roll. I wanted it since I wanted to a khopesh build in the future, likely a ranger build. So there were a couple of us on it for the roll. Inezt rolled a 95. I typed in my random die generator, and omg, a 100! So I got lucky and got passed the calamity. That more than made up for the time it took.
So I want to thank the knights for hosting, it's always a pleasure to run with you guys and gals, and in the end you finish, and get the loot!