[smee] Re: SMEE Sunday Sunday Sunday!
- From: Victor Putz <vputz@xxxxxxx>
- To: smee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 07:55:41 -0600
On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 01:04:25AM -0600, Jo Carter wrote:
> Well, the SMEE session we had today turned into a bit more than we'd
> bargained for. Instead of the usual 4 - 5 hour stint we expected,
> poking around Crypt of Nadox in search of Fecund Flesh for one of my
> quests, we ended up playing for 9.5 hours (until 6:30 pm our time) in a
> mini-raid against the Luggald Broodmother.
And my brain STILL hurts. 9 hours of fairly constant pulling and twisting
gets to ya after a while! Not to mention that I was sorta the de facto
leader of that gaggle (grin)... I thought I was just gonna be directing a
1-group SMEE, not a 2-group raid! Tons of fun, though.
> Tigerchi, and (briefly) Polarstorm and Quigonn at least. But Razzak
> died after he lost invis, and Flue died soon after.
Next time I offer to invis-escort a cleric anywhere, SOMEONE remind
me--cleric stays on run, I stay on walk. I think that would help them
stay in range immensely.
> Now, Flue and I had read up on the Broodmother. We knew that she'd
> spawn and "walk around the room" while spawning little broodlings, and
> that we wouldn't be able to target her until she was done spawning.
> What we didn't realize was that she didn't walk around the room she
> spawned in -- she walked out of that room, down the long hallway (with
> repops starting) to the incubator room and there do her spawning
> walkabout.
And this is an amazing thing, because her path is FULL of luggalds; I
really had not realized this. If people want to run that quest again,
basically look at the map--she comes out of the room at the far west and
follows a left-hand rule to hit both "alcove" rooms to the north. She
pauses at each entrance and I think in both "alcove" rooms. The mobs she
passes do not automatically aggro, and this is key--you don't have to
follow the broodmother and kill everything she passes; I think you can
wait in the main room for her to come out of the alcove rooms, for
example.
The most interesting pause for me was at the north exit, because she
stopped in front of the exit but her escorts fanned out in formation on
either side of her (Archseekers on the left, Protectors of the Broodmother
on the right)... quite a few of them.
> Flue followed her out, watching with some amazement, while
> the rest of us stayed near her spawn spot and dealt with repops.
> Despite a clever plan involving Highsun, Flue wasn't able to bring her
> back to us, and he died.
Two notes on this: 1) When you have a stack of about 10 mobs hitting you
with /disc deftdance on, the spam is tremendous; I had to look back after
dying to see why highsun (the "gate the mob to its spawn point" song)
wasn't working. 2) She is immune to stun, which made her immune to
highsun. Blast. It was a good plan.
Looking back, I see that some folks have gotten the broodmother by
aggroing her once she's targetable and then training her all the way to
the torg mines zone. Interesting idea. I think you could also get pretty
far with some serious AOE lull so that adds didn't aggro.
> Flue repeatedly discovered that
> Fading Memories is his favorite AA of all.
OH WOW. I only wish I had enough mana to do it twice quickly if
necessary. During our first (and only real total) wipe, when I saw
everyone falling around me, after the mobs turned on me as the last
survivor it was something like "Bam! Bam! BambambambambamFADE..." and
then silence as the mobs walked away and I could drag. Also faded during
battle with some aggro and stopped my attacks at about 2 percent health.
Of course, I didn't press it fast enough when broodmother+10 were crushing
me, but you can't have everything.
> F-something (wizzy)
Farnie, I believe
> V-something (funny necro)
Virun, pretty sure. Seemed a good lad. He got the "hate forged
pauldrons" that dropped.
> For FAers here, please visit the FA website and put in a plug for the
> three folks that helped us that would like to join FA -- Razzak (is that
> really the right name?), F-something (Swayze, help me out here), and
> Eskamo (ah, one that's easy to remember).
As Jo noted, Razz was fantastic throughout. Farnie was OK, but could use
a bit of temperance (seemed like he got aggro a bit much and didn't ration
his mana particularly well, but a good lad nonetheless). Eska did great,
but I wish I had been more clear on what the MA/SA were supposed to do.
Bralvenea as MA kept switching targets and the fights got split fairly
often; Eska as SA did a good job of taunting adds off casters but wouldn't
stop attacking for mez. Ah well. I would rather see the MA pick a target
and STICK WITH IT, or if there's a real need to switch, loudly announce
the switch rather than doing it silently... SA (for me) should tank adds
and be ready to take over MA job should the MA fall.
(on a small raid with few tanks, of course; if you have enough, MA and SA
should probably focus on the same mobs and leave a third tank or two for
adds).
> I move we make Jo the official SMEE historian...
Heh...
Overall, a very good miniraid experience though, even if it lasted too
long. I sure wish we had understood how the broodmother event worked;
looking back on Allakhazam I can see that they described it correctly, I
just got the wrong idea from reading it. It is actually a pretty tough
little event! And the drops are not all that great, to be honest... but
it's the principle of the thing (grin).
FOR NEXT WEEK:
Hopefully we'll have a proper smee with Bear, Tugg/Savor, and Ent back.
I'm getting awfully fond of LOY, and there are two zones we haven't even
looked at (Torgiran Mines and Hate's Fury). Both sound pretty good and
interesting, and there are still some areas of Nadox we haven't seen
(undead troll area and a bit more), and some folks still need some LOY
spell components. So those are possibles.
So is Veksar. I don't have a paper map, but I do have an in-game map
(unlabeled of course)--so we could do some exploration.
Or, if everyone's back, we can have an easy day of it and sanitize Tower
of Frozen Shadow for old times' sake (grin).
In any case, we have some quests to follow up on:
First thing, no matter what we do, is I'd like to open with Rhys's
Bonebite quest; this is a small but interesting battle in Tox Forest which
will get her a 13/23 piercer, +1 bane damage luggald. Won't take long and
it'll be good to be done (she can get 3 more fecund fleshes and do the
evil-side quest for a similar weapon, too).
Gildarr has a turn-in for his LOY spell, although I think it's just a
turn-in (ie no real need for smee support).
Savor has one turn-in (temperance?) and pretty much all parts of Pure
Blood.
Flue has the old Scout Charisa/Bracer of Benevolence quest... I seem to be
in the middle of a ton of tiny little quests, some of which may be useful
(if they lead to flagging, I will get a group of smee together for the
final turn-in).
Anyway, as always if folks have anything they'd like to do for next time,
let's get the word out quickly so we can do some planning...
-->VPutz
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