Campaign Union

Well, the recent addition of Unions seemed to be the death of LFG in the 60′s while Campaigning…  It was useless going on my 61/62 SAM when the throng of 75s would decimate the zone ending the battle in minutes leaving me with200-300 XP.

So, figuring that since I had recently switch alliance from Windy [S] to Sand d’Oria [S] for some  Splitting Heirs action, I decided to break out my PLD gear and work on my last two rank-ups and get me some Allied Notes for an Iron Ram Hauberk (was sitting on around 70k after getting the Hose and Greaves).

Was quite enjoyable getting back into the Paladin groove for a bit and re-working my macros between battles.  The most notable fight had to be my last one for the evening yesterday.  After the complete lagfests for the past week, including a 120+ person fight in Xarc where we still were unable to take down any NMs, I was surprised at how empty The Eldieme Necropolis was on Sunday. A veritable ghost town (>.>)…

For the majority of the run, Tram and I were the only two there vs. the Clan Longtooth Pillagers.  After a while a 61RDM and then a 62DNC showed.  Then some others would trickle in over the course of the battle. I basically had to run around trying to see where any mobs were until they would race up and then swarm me.  Occasionally, I was able to pick out one mob from the herd and run him to the side of a room to whittle him down.  Fighting in the hallways was unsafe as after a few minutes some mobs would cruise past stopping only long enough to stomp me.

For one fight, Tram was able to avoid getting aggro from Battlemaster Vatgit while he thoroughly destroyed me.  Unfortunately, Tram still had the Orc we were fighting to contend with and was weakened. Tram would Repose him in the SE  corner of the room and then run across to the NE corner to Stoneskin/Blink/Cure.  He was able to keep it up until I became unweak, but I was knocked back to the ground by another Oracish drive-by.  So Tram kept it up for the entire time it took me to unweaken for the second time.  Towards the end it was starting to resist Repose and I would start flashing the mob whenever I could just to try and have a chance to take it off him once ready.  Once I was ready for action again, it was not too hard to keep it away from Tram while he tried to rest back some MP (it did run over to slap him a few times).  The whole time, there were two or three people fighting their own prey on the other side of the room, only to come and join us when the mob was almost dead, luckily Tram was able to get up enough MP for Holy so they could not nab the killshot.

After a rest to full, we went to the Western room to find Vatgit and his friends engaged with Febrenard C Brunnaut.  About three more people showed and with letting the NPC tank we were able to get him down to about 4% when the battle ended.  4.5K XP for Thor and almost 3K for Tram not too bad.  That is when the real fun began.

It seems that no one else had joined the Thor-Tram union and opening the chest was up to me. I had the hardest time trying to get back to the Union chests with the doors closing.  I would think I had things set and open Levi gate only to run back to the door and have it still closed.   When re-sneaking to get past a group of skeles, I miss timed on my canceling and did not notice that Monomi: Ichi had no effect.  I found out pretty quick when I aggroed.  So, I slapped on my fast pants and figured I would try to outrun them a bit.  I turned to Tram’s screen to make sure I could leave him in a safe place for a few and when I looked back at Thor I had landed my noob-ness in the basement.   Invincible->Rampart->Run like the wind to find a safe place to die.  Unfortunately, the mass of Sleep and Stuns that came at me did not allow me to go far.

So, I let the carcass lie while Tram started to find his way.  Mistakes #2 and #3 were just about the same.  Sight aggro from a bomb while opening another gate… Repose takes care of that!  then sneak and run to the door only to blood-aggro the hound >.< so I slept him too.  Then, the @#$@# door was closed again.  I just could NOT win.  So Tram eats dirt and reraises.  Time was up and the chests were gone.

I think I really would have been disappointed had we actually KO’d Vatgit.

Tags: Campaign, PLD, SAM, Union