Notes From Chardok

I'm really becoming a fan of this zone. Non-instanced, it presents several interesting challenges to a group. It's even pretty interesting if you're teaming up with another group which is what happened to us Saturday night. Five of us from Shards of Glory ended up leapfrogging (in a good way) with a group from Oathsworn. Bear in mind that none of is has a speck of T8 raid gear. We aren't a raiding guild.

Which made the trip to the back of the zone go that much quicker. Even at two group, the zone will punish groups that lose control of an encounter very quickly. We wiped once when we got the assassins dropping on our heads. Actually, most of my group wiped to a combination of assassins and wanderers, thinking that the other group had occupied them and we could leapfrog. I was blinking or something and I missed it, they were all dead. Well, says I, I have a rez token, I'll try to rez the Fury. Note to self: Assassins have no respawn delay, they can one shot me, there are two of them and they aren't linked, so they can't be mezzed in one casting.

Well, so back to the beginning of the zone we go. Things go better the second time around and we get deep into the zone. I got flattened a few times by AE's, but we win those encounters and stay in the game.

We get across the bridge, and past the massed battle scene. We decide to try to advance Milia, our templars, epic. We manage to quickly collect the books needed to activate the librarian and give us access to the library, where she needs to heal someone. We push on, and catch up to the Oathsworn group which appears to not have grabbed any books. They are interested in going to the library, however, and follow along when we activate the librarian.

What followed was a confused mess. The Oathsworn group pulled from the main library chamber, and some books that showed as non-aggro came with the mobs. Worse, their encounter auto-locked, so we couldn't help them. We then made the error of trying to push through that chamber, engaging more mobs in a side passage. The Oathsworn group wiped first, then all their mobs came to us, and we wound up chewing on floor.

No rez was possible, so we went ALL THE WAY BACK to the beginning of the zone. This morning I saw this item in the notes for the next Live Update, which is on Test now:

Sebilis/Chardok

* New mid-zone respawn locations have been added to Chardok and Sebilis.

That's just mean.

Ok, deep breath. I need to kill the queen, loot a key, and open a chest to get the last mask I need to finish my epic. And we'd like to give the library another shot.

The good news is that we can use the post and sneak to the blue gate. However, a short ways past that we run into a nasty named that wipes the entire group with a critical hit on his cold-based AE. Ouch.

The next time we try him we put on a bunch of cold resist buffs and he doesn't crit, so he dies quickly. Ok, back to book gathering. We can't seem to get a volume I, volumes II and III are found in quantity. Hmmm. So we decide to go on to get the stuff I need for my epic and see if we can't help the Oathsworn bruiser that by now has raided up with us, along with two others from that group, the rest having called it a night.

It goes pretty darn well. We get to the Queens chamber and pause to recall the last time we had made it there, and our tank fell through the world. He had no choice but to revive, back to the beginning of the zone! We were out of time, so we called it a day, within 100 meters or so of the queen and my epic.

This time we had a conjuror, so falling through the world wouldn't stop us. So naturally, it didn't happen. The queen was pulled and killed easily. In addition to my key, she dropped a warg mount, and a piece of leather healer gear. (Can I just ssy that as a person with a bruiser alt, I'm really getting tired of leather armor with +WIS).

The bruiser now needs to go to the same room as me, we go in, I find the chest I click. The thermometer fills up. No message. I do it again, and once more. Then I think to look in my inventory. The mask is in there, smiling at me. A message about "You've found a mask made of halfling skin" would have been nice, but no harm done.

We try again for volume I, but no luck. However, the bruiser really wants to try to go back the library. I think he thinks the books won't be needed. Some folks are like that. You know, the ones that just have to take a swing at Nagafen when they are down in Sol Eye to talk to him. However, we get maybe 20 feet before we all wipe from a bad pull.

We call it a night, and I go turn in my Epic. I take a look at it, and the first thought that comes into my mind is, "Geez, it doesn't even have any +subjugation"

Guess what else I found in the LU 47 test notes:

Mirage Star (Illusionist)

* Now gives a subjugation bonus.

***

If you get the impression that I like dying, it's not really true. However, I like a zone that can be managed well when everything is working, but also is swift to show you your mistakes. And I like running in such zones with people I like. I don't think the caliber of PUGs is as good in EQ2 as Tipa describes in EQ, but you won't find too many zergers deep in Chardok, either.