The Elder set out last night for a quick jaunt through Hellfire Ramparts - by all reports a jolly ramble through some piddling orcs before facing a couple of vaguely troubling bosses.

How wrong we were.

Not having played as a group since dominating ST, you could see the rust peeling off as we begun. Stroeb in particular had a lot of trouble, going down several times through negligent health watching and shocking sap attempts. Being 59 in a bunch of 63’s appeared to be a problem, and the Rampart residents sensed her coming a mile away.

Nevertheless we soon established a pretty good rhythm, and advanced through the foes without too much difficulty. Having said that, we did wipe on what should have been a nothing mob, and again when we pulled a few too many dogs. But that was all part of reestablishing our combo. And as was wisely observed, we were only wiping on mobs - the bosses so far hadn’t caused us any problems, due to excellent preparation and research by Fugg & Blackheathen.

Famous last words.

We reached the second last boss, which sounded challenging but achievable. Swooping the skies above us were Nazan and his rider Vazruden, our targets. We first had to simultaneously take down their centuries, who with their dying gasps summoned y to the ground to face us. As he alighted, Nazan started dropping firebombs on us, which meant we had to keep moving to stop from being burned. Things progressed well - Vazruden’s health dropped rapidly under our sustained DPS, while Neit kept Blackie up.

When Vaz realised his time had come, he summoned his steed to finish the fight. And here was where it all went haywire. Nazan has an incredible breath weapon, the Cone of Fire, which annhiliates all in it’s path - 1500 damage in a single hit. He also had a disturbing and unwavering interest in our healer as soon as he landed. So we fought - hard, and long. It went relatively well - relative to all our following attempts that is. We wiped, but we did get him down to less than half health.

Midnight’s first Nemesis

So we returned with confidence - quicker take down of Vazruden, faster attention from our main tank Blackie on Nazan, Neit focussing on Blackie alone, and Fugg, Stroeb and Pax DPSing like mad. Should work, right?

Stroeb got caught in the cone immediately, distracting Neit, causing Blackie to fall, followed in rapid succession by everyone else.

Back we went. This time Nazan’s got to Neit’s before any of us could land a blow, and again down we went.

Return, rinse, repeat. Many times.

Eventually we decided to give ourselves a break and finish off Omor, the other boss. Piece of pie. Hardly any comment - everyone’s mind was on the fight to come.

Wipe.

Wipe.

We had one fight where Neit did a heroic job keeping Fugg up when the rest of us had gone down. As we watched, Nazan’s health fell and fell whilst Neit and Fugg fought and fought. He was approaching 15% when Neit was caught in the Cone. Fugg fought the beast all the way down to 3%…

Wipe.

Regroup, repair armour, spend 40g on Greater Fire Protection Potions, buffs up, cooldowns up.

Wipe.

Wipe.

One last try. It’s approaching 1AM. We can do this.

Wipe.

Aaaaaaarrrggghhh! Exhausted, demoralised, damaged, we retreated to Hellfire Peninsula to lick our wounds. It was over…for now. This was an affront to Midnight’s Children, to the Horde, to our very survival.

Heed the words of Paxmortis, Guild Leader:

“Let us take them.
Let us use them,
Let us add to them with ice and steel.
Let this creature feel the Wrath of blackest Midnight born,
Let it taste its final breath and mar this land no longer.
Let us fat the region’s kites with the beast’s offal.

Midnight Children do not believe in rank or status. As such their guild leader has never issued an order. But I do now.

This Dragon must die. All the forces of this Mighty Guild will be bent to this end. No sacrifice is too much, no labour too strenuous. One Horde. One Guild. One Victory. “

…

Midnight’s Children have extracted their retribution on the wyrm.

We worked our way back to him, calmly dispatching his minions, with a single goal in mind. Before the final engagement, we buffed, fed, and prepared - tactics, positions, timing. Everyone was nervous - actual nerves, not just excitement.

Enter the dragon

And it all went like clockwork.

Our Tank and melee DPS’ers engaged Vazruden when he landed, Paxmortis and his water minion sprayed Nazan with ranged DPS, and Neitzsche did a stunning job keeping Blackheathen alive whilst flame raged all around.

By the time he landed Nazan was down to 80% health, which was all the headstart we needed. We gave him everything we had, popped all our buffs and potions, and stayed out of the way of the fire. And there was a magic moment when we all realised it…we had him.

Vengeance. And an attractive kilt!

---

Comments:

Blackheathen - Mar 12, 2008

Indeed, i was extremely nervous before hand. The consequences of failure were significant, loss of morale, confidence. Far greater than just the usual repair bill.

That was truely an amazing feeling when Nazan got to about 10%, I had plenty of health tahnks to Neits amazing work and being a bit more on the ball staying out of the flame. That kind of nervous realisation when you are about to grasp a long(ish) term goal set in, hit shield wall, last stand and Trinket just to seal the deal.

One Horde, One Guild, One Victory,

At least the 2nd time he dropped the tanking boots (Ironsole Clompers) that with some nice gems will alst me for a looong time.

---

…

Beastheart has completed another epic hunt - the stats tell the story. Take special note of the Allies killed section - Beast was 65 when he did this, and took down a 70! FtH!!

Beastheart cleanses his spirit beneath Thunderbluff before the Hunt

The beauty of Nagrand

The Dangers of Nagrand

The mighty Clefthoof

The Rundown

51 gold spent in preparation on ammunition, pet feed, drink, food, bandages,
mana potions, healing potions and repairs.

8.5 hours spent hunting.

Arrows fired - 5186
Exp gained - 351122
Drink used - 49
Runecloth bandages - 7
Food used - 32
Healings pots used - 2
Mana pots used - 1
Deaths - 5 (4 to ganking)
Netherweave bandages used - 5

QUARRY:
Clefthoof - 36
Aged Clefthoof - 18
Clefthoof Bull -112
Voidspawn - 44
Air Elementals - 92
Earth Elementals - 45
Bull Elek - 1

Allies slain:
Human Warrior 70 - 1
Night Elf Druid 65 - 1

GREYS:
Aged Horn - 29
Brittle Horn - 9
Dirt Covered Fur - 34
Smooth Fur - 176
Elemental Fragments - 161
Elemental Shard - 10
Primordial Essence - 15
Primordial Core - 1
Crystalline Fragments - 47
Broken Longbow
Eroded Metal Bracers
Plate Shoulders - 2
Claymore
Leather Bracers
Stoppable Force
Plate Pants
Cloth Shoulders

Worth - 70g 89s 37c

TRADE GOODS:
Mote of Air - 38
Mote of Fire - 4
Mote of Shadow - 19
Mote of Earth - 24
Mote of Water - 18

Essence of Earth - 2
Essence of Air - 2

Knothide Leather Scraps - 240
Knothide Leather - 75
Heavy Clefthoof Leather - 86

Clefthoof Meat - 135
Oshu’gun Crystal Powder - 76

Netherweave - 56

Khorium lockbox

GREENS:
Blue Topaz Band of the Bandit
Feralfen Pants of Intellect
Daggerfen Bindings of Power
Blood Knight Gauntlets of Spirit
Mistyreed Pants of the Sorceror
Arachnid dagger of the Champion
Boulderfist Gloves of Strength
Moldavite Ring of Shadow Protection
Draconic Dagger of the Beast
Ancestral Hammer of the Elder
Slavehandler Cap of Stamina
Blood Knight Bracers of Nature Protection
Hauyne Ring of the Falcon
Feralfen Sandals of Arcane Protection

BLUE:
Band of Sorrow

GEMS:
Golden Draenite
Flame Spessarite

---

Comments:

Blackheathen - Mar 13, 2008

Great stuff Beast. Blacky only dreams of being able to grind like that. No doubt that would have taken me at least 3 times as long and needed about 50+ Heavy NW bandages + multiple healing pots etc. Prot FTL

Remember that huge Gronn and son of Gruul, Durn the Hungerer be his name, for soon enough he will become our prey.

THat Alli warrior sure must have been a nub to be taken down by a lvl 65 huntard lol. That is pretty awesome work beast.

---

christian - Mar 14, 2008

Talking about good takedowns - I want the full story behind Neit taking down a (naked!?) Human 70 Warrior!

---

…

The second wing of Hellfire Citadel awaited The Elder on Thursday night. With the taste of vengeance fresh on our lips, the Blood Furnace residents stood little chance.

Incoming

Having said that, we did a good job of pulling every orc in the very first room, but somehow managed to stay up, largely thanks to Neitzsche - who had a sterling night and did plenty of emergency heals throughout.

The Maker awaits his…makers

An epic battle with Broggok, a huge floating beholder, was the highlight, where we first had to take down wave after wave of angry orc elites, culminating in a moment of respite when we sheeped the final orc to ready for Broggok. Who didn’t last long.

You almost feel sorry for it…

…but not for it.

It was a pretty smooth run, no wipes (Warmastery approaches), and we had an epic final few moments. Just as we finished off the second last boss, we suddenly got the server flash: Restart in 15 minutes. Panic! We flew through the last stages of the instance, watching the clock count down.

As we approached Keli’dan, there was about 1 minute to go. No time to prepare, so we gave it all we had and managed to finish him off with literally 8 seconds left on the restart clock. Victory!

…

We have a number of Guildsters - and one Guild contractor - approaching the magic number…any bets on who will ding first?

Blackheathen - 65
Beastheart - 66
Fugg - 66
Neitzsche - 64
Paxmortis - 63
Stroeb - 61

Even Rahjin (53) is an outside chance if he resigns from the rest of life…and everyone else quits!

---

Comments:

Blackheathen - Mar 19, 2008

Hmmm, very tough call. Fugg and Beast do seem to have a clear advantage at this stage being pretty much a Full lvl ahead of Blacky with Neit and Pax not very far behind. That said Blacky has pretty much been gathering non stop over the last week so you can bet that once that mount money is in the bank the xp will start to fly.

Fugg does have the problem of having to go back to Silent in order to mine and get mount money ready.

Beast obviously has the disadvantage of lvling Pax and Storm (and Dawn of course)but has the huge advantage of not having a real job :P. Also much easier farming/questing with mage/hunter. Prot warrior not the best solo class lol.

Neit has been a bit of a dark horse lately being first to lvl 63.

Poor Stroeb has a little catching up to do but we have all seen that happen before so still in with a chance. Maybe minor int would have been a better enchant for Stroebs sword after all hey Pax?

Maybe it will all come down to my little Rosie’s sleeping patterns lol.

One thing you can count on is that there will be plenty of late late nights as we edge ever closer.

Then the rep grind/gearing begins.

---

…

The Elder’s adventures in Outland continued with a foray into The Slave Pens, a subterranean outpost of the Naga.

Neit scoring 7.6

Once again we progressed well until coming up against the giant crustacean Rokmar the Crackler. This guy packed a massive punch in the form of Grevious Wound, a bleed debuff that hits for 900 per 2 seconds until cured - no time out! Hence we had no choice but for Neit to focus 100% on Blackheathen, whilst we DPSers did our best to stay alive - not easy with a AoE Water Spit that killed Stroeb and Fugg time and again.

Every skelton tells a story

However unlike our last Nemesis, we definitely improved each time we approached the crab. Neit had resigned himself to respeccing Holy, and even resorted to the old skoool ‘prayer’ method before our last attempt…

Neit prays before our next attempt

…which worked!

Praise be to…

---

Comments:

Blackheathen - Apr 3, 2008

THe problem with that bleed debuff was that the only way it could be “cured” was to heal to full health. Very tricky at the time.

At least we prevailed in the end, last boss was pushover compared to Rockmar, especially with stroeb shouting obsenities as her gear was too damaged to be of any good lol.

---

…

After another long hiatus, the Brood got back into action with a sweep through Blackfathom Deep. And it was a sweep - we took in the broom and dominated everything in our path. We had hoped this would be a test, but the group is functioning pretty sweetly, so it was a cake walk in the end. Alas, despite appeals from the rest of the Broodsters to Guild Master Paxmortis, he declined to award Warmaster on the groups of being overpowered - will it ever ding!? Denmother is still just one clear instance from getting it…maybe RFK will be the decider.

Not much to report - some good loot was scored along the way, Xantir in particular leaving armed with Strike of the Hydra and clad in a suit of Tortise Armour.

…

The Elder got busy in the Underbog, the last of the Coilfang challenges for the time being. Like the Brood earlier in the week, the group was in the groove from the word go. Mobs were taken down with precision and lethal timing, with only one very early and very unnecessary wipe early in the piece. Once we had that out of our systems, it was smooth sailing.

Hungarfen

Fugg & Blackheathen had done their research, so we knew what was coming and how to react. Particularly useful when faced with someone like Hungarfen, who’s AoE poison cloud is nasty one to get caught in.

Ghaz’an

This was a fun instance, and it was good to feel on top of the encounters, after a few shakey weeks with bad bosses. One of the major changes with Neitzsche has respecced Holy, which made a big difference to his ability to keep everyone standing. Note the lightwell setup before our final encounter for the night - ftw!

The Black Stalker

Not much loot on the night - the Elder seem to be getting unlucky with the drops of late. The best was a set of Needle Shrikes for Stroeb.

---

Comments:

Blackheathen - Apr 3, 2008

We also mastered a new technique in the Underbog. Sheep bashing FTW. I reckon if Polymorph did some damage then Pax would have quadrupled his output on that run. Maybe next time we will try to fight things away from the sheep lol.

And yes, loot was terrible, all Druid or Pally gear from memory although I think Neit did pick up a nice had to cover that bald head of his.

---

…

Our fearless leader, Paxmortis, decided enough was enough and wrenched the mantle of command from Fugg and Blackheathen last Thursday, leading the Elder through the spell drenched Mana-Tombs.

Mana flows

This all came about because, as most have realised, Paxmortis now has a mic, much to the horrordelight of all who roll with him. His running commentary was a revelation, and kept everyone well focussed for the night. Pax introduced some nice new features to the run. The best was the ingenious use of smoke flares to set pull and ranged positions in the kill zones. Certainly helped for positioning, and led to a more structured setup.

Pandemonius

Unfortunately for Pax’s Warmaster ambitions, we had a few wipes on trash as usual. But we managed to take care of the Bosses pretty smoothly, wiping only once on Pandemonius, and not at all on Tavarok. Blackheathen also starred, taking on Mana Leeches all on his lonesome, whilst Fugg and Stroeb cheered from the sidelines. Fugg’s classic “can I get a heal” after one particularly nasty Leech encounter left Blacky with 51HP was perfect.

Tavarok

Stroeb got her first taste of being a sheep thanks to some mob casters, Fugg spent an entire fight trying to control his Tonk Tank instead of his axe (leaving Pax to threaten to replace all Fugg’s enchants with Intellect buffs to make him the smarted warrior around), and perhaps the highlight was Pax’s calm assurance that “We’re ok, he’s down…” whilst we were being cut to pieces by an add he hadn’t seen.

The final Boss, Nexus-Prince Shaffar, proved a real challenge. His three companion Ethereal Beacon’s caused all sorts of problems as we needed to take them down before they summoned Apprentices, who packed a nasty Fireball punch. Blackheathen did a masterful job tanking the Prince himself, and Neit more than kept him up. But the DPS brigade kept getting overwhelmed by the summoned nasties. We tried various tactics - concentrate on one, take one each, pull them away from each other - before a final attempt led to an epic victory. Pax’s voice control directed the DPS traffic, which allowed Fugg and Stroeb to alternate between the Beacon’s and the Prince. Neit and Blacky meanwhile kept the Prince busy, and we steadily wore him down - and we steadily went down too. First Stroeb (as usual!), then Pax, then Fugg, and Neit.

In the end only Blackheathen was left standing when the Prince finally died, and even he went down thanks to some leftover trash. But the boss was down, and it was a sweet win.

Once again no loot to speak of (other than loads of dull +intellect gear, as befits the mana rich atmosphere), and we failed on the escort quest on the way out that would have given Blackheathen a nice pair of tanking boots. Maybe next time!

…

I’d studied the form guides, listened to wiser fishers than I will ever be, lined my trusty FC-5000, baited up, and re-consulted The Bass And You. It was time. The Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza awaited!

For those unfamiliar, the SFE is a true test of an angler’s skill, and the rewards are great - from the legendary Arcanite Fishing Pole to the Hook of the Master Angler. Held along Stranglethorn coast, it attracts all comers searching to perfect their art, and catch a couple of stacks of rare Tastyfish.

I started in Grom’grol, and immediately joined the swarms of anglers with poles being tuned and tactics discussed. Ally gankers were having a field day before the competition started, taking down innocent twinks with glee. This didn’t bode well for the competition itself - how can you fish when you’re being one-shotted?

But, interestingly and perhaps surprisingly, once the fishing begun, the ganking stopped. Once again our humble pastime achieved what nothing else could, with Horde and Alliance monentarily declaring a truce…to fish.

I started well, finding and emptying a couple of pools all to myself. The Tastyfish squirmed in my bag and the rod twitched in my hand, as fish after fish was landed.

Pirates fish too

Before long though, the traffic started to appear. And so did the dubious tactics - this fellow was leaping about in the water, diverting attention and making it very hard to reel my bobber in when it jumped.

Side by side in perfect harmony

I had racked up about 17 fish when the competition ended - alas! But I could sense something else was out there, and fished on for a few more pools. There was something beckoning, something Nat Pagle had taught me about. Using a special Mormyshka lure, crafted from the finest materials, I landed the elusive Keefer’s Angelfish.

So rare are these fish that the Fishbot 5000 in Booty Bay swapped it for something magical…

Lucky!

Nice hat

The SFE was a great experience, and there’s plenty more rewards for those that are attuned. Perhaps some fellow Guildster’s will join me next time - a competition within the competition!

…