This weekend I finally finished my Shadow Knight epic weapon quest. I wasn’t planning on doing this quest but the opportunity to do Maiden’s Chamber came up.

I have been working on an alt lately, a Troubador, and have been stuck at lvl 74 for what seems forever. While questing in Kunzar Jungle a call came up from a guildie for a Crypt of Agony run. At level 74 the XP was pretty good, and after not screwing up at all I was asked to continue onto Maiden’s Chamber. The Discovery XP alone was awesome and I soon dinged 75. Drusella, the main boss, was too much for the group and I brought Warghoul in the tank the final encounter. I got the update for my epic weapon for killing the boss and quickly organized a Vaults run. Another update down. One named away from finishing, I convinced the group to come to Neriak with me to complete this quest that had taken me over 4 months to complete.

After a cool encounter with a giant Shadow Knight I found my sword under the bed of the Princess in the Royal Palace.

I quickly adorned “Sedition” with a 3% chance to block and I’ve been slicing though mobs ever since. To test the power of my newly acquired weapon I decided to progress on yet another epic line of quests to get the Fabled “Band of Thuuga”.

I put the Troubador on auto follow along with a Defiler and have powered through this quest. In 1 day I am on the last couple of steps from a really cool item for each of my toons. If there are any SKs out there that read this and have not got your epic weapon yet I urge you to make this a priority. Aggro issues have gone down tenfold. It’s really easy to get aggro control now on mobs and the DPS I’m putting out is unreal. I can only imagine what the fabled version of this can do.

Kind of makes me want to get back into raiding just to see how I parse.

To tell the truth it was quite hard leaving. We had unspent DKP, just wanted that one last piece of loot that would set us up, just wanted one more boss kill to finish a quest. It was like quitting a drug habit. The hardest part was the friends we left. After we left the raiding guild we went down into the alt guild. Everyone was still there most of the time but when raid time came everyone cleared out and there we were alone with nothing to do. At least that’s how it felt the first week. I believe that was our detox period. Can you tell I’ve been watching Celebrity Rehab?

My first order of business was to get my wife’s Defiler her epic. In one day we got pick up groups from guidies and whoever could help out. Mainly we duod most of the quest line, realizing the difference raid gear made in everyday questing, things came to us quite easy. We finished the majority of the quest and left Maiden’s Chamber to return to the next day. We logged in the next evening to find that a guild group was about to kill the last boss. After much eyelash batting on my wife’s part she was swapped in and easily got the quest update.

All that remained was the final psychedelic portion where we entered a dream world. This was the most unique instance I have so far done in EQ2. Basically it was a small instance based off the Shard of Fear, except everything was in a sick shade of yellow and swooped and swerved. Using 4 people in the group we easily defeated the encounter and we got the epic weapon, Dream Scorcher.

My second order of business is to get Warghoul’s Shadow Knight Epic. Yesterday I assembled a group and quickly dispatched Karnor’s Castle. Our group got some nice loot, Drolvarg Lore & Legend book, 2 got their level up to 76, and finished by completing the ring event to kill Xalgoz in the basement. I then dragged my group to Teren’s Grasp to kill a named and then convinced our group to head to The Shard of Fear. After quickly burning though the instance my guildies were called to raid and my wife and I logged out of the game to enjoy the rest of our evening out of game. I have 2 instances to complete and 1 named to kill in Neriak.

It seems leaving the raiding guild has been quite productive for us. I can totally see us leaving the alt guild due to the temptation to ask to come back into raiding. That coupled with the fact that the alt guild is quite lonely at times. Maybe I think it’s lonely because I wasn’t hearing people being berated in Ventrillo during a raid, or being the center of some server drama caused by over zealous guildmates. I can definatly say though that EQ2’s volume has been significantly turned down. We are also thinking checking out some different games. Age of Conan looks kind of cool. At least now I don’t feel I’m letting others down for not showing up to play.

I confess I am not as far as I should be. Should be? I mean up to date with the rest of my guild. My wife and I are well behind the curve with the rest of our guild. In fact I may be mistaken but we are the only 2 that don’t have them.

When they were initially released there was a mad push by most in our guild. Most times I logged in I was immediately asked to tank a heroic instance for one of my guildies to advance their progress. I always obliged and unfortunately neglected the progress of my own quest. My wife being a Defiler had an initially bugged quest that needed to be patched and then had to go into the deepest reaches of Seblis to get an update. It was tough going and it soured our desires to continue on the quest for sometime especially when a few steps included grinding faction in mind numbing repeating quests.

Lately our desire has returned to continue on slowly but surely. A very pleasant surprise was when we both got to a point when we needed an update in Chelsith. I knew nothing about this zone as my questing had never took me to this instance before. Chelsith is the lost underwater city of the Yah – Lei, a fish-man race. The whole zone radiates a green glow and stuff oozes and slimes everywhere. Almost all the architecture resembles some sort of genetalia and is prime for poopie jokes.

I have to say this is now my favorite instance to run. The design is just beautiful. It’s a tough zone, and you need a pretty competent group to get through it. With my patented “Bull in a china shop” method of tanking an Illusionist makes my life pretty sweet when I grow impatient and accidentally pull an extra mob.

I hope the screen shots I took do this zone justice.

This weekend I will continue on my quest for my Epic weapon. I have to hit Kanor’s Castle. I’m not really looking forward to it to tell the truth. It’s not one of my favorite zones. My “fondest” memory of it was when a innocent group of mere level 73-ishs decided to check it out for the first time. After about 23 wipes in the front foyer we decided to call it a night.

Our raid force assembled with astonishing speed, something that I have never witnessed before, and within 5 minutes we were approaching our target. Next thing we knew, a charmed Sathirian was charging toward the mob and stole it from under us.

24 stunned people followed Dominus to a set of ruins and displayed a locked icon above his name. Set in the ruins a lone Wizard and Coercer had the mob engaged in battle. Dominus was placed on one side of the ruined wall while the Wizard did AoE damage. The Coercer keeps the mob stunned and stifled to prevent Dominus from casting while charming lesser mobs in the area to beat on it. The Wizard was protected by line of sight by the wall from the epic mob’s nukes and the pathing script that the developers put into place rooted Dominus in place. Very slowly but surely the mobs strength was decreasing.

After 15 minutes into the battle the mob is was at 98% health.

In frustration guild members began to train mobs on to the Wizard while others put in petitions for exploiting and for disrupting the zone. I just sat in awe of how these 2 were taking down a mob meant for a full raid force.

I had all but figured the raid was lost and grew bored of the whole situation. That was until a GM popped into the scene. And then another GM. And then 2 more. I had never even seen a GM in game before and here were 4 of them.

Dominus was insta-killed and the Wizard and Coercer were frozen. After not too long the Wizard and Coercer duo went link dead and I later learned that they had received a 7 day ban for exploiting. I also learned that the 2 players were actually being played by the same person.

The GMs then reset the Dominus and we promptly killed it, getting mediocre loot.

This issue caused a lot of controversy on our server. If you actually want names and places it’s really easy to track down on EQ2Flames. As of writing this it’s up to 20 pages.

A number of arguments came to light.

My view on this matter is: It’s a contested mob. This is all fair. If the player that pulled this off did it by following the rules that Sony put in place, the more power to him. I do not think that this was worthy of a ban. Sure I was miffed that we got a mob pulled away from us by a group of 2, but that is the nature of contested mobs. How sweet would it have been if this guy had been camped for a week waiting for Dominus and we came along and pulled it from him.

Most in my guild thought justice was served that he got banned. They were vocal about it too. Too vocal in my opinion. They brought our guild into yet another drama on EQ2Flames and most on the server were in support of the banned player. The server channel was full of comments for almost 2 hours after the incident. I logged in the next morning and someone gave me the bird just because I had a guild tag over my name.

I totally support my guild and generally stick up for them but in this scenario the “Pirate” in me just loves the way we were owned. It’s part of the game. Contested = contest.

I wonder if the general population would have been on our side if the Wizard and Coercer were a known plat farmer? Do you think that attitudes would have been different if the duo were not from a highly respected uber guild? He is also the second most richest person in EQ2 worldwide. How is he better than the plat farmers who ninja loots or steals named mobs just to sell the drops for plat. Yes I realize he is not taking real money for the plat but he is taking away an opportunity for those that have never killed an epic mob before.

The player involved has also been involved in past exploiting, details in which I am not familiar with. Perhaps his ban was due to his past activity. My last question was why is he wasting his time on this mob designated for casual guilds? The guys and girls in his guild are routinely killing stuff I only dream of seeing. I know I wouldn’t be slumming in Kylong Plains if I had experienced the things he has experienced in the game.

Our raiding force decided to finally enter Venril Sathir’s Lair deep in Seblis. Feeling empowered after doing quite well in the Temple of Kor-Sha, beating everything except for The Overking, Selrach Di’Zok, Venril was a target that we were curious about and thought we would take a crack at. So there I was staring into Venril’s throne room watching Venril himself floating 3 feet off the ground with his arms folded glaring at our raid force.

“Just run up to him, Feign Death, and the encounter will reset so you can set up camp behind the boss and be in clicking position to the statues.”

I did exactly as instructed and there I was actually 2 feet away from Venril looking at 2 tiny statues tucked neatly behind an alter. “The statues will turn green at which point you need to click on them to disarm them. This will happen through the whole encounter so you have to be Mr. Johnny-on-the-spot.”

I moused over the statues for practice.

“Everybody in the raid MUST keep their power between 40% and 60% at all times, other wise Venril will cast a shit storm on the raid.” Basically, during this fight I would have no clue as to what the rest our raid was doing. I can only hear Ventrillo and the sounds of battle behind me. My focus was the statues and my power. I heard the call for the first pull. I put on my “Sprint” and watched my power begin to drain. All at once, both statues began to glow green and vibrate. Smokey fumes erupted from them like an old steam pipe ready to blow. I disarmed them.

“Warghoul! WTF! Your power is way below 40%!”

In my clicking haste I forgot to turn off my power draining Sprint. I turned it off and clicked my Manastone which didn’t do a whole lot so I clicked my Power Shard increasing my power a little past 40%.

“WTF! Adds! Warghoul! Did you disarm the statues?”

Apparently I had missed the statues changing green in my concern for keeping my power levels in check. The statues were farting noxious gas and convulsing, “Adds” spawned and systematically assaulted my guildmates. I watched the raid window as my comrades fell one by one and their screams of pain echoed behind me. I clicked the statues frantically as if my late disarming would take away the previous 10 seconds. I sheepishly apologized to my guildmates and stated that clicking statues isn’t as easy as it sounds.

After countless pulls and “Mendor Bots”, the raid was called leaving Venril victorious and our guild’s spirits in the shitter. Various reasons were had for the wipes but I can only take credit for the first one.

Warghoul has been my main since I started playing Everquest 2 just a few weeks after release. I am by no means a hardcore player but I have pretty much seen it all in this game. I was there when a death meant you had to collect your corpse and I was there when killing Darathar was actually a feat not many could do. About a year ago I joined a casual raiding guild which has allowed me to see end game content that not every casual player would see. We are currently raiding tier 8 content and progressing slowly but surely towards Veeshan’s Peak, currently in The Temple of Kor-Sha. In between I am having fun playing an alt that I will introduce at a later time and progressing towards getting my heroic epic weapon. It seems helping guildies get their epics has put me behind the curve of the rest of the guild but I am always happy to tank.

Being a Shadow Knight in Everquest 2 at the moment is bitter sweet. Raiding guilds do not go out of their way to recruit SKs or any other plate fighters other than Guardians, which has left the game a little short of level 80 tanks. I have been given the role within our raiding force of being DPS with the occasional task of stepping in to tank upon demand. This has forced me to carry 2 specs and lug 2 complete sets of armor and weapons around Norrath with me at all times. Some say that the SK is the jack of all trades and it is proven true to me.

I can say though that I love playing this class. I hope to bring some tales to this blog that will continue Davy’s EQ2 coverage as well as my opinions and maybe even a little guild drama.