Being third plate fighter in a raiding guild places me in an interesting position. Not Main Tank and not Main Assist. It puts me in the awkward position of having to pick up adds if things go wrong and usually puts me in the caster group with no fighter buffs in a DPS spec with DPS gear equipped.. Luckily, a Shadow Knight has damage spells which can take advantage of the occasional Troubador that joins the group. That is my usual placement in our raiding structure.
Last night as we were beginning our assault on The Temple of Kor-Sha, word came down that our usual MA would not be available. I didn’t have to worry about taking over MA duties because our Bruiser would be able to take that role. I was then moved up into the group that our usual MA occupied.
Now, DPS for me has always been a challenge. I have to work HARD for it. Refining my gear, maximizing spell order, making sure to debuff before throwing a certain spell to maximize the damage. I had never made the top 6 positions of the Damage parse ever. On this night I learned that it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know. With a Dirge in my group along with an Illusionist, a Fury (Agitate me!), a Mystic (Bolster!), and a Swashbuckler I was 4th on the Damage Parse list. All time highs. I was drunk with power giddily laughing at the destruction I was dishing out.
All at once as I was in my glory…
“Warghoul, we are going to need you to MA tank!”
“But, but, but… “
I was maliciously thrown into the secondary group and buffed for hit points and defence. I stripped off my DPS gear and threw on my Tank gear. I stared with regret at my AA spec and wished that I had used my respect mirror to spec for Hate.
The first pull on trash went fairly smoothly. Losing aggro wasn’t really an issue as our Guardian could take the mob at will and he did. Feeling confident we went into the next battle. This was my first named mob I had tanked in Tier 8. I pulled Uthak the Cruel while our Guardian kept Aktar the Dark occupied and our Bruiser plucked the mezzed adds one by one. I popped every trick in my SK arsenal to keep Uthak on me, losing aggro only once and yelped for my Dirge to “Magnetic Note” it back to me. It went like clockwork and before too long the encounter ended with us being the victors. Our luck continued all the way to the twins Zarda and Kodux.
Kodux was my target. The goal was to keep the twins separated and keep their health with in 10 percent of each other. All the while aggro switches from random target to random target teleporting the victim away from the tank.
To sum up the long battle up into a sentence: My throat was sore from the endless string of profanities that spewed from my mouth as I think I had aggro for about a total of 10 seconds throughout the long fight. Despite my frustration the twins fell on our first pull.
We went toward the Overking and sized up the encounter. We have not yet beaten this boss and that night we failed again realizing quickly that we needed our standard raiding force and ended the raid early to leave a nearly empty zone for us to return.

“Your job is to click on the statues.” Seems simple doesn’t it? Let me break down what I really had to do.

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.

Level 80 Human Shadow Knight
Level 73 Alchemist
Status: Main, Active Raiding

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.