And DOWN Goes Gwathnor! (LotRO)

[the_gneech]

You know those nameless things gnawing at the roots of the Earth, that Sauron knows not and are older than he, that Gandalf didn't spend time mucking around with down in the depths of Moria? Well, we went mucking around with them.

Last night for instance night, several of us in the Valar Guild (including Maedhroc) went down into the dark places and confronted Gwathnor. "What's a Gwathnor?" you may ask? Good question. Answer: danged if I know! But I can show you a picture:



I suppose that, having a name, he doesn't really count as a nameless thing. But he opens up wormholes at the bottom of Moria, and that can't be good!

It was a very methodical, very smooth run, and I was very pleased all around. I was the group organizer and main tank and some off-healing or DPS, with jamesbarrett's champion Avengelina as off-tank and melee DPS (as well as strat tips from having gone through the instance before), with Fairmaiden the minstrel and Passim the runekeeper providing heals, Nimrodel the hunter bringin' the pew-pew, and Erkendan the captain providing buffs, off-healing, and DPS. The hardest part was the crazy "escort the suicidal elf through trolls" part in the middle of the instance, but even that was relatively smooth and we had no deaths. The champion came close, but champions are like that. Fortunately, jamesbarrett knows the class well and could pull his own fat out of the fire — I went into the instance with the policy that he pulled aggro on something to let him have it, for just that reason.

This run was a biggie for Maedhroc for two reasons. First, it was the last obstacle between him and his shield capstone skill, which is what most high-end wardens use for tanking. Second, it was one of my first real, heavy duty, training-wheels-are-off main tank/instance leader runs, and as we discovered on our previous attempts last week (three wipes and "we'll try again next time"), it's not a milk run. The fact that I not only main-tanked it, but main-tanked it well (lost aggro to the hunter once, when she was going full-strength, but kept a solid lock on all bosses and most adds) was a real confidence-booster. I've still got plenty of room to improve of course, but I don't feel quite so much like a wanna-be now. I also don't feel so much like I've got to prove that wardens can tank. I know they can, 'cause I've done it. :)

The followup quest, where you look into Galadriel's mirror, was a very cool character moment for Maedhroc as well, so I made sure to grab a bunch of screenies. I may just be able to do some more "Life of a Bounder" posts yet! Assuming I can get the ticket resolved to bring the other ones back from the dead, anyhow. If I have some time this week/weekend, I'll probably scrape 'em from the RSS feed and make copies on gneech.com so I can be reasonably sure they won't go away.

-The Gneech

Comments

[speaks.livejournal.com]

While they got away from it in later versions. Original EQ through about Planes of Power (Expansion 5), most healing was done using the "Complete Heal" spell. Naturally since it completely healed the person you didn't want to use it until they were almost completely dead. Damage was very linear in those days so I got very good at timing when to cast the 10 second long spell. (yes.. 10 second long spell).

Towards my 50s or so (when the level cap was 60) I used to play a game in Karnor's Castle:

1 point if tank is less than 10% health when CH goes off.
2 points if tank is less than 5% health when CH goes off.
5 points if tank is negative health when CH goes off. (In EQ you could go to -100 HP before death. Your health bar turned purple and you fell prone while 0 to -100 health. Healing a tank who was in that state was referred to as "purple dancing")

Tanks didn't find my game amusing in the least. I insisted it conserved mana and allowed for me to do more stuns and DD spells.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Wardens are a somewhat unconventional tank in that they don't mitigate damage, they self-heal through it. So that game wouldn't work real well with us!

Wardens also have a power-recovery skill that only works if your morale is low, so some wardens will get pissy at the healer if they keep getting topped off!

-TG

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

"You spank it, you tank it" is a fun policy with a short but steep learning curve.

[jamesbarrett.livejournal.com]

I'm a tank at heart, so anything Avenge spanks, she knows how to tank and has been main tank through many an instance (now those were amusing runs) :) -Frisk

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Galadhalion makes a surprisingly good tank as well, considering how squishy he is solo. Half the time he's in a group, he's tanking (either main or off), it seems.

-TG

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I've been on the other end of that -- as a champion the desire is to hit 'em all as hard as you can! There are aggro-management skills and really good champions can do some neat things with them (suck aggro off the healer, dump it on the tank), but they're not real easy to use and unless the fight is going to be a long grind you're usually better off just killin' a lot and hoping the healer keeps you up.

Now, hunter tanking (also known as "when in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout") is another story all together...

-The Gneech

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

*holds up a smoking trap*

What you have here is a Class-VII semi-solid, transporting daemonic entity, a real nasty one too.

[stilghar.livejournal.com]

Looks like some sort of corrupted Earth elemental.

On steroids.

[theodwulf.livejournal.com]

What with the wormhole opening and the looking all spindly I'm going to guess that it's something Ungoliant-like, that has its origin not in the Music but in the deeps of the Void.

Все прикольно сделано!

[zandtxit.livejournal.com]

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