Going further than ever before at a lower level!

[Starbuck_Jones]

Im kinda proud of my new group. Over my weekend (tues-wed) I got my new group to level 62, finished all the MB friendly quests in Hellfire and decided to take a crack at Ramparts. My new group is a Paladin chased by 4x Druids. Having quested to 60 with RAF this was the first time going to an instance so up till this point its been mostly point, click and mob dies. I have 5 boxed instances before but it was a priest and 4 mages. Needless to say it was a learning experience to say the least. First wipe was on the second pull, the makeup of the random mobs were difficult. Second wipe was the same pull but third times a charm. I was on my 3rd full wipe by the time I got to the first boss. Im didnt bother to count when I lost one or two toons in a fight.

First boss, wasnt too hard. No one died but I wasnt used to getting knocked all over the place so it seemed a lot harder than it prolly was. Several wipes later im at the deamon boss, Had 2 deaths because I wasnt fast enough and I wasnt spread out enough. The shadow AOE/DOT ate two druids, but he went down before he summoned his felhound pet. This is the easiest boss fight, if you dont get into melee range all he does is stand there and try and pew pew you, but thats like pistols at 10 paces against 5 people. I just HOT'd the paladin and used Exorcism, Avenger shield and taunt to take all the shadow bolts and let the druids unleash the fury.

Dragonrider boss guy was almost a total wipe. Im not sure what happened here. He dropped the rider, I hit him with 8x dot's and unleashed the forest on him and charged after the mount with the paladin. Paladin had about 18 seconds of HOT's on him and im guessing all the druids died in a fire lol. Im smashing my button and nothings happening and they are all spooning each other on the ground by the rider. Lazy druids. Needless to say, the HOT's, potion, bubble, heals, lay hands and a panic switch to fire resist aura I managed to finish the mount boss with less than 400HP's left. Im kinda suprised with all the wipes the palain didnt have yellow or red gear. All 4 of the druids had complete red gear before I got to the deamon boss. Anyway, I took a break as that took about 2 hours to complete. Came back to the game and went at Ramparts again. This time other than one total wipe due to not broadcasting keystrokes (I was chatting in guild chat) I had 0 deaths. After getting some of the dynamics of this group down and remembering they had 12 trees to summon the bosses went realy fast. The Deamon boss on the second go round lasted about 15 seconds when I put the trees into the fight, no AOE/DOT or pets. Easy sauce and the rider mount boss was cake as well.

Day later I try out Blood Furnace. On my old group I was not able to get past the event where you pull the lever and 4 waves of mobs then the boss comes. Long story short I never had enough mana or healing to get through 4 waves and a followup boss with the all cloth group. New group I got to the first boss, this was a short fight, 15 seconds or so into it he charmed my paladin and 5 seconds later im running back as ghosts. Second attempt he went down like a 3rd grader kicked by chuck norris. (I realy need to remember I have trees to call on). So here is my big moment. The 4 waves of orcs and a boss. Easy sauce. The paladin just grabbed all agro on the waves, AOE'd them down and the druids sat back doing their nails casting 8x HOT's every 15 seconds. When the boss fight started all 5 toons were full hp, full mp. Easy win, 8x DOT's 8xHOT's 12 treants... you get the point. Here forward in this place im in new territory. Nothing too difficult, I did have a lot of trouble with thoes Fel Guard guyes. Every encounter with them I lost at least 1 druid. They would be on the paladin then swoosh, charge a druid and I wouldnt be able to get it off them till it killed them. Finaly got to the last boss. Nothing hard there. Paladin aoe'd all the caster guys down with 8x regens on him and the boss guy was a rinse repeat, HOT's DOT's and trees. I did have a few wipes with the orc tech's that throw dynomite and plop land mines. One spot was realy nasty where I couldnt pull less than 6 mobs and 4 of them were the techs.

So at level 62/63 My new group has been able to do what my old group at 69/70 was unable to. From here forward instance wise its going to be totaly new territory for me. Next on the list is to move to Zang and hit the easy MBable quests and research the next dungen to play on my quest to 80.

[Lightsout]

Progress is always good no matter how big or small. Nice story. Grats!

[Lightsout]

Sidenote: Dirk Benedict among others will be at the MegaCon in Orlando Feb 27th-Mar1st...yummy Tricia Helfer too

www.megaconvention.com

[Malekyth]

(I realy need to remember I have trees to call on)

hehe, took me awhile to get into the habit too. Currently I always can remember to use them for bosses, but I still have trouble remembering them when adds start pouring in unexpectedly. Baby steps!

Grats on your team! Druids are indeed extreeeemely fun.

[Tonuss]

Im smashing my button and nothings happening and they are all spooning each other on the ground by the rider. Lazy druids.

I LOL'ed.

I find that when you've worked your way up without running instances the normal way (ie, I PLed my group to 60 with a level 70) the one thing you have to learn is to summon your "home run" abilities on bosses or difficult fights. Once you get into that habit, boss fights become much easier. Druids are like shaman, in that they can provide good DPS and good heals at the same time, though the HoT-stacking seems to be ideal (almost no DPS time lost to casting heals!). And the paladin is very nice for rounding up adds, particularly summoned adds. It's how my mixed team beat the second boss in Ramparts, I just used consecration to grab the felhounds when they spawned (he lasted long enough to summon two >.< ).

Looks like you have a good team and strategies going. Nice job!

[elsegundo]

awesomeness. your next instances are stave pens and underbog. you'll enjoy those. and do not underestimate the power of sanguine hibiscuseseses. especially in the AH.
you can also do the Auchindoun instances at 65-ish. then... nothing else until tempest keep... but then again, you'll want to hit UK/Nexus by then anyway.