Our guild did some exploring in the Plane of Air - post patch (this weekend
even)
Friday, we killed a spirited harpy and found:
Belt of Concordance.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/equipment/graphics10/Belt_of_Concordance.htm
l
A very nice item. ac 6, str+5 cha+5 sv Poison +5 wt: 0.1 effect: Haste.
Bard only.
This is a clip from a post made by one of our enchanters:
"almost all the good dropped loot in sky is random off the nameds with a
small chance of an unnamed mob dropping also. the named mobs (Protector of
Sky, Gorgalosk, etc..) seem to always drop 1 of the randomly dropped great
items, along with 1 or 2 rare quest items (gems off PoS, nodrop quest pieces
off Gorg)."
Island 3 is pretty nice - heh, once you get there. Island 2, the Azarack
island is kinda tricky. We got smooshed good learning how. I wont spoil it
for those who have not done it - it's some unexplored territory and that is
damn rare in Norrath these days. We saw a very experienced, strong,
skillful guild make an attempt on Island 2 and get repulsed. No doubt they
can do it - just a matter of when they decide to come back. And we saw a
"pick-up" group of 25 or so brave adventurer's give it a shot. Their basic
plan was "follow me!" and they got smooshed too. This zone is an expensive
place to do CR. And most pick-up groups don't have the dedication to "keep
trying" when a try costs you 220pp or so per person.
There are a lot of things to learn about agro ranges and pulling techniques
and, heh, I wont spoil it for any of you here either.
We were also discussing pulling techniques an dthe pitfalls of having the
bard in with the puller. Our guild uses this technique:
Puller and back-up puller with Feign Death capability go out to fetch. A
spotter is also in position. If the pull is single and clean, the spotter
calls it out for everyone to hear. If not (ie too many mobs pulled), the
puller feigns and the back-up puller tags one as they reset - if he is able.
Having the spotter out there calling it for everyone, relieves the puller
from having to type and avoid death at the same time. Also, the puller is
not always aware of the extent of agro'd mobs. We avoid the situation
someone else described of not knowing what the pull is until it arrives.
When the pull arrives, we have a designated "picker." He/she has talked to
the enchanters and knows which mob-type to select to fight first. Everyone
waits until the picker shouts "Target selected - assist me now!" The picker
has of course waited for the spotter to call a clean pull and for the
enchanters to do the crowd control thing. (Some variations occur depending
on whether or not the mobs can be mezzed, charmed, or not.) People have hot
keys with "/assist anne" and "/assist tuur" for primary and secondary
pickers. Having the names in the macro really helps avoid bad assists.
Two good bard things: some mobs you fight here have AE despell and AE
stamina drain. The bard group gets lucky because the songs will refresh and
that old level 3 Jig o' Vigor is finally valuable. Heh, I have not played
mine since reaching level 32 <g> well, ok, I do play it some when the tanks
are swinging the heavy weps in long fights. Well, these mobs drain all of
your sta in a few rounds with their sta drain spells. The other normally
unused song that works here is Veracious Concord (sp? the see invis song.)
There are some invis mobs to fight. And yes, others can cast see invis, but
when you fight mobs that despell, they need to keep casting while you can
just be playing it in your song mix. Although, this is pretty specific to
certain mobs in a certain plane, it's one of those times where you feel like
its great to be a bard and have some tricks up your sleeve.
I really had to work on not getting too much attention from the mobs.
"A Gorgalask hits YOU for 320!"
"A Gorgalask hits YOU for 278!"
"A Gorgalask kicks YOU for 68!"
Yup, all in one round. Stop attack, stop song. Back up. Play mana song.
Wait for a heal. Try again. One battle was going rather long and we had
lost some folks and I was feeling like I should get into the battle and do
something. I was 2 some bubs down in hp and started to melee. Took a couple
hard hits and went to go back out. My guess I got lower HP than all the
others on hate list and the mob frenzied on me. Well, at that point it was
like one more hit for 274 and I was memming songs in Gfay. Don't melee
below full hp or step out before getting under half health. At least on
these uber-mobs. Imho, a dead melee bard is not as much help and the live
one out of the melee playing mana song for the cleric.
Also, I switched to using my 6 note blade and my dragoon dirk. I bagged my
Yk thinking that a) level difference what it is 47 vs 60 no matter what wep
I use, it wont hit for full effect; b) the Yk 75dd proc gets resisted all
the time but adds you to the hate list as if it hit for full effect. I guess
it may have helped some. The other thing I was doing is playing mana song
only while in the melee. That definitely seemed to help - and was
recommended by my cleric who definitely has a good handle on how to keep me
alive. At times, I would stop melee attack and play songs for my tanks -
berserkers and mystic shielding. That also helped keep me from getting
smacked.
All in all, I lost about a bub of xp over the course of our expedition and
took a big hit to the ego ("Welcome back once again to level 47 - have you
thought about frequent flyer miles?") but for some really great times and
some really great battles with some really great people - and a nice new
toy - it was definitely worth it.
Sylly Songsynger
"welcome back to level 47, go solo some specs, have a nice day, please drive
thru."
<The Pantheon>
somewhere on Innoruuk...
p.s. PoA stuff our guild has seen (pre & post patch - some more than once --
thanks for the list Raloon):
Belt of Contention - war haste belt
Belt of the Pines - rng haste belt
Belt of Concordance - brd haste belt
Bracelet of Quiescence - enc bracer
Bracelet of Cessation - nec bracer
Treant Tear - druid earring
Blade of Abrogation - sk 1h slash sword
Weight of the Gods - cleric shoulders
Whitened Treant Fist - monk 1h blunt
White Satin Gloves - all/all +mana gloves
Symbol of Marr - pal necklace