After our rather costly first run into the Amrine Expedition last week, we took a bit of time to do some research and work on our specs.
Oswald redid his almost completely, changing over to light armor to get the healing benefit and picking up the void gauntlet, which also has some healing properties. I dug around and found a tank spec that used the sword/shield and great axe combo and followed it, dumping all my points into constitution for maximum health as well.
When Sunday rolled around and we were all online, the group looked like this:
- Stannislav – level 27 sword/shield and great axe
- Ulalu – level 26 fire staff and ice gauntlet
- Oswald – level 26 healing staff and void gauntlet
- Mudstone – level 25 hatchet and great axe
There was some concern about whether or not there would be problems with the game. Earlier in the week there had been the AWS outage that affected some servers in in the East US zone and, at the same time, cosmetics, titles, and achievements got swept away from our characters. While my cosmetic items have returned, titles seem to come and go and achievements remain MIA as I write this. There were also several periods during the run up to Sunday where the dreaded red “LAG DETECTED” banner popped up in my UI.
But we were there and together, so we jumped on into the instance all the same.
Once more at the beginning
From the outset things seemed to be going much more smoothly for us. We managed to clear our way to the first seal without much in the way of drama. No wipes, no deaths, and most fights, if not completely under control… I am still getting used to how much movement there is in combat… then not totally out of control either.
To the first seal, no big deal
From there we managed to do well enough against the mobs, including the Ravagers, which seemed so tough in our first encounters last time around.
We managed to clear all the way up to the bridge, unlock the seals, clear the mobs that spawned, and deployed the bridge. The fight that followed that got a little out of hand as we joined back up to fight the mobs that spawned at each of the spots where we had to stand. Ulalu went down in that scrum, but otherwise we managed to defeat the whole group.
That left us at the bridge with Safety Officer Richards on the other side. We managed to pick off the adds around Richards, then pulled him back to the far side of the bridge to fight him. I learned last week that in all the pushing and movement that goes on in combat, it is far too easy to get pushed off that bridge.
Safety Officer Richards
That was a wild fight, but we managed to get through it without loss. Then it was across the bridge to the first respawn point. Beyond that lay Foreman Nakashima.
We beat Nakashima on the first go last time, but only due to the proximity of the respawn point and the fact that we died one by one, so could run back and rejoin the fight. So we all died at least three times in that “victory.” This time around we stopped before summoning Nakashima to read up on the mechanics of the fight, because last time if was chaos.
Waiting before I summon
As it turned out, the chaos of the fight was more in the surprise and our not understanding what the hell was going on. On reading about what Nakashima does, we were able to prepare. It was mostly avoid the ghosts he summons, which are not mobs but projectiles… I tried to pull them to me in the last fight… and don’t cross the the chains if you’re inside the circle.
That digested, we kicked off the fight.
Staying in the circle
Things went pretty well. Oswald went down at one point, but we were all able to hang on while he respawned and got back into the fight. In the end it was not nearly the chaotic event that we experienced last time.
That just left some trash before we made our way to the final boss, Simon.
Simon once more
So far everything had been much easier. But Simon was not going to go down easy.
As with Nakashima, we had read up on Simon, though we found some conflicting advice. Everybody seemed to agree that Simon’s spew was to be avoided. But the ads he summons seemed to be a point of contention, with some saying the DPS needs to burn them down right away because they take a while to respawn, while others advised ignoring them, letting the tank grab aggro and hold them while everybody focused on Simon.
We tried it both ways, but I am not sure the adds were the main factor in the fight. Simon hits like a bus and the way combat works in the New World I found myself having problems getting away from Simon’s spew.
Simon harking it all up on me
Backing up or dodging to the side left me in the acid zone for too long, I could see the damage numbers popping up and my health going down, but turning to run courts disaster.
Movement in combat was a bit of a double whammy. I was getting pushed around enough that I found myself being shoved out of the healing circles that Oswald was dropping on me, but when I wanted to get moving I found myself almost stuck, unable to get out to the bad stuff in order to mitigate the damage I was taking.
In addition, I was once again seeing long delays in drinking a health potion during the fight. I’d hit 4, where I had a stack of strong health potions, and nothing would happen. Once in a while they potion would go off immediately, but more often I was left waiting. At least once I went down when the potion just refused to go off.
In the end I did not have enough hit points or skill to stay alive long enough for the DPS to burn Simon down. We got him past the half way mark a few times, but then potions would be on cool down, I’d be pushed out of the healing circle, and some other big heal would be on cool down, and I would get pounded to paste.
So we had to give Simon a miss for the second time around. Our group of four wasn’t quite there yet.
The group at the last respawn point
Snoop, the fifth in our company, was studying for finals and couldn’t join us for the run. Next time around though he should be available. We will see then if that will add enough damage to turn the tide and bring Simon down before I get pounded.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 