NORMAL - Act Two

Session Four

We got Rog caught up through the Radament quest. We ran into a LEB in the Stony Tomb but LEB Protocol WAS used, and to good effect: no one died, and didn't even seem to be any close calls.

The only really close call I saw was when Creeping Feature's frost nova death explosion took Jaffa down to about 1 life. :)

Oh yeah, we did have two deaths. Well, kinda/sorta. Not really. I don't count it as legit deaths when people are outright slain by a GAME BUG, as happened to us in the Dry Hills tonight. I accidentally cast Dim Vision on some vultures while they were in the air, and this made them invulnerable. :( If not for that, we'd have had a deathless session tonight. For sure, those two deaths get an asterisk beside them and I won't be counting them in the record, because they WOULD NOT have happened but for that nasty programming bug.

The Pelta Lunata was sold. Fara wanted 11k to repair it, and it was only worth 10k to sell there, so I sold it, and picked up a 52% blocking shield instead. :)

I also spent 40k on two staffs:

A +3 Warmth, +1 Fireball staff for Jaffa.

A +3 Static, 18% Poison Resist staff for Chukles.

I also have a pair of haste boots I got from gambling, for whoever wants them.

Session Five

Turnout was light for Friday night. One player warned us in advance he wouldn't be there, two others failed to show, and one more was a bit late, but turned up just in time to give us five, right when the catching-up for Rog was done.

Everyone was here for at least one night this week, so that was good. We really had some tough times on Friday, though, with only one of the three sorcies present.

Things went all right in Act 1, where we were catching Rogjard up on Andariel. We redid Radament as well, and I do believe that brings everyone on the team up to date on quests, currently. If anyone has missed a quest event, besides from last night, let me know.

We went from Radament right to the Dry Hills, and there was quite the furball at the waypoint. I think we ended up fighting close to half of all the monsters in the whole area in one pitched battle that dragged on a bit as more and more critters woke up and joined in.

With the team somewhat light on offense, the Paladin and Protector Barb had to do a lot of the killing. I used more Amp Damage than I had been, because of this, but this also meant less DV and less general safety, more damage being taken... and we could start to see the cracks in the Prayer wall that had been keeping everyone healthy. Pretty soon we are going to have to start using potions more often, and the danger levels are going to increase.

Down in the Halls of the Dead, in a really large and hairy fight, Frosty had a lag spike and got killed during that by spear cats. :( We shifted things around to watch over our only sorcie a little better, and that proved to be the only death of the evening, though not for lack of Bnet trying. Both Espy and I had several really bad spikes, and I had to shoo things away with Terror that were pounding him while he wasn't moving (spiking) a couple of times.

We managed to finish the Halls, Dry Hills, and Maggot Lair this session. There was a LEB early on in the Maggot Lair, but we took our time with it, cursing with Amp Damage while the Protector carefully beat on it. Everyone else pretty much had to hang back, but this worked out OK.

I don't think we'll need to do the maggot lair again. We only need one staff to complete quest 2, and we got 5 staff of kings on Friday. However... it IS in the rules that all quests must be completed for all players, so it will be important for everyone to be in the game when we do Tal Rasha and Duriel. Anyone who isn't there... will need to have the staff, and may have to go back for its pieces if they don't have them.

Everyone will also want a Cube, so... those of you who missed out on it last night, please make an effort to be there on time (or even early) next Thursday.

Session Six

We had a complete turnout on this night -- our first since the first night.

We had a really nasty furball in the Ancient Tunnels, when a huge mass of foes (more than 30, I think) got bunched in one area and a retreat choke-point got cut off. Two deaths incurred, one each for our tanks, both of whom said they might have lived but for mishandling their potions a bit.

I think we learned the lessons of this, though, and by and large have done much better since in not trapping others in a danger zone that has grown too hot.

We had one other death, from a LEB we didn't see coming. That's going to happen from time to time. We can try and cut it down by checking the attributes on each boss we run across and witholding fire from any LEBs. Also informing the group when one has been spotted.

SESSION 7 - Friday

Friday night we had a party of 5. Rog arrived late, as he had warned, and that eventually made 6. We knew Chukles would be out.

Things went well for us in the Arcane. We had only 5 for most of this, so we stuck together. The arrival of clvl 18 skills made a tremendous impact, particularly from Glacial Spike and Ice Arrow. This made for virtually no corpses to work with -- something we'll have to address later on when it comes to potion-finding and Grim Ward. Poison Explosion is a lesser concern. On the other hand, it also made for a lot of frozen enemies, and frozen enemies do not get licks in our team, so that was very good.

When Rog arrived, we split the team into two groups of three to do the last 1/4 of the Arcane, and that, too, worked out very well, with us splitting at the fork and meeting back up at the end of the rows.

There were no deaths in the Sanctuary, though Frosty had a really close call with the Summoner.

The False Tombs, by and large, went quickly. We had some big furballs, but the team working together was able to handle all of these. Our deaths, once again, came at the hands of LEBs. One of those happened to Tref, and a lag spike there from the server may have contributed.

LEB protocol worked out OK, but Frosty got killed by two different LEBs due to NOT clearing out of the danger zone and instead trying to keep them chilled while others were attacking them. This is going to continue as long as the plan is not followed. Clearing out does not mean hanging around on the fringes and firing spells; it means getting AWAY from the action, completely out of harm's way. If we run into a LEB where a particular character is needed to help, due to resistances or other factors, we'll work that out. But these deaths from last night were preventable. The only price at the moment is loss of savings... but in NM that is going to translate into lost experience, and either falling behind the group or having to do make-up, which is going to get harder.

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Some of you've been grabbing up items for sale, then losing the cash to death penalty. There was also the mistake with the gem shrine. You don't have to think so much along the lines of having to do everything yourself. You'll get everything you need. And you'll get it faster if LEB protocol is followed and you move into more of a team frame of mind with item management. OK?
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Surprisingly, the Friday session ran pretty long -- longer than usual. We actually managed to clear the AS, the Canyon, all the false tombs, and the true tomb.

I lost track of deaths, but I think we had one or two others in there. This was definitely a rough night in that department, and it wasn't over yet.

We still had all six players when Act 2 was cleared and we were ready to do Duriel. My RAM was so incredibly junked up, and my hard drive grinding so badly by now, that I feared a 15 second lag time in the chamber, uselessness, and probably death. I HAD to reboot. It was tough, though, getting back into the game. The login server was lagging, the game server was lagging. I was worried I wouldn't make it back. I did, though. I think one or two others also rebooted. Not sure.

We were waiting for everyone to get set. Cy would go in first, and give a signal first. But... it didn't work that way. There was a misclick as people tried to get closer to the entrance and Rog ended up inside, and dead. He left to rejoin, seemed to make it back but then timed out, and never did make it back in. While waiting on him we had another misclick from Cy, and Frosty mistakenly thought that was the Go signal and went in too. Cy TPed out and Frosty died. Fortunately, everyone else held their ground. Frosty quit and rejoined, and we all waited. We waited on Rog, and waited some more... hoping he would make it back... then finally we went in, the five of us.

Duriel went squishy, no problem.

It seems to me that at this point, we are dying only from either very bad luck (rarely) or breakdowns in cohesion of various kinds. Overall, this is encouraging, and I see steady improvement in our tactical effectiveness from week to week, even when key team members (read: ANY team members) are not present. Unfortunately, as old challenges are overcome, new one rise up to challenge us further, press us harder with more serious threats, and more and more cohesion is needed as time passes. So I think this is going to be a continual striving toward greater teamwork and deeper tactics as we advance. So far, so good. :)

Clearly, the sorcies are doing the most raw damage, and that is never going to change -- although Immolation Arrow and particularly Lightning Fury will be serious business. But the sorcies' vulnerability to their achilles element is only just now getting started as a real factor. When my character finally reaches clvl 30 and Lower Resist Curse, damage will be boosted for all players but crowd control is going to be tougher, as I can't lower resists and run DV at the same time. :) I am hoping that freezing help from sorc and zon, Decoys and Grim Wards, will cover that.

We DO definitely notice when each player is out of the mix. The pace, the safety of the team, and the sheer destruction of the enemy, is undoubtedly at its peak when the entire team is present. Last night, with CF out, Rog not there yet, and Cy having some ISP troubles (and timeouts), there were several points in the Arcane where we had no tanks and there was much drinking of health potions, with goats mobbing ranged attackers. Things were definitely different, and easier, once we had both Cy and Rog around. CF would have made it better. And we certainly missed Chukles. :)

We'll catch up the missing teammates on Duriel to start next session, then it's on to Act 3!

- Sirian

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