Open Sky Raid - Sunday 24th Feb - 630PM EST

[Eabon]

Hey there,

Given the success of the open Sky raid that was held last week I'm going to be putting on another one this Sunday. We will be beginning considerably earlier than last week - I expect that ports will start around 550PM or 600PM and that we'll be able to begin the actual raid at approximately 630PM EST. Having narrowly failed to the Bixie Boss last week, clearing the entirety of Isle 6 and moving onto 7 will be the raid's primary goal. Like last week, at no point will we be trivialising the zone with charmed pets, and especially not with Sirran.

Last week's raid had between 25 and 30 people throughout the duration - I feel that this is an ideal number and is what I will be aiming for this week also. Although this will be an open raid, Sky is a relatively technically difficult zone (compared to others), and so those who already have some experience in the zone will be preferred. Preference will also be given on the basis of level (55 plus is preferred) and class demands.


For those who wish to attend:
Those who are interested in joining the raid (and who haven't already contacted or talked with me personally regarding this week's raid) should please send me a PM which contains their (i) in-game character name, (ii) their class, (iii) their level, (iv) the likelihood that they'll be able to make the raid, and (v) whether or whether not they have a key corpse in the zone that will be available on the night.
As already mentioned I am going to be aiming for between 25 and 30 people on the night, and so if interest exceeds this level I will be making executive decisions on the basis of class and level.


Loot rules will be as follows:
(i) Boss Drops and No Drops
All No Drop/Boss mob quest items that are contended for by more than one person will be rolled on, /ran 100. After having won an item that was contended for by at least one person (i.e., it was not going to rot otherwise), that person will not be permitted to contend for any further items, and will only be allowed to loot another item if that item was otherwise going to rot.
No Drop items that drop from multiple bosses and trash mobs (such as class haste belts, INT caster bracelets, the Treant Tear, the Weight of Gods, and the Stein of Flowing Ichor) will not be counted in the same category as Boss-dropped No Drop Quest Items. For instance, somebody who loots a Treant Tear will not be barred from competing for a No Drop druid quest piece from Lord.

(ii) Droppables
All trash droppables will be master-looted and collected by several pre-assigned people. At the end of the raid each master-looter will link in an open channel every droppable that they looted so that the entire raid can see. Those people who already have the No Drop piece for a particular quest (either from earlier in the raid, or from another raid entirely) will then have the opportunity to claim any droppables that go with that same quest. Once all those who already have a No Drop item have claimed any required droppables, the rest of the raid (who do not already have a No Drop) will then have the chance to claim any remaining droppables.


A Few Little Notes In Closing...

# Just to reiterate, those that are interested in coming on the raid should read the above section "For those who wish to attend" and follow those instructions re. sending me a PM. And if I have already had a chat with you regarding this week's Sky raid, and you've already made it clear to me that you intend to come, then you needn't bother.

# These raids will have absolutely nothing to do with TMO besides the fact that the person leading it, and a few of those attending, happen to be members. I am not organising these raids as part of, or on behalf of, the TMO leadership; I have absolutely nothing to do with the current TMO leadership, and these open raids will be entirely independent from the TMO leadership. They should not be interpreted as some sort of positive representation or reflection upon TMO. They are simply going to take place because one guy and a few of his friends think that open Sky raids might be a pretty good thing for the server as a whole.

# Zero attention will be paid to peoples' guildtags, absolutely zero discrimination on the basis of guildtags will occur, and everybody (space on the raid pending) will be welcome.

[Splorf22]

Sirran I can see, but otherwise I don't understand this enchanter hate.

[Tecmos Deception]

I personally am against trivializing fights with CH, but hey, that's just me.

God. I can't imagine how boring a sky raid would be for an enchanter without charming anything at all, especially if there are like 3-4 up there.


Good luck up there though [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Eabon]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sirran I can see, but otherwise I don't understand this enchanter hate.

I would simply describe it as a minor issue of balance.
There are non-Sirran methods of charming in Sky that allow a single enchanter to be the rough equivalent of up to 10 average melee DPSers.
On a raid like this I would much rather have that DPS represented by 10 actual players, as opposed to bottling it all up in a single enchanter and his or her charmed pet.

However on the other hand, I can entirely understand that if you lack the personnel then it is nothing but common sense to take advantage of charming in order to compensate.
I was mainly referring to Sirran though, to be honest. With a well-organised raid of 25-30 people dragging a griffin or a horse, for instance, to Isle 1 or 2 and using it as a charmed pet the entire raid is nothing but a liability. Sirran, though, removes any semblance of challenge entirely.

It wasn't my intention to attack either of you with that one harmless sentence I put in the original post. Please continue to raid Sky however feels most natural to you, and disregard all other opinions that are contrary.

Also, I'd really prefer it if this thread didn't transform into a thorough discussion of the merits and pitfalls of charming, and if you're still interested in discussing such things then please feel free to send me a tell in-game =)

[Splorf22]

The Spiroc Lord in 63s, 32k @509dps --- A soul harvester 16k @255dps (50.04%) --- Peate 3k @52dps (8.81%) --- Azzudnue 3k @52dps (8.72%) --- Evelinn 2k @40dps (7.58%) --- Xobtik 2k @32dps (5.68%) --- Furiously 2k @27dps (4.99%) --- Qwin 1k @32dps (3.7%) --- Warboy 1k @43dps (3.51%) --- Atravesar 1k @102dps (3.49%) --- Vhaenark 1k @17dps (3.06%) --- Labanab 0k @5dps (0.43%) --- Discouraged 0k @0dps (0%) --- India 0k @0dps (0%) --- Metra 0k @0dps (0%)

I just don't think the splits are so trivializing. Here we have two soul harvesters doing 125k dps each against the Spiroc lord, so perhaps 2-3 high-level rogues or monks each. Also in my experience when hasted and weaponized and quadding rapidly for 255 its basically impossible to recharm them; you have to have enchanters who watch out for each other and mez each others pets on charm breaks while the other one kites (and its not really possible to kite far enough to get off a mez unless you have selos, the damn things are fast). Sirran of course we can agree on; in my opinion everything should be charmable in sky except Sirran. We use him because its an easy way to kill shit but I don't really approve.

My real point though is just that sky is incredibly fucking boring as an enchanter (except for isle 5 and maybe 2 if your pullers suck). It's a pure buff and afk. I used to get so bored that I would memblur stuff. Once I got Astizen summoned ~5 times in a row by timing my blur right before his nukes before he caught on [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

anyway you may now return to your regularly scheduled sky advertisements

[Ashburn]

This time slot interferes with my pre-Walking Dead and pre-Mad Men rituals, otherwise I'd be there. See you in June.

[Eabon]

I'm just getting around to responding to all PMs now. Thanks again for all of the interest in the open raid. As with the last raid there are people who I'm going to be reluctantly turning away for numbers reasons. I'm really sorry about this, and I hope that if we continue doing this I'll eventually be able to open up attendance more fully and entirely to everybody, instead of having to pick and choose in order to remain within certain limits.

To those whom I've either already talked with re. attending the raid, or to whom I've just recently sent a PM to this effect:
Ports will be going up from the West Commons spires starting around 550PMish, and we'll be looking to get started before ~630PM EST.
Please expect a tell from me any time after 5PM EST, confirming that you're coming along.

[Chloroform]

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[Chloroform]

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[zanderklocke]

YEAH! I'm in that photo.