Echoes In Eternity

Well here we again folks.  Another expansion released, Veil of Alaris.  This is number 18 for trusty old Everquest.  They have raised the level cap to 95 and added a bunch of new zones that may or may not be worse xp than House of Thule.  Looks like SoE has gone with the alien theme again.  Not sure if it is a wise choice, spindly blue guys with multiple eyes don’t really inspire you to help them with the many, many tasks they have to hand out.  So we took a couple weeks off to level and learn the language.  This is a new trick they came up with.  You need to know the alaran language before you can buy spells, or AAs, or make armor.  It’s basically faction, except you can’t just kill mobs for it, and you can’t just do the same quests over and over to raise it.  Fun stuff!  Our first week back raiding we figured we should take a shot at Argath and see what the Tick Tock of this expansion was like.  Turns out we already knew what it was like, because its pretty much just a cut and paste of the group mission with a few different types of adds thrown in.  The depth of imagination at SoE these days is truly stunning I tell you.  We whipped out our rock crushers and made short work of the golem.  Argath : Illdeara’s Vengeance down to Echoes in Eternity!

This is the only screenshot I have. Deal with it.

Alaran Loots

Tingil - Glowing Drape of Illdaera
Hillside - Modest Headdress of Illdaera
Keyes - Battleveil
Ventrix -Modest Wristwraps of Illdaera
Tocool - Plated Halberd
Minc - Arc-Barbed Earring
Lancia - Battle Avatar’s Rib
Khaarma - Ancient Soother’s Ring
Qadain - Shifting Sphere of Veiled Ascension

Recruiting

Echoes is Eternity is currently recruiting one each of the following classes.

Warrior
Bard
Beastlord
Wizard

If you are a skilled, high playtime raider who is also one of those classes, we would love to hear from you.  If you class isn’t listed, but you think you are an exceptional player, shoot one of our officers a tell and we will see what we can work out.

They just keep coming. First event I have for you tonight is kind of different.  Most of the mechanics in raids are fairly standard.  Emotes, death touches, etc.  This is the first one I’ve seen where a primary focus is solving puzzles.  I don’t know if SOE hired some ex Popcap games developers or what,  but we had to deal with it.  I mean if I wanted to play Simon, I’d dig through the basement for it.  It’s right next to my mint condition Mattel Football game.  If you are old enough to remember that.  If you aren’t then I suggest you look it up, and see what fun you missed back in the dark ages.  Anyway after Brainiac (otherwise known as Qadain) lead the puzzle team to victory, we faced off against a giant puppet.  Nobody had a pair of scissors to just cut it’s strings,  so we had to fight him, and hey, how fun, no spells.  I sent in my pet for a staggering 3 dps and we eventually prevailed.  Sanctum Somnium #5 : Elements of A Dream down to Echoes in Eternity.

Master of puppets.

I am so out of funny lines for these victory shots.

Puppet Prizes

Lisse - Mace of Morell Thule
Icecat - Perspicuous Vambraces of The Protector
Darkdoc - Mask of the Dreammaster
Guderian - Lucky Gouzah Foot
Splitfangs - Perspicuous Boots of Affinity
Veldendro - Lucid Globe of Phantasmic Power

This next raid was actually a lot of fun.  A few trash mobs to start.  Then a cut and paste of Hatchet The Torturer for some nostalgia.  The final phase was the interesting part.  Fabricata will hit tanks for 24k+ but he will hit silk classes for under 10k.  So let’s see what class wears silk, values hitpoints above all, and can hold aggro forever if they don’t use fd?  If you answered Necromancers you get a cookie.  So Babz and I got to tank.  I quite often get summoned but this was the first time I actually wanted it to happen.  I had to tie my right hand to the desk, the urge to flop was so strong.  Good thing I had that rope there because of the other thing I can’t stop doing at the computer, which is watching Keyboard Cat over and over.  I know what you were thinking, at least those with dirty minds (Darkdoc).  Keep your minds out of the gutter please, this is a G rated website.  Well it would be if G stood for godawful.  So the dynamic duo of death tanked the boss, and say hey, another win.  Sanctum Somnium #6 - The Cages of Testing down to Echoes in Eternity!

Ohhh a mindwarping nightmare, scary!

Look it’s us.  We won.

We Found This Stuff in a Chest

Rinerin - Midnight Star
Windari - Shadowlife Stud Earring
Suntuz - Perspicuous Greaves of The Rejuvenator
Icecat - Perspicuous Greaves of The Protector
Marnee - Lucid Globe of Phantasmic Power

Recruiting Status

Echoes in Eternity is currently recruiting one or two of the following classes.

Bard
Beastlord
Berzerker
Warrior

If you are a high playtime, dedicated raider with 3000+ AAs, we would love to hear from you.

Two first kills for you tonight people.  First up is a kitchen sink event.  They seemed to have thrown everything in here.  A little bit of split the raid up action,  some tank n spank mini bosses, and a final encounter with some interesting AE effects.  I’m not sure about you, but I’m not too partial to being turned into Jeff Goldblum in the final scene of The Fly, but that’s exactly what happened.  What flies have to do with a lawman, or the whole castle theme, I don’t know.   Who am I to judge the morons … er I mean fine developers who create this wonderful content?  Anyway, we took a few runs at it.  Changed up the strategy on Lawman Rurk a bit, and presto, another one goes in the win column.  Sanctum Somnium #1 : Taking The Tower down to Echoes in Eternity!

We fought the law and the law lost.

The Sanctum ice is broken.

Sanctum Score

Khaarma - Perspicuous Breastplate of The Rejuvenator
Brekthar - Law, Ring of The Somnium’s Dark Covenant
Suntuz - Perspicuous Bracer of The Rejuvenator
Babz - Dreamstaff of Reverie

The next event really makes me wish I still smoked weed.  You spend the whole raid floating in mid air with purple clouds surrounding you.  There are no walls or floors, just a few pillars to serve as landmarks.  It’s pretty trippy.  Almost made me want to pick up the phone, and call my old dealer to get some bud.  Then I remembered he’s married with 4 kids and his wife doesn’t allow so much as a roach in the house.  Oh well probably for the best, I should conserve the 3-4 functioning brain cells I managed to hang on to.  Oh right, the event.  So you are on like cloud 9 or whatever, and there are some adds and mini bosses, but they are really not a problem.  The horrific thing about this event is The Shadow of The Heart’s spinstun proc.  Oh it’s a lovely thing.  I haven’t seen that many tank corpses in a long time.  At the rate they were dying, we will have to lower the required full member level to 85.  Gentlemen, I salute your complete disregard for your xp bar.   I was expecting this event to be really hard due to the length of the thread on the eq forums crying for the devs to ‘retune’ this,  but it wasn’t that bad, apart from the having to sacrifice some tanks (which I am perfectly fine with).  We buckled down, pushed through the bs and knocked it out on our 5th attempt.  Sanctum Somnium #2 : The Essence of Dreams down to Echoes in Eternity!

Purple haze.

The pillars are like …  floating man.

I Dream of Lootzor

Suntuz - Perspicuous Gauntlets of the Rejuvenator
Warpotatojr - Perspicuous Gauntlets of the Merciless
Brekthar - Pendant of Reverie
Samaa - Mask of Reverie
Graush - Dreamshadow Blade

Recruiting Status

Echoes in Eternity is currently recruiting one or two of the following classes.

Bard
Beastlord
Berzerker
Warrior

If you are a high playtime, dedicated raider with 3000+ AAs, we would love to hear from you.

The history of Echoes is an epic tale.  We have survived longer than almost any other guild in Everquest.  Through many expansions, through ups and downs.  Echoes has marched on while other guilds have fallen to the wayside.  We are proud of our past.  We still have many members who were there in those early days, and many members who have been a part of Rodcet Nife’s history,  although they may not have always worn the EiE tag.  One part of our history that relates to this update is how our alliance with Dol Amroth began.  10 years ago, Echoes was clearing Fear and Cazic Thule was up.  There had been some recent discussion with them about an alliance.  At that point in the game, alliances were quite common.  This was when there were no instances, and if you could not muster 70+ people at all hours, you simply lost out on kills.  Hey, half the loot is better than none right?  Tells were sent to DA’s leadership.  50 more people zoned into Fear, and Cazic died.  Thus began the alliance, and a decade of successful raiding together passed by.  Our alliance, and Dol Amroth itself, eventually disbanded.   However, Echoes has emerged stronger than ever.  Once again we faced Cazic Thule in Fear.  Alone.  This time we did not call for help.  This time we would stand on our own, win or lose.  We have come full circle.  Fear Itself : Cazic’s Last Stand down to Echoes in Eternity!

Target : Ass.  This is what happens when a rogue is your MA.

Chubz vs Cazic.  An epic battle.  I’m not sure who is scarier to be honest.

Why is it always the evil gods that we have to kill?  I miss the Tunare killshots.

Some Stuff We Got

Splitfangs - Shiverback-hide Leggings
Sarshish - Shiverback-hide Leggings
Eaiana - Ghoulbane
Sarshish - Slimeblood of Cazic Thule
Lancia - Eye of Cazic Thule

As we plow our way through content, we are continually finding new ways to win.   We keep refining the strategy until we find that magic combination that allows us to defeat the event.  Al’Kabor is one raid that requires a bit of fine tuning before you can beat it.  At first it seems fairly simple.  Handle the adds, burn the conehead down.  Unfortunately, it really isn’t.  You can’t kill them all, there are just too many of them.  Kiting all of them doesn’t work, because they have some nasty effects that will eventually take out the kiters.  Then you have a bunch of pissed off skeletons and books on top of you, and there goes the dps you need to kill Al’Kabor.  There is a middle ground that works, and that is what we had to find.  We tried this event relatively few times.  Each time we got a little closer.  AK at 97%, then 90%, then 55%,  then 16%, and then … 2%.  Each time our members dug a little deeper.  Found that bit of extra dps.  We threw everything at this guy.  Spitballs.  Gnar’s old underwear.  Anything we could find.  We didn’t just throw the kitchen sink at him, we threw the contents of an entire Home Depot.  End result?  Al’Kabor was Al’Kabeaten.  Al’Kabor’s Nightmare : At Worlds End down to Echoes in Eternity!

I’m not sure who let these gnome necros into the guild.  Please send bbq sauce.

Del slacking off again.  Vacation time is over shorty!

Typical wizard.  Big light show, then goes down like a sack of potatoes.

Al’Kabooty

Sarshish - Preener’s Kidgloves
Guderian - Survivor’s Guildshield
Icecat - Obscure Bracer of The Protector
Tegweyen - Shroud of The Library Guardian
Splifangs - Obscure Boots of Affinity
Soultracer - Lucid Globe of Phantasmic Power

Echoes is currently recruiting certain classes.  Maybe you are in a top guild already, but are tired of sitting on the bench while others raid.  Maybe you have just outgrown your current guilds capabilities.  We are looking for experienced players with high RA, who want to be part of a great guild.  Our needs at the moment are:

Beastlord (1)
Berserker (1-2)
Cleric (1-2)
Enchanter (1)
Mage (1)
Rogue (1)
SK (1)
Wizard (1)

If your class isn’t listed, but you feel you are exceptional at what you do,  shoot one of our officers a tell and we will see what we can work out.