The Grunt Foundation hasn't had a get together since . . . well, I can't remember, and I'm concerned that our group is going to slowly disintegrate and fade away. After the patch wiped out our tuesday run this week, Arq and Huld asked if we could resked for thursday. I said I would try, but at the time I was unable to commit for certain.
On Thursday Philly logged in around 5:20pm (GF's usual start time is 5:30pm). Kon logged in a few minutes later. He was ready to play. I posted another message on the GF website letting Arq and Huld know we were in game and hoping they were going to check in. I took a quick afk to eat dinner with the Mrs and was back at 5:45pm. Kon said no one had checked in.
A little after 6pm there was still no sign of Arq or Huld, and it was looking more and more like they had decided we weren't going to run. Kon invited Philly to group, and when I accepted saw that there were two others in the group as well, a level 35 mage and a level 44 hunter.
Wanna do SM Lib anyway? Kon asked. Kon needed a book in the Scarlet Monastery Library wing to get the hot wand that Philly was already using.
Hmm, well, we would need a tank, I suggested in guild chat, not party chat.
The hunter opened a LFG request looking for a healer. A healer? The hunter then declared in party chat that he would tank. And that we really didn't need five, we had enough with the four we had. The hunter then said it would be his pet that would tank. Marginally better. What kind of pet? A cat. Sigh. A cat pet does nice DPS, but it's definitely not a tanking pet.
Philly hadn't decided whether to get in on this. I sent back to Kon on guild chat: I want to help you get your wand, but I'm not really sure I want to do SM Lib with four and with a hunter and his armorless cat playing tank. Kon agreed that it was a risk and understood, but I was pretty sure he was going to stick around and try to get this done.
Well, I figured, if this was a complete disaster, at least I tried to help. Or, if we could at least handle the trash mobs, then we could probably get far enough in for Kon to get his book. So Philly allowed herself to be talked into this crazy scheme.
Once in the instance there was immediate friction between the hunter and the mage. The hunter was a know it all, I have five 70s kind of player. I have to admit he was pretty good, and that he was practically a twink with the gear he was wearing. Well, maybe this guy really can tank this instance. The idea of marking targets was a waste of time, according to the hunter. He did ask the mage to "tell me if you are going to sheep something." The mage laughed and said no. Oh boy.
As we worked through the initial trash it became obvious that we had the fire power (warlock, lock pet, hunter, hunter pet, mage) to bring down anything. And with the pets taking a lot of the up front damage and Philly healing in between adding wand damage, this started to look like it would actually work.
We got to the hunter boss and his three hyena defenders. Did we set targets, crowd control stuff, focused fire, or have any kind of a plan? Naw, that was too much trouble. The hunter waded in like they were just more trash mobs. Good thing Philly is a pretty decent healer. Philly kept all that fire power alive, popping Shield on both mage and warlock at times, and sheer overwhelming DPS brought the hyenas and the boss down. The gloves dropped, and there was no leather wearer to take best advantage of them. The hunter took them as the only person who could remotely do anything with them.
We blasted through more trash. The hunter wasn't completely out of control, and we managed to handle everything we aggroed. We killed right past where Kon was to get his book, and I couldn't quite remember where it was. We won't leave until you get it, I promised Kon. We kept pushing forward as the clock kept ticking past 6:30pm and toward 7pm. We got to the final boss. By this time I knew that the boss, Doan, had no chance. We crushed him. He always drops [Illusionary Staff] and a nice cloth shoulder. The mage and hunter didn't need either. Philly wanted the staff and already had better shoulder gear. kon needed the shoulders. How perfect was that? Philly got a new staff and Kon got a shoulder slot upgrade.
And of course, just as happened with our own group in the Library some weeks ago, the hunter headed back the other way so we could find the book and aggroed a whole room full of respawned mobs. It was as wild a battle as any Philly has been in. SM humanoids and their hyena pets were everywhere. Iced mobs, sheeped mobs, Shielded squishies, pets tanking, arrows flying, lancing arcs of spells and wand blasts filling the air. And when the crackle of energized air and the cries of battle faded we were all still standing.
Kon found his book, and went to get his wand reward. Philly was 97% of the way to level 37. Philly thanked Kon "for getting me into this," which brought a laugh from Kon. It was a crazy run, but it was fun. The specter of missing guildies, though, put a darker light on the hopes of the Grunt Foundation.
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