Some nights in everquest 2 are better than others. There are nights that when you finally log off, you sit back in your chair and go “WOW that was COOL!!” I had one of those last night and I think everyone I was with also felt the same way.
I tanked a zone! ME! A RANGER!! Maybe some might shrug and go “big deal” but to me and those of my group it was like winning the Olympics with all gold metals. We were not even sure if we could pull this off but the thing is we did!
The night started with me heading to the Chronomage to see what the daily mission was… Oh boy!.. UNREST !
Nothing I could go do on my own so I started looking around. I saw Raveneesa by the chronomage and asked if she had done the mission yet and if not would she want to join forces. I asked in guild and that is when Jethal joined in. Oh boy 3 rangers..hummm, my thoughts at this point was grim, this would be a very short lived group.
I asked in the level channels and the claymore and “Violating” who is a swashy, joined up, followed quickly by Denwar!
So our group had one healer, a warden named Denwar ( tunare bless his soul, he is one heck of a healer) there was me, and Jethal ( a ranger), Raveneesa ( another ranger) and Violating (a swashy).
Poor Denwar!
Pops into the group to find nothing but scouts. We talked about our chances of doing this then Violating said “I have seen rangers tank unrest”
hummmm
I wondered if I could, dressed in T2 with my mythical and I kinda knew the zone, I had been there tons of times but did not really know the full walk through. Beyond getting the key parts from the hedge I was not sure which step was next after that. I quickly pulled up a walk through then asked Denwar what he thought. It would be totally up to him being our only healer if he wanted to chance a Unrest run with a bunch of scouts.
While everyone discussed our chances, I ran home and rummaged through my vault boxes for a shield. I love shields and collect them even though I don’t use them. Some of the graphics they have are just so cool, so in most cases I keep them just for this reason. I found one with almost 900 protection and about my level for equipment. It was big and ugly and not sure why I kept it except it was usable by rangers.
As everyone headed to Unrest I continued to look for a tank, any type of tank even a monk, but there was just none to be found. Everyone was ok about at least giving it a try. No harm in trying at least and at most we would admit defeat and disband.
I showed up in a Headless Huntsman Costume, dressed in the new appearance Armor, Nightmarish Ceremonial Plate, from the The Hollow Hedge. At least I Looked like a tank!
Someone made a comment about me not having a head. Jethal piped up and said I had given it to him hours ago. HA! and he says the adult warning on the show is because of me! BAH!
The pulling began, mob by mob we worked our way in. For some it was their first time in, others, like my self had been in before but none of us knew all the steps so it was a little slow going with me having to flip back and forth to the walk through over on zam
Thing was, we were doing it! ~RAWR!!
The funniest thing was to see the Ranger Death Squad reborn! The mobs would come to a stand still at times when we opened up on them. Scout roots and snares taking hold, stopping the mob in its track. Violating doing something which would turn the mob around so his back was to us. Then by the time the mob got to us, in most cases, it was almost dead!
Other times I would body pull and keep the melee going, my shield coming up to protect me. Or at least it looked like I would duck under that big thing when something took a swing at me. I had no problem pulling the argo back on to me even with the other scouts about.
I kept an eye on Denwar’s power to make sure I was not taxing him and it seemed the group was doing really well on that account. There was only 1 time during the whole run that we had a wipe, and that was in the bar area. We pulled too much and had pulled mobs from up stairs too. Ouch! Fail!
Just before we went down stairs, Valendur, a Fury and fellow guildmate, joined the group. That gave the Ranger/Swashy Death Squad two healers.
Granted it was a longer run than normal, we started around 8pm and finished just before midnight, but the main part here is that we did FINISH!! with only 1 wipe for the evening. I would say that was pretty darn good for such a group who also had to rely on a walk through to do the zone.
Soon after Granel Rucksif was killed, I declined all the drops and called back to Qeynos, I only had a minute to get my butt back to the Harbor, turn in my mission and buy my Granel Rucksif mobby doll!
I was sweating it, and I half thought, as the clock ticked to midnight, that I would miss out on the doll. Luck was on my side, the trader had the mobby doll on him so I bought one for me and a couple extra just incase anyone else who wanted one from the group ended up missing it because now it was after midnight.
Laugh all you want! The collection of the mobby dolls for me is serious business!! *giggles*
I will say that when we took down Granel Rucksif and the Ornate Chest popped, we all just stood there for a moment taking it all in. We had done it! From start to finish we had pulled it off with a Ranger tanking, a group full of Scouts and a couple of fine healers!! I was more jazzed and happy after it was all done than I had when I first went through it with the perfect group. There is just something about being able to do the content, even if its older, with such a group!
Lesson to learn from this?
Just coz you don’t have a tank but if you got a brave healer and Ranger / Swashy Death Squad… anything just might be possible!!
I want to thank Raveneesa, Denwar, Violating, Valendur and my Love Jethal for such a fun exciting evening, one I will remember for a long time !
Ahhhhhh there is nothing better than having a Shadow Knight Dwarf around the place!
Here are some pictures of my full collection so far!!
Here is a closer look:
