Gee, I wonder what's been going on in the rest of the world of Norrath? I've been holed up down in the warrior room group in High Keep for so long I think I'm starting to grow mushrooms on my head. I did some serious leveling up this past weekend, starting at just shy of level 24 up in the guard room group on Saturday morning, and dinging into level 28 during last night's warrior room session (actually I dinged twice last night).

It was good to move down into the warrior room on Sunday. Life in the guard room group had been getting too easy (with the increase in my mana pool from both leveling up and getting additional wisdom stat gear, a larger heal spell at level 24, and better tactics). I was growing very bored with the level of mobs that the guard room was pulling (mostly dark blues with the occasional black or yellow con). On the other hand, it was good experience for everyone since we had no deaths.

As a level 26 cleric, the warrior room is a scary place, unless you keep the spawn broken you risk having a goblin warrior pop into an already bad fight (plus we were pulling raiders which are even higher level). Goblin warriors are level 30-33, and the raiders are 31-34, both hit for up to 68 damage (I have "other hits" filtered off, but know from personal experience what they hit for). Still on Sunday evening we had a very powerful and capable group that was able to handle up to 3 raiders all at once without any deaths (I used all my mana and a 4th would've been certain death for at least a few of the party).

Monday evening was tougher. Initially it was easy because we had a level 34 warrior as our main tank (who was excellent at maintaining aggro and took very little damage), but once we moved down to a 26 warrior and a 29 paladin as our main tanks things got a lot dicier. On the plus side, we had 2 druids who had gotten their Greater Healing spells (270 heal for 150 mana), but that means 2 healers who aren't as adept at avoiding aggro and who aren't wearing heavy armor (the druid class in EQ is limited to leather, while clerics are allowed to wear full plate). I stuck to my tried and true methods of low aggro healing (using the Bravery buff as a heal, and using Celestial Remedy, both low-aggro), until things got desperate and I couldn't stop the bleeding on the main tank with low-aggro heals. Finally during one pull, I had to use Divine Aura to grant myself 18 seconds of invulnerability to give them a chance to taunt a mob off of me. That time it worked, but leaves me without my ace-in-the-hole for 15 minutes until that spell refreshes.

Sure enough, a few minutes later we get a bad pull. This fight started at 22:16 with a seer, visionary, and raider all at the same time. I probably started the fight with about 80% of my mana pool (which is okay). Dropped a Celestial Remedy on the main tank quick, then got back to medding (or tried to). Unfortunately, I ended up at the top off the seer's hate list and it came over to visit me. Nothing like a level 29-31 mob beating on you while you're trying to get a spell off. About 30 seconds in I asked one of the group to root the thing so I could get away from it (my root spell wouldn't stick). Instead they threw a 270hp heal on me, and I'm still getting beaten on. I manage to channel a 2nd Celestial Remedy onto the main tank shortly after being healed (while still being beated on). Unfortunately I have to follow that up with a Greater Healing on the main tank who's taking a lot of damage fast. 90 seconds into my beating I managed to get a Greater Healing off on the backup healer.

Now, after 2 GHeal's, I'm really at the top of the mob's hate list and with only 10% mana left there's not a lot of healing I can do unless I can get to meditate some mana back. I managed to drop a bravery on myself with my last shred of mana, waiting anxiously for that Divine Aura icon to refresh. Unfortunately, this can only delay the inevitable after being beat on for 2 minutes (because I'm now down below 30% health and the mob has enraged on me). At the 20% health mark, I told the group "bye all", and got ready to make my CR, the seer then proceeded to hit me for maximum damage 3 times in a row (64 dmg each time) which ended it for me after 2 minutes 15 seconds.

At least I died with my boots on (meaning I had no mana left to use) and that was damage that the main tank didn't take. Plus after you appear back at your bind point you'll have full mana, so I promptly memorized my main heal spell, ran back downstairs and dropped fast heals on everyone who was down around 40% health.

Sigh, DA was only about 5 minutes away from refreshing (18 seconds would've made all the difference that fight). Still, it was a fun fight and mine was the only death we had that night (thanks to the 2 secondary healers).