The past two weeks have been remarkably productive for us, as we check four more items off our to-do list: Defeating Plane of Sky isles 3 and 4, our first Kunark Dragon Severilous, and our recent nemesis, Venril Sathir, unlocking the green dragon scales for Warrior epics, and VS’s loot table for our progression guild to use including Kunark Class Leggings. Also, congratulations to Mefsolis for being the first member to complete the Plane of Sky quest for the Nature Walker’s Mantle. As we plan more days in Plane of Sky, we’ll be seeing more of these unique loots amongst our members!

With over 30 raiders at all of our events and more members inching closer to the expansion’s max level of 60, we’re all excited for our upcoming attempts at Queen Velazul Di`zok, Trakanon, Isles 5-7 in Plane of Sky, and Veeshan’s Peak!

Here are a couple of screenshots from the week, enjoy!

Vintage’s Summer Raiding Season has officially started as we turned on the green light to plow through Kunark. After spending two months focused on leveling and working on epics, we’ve matured into a stronger raid force comprised of mostly 55+ dragon slayers, three mages with Call of Hero, our first cleric epic, and many, MANY more epics to be completed in the upcoming week!

We kicked the weekend off early Friday night with what we expected to be a small raid with a few people online to go to the Hole for some epic pieces. As the night went on, more and more members logged in who we CoH’d to the raid and by the time we got to Master Yael, we had four groups ready to rock his socks. As this was a first for us, we came up with a strategy we hoped would work as we jumped off a high ledge into his room like lemmings. Half of the raid died immediately upon impact to the hard floor while the other half engaged in an amazing fight to the death against Yael and every mob in his room. Vintage emerged victorious in our first attempt, earning us another mark on the server’s guild tier progression chart!

Afterwards, the night was still young and the dark elves in Kithicor forest were selected as our next targets. We mobilized our forces and defeated General V’ghera once again, completing our third rogue epic. Congratulations, Senbus!

Craving for another challenge and something new we haven’t done before, everybody swam through the tumultuous waters of Timorous Deep to engage the demonic beast known as Faydedar for Rojo’s epic. The fight was pretty short giving us time to pull out the beach chairs and beers and retire for the night on the nice private beach while we celebrated the completion of our first druid epic, Congratulations Rojo!

Saturday. Vintage rallies to finally take on the Chardok Royal Family to get one step closer to completing two more epics. After spending a few hours with 34 members wiping the floor with the sarnaks, we got what we came for and left very satisfied with the carnage we left in their home. After being defeated repeatedly, Overking Bathezid and Prince Selrach Di’zok bribed Vintage to leave their Queen alone, (who says chivalry is dead among Sarnaks?). With our immediate focus being on completing our first cleric epic, we politely accepted their offer and moved forward on our quest.

Next up on our agenda, the giant fire elemental in Burning Woods, Ixiblat Fer, who our mages wanted to take home with them if we didn’t need to slay him for his sceptre… the quick extinguishing of the fire elemental was our environmentally friendly accomplishment of the day as the Smokey the Bear saying comes to mind… “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!”

At this point, our gnomes were getting hungry (and our Ogre’s were looking pretty hungry too…) so we wisely took a break for snacks so we would not see each other on milk cartons in Ak’anon. After the refueling break, we continued our rampage on Zordakalicus Ragefire in Skyfire, the final encounter in the cleric’s quest. It has been a while since we’ve seen a dragon, who caught us out of position and wiped our raid. However, we came back and reloaded, and easily added Ragefire’s head to our wall of slain dragons. Running back to Timorous Deep for a final time, we completed our first Water Sprinkler of Nem Ankh epic, equipping our raid force with more confidence to attempt difficult encounters with less CR downtime! Congratulations, Wejbot!

The rest of Saturday night and Sunday was spent working on more epic fights, including Eejag, Gwar, Trent, Xenevorash, Venril Sathir Remains, The Tangrin, Vessel Drozlin, Phinigel Autropos, Lord Ghiosk and Neh`Ashiir. With Plane of Sky planned for the upcoming Saturday raid, scouts searching for the dragons of Kunark, and another visit to The Hole and the Queen of Chardok, we will be sure to complete a dozen more epics in the next two weeks for our members!

Over the weekend, Vintage rolled through Plane of Fear to gear farm for newer members and in hopes of completing a few more full planar sets. Our break in was smooth as we got most of the raiders camped out or dragged and ressed within the first hour. The raid went very well as we steadily cleared mob after mob and were rewarded with many non rotting pieces of gear.

After a few hours, we were in position to take on the golems who have been unchallenged for days and possibly very bored. We took out our friends Dread and Fright on play dates like old times, and then prepared for Terror whom we have not killed to this day. In what seemed to be two very short battles were described in action-packed detail by guild member, Tolk, in the forum post below:

Terror was the 3rd golem we went to take down. All of our Ogre tanks had left and we were now going to attempt the hardest one with a level 50 warrior and level 51 paladin (I think) and a ranger as our tanks. I didn’t feel good about our chances. Had I remembered the area effect attacks he dishes out every 30 seconds I would have decided we had no chance, but I had forgotten about them and that turned out to be my mistake.

The pull started, the enchanter died, and the battle started. I was watching as everyone in front of me was being slaughtered. They were falling quickly. I decided to attempt to help by moving my mages close and sending in the pets. That didn’t work so well since the tanks were all dead, Terror summoned the 2 mages and killed them off.

I tried getting the wizards in range to cast a spells but they got hit with the area effect spells before they could cast their first spell. They released the first wave of spells and were hit again with the area effect attack. Geesh! Had 30 seconds gone by already?? The wizards started their next wave of spells and got hit with a 3rd area effect attack and one of the wizards died before the spell went off. The others landed.

The two remaining wizards cast spells once again and they were hit with a 4th wave but for some reason was mostly resisted and they landed another couple of spells on Terror. Terror was down to 40% by the time the next area effect waves hit the wizards and the remaining 2 died.

So it was time to wait as the clerics made their way back to resurrect all of us. This was when I remembered the toes needed trimming and began to accomplish that goal. This time we ended up getting another tank, which certainly couldn’t hurt, and the raid leader wisely put a healer in our group of wizards and mages. If we could keep the wizards alive long enough they could kill the golem provided there were enough sacrifices to keep the golem busy while the wizards killed him. The mages couldn’t do any damage to the golem, but their pets could.

So the strategy for the next session was to send in the pets after the golem bit on the first couple of sacrifices and then move the mages far enough away so that the area effect would not harm them. After the mages were safe the wizards would move within striking distance and attack. Hopefully the healer in our group, Joban, would be able to delay the deaths of the wizards long enough for them to get in a few spells.

After the battle had been going on for about 20 seconds, the mages moved close and sent in their pets. They were not summoned like last time, so the tanks were doing an excellent job of keeping agro and the healers were also doing an excellent job in keeping the tanks alive longer. After the pets were sent, the mages moved far away but were hit with one wave of area spell from Terror but it didn’t kill either of them.

With the mages safe, the wizards moved into position. The battle had probably been going on for 40 seconds or so by now. I could tell that Terror was injured but not too much. The 3 wizards let go of their first wave of spells as Terror attacked with his area effect spells. I was thinking this is going a lot like the last battle except the mages were still alive.

The second wave of area effect hit the wizards as they got off another volley of spells. I didn’t have time to see how injured they were since it didn’t really matter they were going to fight until they died or Terror died. They continued to cast spells and Terror AE continued to hit them. After the 4th or maybe 5th volley of spells the wizards cast I was thinking, WOW!!! We are still alive! Joban, our healer in the face of extreme danger, was somehow keeping the wizards alive. I was amazed.

The wizards continue their casting and soon Terror was fleeing from Vintage. We moved forward and cast another volley of spells and Terror died. We looked around at the carnage and didn’t see one melee person alive. However I did see 3 mage pets and 1 necro pet still alive and was wondering if they were tanking Terror toward the end of that battle. I asked in chat and someone declared that one of the pets was indeed tanking. I vote for the necromancer pet as they are pretty tough.

The battle ended with the 3 wizards living and the 2 mages, along with the amazing shaman healer we had. Tolk’s entire group survived the encounter. Koard, who was one of the sacrificial lambs, was dead but that was expected.

This was the first time that Vintage was able to attack and defeat all three golems in one Fear visit. Now if only Cazic wasn’t afraid of us we could have taken him next.

- Cart Menagerie

The Loot:

Carmine Robe – Ashlawn
Dweamorvine Garland – Xandra
Shiverback-hide Jerkin – Rulle
Thorny Vine Chestplate – Autotune
Umbral Platemail Bracer – Zella
Umbral Platemail Breastplate – Zella
Umbral Platemail Vambraces – Zella
Valoruim Bracer – Glunier
Valorium Helmet – Glunier
Vermiculated Bracer – Xandra
Vermiculated Leggings – Rojo
Cryosilk Amice – Rot
Cryosilk Choker – Rot
Ethereal Mist Boots – Rot
Eyerazzia – Rot
Umbral Platemail Boots – Rot

Golems Loot:

Amulet of Necropotence – Shuvit
DawnFire, Morning Star of Light – Snaredrum
DawnFire, Morning Star of Light – Guild Bank
Bone Razor – Guild Bank

In attendance were: Autotune, Snaredrum, Xica, Nienna, Xandra, Rojo, Mefsolis, Bibble, Rulle, Vvutang, Rhuark, Glunier, Dunkirk, Wejbot, Aelies, Barrett, Rhuobhe, Shuvit, Morbid, Gorthaur, Rictus, Senbus, Takt, Tilk, Tolk, Blic, Kieson, Koard