Someone call the doctor…

I woke up this morning with a full-blown case of Cranky Old Bastard.  I’ve been taking my daily supply of Vitamen Silly, but sooner or later, everyone succumbs.

I think I need a vacation.  The last time I took off work was over last Christmas.  Due to the fact that I can’t afford to go anywhere again this year, I’ve been waiting to take any time off until the weather starts to cool down.  If I’m going to be stuck sitting in my apartment for a week, I’m certainly not going to do it while it is still sweltering heat season.  A couple more months and it should be sufficiently cool for me to take time off, but that is a couple more months of me trying to battle through work fatigue.

I have decided that I absolutely love being 75+.  I’m not a LOT +, but I am over the magic mark.  Since hitting 75, my dance card has been full fairly regularly.  Last night was no different.

After waking up from what is turning into my nightly “post work pass out like an old bastich on the couch for an hour or so,” I logged on with the intention of griding my jeweler.  I’m not sure if I have enough supplies to get him from 70 to 71, but I thought I could at least make a dent.  I still haven’t had anything even resembling luck at getting ferrite clusters.  I gave away over 1400 common t8 loam clusters the other day, but ferrite eludes me.  My harvest average is still about 1 ferrite cluster for every 70 loam cluster.

In short, t8 crafting is going slowly.

Anyway, I got Fuzz online and began making my way to the bank to pick up what supplies I do have.  Along the way, I popped open the guild window to see who was online.

Since moving servers, I have been very glad that I did so on many occasions.  The overall tone and feel of Revelry and Honor is so much more relaxed and enjoyable than my old guild.  People play because they have fun playing.

And that is another key.  People play.  On non-raid nights in my old guild, I might be one of four or five people online.  With RnH, there are RARELY fewer than 20 people online on any given night.  Most nights, there are more.

Last night when I logged on, it looked like more than 3/4 of the active guild members were online and, from the look of who they were and where they were, I knew that groups were forming.

Before even arriving at the bank, I logged Fuzz off and changed to Rao.  As Rao was logging in, I got the tell-tale *pop* of a tell.  Once I appeared in the world, there it was.  “Hey man.  Want to do CoA?”

“You betcha.”  And, the race was on.

From the very beginning, the slapstick was on with people digging on each other and cracking jokes.  Fun stuff.

As we were clearing towards the entrance to CoA, Zyphwar (monk) runs forward to pull a mob.  We were on a rock bridge that didn’t have walls… only drops on either side.  Zyph tags his mob and starts pulling it back.  Only, he got a little too happy on the walking backwards and fell right off the bridge into the unknown below.

The next few minutes in chat went something like this:

Zyph: I didn’t know those guys could grav flux.
Mutz: Dude, you walked off the ledge.
Zyph: Nah.  It was a knockback.
Philly: Those mobs don’t have a knockback.
Zyph: Be careful walking around.  Sony OBVIOUSLY patched in some pit traps.
Mutz: Dude.
Zyph: HUGE freaking holes in the ground.
Philly: Liar.
Zyph: And you can just fall right through.

Guarding the entrance to CoA was a named that no one had seen before.  That isn’t surprising in my case as this was only my second trip, but some of these people live in CoA.  We killed him with little pain (although I think he did manage to squish a couple of our squishies) and he dropped a fairly nice item.  I don’t recall what it was… melee ring I think.  I didn’t roll because it was level 79 and I’m only 76.  Call me strange, but when there are people present who can use an item now, I don’t go in on it.

The mobs in CoA were generous last night.  The first named dropped a wood chest as did one of the others, but we got 3 or 4 ornate chests off of random trash mobs and all other bosses dropped ornate with the final dropping an exquisit.

Our berserker was the big winner of the night as I believe 4 pieces of plate gear dropped… including a breastplate.  A piece of some monk armor set dropped and it just happened to be a piece that Zyph didn’t have yet.  Our two casters each got some nice items and I scored some upgrade sleeves.  Of course, the sleeves were a color of green that would cause a leprechaun to weep uncontrollably, so I had to drop some flat gray sleeves into the appearance tab.

I’m trying to remember if Mutz (our healer) scored any upgrades last night, but I honestly can’t recall.  I know he won some greed loot though.

The final boss also dropped an 80 warlock master, so we made a gift of it to guild warlock who was very happy.

I died a few times.  At 76, I’m still a bit squishy and the fact that I’m a chain-wearing dirge means that I’ll always remain squishy as well, so death is just a part of life.  Still, I gained about 20% exp and am very happy with my sleeve upgrades.  I also walked away with two pieces of vendor trash that covered my repair bill and gave me a profit of about 10 gold and an advanced jeweler 79 page for Fuzz.

As we were breaking for the night, there was some discussion of hitting something else tonight so I hope that I get to tag along again.  After soloing for so long, it is quite a treat to suddenly be group viable and these people are defiantely fun to group with.

And if I haven’t kicked this cast of Cranky Old Bastard by then, perhaps Zyph will locate another “hidden pit trap” to cheer me up.