Tank you very much

Months n’ months ago, I posted about the first time Even tanked Horoth on hard, and how it was especially sweet for me because I’d been told that she wasn’t good enough. Not too long after that, I blogged about Acanthia getting a very brief solo crack at Harry. And in my last post, I got all happy about Even tanking Horoth on elite, and then tanking Xy’zzy in Hound.

What I never expected was for Even to get a shot at going up against Harry all by herself – at least not for more than a few seconds. Every so often, though, Even surprises me. Sometimes the surprises aren’t great – “Where’d my DPS go? Oh right, I gave it up for better AC.” But sometimes, just sometimes, she leaves me beaming like the sun.

And to think, I almost went to bed instead of hitting the LFM… but Slvr’d been about to head to bed as well before he decided that an elite Shroud was too good to pass up. There were a few other people I recognized in the LFM, so I switched to Even just in time to grab the last spot and away we went.

Rounds 1 and 2 went smoothly, even though Slvr’s bard was our only arcane (which led to a bit of a dilemma trying to figure out who was going to take the crystal). Round 3 brought issues when several people couldn’t solve their puzzles and we realized that we had no rogue, no arti, and no one with Knock. Slvr managed to get one or two rooms open with a Greater Dowsing Rod, but the wall came up, lots of hit points went down, the death count skyrocketed, and finally I suggested that we just break the crystals and forfeit the two underwater chests – after all, you can’t loot if you’re dead!

So after rezzing and shrining and looting the two chests that WEREN’T behind a barrier, it was on to Phase 4… where all Khyber broke loose. We had a few people who didn’t understand the concept of saving the last devil until the blades were gone, and refused to listen to the other people yelling and typing, “STOP HITTING THAT ONE!” And that happened EVERY round. Our DPS wasn’t half bad to start, but we had about five sets of blades still going when Harry dropped the first time, and they took out a goodly chunk of our melees. Round two, same thing; lots of blades still going, someone killed the last devil anyway.

By about the fourth round, it was down to Even, a ranger and a monk who was prone to bragging about how great he was (and who was also responsible for killing a lot of those last devils). Then the ranger succumbed to the blades, and finally the monk ended up as a soulstone as well.

Harry was down to about 20%. Even was really wishing she’d finished her Silver Flame favor farming, because SF pots would’ve come in REAL handy, and/or that she’d gotten around to trading in some more Villager commendations for Draughts of Hearty Apple Cider, ’cause those would’ve been pretty nice to have, too. Alas, all she had were some Cure Serious pots, her Lay on Hands ability, her Unyielding Sovereignty, and the ability to cast Cure Serious. Harry flew up to the top and tried to dive-bomb her with Delayed Blast Fireball, which she mostly shrugged off, and then four devils descended on her.

Now, Even’s DPS is, well, lacking. She’s kind of built that way. It’s not that I WANT her to do less damage, I just sacrificed that for stuff I think is more important to the role I built her to play. Even is designed to take a beating, keep herself healed and hold aggro. She can’t beat stuff up in a matter of seconds the way Acanthia can. She can’t keep a party healed the way Jall can. Yes, yes, I know the egolitists out there are probably laughing at me because their uber toons can heal and DPS and CC and every other thing under the sun. (Why do people like that even bother to group? Is it just so they can show off?)

But what Even CAN do is survive. Unbuffed (which she was, I didn’t even ship buff before heading to Shroud), she’s at 1100+ HP, 133 AC, 122 PRR, with respectable saves as well. So while she didn’t exactly make short work of killing off the devils, she DID manage to take them out, one at a time… except when she got down to one devil left, something went a bit haywire again. Despite having a devil still alive and well and hell-bent on serving julienne’d Even for dinner, Harry decided to drop in again anyway, complete with gnolls and at least four sets of blades besides the circling ones. I’m not sure if it was a glitch or if she just didn’t take the devils out fast enough, but I said a few choice words upon finding myself dealing with a devil AND Harry AND gnolls AND so many blades that I wanted to buy stock in Schick.

I decided to go for the gnolls first, because I knew there was no way Even could damage Harry faster than they could heal him. They actually went down pretty quickly – only took two or three hits per gnoll – and I figured I’d ignore the devil and focus on Harry since the devil wasn’t really doing much damage to Even anyway. But she’d only gotten in a few hits when Harry flew up to the top again, made a few passes overhead and then threw yet more devils at her.

Same thing happened – got down to one devil, which I wanted to save so Even’s LoH could regen, and Harry decided to come roaring back in with more gnolls and more blades. I made it through one more round of this and finally ran out of Lay on Hands and mana. Unyielding Sovereignty put off the inevitable for a little longer, but all those blades were just too much to overcome with only Cure Serious pots.

Y’know what, though – DAMN, that was sweet. Oh, it was like being in a maelstrom of blades and fireballs and devils, but Even lasted for at LEAST 15 minutes by herself, at least according to what the rest of the party was saying… I didn’t have time to look at the clock, LOL. I’m not going to post the stuff they were saying about Even and her build; I started to type some of it and it sounded kinda braggy, and I’m NOT trying to brag. Even’s far from uber. She has a specific role she’s designed for. Last night she ended up in a situation almost tailor-made for that role, and because of that she got to shine.

But I gotta admit, one of the best things was that several people in the group were guildmates of the guy who turned Even down for his ToD run because “she’s not good enough to tank.” I really hope last night’s run comes up in their guild chat when he’s online.  *g*