"We're ok, he's down..."

Our fearless leader, Paxmortis, decided enough was enough and wrenched the mantle of command from Fugg and Blackheathen last Thursday, leading the Elder through the spell drenched Mana-Tombs.

Mana flows

This all came about because, as most have realised, Paxmortis now has a mic, much to the horrordelight of all who roll with him. His running commentary was a revelation, and kept everyone well focussed for the night. Pax introduced some nice new features to the run. The best was the ingenious use of smoke flares to set pull and ranged positions in the kill zones. Certainly helped for positioning, and led to a more structured setup.

Pandemonius

Unfortunately for Pax's Warmaster ambitions, we had a few wipes on trash as usual. But we managed to take care of the Bosses pretty smoothly, wiping only once on Pandemonius, and not at all on Tavarok. Blackheathen also starred, taking on Mana Leeches all on his lonesome, whilst Fugg and Stroeb cheered from the sidelines. Fugg's classic "can I get a heal" after one particularly nasty Leech encounter left Blacky with 51HP was perfect.

Tavarok

Stroeb got her first taste of being a sheep thanks to some mob casters, Fugg spent an entire fight trying to control his Tonk Tank instead of his axe (leaving Pax to threaten to replace all Fugg's enchants with Intellect buffs to make him the smarted warrior around), and perhaps the highlight was Pax's calm assurance that "We're ok, he's down..." whilst we were being cut to pieces by an add he hadn't seen.

The final Boss, Nexus-Prince Shaffar, proved a real challenge. His three companion Ethereal Beacon's caused all sorts of problems as we needed to take them down before they summoned Apprentices, who packed a nasty Fireball punch. Blackheathen did a masterful job tanking the Prince himself, and Neit more than kept him up. But the DPS brigade kept getting overwhelmed by the summoned nasties. We tried various tactics - concentrate on one, take one each, pull them away from each other - before a final attempt led to an epic victory. Pax's voice control directed the DPS traffic, which allowed Fugg and Stroeb to alternate between the Beacon's and the Prince. Neit and Blacky meanwhile kept the Prince busy, and we steadily wore him down - and we steadily went down too. First Stroeb (as usual!), then Pax, then Fugg, and Neit.

In the end only Blackheathen was left standing when the Prince finally died, and even he went down thanks to some leftover trash. But the boss was down, and it was a sweet win.

Once again no loot to speak of (other than loads of dull +intellect gear, as befits the mana rich atmosphere), and we failed on the escort quest on the way out that would have given Blackheathen a nice pair of tanking boots. Maybe next time!