Page 87 of Looking for Group
To [Solace]: hehe
They trooped back out of Vilicus’s tower and into the heart of the maze. They took down several packs of mourning ghosts and finally assembled in the Chamber of Tears. It was a sort of clearing, with walls of stone and thorns, and three overgrown statues forming a triangle around the centre of the room. Drew knew from experience they were a bugger for line of sight.
“Okay,” said Morag. She still sounded a bit subdued. Whatever had gone on with the poet had clearly taken its toll. “Welcome to the most sexist fight in the game. The Council of Tears are three evil women who used their evil feminine wiles to betray the men who cared about them, and now they’re minions of the naked sex elf we’ve come here to kill.”
“Hey.” That was Ialdir. “Lauriel wasn’t evil. She tried to stop Maladreth destroying elvish society.”
“Fine. Two evil women and one victim. That’s so much better. Anyway, the central mechanic of the fight is called”—Morag sighed heavily—“Hysteria.3 At certain points, one of the three women will get a buff called Hysteria, which will increase her damage output by about four hundred percent and last until she takes a certain amount of damage. Which means, when she gets Hysterical, you have to smack her until she calms down. Once one of them is dead, the other two become Hysterical permanently, so we need to get them all down as close together aspossible. That means, when I tell you to stop DPSing, you stop DPSing. You seriously stop DPSing.”
“That means you, Dave,” added Bjorn.
[Raid][Dave]: hey!
“Each of the three Hysterical women have their own Hysterical woman powers. Hecuba the medusa will turn you to stone permanently if she catches you, so she has to be kited by a ranged DPS. Jacob, she’s all yours.”
[Raid][Ialdir]: kk
“Rest of the ranged, unless I tell you otherwise, prio her because her snakes will spit venom in melee range. She’s also got Beauty’s Curse, which will make a random raid member who doesn’t have high threat walk towards her. If they reach her, they’ll be turned to stone, so they need to be dispelled ASAP.”
[Raid][Solace]: We’ve got a rota sorted
“Lauriel, the elf who’s worth it, will stand around crying. She and Cressida will both put stacking debuffs on the tank, so the tanks have to swap before they hit ten stacks. Lauriel’s debuff is called Burden of Tears, which increases the damage you take. If it gets too high, she’ll do Shattered Heart, which will almost certainly one-shot you, unless you’re the best-geared tank on the server. She’s also got Lamentation, which means she’ll stop and cry really loudly for a bit, which will send waves of emo through the room, and you have to line of sight them behind the statues. That just leaves Cressida, who’s a dirty, dirty ho.Her debuff is”—Morag sighed again—“Faithless Touch. This will reduce your threat generation by up to fifty percent and when it reaches maximum, she casts Seduction, which mind controls you for the rest of the fight. She also does Harlot’s Strike, which is a high physical damage cleave so DPS stay away from her tits and close to her arse.”
A readycheck popped up on Drew’s screen.
“Oh wait. Let’s not forget, if they get too close together, they get a buff called Sisterhood, which heals them. And if all three of them get within ten feet of each other, they cast Betrayer’s Cry, which does massive raid-wide damage, so don’t let that happen. Drew, do you want the crying elf or the slutty human?”
Drew was silent a moment. He had no idea how to answer that without it sounding really, really bad. “I’ll go with Lauriel.”
The readycheck came back and Drew confirmed he was, yet again, ready. He, Morag, and Ialdir jogged between the statues into the centre of the room, which triggered the arrival of the Council of Tears.
[Hecuba] says: We are the betrayers
[Lauriel] says: And the betrayed
[Cressida] says: And you will know our suffering.
As Morag charged at Cressida, her shield glowing with righteous golden light, Ella ran up to Lauriel and whacked her in the face with the Inexorable Axe. As Drew began drawing her back behind the statue of her evil husband, so her AoE wouldn’t hit too much of the raid, he saw Ialdir somersaulting away from Hecuba, peppering her with arrows.
This was Drew’s least favourite fight in the instance. It had a lot of fiddly little things to keep track of, and it was really easy forone mistake to kick the raid into a death spiral, but it was actually pretty dull to tank. He just had to make sure he wasn’t letting his debuff stack too high and to stay alert for the switch. Basically, he felt there wasn’t a lot he could do to help the fight go smoothly, but if he lost concentration, he’d screw it up abominably.
They wiped three times in quite small, annoying ways, once because Cressida went down too quickly and the other two Hysteria-ed out and killed everyone, once because of a really badly timed Lamentation, and once because they let the bosses get too close on a switch, nuking the raid. And then they wiped again because Bjorn over-aggro-ed Hecuba, got himself stone-gazed, and everyone was too busy laughing and taking screenies to pay attention so everything fell apart.
“Okay.” Morag sounded a bit more cheerful. “We’re losing focus here. Let’s take five.”
Bjorn was uncharacteristically silent.
Guild Message of the day is now: Do not ask Bjorn about Council of Tears.
[Raid][Solace]: I know we all hate this fight, but I really like this part of the maze.
Drew mouse-looked round, being careful not to accidentally trigger the fight. It was a bit like the high elf areas, except it was crumbled and corrupted, with the occasional bloody rose forcing its way through the cracks.
[Raid][Orcarella]: your just really into wrecked shit
[Raid][Solace]: Hehe
[Raid][Solace]: I guess I am
