Hearts of Tan joint hunt

[Maxmillian]

I was approached last night by Luna, who told me that the Hearts of Tan were interested in a joint hunt with us to 'Noth. I told her I would put a notice up here, and let our Ambassador know to contact Thalion, who is their hunt coordinator. If we are interested, Lerris can get ahold of him, and work out the details. I know we have a Noth hunt coming up, but another would be fun.

Max

[Drablak]

I would be interested to go. I can help a little with boosts for the hard to hit dews.

Drablak

[Farhope]

I would like to go with them to Noth! I think it will be a very difficult and interesting challenge :-)

[Darad]

Having never been to Noth, I am all in favor of going there as much as I can, just to see the place.
And after Qual's invasion tonight, a little payback would seem to be in order!

[Konoko]

Woo! Noth sounds fun!
I'm all up for a trip there!

/action promises she'll do her best to get out of the library for the trip!

Konoko

[Luna]

I am very excited about the prospect of our two clans joining together for this exciting hunt. I snuck in on your Noth hunt with POS. Thank you again Blaise for the invitation. There were plenty of healers and you all did a wonderful job. I was there to essentially take a peek at the flow and tactical situation. I noticed Gurgi and Thuja were in attendance as I had just been with them in the Valley. Is Noth impossible without them? My experiences to Noth are limited to going with the Dwarven Militia. Lots of dwarves. Lots of Beer. I am very much interested in planned tactics and would be interested in hearing from Lerris or anyone who might have some information. We have a TAN clan meeting tonight and the Noth hunt is on the agenda. I would invite any who would attend to have a meeting of the minds. If Lerris has difficulty contacting Thalion, please contact me. I believe my enchanted mail is accessible here. I look forward to this venture with much excitement.

Luna

[Konoko]

So is there a date set for this joint hunt yet?

I didn't stick around too long on the POS Noth hunt. I guess I wasn't in the mood or something. Maybe it was just the wave upon wave of the dews where we couldn't even get passed the first snell.

How far did the POS hunt progress after I left?

There was enough fire and healing power there that I would think progress would have been made...

Konoko

[Kiriel]

Well, there are three critical elements to a successful Noth hunt:


Someone with good enough atkus to hit Palidew
Someone who can brick, or at least rod the hard stuff
Someone who can run the critters


Now having Gurgi and Thuja helps a lot, but it's not required. That said, we either need to have some strong boosting or someone with 250 atkus or a fell blade or we may spend all day just trying to get past the firt Palidew. I suspect that with the healing power we'll bring we'll be able to get someone who can run the stuff decently enough, but atkus will be the tricky part. I can hit Pali with a bit of a boost, but it still takes me forever to kill the suckers. If Tan doesn't have a high atkus person to fill this void, we may want to try inviting someone along to help make the hunt go a little smoother.

[Tas Furrfoot]

I happened to see a hunt on Noth somewhat recently and wondered how the Tan fighters, most of which are 3rd nowadays would fair there. Most of our healers are 3rd as well... except... sigh... ah well. Someday I'll get there.

Anywho: I've seen some very poorly organized groups go in and really... fall hard. It takes some good leadership and good followers. I remember my first time there I got very far in with DM... very little resistance... but nowadays that's not so easy.

If anyone is about, our meeting tonight is in the monastery altar room at 8PM CST.

I hope to be there!

If a hunt on Noth is ill-advised... Any other areas we might try? Personally I haven't been far into Snaggy... but know that would be a repeat of what you all have done most probably. Any areas that have been neglected lately but still would be fun and somewhat challenging?

Tas.

[Kiriel]

Althus is actually quite experienced in running Noth hunts, so assuming he can make this one I think we'll be ok, the trick is just probably going to be getting enough atkus or boosting power to make good progress. We may want to extend an invitation to an extra person or two to round out the group.

I had originally suggested we have the hunt on November 25th at 12pm PST (our standard group hunt time), but Althus said he can't make that- perhaps December 2nd would work better? We have a hunt scheduled this weekend with Open Hands, and the weekend after is the week our meeting is in the 12pm slot, so the 25th is probably the earliest we could do it unless we want to have it at some other time of the week.

[Drablak]

I know I will regret posting this, but whatever.

I participated in the last hunt on Noth with POS. Well 'participated' might be stretching it a bit. Let's say I was there. I have been on different expeditions in very tough places (tough for me that is) and I usually like it. I have been on a KI raid for instance that was incredibly fun. It lasted more than 4 hours OOC and I fell dozens of time (litterally), I could not hit a single thing, but I still had a great time. Now, I don't say that for any other reason than to put what follows in perspective.

I found the hunt on Noth to be frustrating (to me). I know of someone else who left early who had the same feelings. A major difference with the KI raid was that the KI raid was an exploration adventure while the hunt on Noth was a regular hunt (meaning for exp and coins and fun).
What was frustrating? I found I had too little boosts and that they did not last long enough. It was very difficult to coodinate boosts. I had no chance to hit most things there. The few creatures I could have hit (white wendies and neodews for instance) were often killed by fighters before I could even come close to them (in their haste to go from one pali to the other). And we all left as we arrived at the 'town' where I could have done a little exploration (which would have put the whole affair in the "it's-an-exploration-so-don't-mind-the-rest-cause-I-learned-something" category).

And I won't go into the ss discussion I had with a friend about "I don't share mystics because I don't need them" because it still hurts.

So I don't know really if I should go to the next hunt on Noth. I guess not.

/ponder "I guess noth ?" no no bad pun, shut up Drablak!
Drablak

[Fogtripper]

My dear Drablak.
Have you not yet learned that we as mystics were not meant to be fighters?[:)]

But seriously, those who appreciate the boosts should be aware that the more shares, the better the boost. Subtlety and all. The best thing a mystic can do under those conditions as Noth is to remain vertical...out of harms way, boosting as one can.

A concern of mine: were you boosting their balance? Some fighters indeed apreciate that much more than boosting their attacks. I find that it keeps the fighters from becoming too vulnerable.

I would jump at the chance to return to Noth. The few boosts you do get are (as frequent vanquishes) far more valuable than shares from fighters coin whoring in the forests of Puddleby Island.

Boosting is one of the most tangible ways that mystics can help a group.

-Foggy

[Kiriel]

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your visit Drablak. I can see your concerns. I think part of the problem in your case was probably partly that you were overshadowed by Popo, who naturally has a stronger boost since she has been training her mystic skills a lot longer. Additionally, it was a big hunt with a lot of people, and I think it's always hard to make the tough share decisions in big groups. I think there are also a lot of people who don't understand that more shares really do make mystics stronger, just the same as many folks don't really understand why healers need to be shared while healing until they play a healer themselves.

I was disappointed that we didn't get to go further- I think you would have had a lot more fun if we'd been able to continue exploring the town and the castle. Unfortunately it's very difficult to make progress quickly on Noth without a very strong group- we could have stayed after Gurgi and Thuja left, but it wouldn't have been a very good idea. If more of POS had come I think we'd have been able to see a lot more of the island. I hope with Tan we'll have a large enough group that we can make progress more effectively and get to explore a bit further even if some folks have to leave early. This is why I'm also hoping to invite at least one high atkus person to help us move along without spending so much time killing each palidew.

The expedition to Noth is meant to also be exploratory, but here's the problem- when you go with a group like ours that's borderline on Noth skills, you can't dispatch things quickly and get to the exploring stuff with ease. It would not have been safe to run past the critters to get to the more interesting areas, and taking them out takes time. If you want to get the full exploratory experience, you go with a really powerful group that can kick butt the whole way and not have to take so long getting to the exploratory sections. For our clan, going to Noth is naturally challenging, and I don't think it's something we should do every week, because it is somewhat frustrating making progress. But I do think it's valuable to go once or twice as a group and get the experience and see what we can accomplish.

[Althus]

Well said, Kiri.

/action waits for Aethelred to jump in and start calling him names.