16-man Hard Mode Zorn and Toth Down

We just finished Zorn and Toth on 16-man Hard Mode.  We've also done Colonel Vorgath, think I forgot to post about that.  Also beat Nightmare Pilgrim tonight as well.

Hard Mode Colonel Vorgath Down

And that's 3/4.  Put in a few attempts on Kephess to see what's new but didn't really work at it yet.  I picked up the Campaign gloves but won't really be able to put 'em to use until I can get my hands on another copy of the mod and augment to go with 'em.

Hard Mode Tanks Down

Anyways, now that yesterday's emo episode is over, I ought to report that last night we downed the second boss in Denova on Hard Mode.  Gonna work on the next boss later tonight.  This makes us the farthest progressed Empire guild on Helm of Graush (there's already two Republic guilds that have cleared it out), and something like 33rd worldwide.

Hard Mode Zorn and Toth Down

After several hours' worth of attempts we finally got boss #1 in Hard Mode down. Antimony got a recording of the win somewhere.   Updated the loot list with what we saw drop.  I won the roll on the Campaign legs token and as much as I'd like to keep 'em because Sorcerer Campaign gear looks sweet, it's realistically my duty as a Synthweaver to rip out the mods, stick 'em in another orange item that has an augment slot, and then RE the shell.

Normal Mode Donova Cleared

Just put the finishing touches on Normal Kephess.  Dropped a pair of Black Hole Stalker boots that we decided to hand it off to a Cybertech to experiment to see if the item modification patterns could be learned.  As suspected, the armoring could not be learned for a pattern but the mod could be (alas no luck this time).  Presumably so can the enhancements.

Denova Normal Mode Progression

Went back into 8-man Normal Denova with whomever we could scrape together; we've adopted an unusual raid schedule this week since the new stuff came out on a Thursday.  First boss was already down from the 16-man we ran last night.  Got up to and through several attempts on the last boss.

Second boss, the tanks, have some tricky mechanics but aren't really all that hard once you've learned to juggle them.  For people just wading into it, it's important to know not to destroy the shield generators on the add phase and that Double Destruction must be dealt with by some coordination between two DPS and the tank.  There's a lot more to it, but dealing with those two mechanics is a start.

The third boss is a puzzle boss and likewise pretty easy once you've got the hang of it.

The last boss was kinda fun and tricky.  We got close several times and with a little cleanup (ie not raiding with several members in a time zone where it's 2AM) it'll be pretty simple to finish off.

Also, it's important to keep in mind that mid-way to the next boss after every boss there's a chest containing an additional 4 Black Hole Commendations.  The lockout on the chest seems tied to the death of the previous boss.  When we started and got to the chest between bosses 1 and 2 we were unable to open it; we surmised that the reason has to do with the instance resetting (similar to how the boss-loot boxes regenerate but are inaccessible for the pylon and council bosses in EV).  Also, we had one member swap out for another after the second boss and the new guy we brought in couldn't access the chest after the second boss--furthermore after we discovered this we tried to bring back the guy we swapped out and he couldn't access the chest either.  So if you're going to call it a night after one of the bosses and still want the additional loot, make sure you clear your way to the chest before you close shop.

1.2 Day/Nightmare Pilgrim

1.2's finally here, woo!  Also, check out this slick promo for those of us who have been around since the beginning.

As expected, had to go through every one of my characters to set up the new UI and do some rebinding.  Also transferred excess funds to Abraxane to buy some Legacy unlocks.  DO NOT buy Rocket Boost it's a complete waste of 2-4.5 mil; it's a 110% speed boost (ie same as the highest level mounts) that can only be used out of combat and in areas where you can mount.  So it's useless in PvP et al and anywhere you can use it you might as well mount up anyways.

MoX went through the first boss in Denova on 16-man Normal then shifted to work on Nightmare Pilgrim in a half-MoX, half-Ghost Codex 16-man raid.

Here are some of the essential quirks to Nightmare Pilgrim:
-Start with all DPS on the The Thing From the Stars (hereafter referred to as TTFtS), the reason why will be apparent as the fight goes on.  They need to be killed at the same time.
-It's a pretty simple fight until TTFtS gets to ~50%.  As TTFtS approaches 55-50% you'll notice two key things:
--First the Nightmare Pilgrim (hereafter referred to as NP) will do an aoe knockback and then put up a shield (he channels it), attempting to damage NP while this shield is up will instead deal damage back to you ie do not attack him while this shield is up.
--Second and at the same time, several members of the raid will receive a debuff called Bloodmark.  Who receives the buff will be identifiable by a shaft of white light that comes down to the affected players.  Players with this debuff will have massive damage inflicted upon them if they damage TTFtS.
--Thus as TTFtS approaches 50% all DPS should stop (or to be more precise, have everyone stop as soon as NP puts up his shield) and wait until Bloodmark is up (it should be up by the time NP stops channeling the shield).  Everyone who receives Bloodmark should start DPSing NP, everyone else should resume DPS on TTFtS.
-Bloodmark lasts 90 seconds.  As its duration is close to finished the above pattern repeats; NP knockbacks and shields, Bloodmarks go out.  The rest of the fight is basically juggling this mechanic.
-There's some intense tanking mechanics to the fight as well, but I'm personally pretty oblivious to what the tanks were doing.