Upcoming Changes to Anguish enterence. Also preview of DoDH AAs!

[Gnomency]

As of the next patch, six more projections will be added to MPG and six more trials are being added to the requirements for Anguish Entry. The Dev?s spin on this is that Anguish gear is so powerful, it causes a serious game imbalance in favour of Anguish geared players. The Devs were not prepared for how many guilds got into Anguish so quickly. Players currently Anguished flagged will receive an ?award? to compensate them for suddenly being locked out of Anguish again. I suspect this will be an upgraded version of the PoP Intricate Wooden Figurine. Whether or not players will be stripped of Anguish gear has not been discussed. My belief is that the Devs are way behind on the next expansion, DoN was crushed by the ubers much faster than expected and ramrodding through this extension of content is a stopgap fix.

At least no new signets have been added.

Forewarned is forearmed, so I?ve been relentlessly crawling through blogs and other sites to compile a list of the new trials and strategies developed by the beta testers.

Trial of Appointment

On first glance, this trial looks quite simple. Four waves of six mobs each must be defeated in order to activate the Master of Appointment which also needs to be beaten down. However, the mobs and the Master of Appointment all have a HP regen rate that puts a North Ro newbie guard to shame. This regen rate is reduced for each full member main waiting outside the trial in relation to each app or alt character inside the trial. Note: Full Members must be waiting directly outside the trial, doing nothing. If they?re exp grinding on MPG trash mobs, or even having a decent conversation with somebody in tells, the effect of their presence is abated.

It was never the intention of SOE that guilds should come up with amiable methods to deal with 54-player caps on instanced raids. In fact, we the Devs are quite disappointed that so many guilds have managed to function under this limitation, instead of having full membership blowouts, falling apart and moving en masse to SWG or EQ2.

Known Loot
Glowing Muramite Rune
Year?s subscription to your favourite magazine
A 24-pack of toilet paper

Trial of Restraint

Unlike all other trials, the trigger NPC does not start on the central platform. It starts on the easternmost platform furthest from the zone in. The NPC, Master of Restraint, has a short agro agro range and is almost impossible to defeat. He has about a billion HP, hits for 7k, can't be slowed, AE rampages and is a belly caster.

So how do you defeat this thing? Don't agro him. That's it. He's on the other side of the zone. His agro range is like six inches. All you have to do is get the raid in the zone and stand still for fifteen minutes. Just come in, hug the wall and stand still. Don't go to take a closer look. Don't target him and accidently cast on him. Just don't agro him for fifteen minutes and you win.

Known Loot
No clue. No guild has ever passed this trial.


Trial of that Guild

Unique amongst the trials, The Trial of that Guild is not instanced. It can only be activated by speaking with the Projection of C---blocking (PoC). Once activated, pass or fail, the PoC despawns and respawns 72 hours later, +/- 16 hours. Actually going into the trial results in instant failure. Winning this trial is vital to content progression. In order to win this trial, you must prevent any other guild from hailing the trigger NPC for a contiguous period of no less then 90 days. Members of your guild must be prepared to camp the NPC night and day, doing your best to keep its spawn locked in the time window most inconvenient to all other guilds on the server.

Known Loot
Glowing Muramite Rune
A /tell from a GM saying that the imbalance caused by timed mobs is being ?seriously looked into? by the devs. (It must be noted that lowering EQ subscription costs and using chewing gum as a viable fuel source are also being ?seriously looked into.? )

Trial of Organization

For the Trial of Organization, a maximum of one group can be in the instance at trial?s beginning. This group has to be on time and prepared to face the trial. Upon trial commencement, all other raid members start making their way to the trial. This trial has a 90 minute time limit. Raid members must find the most preposterous routes of travel to get to the trial. Examples: {Guild Hall Portal ? WoS ? MPG ? Trial} is unacceptable. {Guild Hall ? Guild Lobby ? PoK - Rivervale ? Kithkor ? HHK ? EK ? NK ? Nexus ? Shadowhaven ? Palundral Caverns ? Hollowshade Moor ? Wait around for a wizard that sends you to Cobalt Scar ? Skyshrine ? WL ? Kael ? EW ? Iceclad ? Oasis of Marr ? North Ro ? EFP ? WFP ? Dranic?s Scar ? NC ? WoS ? MPG ? Trial} is acceptable. All participants must also find time to visit the Bazaar en route as well, even if there?s nothing they need to buy.

One the trial begins, mobs on each of the surrounding platforms activate and auto-agro those in zone. These mobs are 100% MR and though they have low DPS, they have a lot of HP. Mob HPs are reduced by 10% each time somebody says in /gu ?I?ll brt.?

If all members of the raid reach the trial within the 90 minutes, you fail.

Known Loot
Glowing Muramite Rune
Baby sedatives
Instructions on how to turn off your telephone
A decent internet connection
Pre-prepared food
Sleep

Trial of the Prima Donna

A Master of the Prima Donna says, ?You shall be tested on you logic, emotional state and sense of loyalty. This will be no easy test and you must be prepared to throw aside the mask you show to others and instead reveal your true nature. Are you ready to [begin]??

Unlike the other trials, saying ?begin,? to A Master of the Prima Donna does not start this trial.

What you must say is, ?F--- you. I?m going to do another trial.?

At this point a slew of mobs rushes the raid from the zone in. These mobs are highly resistant to all types of damage, have one million hp and cannot be slowed, snared, mezzed, charmed or rooted. Anytime a raid member heals, buffs or assists another raid member, mob DPS doubles up to a cap of 320k per hit.

The only way to get rid of the mobs is to guildremove yourself. Simply guild removing yourself eliminates one mob. First making a big speech in /gu or /ooc about how the guild has not looked after you in anyway prior to /guildremoving eliminates two mobs. Getting tagged up by another guild prior to quitting the expedition eliminates one mob for every raid member that sees the new tag above your head. The raid force has a 15 minute time limit to completely leave their own guild. Finally, if after you?ve left the guild, if you go on the guild?s board and post a putrid, self-serving, ludicrously one-sided diatribe as to why you left the guild, subsequent entries into the Trial of the Prima Donna will have less initial mobs.

Known Loot
Glowing Muramite Rune

Yellow Streaked Cloak of the Asshat
Weight: 2.5, Magic Item, Lore, No Trade
Back
65 ac, 30 str/sta/dex/agi, 25 int/wis/char, 350 hp/mana/end, 25 mr/fr/cr 20 dr/pr
All/All

Effect (Triggered. Must be Equiped.): Temper Tantrum (casting time instant)

When cast on yourself: You become a whining baby.
When cast on others: XXXXXX becomes a whining baby.

Effect: Upon triggering Temper Tantrum, you are automatically removed from your current guild and a message is sent to /gu that you deserve far better treatment then you?ve received. Note: The full effects of Temper Tantrum are gear specific. The higher your HP/AC/Mana/End, the longer and more offensive is the /gu tell. A critical Temper Tantrum will also instantly move your account to another server.

Trial of Generosity

The Trial of Generosity is initiated by hailing the Projection of the Flag Buddy and saying, ?Well, you know, he?s working a lot this month.?

A complex and intense trial, Generosity requires excellent healing skills, strong crowd control, opening a variety of trapped chests, a coordinated MT chain, and paying attention to a rapid stream of zone-wide emotes that instruct players to do everything from ?switch to H2H? to ?Get illusion guktan and sit facing the guild member you have a crush on even though you know the person behind the Elfish hottie is a 400 lb. sewage-treatment worker with extra fingers on each hand.?

What makes this trial all the more difficult is that players are not allowed to operate their mains for it. They?re not even allowed to play classes they?re familiar with. Experienced Multi-boxers are not only restricted from the trial, they?re not allowed to be online when your guild attempts this trial. The trial is heavily monitored by GMs, and at anytime, should they even suspect somebody knows what they?re doing, the Guild will be dissolved and all guild members? accounts will be banned.

Completion of this trial is required to register the next expansion.

Now for the fun nondisclosure breaking for the new AAs in DoDH.
All Classes

Old Faithful

Only works in the Guild Hall. Upon zoning in, if you become trapped in an AFK toon, activating this ability causes a geyser to erupt beneath the offending party that plasters them against the Guild Hall ceiling and leaves them hanging there like a chandelier. The second rank of this ability leaves them hanging there like a pi?ata.

Advanced Alcohol Tolerance

This ability enhances the effects of being drunk. The first rank allows you to do property damage with your horse. The second rank makes you think you?re a really good player even if you totally suck. The third rank logs you into a Shadowhaven hotel room, smelling of troll and blissfully ignorant as to why there?s a ball gag in your face slot.

Methodology of the Cheese

This ability, when turning trader mode on, automatically searches for the lowest price listed for any item in your trader satchels, then lowers your price by exactly one plat.

Omission of Idgaf

This passive ability affects people you only hear from when they want to lord some uber new piece of gear over you. Upon linking the item, it?s deleted from their inventory.

Warmth of Yesteryear

This ability adds soft lighting, sappy music and chirpy birds every time you click on some bank-clogging piece of junk you haven?t worn since Dervs were good exp.

Hoarding Efficiency

Five ranks. Each rank increases by 10 the number of AA points you can bank.

Day of Rest

This ability makes the Creator unavailable for 24 hours.

Transmit Ignore

This ability adds your target?s name to the ignore list of everybody on your friends list thus saving them from ever having to go through what you just did.

Eyes of Archie Bunker

This ability makes all players that merged to your server appear on your screen as 1940?s European immigrants. The second rank allows you to voice emote, ?Aw, jeez. Wouldja look at that.?

Eyes of Genghis Khan

For players who were merged from their native server to another, this ability sends you a message every time a worthwhile target pops in any zone. Second rank summons a flock of seagulls that voice emote ?Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine.?

PAL/SHD/WAR

Unification of Church and State

If there are two or more clerics in your group, this ability gives you control of all of their spell bars, guarantying you that at least one of them is going to heal.

Clarion Call of Vindication

This ability displays your failed taunt messages to the entire group.

Garden Hose of the Furious

This ability summons an Avatar of Walther Mathau that chases off swarm pets before they can push the mob so far out of position it?s agroing people in an adjacent zone.

BRD/MNK/NEC/SHD

Gift of Spock

This ability lets you know where any mob will warp to.

Gift of Picard

This ability renders you bald, so you?ll no longer pull your hair out when a named you?ve successfully navigated halfway across MPG gets pasted by a group heading for trials.

Gift of Lucas

This ability will make your group eagerly await your next pull, no matter how atrocious your last pull was.

BER

Call of the Lonely

This ability influences other berserker mains to join your guild so you?ll no longer feel like your only brethren are twinks.

BRD

Fires of Remembrance

This passive ability causes intense bursts of pain in your wrists if you even think about disrespecting /melody.

Pay Your Dues

This ability allows you to remove /melody from twink bards.

Cultural Awareness

This ability explains why, in troll illusion, the animation for percussion songs involves rubbing the drum into your armpit.

BST

Central Park Lure

This ability makes your warder so cute it allows you to strike up conversations with women.

CLR

Divine Empathy of Repetition

This ability instils in players of other classes a sudden feeling of having worked on an assembly line for forty years, endlessly pressing the same three buttons over and over again, without ever being fully appreciated for assuming, full time, this monotonous task.

DRU

Return of the Cabbage

This ability appends all your spells? names with ?of the Cabbage.? C?mon, you miss it. You know you do.

ENC

No Room at the Inn

This ability allows you to mez the puller.

MAG

Summon Balls

This ability allows you to conjure a pair for the raid force that spent six hours setting up and now wants to call it quits without engaging because the 12k tank logged off or one of the chanters is LD.

MNK

Extended Faking

Allows you to fake paying attention, fake caring, and fake orgasms.

NEC

Bone Daddies

This ability summons a trio of skeletal bards that will play Parisian style Jazz and choke the air with opium smoke until all the mobs in the area of affect are wearing berets and growing short, pointed goatees. Mobs thus affected can still be killed, but they?ll be cool with it.

PAL

Lay on Feet

This ability kicks you in the a$ every time you burn your LoH one tenth of a second before the CH lands.

RNG

Sneaky Enhancement

This ability allows your buffs to hide behind other buffs when people are trying to click them off.

ROG

Laundering

This ability allows you to remove all the totally worthless rubbish from your guild vault and put it in another guild?s vault.

SHD

Farm Touch

This ability compels the target to run out and copulate with the first barnyard animal they can find.

SHM

Exploitable Cannibalism

This ability summons a film crew and a South American soccer team.

WAR

Magnanimity of Hate

This ability allows you to 100% lock a mob?s agro on the player that keeps taking it from you. Second rank makes all mob agro lock on target player until they zone. Third rank locks agro until the account expires.

WIZ

Wardrobe of Artillery

The first rank of this ability provides Illusion: Trebuchet. You become a towering but rickety catapult that lobs gigantic boulders at the target. The second rank makes you look like a B-52 Bomber. The third ranks says, ?Ah, f--- it,? and turns you into a mushroom cloud.

Group/Raid Leader AAs

GROUP/RAID

Find Path to a$

This ability creates a glowing golden path to a drama queen?s nether region so he/she can pull their head out of it.

Lesson of Tom Sawyer

This ability allows you to delegate all LAA abilities to another member of the group or raid, letting them feel all cool that they get to designate MT and stuff, while you relax and hog all the leadership experience.

RAID

Spirit of Friday the Thirteenth

This ability summons a hockey-mask-wearing, machete-swinging Avatar of Jason Voorhees that immediately slaughters any players cybering when they should be paying attention to the raid.

Natural Selection

This ability permanently bans the account of any player who pops a Jester of Bristlebane during Trial of Corruption.

Banker?s Hours

This ability randomly locks and unlocks the raid so that people think you?re at your keyboard.

Let My People Go

Each rank of this ability allows you to increase, by one, the number of players allowed into an instance.

And now if you're still reading this, no its not mine. Copied it from those smart ass bards over at www.eqdiva.com. Hope you had a laugh at it if you haven't already seen it.

[arawn]

Rofl ... *uses Call of the Lonely* [img]eek.gif[/img]