Blackrock Depths and Love Potion Run Number Nine

We got together on New Years Day with a simple plan.  We were going to go collect what we needed for the Love Potion quest in Blackrock Depths, then maybe run on into the instance, to the Grim Guzzler, in order to turn that in.  Then we would see how we felt at that point.

Blackrock Depths map

That sounded like an easy enough run and we would get a little xp along the way.  We still hadn’t firmed up plans for getting past the Lyceum save for maybe another level or two would help.  My mechanical greench idea didn’t seem to stir much hope.  Our group was:

• Viniki – level 57 gnome warrior
• Skronk – level 57 dwarf priest
• Moronae – level 57 night elf druid
• Ula – level 56 gnome mage

For the Love Potion quest we needed items from around Azeroth.  The first was 4 gromsblood, something Moronae was able to go out and harvest for us before hand.

Next up was 10 giant silver veins each.  These come from giants out in Azshara.  If you look at the map of the zone, it looks something like a crab claw.  The giants are towards the east end of the bottom half of the claw.  They are all named Cliff.

Hunting giants

We though we were going to need a lot of giants, but it turned out that the silver veins drop 100% of the time and they drop in groups of one, two, or three.  We finished up there in not too long.

From there it was to Un’goro Crater to fill a vial from the Golakka Springs Crater.  The hot springs themselves are easy enough to find on the map, but the point where you need to fill the vial is actually up on top of a steep hill next to the pond on the map.

Here is where you fill the vial

From there Ula was able to portal us back to Ironforge.  Then it was off to Thorium Point and the run into the instance yet again.  New Years Day was a busy time on the server and the way was clear all the way to the instance portal.

We needed to get to the Grim Guzzler, location 15 on the map, which mean going off to the left, through the side door, and into the room where the bridge controls are.  We were able to slip in and take care of that.

Skronk slipping up to the control

From there it was now down the well worn path to the bar.  Up the ramp, down the hall, across the bridge, and around to the Manufactory.  We had the usual problem with one of the groups that has two of the large fire elementals.  Their burst damage killed Viniki before I knew what hit him and the group ended up wiping.

This corner is our curse

We bounced back from that, ran through the instance once more, finished off that group, got through the Manufactory, and into the Grimm Guzzler where Mistress Nagmara was waiting for us.

Time to turn in the quest

Once we all turned it in, we tested our new ability.  She and Rocknot get together and run out the back door, leaving it open for us.

At that point we had accomplished out primary goal.  I took a moment to go over at speak to Lokhtos Darkbargainer, the Thorium Brotherhood vendor I mentioned in my blacksmithing post.

Vending for the Thorium Brotherhood

I had some recipes available to me, though I cannot make any until I get my blacksmithing skill up some more.  Have to go work on that later.

Since we were there already, I suggested we take down Ribbly Screwspigot.  He is just downstairs in the bar.  So we set up in the keg room like we did when we last fought him, then I spoke to him and pulled him and his three companions back there.  That wasn’t a tough fight for us… his group is around level 50… and he dropped something nice for us.

Everybody loves a 16 slot bag

Ula won the roll for the big bag.

After that, I noticed that the kegs were set up for the keg room quest, so I clicked on those and in came Hurley Blackbreath and his crew.  This time Ula was clear of the doorway.  Defeating that group got us another fine drop.

An eyepatch!

This is a nice item if you want to play with what we now call transmog.  I wish it was a plate armor item, as I think it would look good on me.

Argh!

But, as a leather item, and an upgrade, it went to Moronae.  Unfortunately, when you have fiercely glowing eyes, the eyepatch effect is somewhat ruined.

Moronae shining through

After that we started looking for something else to do while we were there.  Moronae mentioned that he had missed looting Fineous Darkview (9 on the map).

That was an awkward target as we had chosen to go across the bridge and not through the Ring of Law, since the latter leads to him.  But we had time, so we figured we would give it a shot.

We ran back to the bridge, which has several open windows.  The plan was to jump out onto the Dark Iron Highway and take on one of the groups below, then clear our way through Lord Indendius (location 10) to our target.

At the bridge we were looking out of the windows trying to decided which way to go when I tried to jump up on the window sill and managed to jump through the window and down onto the highway.

I went through this window

Fortunately for me, the group below had just marched off, so everybody else jumped down to join me.  We setup and took out the group, then noticed that things were not as we had expected.  We always call it “the bridge,” when in reality, it is the gate that forms the bridge we cross.  And to get across you have to close it.  So it was closed and we were on the wrong side.

It is a gate

So we started trying to figure out how to get to where we needed to go.  Moronae offered to try and stealth back down the Dark Iron Highway to the room where you close the gate in order to open it back up again.  We waited while he went… but he got spotted and ended up dying.  So we waited for him to run back to the instance and go to the room.  But, once there, he reported he did not get the option to move the wheel.

“Of course!” I thought, “You need the Shadowforge Key to do that!”  And what we were trying to do was finish the quest for Moronae that gets you that key.  So we decided to yolo our way down the Dark Iron Highway since we were pretty much stuck there against the gate.  I led the way, while Skronk put a bubble up on me.

Down the Dark Iron Highway

I was the only one who made it.  So we got everybody back together and went to the room where you close the gate only to find that none of us got the cog wheel.  It seems that you can only close the gate form there, not re-open it.

Still, our initial plan did not seem bad.  We ran back to the bridge/gate and, this time, jumped out the window on the correct side and fought the group just below.  There is actually a ledge below the window and Ula and Skronk were able to stay up there and cast, out of range of the mobs.

Fighting on the right side of the gate this time

That led to some problems with the mobs going into “evade” mode, since they were being shot from an unassailable location, but I was able to taunt them back into combat to finish them off.

From there we were able to work our way to Lord Indendius.

Lord Incendius awaits

He was no problem, though we did take the fight back in the hallway this time, having learned about his knock-back last time we fought him and not wanting to end up in the lava by mistake.

We were there at the Black Anvil, which is where you need to go to forge Dark Iron Bars from Dark Iron Ore… however, I did not yet have the recipe for that.  That comes from the seven dwarves room, down the other path.

On the far side of that was the area where Fineous Darkview roams.  We cleared one of the golem groups when he wandered into range.  In a rash moment I popped him with my gun to pull him, but got another golem and his three helpers together.  That was more of a fight than we were expecting.  We focused on Fineous, but things got out of hand as the non-elites have ranged attacks at started going after Skronk.

We killed Fineous, but Skronk went down as well.  We started shouting at Moronae to loot the corpse to get the quest item in case we wiped, but then his inventory was full and there were a few awkward moments while I pulled out every ability I had that wasn’t on cool down to keep going.

We ended up surviving.  Moronae ressed up Skronk and we saw what else Fineous had.  He dropped the Chief Architect’s Monocle, which was definitely mage gear.  That went to Ula, who got to show off our second single-eye piece of gear of the run.

Ula with her new Monocle

We got ourselves back together and buffed up again and I took a screen shot of the group, having survived another fight.

Healing up down by the Black Anvil

To finish the quest for Moronae we had to keep going back up the path towards the monument to Franklorn Forgewright, where you turn in the quest.  But part of the way there we found ourselves once again outside the vault.

We’re here once more

We did not finish up the vault the last time we passed by, so we figured we could pause for a bit to try it again.  Everybody swore not to open up or look at the portrait, which got us in so much trouble last time.  Instead we cleared the group inside, then took down the boss and his pet, allowing us access to the vault area.

All I could recall was that you needed to have a dozen relic coffer keys to open up the twelve normal vaults in order to gain access to the final vault.  By this time, our ninth run in the instance, we all had a stack of those keys, so we started opening up vaults haphazardly, ignoring the four frozen golems in the center of the room.

Let’s open up some vaults

I had forgotten the bit about the golems coming to life and attacking once you open the twelfth vault, which naturally took us by surprise.  Things did not go well.

Golems attack… and knock me out momentarily

We managed to wipe without killing a single golem.  By that point we had been going for quite a  while and respawns behind us were clearly going to be an issue.  We decided to call it a night at that point.

We still have things to finish in Blackrock Depths, but we are considering taking a break and maybe going after Dire Maul East as a diversion next time.  BRD will still be there waiting for us.  We might even want to finish the vault successfully just once.

Black Sheep Done

The true enemy of organizations in null sec are not hostile in your systems, or SBUs on your gates, or bad fleet doctrines.

The real killer is entropy, the slow wasting away of your corporation or alliance or coalition until it is just a shell of its former self.

Me, September 2013

That was some “deep” insight from me after being in null sec for a little less than two years.  Still, it is true enough, and the story of null sec has its share of tales about once mighty groups that wasted away from within then crumbled when the next crises that came along.  And that applies to any gaming group or guild in any game.  If people stop showing up for your party eventually the party is going to get cancelled.

This time it has come around to where I live.  In early December we got a note indicating that our corp, Black Sheep Down, would be closing up shop.

This was not a huge surprise.  We had never been a big group to begin with and never had as an aim to become one.  Our corp, born amongst some guild drama back in 2013, was an off-shoot of the first null sec corp I was in, BSC Legion.  It was actually the same tale of diminishing numbers and flagging participation that led a group to splinter off and form the new corp, Black Sheep Down.  I recorded all of this in a blog post, naturally enough.

Not really a logo, but something I threw together

Now, about six years down the road, the wheel has come around and the new corp has run down.

There was no need to rush off.  The corp will linger on in the alliance for a while to allow people to find a place to land and, as such, I stuck about for December.  I noticed that somebody had made me a corp director as part of this, clearly a mistake, and I abused this and spent some time making awards.  I paid for them, and awarded some to the old hands who were still around.  But there were also some SIG things going on in December and I didn’t want to leave until they were done because when you change corps in the Imperium it resets all your memberships and you have to go back and re-apply to everything.

Eventually though I will need a new corp, and with the new year upon us it is probably about time to get started.

There is a default choice.  A corp in TNT with the name Dynamite is acting as something of a consolidation option for some of the smaller groups, including our old corp BSC Legion, which showed back up in TNT after some adventures elsewhere, including a stint in Circle of Two alliance.

That is the easy option, one that maintains the status quo for me.  If I am not too keen on it as an option, it is mostly because I have been a pretty bad corp mate for the last few years.  I mostly fly with the SIGs and squads, and have since Reavers formed up a little over five years ago.  So not only do I not hang out of fly with my corp, I end up mostly playing in a very GSF-centric world.

So perhaps the obvious option would to find a spot in a GSF corporation.  That would solve a few deployment related issues, like stuff being listed on alliance contracts when I am not in that alliance or the ever popular “I linked it in alliance chat.”  I even have a 2008 date on my Something Awful account, so I could try to bluff my way into the inner sanctum of the true Goons that is GoonWaffe.  But I doubt I could pull it off.

Instead KarmaFleet is probably the best option.  They have taken half a dozen people I have thrown their way including SynCaine, Brent from VirginWorlds, and Darren of the old Common Sense Gamer.  I ought to have a chance there, and their participation requirements are low enough that even in the midst of peace time ennui I ought to be able to clear them without feeling pressured.

That would maintain the status quo for me… so long as I can get back into the various SIGs I was in.  I’m in a couple of informal ones that I fell into at one point or another that I will have to figure out.

But the status quo is a bit stale right now.  The Imperium isn’t in any wars and nothing appears to be on the horizon.  The latest “keep the troops happy” initiative involves running about in wormhole space.  Other than that there is homeland defense and the occasional roam.  But war and its relentless tempo is what has kept me going for much of my time in null sec.

So I could pack up all of my stuff, have it shipped to Jita, drop my affiliation with the Imperium, and go find a null sec group that is actually fighting… and who will take me.  Eight years in the CFC/Imperium makes me an unlikely spy, right?  Also, even after all of this time in New Eden and in null sec I am a bit of a scrub with an unimpressive kill board. I swear, if the average FC just shouted “Wilhelm, turn your UI back on!” two or three times during a fleet op they would very likely be correct in suggesting that I was once again “staring out the window” at space and spaceships with the UI hidden.  I just like looking at the game and the ships in flight and the pretty explosions sometimes… which can get in the way of things like putting reps on people.  My bad.  So I would need to find somebody desperate or with a low barrier to entry.

Then, leaving aside my dubious alliance history and lack of demonstrable game skill, who would even be worth joining?  TEST? Pandemic Horde?  Darkness?  Somebody else?  Where is the war at?  Which way to the front?

So something to think about here in the new year.

I do know that if I decide to dump the whole null sec thing I’ll probably just stop playing.  The territorial aspect of null sec, and the histories that have grown up around it, interest me in a way that missions or holiday events or random roams just to shoot strangers in the face completely fail to.

Liberty Squad and Running Away in Geminate

It was time for my first op of the year and for my first fleet op with Liberty Squad.

Liberty Squad is a group in the Imperium that runs in US time zone.  Formed mid-2018, the stated goal was to be something akin to Space Violence, a EUTZ squad meant to go find content for line members during peace time.

The Liberty Squad forum bee

Liberty Squad is not the first USTZ group with a pseudo patriotic name.  Back in the day there was Freedom Squad.  I flew with them some, but never joined because their fleets were open to and pinged out to everybody.  However, Freedom Squad dissolved and some of the team running that ended up forming Reavers from the remains.  I jumped on board that a little over four years back when recruitment was open to all.

Since then Reavers has become more difficult to join.  You need a vouch in from a current member in good standing with the notice that if you vouch in somebody who ends up being kicked for cause, you’ll likely be kicked as well.  While Reavers often operates in USTZ, it isn’t a group you can just join.  Reavers can also run hot and cold.  I spent most of 2018 docked up north in the long running Reavers deployment in Pure Blind.  When Reavers are active, it isn’t a casual operation.  And when we’re not, the group doesn’t do much otherwise.  Especially when Asher is out directing operations as the Imperium Sky Marshall during a war.

So Liberty Squad was formed to fill something of a gap in the USTZ.  Unsurprisingly, the leadership and members overlap with Reavers to some extent.  With Reavers quiet since the Hard Knocks wormhole operation I decided to sign up with Liberty Squad to see how things went with them.

My application was accepted without comment, which tells you how low the bar is at the moment.

Last Wednesday night was the first op that came up while I was around.  The fleet formed up on Thomas Lear, a familiar voice from Reavers.  He used to FC Reavers ops a while back.  In fact there were a number of familiar voices and names from Reavers.  I was not the only one looking for some USTZ ops while Reavers were idle.

The doctrine was the Jackdaw fleet.  I had a Scalpel handy, the tech II Minmatar frigate logi ship, so joined up with that to go wherever we were headed.

We first headed up into Aridia, where a wormhole was waiting to take us north.

Scalpel headed to the wormhole

We popped out in low sec space and made a run through high sec to get Oijanen, a low sec system in The Forge that adjoins BWF-ZZ in Geminate.

BWF-ZZ always rings a bell to me as it was the system where I got on my first supercarrier kill mail.  That was almost seven years ago. (Also, I am pretty sure the Megathron in the first screenshot in that post is Baltec1.)

These days BWF-ZZ is the gateway system to the home of Pandemic Horde.  We were just passing through to go try to blow up something of theirs.  We slipped into their space and headed to NQ-9IH where an Ansiblex jump gate waited for us.

The Ansiblex awaits, with a Fortizar in the background

The jump gate had been reinforced, so it was offline.  The final timer for it was ticking down as we arrived and we were there to shoot it once the clock was done.

Just 21 seconds left

A bomber fleet had come along as well to provide more firepower.  The hope was that the Jackdaws could handle whatever Pandemic Horde would throw at us to defend the gate.  However, the locals had other plans.

The first defender to show up was a Broadsword, the Minmatar heavy interdictor.

Hitting the Broadsword

We were happy enough to light out after him, trying to hold him down for a kill.  And then he lit a cyno and some hostile dreads started dropping in on us.

Dreads landing as the Broadsword goes up

While we were able to destroy the Broadsword, a second cyno was already up and it looked like Pandemic Horde had invited some friends to the party.  Pandemic Legion and NCDot were both there in some force and it quickly looked like that Ansiblex jump gate would not be getting blown up.

Thomas Lear decided to pull us out and we headed back towards BWF-ZZ.

However, the hostiles bridged there ahead of us and had the gate to Oijanen and escape bubbled up and camped.  We would not be going that way without taking heaving losses getting to the gate.  In addition our wormhole home was also that way.

Intel indicated that there was another wormhole options available to us.  We just had to move fast to stay ahead of the defenders.  With the Jackdaw fleet speed wasn’t a problem, but there was always the probability that the enemy might figure out where we were headed and bridge ahead of us again.  So off we went, jumping into a system aligning, and being warped to the next gate to do it all again as quickly as possible.

We were headed deeper into hostiles space, up into the Vale of the Silent and the system AZBR-2.  There, in Pandemic Legion space, was a wormhole to Thera.  Thera, the big shattered wormhole system introduced with the Rhea expansion back in 2014, always has multiple connections to normal space, and so can act as something of a transit hub.  In our case, if we could get into Thera, there was another connection that would drop us into Cloud Ring, closer to home and relative safety.

While we were shadowed by the locals almost all the way, their main fleets did not managed to catch up and we were able to slip into Thera and back out as we had hoped.  From there we just had to get to our own jump gate network to take the quick ride through Fountain into Delve.

The new Eye of Terror, running from Querious up into Cloud Ring, is living up to its predecessors.  Without any jump fatigue accrued, fleets are using it to zip up north and back in very little time.  This is apparently causing GSOL a bit of a headache as they have to refuel the gates with liquid ozone more frequently than the old jump bridges.  We made our own run down it into Delve without issue and ended up back home without further incident.

And so ended my first op with Liberty Squad.  It wasn’t exactly a rousing success, but most of us got home safe and there was a bit of adventure along the way.

Meanwhile, I suspect that I will be headed up to Geminate again in the future.  It seems like Pandemic Horde will be the next location where Imperium SIGs and squads go to find content.  Space Violence is already reported to be in the vicinity.