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Well it all started about 21 months ago...

I really wanted a certain drop in PoHate that was ultra rare and knew that it wasn't going to fall into my lap. Thus in September 2010 I went stark raving mad and kept trying to solo in PoHate till I finally worked out something that worked for wizards. Took about 50 to 70 deaths, most eaten that month, but finally I worked out a strategy that worked.

Fast forward 9 months and I'm down to dying only 2 to 7 times per night spent up there and have a solid grasp on the drop rate of pretty much everything the 10 minis drop. Fast forward another 6 months and deaths are down to one or two a night. Two months later, I basically never die when solo and will have up to 4 or 5 mobs parked as I med up waiting for mana to kill them... (Heh, I die all the time with that many mobs when boxing in PoHate, it's rather sad.)

All that effort culminates into one night...

It starts off with a Vampire Essence dropping shortly after I get home from work. A peep in the Resistance immediately commits suicide via some hobgoblins the moment he sees it announced in the alliance, even before sending me a tell to make sure he's the one to loot it just so he could respawn in PoK fast enough to save any bit of time. (It's that rare a drop).

A few hours later I'm still in Hate killing lots of trash for plat and the Lord of Ire pops right nearby. He's the mob that I've BY FAR been after the most as he drops my prize, the Shield of the Immaculate. I clear to him, intent on soloing him for the very first time as I read on Allah's that he doesn't summon. (I thought that he did summon, but it had been so long and he was always the toughest of the mobs for me to box kill that I thought I'd give it a shot.)

An hour of clearing later and I get a tell from a peep saying that he's putting together a group to clear Hate and was wondering if any minis are up. I panic and pull quickly. The Lord of Ire summons me to my surprise (but not total surprise), and a single nuke of SoS drops him to 90%. He's snared and I have some room to kite, but the summon and the fact that I just don't have any time to muck about plus an extra, extra strong feeling that this was THE night leads me to punch evack. I really didn't want anyone to snipe him so I abandoned my solo attempt and load Rirelc, Lyrad's trusty partner to help with the kill. I get a golem add, first in ages and with no lure spells up, Rirelc and I fall beneath the two of them. I try again, and this time we are victorious. I right click on his corpse and see a lonely icon that I've never seen him drop before. I move my mouse over it, and begin to smile and feel so, so relieved after long last. My mac freezes about 5 minutes later and Gnos LDs and I have horrible thoughts of having to petition it, but thankfully I comeback with it still in my bags.

Now the reason why I am posting is not so much of the above, the essence is rare, some would even say stupid rare hence a peep committing auto suicide so he doesn't have to waste time trying to find and load gate on his buddy's enchanter, and the shield is much, much rarer, even rarer than the rarest epic drop around in my opinion... which also drops on the very same night about 15 to 20 minutes post the shield dropping!

Grats to Yemar! (He almost missed it being AFK).

Three SUPER rare drops all on the same night from PoHate. (Plus a necro book, grats to Necron!) Likely never to be repeated in PoHate on the same night on the server.

BTW, the amount of time you'll see me mucking about in PoHate should now drop off a fair bit. GE here I come!

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Grats Gnostica, and THANKS, Gihundi is an enchanter that I am in possession of. The drop after the shield must have been a hide? That's awesome that the perfect storm of rare loot happened to be today =)

Gnos you are amazing.

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hunter lyrad cypresshade forest stalker + officer of destiny + r. f. g.

This made me smile.

Gratz on the amazing night, and finally looting your ultra-rare!

Awesome Gnos. So I know, did you want the shield for the 25 AC in back slot or (more likely) the cure disease clicky?

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The clicky of course. (Gnos can't equip the shield, which looks like crap BTW, and the Loyalist shield is MUCH better for a pally alt.)

It'll be handy the ODD raid, where I've watched both myself and my group die, but normally you'll need Remove Curse or Remove Greater Curse far more often than Cure Disease. Cure Poison is almost useless barring removing Tash and fighting Trak.


It'll be useful for the following raid mobs: (In order of usefulness. If I were a warrior, then the list would be MUCH larger.)

The Spider's nasty DoT on the way to Grummus (3 seconds to cure)
• The DoT is nasty, long lasting and quick to cure. I could replace a healer in my group here post the spider dying.

Bert's DoT (3 ticks/18 seconds to remove)
• Actually kinda useful for me on that raid if I'm in an all nuker group. (Leet wizzy tactic in use here)

Grummus' nasty DoT (9 seconds to cure)
• Useful, but with a 9 second rate to remove, I'd likely only be able to save myself and say half my group at best post him dying if no healer in group. Still though, the number of times that I die due to no healer in group is actually quite high so this will be hotkeyed for PoD raids always.

Rhag 2's DoT (3 seconds to cure)
• Only useful if I'm ramp tank or a peep steals aggro and needs it cured.

Dread's DoT in PoFear (3 seconds to cure)
• Heh, this MIGHT get used for that once every few years if I'm meleeing Dread (I melee all the time now), but actually remembering that I can use it on him will be the hard part.

(I'll look into its usefulness in the EPs and PoTime when Destiny gets there)

It'll also be useful for peeps that are slowed when grouping the odd time, as I can now remove all the shaman based slow spells and the odd other one such as AD's and a debuff in PoJ.

Likely though it'll collect dust most days.

Yeah, about that... it's really too bad that we have the pre-update version of Cure Disease. While the PC version removes 4 counters per cast at level 12 and above, our version only removes 1 counter per cast. So Bert's 72-counter AE, for instance, takes 72 clicks of the shield to remove.

I think I've only clicked my shield half a dozen times. It mostly gathers dust in my bags, more's the pity.

(sorry to piss in your cheerios, Gnos )

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Pithy Deathwish, manic mechanic of <Temerity>

Refuse, rubbish, filth, slime, muck and other alt-putrescence:
[ Drat | Dart | Zounds | Slouch | Pouch ]

Congrats on the shield!

As the Bad News Fairy, however, I feel honor bound to grouse that on Al'Kabor, the basic cures remove 1 counter per shot, not 4 as on EQPC. So all the cure times you listed have to be multiplied by four.

Raven's shield still sees a little bit of use, however! Unlike Kithar's potion (faster), the shield is targetable and doesn't run out of charges, so I've used it to remove slows and disease dots from charm pets before.

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Ryoku Wing, Swift Tail of Temerity

Soft-skinned alt scum:
[ Ravenwing | Syovan | Prudence | Auvry | Sycorax ]

jinx

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Pithy Deathwish, manic mechanic of <Temerity>

Refuse, rubbish, filth, slime, muck and other alt-putrescence:
[ Drat | Dart | Zounds | Slouch | Pouch ]

Bah!

NM how many casts it takes. Really really well done. Gnos for president of AlKabor!

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Kazlan, level 65 Troll SK

The Lord of Ire was up and in a nice quiet spot where we could spend some quality alone time together. Spent a good 90 minutes showing his other guests to the door...

Rooted, snared, tashed, willsapped and toasted to perfection. Solo, self-buffed. Dropped nada as usual.