Ah, another weekend of Warhammer goodness. My DoK is now well into Rank 25, with his renown rank lagging behind at 16 mostly due to being too busy with everything else to queue up for scenarios. I consider this a VERY good thing. On the PQ front, all PQs in Dark Elf chap 10, 11, and 12 have been completed, with an exception for one buggy chap 11 PQ which currently appears impossible due to a bug. Annoying, but easily forgotten.

Things are actually so busy on the Monolith server that gaining influence per chapter has become difficult. What I mean is that as soon as we form a group to do some PQs, it quickly turns into a warband, which generally attracts 10-15 people, and the influence gain ends up being overly spread out. Sure we could limit things to just our group, but why be an anti-social dick just to speed up influence gain, right? I have no issues repeating a PQ, especially the more interesting ones, and with 15+ they all go quickly enough. You also never know when you are going to run into a PQ with a Lord boss rather than a Hero, and actually need those 15+ people to claim the generally better chest loot. Over the weekend I saw a good bit of gold and purple bags drop, with some very nice gear coming out of them, so it’s definitely worthwhile to gather a warband and attempt the tougher PQs.

Speaking of tougher PQs, my guild Forsaken took a trip into Mount Gunbad for the first time, and had a really amazing time. For those who have yet to see it, Mount Gunbad is an open instanced dungeon in the very north-west corner of the Badlands. You zone in through a blue swirl, but once inside you still see anyone else who happens to be inside. Gunbad itself has three ‘wings’, the easiest being the right wing which features rank 23-24 mobs, the left features 25-26 mobs, and I believe the center wing has 27+ mobs, but I never saw more than the first few. It’s a giant cave populated by Night Goblins and their ‘friends’, such as squigs, trolls, undead, giants, etc. Each wing is a series of three PQs, with a final, 6 man only instanced encounter at the end. It sounds rather simple, but works great in practice, as you complete each PQ naturally as you work your way down to the instance 6 man end-boss, gaining some nice loot and influence along the way. Gunbad has its own influence bar, with blue-level rewards at each level, scaling up from 23 to 25 to 27 in level at each reward pip.

Our first experience with Gunbad was to join a warband already in progress on the easiest wing. The zerg of 20+ made its way down murdering everything in its path with little regard for agro or strategy. Due to the overwhelming numbers and high levels of certain members, everything was a breeze until they hit the third PQ boss. This boss has a rather nasty ability to summon ‘circles of pain’ on the ground, which quickly kill anyone who stands inside them. As you can guess, the mindless zerg soon wiped. The frustrating part came next, as a small part of the overall warband was making its way down with our group of 5 Forsaken members, taking our time but still having success. Two of the members wanted to join the zerg, and also wanted everyone to start from the top (my guess is just to farm influence as easily as possible).  So what did they do? Run into as many mobs as possible to wipe us, forcing the restart. Thanks asshats. I’ll admit this is one of the perils of a public dungeon, in that random tools can ruin it for everyone. It also allows zergs to form and mindlessly farm, although in reality a zerg member gains influence slower than a 6 man, and also has a smaller shot at loot. But hey, it’s mindless!

Leaving the warband, and thankfully having it move on to another wing, we started from the top again, determined to finish the entire right wing. We had little difficulty with the first two PQs, and soon found ourselves in the final area of the public section, looking over the third PQ and also seeing the entrance to the final boss. Knowing a wipe on the tough third PQ boss would mean a trip back to the top, we instead opted to clear a path and enter the instanced part and fight the final boss, a Night Goblin shaman. The encounter itself is interesting, as you first defeat a giant, who then gets turned into a chicken by said shaman before he engages to fight you. The shaman himself was rather easy. He traps one member periodically throughout the fight, basically rendering them useless, and also summons green fists that pound anyone caught beneath them for decent damage. The fists are easily avoided, and his damage on our tank was minor for a major boss. Once defeated, he dropped four blue items, including one set piece. (we got some Chosen gloves) A fun fight, and good rewards for the effort. We returned to the public section, summoned the third PQ boss, and got our butts handed to us, ending our Gunbad trip for the day. When we make our return trip, we might have to pay that final PQ boss a visit…

Our plan is to gain 1-2 ranks before we return to tackle the left wing of Gunbad. We got a small taste when we completed the first PQ with another group, but it was clear we needed to be higher in rank to really give the place a good shot. That said, we are really looking forward to our return later in the week, assuming we can break away from the near-constant RvR. On Sunday we helped defend a Keep against a sizable Order force, and again it was a great time, but this post is long enough already, so more on that later.