Went on the Monday night Session 3 of the Cavern of Transcendence. And …
… well, it all went to hell. Twice.
First time in, all looked like it was going pretty nicely. Good team — Darkthorne the lead, Kazima, Honeygun, Dubh Bas, Avocet, Dr. Meson, Tanker-belle, and Liberty Bill. Made it through the troll tunnels with no sweat (thanks, Kinetica) and only one death (mine, dammit, too close to a troll TNT stash when it blew). Got in, battled our way forward. Good thing to have two tanks along this time, drawing agro. Cleared out the initial group, most of the groups to the left, started working around to the right, then the center … we were doing great, ahead of schedule …
… and then made our first mistake, as we tackled the group at the top of the ramp, without clearing out the last group on the left. Which got pulled into it, which overwhelmed us, leaving half the team dead on the ramp.
After several minutes of fruitless pulls, abortive resurections, and general additional debt incursion, we gave up. The deaders went to Atlas for hospitalization (we had nobody with Rez, except for one who could do it in battle). The livers stayed in place to prevent a re-pop.
Except that, nearly to the mission entrance again, somebody discoed out. They got back in, but the TF was broken, and we all had to exit and restart. Which was disappointing, but doable, and the mission clock reset.
We went in again, no problem. Got to Cavern … and found the enemies had popped up a level. Swell. Fought one group. Fought another group. Fought the next group. Fought the … crap, pulled some extras, or there was something off with the healing, or … well, half the party went down. More than half. All but two. Honeygun, fleeing to the exit, ended up embedded in the rock next to the lava.
And most of the deaders were smack where the Igneous were milling about, stepping on their corpses.
One unsuccessful pull (and death) later, and we realized that was about it for the night. The last person threw himself on the enemy (so he could get a death-teleport back to Atlas), and we called it an evening, with promises to try it once again, maybe next Monday.
On the bright side, we got a couple of new Lessons Learned.
Yes… attacking the center was a big mistake, as was not pulling. Also, I need to goet Bubh up to at least 14 before the next one…so lots of Dubh this week.
I think the key to pulling is for the main group to be a lot farther away. Those boulders have a long range.
They certainly do …
Maybe we should scope out one of the caves, and duck back into that. Narrow the approach and the range they can chuck rocks at.
Attacking the center would have been fine, if we’d realized it would pull the remaining flank in.
Must, must, *must* pull. Somehow.
If Dubh had been 14 instead of 12, I would have retained Flight while Exemplarred. This might have allowed me to pull the entire group off of the team and lead them to the far end of the cavern, allowing the rest of you time to move into the tunnels and heal. With only Hover available, however, there was no way I would have dragged them far enough away before they dropped me.
Yes, but it was very amusing watching you slooooooowly hover around. Just as it was amusing to get a distance shot of Darkness Heals running to the right, shouting at the Pumicites, then running back left, pursued by same … and then seeing the Pumecites stroll back right (taking a moment to stomp on Dr. Meson in the process). I wish I’d had a movie running …