This map represents Friday night at about 6:30 p.m. Pacific time. FotF is headed into the fray!

As we slowly accumulate Annihilator and Conquerer gear, we are getting less squishy. We stood toe to toe with one of the better Bright Wizard bomb groups on the server. I am confident once we get equivalent gear that they won’t stand a chance.

Apparently our guild is getting a bit of a reputation (if only for the guild name). I discourage bragging on forums. It’s sometimes hard not to provide advice without seeming like you’re bragging. I don’t want to come off as arrogant (oh but on this server we did it this way and it worked).

But sometimes you really can’t help it. We had a keep defense that everyone thought we would lose. The tank wall was rather massive, though, and I had every confidence that we would prevail. That is, until the people on the tank wall left the wall to chase down people who got past /facepalm.

We steered them (in a not-so-nice way) to get back onto the wall and hold fast. We prevailed and chased them out of the keep!

I anticipate more fun today and Sunday.

The real fun came at night, when we decided to defend one of the many fortress assaults (I forget which one).

After that, we defended a keep with the rest of Destro in Chaos Wastes.

Initially we skirmished inside, but we saw the group bunched up (before this shot was taken) and decided to bomb them, old style. We wiped the advance force with the help of other Destro, but then a wave of Destro Order came over the hill and we retreated to defend. After the Destro force repelled the attackers, we took the northeast BO in Chaos Wastes.

Finally, we went to Caledor to have some fun. The fun turned into Destro flipping the zone.

We had a ton of fun Saturday, and things are looking up as we get gear and renown rank! It was painful but the road is sure to be smoother from here.

Here’s why:

Check out that Order zerg at the zone line to Fell Landing. They are waiting for the first push to wipe. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out, guys. Really, the last time I saw a pop capped fort on Gorfang, the people who didn’t get in were pouting and screaming in region chat about the injustice of it all.

This is a seriously organized group of Order that we are fighting. All the more challenge for us here on Phoenix Throne.

Yes, we get stomped into bloody puddles because we are all in level 37 greens (which is bound to continue for a little while longer because one of our main group mates decided to switch due to the AE nerfs coming out). I wanted to publicly thank Nala on Destro for helping us out and donating some 40 blue repairable items. Those will be incredibly useful when we get Contamination (Nizzlegloz’s Maurauder) to 40.

Finally a rant.

I have to say that I’m incredibly disappointed with the Shaman class. The Archmage is so much better, and only because of  Funnel Essence. The Shaman’s comparable ability, Do Sumfin Useful, is not even in the same league. I get another heal over time, which is nice, but I prefer burst healing.

The patch is coming out today. Read the notes here. They did have a very brief round on the test server, and I think it was cut short because nobody logged in to test the patch (ShadowWar tested the changes on siege pads). Therefore, we are probably live testing the changes.

I will reserve judgment until I can actually play the game.

But just as we logged in, we found our alliance warband was leaving the zone. Boo! They said there were too many Destro to fight. It makes me wonder if any of them remember how we fought when the server was new, Destro was overpopulated and Order was demoralized?

My bright idea to attack them when they were in the tunnel didn’t go as well as I planned. Instead we rushed to the north keep to take it. We waited for a minute or so, and once I thought they were well on their way to Gromril Junction, we started in on the door.

The Destro took Gromril Junction and we continued working on the door, sweating as the timer on the battlefield objective ticked down. Meanwhile I was trying to get the alliance warband to return. They showed up when the door was about 10 percent and we started in on the second door (at this point the keep flagged for the first time. Bug maybe?).

We took the keep. Destro finally showed up and basically stopped dead. I noticed a slew of names I had never seen before, and it seemed most of them had just arrived in T4. They got wiped at the north keep and we pressed south to Dolgrund’s Cairn, wiping Destro as we went. I ordered my WB to press on the south keep, while the alliance warband stayed to get the BO.

A quick note: Destro had at least two warbands, although the members were rather low level. We had Blazeric’s full WB and my three groups, plus a few stragglers here and there.

Once we bashed down the two doors, we set up under the lord room. My oh my they had a lot of Sorcs!

We wiped twice or three times to the Destro at this keep. I will admit the two warbands did not communicate as well as we could have. Charges, for instance, were sometimes announced in shout instead of region. Shout has a limited range. I also strongly suspect that the other warband did not have enough healers, or that the healers died first for some reason. I say this because my warband’s two groups that had two healers each all lived until the other warband died, then my warband was eventually wiped as well.

Oh well, live and learn. It was the first time I’d RVRd with my Archmage in at least two weeks. I was glad to be on her again. I also thank the Order for listening to me. I hope you all don’t think FotF has abandoned you. Far from it. We just want to give Destro a fighting chance so they will fight us another day.

Despite wiping so many times, I still had a blast. I hope Destro did too

I didn’t take the threat seriously until they flipped Caledor.

The rest of the night I can only equate to how a battered woman feels when her abusive boyfriend returns after a long period away from her: skittish, excited and afraid at the same time. I remember the days when Destro zerged the server so hard that Order were demoralized and weak. Then a few server transfers brought more people to the Gorfang and the Destro had some infighting

After Caledor flipped, I put out the rallying cry in alliance chat and told people to join my warband and get in vent. At this point the Destro had already claimed Covenant of Flame. When Destro hit Drakebreakers we had a whopping two groups.

So we did what we FOTF tries to do best. We queued for Serpent’s passage.

The beatdown was humiliating and awesome.

What happened next is something that hasn’t happened in a long time. We got stomped. It’s hard not to get stomped when you have a full group of PUG in the scenario. Somehow Destro made everyone who was not level 40 stay out of the scenario queue and only let the pro players go in preset groups.

After our beatdown, we went to Drakebreakers, but Destro rolled through us like we weren’t even there.

Destro flood the inside of Drakebreakers Scourge.

They flipped Dragonwake and we were then fighting in Eataine. By this time Order had I think two warbands trying to defend. The group of Destro had grown so large that we really had no hope of attacking the main force, so I ordered my warband to skirmish and cut their reinforcements. We tried to take defensive positions, but in the end it was just prolonging the inevitable.

Order tries to defend the Chillwind Manor battle objective in Caledor.

Our last-ditch effort to try to prevent a zone flip failed because the battle objective was bugged and we couldn’t claim the flag. It wasn’t long before we gave up and ran to the Shining Way Fortress to lick our wounds. For whatever reason they couldn’t take the fortress, but it was a mighty attempt.

After the Fort defense, I looked at the clock and three hours had whizzed by. There was more action to be had, but I had not yet eaten dinner. This morning I see Destro has pushed all the zones to their side.

I admit I am in awe of that type of organization, and I sincerely hope this is a sign of better fights to come.

It was so easy I was able to mock someone else’s guild name while we were pulling.

Fortunately we cleared both by Friday so we can PVP all weekend! Enough about that boring PVE. Order has been reliably pushing to Caledor recently. Yes, we do lock zones. That means we can go to Caledor Woods, by far and away our favorite scenario.

There was a whole lot more waving going on than this. I was almost embarrassed.

Basically for those familiar with T3 scenarios, it’s just like Temple of Isha, except you can’t pick up the ball that gives you bonus to DPS. It’s just one node to take over, and this is super easy with a coordinated group and someone yelling at nubs to kill healers and witch elves.

We also defended a few keeps. I think this one is in Reikland but they all run together for me a few days after the screenshot was taken.

See you on the battlefield!

Here is the Destro attacking Pelgorath’s BO in Dragonwake.

They tried one push and disappeared. After the Fortress siege ended, the Destro near immediately capped all of the keeps and Battle Objectives in Dragonwake. It was smart and coordinated.

Leaderboards and /wave report below.

Guildies on the weekly Leaderboards this week:

• Khaevil with #7 Bright Wizard for renown earned
• Dworf with #9 Rune Priest for renown earned and #8 in number of guild leaders killed

For those who wanted to know where we stand in the “of all time” catagories:

• Perle with #3 Archmage in most renown earned,#10 in class for most players killed, #9 in class for guild leaders killed and #2 in class for most scenarios won.
• Saaz with #3 Swordmaster in most renown earned, #9 in class for most players killed, #1 in class for guild leaders killed and #3 in class for most scenarios won.
• Andora with #10 Swordmaster in most renown earned, #8 in class for most players killed,#7 in class for guild leaders killed and #6 in class for most scenarios won.
• Organdonar with #10 Rune Priest in most renown earned and #7 in class for most scenarios won.
• Pylith with #8 Bright Wizard in most renown earned and #7 in class for most scenarios won.
• Dworf with #6 Rune Priest in most players killed, #8 in class for guild leaders killed and #8 in class for most scenarios won.

Saaz, Organdonar and Pylith all rerolled about three weeks ago, though. So their new characters have not yet shown up in the overall rankings (though Saaz’s BW, Khaevil, is on the weekly rankings).
Finally, the /wave report.

Rugbyrat fraternizing with the enemy.

In other news, I’ve been playing an alt occasionally, a Bright Wizard named Xorena. I had to take a screenshot of the group makeup last night in Tor Anroc:

Yes, that many BWs. I have no idea how to recruit more healers to the realm. Everyone wants to do LOLdps it seems. (I already have a healer so I can roll whatever alt I feel like.) If you have a good idea on recruiting healers, short of paying for their subscriptions and a personal maid, drop a line in the comments section.

I know as the underdog realm we must use strategy. That’s why I employed a new, radical strategy that is sure to help us win more battles.

FOTF started out the night with about a group and a half of people. We refused to admit anyone into the warband unless they were a healer, a tank, or brought one of those classes with them. I’m sure I ruffled a few feathers, but the wins we accumulated were worth the ire. We were unstoppable.

Now this is not to say that I won’t res or heal people outside of the warband, because I do. I support the realm. But I think the best way to support the realm is with a balanced warband. Would anyone PVE with an unbalanced group? Why should we PVP with any less?

The screenshots on which the above montage is based were the culmination of three attempts by Destro to take our keep (which they finally did at 12:30 a.m. Pacific time)

I hope Order will continue to support the balanced warband.

We traded BOs with Destro and often hit their force head-on.

To get the full effect of this large-scale fight, click the image. A new window will open with a full-size version.

I think Destro had far more numbers, but I think Order was more organized. Throughout the night we had several crashes to desktop. Very annoying, especially in the middle of a keep siege.

We did manage to take the northern keep and defended it for around 11 hours.

Dead Destruction… the best kind!

In the end we got tired and went to bed, but not before we formed an alliance with League of Light! The new alliance, called Flamberge Phalanx, is dedicated to RVR and organization.

Here he’s trying to give Pylith a hug… I think… Be careful Rugby!

So anyway, on Sundays the Order tends to take keeps around noon eastern time. Why don’t we see Destro defending? My theory is they are all in Sunday School.

At some point they all seem to log on at once, and all of the keeps we took are completely overwhelmed.

It’s like kicking an anthill (and there’s about the same amount of red).

I have to say we were so hopelessly outzerged that we played alts for a little while. I think Organdonar is switching to a bright wizard. He was having too much fun in Tier 2 last Sunday.

As a side note, leaderboards are still not fixed Come on Mythic!