“Time flies like a speeding bullet.”
Oh I still remember the hardcore times during the holidays… and they’re all but over. This year will be an important for me as it’ll be my O’s and stuff… To many others, it may be of the similar situation and I bid everyone good luck. The Lunar New Year is coming, marking the start of the new year for the Chinese calender. Let us all indulge into this festive season and remember, don’t lose your festive joy to crime!
First up, is our progress for the whole month of Colony Wars. At the beginning of January, The map was controlled by four factions, us having the most colonies. It was not like that as January came to a close. GuardsOfHonour pulled out from the alliance and their colonies were crushed by WrathOfGod together with Halcyon and Vradical. As a result, GuardsOfHonour lost all their colonies within the 2 hours and the three parties in power held 7 colonies each. Congratulations to us three and may we prosper in times of peace!
Surely, we have been raiding bosses such as Vergo. Having not been able to solo QE successfully, we had lost a source from where our elites were coming from. However, we started raiding Poison Yard almost everyday with success and has brought us a number of elites which is a great addition to our arsenal. As they say, the going gets tough and so it does. Other factions had begun entering PY and as a result, we had lost the open pvp a few times. These are but minor set backs and I hope we’ll get back on track soon once the squads in AT start reaching expert. Also, we have been actively sourcing for new sources where we can draw our elites from.
Maybe you’ve heard, we had finally attempted on Gate of Flame and Valley of Hell. The turn up, I would say, was great. Earlier this month, we attempted the Gate of Flame first and a group of us gathered back in Topolo for the second time. Armed with elites and level 100s, we were ready this time unlike the two times before. We prepared ourselves as we assigned each member to each task. Having little experience but an adequate amount of knowledge of the raid we were about to attempt, we unlocked the gates and entered. Fearing the outcome will be similar to before, no one dared move. After the initial lag was over, we were fully buffed within 5 seconds and the fighters were off provoking the monsters to protect the paper-ish eles, wizzies and musks.
Finally managing to get a foothold of the map, we encountered many other uninvited guests who ran through the portal when we opened it. Not providing our uninvited guests with hospitality, we continued with our raid as per normal. Running around with our aLKayeL as our leader, we charged through the lines of ferocious monsters and defeated the boss guarding the summoning stones. We were ignorant fools to attack the activated summon stones initially though. At one point, we were totally wiped by the overpowering force and had to relog out of the gate and proceeded to meet in Topolo within five minutes.
Not deterred by our lost, we reentered the abyss to test our mettle. Our squads still in full strength, we proceeded with caution this time. Activating summoning stones one by one, we finally manage to activate all of them at the cost of almost all of our fire orbs. Had we made 1 mistake in deactivating a stone, we would have failed this raid humiliatingly. Lava Leaf had appeared in the center of the map. It was no leaf though, but completely lava. The massive rock was more powerful than Vergo or QE I believed. It’s AOE wiped out countless of our members in one swing of his hand and stomp of his feet. Alas, we had failed in defeating the boss as it was dis summoned ten minutes later. To some, it could have been a success as we had finally managed to see the boss and experience the terror in those depths. To some, it was a failure and to many, I’d guess it was a partial success.
Next up was Valley of Hell later in the month. Hearing that the boss has a decent drop rate of elite armour, we decided to bring 2 squads in. Gathering in El Cannon De Diabolica, we were a complete virgin to the knowledge of what lay inside the Valley. Callisto headed our raid this time. We entered the valley after we had sorted out the rolls for each member and charged forth towards the first batch of knights. They reminded me of our time in Assize where one knight was weak against spells while the other was against physical attacks. Therefore, we made use of their weakness and downed them in no time. We charged towards the second batch and with much ease, we took them down.
Here came the Chrysalis, the one supposinly to give us our proper loot. Using the hit and run method, some of us managed to dodge the QE-like AOE but some had fallen prey and died. Our scouts and spell casters ran around ressing and clearing the Grim Reapers. Through much perseverance, we had finally managed to kill the chrysalis but to our surprise, no armour dropped and it was just two “trash” elite weapon! Argh, we felt scammed…
Leaving raids aside, we also had our PVP tournament where some had participated to attain championship and of course the top prize. However, only phase 1 was completed and the winners of phase 1 are gearing up for the next phase. To those who had triumphant over the rest of the group and advanced into the next round, good luck! To those who had participated and tried their best – I’m sure you guys had that little bit of enjoyment from all our raiding-stress, better luck the next time!
This pretty much wraps up on whatever that has been happening in the month of January. Looking forward to collect my Ang Baos in the upcoming Chinese New Year, I wish everyone else longevity and prosperity through the upcoming years!
