*warning most of this is a long description of zm4, if you would just like to get to the conclusion, skip to the bottom*
So I was part of an alliance doing zm4 last night. We started off
with 18 people, but after spending 4 hours getting the unlit lanterns,
we were down to 15. This worried me as I was in the party with 3 people,
but I was assured that it would be easy to get some members to do it
more than once. So we pressed on, past the temple guardian, through the
paintbrush door. Aggro's were frequent but were dealt with swiftly.
After a small problem trading some lanterns we managed to get all 15
people to the sacrificial chamber alive. The two full parties went
ahead and entered, both succeeded with the only trouble being some dead
tanks courtesy of everyone's rancor. Once on the other side however my
fears came true. All 12 of the other members were on a different side
of the chamber, as I had suspected it would be. Since there were 3 of
us who had yet to do the bcnm, someone had to bite the bullet and come
all the way back and fight it again. At this point the alliance had
been together 6 hours, and everyone was tired. But thankfully the pc
with the paintbrush was willing to come back along with some other
players. So they came back, past the temple guardian, through the
paintbrush door, braving the den of rancor where luckily we could open
the lantern door from the other side. At this point there was a
discussion as to the party set-up. The three that had not done it were
whm(me), rdm and sam. CrushedIce, though he knew everyone's rancor
would kill him again had come back to tank, and it was decided that
Erusama and Esoteria, 70 MNK and RNG respectively should come along as
well. So the fight began, and in this fight crowd control is of the
essence. With the rdm being the only effective sleeper we ran into
trouble with the blm tonberry woke up and started casting Adventure’s
Bane, aka Sleepga II. I was currently Raise II'ing CrushedIce, who
had died from everyone's rancor again. The rdm caught the hate after
the sleepga II and dropped quickly, my fate coming about in a similar
manner. Some of the DD's tried to escape but were hunted down.
Soon there were 6 dead people. At this point I thought it was all over. I figured I had just wasted the last 7 hours. But much to my surprise, everyone wanted to try it again. So we waited 30 minutes for the bc to spit us out, where the rdm and brd who came but didn’t fight threw me a Raise 1 and then I Raise II’d everyone. The monk had hp’d so he was replaced with the rdm for better crowd control. CrushedIce had died twice, but was ready to try it again, even though it ment certain death. So we try it again, things started off better, the blm and smn mobs seemed to be staying asleep. Everyone’s rancor killed CrushedIce for the 3rd time, but I raised him in battle and he went off to the side a bit. The blm woke up, used manafont and flare, but was promptly shut up. Then disaster struck, without any messages the smn tonberry managed to use astral flow. This put everyone in the red or orange, and CrushedIce, who was weakened, died again. I was able to pop a benediction and the fight ended shortly afterwards leading into a very cool cutscene
Conclusion: I would like to relay a big thanks to everyone who came back through the paintbrush door for me. Erusama, Morningstar, Esoteria, Hezkiel (sorry if I spelled that wrong). Most of all I would like to thank CrushedIce for his patience and willingness to help someone out and get nothing except –exp in return. Dieing 4 times when you’re level 75 and only getting Raise II’s can’t be very much fun. So’s here’s to CrushedIce. May you never be undercut on the Auction House, and may all your NM’s drop.