Helegrod, oh how I wished to had seen you. I sadly, and foolishly, left the game just after the release of this 24 man raid a little over a year and a half ago. The only two times I saw the inside of this great dwarf keep was a solo run inside the instance on my Captain, and a pug. Both of which ended very tragically as you can imagine. So when I read on our kin’s raid calendar that we where going to take a trip back into time I jumped at the chance.
As we gathered for the run stories of old, the challenges, the fights where being spun in our ventrilo server. And let me tell you, Old Timers can spin some great tales. “I remember when I had to solo tank Thorog up hill, in the snow, both ways.” So I took this all to heart and prepared my now level 57 Rune-keeper Paravell for the worst. I farmed, cooked, made hope tokens, I was ready!
As we entered the instance one thing that has not changed; Lag. Snow effects take a toll on most systems. But we braved on, pushing past the snow and 10 frames per second draw rate. We began our march toward the first “trivial” boss, Coldbear. As our raid leader was trying to set up the pull for those who had never been in the instance before a little Rune-keeper thought about pulling a little cute bear cub with a small shock to its nose. The next thing we knew the setup was cut short and we where in the thick of battle. Ooops :)
It was at this point that we knew we where going to have a fun night. Most of the 22 man raid was 55+ with one 45+ toon to our ranks. We cut through Coldbear like she was butter, and soon the laughs and giggles of giddiness began to be heard over vent. With each hard pull put down with ease we relaxed and began to have a tremendous time.
To make a long story short, we killed every boss leading up to Thorog. In a run that used to be scheduled for 2 to 3 nights for The Old Timers Guild, we now ran in one night. When we began the raid leaders had not even known for sure if we would get to Thorog or not. But here we where.
The fight was explained, set up, choreographed, and then began. Making short work of Drugoth the undead dragon then made its way to the platform. We kept a close eye on the debuff that the dragon places on a member of the raid and in short time we had managed to kill Thorog, with only one flight phase and add phase. When done someone made a the comment, “We just killed Thorog without loosing one member of the raid!”
I would highly recommend that you and your kin revisit some of the old raid content and instances. Mind you, it may sound as if being level 60 now trivializes the content, however, do not go in thinking you will walk out unscathed. I am fortunate to be in one of the largest kinships in LotRO which happens to have great leadership and great team minded players. We work well together and love to play the game. Take that attitude into one of these grand ole haunts and you will have a blast.
