Not gonna name names, because you should all experience the glory of this player first hand. Mostly I just want to share. Only hint: it's a low hp drow sorcerer with no self healing.
We're getting a shroud group together, not many people on in guild so we throw it open to pugs, we figure we'll just take whoever hits the LFM, if there's a second healer great, if not, whatever. We get a couple melees, a couple more casters, finally group is almost full. Then some genius paladin starts talking in chat "only 1 healer???" "only 3 melee?????". Another arcane joins, the paladin drops group. Awesome. We fill, with the drow sorc joining at the end. Then someone DCs. Then they leave the group. Switching characters to leave a full raid without saying anything, classy.
So we run with eleven, it's fine. Portals go a bit slow because most of the arcanes get confused when all the trash is dead and they have to damage the portals somehow. Maybe some of them didn't have portal beaters or pale master SLAs, I dunno. Someone casts ice storms everywhere, at any rate. The sorcerer keeps saying things like "party come here" and "here is a portal" for some reason. At the end, the sorcerer, who has by now emphasized many times that he has "done shroud before" pipes up to confirm that "he has the crystal". Sure thing, buddy.
Part 2, we drag some trash to south central, sorc bites it. Mobs are fire, cat, and whatever, so we prep them. The one cleric is busy keeping some very puggish melees on their feet, and doesn't have time to go find the sorcerer and toss him a raise (even though he is "right here on the side"). No one else helps him out, despite his copious use of exclamation points. I let people know that I'll take the crystal, and the sorc helpfully interjects that "he has the crystal". He's still dead, so I'm not quite sure how that was going to happen.
The group kills cat first for some reason, but gets their act together on the rest and I break the crystal just in time. The cat actually comes back to life even though the quest objective moves forward, so I helpfully kite it to the shrine. Good times. While 6+ people beat down the cat, someone hits the altar, starting the timer for the prismatic wall. They decide to finish off the cat.
Part 3 features someone watering a puzzle before it was solved. Not sure how you do that on a character who knows to unlock the levers. I should have checked to see if they broke the crystal to get out of the room. Anyway, despite having about 7 people, the north 5x5 doesn't get solved. I try to explain that it doesn't matter, but "maybe we will get the chests". Whatever. The wall goes up while they dick around. I tell them this. They all die. The sorcerer, amazingly, was waiting in the center with us, but was close enough to the corridor die to the wall anyway. Rather creative swearing ensues. But it's part 3, so we complete just fine.
We buff up more than necessary and enter part 4. This is where all our arcanes will pay off, a quick harry kill will be a nice change of pace. So obviously the sorcerer runs into some blades and dies before we're even on the second wave of trash. It was pretty amazing. Harry drops, some more casters decide that standing in the blades is a good move. I use eardweller and keep my dots up, so does the cleric. Some people are using bows, I think? Harry gets down to 50% or so before he bugs out. We kill some more devils and some gnolls, then finish him off, losing a melee at some point. So we have 5 people to rez, the cleric calls dibs on one, I take another, two more volunteer. The drow sorc keeps reminding us that, yes, he is still dead, and he needs a raise. Unfortunately, we get a fifth volunteer. We get everyone up, shrine, loot, and hit the portal.
Part 5 goes pretty smoothly, the sorcerer gets teleported right next to Harry and dies. He expresses confusion at this turn of events. Then he tells us to raise him, because he is dead. We do not. He predicts that we will be unable to complete. We kill Harry. He demands a raise, then announces that he will be recalling. Someone immediately starts a 5 second countdown, which I felt was generous, then hits the altar.
So yeah, Shroud, always a good time.
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