a tragedy unfolds within the halls of asphodelos

Here’s the tragedy: After we beat Hesperos I, we paused for a bathroom/drink break, and newbie was afk for 10 minutes and got kicked from the instance. So when he returned a minute later, we had to redo Hesperos I. You hate to see it.

On the plus side, my parse is improving. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything different, but I got a 14% on the original run and a 20% on the redo. It was another picture-perfect finish. “I need to wipe my spit off the screen,” said newbie as the Hesperos II cutscene started playing.

We’re still working on Akanthai: Act II. We didn’t technically make any prog, but we think we have a winning strategy and are working on execution. “It’s like Light Rampant,” said HGR after yet another wipe. “It’s gonna look this way every time until it doesn’t.”

Act II is a lot. Everyone is tethered to a buddy; there are two red tether pairs, one green tether pair, and one purple tether pair. Each tether must be broken at a specific time (except the green tether, which does 2 million raidwide damage if it snaps, so the green duo just stays together until the tether expires). Also there are towers and stacks and ground aoes. I confess I don’t understand the entire mechanism (Hesperos II is just too big-brained for me) but here’s my role:

1. Spread loosely around the middle so you can see your tether color.
2. Once you see your color, stack in the middle. Stay until the bubbles drop.
3. If your tether is GREEN, you are NW team (go north or west depending on call). If your tether is RED, you are SE team (go south or east depending on call).
4. Stand on a SQUARE.
5. After the tower pops, go to the other square. (e.g., if you’re on the NW team, and you initially went north, afterwards you will go west)
6. EXCEPTION: If you have a RED tether, and your tether partner is meisnewbie, then after the first tower pops you will SWAP to the NW team. There is no other situation in which you swap.