My raiding alliance Innocent has spent many a night trying to defeat Saruman T2 Challenge Mode. (using the rings is one of my most unfavourite parts of the fight. I always have to concentrate so hard when watching the order, otherwise my mind will wander off :P)
So many hours of easily getting through phases 1-4 easily only to fail a minute or so into phase 5. There have been good times when we’ve made progress or beat T2, yet there have been some really low times due to it being such a challenging fight. It was the only part of the Tower of Orthanc raid that we didn’t beat before the level increase. But never did our determination to beat the old bastard waver.
We’ve kept on trying after RoR was released whilst people were leveling up. Our gear wasn’t much better and it was still quite the challenge. Don’t expect to waltz in at 85 and have ToO to be a cakewalk! Whilst it’s bitter sweet to have done this post 75, Innocent finally prevailed and got Laurelin server’s first Saruman T2 CM kill!
This meant new horsie time!! Shiiiiiiiny! 😀 (though forgetting to turn graphics up to ultra high.. not so shiny, oops)
Impromptu meeting to show off our horses! It’s a bit funny, they have synchronised colour changing. 😛
We also got a model of Orthanc (kin homes need more enormous yard slots!!)
It’s pretty huge:
The view from the inside is… interesting:
We were all really pleased and proud to have gotten this done. Next up: Original Challenger of Saruman title!
Wandering Through Digital Worlds 
Hey – BIG congratulations to all of you on getting that done. We struggled to complete on T1, so to get it done on T2 is a heck of an effort – on level or otherwise. Nice horsie too 😀
Thank you! 🙂
Ohhhhh, so many grats, such an amazing job! And you even got a good picture of yourself using the all too familiar frost ring, I never pulled that off. xD
We’ve been into ToO T2 as well sometimes last week, although I’m a bit depressed at a lot of people in my kin not having the drive. We have loads on each night, but there’s only about 8 signups for a raid. *sigh* I want to complete the last challenges we need as well!
Either way, ToO is just as challenging as it used to be, as our DPS barely increased with Rohan. It’s just nice that we don’t have to deal with those annoying misses anymore. Terrible stuff for tanks, when force taunts is the way to go with the silly amounts of DPS we have to pull off.
I’m really happy for you, very much deserved! 😀
PS Being a lotro-wiki contributor, I noticed the horse is still missing on our Mounts page (http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Mounts#Meta-deed_Mounts). Could we perhaps use a picture of your mount? The one in this post could be a placeholder, although we would preferably need one with a higher resolution.
I was tempting fate trying to get that picture with the ring! :O I was so afraid I was going to mess something up. 😛
That’s a shame that you haven’t been getting enough people. 😦 I know at some points we struggled too because people had had enough. What was driving some was to be server first and there was some rivalry with other groups that pushed others… and also the desire to be done with it after trying for so long. I really hope after a bit of a break, your kin can get enough people together. 🙂
You’re right when you say our dps has barely increased. It’s basically no more misses (which is also great on LM mezzes!!) and armour/jewellery that has increased our morales that has made the difference I guess. I don’t feel like we did anything different with Saruman… people seemed to be playing just as well. I guess the healers had a bit more breathing room with increased morale pools.
I can try using my boyfriend’s PC to grab you a better screenshot. His is a bit better and also has DX11. I’ll try doing so once the servers are back up. 🙂
It was nearly sunset.. so I quickly tried to get a picture. If you need it to be somewhere less grassy or during the middle of the day, let me know. 🙂
My kinship has had a long break now, and still people don’t sign up with enough. I’m really a bit bothered with it, as I enjoy challenging end-game and I want to play with others who also like that. I play on a small and nice server, and there’s not that much competition.
Ah well, enough about that, we’ll see what the future brings. 🙂
And thank you for making the steed picture, that’s really nice of you!
This is how it shows on the wiki now: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/File:Horse_of_Many_Colours.jpg.
To be honest, I would have taken a bit more space below its feet myself. Made into a square (the format for the mount pages), there’s just a bit much air in the picture. But then again, make me shut up, because I’m a perfectionist!
I love how the blue and pink of the sky reflect the colours of the steed, that’s pretty cool. And the DN dress looks very well on it as well. Thanks again for all your efforts!
PS What’s that with boyfriends having the better graphics? 😛
OMG. I am so excited and proud for you!
Those are awesome pictures and I love the “mini” tower. lol!
Of course, the horse absolutely rocks and seeing them all standing in a row… just awesome. ❤