An excellent excursion with the Tuesday N00b Club last night, where it all went to plan, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we Got The Job Done. Not that every week isn't like that of course, but it all seemed to flow quite well yesterday.

We went and had a crack at Arachni's Haunt, a two-level Eye of the North dungeon on the Tarnished Coast, which has a very spider-ish theme, all webs, eg sacks, pop-up and drop-down ambushes and a squad of hopped-up Asuras led by Commander Hixx. The whole place is rife with Aliens in-jokes including a flaming Asuran Staff carryble needed to burn through web walls and stacks of spider eggs.

Technically it was one of the less fraught of EotN's Dungeon circuit, and only being two levels deep helped us get the job done before too much fatigue set in. To off-set this, we actually had a full party of eight actual players. Players are generally more powerful than Heroes or Henchmen, but have that pesky 'free-will' thing going on, so a team with no AIs in can take a bit of getting used to. We did well though, and clearly everyone in the team knew what they were doing.

I was on secondary healer detail, using the Me/Rt Restoration build I've detailed previously, with skill of the night Vampirism added for some extra punch and auto-self-heal. Vampirism is a Sunspear Rank PvE-Only skill which is almost unique in that it does not rely on the Primary Profession Unique Attribute for its main effect, unlike say Critical Agility, which only Primary Assassins can get the most out of. Secondary Ritualists can make good use of Vampirism, and I found it helped a lot. Spent a lot of my time removing hexes and conditions rather than flat-out healing, which our Monk is more than capable of keeping on top of.

The rest of the team was on damage duty; our Dervish on melee detail with two Rangers, an Elementalist and a Necromancer on fire-support. For some reason our other Mesmer, with a Proper Mesmer Build delighted in taking the alpha strike of each group. Traditionally a job for the Warrior, I always like seeing Mesmers get ahead in unconventional roles, and they seemed to survive more alpha strikes than didn't, which was a plus! We had a lot of Resurrect skills in the team though, planning for failure as we do!

I got a Gold Item form the chest, which to be honest, I've already sold and forgotten. No Green drops from the end chest, although out Monk bagged The Matriarch's Stinger during the earlier rampage, a nifty looking spear. Spear and Shield combos seem popular for healing classes in that game, so it'll surely see good use. On the whole, Guild Wars isn't really about the Epic Loots that much, but I was pleased to find a Diamond in one of the Light of Deldrimor hidden chests, proving that bringing that skill along is worth the slot if you can spare it.

GW Dungeoneering is a markedly different experience to something like LoTRO's Fornost or Orthongroth, but I do appreciate both styles. Lots of fun, and entry #14 ticked off in the Master Dungeon Guide!