DDO: It’s a Hard Night…

All we wanted to do last night was finish The Harbingers of Madness quest for the second time, this time on Hard mode. The quest on Normal mode the week before last had kicked our butts; the Ghost of Pyzjyn slaughtered us, and Yaulthoon the Mind Flayer walloped us several times until we found out his trick.
In the time between then and now, though, I’d respecced into a damage build instead of a fairly useless trap-focused build (though I am still able to find and disarm traps). I wondered if this new focus on damage would let the group take on the hard content we really should be doing when we can. Normal mode is for solo and small groups; we head in with four PCs and two dedicated cleric hirelings. And Gleek and Spode have devoted a lot of time outside of our weekly gaming toward making their characters utterly uber.
Fact is, we rocked at the entire quest… mostly. We did get overwhelmed at one point and had Xorians camping us at the shrine. My hireling cleric kept using the rez stone to come back to life. Where she’d be instantly killed. It was kinda funny. We eventually released, cleared that nest, rested and moved on to Yaulthoon.
The final fight on Hard mode requires a little more care. Normally we run around, attacking monsters and dragging them back to the central spot where Ulan and Gleek have set up their blade barriers and fire walls. That wasn’t working. We worked on our strat, kept close together where possible, and after a few tries finally had Yaulthoon in a good place. I hit my triggered attack and haste buffs and together we sliced the massive mind flayer down to a fraction of his health.
We were all focusing on clearing another wave when the Mind Force blasts started. We’d all forgotten to clear the fleshy nubs at his feet in order to complete his destruction. I had no idea he was so low on health…
It was too late for one last try. We failed the quest, but I nonetheless think we did really well. There’s no reason we can’t do things in hard mode, once we know the encounter.