Don't give in to evil zhen parties!

Last night I went to visit my new favorite grinding spot, the seaweed thieves just outside Sanctuary. These guys are a soloing venomancer's dream: Their damage type is earth, so they have low resistance to our wood attacks; they occupy a large area with no other types of monsters mixed in; they do not help each other when attacked, so you can simply pull one that's standing right next to another; and there is water all around that you can jump into if you get in trouble. Since they're melee-only, they can't do anything to you once you hit the water.

The seaweed thieves are apparently also a zhen party's dream. There seems to usually be a zhen party standing in a clearing in the middle of the thieves, and someone riding around on a mount pulling them in large numbers. That's fine with me; there are plenty of thieves to go around, and they are always respawning quickly. And most of the zhenners seem to be nice folk who don't mind sharing this large, bountiful area with others.

But it raises my hackles when zhenners demand that I leave their vicinity. In my opinion, their use of a game exploit does not grant them exclusive ownership of every seaweed thief. This happened last night, and I stubbornly stayed. After they gave up attempting to dissuade me with foul language, one of their pullers, a barbarian, began trying to KS me every chance he got. When this failed to work--he really thought he could outdamage a veno?--he started taunting my targets to follow him back to the zhen group. This actually helped me, since I could still easily kill the thieves before they made it there, and I no longer needed to heal my frog. Aggro kiting ftw!

Eventually, the group obtained the help of an archer to follow me around and attempt to KS every single thief I went after. It seems likely to me that such continuing, deliberate harrassment is against the terms of use for the game, but I found their counterproductive behavior too fascinating to call in a GM. Would they ever realize that by adding their damage to mine, they were helping me kill thieves even faster? Plus it was fun trying to outdamage the archer, which I often was successful in doing. Remember, these are earth-based monsters against which I had the advantage! Even when I failed, I still received my share of experience for the damage I inflicted, and the archer's presence was actually helpful when I got adds.

After an hour or so, a wizard teamed up with the archer to outdamage me. He soon departed, though, after I remarked, "Wow, that zhen party is really gonna hate the three of us for wiping out their thieves!" But the archer remained with me. The challenge she presented was so entertaining that I stayed far longer than I had originally intended. But eventually the need for sleep prevailed, and I said my goodbyes. To his credit, the barbarian came over and admitted that he admired my tenacity.

Looking over my loot back in Archosaur, I was astonished to find a two-star robe with +3 MP regen. I hadn't even been aware that two-star items could drop from normal monsters. I'm wearing it now.

These zhenners reminded me of the little green lizards I used to catch in my yard as a child. I found it amusing that they would rather hang from my finger biting me than let go and drop to the freedom of the bushes over which I dangled them. In their hatred of me for killing "their" thieves, the zhenners only helped me do it faster.

Moral of the story: You don't have to give in to evil zhen parties. Stick to your guns, and you might have some fun. Well, on the pve servers, anyway. b:laugh