“Not the hero we needed, but the hero we deserved”
Sarilla and Marky relaxing in New Gridania
Clan Nutsy preparing for a battle against Chaos in the Alphascape V 1.0 (Savage) raid
As a Historian for HJP, Sarilla documents every moment with a photograph from her instant camera
Hello everyone! Historian Sarilla here! I wanted to share a Marky Mark highlight from our Sprout to Ultimate Legends raid today (March 30, 2025). Sharing from my POV and memory.
Context: (ENDWALKER SPOILERS)
HJP’s Raid Group A, Clan Nutsy, had been facing off against our most recent 8-man raid boss for several 2+ hr sessions now, brought the boss's HP down to 30% consistently in the last two, and had a steady roster of people with Marky Mark or Jero filling in on occasion as DPS. Really grueling fight, lots of mechanic swaps depending on the pull, and lots of stress. Tonight was the night that some people wanted to clear the raid boss since Ciri was going to be out for the next session and it was basically Kae's birthday - and he wanted that sweet victory! Perfectly understandable that we'd want to clear tonight, and it wasn't outside the realm of possibility as we were closing in on 10-15% this session. But there's more.. today, our hero, Atom Eightbit (Tom), was soon arriving in Elpis and other Kraken's Call members were already waiting for him at the gates. We'd been preparing for this all day! I knew he was a huge fan of Emet Selch and I absolutely wanted to see his reaction, as well as give him another "Endwalker Expansion Welcome" of sorts... be there, you know. I'd been communicating with Heather before and during our raid- asking for MSQ prog updates in between each pull and even sneaking into their Voice Chat to watch Tom's livestream to make sure we had enough time for just another pull. So much stress.
As the night went on, we eventually saw glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel. Each pull was getting us to 5-7%. We were so close.
"If Tom arrives in the Cyrstarium or Elpis before we're done pulling, should we just wipe ourselves and exit the raid so we can make it?" I asked Kae, Clan Nutsy’s raid leader.
"We have plenty of time. There is another big cutscene even after he actually walks into Elpis..." he replied distractedly.
Not the most reassuring answer but there was hope!
On this specific pull, the fight was going perfectly. Everyone knew where to go, how to recover, how to execute. Support in, DPS out, stack, find your partner… our mechanics and coordination were on point. And before long, we had arrived at the 5% checkpoint from last time. This was our moment, I thought.
The last phase of the fight was back to back raid wide mechanics: Inferno (fire damage all party members, spread), Tsunami (water damage all party members, stack), Cyclone (wind damage all party members, spread), and finally Bowels of Agony (raid wipe, DPS check) We were going through each mechanic just fine. We had a LB3 at the ready. Perfect! This fight is done! Yes, a few of us were yelling to DPS harder, but others sighed in relief as the last few percentages disappeared. Because of course we would, we simply needed a DPS LB3 at any moment. 5%... 4%... 3%... 2%...
It never came…
“Where’s the LB3?!” I darted my eyes back and forth between the boss’s health and the full LB3 bar - wondering when the DPS was gonna use it. What was worse was that Bowels of Agony was nearly complete - which would wipe out all the remaining party members. Suddenly, we were in a panic. This fight was not over! We could actually wipe here!
“Someone needs to LB3, we need DPS LB3!" someone howled in the chaos.
And then I heard that all too familiar Marky Mark voice shout, "I had to finish my rotation LOL!" And then we wiped in shock and disbelief, followed by laughter.
We'd been progging the fight for 1 hour and 40 minutes.
At the end of the day, we didn’t actually clear the fight. We did, however, end on time to join the rest of the crew, see Tom enter Elpis, and meet with our old Ascian friends. We all took photos together and celebrated. It was a great moment for all, and although we weren’t victorious in our raid… I can’t help but look at Marky Mark and think, “What a winner!” Thanks for the laughs, Marky! You’re the gift that keeps on giving!
Win or lose, Marky Mark celebrates Tom’s arrival in Elpis! (Screenshots below are a few post raid comments from the HJP Discord lol)
