March 2008 Archives

I gave in and put a game card on my account this afternoon, not wanting to wait another minute to get my realm along the progression path for the Isle. I am now good until May 27. If you want to get me a birthday present, which is between now and then, game cards make a nice gift. Anyways, I did all the Outlands dailies, all except the thrones ones, I then was summoned to Magister's Terrace by some guildies for my first foray. My paladin is nearly as well geared as my druid, so I decided I wanted my Paladin to get the first stab at it.

For the most part the instance went ok. We wiped on trash a couple of times due to bad pulls and a lack of familiarity with the place, but by the time we hit Kael we were firing on all cylinders. Having never seen Kael'Thas in The Eye 25 man of Tempest Keep, I did not know what to expect. "like a mini version of The Eye tells me nothing unless you've been there. We wiped about a half dozen times, but in the end a comment with strategy from the user mharmless on WoW Head, part of an evil gold seller empire sadly, was the ticket.

mharmless wrote: During phase two, we stayed clumped up together at the door, staying low to the ground. When the orbs got close, we went up and over the orbs to DPS Kael. Now, this was not the entire secret to how we won. I put two comments, mhearmless suggesting to wait until the phoenix was recently dead, and another comment said that killing the egg of the phoenix would stop respawn, together. If we could kill the egg, along with the get to the door, low to the ground but not touching, then swimming over the spheres to finish dps, we might get him down.

We began the fight, and I went in whole hog on Kael with our tank. At 65% I left to go watch and wait for the phoenix to go down, since I couldn't go in and melee with his fire damage. When I saw the egg, I went in and began hammering it until it was goo. I went back, helped get Kael down to 50%, at which time I he brought orbs, but I got enough dps in to have him at 45% with a consecration. We swam for the door, and I go just low enough to not touch the ground.

I turned around, and saw my fellow members too high, and shouted for them to get low. The orbs adjusted, going low, and when it looked like they were just right, I swam in, and got down again just low enough to DPS. I fell to the ground when Kael was at 25%. I kept hammering him, and then he summoned orbs. I saw he was at 10% and decided to try to do it. The orbs got our healer, 5%. Everyone laid it on, all the cooldowns, all the abilities, and just as the orbs looked like they would take us, Kael died. No good loot, but damn it feels good to get a boss like Kael'Thas Sunstrider down.

Perhaps my brush with fame had gone to my head, but I am calling here and now for a few things. I am offline for a couple more days, so this does impact me a lot. First, reading this post from WoW Insider's Eliah Hecht saying his server is at 59% done on Phase 1, has me concerned. I would love a chance like we had for the AQ opening, to see out of game the progress being made. This is a new kind of war effort, isn't it? Let us call for a new war effort status page!

Second, I worry that the Isle is opening too fast. Half a phase in 1 day? Completely open in a week? I can only hope that 2, 3, and 4 are harder, requiring more time and effort to get them opened up. At this rate, assuming Argent Dawn is about the same rate as Eliah's realm, when I get in sometime Friday, the Isle will be nearing the end of phase 2. That's missing pretty much half of this epic world event.

Lastly, I am not sure how much I like the idea of some dailies not being able to be done after some phases. What if I have that, completed, in my logs? Will I still be able to turn it in for rep? In another post on WoW Insider a staff writer posted a link to this timeline of dailies for the Isle, and it shows that we have a lot of dailies, twenty of them, and I worry that some will vanish before I even get a chance to break glass, destroy portals, or many of them.

[Update: And this post tells me that after about 24 hours of stable servers, Argent Dawn has reached second phase of the Isle of Quel'Danas. Maybe I can get in for phase 3 and 4...]

When is the last time Blizzard brought in a 5 person(thanks Drysc for the politically correct version) dungeon outside of an expansion or launch of WoW? Was it Maraudon? Dire Maul? That was three years ago, and it was still for the most part 'Vanilla WoW' as they call it. That was almost launch version as they were still working on the server issues until May.

This question was brought up by a post from Lavata of the Sentinels US realm. She asks why Blizzard made the Magister's Terrace so damned hard. With mobs that "are worse than trash in Kara" and Bosses that are easier than some of the trash pulls, Lavata says that it is far too difficult for your average 70. "MaT fails to fill the spot it is meant to in progression" to paraphrase.

I think that Lavata, and many others who eagerly fly their way to the Isle of Quel'Danas in anticipation of a run through MaT(for lack of a better abbreviation), are making on mistake in assumption. They assume that this will be just another 5 person just like the rest we got with TBC. It isn't. Why would it be? It is a dungeon we get as we all near the next phase of the game, Wrath of the Lich King.

Look at this like... the baby Naxx of the TBC era. It's not the big raid instance, as Sunwell Plateau fits in there. It's the baby one for the non raiders or those just looking to get more gear from rep rewards. It will be hard. Harder than any of the other 5 person dungeons we have so far, and that is fine because it should be hard.

Another thing to consider is something that Drysc points out in the thread. When TBC came out, people were even at the high ends of the dungeons still banging their heads on the wall of the low TBC dungeons like Blood Furnace and Slave Pens. Hell, some people still haven't done those dungeons because of their earlier troubles. Only one of my 3 70s has ever fought his way through the Slave Pens dungeon.

This is the early head banging phase of Magister's Terrace. It's the point were we try out the strategies, attack fights from different angles, and see what works. We also see what doesn't work and how we can fit in those classes who are the outsiders of the dungeon sets, the Ret Paladins, the rogues, the hunters and more. Give it some time, Lavata, It'll come.

Of course, as always, your mileage(and gear) may vary.

I am sitting here at work, and I popped over to WoW Insider on my phone during a slow period. I read this article with interest. To sum it up, the former top raiding guild, Risen, who was well know in the pre TBC days, has decided that they are going to kiss raiding goodbye until the next expansion Wrath of the Lich King.