Recently in Instances Category

As you likely know by now, Brewfest, the Oktoberfest of World of Warcraft, and the holiday has a fair number of new things that weren't around in 2007. First off, the new holiday boss. Coren Direbrew can be found, when you have the quest at 70, in the Grim Guzzler in Blackrock Depths. He is a fairly hard fight, with different phases. Much like the Lord Ahune fight at midsummer, there are things that pop up out of the ground to knock you in the air, there are adds that make things difficult, and of course awesome loot.

At the last minute Blizzard announced they will allow all races to get both the Kodo and Ram mounts, though they will now be dropped by Coren, not purchased for tokens. While Kisirani just a day before had adamantly argued in this lengthy thread that they would not be allowing Alliance to get Kodos, we did find out due to this post that Blizzard had hotfixed the two mounts into Coren's loot table and all races would be able to win the mounts.

To get to Coren,you pick up a quest in Kharanos, Dun Morogh, though some requisites might be needed, then you head to the Blackrock Depths. When inside the instance, you kill off the level 70 Dark Irons, then use the controller to travel through the Depths to the Grim Guzzler. That's right, no need to clear the way. Once there, you talk to the dwarven spy, admire some demonic tail, and when you are all ready, you go and toss a few 'Yo Mama's at Coren, causing him to attack.

My advice is this: Run away when he disarms, have a healthstone ready, and burn him down as fast as you possibly can. There will be stuns, throws, and adds, and all of those will be dealt with in the proper times, but the big thing is to get him down as fast as you can. The loot is decent, though there is no known pet that he drops. He does have two trinkets that summon mobs to help you, but those are not vanity pets. Our group had 4 summons and killed him twice, which got me Empty Mug of Direbrew on Telaan. Enjoy Brewfest, and be sure to act responsibly and to not drink and ride!

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.

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.

While out questing with Sardrissa today, and we decided to make use of some coordinates that a guildmate gave me the day before, so we travelled out Aldor Rise in Shattrath City, and headed into Nagrand. This shot was the first one I took just outside of Aldor Rise. The primary reason I decided to take screens out there was a post on Starman's blog about how amazing it looks. He wasn't wrong. This scenery, above all the rest excluding the sky in Hellfire, is the most breathtaking views I have seen in Outlands yet.

We travelled westward to Telaar, and got what I think is the most aggravating flight point I have found yet. I can see a lot of people dying off that man made cliff. I took some more screens, of floating waterfalls, unknown towns, and the amazing scenery, then we flew on back to Telredor in Zangarmarsh. After a little while there, while waiting on our group to be ready for some boss farming in Hellfire Ramparts, Sardrissa dinged while we were killing Ogres or some such. Then, out of the blue, about a half hour later or so....

Live from Outlands, it's Level 64!!!!

That's right, I dinged 64 on Medros! Training brought me a new Holy Shock, Rank 4, for 20s, and Seal of Vengeance, a new Seal that does nice Holy Damage when judged, and has a chance to do extra damage when it procs. Not a bad training overall. As Sardrissa had to get her training there too, we both flew to Shattrah, then portaled to Stormwind. While in Stormwind Sardrissa decided to... investigate an armor upgrade. What do you think?

Once our hearthstones where cooled down, we hearthed back to Telredor, and went back to questing. Once we hit Orebor Harborage, we both had more quests we could grab, and did, once of which was to travel to Sylvanaar, in the Blades Edge Mountains. A guildmate was already there, so after killing some spiders of varying sizes but oddly the same level, we found our way past Fey Drakes, lovely sprite like creatures, and Lynx, to find the elven outpost. I rejoiced to find that I can once again grind rep with Darnassus, especially since Medros is so close to exalted for his cat. Yes, I have a wicked looking Charger, and I want an epic cat.

Being one who loves to explore, and stupid enough to try in a land of mobs so far above me, I convinced my dearest to travel with me to the other two outposts in Blades Edge Mountains. We rode through relatively danger free areas to get to a gnomish outpost, Toshley's Station, which is where I found a cute little gnomelet with what looked like either a deathray or a water gun. You decide. We then headed north, meeting up with some extremely unpleasant looking mobs along the way but not being dismounted even once, to arrive at our final destimation, Ruuan Weald, and other elven outpost, this time run by the Cenarions. Our adventure done, and our party nearly ready, we flew all the way to Honor Hold, so I could log onto Arita so he could get rep and XP from runs into Ramparts, since Medros had his pieces I wanted from there.

Speaking of pieces Medros has, I wanted to take a second from my day to show off a few pieces of gear Medros has gotten. Other than his first ever Libram(Yay! Ranged slow no longer useless) which was from a quest, after several runs through Hellfire Ramparts, Medros finally got his Light Touched Breastplate which I had socketed with Teardrop Blood Garnet, Brilliant Golden Draenite, andSolid Azure Moonstone. The combined bonuses are amazingly nice, and I am loving the look of it. This adds to my Heart Fire Warhammer which I got my first run, and, which we downed the demon on the second try. Sardrissa is still looking for the Shadowrend Longblade, which drops off Watchkeeper Gargolmar, who also drops the breastplate.

So, back to the run through Ramparts. We got delayed here and there, by people being in the middle of other stuff, and then we finally get going. I have a few fire pots, and such, in case her sword drops and we decide to continue on, and had spent the time waiting for people farming Dreaming Glory for Super Healing Potions, and then, just as we are less than 10 minutes from going...World Server Down. After another half an hour of server coming up, then going down, and so on, it finally stabilizes, and we get going. First run, no sword, and the group decides to not stop, even though the plan from the beginning was to farm the first boss for the sword.

We go through the entire way, wiping a few times, Arita dinging 62, and down the dragon with ease. Our warrior is in his groove, and we did great on the last fight. This done, a priest pice falls, so one of our hunters grabs his Priest to take it, and decides to stick around for a couple more first boss runs. Yay! No more healing for Arita. All Moon turkey, All the time. We clear to the first boss 2 times in 30 minutes, and no wipes, all going amazingly well, but no sword.

So I end the night with a 64 Paladin, and a 62 Druid, my hunter is 52 and has several nice pieces of gear, and using up all the Thorium Headed projectiles I stocked up on before they decided to into Wicked projectiles, and he could very well be 60 and working through outlands in no time flat. So there you go. How I began, worked through, and ended one big, long, day in WoW. I will, though, leave you with one final screenshot, this of Medros wearing his Mirren's Drinking Hat, a cheap knock off of the Crimson Felt Hat, his new Breastplate, and his lovely, shiny(even without enchant) hammer. See you soon.