Patient Priest: Zombie Trolls

In the mid-level 40's I've been getting either Maraudon:Inner or Zul'Farrak as a random dungeon. I think ZF is slightly lower level, but it has the potential to be more difficult because of the large numbers of mobs and more complex boss encounters.

Zul'Farrak is a temple complex located in the Tanaris desert. It's full of trolls, witch doctors and zombies, and also lots of scarabs. The trolls are mainly in groups of 3 or 4, with some casters which need to be pulled back. This is because the trolls run when they get low on health and have a chance to pull other groups or wandering patrols. The trolls drop healing totems, which I could easily take out with a single hit from my wand, and they also cast hex, even on the tank, which should be dispelled fast.

The basilisk boss, hidden in a cave in the hills, can be a little difficult, as he spawns mobs behind you, does stuns and drops a rooting totem. My favourite encounter though is the pyramid escape, where you kill the executioner, loot his key then free the prisioners in cages awaiting sacrifice. You then need to survive wave after wave of zombie trolls, keeping the prisioners alive, and finally make it to the bottom of the pyramid and face a priest boss. You can then talk to the prisoners, who instead of thanking you will turn on you and you need to fight them. The hardest part of this whole encounter is for the tank to pick up all the mobs. Its helps to have a paladin of course. However, with higher level groups I found that we could just aoe everything down faster than it could kill us. Also, holy nova is really good here, allowing me to add a little damage and keep the whole party topped up without worrying about pulling aggro. The other bosses in this instance are pretty much tank and spank.

I've had some good fun in this place - it gives lots of exp and you can skip some bosses if you want a fast run. I've also met some very good groups...

Patient Priest: Maraudon and on

I'm now level 43 and continuing to push my way through Maraudon. After five runs in a row in Maraudon:Orange I signed up for Purple as I didn't want to level past it (and was seriously bored of Orange).

Purple is definitely easier than Orange. It's a twisty cavern full of satyrs, demons and a few elementals. The don't do much damage and you can dispel a lot of the debuffs. We survived a massive pull in the beginning when someone cast some aoe and a horde of imps and other demons came running at us from the lower level. It's a fairly short instance. In fact I didn't realise we'd finished the first time and I though our tank was just quitting. You only need to kill one boss to get your lucky dip bag, which means that there's one boss in the middle of Maraudon who isn't covered by any of the LFG sections.

I signed up for a random and got another Maraudon:Orange run. I've realised by this time that I've had enough of this instance. I think I'm starting to lose patience too because I found the group really annoying and I'm sick of having to ask for buffs. I unfortunately had a couple of really unpleasant guys in this group. There was a warrior tank and a rogue who were RL buddies. The tank went afk for a few minutes and when the hunter asked the rogue what was happening he just gave some cocky answer that shut the hunter up. Tanks can do as they please you know. For the rest of the dungeon the warrior and rogue made fun of the hunter, criticising his dps, calling him bender and telling him he was doing stuff wrong. I eventually told them to shut up and stop being assholes and that seemed to help a bit. When we'd downed the last boss the hunter called them idiots and left. The rogue wanted to continue deeper into the harder sections of the instance but I said no thanks and teleported out of there. They were the worst people I've grouped with so far.

Continues...

Patient Priest: Maraudon bingo

I've finally levelled up to 41, out of the range for Uldaman and into the range of the Maraudon instances. Maraudon is a big instance, so it's been split into three parts; Orange, Purple and Pristine Waters (known by most of the the wow community as "Inner"). Orange is the first one on the list to try. I checked out Maraudon on Wowhead, to see how the 3 areas link together and to look for any quests I should pick up. I see there's a lot of people commenting on there that the LFG tool is problematic at level 41-42 because Scarlet Monastery is too easy, and Maraudon:Orange is too hard (it's level 42 to 46), so you're kinda stuck in the middle. This made me a bit nervous about signing up for randoms as I anticipated a wipefest as a group of 41's got overrun by level 46 mobs.

So I tried Maraudon:Orange a few times and I found the following;
The mobs are indeed a high level and it takes a long time to kill them (I helped to dps the mobs when the healing allowed)
The lashers do a nasty interrupt, so the healers should stay at max range
The first boss is very hard, casting lots of poisons and spawning adds which need to be killed fast
The lava spewer keeps spewing lava worms! They follow you for the first half of the instance, so watch out for them hitting you in the back.
The mobs root a lot, but this can be dispelled
If you die, it's a long and confusing trip back to the entrance, but stick to the right wall and you'll be fine.

After I'd already done Maraudon:Orange a few times I happened to see a news post stating that Blizzard mixed up the levels of the first two parts of Maruadon, and Purple is easier than Orange. This will be corrected shortly. They'll also stop the spewer from spawning lava continously.

It took me three tries to finally complete Maraudon:Orange. I think it's so challenging at level 41 that you need a group of committed people who have a bit of skill. It's certainly not something you can rush through and aoe down. Read further on for details of the groups, and a link on how to play PUG bingo!

Patient Priest: Level 40 & Neverdied

I'd like to give my congratulations to Neverdied the mage, who made it to level 80 with no deaths! He also did no quests, used no mounts and some other restrictions too. I think a frost mage was a good choice of character for this challange, as they seem to be able to get themselves out of sticky situations. I also think that the "no quests" restriction made this slightly easier in some way - sure it would take longer because he isn't getting the xp from quests, but I think you're less likely to die if you're not risking your neck to escort an npc somewhere or pick up quest items that are swarming with mobs. You can take things steady and at your own pace.

He says he did it because he wanted to add a new dimension to the game because he was taking a break from raiding. I'm reminded of Shaiya, where they have an "ultimate mode" setting which gives your character extra stats but also means that the charcter is deleted if it ever dies (unless you get someone to rezz you within 2 minutes). I can see why some people want this kind of challenge but I don't think I would be so dedicated as to do this - when my priest first died at level 20 I wasn't tempted to delete her and start again.

You can see Neverdied's youtube video here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeNaWYvKzb8

And so onto more dungeons! And dinging level 40...

Patient Priest: Fun with pigs and trogs

This week I have been mostly killing pigs..... and skeletons.

I've found myself in Razorfen Downs groups recently. A giant mass of brambles inhabited by the quilboar and a lich who likes to create skeletal minions. I never did this instance while levelling any of my horde characters, but I've now completed it three times! It's a tough instance; it's quite long, with things occaisionally spawning on top of you, and some nasty poisons and curses that I can't get rid of. There's also a gong which spawns giant spiders when you hit it, and you can always guarantee that when you're in the middle of killing a rampaging gang of pig-people, someone will say "what does this do?" and hit the gong before you can say "NOooooooooo!!!!". However, it gives a great load of experience for a full run, some nice loot and there's some nice herbs in there.

I also had some tough groups to deal with, but I'm pleased to say I've had no wipes or deaths in here so far. We had one druid who was ninja'ing gear, and so I voted to kick him after he stole the second item cause he was just taking it too far. We tried to explain looting to him, but he didn't respond to any questions, and said he supposedly couldn't speak English. I felt a bit bad for kicking a tank, but a paladin dps stepped up to the plate and tanked the rest of the instance, and we had no real problems despite him not having a sheild.

The fun gets better after the break...