Monday (26 Oct) - Three For One

Monday (26 Oct) - Three For One

DER and JB hit a few WoW hotspots on Monday night. The two started in the level 71-73 dungeon called The Nexus. Located in Coldarra, a subarea of Northrend's Borean Tundra, it features four bosses and represents the entry level dungeon to level 70's who have started their progression to level 80. Both JB and DER figured this should be fairly easy to two-man for a level 80 and a level 76. Well, yes and no. As far as the trash mobs went, none of which were higher than level 72 elites, it was fairly easy, even against 3-4 at a time. Now and then a group of mobs got the better of the two, generally due to Silences or other special abilities that took one of us out of action for a period of time. But the two explorers worked steadily through the mobs, following whatever route struck our fancy. That eventually brought the two to Anomalus, a level 72 elite elemental boss.

Not expecting any problems, JB powered up her totems and DER waded in to tank. Things went smoothly until Anomolus opened his first Chaotic Rift, and began summoning wraiths through it. Except that at the time, neither of the two knew what the rift was or what to do about it. JB blasted everything that came out of the rift, not realizing the chaotic rift was itself an elite mob and that killing it was the only way to stop the wraiths. The "kill everything" strategy eventually worked, at least until Anomolus opened a Charged Rift, which dumped out wraiths at an even faster pace and also hit back with an energy burst AoE. JB and DER managed to wipe.

On the second attempt we started having targeting issues. Anomalus, the rifts, and the wraiths are all a shimmering blue-white, and together create a haze of activity that makes it a challenge to distinguish between targets. It was a little easier for JB, who was standing away from the center of the action, but DER was having a much rougher time of it, standing smack dab in the middle of it all. After a second wipe we decided to move on to other pickings.

The two cleared another lane through the mobs and located Grand Magus Telestra. Telestra was vulnerable to the "kill everything" strategy. Despite a number of abilities, including an irritating gravity well that yanked both players around the room, Telestra was pounded down to 50% health. At that point she split into three mobs, and after those were killed she returned in single form for the final slugfest. She died.

Without much ado the two beat their way to the third boss, Omorok, an ice giant with a couple of abilities it would have been nice if we'd known about ahead of time. The two plowed into Omorok, beating him down satisfactorily, at least until he let fly with crystal spikes. These lines of ice crystals hit for considerable damage if you stood in them, which initially JB did until she realized what was happening and that the damage was too high to heal through. Stupidly, it would take two rounds of spikes for JB to realize she needed to MOVE when those spikes lanced out. DER was also taking considerable damage, but had JB not been as pre-occupied with saving herself from herself, DER might have survived. Down her went, though. JB ratcheted up the DPS on Omorok, and he was close to going down. JB's health was wavering as Omorok had also sped up his attack (at 25% health he enrages) and she was getting very low on mana. She was out-DPSing the giant, though, and like a race car driver judging whether his tires will stand up for one more circuit of the track, JB decided she could finish the job without taking up time to heal. JB didn't know Omorok had a spell reflection ability, and a dose of Lava Burst followed by Chain Lightning were both reflected back to JB, and she killed herself. Much annoyed, JB reincarnated on the spot, managed to build up some health despite Omorok re-engaging, but she just couldn't get her mana up fast enough to finish the job. JB went down a second time, leaving Omorok standing with a pitiful 20k health left, 3-4 good hits away from being dead.

We could have come back and killed Omorok, but JB and DER had other plans, which were starting to come together - the Headless Horseman (HH).

This is the second and final week of Hallow's End, the halloween themed event for which HH is the centerpiece. The main prize for beating HH is a very rare mount, but there is also other ilevel 200 gear that drops, including a +hit ring that JB would really like to have. DER got himself and JB invited to join a group who were doing multiple runs of HH.

HH must be Summoned to start the fight, and players can get a summon to use through a quest that is available once per day. However, since a group can have up to five players, if they all have a "summons" quest, they can do HH five times (once for each player with a summons). The group DER and JB were joining already had four players, and were accepting one player at a time into their group, provided that player had a summons. In that way players who couldn't get into a group could join a pre-existing group, and that group got to run HH multiple times by bringing those players into their group. Note that healers and tanks were ALWAYS being asked for and were in short supply - DPS players were the ones having trouble getting into HH.

DER and JB were both fortunate. They both won rings from their one trip into HH. JB got a nice caster ring, an upgrade to her current gear, so she couldn't complain. But JB really wanted the +hit ring, and may try to get into HH a few more times before the event is over.

Prior to either Nexus or HH, DER and JB had planned to go to Wintergrasp, the pvp zone JB recently tried for the first time. The timing of WG was such, however, that when JB was in game DER had not yet arrived, so that window was missed. JB went offline for awhile before returning at our usual start time. DER then got into the new WG that was starting, but JB managed to miss it. DER said he had a lot of fun, though, and I think we'll try to coordinate more trips to WG. DER also decided to give Strand of the Ancients and try, which is another pvp zone, but JB called it an evening.

One final note on dungeon adventures. I think the team of DER and JB is learning that even level 70s type dungeons can't be raced through without a little preparation. Knowing the abilities of the bosses in advance would have made those fights a lot easier. Using aids like focus target by JB would also have made it easier to see what DER was hitting, which would avoid the two banging on different mobs. Communication strictly through typing things in chat also caused some confusion, such as when DER didn't realize JB needed to sit and drink to regain mana. DER mentioned that vent had it's good points (ie, being able to talk to each other). Neither of us have our own vent server, but Blizz does have it's own kind of vent, which I've never tried, but it might be something we could explore.

Bypassing all the strats and just going exploring, learning as we go, is fun and can be both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. It has it's own own rewards whether we clear the dungeon or just make a few bosses nervous. Nexus was fun for sure. And there were certainly nervous bosses in Nexus, and we may yet go back and finish the job.