Thursday (8 Oct) - JB's Argent Tournament Experience

Thursday (8 Oct) - JB's Argent Tournament Experience

For the past three days JB faithfully completed the initial quests and the three daily quests associated with Aspirant status at the Argent Tournament. "Aspirant" means rookie, and before JB can advance past that rank she has to complete a challenge, proving she has learned enough about Jousting to move to the next level. Challenges have to be paid for with Seals, acquired by doing the daily quests. The three Aspirant dailies reward a total of 5 Aspirant Seals, and it takes 15 seals to Challenge.

JB, with 15 shiny new Aspirant Seals, was ready to attempt her first Challenge.

Before getting to that, though, JB did spend some time in Zul'Drak, adding to her quest completions and taking out another elite, Malas the Corrupter, a level 76 elite. JB found yet another horde camp, making that five camps (I think) in the small zone of Zul'Drak. JB was again running out of quests. There were two left in her log, both involving elites.

Malas the Corrupter - Dead

The most involved quest series had started with collecting materials for a disguise that would fool the Scourge who run rampant in this zone. They even have their own floating city. JB eventually was given the disguise to infiltrate the floating city and get in good with the local leader. That turned into a whole series of quests, coming and going from the floating city and performing all manner of duties for the Scourge leader. The disguise itself was not perfect. Certain types of Scourge could see through the disguise, so JB had to watch out for them. The thing simply failed periodically, too. A few seconds warning was given, but it can be hard to get out of sight when you are doing quests in the middle of armies of Scourge. There are three Scourge npcs involved as well, which makes keeping track of who to talk to, who to return things to, who to summon with the horn JB was given, when to take the portal to the floating city, when to return to the ground, etc, a little complicated. JB's head hurt by the time she picked up what she hoped was the final task demanded of her by the Scourge leader.

That task was to kill a level 76 elite named Darmuk. Darmuk is one ugly biped. Three times JB's height, long claws, big teeth, and pigeon-toed. All of the guidance stated unequivocably, don't take him on alone.

Actually, those tasked with this messy deed got help in the form of a wand that when cast on one of the Scourge, would turn it into a level 76 elite pet. Now that's cool. The pet had only three abilities, and the winning strat seemed to be to turn the pet loose on Darmuk, spam the two attack spells, and when Darmuk enrages, hit the Stun. Do that, and Darmuk dies.

Well, JB is here to tell you it's not that easy.

On JB's first attempt Darmuk cleaned that Scourge pet's clock, and turned JB into mush before she got more than a set of totems out. Darmuk delivers a heck of a wallop, he's fast, and has a ton of health.

There was a little PS to the strategy that said if Darmuk kills the pet, "quickly tame another one" and then kite Darmuk until the pet takes over.

JB tried that on her second try, since the pet again died before Darmuk even reached 50% health. JB actually got the second pet engaged, but no matter what JB did, Darmuk ignored the pet and pounded JB into snot once again.

Ok, said JB to herself, I know that I'm not supposed to directly attack, but what the heck, I've already killed one level 76 elite. JB dropped totems and engaged without the pet. Just to see how that went. It "went" not so good. Even kiting, Darmuk wore JB down, and finally killed her again.

JB will try again soon, but was tired of the disguise and the Scourge and stupid horde npcs who make her do those things.

So she went to a pool to relax and maybe try her hand at the turtle-like level 75 elite Ragemane. Ragemane hits pretty hard, too, but not as bad as Darmuk. He also had a lot of health, and JB (who cast underwater breathing on herself before starting the fight), spent a good long time underwater. Ragemane Enrages at 25% health, too, and that got pretty exciting trying to out heal the damage while still getting off some damage spells of her own.

It was with great satisfaction that Ragemane died. Turtle soup, anyone?


By the time JB headed back to the Argent Tournament grounds, she was 68% of the way to level 79 and had completed 52 of 100 quests in Zul'Drak.

Guess you'll have to wait until the next installment to see how JB did in her Challenge match.

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Ok, just kidding. JB quickly completed her three dailies to get to 15 Aspirant Seals. She was then given the quest, "The Aspirant's Challenge" and told to report to the Aspirant's Ring and talk to Squire David.

JB equipped her lance, mounted the sunreaver steed tied to a nearby post, and accepted the Challenge from Squire David.

A mounted npc joined JB in the ring, said a couple of words, and then turned hostile. Both of us backed away from each other, JB fumbling a bit to toss a shield-breaker on the opponent in preparation for Charging. He got off his Charge first, though, stinging JB and then wheeling around for another go. JB had to do four things at once - keep her own defense shields active (up to three shields, which drop off one at a time when hit or when a 30 seconds timer ends), cast shield-breaker to make the opponent vulnerable to Charge, maneuver her mount the right distance from the opponent, and Charge the opponent for max damage.

In just a few moments of inexpert action her steed started giving her dirty looks, and when JB failed the contest, losing to the npc knight, the beast stalked off in disgust. The crowd cheered the npc.

Fortunately, Aspirant's are allowed multiple tries without having to spend another three days collecting seals. Calling that first attempt just a "practice," JB started another Jousting match. JB did much better, even if her commands to the new steed were still way off the mark. The match meandered all over the area, spilling out of the ring, scattering npcs and getting golfclaps from nearby alliance. But JB won the match!

JB makes a victory trot around the area, victory flag flying proudly.

A series of quests followed the victory, advancing JB from Aspirant to the status of Valiant, and her training was turned over to her racial leader, a troll named Sen'jin. JB officially became a Valiant of Sen'jin.

Four new daily quests then became available for the Valiant level. JB hasn't done those yet, but even without them JB's xp increased from 68% to 75% of the way to level 79. So far it's been a lot of fun.