Tuesday Part 3 (7 Dec) - Cataclysm Dungeons

Tuesday Part 3 (7 Dec) - Cataclysm Dungeons

There are a number of new dungeons in Cataclysm, and several old dungeons that have undergone major makeovers.

The two new dungeons of most interest to level 80 players are Throne of the Tides and Blackrock Cavern. Both are rated for level 80-81. At one point in beta level 79 was the minimum level to enter, but on release the minimum was made level 80. Of course, you must have the Cata expansion to access them.

It was 3:09am early Tuesday morning when five intrepid adventurers, somewhat boozed and a bit giddy from lack of sleep and non-stop gawking at the wonders of this new world, assembled outside the entrance to Blackrock Cavern. In the Old World, Ragnaros still rages deep in the bowels of Molten Core below us. In the world of Cataclysm, Ragnaros, long defeated, arises again. But that is another tale for a later day. At this moment the five are working up the nerve to enter an entirely new adventure. We had a rogue and a warrior for melee combat. Wild was healing, of course. We also had a druid in bear form as our tank. And another druid in moonkin form for ranged DPS. Three druids. Great, we'll all be fighting over the leather gear drops. But who cares? We were going to get slaughtered, anyway.

Blizzard had gone to great lengths to explain that things were going to be greatly different in Cata dungeons. No more "AoE tanking" where players could just round up groups mobs and AoE them down. No more overpowering Bosses with withering DPS. No more of "who cares if I stand in the fire" when the healers have an endless supply of mana to save them.

In Cata tanks were going to have to mark targets and position themselves correctly. Crowd Control (does anyone even remember what their crowd control abilities are anymore?) will be necessary. Avoiding damage will be more important to keep healers from running out of mana. Healers will have to think (think? what language are you speaking?) about which spells to use and manage their mana pool.

One thing about the new dungeons that Blizzard seems to have carried over from WotLK is the dungeon layout. In BRC there are no tricky passageways or convoluted layouts. BRC is entered from the west, passes through a smallish circular cavern, into a bigger circular cavern, makes a 90 degree left turn and then follows a single path to it's end. That's the whole thing. Blizzard did manage to cram five Bosses in there, though. They must be feeling a bit crowded.

We entered BRC. These tunnels and rooms are built into the rock of the Mountain, and that look pervades the entire dungeon. The first thing we noted that there were no mobs nearby. There was a quest giver, though, and we picked up the quest "To the Chamber of Incineration!" We then crossed over a short bridge an into a rough hall where several mobs loitered about. They were mostly ogres. All were level 80/81 elites.

"Crowd control?" the moonkin asked. "Should we mark targets?"

"Want me to SAP one of them?" asked the rogue, who was already stealthed and hiding behind one of the mobs. The rogue looked like he'd already been there awhile. I think he was filing his nails.

Since the rogue's target was closest and looked like he could be singled out, the tank opted to take him first.

"Don't bother with the SAP," the tank told the rogue. The bear tank Charged the mob and we engaged. Wild started a stack of Lifebloom but I never got to three stacks. The mob died in a few seconds. I think we all took a big breath, realizing that until that point we'd all been holding it. Our breath, that is. Although that rogue may have been holding something else - he looked that relaxed.

We took on a pair of mobs next, again not bothering with crowd control. They took a little longer to kill than WotLK dungeon mobs, and they may have hit a little harder, but the tank was still taking pitifully little damage, the two melee knew their role and avoided getting in the way of anything that would hurt them, and Wild really had very little healing to do.

At the end of a stream of more mobs that we had less and less respect for was a bigger ogre, Rom'ogg Bonecrusher. Aha! Our quest says "Kill Rom'ogg Bonecrusher." Good thing he was around, then. Let's hope he got that message, too.

We maneuvered to get at and clear the small groups of mobs around him so that we could face our first Cata dungeon Boss one of one - so to speak, since there were five of us. Only one of him, though.

"What do we know about this guy?" the DK asked.

"Nuttin' honey," Wild muttered under his breath. Wild hoped the tank had something better.

"Let's just try him and see how it goes," said the tank. I love it when a strategy comes together.

We didn't have any more time to discuss it, anyway. Bonecrusher wandered about a bit further than we thought. He'd noticed us. We could tell from the the full throated roar and the way he charged in our direction. The rogue I thought was dozing off in a corner appeared and tripped up the big lug, giving the tank time get Bonecrusher's attention. Wild got some fast heals on the rogue and HoTed up the tank.

Bonecrusher's abilities sound dangerous, indeed. Quake, Wounding Strike, Chains of Woe,and Bonecrusher's finishing move, The Skullcracker. It started as a tank and spank fight, but Quake popped up little dust clouds under our feet. Wild could heal through it, but only if the players affected got out of it quickly. We adjusted to that and were then hit with the Chains. We all became best friends with Bonecrusher as those chains dragged us all up under his rather rank underarms. Our quick thinking DPSers realized we could target the chains and we worked on breaking them. What we didn't know is what to do about The Skullcracker, which Bonecrusher started casting at the end of Chains of Woe. Wild and the moonkin were at range when Skullcracker struck. The two melee died instantly. Wild and the moonkin took no damage, being out of range of it, and the tank survived it, although not by a lot, and that was when Wild did a bit of frenzied healing. Finally, Wild gets some action.

Wild rezzed one of the DPS, and we kept at the boss. We broke the chains quickly the second time Bonecrusher used it, and we made sure everyone but the tank was out of the way of Skullcracker when it came. Wild and the tank were ready for it this time and the tank easily handled it.

Bonecrusher died. We had beaten our first Cata dungeon boss. Ok, so two players died. We still won. Had we bothered to read the strat notes on the fight, nobody would have died. But we like living on the edge, ya know.

Here comes the loot drop. This is at Normal difficulty, not Heroic. [Skullcracker Ring] dropped. Item level i279. Odd that it says it can be worn by a level 78, but only level 80s can get into the dungeon. Well, guess there are still a few things to work out about that. It was a +agility ring, and no one needed it. I think the moonkin ended up with it.

Two interesting things happened after we killed Bonecrusher. The first was that we got a little message letting us complete the quest without having to go back to the quest giver. Nice! But there was a second quest, and we discovered we did have to back to the quest giver to get it. Hey, it's a new feature! Can't expect them to think of a little detail like that. The second thing that happened is a huge gorilla looking mob pounced into view. We were caught with mouths open and drawers down, and we were toast. Well, we would have been had the mob been hostile. Turned out he was a friend. His name was Raz the Crazed (I kid you not), and without any urging from us he proceeded to kill all the mobs between us an our next boss: Corla, Herald of Twilight.

Corla has three dragonkin statues that she will try to revive during the fight using a stacking debuff. The idea (had we been reading the strats) was for players to block the beams going from Corla to two of the statues, while letting Corla revive the third. That way the dragonkin could be dispatched one at a time. The beam applies the stacking buff to whatever is in front of it, so players standing in the beam will also start getting stacks.

We knew none of this, of course, and we were hell bent on killing Corla. That wasn't going so well, but we noticed the stacking debuff starting to pop up on us when we intersected a beam, and figured out that "something" was happening with the beam. Corla herself was something of a ditz, first pulling players to her, then Fearing us away.

"Oops, there's a dragon!" pointed out the rogue, which was our first clue at what the beams were doing. We killed it, and the other two at some point as well, whether one at a time or all at once I'm not sure. With the dragons and beams down Corla didn't have much of a chance. I learned later that if a player gets 100 debuff stacks from the beam that player will become a dragonkin and get mind controlled by Corla. Wow, where do I sign up?

Well. I think [Renouncer's Cowl] dropped, a mail armor item with no one in our group being mail wearers. That one was disenchanted. Wild did get really interested in one of the other possible drops - [Armbands of Change]. This is an i279 leather caster item. Really!? This would, sort of, be an upgrade for Wild had it dropped. Let me bore you for just a second with the stats, since it highlights some the changes in stats with Cata. Wild's current armband is called Septic Shock (ss) and is i251.

Stat SS AC
Sta 61 136
Int 61 90
Spi 56 0
Crit 41 53
Haste 0 65
SP 85 0

Wild would LOVE to have all that extra stamina and intelligence, not to mention the haste. I might even be willing to live without the spirit. It's the SP (spell power) that highlights how difficult it will be make the transition to the new gear. Spell power is the be all stat for casters in WotLK. In Cata, spell power comes largely from +Int. Spell power has been removed from nearly all gear, with the exception of weapons. Would an increase of almost 30 int compensate for the loss of 85 SP? I don't know. I know I would have rolled on that gear, though, and tested it out. Wild now has a very good reason to do this dungeon again. And I have to note that this same piece of gear is much, much better in Heroic. That was another change that came late with WotLK and is in full flower with Cata - the gear is the same in both normal and heroic, but the stats are much better in heroic.

This is starting to grow longer than expected. Let me say that Karsh Steelbender, Beauty, and Lord Obsidius all met the same fate as the first two bosses. In one case the tank finished off the boss solo after the other four of us died. And that could pretty much sum up normal mode BRC. The dungeon is very good, and the bosses have interesting mechanics that will make the fights fun and challenging for most. Against the five of us, though, wrapped in our Kingslayer gear that at the moment out gears just about anything the dungeon can offer, there was really only one end to the story.

We pwned it!

We then went after Throne of the Tides and cleared it as well. I'm sure Wild will be getting into that one again as well, and I'll give a thorough blow by blow then.

By morning's end Wild dragged himself back to Orgrimmar. He dumped out and vendored a bunch of stuff, hoping that he wouldn't regret not keeping some of the unfamiliar items in there. Soulbound gear that Wild couldn't use were DE'd, giving Wild some of the new enchanting mats he'll be needing. There were a number of BOE items stuffed in there, too. Those items Wild parceled out, sending them to both Philly and JB, both of whom might really be able to use them.

And then at last Wild was able get some sleep.

Oh, by the way.

Wild is level 81.