Thursday (30 Dec) - Cata Level 85 Dungeon Sweep Part 2

Thursday (30 Dec) - Cata Level 85 Dungeon Sweep Part 2

Bd made Wild nervous when his reaction to making Grim Batol our next stop was, "that place is tough!"

Grim Batol is a Dwarven Fortress right out of Lord of the Rings. Think Moria. Like Moria, the dwarves are gone, defeated and destroyed. But instead of orcs and goblins in their place, we have Twilight Hammer cultists. The fortress has a long, rich history. Deathwing took refuge here after his prior defeat.

Our new/old guildie friend had not made it to Twilight Highlands yet and so Wild and Lady Hunter traveled there first and then summoned him to Grim Batol using the Summoning Stone. There are five bosses in GB, but the night must have started to grow long for Wild, because the trash mobs seemed to be endless and there was always another Boss around the corner. The fights all blended together, but here are the highlights:

- Between two of the boss fights is a bombing run. There is a very long corridor with a deep center line and pathways on either side, very like the one in the Alliance city of Ironforge. Clumps of hostile elite mobs line both pathways. After we cleared our way to the front of that corridor, there were five dragons available to mount. Bd wanted us to mount at the same time so we'd fly close together and our bombs would have the maximum affect. We would get one shot - a strafing run to the end of the corridor and back. What mobs we weren't able to kill on that strafing run we would have to kill on the ground the hard way. The strafing run was fun and a good stress reliever. There is also a quest for the bombing run, but Wild didn't kill enough mobs to complete it and will need another dungeon run to finish that one. Despite our efforts, though, there were still a lot of mob groups to clear to return (on foot) to the far end of the corridor.

- The final boss, Erudax (a multi-winged dragon that looked more insect that dragon) gave Wild fits because the boss drops two different kinds of purple floor covering - one of which can kill you if you don't stay out of it, and the other where you will die if you don't get in it. Wild's color blind eyes really had a time with that, but eventually could tell the difference based on the swirls and the spread pattern. Wild spent a lot of time in the wrong color swirls, though, which didn't help. He did go down, though, and a tuckered out Wild called it a night. Philly called Wild a wuss - it was only three hours, and only nine bosses total on the two runs. Heck, Wild is out of shape already from not doing ICC anymore. Bd rubbed it in further. He was going to run two more dungeons with a new set of guildies needing to work on their ilvl.

Wild averaged just over 4k hps (healing per second) across the evening, getting up over 5k on a couple of high damage boss fights. Wild's over-healing on the final boss was a stingy 37%, but overall it was around 60%, so it's hard to tell if these were good numbers or not. Overhealing is a lot more important to track now than pre-cata. The stats do provide a base for future comparison, and of course, the best measure of the night was that we cleared both dungeons and lived to tell about it.

Wild has now cleared all three of the level 85 only dungeons in normal mode. In a way I'm glad Wild must gear up more before being allowed in those dungeons in Heroic mode - I don't really feel ready for that, given the effort to take down those dungeons in normal mode. As Wild told Lao when she asked how Wild's healing went, "We cleared the dungeons and I didn't suck, so I'm happy."

Interested in the DPS numbers? All were level 85, although gear level varied quite a bit between them.

8861 dps, 36% damage: warlock
5262 dps, 25%: warrior tank (Bd surprised himself by being 2nd in dps)
5143 dps, 19%: fury warrior (very low geared)
5332 dps, 17%: hunter (maybe Wild forgot to count her pet damage)
615 dps, 3%: Wild ;-)

One final treasure of the night was that the former guild leader of FS, who has been out of the game for months, returned for a visit on her priest. P-Jo, a long time close in game friend of Wild, chatted a bit with Wild and with a lot of her other friends. She is still on the FS guild roster, and she's not sure how much or if she is going to start playing again. But it certainly was wonderful to chat with her again.