Wednesday (14 Dec) - Hour of Twilight, the Full Experience

Wednesday (14 Dec) - Hour of Twilight, the Full Experience

[Note - this is very long because it covers all three dungeons; loot information is summarized at the end (tip - Wild is very happy) ]

The fall of the Lich King brought the great dragon Deathwing to full power. Deathwing brought about the Cataclysm, which forever changed the very contours of the world of Azeroth. Deathwing commands the diminished but still potent Twilight's Hammer cult and many evil cohorts among the elemental lords and others. The battle is far from over.

The Old Gods have stirred and resumed their ages old feuds, creating more mayhem that only helps Deathwing in it's single minded pursuit of the total destruction of the world.

On our side are the Dragon Aspects that oppose Deathwing, Nozdormu in particular. Thrall also plays a prominent role, leading both Horde and Alliance in the battle against the dragon (Horde rejoices, Alliance say wtf, where's our own leader? - :P). The forces of good need a weapon great enough to defeat Deathwing. The only weapon powerful enough is one created by Deathwing itself - the Dragon Soul. That weapon no longer exists - in the present. We must go into the past to retrieve it.

The Caverns of Time provide the gateway to the past and sets the path we must follow. The five man dungeon "End Time" begins the newest chapter in the war with Deathwing. Many of Deathwing's servants have already fallen - Cho'gal, Lady Sinestra, Al'akir, and even Ragnaros.

On Tuesday, after the weekly maintenance and reset, and at the beginning of the third week of patch 4.3, Wild finally queued up for Hour of Twilight Heroics for the first time. Wild was Summoned into the past, and then thrust into a far future where Deathwing was victorious. It's a desolate world. All that is left standing is Wyrmrest Temple, the heart of where the great dragons once reigned.

The goal of End Time is to unblock the past so that we can go after the Dragon Soul. Something in the future is blocking access to the past, and here we were, Wild and four other adventurers, taking up the task. There are quite a number of mob groups to kill and a large landscape to travel across while clearing them. I don't think Thrall came with us on this part, but we were carried to the future by Nozdormu. The trash isn't that hard, but it wasn't a pure cakewalk, either. Being stupid still got a DPS killed occasionally. I imagine players not in raiding gear could have some difficulty.

Once through the trash mobs, we had to face two foes from a random list of four. These bosses are mere echoes of what were once great leaders. Now, defeated and forlorn, they stood in the way of our goal. Each of these echoes have their own trash mobs, and they are also not pushovers. Wild was fortunate that the tank had been here before and knew the strats for taking out the trash. I don't recall now which two Echoes we faced. I was very busy keeping the tank alive and trying not to die.

With the Echoes defeated, we traveled to the Bronze Dragonshrine. Wild was the only one in the group that was doing this dungeon for the first time. There is a lot of traveling around that includes entering portals with multiple choices to pick from. Wild had to ask several times which choice to take and was relieved that the group just answered the questions without any fuss. They were also patient with Wild getting his quests completed, which wasn't hard but did slow us down a little.

The final boss in End Time was Murozond. The name is an anagram of Nozdormu. Yes, we must defeat an evil, future version of Nozdormu. For a dungeon boss he is pretty deadly. In particular, Wild had trouble with Distortion Bomb. This is a launched explosive that leaves a circle of destruction on the floor it's best not to stand in. Everything moves in quick time as the real Nozdormu helps us by speeding up time. However, the room fills with those deadly circles pretty fast, and it's hard to both avoid the launched explosives and keep away from the circles. Wild had to heal like crazy. There is no way to survive this encounter except for one thing. Murozond has the Hourglass of Time. When the floor becomes too littered with death circles the tank activated the Hourglass - time sped backward, returning us to our starting positions and clearing all of the circles. It does not restore damage done (so Murozond doesn't get his health back), and it can only be used a maximum of five times. It was touch and go sometimes, but we killed him.

With Murozond dispatched and End Time completed, the tank and one DPS left. Wild received a message asking if I wanted to add more players to continue. Wild said yes, and our revised group entered the second dungeon, Well of Eternity.

Access to the past was now possible, and Nozdormu flung our group 10,000 years into the past. We were in the night elf city Zin-Azshari, home of Azshara, the Highborne Elven Queen. Here is where the Dragon Soul rested. The city was alive with activity and large, elite armies stormed about in a near constant flow. We got a little help from an appearance by Illidan, who gave the group a stealth affect that helped us avoid the large armies of mobs and also added crit bonuses when we did encounter mob groups we couldn't sneak past. Our goal was to destroy a series of crystals, each defended by trash, of course. Illidan guided us to each area and there was a lot of traveling. Sometimes players got ahead of Illidan, since they already knew where to head next. Wild tried to stay with the tank, as he never slowed down, attacking the instant he got to the next mob group. That posed a constant challenge for Wild, but I accepted it and the tank never died. It was close a few times, though.

After a considerable amount of effort, we cleared all the trash and faced our first boss, Peroth'arn. Wild truly hates this boss. I will admit that hatred comes from not knowing the specifics of the fight, which wage a heavy toll on the healer. First, there was Fel Decay. This ability is cast on a random player and causes significant initial damage as well as a ten second DoT up to around 140k total damage. That could kill some players. Healing the suffering player does additional damage equal to the amount healed - to the healer! Wild didn't know this, but it wasn't hard to put two and two together when every time I healed the marked player Wild took damage as well. Wild compromised and kept the player healed to half health, which meant Wild's health also shrunk down by half. Nasty. Peroth'arn has another nasty ability called Drain Essence. It started with a group AoE followed by the group being forced into stealth again. Peroth'arn, also now stealthed, then sent green eyes out searching for us. If you got caught, Peroth'arn attacked that player and the tank had to taunt the boss away (sending the boss back into stealth). Eventually, if no one got caught for awhile, the boss came out of stealth his own. We didn't do it that way. The impatient tank forced Peroth'arn out of stealth, getting hit with massive damage in the process, which Wild had not anticipated and could not overcome. The tank died, but Wild immediately battle rezzed him, and the fight continued. Peroth'arn went down.

After recovering from that fight, we moved on, killing many more mobs on the way, including more of those green eyes, which added lightning strikes and firebreath to their repertoire.

We arrived at the top of a long staircase, and there stood Queen Azshara. It was a little disappointing that Azshara does not fight us herself. Instead, she sent six magi against us, two at a time, each pair with differing abilities. The most I can say about this is that it was confusing and Wild was never sure when to stack up or run away. Wild relied on the most basic of rules - don't stand in the fire, avoid what comes at you, and run away from anything that looked dangerous. We also did this fight with one DPS missing for most of it. The magi were killed, but that did not end the dungeon. We received a cache of loot, and then we were transported by dragons to a new area.

Illidan, Tyrande, and Malfurion were there when we arrived. When we were ready, there were two massive, and I mean massive, attacks started first by by Illidan and then Tyrande. Stack on them! Both of them provide buffs that you must be inside of or die. Otherwise, the rest of the mobs aren't too bad.

The battle with the pair of bosses that followed was something of a grey cloud to Wild. One boss was Varo'then, the personal guard of Azshara; the other boss was Mannoroth, a pit lord capable of corrupting the entire orc race. There was a sword that the DPS must throw back at one boss, a buff to get at a certain point, and mobs to kill by killing the mobs that spawn them. This is one fight where the strategy MUST be clear because failing that leads to a battle that never ends. Wild didn't know the strategy at all and was lucky that the tank and maybe one DPS did. The fight still took a long time, long enough for Wild to innervate and even use a mana pot at one point. One player died and did not respond to Wild's battle rez. We finished the fight with just four. From what Wild could tell, the healing got easier with one DPS gone and we still downed the boss. And recovered the Dragon Soul.

After distributing loot, Wild had two quests to deal with, and a cache that refused to give up it's crystal to either Wild or the remaining player still in group. While fooling around with that, the quest giver despawned and Wild had to go in search of her, first across the large area left vacant by the battle, and then through portals until the danged quest giver respawned. Wild was now alone, the other player having left the group. Wild completed his quests and didn't quite know what to do. Is it over? Well of Eternity certainly was, but what about the last dungeon?

I'm not sure what Wild did, but he wound up in a tunnel carved into ice. Thrall was there. Wild talked to him, and learned that Wild was supposed to escort him somewhere. Wild walked deeper into the tunnel, but Thrall didn't follow. Wild came back and talked to him a second time, and this time Thrall moved into action. Almost immediately, two high level elites appeared. Thrall attacked them. Thrall was very capable of tanking and killing the two elites. Wild kept himself healed and made sure not to grab aggro away from Thrall. The two mobs went down.

We moved deeper into the tunnel, and we were ambushed by five elite mobs. Surrounded, Wild aggroed two mobs just by standing there. Wild died. Once Wild rezzed and returned to the tunnel, I got a message asking if Wild would like to invite more players to assist. Would I ever! Wild went into the queue and reappeared in the tunnel with a full group. I guess Wild wasn't expected to solo the final dungeon, Hour of Twilight. Hehe, grinned Wild sheepishly, nursing his wounds and his pride.

Our group started down the tunnel with Thrall (who carried the Dragon Soul), dealing with many mobs on the way, and finally reaching present-day Wyrmrest Temple. It was a long way.

There are three bosses to defeat: Arcurion (water elemental), Asira Dawnslayer (an assassin for hire who fell under the power of Twilight's Hammer, and Archbishop Benedictus (an Alliance traitor secretly allied with Deathwing).

By now Wild's brain has esploded and he can't really remember much about these boss fights. I promise to give a more thorough report in a subsequent run. We did kill all the bosses and finished the final dungeon.

With all of that behind me, I quote: "This is the beginning of the last stand against Deathwing." From here, players move on to the raid Dragon Soul.

And Then There Was Loot

The loot could have been astounding. Between the boss kills, random drops, and quest turn-ins Wild acquired EIGHT i378 items. Seven of the items were equipable. One was a soulbound cloth piece and Wild disenchanted it.

Four of the remaining items fit slots that already had i378 gear equipped. None of new pieces were good enough to replace what Wild already has, but the stats differed enough that Wild will hang on to them to give him some flexibility as new gear comes along. One of those four is a BoE cloak, and Wild will likely send that along to JB if she ever decides to get to 85.

So far, Wild hasn't seen anything that he could actually add to his working gear. The last three items made up for that. Wild picked up three rings.

If you waded through Wild's Tier 13 Loot post you know that Wild's biggest need is rings. Wild picked the two best, both carrying haste, and replaced his beat up i346 ring and his "I wish I didn't have to use it" pvp ring with true i378 pve rings. The third ring is a +hit ring that can be reforged to spirit for Wild's moonkin set.

The additions raised Wild's equipped gear score to i377.

Maybe it really was an astounding haul, at that.

Update: On Wednesday morning Happy found an early present resting in the Auction House. An i397 [Girdle of Fungal Dreams] was offered up for 15k gold. This is a BoE drop from normal Dragon Soul. Yes, I know, a belt was supposed to be the first item Wild bought with his VPs. And yes, the VP belt is better. But the Fungal Dreams is a solid upgrade and one Wild could not turn down. Wild did need to adjust some stats, and swapped out his current cloak with [Drapes of the Dragonshrine], the cloak he won in his magnificent dungeon run. So sorry, JB, you won't be getting that cloak.

Wild's gear score rose to i378. Wild will now focus his VPs on a pair of boots.