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Geez, really silly to put off posting when we’re in the middle of doing lots of instances. The stuff to talk about really piles up fast. Three weeks and six instance runs.

Back on Labor Day weekend we had a couple of big runs. After all the troubles with Stratholme I suggested we take a break and go do Dire Maul North. This was agreed to, and we had a very pleasant time doing what amounted to an off-the-cuff tribute run. We hadn’t planned on it, initially, but it soon became obvious that it was simpler than it looked. Had to send Blondiewood out for materials while I disconnected, logged in as Farmishi, created a Truesilver key, handed it to her, and logged back into Dunain…. Blondie then snuck back into where we were I and opened a locked door.

I haven’t been able to open locked chests and lockboxes with a Truesilver key in ages, and now there’s an instance door I can open…? Weird.

I was a little disappointed with the loot (from a hunter perspective), until we took a side-trip into DM East for Thermidor and the hunter book dropped. From there it was just a quick trip to get the first in the guild. That right there made my day.

The next day was our first run into Lower Blackrock Spire. Blackrock mountain is a huge place, with the biggest instance in the game going down (Blackrock Depths), and a raid instance below that (Molten Core), the two-part instance Blackrock Spire (Lower and Upper) going up, and a raid above that (Blackwing Lair). Had a few problems getting in, myself. One portion of the normal route has you looking at a dark wall, in shadowed area, and my monitor contrast wasn’t up to showing me a thing.

The instance itself was fun and a real good workout. We got a lot done, but had some notable failures: Urok’s minions wiped us, and then destroyed what was needed to summon him. The ending boss area taxed us at the end of a long run and we had to quit short of the goal when we couldn’t quite get the entire team back in the same area again (the problem with Druid healing: only one Rez per 1/2 hour).

The next weekend featured our second attempt at Lower Spire. I’m not sure if Urok went better or worse, but it still wiped us. However, we got ourselves through the important areas and took on Wyrmthalak. All-in-all, a bit of a rough run still, but we’re getting better.

Sunday was another BRD run as we continue getting people through all the quests there, and hunt for pants. Overall, it went very well, and quite fast. We got through the flamethrower room without any real incident. Tip: fight with party at the far door, not the near one, works much better. This time there were four Anvilrage Captains in the throne room. Count: 18 Captains, 0 plans.

This last weekend saw our return to what has been the bane of our guild: Scholomance. Stratholme is just cursed, this one kills us in the first two rooms.

The good news is that apparently it’s not just us. The first two rooms are much tougher than anything else in the instance short of the actual boss fights. With a couple problems (ahem), we made it through and had a great time with the rest of the instance. The main boss, Lord Barov, was a problem. He comes with two guards, and has a nasty area-effect damage field that effectively caused a wipe, as it had the party constantly low on health.

We had killed one guard, but got back to the room to discover he was back (apparently, the guards will respawn within seconds of a failed encounter, they really want you do deal with a group). So we tanked him at the bottom of the room, while we took care of the guards in the main part of the room to eliminate the area-effect. The plan generally worked, but I noted that I was still taking damage from the field. It didn’t seem to be as big of a problem, so it may drop off as you move away from him. Still it’s a big field of effect.

The last encounter of the night was going back and doing Jandice Barov. That was nasty. Skeletons that can’t be hit with magic. Zombies that play dead, and come back a minute later (Lance kept attacking, which probably kept us from having a really nasty surprise the first time). And that’s just the room leading up to her.

The boss fight was really nasty, as she splits into a couple dozen hard-hitting, magic immune duplicates, while forcefully detargeting you from the real one. That was a wipe. The second time, we asked our priest (Noxlux) to go shadow form (let’s take a moment to appreciate how often a priest hears that in an instance) and mind-flay her to slow her down and help get rid of the illusions. It worked quite well. Still a wild little combat, but that along with a hunter’s mark, and a targeting macro made it much easier.

Last Sunday was another in the unending series of BRD runs. I had recently got the plans for the Dark Iron Plate. As it (for once) didn’t demand a bunch of Molten Core materials, Blanc started eagerly buying up the massive amounts of Dark Iron Ore needed to make it. Luckily, Smudge noticed before the run that it was a Bind on Pickup item. Unless Blanc takes up Blacksmithing, he’ll never see it. (sigh) So Dunain paid him back for it (ouch!) and used it for further rep turn-ins with the Thorium Brotherhood (now 20% of the way to Revered).

The run itself was mostly errand-work and ended at the bar. Smudge is on new medication, and conked out at 10:30. Fortunately, Jariedthe was available to step into the party and main tank for the last hour. Thermidor had been leading the party, and the split between designator and tank does slow things down a bit. But the team did quite well, and and I think both of them did great in roles they haven’t seen much of.

Meanwhile, other things have been happening too. Farmishi has finally hit level 50 (actually 51 now) and is busily getting ready for a Sunken Temple run. This includes a Pally class quest that makes sure you get introduced to the Argent Dawn and Chillwind Point as fast as possible….

Also, we’ve been seeing a bit more of some of the ‘minor’ members of the guild lately. It’ll be while yet, but with luck we’ll have more high-level characters to help out in a bit. We keep hearing things like ‘you’re the best guild I’ve been in!’ (awww… *sniff*).

Okay, busy might have underestimated it a little.

Tuesday, we did The Battle of Darrowshire again. It went a little better, we were down to four deaths this time, none of them being Noxlux.

Then, deciding we had plenty of time left, we decided to take another crack at Stratholme. We were still having trouble with it, and when we wiped at fairly close to the same point as last time, that, it being a weekday, was that. talks about it and the third try on Saturday.

Friday night was a BRD run. Unfortunately, we only had four people, and were perhaps not at our all time best. The primary reason to go was for Thermidor to catch up on quests, and we did get two done for him. Also, I encountered my first Blood of the Mountain. I turned it in to boost my reputation with the Thorium Brotherhood. We got through to the back, and with some effort made it through the Lyceum. However, the flamethrowers in the next room got us again (or at least me and Thermidor), so we ended up not getting to the Throne Room to up the Anvilrage Captain count.

Saturday morning I got on early as I could to lend help to a Deadmines run. My poor neglected warrior (Merisan) is 18, which puts her at about the right level for a good group in Deadmines. Turns out the rest of the party was up before me, and a second run fell apart before it began due to real-life issues. But she got through the chains leading up to the main Deadmines quests, and did the two undead ones outside the instance.

Saturday evening was the big attempt on Stratholme. That instance really seems to be cursed for us. We attempted an early start, but word of this was not spread well, and we ended up with half the party showing up at the usual time.

In the meantime, Dunain helped Bolex through Scarlet Monastary for another try at the final piece for his set. It went a lot smoother than the first time. Thankfully, Thermidor showed up to help out at the end, and Bolex accidentally got the boss when there was still a few more people to clear out, but with Thermi’s firepower, we made it alright. Bolex didn’t get what he wanted, but did get a nice blue shield that he’ll be using for a while.

After getting into Stratholme, I realized that somewhere during the last few days I’d used a lot more ammo than I’d bargained for (probably BRD, now that I think of it, I’m not used to running instances two days in a row). Blondie realized that she probably didn’t have enough curative potions to deal with a nasty disease (? – I forget what’s its classed as) that the undead generate. So we popped out to Ironforge and flew back. Or I flew back. Blondiewood succumbed to the damage effects of the disease mid-flight. (150 damage/3 seconds and no health regeneration; and there’s no way to bandage, or cast, or potion while flying.) This ended up with Blondiewood having to run to recover her corpse… which was safely at the feet of the gryphon master – three zones away.

Despite these problems, we did fairly well. It’s still tough for us, but we’re getting a bit better, and it is generating some new equipment. (Ironically, the only Dungeon Set piece we’ve seen is for the pally set. Farmishi has it waiting for her.) But we got to the Archivist and got two quests done. We did Balthazar across the way (will need to do that again…); Blanc was hanging by a thread at the end of the fight, but we managed without anyone actually dieing. Went through the Hoard door and wiped partway through that area. We called it night there, since we’d done the real goal of the run.

Next time, we’re planning on Dire Maul North. Still an end-game instance, but an easier one than Stratholme, so it should be comparatively relaxing.

Reaching back a bit, Farmishi and Shrimpette did a Zul’Ferak run. Part of the grand plan to get set up for Sunken Temple. Farmishi is now 47, slowly inching towards joining in on the high-level runs.

Which would give me a choice between which of two support classes to play. Hmm. Definite pattern there.

Not that playing a Paladin is anything like a Hunter. As a Marksmanship-spec Hunter, Dunain does a lot of damage, and can send Lance off to distract an enemy for a while (particularly mages and elementals, as Lance generally has higher resistances than anyone else). Farmishi is split between Holy and Protection, so her damage is low – even for a Paladin. However, as Brunev found in Zul’Ferak, once she’s got someone locked onto her, it takes quite a lot for her to lose aggro again. So, she’s essentially a combined secondary tank and secondary healer.

Saturday was another Blackrock Depths run. Something of mixed bag of things to do. The primary impetus was that Dunain had inherited a lot of Dark Iron Ore from Jariedthe when she switched from Mining to Enchanting about a month ago. Since I had take it out of the mail system, it was chewing up a lot of inventory space.

We went in with Dunain, Blanc, Blondiewood, Thermidor, and Jariedthe. A little clearing, and I finally did my turn-in for Jail Break. (Anvilrage Captains: 9. Plans: 0) Between this and the last couple runs, the party had a large number Relic Coffer Keys. So we did the Vault. I opened the last door, the golems activated, and… what’s-his-name appeared.

Things didn’t go well. Blondiewood dropped early in what was turning into a confused melee. Lance also dropped, though I managed to get him rezzed again. Blanc and Jariedthe eventually got worn down and died. However, they had done such a collective number to the golems that I was able to finish them all off in pretty quick order at this point. Thermidor dropped about the time I finished off the last golem, and I was in no shape to take on a mage.

Pity, I’d been so close to pulling it off.

Lance was pretty ticked at me when I rezzed him again when I got back to the instance.

By the way, Blanc instituted a system using the new marking symbols from 1.11 when setting up a fight, so most combat was a very by-the-book afair.

After finishing the Vault, we paid the Dark Anvil a visit and got Darkvire for Thermi and Jariedthe to get their Shadowforged Keys. And then on to the bar.

Rather than smelting Dark Iron, my current plans are just turning in the Ore to further my Thorium Brotherhood rep. I’d have to check, but I think turned in 140-160 ore this time. So, do this another 16 times and I’m at Revered! No problem! (oyyyy…)

We then proceeded to the back. The Lyceum was a bit of a problem, since we had a hard time finding Flamebearers again. But we kept it together and pulled it off.

Then both Thermidor and I died to the flamethrowers in the next hall. We took care of the monster easily enough, but those flames are annoyingly hard to avoid properly.

The final hall went very smoothly. There were also five, not the normal three, Anvilrage Captains there. Count: 14. Plans: 0 (darn)

Better yet, the Princess acted correctly when we did the final fight, so three of us have now completed that quest. I need to fill up on Dark Iron Ore and invite Brunev along so he can finish it.

And last night I strolled through Stormwind with Marshal Windsor to confront Onyxia (again). We actually picked up something of a crowd this time. Naturally, now that we had a bunch of spectators, it went wrong.

Marshal Windsor walks up, clad in riteousness (and good Plate), denounces Lady Katrina Prestor before the court of Stormwind, and reads from a pair of tablets – suddenly Katrina Prestor transforms, revealing herself as the black dragon Onyxia!

The Regent runs from the room, Bolvar Foredragon yells for the guards, and Marshal Windsor stands ready to fight his enemy.

…

…

Dunain whispers, “Onyxia, it’s your line!”

The event stalled at this point. I eventually received a ‘fail’ on the quest. According to Blizzard, this is a known problem. But I’m going to have to look up what I can do about my failed quest. (grumble)