Disappointed with Stockades.

[Merusk]

THere's the Baron Side of Strath as well.  Get the key and you can skip the whole 'red side' and do the Baron, Baroness, Nerubian guy only.  A good group of 10 can do this run in just a little over an hour, and that was before the folks I did it with had MC gear.

[Paelos]

THere's the Baron Side of Strath as well.  Get the key and you can skip the whole 'red side' and do the Baron, Baroness, Nerubian guy only.  A good group of 10 can do this run in just a little over an hour, and that was before the folks I did it with had MC gear.

Over an hour is slow. You can average 50 minutes if your group isn't dicking around rolling or grabbing holy water or going afk. Guild groups work best for this instance. I have an "alliance" of smaller guilds on my server which works really well for coordinating raids on a non-MC scale. Baron is probably the best instance to run a lot IMO due to the massive amounts of good loot that can drop in a small span of time.

[Fabricated]

I've been wanting to do Shadowfang keep ever since I read this topic and one of my friends owed me for escorting his Priest through the Deadmines over and over again attempting to get that goddamn staff (7 runs and no staff) he wanted, I had him take my level 24 Mage through Shadowfang Keep with his level 60 Pally.

Really fucking cool instance, but good GOD it is not caster friendly in terms of mobs. Everything can either make itself invulnerable to spells or put some irritating anti-caster curse on you (my friend got haunted. We were tempted to mess around with that curse, but I ended up removing it).

I died once when my friend misclicked and shielded up while fighting the gigantic horde of ghost pallies and the named ghost pally.

I dunno if the last boss was supposed to do anything special or not, because he died less a half second after he stopped to say "RELEASE UR RAGE OMG", due to the absolutely insane damage my friend was dishing out with seal of command and his two-handed hammer. He dropped the Robes of Arugal which is really fucking awesome for my mage. According to Thott there's a bunch of nice BoE weapons that blast for shadow damage (pretty rare drops), and the last boss also drops 2-3 other incredibly nice cloth items including a belt and mantle.

And almost no one who plays Alliance probably goes there. I'm taking every toon I make through there now, since it was a really cool instance and there's damn near something for everyone.

[Strazos]

I just got a few horde quests for the instance.

Thanks for the heads-up.

[Jeff Kelly]

We did sunken Temple for the second time last evening. God this is a frustrating instance. The mobs are tough if you do it at the suggested level (we had two Level 60 in our party and nevertheless wiped twice, those trolls hit hard), it takes a very long time to get to the bosses because you basically have to clean the whole upper part of the instance to do so (It took our group 3 hours to get to Hakkar and Eranikus although we were skipping the lower part, if you do it at the suggested level add one hour) and we got very little loot (and none from Eranikus' shade because we wiped as he died and the body had despawned by the time we got back, because our Shaman forgot to bring Ankhs).

At least the Quest "The God Hakkar" gives decent rewards but it is the end of a line of quests and you have to do Zul'Farrak and the Troll City in the Hinterlands (Jintha'Alor) to get there. Doing the last two quests for the Temple would take another two hours, so five hours total. You could do Zul'Farrak twice in that timeframe.

[SurfD]

Yeah, temple is a bitch.  There are a few quests in there i never bothered with, and the dragon boss is time consuming because you MUST kill every single dragon mob in the area, or he pulls them in on you during the fight.  One time we tried it and missed a spawn or two, were happily owning the boss when we had 5 dragonkin and 10 or so whelps some in and join the party....

[Evil Elvis]

I don't think sunken temple is that hard.  On patch day, I took my 60 mage and helped run it with a 60 shaman, 52 druid, 51 warrior, 52 shaman.  It took us about 35 mintues to do the statue/elemental part. 

We then decided to kill Jammalan.  About half way through killing the troll bosses the warrior became stuck, logged out, and evidently couldn't get back in.  We killed the rest of the troll bosses, and cleared 3 dragonkin spawns w/o our tank to get to the jammalan area.  Then our 51 shaman disco'd and couldn't get back on.  We still managed to clear half of the boss area before the 3 of us remaining started halving problems as well, and decided to log out (we couldn't hearth).  Only took us about an hour to do this part even with the lag and other problems.

If we didn't have problems, I don't think it would have taken us more than another 40 to finish up the rest of the dragonkins/hakkar, and make an attempt on eranikus.  And there was only one person in our group besides me who had ever run the dungeon before.

[Sogrinaugh]

Yeah, temple is a bitch.  There are a few quests in there i never bothered with, and the dragon boss is time consuming because you MUST kill every single dragon mob in the area, or he pulls them in on you during the fight.  One time we tried it and missed a spawn or two, were happily owning the boss when we had 5 dragonkin and 10 or so whelps some in and join the party....

Usually this happens when you jump down after killing the last troll mini-boss and forget to clear the kin by the entrance.

I liked temples design alot.  If you look at it strictly from a loot perspective its not so hot compared to say, maraudon, but fun wise i thought it was cool.  I did several temple runs with both mage and priest, most always with groups of 51-55.  I would call 53 the minium level for the tank and dps classes if you wanna do Eranikus, since you basically HAVE to be yellow to not wipe vs that guy.  If anyone but the healer is orange/red to eranikus you gonna have problems, most especially this goes for the tank.

For Jammal'an, you need a party that isnt gung-ho, because you need to pull those UD troll packs back so when you get feared the non-UD members of the group dont go aggro 2 more pulls.  ALSO, having a level 60 with you for this part can actually be a liability, such as the one time i had a 60 warrior guildie with us, he got cursed by jammal (JOIN US) and slaughtered the rest of the party.  The best thing 2 do in this situation is simply root the afflicted groupmember and run as much as possible till the duration expires wile DPS jammal'an.  Also, kill his buddy before Jammal himself.

The amount of time it takes to clear the dragonkin pacts primarily depends on the skill of the priest and mage.  If they are good, this will go fast, if not, it can be a grueling process, especially after all the mages gear turns red.

[Phred]

I like the temple as well. Once you are a bit familiar with it it can go fairly quickly and smoothly, as long as you have a mage and priest with you as was mentioned. This brings up a bit of a flaw with a lot of the instance encounters in the game. They almost demand a mage, as they feature masses of hard hitting, low hp mobs that are ideal for a mage to ae but a pain in the ass to deal with otherwise. We just did the emporer in Brd today with an all melee group and while we did it it was hugely painful with the Lyceum. Huge numbers of low hp mobs to deal with including patrols. I've done this room on my mage and it was easy as pie but with just melee people in the group, and the pally didn't even have consecration, it was painful killing so many mobs.

Then there's the zombie room in Scholo, where the zombies all explode, killing the mage every time. heh. Definately a better room to do as an ice mage than an instant ae mage.

[Dren]

I don't think sunken temple is that hard.  On patch day, I took my 60 mage and helped run it with a 60 shaman, 52 druid, 51 warrior, 52 shaman.  It took us about 35 mintues to do the statue/elemental part. 

We then decided to kill Jammalan.  About half way through killing the troll bosses the warrior became stuck, logged out, and evidently couldn't get back in....

Lately I've been roaming around trying out all of the dungeons that I missed my first time through.  I'm doing it with my 60 Pally.  I went to sunken temple and met up with a warrior.  We were doing fine all the way through until we hit those guys that kept turning me into a frog.

The last event was me being a frog and then jumping behind some stone tablets and getting stuck.  The only thing I could do was HS out. 

I did like the dungeon though.  I'll probably go back to meet up with more of the named MOBs there.

[Sogrinaugh]

Then there's the zombie room in Scholo, where the zombies all explode, killing the mage every time. heh. Definately a better room to do as an ice mage than an instant ae mage.

If I've ever died to this room, i can't recall it.  Kite with CoC and move backwards as you IAE, you dont get nailed by explosions so much.

The annoying room for me is always the butcher's room.  Those poison clouds take forever to clear.  I used to scream at the newbs to get the fuck out of the clouds, now i just laugh at them as they die.

[Calantus]

The annoying room for me is always the butcher's room.  Those poison clouds take forever to clear.  I used to scream at the newbs to get the fuck out of the clouds, now i just laugh at them as they die.

It's still not fun as a healer cause it's your responsibility to ress the retards. :/

[SurfD]

One of my fondest memories of Scholo was doing the self destructing zombie room with a group of psychos.  The warrior actually pulled the ENTIRE room at once, and we aoe'd the whole mass of them to death at the same time.  The crazy part was, not a single one of us died.  Challenging shout + Shieldwall + Retaliation + Mage, Hunter and Warlock ranged AoEs. Carnage was insane.

[Zetor]

Yeah, we did that too, once.. it was a 10-man group with 2 mages, 1 warlock and 2 pallies, so one of the pallies just pulled them all to us and we AEd until they died [one of the mages was frost, so they were pretty much frozen at the entrance]

Was crazy good 1 FPS fun.


-- Z.

[Daydreamer]

Scholo and Strat a nice, but I just love BRD to death.  Its huge, it branches, and it actually feels like you're raiding a small city.

[Jeff Kelly]

Scholo and Strat a nice, but I just love BRD to death.  Its huge, it branches, and it actually feels like you're raiding a small city.

We stayed nearly eight hours in BRD yesterday. This thing is huge. We were there for the first time and got thoroughly lost. The Arena Event is fun (but not as much as the divinomatic rod one) albeit the attending crowd isn't (Hey look there are people sitting there -> wipe).

We only finished two quests there because our shammie and druid (as main healer) sucked and wiped four times but it was fun noneteless (but the loot is sup-par)

[kaid]

If you want to see fun you should see 5 hunters standing at the top of the steps in the divno matic rod event ripple firing multshot down the stairs at the oncoming horde. Felt like we were at freaking roarks drift for a while.

kaid

[Calantus]

I've never done the arena event in BRD. When I did get normal BRD groups it's either straight to the emperor or straight to attunement. :/

[SurfD]

If you want to see fun you should see 5 hunters standing at the top of the steps in the divno matic rod event ripple firing multshot down the stairs at the oncoming horde. Felt like we were at freaking roarks drift for a while.

kaid

5 hunters must be obscenely fun to do instances with.  All the traps, pets and Feighn deaths would make for one hell of a lot of croud controll.

[Zetor]

I've done Gnomeregan with 4 hunters and 1 rogue before... I (rogue) had the jumper cables for rez power.

It was interesting. :p


-- Z.

[Sogrinaugh]

One of my most memorable groups was a 3 rogue 2 priest deal for RFD.  We were all either just at or just below the appropriate level (37-39) for the instance.  Since pretty much everyone wanted something from the Lich, we did somewhere between 5-8 runs, back to back.  Both us priests got our lich robes and all but 1 of the rogues got thier dagger.

In some ways it was hard keeping a leather alive but with dual flash heals + renew + vampiric embrace fueled by SW:P and mind flay, together with the dps of 3 competent rogues focus fire and 2 priests shackling all the dangerous stuff, meant that for the most part shit died at lightning speeds.  The only thing that ever wiped us was someone going to close to the cliff while making our way up the spiral, and thus aggroing the entire instance down on our heads.

I have yet to complete the RFD event with an appropriate-leveled group though.

[Ironwood]

Scholo and Strat a nice, but I just love BRD to death.  Its huge, it branches, and it actually feels like you're raiding a small city.

Different Strokes.  I can't stand that place.

[Zephyr]

I like Gnomergen for the sole reason of being able to poke fun at a guildy who decided looting was more important than listening to the gnome with dynamite counting down.  He was then buried under the rock fall and couldn't be rezzed.  Unfortunately, we were laughing a bit too hard to remember and take a screenshot.

[Dren]

I like Gnomergen for the sole reason of being able to poke fun at a guildy who decided looting was more important than listening to the gnome with dynamite counting down.  He was then buried under the rock fall and couldn't be rezzed.  Unfortunately, we were laughing a bit too hard to remember and take a screenshot.

I had forgotten about that part.  That was the only thing I liked about that place.

[kaid]

5 hunters is a hoot so far basically our version of crowd control is to sick our crowd on theirs if it goes bad just kill off as many as you can and everybody FD's. Stand up rez pets finish off what you didn't do the first time. Most of us are engineers so if somebody dies usually we can jump them.


kaid

[Sogrinaugh]

5 hunters is a hoot so far basically our version of crowd control is to sick our crowd on theirs if it goes bad just kill off as many as you can and everybody FD's. Stand up rez pets finish off what you didn't do the first time. Most of us are engineers so if somebody dies usually we can jump them.


kaid

Does this work with the later stuff?  Can you do a 5-hunter of say, strath or scholo?  DM west?

[Zetor]

I doubt you can... the last instance this probably works for is ST [assuming level 55+s], and Eranikus will be very very hard. Mara is probably also doable. But BRD+ you'll need a plate wearer [or chain+shield] and a healer at the very least.

DM West and North have bosses that can 2-hit hunter pets and 4-hit hunters.. my guild did those instances with a druid MTing once, and it was painful. Same with a pally MTing. Heck, the normal mobs [arcane torrents, arcane aberrations, invis ghosts, banshees] in DM West will kill you long before you can kill them with 5 hunters focus firing... I think. :p You could probably kill some of the early bosses like the hunter chick and the big tree guy [iffy].

But yeah, for most non-60 instances, it's fun to experiment with non-standard groups. Slightly overlevelled rogues can feasibly maintank SM for example..


-- Z.

[kaid]

Yup we don't know how it will work on the high high end but so far we have cleared every instance we have tried up to zul'farrak and maraudon is next at bat.

I am guessing at the very high level instances mobs are just going to do to much shock damage for it to be viable but we have expected that to occur before now and we are still going strong. I am guessing we should be able to clear the sunken temple but past there meh I don't know but damn it has been one of the funnest and quickest instance clearing group I have had in wow.

Still it depends right now the pets are pretty freaking generic and there are a lot of changes slated for them and the talent trees for hunters. So who knows maybe when that stuff comes out even the highest instances will be viable.

Still if you want to see fun watch 5 hunters all talking on team speak in warsong gultch muahahahah don't fear the reaper baby.


kaid

[Nija]

I think Shadowfang Keep is probably the best instance when you're talking about difficulty for level scale, atmosphere, and 'flow'. By 'flow' I mean flow like a quake deathmatch map.

Anyways, it's brilliant, and I would love it if a single one of the high level instances was created with such LOVE.

Sucks if you missed it.

[Ironwood]

It's not just about the instance either.  Almost every mission in Silverpine is a prelude to shadowfang keep.  It's a totally immersive zone for the horde.