Disappointed with Stockades.

[Mesozoic]

I imagine that the discussion of a low-level instance is probably amusing to those of you slaying Dragons with off-hand weapons, but I just wanted to register disappointment with the stupid Stockades instance. 

After having fought tooth and nail through Deadmines from levels 18-23 just to get VC's head, I expected stockades to be the go-to joint through 26 or so.  I was really looking forward to it - an instance line right next to NPC guards right in Stormwind, and right near the trainers, etc of the Mage Quarter.

I decided to scope it out a bit last night - along with a 25 Priest, 26 Pally, 26 Hunter, and 32 Rogue - and ended up clearing the place and completing all three of my Stockades quests in under an hour.  Went from 24.0 to **gasp**  24.5.  Wee. 

Yeah, the 32 Rogue was beefy, sapping and tanking like some long-eared action hero, but still.  After Ragefire (on my Orc Hunter alt) and DM, it was a sucky mini-instance, with sucky loot.

/rant

[WindupAtheist]

Gnomeregan is worse.  Oh it's huge, but the design is terrible and you never know where you're going.  I skipped it entirely after my group was wiped out by a retarded warlock pulling the whole bloody place in on us.

[jpark]

I really recommend Shadow Fang Keep especially if you're in your 20's.  Nicely done and the best part is you can't really get lost :)

It is in Horde territory but I have seen alliance groups assemble there often to enter the keep (I have never been to Stockades but had heard good things).

[Mesozoic]

Well the sad thing is that Stock is well laid out.  Or at least, laid out in a way to minimize frustration.  It just wasn't nearly the challenge that DM was.

[Bunk]

Did you do the full quest line after Stockades, that basically consists of running around and talking to everyone in SW and then finally with the king? The total XP reward for that was actually quite high, close to a level by it self. That being said, yes it was quite easy.

I liked Gnomer, but mainly because I ended up with two of my best items from it - Mekganeer's Arm, and the Dungarees you get when you turn the quest in.

[Merusk]

Yeah, Stockades is really more of a "We stuck a bunch of quests here." spot than a real instance.  Though the 32 rogue really made it wayyy too easy for you.  Blackfathom Deeps is the next real challenging instance with level 26/27-ish elites being the tops (other than bosses) according to Thottbot.

 Most people don't know about it because they skip Ashenvale and quest in Duskwood/ Redridge during these levels. Those that do know about it tend to skip it because there's a lot of water, and fighting in water sucks.  It's definatly the place to go if you want a challenge at your level, though.  But since Challenge = 'whine it's too hard' you'll probably have a rough time finding a level-appropriate.

[Dren]

Yep, stockades are easy, but a great place for my enchanter to get his resources.  The drops are actually pretty good if you are looking for standard green and blue bind on equip type stuff.  You can solo the place for items post level 30 fairly easily to get a boost in items/cash.

It doesn't take long either so it doesn't seem too much like farming.....even though it is.

[Mesozoic]

Did you do the full quest line after Stockades, that basically consists of running around and talking to everyone in SW and then finally with the king?

I seem to be in the midst of that.  I had three quests, two of which included collecting a named mob's head and one requiring me to kill three flavors of Defias.  The group shared all Stock quests but I didn't pick any up from that.  There were at least two more named mobs (a Dwarf and the two-headed ogre) that I had no quest associated with, so I've probably got more ahead of me. 

To make it worse the Priest was the goddamn loot /rolling Jedi Master Las Vegas, taking away three of the four cloth drops.  He also won the rolls on both chests.  All I got was a pair of Bright Bracers, a marginal improvement over my old ones.    Color me bitter.

[Dren]

The dwarf definitely is part of a quest.  I've never found the one for the ogre.

[XMackenzie]

You can get the Kill Kam Deepfury quest after doing the kill task prereq quest for the dwarves up at Dun Modr.  The prestep quest actually seems harder than Kam Deepfury with the Dark Iron Dwarfs zipping all over.

No quest for Ogre fella that I know of.  He's sort of just a mini-boss I guess.

[kaid]

The stockades is pretty much exactally what it sounds like. Very small but pretty packed with mobs on a pretty fast respawn. Not very exiciting of a dungeon and no wheres near as interesting an instance as the instance in ogrimar.

If you are getting to level 20 and want a WAY more instance I second the idea of going to shadowfang keep. It is a VERY nifty dungeon with some fun very tricky end guys especially the porting doof. Its a very big haunted castle lots of good loot especially caster stuff.


kaid

[Pococurante]

Those that do know about it tend to skip it because there's a lot of water, and fighting in water sucks.

Nothing a warlock or shammie can't fix.

[Horik]

I actually like the Stockades. I wish there would be more of the shorter type instances like that. It's ideal for those of us with jobs, families, etc.

Of course I could still be a bit pissy from a full-length Mauradon run.

[kaid]

Heheh me and my friends went into maraudon and we got up to vyletounge before we had to call it a night we figured we were close to the end of that instance. Then I looked at a walkthrough JEEBUS that zone is freaking gigantic. You know your instance is to big if you can get a quest to give you a clicky item that lets you skip the first half of it.

kaid

[Paelos]

I never bothered with Mauradon, Gnomegenornehmenen, or Uldaman. I did enjoy the Deadmines, Stockades, Dire Maul, and Stratholme. Scholomance soooooooks, but I'm going to have to start running it to get the Valor pieces I need.

[kaid]

My crazy group of hunters just finished uldaman on tuesday. That instance really is not that big it took us I think maybe 2 hours tops to clear it totally.  The average level of the group was 46 so it was still very level appropriate for us. The end fight in there is pretty nifty although those golems need to cut back on the coffee a bit.


kaid

[SurfD]

Gnomeragen is really about the engineering stuff, and the grime covered objects.  I think horde get, what, one quest in the whole place?

Uldaman has some pretty nice drops, and if you know the map, its pretty fast.  And you get some nifty lore about the dwarves out of it (deviant experiment bastards, must suck to be related to the Troggs)

Maraudon has some pretty nice drops/quests and is also pretty easy to navigate.

Personally, the only instance I skipped was Gnomer, cause it had nothing for my mage, but now that i have an Engineer, i am thinking of going back there.  (well, that and the Stockades/Deadmines, since they are alliance)

[Merusk]

Those that do know about it tend to skip it because there's a lot of water, and fighting in water sucks.

Nothing a warlock or shammie can't fix.

Well, 1, he's alliance so shammies are right out, and 2, who the hell takes a warlock into instances? 

I joke, because I know a well-played warlock rocks.  However, I can count on one hand the number of times I've been with a warlock inside an instance on both hands and I've got 3 characters at the 40+ mark.   If I were to remove raids from the equation I can whittle it down to a grand total of 4 times... and he was a guildie.  There's just not a lot of 'locks on my server.

I agree on the Scholo suckage part, Paelos.  Did you ever have the misfortune of doing a run before the first nerf of mob spawns, and before the AOE on the ghouls was fixed?  Wasn't pretty at all.   My favorite instance of all is still Strath, though.  No idea why it's just really a fun place to me.

[Fabricated]

I missed out on Blackfathom Deeps and Shadowfang Keep with my main (Now a 52 Alliance Warrior, human thank you), which kinda sucks I dig the epicness and shiny from the more dramatic instances.

I consider the Stockades Blizz's way of giving new players on their first toons a "break". After having to slog through the deadmines, into the VC instance, and then having to go all the way through that, Blizz just tosses you a bone in the way of a tiny instance with tons of mobs to whack that also happens to be right in downtown Stormwind.

The loot however, sucks. You can get a SHITLOAD of green one-hand and two-hand maces there, and uh...that's about it. There are two blue Rogue items (Jimmied Handcuffs and Prison Shiv I think.) that I HAVE NEVER EVER EVER EVER seen drop, and as far as I know that's the only blues. I found the place great XP though on the required quest runthroughs, and it's the best instance ever for high level buddies to rush you through.

Gnomeregan is a gigantic clusterfuck of an instance but the loot is great and the quest reward for whacking Thermaplugg will last most people several levels. It would be a lot more fun if it was more exploration friendly, but every fucking corner of the place is jam packed with mobs mixed in with those alarm-a-bots (which me and my friends call a wipe in a can), and priority one usually ends up being "getting the damn thing overwith". The mine spamming dark irons at the end don't make it any more fun either.

[kaid]

the gear from thermaplug if you get some of the good bits will easily last you until your way upper 40s maybe low 50s. One of our casters got the hat which is not only very good for stats but has a hilarious and useful clicky ability. I myself just finally got an upgrade for the gear of the monkey ring I got from there at level 48.

My group of silly hunters just finished up zul'farrak tonight. That zone has some really wild events for most of the boss fights. Finishing the divinomatic rod was very impressive. Although I must say as a hunter those steps are a sucky place to defend due to LOS issues. I just love when people who see our group going into an instance ask us what we think 5 hunters can do. Hehe we have not found an instance we can't do yet.

kaid

[Trippy]

Stockades is the worst of the low/mid-level instances for Alliance. Boring, repetitive layout, repetitive mobs, and the mini-bosses don't drop any special loot. The only reason to go in there is to do the quests. The other instances around that level (Deadmines, BFD, SFK) you can do over and over if you want to collect the nice boss drops. Gnomeregan is painful because of the alarm bots. It only takes a second or two of inattention to bring down a humongous train on your party. There should be a way you can turn them off for certain sections as you progress through.

[Zetor]

Stockades is pretty bad, but there's no alternative... there are never any pickups for BFD, and the six instances in horde areas are right out in a pvp server. I usually just try to grind past those levels and hit up SM at 38ish.. gnomeregan might work if you have a bored high-level or a good guild group. Otherwise stuff like the arcane nullifiers / alarm bombs will eat you alive.


-- Z.

[Mesozoic]

Well, 1, he's alliance so shammies are right out, and 2, who the hell takes a warlock into instances? 

I am a 'lock.   

I'm still trying to figure out the damn class.  I've noticed that my damage output is quite a bit lower than others, even including the Succubus damage.  I can debuff, I can give the healer an auto-rez, I can hand out healthstones, and a couple of times my Ritual of Summoning has saved a groupmate.  But in terms of bringing baddies down in a fight, I'm lagging.  A lot of that is the fact that my DoTs don't really have the time to work, and my DD options are either really slow and somewhat weak (Shadowbolt), or come with an aggro problem (Searing Pain).

Anyway, I picked up a few more Stock quests and ran through the instance again last night.  Once again I looted a single usable item that was marginally better than something I made myself a few levels ago.  Off to Gnomer, I guess, once I hit 26th.  My pet also gets Seduction at that level, so maybe that will help.

[Trippy]

I am a 'lock.   

I'm still trying to figure out the damn class.  I've noticed that my damage output is quite a bit lower than others, even including the Succubus damage.  I can debuff, I can give the healer an auto-rez, I can hand out healthstones, and a couple of times my Ritual of Summoning has saved a groupmate.  But in terms of bringing baddies down in a fight, I'm lagging.  A lot of that is the fact that my DoTs don't really have the time to work, and my DD options are either really slow and somewhat weak (Shadowbolt), or come with an aggro problem (Searing Pain).

And don't forget the all important Curse of Recklessness spell. There are few things worse than wiping in an instance cause a runner got far enough away to aggro nearby mobs. As for boosting your DPS you might want to switch back to your Imp. The DPS on the Succubus is not that good unless your tank is good enough to be able to position the mob such that your Succubus can use her Lash of Pain. Plus the Imp has the stamina boost and damage shield. He's a pretty handy thing to have around.

[Mesozoic]

Yeah, I've thought about doing that.  The Imp is nice in a group but seems to get whacked a lot.  The Succubus on the other hand has Soothing Kiss to keep her around.  I hardly ever use the VW anymore, unless the group has no tank at all.  And being Alliance, thats not a problem...I can't swing my staff without hitting a half-dozen pallies / warriors.  Plus, most rogues seem stupid enough to try to tank.

And yes, CoR is a nice one.  I usually try to start with CoW and then go to CoR just before he runs, so the mob doesn't benefit from the +damage component of CoR any longer than necessary. 

[Evil Elvis]

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/worlddungeons.html

Shadowfang Keep isn't too bad a run from Southshore.  You could probably make it there w/o any deaths as long as you don't go prime-time on the weekend.  Not sure if there's any Alliance quests there, though.

Gnomeregan isn't too bad once you learn your way around, but it's no Deadmines or SFK.  Honestly, they're probably the two best instances in the game as far as I'm concerned.

[kaid]

The run from southshore to shadowfang keep is almost totally safe. There are some random bears and cats around southshore but just keep running along the road and you are pretty safe. Follow the road signs and you get lead right into the castle.


Gnomeregan is a fun instance but it would be death on wheels to a pickup group unless it is very green to you. At least if you wanted to finish it. There deffinatly is some phat loots that can drop in gnomeregan and its a neat zone but very confusing. There are also a lot of nasty clumps of mobs that would cause a standard group problems. If you have a steady group of people you hunt with give it a try its a great test of your group tactics. If not I would not go there.


kaid

[kaid]

I have so far visited every instance up to zul'farrak that has been level appropriate for us.

My favorites so far in order are
Shadowfang keep
Black fathom depths beware the candles of DOOOM
Zul'ferrak lots of wild boss fights
Uldaman End fight in this dungeon is a trip + lots of good hunter gear drops here
maraudon
dreadmines
Ragefire chasm
gnomeregan
razorfen downs/kraul we hit these a bit to high of level so they were not as challanging as they should be.
stockades

I may have missed one or two in there but I think that is all of them. We did not visit wailing caves due to us being alliance and levling a bit to fast.

[Zetor]

As a low level 'lock, you are more utility than damage.

Keep the imp out, the +stam buff helps a ton. Try and put 3 points into improved imp when you get the chance, as well. Keep the imp on passive unless you really need the firepower, since it's kinda fragile [keeping fire shield on instacast is ok, it doesn't break phaseshift]

Dot every mob liberally.. at your level, curse of agony + corruption + immolate are good and will actually help you do more damage than mages without generating huge aggro. Curse of weakness is somewhat useful below level 30, but quickly becomes irrelevant after that -- mobs just hit too darn hard. Oh yeah, you can use the succy for extra crowd control if needed; cast curse of shadow on the mob first, then seduce, it should last ~10 seconds, then reseduce until the main target is dead. Not as reliable or easy as sheep, but it's still good CC. Autowand when you're OOM, your DOTs are still doing damage. After you have 5/5 Fel Concentration, draintanking is a good strategy: lifetap twice to get mana, then drain life until you're at full health, repeat. Mana-neutral damage for ze win.
Early zones don't have AOE trash, but leave AOEing to a mage anyway. Warlock AOE is useful if combined with challenging shout or paladin blessing of protection, or if you wast-- cough, burn two points on Intensity and have the paladin use concentration aura. Otherwise it'll get interrupted after one pulse.

Later, when everyone gets their ub0r talents, dots become less useful as mobs tend to die faster. Around level 40 when you have Dark Pact, you'll be the ultimate nuker that NEVER runs out of mana. That is, after they fix the imp-dark pact bug. At level 50 you should have shadowburn and dark pact, meaning that if you get aggro from a mob, you can drain tank, fire off an nightfall proc shadowbolt, a death coil and a shadowburn and the mob will probably die.

At 60, if you're on a PVE server, go destruction / affliction, otherwise you should probably go for a build with at least 8 demonology in it. Getting +damage [+crit is ok if you have ruin] and +sta gear is paramount; +damage affects your dots and you can do nifty stuff like draining 140 mana per second for 5 seconds while also doing 140 damage [with the possibility to crit for 280ish] every second!


-- Z.

[Morfiend]

I have so far visited every instance up to zul'farrak that has been level appropriate for us.

My favorites so far in order are
Shadowfang keep
Black fathom depths beware the candles of DOOOM
Zul'ferrak lots of wild boss fights
Uldaman End fight in this dungeon is a trip + lots of good hunter gear drops here
maraudon
dreadmines
Ragefire chasm
gnomeregan
razorfen downs/kraul we hit these a bit to high of level so they were not as challanging as they should be.
stockades

I may have missed one or two in there but I think that is all of them. We did not visit wailing caves due to us being alliance and levling a bit to fast.

Having run most of the lower horde instance in beta, I was very burnt out on them at release. SFK is a fun instance, I think they made it a tad easer in release. In beta it was VERY common to wipe around the 3/4th of the way through mark, and with the warlock being the ONLY class to have anti-wipe skills in beta, and with there being about a total of 10 warlocks on the horde side.. on avarage you ahd to run it 3 or 4 times, restarting at the begining to finish it.

Wailing Caverns was horrible in beta, and the two times I did it, we got about 2 hours in, and the server crashed. I will never go in there again.

To this day I have never finished Uldaman. But I do remember the indiana jones part being pretty cool.

I would have to say my favorite instance is still Scarlet Monistary, due to the fact you can run each part in around an hour (or less), so you can try and do the whole thing if you want a long session, or just do one part if your limited on time. Great stuff but not the most interesting instance.

I also like UBRS, becuase its hard, fun and not insanly long.

[kaid]

Gah I knew I forgot an instance yup scarlet monestary is a very nice instance/instances. Three nice small play time instances in there break it up very nicely for a good during the week instance.

Shadowfang can still wipe your group if you get sloppy pulling once you are past the half way mark but there are a  good number of classes with self rez now to recover from things like that which makes it easier than beta.


kaid

[Jayce]

I detest Gnomeregan. I ran it several times with my first character, and we finished it a few times, and I got some good lewt.

After that I swore I would never go in there again.  Too many trash mobs, WAY too long, too annoying to get to, and too easy to wipe at the end when you're starting to get fatigued from the endless assault of crappy mobs.

It makes me physically ill or gives me a headache, or both.

[Paelos]

I detest Gnomeregan. I ran it several times with my first character, and we finished it a few times, and I got some good lewt.

After that I swore I would never go in there again.  Too many trash mobs, WAY too long, too annoying to get to, and too easy to wipe at the end when you're starting to get fatigued from the endless assault of crappy mobs.

It makes me physically ill or gives me a headache, or both.

I agree, the mobs are designed...poorly. Thanks to Blizz for making them mob you at a certain point unless you walk a certain way down a certain hall. THAT'S BULLSHIT!

[Trippy]

I detest Gnomeregan. I ran it several times with my first character, and we finished it a few times, and I got some good lewt.

After that I swore I would never go in there again.  Too many trash mobs, WAY too long, too annoying to get to, and too easy to wipe at the end when you're starting to get fatigued from the endless assault of crappy mobs.

At least it has a back door entrance so you can skip over a lot of that stuff if you just want to kill the final few bosses. I wish more instances were built like that.

[Zetor]

At least it has a back door entrance so you can skip over a lot of that stuff if you just want to kill the final few bosses. I wish more instances were built like that.

Maraudon [scepter!], Dire Maul [sorta, you can do boss runs still in East] are like that. Theoretically you could farm Kirtonos in scholo as well, now that they nerfed it.


-- Z.