Last night, a solid crew of friends went into both Dragonblight instances, Azjol-Nerub and Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom, intent on getting a little instance action down.
My Hunter is now level 80, and as such is pretty much retired from active playing. I’ve got the crafted Epics, the two Giantmaim pieces, the Engineering Goggles, Nesingwary 4000, and Ice Striker Cloak. For now, I think that’s okay if someone needs a Hunter or someone to assist in a Heroic or group quest. So, time to move on and play someone else.
When Shrinn asked for a group for some Dragonblight instancing, I was happy to volunteer my level 75 Druid as tank. Granted, I have yet to pick up a single new piece of gear for tanking, but all my gems have been replaced, and my base Health is over 20k. At level 75, you’d think that an instance ranked for players level 73-75 would be just fine. Right?
We went in pretty confident, all told. I’ve tanked Azjol-Nerub before, and I was familiar with the habits of some spiders to enwrap the tank in webbing, the daze effects, the waves of mobs,etc.
What I didn’t expect was how hard it hurt to lose aggro on a mob… and have no control over getting it back. The early waves of spiders include the Anub’ar Skirmishers… and those little bastards hit like a freight train, are NOT the largest mob in a three pull, and thus your first instinct is place then last on the kill order. Get this… they can pop Enrage, target any random player, and charge them to pound on them for 10 seconds… and while Enraged, they are Immune to Taunt or CC. And they WILL take down a cloth-wearing class FAST. As we found out when a Skirmisher targeted Shadewynn the level 72 Priest, my precious, precious Healer on the run, charged her, and I Growled to pull off at range… and it ignored me and blew her right the hell up. Our first wipe came not long after.
This wasn’t my first time tanking Azjol-Nerub.. but this was my first time in a group of appropriately leveled players.
We had my level 75 Druid for tank, Cassie’s level 76 BM Hunter, Shrinn’s level 75 Mage, Para’s level 75 Warlock (on an unfamilar spec for him, Demonology), and of course the aforementioned Shadewynn the level 72 Priest.
Every other time going into these instances, there have been at least a few level 80s. In fact, the very last time I had run the instance, we didn’t HAVE a tank… my Hunter and Sinnas, a guildmate and level 80 BM Hunter, ran it with our two pets dual-tanking. And we succeeded just fine.
It gives you a skewed sense of the instance, to do something like that. With that kind of DPS, those kinds of frantic “not a real tank” fights, things happen so fast that you don’t catch some of the intricacies of what mobs are doing. And if a mob breaks free, well, who knows what the pet may or may not have done to that one mob? They die too fast to really know what happened.
Running it ’straight’ was a heck of a learning experience.
Oh, and it turns out that the Enrage effect of the Skirmishers can be dispelled early by a Hunter’s Arcane Shot, and they are Immune to CC… except for Stuns. So, god bless Rogues. Which we didn’t have along. Dangit.
I’ll continue doing a recap of the run, but let me cut to the moral of the story right now; instances are now faster to run, but they make up for it by having fun, neat, and challenging twists to the encounters. Shorter, but more intense experiences. So it pays to study an instance before running it for the first time, to learn what unique, painful surprises may lie in wait. Like the Skirmisher thing. Knowing your Priest may be two-shot by a Taunt-immune mob is a GOOD THING TO KNOW. And an even better thing to warn you Hunter about. That Arcane Shot dispel thingie? Not just for Romeo and Juliet spell haste, anymore.
Anyway, we had a few challenges along the way in Azjol-Nerub, but for the most part it was the trash that was tricky, and the speed of the thing that gave us some issues. The way one fight flows right into the next is awesome, but it challenges caster mana regen a LOT. On the second boss, we literally had just finished up the last of the trash pulls when Hadronox came running right up to us… and we made it, but it was tense with health and mana levels.
Tense is good, don’t get me wrong… I just like having a few seconds to let the Priest get mana back. I know, I know, crazy talk! Healers with mana? Who needs that?
Anyway, we finished up Azjol-Nerub, and went straight into The Old Kingdom.
Remember, this was the one I last did when we were all vastly overpowered?
Yeah, that was a big mistake.
On the one hand, I mostly remembered where everything was, where the bosses were, how the quests worked, how the push through trash has to go. That was very nice.
On the other hand… nothing had lived long enough for me to have a clue what to expect.
The early stages against spiders were simple tank and spanks. Mark, pull, kill ‘em all. Reassuring, since it is one heck of a huge instance. Long, long distances to cover, lots of trash.
But the first boss, Elder Nadox, was a wake up call.
Let me back up. The first pull before Elder Nadox was a cruel setup. We pulled one group of four, and while killing them, another four got pulled in by mistake… and we lived. I managed to tank most of them, Cassie got her pet on another, and Para’s Demon tanked another one away from us the whole time. So it gave us a false sense of power… “Oh wow, I thought this would be tough, but we can take that many down… I guess we’ll be fine.”
Right after that, we peeked in the room where Elder Nadox was, said “Oh goodie, appetizer boss”, and attacked.
Spiders started getting spawned from the eggs, so I asked everyone to huddle up on me to aid my picking them up, and asked everyone to AoE them down before getting back on the boss.
To quote Shrinn, as we wiped… “When they have that purple shit on them, they’re Immune to AoE.”
Wait, what? Dead.
WTF?! How can you be Immune to AoE?
I finally went to Wowwiki, looked up the instance… Oh.
So, a Guardian spider gets spawned, and while that mob is alive, all other mobs, including the boss, are invulnerable.
Good to know. Good to know.
Remember that whole “Research the run first” thing? Yeah. Damn.
So began what I prefer to think of as “The last great Wipefest of 2008″.
After we knew about the Guardian, we were on the lookout for him to spawn… ate his lunch and took down the boss easy as pie.
All the rest of the trash and the next boss, the vampire prince, were pretty smooth as well. We got our confidence back. Had a few “knocked from one mob into another group and pulled them too, but lived” experiences… just added to the fun.
Then, we finally faced boss number three. Jedoga Shadowseeker.
That bitch.
We read what to do, get out of the AoE white circle that gets targeted on someone but stays stationary on the ground, when she does a floater go for the add before he sacrifices himself, watch out for +200% Damage buff. Fine.
As we pull the boss, someone, I think it was Cassie, said “Oh look, she’s wearing a Santa Hat.”
Wait, what? Oh, cool! I’ve been wanting one of those on Windshadow for over three years. Never, ever got a group that wanted to go do the bosses in the instances that could drop it.
We clear the trash, pull the boss, we’re going well, get first add, BOOM! Wipe.
What the hell? Shade went down, Shrinn went down, ugh, no heals, no boom boom. Okay, let’s try again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Okay, break for running back to Star’s Rest and repairing.
And wipe.
Para had to go, so we had a few moments while waiting for Zeymort to bring his level 75 Feral Druid on in to discuss what the hell was going on.
The general feeling was;
A) The AoE white circle o’ death has a radius of effect larger than the graphic might lead you to believe. When you see it form under you, MOVE YOUR ASS, and I mean waaaay outside the visible perimeter of the ring.
B) When the boss comes back down, maybe only if she was buffed by a Sacrifice, there is a note on Wowwiki that she ‘also does Cyclone Strike’. That note should be changed to read ’stay the hell away from the boss if you are squishy, she does a WHAT THE F#(& KIND OF BULLSHIT DAMAGE WAS THAT Cyclone Strike’.
Basically, the boss would either one-shot kill our Priest with the damn white circle AoE, or, once that was worked out, slaughter them with the Cyclone Strike. A Cylcone Strike that does physical damage, and was hitting on me for 7200 after Physical Damage Mitigation from my armor. I think Shade said it did somewhere around 17k to her.
Yeah, that deserves it’s own note, I think.
It probably wouldn’t have been an issue, but an early note on Wowwiki said to be careful not to start the fight too far away from the boss, mobs could spawn and wipe your group.
So everyone was huddling close to the boss. NOT A GOOD PLAN.
Anyway without a healer, taking +200% damage from the Sacrifice buff, I never lasted very long after Shade went down.
Lesson learned… kill the sacrificial mob as fast as humanly possible to reduce the damage buff and Cyclone Strike… everyone move your ass well away from white circle AoE… and everyone but melee DPS and tank stay way the hell away from the boss when she stops floating so you don’t get eaten by the Cyclone Strike if it does go off.
Accentuate the positive…
I’m positive I don’t want to do that instance at the appropriate level, ever again. Next time I go in, it’s as a vastly OP tank. Bet your ass. I want revenge.
I’d like to talk about the last boss fight, since the whole ‘fight your mirror image’ thing is AWESOME… but our group didn’t get to it, since it was a work night and our Wipefest had gone on for so long that we had trash respawns everywhere. I just didn’t have time to plow through trash again… and besides, Shrinn was fighting one mondo killer headache. We’ll have to get the quest done some other time.
Ah well… it was fun, and Windshadow DID get the Red Santa Hat. “Yay!!!” But the pain… oh, the pain.
Sadly, it was still a ton of fun. I think there is something wrong with me that I enjoy these runs, even when we wipe a ton of times. I just feel like very time, even on stupid stuff, I learn something.
Mostly, “Okay, I’ll remember not to do THAT again. D’oh!”
There’s a slightly cheap trick to down Elder Nadox without having to worry about Guardians (and getting the achievement, as well, on Heroic mode). Clear all the trash leading up to him, even the pulls you can just walk by, and then drag Nadox back nearly all the way to the instance portal … then tell the DPS to go wild on him. He should go down before the Guardians reach him and apply their immunity buff.
As for Jedoga … well, there’s no getting around it. That fight is a real pain in the butt :\
Grats on the hat :D
You learn pretty quick on heroic AN that Skrimishers are always marked to die first. And that Both Tranquilizing Shot (not Arcane Shot) and Anesthetic Poison remove the Berserk. Lacking both of those, the next thing to do would be Bash, and rush the DPS!
Also those pulls have mobs that put a debuff (I believe it’s a disease) that makes each player affected take 30% more damage.
My guild made the mistake of trying out AN for our first heroic. I was the tank. Those untauntable skirmishers really had us getting our butts beat. We managed to get to the third group on our last try… but still just couldn’t handle it.
Now, we’re a little (lot) better geared, more experienced in heroics, and planning to give it another try this week or next. :)
I feel your pain on AN – normal or heroic. That first pull really is a strategy / execution check.
Thats too funny. I also wiped several times (in heroic) in those 2 instances, due to a total lack of knowledge of the finer points. Havent even been back to old kingdom yet, because we had such a miserable time. We had an easier time killing 10man sartharion right after that wipe fest. We’ve gotten into a rut of doing the easy heroics nowadays… anyway you inspired me to force my guildies back into azjol & ahnk again. We all know there’s some nice tanking goodies to be had.
First time poster, long time reader (great writing, btw, and good insight from a bear druid in case I decide to drop my laser antlered chicken).
I spent one night in Heroic AN and we couldn’t get past that first corner because of the 3-mob gauntlet. It was dispiriting. One other thing to realize is those skirmishers are Undead and can be shackled (as I understand it, anyway). We didn’t realize this at the time. =/ I never want to run this again, either, but our tank really wants the belt from the last boss.
Good times were still had by all!
Thanks for indulging me on even going in Wind, Cass, Shade, Para on Critics & Thanks Zey for coming in to help out in a pinch!
Ooo & next time I have a bright idea like that, I will totally understand when ya’ll quote me & say “pffft! Bite me!” teehee!
On AN, the skirmishers are bad ass. While they can’t be taunted or contained otherwise, they can be shackled. If you shackle ‘em it becomes fairly commonplace; I usually can shackle it, then break the shackle with a bash. That keeps ‘em down long enough that they will die.
AN is by far my favorite instance they’ve made. Beautiful layout, amazingly fast if you’ve got a good group and really hard if you don’t. The plunge is also brilliant.
If you don’t want more experiences like this, I’d really recommend reading up on the VH bosses. Some are fairly trivial to tank and you can just blow through ‘em regardless. The void one is pretty tricky if you don’t know the trick. The bird one is simple; don’t kill the adds or you wipe.
I agree with Kal. Violet Hold is a place where the strat varies every single time you go in.
Our first foray into H:VH, I made sure to check out strats for each boss and write down one-liners to remember what to do. Now, I did NOT do this for normal mode – because I thought it would be more fun to learn as we went. :)
Heh Old Kingdom was the first instance I ran in Northrend… I was level 70 at the time on my hunter and the highest level was a 71. All the fights lasted a long time and it was really a challenge. Thankfully I was able to hit the boss with all the Hit rating gear I had from raiding but all of our dps was diminished alot. All in all it was alot of fun to have a challenge in the game after everything in BC was a joke.
Personally though I hate overpowering instances I would rather them be a challenge because you learn skills that you can carry with you when things get tough in heroics and raids.
Like the rest of you we had problems with the wave pulls on the first boss in Heroic AN. The trick is simply to stack on the tank, in this case me. The skirmishers don’t seem to enrage, and go immune if they can’t charge anyone. Once we all stacked, it was very easy to get though the waves and down the 1st boss. The last boss is another story; this is one case where the 50% treat buff to swipe is VERY helpful. Oh and one last thing remember on the last boss of AN. You don’t have to eat the pound, when he starts casting it, just run though him towards the back of his model and you’ll avoid it.
Oh, yes, AN and OK. Those instances absolutely RULE. I adore them. Beautifully animated, the bosses are tricky as hell and it is a blast. Never, ever, ever pass those up at the appropriate level. They’re wonderful and a great reality check.
My favourite thing to do is to recommend it to self-important Death Knoobs. :3
i wish i had the giantmain gear. I dont have the money to pay for mats and my LWing is only 425ish. Soon enough. For being hunter converter 416 you outgear me, but then again i took a 3 week break.
Yay! We went in and 1-shotted every boss in h old kingdom after reading this post yesterday!!! easy peasy when you know the strats. And we even got an achievement for not attempting to kill and worshippers – just heal through the enrage. Makes the fight a lot more straightforward /flex /no-longer-feel-like-a-wimp
Running as a hunter the only real problems I’ve had with that instance were on heroic. Heroic Herald Voljaz, is a painful SOB. The insanity is a fun nuisance on normal. On heroic it’s like stabbing your eyes out with a butter knife.
Anyone have suggestions beyond better gear or bringing a tanking pet?
Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Silver+Hand&n=Xathras
On the positive note: It felt like the “old days”. We had to formulate plans on the fly to over come. I too have been in both in overpowered groups (on my healer) and I never got the feeling of accomplishment that I did on these runs. Even though I wasn’t able to stay for the end.
Thanks for the runs. I had a ball!
After 3 wipes I made a macro to target the Guardian that spawns near Elder Nadox in OK. Trying to tab through all the stupid spiders to get to the guardian or trying to click him is a pain. As the tank 3 people were dead by the time I could even target him. The boss still stands right over you and it is too easy to target him instead. With the macro i picked the guardian up immediately, ranged taunt before anyone could hit him and it lead to clearing the boss very easily.
Try it on heroic. That was a wipe fest for us. We couldn’t get past the first boss.
So we did heroic VH instead and owned it.
We tried Heroic AN last night with 3 tanks (2 DKS and me, a feral Dru) 1 mage for AOE DPS and shammy healz. Phail. Will try again.
I’ve tanked all the instances now in regular. I’m frustrated because bear mitigation isn’t what it was and gearing up seems like a chore now, more than it was before. But truth is, its still a hell of a lot of fun. BBB ftw!
While the bears are said because of mitigation issues, as a pally I get frustrated when the healers cant heal me through pulling an entire room. I wish they would make healing be easier, it seems like healers are bloody hard to find:(
…and I just realized I said ’said’ instead of ’sad’ I blame it on the manischewitz;)
Regarding the floaty boss. I have done this fight the “correct” way a total of 1 time. How we are currently doing it is to clear to the chick and AoE down the stupid little guys to start the boss fight.
The first time she does the floaty bit, everyone runs down the water and off the waterfall and straight back until you go up the stairs to the little dias. The boss will get the buff from the sacrifice and start to slowtail(as opposed ot hightailing) it back to you. The 200% buff will have worn off by the time she gets to you, or close enough that it doesn’t matter. The next time she needs to sac someone, she just runs back. Rinse and repeat. This works on Heroic as well.
On heroic I did it the same as on normal- clear to where she is, making sure all party members are in the ring of bad guys, than avoid the aoe and kill the add that spawns- it doesn’t matter if he gets TO the circle, you just have to kill him before she sucks him dry and turns into a dmg-O-matic:)
When I ran Old Kingdom on my shadow priest, I found it invaluable on the Jedoga Shadowseeker fight to tab-target to select the sacrifice volunteer and mind-flay away to slow them down (no glyph). The purple line also drew everyone’s attention to the mob so we could burn them down fast. I realize you didn’t have a shadow priest in your group, but I highly recommend this technique when you run Old Kingdom on your shadow priest.
Two days ago I went on my 71 mage to The Nexus 5-man normal, because a guildie asked me to join in place of a warlock that ninja-dc’d. She kept talking about the 70 DPS warrior that was in group and, to be fair, he did twice the damage I did. But then I inspected him, and he was in fully enchanted full epic gear, mostly from Arena. My mage was mostly in Outland leveling blues and greens.
My point is that while some people may bitch about instances being too easy, it’s also easy to forget that some of the people are way, way overgeared for the normal instances in Northrend, especially the lower-end ones. I think those instances are properly balanced for leveling gear and the boss fights are not very easy.
BTW, druid herbalists with epic flight form are very OP, I strongly suggest re-rolling herbalism if you need herbs or cash.
AN is a pain in the big bear butt ass.
In order not to lose aggro i swipe and bersek mangle like a madman. Madtauren.
Once you pass the first 3 watchers is a piece of cake.
Well I’m a hunter and listened to you on BRK’s podcast last week so i thought I’d stop by…just a few things to help out in old kingdom. As Neil said for the first boss you can clear ALL the trash then pull the boss then run right back to the portal which stops the guardians coming. For the third boss there is an insanely helpful trick, engage her dps her hard. When she goes up into the air all your group has to immediately run down the waterfall…I know, first time i did this i was thinking…”say what???” but yea you run down the waterfall keeping to the left-ish side but still close to the middle…jump out at the end, run up the stairs after the second boss’ tunnel, the tank stands just in front of the doorway while dps and heals stand in the doorway or just behind. In the time the boss takes to get back to you the enrage will have worn off and its jsut a simple tank’n’spank from then on. Whenever she goes up into the air she will run back to the top, dont follow her and just wait for her to come back. With this strategy your not going to break any speed records but it really simplifies the fight and ensures less repair trips :)
Joey
Wow, that’s odd. Just last week, my Druid, Tiagra, on Zul’jin, tanked all the way up to “the Violet hold”… get this. At lvl 71. Yes, we beat the violet hold with a squad of 71’s (and I think one dinged 72 along the way). Mind you, that dragon at the end was nasty, and we almost wiped, but considering we were 71 and going against a lvl 77 dragon.. I was thinking that the game was completely broken. It turns out that our gear was just uber. I just took my other Char, Mianeh, with the same people (different characters/classes though) though UK and Nexus, and we wiped like crazy in Nexus on the little red lvl 72 dragon in there. So it does depend TONS on gear. My druid is pretty geared to the teeth, and the healer for that group Veneficusa, also geared to the teeth. The other group has a pally tank and a priest healer in blues/greens. MASSIVE MASSIVE difference. My druid tank has a decent amount of +hit for a tank, and I think that partially helped, since I happened to hit the mobs more than my friends who were missing up a storm since the mobs were so much higher level.