Scholomance – Round 1

Having finished up all we cared to in Blackrock Depths in three runs, we actually had several choices as we closed in on what used to be the end-game instances for World of Warcraft. Having only a partial group on the weekend for Christmas, we decided to run down the key to Scholomance and make that our next target.

Skronk said that at one time, not having the key was no big deal, as there were always people just behind the locked door to let you in. But now, with the Outlands readily available, he felt we ought to spend the 15 gold to make sure we were not left on the door step saying, “Helloooo? Anybody in there?”

That was fun, we picked up some additional quests for Scholo as well as some additional experience.

Of course, two days later, after getting lost, I managed to pick up the plans for the engineers door knocker, the powerful seaforium charge. (I love that name. I can see somebody trying to think of a name for an explosive… “C4…umm?”)

And, in the end, last Saturday night, there were a couple of groups sitting in the foyer of Scholomance, so we were covered at least three ways to Sunday. So in we went, the lineup as follows:

58 Warrior – Earlthecat
58 Warlock – Bungholio
59 Mage – Ula
59 Paladin – Vikund
59 Priest – Skronk

We had all beefed up a level or two since our last run. That is one of the things since patch 2.3, and work between instances now pushes us further along pretty quickly.

Still, we needed those levels. Scholomance is actually something of a step up in difficulty relative to what we have seen in the past. And this was proven by us getting wiped in the first room. On pretty much the first fight.

Ouch.

Groups of mobs, packed pretty closely together, with seemingly larger than usual aggro zones seemed to be the order of the day. Mobs that like to run and can often cast fear.

We nearly wiped again when I got feared into another group. Skronk made it safely out the front door this time, so there was one less person who had to run from the grave yard, which is, fortunately, very close to the front door of Scholo. Then we came very close to disaster again with an accidental proximity pull that ened up in a tough fight that we managed to muscle through.

And this was all in the first big room within fifteen minutes of us starting the instance.

We found that we had to stick together more tightly than before and show more care than we have had to in the past.

We managed to finally work our way across the first room of the instance and pick up our first goal of the night, the deed to Southshore, part of the Barov Family Fortune quest.

That taken care of, we began to delve beyond the first room in search of the next target, the deed to Tarren Mill.

This was a bit of a challenge, as down the stairs and into another room we ran into more trouble and wiped again.

We reformed and pressed on slowly and carefully and managed to avoid anything beyond individual deaths for the balance of the night. We made it to the second Tarren Mill deed.

We then took a trip into the next room to slay some dragon broodlings an clear the way to the first named target of the night, Rattlegore.

The Rattlegore fight went well, thanks largely to Earl’s pulling abilities. Rattlegore is in the center of a room with a bunch of stationary and two wandering minions that are all around him. Earl went in and, one by one, pulled each and every one of them out of the room without disturbing Rattlegore, so that the final fight was very straighforward.

Here are Earl and I giving it to Rattlegore:

After that, we worked our way back and headed towards the deed to Brill in the alchemy lab. We stood looking in at Ras Frostwisperer.

And then we cleared the room and killed him. Us victorious.

We picked up the deed and headed on to the deed to Caer Darrow that resides back with Lord Alexi Barov.

On the way to him, we thought we ought to further one of our other quests by slaying Dr. Theolen Krastinov. This turned out to be the last dramatic fight of the night. Krastinov hits like a bus and, and one juncture in the fight, made a point of chasing down and slaying some of the casters and then Earl.

Fortunately, he was way down on hit points and with a potion, a health stone, and lay hands, I was able to hold him until we could finally finish him off. Here we are after the fight:

Which left only Lord Alexei Barov to take down before we finished up for the night.

That fight was a bit of a challenge as well, but we ended up nailing it. Alexei has two minions. Skronk shackled one and I pulled the other (hey, undead, the pally can pull!) way back out of range of Alexei’s aura, while Earl kept Alexei busy. We were able to dispatch the two minions rapidly and get down to help Earl before he was in much danger.

And so Alexei went down. Here we are, his corpse is under the water.

You can see his glowing sword, which is not something he drops. Too bad.

And then we were done for the night.

I was not keeping notes (again) so I do not have the loot distribution, but along the way I managed to win the Bonechill Hammer and the Deathbone Chestplate.

Ula opened a portal to Ironforge for us and we ran the circuit to turn in the quests we had completed. Everyone in the group was 59 by the time we left Scholo, but with the last quest turn-in, Skronk hit 60, the first one in our group to do so.

Congratulations to Skronk! (a.k.a. Potshot)

We have managed to keep the group very close in levels over the last year.

We are not worried about Skronk getting too far ahead.

To go from level 59 to 60 you need 172,000 experience points. To go from 60 to 61 you need 494,000 experience points. I am sure we will all be level 60 together for a while.

We still have much more to do in Scholomance, including tasks for my epic mount, so there will be more on this instance to come.