The Culling of Stratholme October 9, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Instance Group, World of Warcraft.Tags: Brewfest, Culling of Stratholme
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It was Saturday night and we had killed Coren Direbrew for the 21st and final time during Brewfest.
Since by that point killing Coren was a quick and well rehearsed process, we had plenty of time left for another activity. So we went to the next instance on our list, the Culling of Stratholme. We were:
80 Priest – Skronk
80 Mage – Ula
80 Warlock – Bungholio
80 Warrior – Earlthecat
80 Paladin – Vikund
Ula put up a portal to Dalaran where we picked up the portal to the Caverns of Time. And from there… well… we had to find the entrance. That sounds easy, but it isn’t like there is a big sign that says “Stratholme – This Way” or anything. In fact, it just looks like some more buildings.
Shhh... Stratholme this way...
Okay, I guess there are the banners of Lorna Doone… erm… Lordaeron out front, but still.
In we went at last, only to run into Chromie, who looked remarkably like Ula with her current hair style.
Only their hairdressers know the truth
Chromie then went on about how those neferious nabobs of no-goodness, the Infinite Dragonfligh, the Team Rocket of Azerothian time travel, were again screwing with the flow of time.
This time around they were trying to keep Prince Arthas from making his fateful decision in Stratholme and thus alter the course of time.
However, given that Arthas goes through the whole story ignoring sage advice, making questionable decisions, and eventually becoming the Lich King (whoops, spoiler… somebody out there is going “What?! He’s the Lich King?!?”) it wasn’t exactly clear to me how things could get worse and that we might all be better off just seeing what happens. I mean, we’ve got time travel here, right? We can always go back and fix it later if things don’t work out.
However, there is no loot and no achievement for trying to stump Chromie with logic, so we opted to go along and just follow instructions. Mostly.
We were given a thingy and told to go find some tainted grain that would turn people into scourge like meat from that packing plant in Georgia last summer. They grain is in crates that are glowing, so that wasn’t all that tough.
I did try to ride off into the distance, but you just get enshrouded in fog and eventually run into an invisible wall, so plans to invest a bit of gold an feel the magic of compound interest were thwarted.
We did notice that it was Brewfest in Stratholme. What a coincidence that this particular bit of Azerothian history took place during the holiday we happened to be currently celebrating! Amazing!
Brewfest - A Stable Tradition in Azeroth
The crates collected, we were then sent off to follow Arthas around and help him keep to his course. Fortunately, I suppose, change is just a word for the coins you get back with a purchase in Azeroth, so we didn’t have to worry about any “Back to the Future” like issue, such turns of phrase not in common use or wearing down vests and being mistaken for a sailor.
We then got to watch a little play acted out, where Arthas ignores advice from people who later succeed in NOT becoming… say… the Lich King, and goes on his merry way.
Arthas not listening to his elders
Then it was off into Stratholme proper and a lot of running around as we played a large scale game of Twister. Scourge in the market! Scourge at town hall! Scourge back at the market! Back and forth we ran.
Chasing the Scourge
Eventually, we wrapped that up, caught up with Arthas, and began a long escort quest which eventually led us to a Strathomle that we all recognized.
Classic Stratholme
Arthas behaved like a typical escort target, by which I mean he did his best to elude us or pull extra adds when ever possible. The only thing missing was him looking for a misplaced sword or shield.
Still, we have been trained as a group to escort idiot savant targets, and we managed to get him to the last fight with Mal’Ganis in Crusader Square. The last fight, frankly, was easier than just getting Arthas there in the first place. The fight ended with us getting the achievement.
Once Mal’Ganis was down, Arthas gave us a little pep talk, packed his skis, and headed to Northrend.
Arthas say good-bye
Then Chromie showed up again, stood awkwardly in mid-air, thanked us for our efforts, and handed out goodies.
Floating Chromie
And then Chromie said her final words to us.
Really? This was the best results the time traveling sect could come up with? I am still unconvinced.
Anyway, we’ve culled Stratholme. Now we have to head back to the Howling Fjord, back where we started of f months ago, and face Utgarde Pinnacle.
The 21 Deaths of Coren Direbrew October 7, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Instance Group, World of Warcraft.Tags: Brewfest, Coren Direbrew, Hallow's End
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Brewfest has passed in Azeroth.
The tents have been folded. The spilled beer and goat droppings have been cleaned up.
The vendors have gone back to their respective breweries.
Perhaps not everybody is sad to see them go. Not everybody is into drunken revelry, though my wife might say I am pre-disposed to such activity, have married a beer brewery heiress and all.
But even if you weren’t into the ram riding and drunken brawls with the Dark Iron dwarves, there were still some more tangible goodies to be had by killing Coren Direbrew. Four of us managed to take him down once on our first outing, and twice on our second, but when we got the full group together we were able to beat him like a pinata in hopes of getting good drops.
So Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights last week we assembled and took him down six times each evening.
While we are only a group of five, I happen to have a level 80 hunter on the server as well, so I was able substitute Tistann, my hunter, in for Vikund once per evening to get us one more bite at the apple.
Some reading up showed that we could avoid the whole “barrel on the head” thing by making sure we had no empty bag slots. This prevents you from catching the barrel, so to speak.
Fail - A Paladin with empty bag slots
Of course, if you have no empty bag slots, you cannot catch the rare beer that turns you into a Dark Iron dwarf. At least I think that is where that particular beer came from. Vikund spent some time in Dark Iron form.
Vikund Transformed into a Dark Iron Dwarf
And what did we end up with after killing Coren 21 times?
- Bubbling Brightbrew Charm – I lost count of these because they came up so often. After a while we couldn’t roll on them because we all had one.
- Direbrew’s Shanker – Several of these dropped, but they could at least be sold to a vendor for some decent gold, since nobody really needed it. Tistann could have used it, but it never dropped when he was in the group.
- Bitter Balebrew Charm – At least four. Like the Brightbrew Charm, amusing but not so useful.
- Ancient Pickled Egg – Four received, but it was at least useful for Skronk the priest and potentially so for Vikund, should he spec holy.
- Brawler’s Souvenir – Three of these dropped. Good for Earl, okay for Tistann, otherwise not so useful.
- Mithril Pocketwatch – we got a pair of these, one for Bung and one for Ula if I recall right.
- Swift Brewfest Ram – Just one of these. We finally saw this drop on the last night we killed Coren.
Vikund won the roll, which not only got him the mount but also an achievement.
Granted, it is a feat of strength achievement, which means that it only counts to settle a tie when bragging about your total achievement points, but it is still cool.
The mount itself looks like your standard epic ram mount from Ironforge. The main difference is the glowing green eyes and the armor that appears to be made from beer barrels.
The Swift Brewfest Ram
As for the other items, we got some many Brightbrew Charms in a row at one point that we were convinced that we needed to reset the instance to reset the loot table. Over the long term that did not prove to be true, but one night we took a portal back to Ironforge and reset the instance after each fight.
The only items we did not see were:
- Coren’s Chromium Coaster – Might have been a nice trinket for somebody.
- Direbrew’s Remote – Not that great, but would have saved us some travel time each night, especially during our repeat drop paranoia.
- Tankard O’Terror – That is on heck of a one handed weapon. It would have been good for Earl, and Vikund wouldn’t have said no to one if offered.
- Great Brewfest Kodo – The really distinctive mount for alliance players. It did not come our way.
So that was the net goody haul for our group’s Brewfest adventures.
Now we will have to see what the Headless Horseman will have for us come Hallow’s End! Last year he didn’t drop anything spectacular for us, but maybe we’ll have better luck this year.
The Kobold Temple of the Unholy October 6, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in Ancient Gaming, entertainment, TorilMUD, World of Warcraft.Tags: Kobold Village, Leuthilspar Tales
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Leuthilspar Tales – Part III
Since I am probably done with Kobold Village for now, I thought I would add the description from the room directly below the three kobold sentries and directly above the Tako demon, the high level, deadly monster that lives deep below Gwark’s town.
This is the secret temple of the dark kobolds. A secret sect of kobolds still worship the primal magics of their ancient past; dark rites are practiced here which even the kobolds themselves had outlawed as their civilization moved on. The temple is a huge cavern, carved out in the depths below Gwark’s settlement. The walls of the cavern are made out of the bones of kobolds which have been spirited away down here to be sacrificed to the demons which the high priest invokes from the dark magic. The air is chill with the presence of evil. A large, dark pit in the cavern floor gapes to the east of here, a huge and dominating presence. Across from the pit, through the gloom of the cavern, you think you can see a giant altar of sorts. It looks possible to climb down into the pit, though why one would want to is boggling. One can follow the temple walls around the pit to the north and south of here.
Did you catch this sentence?
It looks possible to climb down into the pit, though why one would want to is boggling.
That is all the warning you get not to climb down into the lair of the Tako demon. Welcome to the age of MUDs, where a seemingly innocuous phrase can mean life or death.
I do like that the kobolds have a dark past alluded to in this description, making them perhaps a bit less comic that their Azerothian brethren:
A secret sect of kobolds still worship the primal magics of their ancient past; dark rites are practiced here which even the kobolds themselves had outlawed as their civilization moved on.
You no steal candle or we’ll summon up something nasty!
Exciting Ways to Die in Kobold Village October 6, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in Ancient Gaming, entertainment, MUDs, TorilMUD.Tags: Kobold Village, Leuthilspar Tales
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Leuthilspar Tales – Part II
In which I try to recreate a point in time from the Mid-1990s on Sojourn/TorilMUD.
Welcome young elf (or marginally tolerated half-elf)!
You have made it through the character creation process where you chose a race and a class, then rolled for attributes which were represented by vague names indicating a range of possible values. Don’t worry, when you get to level 20 you will be able to see the actual numbers, at which point you may very well choose to start over again when you discover that after hundreds of re-rolls your decision to compromise and accept a CON value of only “above average” was a mistake that will haunt you for the rest of your days.
You have had your name accepted and approved by the immortals who run the MUD and have been dumped into a side room of your class guild hall in the beautiful elven city of Leuthilspar on the island of Evermeet. I hope you like it here, because you are going to be stuck on the island for 20 levels.
You found yourself in your class guild hall with your inventory loaded to overflowing with items. You have so much stuff in your hands that you cannot possibly pick anything else up. But don’t drop anything. Everything you have been given is flagged “transient” which means it will crumble to dust when it hits the ground. This includes your weapon, which you will surely fumble during your first fight.
But do not worry too much about that. All the equipment you have is of such low quality that while it is better than nothing at all, it is only just. Any weapon you find will be an upgrade.
You should enter the command “wear all” to put everything on. Then remove the bag you have been given from your hand, wield your weapon, and then put anything else you have (torches, rations, a water skin, plus maybe a spellbook or a holy symbol) in the bag.
Then you should find your way out of your class guild hall and figure out where you are in town. Explore the town. Maybe try your hand against some of the small animals in town, the elven cats or kooshie dogs. If you are handy you might even pick up a level and get a leather dog collar drop from one of the dogs. Put that collar right on, as it offers as much armor class improvement as almost all the other equipment you have been given so far combined.
Once you have familiarized yourself with Leuthilspar, gained a level, and figured out how to train up skills with your guild master, it is about time for you to seek adventure outside of town.
Luckily for you there is a place just outside of town waiting for you, Kobold Village. We’ve already explained how to get there, and then get in, so head on out of Leuthilspar.
Kobold Village
Kobold Village has everything you need!
- A wide level range of monsters to fight (watch out for those level 40 kobolds young elf!)
- Puzzles to solve (like getting into the zone)
- Equipment (nothing special, but better than anything you have so far)
- Shops that charge dearly for items you buy but are miserly when you want to sell an item
- A quest that you probably won’t find (Szxvu has it, but shhh!)
- Surprises (we’ll get to that)
- Ways to die (which make up the above surprises)
You might wonder about that last one. You might have already died in town if you tried to attack one of the elven citizens with a guard in the room. But that was quick and convenient. Kobold Village will introduce you to the realities of MUDs.
Who is going to kill you in Kobold Village?
The Bull – The bull has the potential to become the first mob in the game you come to hate and fear. Unless you wander in a really bad direction, he will be the first aggressive (aggro) mob you encounter. Surprise! You’ve been able to size everything up before a fight. But you walk into the kobold barn yard and are suddenly set upon. He is only level 5, but he is a mean level 5, and with the gear you’re probably wearing, he can be deadly even if you’re level 5 as well.
The Guards – At first the guards in Kobold Village seem cool. They just let you be. Well, there are those couple of aggro guards who wanders, but we’ll ignore them for now. Anyway, all seems good with the guards. Then you decide to attack one of the low level kobolds in front of a guard and suddenly he shouts, “To battle one of us, is to battle us all!” and joins in against you. Surprise! You can run away, he won’t follow you, but he’ll remember you and attack you again next time he sees you.
The Chief Guard – He is in an office behind a closed door with two guards stationed outside. The Chief is not that tough, and he has that Rawhide Leather Girth that you probably want, but you will find out that not only do guards assist, they will also move to an adjacent room where fighting is taking place. Surprise! I hope the zone doesn’t reset and shut the door on you if you need to flee.
The Warmaster – The kobold Warmaster is surprisingly relaxed on the subject of strangers walking into his area. His trainees, however, are more aggressive. There are three of them. They’ll probably kill you outright the first time you step into the room. But should you kill one, pick up his weapon, since you’ve probably already lost your first one by this point.
The Taskmasters – You may have decided to play it safe. You got past the bull and into the kobold farmyard. There are lots of animals that you can kill for decent experience. They are not too tough and they all wait patiently for you to get to them. But at the far end of the farm are the two kobold Taskmasters. They are aggro and higher level than anything on the farm by a fair margin.
The Kobold Mine Leader – You’ve wandered down into the mines below Kobold Village. The miners are easy prey one you hit the right level. They don’t assist. They give good experience. And then you wander into one of the mine leaders. Aggro! And here is where you learn about spawn order. If you kill only the south mine leader, he’ll respawn in the north spot and you’ll have to fight two mine leaders together! Surprise
Kobold Sentry – If you are really sly, maybe you spotted that torch at the end of one of the tunnels. If you pulled it, a secret door opened up. On the other side is the kobold sentry. He is aggro, but no worse that the mine leaders. The thing is, a couple of rooms past him, there are three more sentries. They will likely kill you. But if they don’t, and you flee the wrong way, then you’re into the Kobold Temple of the Unholy. You will need some high level friends to get your corpse now. Surprise! And if it is the Tako demon that got you, well… you didn’t have much valuable on you in any case, right?
Gwark – Gwark is the kobold clan leader. It is his name on the sign we saw out front. Gwark is actually on the surface level of Kobold Village, but you have to go through the mines to a trap door to get into his room. Not that you would want to do that on purpose as a young elf, but if you are wandering through the mines you will no doubt see that trap door. And you will open it. And you will go through. And you will die. And you will have to get some help or figure out how to do the quick corpse drag.
But should you not die. Should you be able to flee Gwark alive, you’ll find out something new. Some mobs can summon. Gwark will now try to summon you every 20 seconds or so as long as you are in the Kobold Village zone. If your spell resist is high, the summon will fail most of the time. Of course, if you had high spell resist equipment you probably wouldn’t be in Kobold Village now would you? Fortunately, when you cast summon, there is a few seconds of immobility before you can do anything. You can just open the trap door and walk away from Gwark without being hit. But he’ll summon you again soon. I have died trying to get out of the zone because I’ve run out of movement points before Gwark has run out of summon spells.
So if Gwark is summoning you young elf, perhaps it is time to look for new places to adventure.
How about the Faerie Forest? That sounds safe!
A Small Victory October 5, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, World of Warcraft.Tags: PvP
7 comments
As I wrote the post on the Figure Prints pet offerings, I logged on Vikund to see if I had some that were less viable to be cast in resin and placed on my desk. I was able to come up with three pretty easily.
But as I was flipping through my companion pets and then going through the list of pets on WoW Wiki, I noticed that I did not have the Westfall Chicken!
The quest to get the Westfall Chicken is one of the great goofy quests in WoW.
Vikund was in Ironforge (He was still doing Brewfest stuff last night. He did eventually collect enough tokens to buy back his Brewfest regalia, so he has that going for him.) so I put him on the bird to Westfall and finished up the previous post.
When I went back to the WoW window, I was in Westfall and some horde guy was trying to kill the flight master.
Now, traditionally, I only see this happening when I am logged on with a low level alt and I have to sit there and take it or die quickly.
But this time around I had my level 80 retribution paladin out and the offender was a level 77 Tauren druid in cat form. Time to attack!
I don’t know if this guy saw me there AFK or not, but he certainly noticed me when I jumped in with a consecrate. He went to travel form and ran for it. I jumped on my mount and chased him down, stunned him with the hammer of justice, and then started through my rotation until he was dead. I didn’t even get to exorcism.
And, as a bonus, he waited a bit before he released, so I managed to get the Make Love, Not Warcraft achievement by giving him a /hug.
Then I went and got my Westfall chicken.
All in all a very satisfying run.
Worst Pets Ever October 5, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in Blizzard, entertainment, World of Warcraft.Tags: Figure Prints
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Okay, maybe not the WORST pets ever. I suppose they could have picked the cockroach, the tree frog, and the giant sewer rat from the list of WoW companion pets.
Still, after the first round of companion pet figures from Figure Prints, I was expecting a little more.
Companion Pets - Series 2
They are distinctive, certainly, but Willy and Egbert may be the creepiest companion pets in the game.
And Snarly… well, I’m probably just bitter that I’ve done that Shattrath fishing quest so many times and never gotten him.
Also bitter about that and the fact that none of the pets I predicted for round 2 made it.
But if Willy, Egbert, and Snarly are your thing, hurry up. They are only available through October 31st.
No word on hunter pets.
Podcast Bingo – VanHemlock Win October 4, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Humor, Podcasts.Tags: SUWT, VanHemlock Podcast, VirginWorlds
14 comments
Over at VirginWorlds we have a 5 in a row winner with the VanHemlock Podcast
Unfortunately, the VanHemlock Podcast is so common on the VirginWorlds Podcast Collective that even five in a row does not pay out very much.
The Current Payout Table for five in a row:
- VanHemlock 2 to 1
- No Prisoners, No Mercy 4 to 1
- Shut Up, We’re Talking 10 to 1
- Through the Aftermath 12 to 1
- The Combobulator Podcast 15 to 1
- Limited Edition 15 to 1
- Spouse Aggro 20 to 1
- Warp Drive Active 30 to 1
- Brent’s Other Podcast 50 to 1
- VirginWorld’s Podcast 100 to 1
- Witty Ranter 1000 to 1
No news on the rumor that it will soon be called the “VanHemlock Podcast Collective.”
Brewmaster! October 2, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, World of Warcraft.Tags: Brewfest
4 comments
Not everybody likes Brewfest.
In fact, not everybody is all that keen on game holidays in general.
I must confess that I used to be one of those people who greeted such holidays with a tepid response on the best of days. Well, unless Rudolph was involved.
And then, of course, Blizzard put in 900 or so happy shiny achievements into WoW, many of which are related to holiday events.
Now I am out there at almost every holiday doing at least a few of the achievement worthy activities. (And you can imagine my disappointment when Harvest Festival didn’t have an achievement of any sort. Remember that Saturday Night Live skit where Bill Murray was given a treat for each gag, then when he didn’t get one he got all upset? Probably not.)
There is obviously some deep psychological significance to the fact that I will run off and do some rather silly things just to get an achievement.
Go Vikund!
Yeah, there is my character in Dalaran dressed up in Brewfest finery, completely smashed, and dancing away for an achievement.
See, once we managed to kill Coren Direbrew on Saturday night, I figured I was well on the way to finishing off the Brewfest achievements and getting the Brewmaster title. I just needed to figure out how to collect enough Brewfest tokens to cover all my bases.
The problem was that I went off and bought the pink elekk as soon as I had 100 tokens. Then I counted out what else I needed and realized that 550 tokens were required to get the above achievement and the Brew of the Month Club achievement.
Even with three daily quests, that seemed like a lot, especially since I didn’t discover the third quest until a few days into Brewfest.
There are two quests that show the blue exclamation point, the brewery barking and the quest that comes up when you fend off the Dark Iron dwarves when they invade Brewfest. Then there is the guy who has the racing ram quest that you run once.
At that point here is a cool down (supposed to be 18 hours, but it seems shorter as I managed to run the quest before going to work then late in the evening, which is less that 15 hours) after which you can talk to him again and he’ll give you the reins and a time limit during which you can make as many round trips as you can manage (each trip extends your time) earning 2 tokens for each barrel you deliver.
Once I figured out how this really worked (it is explained in detail on WoW Wiki) I was able to start grinding out quite a few tokens a day. Still, 550 is a lot of tokens, and I can’t get on every morning and night.
Then I read somewhere, and I wish I could find the post again so I could link it and give proper dues, that you have two hours during which you can return anything you buy from the Brewfest vendor. That is more than enough time to buy the Brewfest apperal, get to Dalaran, get smashed, do your dance, then get back and return everything and get your tokens back.
That sounded like the plan for me.
So off I went.
Once done in Dalaran, I took the portal back to Ironforge and rode out to Brewfest. I returned the lederhosen for a 200 token refund, but I couldn’t bring myself to return the hat. I actually have a very similar hat in real life which I have worn to Oktoberfest celebrations out here on occasion. So I am saving that in hopes of there being an appearance tab some day, or just to look silly when I want.
The Hat
The 200 token refund was enough for me to purchase the Brew of the Month Club application, which I hurridly filled out and turned in, covering the last major achievement for me in Brewfest.
The Brew of the Month Club then sent me a nice note welcoming me.
So I have that to look forward to every month.
All in all Brewfest has been a lot of fun this year and I am glad that the achievements were there to tempt me to get involved with it.
Not that it was without conflict of a mental nature.
My daughter gets to play WoW on the weekends and, of course, she found Brewfest. There is nothing quite like your child announcing that she is the “Drunken Master!” to set off the bad parent alarms in your head.
I did try to rationalize this a bit, pointing out to my lovely but frowning wife that when I was our daughter’s age I was tending bar for my grandparents and could make a quite respectable Manhattan. Go watch The Thin Man. That was how my grandparent’s generation treated alcohol. Growing up in the midst of that I somehow successfully avoided becoming an alcoholic. Heck, I look at the per capita alcohol consumption figures and wonder who is drinking the vast majority of my 8.6 liters of pure alcohol. (And what is with Luxembourg and 15.6 liters per capita?)
And I did use the opportunity to explain to my daughter that the motion impairing effects shown in the game after consuming alcohol were all too real and that was why the law prohibits drinking and driving. She got that since she was really annoyed by the whole weaving around and actually asked me to show her where to get the Synthebrew Goggles so her character wouldn’t have to drink any more to catch pink elekks.
But I have to admit, after running through the Brewfest quests on the first night, I actually wanted a beer.
I should probably just let my daughter taste a beer one of these days. That was enough to keep me off of the stuff until college.
Confronting Coren Direbrew October 1, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Instance Group, World of Warcraft.Tags: Brewfest, Coren Direbrew, Jenkins
5 comments
Saturday found us short a member of the team again. This time, however, it was Earl who was down with the flu. (Though not that flu.) That left us with:
80 Priest – Skronk
80 Mage – Ula
80 Warlock – Bungholio
80 Paladin – Vikund
With just the four of us on, we thought we might have a shot at Coren Direbrew in Blackrock Depths, part of the whole Brewfest celebration. Slaying him is not only one of the achievements required, he also has a number of nice drops including the Great Brewfest Kodo and the Swift Brewfest Ram. We did not get a shot at him last week because of the mis-matched timing between the start of Brewfest and the update to the instance servers.
So we flew off to Thorium Point and started assembling outside of the Blackrock Complex.
Gathering up... Red sky at night?
This time around, sure enough, there was the easy transport system that delivers you straight to the The Grim Guzzler Bar within Blackrock Depths.
Enter the Mole Machine Perilous
Once there we found Coren.
Coren and Friends
Coren works like the Headless Horseman during Hallow’s End. You need the daily quest Insult Coren Direbrew, given by the Brewfest Spy, in order to start the fight with him. Each person in the party can get the quest and speak to him in turn, so we would had four tries at him lined up.
Vikund took the first turn, speaking to Coren and starting the fight.
The fight kicked off. Coren has three helpers to start with and more arrive in the Dark Iron mole machines during the fight, but they weren’t a big deal. Vikund, a retribution pally, was hanging tough with Skronk healing while tossing out the area effect damage to keep all the adds pointed at him. The fight seemed to be going well.
Then when Coren was at about 15% health and all looked good, Ursula Direbrew showed up, slammed a barrel on Vikund’s head, which stunned him for 8 seconds, during which the aggros then went after the casters, pulling healing off of Vikund who promptly died (because only Skronk’s undivided attention was keeping him alive), followed very quickly by the rest of the party.
Wipe.
We had had the presence of mind to have a soul stone up, so we got to revive there in the instance.
We decided just to give it another go, since Coren was at 5% when we wiped, so we felt if we could just tough it out he’d go down.
Skronk talked to Coren this time, the fight went well, Ursula showed up, the barrel went on Vikund’s head, and we wiped again.
We needed to do something different, but we were not sure what. We took a quick break to think.
Ula got ears while AFK - Note our smoke marker
For the first two fights we were arrayed around the room and any hostiles that got loose from Vikund’s AE damage were a serious distraction because there was no way Vikund could go reclaim them. So we decided to stay close together during the fight in the hope that this would minimize strays and keep things focused.
Quickly during the fight it was noted that Coren has his own AE attack, so the casters stepped back a bit, but stayed as close as they dared, and it all came together. The barrel went on Vikund’s head again, but everybody was close enough that he could get Coren’s aggro back once the stun passed, healing stayed on target, and Coren went down.
No nice mounts for us, but Bung got the Mithril Pocketwatch for his troubles, and we all got the achievement.
So we thought we had this dialed in. We had one more fight to go… and we wiped.
The same story as the first two tries, the barrel went on Vikund and the wheels came off.
If there had been the five of us, this fight would have been no problem, but with four we were on the edge of our abilities. Still, we got the achievement and a nice drop.
That did not take us very long, so we decided to run up stairs and get Bung the Jenkins title.
This took us two tries. The first time we ended up doing it in very much the Leeroy fashion, running around disorganized and never quite getting the 50 whelps killed during the 15 second window.
So we stepped out, reset the instance, went back, marked a spot to meet up again, then sent everybody out on a specific path to gather up some whelp to be brought to the center and killed only when we were all there to unleash the AE damage.
That worked out nicely. Bung got the achievement and the title.
And after that we were sort of done. We talked a bit about gear, as Bung was a bit concerned that Recount showed Vikund doing a lot higher DPS during the Coren fights than he was doing. Part of that was that Vikund got to AE a lot to hit all the adds. But the other part was that I have been trying to gear up Vikund a bit more using honor points and champion’s seals and whatever else to improve his damage output.
Which lead Bung, Skronk, and Vikund to go out and run a Wintergrasp before we called it a night. Those Wintergrasp weekly quests are the best source of honor ever.
We’ll see what we end up doing this coming Saturday. If Coren is still up on Saturday night, I figure we will take the opportunity for five more tries at him. Otherwise it will likely be the Caverns of Time: Culling of Stratholme on the agenda.
Or if Coren goes quickly, maybe both.
