Instance night started off on something of a bad foot last Saturday night. As 9pm approached we found that logging into World of Warcraft was not possible. We all got stuck at the “Authenticating” message, though once or twice I hit “Handshaking” and then sat there until the connection timed out.
I foolishly went to the Blizzard support forums and got the message that the server was too busy.
The server that runs the support forum, that is. Every time there is a hiccup in-game, in gets slammed.
After a few attempts I managed to get in and saw more than a few threads with the word “authenticating” in the title, indicating that we were far from alone in this issue.
After about 20 minutes things were set to rights and we, along with all of the other desperate masses, were able to log in.
Of course, that did not stop somebody from starting a “Class Action Lawsuit” threat in the Blizzard support forums. There is at least one in every crowd, and since the WoW crowd is so big, you get multiples. The last I saw the person who started the thread was being shouted down pretty unanimously. Still, that sort of thing makes your head want to pop.
Meanwhile, back in the game, we decided to head towards The Temple of Atal’Hakkar, otherwise known as The Sunken Temple. We talked a little bit about going back to Maraudon for a farming run, but decided to press on to Sunken Temple. While we did not have all of the quests for the instance lined up, everybody had their level 50 class quest ready to go, so we headed on down to the Swamp of Sorrows. Our group:
50 Warlock – Bungholio
51 Priest – Skronk
51 Mage – Ula
52 Warrior – Earlthecat
52 Paladin – Vikund
We headed on into Sunken Temple to knock off everybody’s class quests, three of which had the same set of objectives (voodoo feathers) and two of which required the death of somebody named Morphaz. And, while we were there, we thought we might as well knock over Jammal’an the Prophet for another quest, then probably call it a night.
And we did very well in accomplishing our goals.
Of course, there were trolls, undead, and dragon kin all about coming for us.
Target marked behind
But we slew all who opposed us. Ula did get killed once in a hot fight where she ended up with a bit too much aggro, but that was our only death in the pusuit of our goals. (After reading the post on paladin blessings on Blessing of Kings, I think we might be able to solve that with some better buffing by me.)
We got in and killed the guardians Gasher, Hukku, Loro, Mijan, Zolo, and Zul’lor (which seems to be Luzor spelled sideways) who, in total, dropped all the feathers needed by Bung, Earl, and myself for our class quest.
We then cleared our way to Jammal’an the Prophet, though clearing out the area before the altar where Jammal’an lives is about as tricky as clearing out the cathedral in Scarlet Monastery, so we were extra careful. Fear wards are highly recommended and we cursed the designer at Blizzard who put a 30 second cool-down on that priest spell.
The fight with Jammal’an went well. At a couple of points he turned Earl into some sort of monstrous minion who would then turn and beat on me for a while.
But if that was Jammal’an’s ace in the hole, it was found wanting. At the end, we were the ones still standing.
Fighting the Jam
We slew him, took his head for our quest, and let the squishy casters roll out over the Gloves of the Atal’ai Prophet that he dropped. Then, having slain our main boss target for the night, we took a picture on his altar.
Post alltar-cation
(Note that some of us are wearing the new Twilight Cadre tabbard. It is IWW chic.)
But we had to move on. We still had Morphaz to eliminate.
As we headed out of Jammal’an’s annex to get to Morphaz, we found Dreamscythe and Weaver, two dragons, flying around the center circle of Sunken Temple. The apparently spawn on the death of Jammal’an.
So in what may have been my first real dragon fight in WoW, we pulled them one at a time off to a corridor and slew them. (Okay, yes, real dragon fights take 40 people 6 hours in pre-cataclysm Norrath, but this is probably as close as I am going to get these days.) Here we are taking on Dreamscythe. Or Weaver. They looked pretty much alike, so it is hard to tell.
Dragon fire on!
Having cleared them away (Dreamscythe only dropped some leather gloves, continuing our roll of back luck with drops that started when all of the guardians dropped either leather or mail items) we went down the hall and took on Morphaz and his sidekick Hazzas, who are also dragons and who look remarkably like Dreamscythe and Weaver. Okay, I understand the concept of art asset reuse, but come on Blizzard, four identical named dragons in a space of 100 yards?
Despite the fact that Morphaz and Hazzas came as a pair, we took care of them and wrapped up our last goal for the evening. Everybody’s class quest had been completed.
Then we looked up the hall and saw another dragon, sleeping peacefully.
We thought we might go in and wake him up. Sure, he was level 55, but we were on a roll. So we started in on him.
And then we learned/were reminded that every mob left in the area comes to help old Eranikus when you attack him. So while we started out well, not too far into the fight a good half dozen dragon kin rolled in and kicked the spit out of us. Complete wipe, no chance of anything else. Here we are, dead again.
Another wipe for the books
As more of a challenge than any real hope of continuing the fight, once the other mobs left the room, Skronk used the soul stone, revived, the proceeded to bring us all back to life. We formed back up and headed out under our own power, kicking in the teeth of a couple hapless mobs we ran across. Honor restore, we declared victory and Ula opened up a portal to Ironforge.
From there we all flew off, turned in our class quests and called it a night.
So our first venture into Sunken Temple went pretty well. We still have some quests to collect, bosses to slay, and, of course, a score to settle with Eranikus.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 