Lower Blackrock Spire – Round 1

The instance group decided to put off any Outlands content for the time being and head into Lower Blackrock Spire for our next instance. We want to finish off the old instance content before delving into the new.

Plus, the experience rewards for pre-level 60 quests are pretty huge as I mentioned yesterday.

So in we went with the following lineup:

61 Warrior – Earlthecat
61 Warlock – Bungholio
61 Mage – Ula
61 Priest – Skronk
62 Paladin – Vikund

After last week Vikund was close enough to 62 that I had to run out and grab that level.

When accused of being a factionalist splitter and violating the principles of democratic centralism, I pointed out that I got Crusader Aura at 62, which gives a 20% speed boost to mounted travel for the whole group. Deemed an appropriate collectivist goal, we rode quickly together to Blackrock Spire.

Blackrock Spire itself? Very 3D, with some interesting decor choices.

Most instances tend to be, if not on a single plane, then at least on a fairly regular set of levels. Scholomance has stairs and such all over, but it is nice and regular, so you are unlikely to get lost.

Blackrock Spire is all sorts of platforms, stairs, ramps, and gaping holes in the floor. Seriously, it is like a Super Mario Brothers level at some points.

Not that being complex is bad, but it made for some “how do we get there?” moments.

And how did we do?

Sloppy.

We were very sloppy. As Ula pointed out early on in the evening, it is very hard to put on your best game when so many fights are walk-overs.

With our levels and equipment, we were a bit over powered for the zone.

Unlike Stratholme, where we were a tight, disciplined group, here were, sometimes literally, all over the map.

We were taking groups of four or five elites and AOE’ing them like they were normal mobs. We were rushing ahead without much care. We set off quest events without thinking. And, at one point I swear we were all running around looking for a ramp we could not find, and managed to get completely out of sight of one another.

And we got away with it. There were no full wipes

We started off by making sure we all had the full boat load of quests for Blackrock Spire. Then, once inside the instance, we picked up a few more. For some of us, this meant having to delete a quest every time there was a new one to share or pick up.

But once in, we ended up in the hunt for Urok Doomhowl. It was actually trying to find a ramp to get to him that got us all split up at one point. But we found it, fought our way through to the right location and, without thinking about it, kicked off the quest event that summons him.

And we nearly wiped.

We were there, with Highlord Omokk’s head and a pole to stick it on, and unsure as to what would happen when we stuck it Urok’s pathetic tribute pile. (Seriously, I thought it was his trash pile.)

Doing this sent wave after wave of ogre guards after us, which we went after in a very haphazard way. We were holding out for a while, then Urok finally showed up. Earl went down, then Skronk, then Bung.

The fight ended up being just Vikund and Ula at the end, though I did not even see Ula amongst all the ogre corpses on the floor. I thought for a moment that Vikund was just doing awesome DPS until the battle was over and I had to start ressing.

After cleaning up that mess, we had we had to plow through spiders, which was not so bad, except that we had to linger to finish off a quest. The spiders have an annoying AOE attack that sticks everybody in the group in place, no matter how far away from the group you are. (And, as usual for this instance, we got spread out again.)

Then we managed to set off another quest event, the wolves, without planning. Only a quick reminder from Skronk allowed most of us to finish off the Worg Pup quest. Ula missed out, which is a shame, because she is the pet collector in our group. We might have to go back for that. But we won, even after facing Gizrul, possibly the biggest wolf I’ve seen in WoW. The greenest too, in this picture.

Gizrul the Green

The wolf fight was also a bit galling because my hunter, Tistann, who has a wolf pet, needs to tame one of the worgs in LBRS to learn furious howl 4. However, to get in to this point and tame a wolf he has to find a group that will take him, sans pet, this far into the instance. An unlikely scenario. But the only alternative is to wait until he is at least level 62, when he can find a wolf with furious howl in the Outlands. At least I now know where they live in Blackrock Spire.

After a few more encounters, we managed to work out way around to the end fight, the encounter with Overlord Wyrmthalak, the big boss. Given our carelessness with events, we did this fight in a manner more in our usual mode. Of course, it is mostly a stand-up fight, with a couple of minions coming in mid-battle, so there was not much to mess up. We just ran in and started beating on him.

Overlord Wyrmthalak

Wyrmthalak’s only special ability is a knock-back that sends you flying surprisingly high. You can see Vikund sailing through the air.

It is a good thing that the place has high ceilings. While aloft, I was reminded of a verse from the song “Drill Ye Tarriers Drill,” a railroad song my grandfather used to sing:

And when next payday came around
Jim Gough a dollar short was found
When he asked, “What for?” came this reply
“You were docked for the time you were up in the sky”

Scenes from “A Hard Days Night” also came to mind.

You can see, down below Vik, one of Wyrmthalak’s minions coming to try to rescue him.

In the end though, Wyrmthalak was no match for us and we stood in his spot for our victory picture.

Group Shot

And so we were through Lower Blackrock Spire. We had Ula open a portal to Ironforge and we all flew out to Morgan’s Vigil in the Burning Steppes to turn in some of the quests, then road across the zone to turn in the rest.

Riding round up

Among the things that most of us ended up with were a pet spider from the quest En-Ay-Es-Tee-Why and a pet worg from Kibler’s Exotic Pets.

Still, some Blackrock Spire mysteries remain, such as what this inscription means:

And now we again have to decide what to do next. As overpowered as we were for LBRS, I do not think we can just blaze our way into the 10 man raid that is UBRS. With that off the list, the only instances we have not been in yet are Dire Maul East and North. Those may be our next target.

But after that, I think we are cleared for the Hellfire Ramparts in the Outlands.

Unless we have to go get Ula her Worg pup.