We decided to stay in old Azeroth for a little while longer, having the ambition to work our way through Uppper Blackrock Spire. Five of us in a ten person raid instance, that should be challenge enough to put the edge back in our play. So off we headed on Saturday night:
61 Warrior – Earlthecat
62 Warlock – Bungholio
62 Mage – Ula
62 Priest – Skronk
62 Paladin – Vikund
Of course, you cannot just stroll into Upper Blackrock Spire, or UBRS, without a key. And this key, it is actually The Seal of Ascension, requires a series of quests be completed before you are set posses it and can enter UBRS.
Fortunately last week we completed the first segment of the quest line, which required us to collect the unadorned seal of ascension, a random drop throughout Lower Blackrock Spire (I think we all ended up with one) and three gems which drop off of three bosses in LBRS, Omokk, Voone, and Wyrmthalak. Earl looted all of the gems, so he was to be the key master.
But before we continued on with getting access to UBRS, we though we might as well lay down the groundwork for other things, like Onyxia’s lair. So, just in case we blew through UBRS and killed Drakkisath, we thought we had better have that lined up. Plan for success!
That quest line requires a visit to Haleh in Winterspring. Haleh lives up on top of a snowy peak. You can get to her by fighting through a bunch of mobs in a cave, or you can climb the mountain.
We chose the mountain. Up to a point it is easy. We could see her from here:
Then there was just a little issue of getting across the valley between us and her and we were set. You cannot quite jump it.
So we had to scramble up a narrow gap, which too some Mario-like jumping around to accomplish.
We were advised not to step in the blue circle. That is the teleport back to the cave of nastiness, through which you are supposed to travel to meet up with her. The cave we had avoided.
Once set on that quest, we took a portal back to Ironforge and headed out to Blackrock Spire. We had to get in to LBRS and find the quest mob, Vaelan, to continue the access quest for UBRS.
We fought our way into LBRS and right past Vaelan. He is off in a pretty well hidden side passage. We did find one of the Lunar Festival elders, Elder Stonefort, there in LBRS. He probably isn’t getting very many visits.
We fought our way to Stonefort, then past him before we figured we had gone too far. In the picture above, Vaelan is behind us, to the left, and up on a platform.
We managed to get to him after some running around.
He gave Earl a couple of items and sent us off to find Emberstrife out in the Wyrmbog district of Dustwallow Marsh.
The task for us was to beat down Emberstrife until we got an emote from him that his will had weakened. Then Earl had to use one of the items Vaelan gave him, the Orb of Draconic Energy, to take control of Emberstrife. Then, he had to use one of Emberstrife’s flame attacks to forge the Seal of Ascension.
Sounds easy, right?
Well, it took us a while.
The first time out, in our zeal, we just killed Emberstrife. Oops.
Then, when he finally repopped, we managed to hold back on killing him and let Earl get control, but then the dynamic of which of Emberstrife’s abilities to use and when to use it on the unforged seal of ascension became the trick. You only get five shots at it. Here Earl has him under his control:
Due to a computer crash and just plain bad luck, we blew our first five and had to go all the way back to Vaelan to refresh the quest for another five shots. Of course, by that point, some of the stuff in LBRS had respawned.
So we killed a few things, got back to Vaelan, got restarted the quest, the headed back out to Dustwallow.
This time we got it in three tries.
And then we had to head back to LBRS, clear out a few more respawns, and speak with Vaelan. This time we were set. He gave Earl the Seal of Ascension. We were cleared for UBRS.
Unfortunately, all this running around took a bit longer than we thought, so we decided not to try to conquer LBRS just then.
Still, we had to at least check if the seal worked.
Once you’re in LBRS, the door either is open or not. So the instance had to be reset and we had to clear our way to the door to LBRS, but once there, it opened right up.
We decided to test the first room.
The patrols were easy enough, but inside there are several side rooms that need to be cleared, each with five or so elites. Here we managed to wipe.
LBRS will not be a push-over, certainly. It will take all of our skill and discipline to vanquish it.
But we are all set to try now!
The Ancient Gaming Noob 