A Time for Heroes

We only had four of us online again on Saturday night, too few to attempt a Northrend instance.  So it was back to the Outlands for our little group.

75 Priest – Skronk
75 Warlock – Bungholio
75 Mage – Ula
75 Paladin – Vikund

We thought we might try out one of the heroic instances this time around, since we discovered that whole flamewrought key thing.  Vikund, the only holder of such a key, was made leader of the group (danger!) and we went off to the first Heroic instance on the list, Hellfire Ramparts.

We remembered we could fly there much sooner than last week and made our way to the entrance.  There I switched the intsance setting to “Heroic” and was rewarded with a visible change:  The normal instance swirl has a skull in the middle of it when set to heroic.  Cool.

Then people tried to enter the instance and failed.  It seems that everybody has to have a flamewrought key to get in.

Ula Jumps Through The Skull

So back to Honor Hold to buy more keys.

Once properly equipped we headed in.  The first fight went well, but after that we got into some trouble.  Being equipped with Northrend gear, our damage output seemed to be well suited to the instance, but the damage output of the NPCs was surprisingly high for creatures in the low 70s.  It took us a wipe and a few deaths before we got ourselves in a good pulling/healing/killing routine.  We took great care to avoid adds.

I would like to note, at this point, how grateful I am that the paladin spell exorcism works on all mobs and not just undead and demons (as of the 3.1 patch).  Being able to pull mobs without walking up to them for a proximity pull is life changing for a pally.  Shame about the PvP nerf.  Of course, I don’t PvP with my pally.

Anyway, we hit our stride about the time we were clearing the area for the first boss, Watchkeeper Gargolmar.  The fight with him was not much worse than some of the groups we had faced previously and he went down without much drama.

Is that all you've got?

Go us!

After Gargolmar there is the slog through to the other two bosses.  We managed that without too much drama.  One bad pull made for some excitement and a dead gnome, but we soon sat on the platform that leads to Omor the Unscarred and Vazruden and his dragon mount Nazan.

The last time we we through Hellfire Ramparts,  Omor we managed in one pass while Vazruden took four tries to slay, so we thought we would try Omor first.

In a parallel of our last dance with Omor, the tank went down late in the fight, but our DPS output was enough to power through and win the day on the first try.  Which left us with Vazruden.

Vazruden is an event that is kicked off by attacking his guards.  He is flying around on the back of Nazan when you start.  Once his guards are down, he comes down and attacks.  And, after you chop him down a bit, his dragon pal Nazan, who has been fire bombing you throughout the fight with Nazan, lands and joins in as well.

The guards were no problem.  Vazruden himself wasn’t that big of a deal.  Nazan and his fire bombs however caused some problems.  He drops them and you have to make sure you step out of where they land as they continue to burn there for a while.  We failed to step lively on our first run and put too much strain on the healer and down we went.  Only Ula was saved when she ran out the instance exit that is close by.

Nazan's flaming droppings

So we got ourselves back together and tried it again, this time avoiding the flaming blobs on the ground and we did much better.

The Moment of Victory

With that came the all important achievement.

And the traditional last boss victory shot.

Nazan Defeated

After which Ula skinned him and we ran over to the chest that contains the loot from the encounter.

All of the items in the chest were mail.  This is the grand tradition of our group, which consists of two plate wearers and three cloth wearers:  Leather and mail drops.

One of us needs to do enchanting so we can disenchant all these drops.

I bid “need” on the kilt, thinking that it might actually look like a kilt when worn.  I thought perhaps I might get a look like an EverQuest barbarian, but it turned out to be an ankle length skirt.  Bleh.

Still, as a diversion, something to do on a night when we were down a player, it was all pretty fun.  And even if the drops had been all plate and cloth I am not sure they would be worth wearing compared to our green Northrend gear.

Heroic Instance? Done It!

Earl should be back this weekend so it will probably be time for a shot at Ahn’kahet.