Seeking the Hydrocane

We returned to Gnomeregan few times, back when we were doing Gnomeregan, in search of a couple of specific drops.  Moronae, for example, wanted the Manual Crowd Pummeler drop from the Crowd Pummeler 9-60.

Moronae with the Manual Crowd Pummeler

Having moved some levels beyond Gnomer, I figured I wouldn’t be going back.  But then I wanted to wrap up some of the Mirage Raceway and Stranglethorn Vale quests, which include a couple of underwater runs in the Vile Reef off the coast.

I gave it a try with Tistann, but the time limit for being under water was pretty restrictive.  WoW Classic is hard mode these days when compared to retail.  I thought, perhaps, I could work around the underwater issue with water breathing.  Warlocks have the spell, but I didn’t have one handy to keep it on me.  Water breathing potions are a thing, but I was not inclined to waste cash at the auction house buying them.  But I remembered that the first real boss in Gnomeregan dropped the Hyrdrocane, a staff with water breathing as an attribute.

The Hydrocane

All I would have to do is run into Gnomeregan, get to the Viscous Fallout, that first real boss, slay it, and loot.  The odds were not bad for the drop and Skronk had been talking about rogues sneaking in to farm the Viscous Fallout for the dagger drop.  So in I went.

It isn’t too far into the instance even.  You just zone in and run to the edge of the of the pit in the Hall of Crafters.  It is visible from the entrance.  Just watch for the mob that runs past that spot… though he is non-elite… and even if he was elite, you’re here to kill a boss so you had better be able to take on a single elite.

Gnomeregan Map segment from Retail WoW

From there you just jump from the ledge onto a big gear down below.  The fall knocks you down to about half health, but that isn’t so bad.

You can see the top of the gear from here

The Viscous Fallout wanders around down there.

A picture from later in the story, but you get the idea

You just get him alone, easy enough, and take him down.  My first run in went very smoothly.

Unfortunately, he dropped the Acidic Walkers instead of the Hydrocane.  And then I had to get back out.

I could, of course, stone out.  But that is a once-per-hour thing.  I decided to see if I could just blast my way out.  Rogues have stealth to solve this problem, but a hunter with a pet… you are not very stealthy and your pet is bouncing around a bit so you cannot slip past mobs.

So I tried to do a runner and died.  Even gray elite can bring you down if there are enough of them.  So I ran back to the instance, revived, then stepped out again to reset the instance.  Once reset, I ran back in and did it again.

With the same result.  Acidic Walkers.

So I fought my way out more slowly this time.  It took a bit, but I got out safely, reset the instance, and did it again.  Acidic Walkers again.

Finally, on the sixth try I got the Hydrocane.  I had already trained staves on Tistann, so I could wield it, I just needed to run on back to the Vile Reef to finish things off.  Worked like a champ, especially since I didn’t have to fight with it, taking on the murlocs at range with my gun.

Later I had Viniki with the same set of quests.  Again, I figured the Hydrocane would be a good choice.  I had even learned a thing or two from my first runs.  Also, being small and without a pet wandering around him, he was able to bypass a lot of the mobs, and simply absorb hits from others being a warrior and all.

Viniki slips past the troggs with ease

It was a good thing that I learned a few thing, as it took even more tries this time around.  Viniki had four Acidic Walkers and two daggers drop before he got the Hydrocane.

Hydrocane in the loot finally

From that set of runs I learned that if you try to reset an instance more than instances more than five times in an hour the game will stop you and make you wait for a while.  Ah well.

And then he had to go train staves and skill it up because to use it under water he would have to equip it as his weapon.  There was some work in that, but it ended up doing the job.

So when Wilhelm, my paladin was at level 38 and looking at the Vile Reef quests my mind immediately went to the Hydrocane.  I figured he could manage getting in at level 38, so I flew him to Ironforge and ran out to Gnomer for another run.

Like Viniki, he was able to slip past the troggs on the way in by running up the rail outside the instance.  Once in, he went to the edge of the pit and jumped in.  The Viscous Fallout rolled by him and he took it down and, on the first try, he got the Hydrocane!  Mission accomplished.  No need to worry about sneaking out, he could just stone home.

Once he recalled back to Stromwind I ran over to the weapon trainer.  I needed to train up staves and get Wil working on skilling that up, when I tumbled over a fact I should have remembered.  Paladins cannot train staves.

I don’t know why.

As I complained to Skronk in chat, a paladin can train polearms.  Those are pretty much sticks with a blade attached to the end.  Wil’s weapon even then was a polearm.  And a stave is pretty much a stick without the blade bit.  But I guess paladins need that sharp bit to get things done.

So he ran out to Vile Reef and did the quests the hard way, holding his breath, diving down, then rushing back up to the surface.  It didn’t take too long.  Less time that it would have taken to do eight runs at the Viscous Fallout most likely, as I had done with Viniki.  But it is still nice to have the water breathing on hand, just in case.

And I was able to stop Skronk from wasting his time trying to get the Hydrocane with his pally.  Or anymore time.  He’s already gone zero for four trying to get it as a drop.  Lessons learned.

I was thinking about Alioto, my druid, who might be doing those quests some day soon.  With cat form he could stealth on out of Gnomer.  But druids also have aquatic form, so maybe he won’t need it.