With the release of the final installment of Wrath Classic it was time for the instance group to get back together and face the final three dungeons.
As foretold, the fall of the Lich King
Once we got all got patched up and addons updated and online, it was time to head off to the first of the final three dungeons of the expansion which came in with the last big patch, the Forge of Souls.
There was actually a quest giver in Dalaran who sent us out to the instance, though it was actually finding the instance that was the trick. The quest turn-in is inside the instance, so you don’t get a nice marker on the map to guide you.
I remembered it was somewhere off to the side of the main structure of Icecrown Citadel, but it took a bit of flying about before I finally found the right path in.
It is kind of there, at the upper right
I was ahead of the pack and got there, then tried to describe how to get there with some difficulty. I did manage to get Potshot to the right place, though it was difficult with Beanpole because he was in a different phase than us. I suspect the Argent Tournament dailies, which cause you to enter a different phase in that area, were to blame.
We solved the phasing problem with Beanpole by jumping into one of the instances, though there are three to choose from around the summoning stone. They all have gates blocking them, but none of the gates were locked. Were some locked back in the day? I don’t recall.
Anyway, the Forge of Souls is the one on the left as you face them.
Once there we were able to summon Ula.
At the summoning stone… Forge of Souls on the left
Once inside, there was Jaina Proudmore, ready to accept our quest turn in, hand us a new quest, and monologue for a bit.
Jaina telling us about the situation
She kept going on even as we set about to the tasks needed to get ready for the dungeon.
Don’t mind this Jaina, we’re still listening, we promise…
Once setup, we headed on into the instance, which is kind of neat looking, being made up of metal grate ramps and in curves and loops and all.
Into the main part of the instance
But it also isn’t a very big instance.
Forge of Souls map
You can see both Questie objectives and the new built-in quest objectives that came in with the last patch marking up my map.
We had no problem with the trash mobs along the way up to the first boss, Bronjahm, who is a tribute boss to James Brown. Who else would be in the Forge of Souls besides the Godfather of Soul?
Anyway, we made it to him and, willing to just roll with it, we said “There he is, get him!” and went in after him.
There he is, up there
That did not start off very well. Bronjahm has a big AOE attack that he sends you fleeing through and the ranged DPS, which is all of our DPS, ended up standing in the AOE damage and dying pretty quickly, leaving only myself, the paladin tank, and Fergorin, the paladin healer, left in the fight.
We just got right up on Bronjahm and started chipping away at him, getting feared every so often but then just running back.
Bronjahm and his attack
We just stood on him and kept ourselves healed up and slowly but surely wore him down. I did end up using lay hands towards the end of the fight as mana and health was starting to dwindle, but that is what it is there for. I completely forgot about… as usual… Divine Plea, which restores mana and reduces damage taken. Somehow we got through it and defeated Bronjahm.
Then, once we had restored the rest of the part to life, checked out the loot. Bjorid, our hunter, got the mail bracers that dropped and we all rolled on the bad that came with the loot. But we were not all that impressed with it.
Not the best bag
By this point Ula, who has tailoring and enchanting as trade skills, had us well supplied with 20 slot bags, so one more wasn’t much of a boon. Looking at the loot table, you can also get Papa’s Brand New Bag, which is 22 slots. That would have been more impressive.
So would the weapon he was wielding in his model.
Nice scythe
That got us on a side discussion about mobs actually dropping things that they appeared to be wielding, something that hasn’t been the case since early EverQuest… and even then it wasn’t true most of the time.
From there it was on to the next boss, the Devourer of Souls. The trash in between didn’t slow us much, so we were there pretty quickly.
There he is…
As with the previous boss, we decided to just have at it and see if we could figure it out as we went.
We did not do nearly as well this time. Treating it like a tank and spank, max DPS fight ended up with us all dead on the floor before much time went by.
Beanpole was the last to go
That meant getting everybody back to the instance, which involved some navigation to get us all to the right spot in ICC again.
That also meant a trip to the web to see what we were facing. There were attacks we needed to avoid by moving, such as that bright beam in the screen shot above, and times when we needed to stop our damage output because it was being reflected back onto one of us.
I had to make sure that my cast bars addon was running, so these incoming attacks were visible on my screen in large enough letters for me to read, then we went at the Devourer of Souls once more… and won.
The achievement
The loot was the Sollerets of Suffering, some plate boots that were an upgrade to my tanking gear. (As opposed to my PvP gear.)
Meanwhile, Jaina and a bunch of alliance troops showed up just as we were done to pat themselves on the back for having helped. Jaina even got in there with our team for our group picture.
She is our pal now, but will she remember us later?
We also turned in the instance quest with her and got the quest for the next instance, the Pit of Saron. These last three dungeons are able to be run as a chain, with a portal being opened up at the end of one that will take you straight to the next.
However, we had hit time for the day, so we put off the next dungeon until later. But we have one down, so two more to go.
This is actually the first time we did the Forge of Souls… or any of these three dungeons… as part of Wrath of the Lich King content. The last time we did it, Cataclysm was already done and Mists of Pandaria had already arrived (it was November of 2013), so we were doing it… at close to level… as a warm up for the new content, so had whatever class changes… and likely a few gear upgrades… from the new expansion.
That time we did the first two of the dungeons in one go, then came back later for the third.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 