Friday, March 12, 2010

The Violet Hold (Dungeon)

Brieanna ran the Violet Hold today. The Violet Hold (previously known as Dungeons of Dalaran) is a prison complex located in Dalaran. It is the third instance to be located within the bounds of a capital city (after the Stormwind Stockade and Orgimmar's Ragefire Chasm).

Brieanna ran through this twice today, once on normal to get familiar with it then again on Heroic. We didn't have any problems on either run. Once the instance starts, there are portals that open, one after the other. Each time one opens it releases invaders of the blue dragonflight. They are trying to destroy the hold's defenses and get out into Dalaran to destroy that.

You really don't have any time between portals but you do get a little time to mana up and get ready after each of the bosses that come out.

Every so often a boss will be released from their "cell". You will fight three bosses, the first two being randomly selected from the following list:
You will always have to fight Cyanigosa as the third boss.

I found this instance to be pretty easy in both normal and heroic modes. Like I said, we had no problems whatsoever. It is a lower level instance, green to me, and the people that were in there were my level to 5 levels below on normal and level 80 in heroic.

Daily Fishing - Blood is Thicker 3/11/10

Today when Brieanna went to see Marcia Chase (53,65), by the fountain in Dalaran, for her daily fishing quest she got Blood Is Thicker. This one requires a little travel time.

This had me taking the flight path from Dalaran to Unu'pe. Once in Unu'pe I fly inland until I find a Marsh Caribou to kill so I get overed in blood. You can kill any of the animals the Druids protect to get covered in blood. Once I was covered in blood I flew back to the shore and jumped in. That washed the blood off me and created a blood pool. I fished in the blood pool until I caught 5 Bloodtooth Frenzy.

I hearthed back to Dalaran and went to see Marcia. When I hearth to Dalaran I end up at Cantrips and Crows Tavern in the Underbelly, so I just had to run up top to see her. I turned the 5 Bloodtooth Frenzy over to her and she gave me a Bag of Fishing Treasures for my trouble. Today it had 10g48s80c, 3 Pygmy Oil and an Unusual Compass in it. Not a great day of fishing but that is Ok, because the other day I finally got the Jeweled Fishing Pole and that makes up for a lot of bad day's of fishing.

Cheese for Glowergold - Daily Cooking 3/11/10

Today Katherine Lee (41,65), the Grand Master Cooking Trainer in the kitchen of A Hero's Welcome, had Cheese for Glowergold for Brieanna's daily cooking quest. This one uses none of my mats and although I find the Half Full Dalaran Wine Glasses hard to target is one of the ones I like better because it uses none of my mats.

This has me running around Dalaran picking up Half Full Dalaran Wine Glasses. I got 3 of them today before I even left A Hero's Welcome, I got the other 3 at the Cantrips and Crows Tavern in the Underbelly. When I had all the wine glasses I needed I headed back up to One More Glass to get the piece of Aged Dalaran Limburger this quest calls for. I combined those on the platter to make a wine and cheese platter.

I took the wine and cheese platter over to Ranid Glowergold (36,28) at the Leatherworkers in the Magus Commerce Exchange and exchanged it for 9g93s, a Dalaran Cooking Award and a Small Spice Bag with 4 Northern Spices in it. An Ok haul today.

The Pit of Saron (Dungeon)

The Pit of Saron is the second Dungeon in the attunement process for the Halls of Reflection.

Brieanna did some runs through this Dungeon today. I ran it a few times on normal to get familiar with it, then ran through it on heroic. After that I ran through it a couple more times on normal. We had one wipe, due to a healer not being able to keep up. The weird thing about that is it happened on a normal run, not heroic. I would think if we were going to wipe it would have been on the heroic run. Anyway a message box popped up saying we were voting to remove the healer from the group, yes or no. I felt really bad about it but clicked yes and he was removed. We got another healer in and finished without a problem. We were on the last boss when that happened.

This Dungeon, as the name suggests, in in a pit, a quarry. There are 3 main bosses you have to defeat along with a bunch of other mobs. Forgemaster Garfrost is the first boss you have to defeat. You fight some elite trash mobs to get to him. This guy throws a lot of frost spells and Saronite boulders at you and has one frost spell that stacks. You can get rid of the stacking frost spell by running behind a rock that is there and letting the timer on it run out. He runs over at various times and makes new weapons during the fight also. Deadly Boss Mobs for Dungeons is a must have when running instances. It goes are far as telling you he is going to throw the boulder at you, move.

After fighting some more elite trash mobs you come to Krick and Ick. This is a Gnome riding on the back of a Plague Eruptor. This guy has a few tricks up his sleeve including Toxic Waste, Mighty Kick, Pursuit and Pursuit Confusion, when Krick confuses Ick by changing his mind too often, along with a few others. Basically you need to keep moving and running around while fighting this boss.

The last boss you are going to meet up with, after fighting more trash mobs and running up a tunnel that is collapsing, is Scourgelord Tyrannus. When you are running up the tunnel to get to him there are giant chunks of ice falling from the ceiling. You can see where these are going to land from circles that show up on the ground, similar to the circle for an AoE, just avoid those areas. You will also encounter mobs on the way, run with them until you get to a disc in the floor about half way up, you will know it when you see it. That is a "safe zone", nothing will fall on that. That is where you kill the mobs you picked up on the way up to that point. You can heal up there after the fight, then make the run to the end of the tunnel. Kill the rest of the mobs you picked up right at the opening to the tunnel. If you out of the tunnel you will aggro the last boss.

Now you are at the last boss, Scourgelord Tyrannus. He is mounted on his Frostbrood Wyrm, Rimefang. He gives a big speech then dismounts to fight. Rimefang also gets involved in the fight with Icy Blast and a couple other spells. Scourgelord Tyrannus has a few tricks of his own, one of which is Overlords Brand. Basically when you have the brand on you don't do any damage or healing as the damage will all go directly to his target and all healing will heal him. That lasts about 10 seconds or so, not sure on the time, hard to judge time when you are fighting. Once he is down you are done. You will receive any achievements and rewards, emblems and such, at that time. Completing this completed my attunement process for the Halls of Reflection.

All in all this is a pretty fun Dungeon and I will run it a few more times as there is a gun that drops on normal this is slightly better than what I have right now.