Scowl Goes to Hellfire Ramparts

I believe this is the first time I’ve done a Burning Crusade instance before level 70, and my first one ever with a shadow Priest. This group consisted of myself (60 shadow Priest), unguilded Mooshyface (60 protection Paladin), Owsley (61 Rogue) of Damnbassadors, Archangle (60 shadow Priest) of Psych Ward, and Caleal (70 holy Priest) of Shadowed Soul. With a level 70 Priest and a pair of shadow Priests along for the ride, it would be interesting to see how low health bars would drop (if at all).

When I joined the group, Mooshyface asked in party chat, “what is cc”, and I had to grimace. So, another tank with no clue how the game works. I defined it as “crowd control”, and expected the matter to end. When he asked “and what’s that”, I thought about dropping out of the group.

Mooshyface is not a great tank…(good) Paladins are terrific at holding the aggro from multiple mobs, and Mooshyface wasn’t really able to do that. Luckily the other shadow Priest and I were able to help keep mobs off of each other by alternatively mind flaying one that was approaching us, while the other attempted to Mind Control. Approaching the first boss, we avoided several wipes in this matter. With our Vampiric DoTs at work, the health bars remained pretty stable. The Priest was able to focus on the tank the whole time. (And I must say, this is the first 5-man I’ve been in, where 4 of us were able to resurrect.)

We engaged Watchkeeper Gargolmar. The intent was to burn the adds down first. I figured it would be a good time to experiment. My first Mind Control was resisted, which really upset the Watcher. He charged me, but I got a second Mind Control on him. I tried to use a Heal on the tank, really not sure how well that worked out. I was able to put a Shadow Word: Pain on the boss. In the end we had to burn down the healers and then the boss. Watchkeeper Gargolmar dropped the Bracers of Finesse. At this point, Mooshyface left the group without explanation.

We got a new tank, Cardea (60 fury Warrior) of Unleashed. Not a proper protection tank, but it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t really paying attention and rounded the corner after the first boss…we hadn’t yet cleared those mobs, so we had a quick wipe. He apologized for thi, and we moved forward.

The trash pull with the group of Warlocks is one of the trickier pulls in the instance. We pulled them down the ramp, and there was just too much craziness going on. The much Fear, shifting line of sight issues, all of this resulted in a second wipe. We attempted the fight again, and it was smooth. Both of our shadow Priests were able to get Fears off, and I had a temporary Mind Control going. I think DPS was focused more on the tank target during this go than on the previous one. The second try was much more efficient.

Omor the Unscarred was tanked steadily by Cardea, and the shadow Priests were fueling the group’s health and mana. Incoming mana supply really helps during this fight, as some of the summoned Felhounds may end up draining mana supplies away. Omor burned very quickly and dropped the Garrote-String Necklace (needed by Cardea).

We quickly cleared to the final boss and began the encounter. Vazruden was engaged and we steadily brought him down. In my opinion, Cardea was extremely slow in picking up Nazan. The Nether Drake was already landed and got off a few attacks before the tank picked him up. Once Cardea was engaged on Nazan, Archangle and I finished burning down Vazruden. Fighting Nazan was trivial, as Cardea’s health bar remained quite steady. The Reinforced Fel Iron Chest dropped the Mok’Nathal Clan Ring (needed by Cardea) and the Kilt of Rolling Thunders (Scowl won the shard).

All in all, a good first experience for me instancing as a shadow Priest. The spell rotation is quiet a bit different, as I don’t have to continuously shield myself, and I can focus on getting DoTs to multiple targets. I’m anxious to experiment more with this in the future.

The damage output was the following:

January 20, 2008 | Filed Under Hellfire Ramparts, Instances, Journal 

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