Return to the Crowd Pummeler

The group didn’t really align itself over the past weekend, so we spent some time doing quests in smaller groups.  On Saturday Fergorin and Alioto finished off they elite quests in Duskwood and Alioto got to 30, so we have a backup healer close in levels to the group.

Had to wait a bit for Morbent Fel

Earl, Skronk, Ula, and I also spent some time on as alts, first chasing down some basilisks in the Charred Vale for a mage quest and then just running around leveling up a bit out in Loch Modan.

Trying to flee from our wipe… it didn’t work

Come Sunday it seemed possible that there might be a big enough group for a try at the next Scarlet Monastery instance at some point, but as the day wore on into evening, we could only scrape together three of us.  Our small group consisted of:

• Viniki – level 32 gnome warrior
• Skronk – level 32 dwarf priest
• Moronae – level 32 night elf druid

That makes up the holy trinity of WoW groups, but it is a little light on the DPS front.  Also, it was getting a little late to start on a big new endeavor.  I have a rule about not starting anything new after 8pm on work nights, built on a long history of kicking of something small that ends up keeping me up well past my bed time.

But I did have one idea, a scheme that would either be short or extremely short, depending how well we did.  So I brought up that now tired name, I said, “Gnomeregan.”

Gnomeregan Establishing Shot

We weren’t going to do the whole thing.  Even I wasn’t that mad.  But I figured it was worth a shot to go in the back door and see if we couldn’t get to the Crowd Pummeler 9-60.  He had denied us that two handed mace, the Manual Crowd Pummeler, that Moronae had be looking for.  In three attempts the Crowd Pummeler had dropped the leather boots each time.

Also, at this point, I was taking a bit of perverse joy in returning to Gnomer yet again, it being such an unloved instance.

If we were good enough getting to the Crowd Pummeler wouldn’t take too long.  And if we were not good enough, well, that would take even less time unless we chose to bang our collective heads against a wall a few times.  So we met up in Ironforge and trotted on down the road to Gnomer.

Getting to the back door was a bit of a pain.  As it turns out, past 7pm Pacific Time on a Sunday night isn’t a popular time to run Gnomer.  Every possible mob that could lay between us and the back door was up and awake while the tunnels were just narrow enough that we couldn’t avoid an ongoing slog through trash mobs.

All the leper gnomes came out to play

Still, trash is just trash.  It took us a bit to chop through it all, but we made it to the back door, opened it up.

The door rises

On the far side was out first challenge, a pair of elites and a couple of non-elites around them, the Gnomer special.

The first hurdle past the side door

It was time to put our little group to the test.  I chose the flamethrower mech as the first target.  We got ourselves buffed.  Then I did the pull.

Getting straight to the point, we won.  And pretty convincingly.  I was able to hold most of the aggro, Skronk kept me healed, and Moronae shredded each target in turn in cat form.  The main annoyance was the occasional wrench throwing non-elite that would fixate on Skronk in the middle of the pack.  But otherwise it seemed like we could get through to the Crowd Pummeler.

Battling our way into Gnomer

There were a few tense moments and a couple of lucky pulls, like the time another pair of elites waiting walked just far enough apart that I was able to pull one but not the other.  Eventually though we made our way around and stood just up the tunnel from the Crowd Pummeler.  Would we be able to take him down?

We can see the Crowd Pummeler across the way

Once we were ready I pulled him back into the tunnel, if only to constrain the space in which he could toss us around.

As I said with the last run into Gnomer… or was it the one before… it is much easier to deal with one big mob than a crowd, both when you’re healing and when you are tanking.  And aside from the knock-back, the Crowd Pummeler doesn’t do anything special.

Facing the Crowd Pummeler

The fight was over pretty quickly, and we sent Moronae up to check the loot.

Checking for the pummeler

And… it was the leather boots again.  Fourth time in a row for that drop.

That was a let down.  But it didn’t take us all that long to get to the Crowd Pummeler, so we decided to run back out the way we came, reset the instance, then try again.

Back in the instance we managed to move back through again.  The three of us at level 32 seemed capable of handling each encounter.  Our first run was not a fluke.  It was just the usual dangers of the place.

Have to kill that alarm bot before anybody hears him

In not too much time we were back at the Crowd Pummeler again for another shot.  As with the first fight, the second went very smoothly with just the three of us.  When he was down Moronae once again went to check the loot status.

Here we are again!

And this time it was the Manual Crowd Pummeler that dropped.

Manual Crowd Pummeler stats

There are only three charges for that increased attack speed, which didn’t show up when I clicked the linked weapon.  But even without that it is a hard hitting mace, and has a reasonably distinct look.

Moronae out of cat form with the Manual Crowd Pummeler

That was what we came for, so it was time to head home.

Stoning out of Gnomer again

So maybe that was our last run into Gnomer.  It has equipped the group pretty well, with the Acidic Walkers and the Electromagnetic Gigaflux Reactivator hats having dropped a couple of times each.  Still, I wouldn’t mind a Manual Crowd Pummeler for my retribution pally.  We shall see.