After the last couple of weeks of doing crafting focused runs with the group, I had a related request of my own. Having collected six stacks of Dark Iron ore, I was ready to learn how to smelt it down into bars for crafting. The NPC that teaches you that skill lives in Blackrock Depths. Seems logical enough. So I wanted to take a run into the instance to learn that, then maybe loop back around and smelt what I had. That would take us pretty deep into the instance, but no further than we had managed on past runs.
Blackrock Depths map
The NPC who teaches the skill is in the Summoner’s Tomb, location 18 on the map above. That would also put us next to the Lyceum, location 19, which had thwarted us in the past. Given that we had no other plan for the day, everybody agreed. Skronk even suggested that we might take another stab at the Lyceum since we would be there. Based on past experience, I was feeling dubious about the idea, but we’d be there, so why not?
Our group for the run was:
- Viniki – level 59 gnome warrior
- Moronae – level 59 night elf druid
- Ula – level 59 gnome mage
- Skronk – level 58 dwarf priest
We met up outside of Blackrock Mountain because I was impatient and was already there. I was also hunting around for a bit more Dark Iron ore, which does spawn occasionally in Searing Gorge.
Meeting up, cats out
Then it was the usual run in. You can see that I have a “BRD11” as the prefix for the names of the images in this post. Once of my habits is to try and do that to keep images from a post together and identifiable as such. It also points to my native pessimism in that I zero padded the prefixes for Blackrock Depths just in case we went past nine runs. Here we are at run eleven.
We have learned something of the efficient ways into the place, and which mobs we can bypass with some care. We don’t need to take that last group in the room that has the bridge/gate control, though we did get a nice bit of loot from one of the groups we did have to take.
Purple Loot!
That looks to be a druid bear tanking staff if I were to guess. We’ll see what Ula gets for it at the auction house, as she won the roll for it.
Also along the way, in between General Angerforge (13) and Golem Lord Arglemach (14) we can slip past most of the mobs in the room by carefully jumping up on the ramp bannister and running down that into the manufactory.
Just an easy jump to avoid that fire elemental group
Through the manufactory you have to take one big group or another, as well as the wanderers, but once you get one group down you can skirt along the wall and avoid the other. Then it is a couple more fire elemental groups and you’re into the Grim Guzzler (15).
We had done the quest to get the back door open already, so we now just speak to an NPC and they open it up and go off to do whatever it is they get up to when we’ve passed.
We took a good deal of care with the groups outside the Grim Guzzler. We had wiped in the past due to line of sight issues and aggro mistakes. But we managed to take them down.
From there it is on to Ambassador Flamelash, which is always a bit of a chore, mostly because we never remember how the fight goes until it is too late. Skronk got killed by the adds, but got a combat ress from Moronae and we finished off the fight successfully.
From there we actually got the rare roll, Panzor the Invincible in the golem factory. We pulled him safely out of the room and took him down.
Panzor is actually vincible
He didn’t have anything anybody needed… what use is a rare like that… but Moronae was along to disenchant after last week, so there it all went.
We made it through the golem room successfully, which put us in the Summoner’s Tomb. Time for me to do my quest. You speak to Gloom’rel, the first dwarf on the right, who summons a chalice.
Gloom’rel and his chalice
Then you put the quest items into the chalice; 2 star rubies, 10 bars of truesilver, and 20 bars of gold.
The quest requires it
And then you speak to Gloom’rel again… don’t forget this part… and you learn how to smelt Dark Iron ore.
I just wasn’t ready for the ratio of ore to bars. It is eight Dark Iron ore per bar. I was going to need more ore to make anything, since I only had seven bars worth of ore.
That done, we kicked off the even in the room and slaughtered the seven dwarves, one by one. That went pretty smoothly.
The dwarven remains
At that point my goal was accomplished. But now the door to the Lyceum was open, so it was time to go examine our options once more.
Once again Skronk was able to use mind vision to scout out the location of the NPCs carrying the torches we would need. They were both along the line of one row of columns, so we decided to try and push down that row as quickly as we could, picking up the torches as we went, and then make our way to the platforms.
It did not end as we hoped. We caught one of the big wandering groups along the way. While I had managed to kill and loot one of the torch bearers, we were in over our heads and wiped.
Getting mobbed in the Lyceum
We decided to give it another try, though that almost did not happen. After we got back into the instance we started running to the Lyceum directly, saving our re-buff cycle until we got close so as not to simply have to re-buff once we got there.
And then things went awry. I mentioned the ramp and jumping up onto the bannister carefully. Well, in one of those control misfires, like that time I jumped out the window of the bridge, he jumped way over and into aggro range of the fire elemental group, pulling them onto us for a wipe.
So we ran back again… and managed to wipe at the elemental group again… same thing, bad jump put somebody in aggro range.
So we ran back a third time, buffed up, got to the elemental group, pulled them, and took them down.
And then, as we were running through the manufactory, Mornoae ran too close to the one group we bypassed and we had another surprise fight on our hands.
Another accidental proximity pull
We managed to survive, but it was a bit of a near run thing.
Eventually we made it back to the Lyceum. Skronk scouted out our targets once more, and we gave it another try.
This time, for whatever reason, luck seemed to be on our side. We got into the central area, killed the two torch bearers, and managed to keep going forward to the first platform where we got in the safe corner, defeated the elemental, and lit the first brazier. Half way done.
Luck stayed with us and we managed to fight our way over to the second platform, defeat the elemental there, and light the second brazier.
The second brazier lit
That was it, we had succeeded.
We did have to stop and figure out what to do next. There were mobs all over the Lyceum still. They do not vanish, though I understand that the respawns are turned off.
Surveying the scene, it appeared that there was a clear path to the door, past which we faced Magmus (20).
Magmus awaits
The room with Magmus has golems all up and down the side in alcoves. The worry was that we were going to have to fight them all. But when we started the fight with Magmus, we found that the golems were really just a flame sprinkle system. Waves of flame from them go up and down the hallway. It was enough to earn Skronk another death, but we survived and got to a safe spot at the far end of the room.
That left the final room ahead of us, the throne room.
The final fight awaits
There is a lot of stuff to clear out in the throne room, groups of mobs all over, upstairs and down, so we were a while taking care of that.
Taking a rest between groups
Eventually though we weeded out every mob, leaving only Emperor Dagran Thaurissan and Princess Moira Bronzebeard.
Facing the emperor and his captive
For our purposes, we wanted to finish the relevant quest for King Mangi Bronzebeard, we needed to kill the emperor and rescue the princess. But Moira is mind controlled by the emperor and assists him, healing and such, so we needed to keep her busy but alive while taking down the emperor.
We decided that Viniki and Moronae would pull the pair off the throne to one of the side alcoves… the one to the left as you face the throne… and fight them in there. Skronk and Ula would stand up on one of the galleries overlooking that alcove and cast. We were about ready to go, but decided to wait until the 30 minute cool down on Monornae’s combat ress to run down, just in case.
When it was done, everybody got in position and off we went. I pulled the pair back successfully, putting some aggro on Moira when I could. Skronk and Ula were good from the gallery. Eventually Skronk’s healing grabbed Moira away from me, but she had to run the long way around and up a ramp to get to him, at which point Skronk and Ula both jumped down to where we were and the fight carried on, with Moira hoofing it all the way back around to us again. Moira got off a couple of final heals, but we managed to burn down the emperor, and which point she was released from her spell and was no longer aggro.
We spoke to her, updated the quest, and took pictures around the throne.
At the emperor’s seat
We had done it at last, we had made it to the final boss in BRD. Then it was back to Ironforge to turn in the quest.
Time to hearthstone back to Ironforge
Of course, I still have to get to the black anvil to smelt my Dark Iron ore and we still haven’t finished up the vault. But we don’t have to go all the way in, all the way to the back of the instance again. We made it through the Lyceum as a group of four.
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