Dire Maul Warm Up before Burning Crusade Classic

With the Burning Crusade Classic pre-patch on us, it was time to go figure out how to play our characters with the changes to our specs.  That seems to suggest an easier dungeon, something we had run before, so we wouldn’t be getting used to a new rotation while learning new fights.

My suggestion was Dire Maul East.  We had done it before, even doing a three person exploration the week before the patch.  We could get in, get the update for Ula’s spell, get a couple of quest updates for my pally, including one with a serious shield upgrade, all while getting into the swing of things.

I got on first last weekend and got myself out to Feathermoon to pick up an additional quests that might be laying about, noticing the elven ship model had replaced the old standard model ship on the run off the Feralas coast.

Skronk got on next and headed out the same way, followed by Moronae.  We all moved on over to Dire Maul to meet up at the summoning stone.  On the long list of things that changed with the pre-patch, the summoning stones are now that rather than being just meeting stones.  Ula was running late, but once she was online we would be able to bring her to us as you can summon party members so long as you can get three people to summon.

Doing a practice summon, just to remember how to even do that

Coincidentally, with the release of the patch a post I wrote back in 2011 that included mention of the Dire Maul summoning stone has suddenly become popular again.  Now that it can summon, people want to use it I guess.  So, just as a reminder:

Dire Maul Summoning Stone Pictured

Approximate location on the map

When Ula did get on and I told her the plan, we found out that with the pre-patch her final conjured water recipe no longer needed a quest, she was able to just get the skill from her class trainer.

Still, since we were already set up and because the run would net the tank a nice new shield, we opted to go forward with the plan.  Our group was:

• Wilhelm – level 60 human paladin
• Moronae – level 60 night elf druid
• Ula – level 60 gnome mage
• Skronk – level 60 dwarf priest

And once we got ourselves together outside of Dire Maul we pushed on to the eastern entrance.

Everybody is here

Another change with the pre-patch is that most, if not all, of the formerly elite open world mobs appear to have been downgraded to normal mobs, so getting into the instance was pretty easy.

As we started up I will say that I was pretty happy with the changes the pre-patch brought to the protection paladin lineup.  I probably wasted some gold re-speccing before the patch, but at least I got a feel for the before/after.

Righteous Defense, a direct taunt that grabs up to three mobs was a good start, and then Avenger’s Shield, a ranged attack for pulling, made me pretty happy as well.  The shield does hit three mobs, so it isn’t as precise as Viniki’s gun, but it is still better than having to run up and shake hands with every mob in order to pull.

Once inside I was able to get going, with consecrate, holy shield, and retribution aura able to hold groups of non-elite mobs on me even as Ula and Moronae did their AOE attacks to burn them down, a noticeable improvement over my experience with Viniki.

We did get into a bit of trouble early on when, being a bit complacent about aggro radius, we managed to get two single mobs, a threesome, and a pack of non-elites all on us at once.  Even being a bit over level, that came apart… sort of.  I went down, then Skronk did when he inherited the aggro from healing.

Our group in the corner of the first area getting beat down

You can see Ula running for the exit on the right.  Once dead I actually remembered that Moronae had a combat ress, and called for him to use it.  The first thought was to put it on Skronk, but then I called for it to hit the pally as I still had lay hands and a few other tricks that I had forgotten about in the flash of action.  And, of course, I could also ress once we were done.

Once I was back up, Moronae and I finished off the remaining mobs… we had actually killed most of them as the group before the wheels came off… then I ressed Skronk then found Ula, who hadn’t quite made it to he zone line and ressed her.

That was the big dramatic event of the run, and it wasn’t even a wipe.  Moronae lived and his combat ress got us back on track.

After that we were a little more careful about aggro radius and, thus, had few issues.  We managed to do Pusillin in one round, a fight we managed to wipe on both times we did it previously.  Paladin fire resist aura helped out there.

We made it back and around through the satyrs, collecting a few felcloth along the way, past the next few bosses, and into Ironbark’s room in the conservatory.

Just within our draw distance

Thanks to our last run here, we had gotten a feel for getting through the room without having to take on every single group.  You just have to time your advance between the roaming groups.

Ironbark broke down the door for us and cleared the way to the final boss.  There we had another fight where consecrate, holy shield, and retribution aura kept the adds on me.

Lighting up the group with damage

That got us through the instance.  We posed for a victory shot, then I collected my quest item and Ula opened a portal to Darnassus so I could fly from there to Moonglade to turn in the quest.

Done with Dire Maul East again

That got done quickly enough that we decided to go do one of the pre-patch events.  You can see Ula and I are wearing tabards.  Those come from a quest out at the Blasted Lands at the Dark Portal.  All you have to do is kill six invading fel reavers and that is the reward.  So we went out and did that and got one more screen shot with us all in matching tabards, like we are in a guild or something.

Before the Dark Portal

Overall, three of us seemed good with our classes post-patch.  Moronae though, he was feeling like feral druids had taken a hit.  He may revert to form and boost a warlock to swap out into the group for next time.  We’ll lose a combat ress but gain soul stones along with some other options.

Reconsidering My Paladin in Dire Maul

At some point last night we got the Burning Crusade Classic patch on WoW Classic… I think.  The downtime was supposed to be done at 3pm, then 7pm, and then 10pm and… well… some of us have to get up and go to work in the morning.

I suspect that database operations took much longer than expected, which is frequently a thing in my experience.

Anyway, when it it does go live it will be the day of the dividing of worlds and new specs and events and what not.  I’m sure I will have a post about that tomorrow.  This post was actually supposed to go yesterday, but then EVE Online blew up in three directions and that was the focus of Tuesday.  So maybe it is better that the patch is delayed as I can slip this post in now.

As we have run up to the last days of the pure WoW Classic, I have been reflecting on the last 20 months or so of this experiment in nostalgia.  Don’t worry, I’ll have a post about that too.  But one item I was considering this past weekend was my paladin.

He has made it to level 59, so I can move him on to Outland whenever I choose… once it becomes available.

Wilhelm the Paladin in Silithus

But getting him there has been a grind at times, both due to the nature of the class, the nature of leveling in the old system past level 40, and due to my reading too much into various bits of advice.

For example, I spent a stretch trying to level up based on a retribution spec from Icy Veins that was really for raiding.  I eventually found a spec better suited for leveling, which did make things more manageable.

Another bit of information I took to heart was the stated fact that paladins cannot tank in classic.  I read that a number of places and, based on that, I went with Viniki, my gnome warrior, to be the group tank when the group settled down to the four of us.

That was a good decision and it has worked out.  We have been able to manage most instances as a foursome without having to out-level them.  But every time we run into a multi-mob scrum and Viniki is trying to keep aggro on half a dozen non-elites I always think about how that wouldn’t be an issue if I had consecrate.  The pally comes with a lot of beneficial skills, though does lack that single target taunt.  And the tanking thing, like my first spec, was really meant for end game raiding.

So, this past weekend I decided to tinker with my paladin and the protection spec.  I went to the pally trainer and paid to reset my talent points… which was 10 gold because I’ve done that a few times now… and spec’d up the recommended protection talents, which were fairly obvious.  I probably would have gotten them right just doing them myself, starting with the need to spec into consecrate on the holy tree first.

That done, I went to the auction house to buy a sword and maybe a better shield.  The spec pretty much requires a one hander and shield.

As I wandered into the empty auction house… odd and prime time on a Saturday… I realized that this was the weekend when the auction house had been shut down to clear it our for the WoW Classic / Burning Crusade split.

Of course, I had already done the spec change, so I was kind of stuck.  I had a shield in the bank, but not a 1h weapon to call my own.  I had been sending green drops and such to Moronae to use for enchanting.

Trade chat, being trade chat, wasn’t helpful on this front.  At least not with my budget.  So I ended up with the best vendor sword that WoW Head could find me, the Falchion.

A common sword will have to do

With that in hand I went to go train up the sword skill.  I figured I could do at least that much as I was starting out with a skill of 22.  I hit some lower level mobs for a bit, but then went over to Felwood to pick on some mobs in the low 50s, just to see how I would do.

Of course, with a low weapon skill, even when I was hitting I wasn’t doing much damage.  But as the skill built up past 200 I started killing mobs.  Meanwhile, I wasn’t taking much damage.  Skill ups slowed down around 230, but I kept on killing.  I moved over to Winterspring to get some higher level mobs and seemed to be doing okay.

A lot of the pally’s damage is in his holy seals and judgements and I had beefed him up with plenty of +str gear to boost damage as well.  I was doing well enough with that common level sword that I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have just gone with protection for leveling up anyway.  The kills came a little slower, but I took so little damage that downtime shrank to more than make up for the lower damage.  I wasn’t setting any records, but I was doing pretty well considering the weapon.

When Sunday rolled around we tried to get something going, but Moronae was not available.  Skronk and Ula were on, so I asked if they could help my pally finish up a quest in the Eastern Plaguelands.  Hameya’s Plea was probably something I could manage solo.  I did it with my hunter.  But it can get out of hand if you’re not careful.  So they flew out and we grouped up.  The quest was even shareable, so we could all get the reward.

As it turned out we did get a little sloppy and ended up with a mass of undead trolls around us, but a pally tank loves some undead to slay.

Hameya is on the left there

We were able to get in and out without me managing to mess up too much as tank.  Running back to turn the quest in, it got them an item to vendor for some gold and me a sword upgrade.

An improvement

Confusingly, they both have the same inventory icon, but I got the right one equipped.

That done, the next item on the list was the mooncloth robe recipe, which comes from a vendor in the library of Dire Maul.  So we headed to Feralas and into Dire Maul North.

We had issues doing Dire Maul North as a group of four previously, so going in hard with just the three of us, and with me trying to tank a with a new spec, seemed like a bad idea.  But you can get to the library with minimal mobs to kill.  We took down one ogre guard and then got onto the stairway that goes down to the center pit of the first big area.  Going down far enough that we could jump up on the banister (and waiting until the wandering pack of dogs passed) we were able to avoid the group of ogres in the center.

The stairs behind us

From where we are in the screen shot it is a straight run into the very long tunnel, which fortunately lacks and mobs, that eventually gets you to the library.

Welcome to the Dire Maul library

There Ula was able to able to buy the recipe.  She also picked up the Arcane Refreshment quest, which gets her the final drink spell for mages.  In order to complete it you need to slay Hydrospawn in Dire Maul East.  Since we were already in the neighborhood we thought we might give it a try.  We’ve done DME a couple of times already, right?

Getting out of DMN meant running back up the tunnel to the center area again, waiting for the dog pack to pass, then running up the stairs, which meant getting within aggro radius of the ogres in the center.  Ula and I made it, running for the door.  Skronk got caught and smacked down.  But we just met him over in DME since, as a ghost, you get revived in any of the Dire Maul instances.

There we cleared a couple of mobs then considered our options.  The plan was to avoid fighting our way all the way in to Hydrospawn, being a tough job for a group of three.  Instead, we wanted to drop into the middle area in the main room, the conservatory, which is where Ironbark stands.  From there it is possible to track back to Hydrospawn pretty easily… or so we hoped.

Considering the drop

It took us a few tries to get it right.  There are a couple groups of non-elites down there, but also some solo elites and the usual groups of treants that run back and forth across the area.  By the fourth drop we managed to get in and have a clear LZ from which to work.

There were issues on the first three tries

We then very carefully grabbed any stationary mobs that were in our way, timing our progress to avoid the mobile mobs.

Taking some refreshment while mobs run past

From where I am sitting in the shot above were were able to time it to run past the treants to the fallen column, then to the wall, and then through the archway towards the next area.

Safely through the conservatory

I will say that the draw distance issue, about which I have complained in the past, did not make that run any easier.  The treant groups would appear and disappear and what felt like very close ranges to us.

From there we had to slay a couple of Satyrs, but otherwise were setup with our eyes on Hydrospawn.  There we were able to pull him… and we almost managed it.  We had forgotten that Hydrospawn resists frost attacks, which is a really bad bit of news to recall mid fight when your DPS is a frost mage.  You’d think a water elemental would resist fire and be frozen by frost, but what are you going to do.

We made it through the part where he summons two helpers, but I ran out of heals, pots, and any other pally tricks very shortly thereafter and was down.  There wasn’t enough oomph left to finish him off.

Dead on the rock and Hydrospawn back in his pool

Still, it was a fun run.  We decided that was enough for the day, but we’ll be back again to get Ula her quest reward.  I wouldn’t mind another run into DME.  My pally has the quest the gets him a serious shield upgrade from the last boss and there are some decent drops.

But by the time we try that the Burning Crusade Classic pre-patch should be in place and I will have to roll with the new spec.  Having tinkered with it in beta, I know that at least I won’t have to go up the holy tree to get consecrate.  I can give him a trial run next time to see if I stick with my warrior, Viniki, or swap to my paladin, Wilhelm.

A Return to Dire Maul East

The instance group returned to WoW Classic this past weekend.  Our last run, when we finally wrapped up Blackrock Depths, was back in February.  We have spent most of our time since then in the Viking afterlife that is Valheim.  But the coming of Burning Crusade Classic… Blizz seems set to drop the pre-expansion patch some time this month… stirred us from our resource collection and biome explorations to return to Azeroth.

All of us together again

We had a few goals for this return run, the first of which was to get back into the swing  of playing WoW.  While getting used to how to move passed pretty quickly, I think everybody was pressing the space bar to try and sprint or the Tab key for inventory more often than they would like to admit.  Fortunately, nobody can see you do that and it doesn’t have any real in-game impact.

We also wanted to get to level 60.  That was a low bar goal, as we were all well on our way towards that after the last run.

And we also wanted some felcloth.  Felcloth drops from satyrs in Felwood and is the primary ingredient to make mooncloth bags, which are the 16 slot bags that tailors can make.  To be in WoW Classic is to be in a time when 16 slot bags were a big deal.  Ula, our group tailor, has us mostly covered with 14 slot runecloth bags, but those extra two slots add up.

The coveted mooncloth bag

We spent some time trying for the mooncloth bag recipe drop at one point and eventually snagged it for an acceptable price at the auction house so Ula could start making them.

But to feed the production we need felcloth, and the one place where it drops besides Felwood is in Dire Maul East.  So that set our destination.  It offered xp, we had done it before so it was a probably a good warm up, and there was felcloth to be had.

We got ourselves online on Sunday afternoon and headed towards Feathermoon in Feralas from where ever we last left our characters.  Viniki was out in Gadgetzan for some reason… thorium recipes I think… so was the closest to our destination.

Flying out over the Mirage Raceway

Our group, in the guild window, was all level 59 and looking to level up.

All close to level cap

We managed to find the right instance on the first try… Dire Maul East is on the east side of the Dire Maul complex as advertised… and got ourselves setup.  This is the instance with Pusillin, the little demon that you have to chase down as he has the key to unlock the other wings of the complex.

What if we already have the key?

We started in on clearing our way through, the familiar rhythm of fights coming back to us after not too many rounds.

Viniki was the first to level up.  I had been out mining ore in high level zones, which means killing mobs now and then, so had crept up pretty close to the level cap already.

Hitting level 60 in the first area

We followed Pusillin, not so much because we needed his key or a drop from him, but because he runs off into an area populated by satyrs, and satyrs mean felcloth.

Attack all satyrs!

This was in contrast to our last visit, where we bypassed a lot of the satyrs.  The layout of the instance is such that you don’t need to grab every group.  But if you want felcloth you grab them all.

We made it to Pusillin and managed to wipe on his fight on the first try, the same as we did the last time we came to visit.

Wiped again

Pusillin summons a group of non-elite helpers who hit hard with fire based attacks, which overwhelmed Skronk’s ability to heal.  I heard him say, “Viniki pot!” even as I was going to hit a health pot, but even in motion already I was too late.

We had to run back, but once we got there, the fight was fairly simple.  If you wipe Pusillin wanders back to the far end of the room, but his summoned demons all crowd in at the near end, so you can fight them separately.

From there it was back up through the halls, sweeping up satyrs that we had missed or which spawned after we passed… which is a thing in DME, because I am pretty sure we didn’t miss that one guy in the narrow hallway on our way in… and off into the side rooms with the other bosses and more satyrs.

Lethtendris down

While gear upgrades seemed unlikely, we somehow still managed to find a couple, along with the Frost Ward V tome for Ula, which dropped just after she hit level 60.  And items that were not upgrades went to Moronae, who had taken up the enchanter profession for us, to be disenchanted for materials.

We pushed on, and managed not to wipe again, though we did have a couple of deaths.  Moronae’s combat ress came in handy when Skronk went down in a fight that got away from us for a bit.

Nobody died on Zevrim’s altar this time

Time, however, started to press.  We had been slow to get started and had stopped to slay all the satyrs for a stretch.  As we got towards the end we needed to speed things up a bit as dinner was about ready at my end.

In the conservatory we skipped as many groups as we dared to clear the way for Ironbark to open the last door for us.

Lets get moving there Ironbark

It was in the conservatory that Skronk hit level 60, the last of us to do so.  We were all at the level cap.

Ready for Outland now

We made it through and got down to the final boss, Azzin the Wildshaper, another fight where we forgot that a bunch minions show up to help the boss mid-fight.  It was a bit touch and go for a while, but I managed to keep them mostly on me.

Sudden mid-fight pile on!

We made it through and defeated Azzin.  We had finished the instance.

Victory over Azzin

We had managed to get up to speed, all hit level 60, and even grabbed a few pieces of felcloth.  I think there were five drops, which doesn’t feel like a lot, though the drops per mobs ratio was much better than trying to farm them in Felwood.  And Ula only needs one piece per bag.  Now she just has to turn them into mooncloth at the local moonwell, something that is on a timer, so it will take a bit to process even five.

There are still some instances left that we have not done in WoW Classic.  But even if we do not get to them all, we are set for Outland.  The gear we have will be replaced by the first round of green quest drops once we get to Hellfire Peninsula.

Thwarted in Dire Maul North

We hadn’t really made a plan after the previous week’s diversion into Dire Maul East.  However, we had made it through successfully, had the key to get into the rest of the complex, and were looking for something to do, so we decided to carry on in Feralas.

Feralas in WoW Classic

Skronk said that Dire Maul North was the next destination, and I honestly couldn’t recall.  The high end of the level range is packed with dungeons and they are something of a blur in my brain all these years down the road.  Our group for the afternoon was:

• Viniki – level 58 gnome warrior
• Skronk – level 58 dwarf priest
• Moronae – level 58 night elf druid
• Ula – level 58 gnome mage

But before we went to Feralas we had a bit of leftover business to which to attend.  In Dire Maul East we picked up those gems after the final boss and brought them to Moonglade to jump start a quest.

Two gems left to collect

On our way to the instance we decided to wrap that up, which required a trip to Silithus.  Since we had not been there before, we flew into Un’Goro Crater and took the path into Silithus.

Actually, I had gone ahead over the course of the week and completed the quest as it had a shield upgrade for me.  That meant I knew the way to where we needed to go.

The wrecked town in Silithus

Alone it was a bit of a pain to get myself into the building where the chest you need to collect is.  As a group we rolled through pretty quickly.

Chest found… also, my new shield is visible

From there we ran back to the alliance camp in the zone, picked up the flight point, and flew back up to Feathermoon in Feralas.  The boat was, once again, just in time for us and we were soon within the Dire Maul compound.  This time we headed to the back of the main open area, the north end, to the door.  It was locked, but we had the key.

The door to Dire Maul North

Once in and setup, we got off to a pretty strong start.  We managed to work our way around the open main area and get to the steps to pull Guard Mol’Dar without aggroing any of the packs of hounds that are down there with him.

The Guard commeth

He was an straightforward fight, as was Stomper Kreeg after him, though the drunk effect from fighting Kreeg stuck with me for a good long while after the icon for it went away.  I was weaving about as I ran, which wasn’t an opportune thing to have happen as things started to get a bit thick on the ground for us.

We were attempting to make our way to Guard Fengus and his chest, which has another key, but the groups of mobs on the way were very close together, with wanderers moving in between.  This was made more difficult by the fact that the mobs in Dire Maul North were a couple levels higher than those in the east, ranging from 58 to 60, which made their aggro radius tricky to watch.  Honestly, the aggro radius for the mobs there seemed to be extra wide, though maybe the size of ogres distorted my perception.  But at times I would edge into range to shoot one for a pull and find that I had already had them with proximity aggro.

Still, we managed to thread our way through, knocking out groups we needed to as we moved and bypassing the rest, until we were able to pull Guard Fengus off to a safe corner.  Well, it seemed safe until that add wandered up.  Still, we won, though Moronae went down in the fight.  Time for the first ress.

Bringing Moronae back

But we got him and got the key and were headed into the deeps of the instance, which was when things started to get a bit hairy.

We were fighting the first group on the way in when an Eye of Kilrog floated up on the group.  I said something like, “I think we need to kill that… fast” but we were already engaged in a fight and did not get it in time.  The Eye of Kilrog opened up a portal and two Netherwalkers hopped out and joined the fight against us.  They were both level 60 and basically kicked the crap out of us before we could get our act together.

We’re all dead, save Skronk, who is banished and about to die

That meant a release and run back.  We got back in the instance and threaded our way back to the Netherwalkers who, conveniently, stayed where we left them, far enough from the remains of the group we had been fighting that we could take them on their own.

We were able to take them and move on down into the main room, avoiding further mishap with fights.  We managed to pull Guard Slip’kik away from the other mobs on his patrol path and take him down.

Slip’Kik pulled back

Up to this point I haven’t mentioned drops from the bosses mostly because we were getting rooked on the RNG.  Mail every single time, despite the fact that the loot table had some nice items in there.  There were some upgraded shoulders I would have like had as a possibility.  But we were denied every time.

We spoke with Knot Thimblejack about his quest, but didn’t have the materials… no planning here… so decided to skip on past that.

Knot prepared for him

And after that the road got pretty rough for us.  There were a series of groups around the ramp that led up to the next level.  Something about that ramp tickled some memory in the back of my brain, something negative, but we carried on.  On pulling one group we got them around the corner only to have an Eye of Kilrog come up behind us and go unnoticed until it was too late.  Another wipe.

Dead again as the Netherwalkers beat us down

On the way back a patrolling Ogre managed to get the better of Moronae and I, though Ula and Skronk managed to finish him off, so Skronk was able to ress the two of us so we could carry on.

Embarrassing

The patrol had banish Skronk and I was a millisecond late on my health potion.  It was not a good look.

We came back and managed to clear the bottom of the ramp, but in attempting to clear the area at the top of the ramp we ended up with another Eye of Kilrog attack that wiped us again.

Wipe on the ramp

Honestly, we were killing about half of the Eye of Kilrog patrols as soon as they showed up, but you just have to get one mid-fight when you’re busy and things can get quickly out of control.

We were also starting to notice some really odd draw distance issues.  The mobs on the platform at the top of the ramp were fading in and out of visibility even though we seemed to be plenty close to them.  I know there have been some other draw distance issues in WoW Classic before, but here we were dealing with things on the edge of aggro range popping in and out our sight.  We managed, but it was odd.

We pushed on and cleared the platform and made it up the next ramp, thwarting an Eye of Kilrog along the way.  We found we could bypass most of the mobs on the next platform and were able to get in and up the hall to within sight of Captain Kromcrush, the next to last boss.

The captain is up ahead, the final boss back beyond that

We had to deal with one more group.  Unfortunately that got out of hand… that banish is a killer at the wrong moment… and we ended up wiping in the hallway.

Down in the hallway

You can see behind us some of the groups we were able to bypass.

Still, we got one guy down and were so close to the captain, so we ran back to the instance again.  But when we got there, we found we had been long enough that the instance had started to respawn.  We got a patrol right in front of us, but past him groups were appearing again.

That first guy

We were looking at the need to fight our way through at least half of what we had cleared on the first pass through.  That wasn’t going to happen, so we called it.  Ula opened a portal to Darnassus for us to put us near a flight point.  Those that had not turned in the quest we started out with were able to fly off and turn it in, reaping the reward.  We’re all starting to get close to 59, so it might be a little easier once we cross that number.