Monday, March 10, 2008

Multiboxing the Mana Tombs: Pandemonium



Auchindoun was originally a holy burial ground for the dead of the Draenei. But the Shadow Council decided it was a great place to hold an epic kegger. They hoped to summon a pimptacular uber demon, and be the first to apply for "BFF" status with the new bad boy on the block.

But as with all the other parties the Shadow Council threw, this one didn't go well. They succeeded in summoning Murmur, the first stereophonic boss in WoW, but the spell also caused an explosion that destroyed Auchindoun and half of Terokkar Forrest. Ah well. Ya gotta break a few eggs...

Auchindoun is now home to 4 different 5 man instances. In order of difficulty, Mana Tombs, Auchenai Crypts, Sethekk Halls and Shadow Labyrinth. Going against all logic and traditional conventions, I chose to start with the easiest one. :)

Mana Tombs was the next logical instance progression for me. It's labeled 64-66, so at 65 I figured it was time to take a shot. By this point I've discovered that while I don't need to drink while raiding (Water Shield + Elemental Focus + uber crit from ToWx5 = Infinite Mana, and some embarrassing mana leakage.) However, I DO need drinks for wipe recovery. And when you're learning a new instance, it's fair to assume you'll be wiping. I did. Bring water.

There are only 3 bosses in Mana Tombs, the first being a gigantic void walker named PANDEMONIUS! (sorry, I just can't say his name without yelling. Go ahead, try it yourself.) Once again I figured my ego was all the "instruction" I'd need to kill this guy, and totally forgot that 10 seconds or so into the fight, he turns on a spell reflect shield. Turns out it was EXACTLY my ego that came flying back into the face of my shaman, and we all died to the wrath of our own lightning.

I recovered, drank, and took another shot. This time I stopped casting when his shield came up, but still died to his awesome melee powers. Why? Because I didn't have shields equipped. Equip your shields when in instances. K?

So I recovered, drank, put on my shields, and took another shot. This time he died... taking three of my shaman with him. This doesn't exactly encourage me to proceed. But I do.

Luckily, as if to say "Hey, you remembered to equip your shields that time!", Pando left us a beautiful new Shield of the Void. That rocks, and sucks. It rocks because it's an upgrade. It sucks, because now I have to kill that jerk over and over until I get five of them. :)

The trash mobs were falling into the typical pattern I've become accustomed to from previous instances. You get a few melees, a few casters and usually one mob that really hurts. Once you figure out who is who, you kill the hard hitting one before they even get to you, then use grounding and stoneclaws to finish off the rest.



The second boss is a walking stalagmite named Tavarok. (And yet another name that rocks... get it? No? Never mind.) He hurts. He hits freak'n hard, and has an AoE stun that does 2400 damage over 3 seconds. Yikes. While I was busy casting a group chain heal, he stomped on one of my guys and he simply dropped. But he still wasn't strong enough to outlast my DPS, and he died after 2 of my boys did.

And what did we get for our troubles? Lightning-Rod Pauldrons! These babies use the same model as the crazy "Antennas of doom" Pauldrons of Elements, part of the Shaman's very first Dungeon set back in Pre-TBC days. Of course, this rocks... and sucks. Now I need 5. /sigh



Working my way to the last boss, I started to notice just how much fun I was having in an instance. This is great! I'm seeing cool content, at my own pace, and when things go bad, I have only myself to blame. It makes it much easier to laugh at a wipe, trust me. Multiboxing is fun. You should totally do it too. And while you're doing what I tell you, post about my blog on your guild forums. :)

Finally, I was faced with Nexus-Prince Shaffar. He starts with three Ethereal Beacons (sparkling bawls of doom) that if not killed, turn into humanoids that cast hurt on you. The prince will summon additional Ethereal Beacons every ten seconds. So the smart thing to do would be destroy the beacons right away and be sure to focus on the adds every ten seconds.... that is, IF YOU'RE A MERE MORTAL!



Being the invincible Twenty Totems, I simply dropped trou, popped some trinkets and let loose the wrath of the heavens. This doesn't always work mind you... but it did today. :)

The prince dropped in less than 30 seconds, and I quickly dispatched his summoned adds while their prince rotted on the ground in front of them. Good fun.

For all our trouble, the jerk left us a crappy set of plate bracers. But I could care less. Why? Because as the great prince fell, my team began to DING! 66 baby! And you know what that means... time to recruit me a couple of tankss!

Boom

3 comments:

Andrew said...

One of the most entertaining blogs to read, WoW related or not. I'm tempted to splurge for the other 3 accounts and PC upgrades...

Keep up the good work, no doubt the earth elemental totems will help with your instance progression.

David said...

Great job on the clear at 65 without elementals even! Now that you have a handful of earth elementals to play with all those bosses will be an absolute cakewalk.

Regarding Pandamonius; also I thought he was the most challenging at that level because of those hard hits and paying attention to the spell shield, as well as keeping up grounding totems for the aoe'ish thing. Probably my favorite boss fight so far. At 66 you can just throw up an elemental, and have everyone cast lesser healing wave on focustargettarget, and it will heal him right up.

I think it was the Ethereal Scavengers that were priority kill ones.. They had some crazy dot like effect that would eat my guys up fast.

Great read!

Tim said...

Love your blog man, very entertaining writing.
I'm up to lvl 45 with my 4 shammy/pally team, can't wait to try out all these BC instances :).