Five Player Running Lower Blackrock Spire

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD -- FIVE PLAYER RUNNING LOWER BLACKROCK SPIRE

(Note to Lurkers: I will be posting these writeups on multiple forums. Hence, the tone of the opening paragraphs).

Hello, everyone! It's been a long time. For those of you who know me, it's good to be back. For those who don't know me, allow me to introduce myself. During the World of Warcraft closed beta, I wrote several journals describing the adventures of my night elf priestess, Neriad. I had a lot of fun writing them, and happily many people seemed to enjoy reading them. If you'd like to check them out here are some links, including links to tales of some oddball Diablo II characters I had created as well.

World of Warcraft Journals:

Deathknell (retail journal)
Hey! The King's Back!
The Great Masquerade! (The Stormwind Raid Event)
Onyxia
Lord Lakmaeran
Schooling Scholomance

Diablo II Journals:
Grizabella, the Fighter Mage
Gunter, the Barbarian Mage
Maldar, the Pacifist Hero
Irene, the Infirm

Catching everyone up on the story, Neriad is now an undead priestess playing on the PvP server, Tichondrius. At first, I had planned to detail her adventures as she leveled up, but I ran into two problems. First, real life ™ issues came up that restricted how much time I had to write. And second, writing up a character's adventures takes about twice as long as the actual adventures themselves. I had to skimp on the journaling, if I wanted to have any hope of getting to level 60 in any reasonable amount of time and see some of the high-end content I wanted to see. In hindsight, however, that was a bad idea, because I've ended up spending the majority of the last six weeks doing what almost everyone else who's been level capped for six weeks has been doing: raiding instances ad nauseam in tedious item runs with grossly overpowered raiding parties.

I tried organizing some five-player instance runs a few times, but most players spurned the idea. I've told people repeatedly that Scholomance, Stratholme, and lower Blackrock Spire were all designed for 5-player teams and that upper Blackrock Spire was designed for 10-player teams, but many people thought I was nuts to suggest such a thing, even though it's quite plain from the game design that this is the case. The whole idea of preventing players from getting quest credit for most instance quests while in a raid party was to encourage players to continue to play in 5-player teams and to give rewards to those players who chose not to zerg instances with overpowered raiding parties. Notice that the only quests in normal instances that can be completed in a raid are those in upper Blackrock Spire, the only section of a normal instance designed for teams with more than five players. The fact that you can get quest credit by leaving a raiding party temporarily is due to a gross flaw in the game code that will thankfully be fixed in the next patch.

What saddens me about this situation is that so many players have been missing some of the best and most fun aspects of the game. Most players in retail weren't in the closed beta, so they don't remember a time when there were no such things as raids and every instance had to be run in five player teams. They also don't remember how much fun playing the game can be when you are part of a small cohesive group that depends absolutely on the contributions of each individual for the survival of the whole.

And until last Thursday, I had forgotten, too.



An Unlikely Beginning

It all started when a level 60 shaman named Eon asked on the Western Plaguelands general chat channel if some people would be willing to help him kill Weldon Barov, so he could complete the Last Barov quest. Weldon Barov himself typically takes a group of 3-4 players to kill (some people say you need a raiding party, but they're nuts), and it doesn't help that there's a major alliance flight path point right next to him at Chillwind Point (soon to be renamed Chillwind Camp). Tichondrius is a PvP server, and Alliance players seem to get a kick out of foiling the attempts of Horde players to complete this quest, so it helps to take along a couple extra people in case you get involved in a PvP battle at the same time.

It's often tough to form groups to complete outdoor quests, so I sympathized with Eon's plight. I happened to be turning in a quest in nearby Caer Darrow at the time, so I figured I'd take a small detour and help the guy out. Eon and I tried to kill Barov by ourselves, but even with fear kiting and other tricks, Barov absolutely destroyed us. Luckily, however, Eon's warrior friend Bort said he'd come help, and another random stranger in the area, a rogue named Saito, offered to help.

As we assembled on the hill across from the camp, however, an Alliance priestess spotted us and started doing the most bizarre thing. She inched forward, cast SW:Pain on random people in the party, and darted back next to Weldon Barov repeatedly. "Is this guy an idiot?" I asked as I dispelled each SW:Pain the moment after it appeared. The party collectively shrugged as Bort charged the priestess and everyone else ran forward to kill her in a few seconds. (Hint: Barov doesn't aggro until he's personally attacked). An Alliance hunter, who we had planned to leave alone, belatedly joined the battle and got summarily crushed as well. Oh, well. Red equals dead, right? Before any more Alliance players could show up on the scene, we attacked and killed Weldon Barov, and Eon looted the quest-related head.

Pleased with our successful adventure, Saito said that we should run an instance, suggesting perhaps lower Blackrock Spire (LBRS). Bort said he'd be up for that, and it sounded like there was some enthusiasm for the idea. Unfortunately, I had completed all the quests in LBRS, and the only thing I really needed from there was the Devout Belt. I didn't feel like raiding LBRS just for that. I said nothing, though, since I didn't want to spoil everyone else's enthusiasm. I figured I'd wait for them to start up a raid group and then bow out with the truthful excuse that I didn't want to raid something like LBRS. Then Saito said something that made me do a double take.

Saito: All we need now is a mage.

I stared at my computer screen, while my brain tried to process this statement. I could hardly believe it.

Neriad: You're talking about a 5-player party?
Saito: Yeah
Neriad: Heck, yeah! I'm up for that!

I scanned my friends list for any mages whom I thought might be interested in something like this. It amazed me to have four players together in one spot who wanted to 5-man a high level instance, and I didn't want to let this opportunity pass me by. I smiled when I saw that Aixelsyd, a level 60 mage with whom I'd instanced many times, was on. He had read my writeup on 5-manning Scholomance during the beta and had told me that he wanted to go on a 5-man run of Scholomance with me sometime. I messaged him and asked him if he wanted to 5-man LBRS instead. After a pause, he said, "Sure," and the party was set.



Blackrock Spire is an instance that's really two dungeons with a common entranceway. To the left is the raid-level Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS) that requires someone in the party to have a special key to open the door. To the right is Lower Blackrock Spire (LBRS), the 5-player instance where one can (after many runs) obtain the key to UBRS, where one can complete many quests, and where some very special loot can drop if one is lucky. That loot will be discussed as we go along.

Our party consisted of these five individuals:

Bort, Level 60 Warrior
Eon, Level 60 Shaman
Aixelsyd, Level 60 Mage
Saito, Level 60 Rogue
Neriad, Level 60 Priest

For a group that was formed largely spontaneously, you couldn't ask for a better mix of classes. I'll mostly stick with the story of this first run. However, after having this terrific experience with the first group, Saito and I managed to put together two more 5-player LBRS runs in the following days. The second group was composed of:

Goluf, Level 60 Warrior
Diest, Level 59 Warlock
Kevoom, Level 57 Mage
Saito, Level 60 Rogue
Neriad, Level 60 Priest

This was an interesting party in that we only had one healer, but with the warlock we had extra crowd control and extra dps. Unfortunately, the server crashed halfway through the run, but we had a good time anyway. The third group was back to the original class formulation:

Kalobos, Level 58 Warrior
Rai, Level 60 Shaman
Khadgars, Level 60 Mage
Saito, Level 60 Rogue
Neriad, Level 60 Priest

This group started late at night and wiped in the middle of the instance. It didn't help that our shaman didn't have any ankhs (warning: rant coming later), but we still could have recovered. It was so late in the evening, however, that we all decided to end the run early. What was amazing about this, though, was that there was no ill will among the party. When was the last time you heard the words, "Damn, that was the most fun I've had in a long time" after a party wipes and calls it a night?

Like I said, I'll mostly tell the story of the first party, but I'll throw in a few tidbits from the second two parties as appropriate. Also, I'll use some of the screenshots of the later two parties if I think they illustrate a point I'm making better than screenshots from the first run. So if I'm talking about the first party but you see a warlock doing something in the background of an image, that's why.