Schooling Scholomance

[MongoJerry]

ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: Schooling Scholomance, part III

After the Reliquary comes the Chamber of Summoning. I have been told outright that it the obvious place that demonstrates that Scholomance cannot be done with a 5-person party. Indeed, I would have to agree that if one has no clue about some of the specialty skills of some classes that this room would probably rank as the third most difficult room of the instance. If one does remember some of those specialty skills, however, then this room becomes a joke.

The first feature one sees in this room are the many roaming undead patrols made up of either skeleton warriors or "necrofiend" spiders. A poorly timed patrol add can cause problems, but the patrollers do wander around singly and can generally be pulled alone. In addition, if a solo patrol does add during a fight, the group's priest can shackle it and the group can keep right on doing what it's doing. So for the most part, the patrols aren't a major issue. The patrols in the Chamber of Summoning seem to have a fast respawn timer, though, so the group's priest should keep an extra eye out for the occasional patrol add.



The primary challenge in this room are six camps of mobs -- each of which consists of one Scholomance Dark Summoner and two Scholomance Necromancers. The Necromancers are merely distractions who cast shadowbolts. If the group's priest buffs everyone with shadow resistance, they can largely be ignored. The Dark Summoners, however, are nasty nasty nasty. Upon being aggroed, Dark Summoners will stand where they are and proceed to summon skeletons one after another in quick succession. This leads some groups to use some bad tactics:

Bad tactic #1: Charge the Summoner. Instead of pulling the summoner, the group charges forward to kill it. This means the fight is taking place right at the little camp which is near the other little camps. One mob runner or one player taking a bad angle to the camp can wake up other camps, and multiple patrols will add during the fight. This is a recipe for almost certain wipeage.

Bad tactic #2: Use only ranged attacks against the Summoner. Unfortunately, even spellcasters have limits on their dps and the Summoner will have plenty of time to summon lots and lots of skeletons before dying. What's more, one can't take advantage of the many stunning skills that melee classes have, so there's nothing to slow down the Summoner's rate of spawning. (Note: Curse of Tongues may help). This tactic could only work if one were in a large 10+ player raid with a battery of high dps ranged attackers. I suspect that this is why people think that one must have a raid party to get through this room.

So how should one deal with the Summoners?

Good tactic #1: Counterspell. After the tank aggros the camp, a mage should wait for the Summoner to go into its summoning animation (which looks like a warlock's summoning animation) and then cast Counterspell on it. Since the Summoner won't be able to summon for several seconds, it will charge the group and try to melee. The party can then safely focus all of its power on the Summoner, and use various stunning skills to make sure the Summoner can't summon any skeletons while it's being killed.

Good tactic #2: Use Shield Bash. If the party doesn't have a mage (such groups do exist), then the group's warrior tank can walk up to the mob camp, wait for the Dark Summoner to go into its summoning animation, Shield Bash it, and then walk back to the party. Again, the Dark Summoner will not be able to summon for several seconds and will follow the warrior in an attempt to melee him or her. The party can then take out the Summoner as before.

Good tactic #3: Miscellaneous. If the party strangely does not have a mage or warrior in it, then one can use a myriad of other special skills instead. A priest could Mind Control the Summoner, walk it over to the group, and then release it to be killed. Or, a rogue could sap the Dark Summoner. Then, the party could take out the necromancers and any nearby patrols and then kill the Dark Summoner last.

Follow one of the three "good tactics" described above and you'll find that one of the hardest rooms in the instance becomes very simple.



Beyond the Chamber of Summoning is the room with no official name but is the one that Kupeludo has dubbed "The Safe Room," because it has a long respawn timer and because the pulls are relatively simple. The first couple of mob groups can be pulled into and battled in the Chamber of Summoning, and after that, the party can move into The Safe Room and deal with mobs there.



The only tricky part to the Safe Room are the ghostly Spectral Tutors who occasionally break up into multiple pieces for several seconds at a time. It's best to shackle the Tutors from the start and kill the other mobs first. You don't want to be dealing with multiple Spectral Tutor pieces while battling the other mobs.

The deed to Tarren Mill lies on a table in the Safe Room.



Tarren Mill: pwned

There's a good reason why the Safe Room has a low respawn rate, and it indicates good instance design on the part of Blizzard. The Safe Room acts as a central hub to other portions of the instance. To the right is the "room from hell" that houses Jandice Barov. Ahead is the Great Ossuary through which one must go to get to the boss that holds the key to the Viewing Room. To the left is the room that has the locked door to the Viewing Room (and incidentally is also the room one can jump down into from the entrance hallway). So groups will be coming back through the Safe Room at least a couple of times during a run. It would be extremely annoying to have to fight respawns in this room every time you had to enter it.

Our party bypassed the "room from hell" on this trip, since none of us needed that quest at the time. We got to experience that room on the next run, however. For now, we're going to head into the Great Ossuary next to get to the boss who holds the key to the Viewing Room. Before you rogues ask, no, I'm afraid you can't pick the lock on the Viewing Room door. Nice try.