Mood: Pretty good.
Music: Blue Monday, New Order
Game: World of Warcraft (60 Rogue, 15 Priest, 9 Warrior (PvP))
Book: Prisoner's Dilemma, William Poundstone
Muffin: This space for rent.
Punchline: None. Someone needs to say something funny.
As promised, I'm going to talk about Dire Maul. If you're a World of Warcraft player, and you don't want to know what happens and such, you should stop reading now. Consider this your only spoiler warning.
Dire Maul is a three part instance. That is, there are three instances inside Dire Maul. They are not necessarily ordered, but you should do the east instance first, because it's there that you get the key to the deeper parts of the other two instances.
The east instance has no door securing it, so you can go right in. It's worth mentioning that there's two ways into the instance...the "front" door, or the door inside the main area of Dire Maul, and the "back" door, which is further down the path without going into the main area.
In this instance are vicious plant elemental types, Satyr demons, and a few bosses. The bosses include a key-carrying imp, a caster type with her nasty imp familiar, a satyr who guards vine fragments, and a water elemental. All in all a good crawl, nice loot, and felcloth drops in here. You need the key from the imp to continue through the deeper parts of the other instances, so you'll want to get one here. It's also worth noting that only one key drops per instance run...so if you want everyone to get a key, you'll be running this a bunch of times.
The second instance is vicious. Well and truly brutal. More, bigger plant elemental types, mana elementals (no, I'm not kidding) and invisible spirits, banshees, ghosts, and other undead casters. A few skeletons and sprite dragons, and you've got a party. And that's just the outer part of the instance. Outside, there's three crystals, each guarded by a mess of the mana elementals. You need to take out the elementals to deactivate the crystals. Also outside are two bosses...an undead hunter that does 1500 points of damage per shot with her bow...and her big level 60 elite undead bear. By the bridge near the hunter, there's a quest-giving spirit who wants you to free all the spirits in the place by killing the prince, who's in the lower instance.
Downstairs, guarding the door to the lower instance is a huge wood elemental...stuns, knockdowns, the whole routine. Beat him, and you get into the door to the inner instance (you did remember your key, right?)
The passageway is filled with invisible spirits who are waiting to pound the hell out of you. Once you pass the spirits, you get to the prison.
A huge circular room with an enormous forcefield around it. Inside? A big multiple-eyed demon dog thing. Go left or right, deactivate the crystal, go the other way and do the same thing...if you got all 5 crystals, the forcefield falls. Did I mention that the entire round room is filled with wandering air elementals? No? Well, it is. Groups of 5, AoE lightning and knockback.
Also to the right of the passage is another passage that leads to a library. In the library is a vendor (that repairs...and you'll need it by this time) and a bunch of other npcs, including the insane prince. But you can't touch the prince yet. You haven't whacked the demon dog...
Back outside to take on the demon. He hits hard, he's plain nasty, and did I mention the AoE teleport field? He randomly teleports people around the room, making it impossible for melee characters to stay close, and making it impossible for healers to stay in range. All in all, a tough fight. Drops some good loot, though.
Once you slam the dog, the Prince gets pissed. Head back into the library, and take on the prince. He's a night elf (always fun to kill) but he's dual-wielding dual-bladed swords. In short, he's fast, hits hard, and switches targets at a moment's notice. He also parries a ton.
Anyway, whack him, head upstairs to talk to the spirit who gave you the quest, and she tells you that the treasure of the city is yours! Go back downstairs and open the chest, and inside is some tasty loot.
Now, all this is tough and fun and such...but the prize is the final instance.
The last instance is basically an ogre outpost. Ogres everywhere, along with their demon minions and vicious hyena dogs. Groups of 2-6, all hard hitters, casters, healers...the basic humanoid crawl. Something to note, however: There are 5 named guards/npcs. The drunk, guards, captains. They drop decent loot.
About midway through the instance, you come across a goblin who is chained to the floor...he has a quest for you...if you get him ogre tannin, rune thread, rugged leather, and bolts of runecloth, he'll make you a gordok ogre suit. It's good for one use, 10 minutes in length.
The tannin is found in a basket in the corner of one of the rooms filled with ogres. When you take the tannin, a hidden ogre says something laugh out loud funny, then attacks. Finish him. There's only one tannin per instance run. So again, you'll be doing this more than once.
You go through the instance, killing as you go. The captain of the guard is no joke. He hits HARD, stuns like mad, and summons a mess of guards to help him. Beat him, then head to the King's dais.
On there is the King and his observer. The observer is a healer of no mean skill...so stay on him to keep him busy...but don't kill him.
Once you kill the King, an NPC says that you are now the King!
Sure enough, the whole instance becomes friendly to you, and you can talk to the ogres there. Further, the NPC says that all the ogres owe you tribute for being the new King! LOOT!
However, he says, the amount of loot you get is based on the number of named NPCs left in the dungeon. Oops. You killed 'em all, didn't you? You get a few potions, some food, some drink.
The trick, obviously, is to get enough tannin to make everyone an ogre suit. Then, run through the dungeon without killing any nameds except the king, and maximize your loot!
Overall, this was so clever and humorous, that I enjoyed this a ton! Walked out with a key, a ton of good loot. Runecloth. Felcloth. Essences. Cash. A recipe for Run Tumm Tuber Surprise. And a great time.
I think it's time I got my tannin....
YOU BASTARD! NOW I want to play this instance.
Thanks for writing this up; it will be a huge help when I get there which is hopefully soon.
Posted by: Paul at March 29, 2005 02:39 PM