Deadmines, Take Two

That went a lot better.

There were two major differences. The biggest was that we had all leveled up. I don't think there were any major shifts -- any new skills that really saved our bacon -- but just having more health really can make for success. Plus, the extra levels meant that the trash mobs -- the Defias Strip Miners and the like -- were much less likely to aggro. So we were able to even skip some early parts of the run. Nothing significant, but still it helped us get to the difficult parts while we were still sharp.

Rhahk'Zor was completely anticlimactic, going down almost as easily as the 'normal' Defias elites scattered throughout. We were lucky in that Miner Johnston paid us a visit, and we cleared him out fairly quickly. We were somewhat more careful with Sneed and his shredder, making sure to clear out the random goblins in the room first, but in the end he went down easily also.

We were careful again in clearing out the goblins in the smelter, but here too we were helped by their reduced aggro radius. Gilnid himself went down quickly, and our confidence continued to build as we approached the ship. Mr. Smite was again an amusing fight. We had Cargarios tank him while the others focused on the assassins. This time, we had not quite taken out the second assassin when Smite did his warstomp, and that meant that Firegrin had to tank some damage while stunned. But ultimately it was nothing he couldn't handle, and Mr. Smite was taken down like the rest.

That left us ready to board the ship.


Again, no major challenges here. We were able to pull out Cookie and nuke him by himself. We worked our way up the ship, and then faced the top deck, where we had wiped before. This time, we had realized a much better pull strategy. We waited on the lower deck while Wyrmm stealthed up to the last few casters remaining. He struck and then ran back down to us -- forcing them to follow. This worked flawlessly, allowing us to clear them out without dealing with Captain Greenskin. We had some anxious moments pulling Greenskin, as we didn't want to deal with VanCleefe yet, but in the end it wasn't a problem. As with Mr. Smite, we had Cargarios tank Greenskin while Firegrin and Wyrmm first took down the caster and then the pirate.

That left VanCleefe. I've seen many different strategies for dealing with him. Ultimately we decided to all focus on VanCleefe and get him done first, then to deal with the other adds last. And it worked absolutely flawlessly. Cargarios was able to grab 100% of the aggro, and so Alamein had only him to heal while the others kept dealing damage. I threw several big heals onto him -- probably seven -- but he'd given me the Blessing of Salvation, so I never grabbed aggro. Through the whole fight with VanCleefe, I don't think I saw a single point of damage on either Firegrin or Wyrmm; in short, it was perfection. After he (finally) went down, we cleaned up the adds and then took stock. We were done!

The loot drops were OK. Rakh'zor dropped his worthless hammer. Sneed, Miner Johnson, Gilnid, and Mr. Smite all dropped mildly amusing greens. Greenskin dropped the [Emberstone Staff], which the team generously gave to Alamein. And VanCleefe dropped the [Cape of the Brotherhood], which Cargarios won on a roll.

So -- in short -- a good time, fairly easy, and a real cause for celebration. It's pretty satisfying to get our first instance closed out so emphatically.

What's next?

Deadmines, Take One

We almost made it.

We were pumped and ready for our first venture into an instance. And for the most part it went very well. We had one manageable bad fight, and one unmanageable one... and that's what wiped us. At that point, we'd had respawns behind us, and it was late, so we called it a night and bailed out.

One of the key decisions we made was to rely on the Deadmines instance guide at WoWWiki. Many times I prefer to work 'blind' so that I can be surprised by things... but as we were completely new to instances I was eager for any help we could get. And it was incredibly valuable for some details.

We took a quick trip through the non-instance portion. We had one glitch when fighting down to Marissa du'Paige. Somehow Firegrin's piggie got distracted and ran around a ramp, aggroing a whole slew of mobs. So things were fairly frantic for a bit, but we just focused on our jobs and kept our cool, and the storm blew over.

We worked out a good rhythm at the beginning of the instance. I suppose we were slow, but we were careful in all our pulls and brought in just a few at a time. Wyrmm did a lot of excellent scouting, and he was able to coach us on who was where and when to make our pulls. The first boss, Rhahk'Zor, was relatively easy. We were good at pulling in everyone around him, so we fought him completely by himself. We continued on (didn't see Miner Johnson) and visited with Sneed. He was if anything easier, but of course took longer as we had to fight both his shredder and himself.

Gilnid was a little tougher, mostly because of the room shape. We were worried about our pulls, particularly of the goblins on the platform in the middle of the room. A couple times we had a lot to handle, particularly with the mechanical pets the goblins have. But we did well at it, and when the room was clear it was fairly easy to take down Gilnid.

Then things got interesting. Wyrmm was able to pick the lock on the doors, which kept things quiet, and we did fine with the pulls down most of the boardwalk. Mr. Smite was pretty funny, and made for a good fight. It helped (a lot!) to know about his new weapons and what was coming next, and we definitely used the strategy of killing off his minions first. He dropped Smite's Mighty Hammer, which we gave to Cargarios, as it was far superior to the hammer he had been using.

(And yes, I know the tank "should" be using a shield. Like I said, we're more interested in having fun than being as efficient as possible. Eric likes the big hammer? Eric uses the big hammer.)

So now, on to the ship. The tight quarters made things nerve-wracking. Our pulls went fine. We got lucky with Cookie; he was quick to flee but ran away from the rest of the mobs. We caught it fairly quickly anyway, but there was little worry about him bringing back friends.

We kept working our way up the ramps on the ship. From the guide, we knew to be wary of Captain Greenskin. We flagged him with the skull and were careful with all our pulls; I don't think we ever came close to aggro'ing him from the lower levels. We were very paranoid about the mobs on the last ramp, but we carefully pulled them when Greenskin was far away, and had them run down to us.

That went well, but then we knew we had a problem. There were two Squallshaper mages at the top of the ramp, right next to Greenskin's patrol path. There was no way to reach the top without aggro'ing them... and we didn't know how to pull the mages down -- they would just cast on us.

We decided to try to take them as quickly as possible. We timed it perfectly and had made a good effort, but then we saw Greenskin running in (with his minions) and knew we were in trouble. I was trying to keep up with the healing... when I suddenly found myself very dead.

Uh-oh.

After that, the wipe was on. Without a healer, Cargarios got tanked into oblivion quickly, and Wyrmm followed soon after. Firegrin hung on longest, but death was inevitable and he soon joined us in spirit form. The biggest problem with our party design is that we have no ability to wipe recover. We have two rezzers which is nice, but no shaman to self-rez and no warlock to soulstone someone. And one of our rezzers is also our tank -- so no ability to disengage and flee. in other words, dead is dead.

We ran to the instance and popped in together, to see the other bit of bad news. Since we had been slow and methodical in moving through the instance, all the trash mobs had respawned. It was going to take another hour (at least) to work our way back to the ship. It was already 11:00PM and some of us needed to get up early to go to work. So we hearthed out and called it a night.

It's frustrating to be so close and to miss our goal. But we did well, and I think we have a strategy to deal with those pesky mages next time. We did get some nice items from the drops, and about a level's worth of experience. And you know what? Getting wiped just shows us that these things are challenging... which is sort of the point. I know that there are players out there who know much more than us, who could take even our characters and clean out the Deadmines in an hour or two. But efficiency really isn't the point, at least for us. We had to use a lot of creativity to plan for and complete our fights, and had a lot of fun along the way. Nobody lost their cool or got angry with the whole thing. And that tells me we're doing something right.

Bring me the head of Edwin VanCleef!

Danny had joined us a bit late, so we had already completed much of the Defias Brotherhood quest line. So we spent some time Friday night to get him up to the same point as the rest of us. It was kind of fun to run amok killing Defias trappers, smugglers, pillagers, looters, pathfinders, highwaymen, and knuckledusters. With three of us over level 20, it was trivial to take them one at a time, at least until Moonbrook, so we set Loot to Free-for-all and spread out a bit, engaging in a bit of Defias genocide. We were a bit more careful in Moonbrook but it was still easy enough; it was rather nice to go into the inn and take everyone down without any deaths, and we were rather lucky in finding the messenger without waiting too long.

Still, the whole process took a few hours, and Eric was ready to log out when we finished. DK and I helped Danny get to Redridge to complete that (annoying) errand, and then we logged out.

So by Sunday we were all caught up, and ready to escort the traitor to Moonbrook. With four of us it was never going to be a problem, but we got lucky in that several players were farming the Defias, so the escort was trivially easy.

And then we were in front of the Deadmines entrance. Since we were there -- and had time -- we decided to jump in and check it out.

This was new territory for us. I had taken a level-24 warlock in once before, but even soloing the entrance (non-instance) area is tough, so I hadn't gone in very deep. We ended up wandering around the entrance for quite a while. Killing the Defias and their miners was pretty easy, but we had a tough time with the undead miners and wiped the party at one point. It is difficult to manage the large pull that we get at the back of the room, and we didn't handle it with four of us.

A warrior showed up, so we added him to the party and went back; that made life much easier. Frankly, we're not very good at managing difficult group work, and in particular handling aggro is a challenge. Part of that is due to our paladin serving as our tank, but the rest of us also don't know much about controlling aggro in a fight. DK's rogue is pretty good at managing on his own, but Danny's hunter struggles to keep mobs away, and I have a tendency to pull in mobs with my druid's heals.

So, in other words, having a warrior made life easier, but also was probably a bit weird for him. We also have a tendency to just roll Need on all the loot that pops up, since we're all friends and good at passing around good items to whoever can use it. I hope he was OK with it. We had to break up the party anyway, but at least we were able to wipe out the undead miners first.

So we left off there. We've spent the last two nights on our own, mopping up other quests, getting new gear, leveling up professions, and generally cleaning ourselves up. But tonight we're planning our first run into the instance itself. I'm really curious to see how we do. As I said, we're not terribly skilled at group dynamics. Our party makeup (rogue, paladin, druid, hunter) is a bit tricky, though theoretically well-balanced. And we'll be going in with a four-man group. But we're also a bit higher in level than usual for Deadmines (23, 21, 21, and 19), and we've developed a good group dynamic.

And the best part about that group dynamic? We'll have fun no matter what. We've been able to laugh at ourselves for doing stupid stuff or just getting overwhelmed; I fully expect that a) it will happen tonight and b) we'll be able to see the humor.

Hope I'm right!