WoW Journal - 21-February-2006

Somehow I ended up in a pickup group for Scholomance last night. Had been planned as a guild event, but in the end only my priest, a mage, and a warlock from the guild showed up, and we had to invite a warrior and a hunter from outside the guild. At first I was optimistic, seeing how well equipped with epics the warrior was. But we fared incredibly badly, it took us 2 hours with several wipes just to reach Rattlegore, and we abandoned the enterprise there, due to the respawns behind us.

Pickup groups inevitably suffer from a lack of familiarity and trust. And probably me and my guild mates weren't playing absolutely perfectly. But I still think the problem was with the other two guys. The hunter definitely pulled at some occasions where he shouldn't have, and several times broke the crowd control of some shackled undead or sheeped human. And the warrior wasn't drawing and holding aggro as much as he should have, which forces me as a priest to spread my heals over the whole group, which isn't very mana efficient. Just confirms my impression that a raid is in reality much easier than a 5-man group, as long as you aren't the raid leader. Thus somebody can end up with lots of epic gear on his warrior, without having a clue how to taunt.

I do like Scholomance. The place has atmosphere, a very fitting haunted library theme. And of course if you manage to beat it, you are well rewarded, with a 7 boss mobs dropping loot in the final part. But the place *is* hard to do for a 5-man group. Did it several times with Raslebol, to finish the quest series there which allows you to see the ghosts of Caer Darrow, but didn't get to the final boss every time. Nevertheless taking 2 hours just to reach Rattlegore was the worst performance there I participated in. I hope I can get a guild group going there which fares better.
- posted by Tobold @ 7:45 AM Permanent Link