WoW Journal - 7-July-2006

It is surprising how after nearly 2 years of WoW I still end up finding new aspects of the game. Last night I played with my low level priest in a way that was slightly different from anything I had done before: farming the Scarlet Monastery graveyard with a group. Now I had farmed the SM graveyard solo with a level 60 when that was still one of the more profitable ways to make gold. But when going to an instance with a group it was usually not a farming operation, but for quests. And 99% of the groups I've been in visited a particular instance only once, with only a few exceptions where I went with the same group twice to get some loot that didn't drop the first time. But with last night's group I farmed the SM graveyard 4 times, and we stopped somewhere in the middle of the 5th run.

It all started with me getting a tell inviting me to a SM graveyard group, last slot for a healer. I love that kind of invites, because it means I don't need to stand around waiting forever for the group to be complete. We travelled to SM with only a small incident, avoiding the entrance to Undercity because of group mates which stupidly had a PvP flag on I got too close to the zeppelin tower, and got killed by the guards there. Fortunately the graveyard is right next to the Scarlet Monastery, and I just rezzed there and called it a shortcut.

So we arrived at the Scarlet Monastery, and started killing. Me as priest, one warrior, one warlock, and two rogues, a good group composition for fast killing. With the SM graveyard having 2 chests, both of which can potentially be locked, having a rogue in the group is good. On the first run we meet a rare boss, Azshir the Sleepless, who drops a Necrotic Wand, which I win with a need roll against the warlock. Great, the thing has over 10% more DPS than my previous wand. We continue straight on into the crypt, kill the boss there, get an off-hand item for the warlock, and decide to go back out to reset the dungeon. But on the way out we run into the new boss, Scorn, patched in with the Scourge invasion patch 1.11, which as we find out is summoned by killing the end boss of the SM graveyard. We weren't prepared for that and most of us die. I try to run for the exit, but that only ends in me being out of range when the surviving rogue loots Scorn, so I don't even get a chance to roll for his nice necklace.

Well, we run back as ghosts, meet up again outside of the instance, and I reset the dungeon, having been promoted to group leader after the original group leader had to relog once. This new "reset all instances" option in the group menu is quite useful. So we do a second run, no rare boss this time, kill the mobs, empty the chests, kill the end boss, and this time we are prepared for Scorn. Scorn in level 34 elite, with us being level 30 to 32, and he has a nasty frostbolt multishot, but this time we prevail without losses. He drops a nice dagger with good damage, and a small bonus on damage and healing spells, Scorn's Focal Dagger. I'm not even interested, but both rogues and the warlock are. Of course the warlock claims that it is a caster dagger. Now that is a good argument for a guild group, but in a pickup group you can't expect to get far with that. Of course both rogues roll need on the dagger, as it deals higher damage than their best dagger, and one of them wins the roll over the warlock. The warlock is angry, just says "wtf!", leaves the group without another word and logs out. Bleh!

The rest of us decides that we don't actually need the warlock. We go out, reset the instance again, and successfully run it two more times in a group of four. Works like a charm. All in all a very profitable venture, I make over half a level in experience, the wand, a couple of greens, and lots of silk and cash.

The rest of the evening I spend soloing. I do a couple of quests in Stormwind, finishing the Defias quest line by exposing and killing the traitor in Stormwind castle. The part where you need to provide some silk and two apples to a gnome for him to disguise his robot as female human to lure out the traitor always makes me smile, since I realized what exactly he needed the two apples for. :) And of course the Seal of Wrynn quest reward is nice. I also do the Stormwind parts of the Missing Diplomat quest, but stop that quest line before it leads me to the Wetlands, the fight in Menethil Harbor is too tough at level 30.

Finally I travel around on the Legend of Stalvan quest line from Duskwood. That involves lots of traveling and only one fight against a level 32 mob at the end, but the 4100 xp quest reward for the final step make me ding level 31. All in all quite a good evening.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:30 AM Permanent Link