2008-01-25 The Sanctum of the Sun

The Sanctum of the Sun, one of several strongholds the blood elves have carved out in the Ghostlands, is the rally point for attacks against the Scourge fortress of Deatholme. There are multiple quest series involving that ongoing battle, and conquering Deatholme would pretty much complete all of the significant quests left to do in the Ghostlands. That was the area the GF focused on for the night's adventures.

I was late getting home from work, but I got Philly in game long enough to check in. Three others were waiting, athough one had just done what I had - get in game, say I'm here, be back in a few minutes. The fifth player, Kon, would not be making it tonight as his computer had crashed (video card meltdown). We started about 15 minutes late. Not a big deal, but since two of the players are east coasters, we tried hard not to be too late getting going. With Kon unavailable, we would manage with four for tonight. Two were at level 20, and two of us (Philly included) were at level 21.

Our questinator, Arq, usually leads the way, but Braeco knew this set of quests very well and took charge for the evening. The quests are inter-related and all happen in and around Deatholme. Deatholme is a walled compound sprinkled with a number of buildings inside. The compound straddles the Scar, a strip of burned and rubble strewn wasteland stretching the length of the Ghostlands and more. Braeco knew which quests to do in which order, and, even more importantly, knew what areas "not" to do because we had not reached the right point in a quest chain to do it. A number of times he would say "Don't go in there now, but we'll be back."

The quests started us off with a number of kill quests to reduce the army of Scourge undead and other nasties that controlled the area. Even with just four of us they went down fast and in bunches. Philly rarely had to heal and so I could get in on the DPS with Philly's wand. I've never played a toon (past level 10 anyway) that could use a wand, and I love it. The [Lesser Magic Wand] that Brae, our enchanter, crafted for Philly does very decent damage and doesn't require any mana to use. It's a ranged weapon so Philly can stand at a distance to use it, and unlike a bow or gun, it also works while in melee range. Beats using mana consuming spells or banging on a mob with a staff any day. It's only drawback is that it is on the spell casting global cooldown (gcd), so when Philly did need to heal I had to stop the wand and pause for the gcd to end before Philly could cast a heal spell. It's only a second, but that can be a very long second when things suddenly get hot.

The second phase of the evening required entering the buildings in Deatholme to find and kill four of the leaders of the Scourge compound. That was a little tricky, but only because we simply rushed into the buildings and began killing things. The inside of the buildings are basically a central cone with a passage that circles around it. Mobs can be found along the passage, and line of sight was sometimes an issue. But they were no match for the group, and whether trash mob or leader (non-elite level 20s) they didn't last long.

We then took a small detour in our questing, deciding to go after two elite roaming mobs (the two that we thought about doing, and rationally decided against, on our very first outing). Earlier in the week Philly was out doing some herb gathering and happened on Arq working the same area. He had made a couple of solo attempts on one of those elites, but could not take it. We grouped up and between the two of us we killed it. This night, the four of us not only took that one down again (so the other two could get the quest done), we went after and killed the other one as well.

Now it was time to take on Dar'Khan Drathir, a night elf undead and traitor of the horde, who commands the Scourge of Deatholme. Dar'Khan is a level 21 elite. He has four protectors, non-elite, but pretty tough. He can Fear and is tough enough to be taken seriously.

We entered his command post, and surveyed the situation. Well, sort of. Brae asked Huldu, our warrior tank, if he thought he could tank them all. I wanted to say "Seriously?" but Huldu said sure, as long as "I get the healin, mon" in his troll lingo. I guess that went without saying, because then he bounded into the middle of the mobs and attacked Dar'khan. Oh boy.

It wasn't pretty. Few tanks are going to hold five mobs at the same time, and since we had not even marked a kill order I couldn't say who was trying to kill who over the course of the fight. All Philly could do was to keep heals up on the tank, and spot heal the pally, Arq, as he was certainly having to tank some of those mobs, while trying to keep myself alive. The mage, Brae, I figured was on his own since he made that crazy suggestion (not really, I did manage to get an occasional HoT to him). Fears would send random players scurrying about, unable to do anything. Philly could do little about that as a missed heal would mean the end of the warrior, as he was taking a heck of a lot of damage.

Philly ran down to next to nothing on mana, soaked up a potion, and kept going. With a couple of mobs now dead the pace of the damage we were getting slowed a little and Philly was able to get out of the 5 sec rule a few times which allowed her mana regen to kick in. It was enough. We killed the other two mobs. With all his protectors dead, Dar'khan followed, and all four of us were still standing.

We were fortunate. Lucky. And, yea, we were a pretty good team under pressure, too. Marking targets and testing whether we could single pull some of the mobs would have made more sense, though.

Philly was also lucky enough not to get Feared. But I had discovered a spell I'd forgotten I had that could deal with that. Undead have a racial ability to break Fear. It would have been handy to remember that in some of the earlier outings, but at least now I know.

Philly made level 22 during the evening. Our time in the Ghostlands is likely at an end, and we will have to decide our next quest farming zone. Sunday we will venture into Wailing Caverns again. I hope all five of us can make it, but given our rising levels four of us could probably manage it. Kon is hoping to get his computer ready by then, though.

As a group we all achieved Exalted rep with Tranquillen faction. What did that get Philly? It got her the ability to buy [Tranquillen Champion's Cloak], her first piece of blue gear. Well, it was actually her second piece, since one of the quest rewards of the night was [Staff of the Sun], a blue staff that is magnitudes better than her old staff. Philly needs to ask Brae for some enchants!

PS - Philly had 2g at the end of the run. After buying the new level 22 spells from the priest trainer, Philly had - 98 copper. That's one tenth of one tenth of one gold. She didn't even have enough to buy Expert Alchemist training. Another grinding night must be coming up.