2008-02-11 Blackfathom Deeps

Sunday morning dawned bright and warm. It was almost a shame to spend that morning in the dark, water filled warrens within Blackfathom Deeps. But gold, loot, and high adventure awaited!

BFD is almost always called Blackfathom Depths, but Deeps is it's real name. The underground ruins are mostly water filled and we will spend most of the run wading and swimming through streams, pools, and lakes. The dungeon also has a very long, mob filled area before the actual entrance to the instance itself, similar in that way to Wailing Caverns. There are also a lot of Bosses - 8 in all. It is a mid-20s dungeon, and like most of the pre-TBC instances, has been "tuned" to improve levelling. What that really means is that bosses that were as high as level 26-27 elites when Wild ran it, are now capped at level 24 elite.

There are only two quests to enter BFD with, but there are two more that are picked up within the dungeon.

The GF had a full team this time. Level-wise we went in with 2-27s, 2-26s, and a 25. The mage was the level 25. The two week absence of the warlock, Kon, due to computer problems, didn't seem to hurt his grinding, as he jumped from 24 to 26 shortly after getting back. Having Kon back was a big help for BFD, since warlocks have a "Breathe Underwater" spell that allowed us to swim and fight underwater without worrying about drowning.

We fought through the trash mobs down a long, twisty series of tunnels. The ceilings were low in many places, making sight lines hard and giving Philly a claustrophobic feel. Once inside the instance, though, the ceilings rise to a more normal height in most places. A partnership of naga and satyrs with the Twilight's Hammer cult control BFD, and where they still protect and serve a favored pet of the Old Gods. That pet is the final boss in BFD.

The first boss the group encountered, though, was Ghamoo-ra, an elite turtle found on a circular pad of land in the middle of a lake. The place has a mix of elite and non-elite mobs, including many in the water. After clearing through the pool to get to Ghamoo-ra, we attacked and killed the 23 elite with little trouble. The warrior got a nicer shield to replace the one he'd gotten from that other turtle in WC.

Philly had had to make some healing adjustments for this run. I had started out as usual, spamming the HoT Renew to keep everyone topped off. The group was doing fine, but was taking more damage than in prior dungeons, and Philly started getting worried about mana use. Renews cost considerable mana and I was casting it a lot more in BFD. I had to remind myself that priests were not HoT machines like resto druid Wild, and that I'd better start using longer cast, more mana friendly spells. After a little experimentation Philly settled on a 2.5 sec cast Lesser Heal as the mainstay heal, and would cast it whenever a player got below 80% health. Even with both the warrior and pally tanking at the same time on trash mob fights, Philly had no trouble managing mana and keeping them both healthy. Well, except once.

The pally died during one of the underwater fights. He and the warrior were tag teaming 4-5 mobs when the warrior discovered that his underwater breathing had worn off. Philly didn't really notice because she can hold her breath underwater a lot longer than anyone else. The warrior headed for the surface. I can only surmise that the pally was left with all five mobs on him, because in a couple of seconds his health plummeted. Philly dropped a Renew on him, but before I could even get off a follow up Flash Heal the pally was dead. With several mobs now loose it was a chaotic underwater struggle, but the rest of us finally pulled through. Philly got to use her resurrection spell for the 2nd time ever. We all checked to make sure we had our underwater breathing spell refreshed before taking a dip after that. Oh, and the warlock learned how to properly use his master soulstone spell. Philly got it as wipe insurance, so I would always try to position Philly during fights where she could die safely if necessary, since I would be able to use the stone to self-rez.

We pushed on, killing the next three bosses in succession with cool precision. Down went Lady Sarevess, Gelihast, and Lorgus Jett. From those three were two blue drops, a leather piece and an axe that no one needed.

The next boss, Baron Aquanis, is a Summoned boss that appears when using the Fathom Stone, a pillar found at the bottom of one of the lakes. The water elemental was not hard to defeat, but Philly did something wrong in regard to the quest related to this fight. After fighting the Baron, Philly should have been able to pick up a fathom core, which completes the quest. She never picked it up and could not complete the quest. The Baron also dropped an axe. Sigh.

Another Boss, Old Serra'kis, is an optional elite sea serpent that requires some considerable underwater swimming to find. I can't remember if Wild ever fought him. Some of our group had never even heard of him. We went after him, found him, and killed him. He dropped a very nice dagger that any rogue would love to have. Oh, wait, we don't have any rogues. Philly did get a 10 slot bag out of that fight. She was the only guildie that still needed one.

The path to the Twilight Lord Kelris, who with his minions stands in protection of the pet of the Old Gods, requires fighting through a tight sunken corridor of water elementals, and dealing with numerous mobs while walking a narrow raised ledge that twists this way and that as the battles rage. Philly tripped over her own bony feet and fell off the ledge and into the water once, which then required swimming around to a ramp and killing a couple of water creatures in the way. That was embarrassing after having successfully negotiated the harder first part of that path, which required jumping across open water to rocks or platforms four times. Our mage missed a jump on that part and had to be rescued from the water.

We finally got to Kelris, who stands in a trance while we murder all the minions around him. Kelris, when attacked, can both mind control and sleep players. He did mind control the warrior for a bit, but the pally was there backing him up, and Kelris went down. Kelris dropped [Gaze Dreamer Pants]. Finally, a cloth caster blue! Philly didn't win the roll, but it was nice to finally see someone get something they could use.

To reach the pet, we then had to activate four candles set around the room, one at a time. Each candle released a group of mobs to defeat, who approach from multiple sides of the room. These fights got a bit hairy as nearly everyone would take some hits until the pally and warrior could round them all up. Then the AoE would drop them pretty quick.

Finishing off the last of the mobs opens a long passageway filled with shallow water. At the end of the passage is Aku'mai, a favored pet of the Old Gods. A level 24 elite, he supposedly hits hard, but did not put up much resistance against us and went down quickly. Aku'mai dropped another leather piece we could not use.

From a loot perspective, Philly got little of any worth and only one blue drop found a home in someone's gear. Nothing we could do about that, though. The quest rewards, though, were nice enough to take the sting out of the lack of good dungeon drops. All of the caster's likely chose [Witch's Finger] and [Gravestone Scepter]. The former is an off-hand that Philly will hold on to while looking for a good main hand to go with it. The Scepter is a shadow damage based wand that jumps Philly's wand DPS from 25 DPS to over 29 DPS. Very, very nice. The wand shoots a really cool looking purple flame when fired, too. Imagine all three of us caster's lighting up the place with purple shadow flames.

Philly made level 28, and the guild added another dungeon to our list of conquests: RFC, WC, SFK, and now BFD.