Philly and Arq were the first to reach the Summoning Stone outside Scarlet Monastery for our Tuesday night GF get together. We Summoned the warlock Kon and the warrior Huldu as they got in game. The mage, Braeco, was a no show.
The four of us tried to find a fifth to round out our group, but there was little to pick from and no takers. Since we were here we decided to give to SM a try with four.
Tonight we were planning to invade the Library area of SM. As mentioned before, SM has four separate wings, each of which can take an hour or more to complete depending on the group. The Library is not the toughest wing, but it is far more difficult than the Graveyard, which we did last time we were here.
Most of the mobs in the Library are Scarlet Crusader humans. While they come in all classes, the Crusaders do like hunters, and those hunters like big angry hyenas or hounds as their pets. The place is packed with mobs in small groupings that can easily cause multitudes to aggro if a pull doesn't go just right. They will also flee when low on health, and that is also a serious concern as more and more nearby mob groups are aggroed by the fleeing mobs. To top that off these "trash mobs" are all level 34-35 elites. Against our little foursome of level 30-33's these mobs will be very tough. Wowiki recommends that players be level 33-40.
The Library wing begins with a series of corridors guarded by clumps of mobs. Our first pull drew two mobs. Killing the first one took a long time, and the second one fled and brought back two more. We had to kill five before we finally got a break in the action. This was not going to be easy.
Our second pull was even worse than the first. The fight seemed endless and Philly used two mana pots just to keep up with the healing. I had ten mana pots with me, but I was already concerned about whether it would be enough. We needed some crowd control, and we're without our mage, so the warlock brought out her succubus to seduce one mob. The lock struggled a bit on the first couple pulls, but soon got the hang of it and we had at least one mob under control during the fights.
At the end of the first corridor is a large courtyard. Mobs line the lanes on the outside of the courtyard and patrol the central area as well. We carefully pulled mob clumps into the corridor to keep them from fleeing into the courtyard, which would be disastrous. The warrior died within seconds on the first courtyard pull. The pally stepped in we managed to get through a four mob fight with just the three of us. Well, four counting the succubus, who Philly was keeping healed as well. The fights were taking so long that the succubus Seduce spell had to be applied several times, and each application was less effective, with the mob escaping more and more quickly.
We were successful at clearing the courtyard. That in itself was a pretty good accomplishment. In a room adjacent to the courtyard is the first boss, Houndmaster Loksey. He's a level 34 elite and he has three elite hounds by his side. Four at once. Oh my. Each one of our group has some sort of Fear spell. So we figured that when things got really dicey we would Fear, which momentarily chases the mobs away, to give us some recovery time.
Philly also learned just how useful Fade is in these fights. Fade reduces aggro. In earlier dungeons and fights Philly didn't need it much, and since other toons I play, druid and shaman, have no real aggro reducing spells, I really had no experience with having such an ability. But here in the SM Library Philly had no choice but to keep the heals flowing to both warrior and pally in particular, and Philly would draw aggro. With as many mobs as we were dealing with and the level of damage they could deal, Philly couldn't just heal through it or weather it with a Shield. I started hitting Fade every time one of them stuck to Philly. And you know what? It worked! That mob banging on Philly or piercing her with arrows or gnawing on her bony ankles would immediately turn back to attack someone else as soon as Philly got off the Fade spell.
I did everything I could to help the fights and hang on to mana. Whenever I could get the slightest break in healing, Philly would switch to wand and do damage on whatever mob the warrior was whaling on. While not casting I could get a little mana regen going, shifting back to healing when necessary.
Still, we brought down just one dog before Huld died. The level 30 warrior was really straining in here. We Feared 'em off and sent the level 32 pally in to handle them. The fight went on and on. We brought down the boss, Loksey, but still had two dogs to deal with. Philly was near the point where my only heal spell was going to be a bandage. But the pally had moments to self heal, and between Philly and he and the continuing damage dealing from the lock, we brought them all down.
Houndmaster Loksey dropped a nice two hand weapon that the pally got. But it would have been neat to get the dog whistle, which is used to summon a hound to protect you.
From there we fought our way through another series of corridors to the Library proper, which is just a larger corridor with shelves of books along the walls. We were getting a bit winded, but we were still making progress. In here somewhere is supposed to be a book Philly needs to move forward on that ten quest chain for that wand. I couldn't find it. It was taking up a lot of time. I'd gone back to reading over the quest notes again to see if there were any more clues to it's location when I heard a commotion start up. The warrior, trying to be helpful, moved into a corridor we had already cleared to look around. And discovered how fast the respawns are. That whole section of corridor respawned around him. But we didn't know the extent of the respawn, so we all rushed over to help him. And got caught up in a fight much larger than we could deal with. It was a wipe. The warlock, Kon, had earlier given Philly a soulstone so that I could safely rez in just such a circumstance. But I hadn't noticed that the soulstone had expired and so hadn't asked for a new one. So Philly made two mistakes - not asking for a soulstone renewal, and taking so long trying to find that book we got respawns.
There would be no rez, and so we would all have to release and return to the start of the instance. Where every mob we had previously killed had respawned.
We did not have the time to do all that over again the same night. Philly did not get her book. Not this time, anyway. We will head back in there on sunday with hopefully a fifth player to make the task a little easier.
Our erstwihile warrior is also turning out to show some real promise with the turn of a phrase. Quoting his "in character" report on our first incomplete attempt on a dungeon:
Title: Late Fees enforced at the Scarlet Monastery Library
The Grunt Foundation - heroes of many, warriors extraordinaire - have suffered their first setback.*
*Because defeat is such a strong word...
Although the four were able to claw their way through the persecution-filled halls of the Scarlet Monastery's library wing - defeating scores of Adepts, Gallants, Beastmasters, and Diviners (as well Houndsmaster Loksey and his canine cohorts, taking [Loksey's Training Stick] as a trophy) - a surprise change of guards near the chambers of the nefarious Arcanist Doan led to the defeat of the Grunt warriors.
Now the party nurses its wounds and looks for aid as they plan their revenge attack on the Library. Will they succeed? Stay tuned for the next exciting adventure - same Grunt time, same Grunt server!
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