Help I'm Alive, erm, Well I WAS...

So we made a second run into Uldaman the other night. And ya know what?

Even without levelling, or gearing, we pretty much blasted through the areas that had caused us troubles. But it wasn't without a little luck, some more thorough planning, and a map:

For the full, readable map, please visit the site that created it:

Videogamemaps.net

We decided to go in on a loot, "farming" expedition, (and also cuz we got the one quest for The Shattered Necklace)

Anyhoo... We went to the dead Paladin (part of the quest) and started getting the pieces necessary. Plus, we got all the pieces parts to summon Ironaya and we proceeded to kick her stoney ass.

Short story longer, we ran through all the back tunnels and corridors, killing and maiming as we went. (with lots of healing and mana stops) We killed Grimlock, we nailed Ravelosh, and we wiped the floor with Galgann Firehammer's nappies. We RULED the damned place!

Actually, we were just more methodical in our attack. We always assumed we would get 3-5 baddies, and did so nice & easy. Because of this, we didn't die at all while clearing the upper floor, even that one room that did us in last time. It turns out if you go in the back side, you can pull 4 at a time, which is a little nicer than the 7 or 8 (or 9?) that we got last time. Nice manageable chunks.


And then we went downstairs.

Ya see that picture at the top of this post? That was about, oh, 30 seconds before a profound and horrible death at the hands of Archaedas, and his 20-30 minions. We tried to be clever, but it didn't work. When we did the summoning, we ran back out the "front" door, to keep the number of baddies down to 3 or 4 plus Archaedas.

You know how everyone looks like they're made of stone? You know how doors are these solid things that prevent stuff from going through them?

Not so much. It started with only Archaedas and 2 others, but over the next seconds (ok, maybe a minute) we had another 6 or 7 "visitors" in the already crowded foyer/entrance. We managed to badly hurt a couple of the smaller guys, and nicked Archaedas health a bit, but overall, it was a disaster. I need to read up a bit, but I begin to think that 2 players in their mid 40's just aren't enough to handle this fight.

Tempes fugit: Mors est æternal
(my bad attempt at "Time is fleeting; death is eternal")

Shot Through the Heart, Uldaman's to Blame...

Kattastrophe & I decided to try to "Duo" our way through Uldaman. She's a level 43 shammy, and Balthazario is a level 43 pally. She's been through it once before in a higher level alt, in a group of 5, but I've been antsy to do something, so in we went.

*Note, we tried this earlier, at level 38, just to see how far we'd get. We made it to the Ravelosh fight and were killed. HARD. So we called it done.*

As we entered we had the following:

Balthazario - 1939 Health, 1613 Mana, ~4,500 armor (with full buffs/totems)

Kattastrophe - 1679 Health, 2537 Mana, ~4,000 armor (with full buffs/totems)

I did tank/DPS and she did heal/DPS. During the night, in the boss fights, I was regularly hitting 160-180 DPS and maxxing at 200, and she was doing ~100+ in bigger fights.

We went in, beating our way through 1, 2 & 3 (on the map above) We didn't realize that Kattastrophe had picked up the Shaft of Tsol, or we would have fought Ironaya (4).

We fought through 5 and 6, and at one point we both died, BUT, thank goodness for the ability of Shammies to self-resurrect. (I can't remember where, but we got surprised by 5 mobs)

We can easily handle 3 baddies. With a little planning, we can "easily" take on 4 (including a medium boss) We beat a couple fights with 5, but they were CLOSE. We ran into trouble when we would be expecting 2-3 and end up with 4, 5 or more. I guess we should always plan on more, but fighting that way takes a while.

In those "planned" bigger fights, we did the following:

• We buff & place helper totems (stoneskin)
• Pick the weakest mob, and target him first.
• Plan which will be 2nd & 3rd (4th?)
• We simultaneously cast Exorcism (me) and Lightening Bolt (Kattastrophe) on our target.
• As the whole group approaches, she would drop a Magma totem, and I'd drop Consecration.
• Kill the group, one by one, from the weakest to the strongest. (using normal spell/attaack rotation)
• If needed, Kattastrophe would pull back & heal while I tried to hold threat (not always successfully - need to remember to hit Righteous Defense and Righteous Fury more often)

And this works pretty darned well. We went on to the ledge above 7 (And carefully slinked away) then went towards 8 (the Dark Iron Dwarves, along with Galgann Firehammer)

Things started off a bit rough with the dwarves when we pulled 4 of them, and not just the 1 or 2 we were trying for. And things went from bad to worse, when a roaming Trogg wandered a *little* too close. 5 v 2 and we were toast.

Cue Shanny rez, and we were back in business. Only thing, is that I now had an overall armor durability of 79%, and Kattastrophe was at 85% or there abouts.

We cleared that damnable Trogg and all his local friends, and then proceeded to take down the dwarves. A tough fight, but not too bad. Especially since we were taking more damage than we should (that pesky armor).

We then went back to take on the Ancient Stone Keeper and his ilk (7). We targeted one Earthen, and ended up pulling about 8.

*cue hightailing it back to Loch Modan after rezzing*

And that's all I have to say about that...


A couple things I learned... (and/or realized we need before trying to clear it again)

1. It wouldn't hurt to get noe more level each, (maybe 2?) since that will give us each a new group of trained spells/abilities, as well as the improved hit, health, etc.
2. I am WAY under armored. I broke level 40, so I should be in plate. Maybe not every item, then at least most of them. As it is now, I only have 2 pieces (helmet & gloves - both of which I crafted) I just need to make sure I get some good stats on whatever I get. Regardless, another 400-600 armor points will come in handy.
3. I need to learn to tank a bit better, when it's required.
4. Use the front entrance to farm for loot & EXP, but use the rear entrance when we need to go farther in.
5. If possible, pick up a PUG or two for the final push. I don't think they have to be very good, but if we get a little more DPS production and bit more damage mitigation (either by spreading it out amongst more people, or due to more proactive healing) and we should be able to take this down in pretty short order.
   

This has been a good learning experience, and it wasn't THAT frustrating. Since we were so borderline, it made things a LOT slower than needed, both because of the time each battle would take as well as the length of time needed for recovery between them.

Without getting more players, I'm not sure how to handle 6-8 Earthen mobs, but I'm sure an idea will come to me, and I look forward to seeing how tough Ironaya & the other Bosses are.

Til later...