Gnomeregan

I apologize for not posting any new info for so long. I am generally a very lazy individual, procrastination is practically written on my forehead. Most of the stuff written here have usually happened a while prior to the actual post. For the latest scoop, you can always talk to me in game, I am more that happy to share the quirky happenings and any interesting game style mechanics that I have developed. I have also forgotten to tape any footage of myself inside, but rest assured, you are not missing anything interesting.

That being said, I have cleared Gnomeregan at level 28, and have found it pretty bland. Nothing really interesting happened. None of the bosses did anything special, and I did not have any new abilities to test out. I did find a rather poorly created encounter that is suppose to summon what I am guessing is the first boss. You have to speak to a little gnome named Blastmaster Emi Shortfuse who will begin blasting the sides of the walls in the small room which give way to an array of mobs. The unpleasant fact she forgets to mention before she starts is her incredibly poor health and armor condition, as I have never seen an escort styled NPC die quicker than her. Although part of it was my fault, but I would think it could happen to anyone.

My major mistake was to run into the mobs and realize I forgot to buff the party with blessings. Remembering that the paladin is a class that can survive for minutes at a time while rogues are trying to smash their puny daggers up its rear, I carefully begin casting blessings on each individual party member. Once I am finished (buffs should have no global cooldown inside instances!) I begin to effortlessly dispatch the eight or so mobs that are trying to smash their skulls against my fist. To my surprise she wasn’t even found in the mess of bodies.

What caused me to get upset was that she didn’t respawn, nor did I find a stick of dynamite that I could use to blow up the other side of the wall, freeing the boss. Other groups could have very well stayed back, or not bothered to AoE tank the mobs, and faced the same outcome. A sad outcome that would have been.

In terms of difficulty, only the very last pull that involved 7 durable mobs posed any serious threat to the tank’s health. Although I did wipe on my first pull of the groups of dwarves that lay mines. I made a bad decision to start running the party all over the place trying to smack the mines instead of killing the guys that were actually causing damage. This is perhaps the first indicator of the poor functionality that melee multiboxers face.

One last annoyance with this instance is the bosses. Some are not positioned in separate rooms or little alcoves, which clearly indicate they are a boss. A few just pace around a set path, using the same model as all the other mobs around them. This leads to surprise when you suddenly find a blue from a randomly killed corpse. One such a mob was named Viscous Fallout who runs around in the midst of other same model mobs expecting to be found accidentally. A major design flaw for the new and inexperienced players who don’t have wowhead as their homepage like I do (I laugh at your facebook homepage!).

In terms of time, experience and quests, it was a decent instance, competed within a reasonable time. Looting took a big portion once again in order to gather enchanting materials, as well as the excess amount of trash in between each boss. I wouldn’t say I destroyed the place.

Final Score: B