WoW: Into the Depths

I found some extended opportunities to play World of Warcraft over the weekend, and I used them to venture into a couple of instance dungeons: Gnomeregan and Blackfathom Deeps.

I found a group to venture into Gnomeregan with Grimbor on Saturday morning. Gnomeregan is the former capital of the Gnome civilization (hence the name), but it has been overrun by troggs and insane “Leper Gnomes”; the circumstances of the invasion are somewhat vague. Gnomes are the most prolific engineers of the WoW civilizations, and Gnomeregan is filled with whirring and spinning machinery. In fact, robotic adversaries are a significant portion of the enemies that you'll face in the dungeon. This dungeon is located in the Dun Morogh region, west of the entrance to the Dwarf capital of Ironforge.

Tips:

• After decending the elevator into Gnomeregan, turn left when you reach a balcony to head toward the entrance to the Instance.
• Some monsters in Gnomeregan – mostly troggs near the entrance – respawn. If you get wiped in the instance, you'll probably have to fight shortly after resurrecting yourself.
• If you see Dark Iron Dwarves, be wary of traps. They lay mines in the path, and the detonation of the mine will be followed by a brutal rush of monsters (yes, the photo below is my entire party turning all dead in just such an event).

• Also be wary of Alarm Bots. They announce you're presence to nearby monsters, potentially creating another unsurvivable rush.

The group that went with me into Gnomeregan was not an especially good one. Apart from Healemall, who's a member of my guild, they were fairly scatterbrained. We got wiped out with annoying frequency. I did manage to complete a few quests for the dungeon, though.

Saturday evening I played Gullveig and joined a group headed into Blackfathom Deeps. The Deeps are located on northern portion of the west coast of the region of Ashenvale. I only had one Blackfathom Deeps quest, and I didn't even complete it, but I still had a better time working the deeps because the group was much better organized. In fact, we only got wiped once, and that by an encounter that was deliberately set up to be pretty brutal.

Be prepared to do a bit of swimming. The Deeps are home to an array of aquatic monsters, including Murlocks, Nagas, crab-like Snapclaws, something resembling a giant snapping turtle, and Threshadons. It's also home to the Twilight Cult, which has members of a variety of races and classes. The Aquamancers may be the most annoying: they're like Warlocks that summon water elementals. An encounter with four Aquamancers turned into the big wipe for my party. All in all, though, it was a pretty good run, and Gullveig gained a level in the process. I played Primary Healer for the group, a role that I seem to be able to hold down pretty well.

On a final note, the latest patch (1.9) to World of Warcraft made at least one very cool update. Now all of the major capital cities have auction houses. You no longer have to journey to Orgrimmar or Ironforge to get to one. I think that's a long-overdue update.

Less than a week left to Saltare!