First impressions - Magister’s Terrace

March 26, 2008

Had a run at Magister’s Terrace last night with my new guild.  We only got through the first two bosses though.  A late start, combined with my ventrilo client not connecting to their server, along with new content led to only getting the first two bosses down and stopping at midnight.

First impression though is it’s a pretty fun instance.  The half we saw didn’t really hold many surprises (Selin Firehart is another Warlord Kalithresh fight, Vexallus spawns adds that must be killed just like The Curator), but it’s always fun and interesting to go through something for the first time. 

The instance is a bit more colorful than others, in my mind.  It’s still somewhat dark overall (you are in a “dungeon” after all), but it has some Blood Elf reds and golds throughout that add a nice counterpoint.  After killing the second boss, you get to wander outside and are treated to a nice cutscene. 

No huge strategy tips here.  Overall, while we did wipe on several occasions, we didn’t find the instance to be overpowered.  I was tank along with a Paladin, Shaman, Mage and Warrior.  What I noticed:

• A few 5-pulls early on, but very manageable with some basic crowd control
• Some of the mobs cast this purple bubble shield over them.  If you are tank, be sure to pull them out of that bubble as it absorbs 75% of the spell damage directed at them.  Our first wipe was becasue we didn’t notice this
• The strategy on Selin is to attack and break the green crystals when he starts to recharge his mana from them.  I can tell you that the recharge time is much shorted than Kalithresh.  Our group actually did not attack the crystals and instead kept on Selin.  His AoE did take out our mage eventually, but it wasn’t so overpowered that it couldn’t be healed through.
• The mana wyrms things leading to Vexallus do not come all at once.  However, if you’re tank and you are trying to use Swipe to keep the entire group under control, be sure to rotate your facing (e.g. from 9 o’clock through 3 o’clock) to make sure you are getting aggo on them all.  Even then, we lost our mage on a couple of the groups due to 2 or 3 of the wyrms peeling off and hitting him
• The lightning orbs off Vexallus didn’t seem overpowered, just like with Selin.  I couldn’t tell if my party members were attacking them, but we did get hit a couple times and they didn’t seem too bad.  We wiped on our first attempt, probably due to grouping too closely around Vex at the start.  Second attempt, ranged stayed at distance and Vex went right down.

No great gear.  The ring I wanted off Vex didn’t drop.  Only one greenie off trash which I lost the roll for.

This was my first run with my new guild and I really like them.  Good, easy-going folks that don’t screw around.  When it felt like the first wipe was my fault, they re-assured me they didn’t care and this was new content.  And when we wiped again at the entrance to Selin’s room, the mage admitted he “blinked” into another mob and we all had a laugh. 

I really hadn’t planned on playing a full night as I get up at 6 in the morning.  When I realized it was midnight, I asked if we could look for a replacement for me, but said I would continue until one was found.  The response was actually something like “no worries, RL comes before any game.”  We looked around for a replacement, and when none was found, called the run.  Any guild that acknowledges that real life is more important than a game has something going for it in my mind. 

I didn’t do any of the new dailies, so no information there.  All in all though, a fun night.

What did you all do and what do you think of the new content?

Posted in Burning Crusade, Instances, Strategy - Feral, World of Warcraft