FINISH DATE: WoW - The Wailing Caverns - Dec. ??

I still have a bunch of elite quests (Horde) open for the Wailing Caverns and would love to have some help with them. Anyone who won't be running with the regular Tues night Blackhand group interested in doing this one with me sometime tonight?

See my update post below for Wed. details.

Ok, I see how you all are. Curse you, I say! Curse you! May puppy pee rain down upon your heads!

Umm, it''s most likely due to conflicting schedules as this is the night that Certis and Hoochie host for the horde people on blackhand.

I realize that, hence the winking smilie.

well my Horde chars are only lvls 14 and 9 so...

What are the level reqs slambie?

My Tauren Shammy is rapidly rizing at level 14!

Well I should be on with either Theseus (13 or 14) or Grumpicca (9) some time after 8pm CST and would be happy to log in/out of either so keep an eye out for me if anyone is interested in grouping. AFK until then...

I think it takes a full party of lvl 20-24 characters to complete these quests.

Yeah, you''re going to want to be in the high teens level-wise with a group of five, ideally, to pull it off.

I''ll either hold off for awhile or see if I can jump into a group on their way in.

I would be there for you, ye of the melon-headed kitten...but I think the highest level character I''ve got on the horde side is lvl 7 or 8. Not much help really...unless you need someone who dies well.

Well, DD, if you wanted to work on that Horde char, Grumpicca wouldn''t mind some company.

I am up for some WC. Hopefully I will catch you...

Update: Nimcosi (Eagleclaw) and I (Omusa) are planning on doing the Wailing Caverns elite quests tonight (Wednesday, 12/15) at 8:30pm EST. It''d be nice to have at least one or two other members in our party...lvls in the high teens/low 20s, ideally. Anyone interested in joining us?

I''ve got several of these quests for Thag (21 Shaman). I''m up for it, provided we get off to a prompt start. I''d have maybe two hours tops.

That works for me. Two hours is about all I have as well, which should be more than enough time to get through it if it goes anything like our Ragefire romp.

"DuckiDeva" wrote:

...unless you need someone who dies well. ;)

LOL. I''ve become an expert at that myself.

Make sure you share all your WC quests BEFORE you start killing things. I was in a group that didn''t remember to do this until we had already rid the caverns of one of the types of mobs we had to kill for a quest. Also, if you''re doing the quest to recover a bottle of 99 year old port, it''s not inside the instance. It''s inside the cavern, but back near where you first enter, not down near the instance.

Oh, thanks! I think I have that one. I''ll have to check. Should be a fun run.

Thanks Sway! I totally ignored that back corner at the entrance when I did a brief run in and out of there the other day.

I will be on for this. Eagleclaw. Where are we meeting?

How about meeting right at the cavern entrance?

Does everyone know where it is? ....SW of the Crossroads in the NW corner of the Lushwater Oasis. There are those darn centaurs in the area, but I don''t think they get close enough to the cavern entrance to go into smackdown mode.

I''ll be online an hour before our start time, so we can make alternate plans if necessary.

Well, we had a good group last night. In about 2 hours, we finished about half of the main quest, and several folks did side quests. The 99-year-old Port quest is actually pretty easy to finish without going into the Instance, if anyone cares.

We had, at various times, Thag (me), Padwynd (my wife and my son, variously), Omusa, Nogoda, Grohm and EagleClaw. Maybe one or two others whose names have slipped the surly bonds of brain, for which I apologize. I know several pets leveled; I leveled to 22 while turning in two quests afterwards. Anyone else?

After a bit of a rough (but fun!) start, we fell into the pattern well and methodically cleared out the spots we approached. As usual, we depended on a puller, then everyone chipped in with smacking things, while healers kept an eye out to break off the melee attacks and heal as needed. We had good luck with concentrating the attacks on the biggest threats first, but putting at least two people on most adds.

I can''t speak for others, but Frost Shock and the Frost weapon buff that Shamans really helped out by slowing things down. If I saw a spellcaster adding, I''d hit them with Frost Shock and then run up to interrupt them. Other folks used their weapons and spells effectively, and we cleaned up.

So, lessons learned - As the pull occurs, don''t rush out ahead, that''ll trigger other adds. Only run out if the caster or shooter stops at a distance. Also, assign one person to designate targets, either a hunter or the puller. It''s bad to pull two at once accidentally.

In this dungeon, high-level humans will add frequently. Be aware you can only strip their cover beasts so far, then they all pile in.

Healers should whack stuff while watching health, but preserve mana. Shamans should throw lots of totems. Tremor totem is useful in this dungeon, as a number of us were put to sleep and then revived by the totem 9or not lol). Everyone pile on the big guy in each fight first.

I''d say this is a 4-5 hour dungeon, realistically.

Great job everyone, hope we can do it again this weekend and finish up!

Great ""lessons-learned"" report Robear. What levels were you guys for WC? 18-22 or so?

I had such a good time in Ragefire last night that I am already looking forward to doing another instance. You could tell what a good time I was having by all the heavy breathing over TS

I really like playing a priest in the instance dungeons. I had to adapt my play style quite a bit though. I do a lot of soloing, so I''m used to concentrating on my damage spells. I quickly learned that the best combo for the instance was to save my mana by doing: SW: Pain, Shield the melee guys, wand, wand, wand, heal, heal, wand wand, etc. And I never appreciated how useful Fade was before. My only complaint was that it was often very hard to target the monsters since there were so many people in a small space. That, and the fact that we died without killing our final quest dude.

"Robear" wrote:

I know several pets leveled; I leveled to 22 while turning in two quests afterwards. Anyone else?
...
Great job everyone, hope we can do it again this weekend and finish up!

I also leveled to 22 during one of the final elite fights.

After we got our butts kicked good a few times and got in the groove, we were able to move along at a good pace by being patient and careful with our pulls as Robear mentions above.

As far as side quests, one thing I did notice is that the Serpentbloom plants are not a sharable quest item. That''s going to be a PIA if multiple party members have the serpentbloom quest. There''s just not a lot of that in there, in the first half of the caverns we covered anyway.

Nice work everyone. It was a lot of fun. I''d also like to carve out some time this weekend to finish up in there.

Edit to add: From a warrior perspective, use of the Charge skill to get your rage up is not very practical in these instances. More often than not it will require you to run too far out ahead of the group and potentially pull in more than the desired number of elites. In these situations, I use the Bloodrage skill to up my rage rating up then pile on with Rend, Hamstring, and Thunderclap (group damage) which I have maxed out as talents and they have very short cool down times. Battleshout is also a good one for upping all party member''s damage output for a short time, but it has a long cool down time and takes a fair amount of rage to cast.

Sounds like you guys had a fun time in there. There''s apparently another quest you get once you clear everything out and talk again to the big druid that stands where you first walk in. Someone else in the group activated it when I thought we were done. It kicks off like a whole new piece of the instance. It''s very cool and the staff you get as a reward is awesome.

About the Serpentbloom: You''re right that each person has to collect their own set of blooms. However, it also grows outside of the instance, so you can do some collecting on your own time.

We were about 18-22. It was a good group once we got rolling. I''ll probably try to solo the rest of the flowers tonight, but we''ll see.

It took me a while to counter my natural tendancies to charge a caster if he/she adds. I always try and earthshock them to interrupt casting but that just ended up attracting more attention as there were always minions around every corner. So instead of fighting 3, we ended up fighting 5-6 and having the caster pounding us from range.

So the tactic became finish off the minions and just heal whomever the caster was blasting from afar until the caster ran out of mana and charged into melee range.

That tactic still sounds a little counterproductive to me, but it worked extremely well. I got 3/4 of level 17 just from fighting in there. Great loot aswell. I think everyone walked away with at least one piece of new equiptment.

Funniest moment of the night was a certain shaman who decided to peter pan off a cliff into a seemingly harmless pool... filled with at least 3 even leveled crocolisks!

Who''s up for finishing the Wailing Caverns this week...tonight or tomorrow maybe?

I''ve got the first two gems from the big quest, and would be interested in going back in there tonight. The wife is working, so I should be able to get the little one to sleep by 9pm or so, and would be happy to join in at that point.

Pragg, 22 Troll Shaman, reporting for duty!

Well, I''ll more than likely to be in-game a little after 4:00pm PST, Fredster, and with any luck at all maybe the others will be too.

Hmm I may be around for this later tonight. I''ll see what shakes loose.