random static

Last night, the static group got together for our regularly-scheduled run. We were scheduled to run Auchenai Crypts, but then we got a wild hair: There have been a lot of well-written articles about the dungeon finder for end-game content, but what about for the lower dungeons? Let's experiment!

First dungeon: Underbog. I've always had a soft spot for this dungeon, but not for anything intrinsic to the dungeon. Honestly, it makes me think of Underdog, the theme starts in my head, and I'm off to a happy place.

Honestly, I was a little surprised to see this one pop up. We cleared it a few weeks back and I put it firmly in my rear-view mirror. We were all either level 64 or 65, though, which I guess is right in its wheelhouse. The dungeon itself wasn't much of a problem, minus a couple overpulls, and I got myself a decent cloak. Although, I do quibble with its name: as a fire mage, I'd prefer that it be called the Cloak of Firey Death. Rays.

As a reward for using the dungeon tool, we each got a little gold and a Satchel of Helpful Goods. Well, "helpful". I got a necklace with strength and...something else not helpful for a mage. Agility, maybe? Turbulent necklace of the vendor-me-for-extra-gold, at any rate.

Second Dungeon: Auchenai Crypts. Worried that it might not come up in the random finder, we decided to just queue directly for Crypts. Less than a minute later, we were all inside the dungeon, which was *amazing*. I'm completely smitten with the instant teleport mechanism. I don't know how much of our limited play time we would spend traveling from the closest major city to the dungeon but it was certainly more than we spent last night. Plus, now I don't have to open portals for folks at the end, saving me money on reagents. ;-)

The dungeon itself was fun and even a little tricky to navigate. Three of our group had run it before to varying degrees, back in the Burning Crusade days, but I didn't remember specifics of the pulls or the fights. The only part I really remembered was the bridge of doom in the middle; I only remembered that because I had three-manned the dungeon with a couple other 80's a few months back, and one of us got knocked off. Hehe. As usual, there were a couple of hairy pulls, but we didn't have any significant difficulties. No good loots for me, but our priest healer got a nice new staff and our shammy picked up some caster mail.

Third Dungeon: Crypts, redux With our primary goal accomplished, heady with success, and with plenty of time left in the evening, we threw ourselves on the mercy of the RNG for another dungeon. Laughter rippled over vent as the Auchindoun loading screen popped up and we found ourselves deposited back into the Crypts. A few fireballs and blizzards later, we had dropped the Exarch again and were itching for more. Helpful satchel reward this time was cloth shoulders with a reasonable enchantment, but not superior to the ones I already had.

Fourth Dungeon: Mana-Tombs With a good 30 to 45 minutes of play time left we threw ourselves into a fourth dungeon. "Wouldn't it be funny if we got Crypts again? Wait, that's the Auchindoun loading screen..." Heh. We had demolished Mana-Tombs (that hyphen still looks odd) the previous week, so it was still fresh in our minds. I picked up a nice new wand, which made me a happy troll.

Summary (tl;dr): Four dungeons in two and a half hours. Teleport in/out is *amazing*. Bonus items are essentially worthless to this group, since we're pretty well-geared from dungeons and dungeon-related quests, but extra gold is always nice. And, for this level range, Death Knight tanks are overpowered. Having a DK tank is really like having an extra DPS. I'm pleased to say my DPS was greater (blizzard ftw) but she slipped by me on total damage done late in the evening. I'll get her next time. And speaking of next time, we're off to the Caverns of Time, after a little leveling. There's a rumor that Thrall needs to be rescued from a bunch of stinky humans. We're on it.