Yes, yes, the Vikings were last time, but I realized we hadn’t done the requisite Wizard of Oz joke yet, so you’ll just have to deal with it. Ha!
Right, anyway. Where was I? Oh yes.
After burnin’ and lootin’ our way through the Vrykul stronghold of Utgarde Keep, our ragtag bunch of sort-of-heroes decided that we weren’t quite done yet. Plus, the instance servers were relatively stable, and we’d rather not chance staying outside when we could get both perfectly good XP and decent loot from in dungeons. When I say “perfectly good XP,” I actually mean pretty damn good. Perhaps it’s been adjusted for the beta, but when mobs are giving 2,000 XP a pop minimum (granted, while rested) with certain bigger ones giving upwards of 5,000? It’s pretty fancy, let me tell you that.
So the plans were made, and we were off to another dungeon! One server crash later, our healer was nowhere to be found – but luckily enough, we had a replacement in Meditation, the official holy Priest of the Awesome Brigade. Give him a hand, everybody!
After some deliberation, we were off to Azjol-Nerub. Unfortunately, Northrend is actually rather huge, and none of the flight points I’d picked up while traipsing around Howling Fjord were anywhere close to my destination on the far Western side of the Dragonblight. In retrospect, it would have probably been a much better idea to simply port back to Orgrimmar, take the zeppelin to the Borean Tundra and run from there, but better ideas and common sense are for wusses.
So I hoofed it. With the Tawny Windrider They Call Terrence out of commission until Cold-Weather Flying at level 77, I was stuck with my trusty Swift Olive Raptor. That is, er, the Swift Olive Raptor They Call… Benny. Yes, Benny.
I may be wearing that phrase too thin. Hm. Oh well, what’s done has been done.
My planned route went up through the Grizzly Hills – which interestingly enough remind me of the redwood forests out in California for some reason – and into the Dragonblight. After the fairly lush vistas of both the Howling Fjord and the Grizzly Hills, the Dragonblight is a rather jarring change. As one might infer from the “Blight” portion of the name, this isn’t a very pleasant place to visit. Not exactly one of Northrend’s premier vacation spots, if you follow.
Dragonblight is … well, if you asked me to describe it in a single word, I’d grumble at the request because distilling an experience into a phrase let alone one measly word sort of cheapens the whole thing – but I digress – the word I’d choose is “haunting.” It’s kind of like what you’d get if you took Tirisfal Glades, got rid of most of the Forsaken stuff, and covered it in snow.
Yes, it’s certainly bleak, but it doesn’t quite have the same atmosphere of … well, hopelessness that we see in zones like Shadowmoon Valley or the Blasted Lands. It doesn’t come across so much as a warzone – which it certainly is, but we’ll get to that in a future installment when I actually get to explore the place – as it does a, say, cemetery or tomb. Given that it is, in fact, where dragons that have lived centuries if not millennia come to die, I’d sort of say that that is, in fact, what it is. Couple that with a pinch of Titan stuff that feels genuinely ancient and an absolutely gorgeous and eerie piano soundtrack, and you have a zone that has made one hell of an impression on me though I feel at a loss for words to explain exactly why it’s done so.
Anyway, tangent. To sum that up: I think the Dragonblight is really damn cool. At the time, though, it was more of a headache than anything else because it is a zone meant for characters around level 73 and 74, and I hadn’t even hit 71 yet. Combined with a lack of any real roads for a solid quarter of the zone in the middle, and you have a recipe for frustration.
On the plus side, though, I did pass by (or rather, below) the renovated and relocated Naxxramas. That was kinda cool. I’m hoping that they’ll have that ready to go before the closed beta ends, since I’d love to check it out and find what’s changed.
After a few minutes’ worth of riding through the zone and dodging level 73 kobolds (the mere existence of which gives me a small headache – I mean, these guys could probably take on, say, Baron Rivendare or Rend Blackhand which is slightly strange as far as lore is concerned) I finally made my way to Azjol-Nerub. After a few minutes’ worth of prompting and explaining by my party members, I realized I was supposed to actually jump down into the spider-hole to get to the instance portal instead of standing around and scratching my head in confusion.
So, with that taken care of, we zoned in, summoned, and buffed up in preparation to take on the creepy-crawly denizens of Azjol-Nerub!
The early plans for Wrath of the Lich King mention Azjol-Nerub as being a full-fledged questing area; it was originally intended to be the game’s first underground zone. At some point, obviously, this changed for some unknown reason that I’m sure was perfectly valid, and the rather ambitious aim of Azjol-Nerub was slightly lowered. Now, it’s a five-man dungeon meant for levels 71-74. Scaled down, yes, but still kind of fun.
It’s also very, very, quick. After a descent down a twisting path and just a few measly pulls, we were face-to-mandible with the dungeon’s first boss, Krik’Thir the Gatewatcher. He has four named guardians with him (each with their own little posse), and the general pace of the encounter feels similar to the General Rajaxx fight back in AQ20. Upon engaging, you fight each of the guards and their companions one group at a time, with the next pack aggroing shortly after the defeat of the one before it. Unfortunately, none of us were really all that familiar with the place, and the pause between waves was juuuuust long enough for us to be thoroughly taken off guard when the next Watcher skittered its way forward.
So we wiped. D’oh.
One soulstone later, and we tried again. This time, we were significantly more successful, and after the fourth wave was done away with, we engaged Krik’Thir himself. …herself? Itself! 
Looking back on it, I’m actually not entirely sure what exactly Krik’Thir does, because one of its abilities involves summoning a massive swarm of little bugs to attack us. As a Mage, when I see that many red names rushing us, my first (and only) instinct is to start wearing my “2” key to a nub, jumping around and spamming Arcane Explosion and hoping the healer doesn’t forget that I’m wearing the Azerothian equivalent of tissue paper for armor.
So, other than periodic bug swarms that need to be dealt with in an AoE fashion, I have no idea what Krik’Thir actually does. Whatever it is, apparently it wasn’t very hard because we killed him. Her. It. We killed that big bug thing, all right?
With Krik’Thir the Gatewatcher no longer there to Watch the Gate, we moved further into the dungeon, crossing a large bridge over a massive spider-web. I’m thankful I’m not arachnophobic, because… yeesh. Lots and lots of spiders.
What with the transparent nature of the spider-web floor, we could clearly see below us to the second boss of the dungeon, Hadronox [Spawn of Maexxna]. The lore-nerd in me does a little happy jig at the reference to the big bad from Naxxramas’ Spider Wing. 
Perhaps it’s just my limited frame of reference, but as far as I’m concerned one big evil spider isn’t very different from another big evil spider. So when a bunch of smaller Nerubians start swarming down the spider-web to attack Hadronox, I’m slightly confused. I have no idea why these two forces seem to be at odds, but … eh, whatever.
As Hadronox fights its way up the spider-web, we too are attacked by even more Nerubians who obviously recognize us as a threat equal to (or greater than) the big evil spider. As before, they come in waves. Also as before, the waves are spaced precisely far apart so that they interrupt you just when you’ve started to eat and drink. Impolite spider bastards.
After a short while – we’ve fought three or so waves – Hadronox finishes its casual slaughter of the Nerubian swarm and sets its sights on five tasty morsels. Unfortunately for it, said tasty morsels are PCs and adventurers, so its thorax is toast.
The primary strategy while fighting Hadronox is one we’ve seen in many, fights before. “Don’t stand in the green stuff.” Indeed, the green stuff is, er, toxic and if you stand in it? You’ll be dead pretty quickly. It’s a very mobile fight, and a pretty fun one that I wish I’d paid more attention to instead of focusing on just dodging the green stuff.
The Spawn of Maexxna dies, and he drops a Life-Staff of Something-Or-Other, which has a ton more spellpower than my current level 66 blue, and since nobody else needs it I snatch it right up. Naturally, I can’t use it until level 72, but eh, it’s nice to have something in the bank. 
I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the change to the spellpower stat, even if from just the naming perspective. In Utgarde Keep, the Priest had won the “Blah De Blah Blade of Evocation,” whereas I was now hauling around “Life-Staff of the Rabblerabble Blah.” You’d assume one would be meant for healers and the other for, uh, not-healers and while the other stats probably reflect this, the most important one is the exact same.
I could do a further discussion of this, but I’ll refrain … for now.
We move down the spider-web that Hadronox had so thoughtfully cleared for us, and come to a large hole that is obviously meant for us to jump down. So we do. It feels slightly like a similar moment in the very first dungeon back in Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and that’s probably intentional – but that’s just fine with me, because Ocarina of Time kicked ass.
Thankfully, our landing is cushioned by water in a thorough thumbing-of-the-nose at physics, and we exit the pool to see (granted, a ways away) Anub’Arak himself, the final boss! …however, the passage to him is cut off by what is apparently the world’s strongest spider-web. Despite being five seasoned adventurers with enough destructive power between us to equal the army of a small nation, we’re stymied by this little sheet of silk.
That was kinda anti-climactic.
Of course, it’s Beta, and if a dungeon isn’t complete, it isn’t complete. That said, Azjol-Nerub is already … well, it feels like they may have scaled it back a bit too far, because it’s already startlingly short. There are a few pulls before the first boss, then a few pulls before the second boss, and I can’t imagine there being all that many more in the one chamber before we’re staring Anub’Arak in the face. Of course there’s nothing inherently bad about having quick dungeons. Personally, I appreciate them. Even so, it seems like something with the potential scope of Azjol-Nerub deserves … well, something a tad grander, know what I mean?
The same goes for Anub’Arak: of all the lore characters we’ve seen so far, he’s really the first to not at least be the boss of a max-level instance. He deserves bigger, though I suppose that there always is the possibility that we’ll see him make a triumphant return from the dead in Icecrown Citadel. I certainly hope so.
While it’s short and perhaps less ambitious than it could have been – or even should have been – what is there in Azjol-Nerub is pretty damn fun, and I look forward to going back to it when it’s fully complete to see how the whole thing holds up. For the moment, though, we’d had our share of spiders and creepy-crawlies. After a port to Orgrimmar and a zeppelin ride to the Borean Tundra, we were headed to the third dungeon available for our level range: the Nexus.
Coldarra, the stronghold of the Blue Dragonflight in northwestern Borean Tundra, is walled off by an imposing mountain range. Without access to our trusty flying mounts, we were stumped as to how we were supposed to get in. There weren’t any ground passes as far as we could tell, and the server’s dying spasms of lag didn’t help our search for a teleportation device or something along those lines.
Once the server restart came and we could actually see and interact with NPCs, we finally found it – a Red Dragon at the Amber Ledge that handily doubles as a flight point, taking us directly to Coldarra and the Nexus.
It bears mentioning that the Nexus looks really cool. No, seriously. It looks awesome, and screenshots do not do it justice.
Coldarra is a quest hub in and of itself with backstory to further flesh out the war against the Blue Flight, though it basically all falls under the category of “Malygos is crazy, k? Insanity and obscene magical power usually don’t mix well.”
From what I’ve heard, the quests leading up to the Nexus are actually pretty awesome, but we’ll get to those when it’s time to give this place another visit! 
As opposed to the relatively linear – or rather, entirely linear – Utgarde Keep and Azjol-Nerub, in the Nexus you’re presented with three possible paths right off the bat. Straight ahead is the Red Dragon, Keristrasza, who is not only frozen inside a big block of ice but has a red name over her head and therefore is an enemy who must be killed posthaste. Given that the Red Flight seems to be on our side for this whole war, I can only imagine that she’s not entirely under her own control. Perhaps the Red Dragonflight needs to work more with its members on resisting mind control?
Poor Vael 🙁
As I was saying, there are three paths. Straight ahead past the frozen Keristrasza is a massive cavern called simply the Rift, to the right is the Singing Grove, and to the left is the Librarium, which is a fancy term for what the rest of us call a “Library.” Also, it’s magic. And evil. Or something. There’s probably a streamlined, quick way to do this, but as we were largely inexperienced here we naturally had to do it in the slowest, least efficient way possible. So we started off by heading right, to the Singing Grove. 
I’m not sure “Singing” is the term I would use, actually. I’d go with the “White and Glowing Grove,” myself, because all the trees are not just bright white, they’re luminescent. It’s certainly a very cool effect, giving it a very ethereal feel. The whole Grove is filled with little non-elite lasher plants (you know the type), who when killed will revert to a seed form and become unattackable while very slowly regenerating health. They’ll eventually fully return to life, which makes this essentially a very, very slow gauntlet-type scenario. There are also packs of wandering treants with an annoying tendency to use Tranquility and heal to full when low on life, and for the first few pulls we couldn’t tell which one was actually casting it. (Hint: it’s the Tender, so stun/silence/interrupt when they’re low on health or you have a very long fight on your hands.)
This wing feels slightly too long compared to the other two, but at the end of it lies the boss, a (similarly white and glowing) crystal giant, Omorok the Tree-Shaper. Like most giants, he hits pretty damn hard. There are two abilities worth mentioning in this fight. The first is a standard spell reflect, though unlike most bosses, this actually reflects a certain number of charges rather than having a duration. So … well, you can’t just wait it out. To save yourself and the healers some trouble, I recommend just tossing a rank 1 nuke for convenience’s sake.
The other ability is a fun one. Ever so often, Omorok will shoot little icicles out along the floor in a few random directions. The little icicles quickly become big icicles, and shoot anybody standing on them up into the air, simultaneously dealing a few thousand damage. They aren’t all that hard to avoid, but it’s a fun ability and I probably enjoy getting launched up into the air entirely too much for my own good. But hey, I have Slow Fall, so ha!
We reduce Omorok to rubble and backtrack, killing the regenerated thrashers in our wake. Thankfully, we don’t have to go all the way back to the middle, as there’s a shortcut about halfway back that takes us right to the Rift. The Rift is a gigantic cavern that’s probably one of the cooler sights I’ve seen in a dungeon yet. We aren’t the only ones fighting here; the Blue Dragonflight is busy fighting off assorted … things … from presumably, uh, some sort of magic rift. That’s as far as my best guess goes, anyway.
Amongst the many enemies in the cavern are actual smaller rifts that don’t do any damage by themselves (as far as I saw) but that constantly spawn rift wraiths until destroyed. I’m not quite clear how stabbing a magical tear in space-time closes it, but eh, I’m not going to question it. These should be the first targets whenever you encounter them, or else you might find yourself overwhelmed.
There are also larger arcane elementals that drain mana. I hate mobs that drain mana. I hate fighting three mobs that drain mana at once. That’s just annoying. When you kill these particular enemies, they have the whole “Loose Mana” regeneration that we’ve seen in Karazhan, which is nice, but it doesn’t make their mana draining while alive any less irritating.
At the very end of the Rift is the boss of the wing, Anomalus. There’s some sort of rift-serpent-thingy flying around behind him, so I advise pulling him down onto the platform in front of him lest you bite off a bit more than you can chew.
Further evoking memories of the Menagerie in Karazhan, the fight with Anomalus bears some similarities to fighting The Curator. To be fair, it’s really just a cursory resemblance: every so often, Anomalus will spawn a rift similar to the ones you fought on the way here. The rift does a bit of damage and spawns more rift wraiths – furthermore, he’s invulnerable while it’s active, so you want to down those right away. It’s not a particularly difficult boss battle, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
With Anomalus down, there was just one more wing remaining: the evil magical library, or “Librarium” if you insist on being fancy about it. Among the largely magic-focused enemies in this wing are little demon dogs called Mage Hunters. Don’t worry folks, I’ll be careful. These hounds have an annoying tendency to steal magic from any casters in the party, cutting spellpower by a considerable amount and buffing their own damage. While that can be a bit frustrating, there’s a buff that we Mages can Spell-Steal off the Adepts in this wing that acts as an aura, boosting our party’s spell haste by a considerable amount. That makes up for it!
There’s a particular graphical effect here in this wing that I think deserves particular mention because it is pretty freaking awesome. I’m not even quite sure how to describe it, but there are … runes of some sort on the walls and in the air that move around and shift, forming trails and patterns. The closest comparison I can think of would be, well, The Matrix only they’re more magic-and-ice-blue rather than 1980s-computer-green. Very, very cool effect, and whoever was in charge of that one deserves a pat on the back because it’s damn nifty.
A bit more killing brought us face-to-face with the third boss of the dungeon (in the order we’d be doing it, anyway), Grand Magus Telestra. Given that she certainly appears to be a Blood Elf and that she’s obviously a Mage, I’m curious as to how she fits in with Malygos’ forces who are incredibly vocal about mortal spellcasters being Bad Things that need to be eliminated. Seems counterproductive, no?
As far as difficulty is concerned, Telestra is a step above the previous two bosses. She’s a Mage through and through, with three primary abilities for each of the spell schools: for Fire, she has a targeted AoE blast. For Frost, she freezes and stuns everyone in the party for a few seconds. However, Arcane is probably the most fun: she juggles everybody around in the air dealing periodic damage. You can still hit her with instant-cast spells, though.
The real test for the group comes at 50%, when Telestra takes a clue from WC3’s Pandaren Brewmaster hero, splitting herself into three different aspects for each of the spell schools. Silences and interrupts are very handy here, because you’ll be dealing with an AoE time stop and stun (Arcane), a powerful and deadly Blizzard and Frost Nova (Frost), and hard-hitting single-target nuking (Fire) all at once. The most effective order to deal with them that I’ve found is Frost first, then Arcane and finally Fire. It might seem counter-intuitive, but her AoE damage is a lot harder to heal through than her single-target burst.
Once the three aspects are down, she returns to normal, and from there the last 50% are just the same as the first. Even so, the fight against Grand Magus Telestra is probably one of my favorites thus far in the expansion.
With the three wing bosses down, it was time to go back to the beginning and finish this place off. Instead of being smart and just backtracking through the Rift (which we’d already cleared), we continued on through the Librarium and a little chamber filled with a bunch of similarly-frozen NPCs. Naturally, their frozen prisons broke the moment we stepped near them and they aggroed because it would be easy otherwise.
After clearing through their hypothermia-addled ranks, we were back at the beginning. Keristrasza was still in her block of ice, but there were three clickable orbs surrounding her, and we all know what to do in a situation like this: you click them, of course. Once clicked, they’re only active for a short period of time, so you need a little bit of coordination as far as the party is concerned.
Since communication is HARD, we were almost taken aback when it actually didwork, and Keristrasza broke free. As predicted, Malygos had done a number on her brain and she wasn’t exactly thankful towards us for releasing her. Rather, she tried to kill us. Puff the Magic Dragon she ain’t.
There’s a rather interesting debuff that is this fight’s core. It’s called Intense Cold, and it affects anybody standing still for more than a second. It stacks very quickly, doing periodic damage and slowing attack and movement speed the higher it stacks. The only way to remove this debuff … is to move. A single step or two will do, yes, but in order to keep Intense Cold off of you, you need to keep moving. There are some other abilities like your standard dragon Tail Swipe – she’ll also freeze people in place for up to ten seconds, so keep whatever root-breaking abilities you have ready because otherwise you’ll be helpless to get rid of Intense Cold for as long as you’re rooted. 
All in all, Keristrasza is a very mobile fight, which is always fun. I enjoyed it. Sadly, we could do nothing to bring her back to her senses before bloodily bludgeoning her to death. Forgive me, my friend. Your death only adds to our failure 🙁
With that, though, we were done! Considerably longer than both Utgarde Keep and Azjol-Nerub (though I suspect that with proper planning it could be made much quicker), the Nexus has some very impressive visuals, and some very fun boss fights. Easily my favorite of the three dungeons I’ve done so far.
Having done my share of dungeon-running, it was time to actually get my quest on. But … well, this is pretty long already. So I think we’ll get to that later.
See you next time!
-TMTCJ(z)
