Friday 1 October 2010

WoW: More D1 Farming

Post soundtrack: “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” by The Moody Blues

Now I’m busy farming for Dingle’s pieces of D1 (as opposed to planning for it), I’ve come across some useful tips (and things that would have saved me some time, had I thought of them earlier).

Warrior Dungeon One Set

First, of course, is WoW Insider, who’ve put together a list of all the Dungeon One pieces for all 9 classes who have a set.  Have a look here.

Scholomance:

Guess who forgot that the place needs a key? You’ll want to make sure you’ve unlocked the quest chain by doing Clear the Way and All Along the Watchtowers, at which stage you can pick up Scholomance (and get ready to go to Gadgetzan and Un’goro Crater).

Kirtonos engaged!

Kirtonos the Herald?  Well, turns out he needs an item to be summoned, Blood of Innocents.  Quest time again!  You’ll want to talk to Eva Sarkhoff, who stands just outside Scholomance.  After several pages of dialogue, you’re offered the first quest in her chain, Doctor Theolen Krostinov, the Butcher.

In the followup quest, Krastinov’s Bag of Horrors, you’ll be called upon to kill Janice Barov, who’s tricky to find (especially if you don’t know your way around the place, as was the case for me).  Once you’ve completed and turned in this quest you’re given your first Blood, and future kills of the Blood Steward of Kirtonos (an NPC in the library), Doctor Krastinov and Jandice usually drop additional bloods.

Malicia's Room

To summon Darkmaster Gandling, who drops the Helm, you need to kill the six mini-bosses around his study, along with all the mobs in Instructor Malicia’s room.  This can be tricky for a strictly physical damage class like a warrior, as the Scholomance Occultists have a nasty habit of turning into ghosts who are immune to physical damage when their health reaches around 40%.  This is a good time to be an engineer for the Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket (Stratholme Holy Water is a useful alternative for a non-engineer).  The best way I found was to use devastate until the occultist reached around 60% health, then Shield Slam (or Revenge, although that can cause problems if you’re specced into Improved Revenge as the damage to a second occultist can cause it to transform) to kill it before it could transform.

Blackrock Spire:

Big, Innit?

Lost much? (Well, yes actually.)  I was surprised to realise that the dungeons referred to as Lower Blackrock Spire and Upper Blackrock Spire (LBRS and UBRS respectively) are actually two areas of the same instance.  While you’ll likely to learn your way around after some time, expect to get lost a lot.  The Atlas addon is highly recommended in here (and looking for walkthrough videos on youtube is probably a good idea as well).

For warriors I’d recommend working through UBRS first (as two bosses drop D1 pieces) and then clearing out LBRS for the small chance that your Bracers drop (and bear in mind when they say those are a rare drop, they’re not kidding). 

I’ve managed to accumulate seven pieces now, with only the Breastplate eluding me (and let me say now, I really dislike Drakkisath’s conflagration attack).  Time to take a break and upgrade the pieces I have into their D2 equivalents.  Queue “Farming D2” post!

Which leads to the eternal question: how best to accessorise?

/wave