I finally reached a point where I could take on the first Alliance dungeon, the Deadmines. Luckily a guildie was looking for a final DPS spot, and I was the quickest to respond. The group was a warrior tank, a paladin healer, a rogue, a hunter, and my paladin. All about level 17 or 18.
The run was ... interesting.
It wasn't bad. People generally knew what they were doing. But we didn't use any crowd control. The warrior tank didn't really have any AoE threat, but played as if she did. So the rogue and I often ended up tanking individual mobs. The warrior also didn't have any ranged weapons, likely because she had not gone to Darnassus to train them yet. So every pull was a body pull or a charge.
I did enjoy playing the old-style paladin. Mostly dealing damage, tanking the occasional mob, throwing out a heal every so often. Especially on VanCleef, when the healer went out-of-mana at about 30%, so I healed the last bit.
We did wipe once in the middle, too many goblin runners. The hunter had run out of ammo, so he took a spirit res to buy some more. Then the others ran out of the dungeon to help him get back, though he did die once on the way. I stayed in the dungeon to make sure it didn't reset.
Most of the bosses were fairly easy. After VanCleef, we jumped down to get Cookie, but pulled too many mobs and died. At that point the healer called it, and the group disbanded. In total, the run took about an hour and half.
I'm not really sure what to think about that run. On the one hand, it wasn't entirely successful. We wiped twice. It took a fairly long time. We didn't even clear the entire dungeon.
On the other hand, it was memorable. It made for a better story than the fast, efficient, successful runs of modern WoW. Is that valuable? It's good for your first run of a dungeon to be memorable, but I rather expect you want your hundredth run of that same dungeon to be fast, efficient and successful.
To be honest, "took a long time", "wiped twice" and not killing an optional boss sounds perfectly reasonable for a Classic dungeon pug to me. Sure, you'll always aim for better, but I don't think anybody expects perfection in these runs, precisely because they are aware that it's easy for things to go wrong. It's what makes things fun.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's worth noting that I'm pretty sure that no dungeon in Classic WoW was meant to be run a hundred times.
Hmm, perhaps I've lost tolerance for these rough runs.
DeleteThe problem is that they're not difficult, they're rough because people play badly, and choose not to play smoothly.
Having to deal with players of varying types of skill is a type of difficulty - and one that I incidentally find quite enjoyable, as long as everyone's on the same page about the situation and trying to work together.
DeleteAlso, now that I think of it, you say that the group didn't use any crowd control, but what would you have expected them to use? Based on your group composition, you only had sap, which isn't that reliable in Vanilla and not easy to get right for a newbie rogue. So it was always going to be a bit messy, wasn't it?
I thought hunters had freezing trap as well at that point. Regardless, we didn't even try CC.
DeleteFreezing trap was level 20 according to Wowhead. You needed to be in melee range (no launcher) and out of combat to use it. Hunters would feign death and hope they could drop it before being put into combat.
DeleteIn time I think people will get back into the mindset of using CC when playing Classic.
Proper use of traps was to place trap between yourself and the mob and then shoot mob to get its agro and lure it into trap. There was even a special Distracting Shot which was a temporary taunt and could take the mob off a tank (not sure about level).
Delete> but I rather expect you want your hundredth run of that same dungeon to be fast, efficient and successful.
ReplyDeleteOr... not run it at all?
Doing a boring activity just for the reward doesn't seem to be compelling game play to me.
Eh, hundredth was a bit of an exaggeration. But for example, I'm not sure I would ever do another Deadmines run again. And I feel thankful that I got all the quests and I don't have to.
DeleteDungeons are meant to be repeatable content. Repeatable content that players are disinclined to repeat is a failure.
I don't know that I agree that dungeons, especially leveling dungeons, are meant to be repeatable content. I know that "back in the day" I would load up my quest log, run the dungeon until I had completed those quests and "finished" it to my satisfaction, and only run it again if I had a level appropriate friend while I was also level appropriate ask me for assistance.
DeleteI think the intent is that you would only run the Deadmines once or twice, and then move on to Redridge / Duskwood, etc. where (for example) you'll get better drops.