Played Lately: World of Warcraft

• Wow, that last post went so long, I forgot that I had a second point to make. Which is funny, too, because I'd worked up a whole head of steam over this topic and then spent all my time blathering on about the daily quests. In retrospect, I didn't know how pissed off I was about that. However I remember exactly how pissed off I am about this. Welcome to "Kicking the Hell out of World of Warcraft: Part Two." Let's start with a couple of stories:


• When I play WoW lately, it's as my Blood Elf mage, Ashlynh. Just recently, she made the final grind to level 58 and ran for the Dark Portal. Everyone else seems to have the same idea because suddenly there were actually other people around to interact with. And all of them want to run the Hellfire Citadel dungeon instances. Which is cool because the instances can be fun and provide excellent rewards if you get a good group.


• Did you catch what I did there? I feel like I should go back and highlight, bold, and underline that phrase.


• "If you get a good group." This is the crux of my problem. The very first instance you encounter, and presumably the easiest, is Hellfire Ramparts. There is nothing particularly difficult about this dungeon. There are no difficult pulls as long as you watch for patrols. The bosses aren't particularly tricky as long as you stay on the ball. But for some reason, I can't find four other people that know their class from a hole in the ground.


• As a mage, my role is pretty straight forward: 1) blow stuff up and 2) keep one bad guy "sheeped". The only thing I have to worry about is doing too much damage and therefore causing enemies to charge me. I do a pretty good job of that because, honestly, it's not that hard. But a bunch of kick ass mages does not an instance group make.


• Unfortunately, WoW requires that all groups subscribe to the "Holy Triumvirate" setup or you will never, ever take down a boss. (The Holy Triumvirate for those of you just joining in is Tank/Healer/DPS. DPS is a damage dealer; the acronym is Damage Per Second.) If you don't have a tank, everyone dies. No healer, the same. No DPS and you can't kill things fast enough before the healer can't keep the tank from going down and you're back to everyone dies. Me, the mage, fall squarely in the DPS catagory. But like I said, my part is the easy one.


• What I keep running into over and over are tanks and healers who don't wear the proper gear, don't use the correct talents, and don't really know how to do their job properly. The problem with these dungeons is that the learning curve is pretty steep at the end. Sure, you can get away with some half-assed pulls as long as there is enough crowd control (that's me with the sheeping) to focus on one bad guy at a time. You can't do that with the boss and hope to survive. Nazan, the dragon-like thing at the end of Hellfire Ramparts, killed my group five times before we decided that enough was enough.


• I have been trying to get through Shadow Labyrinth with my human paladin, Kyralahn, for a couple of months now. My professed goal in the game has been to step foot into Karazhan with a raid group. Unfortunately for me, "SLab" has proven unbeatable. As a paladin, I have dedicated myself to being the best healer I can. I've collect the best healing gear I can find (so far), I've set my talents to optimize my ability, and I have practiced. But still, the dungeon is unforgiving.


• I suspect I'll never complete my Karazhan key. This feeling is part of the reason I turned away from WoW recently and started looking for other games to occupy my time. I really like to have fun in my games, and these frustrating instances do not meet that need.


• On a side note: Kyralahn just recent completed another level 70 instance, The Botanica. Amazingly enough, a decent group with an exceptional tank got us all the way through the dungeon with only one wipe and a minimum of deaths. A good time was had by all. If only all my groups were that lucky.