Cataclysmic Cataclysm Runs

Cordolvar has a rough awakening as Cataclysm dungeons require knowledge of the fight mechanics. This is a good thing.

Quick Stats

	Since Last Update	Total
Deaths	32!	69
Dungeons Tanked	6	96
Dungeons Tanked Since Last Death	0	0
Levels Gained	5	84

Yes, that’s right, 32 deaths.

Progress Made

The Beatdown

After having enjoyed some Vashj’ir quests, I queued Cordolvar for a random Cataclysm dungeon. As I mentioned before, this is all new content to me. So I looked over the first few Cataclysm dungeons on quickdungeon.com and hoped for the best.

Cordolvar’s first dungeon was Blockrock Caverns. Luckily, the party was helpful and patient. After our first wipe, the party leader asked if anyone didn’t know the fights, and I admitted that I did not. He or she proceeded to briefly explain the boss fights, giving some insights and details that quickdungeon.com didn’t cover.

For example, on many fight descriptions, people will say “when x happens, run away”. Which is fine, except that sometimes it doesn’t apply to the tank.

So we had a number of wipes. Some were my fault, and some weren’t, but the group got through it all. I personally had a good time. It was great to see boss fights that required coordination and a knowledge of the fight’s mechanics.

I particularly enjoyed the fight against Karsh Steelbender. The notes on quickdungeon.com did not warn me about having to move the boss in and out of the center of the furnace (to cause his Quicksilver Armor buff to be replaced by the Superheated Quicksilver Armor debuff. It took me a couple of tries to figure out how to get the boss to move the way I needed (he has a large hit-box, so you really have to exaggerate your distances to get him to move).

Even some of the trash in Blackrock Caverns was tough, the Twilight Obsidian Borers for example were a much easier fight with crowd control, but if you can’t manage that with your party, consider marking them and asking the party to focus first one then the other (I like to mark the first target with skull, and the second target with X.)

Cordolvar’s next adventure took him into Throne of Tides, which went pretty smoothly, with one massive exception: Erunak Stonespeaker / Mindbender Ghur’sha. We tried and tried and tried, but could not get this boss to die. Most of the time we wiped in phase one (Erunak Stonespeaker). He instantly casts Magma Splash which does a lot of fire damage in a cone in front of him. Our party’s healer just wasn’t able to get Cordolvar healed in between casts¹. We did make it to phase two (Mindbender Ghur’sha) once, but weren’t able to down the boss.

We went through at least six different DPS members, but weren’t able to find the right mix. Perhaps a different tank and healer combination is required, I’m not sure. Comments on wowhead.com seem to indicate that this fight is a lot harder now, post patch 7.3.5. Perhaps that’s all it is. In any event, I estimate that more than twenty of the deaths in this session came from this boss. Cordolvar even had to teleport out and repair!

Cordolvar did another run through Blacrock Caverns, that went much smoother, and another Throne of Tides, where the party tried Mindbender once, but failed and decided to skip him.

Getting Back Into The Ring

After that session, I took a good long break. I died a lot, and wasn’t sure if it was from my ignorance of the mechanics, or bad party members, or just bad luck. I conferred with a few more knowledgeable friends and they all agreed it was likely just bad luck. With some encouragement and anxiety, I queued Cordolvar up again.

He went to Vortex Pinnacle first, which was a pretty clean run through. Cordolvar died once while fighting Grand Vizier Ertan, but the party’s healer said it was just a spike in party damage that caused Cordolvar to die, not anything in particular that I messed up. The party was able to finish off the boss, preventing a wipe, so that’s good.

On Asaad, I had a little trouble visualizing and getting into the lightning triangles, but the healer managed to keep me up.

Then Cordolvar joined a group in progress on Stonecore, where he helped finish off the last two bosses, which went smoothly, despite a death on Ozruk from not getting far enough away before his Slam went off.

Random Notes

This was a challenging day. Not knowing the mechanics on some of these fights hurt. A lot. The many failures on Mindbender Ghur’sha really shook my confidence. I’m glad I was able to get back into the queue though and continue on. My confidence isn’t back up to where it was, but I’m feeling a little better.

All that said, I’m not mad or sad. I actually like that some fights require coordination and knowledge of the mechanics. It’s a little taste of the end-game, before we get there. Of course the blow to my confidence isn’t great, but I’ll bounce back.

👍 Cordolvar got his boots upgraded, twice.
👎 Lots and lots and lots of deaths.

Footnotes

I wonder how much a luckily-timed Spell Reflection could have helped, but since Magma Splash is an instant cast ability, and Spell Reflection has long-ish cooldown, it probably wouldn’t have been enough. ↩