For Gnomeregan! (Redux)

While Frost works out the kinks of his blocked Gnomer video (which may be fixed by the time you read this (IT IS!!!)), it seems a good time to add my two cents on the place.  Some of my observations are similar to Frost’s, but so much video was taken (about 4 hours total between the two of us), and so much time went into clearing the place (7 hours, give or take, over two nights), that we agreed there should be two perspectives on it.

For those of you still in the dark (probably no one), the WHU has a guild of (currently) level 19 twink hunters. We storm BG’s, wreck instances with nothing but hunters, and generally just bring a whole new level of awesomesauce to hunterdom.  This was Frost, myself, and a few others collaborating on some huntering sweetness.

My thanks to everyone from Wyrmfoe that let me run with them, first and foremost. Bella had epic amounts of consumables. Hrist and Frost were Hrist and Frost, rocking it like usual and forming strategies for us. And Ali (Kay) scouted the place thoroughly on her main between our first night and second, so that we had an intimate knowledge of where the mobs were, what they did, how many would pull to us, etc. I’d like to say I brought some pet tanking expertise to the table, but I was mostly just making sure I didn’t screw something up.

Thoughts on Gnomeregan:

I. This likely wouldn’t have happened without the already-awesome strides made before this by WHU members in the guild. Our original goal was to 5-man Deadmines, which was blown out of the water by groups that cleared WC, Deadmines, and the Stockade prior to this run. So an epic grats to them as well! Gnomer, however, is the highest level instance we can zone into as level 19’s, and represents what could be considered “endgame” PvE for us.

II. This being my first time in it, I see why everyone hates the place. The alarm bots in particular, which can appear seemingly at any time and spell instant doom if not killed quickly, made every moment tense. The video can’t capture the ear-piercing vent screams of “BOMB!!” every time we’d see one.

III. Distracting Shot ping pong is shockingly effective in many situations. I tried to capture some of it on the video, Frost did as well in his, and it became a staple strategy of our run.

IV. True to hate-tank form, Hrist was usually the first to Distracting-taunt mobs and start kiting them around.  I think he felt uneasy having a pet do his tanking for him.

V. We were all in tank builds (7/3/0 myself), because the hardest pulls required all of us to be tanking at least one target, and often more than one. Lacking powerful heals, some bosses will just mow down pets, so multiple tanks will likely be needed for a long time in all-hunter achievement runs.

VI. The video is free of wipes, but don’t be fooled. The entire experience was not. Two nights and dozens of corpse runs. A fast respawn timer on mobs didn’t help either. The place is rough.

VII. Much like heroic tanking at level 80, it was often the trash that was harder than bosses.  Thermaplugg was kind enough to make things suitably epic, though, killing two of us and bringing the rest of us under 50% before finally going down.

VIII. Hunters can do ANYTHING.

Video

Frost couldn’t part with any of his footage, so it’s sped up a ridiculous amount.  I tried to take a smaller amount of footage and put it at a more manageable rate.  The result is that I had to cut large amounts of the run, but the two vids should give a nice overview of the place and our strats.

The opening shot of Frost on the canon is actually from Deadmines, but was too cool to pass up. All bosses are included, and “highlights” from the rest. And the music at the end was inspired by Bella, who actually sang the theme over vent as we hugged the wall in the penultimate hallway to avoid proximity aggro’ing a ton of mobs. Enjoy!