Saturnalia

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NOTICE: Saturnalia has now moved to a blog on 3d6.net All existing information from this Wiki page (and any associated images, etc.) was copied, but will remain here as well). New articles will appear only on the new blog, which you can also access via the URL: http://saturnalia.ajs.com/

3-manning every instance in the game, one Saturday at a time!

Saturnalia members prepare to enter Scarlet Monastery

Saturnalia upon the thrones of BRD (modified)

Saturnalia is a small World of Warcraft guild on Norgannon made up of real-life friends. The guild is an experiment in leveling new characters by doing almost nothing but instances with appropriate level characters (no "runs" with max-level leaders) once a week -- on Saturdays, hence the name. The challenging part is that we only have three people on a regular basis, though other friends join us as they can make time. This means that class composition and coordination are critical, and any slip can result in a wipe... so how does it work out? Pretty darned well! Read on.

— You can link to this article directly via http://saturnalia.ajs.com/

1 Members
2 Instances
3 Tips
4 DKP
5 Other

Members

For the most part, Saturnalia has been three people:

Chepi^{Armory(T, P)} - Female Tauren Shaman (healer, dps)
Jazred^{Armory(T, P)} - Male Tauren Druid (dps, tank until level 40)
Himalountain^{Armory(T, P)} - Male Blood Elf Paladin (tank, dps until level 40)

Each of these classes were chosen for their versatility. No one is really a specialist, and each of us could tank or heal if pressed. Now that Himalountain is prot, he really can't dps much, but the other two can. Having a pally tank really helps, due to the fact that pallies can tank many mobs at once where druids, for example, can really only effectively tank three mobs at once. Because of this, we never use any form of CC (since we don't have any), and simply pull whole crowds and take them out one at a time.

Early on when Jazred was tanking, we'd often have him tank three mobs and Himalountain would pick up any others with an occasional consecrate.

Instances

Upcoming

Saturnalia plans to eventually finish all 5-man instances. Here's our roadmap:

September:

October:

November:

Wrath of the Lich King -- Yes, we're going to 3-man Wrath!

If we finish all Outlands 5-man instances on normal mode before Wrath comes out, we're going to try to do Heroics. Now, obviously this is insane, and we intend to get our collective leg-slot items handed to us while trying, but if we can just down a few select bosses on heroic and gear up, we might be able to make it work!

Saturday, September 20, 2008: Underbog on the 3.0 PTR

Hungarfen

downed on the 3.0 PTR

For the full details, see Saturnalia: 3.0 PTR

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 65
Status: Nothing new

We decided to test out the 3.0 PTR, and the results were excellent. See the above linked article for full details!

Saturday, August 30, 2008: Underbog, Slave Pens

First Rokmar the Crackler

kill

First Ghaz'an

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 63-64
Status: Blood Furnace full clear

Between this last week and our normal Saturday get-together we cleared Slave Pens and Underbog except for The Black Stalker . The final boss of Underbog had some horrible reset issues, resetting as soon as it had me (tank) in its beam. We'll figure that one out and give him another go.

We eventually gave up on The Black Stalker. He's just tuned too precisely for 5 people, and at appropriate level we're doubting that 3 could pull it off. The core mechanical problem is that he has a strong tendency to yank your healer up in the air and out of range from either your tank or dpser. In the end, we brought in a level 70 hunter to replace the tank (me) and the pet tanked while the other two healed and dpsed. This was surprisingly effective, actually, and he went down quickly. So this is the first boss since Princess where we gave up on the first try and so far the only boss that we didn't down on our own. Here's hoping it stays that way!

Saturday, August 23, 2008: Blood Furnace

First Keli'dan the Breaker

kill

First Broggok

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 62-63
Status: Blood Furnace full clear

Well, Blood Furnace turns out to be a dungeon I'd avoided somehow, so it was all new to me. What struck me most was how gimicky the trash was. When you compare it to the old world, almost all old world 5-man dungeons had a mix of groups that you pulled, fought and killed and those groups that had a gimmick of some sort that made you have to switch up tactics, take out certain guys first or use your tanks in odd ways. Blood Furnace (and Ramparts ) had almost nothing but gimmick groups. There's trash that stuns, silences, drops bombs ala Gnomeregan, knocks back, knocks down, charges and lots of stuff I imagine I'm forgetting. Broggok was probably the toughest boss fight, and he went down on our first try without even a glimmer of doubt about the outcome, but we wiped 2-3 times on trash.

Note to Blizzard: Yes, we're just three people, but please let's consider for Wrath that some trash should be easier than the bosses ;-)

On the bright side, I'd say the bosses are fun and interesting and it's a blast to look down through the bottom of the instance and see Magtheridon !

Next up is Underbog . I know that dungeon well, and other than some hairy pulls, it's a good one that I do look forward to doing.

Saturday, August 17, 2008: Scholomance

First Darkmaster Gandling

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 62
Status: Scholomance full clear
Milestones: none, really

We're 62 now, and so Scholomance isn't all that much of a challenge, even for 3. Still, it was on our list, and since we didn't get to it before now, we wanted to clear it out to be complete. It was a fun run. We did Rattlegore first, then we went down into Darkmaster Gandling 's area and killed him before leaving via Jandice Barov , though we forgot to grab the chest after killing her, doh! Ras Frostwhisper was an interesting fight, though he went down too fast for it to be all that much of a challenge.

Sunday, August 10, 2008: Hellfire Ramparts

First Omor the Unscarred

kill

First Vazruden

& Nazan

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 61
Status: Ramparts, full clear
Milestones: Omor and Vazruden down

Our first Outlands instance (Hellfire Ramparts AKA Ramps) went smoothly. We had a fair amount of trouble with the Destroyers (as usual, trash is almost always harder than bosses), but for a group of three 61s, we kicked some serious orc ass. Of note were the flawless executions on Omor and Vazruden (pictured, right). We cleared them both on the first try with our newly specced Resto Shammy barely breaking a sweat keeping our crazy selves alive! Edit: our shammy tells me that he just made it look easy, and in reality, the last fight was very close.

This really was a milestone. We've long speculated that the party would be over when we hit Outland, and that three would no longer be sufficient. Of course, we grew more confident as we cleared Strat and Dire Maul, but even then we were doing late-60s instances that were tuned for the old world in Outland greens... the doubt that we could do Outland-tuned content loomed. Now we know better. There are certainly 3-man unfriendly encounters. We have our eye on some of the 70 instances that really test most pugs, but overall we're much more confident than we were last week (hubris?)

Saturday, August 9, 2008: Undead Stratholme

First Baroness Anastari

kill

First Baron Rivendare

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 60-61
Status: Stratholme, full clear
Milestones: Barron down

Saturnalia finally finished clearing Stratholme . Not quite as large as BRD, but still a daunting instance, we did it in parts between mid-week and Saturday, finally killing the Baron after a slog through Strat undead late Saturday afternoon. The Baroness Anastari was the hardest fight. Her mind control was daunting to a group of 3 (makes me wonder how Time for Fun is going to go in Slabs). None the less, we took her down on the second attempt and mopped up the Baron on our first! Enjoy the screenshots!

Saturday, August 2, 2008: Dire Maul West/North

First Immol'thar

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 60
Status: Cleared Dire Maul west up to Prince and north up to Kromcrush
Milestones: Immol'thar down

In our second week of Dire Maul we cleared the west wing and almost all of the north wing. This was an interesting wall for us, since we just could not take down either Prince Tortheldrin or Captain Kromcrush . In the former case, it was entirely a matter of an agro-wipe. We tried to swap between our Paladin and Druid as tanks, but he agro-wipes so often that we just couldn't keep him off the healer, and taunt cooldowns were burned almost immediately. Kromcrush we probably could have beat, but it was a good 5 hours into our run (clearing is slower with 3), and we just didn't have the energy to give him a third try. He summons two adds and begins Retaliating, so you have to stop dpsing him and gain control over the adds. It's tricky, and someone was cleaving a lot, but it's certainly a paladin-friendly fight, so we should have gotten through it. Next time. We'll probably go back and do the tribute run at some point, but we might kill him just out of spite ;-)

As for the good stuff, we downed every other boss except for the two that are past Kromcrush. Illyanna Ravenoak & Ferra surprised us, and we wiped, but when we came back, they were fairly easy. Everything else went down on the first try, I think. The arcane elementals are a pain in the butt, but easily doable. We had the Druid pull them and the pally tank. Immol'thar didn't even get off a knock-back or a teleport before we spanked him down. Loot was, as usual for the 60s instances, OK but not great. We're getting more gear from the auction house and the occasional foray into Outlands questing these days than we are from dungeons.

Saturday, July 26, 2008: Dire Maul East

First Zevrim Thornhoof

kill

Dire Maul East fully cleared; we prepare to leave

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 59-60
Status: Cleared Dire Maul East
Milestones: Key to Dire Maul West/North

Note: This update is late. I was sick last week, so wasn't up to updating the site.

We've been looking forward to Dire Maul for a long while. Not, perhaps, as much as BRD, but I think part of that is that we've done the first part of DM west so many times for friends who need either the Warlock or Paladin mounts. Now, we have the chance to do the whole thing, and it was fun! Since I'm writing this a week later than usual, I can definitely say that DM east was by far the most fun we had in DM. Parts of DM west and north were lots of fun, but we enjoyed east far more overall.

We didn't take as many screenshots as we might usually, but I think our best to date was the screenshot of the three of us on Thornhoof's altar, so that makes up for a lot.

Special: BRD Gallery

A retrospective of our time in Blackrock Depths (BRD), to complement the 3-Man Guide to Blackrock Depths:

First Emperor Dagran Thaurissan kill	Alternate throne shot: Chepi	Alternate throne shot: Jazred	At the Molten Core entrance
First Magmus kill	First Bael'Gar kill	First Golem Lord Argelmach kill	First Lord Incendius kill
First Warder Stilgiss kill

Saturday, July 19, 2008: Blackrock Depths (BRD), Scholomance, Stratholme

First Emperor Dagran Thaurissan

kill

First Magmus

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 56-57
Status: BRD cleared to Emperor, first taste of Stratholme and Scholomance
Milestones: Emperor Dagran Thaurissan, Timmy the Cruel

Another long weekend in BRD, but likely our last. We've finally cleared to the Emperor , and I think we've actually downed all of the bosses in our time there. We even went and got our MC attunement and wandered in to look at the trash. Oddly, we found most sources of info on the Magmus fight in BRD lacking. He's easy if you just pull him to the doors on either end of the hall. We were not hit by the flames there, and killed him quickly on our second attempt.

In other news, we've started gearing up in some AH-purchased outlands greens, and used those to poke our heads into Stratholme and Scholomance a bit early. We cleared Strat to the Scarlet Crusade and killed Timmy The Cruel , but we did not get the key to the city. In Scholo we learned that we don't know the layout of the place well enough, and ended up clearing tons of trash, but not actually encountering any bosses. We'll study up on the summoned bosses and layout and go back soon!

And that leaves Outland! We're going to be trying Hellfire Ramparts sometime soon, probably when we're all at least 59. Can three people clear Ramparts? Can Outland be 3-manned? We'll find out!

Saturday, July 12, 2008: Blackrock Depths (BRD)

First Bael'Gar

kill

First Golem Lord Argelmach

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 54-55
Status: BRD cleared up to the Grim Guzzler
Milestones: Angerforge, Bael'Gar

We did so much more this run through Blackrock Depths than I thought we would! All told, it was TEN bosses:

High Interrogator Gerstahn
The Commander Gor'shak relase event
Ring of Law
(then, via the Shadowforge Key) Bael'gar
Lord Incendius
Fineous Darkvire
Warder Stilgiss & Verek
Watchman Doomgrip (Relic Coffers)
(and then back to) General Angerforge
Golem Lord Argelmach

We ended up in the Grim Guzzler, but needed to call it quits so that we could go off to a party that night. All things considered, 10 boss fights is fun enough for one run! :-)

Lessons learned were many. We really need a slowing totem down when there are lots of non-elites, as they'll all die around the same time, and in BRD they tend to run. It's also much better to take on Bael'Gar from the Shadowforge Key gate at the entrance. Those dwarf elite packs can go horribly, horribly wrong, and if they do, it's nice to be able to have your tank stand and die while the others run to the zone entrance. Since we're all rez-capable, cleaning up from wipes is often trivial.

We also learned that the golems and Watchman Doomgrip are not linked, so if you wipe when opening the relic coffers, you can come back and single-pull Doomgrip. We took out the golems after, just out of spite.

With Argelmach, the key is to clear everything in the two rooms before him and then take out his golems while he runs around. You may not take out both, but you don't have to chase him either. Once he returns, switch targets and go to town. I imagine this is a great fight for a warrior, since the golems give you plenty of rage for the fight with the boss! As it was, I was hurting for mana as our pally tank, but we made it just fine.

Sunday, July 6, 2008: Blackrock Depths (BRD)

First Lord Incendius

kill

First Warder Stilgiss

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 52-53
Status: BRD cleared up to Lord Incendius
Milestones: Shadowforge Key

With much anticipation we began one of the dungeons that really spurred Saturnalia's creation: Blackrock Depths AKA BRD. BRD is one of the most difficult dungeons in the old world for level-appropriate characters. There are many packs of 6-7 mobs and frequently 5-packs of all elite mobs. Casters, healers, runners, linked groups, trick pulls, etc. This zone has it all. We did have some serious problems keeping up on the healing once we reached the 5-pack area after Incendius, and given the hour, we decided to call it quits, but with another level on the tank we'll go back in and take advantage of some of the great loot we got, including the Arbiter's Blade (Wowhead Pricing) and clear down to Emperor next week!

Saturday, July 5, 2008: Sunken Temple

Shade of Eranikus

first kill

Jammal'an the Prophet

first kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, aoedps)
Levels: 51-52
Status: Completed Sunken Temple
Milestones: First Avatar of Hakkar kill and full clear of ST

This was our first full clear of Sunken Temple and it was worth the work. Great loot, great fights and lots of fun! The best part, by far, was the Hakkar fight in which we got a little bit confused. Our healer didn't realize that you dropped out of combat between waves. Things got much easier when he found that out! ;-)

Saturday, June 28, 2008: Maraudon, Sunken Temple

Our first Princess Theradras

kill

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, loltankdps)
Levels: 48-50
Status: Cleared the rest of Maraudon (skipped Orange) and tried out Sunken Temple
Milestones: First kills for Princess, Tinkerer, Rotgrip

This was our first full clear of purple side and Princess's area in Maraudon , taking out every boss outside of the Orange side (which we've cleared multiple times previously). The Princess fight is fun and hard, but well worth doing. WoWHead suggestions of using potions of nature protection were spot-on and made the healing much more reasonable (running out of her AoE is not easy, even strafing).

Rotgrip

dropped the boots, which our druid appreciated!

After clearing Maraudon, we moved on to Sunken Temple and tried it out. We re-learned where everything was and cleared a ton of trash and some mini-bosses. Next time, we'll have all the quests and be ready to go all the way through.

Saturday, June 21, 2008: Maraudon

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, loltankdps)
Levels: 46-47
Status: All but last boss of ZF, most of Mara cleared
Milestones: First Princess fight, Killed up to Landslide

We finally made it to Maraudon . This is a truly epic-scale dungeon on par with Gnomer , though not as large as BRD . We did wipe a few times, getting used to some of the content, none of which we'd done with an appropriate-level full group, much less a group of 3 who were about 2 levels too low. Favorite moments:

Taking down Landslide only to discover that none of us is high enough level to use his loot ;-)
Triggering the vine restoration quest during a fight with a group of 3 and THEN getting jumped by two pathers... and winning
Clearing all the way to Princess.

Sadly, Princess is still too tough for us. All of our tricks are countered by her, and there seems to be some kind of odd agro-wipe related to her fear, even though fear isn't supposed to do that any more. Still, we'll go at her again after we've all gained a level and we can take her lunch money just like all the other bosses.

Still left to do:

Purple side
Meshlok the Harvester (wasn't up)
Tinkerer Gizlock
Rotgrip
Princess Theradras

We also ran ZF again, but this time, we delayed too long in talking to the group that we saved from the ziggurat. None of us realized that they would stone out after a couple of minutes, so we lost the goblin who would have opened the gates to the last boss. Other than that it was a quick and uneventful run.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008: Zul'Farrak

The group poses in front of the pool after clearing the final boss

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, loltankdps)
Levels: 45-46
Status: Cleared ZF
Milestones: ZF

This Saturday, we were unable to make it to an instance, so we went into ZF mid-week. This was a really fun run, and we cleared the instance. Being around level 45, we were not twinked, not aided by a high-level player, not a full group (3 as usual) and not even sweating when we left! One of the key things we had to do in order to progress through the hunters that polymorph was to fire up our Shaman's grounding totem. That made those encounters nearly trivial.

Some hints for others:

Always take the lower level mobs out first in this zone
Don't back up around a corner ;-)

Saturday, June 7, 2008: Uldaman, Scarlet Monastery: Cathedral, Zul'Farrak

The group gathers, ready to take on Archaedas

, Uldaman's final boss

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank, loltankdps)
Levels: 40-43
Status: Cleared (Uldaman, SM:C), Trash (ZF)
Milestones: Fastest SM run yet: cleared Cathedral in under 45 minutes.

This was a leveling week. We re-ran Uldaman and Scarlet Monastery and then tried out ZF for the first time. Zul'Farrak has entrance trash that varies between 43 and 45 with most mobs being 44 and 45. This was just a bit too much for us. We were able to move through them, but because they were between 2 and 4 levels above us, the fights took a long time, and agro management was very difficult. The first boss (not counting the easy one with all the bugs) wipes us, so we vowed to come back soon and give him what-for!

That said, Uldaman was flawless and Scarlet Monastery was a cake walk. We're almost ready to move on....

Sunday, June 1, 2008: Uldaman

Party: Chepi (heals,dps), Jazred (dps), Himalountain (tank)
Levels: 39-40
Status: Cleared
Milestones: First Holy Shield tanking run for Himalountain

We don't usually play on Sunday, but Himalountain had just hit 40 and re-specced prot to get Holy Shield (though I have to say that other than the lack of Holy Shield, occasionally tanking as Ret up to 40 was fine). Jazred is now full-time dps and Chepi has re-specced to avoid using mana for dps, as heals are definitely starting to take more mana.

Uldaman was an instance we were all concerned about. We'd done RFD which is also tuned for 40ish characters, but Uldaman has some big pulls and some tricky bosses. In fact, the final boss can't even be engaged if you have fewer than 3 people.

The result? We walked through it. There were a couple of wipes, but those were just places where we honestly forgot how an encounter worked (Chepi and Himalountain had been in Uldaman with other characters, but not for quite some time).

The final boss fight was flawless, and really fun. We killed him with only one main dpser and one healer/dpser long before most of the statues were summoned. Nice work everyone!

Saturdays before June, 2008

This page was created in June, but before that, we did:

Razorfen Downs (RFD) - full clear, good loot!
Scarlet Monastery (SM) including Graveyard, Library, Armory and Cathedral - we did all of these except Cathedral before their recommended levels, and with only 3 people... they were challenging, but quite doable. Full clears on all of them, though we waited until high 30s to clear Cathedral after wiping in the low-mid 30s.
Gnomeregan - full clear, but annoying as sin. We did this when we were actually right about the correct level and we had only 3. It was challenging, but re-pops suck ;-)
Razorfen Kraul (RFK) - full clear, 3 people, very nice loot. What order you do things in really makes a difference, here. We didn't get any of the optional bosses any of the times we went.
Blackfathom Deeps (BFD) - Lots of fun at just about the right level with 3, full clear. We did this dungeon a few times, and it was well worth it every time.
Deadmines - Did this a bit over level with tree, mostly because we put it off due to it being inconvenient to get to from Horde areas.
Shadowfang Keep - This is a great instance and we did it with three and four at an appropriate level.
Wailing Caverns (WC) - I'm not fond of this instance, if only for the fact that no one has their full suite of abilities yet, and it's a long, slow slog if you're appropriate level and not twinked out. That said, we did this with 4 and later 3 players and it was a lot of fun. A bit too hard for 3 when you don't have key abilities yet, but still workable.
Ragefire Chasm (RFC) - An easy instance that we cleared with 3 or 4, I can't recall.

Tips

For folks who are looking to do old-world dungeons with appropriate-level toons, here are some tips:

The Paladin

You can do these instances without a Paladin, but I don't recommend it past about level 35. Once you start to get into Scarlet Monastery, Razorfen Downs and Uldaman, you really start to see the number of 4+ pull encounters ramp up. While you can bring CC and do it that way, it's just tedious. Why not dps everything down at once? Prior to 40 a Paladin doesn't even need to be specced prot to tank. Just use a shield on a retadin (edit: or holyadin -- Chepi) and you'll be fine. If you have a really good healer, you can even use a 2-hander!

Flexibility

There are some classes (Mage, Rogue, etc.) that fill a very specific role, regardless of their spec. They're dpsers with some utility. These are useful classes to have when you're forming a 10+ man raid, but in lower level instances, you really want classes that can play at least two different roles. A Shaman, Druid, Shadow Priest, Paladin or Arms/Fury Warrior can all do at least two things fairly well and three of those classes can fill just about any role. At the very least, bring someone whose main role is dps, but who can throw a heal when needed (Shaman, Ret Paladin, Shadow Priest or Feral/Balance Druid).

Don't be afraid to try them too soon

Go into dungeons before you think you're ready. Worst case, you'll find out you're right, wipe early and then you can go to another one. Often, you'll find that a couple levels before you thought you'd be ready, you're actually good to go!

Here are some recommended level ranges for the various dungeons:

Shadowfang Keep/SFK 18-25(21)
Blackfathom Deeps/BFD 20-27(23)
Gnomeregon 24-33(29)
Razorfen Kraul/RFK 25-35(30)
Scarlet Monastery (Graveyard) 27-30 (29)
Scarlet Monastery (Library, Armory) 34-38 (35)
Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) 38-40 (39)
Razorfen Downs/RFD 35-40(37)
Uldaman 35-45(40)
Maraudon 40-49(44)
Zul'Farrak/ZF 43-47(45)
Sunken Temple/ST 44-50(47)
Blackrock Depths/BRD 48-56(52)
Stratholme 55-60(57)
Dire Maul 56-60(58)
Scholomance 58-60(59)
Ramparts 60-62(61)
Blood Forge/BF 61-63(62)
Slave Pens/SP 62-64(63)
Underbog/UB 63-65(64)
Mana Tombs/MT 64-66(65)
Auchenai Crypts 65-67(66)
Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad 66-68(67)
Sethekk Halls 67-69(68)
Caverns of Time: Black Morass 67-70(68)
Mechanar 69-70(70)
Shattered Halls/SH 70
Arcatraz 70
Botanica 70
Steam Vaults/SV 70
Shadow Labyrinth/Slabs 70

WoWWiki also has a nice chart