You have earned the achievement: Bored out of your mind!

So, I mentioned in my last post that I have been spending a lot of time soloing BC heroics. I have gone on to spend even more time soloing BC heroics. So much so that A) I'm exalted with Honor Hold and Cenarion Expedition, and B) I finally got my BC Dungeon Hero achievement... Every last BC heroic done solo. Woof.. There were some harsh ones in there too. I'm going to give a few superlative awards.

WARNING: There is a bit of strong language in the upcoming sections. I don't normally drop the F-bomb in blog posts, but there is one time that it just fit SO WELL. I apologize in advance if this offends you.

Easiest overall heroic:
This has to be the Hellfire Ramparts. Not much of a surprise, i'm sure. Easy trash for the most part, nothing overly hard hitting, easy bosses, relatively short overall. In and out.

Most trash in a heroic:
This is a tossup really. Shadow Labrynths, Slave Pens, and Botanica all have monstrous amounts of trash.

Most deceptively hard heroic:
Mana tombs. Holy donkey shit this place had me fooled. The first few trash packs leading up to the first boss were ridiculously easy. Nothing that could even drop me 5% of max health. Then the first boss, whose name escapes me, but he's a giant voidwalker... Well, he basically just came up and ATE MY FUZZY FACE OFF.. Okay.. So I should actually run away from him when he shifts into the void.. Got it. 2nd time, I was left standing with about 8% health.. after popping my cooldowns... woof. 2nd boss is a giant rock monster by the name of Tavarok (reminscent of the rock giant in the Nexus). This boss doesn't hit particulary hard with his melee attacks, but he has one REALLY FUCKIN ANNOYING ability that makes it almost impossible to solo. It is a 4 second debuff that stuns you and reduces your health by 10% of your max health. HOLY CRAP. Luckily, druids have a TON of cooldowns to use, and it took a lot of lucky use of all of them, and a decent DPS output to take this mother down (After 5 or 6 failed attempts).

Most annoying trash:
Blood Furnace. Those stupid engineers lay bombs and throw grenades and they hurt. Those felguard fools near the end knock you back, and they hit hard. God the trash in there used to irritate me badly.

Most annoying boss:
Kael'thas - Magister's Terrace. I'm sure this one isn't much of a surprise either, but Kael'thas is just OBNOXIOUS to solo. His fireballs don't hit exceedingly hard but he casts them FAST. And he has no melee abilities (that I recall) so all he does is cast, making it hard to generate rage. He will also flamestrike, which ticks for a good amount if you sit in it. Also, you can't move him out of the flamestrike, so while you're waiting for it to clear, he's still just sitting back there wailing on you with fireballs. The phoenix hits VERY fast, but goes down quickly... Then there's the Pyroblast. If you've never done this fight, let me break it down quickly for you. You have 60 seconds from initial aggro to drop him below 50% health. If you fail to do so, he will put a 10k absorption shield over himself and begin casting Pyroblast. You cannot interrupt the cast while the shield is still up. You have 4 seconds to break down the shield and interrupt his ass. Chances are, the pyroblast will kill you (it hit me for about 49k with barkskin on). Oooof.. Took me a couple tries to bring his annoying arse down.

Most deceptively easy heroic:
Botanica, without a doubt. For the exceeding amounts of trash in that place, there is nothing really very difficult or hard hitting in there. Even the bosses are generally pretty easy (all 5 of them)

Instances I wish would die in a fire:(/cast rant)
Escape from Durnholde Keep (aka Old Hillsbrad Foothills) and The Black Morass (aka Opening the Dark Portal). I don't know why, but ever since I played in BC, i've had an obscene hatred for the Keepers of Time instances. I don't mind Culling of Stratholme because it had no rep requirements and has no pre-requisites to get into. Back in BC however.. Oh those bronze dragons made you jump through some goddamn hoops if you wanted to use THEIR portals. First one - get the quest from the bronze dragon at the enterence to the caves. 2nd one, follow a little kid around the caves for TEN GODDAMN MINUTES while they explain what the portals are. As an additional fuckoff to BC, they thought it would be a great idea to add a 20 minute debuff when you initiated this quest, so you couldn't do it in such a short time span. REALLY annoying when someone on the opposite faction kills you right after you initiate the quest. Brilliant foresight there Blizzard, but I digress. 3rd - turn in quest after following the kid around get the first quest that FINALLY allows you to go into Escape from Durnholde. Now let me make this clear.. Unlike ANY OTHER INSTANCE IN THE FRICKIN GAME as far as I know... You couldn't just up and do any of these instances without bypassing the quest chain, and you still can't. Now then, do the first instance, complete it, turn in to the dragon inside the instance, and FINALLY you can go do Black Morass.. You can't do Black Morass until after you do Escape from Durn and turn in the quest to the flippin dragon-fool inside. Horrid design Blizzard... absolutely annoying beyond belief, which is why I saved these two for last with my BC Dungeon Hero achievement. (/end rant)



Now then, out of all of this, I've been pondering repeatedly to myself... What is the hardest OVERALL BC heroic, and i'm not entirely sure I can answer that. There are many dungeons that have elements that make them difficult. Shadow Labs has an abundency of trash, some of which hits very hard, but most of the bosses are pretty simple, although the last one has the potential to be mean at times. Mana Tombs' bosses are hell for a solo player, but the trash is a joke. Botanica is absurdly long, but no real difficulty other than to just DO it. After getting past the baseline hatred I have for the Keepers of Time, their instances weren't too difficult, other than the lack of downtime for eating when you really need it. If we're going to go solely off of death counts, I would say Mana Tombs and Shadow Labs are tied for the most difficult slot... and I think I would be pretty alright with that decision.