Heroic Instances Galore
stargrace 
Yesterday was my first trip to Magister’s Terrace, even though I’m now level 72 and it’s an instance for those at level 70 (burning crusade). I was doing the instance with Manos, warrior from guild (recently had Calreth join the guild as well with a mage, looking forward to that!) and I loved how complex the zone seemed. In EQ2 I’ve never had to look up a guide on a zone, I’ve never really had to learn a script, I could simply heal my way through it and very rarely does anything require me to react any differently (raids are different of course). In WoW I find that if I do not know a particular encounter I am probably going to die. There’s been everything from named exploding after they die (I have nightmares about those ones) to being gravity fluxed into the air and being required to swim around from giant energy balls or else risk being killed. I find WoW instances (at this moment in time) incredibly stressful, because I pride myself on being a good healer and when I don’t know the encounters it takes away from my ability as a healer.
Now, I could try to read up on every single instance and memorize what it is I need to do in each one. Or I could forgo the random dungeons and simply read up on specific ones until I learn them, or – well. Anyone else have suggestions?
Aside from learning the encounters in Magister’s Terrace, I also experienced my first (two) heroic dungeons. Again these were done in a team of two instead of a team of five, and they were burning crusade dungeons not Wrath, so they’re not exactly the most difficult of zones to do – but they were still incredibly fun. I managed to obtain the achievement for the heroic Blood Furnace, as well as the heroic Hellfire Ramparts. It was the first time I saw epic loot drop from a zone that wasn’t a boe world drop, and it was awesome to see how the zones changed compared to their ‘regular’ counterparts.
I did also experience my first Wrath dungeon, I headed to The Nexus and won a few pieces of nice loot including a new ring and an offhand. I’m mid way through level 72, and I’d probably be 80 already if I had any sort of dedication towards leveling just one character. As it is I constantly bounce around and I’m not exactly the quickest leveler. I get bored of quest grinding, which seems to be the best way to level up through the 70’s.
Now that a few more friends have started playing on my server I’m excited about us all leveling up and doing some fun things together. Whether we’ll actually stick with it or not I’m not sure yet, but it’s still incredibly fun in the mean time. Between EVE and WoW (and some EQ2 on the side) I really do have everything I want from an MMO (or two). I have the complexity of EVE and the sci fi factor (even though that factor means little to me personally) and I have the incredibly casual relaxed feeling of WoW – the only thing both games lack that I get from EQ2 is the housing. Which is something I miss dearly.
Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself. I hope everyone has an amazing weekend!