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Between BackBreaker being busy and my other hobbies, haven’t spent as much time on WoW lately. However, that’s not to say nothing’s happened. In fact, we had a very exciting run this last Sunday.

We’ve been trying, without success, to get through the level-70 wing of Auchindoun. This last time we decided on something slightly easier, Shattered Halls, the third wing of Hellfire Citadel (and technically the easiest of the level-70 instances).

As it turned out, none of our party (Blanc, Dunain, Blondiewood, Grumbly, Asclepius) had been through the entire thing. In fact, the only prior experience there was was from when Blanc, Blondie and I tried to three-man part of it. We got through the second room before encountering a group that we couldn’t do.

It’s a nice instance. Blizzard has done a nice job with a different set of challenges than the normal fare. We wiped three times, and none of those was on a boss. Sadly, Lance had the highest death rate I’ve seen yet. There’s a lot of high-damage melee types that Lance just cannot handle tanking (especially while he’s still 67), but we needed the extra bit of fight control. In those fights where we could avoid doing that, it was much better.

The first real challenge of the instance are the initial groups. You can pull many of them separately, but they will get replacements for anyone you pick off. The key is the Legionnaire in the middle. Until he dies, the group will keep getting replacements forever.

The other parts that stick out in my mind are a couple of areas where one or two monsters and maybe some non-elites will regularly show up. It really rewards a party that can handle situations on the fly and keep moving. The first one is a kind of slime-pit that you get at through a hole in the wall to get around a locked door (and immediately got a bunch of Star Wars references), and the second is an advance down a corridor while flaming arrows are being shot at/around you.

It’s certainly the toughest thing we’ve gone through, and should help put us on the right track for a successful return to Shadow Labyrinth later. Oh, and Dunain dinged 68 part way through the instance. ^_^