The View From Down Here

A Study in Scarlet

No raiding recently; instead I’ve been busy helping others get geared up, that old favourite potion farming and playing on my alt, mostly pottering around the Scarlet Monastery as a tank to a somewhat… mismatched group.

So, Montoya ventured into the Scarlet monastery as a level 37 tank with a 42 warlock, a 36 priest and a 34 rogue for company. It was a… most interesting experience. As might be guessed, aggro problems were far and wide caused by someone who had five levels on him. Such a wide range of levels has all sorts of problems  – big aggro radius on the lowbies, and high aggro generation on the higher levels. My tanking needs some polishing too, though deconstructing it afterwards helped me to work through that (Hint: Cleave isn’t nearly as equivalent to druids’ Swipe as I thought it was).

I like the Scarlet  Monstery a lot – it’s a shame there’s only two Alliance quests there. Each of its component wings is just the right size to be done in a sitting when you don’t have too much time. I never finished the instance on my main, so it’s nice to have done it now, even if I can’t yet use the gloves that dropped off the end boss. So I’d never really seen the Cathedral wing before – and the gardens outside the chapel are indeed very pretty. The fountains look better than anything I’ve seen in the Burning Crusade. Perhaps it’s the case that a little of such effects is a lot.

Anyway – Scarlet Monastery. Best pre-endgame instance by far, probably because it is so different. And revisiting the Scarlet Crusade way down the line in Stratholme is something that I’ll miss.