I realized today that the way we schedule and plan our dungeon events is somewhat unusual. Most guilds that do instance runs probably schedule them ad hoc. Instead, we do it more like a raiding schedule, and perhaps that's why it ends up working so well. So, I figured a peek behind the curtains would be fun.

Usually, we 3-man instances, and we did plan to do so for the Wrath, but a friend leveled up and wanted to join us, so we're now 4-manning the Wrath of the Lich King dungeons. We started with Utgarde Keep, the nominally 70 instance, but when we moved on to Nexus, we actually found it much easier. Utgarde was doable with 4 except for the last boss which is just not tuned for your run-of-the-mill level 70 tank, and requires much more timing and precision than any pre-70 instance bosses. Frankly, I expect to see the final boss of Utgarde nerfed in the near future. Nexus was another story. It was fun, fast and furious. It changes so much through it different sub-zones, and you really have to learn the instance to do it well.

Last night, Himalountain gained his 70th level, and has joined my other two Horde 70s and one Alliance 70. He then became my third character to get an epic flying mount. This felt like a real accomplishment, but it was nothing compared to what it would feel like, less than 24 hours later, to gain 19 more levels across two characters in one evening!

Last night we had planned to just try out Black Morass. We were not hopeful. Of course, our usual limitation is that we only have three players for a five-man instance, but we've learned to overcome that. Nominally, BM is a level 69 instance, but many consider it harder than some of the level 70 instances. Indeed, with a 68 tank, 69 dpser and a 69 healer who dinged 70 while we were there (grats Chepi!), we were clearly on the hairy edge, but after an initial wipe and our lessons learned, we actually won!

The elation went to our heads and we decided to push our luck by taking on the Headless Horseman. Now, this is a level 70 seasonal boss for Hallow's End. He's not meant to be a pushover for a level 68 tank backed up by only two other players. He's not really meant to be easy. We smacked him down a grand total of 5 times (one of us had not picked up the daily, so he couldn't summon a second time) without breaking a sweat! It was tons of fun, and the first level 70 purples that these characters have seen.

There were only two down-sides: we only got the caster rings (though the pet and the broom both dropped once each) and we forgot to screenshot it. Oh well, back to it tonight to kick his butt and take some pics!

Ever since The Burning Crusade came out, I've been a fan of the Caverns of Time instances, and Old Hillsbrad is probably my favorite. Being transformed into a human, saving Thrall, and seeing a favorite zone from the game returned to its previous state is just too cool. So you can imagine that as Saturnalia have been leveling and 3-manning all the 5-man instances, I've wanted to know how we would fare here....

Today is the release of 3.0.2 and there's a landslide of info.

First off, start here because green is pretty: The 3.0.2 FAQ

Once you have your legs, you'll want to look at MMO Champion's excellent release announcement page, the full test realm patch notes (really long), and the MMO mirror of those notes.

There are major new features that you'll want to try out:

• Barbers (locations) for new hair styles
• A new profession: Inscription
• Completely re-designed talents! Check patch notes and talent calculators for details (MMO Champion, Wowhead, Blizzard)

Welcome to 3.0.2, the patch that contains nearly all of the code changes required for Wrath of the Lich King. You are, for all intents and purposes, playing the expansion as of tonight, modulo the ability to level to 80 or go to Northrend. I know I'm going to have a long night of re-speccing and deciding if I'm going to bother with inscription or not.... sigh.

The 3-Man Guide to Blackrock Depths (BRD) is intended for World of Warcraft groups that want to follow in the footsteps of Saturnalia, doing old-world content at appropriate level. If you're 70 then you can probably solo BRD (depending on class and spec), but if you're a group of 3 with an average party level of around 55, you can still do it if you know how. This guide will teach you.

Saturnalia took on the 3.0 PTR today, in our usual 3-man grouping style. We are all 65, so we decided to do Underbog which was a little low for us, hopefully counteracting the fact that we all had UI brokenness due to the loss of settings and mods. It was really enlightening, and we can see that some things are likely to change. Here's how it went.

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.

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.