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| Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker |
Hey dudes. Silvite Soltis back again with another installment of Memories of Vanilla for you.
Last time, I told you all about the time I tried to get into a Molten Core raid, only to find that I needed to be "attuned". At the time, it was really disappointing, but that experience taught me a lot about the endgame of WoW. Well today, I've got a story that's a bit more cheerful...
So, as always, sit back, relax, and enjoy as I recount the tale of how I ended up running a dungeon with one of the best rogues on my server...
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| Stratholme, Our Destination |
I'd been level 60 for a little while at this point - probably about a month or so. And while I had a foreign exchange program fast approaching (August 2006), I was still on Warcraft constantly. After all, I had to enjoy this time with my priest before going halfway across the world.
So, one day in July of 2006, I found myself in a group for Stratholme. I'm not sure what I was doing there, but it probably just involved me trying to get gear without knowing where the best items were. I was slated to be the healer, of course, but our group couldn't find a tank for the life of us. After spamming the various channels repeatedly for about 30 minutes, though, a rogue was invited to the group.
Now, I was by no means an expert on the different classes and roles of WoW, but even I understood that a rogue was NOT a tank. And so, I asked about our new ally:
"Hey, um...isn't this guy a rogue?"
"Yeah. It's ok, he'll be able to tank for us," our party leader replied. I was skeptical, but figured that it would be better to at least try and see how it went - especially considering the alternative option of sitting and waiting around more...
And so, we headed up to Stratholme. Silvite's hearthstone was set to Light's Hope Chapel, since I constantly found myself running Strat and Scholo back in those days, so I was the first to arrive at the entrance. Once inside, I took a quick break to hit up the bathroom and grab a drink before we started the dungeon. When I sat back in my chair, I found that 2 others had joined me - a mage and our rogue tank...
This guy was GEARED!
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| Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker |
It was a female night elf rogue, decked out in the black and red colors of the Bloodfang set. Though there were a few pieces missing (which I learned later had been parts of the AQ set), I was amazed by the sheer epicness of this rogue. One thing, however, stood out above everything else this character had equipped...the weapon.
Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker
I had heard about this weapon before, and seen it a few times as I ran around Ironforge, but I'd never been in a group with someone wielding it before. Curious, I asked how to get the weapon, but to no avail. The rogue was part of the guild "HERO" - one of the Chinese guilds on the Whisperwind server back in the day. Either way, I figured it would be a fun adventure.
It took only a few minutes for the last two party members to arrive. We buffed up, opened the gate, and began what would become one of the most amazing dungeon experiences I've ever had in the game. Our rogue ran forward, no stealth or anything. Swirly tornadoes appeared out of thin air as the mobs were hacked to bits. Our mage barely had barely begun one Blizzard cast when the last zombie fell, and I knew we were going to have a good time.
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| Nerub'enkan |
We progressed swiftly to the second gate, making sure to loot as much as we could along the way. Our "tank" sliced through every pack like butter, with no crowd control and hardly any healing needed. The first boss, Nerub'enkan, provided little challenge for our group, dying within the first 20 seconds of engagement. The second boss, however, proved to be a bit harder...
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| Baroness Anastari |
We made our way over to Baroness Anastari, the banshee boss. Figuring it would be as easy as the first, we charged up to her. In our haste, however, we forgot one thing...she has a mind-control ability. Now, this wouldn't normally be a problem - after all, each of us had a one in five chance of being mind controlled. But of course, being a very obviously boosted run, RNGeesus decided to troll us by immediately mind controlling the best player in our group. Within a few seconds of the spell being cast, we all lay on the floor dead, with swirly cyclones still spinning on our corpses.
Not ideal, but we got a bit of a chuckle out of it.
Running back from our wipe, we decided to just stand back as our rogue used every tool he had and single-handedly decimated the boss. With her out of the way, I happily scooped up the shadow damage neck piece and we moved on.
The rest of the dungeon was a bit of a blur to be honest - tornados swirling around and everything dying around us. However, when we reached the final area with all of the abominations wandering around, our tank decided to crank it up to 11, pulling several at once and dodging all of their attacks with evasion. I nearly had a heart attack when the dodge chance wore off and his HP plummeted, scrambling to heal him up as fast as I could, but we managed to survive.
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| Stratholme |
It was EPIC!
Ramstein came out, dead.
Skeletons rushed the group, dead.
Black guards came out, dead.
We rushed into the final chamber where Baron Rivendare stood waiting. A mere 40 minutes or so had passed since we first stepped into the dungeon, and we were eager to take him out for the amazing items he possessed. With the same ease as the rest of the dungeon, he fell. And on his corpse, we found Robes of the Exalted - the best healing robes dropped by dungeon bosses.
"Strat Live now?" he asked as I equipped my new robes.
And, of course, we all said yes...
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I hope you enjoyed this story. Though I don't remember the rogue's name anymore, running Stratholme with him was one of the most amazing and eye-opening experiences I had back in vanilla. Seeing how epic the gear looked, as well as how powerful it made him as he slashed all of the enemies to bits, made me thirst for greater gear and rewards in the game, and was probably one of the reasons I started really focusing on my warrior in the Burning Crusade. After completing the undead portion of the dungeon, we moved over to live side and, very similarly to the first half, absolutely destroyed everything there.
When everything was finished, I found that the rogue was actually a friend of one of our other group members, and that he'd simply asked for help. Even now, I think back at how different things were back then - we were forced to make friends in the game and those friends helped each other all the time, not just when it benefited them. Clearly this rogue had no need to run Stratholme or to help us, but he did. This feeling of helping each other - fostering friendships and community, is something I can't wait for come August 27th...
But anyway, that's enough for today. If you liked this story and would like more content like it, check out my other posts here on Blogspot, or my videos over on YouTube. You can also get updates on new content by following me on Facebook and Twitter. There's still quite a few stories to tell, so make sure to stop by again for more.
Thanks for reading and for your continued support as I recount all of these tales. I'm really glad that you all enjoy the stories as much as I enjoy telling them. I can't wait to create more when Classic is released, but for now, and as always, take it easy!
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