Dungeon Diving: The Sepulchre of Dragrimmar

When last we left things, I was coping with my grief by binging on electronic entertainment like the fat girl on a pint of Ben and Jerry's on prom night. I'd just finished a disappointing run through Raven's Point where I'd hoped to have picked up enough Destroyer Cores to pick up Light of Deldrimor to help future dungeon exploration. I walked away saddened and questioning how I'm spending my life when I only got one measly Core.

But, really, that was just a warmup. When I logged in, I was headed for the Sepulchre. On a beeline to settle some unfinished business with a certain Remnant from antiquity. He might have bested me during the preview weekend, he might be the most annoying boss-like creature I've ever seen, he might have taken others the type of long, hard, slogging fights that wear down your teeth enamel. But I was gunning for him. And I had a dead dog behind me. This wasn't personal, it was therapy.

After I finished up at Raven's Den and hit up the Giantess outside for my reward, I headed to Sif's for a staging point. Little dumping of inventory to free up space. A couple k later and it's time to rearrange my party. My idea here is to go heavy on the nukes, heavy on the interrupts, and try to blow the Remnant's doors off before it has a chance to kill me too many times and make the fight hopeless. I was thinking that I'd need to go 2x Ele and a BHA Ranger but, you know, I've actually been pretty pleased with Zho. Call it residual good will from the Costume Brawl, call it an excuse to run four fire Eles, call it what you will, but I'm doing it.

So, all three Hero spots are filled with my three Elementalists, set up with interrupts and enchantment hate. Piranhaface is sticking with slash Nec to keep an Enfeeble around and I'll try out Envenom Enchantments this time around since there'll be more strips around.

For myself, knowing what to expect from the Remnant, I'm packing Extinguish in favor of Aegis. That'll help out with the AoE bleed ward. Remove Hex instead of Shield of Absorption. I was torn between Dismiss and Remove but, in the end, I think being able to pluck off some hexes is probably a better bet here. Otherwise, I'm running with the same stuff I was last time.

To round out my party, I pick up Talon, the Guardian, for the tankening. Cynn, the burninator, for the nukeration rounding out my fire squad. Zho, again, for the interrupts and BHA. And I'll still carry Mhen-doh since I need a healer even though he's on my shit list for sucking so much in Raven's Pavillion.

Short run from Sif's through the Jotun cave and I'm there.

Ah, now I remember this place. It's the one with the colored doors where you have to track down the right triggers. At least this time I don't have a quest requiring me to track down on of the bosses in here. Makes the route much easier.

Freaking Mhenlo! Everyone's dropping and he's not healing because he's casting Healing Touch. And we're in the middle of a Frozen Soil, too. Oh, but this is going to be fun.

Took a death running through an ice trap thing while snared. Feel incredibly newbish.

And there we are at the stairs to the second level. It's Roy Gee Biv here. Hit the Red door switch off the start, trek north past the rezshrine for the green, then swing back down to get the blue, then back up to the northeast to reach the stairs. This dungeon is as easy as they come (Snowman mini-dungeon excluded). It's just that just as you're about to congratulate yourself, the boss is a tough mother who'll shut your mouth.

Standard pre-level ritual here. DPS check says that I'm full morale. So's the centaur Ele while the others have suffered incidental deaths but no one's over a full death's worth of DP. Considering I'm running a somewhat gimped build to have a shot at the Remnant, I'll take it.

Back to the bridge of destiny. Across that expanse waits the Remnant of Antiquities flanked by his two flunkies. In case you don't recall, the Remnant of Antiquities is a water Elementalist boss. Deep Freeze, Frozen Burst, that sort of thing. He's a mega-nuker amped up on whatever rocket fuel they feed these bosses to make them deal extra damage as he can hit for over 300 damage on a 60AL target alone. And his attacks are mostly AoE so he spreads the pain around if you're not careful. Worse,his attacks are all snares which make it harder to spread out (Especially with the drool catching AI) which is hard in the first place because of his special skill. It not only creates a environmental snaring effect it also creates a ward sized area of pain which hits for 120 damage and causes Bleeding on top of it. You try getting your computer controlled buddies to run out of that when you're moving a one third speed and see how well it works.

The plan here is simple. First, we must get rid of the trash mobs on either side of the boss. Then we must interrupt the ever-loving crap out of him. BHA, Meteor Shower, P-Drain, and everything else I'm packing must land on him in cyclical fashion. He shouldn't be able to cast any spells at all without hearing the dreaded click of disruption. He must not be allowed to cast two in a row. Keep him disabled and the rest of my team will pour on the damage until he drops. Me? I'll be trying to keep everyone alive and, likely, cursing Mhenlo with my dying breath. I packed Extinguish specifically for this fight. I won't get the bonus healing but it'll clear the entire party of Bleeding and prevent the loss of hundreds of hit points. In the meantime, I'll be running Protective Spirit on everyone I can. Me and Mhenlo, the two Monks, are the highest priority targets and, after that, Zho because she's my interrupting machine. If she goes down then the Remnant is going to start boring me a new craphole with a rusty screw.

I took one unnecessary death getting here so the human Ele Hero is down to 7%DP. Everyone else is even or above. I have an inventory full of candy canes to erase further DP if things get bad. Now for the first suicidal march across to get rid of those minions. PS up on me and Mhen-may.

Oh man, I'm so out of energy. So out of energy. So out of energy. Extinguish is working like a charm, though. Talon, my tank, is dropping like panties in Hugh Hefner's hot tub but everyone else is hale and hearty. The Remnant's health is ticking away slowly but surely. Bit by precious bit. Lower and lower until he's achingly close. I'm running on fumes, Mhenlo's fallen in love with Healing Touch, we're waiting for the recharges to cycle before the next volley.

And down goes Remnant! Down goes Remnant!

Didn't take all that long, really. Maybe five minutes. No wipes. No cascade deaths. Just slowly but surely worked him down until he popped. My reward, beyond the fat quest bonus? A crappy gold focus. -5en/+5AL and +44 health. Not even worth all that much to turn in to the merchant. Oh well, this fight was all about the revenge factor.