Running our first full try at Shadowfang Keep in World of Warcraft Classic we ran out of time on the last boss. I wasn’t convinced we had the gear / levels to get him down without some further character progression whether through dinging some of our characters or replacing some out of date gear (not so easy in Classic when you’re character is dirt poor).
For the most part the dungeon proved easy enough a challenge for our group of four level 23/24 characters (my holy Paladin, a prot Warrior, frost Mage and feral Druid). The main issues are line of sight on all the stairs and twisting corridors, oh and the fact that mana management is such an issue for my poor healer in this version of the game. That no doubt points at his gear not being up to scratch, but then gearing isn’t quite so easy with so little money available.
Try healing on those stairs…
In the one sense it’s a pretty linear dungeon, but on the other hand it does have its moments. I do appreciate a dungeon that takes your characters outside for a moment even if just break up the monotony of endless corridors. This one in particular does a very good job of giving the impression of your party climbing up and around a rather complex castle’s levels.
The difficulty at the end was a surprise, the final room is particularly bad for line of sight issues and for making tanking just as difficult and the boss hits like a truck. I doubt my healer will have the mana reserves to heal this boss without some new gear. What’s worse this dungeon, like many in Classic, has a really painful corpse-run: when we wiped it was a very long run back from the next zone (the nearest Alliance graveyard) over in Hillsbrad Foothills. That’s a ‘feature’ of the classic game that I do feel the slightest bit nostalgic about!
Count for IntPiPoMo 34/50.
GamingSF 