Ride The Lightning

As always bonus points for getting the title reference. Just remember that this is the blog where everything's made up and the points don't matter. That's right it's like spirit to a Paladin. Double bonus points for getting THAT reference.

(Italicized text added after a great suggestion from a commenter).

Last night, I logged on and sent a tell to my good buddy Raistilan to see if he'd like to run some Heroics. Strangely enough, he was putting a group together and just looking for a tank. Now where could he find a tank...hmm. I offered to go as DPS if he wanted to tank on his Paladin, but he was cool with going on the mage.

So I had myself (Prot Paladin) and Raist (Mage). Also in the group were Sariahs (Mage), Wrinklerobes (Disc Priest), Ckcjake (BM Hunter). This was a 'Friends and Family' group. Everyone in the group were good friends or possibly family members like Wrinkle/Sariahs/Ckcjake.

Raist asked which Heroic we wanted to run and as you might have surmised from the post title, we chose Halls of Lightning. I had actually put forward the idea of doing Halls of Lightning because I had never run the dungeon, normal or Heroic. I had 2 quests from Dun Niffelum from my leveling days, and I had the normal Daily Quest and Raist shared the Heroic daily quest with me.

Halls of Lightning is an absolutely beautiful dungeon. I need to run it again when I have more time and just tour the place once it's clear.

I had heard that Halls of Lightning was one of the 'harder' Heroics, so I was mentally prepared for a challenging run.

We cleared to the first boss, General Bjarngrim. No, I don't know how to pronounce it either. He pats around in a very large area, sort of like the first boss in Hellfire Ramparts. We were still engaged with a group when he aggroed.

I picked him up and tanked him along with the final mob from the last group. He's basically like fighting a Warrior and kept switching between Battle, Berserk, and Defensive Stance. He went down pretty easy and Wrinkle (Disc Priest) didn't seem to have any trouble keeping me up, even with the trash mob on me as well as the boss.

Halls of Lightning has interesting trash as well as interesting bosses. One of the trash mob is a Hunter type that has a knock back shot (do want on my Hunter alt, by the way). That was annoying as anything. I felt like a Gnome getting punted all over the platform. We kept that guy sheeped on most pulls.


The 2nd boss was Volkhan aka The Anvil Guy. At points he runs to his anvil and makes some Brittle Gnomes. Then he decides to break the Gnomes. They explode and do damage to all around them. We had such good DPS that he only got a few Gnomes out before we killed him. We even got the achievement "Shatterproof".

There is an interesting room on the way to the third boss. The room is filled with Earth Elemental looking things call Slags. They put a debuff on you that reduces your armor, and they blow up when they die. What we did was have me run in and aggro the whole room, and then run to the stairs at the back of the room where we took them down one at a time. The only AoE we used was my Conscecrate.

The next boss up was Ionar. He has two phases that he switches between. Phase 1, he looks like an giant elemental and will periodically put a debuff on a party member that makes them do an arcane explosion on the party like the Robots right before Curator in Karazhan. After the first phase, Ionar becomes a group of electric spiders that chase party members around. Everyone, including the tank has to run from the spiders. Then the forms back up and starts Phase 1 again. It is really important that the Tank get back to him when he forms up. There is no aggro wipe between phase and dots will continue to tick so make use of Seal of Vengeance/Corruption.

One more note about the trash before we get to Loken. The normal Daily Quest was to kill Titanium Vanguards. Our very first pull of this type of mob and one of them charged the Priest and basically one shot him. I swear Blizzard gives that dang random charge to at least every other mob in the game. I had everyone stack up on them like we would do the mobs in Black Temple, and that seemed to work okay, but they would still charge the Hunter who had to stand a little out of range.

Now comes the main event, Loken. I've heard more horror stories about this guy than just about any other Heroic boss in Wrath.

This fight was especially sweet for me. I'd quested all through Storm Peaks and seem the handiwork of Loken. Actually it went all the way back to Howling Fjord and the Iron Dwarves there. those were the first of Loken's lackeys I'd bested. I'd done what I could to help the Sons of Hodir recover. I'd fought against his minions in Grizzly Hills, and helped his brother Thorim. I was there when he and Thorim had their mono y mono, with Loken the victor. Now it was time for Loken to pay for his crimes, and this hearty group of adventures was going to be judge, jury and executioner. When we got up to Loken, he launched into the Bad Guy Monologue, where the Bad Guy reveals his nefarious plan to the Good Guys. Apparently, Loken is working for someone, his Master. Their grand plan is to release Yogg-Saraon. Now as we discovered way back in Grizzly Hills from the spirit of Ursoc, the Bear god, Yogg-Saron is a beast of a thousand maws, and apparently a card carrying member of the Old Gods club. We further learned in Halls of Stone that the Old Gods could not be destroyed by the Titans, because destroying them would have destroyed Azeroth and everything on it. I've got to think releasing Yogg-Saron would be a 'Bad Thing'. And where oh where might Yogg-Saron be? Perhaps Ulduar itself?

Our first go at Loken ended at the first Lightning Nova. It took out 3 of us. We talked over strategy as we ran back and decided to see if Wrinkle could heal through the Lightning Nova with all of us standing close to the boss. Being Discipline, he didn't have Circle of Healing, but he had Prayer of Healing. We tried it that way and wiped again. Wrinkle asked us to try it again as he was learning to time the Lightning Nova and his heal. We did try again and though we lost the Hunter, we were able to take Loken down.It was a great run, and I really enjoyed it.
Afterwords, we had a rather unremarkable Drak'Tharon Keep run, although we did snag the Oh Novos! Achievement.