I logged on around 10:30 last night. I just wanted to mess around with the new dailies and run around the new zone a little bit. Well, after a few minutes someone decided to put together a group for Magister’s Terrace. It’s way late for me already, but I figured what the hell. I can go short on sleep to see the new instance.
**Disclaimer: There are some minor spoilers below. I won’t get into full on strategy, but if you want to go into MagT completely green without knowledge of any bosses, quit reading now.**
My very first impression? VERY NICE! I loved the art direction in this place right away. I should add that I play Alliance, so I’m not as used to that architectural style as some of you horde players might be. The colors are rich, the layout is interesting, and it’s straightforward. The music is also excellent, on par with the music from Kara, which I think is some of the best in the game. Here’s a shot from the very first hallway.
The mobs are pretty normal to begin with. Just your garden variety blood elves. 
They have a few painful and irritating abilities, though, and I’m not even sure who had them or what exactly they did. One was some kind of glaive that seemed to stun me for a few seconds. (Never good if you’re a healer!) Another was a silence (Again, no good for healers!). Those abilities popped up again and again throughout the instance, and by the end I HATED Glaive and Silence!
The first boss, Selin Fireheart, was pretty straightforward. We wiped the first try, though not due to difficulty. There is a door that appears when the boss is triggered, and myself and a mage were trapped behind it. Doh! Anyhow, once we got a REAL try in, he was easy. He is a lot like Kalithresh in Steamvaults, only with Crystals in lieu of tanks. If he starts sucking on a crystal, destroy the crystal or else. Other than that he was pretty easy. As far as drops, he dropped some blue mail +attack power thing, [item]34698[/item]. Nobody in the group could use it. Oh well.
Selin Fireheart before:
Selin Fireheart after:
On to the second boss. If you’ve ever done Curator in Kara, you’ll find him familiar. He’s in a room filled with flying mana worm dudes, like a LOT of flying mana worm dudes. The boss himself is like a steroid enhanced version one of those Arcane elemental guys that hung out in the Curator’s room. He played somewhat like the Curator as well, with some flares and the like. He was easy enough to down on the first try.
And, wonder of wonders, I got a drop! I don’t know if what I got will replace [item]28663[/item], but [item]34707[/item] would be real nice boots for a druid not already in Kara purples. I’m still debating whether I can live with some of the stats I’d lose, because they do have two gem slots. I could easily slot a stamina gem or something else to make up the stats. We’ll see. Anyhow…
Around this point in the instance there is a crystal you click to enjoy a little cutscene. It was a VERY nice touch. From what I could tell, it looked like a preview of the 25 man Raid in the new zone. Little things like this are the reason I have played this game for so long, with no signs of stopping. Let’s face it, Blizzard is STILL on its game! I loved it!
Onward we go. The third boss is in a nice, big open aroboretum type area with fountains. Very nicely designed room, just as the rest of the instance is. The third boss is a lot like Moroes, in that you have a boss and four random adds of different classes. We got some kind of Paladin, a rogue, and I don’t know what else. We spanked her pretty well on the first try, as we cleared the room so the Lock in our group could CC two of them with Banish and Fear. One sheep from the mage, and the fight was pretty easy. I could see it being tough if you didn’t have appropriate CC. Here is a shot of the third boss, Priestess Delrissa.
What did she drop? She dropped a pair of blue spellcaster shoulders, [item]34788[/item]. From what I’ve seen of the loot so far, it’s some fairly nice pre raiding blue stuff. If you’re clearing Kara on a regular basis, maybe not so much.
Here is where it got ugly. I’ll be honest, we didn’t finish. Next on the list, and the last boss was Kael’Thas Sunstrider.
I won’t mince any words here. Kael’Thas is one TOUGH cookie. He beat us like red-headed stepchildren, repeatedly. He’s simply a very tough fight with a lot of different elements you have to get right to succeed. We had a few specific problems with this fight.
- It was VERY late – Everyone was a little tired by the time we got here, it was close to 2 am
- There is flat out a LOT of damage being thrown around to multiple group members – as a Druid I struggle in that kind of situation
- In the second phase, everyone takes a lot of damage on a constant basis…something like 300 or more damage per second, on EVERYONE (again, tough for a Druid)
So sadly, our run ended in failure. We wiped on him five different times, for a different reason each time. I didn’t realize until it was too late that what I had to do was try to get Rejuv on EVERYONE before the second phase, and keep refreshing it along with tossing lifeblooms. Oh well. I did get to see most everything there, and got a decent drop to boot. (Pun intended.) I look forward to trying Kael again soon.
Overall, I give the instance an A+ on first impression. It is quite challenging, and could be the most difficult five man in the game now. There are some tricky pulls and some tricky bosses, and it really keeps you on your toes in a good way. I shudder to think of trying this in heroic, but at the same time really look forward to it.
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