WoTLK instance #3 complete: Azjol-Nerub.

I went into this instance with a BC-heroics geared Warrior tank friend, two guildmates and a DPS PUG (someone we picked up for our group through the LFG tool), and none of us had ever been in it before.

None of us had been on the Beta.

None of us had seen a video of any of the fights, nor the route.

None of us even knew where to FIND the place, but we knew it was on our LFG tool and therefore it was something logically within our range.

If you don’t want to know about the instance before you go into it, don’t read this! I won’t give away a lot, but there are still spoilers.

Finding The Place

Finding the dungeon was the first adventure for this dungeon itself. With nobody really familiar with the lay of the land in Northrend in our group, and nobody with very many flight paths, the entire group had to be very patient while two people made their way to the stone ahead of others.

I mean, we all headed TOWARDS the place, but we all seemed to take different routes, and when a couple of us made it over to the stone, it was a relief to the rest to get a summon. I was the first to the stone, having taken a route from Undercity to Howling Fjord, and through the south part of Grizzly Hills in to the south section of Dragonblight. One of our partymates tried the northerly section of these two zones and ended up dead.

The terrain in Dragonblight was more difficult than in the rest of the zones so far - with icy crevaces that restrict travel and require you to take a big detour when heading west. And finding Azjol-Nerub itself, even once I had the “zone” for it explored, took a few minutes. (hey, what’s down here?)

Two Wings in Azjol-Nerub

Once I found the stone, not too far from the hole I jumped into, I found the first instance, the one we wanted.

It turns out we later discovered that the other wing of the instance, called Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom was the opposite direction from the stone and equally easy to find.

Reputation?

We didn’t find any quests initially, except for the one right near the stone, but I figure we’ll be running this creepy dungeon a few more times in our WoTLK lives (including at Heroic) so any quests have a lot of time, and from what I see, there’s no reputation gain while in these starting instances, unlike in Burning Crusade where getting rep from dungeons was so important on your long journey to Exalted.

The Dungeon Itself

Azjol-Nerub was a decently short instance from what we saw, although with the lack of knowledge of the place, it’s quite possible that we missed a section and didn’t even know it. I believe we did three bosses, although there might have been four?

The fights were a lot of fun, and new dynamics were introduced in the form of player ‘webbing’ - getting spider goo shot at you, and you becoming ‘webbed’ just like the various spider captives we’ve seen in Azeroth, Burning Crusade and early in the WoTLK quests. No healing for you while you’re webbed! The tank even got webbed once, which resulted directly in my death, as the healer.

I’m not sure, but I think if you’re fast enough and when the webbing stuff starts coming towards you, if you’re able to move, you’ll avoid being completely webbed. I’m not entirely sure, however - can anyone confirm?

My Favorite Boss Fight

In this instance, the creepy stuff leading up to the big spider boss was my favorite stuff, although because we didn’t know what we were facing - whether it was a gauntlet or not - we wiped the first time because we took it too quickly.

Turns out it’s not a gauntlet, but every time you kill a pack of the critters there, the boss gets a little bit closer, and a little bit closer, until the boss battle itself is upon you.

We nearly wiped on that spider boss (Hadronox), being unable to get out of combat between packs and getting overwhelmed. Thank goodness our Druid tank was geared in T6 and had a kajillion hitpoints, he lived through it and was able to resurrect the rest of us in order to continue on.

Gear Upgrades? Sidegrades

Since I’m geared pretty much in Heroic Badge rewards from BC, and raid drops from Mount Hyjal and Black Temple, the drops were all sidegrades, but still very comparable to the gear I have right now. The big difference was that there’s more Intellect on the gear now, which helps my mana pool a great lot!

So yes, I am replacing high-end raiding purples right away with dungeon blues. At least I’m not replacing it with regular WoTLK greens tho ;)

The place is pretty creepy tho, if you don’t like spiders, you won’t like this instance!

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Tags: Anub'Arak, azjol-nerub, dragonblight, grizzly hills, Hadronox, Krik'thir the Gatewatcher