Magisters' Terrace: Great instance or the greatest instance?
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 26th 2008 at 4:00PM
I, like many other players, spent the better part of the morning running the new 5man Magisters' Terrace instance (and yes -- it is "Magisters'," so there is actually more than one Magister in it), and while not everyone is thrilled with it (I know some are saying that it's too hard), I love it. I pretty much agree with AA -- it's not that hard when you actually figure out what to do with CC, and get a handle on the fact that even on normal difficulty, this is a dungeon that doesn't let up.But my favorite part of the dungeon is just the fact that Blizzard put their money where their mouth is on this one -- for a while, they've been saying that they wanted a five man to be like Deadmines, in that it felt like the end of a long storyline. And MT (which is what I think it will eventually be called by most players, since who really runs Mana Tombs anymore?) is definitely that -- I won't ruin the lore too much, but it works perfectly as both a cap on what happened in Outland, and as a sweet preview to Sunwell Plateau. I never thought we'd meet some of those names in a five man instance, but I loved it, and we'll see more of that in Wrath for sure.
Plus, the encounters are fun. Unfortunately, there's nothing super new -- Blizzard cribbed directly from Warlord Kalithresh for the first boss and Curator for the second (boy, AoEing the little guys before that is exciting, isn't it?), but the miniboss battle near the end really does play like a little PvP-ish PvE (similar to the .5 upgrade event in BRD). All in all, I think it's a great instance, and a fun way to cap off five mans at level 70.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Instances, NPCs
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
peaglemancer Mar 26th 2008 4:11PM
Limited trash pulls + uber "MrT" acronym = win
Jane Gray Mar 26th 2008 4:22PM
Yup, its MrT on our server. Which is nice since the LFG is usually such a somber channel.
BRING CC EVEN FOR NON-HEROIC IMO. Can a 14k armored pally generate the threat to keep all the mobs? Hell yeah.... Can he survive getting whaled on by 6 elites.... it turns out no.
Nick S Mar 26th 2008 5:31PM
ditto on the "bring CC." even with 2 mages, a 15k warrior, and a 2k+ pally healer, it was not a walk in the park. not impossible, mind you, but not deadmines either.
Seprin Mar 26th 2008 4:15PM
We ran it with a enhancement shammy, holy pali, shadow priest, feral druid and a distro warlock.
We had run it on the PTR but the instance has been nurfed since we had run it. Everyone in the group was geared in karazan level gear and a couple of ssc/tk items. Only cc we used was my banish. Everything else was tank and spank in order. Went very smooth and quick.
Prolly try it on heroic tonight...but im sure cc will come into play a lot more this go around.
tkc Mar 26th 2008 4:17PM
We (me and some guildies) rolled through the first three bosses in MT. We could not get the last one down.
We would put the tank on the boss. As soon as the bird showed up we'd kite it away and burn it down. Then we would kill the egg. All DPS then returned to the boss but we could never get him down. The 'swimming and orbs' thing would always get us.
Any ideas?
Seprin Mar 26th 2008 4:25PM
tank and spank to start. When the bird pops up we burned it down then kill the egg quick, then back to the boss. At like 50% the swimming phase started. We swam as a group to avoid the bubbles. We dropped and burned him down as he was stuned. Went thru the swimming phase twice and killed him before he came out of the 2nd stun.
varilhigh Mar 26th 2008 5:31PM
As soon as you get levitaed swim to the back of the room by the door. When the orbs start to get close to you swim all the way back to the other side of the room. Then start dpsing him again from the air. The timer on the levitate will run out before the orbs get back to you. Remeber, he is very weak right after the levitate ends.
Pacsik Mar 26th 2008 4:30PM
The only damage I was coming from him during orbs was from his linked dot thing (unless you swim through an orb). I would suggest just healing through it and don't think about DPS. Just stay alive and out of the orbs until he takes a knee.
Also, don't try to land on the ground. If you do he will pop you up into the air uncontrollably, many times directly through an orb. Haven't tried the instance on Heroic yet so he may have even more tricks there.
rick gregory Mar 26th 2008 4:49PM
Ignore the bird if your tank can gain threat on it and survive the extra damage. WE did that and Kael dropped like a sack of elven taters....
I like the instnace - I don't love it. It's pretty easy on normal. WE had one mage and, after one wipe on the third boss and 2 on Kael we killed everything. Even with out tank DCing 2x we were done in 90 mins. with 2-3 CCers and a tank that did DC it's a 60 minute run.
I like the cutscene at the orb, etc but I don't really see this wrapping things up in a detailed story - the first 3 bosses are, well, bosses. they don't seem to have much story behind them. Kael does, but it's over at that point.
I hope Blizz does more five mans with content patches though - it's nice to have something new to play in when you can't raid (or have for the week) aside from quest/farm/pvp.
Orestes Mar 26th 2008 4:17PM
Haven't had the chance to run it, but I really don't see anything beating Strat as my favourite instance... except maybe CoT Strat
Zelda89 Mar 26th 2008 4:35PM
I agree this really is a great instance. I really love the small amount of trash. At least on the way to the first two bosses. Ive only done this instance once, and on normal, and i walked there with a bt geared grp, so it wasnt really much of a challange. But caus this instance is so greatly designed it was never dull for a moment. The video event in the middle really gave a good feeling and made me want to explore more of sunwell.
Only thing i dislike is kael beeing back. He is btw looking seriously sick and u see from the start he is not what he used to be. He pretty much got the same abilitys as in Tk but it is ofc much easier. And it might give new ppl that havent raided tk a idea what the encounter is really like.
Drops are excellent and by god i wish I once can get that tanking trinket that drops of kael.
Belkar Mar 26th 2008 4:25PM
From Blizzard's official website, it's Magister's Terrace.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
Still, have to agree, it's one of my favorite instances, probably even toppling Dead Mines - only because MgT is so much shorter.
Mike Schramm Mar 26th 2008 4:30PM
In the game (and I checked on this), it's Magisters' Terrace.
Calaana Mar 26th 2008 10:19PM
/lfm disagree's with you.
Angelus Mar 26th 2008 4:37PM
"I, like many other players, spent the better part of the morning running the new 5man Magisters' Terrace instance"
Its so hard to compete with all you non-working/non-working-out types.
Chris Anthony Mar 26th 2008 4:45PM
You understand that this *is* his job, right?
George Mar 26th 2008 4:54PM
Hence "non-working-out" part.
Reading comprehension ftl.
poonannie Mar 26th 2008 4:41PM
On heroic for the Kael, we had the phoenix pet drop last night. As an affliction lock I dotted up Kael, then teh bird appeared, threw a couple instant dots on it and had the mage take it down. Then back to smacking down kael. When the egg came up I threw death coil and shadow burn and the mage hit it quick to get rid of it. We didn't even get a shield on our last try (took 3 tries from when I joined the group already cleared to last boss). It seemed to be more about getting him to 50% asap. The swimflying and orb phase just entailed hitting him with as much as we could when we had time and room to stop for longer casts and keeping dots and instant damage stuff going. Very, very fun fight and a great instance. Just need the right CC.
BillDoor Mar 26th 2008 4:41PM
Had a great time running it last night. Just regular mode for now, to learn it a bit better. We were clearing all of the trash, for practice on crowd control (are any non-ccable? no, it turns out), and kill order, but also to get as much rep as possible.
Kael is a great fight. I never got to meet him in The Eye, but I'm liking him in MrT.
Brien Mar 26th 2008 4:42PM
You may want to let your friends know on that LJ community that the reason their sheep wasn't sticking is because the Priestess dispells