One day in 2.4 country
by Matthew Rossi 
Mar 26th 2008 at 2:30PM
I admit it: I didn't do much exploring of patch 2.4 yesterday outside of running Magisters' Terrace. My guild did its usual raiding and I didn't want to take too much time to prep for it, so I didn't run any battlegrounds yet (how's the new AV so far, Alliance and Horde?) and barely got to run around killing some Wretched. So, let's talk about Magisters' Terrace, the new five man, which is what I got to see.So far, there's been some complaining that Magister's Terrace is too hard. Medros of From the Abbey to Outlands reponds to some of these concerns in this post, and I have to say I think he's right on the money. Wow. That was easy. "This guy's right." Guess I can go... what, I have to talk more about it? Sheesh, you're a hard taskmaster. Well, okay then.
If you read our Magisters' Terrace round-up you probably have a good idea of the place. From the perspective of a tanking warrior, this has become one of my favorite instances. The trash is responsive to warrior tanking options (there's usually a couple of melee in a pull and the casters can be spell reflected to stick to you), the first two bosses are very quick to get to, and the Princess Delrissa fight, once you understand it, is a lot of fun.
The group I went in with (Hunter, Ret Pally, Enhancement Shaman, Resto Druid, Prot Warrior) has minimal CC options but the two melee DPS could take out some of the adds and stay up while the rest got tanked and burned down by the hunter, with the melee often joining in once the imps and succubi were down.
The tuning seems to be intended for groups who have run enough five mans and heroics to be ready for Karazhan, but who either can't get a ten man group for some reason or are just starting in there. Some of the drops fill itemization holes like the Sun-Forged Cleaver while others (Shoulderplates of Everlasting Pain, Boots of Resuscitation) are nearly as good as 10 man drops. Heroic Kael'Thas gear actually compares well to Prince Malchezaar. I personally felt like it was on target, easier for my group than it would be for a group that was just in Kara gear. Heroic Magister's felt like past-Curator difficulty Kara, more or less.
Medros calls it the 'baby Naxx of the TBC era' and while I think that's overstating it, the instance was still fun and challenging without being over the top. I'd say Blizzard did a good job tuning a dungeon that's meant to be a hard dungeon that drops Karazhan level gear. If you're about ready for Kara, give the Terrace some attention, it' s become one of my favorite new instances.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Instances
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Clem Mar 26th 2008 2:41PM
In my mostly Kara gear the five man wasn't too challenging. The last boss, though, ran up my repair bill. It took my "Worst Pug Ever" group five tries to get him down.
George M. Mar 26th 2008 4:36PM
Mr T finally has an instance named after him. Magisters' Terrace is "MrT" on Icecrown.
Pity the fool that calls Magisters' Terrace "MT."
alrdye Mar 27th 2008 1:45PM
MgT seems to be the name on my server. MrT isn't phonetically accurate. People just like it for obvious "cool" reasons.
sniped43 Mar 26th 2008 2:45PM
This post has made me decide to play WoW again. I didn't realize anything important would be coming out before the next expansion...until now. I slightly regret selling my account...But hey, it doesn't take too long to get back to 70, right ;)
orangelick Mar 26th 2008 4:20PM
AV has been awesome. The games are competitive now, and worthwhile to play. The blue PVP gear that you can buy from honored reps really helped me to actually be somewhat competitive on the pvp field. And turning in tokens for honor is just awesome, I've made the same amount of honor in the last two days as I did when I pvp'd for a full week. I'm loving the pvp changes, it allows me to jump in and have a good time.
Matthew Mar 26th 2008 2:47PM
As a prot warrior, I'm not sure why I would want to run this instance at all. There's a decent ring on normal (mostly for bears, though), and a trinket on heroic, but not much else. Hardly seems worth running for a war tank unless you're really dying for rep.
Nosophoros Mar 26th 2008 3:14PM
I totally agree. There are indeed only two items in there, one marginally good and one definitely good: color me surprised if they don't both get ninja'd every bloody time they drop by some bastard who says he needs it for PvP or some other bullshit.
Sure, the shield you can get on exalted is pretty damn nice, and some consider it on par with the Kara shield, but to run this instance a hundred times just to get one measly shield is kind of too much trouble for me. If I can get there by mostly doing dailies, then yeah, I'll be getting the shield, but still, I doubt I'll be setting foot inside Magister's Terrace often on my prot warrior.
Matthew Rossi Mar 26th 2008 4:08PM
Get the trinket.
Get the trinket. Get it. Get the trinket get the trinket it's so good get it get it get it.
Did I mention that the trinket is good? And that you should get it? Because it is, and you should.
Milktub Mar 26th 2008 4:09PM
How about for ... um, "fun" or "the experience"? I can count a lot more instances that I've never taken a piece of loot from than instances that I have taken loot from.
And yeah, I found it to be harder than other 5-mans. But I chalk that up to inexperience. I think if I remember back, SLabs seemed hard without three CC, and now when I tank through wiht a random PuG out of boredom, the CC members of the group get mad that I'm not using them for anything other than dps.
Give me another couple weeks in MrT and I'll know the pulls, how to deal with each mob, etc.
Evean Mar 26th 2008 2:53PM
This place is fun! Im a resto dru and I found it to be very fun. I liken it to the first time i did SL (Pre nerf) with my hunter. Its very dependent on some CC, great heals and great tanking. Just like all instances, the better the gear, the less CC and other things you need. But i like the encounters alot. And, YEAH! that demon Princess in the middle was a fun as hell fight! alot like an easy arena 5's fight :P
mizatt Mar 26th 2008 2:52PM
I ran the regular version with my prot paladin (kara tank) and most of it was jokingly easy. I can imagine the heroic being very difficult though due to the pulls of 4+
Randomdruid Mar 26th 2008 2:53PM
Very fun instance, the only thing I would change would be to put Priestess Delrissa's Adds the aggro table, rather than having them randomly run around attacking whoever. This forces you to have to CC everything and not everyone is going to be able to do some kind of CC and forces you to have specific classes to progress beyond her. Priestess Delrissa herself is soft and squishy but the adds are a pain in heroic mode.
Hiram Mar 26th 2008 3:22PM
Our guild is just into T5 content, and 5 of us went right through it the first try, but got stumped on the 2nd boss in Heroic mode. The boss spawns adds that are much like Curator's sparks, but they hit for alot harder, and leave a stackable ticking debuff on the person who got the killing blow. We couldn't knock 'em down fast enough to get the boss below 20%. It seemed really hard, but there's GOT to be an easier way. Patience and practice...
matt Mar 26th 2008 3:01PM
My guild is rather small and we try to raid Kara if enough people sign up and log on for it. We've gotten to maiden and downed her a few times. I an affliction warlock have the craftable epics. We took a group of a warrior two mages and a resto shaman and my lock. The first boss fight was laughably easy on regular mode. The second boss kicked our butts twice but my soulstone allowed the healer to keep the tank up long enough to take him down, the tank had 136 health when the boss died. The princess was super easy with this group, I chain feared one and banished another and the mages sheeped. The boss was down by the time I had killed my feared target which was funny. We got to the last pull before Kael'thas and wiped there twice I think the hallway makes it difficult to keep track of things. We had to quit there since our healer had to go but the instance felt pretty easy up to that point though the second boss took out the DPS very fast.
Marcus Mar 26th 2008 3:00PM
I went in with probably the worst group you could go into MrT with(I'm sticking with that name because it's funnier dammit). Me(T5 Warrior), t5 Shadow Priest, kara/gruul geared cat Druid, T5 Resto Shaman, and a T4ish Moonkin. 0 CC for Priestess Delrissa, no problem there. I had the cat druid tank Delrissa while I tanked the other 4. It was a little chaotic, but doable on normal. Had that been on heroic I wouldn't have even tried her.
One thing I'd change about that fight outside of adding an aggro table to the adds is buff Priestess Delrissa herself. I soloed her on my rogue in the first group I went with. She didn't hit me for that much so buffing her dps would be a nice addition.
Zhalseran Mar 26th 2008 3:19PM
I did it once with 4 guildies (hunter, mage, holy pally, shadow priest) on my Prot paladin (kara/badge gear mostly) and it was fairly easy considering we had never done it before. Later I pugged it again (2 mages, a warlock and a holy priest) and while it was considerably slower and a lot messier, we still managed it with only a couple wipes.
Doesn't seem too hard to me, but its refreshingly challenging for a 5-man
Huddersfield Mar 26th 2008 3:27PM
Are you crazy ??? this place was "easy" for you and your guildies ??/
I did it with two CC classed and all end of kara geared....we just managed to clear the place on Regular mode.
As a Warrior tank i dont ever plan on going in there again. I will go in with a Pally tank or even a Druid tank as they can hold multi mob agro but I will never enter there again on my Warrior tank. Its just not worth the headache.
Matthew Rossi Mar 26th 2008 4:18PM
If you can bring along a DPS pally or warrior, he can help a lot because he can take a beating. But seriously, once you get into the swing of it, it's not that hard to tank it.
Then again, the reason that screenshot of my warrior is there is to give you an idea of the gear I'm wearing. If you're in T4/T5/equivalent Badge gear it makes a difference, and I don't want to pretend that it would have been as easy if I didn't have that gear.
brent Mar 26th 2008 3:26PM
regular is on par with a shadow labs run IMO.
Heroic is harder jsut need CC.
If you had the privilege of actually fighting and killing the 25 man kael though you feel a lil sorry for the fella fighting him here.
glaci3r Mar 26th 2008 3:27PM
i ran this last night with my guild that is kara geared, but don't do kara anymore b/c we lost some members. i'd have to say this place was actually quite boring except for the kael fight. We wiped twice on kael b/c the phoenix respawned both times after we killed it and the egg. its a nice change of pace, but i'll be back to pvping once i get my rep. also, the tight corridors with 5-7 mobs per pack was annoying for CC.