World of Warcraft Wednesday: Stratholme
Lore:
Stratholme was one of the big cities in the Kingdom of Lordaeron. Unfortunately, they got a shipment of tainted grain from Kel’Thuzad, and the whole town got turned into zombies. This was actually the key turning point (as seen in Warcraft 3 and the Culling of Stratholme instance) where Arthas lost his support and started to be corrupted, as he slaughtered half the town to prevent them from turning to Scourge.
So now it sits, the Scourge’s main attack point in the Eastern Kingdoms, run by Baron Rivendare (pre-Naxxaramas) or, I guess, *a* Baron Rivendare. On the other side of the city, the Scarlet Crusade has gained a foothold and is trying to clean out the area for their own purposes.
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Stratholme, thankfully, is a very well situated instance. There are two main wings, and either one is pretty easy to get through these days. The debuffs the zombies used to cast (incluidng a long ass -50% healing one) are all toned down or gone, and the trash itself never presents much of an issue, except for the Crypt Lords who have a silence, Gargoyles who fly through the instance and can pull extra trash with them if you don’t pick them off, and the Eye of Naxxaramus, which is stealthed and just really fricking annoying.
The boss fights, on the other hand, are laughably easy. At level they never provide much difficulty, and if you’re running this at anything higher than level 65 or so, you can pretty much just put them on autoattack and ignore. The only really tricky fight in the whole instance is Rivendare himself, mostly because he can heal himself 10% for any skeletal servents you leave up during his add phases. But, make sure you kill them quickly and it’s smooth sailing.
Special Features:
The Deathcharger. The reason why I (and so many other people) hate this instance to death. In Vanilla, Rivendare’s Deathcharger (an exclusive Undead horse model) was a 1/5000 drop. A few years ago, Blizzard reworked the loot table to make it 1/100. But good luck telling that to me (or any of the millions who’ve run this instance). I’m currently sitting at 230 runs without seeing it, and there are plenty of people who have 300-400 runs under their belts with no Charger.
Recommended for Levels: 55-60
As far as leveling goes, the “live” side (containing the Scarlet Crusade incursion) is definately the way to go. There’s less trash and the boss fights are a little less tedious. And the loot drops on live side aren’t that bad either, so you get a nice mixture when running the instance. Plus it doesn’t take that long to rush through with a decent group.
Achievement, loot, and mount whores like myself will be running Undead side for the rest of our lives, or at least until Cataclysm comes along and (possibly) wipes out Rivendare’s loot table. If I never get that mount, I’m going to be so pissed. Save yourself a lot of time and make sure you kill the first boss of Undead side Magistrate Barthalas. He drops a key that will let you get right into that section of the instance through the “back door” at Eastwall Gate in Eastern Plaguelands.
July 14th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
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