Ragefire Chasm (Take 1)

I finished collecting all the RFC quests last night, including Hidden Enemies, which requires collecting a Lieutenant’s Insignia from the Burning Blade cultists in the cave east of Orgrimmar. The drop rate is terrible, so I always save this one for last, and ordinarily I’m so far above the level of the cultists that I don’t get any experience for the kills. I was getting a little bit of experience this time, so of course the Insignia dropped on the sixth cultist I killed. Heh… so, I made my way back to Orgrimmar to turn in the quest and hop in the LFG channel.

There were two groups in LFG looking for more, one with three people and one with four, and then a handful of other people waiting separately. I started clearing out my inventory to get ready to go, when one of the group leaders invited me to their group. I accepted, and said hello to the group, which consisted of…

• Level 17 Undead Warlock (guild) — leader
• Level 18 Troll Shaman (guild)
• Level 15 Blood Elf Paladin
• Level 18 Blood Elf Priest
• Level 13 Undead Mage (me!)

They were all already in Orgrimmar, and offered to summon me before realizing I was in Orgrimmar, too. I said I could be there in a minute, but it would be quicker if they summoned me. “We’ll meet you inside,” one of them said, so I ran. I didn’t see anyone taking any damage, so I figured they were waiting for me to get started.

I ran down into the Cleft of Shadow and joined them inside the instance. After the greetings, I offered everyone conjured food and water, and just one person, the shaman, accepted some water. The average level of the party was pretty high for the instance, so we could probably make quick work of it without stopping for food and drink.

We ran down the first path in the instance, and … no mobs. Hm. We got all the way to the first place where the path forks and hadn’t killed a thing. I asked if they’d already finished part of the instance, and was feeling rather disappointed because it was pretty clear that they had and … you know, I wanted to blog about the whole thing, and really didn’t want to have to do this instance twice if I could help it. Nobody answered the question. I guess it wasn’t a huge deal as long as they hadn’t killed any bosses yet. A few minutes later, I tried asking again in case folks had missed my query. Nothing.

And then we came to the dead body of Taragaman the Hungerer. Dammit. I pointed to the corpse. “Already killed a boss, eh?” “Yes,” someone finally said. I asked how much further they’d gotten, and … no answer.

So, at this point, I’ll add to my list of instance etiquette — if you are inviting someone mid-instance, it’s a nice thing to tell them how far you’ve already gotten to make sure they still want to join you. I know some instances need multiple run throughs because of quests and such, but RFC isn’t one of these. One really should be able to do it in one shot. I asked several times here what the status of the instance was, and I was getting nothing. If they had told me, I may have joined them anyway and helped them, but it’s annoying to think that I may have been able to join the other partial group and actually get the whole thing done instead.

We made our way toward Jergosh over all the little bridges, and finally came to some groups of cultists. There were a lot of skeletons on the ground. “This is where we wiped,” the shaman said. At last, an answer! I waited for a moment to see if any strategy would be discussed, but there was none. The warlock pulled a mob, and everyone else ran in in Ghostbusters fashion. “Get her!”

I sheeped a caster that was standing off to the side, and the paladin ran over and hit the sheep almost immediately. Oh-kay. So, I just tried to focus fire on whatever the shaman was hitting, because he seemed to be doing the most damage. We survived the fight, and continued along up the path. Every pull seemed to go the same way, just charge right in. For this instance, that’s fine, I guess, though it’s not really teaching anyone technique. I was pleased that I managed not to steal aggro at all. (Nobody else appeared to be running Omen.) Of course I wasn’t doing nearly the damage that everyone else was doing, but I still could have drawn aggro had I targeted the wrong mobs. Thinking back to my first RFC runs, I’m sure I did that. Understanding the concepts of aggro and threat are key to clothie survival in group situations.

We approached the area adjacent to where Jergosh is, and someone said, “Why way?” “Left,” said the warlock, and led us up the path away from the boss. Hmm… going to get him later? I decided to just wait and see what happened. We ended up at a dead end, and all stood around for about a minute before someone said, “Are we done?” Oh lord. “We missed boss,” someone said, and started running back toward the area we’d passed up before. Good good.

Knowing that they’d previously wiped, I got a little worried as we approached Jergosh, but we ended up doing fine. We didn’t pull too many mobs at once, and Jergosh was downed with little drama. He dropped the Robe of Evocation, and the warlock rolled need. So, I rolled need as well, and the warlock won. That’s cool. Someone else looted a corpse, and a green cape turned up — all rolled greed except the warlock who rolled need again. Would have been an upgrade for me, too, but no big deal. (I’d probably see it again on my next RFC run anyway, right?)

But then the need rolling continued. The warlock rolled need on a bow. Wha? Now this is a situation where I normally wouldn’t stir up trouble unless it was something I really, really wanted, but I couldn’t help it. “Need that, eh?” I said, adding a smiley. The shaman said, “What do you mean?” and then a few seconds later, “Oh.” All eyes on the ninja. But, no other comments. The warlock didn’t address my comment directly, but did pass on a few of the other greens that dropped after that, but then rolled need again on a mace. They seemed to either roll need or pass, and never greed. Huh. Maybe they were just clueless. (Or, that’s what they’d have me think.)

I led the group to Bazzalan (I know, I said I wasn’t going to lead or interfere, but he is a little hard to find the first time you go into RFC) and we killed him. Curiously, he didn’t drop any blue items, but I see now looking at thottbot that there are no blues associated with him. (Kind of disappointing.) “Is that all?” someone said. Earlier, I saw the yellow question mark on the map for the satchel quest, so I knew that hadn’t been done yet. I mentioned the quest and the shaman said, “I need that, too.” The priest said, “Oh good! I’m glad there’s more.” The paladin said, “sry gtg” and hearthed out. The warlock said nothing.

We headed toward the beginning of the instance and the path leading up to the lost satchel and Oggleflint and all his trogg friends. I lingered way in the back. We were down one person, and I could totally see someone pulling more than one group of these guys and wiping us. We did have a bad pull, but the priest managed to keep all of us alive. After that, killing the troggs surrounding the body with the satchel was pretty easy, and when everyone went into the cave to complete the quest, they were such a high level they didn’t even grab aggro on Oggleflint! Of course I walked in there (now level 14) and battle commenced. Again, one mob, no problem. We crushed him. We all completed the quest. The warlock said she had to leave (inventory was probably full?), and hearthed out. I said that there was nothing left to do in there anyhow, and that I’d be running back to the beginning of the instance if anyone wanted to join me. The shaman and the priest followed me out. We said our thank yous and goodbyes and I left the party to turn in the Orgrimmar quests that I could.

I confess I am a little disappointed that I can’t press forward and ready myself for Wailing Caverns, but I would like a complete run of Ragefire to be on record for this project. (I still have two quests to complete, too, since I need Taragaman’s heart and a few more troggs.) So, next chance I get (hopefully before vacation), I’ll pop myself back in the LFG and try to get a group together to do Ragefire Chasm again, this time in its entirety.

Total time spent in the group: 45 minutes.

Total time spent inside the instance: 42 minutes.