Just before I quit WoW (for the umpteenth time) I decided to engage in some pleasant solo activities far removed from the daily grind. I grabbed my Hunter, of course, because he is my main and he's my "achievement" character.I decided I would run through Scholomance. Scholo is an instance that I finished a couple of times a very long time ago in Classic WoW with my Paladin but the Hunter obviously needed the achievement. Besides, I kinda missed that place.
The problem here is that to get inside Scholomance you need the Skeleton Key. I didn't have one because when I was 60, I always had other people who opened the door for me. However, in order to get the key, you need to go through a series of quests culminating in The Key to Scholomance. For a level 80 character, you can imagine it is trivial but nonetheless time consuming.
Anyway, after killing Araj the Summoner (twice, first time for Alas, Andorhal) and traveling all the way to Tanaris and Un'Goro, I was finally in the possession of a brand-spanking new Skeleton Key. As a side-note regarding Araj, I can't tell you how satisfying it is to kill this guy in a few shots at 80. Back when we were 60, tackling this bag o' bones required a solid group.
To cut a long story short, Scholomance is definitely solo-able by a well(-ish) geared level 80 Hunter. The only thing I wasn't sure about was Darkmaster Gandling, the final boss. I knew he had a few tricks up his sleeve, chief one being that he teleports players in different rooms where they have to defeat some mobs in order to get back to fighting him. Well, now I'm sure even a level 70 could solo this instance easily.
Gandling only appears after you kill 5 other bosses, namely Lord Alexei Barov, Doctor Theolen Krastinov, The Ravenian, Lorekeeper Polkelt, Instructor Malicia and Lady Illucia Barov. When he teleported me into another room, there were 3 mobs waiting at the exit, non-elites and with around 700 HP. I multi-shot them in 1 hit, of course. When I got back to Gandling, he was still fighting my pet (lol!). So I capped him quickly and that was it.
In conclusion, I invite anyone who hasn't done this instance to go ahead and solo it because let's face it: it's fun to be overpowered! In addition, you can finally exact revenge on those scruffy undead for all those times you wiped back when you were a young 60! And let me tell you: there are few better ways to unwind than running through some nostalgic old content.
18 comments:
Well now... only some classes. For instance, a mage cannot solo Scholo at all. As someone with a 80 hunter, priest and mage... I know this.
Why?
The viewing room. The mobs there are immune to fire, frost and arcane :) Basically a mage cannot get through that room!
Yeah it's a pain. Fun for other classes though, and I do like The Argent Champion title :)
Great blog and a pleasure to read.
It always seems to me that there is sooo much to do in wOw, yet never enough time in the day to do it all in ;-)
Good Hunting!
Can't remember the last time I was in there, maybe after 3.2 i'll get my paladin in there and exact a dutiful holy bashing on the the undead :D
Another couple reasons to do it is rep and gold. The rep can be used for Argent Dawn for people maybe wanting a title or some achievements. When you run the instance if you have enchanting, you can DE all the loot for some profit or even sell the rep items. Its worth running to Strat afterwards for the mount off Baron too.
I remember the Paladin epic mount and Shaman epic helm quests in this instance being very hard indeed for 5 level 60 players.
One further reason to run Scholomance is for the Well Read achievement. There are a shed load of books to read in this instance.
@Ish I didn't realize that but I believe you are right. Apart from my warlock, I haven't really leveled other magic users and I wouldn't take the warlock in there. On the other hand, I'm thinking a Demo spec would work as long as the mobs are not immune to shadow.
BTW, how did lv.60 mages deal with Scholo if mobs are immune to all that magic?
@Suicide Barbie thanks for visiting! WoW truly is enormous.
@Joe pallys are good at bashing undead. The only problem is the repair bill :)
@frogi I think I made around 70-80 gold, certainly not worth the time. Most of it came from disenchanting greens and selling the shards. Still, the gold is nothing to sneeze at.
@Warmonkey oh boy were those quests a pain in the ass. The Well Read achievement is also a reason, like you stated. I made sure to read all the books I came across.
It's not all mobs, just that one room - the viewing room and it's not all mobs in there (not the arachnids) - but it's enough mobs (20 or so) to make it impossible to solo.
Back at 60, it was easy- the mage didn't do much in there, plus you always pulled small groups out to the carpet in the previous room because of disease so it was easier for the other classes to deal with.
I see... So they're immune to all forms of magic? That sucks. I won't be taking a magic user in there too soon if that's the case. I wonder if they can be beaten down with your staff or dagger? :)
When I was grinding Argent Dawn rep, I soloed this multiple times on my Holy Paladin. It wasn't difficult at all. I also ran a couple of friends and guildies through it without an issue.
I didn't find the key all that difficult, either. Kill Araj, hearth to Dalaran, use the CoT portal, ride to Gadgetzan, switch to my bank alt to buy some Thorium bars off the AH, fly to Un'Goro, and make the key. At this point, I could have wait a few minutes and then hearthed to Dal and portaled to IronForge. Instead, I opted just to fly to Proudmore and take the boat to Menethil, then fly to Chillwind.
No, it wasn't hard at all. In fact the hardest thing in these old instances is looting the bodies. There seems to be a slight lag when looting, even with auto-loot enabled.
Not all forms, no - my priest has no problem with holy magic and I'm not sure but perhaps shadow works as well. Obviously a pally works (holy) and I have *no* idea about nature... but frost fire and arcane, definetly out!
I did try daggering them (400 in daggers, epic caster dagger) and I was dead after 2 mobs :(
@Ish lol!
The other big upside to a solo run through Scholo is that a lot of the books that you need for the Well Read achievement (or whatever the heck that's called) can be found in Scholo!
I tried reading all the books I could find but it didn't seem to me there were that many. Perhaps 10-15. Thing is, I'd read most of them on Stratholme and Scarlet Monastery runs. So yeah, if you need the book achievement, you should definitely run Strat & SM as well as Scholo.
Not to necropost, but why couldnt a mage just hit invisibility and run through the viewing room? And for that matter, aren't the mobs in there neutral until you use Dawn's Gambit?
I just finished 2 runs with my 80 Shadow Priest, dirt simple. That viewing room had all neutral mobs, but I decided to kill them all anyway. When your down to the 2 bosses they call out extra mobs to distract you. I received 3700 rep in a single run. You might do better. Good Luck
I realize this is a fairly old post, just had to say, I became bored with the daily grind on Heroic 5 Mans and decided to get the Dungeon Master Achievement. Got my skeleton key last night and cant wait to slaughter the old content ! As an 80 Prot/Arms Dual Spec, oh yes sweet revenge on all those old bosses !!
@Cleveland I'll probably start doing that soon since I too have started to get tired of running heroics. The good thing is that the new gear will definitely help me to solo more stuff.
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