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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Random Heroic: The Culling of Stratholme


The first random dungeon that I tried, with my Hunter of course, right after posting my To PUG or not to PUG article was The Culling of Stratholme. I chose the heroic option since I figured my gear was good enough not to make a fool of myself. When I queued up for the random dungeon I was surprised how quickly I got the confirmation screen. That happened so fast, in fact, that I was busy doing something else and couldn't confirm it so I missed the first boat but got aboard the next one in the next couple of minutes.

I'm tellin' ya, this new LFG tool is to running a dungeon as a fast food is to a restaurant... or something.

My first random dungeon (and my second dungeon in WotLK) was The Culling of Stratholme. It was quite a welcome for me because I really enjoyed it. I have soloed Stratholme many times before, in fact it is one of my favorite Classic WoW dungeons. I also ran it plenty of time in the old days with my guild. But I'd never seen it how the city looked before the events of Warcraft 3. For me, this was a fantastic glimpse into the past. Stratholme looked entirely familiar but also new at the same time.

My first random PUG was very good. Those guys knew what they were doing and I believe they were all over-geared for this heroic. I did very well as ranged DPS and none of us died. The whole run lasted about 30 minutes. As I always do in these situations, I never told anyone that it was my first run and there was no need to. I followed the veterans and all was good.

After killing the last boss, Mal'Ganis, I even got the chance to roll a Need on the Reins of the Bronze Drake that he drops because no one else wanted it. So I found myself with a new mount that I now adore because it looks much cooler than my old Gryphon.


In all, it was a very pleasant experience and a casual introduction to pugging. I'm really glad I took the plunge and started using the LFG tool. Here are few achievements I won during this heroic:

Dungeon & Raid Emblem
The Culling of Time
The Culling of Stratholme
Heroic: The Culling of Stratholme

7 comments:

Joshistory said...

Oh, Culling of Stratholme is really fun! And doing the timed bit is always amusing. Just a note, though! The drake actually drops from the Infinite Corrupter if you get to him and kill him in time (which nearly everyone does these days). Congrats on your sexy new bronze drake and I wish many more good PuGs for you!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on running the instance, as well as on the drake :D

Anonymous said...

Welcome to a new world. I wish Blizz had implemented thi AWESOME lfg tool years ago.

Darth Solo said...

Thanks fellas, just like Anon said, I only wish they'd implemented this earlier.

Unknown said...

My second day of using the new tool I ran COS for the first time also and nabbed myself a drake as well. Sooo pumped for the new lfg tool....

Darth Solo said...

@Nick what's cool about COS is that most people in your group probably already have the drake so there's a high chance you can get yourself one. Even if not, you can still choose COS specifically and run it a couple of times until you get the drake.

Unknown said...

Yep, and these days everyone is so geared that you're pretty much guaranteed to see that boss and get a chance at the drake.