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Scholomance
Ah, the School of Necromancy. Much has changed since it was overhauled for Mists of Pandaria and I don’t like it that much to be honest. I’d go on a rant here about the shortcomings of the new version, but I’ll just describe quickly what changed:
Upon release of WoW, Scholomance was one of the toughest Dungeons in the game. Designed for 10 players around level 58-60, it was quite challenging and not to mention huge, with over a dozen bosses. In 2006 the instance was nerfed slightly, mob numbers and hit points were reduced, but so was the maximum number of players and now it was a regular 5 man dungeon, so it stayed quite difficult. There were also a bunch of quests (naturally) and other events like the fight for the Paladin mount and a special summoned boss for level 60 players that needed to complete their Dungeon Set 2 quest chain. It was great!

But ever since the Burning Crusade, less and less people actually entered the dungeon and it became more irrelevant as leveling speeds increased. Most players hit Outland at 58 and the Scholomance gear wasn’t that great to the quest rewards in Outland…or compared to heirlooms. So the instance was mostly forgotten. So with Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard wanted to overhaul the dungeon, so more players would be able to see it again.
Instead of being an end game dungeon, it is now for players from 38 to 48. The dungeon was drastically resized and all branching paths were removed, along with most of the bosses, to allow for a quick, straight and smooth run through the instance. Of course the difficulty was adjusted as well so now you typically rush through the dungeon in a couple of minutes without anyone dying. The special encounters were removed as well. There is a heroic Level 90 version of the dungeon, but it’s still the same, smaller instance. Bosses are slightly harder and there is an additional (trivial) rare spawn. That’s about it.
Why they didn’t split the dungeon into two wings, like they did with so many others, it beyond me. It would work perfectly and they didn’t have to shrink the dungeon that much, keeping everything intact. Maybe some people like the new Scholomance better. If you do: Tell me why, I’m very curious to know.
Okay, enough rambling, let’s get on to the challenge.
The Scholomance bosses are Level 43 and the minimum level to enter the dungeon is 33. You can queue for the dungeon from Level 38 and I believe using the random dungeon finder offers you the dungeon at 40+. Of course we went at Level 33, just the Healer and me, the tank. We really didn’t expect much, still having the original Scholomance difficulty in our heads, but to our surprise, we made progress.
Continue reading “Scholomance: Beaten!”