Well, with the new build (and apparently a raised level cap) out, I've been running some of the other Mists dungeons.
Stormstout Brewery's pretty cool. I like the look of it and the atmosphere, and it's clearly designed to be "the silly dungeon." The first part of it involves fighting several Hozen (monkey-men) and leads you to eventually fight Ook-ook, who is the first boss, and is summoned by beating at least 40 Hozen (not a terribly difficult proposition.)
Ook-ook seems fairly easy. As the tank I wasn't sure whether I could hop on the rolling barrels to roll into him, but I understand that this is a way to do a nice little burst of damage (and prevent the barrel from hitting your friends.)
The next part is a gauntlet involving several Vermen (rabbit-people.) There's a huge number of these little bastards, and you can't stop until you get to the boss, Hoptallus. I recommend taking a mana break after killing Ook-ook, because it's not a terribly short gauntlet. We, of course, had an impatient dps who pulled while the healer was at very low mana. Hoptallus himself has, as far as I can tell, only two dangerous abilities - Carrot Breath, which is much like the Lurker Below's jet ability, and Furlwind, which is a basic moving whirlwind ability. The real challenge here is a constant stream of hundreds of adds. The number of adds makes me really miss Righteous Defense. Constant Consecration is, of course, quite nice, but ranged people tend to panic and run away from enemies, which of course makes it much harder for me to get aggro.
The final part involves a number of Alementals, who each give you previews of some of the abilities Yang-zhe (or whatever his name is) the Uncasked uses. The final boss apparently has random abilities, and I realized only 2/3 of the way through that one of the ones I came across required me to grab a bubble and fly off the floor.
I expect that once I get a better feel for AoE tanking Mists-style I'm going to like this dungeon a lot.
I also got to take Shengwu (the low-level Brewmaster) into the Scarlet Halls - the combination of the old Library and Armory. While all the bosses have new names and new abilities, they each correspond pretty closely to Loksley, Herod, and Doan. The first part of the dungeon has probably the most interesting mechanics. There are dogs on chains that I believe (didn't get a chance to test this) you can pacify by tossing them meat from buckets. Additionally, there's a row of archers that you have to approach using archery targets to protect yourself. The new Houndmaster has many Rogue-like abilities and summons hound adds, but is not terribly difficult as long as the tank picks up the incoming hounds. On heroic you might need to focus these guys down, but on regular they died to my aoe. Once you get him down to a certain about of health, his dogs turn on him and then kill the guys blocking your way.
The armory section is basically just normal trash, though cannoneers appear every once in a while, shooting at you. Not sure how big of a threat these guys are, as we just kind of went up and killed them.
The Herod-equivalent still does a whirlwind, though I think he moves more with it. Also, instead of summoning 30-odd recruits after he dies, he will periodically summon two soldiers, who I believe lose their armor at some point. They were dying too quickly for me to really understand what was happening.
The last part is pretty simple again, though there's a fun mechanic where Scarlet Bankers (who are throwing statues and paintings at you) toss piles of money on the ground when they die. I expect a lot of people will angrily steal the gold piles from each other - might be best to have this split between the group.
Anyway, Pyromancer what's his face is, like a good horrible extremist, burning books. I'm not sure what happens when he burns a bookshelf, but he also casts Pyroblasts and does a powerful Dragon Breath that sweeps around the room in a circle.
Overall thoughts:
Both dungeons are quite a bit of fun. While I'll miss the familiar names, the new Scarlet Halls does retain the feel of the old dungeon, and uses new mechanics and graphics to really depict a Spanish Inquisition level of paranoia and zealotry. Fire is a big motif here, which fits with the red of the Crusade and the notion that fire is required to cleanse the undead.
The Brewery is all kinds of ridiculous, much as it should be. I'm sure I'll grow to appreciate it more as the mechanics become clear to me.
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