DTK, AK, AN down!

Well, last night was fun as hell. So I've been boxing up alliance and horde toons all over the place (since starting about 5 weeks ago) but my main account had 4 lvl 70 horde toons that I decided to just spread out over my other accounts so I could level them to 80 at once. They aren't an ideal mix for an amateur boxer like myself: DK, priest, shaman, rogue. But I simply know I won't got through Northrend 4-5 more times (given these are only my horde toons...) so I figured, slower as it might be, I'd just try doing it once this way.

Anyway, a lock friend and my 4 jumped into DTK and both Azjol-Nerub instances last night and cleared them. The most exciting part, by far, was that I hadn't read up on or run any of these places before. I don't think I've gone into an instance cold, without some pug tank telling me every little pull and boss trick or without having simply read about the place before hand or seen a video, since maybe the first month or two of WoW. It was so much more fun this way, I forgot how great this game can really be sometimes. I read everything about everything for vanilla and BC but I took a 6-8 month break and only came back recently. I know nothing about these wrath instances and I'm loving it.

my toons are (all on Kilrogg, btw):
DK Harmonica blood (then switched to a 5-5-5 frost build to see if I survived longer, which I think I did but I'm not positive)
Rogue Se combat
Shaman Prongs Elemental
Priest Märiachi Holy
and my lock friend, coralîne demo

Quick recap: DTK seemed sort of easy... It was the highest level instance I thought we should tackle. Being my first run with this team, a lot of bad questing habits were exposed. Some macros that had instant casts in them were just dumb and my priest went OOM quickly. I also need a better way to swap in and out totems in my rotation besides just changing the macro every time. My sloppy questing gear sets that I wasn't paying any attention to suddenly seemed crippling. We wiped once or twice on each boss just sort of learning what happens and where to put people and who to kill first. Discouragingly, the first few pulls where those scumbags make dark shadow-damage circles under you wiped me like twice.. As I said, I'm not really good at any part of boxing yet but trial-by-fire is always great. (Pic is of Trollgore, first boss downed with team.. after that forgot to take any http://yfrog.com/0mtrollgore052809j)

Azjol-Nerub seemed like it should be a cake walk after DTK but we got simply abused by the first boss... The webbing, the blinding, the fixate... I was not prepared. But a few totem switches and moving my healer behind everyone else so he didn't get the fixate seemed to do the trick. The other two bosses went down after a wipe or two as well. I left my team outside the platform for Anub-arak like such a noob and that ended badly.

Old Kingdom had a lot more trash pulls (it felt like) than the other two.. sort of good when you're still leveling I guess. At this point it was 2am and we were running out of steam and wiping on dumb things. Only things of note: the first boss (Elder Nadox) just dumbfounded us by being immune to everything but that was just a side-effect of boxing and getting too tired... I didn't take the obvious raid-warning hints to kill a certain guardian bastard when he spawned. After that it was all good. And the final boss, Volazi... the insanity cast was a shocker. Staring at my 4 screens, I simply wasn't sure wtf was going on at first and why when I wiped everyone out w/ my DK, there just seemed to be more of them but I couldn't see my team or get healed. Anyway, I just aoe'ed with everyone (holy nova, totems, death and decay... and then let the rogue die) and killed him the second time.

Sorry if this post was too long or boring but for me it was like this boxing (with a friend, which is even better for me) really rejuvenated the entire game for me, taking me back to the first few months of exploration that got my hooked to begin with. And of course it's 99% b/c of these boards so, I just wanted to share.

Oh, one last thing... my repair bills for everyone kept coming in at like 20g.. totally acceptable. But, my f*%king prest was always 50g. He was gladiator'd out from 70 and still has 4-5 pieces on him.. is it those pieces that cost so fraking much to repair? It's ridiculous..

Have a great day, guys and gals
-sozay

Congrats! Should be easier in the future now that you have learned most of the mechanics.

Yeah, questing macros usually won't work as well for instances. I have a button for just killing non-elites/lowbies, a completely different one for elites/instances.

The soulmages in DTK (the ones that cast the shadow circles on the ground) are definitely annoying. Just spread out to reduce the damage, use shadow resist if you have it, and heal/move the target right away (whichever is easier for you). Best solution is just kill them first, stun after a few seconds to prevent him from casting or be fast on an interrupt. If you get two at once, just be quick on the heals.

Ajzol'Nerub is the shortest 5-man instance in all of Northrend, but not necessarily the easiest. The second boss (name escapes me right now) can be healing intensive (read: mana intensive), and Anub'Arak tends to give boxers issues at first. The right strategy and gear upgrades make those issues go away.

Sounds like you found the right strategy in Old Kingdom, just AoE like crazy during the insanity phase on the last boss. At least enough so that the tank can show up and finish off any remaining adds before anyone can die.