Caverns of Time: Stratholme Past (80)

Might as well follow one highly anticipated instance with another, right? In this post, I'll take a look at the newest of the extremely popular Caverns of Time dungeons, Old Stratholme... Stratholme Past... Unfucked Stratholme? Whatever you want to call it, this dungeon recreates the mission The Culling from Warcraft 3. Arthas, in his journey through Loraderon to investigate the plague and try to stop its spread, comes to Stratholme to find that all the citizens have already been infected. Spurning his teacher Uther and his hottie friend Jaina Proudmoore, he embarks on the first step of his journey to becoming the Lich King by murdering every infected citizen he can find. Here, though, the Infinite Dragonflight is attempting to stop Arthas from coming to this, thus preventing him from ever becoming the Lich King and unravelling reality as we know it.




As with all the Caverns of Time dungeons, this place is accessible by heading to Tanaris. As a bonus, Blizzard has been kind enough to put in a portal to the place in Dalaran, inside the Violet Citadel. As far as I know, it requires no reputation like the Shattrath one did, but I'll investigate this and update here when I know more.

There's a single quest line for this place that starts from Chromie, our old friend from the Bronze Dragonflight, inside the instance. Like most instance quests it's easily completed by simply running the place, but the first portion of it also gives some really cool leadup to what's to come as you're tasked to mark crates of plagued grain for Arthas and the troops from Lordaeron to find.





Stratholme Past Ekerameter:

Difficulty - 2
Loot - 5
PUG Factor - 4
FUCK YEAH Quotient - 4
Overall - 4

Comments - In expanding on the innovative instance design of Old Hillsbrad and Black Morass, Stratholme Past mixes a lot of different elements that will be familiar from both to weave its story of Arthas going wrong. The first portion of the instance is reminiscent of the beginnins of Old Hillsbrad, while the first two bosses are vaguely similar to Black Morass (albeit with a less urgent feel to them). The latter two bosses go back to the Old Hillsbrad feel of things with a harrowing escort. Through it all, you get an up close and personal look at the events that resulted in the Stratholme we know today - eternally aflame and filled with the minions of the Scourge.





As far as difficulty goes, this place is honestly rather easy, at least on Normal mode. The first two bosses are almost pushovers, and while the escort portion and the latter bosses are more challenging, with a good group you'll hardly break a sweat. With that in mind, the chances of a bad PUG wiping your group are pretty small, unless they're fond of dying repeatedly. As with any instance escort, pulling off a resurrection in the short amount of time you get between fights can be pretty difficult.





The loot for this place is fantastic - there are lots of useful 80 blues here, plus a further one from the quest. All bosses drop one blue save for Mal'Ganis who, when defeated, leaves a chest with two of them. Being that the place is relatively easy AND fun, it's definitely worth running repeatedly. FYQ? The chance to see Stratholme in all its pre-destruction glory is pretty damn cool, and Blizzard really pulled it off well, as you can see from the screenshot comparisons above. You'll be pointing out familiar shops, noting a couple familiar names, and generally be wowed the whole time. My only beef is with the actual meat of the dungeon. In The Culling in WC3, Arthas was killing living citizens. Here, he's smashing already-Scourged zombies. Plus, the race with Mal'Ganis never really materializes. That does disappoint a little bit, as it's a departure from the source material, but the rest of the place is so well done it's honestly a minor concern.

Summed up, once again Blizzard has made an extremely cool and fun instance in the Caverns of Time. One could wish that the majority of their dungeons were done like this, as it would allow us to relive a lot of the cool moments in Warcraft history. As it stands, what we DO get to see this time around is well worth the wait.