My Favorite Place

Lately I've seen a lot of guild chat that starts with "Hey anyone want to help out in Gnomer/Dead Mines/Black Fathom Deep/etc.?" For most of these I answer to myself (silently in my head) "I'd rather gouge out my own eyes with a rusty bottle opener." Which, when put into guild chat becomes "Can't help right now, farming primal air."

But it made me start to think--What dungeon or instance (or raid) would actually get me to respond in the positive and why? If anyone recognizes the tiny photo the quick answer to the first part is "Blackrock Depths." The second part I'm still not sure of.

I like BRD because it feels like an epic movie I guess. There's just a TON of quests to do in there and chaining the appropriate quests together can lead you to several (I count 3 minimum) times that you wind up inside. Part of what makes it epic, I think, is the lore. So many different story lines get advanced in BRD. And for someone that ranks content as high on their list, BRD is the perfect instance.

I also like the types of mobs you fight in there. Mostly humanoids, a few elementals, some beasts. Nothing too esoteric or non-controllable by most parties. (Compare to, say, Dire Maul East. Your CC options there are banishes or ice traps. Pretty darned specific group makeup). I like BRD also because of the mix of scripted encounters (the arena) and puzzles. By puzzles, I don't mean solving them is required to move on but rather doing things in a specific order makes them easier. BRD is also the first instance (that I know of) that can have a real chance to drop purple items.

I guess the last reason I like BRD is the difficulty seems about right. The gap in BRD is also wide enough that back in the day, you could forseeably spend 10 levels or more inside. I know the idea is to narrow the level gap for dungeons, at least from Blizzard's stand. But I like the fact that different parts of BRD were able to be completed as you leveled. It's also damned cool that there's a quest you can't even acquire unless you're a ghost. Clever!

I guess the last thing is it's probably not a "run-through-able" dungeon. In that one 70 couldn't reliably take a boatload of lowbies through all alone. Thus I'll not have to run it in that way. The 70 would have to be only one part of a full group.

I know. BRD is too long. It takes, if you added all trip times together, probably 13-15 hours to complete. But the positives for me in terms of lore, mob composition, difficulty and encounter types far far outweigh the negatives.

But that's just me. And no, guildmates, don't start spamming for BRD run throughs. You don't want to make me hate my favorite instance now, do you?