Blazerunner
For those of you who don’t know, Blazerunner is a level 56 elite fire elemental in the cave atop Fire Plume Ridge in Un’Goro Crater. He’s moderately impressive-looking, although my jaded eyes, after seeing the likes of Ragnaros and Nefarian, regarded him with no small degree of impunity. Now, I play a level 60 warlock with a few pieces of reasonably impressive epic gear, so it’s not entirely inconceivable that I might be able to take Blazerunner on my own. So, without any research beforehand, I decided to give him a go.
I buffed, summoned my infernal, and went at him. In my defense, I’d say I did alright for the first minute or so. Blazerunner and my infernal went at it while I pelted him with DOTs. The second my infernal died, I blew my Fel Domination and summoned my voidwalker post haste.
At this point, Blazerunner was on me. Much to my chagrin, he flung me into the air. I landed further down the mountain, but, thanks to my Soul Link, wasn’t much worse for wear. It was, however, immediately apparent that I had made a grave error in judgement by underestimating my opponent.
Blazerunner proceeded to repeatedly pummel me, with each hit causing me to fly further down the mountain. I used my healthstone, a major healing potion, and my voidwalker’s sacrifice shield. It really is true that demonology-specced warlocks are hard to kill, because, before I knew it, I was at the base of the mountain. I was barely alive with no demon and all of my cooldowns expended. Blazerunner, meanwhile, still had about 40% of his health remaining.
At this point, I decided to take the hint and flee. My voidwalker’s shield lasted just long enough for me to escape intact. To my credit, I did manage to survive the confrontation. I even managed to make the game glitch up; Blazerunner stood a good ways from the bottom of the mountain where his aggro range had ceased, apparently unable to ascend back to the peak. I guess the designers didn’t take into account a foolish demonology ‘lock surviving all the way down.
Perhaps the biggest travesty of the whole ordeal, however, was the fact that I was up there completing an old quest. If I had bothered to read my quest, I would’ve known that it was unnecessary to kill Blazerunner, and that I only needed to stand by the lava pool near his lair.
So, what does this story teach us?
- Do not confront unfamiliar named mobs without a bit of research first. You never know when they might unexpectedly throw you off a mountain.
- Never underestimate the survivability of a well-played warlock. We may be cloth-wearing pansies, but we can take a beating with the best of them.
- Always read your quests thoroughly before doing something dangerous. It’s entirely possible that you don’t have to do things the hard way. I, for one, consider being punted off a mountain by an angry, elite fire elemental to be the hard way.