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?

1. Do not confront unfamiliar named mobs without a bit of research first. You never know when they might unexpectedly throw you off a mountain.
2. 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.
3. 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.