Instances in WotLK Expansion: Uthgarde Keep

I've only done a few of the instances in the Expansion, but I thought I should start writing about them with a multiboxing perspective.

Uthgarde Keep is the first instance you get to do in the expansion. Level 67 and up is advisable. This is a very easy instance, I would say alot easier than Hellfire Ramparts was as the intro-instance in The Burning Crusade. Location is Howling Fjort and the instance is set in one of the areas of the Viking-like race "The Vrykul". The instance consists of wide open halls, and there's not much of a gear check involved. I tanked it on multiple occations with a level 70 Death Knight in predominantly "uncommon" gear. As of writing this I have not tested any of the instances in Heroic mode, I'm not sure that its even possible at this point in the beta.

The instance has only 1 mob that can challenge the group beyond the tank'n spank level, and that mob is the Vrykul Runecaster. This unit is a melee-caster type which can cast a flameshield on itself with tremendous aoe damage. Sort of like the Astromancers in Mechanar. This is spellstealable, dispellable etc, but a multiboxer would probably just opt for nuking this mob down fast or crowdcontrol it.

There are 3 bosses in here, all should be pretty easy for multiboxers. When you kill the 4 mobs in the first boss' room, the boss aggros. He can cast an ice trap/tomb on any of the party members that is afaik not dispelable. The challenge here is to be able to take care of the boss and it's relatively weak but continuously selfressing skeleton adds, with one of the team (possibly even the tank or the healer) indisposed in Ice Tomb for 15 seconds at a time. 2nd boss is 2 npcs, one caster and one melee dps. You nuke one down, he respawns as an unkillable ghost, but when you nuke down the other one they both die. Doesn't matter which one you kill first, but a shaman team would probably just nuke down the melee guy while grounding totems absorbed all incoming damage from the caster. 3rd boss is a tank'n spank fight with one significant spell being a shadow aoespell which also silences for 3 seconds. With a 60 yard range, this spell is virtually inescapable, and needs to be planned for. Some incoming damage on the tank, but shouldn't be a problem unless you're really badly geared or underleveled.

Overall multiboxing rating: Easy.

WotLK Beta.

Multiboxing is on hold for now. I'm doing 2 ZA runs pr week for gold (boxing 4 shammies and selling bearmounts). I've been betatesting Wrath of the Lich King for about 3 weeks now. Currently leveling a Death Knight (level 73 as we speak), and I've tested out some of the other classes, and the new talents and spells that are coming. There are certainly exiting times to come, and multiboxing will not be dead after the expansion, but I predict PVP is gonna be much harder than it is today, due to the implementation of physics in certain spells. Classes with new knockback spells and skills are going to be difficult to deal with.

In Wrath of the Lich King I will start out as a singleplayer. I will reroll from Warlock as a raiding character, and I'm not sure I will continue to multibox, time will tell. For now, or at least until all WotLK raid content has been cleared, I'm quite happy with singleboxing.