My first experience with the Great Barrows was a disaster of epic proportions. But hey, it was over a year ago and with another guild entirely, so surely it was just a fluke, right?
Right?
Admittedly, my attempts to take Maedhroc through the GB last night was not on any kind of scale with the Ghost Regiment fiasco, but it was still a confused mess. It started with me responding to someone calling for GB groups on LFF, which was ordinary enough. But then fifteen minutes later, he was still getting no other takers, and he and I resorted to killing corrupted huorns in the Barrow Downs to kill time while we waited.
Eventually we got a somewhat haphazard group — my L25 warden was the highest on board, but as I was also the tank, that was okay. We also had two champions, two captains, and a loremaster. A bit of a weird group, but feasible. Into the barrow we went!
We got through the first room, and immediately one of the champions bailed.
Uh, okay. The group organizer managed to find a L35 warden who wanted in. So much for my lesson in tanking! (Or so I thought. More on that later.) We get hooked up and start again.
First lesson learned: an over-eager warden is just as much of a problem as an over-eager hunter, an over-eager champion, or an over-eager-anybody-else. L35 barrelled on forward, just running to the next monster to attack it, not waiting while those of us who had to collect chalices (or the other captain, who apparently spoke primarily French with a smidgen of English thrown in, and who kept turning left when she should have turned right). Calls of “Hold up!” and “Wait a minute!” and “We’ve lost ______, need to backtrack!” were resolutely ignored in favor of getting to the next room.
Wow — this is just like my first trip here! Eerie.
But after a bad pull split the group into two major fights and nearly wiped us out, the rest of the group finally sided with my requests to go a bit more slow and methodical and we basically ganged up on the other warden. “I’ve got to draw aggro first!” he said. “By all means, do the pulls,” I said. “But make sure we’re all in the same room first!” That seemed to get everybody on the same page and at least attempting to cooperate, which made things go a little smoother.
At this point, the group organizer went link-dead. ¬.¬
Well, the rest of us soldiered along a bit further, but then the L35 guy’s “I can solo anything, yay!” instincts started kicking in and he ran off ahead. Me, attempting to follow him on the extrmely byzantine GB map, took a wrong turn and ended up smack dab in the middle of six wights. Attempting to respond to my distress, the French-speaking captain and the loremaster tried to help, but immediately got overwhelmed and died — followed by me in short order.
It was at this point that we all called it a night by mutual consent. 
So, what is it about the Great Barrows? I suppose it’s mainly because it’s most people’s first real “big instance” of the game, and unless they’re an old hand levelling up an alt, the people running through it are still learning how to work in a group, how to play their class, and how to keep track of all the madness that goes on in one of those big furballs. But still — argh. That’s an instance I’ll be happy to pass up next time around!
-The Gneech
Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.
Other times, I’ve found myself sneaking like a burglar, soaking it up like a guard, or pelting things from afar like a hunter. So many different options!
Need ten boar stomachs? Find a camp of boars and either pick ‘em off with ambushes or turtle up and let ‘em come at you in a rush!
But even without the racial stealth, Careful Step can be remarkably useful for things other than just setting up an ambush.)
The Guardian has a bit of an advantage over us on that score with their instant-aggro taunts, but Wardens have their own tricks. The Boot, when it works, is worth its weight in XP, just for starters!
He’s quite durable, which is a nice change from my paper-grenade Champion, but requires a bit more attention to play and has more interesting (to me) mechanics than the minstrel did. And for whatever reason, his little round shield and beat-up Saxon-style helmet just create a sense of character that I never could quite grok with the Min.