Came back to the game a few weeks ago after receiving an e-mail promising a free level 85 heroic upgrade for any one character. Dusted out my old 65 pally from 2003 and upgraded him to 85. After putting on new heroic gear (OMG, how things have changed) and spending an hour reordering spells, I took him out for a spin. First stop, my old nemesis Umbral Plains zone.
Before knowing about auras, or mercs, or combat arts, or hot-keying AA commands, I just ran out there like the scared level 65 pally from 17 years ago - this time sporting new new gear, upgraded spells, and 20 levels higher.
The run through Maiden's Eye used to make my palms sweat, but it was a joke this time. Had like 20 mobs on me and they were barely tickling me. Most were undead. Pally undead abilities were in full effect. A bunch of 32K hits in there (no idea what caused them) made me smile. Piece of cake.
Hopped into Umbral and slowly poked my head out. Moktors attacked me instantly. Used to take forever at level 65 to duo kill these things (with a level 65 pocket cleric healing). My old gear was a combination of Planes of Power and a few Luclin raid pieces, but the new heroic gear was unbelievably more powerful than common 2003-era raid gear. Poor Moktors stood no chance. Killed them with ease, barely had to heal myself. Said what the heck and ran out the entrance to agro as many Moktors as possible. Used to pull these one at a time back in the day to farm for plate armor - several hours a day, a few days a week, just to get a handful of pieces per week. Now I was pulling every Moktor in the zone all at once, with a few stray shades and other assorted enemies. What fun! Killed them all, easy-peasy, and.... a single Moktor piece dropped. Sad.
Feeling all powerfull, ran out and grabbed every shade I could find. It was easy as they agro from long distances. Ran to the house in the center of the zone and aggroed the four masters too. Brought everything to the zoneline (Masters took a while to get there as they don'r run as fast). Killed everything easily. Masters were the last four things standing so they definitely have more HP than the others. Undead spells all hit for devastating effect. As soon as everything was dead, I ran out to check see if Rumblecrush was up by the VT entrance. As I neared the undead house, I noticed Doomshade standing there, conned green even, and I must admit I was a little frightened at first. Pulled it to the zone line and took my chances. It was no contest. Easily slaughtered it in seconds - less than a minute for sure. Dropped stuff I used to drool over and rarely got to bid on. Now nearly worthless with the new stuff that's out.
Rumblecrush was up too. He was not the normal version - had a "Fabled" prefix and conned light blue. Took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to kill him - Pally DPS for the win (/sarcasm). Was no joke, almost died a few times and left little mana. Dropped the BP I used to fantasize about, and even an updated "fabled" version of the BP. It pales in comparison to the heroic gear I now have, but I looted that stuff anyway just to exorcise a few nightmare bidding wars from the past.
Tawro and Radir were up as well. Killed them easily, with a bunch of their little blue and red buddies nipping at my heels. Recalled how these were once off-night raid targets to gear up new guildies.
Slaughtering everything in Umbral Plains was beyond cathartic. That stupid zone cased so much aggravation in the past, I just had to come back, night after night, and kill everything over and over again. After a few days of slaughter, found out a few things:
Doomshade spawns every 4 days (give or take a few hours). You have to kill the four Masters in the house to get Doomshade to spawn. If you kill the masters and she (yes, Doomshade is female) does not spawn, it's the wrong day - come back tomorrow. Once you have the rotation down, come back every four days and repeat - again, kill the four masters and wait a few seconds (up to a minute some times) for Doomshade to spawn.
Zelnithak is also on a 4-day spawn cycle. I killed them both every time as they always spawned at the same time.
Hard to get a timer on Rumblecrush (I think it's on a 7 day timer). People still farming VT to this day and always seem to kill it on their way there.
Tawro and Radir spawn every 24 hours or so. I killed them every night until every one of my baby alts had every weapon in their loot table. Seems like these weapons are still good for lowbie alts as they have no level restriction and have far better damage/delay ratios than even the new Defiant weapons. These two dudes drop the same exact weapons as Doomshade, except for Bow of Doom, so it's worth farming them.
The old armor we used to farm here is now worthless. Created a few new toons and ran them through the tutorial; received better armor and jewelry than the stuff that drops here. However, the weapons from here are still better than the newbie stuff, and have no level restriction. It is worth running through the tutorial and first 20 levels doing the hero's timeline (nice armor and jewelry items given out, wow), then running here to get some upgraded weapons.
Other than weapons, the earring from Doomshade is really nice, and the BP from Rumblecrush is still worth it for your baby alts.