I don't know if you all have noticed yet, but the 5 man dungeons in Outland are hard. Like they actually require skill, group coordination, and class knowledge hard. Like Coldlight on the forums, I love it.

When you first get in there, things start out fairly easy-- Ramparts and Blood Furnace bosses have their quirks (the last guy in Blood Furnace plays out like a mini-Geddon with the AoE, but he gives you so much warning, it's no real trouble to get away in time), but the good stuff starts coming later. In Slave Pens, there are trash mobs (not bosses) that lay down mind control, and they come with a whole crowd of people. There are 5 man bosses in Auchindoin that do some nasty AoE and bosses that require DPS control (the stuff that Dives yells about). Durnholde and Black Morass in CoT are two tough instances that grab on to you and don't let go until you're all dead or the instance is over. And then, just when you think you've broken everything Blizzard has to offer, you try Heroic mode, and the difficulty ramps right back up again (perhaps in disproportion to the gear offered, but that's another story).

WoW is not a hard game by any means-- that's why so many people like it so much. But especially now, when almost no one has picked up the top endgame gear, more than a few groups are actually finding a serious challenge. I'm having a lot of fun working through it (wiping isn't that fun, but winning after the wipe is), but players who were just messing around in PUGs before are being forced to learn their stuff, or wipe out. It's a whole new endgame out there.

Ok, so I finally get into Burning Crusade (this was a few weeks ago, when it first came out), and the first thing I head for is, of course, the new 5man instances. We get a group together and run Hellfire Ramparts. We goggle at the new bosses, are excited by the new challenges, and gape at how much Blizzard has ramped up the loot. Finally, we down the last boss, Vazruden and Nazan, but he doesn't have any loot on him. Where's our loot? Oh, it's over there... in that chest that anyone can open.

Yup, the very last boss of Hellfire Ramparts seems to be an open invitation to ninja-ing that loot. Just like the Cache of the Firelord (another notorious ninja location), a chest spawns after the boss dies, and anyone in the group can step on over, open it up, and grab everything in it. Pookybear (nice name) has noticed this too, and Blue answers: It probably won't happen.

It's kind of a weak answer, but then again, when I think about it, I haven't had it happen to me yet. But all of the Ramparts runs I've done have been guild runs (where we all know each other), and I'd imagine most of the runs on all the servers are people leveling up together who know each other-- as we see more PUGs come through, this might be an issue. Have you guys seen a ninja after Nazan? It's hard to believe it will never happen, but the community has been doing pretty well at casting ninjas out of guilds and such. The first time I saw that chest, ninja is the first thing I thought of, but maybe Blizzard just doesn't see it as a problem. Has anyone seen a ninja in Ramparts? Why doesn't Blizzard just turn the loot into, well, loot?

Definitely my favorite part of BC so far has got to be the instances. We haven't seen new 5-man content in such a long time, and it's so much fun to be facing new pulls, new lore, and new bosses, most of them with brand new models, and even audio! Although, while I do like Magtheridon's voice, it seems like yes, those "puny magics" are actually holding him for a long, long time-- we get it.

Most of the new strats aren't too hard to get down with trial and error, but there are a few quirks to figure out. And for that reason, my guild's raidleader, Belacroix of Gothic Bunnies on Thundehorn-H, has punched together a few quickguides of the first few instances-- two wings of Hellfire Citadel, and The Slave Pens and the Underbog in Coifang Reservoir. They're not complete walkthroughs by any means, but if you want a little insight on how to take down certain bosses or what you'll find in there, Bela's guides are a good read.

WoW blogger Relmstein has also been running instances in Outland, and he's got even more complete walkthroughs for Hellfire Ramparts and the Blood Furnace (so far, the Furnace is my favorite). And I have to make a mention of WoW Wiki as well (and everyone that works on it)-- they've got strategy up for almost every boss seen in the instances so far, so if you've got a group stuck on something, they're the place to go.