Since the release of Burning Crusades on January 16th, apart from levelling from 57 to 64, I’ve happily ploughed my way through a bunch of quests and early instances, the final of the easiest four being completed last night in a desperate fight against Quagmirran. It didn’t take long for me to realise that my much loved catform druid shape was just too risky for the bosses (or even the trash) of these dungeons, and despite little kitty-cat being in the first screenshot here, I had to play the unfamiliar and scary world of bear-tanking for the other ones.
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Hellfire Ramparts was a real ground-breaker for me, as I’d never fought bosses with so many strategies before. The dragon Nazan would breathe fire on you from the air whilst you tried to get Vazruden’s health down. Luckily we had Huunter (who was a Hunter strangely enough) to take him right down in health, so when on the ground he was only about half health. After suffering a scorching cone of fire, I found myself buying some fire resist rings in the auction house, and went back to try again a few days later. He seemed just as hard then also! 
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Blood Furnace I remember very little of, having only done it once. It was probably more remarkable for the three druids in our group (two bears and one cute Moonkin). There was also a priest called Tardin who discovered the dark side and was comfortable with that. This is the beginning of the “Bridei is the most appropriate person to heal” phase. 
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I was seriously scared about the Underbog, which is reached by swimming down a long pipe in Coilfang Reservoir, but I needn’t have worried. We had the careful, managerial experience of Antheriel to work us through this potential nightmare, and we only wiped once when I was thrown off a ledge into some water by a druid-enslaving hunter who kept yelling “Obey Me” – I thought it was “Oh baby” when I first heard it. Again, it felt like a momentous series of boss fights – the bit where I had to turn the nasty green hydra sidewards to stop his tail from flicking people, and absorbing all the poison breath myself. I love this screenshot because right near the end of the fight, I was levitated, I shapeshifted into a caster and continued from the air. The boss died whilst I was up there, and I am just starting to fall to earth again. 
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This was the hardest thing I’d ever done in-game. On a 38 degree day, with the cooling on full tilt, we struggled our way through The Slave Pens with a resolute web-cafe hosted mage Duderino, for nearly three hours when you include the wipes, and the loss of Vyeper for the always obliging ScienceLady. But we did it, and I was jubilant and tired (and sweaty) afterwards. On our third and final attempt, with three of the party dead, the Quagmirran went down – I was able to resurrect Bridei and we all lived happily ever after. Saved by having two mages who would sheep everything in sight, it was a masterpiece of strategy to keep the nasty mobs from shredding us. And plenty of good herbs to pickup along the way.
