The release of Book 7 for Moria introduces new “Crafting Instances”; The dev diary on the instances explain the mechanics, so I will delve into how these six new instances change the grind of the Moria in the game. You can also read KatashiTakishiro’s excellent thread that outlines where the instances are, the rewards, etc.

Level Design

Before we get into the mechanics, I want to comment on the design of the instances, how they look and feel. My initial run through the instances turned out to be the inverse of how much I enjoyed them. As a forester, I first checked out those two instances; these are supposed to be places where the dwarves processed wood, but the layout of the instances didn’t match my expectations. Rather than a sprawling hall of saws, workbenches, and other woodworking implements, I wandered up a long series of ramps until I reached the top of the “tower” and found the boss. Perhaps dwarves craft wood differently, but I was expecting an indoor version of the various lumber camps seen in Bree and other areas.

Next were the scholar instances, and they at least felt like places scholars would work. One had the feel of a library, rows upon rows of bookshelves inducing a tight, claustrophobic feel. Yet, the instances felt exactly like the forester instances. Run in circles up a series of ramps until you reach the boss at the top. While it looked different and matched the resource theme, the instances felt like the previous ones with different window dressing.

Finally reached the prospector instances, and a smile formed on my face. Twisting mine shafts emptying into large chambers… perfect flow and design for the theme. They didn’t feel like the designer simply dressed up a previous instance with a different look.

Overall, I believe I would have received the scholar instances better if I had not seen the forester instances first. Having them be similar in design biased my reaction; the scholar instances looked and felt right, but I simply couldn’t shake that feel of “didn’t I just run these instances…”.

Materials Aplenty

At first glance, these instances seem like the best place to quickly grind up to your top profession tiers. If you think about it though, the level the instances are geared for means you will have likely gathered up enough materials questing through Moria and not really need to hit these instances much to reach the cap. A trick was missed here though that would have made the materials worthwhile.

Many of the more useful recipes require crafted items from other professions. While others are willing to craft these items for you, you typically provide them the materials out of courtesy. If they are materials you cannot harvest, it is off to the auction hall where you have to buy more than you really need or want. What would have been useful would be to enter an instance and be temporarily granted the ability to harvest the resources there. I could gather up just enough to hand over to another profession and have them create the final results. This may have the side effect of killing the auction house market for materials, but it would simply shift the economy to charging for your crafting services.

Crafting… Bah, It’s All about the Rep

Where I am finding the instances useful is grinding out reputation with two Iron Garrison Miners and Guards. These are daily instances with three quests apiece; two of the quests give rep with the Guards and the third with the Miners. Each one gives 700 rep points on completion; that means you can rack up 8400 points with the Guards and 4200 points with the Miners daily.

Now, I am finding that I am coming out of two instances with an average of thirty Broken Engravings, and that is another 2700 points daily I can pour into pushing my rep higher. Overall, the drop rates for the rep items seem to have increased all across Moria since Book 7, but these instances are consistently proving to be the best way to farm the items. I was concerned about how much longer it would take to reach kindred status with the Guards, but these instances are turning the remainder of my grind from weeks to days.

It’s a Good Start

While the level design did not blow me away, I like how the instances have made the grind more bearable. They are just short enough to run in spurts when you have time, but the rewards, to me at least, are worth it in time saved trying to reach kindred status to unlock the various trait and other benefits that come with it. Hope Turbine keeps exploring more novel ideas like this.