WoW: Instances, bosses and strategies (spoilers)

SPOILERS AHEAD!

No, really. The instances I've been in have all had clever... ok, some only mostly clever... tricks to beating them and the surprise, challenge and enjoyment you'd otherwise get is going to be appreciably lessened if you carry on reading. But if you had your group's collective butt handed to you in an instance and are seeking some guidance/suggestions, I thought I'd start a thread containing some hard earned lessons, in hopes I'd hear some new techniques and/or stories.

Deadmines/Van Cleef: No real challenge or trick here, you just have to be careful pulling mobs at the very end to not aggro the captain on the deck and be ready for a couple summoned adds during the VC fight. There are patrols that respawn, so you can expect three adds to show up from time to time and it's worth sticking someone on back watch detail.

The Stockades: Again, no real tricky bits here, but the four nameds aren't really bosses, just heads that need collecting for quests.

Gnomeregan: Make sure to kill the "Viscous Fallout" (might be Vicious, actually... I can't remember) in the ooze room, the "Electrocutioner 6000" in the flight hangar and ... I can't remember the third mini-boss at the moment, will edit later. These three drop nice blue loot and are straightforward fights (although I can't remember what the third one is, so maybe I'm wrong). The end boss is a different story. He's in a room with six columns, each of which has a button on it. The trick here is as you fight the boss, the columns dump out bombs, which are mobs, but blow up before you can reasonably expect to kill them. One solution is to put a tank on boss, a healer to keep him up and a damage dealer for good measure, while the two other folks each watch three of the columns for a blueish electrical glow, then haul ass over to push that columns button when it does. Voila, no bombs and it's a relatively easy fight without those.

Scarlet Monastery: Herod and the chapel are the only two tricky bits. After you kill Herod, you get swarmed by 25-30 non-elite mobs. Cue AoE... and done. It's terrifying the first time you see it, but after you've gotten used to elite fights, all those acolytes rushing to their deaths will likely just strike you as sad. The chapel is... amazing. You must clear all the mobs in the chapel, including the ones in either wing (excepting the undead bishop... leave him for after the Morgaine fight to avoid nasty curse). Morgaine summons everyone in chapel otherwise, which will really louse up your day. Anyhoo, kill off the peaceful church-going fanatics two or three at a time until it's just Morgaine. After you kill him, crazy blonde boss runs out, fights with you awhile, rezs the Commander and now you've got two bosses to deal with. Standard target selection applies here: kill the caster fast, then the tank. Yay, you.

Uldaman: Great looking instance, but I'm waffling over how much I like it, because it looks like you need a certain party setup to beat the end boss, which I hate. There's an Indiana Jones moment when you summon one of the mini-bosses, but it's a little foggy how you go about that, so I'll not describe it poorly here other than saying when she comes out the doors, don't run, no matter what your targeting information is telling you. You can kill her. Probably. The end boss is awesome... huge statue in room, ring of 6-8 dark dwarven statues around him and then four dozen white dwarven statues in four groups around the edge of the room and two huge golems. When you start the fight, he begins waking the white dwarves up. Non-elite, drop pretty fast. Looks like he summons as soon as one dies or after maybe 20s of time. Purple lightning from his hand will indicate which is waking, so plenty of time to get ready for them. At ~66% health, he wakes all of the dark dwarves and that gets a little interesting, but still doable. At ~33%, he wakes the two golems and whatevers left of the white dwarves all at once.

First time through, we just tried to kill him. Got the golems and maybe 20 of the white dwarves on us... the end. Second time, we got a warrior with a shield to go defensive, dealing no damage, but not draining the priest's mana dry either while we killed all of the white dwarves. This worked well, but we tried to kill off the two golems too and that didn't. They have an insane amount of hp and you just can't overcome that much damage... the end. Third and all subsequent times, same thing as second until golems wake and then you go into damage dump mode. Everyone, including the priest, starts dumping everything they can into the boss. Heal as needed, but don't save mana. Turns out when the boss dies, so do the golems (although it should be noted that this entire encounter is buggy and I've personally wiped here three times to various things not happening as expected... like the entire room waking up 30s into fight). Congrats and make sure you check out the treasure room, there's a really cool quest series to start there.

I don't like the fact that a defensive stanced warrior is necessary to handily beat the encounter. It is, I hope, not actually a fact that it's necessary, but it really seems like it's what was intended. What do you do if there's no warrior handy? Someone in one of the groups I was in said it looked like "an encouter designed by Furor", which will make no sense unless you followed the end game drama that was present in EQ and make perfect sense if you did.

Zul'farrak: Instance I'm currently in and haven't come close to beating yet. The Executioner is the only mini-boss I've found and that's a wild fight that I've yet to successfully beat, so suggestions welcome. Basically, lots of sand and trolls. Top of a big, Mayan-esque pyramid are cages full of green con mobs, Sgt. Bly and company (who are quest targets themselves) and the Troll Executioner. You kill the executioner pretty easily, plus his two pet lizards and get the key. Unlock the cages (do not talk to Bly if you're able... you'll set off something else you don't want to do yet) and you get some dialogue. Cue 60+ mobs spawning at foot of pyramids. Do NOT run down to meet them with hugs and kisses. Wait for them to come up, few at a time at first, then in bigger and bigger lots. Bly and company will pitch in. Mobs are mostly non-elites, but you need to get on the elites, because they're nasty casters. No idea what happens if you lose one of Bly's folks, but it's a madhouse of a fight. Two waves of that, then Bly gets the bright idea it'd be good to "advance on the trolls". Two nameds at bottom, plus whatever mobs you foolishly didn't clear on your way up, plus respawns. That's where I've wiped both times I've tried it. I think the trick is to clear the entire area, but it's a few dozen mobs and by the time the pyramid fights are over, respawn would likely be occurring. I guess, a few is better than a mob, but...

Forgot to add another of the minibosses is a summons that I'm working on getting the bits for, but it's a giant lizard apparently... named Gahz'rilla. Yes, that's right. Gahz'rilla. And as a bonus, he apparently drops a darn nifty poker. Can't wait!

Anyhoo, hope this helps, without detracting from the experience. Every instance I've been in has been challenging and unique at many points. I can't wait to see more and am looking for lower level ones that I've missed on the way up, just because I'm so intrigued with what I have gotten to experience. Any other strategies to share?

No new info to add but i have to say some great info you''ve posted here!!

i would like to add a few comments:

Deadmines/Van Cleef: If you fight the kobold in his mechanic lumberjack (sorry forgot name), be prepared that after you kill him, the driver spawns with full health.

When you reach the spiral hallway, dont jump down... youll aggro the entire room this way. You have to fight your way down the whole way.

Even if you manage to solo the elite-mobs in the first parts of the mines with ease, you wont be able to kill the level 22 Ogre guarding the door to the second part of the mines until you are at least 30 (i failed with a mage 35 cause my mana ran out). The better loot starts after this point.

The Stockades : You can do 3 of the 4 quests even with a small party of level 17-20, but the last one is guarded by an elite abomination 10 levels higher than the rest of the dungeon.

Gnomeregan: The punch card quests require you to aquire punch cards in a certain order. Its easy to miss the first card because it is aquired in the first areas of the dungeon (before you pass into the instance through the portal) In all my tries i only found the punch card reader for the second card without having the first card required for that.

It is possible to avoid some of the inhabitants by running along small ridges at the walls in certain passageways. (Sorry i''m not very precise, but youll see what i mean)

If you encounter the gnomes laying down bombs, destroy the bombs as fast as you can... they explode after a time for nasty damage.

Avoid the alarm sentries, if they see you they summon a lot of additional mobs onto you. If they see you nonetheless, kill them as fast as you can.

There are a few quests tied to ""encrusted"" items. The machine to ""de-crust"" them is found in a safe area only a short way from the beginning of the instance. It should be possible to solo your way to this area. (or even run to it)

Scarlet Monastery: When you finish the first part of the monastery, you are able to get a key to the monastery garden and chapel. This way you can skip half of the instance on later visits.

I remember from the last fight that that ""crazy blonde boss"" casts ""Sleep"" and ""Mind Control"" on 2 party members in the beginning of combat, then she goes to rezz her slain commander.
Your priest should ""dispel magic"" those spells fast so you can eventually hinder her from that.
Try to break her casting, easiest done (because ranged) with ""silence"" from priest or ""counterspell"" from mage.

The monastery garden has a fairly long respawn time... you may wipe two times and there are still no respawns requiring you to do everything from the beginning.

Gnomeregan : Make sure to kill the ""Viscous Fallout"" (might be Vicious, actually... I can''t remember) in the ooze room, the ""Electrocutioner 6000"" in the flight hangar and ... I can''t remember the third mini-boss at the moment, will edit later. These three drop nice blue loot and are straightforward fights (although I can''t remember what the third one is, so maybe I''m wrong). The end boss is a different story. He''s in a room with six columns, each of which has a button on it. The trick here is as you fight the boss, the columns dump out bombs, which are mobs, but blow up before you can reasonably expect to kill them. One solution is to put a tank on boss, a healer to keep him up and a damage dealer for good measure, while the two other folks each watch three of the columns for a blueish electrical glow, then haul ass over to push that columns button when it does. Voila, no bombs and it''s a relatively easy fight without those.

And how...I still havent gone back there after my first trip where we made the mistake of only having one guy run after the bombs... a particularly nasty bomb at the wrong moment wiped out everyone but me and the warrior and then we were dispatched a few seconds later.

I''m still waiting for revenge..and I''m curious to how well an AE Totem placed near one pillar would handle any bombs coming out.

Scarlet Monastery : Herod and the chapel are the only two tricky bits. After you kill Herod, you get swarmed by 25-30 non-elite mobs. Cue AoE... and done. It''s terrifying the first time you see it, but after you''ve gotten used to elite fights, all those acolytes rushing to their deaths will likely just strike you as sad. The chapel is... amazing. You must clear all the mobs in the chapel, including the ones in either wing (excepting the undead bishop... leave him for after the Morgaine fight to avoid nasty curse). Morgaine summons everyone in chapel otherwise, which will really louse up your day. Anyhoo, kill off the peaceful church-going fanatics two or three at a time until it''s just Morgaine. After you kill him, crazy blonde boss runs out, fights with you awhile, rezs the Commander and now you''ve got two bosses to deal with. Standard target selection applies here: kill the caster fast, then the tank. Yay, you.

We did the entire Chapel last night as I had 2 quests there to finish.. party of 4 a 44 warrior, 43 Warrior, 43 Shaman and me 40 Shaman. Its a long grueling battle especially the end Chapel where as you said you have to kill every mob before fighting the last guy.

The Shield the last guy drops is pretty sweet... something like 1103 Defense.

There any chance we could add a wiki for this to the site? Editting the post is getting bulky and there''s got to be an upper limit on the upload that I''ll be hitting eventually. I realize a wiki is probably overkill, but it seems like it would be useful for other games as well (my oh so thinly veiled effort to make it seem relevant to non-WoW folks).

The crazy blonde boss in SM does indeed cast Deep Sleep to rez Mograine and the mind control when he''s back up, usually. Deep Sleep you can''t interrupt. I don''t think you can interrupt the mind control either, but I never really figured out what the animation for that spell was, so I never tried. Rogues are excellent... phenomenal, really... spell breakers. Gouge, Kick and Kidney Shot are more than enough to keep any single caster from casting anything other than instacast spells. If your local rogue isn''t doing so, feel free to scold him/her severely.

"Wounder" wrote:

The crazy blonde boss in SM does indeed cast Deep Sleep to rez Mograine and the mind control when he''s back up, usually. Deep Sleep you can''t interrupt. I don''t think you can interrupt the mind control either, but I never really figured out what the animation for that spell was, so I never tried. Rogues are excellent... phenomenal, really... spell breakers. Gouge, Kick and Kidney Shot are more than enough to keep any single caster from casting anything other than instacast spells. If your local rogue isn''t doing so, feel free to scold him/her severely.

Tremor Totem works wonders for her mass sleep spell..

wakes everyone right up

Sure, if you''re horde filth!

It''s not that big a deal anyway or wasn''t even the first time I went.

Finished the Executioner fight in Zul''Farrak, you do indeed have to clear all the mobs down there and hang on. I''ve got the mallet done for Ghaz''rilla and am about to start a run for that. The chief in ZF is a straightforward fight. There''s another boss in a cave somewhere that''s supposed to be pretty hard, but I don''t even recall passing up a cave, so can''t comment.

Anyone have any experience with Sunken Temple? Would like to know what minimum levels were required for a fairly well balanced group to stand a chance at this instance. All you rogues out there, go search for ""Lifeforce Dirk"" on thottbot.com and be prepared to drool bucketloads. The other rewards for the quest are nice, I guess, but wow!

"Wounder" wrote:

The crazy blonde boss in SM does indeed cast Deep Sleep to rez Mograine and the mind control when he''s back up, usually. Deep Sleep you can''t interrupt. I don''t think you can interrupt the mind control either, but I never really figured out what the animation for that spell was, so I never tried. Rogues are excellent... phenomenal, really... spell breakers. Gouge, Kick and Kidney Shot are more than enough to keep any single caster from casting anything other than instacast spells. If your local rogue isn''t doing so, feel free to scold him/her severely.

just give your rogue tiem to get into place!
I often don''t get a chance to get set up cause yahoo decides to start shooting away the moment they are in range of the mob.
Same with pulls, I am stealthed and they start running around with the mob, hold still darnit so I can ambush them!

Yah, that''s a problem. It helps to have a regular crew of folks who will put up with you pickpocketing. I tend to limit my picking sessions, in hopes of not boring the bejeezus out of folks, but even folks who hunt with me regularly get antsy sometimes... typically right before a big 4-5 mob pack that I''m setting up for a sap.

Gahz''rilla was pretty cool, btw. I''ve got some screenshots of the beast, nothing really unusual about the fight except for his ""toss you a mile in the air"" attack. Got a fang off him as well, so it was particularly satisfying...

Done Uldaman about 6 times now without any warrior at all, Paladins can tank it just fine if they know how to play. Warrior will make it much easier though.

I don''t see how ""knowing how to play"" will prevent damage from coming in. Could you explain that?

Nice write-up Wounder.

I experienced Uldaman end boss scenario last night. I saw a ""LFM healer for uldaman"" while in the badlands and decided to join to check it out since i have 3 quests there. After I accepted the invite, I find out that wur group was lvl 43 hunter, 47 hunter, 48 mage, 51 mage, and 45 druid (me). This is the first time I''m in a group that has no melee class at all and struck me as quite odd. Surprisingly we did quite well throughoutt the instance. Mobs couldn''t really touch us as most were sheeped and the lone mobs were easily taken care of by the hunters. Being a restoration druid, I did my part as well. We shifted our strategy a bit near the end, where the lvl 51 mage would just AOE arcane explosion (?) and I just heal regrowth/rejuv him. We dispatched groups of dwarves really quick. Killed the lvl 50 midboss. the 4 stone golemns were a bit tough but we got through fine.

The end boss room was both amazing and creepy. Seeing those rows of dwarve statues was foreboding as we guessed at what we''re about to face. We did what you did the first time through as well and went right after the boss while letting the lvl 51 mage aoe handle the dwarve adds. Got him to 70% then it went crazy with tons of dwarves about. soon after I died, the group went down as well. GG us.

Next time I know to go in with at least a warrior and a second healer for the boss. Maybe a mage as well because those aoe spells are freaking cool.

I''ve ventured into Uldaman twice now and have only gotten so far as the map room mini-boss (ha, ""mini""). I''m working on a map of the instance.

In the meantime, some of you entering Gnomeregan may find this map useful:
http://rps.net/QS/SCREENSHOTS/WoW/gn...

Nice map Quintin, know of any maps for other instances that are that nice?

I cleared Uldaman the other night with a great pickup group of really friendly and downright cool people. I won the roll on the boss loot and got this.

I am hoping to try Zul''Farrak this weekend.

Nice ring! I don''t know of any other instance maps, though I can''t say I''ve been out looking for them either. Tomorrow night we''re probably hitting Deadmines, so I hope to get enough minimap screenshots to do a map of that area as well. Uldaman might take a little longer since there''s fewer of us in the guild that are high enough level to take it on.

You mean you made that map of Gnomeregan? If so, damn, nice work.

Yup, and thanks. I wanted to help out the lower-level members of the guild who were just starting to venture into Gnomeregan.

Gnomeregan:

Can''t verify this from personal experience, having not been able to get to the boss mob yet, but thott and other engineers have told me that if you have an engineer with the Gnomish Universal Remote, and the engineer is about the same level as the boss mob, you can use the gnomish remote to ""pet"" the boss for a short period of time, which should give the rest of the party time to get the bombs.

However, whomever the engineer is with the GUR, is likely to die as soon as they stop controlling the mob, so make sure it''s not the rezzer.

You really don''t need to bother though... if you just assign a couple folks to push the buttons, no bombs. I mean, it would be *nifty* to yank his chain like that, but not critical

I have a link for a map of Blackrock Depths... here it is.

And how''d you get the overhead views of Gnomeregan, Quintin? It would be great to make maps for Scholomance and Stratholme...

I cropped the minimap out of multiple screenshots that I made as I traversed Gnomeregan. Then I used Photoshop to splice them all together. Creative editing as needed.

Quintin, those maps are awesome!! You should see if you can get yourself a sticky map thread.

Ok, that''s cool, but way too much like work

Shadowfang Keep Was fun, too. I''m surprised to not see it on here. You guys must be Alliance.