Hidden Warcraft » Instances

Heroic Utgarde Keep: Killing Prince Keleseth

Renei — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:31:58 +0000

Prince Keleseth makes his ultimate appearance in Utgarde Keep, where he is the Scourge Ambassador to the Vrykul. He looks like an overdressed, oversized Blood Elf, which I gather he once was.

You will encounter him about 10 to 15 minutes into Utgarde Keep, Heroic or otherwise, depending on how many times you wipe getting to him.

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He is accompanied by 4 Vrykul warriors – I forget the exact denomination – which fortunately can all be pulled individually, without alerting Prince Keleseth.

Once you have disposed of Prince Keleseth Vrykul’s escort, you will want to attack Prince Keleseth, and tank him pretty much where he stands, behind that huge table.

This is an ideal fight for Paladin tanks, because during the fight he will summon 4-5 Skeletons, which will appear at the door at the right of the room. Whoever aggros the Skeletons can run where the tank is doing his thing, and let the Skeletons be caught up in the Divine Storms and Consecrated ground.

The Skeletons will respawn soon after dying but being non-Elites, they are not very dangerous.

Prince Keleseth has two major moves that he performs. He shoots [Shadow Bolts] that deal from 5950 to 8050 Shadow Damage, and casts a Frost Tomb on a random party member.

There is not much to be done about the Shadow Bolts, except heal through them, since Prince Keleseth cannot be interrupted by any means that I’ve tried.

The Frost Tomb is another matter. Left to its own devices, the Frost Tomb will encase a party member for 20 seconds, causing 400 damage per second, for a total of 8,000. This is true for Regular Utgarde Keep as well as Heroic, so level 70 characters taking 8,000 points of damage will surely die.

It’s easy to get out of. What you want to do is to concentrate DPS on the Frost Tomb – not the player – and it will disappear very quickly, a matter of a few seconds for a decently-geared party.

The Tank, of course, stays on the Prince while the DPS concentrates on the Frost Tomb. Losing aggro on the boss is, as I’m sure you know, a great way to wipe and told untold amounts of frustration amongst party members.

Killing Prince Keleseth in Heroic Utgarde Keep is not incredibly difficult, except for the 1st few times when you hone your technique. He has roughly 417,000 hit points, so should take about one minute to take down.

When you have managed to kill Prince Keleseth, here’s what he will drop:

There is about a 25% chance drop on each of these, and he will also drop an Emblem of Heroism. If you are wearing a faction Tabard, such as the Wyrmrest Accord, the Ebon Blade or the Kirin Tor, killing Prince Keleseth will be worth 250 reputation points.

Next, we will cover how to totally slaughter Dalronn the Controller Skarvald the Constructor!

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Band of Frosted Thorns in Heroic Nexus

Renei — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:56:15 +0000

did Heroic Nexus yesterday, I was hoping to get the Flame-Bathed Steel Girdle for Mordauk, but it seems that Keristrasza, the final boss, dropped some sort of mail appropriate for a hunter instead of the cool belt appropriate for yours truly (it was the Interwoven Scale Bracers)

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Fortunately, Ormorok the Tree-Shaper, one of the other bosses, dropped the Band of Frosted Thorns. As I told my guildmates when I saw the Item, “Can I need on this? It’s kind of my thing.”

Actually, its a bit more than “kind of my thing”, it’s “exactly my thing”. Strength, Stamina and Critical Strike Rating are right up my alley as a Blood-specced Death Knight.

Because the ring I replaced was so crappy (relatively speaking, it was still Blue), it turns out that the Strength bonus is a net gain, I get about 30 extra stamina and maybe 20 critical strike rating more.

So while I did not get the Plate belt I wanted – tough luck, it didn’t drop – I still received over 2000 Rep points for the Wyrmrest Accord, and the cool Band of Frosted Thorns.

And all of that for only 19g in repairs! Wow, I can’t wait to get more Epics and see how high that repair bill can REALLY go!

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Farming Emblems of Heroism

Renei — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:40:30 +0000

Farming Emblems of Heroism. I suppose it was bound to come to this eventually.

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Over their lives, my toons have farmed pretty much everything. They have farmed Ore, for blacksmithing (and a brief and regrettable foray into Engineering), Herbs for Alchemy and Inscription, and Leather for Leatherworking.

I have farmed gold, greens to disenchant and pretty much anything else you can think of.

I have farmed rep – recently and successfully for the Knights of the Ebon Blade. I even tried farming Honor in Battlegrounds, although I can’t stand it and that didn’t last too long.

After discussing with Hladonar yesterday, it was established that what I *really* need now is to farm Emblems of Heroism.

I was looking through the lists of reputation rewards, and nothing seemed to strike my fancy. Oh, I’ll keep the Wyrmrest Accord Tabard on, since it looks cool and I want that Drake, but in terms of gear, I figure I need to farm about 400 Emblems of Heroism to get the following:

I realize, of course, that the next Expansion, whatever it may be called, will probably be out by the time I get all this stuff, rendering all my efforts obsolete.

But eh, I need an excuse to keep playing Mordauk, by far my favorite character. So there you have it, 400 Emblems of Heroism, which boils down to over 100 Heroic Instance Runs.

The promising thing is that we have several toons that are coming to 80 now in the Guild, so there will be opportunities for many runs!

Edit by Renei:

According to Hladonar, who knows better, this article is full of uber-noobish mistakes. Seems that the Emblems of Heroism don’t give access to that nice gear, the Emblems of Valor do. Or something.

Sorry about that, I’m new to the Epic stuff.

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Heroic Halls of Lightning

Renei — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:24:22 +0000

The Guild – Brute Force – got together last night for a little Heroic Instance, and we decided on Heroic Halls of Lightning, since it was both the regular Daily Instance as well as the Heroic one.

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We had a relatively rough start, we picked up the pace and managed to clear pretty much the whole instance, wiping a total of 6 or 7 times in the process.

The first of our wipes were most probably imputable to the fact that our tank, Fluffmuffin, had never tanked before, and Heroic Halls of Lightning is not the best place to learn. Even the regular non-Boss Elites hit HARD.

I don’t mean that as criticism in any way: I know that Death Knight tanks are notoriously hard to play, and if you’ve never done it, then your gonna die. A. Lot.

And we did!

About an hour into the instance, our regular tank, Kithany, came online and while I’m not going to say that it was smoooooth sailing from then on, things looked up a little. We cleared all the mobs, killed all the bosses, until we got to Loken.

Hladonar, who’d been there before, explained the strategy for killing Loken. It involves piling up on top of him while he’s doing melee damage, and running like a rabbit when he does an Arcane Explosion (different name, same death).

So fortified with this knowledge, our Epic raiding party attacked! And even before Loken got down to 300,000 hit points (starting at about 575,000), we were decimated.

Pernicious doubts invaded our fragile minds… Are we ready for this? Are we going to wipe 10 times, only to get home empty-handed?

When we re-entered the Instance, the first groups of mobs had started to respawn!

Oh no!

Throwing caution to the winds, we ran through them and mowed them down mercilessly! We HAD to get to Loken before more mobs appeared!

Fortunately, only the first 4 or 5 groups had respawned. After dispatching them, we ran back to the Boss, Loken, and fine tuned our strategy.

Our strategy consisted of the same as before, but better. Be more careful, we KNOW this guy can kick our collective asses! Our Chef, Gravewax, cooked us up a Fish Feast, I drank a Elixir, tooted my Horn and into the breach we charged!

Loken stired himself, drawing himself to his full height and power, and responded to our assault with flying fists of fury and giant stomping feet!

The Earth rumbled!

Lightning crackled into the dry air of the giant’s lair!

Back and forth we ran, expanding every power available to us, hitting and wailing and running and hitting again!

And after what seemed like an eternity, a moment frozen in time, the defeated Loken fell, spilling his loot into our covetous hands!

A great cry of victory went up from our ranks, instantly replacing the anguish and exaltation we all felt. We did it! The giant was dead! No more, from his throne of stone, would he terrorize the good people of Storm Peaks!

Reveling in the moment, we congratulated ourselves on this Heroic achievement and heroes far and wide praised our Epic achievement.

The time had come to search the Giant’s Hoard… A Frozen Orb, a Shard, the Lightning Giant Staff, and … the Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver!

Mordauk, yours truly, was awarded the Epic Axe by what seemed like general consensus. He gratefully picked up the awesome weapon and hoisted it on his well-toned shoulders, in the knowledge that such a weapon would prove a boon in the adventures that are sure to come!

…..

Thank you Drehand, Gravewax, Kithany, Fluffmuffin and of course Hladonar, for what has been the most exhilarating night of World of Warcraft in a long, long time. I would go on with the story, but I have a 6 hour drive to Toronto looming before me, and I have to get going!

Until next time!

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Heroic Utgarde Keep: First Impressions

Renei — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:17:57 +0000

Despite the fact that yesterday, as today, was a weekday, we as a Guild decided to run an Instance. Since I had missed last Sunday’s run of Heroic Utgarde Keep, my guildmates were kind enough to run it again, except that this time I was included in the party.

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First impressions? Easy. Overall, we did not wipe a single time, even though myself – the Death Knight – and Hammy, the Rogue, died a couple of times.

Thankfully, we died towards the end of boss fights, when the boss could be safely killed and our characters rezzed. True to form, I died right at the very end, trying to kill Ingvar. I still wasn’t rezzed when the loot windows appeared on the screen.

The fact that we know this Instance through-and-through does certainly help in not dying too much. Each boss, even the last one, were relatively easy and there were no surprises.

In terms of loot, I must say that as far as we are concerned, it was pretty average. All I got were 4 greens to be either disenchanted or sold at the Auction House, probably for peanuts.

I know that the mage in our party, Chianna, was happy with a Epic ring and a Blue Wand, both of which dropped from bosses. In my opinion, we really MUST get in the habit of passing on useless stuff so the Enchanter can need it, disenchant it, and we can all roll on the shards or other mats. This would make Instances a lot more potentially profitable for all involved.

None of the bosses or any other mobs for that matter dropped any Plate or cool weapons for my Death Knight, but it’s Ok, I’ll be back!

For the occasion, I was wearing my Knights of the Ebon Blade Tabard. Taking into account my 10% Human bonus to reputation, running Heroic Utgarde Keep was a LOT better than running the Ebon Blade Dailies.

Trash mobs – non Elites – were worth 2 or 3 rep points each, Elites from 16 to 33 and bosses 275. Even taking into account that I did not do all the Ebon Blade dailies yesterday, I am only about 30 rep points from Exalted, which I’ll take care of tonight.

All in all, I was very much amused and entertained by the Utgarde Keep Instance on Heroic setting. It is a fast and easy way to get gold, reputation and learn to work as a team for the harder challenges that are sure to come!

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Friday Night in Utgarde Keep

Renei — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:04:00 +0000

As you may know, Mandorall’s previous adventures in Utgarde Keep turned out disastrously. He respecced to a Healer for the occasion, and unfortunately was the cause of several of the many wipes that befell the Brute Force Guild that fateful evening.

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But there’s a new player in town now! Mordauk, level 77 Death Knight, needed Utgarde Keep, not only for the achievement – he doesn’t very much care about that, no he doesn’t precious – but for the Experience Points as well as the cool necklace that comes as a reward.

So we decided last night that a little dungeon run would be in order. Our epic party consisted of:

Chianna, level 80 Mage and Brute Force Guild Master
Kithany, level 80 Paladin and main tank
Gravewax, level 80 Mage and ass-kicker extraordinaire
Iktre, level 74 Shaman and designated Healer
and yours truly, Mordauk, level 77 Death Knight, Melee DPS and all-around great guy

Overall, the Instance was a breeze. As far as I remember we only had one wipe at the last boss, that was probably caused by something I did or did not do when I should’ve.

Iktre’s healing was more than adequate to the task throughout the Dungeon, and to my knowledge there were no Mana problems.

Here is a little family portrait, just before tackling Ingvar, the Final Boss:

I’m the one sitting down – also, I have glowing eyes.

Honestly, this was nothing like my first experience in Utgarde Keep. Of course, the fact that even the lowest level member of our group was overpowered for the Instance helped quite a bit.

Another very pleasant surprise is that the quest rewards for the (2) quests were very nice indeed, and that even at level 77, I could equip them without too much embarrassment.

In closing, Utgarde Keep is a lot more fun when you don’t die all the time, and choke before killing the final boss.

For posterity, check out this awesome portrait of Mordauk the Destroyer and his bitch, Ingvar the Plunderer (now Ingvar the PlundereD!)

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Farming Mageweave in Zul Farrak

Renei — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:02:15 +0000

I was in Tanaris yesterday. That where I left Mandorall after a VERY innefectual Mithril and Thorium gathering run the day before. I logged back on last night, looking for more blacksmithing options, when someone whispered to me:

“Wanna tank Zul Farrak?”

“No so sorry” was my immediate reply.

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When the heck would a 78th level Retribution Paladin want to tank an 40-something level Instance for a bunch of strangers, and for free? Hell, I can solo it! All they’re gonna do is take the loot and the achievement, and I’ll have wasted an evening not getting loot, experience, or satisfaction of any kind!

So I jumped on my beautiful mount and made immediate tracks for Zul Farrak. That opportunistic 47th level Mage had given me an idea… Since the ore farming in Tanaris is so poor, I might as well do the instance for glory and mageweave!

The thing is, Zul Farrak is pretty large instance, and its filled with spellcasters. Inconvenient to aggro many mobs at the same time. I did not keep an exact tab on the time, since a few real-life things distracted me from my run, but I figure it takes at least an hour to clear.

Here are the significant items I gathered by farming Zul Farrak:

115 Mageweave Cloth
60 Silk Cloth
10 Bind-on-Equip Greens

There were also a few Bind-on-Pickup blues, but I didn’t really bother with those, since for obvious reasons I can’t use them, or sell them for any significant amount of money.

On my server, Mageweave goes for about 10g a stack right now, and is always in demand.

So including the Mageweave, the Silk, the Greens and the Cash loot, I figure my one-hour-plus run is worth about 80g to 100g, which is not too bad.

Of course, I could have done a lot better mining Saronite and Titanium in Sholazar Basin, but that’s neither here nor there!

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A Paladin in Utgarde Keep

Renei — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 01:14:41 +0000

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Utgarde Keep is the first instance you will encounter if you start your Wrath of the Lich King adventures in Howling Fjord. I don’t want to go in very much detail insofar as the story goes, mostly because I don’t really know it, but basically, and much like every other instance in World of Warcraft, you have to go in and kill everything that moves.

Utgarde Keep is a 5-man instance, “man” being a relative and all-encompassing term. Our dedicated group, drawn from the ranks of the “Brute Force” Guild, was composed of:

Hladonar, Level 74 Feral Druid – “The Tank”
Drehand, Level 71 Hunter – DPS, “The Silent One”
Chianna, Level 71 Mage – DPS, “Dear Leader”
Gravewax, Level 71 Mage – DPS, “Chuckles” and owner of big bags

and that’s it… Oh wait. There’s me, too. I was hoping to exclude myself. Darn.

Mandorall, Level 71 Paladin – Healer, “The Clueless”

See, I was hoping that Hladonar would heal, and that Kithany would tank. Unfortunately, Kit respecced to Retribution – good call by the way – so Mandorall was dragooned into respeccing for Healing, against his better judgement.

Was that a good call? Read on!

Utgarde Keep is populated by those same Viking-type Norse giants that seem to haunt the rest of Howling Ford, the Vyrkul. The non-boss mobs were no match for our awesome power, and they went down fast. Everyone was lulled into a false sense of security because I did not have to heal much. Boy, did I have a surprise in store for everyone!

Then we came upon the first boss, Prince Keleseth. What a tool that guy is, sort of like a giant Blood Elf, with the same condescending gaze. To make a long story short, we wiped 4 times before finally taking him down. Several of those wipes were caused by my inability to Heal properly, and at least once because I cast Lay on Hands on myself by mistake instead of on the tank. Oups.

Anyways, on with the adventure, which from my point of view is getting more and more frustrating, mostly because of my nagging sense of responsibility for the numerous wipes.

We then proceeded, as a group, to slaughter a whole bunch of other trash mobs, which dropped absolutely nothing of worth in terms of loot, but did restore a little bid of my confidence. Healing only 800-900 at a time with Flash of Light, I was hoping for a boss-free dungeon trek from then on.

Leaving behind us a path of ruin and desolation, we came upon the next boss, who are two named Vyrkul at the bottom of some steps. Despite a wipe or three, we managed to overcome them without too much aggravation, if you exclude the fact that by then I had chewed my knuckles bloody. The sacrifices we have to make, I guess.

The going was smooth until we got to the last boss. Some giant – again – named Ingvar, who has the terribly rude ability to get rezzed once you take him down. He also “shouts” a lot, besides the usual grunting and complaining. All this unseemly noise turned out to be an area of effect spell that damaged everyone in the party, yours truly included. Since I had so much trouble just keeping the tank from dying, I could not spare any heals for either myself of anybody else.

We wiped 5 times on the last boss. Everyone’s equipment started turning yellow, then red, so we had to go back to the town to repair. When we came back, SURPRISE! the Instance had reset. Everyone was pretty dungeoned-out by then, so we called it a night.

We did not manage to kill the last boss, I’m sorry to say, and it seems to me that most of those wipes were caused in great part by my inability to Heal properly.

But all is not lost! Oh no! I learned a valuable lesson!

And the valuable lesson is: “A Holy Respecc Does Not a Healer Make.” Especially a last minute respecc on a Paladin with low-grade Retribution gear.

That’s the lesson. Anytime you want a Healer, feel free to ask! I’ll then point you to Hladonar, or Vitamina, or Talarin, or anyone esle but me.

Cheers!

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Fast Stockades Runs For Wool Cloth & Other Considerations

Renei — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:48:23 +0000

Last week, I wrote a very well-received article on Ragefire Chasm. Of course, I cheat a little insofar as I do these instance rns myself, and not with a party. The principal reason to do that, besides the fact, that like the proverbial dog, I can, is that it makes it much easier to count the drops.

Also, I follow my own advice as to running instances with the highest level character you have available.

Back to Instances. Ragefire Chasm is a Horde-only instance, situated as it is in the middle of Orgrimmar. So to be fair — fair is my middle name — I decided to run an Alliance-only instance, Stockades, with Mandorall and see what happened.

Stockades is right in the middle of Stormwind, making it inconvenient for Hordies.

First of all, it is a VERY short instance. I did the instance in three pulls, running from room to room to collect all enemies, then Consecrating and basically letting them die on my Retribution aura and Consecrated ground.

I honestly must say that it was longer looting the corpses than killing the enemies. But, as I am wont to say, that is neither here not there.

I ran the instance three times, each run took 15 to 20 minutes. Here is the averages of what I got:

70 Wool cloth
23 Linen cloth
7 Silk cloth
6 Bind on Equip Greens

I did not find any Bind-on-Pickup Blues, however I did receive [Ring of Defense] on my second run, which I sold on the Auction House for 10 Gold.

The total cash drop from mobs was around 2g per run. The value of the greens to the vendor was negligible, as usual, but I did sell some on the Auction House for several Gold. This is because a lot of the Greens are level 18-19 — perfect twink range.

So there you have it. Running Stockades with a high-level Character can net you about 200 wool cloths — 10 stacks — per hour, as well as smaller quantities of Silk and Linen Cloth. It’s not the best place for Bind-on-Equip Greens, but its not that bad, if you run it three times. If you are an enchanter yourself and would like to Disenchant Bind-on-Pickup blues, then I suggest Deadmines or Shadowfang Keep.

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Ragefire Chasm For Ultra Fast Linen Farming

Renei — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:22:23 +0000

I did very few instances on the Horde side, especially the low-level ones, because when I started playing my Tauren Shaman I knew pretty much no one and I wanted to concentrate on my leveling.

My shaman, Grunman, is now level 66 and well able to clear l0w-level instances alone, so I sent him to Ragefire Chasm, a very low level instance smack in the middle of Orgrimmar.

Now I won’t be as precise as my other instance articles, because quite frankly, there is not much to talk about. The mobs are all level 13-16 Elites and are mostly Humanoids, but there are some Beasts and a few Elementals as well.

The uncommon (‘green’) item drop rate is very good, if you are looking for things to disenchant. I did two runs and averaged about 15 bind-on-equip green items, as well as 2 or 3 bind-on-pickup Blues.

What is really exceptional about Ragefire Chasm is the Linen Cloth drop rate. In my two runs I managed to pick up 112 and 105 linen cloths, respectively.

Now you’re saying, Alex come on, that’s not very much… And you’re right, except for the little fact that the instance take me about 20 minutes to clear, killing every single mob. It would be even easier if you were doing with a Paladin or a Mage, since my Shaman basically has to kill all the mobs one by one.

In conclusion, if you are looking to run an instance for cash, Ragefire Chasm is not the place for you. However, if you are looking for Linen cloth to level Tailoring in a new toon, or for cheap and fast low-level Uncommon Green items for disenchanting or equipping said low-level toon, then you will not be disappointed.

A note of caution: Ragefire Chasm is Horde only. It is situated in the Cleft of Shadows right in the middle of Orgrimmar, and any Alliance character — except maybe a very high level rogue — would be hard pressed to make it there. I don’t think it would be worth it. Alliance people, stick with Deadmines!

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