A successful WC run ends here: where Naralex's Disciple either (a) turns Naralex into a Murloc or (b) draws a Murloc out of Naralex's dreams. Never really got that one.*

Wailing Caverns is designed to be a low level Horde instance (15-25). In the big picture view it’s the second instance that Horde players visit, after hacking and slashing their way through Ragefire Chasm. Wailing Caverns is technically tucked under some rocks in The Barrens but thanks to the Dungeon Finder it’s just one button away.

Because it’s a Horde instance I’d only run it a couple times at level 80 on various characters in order to earn the achievement. And each time I’d gotten hopelessly lost.

Now, at level 17, my baby new Warlock – pitifully decked out in common white and grey items with no resources over on Argent Dawn – has had her first Wailing Caverns (WC) experience. Surely this time, with four others and a nominated Dungeon Guide, I’d be okay and wouldn’t get lost?

Not a chance.

The Map

Wailing Caverns Map. Bosses and paths marked.

To download the image go to: http://www.hotsdots.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/WailingCavernsMap.jpg

The bosses are:

1. Lady Anaconda
   She can be found in any one of the three locations marked. Once you’ve killed her you can jump down into the river – don’t keep clearing the upper floor.
2. Kresh Optional.
   Kresh is a turtle that patrols along the river in this central cavern. He’s neutral, but attackable and drops rare items.
3. Lord Cobrahn
4. Lord Pythas
5. Skum Optional.
   He’s optional but he’s like right there on the way. Might as well kill him and break up the long trip to Lord Serpentis!
6. Lord Serpentis
   Once you’ve killed Lord Serpentis, or the last Lord, you’ll see that the Tauren Disciple of Naralex who was hanging out back at the start of the instance will yell out to you. This means that you’ve unlocked the event to complete the instance – good work!
7. Verdan the Everliving
8. Matanus the Devourer Escort/Event
   You need to talk to the Disciple of Naralex at the very start of the instance and he’ll escort you to the final event and summon Matanus (a giant murloc). The best way to do that, in my opinion, is to get everyone in your group to use the Dungeon Finder icon and Teleport Out of the Instance. And then Teleport to the Instance. This should bring your group back to the start and the Disciple of Naralex. If you’re not using the Dungeon Finder, you can jump down the hole in the group behind Verdan and track your way west through the river back to the start.
   

The Run

Slowly, yet painfully, we cleared the main cavern upper floor. This is the easy bit and netted us 1 boss kill and our first blue item. At this point things seemed shakey. Nobody knew where to go. Not our Dungeon Guide, either.

I had a vague recollection that we had to follow the river … so my group followed me as I headed east. Almost half an hour later we were still slowing making our way through the winding path without sight of a boss. I noticed a few things:

1. The Druids in Wailing Caverns like to heal themselves. And nobody in our group seemed to be armed with a silence or interupt at such low levels. Actually, we did have a Rogue, and I think that Rogue had some form of stun (Gouge maybe?) so maybe there was something we could have done about it. Mostly we just ignored it and wore them down again.

2. Nobody really has AoE before level 20. I’ve discovered that there’s nothing more frustrating than coming across a group of 5-8 non-elite vipers hissing at your ankles when you can’t really wipe them out with one spell. For me it was a case of dot, tab, dot, tab etc. Actually our Warrior tank’s Thunderclap seemed the best ability at hand: two or three of those would get them.

I was also witness to my first loot drama. An uncommon piece of Mail dropped which the Warrior tank Needed on. The Rogue took issue with this and started a fight with the Mage in the group because they ought to be using Plate. After a few seconds we were able to unravel the actual accusation: that tanks should only roll Need on Plate armor.

Considering that I haven’t actually played either a Warrior or a Hunter I tried to sound knowledgeable “I don’t think Warriors can wear Plate armor until level 40″ and “I think it’s the same for Hunters and Shamans and Mail armor”.

This seemed to settle to argument. It was also a handy reminder that not everyone knows everything at low levels. In fact, it’s quite a refreshing change from the know-it-all Barthilas/Bloodlust mentality that I’ve become accustomed to!

Unfortunately we wiped before we could reach the second “Lord” boss… defeated by trash and the effort to retrace our steps to our bodies. We gave up. I was relieved – I’m pretty confident that we were going around in circles.

I swapped over to my level 80 Rogue, did a bit of research and headed over to the Barrens to work on this guide. Now that I have a map I’m looking forward to my second Wailing Caverns run. And next time I’ll be taking the lead!

* BTW I thought it was both cool and amusing that a level 20 Elite had his own die hard followers already. What is he? The leader of a leveling guild?

Blackrock Depths Prison satchel time!

When the Dungeon Finder was released Blackrock Depths was one of those ridiculously long Classic dungeons that became split up into more manageable pieces. Unfortunately, someone decided that the best way to chunk down an instance that spans 12 character levels (48 – 60) and includes 20 bosses was to split the zone into two parts: Prison, covering 1 boss, and Upper City, presumably covering the other 19 bosses.

Makes no sense to me either. But we’ll work with what we’re given.

After struggling through Sunken Temple it was something of a relief to be dropped into Blackrock Depths to complete a super quick run and receiving a satchel 5 minutes later. Then I, and my groups, became dissatisfied. These one boss BRD Prison runs were just too short. I started dragging my groups off to kill some of the bosses wandering the corridors nearby.

This guide will actually cover the starting area of Blackrock Depths and should give you a nice, quick, four boss run with minimal trash kills. We’re going to clear the Halls of Law, Ring of Law and then finally head south and kill High Interrogator Gerstahn for a satchel.

The Map

Blackrock Depths: Prison - bosses and travel path marked

1. Lord Roccor Optional.
   This giant rock elemental patrols the Halls of Law – look out for him.
2. Houndmaster Grebmar Optional.
   Drops a sweet caster cloak by the way!
3. Ring of Law Optional.
   Make sure your entire party is well within the gate before you speak to the NPC and start the event. The gate will close and lock party members out of the fight if they’re not inside the arena. The bosses summoned during the event are random, but waves of adds will come out of the east gate and then north gate first.
4. High Interrogator Gerstahn
   The final boss. Congratulations on your Satchel!

The Run

If Sunken Temple showed us the low of the low: tanks who couldn’t tank, healers who couldn’t heal and DPS that did nothing, Blackrock Depths: Prison showed us the opposite. We were grouped up with efficient killing machine style tanks. Bind on Account gear was the norm, not the exception.

Even the tanks that struggled to hold threat against the full brunt of mine and Pixii’s AoE were excellent and well in control of their character and the enemy mobs.

Actually, the reason I wanted to put this guide together was because I ended up queuing one night on my own and was fortunate enough to be grouped with a very experienced tank/healer duo in BoA gear that knew BRD back to front. These guys weren’t content to kill one boss. At level 50 and 51 they were ready to do a full instance clear. It was this pair that showed me that Houndmaster Grebmar and Lord Roccor are just around the corner from the starting area and these two players that patiently explained all the tricks to successfully clear the bar without wiping.

Unfortunately not all of our runs were as blissful. It was in a Blackrocks Depths: Prison run that I played with the absolutely worst player that I’ve ever played with. Yes, it was that bad. Yes, it was a tank.

A bot could have done a better job.

I can only assume that this particular Warrior had been hassled by their Hunter friend to try out tanking. The pair were from the same guild, the Hunter was quite skilled and did their very best to compensate for their friend’s performance by laying traps like crazy and misdirecting non-stop. Unfortunately this Warrior had an epic DPS weapon, no shield and just ran in and auto-attacked. No thunderclap, no taunts, no shouts, nothing. I’m serious, it was like watching a brand new player run around Northshire Abbey right clicking on boars.

One pull in and a DPS left the group. We replaced them. Another two pulls and another DPS left the group. We replaced them. But when the healer left a couple minutes later I gave up too. I’ve never been so glad to get out of a party before.

Still Want More?

There’s no doubt about it, even doing a “full” four boss clear, Blackrock Depths: Prison is a really short instance. It’s not uncommon to be standing over the body of High Interrogator Gerstahn still wanting more.

If your group is keen, and you’ve already killed the four bosses on the map, I suggest that you extend the run out to almost double the length and turn it into a “Shadowforge Key” run. Unless you’re a Rogue (with Pick Lock) you’re going to want to earn your own Shadowforge Key before you reach the Blackrock Depths: Upper City level bracket (51 – 61).

To start the quest chain you need to spirit run back into Blackrock Depths, talking to a ghost quest-giver in the heart of Blackrock Mountain (just near the summoning stone, in the center rock hanging suspended from 2 metal chains) on the way. So if you do happen to wipe in Blackrock Depths: Prison make sure you use that spirit run back to pick up the quest. Alternatively you can accept the quest from another party member if they share it with you.

I’m going to write a separate guide for the Extended Prison Run, so keep an eye out. When it’s released I’ll come back and link to it from this article.

The Corpse Run

Everytime I’ve wiped or died during a Prison run of Blackrock Depths I’ve released and ended up near Thorim Point in northern Searing Gorge at a graveyard. However, Blackrock Mountain sits rights at the border between Searing Gorge (to the north) and Burning Steppes (to the south). There is a small chance that you will end up in the northeast graveyard in Burning Steppes depending on where you die inside Blackrock Depths itself.

It’s unlikely, though. So I’ve covered the trip back from the Searing Gorge graveyard to the Blackrock Depths entrance. This is also how I would travel there if you’re not getting summoned or teleported straight in.

The basic directions are:

1. Travel south from Thorium Point/The Graveyard, in the general direction of your corpse marker on your minimap
2. As you enter the southern half of your map start looking towards the southern border of the zone for a set of wooden slats which form the path up to Blackrock Mountain. Take that path (I think it’s a bit further east than where your corpse marker on your mini map).
3. Enter through the giant doors. Blackrock Mountain can be navigated via a giant ring path. The northern door opens out to Searing Gorge, the southern door opens out to Burning Steppes. If you enter from Searing Gorge, turn left and travel a short distance along the ring road.
4. Climb up the rubble onto the giant chain that links the ring road to the floating rock island in the middle of the mountain. Walk onto the chain, turn right and head down the chain towards the summoning stone (going left takes you to Blackrock Spire – upper and lower).
5. Walk into the building, the tomb, via either door near the summoning stone. Head down through the center rooms until you come out the other end. Don’t walk off the edge.
6. Turn right and you’ll see that the path spirals down until it meets a second chain bridge.
7. Cross the second, smaller chain bridge and walk up towards the blood elf (this guy exists to port attuned players directly into the raid zone – Molten Core) but just before you reach him, take the right open doorway.
8. Welcome to the Grinding Quarry. Head north east, weaving between the giant rocks, until you see a wide bridge due north.
9. Cross the bridge and you’ll see the Blackrock Depths zone portal tucked into the rock face on your right.

Sunken Temple is a maze. From the moment you zone in you must choose between 4 doors.

Sunken Temple is evil. I’m convinced the designers enjoyed creating a maze that sends you off in spiraling staircases every which way. Only Sunken Temple would present you with a dilemma the moment you zone it – 4 doorways: which do you take?

Unfortunately there’s no wrong answer. They all tend to branch into multiple levels so you can usually get to where you want to go (eventually) by taking pretty much any door. Oh, did I mention that, like Gnomeregan and the Oculus, this is a vertical maze?

Oh goody.

The Map

Sunken Temple Map - with bosses and travel path marked

Full image can be viewed/downloaded here: http://www.hotsdots.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/STmap.jpg

Lines that are shaded out (faded) indicates a path on a lower level/floor than the brighter part of the path.

Directions

A full clear involves these three parts:

1. Clear the upper floors via the Hall of the Cursed and the troll mini-bosses as they stand on their platforms facing the center of the temple.
2. Jump down onto the ground floor, clear the room, and working clockwise clear the wings/bosses. Most runs will finish when you kill Shade of Eranikus. Killing Avatar of Hakkar is totally optional.
3. (Optional) Return to the start (via the north corridor) and then head downstairs to clear the Hall of Serpents, activating the statues in the correct order, jumping down to the lower floor to kill Atal’alarion.

I strongly recommend skipping the third step and just ending the run when you kill Shade of Eranikus. I’m also pretty sure the troll mini bosses (yellow and orange) move around and don’t always take the same platform.

The bosses are:

1. North-east Troll Boss: Loro/Mijan/Zolo/Hukku/Zul’lor/Gasher all move around
2. East Troll Boss
3. South-east Troll Boss
4. South-west Troll Boss
5. West Troll Boss
6. North-west Troll Boss
7. Jammal’an the Prophet
   Hangs out in the south eastern section of the Temple with his buddy.
8. Dreamscythe and
9. Weaver
   Appear in the center room when you kill Jammal’an the Prophet.
10. Morphaz and
11. Hazzas
    Found south of the center room on the way towards the last boss – Shade of Eranikus.
12. Shade of Eranikus
    The final boss. Grats on your Satchel!
13. Avatar of Hakkar Optional. Summoned.
    Avatar of Hakkar can be summoned before you kill Shade of Eranikus if you like – just be sure that a party member either has in their possession a [Egg of Hakkar] or [Yeh'kinya's Scroll].
14. Spawn of Hakkar Optional. Not recommended.
    I think he patrols around the east or south side of the Hall of Serpents. Makes the pain of clearing the lower floors, and running around in circles, a bit more bearable. Still think it’s better to skip the lower floors.
15. Atal’alarion Optional. Summoned. Not recommended.
    This boss is a bitch to summon. You’ll need to head due north from the ground floor and follow the stairs all the way back to the beginning of the instance. Take door #2 again but this time take the next right downwards and you’ll be in the Hall of Serpents. Clear the entire floor and then your party will need to run in circles to click statues in the following order at each of the platforms to summon Atal’alarion:
    1. South
    2. North
    3. South-west
    4. South-east
    5. North-west
    6. North-east
    Carefully jump down onto the lower floor (not into the water – you’ll die). And then engage Atal’alarion.

Memories

Ah the memories. Sunken Temple is the end of the golden dungeon runs that can take you from level 30 through to level 50: Scarlet Monastery => Zul’Furrak => Sunken Temple. When I leveled all three of my (now max level) characters you could generally find a group willing to run any one of those dungeons. And that was a long time before the Dungeon Finder existed!

All classes – except Death Knights – are sent out to complete a class quest at level 50 and these all end up in Sunken Temple, rewarding your character with a really nice rare weapon or armor that should take you all the way through to Outlands. Like Ring of Blood (level 65) and Amphitheater of Anguish (level 75), I think of Sunken Temple at level 50 as a leveling rite of passage.

So I like Sunken Temple. I’ve had good times there.

My fondest memory of Sunken Temple is heading there the third time through as my Shaman, Xata. It was the first time (and only, I think) I found myself in an all-Draenei party. It was the first time I truly valued having Reincarnation.

And it was on that character that a friend of mine tried to “boost” me through. Determined to give me a full clear, he lead me down into the lower levels of the temple and tried to direct me as he activated statues on the opposite side of the Hall of Serpents. It was about 2am in the morning and I’m pretty sure I didn’t help at all. We eventually gave up. I still don’t recommend completing that part of the instance!

The Runs

This time through, using the Dungeon Finder, Sunken Temple really does signal the end of a good thing. The waiting queues at level 45 were manageable. The wait queues at level 50 were appalling – at least 30 minutes or more. Unfortunately the quality of our group members seemed to drop too.

Sunken Temple almost broke us. I can’t think of one group we were matched up with that survived the instance without reforming or losing at least one player. I think Sunken Temple exposes “poor” players, or at least, it’s harder to cover for someone in Sunken Temple than it seems to be in Zul’Furrak (the dungeon prior) or Blackrock Depths-Prison (the next level up dungeon). Unfortunately reforming, or waiting for a new tank or healer, tends to drag this instance out into an hour-long ordeal. And that’s not counting the long queue time before you start.

I do know that there are a lot of caster mobs in Sunken Temple – perhaps this makes it more difficult and messy? It’s also very important to clear the ground floor room entirely (without falling down the center drain pipe) before engaging Jammal’an the Prophet. And hang right back clearing his room, too – all the mobs like to cast fear.

I didn’t enter Sunken Temple with my class quests this time around. Neither did Pixii. I’ve actually given up on the Mage class quests altogether – they’re not teaching me anything new, and they’re not fun. And they usually make me kill mobs that are immune to Frost/Polymorph. What’s with that?

However, if you do intend to complete all the quests that ask you to travel into Sunken Temple, the one you’re going to need some help with is [The God Hakkar]. I’ve included the optional, summoned boss, Avatar of Hakkar, that you need to summon and kill for the quest in at #13 just for you, Vidyala. The “final” boss of the instance is #12 Shade of Eranikus, so if you want to complete your quest before your party members disappear I suggest you drag them westwards immediately after killing Jammal’an the Prophet.

By the way, you can only summon Avatar of Hakkar if a member of your group has the [Egg of Hakkar] provided with the quest above, or a member of your party has [Yeh'kinya's Scroll] which you can acquire by talking to the quest giver after you have completed that same quest. Most groups just skip him.

The Corpse Run

Unfortunately Sunken Temple comes with a very long spirit run if your group should happen to wipe. But it’s actually not too difficult to find your way back – it’s just time consuming. Here’s how:

1. Head due east through Swamp of Sorrows out into the lake and approach the temple from the southern side

2. Follow the path (below) once you’re inside the temple. At the orange marker “Jump and run towards the portal”, you want to jump down just 1 level – the zone portal is only 1 level lower down, but it’s nearly impossible to see when you enter the Hall of Bones before you jump.

Corpse Run back into Sunken Temple/Temple of Atal'Hakkar

Hope this guide helps you on your next runs! If you have any suggestions on how to make this instance easier to run, tip and tricks (that kind of thing), please comment and let us know.

My only tip would be: Priests can Shackle Undead if you’re finding it difficult to clear the upper floors. Mages can Counterspell the dragonkin dudes that stand at the back and Poison Spit while you’re clearing the ground floor.

The path to Princess Theraras in Maraudon: Pristine Waters

Pristine Waters (levels 41-53) begins south of where a Purple Crystals (levels 39-49) or Orange Crystals (levels 41-51) run would end.

Pristine Waters is the easiest part of Maraudon to get lost in. This is also where you’ll find the most beautiful scenery in Maraudon. There are many winding paths that loop back and over each other at different levels.

When I create these guides I aim to put together comprehensive boss runs – guides that ensure you kill all the bosses in quick succession and give you a satchel at the very end. Unfortunately that’s just not possible in a Pristine Waters run.

This guide will take you on a loop that kills all four bosses. But you’re going to get your satchel midway when you kill Princess Theraras. To kill Princess last would require a lot of extra clearing and backtracking. This run is much shorter, but you may need to convince your party to stick around for the two optional bosses in the run.

The Map

Maraudon Pristine Waters Map with bosses and travel path marked

The bosses are:

1. Landslide
   He’s at the very top level of a long winding path. Once you’ve killed him, backtrack halfway down the path and take a right.
2. Princess Theraras
   Technically she’s the final boss of the instance and will award you a satchel. The path from Landslide logically leads you to Princess and all the groups that I’ve been in have instinctively traveled this direction. I’m not going to buck the trend here!
3. Rotgrip optional, recommended
   There’s absolutely no reason not to kill Rotgrip after Princess. No mobs lie between the two. Face away from Princess and jump off the left side of the path into the water and wait for Rotgrip to swim to you.
4. Tinkerer Gizlock optional
   There’s a bit of clearing in order to get to Tinkerer Gizlock and I’ve yet to find myself in a group willing to kill him. Perhaps his loot isn’t very good? Swim east after killing Rotgrip then follow the path clockwise, over the bridge then north west.

I really did try and figure out a good, logical clearing order which would bring your party to Princess last. I promise, I tried. However the amount of stuff that needs killing between Landslide and Tinkerer Gizlock is a real bummer.

And there’s just no good way to kill Rotgrip before killing Princess T – you’ll be standing on the bridge facing Princess and trying to convince your party members to take a one way detour to kill Rotgrip and Gizlock – I just can’t see that happening.

The other kill order I’ve seen suggested is:

1. Tinkerer Gizlock (there’s another way to get to him on the way to Landslide – taking a route north east off the path. Follow the dotted line marked on this map – thanks Shrike!)
2. backtrack then go up to Landslide
3. go off to kill Princess
4. then fall in the water and kill Rotgrip

Personally I hate the amount of trash you need to clear by taking that route to Tinkerer Gizlock. I know that my path looks really long on the map but most of it is clear of mobs – it’s just a long run with a couple packs in the way. And I can never find the turn off to get to Gizlock along the path marked yellow.

The Run

I’ll admit it’s been weeks and weeks since Pixii and I ran Pristine Waters. I’ve been trying to get my mind around how to do this guide. Unfortunately that means that I don’t remember much about the pugs themselves.

I do remember that all the diemetradons cast a Sonic Burst silence on casters that accidentally get into melee range and it’s just not worth trying to get a Frost Nova off. I remember that the rock elementals break down into smaller rock elementals upon death. AoE ftw!

I do remember that almost every run includes a 2 minute interlude while the party members speculate on just how ugly Princess Theradras is. And on that topic, I’m convinced that the only reason we give her so much grief is because she has the word “Princess” in her name and we start thinking of Snow White, Cinderella or maybe even celebrity princesses like Paris Hilton. Tiny, cute and blonde she is not.

Lathere is convinced that Princess ought to come to Northrend and meet Patchwerk, Rotface or Festergut. I think it’s better she stays single:

Ages ago, Theradras and Zaetar, first son of Cenarius, began a relationship. The offspring of their time together became known to the people of Kalimdor as centaurs, who promptly slew their father for his part in their misbegotten creation.

The Corpse Run

To recover your body after dying in Pristine Water you’ll need to run back to the instance portal in Valley of the Spears, Desolace. However there is no Pristine Waters instance portal – you need to take either of the two Maraudon portals like you would for a Purple or Orange Crystals instance run.

I would recommend following the path to the Purple Crystals portal found at the end of this guide.

*** ps. Next up: the dreaded Sunken Temple **

Razorlash is the second and final boss in Maraudon: Orange Crystals

With the introduction of the Dungeon Finder in Patch 3.3 Blizzard have segmented some of the lengthy classic dungeons. Maraudon has been split into 3 separate dungeon runs: Purple Crystals (levels 39-49), Orange Crystals (levels 41-51) and Pristine Waters (levels 41-53).

Both Purple and Orange dungeon runs logically lead onto Pristine Waters. If you compare the maps between this guide (for Orange) and the map that I created for Purple you can really how the two entrances lead towards Celebras the Cursed and then onwards south towards Pristine Waters.

The Orange Crystal run will be the second part of Maraudon that you visit using the Dungeon Finder. This time around we’re killing evil plants. And slugs.

Maraudon: Orange Crystals is actually a very nice length dungeon to run. It contains two bosses: Noxxion and Razorlash.

The Map

Maraudon Orange Crystals: Map with path and bosses marked

The bosses are:

1. Noxxion
2. Razorlash
   The final boss. Congratulations, you made it!
3. Celebras the Cursed optional!
   Technically Celebras isn’t part of the Maraudon: Orange instance run at all. Once you’ve killed Razorlash, the game will award you for completing the run. However, if some of your group members want to do the quest to kill/talk to him and get his staff, I’ve included the path to reach him.

The Run

Beware groups of slimes/ooze. These critters deal huge amounts of damage to player in close proximity. Fortunately, they also move incredibly slowly. There are a couple of groups of slimes that will need to be cleared along the way towards Noxxion. They shouldn’t be tanked or melee’d, just have your ranged DPSers kill them from afar.

There are quite a few centaur patrols (usually in pairs of 2 hunter-y type females) that will make you life difficult you’re not looking for them.

And the big blackened lashers are nasty for casters – particularly healers – because they do a knockback with a stun/interupt quite frequently. At the beginning of the instance you’ll always fight these one at a time. In the groups after Noxxion (the first boss), which are a mix of less dangerous brown lashers usually with 1 evil, dark lasher – it’s a good idea to focus firethe bad one.

The Bug, er Slug

There are a couple of pipes that spew out worm/slug things in Maraudon: Orange. The first one, the annoying one, is in the large open space (the third light blue arrow on the map) before Noxxion’s cavern. When the pipe works correctly you can clear up to it, and click on it and bash it until it sort of collapses. Once you’ve bashed on it, it will stop spawning slugs.

Unfortunately in my runs, bashing on the pipe had no effect. This means that after you progress past this room slugs will continue to creep up behind the group and latch onto your healer. They seem to stop once you kill Noxxion.

Hopefully Blizzard will fix this soon. It seems to be a known problem.

The Corpse Run

The one truth that applies to any of the three Maraudon instances is this: the spirit run back is absolutely awful.

However, if you do wipe inside Maraudon: Orange Crystals you have a few options:

• Drop group. Awww, giving up so easy?
• Spirit run back to the Maraudon: Purple instance portal (if you know the way there better). As a reader pointed out, you’ll be kicked to wherever you were before the group was assembled, alive, at which point you can use the Teleport to Dungeon option.
• Spirit run back to the Maraudon: Orange instance portal.

If you’ve chosen to run back to the Maraudon: Orange instance portal the good news is that, technically, it’s about the same distance to run to the Maraudon: Purple instance portal. Assuming you don’t get lost. It’s still a god awful long distance. Here’s how to do it:

1. Run north and west from the graveyard up towards the Valley of Spears. On your map there are two huts drawn in, you want to aim for the southern one. Keep an eye out for the summoning stone. Then look up towards the north west and you’ll see a giant gargoyle looking entrance with some closed stone doors – run in.
2. Inside the cavern. Walk half way across the bridge and turn left and jump right off. Follow that tunnel!
3. You’ll get to a wide open room with Purple Crystals marking the left side of the room, Orange Crystals marking the right and an altar/wall decoration thing in the center. Go right, towards the Orange Crystals (if you can’t make out the colours in spirit form, go right when you reach the wide room with crystals on the far left and far right).
4. Follow this map:

Maraudon: Orange - path to instance portal and/or spirit run

I always get lost finding the Orange instance portal, so I looked around and found a map drawn by someone who actually knows the way! The above map is modified from this crazy, all-quests-in-one, map/guide.

Not a very pretty picture. Do you know how long it would take me to fly out there to take another?

With the introduction of the Dungeon Finder in Patch 3.3 Blizzard have segmented some of the lengthy classic dungeons. Maraudon has been split into 3 separate dungeon runs: Purple Crystals (levels 39-49), Orange Crystals (levels 41-51) and Pristine Waters (levels 41-53).

Maraudon has a really odd structure. If you were to travel to the zone portal by foot – it’s underground in Desolace below the Valley of the Spears – you can follow the purple glowing crystals jutting out of the walls towards the Purple Crystals instance portal, or you can follow the orange glowing crystals jutting out of the walls to enter Mauradon via the Orange Crystals instance portal: two separate start points into the same instance.

Both Purple and Orange dungeon runs logically lead onto Pristine Waters. It’s kind of a Y shape – two instance runs leading to one final section.

The Purple Crystal run, containing the lowest level enemies and thus first in the series, will start you in a blue shadowed area called The Wicked Grotto. I hope you’re ready to kill some imps and demons!

The good news? Purple Crystals is a super fast instance run. The bad news? Purple Crystals is a super fast instance run. There’s only one boss to kill in order to receive Blizzard’s little completion box and a pat on the back for a job well done. You’ll probably finish your first run thinking: is that it? Never fear, I’ve included the directions to an extra boss if you’re left wanting more.

The Map

Maraudon Purple Crystals: Map with path and bosses marked

The bosses are:

1. Lord Vyletongue
2. Celebras the Cursed
   Technically Celebras doesn’t really fit into the Purple Crystals run at all. Once you’ve killed Lord Vyletongue, the game will award you for completing the run. However, the next boss you come to in the original Mauradon (pre-segmented) is Celebras, and the poor guy isn’t part of either the Orange Crystals or Pristine Waters segments either. So I’ve tacked him on here. Plus some of your group members might have the quest to kill/talk to him and get his staff.

Still Want More?

As I mentioned above, you’ll probably kill Lord Vyletongue, get your satchel and stand around saying “so… we’re done?” to your other similarly bewildered party members. If you, and rest of your party, want to get more XP returned for the time spent in queue you can keep heading west towards Celebras the Cursed.

If you’ve killed Celebras and still want more, you can head south then east and jump off the edge when you reach the waterfall to begin a Pristine Waters run. Be careful, though. Blizzard defines the appropriate level for Pristine Waters as 41-53 but from experience I wouldn’t try this unless your tank and DPSers are all level 44+. The hydras in the water are about level 46 and you’re going to be in a word of hurt if you’re missing more than hitting.

The bosses in Pristine Waters are level 48 elites.

The Corpse Run

The absolutely worst part of Maraudon is the spirit run back to the instance portal. Avoid wiping at all costs!

If you’re a Warlock, be diligent about keeping your soulstone up on the healer. If you’re a soulstone’d healer, be very careful not to use your soulstone until you’re absolutely sure it’s safe and the area around you is clear of enemy mobs. Shamans with their self-ressurection would be a godsend here, too. Unfortunately none of my runs happened to include a Shaman.

If you have no other option, here’s how to get back:

1. Run north and west from the graveyard up towards the Valley of Spears. On your map there are two huts drawn in, you want to aim for the southern one. Keep an eye out for the summoning stone. Then look up towards the north west and you’ll see a giant gargoyle looking entrance with some closed stone doors – run in.
2. Inside the cavern. Walk half way across the bridge and turn left and jump right off. Follow that tunnel!
3. You’ll get to a wide open room with Purple Crystals marking the left side of the room, Orange Crystals marking the right and an altar/wall decoration thing in the center. Go left, towards the Purple Crystals (if you can’t make out the colours in spirit form, go left).
4. Follow the crystal tunnel. When you get to the bridge, head straight across and continue to follow the path towards the left.
5. Continue through the tunnel until you reach a wide open cavern with bridges in the distance. Turn immediately to your right and you should be able to see the instance portal!

Here’s those instructions in picture form:

Slideshow: Getting to the instance portal. Click and press "play" to see all steps.

Step 2: Entrance

Step 3: Jump!

Step 4: Follow the tunnel

Step 5: Keep following...

Step 6: T intersection - go left!

Step 7: Bridge

Step 8: Follow the path

Step 9: Keep following...

Step 10: The cavern

Step 11: Turn right

Step 12: You made it!

Standing in front of the Staff of Prehistoria (used to summon Ironaya) in Uldaman

One of the nicest surprises the Dungeon Finder has given me has been Uldaman. Not the Uldaman of my past, but Uldaman without all the crap. Uldaman for fun and XP. Uldaman has a bad reputation, but most of it doesn’t really apply anymore:

1. Home of the only Artisan Enchanting Trainer in the world
Can you believe that once you reached a certain level of enchanting (225, I believe) the only way to visit the Enchanting Trainer was to trek into Uldaman. Even on your own at level 60 this sucked.

2. Getting to the instance portal is half the work
This is also true of Blackfathom Deeps and the Deadmines in my opinion. If you travel there, old school style, you actually need about 20 minutes to clear and find your way through a maze of tunnels to reach the instance portal. And there’s no flight path nearby either. Definitely a mood, and group, killer.

3. It’s ugly
The scenery is pretty bad – lots of dust and lots of dwarves.

Ok, the last one is still a problem.

Like others I have gotten lost in Uldaman many times in the past. However, when I came to put this map together, I realised that once you take your eyes off the wonky, half-mined out tunnels and winding caverns and look at your mini-map the way through isn’t as obscured as you think.

The great things about Uldaman:

1. Lots of bosses in a short distance
2. Lots of mass AoE, no caster, pulls
3. XP, XP, XP!

Having run Scarlet Monastery for the good part of a decade – if you can call 10 levels a decade – it’s nice to queue a dungeon and translate that 20 minutes waiting time into an instance which returns more than 20 minutes of experience gains.

And the tanks that I’ve been grouped with have all been keen to clear the entire zone for experience. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Map

Uldaman, colour coded, with bosses and travel path marked

View/download the full size map here:

http://www.hotsdots.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/uldaman-map.jpg

The bosses are:

1. Revelosh In preparation for summoning Ironaya take note of which party member has looted the Staff of Tsol from the body of Revelosh. If you want to summon Ironaya this person needs to loot the next time otherwise: no boss! Cross-server groups mean you cannot trade these items so be careful.
2. Baelog (Horde only boss) and/or Baelog’s Chest You’ll find some Alliance quest-givers in this room – which Horde can kill for loot. Alliance and Horde players should send the player holding the Staff of Tsol up to open and loot Baelog’s Chest which you’ll find in this room.
3. Ironaya If one player has both the Staff and the Medallion (from the chest) they can combine these two items in their inventory and click on a marker in the center of the room to open a door and bring out Ironaya – an optional, summoned boss.
4. Obsidian Sentinel He’s not much of a boss, but he does drop an item for a Mage class quest as I discovered.
5. Ancient Stone Keeper
6. Galgann Firehammer
7. Grimlok
8. Archaedas You’ll complete an event (unlocking 4 stone sentinel statue things) towards the end of the instance. Go through the gate and head west, down the ramp and double back til you end up in a circular room directly underneath where Archaedas waits.

The Run(s)

What can I say? I’ve actually only gone back into Uldaman twice and I’m level 44 now – it’s green difficulty for me – and I doubt I’ll get queued for Uldaman much more often. Once you reach level 41 the Dungeon Finder likes to group you with other level 41 players and send you to Mauradon (Orange) where the bosses are level 46. Enjoy those misses!

The two Uldaman runs that I’ve been part of have been absolutely excellent – definitely some of the best I’ve experienced on any of my characters, level 80 or otherwise. Perhaps it’s just at this level that tanks can really seem to keep up with my AoE damage, threat wise.

Is there anything more fun than Blizzard-ing scores of troggs and dwarves into oblivion, raking in the experience and playing with some genuinely nice players? I’ve been having a blast!

The Dormitory: One mailbox does not make a city.

… a menace rose up from the bowels of the earth and invaded Gnomergan… The surviving Gnomes fled to the safety of the Dwarven stronghold, Ironforge. There they remained devising strategies to retake their city.

If you’ve ever started a Gnome and listened to the voice over, you’ve probably wondered why a few of the elites in Ironforge just walk down the road and retake the goddamn city?

There must be some other reason why the Gnomes still choose to hang out in Tinker Town in Ironforge. I believe the reason is simple: They don’t really want it back. And why would they? The Domitory must be the most uninhabitable living quarters I’ve ever seen.

The Guide

For level 20 somethings, you’ll be dropped using the Dungeon Finder right inside the portal. I’m going to assume that’s your starting point. There’s actually a back entrance you could use on subsequent runs and some quest stuff located just outside the instance portal.

I’ll leave those out of my basic Map, which is intended for players who get handed Gnomeregan when they queue for a classic dungeon. I’ll do my best to help you out with the quests later on in the guide.

The Map

The only way I could map the travel path through the instance was by breaking it down into 4 layers/levels. Which makes for a very long map. It’s like Oculus in reverse – starts at the top and works down level by level.

Map of Gnomeregan - with bosses and travel path marked.

View/download the full size map here:

http://www.hotsdots.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/GNOmap.jpg

The bosses are:

1. Grubbis When you arrive, talk to the friendly litte Gnome to start an event that ends with killing Grubbis. Some groups will demand that everyone jumps at the very beginning of the instance, thus skipping this guy. Jumping that distance is dangerous and a waste of loot in my opinion.
2. Viscous Fallout A corrupted water elemental. He patrols along a wide circle around the room.
3. Electrocutioner 6000 Drops the workshop key as well as loot.
4. Crowd Pummeler 9-60 There are a few different ways to reach Pummeler. I’ve marked my preferred path because even though it looks complicated (you down to the lowest level only to take a lift back up to reach the boss) it’s less mobs because you’re clearing towards the last boss then taking a brief detour. If the group is getting a bit tired you can just skip him at the last moment.
5. Mekgineer Thermaplugg If you killed Pummeler you’ll need to back track to that main south-west leading wide corridor. Once you’re on that stretch he’s easy to find. Congratulations!

The Graveyard Run

Spirit Running to Gnomeregan as Horde

Your group wiped. I’m so sorry. Here’s how to find your way back to the instant portal from the closest graveyard. As far as I can tell it’s pretty much the same run for Horde and Alliance:

1. Run directly west over the lake. Take the main path down the tunnel into Gnomeregan.
2. Follow the tunnel down and down until you reach a circular room with no other way out. Stand on the lift in the center of the room, alternatively wait for 30 seconds or so until the lift arrives, and you’ll drop down one level further.
3. Once you reach the Train Depot you can either turn north or west. Take the upper path heading west and continue along the curve until you reach the instance portal.

Preparation and Quests for Alliance

Normally I wouldn’t bother doing all the Gnomeregan quests. However, if you’re using the Dungeon Finder tool almost exclusively to level up (it’s becoming a popular method of earning XP) then it might be worth spending some time preparing for your first Gnomeregan run.

There are a heck of a lot of Gnomeregan quests. I’ll make some suggestions on the tricky ones here that might stump members of your group.

In addition to all the quests given out in Tinker Town:

• a Gnome in Kharnos will give you a quest (he also has a Gnomeregan follow up for your 2nd run) and
• Shoni in the Dwarven District of Stormwind has a quest too.
• There’s also an escort quest you can start from inside Gnomeregan. I’d skip this one, but if you want to do it look for Kernobee when you’re in the Domitory in one of the south or east rooms before you reach Viscous Fallout. You’ll have to escort him all the way back to the start – the opposite direction to where you’re going.

Pre-queue Quest 1, Solo: Save Techbot’s Brain!

You’ll need to head down to Gnomeregan to start this one before using the Dungeon Finder. Pick up Data Rescue aswell because you start that in the same place.

Head to Gnomeregan in Dun Morogh and once you’ve taken the lift down head keep heading north (ignoring the west corridor which leads to the instance portal) into the Train Depot.

In a small room to the west of the central platform you’ll find Techbot. He’s not an elite and is definitely solo-able.

By the way, the northern corridor from the Train Depot leads to a back door into the instance if you have the Workshop Key and means you could, if not with a cross-realm party, shortcut to the last 2 bosses in the instance.

Pre-queue Quest 2, Solo first part: Data Rescue AKA The Punch Cards One

As above, head into the Train Depot inside Gnomeregan. Make sure you loot each kill until you loot a White Punch Card from one of the Lepers.

Before leaving the Train Depot find one of the little machines around the place, they’re called Matrix Punchographs, and click it to turn your White Punch Card into a Yellow Punch Card.

Now that you have an Yellow Punch Card you’re ready to join a Dungeon Finder run for Gnomeregan. If you follow the path mapped out above and kill all bosses, click on a Matrix Punchograph found near each boss to upgrade it. The Matrix Punchographs near Pummeller/Thermaplugg on the lowest floor should spit out a Prismatic Punch Card and complete the quest for you.

We're not dual boxing. And we have different staffs.

Razorfen Kraul (RFK) is another one of those instances that I’ve hardly ever run while leveling up previous characters.

It’s located in the south-west corner of the Barrens in Horde territory. As an Alliance player you usually don’t come close to the Barrens until you head to Theramore sometime after level 30 to begin questing in Duskwallow Marsh. The road to the Barrens leads out from the west side of Duskwallow. RFK is almost too low an instance for earning experience by the time you reach it as Alliance.

I think of it as a Horde instance – to match the Alliance’s Stormwind Stockades perhaps – and it’s for level 25-30 characters. So it was quite a thrill to be teleported directly to the dungeon using the Dungeon Finder tool yesterday.

Unfortunately both Lathere and I had forgotten our way around the instance. And nobody else seemed to remember the way either. So I was careful to record our path and map it out here for you. And me. May I never get lost in RFK again.

The Map

Razorfen Kraul map with bosses and paths marked. Click to enlarge.

The bosses are:

1. Roogug. This boss is completely optional (we skipped him) but if you want to kill him, do it first. He drops an item for a Warrior-only quest (Alliance) (Horde).
2. Aggem Thorncurse
3. Death Speaker Jargba
4. Overlord Ramtusk
5. Agathelos the Raging Be sure to kill all the mobs, even the passive wolves, standing infront of the purple barrier to reach Agathelos
6. Charlga Razorflank This guy is the last boss. Grats!
7. Willix the Importer Not a boss. Willix is a friend quest giver that offers an escort quest. If it’s your first time in RKF, or it is for several party members, you might want to jump down after killing Charlga and complete this quest. The escort is quite long – path marked in faded pink.

The Run

The only problem with this particular run was that it was going… too well. Our party DPS seemed to be very high. Our tank was confident and swiftly pulling one cluster at a time. Our healer seemed very capable. I remember saying to Lathere over Vent about 10 minutes in “this party is like, really good“.

Unfortunately really good things don’t seem to last.

One of the most dangerous things that I’ve noticed when running these low level dungeons is the number of enemy mobs that freak out when they’re at low health and run away. And they don’t conveniently run towards the group, they tend to turn around and run further into the instance to grab their buddies. This was definitely the case in Razorfen Kraul where the majority of enemies are Gnolls (humanoids).

I find that this is particularly a problem when you’re following the AOE-it-all mindset. If you evenly reduce the health bars on 5 mobs at a time they’ll all reach 10% health around the same time and scatter in every direction possible. It’s nearly impossible to pick them off before they get their friends. I’m making an effort to only AOE a group (if we have that many targets that it’s definitely worthwhile) only down to about 30-40% health then switching to single-target mode, picking off each target by assisting the tank. Alternatively, a Rogue’s stun or some speedy melee DPS would be really quick at picking off low-health mobs.

Our group DPS was mostly caster based, and about half way through the run a stray mob got out of range and pulled a patrol and some casters. We wiped, slowly but surely. In party chat the tank was telling our Night Elf Druid healer to Shadowmeld (presumably to escape combat, let the mobs reset, and then resurrect). It didn’t work. The tank didn’t believe the Druid understood how Shadowmeld worked, and was convinced that he hadn’t really used it properly. I think there was also some questions raised about whether or not Lathere had thought to Soulstone the healer as she was playing a Warlock.

The tank got a bit insistent that Shadowmeld could have saved the day. The healer got angry because the tank had pulled when they were drinking/out of range. The tank quit.

Hey, at least Lathere discovered that she did indeed have Soulstone available to her!

We waited a while for a replacement tank and ended up inviting a mate on his new Death Knight (level 63 isn’t really ideal for Razorfen Kraul experience gains by the way) just to finish things off before people had to leave.

If you choose to skip the optional first boss (which we did, by mistake) and don’t do the escort at the end of the instance, Razorfen Kraul is a pretty quick instance. It also looks a heck of a lot more complicated to navigate than it actually is. It’s all fairly flat, but the winding branches obscure the path when you look at the mini map.

Hot topic: Are Paladins superior compared to Warriors, for tanking Blackfathom Deeps, at level 25?

Absolutely ages ago (well six months ago) Lathere and I struggled to find our way around Scholomance. We were trying to do quick Argent Dawn rep runs and found ourselves running in circles instead hoping to magically unlock gates and doors. It doesn’t help that I have a terrible sense of direction both in game and in RL.

Even with a map open from WowWiki or the like, I would still get lost in Scholomance. All I want to see is a clear path that shows me where I start, in what direction to reach the first boss, how to reach the second boss etc etc. In the end I made up my own colour-coded diagram for Scholomance. Today I made one for Blackfathom Deeps.

I’ve queued the Random Classic Dungeon for my little baby Mage (currently level 25) a few times over the last couple of days. I’ve been sent to Stockades most frequently, and those runs have been pretty damn good. But when I was dropped into Blackfathom Deeps it was… an experience.

I’ve run Blackfathom Deeps two or three times over the last three years. I did complete it once with a level appropriate party of 20-somethings when I was leveling Xata. Cassandri did a run through at level 80 for a couple of achievements. So I remembered it very, very vaguely. I knew there was swimming, sink holes, turtles, murlocs and cultists. And an “event” that if not handled correctly will not let you through to the final boss. The layout of the instance is really a big watery cavern with several corridors radiating out from the center. When you run south from the entrance into that main cavern you want to clear each corridor in a counter-clockwise manner. The final corridor branches off to the south and then east. Map below.

The Map

Blackfathom Deeps map with travel path and bosses marked. Click to enlarge.

The bosses are:

1. Ghamoo-ra You won’t have any problems spotting this big turtle.
2. Lady Sarevess
3. Gelihast After you kill him, touch the altar behind his body for a small buff.
4. Lorgus Jett Multiple spawn points.
5. Baron Aquanis
6. Old Serra’kis We skipped him by mistake, but to reach him you need to jump off the stone ramp leading east into the final temple and swim underneath and then north.
7. Twilight Lord Kelris Make sure you clear this whole room then one by one light the braisers around the center square and kill the mobs that spawn. Until you complete this event you cannot go through the doors to the final boss.
8. Aku’mai You made it!

The Run

Frankly I’d have preferred it if the WoW Gods of Randomness had given me a difficult party to complete Stockades and a good party to complete Blackfathom Deeps. But it didn’t quite work out that way. Let’s see if I can remember the members:

Leader. Priest. Queued to heal but made people eat food so that they could spend the entire time in combat attacking creatures with a staff instead of actually… healing. After the first wipe one party member left and we were forced to requeue and the Priest was then assigned to DPS. They continued melee attacking mobs with their staff until about the half way (1+ hour in) point when I broke down and said “Moretotems is healing now so you can Smite to help kill our target now”. Once we reached the cultists (last 2 bosses) they suddenly learned how to play and it turns out that they had been AFK for the previous hour and had gotten their little cousin to take the controls up til that point. Thanks. Oh yeah, apparently has 5-10 level 80s.

Resto Shaman. Our replacement healer. Fantastic.

Warrior Tank. Possibly a first time player, definitely a first time tank. They did their best, but struggled to hold aggro and seemed more comfortable when other players did the pulling for them. By about half way through I stopped putting up skulls to mark the way and instead (along with the Shaman healer) just started pulling.

Melee Shaman. Convinced that somehow the run would have been so much easier if we just got a Paladin instead of a Warrior tank. And hey, we should listen to him because he has a level 80 and his gear score is like nearly 6k.

Me. An ignorant Mage who has frosty talents and generates a whole heap of threat. My Mage Trainer won’t give me the How to Ice Block lesson no matter how much I /beg. Fortunately I have lots of health pots and bandages. I am willing to Polymorph, although nobody seems to like it when I suggest it.

Actually I’m really surprised at how resistant to CCing players are in groups this time around. It’s a really noticeable difference in grouping since I last leveled a character. But perhaps that’s a topic for another day.

Towards the end of the instance while I was trying to gently teach our friendly Warrior tank about line of sight pulls, we wiped. And let me tell you it’s a really awful spirit run back from the southern point of Darkshore. During that run the Priest and the DPS Shaman got into a heated debate about whether or not a Paladin would have made a better tank for Blackfathom Deeps than the Warrior we had and why Ret is cool even though it’s hard not to hate how OP it is while leveling and, you guessed it, who has the most tricked out number of level 80s.

Because, of course, the player with the most impressive main character automatically wins any argument. I tend to believe that it’s mostly lies and exaggeration, and very little fact. Quoting your (conveniently absent) main’s gear score is actually lamer than … well, I think that’s the possibly the worst use of Gear Score I’ve come across so far!

If I remember correctly at that level my Paladin didn’t have any other method of pulling mobs except by just wading in and auto attacking, or getting in close enough for a Judgement. Rank 1 Consecration is available at level 20. But our Warrior had Thunder Clap so they definitely had some ability to handle multiple mobs at once. I found this “a Paladin would be so much better at tanking this” pretty baffling. It’s a baffling to take that attitude at level 80 – all the tanking classes get equivalent abilities. And we’re talking level 25, here!

It was a really long run. And I think we accidentally skipped a boss (Old Serra’kis) towards the end.

Still, it’s better than Gnomeregan. And the XP was pretty sweet. The rare reward you earn from using the Dungeon Finder to complete the Random Classic Dungeon has given me a rare piece of armor each time – and every time it’s been a piece that I can equip, even if sometimes the stats aren’t right for me (eg, a +strength cloak).

ps. I dusted off my Blood Elf Paladin (level 23, created at the start of the Burning Crusade) to take that screen capture above. Gosh it was fun soloing all those elites! I just might spend some more time with her…