Bannok Grimaxe Soloing Guide Arcanite Reaper (Doomhammer gold)
Finding and Soloing Bannok Grimaxe
Bannok Grimaxe is a rare spawn in Lower Blackrock Spires. He has a rare drop of Plans: Arcanite Reaper. The Arcanite Reaper is a very powerful two handed axe which often faces some controversy as people say that it is overpowered and needs nerfed. (But then according to the same masses what doesn t need to be nerfed?)
Starting Information:
1. Bannok spawn rate: Approximately 2-5% (Estimation is based on several hundred runs.)
2. Plan drop rate: Approximately 10% (Estimation based on 10 kills and compaired to wow.allakhazam.com and www.thottbot.com)
3. Bannok always spawns in the same cluster of tents right before the named spider. However he does not always spawn at the same spot. He is always sitting Indian style and will spawn in 1 of 3 locations.
3A. With your back to the river of lava facing the tents he will spawn under the hut closest to you on your left. He will be facing away from you looking towards the other orcs.
3B. Moving down the corridor between the tents he will spawn in the corner on your right and he will be facing the direction of the first spawn point.
3C. Continuing down the corridor and into the large open area with the two giant cart s he will be sitting beside the big cart on your left at the front of it facing towards the sleeping guys behind the opposite cart. (Right at the edge of the wall where it turns left and heads towards the spiders.)
4. You must be level 60 to attempt soloing Bannok. While you might able to kill him by himself below level 60 it will be next to impossible to get him with out aggroing friends.
5. Crippling Poison is not necessary as he will not run away at low health.
6. Make a macro that is /target Bannok and put it on your bar.
7. For those wondering I am a 21/8/22 build.
Getting to and Finding Bannok Grimaxe:
1. Upon entering Blackrock Spires you will want to pick pocket one of the guards in the first room. (Explained later)
2. Watch for Patrollers and the Orc that paths back and forth from the fire in the first room. Go up the ramp to the right and immediately turn right towards the broken ledge and jump down.
3. Go down the ramp towards the Orcs and two Worgs. There is a patrol of 2 Orcs that go in and out of the door so watch out for them.
4. Going in the door you follow it until you see a small group of Orcs right outside the exit of the hall you re in. Hug the wall going right and jump off the ledge. There is a small ledge below that you can land on and yes its very dark on that ledge. (Be sure to hug the wall or you might land in the lava and die.)
5. Hugging the wall move forward until you come to the end and jump off. You are now in a corner on another ledge. Follow the new wall left until you come to the end of it. Looking down you should see a bunch of Orcs. Be sure to watch out for the single patroller and jump when it s clear.
6. Move so that you re at the edge of tents and press your Bannok key you made. (/target Bannok) If he s up go to the next part of the guide if he s not continue with the next step. You will be able to target him at all three locations with the macro even from the front of the huts, make sure to go to the edge of the huts though.
7. Ok so he s not up it is now time to head back up and reset the instance. (Expect this to happen a lot!) Follow the river of lava left and continue down that path. You ll come to a part with a troll who is very close to the wall that. You can safely walk behind him with out him aggroing you. But I advise not lingering to see what happens.
8. After continuing down the path you ll come into a large room full of Trolls. You have to cross the room and go up the ramp on the other side. (Again watch for patrollers there are several groups.)
9. Going up the ramp immediately turn right and go up the next ramp. You should now see 4 Trolls all facing each other. You can safely walk in between them with out drawing aggro. However be sure to watch out for the single patrolling Troll that goes from left to right and back.
10. Turn left and go up the ramp after reaching the top head for the door on the right side. There is one troll who will path through the door and then go back just outside the door to a stationary position be sure to watch out for him when going through this door.
11. After going through the door go up the ramp and immediately turn right. (Between the large pillar and the wall) You should come out near 3 Ogres. Hug the pillar go left.
12. Heading left you will see a series of rope bridges on your left hand side. Go across those bridges.
13. After crossing all the bridges there should be a ramp on the right side leading upwards. Go up that ramp and you ll find yourself at the door where you hugged the wall and jumped off the ledge in the beginning. From here getting out should be easy.
14. To reset the instance just invite some one while you re in the instance and then leave the group. (Be sure to be near the exit so that you have time to get out before you get kicked to the inn your hearthstone is bound)
15. After leaving the exit just go back in and Pick Pocket the same NPC you did before. If he has any loot you know it s a new instance. If his pockets are empty you will know it s the instance you where in before.
Soloing Bannok Grimaxe:
Basic Information:
1. Don t bother trying to back stab as there is not enough room to move around and back stab him in location 2 or 3. For this fight I just pulled my never before used Thrash Blade out of the bank and spammed Sinister strike.
2. Crippling poison is not necessary as he does no run away.
3. Open with Ambush when possible as you will want to immediately move back so that you don t aggro Bannok s buddies.
Location 1:
1. For this location I first wait for the patroller and after he starts going down the corridor between the tents I distract him. (Gives me an extra 10 seconds before he comes back)
2. I then open with a Cold Blood Ambush and immediately walk backwards towards the lava. (If not his friends will aggro.)
3. Immediately use Evasion and spam Sinister Strike and Eviscerate. (Use Cold Blood on Eviscerate if you haven t used it yet)
4. Now use preparation if you have it and use Evasion again once it wears off.
5. Spam Sinister Strike and Eviscerate (With Cold Blood if you have preparation) until he s dead. Use a potion if necessary. (For me I would finish each fight with about 1k hp left with out using a potion.)
6. Loot as quickly as possible and re-stealth before the roamer comes back. (You won t have much time and might have to stealth before looting.)
Location 2:
1. This is basically the same as location 1 the only difference being is the positioning for the fight. I tried to position him so that I was in the corner hitting him. But it turned out he would be out of range of my attacks but he could still hurt me. (Maybe it s a gnome thing?)
2. He is in the corner and you have two walls one very small and the other a very long one. Hug the small part of the wall and use your opener use the same tactics as location 1. (Nothing will aggro you.)
Location 3:
1. It is not possible to use an opener on this guy with out aggroing the other 3 orcs near by. (You will die very quickly.)
2. Make sure you have him targeted and go into the corner amongst the crates behind the big cart. Pull him to you with your ranged weapon. (Line of site is not an issue with the cart.)
3. Use the same strategy as the previous two locations for this part you might need a heal potion.
Midgame Guide: Hunter Leveling (Magtheridon gold)
This is a guide to leveling as a hunter. I will discuss leveling methods, gear and talent specs.
The class
The hunter is a ranged DPS class, so don’t try to play it any other way (NO, you can’t be a melee hunter. Roll a rogue instead). A well played hunter is a asset to any group, since they can DPS all out and wipe all their agro with feign death and repeat. Furthermore their pets are excellent to keep on standby as bodyguards for the healers. Also pets, when solo, can get you out of most sticky situations; just leave it to die and run away and feign death.
Leveling methods
Hunters are one of the easiest, if not the easiest, class to level. Due to their pet they can distract mobs around quest items or simply get clean away and FD without fear of getting resisted. As other classes, you can either quest or grind your levels. I prefer to mix it up and grind when I am short on time or couldn’t be arsed to travel to an area and find my way around.
Whichever you choose, I highly suggest doing nothing but instances from 58-60 to gear up and get all your key quests done. Not doing so, means missing out on a huge amount of XP.
The traditional ways are:
Grinding:
Not much to say about this. You kill mobs, they give XP, you lvl. If you don’t have a comprehensive knowledge of where quests take you and which order is best, grinding is pretty fast for leveling.
It can be pretty boring, but listening to music or being on Vent/TS helps a lot. Get a rhytm going and stay in it. Take breaks when you mana up to not go completely blind 
The following is pretty good list of where to grind which mobs. It is however from a Horde perspective and you need to scroll down a bit to get to the guide If you read the whole bit, there are some suggestions for alternatives, which work just as well…if not better.
http://www.mpsgames.com/ms/index.cfm?page=…&forumid=63
And the following lists some nice alliance spots for grinding. Also are some suggestions on questing.
http://www.wow-pro.com/Knowledge_Base/op=show/kid=515.html
Questing:
If you know your way around the world, this is the fastest way to level up. This is also known as gresting to some. Decent horde guides are few and far between (there are some on this site), alliance have it a lot better.
Horde - if you are horde, use Joana’s guide. That will take you from 1-60 in 5 days /played. It’s written from a hunter perspective, so my suggestion is staggering your progress in the guide by a lvl or two. Other than that, there are some (admittedly with holes in them) guides here in the strat section. An idea is to try and modify the following Alliance guide.
http://forums.blizzhackers.com/viewtopic.php?t=309717 is the text guide (thanks Bay_Cassius
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=wow+…warcraft+levels are links to all the videos (thanks sQren)
Alliance - if you are Alliance, you got it made! The following guide will quickly and easily take you from 30-60. Reason it’s 30, is because of the quests pre that are in and around the starter areas, so just level quickly to 30 and you are set.
http://www.wow-pro.com/Knowledge_Base/cat=135.html
Talent specs
For leveling I recommend Beastmastery (BM) and then Marksman(MM) up to 60. If you decide doing 58-60 in instances, consider re-speccing to Marksman/survival (link to endgame guide: hunter later).
Reason for BM, is that it really makes a difference in your pet and your pet isn’t gear dependent (unlike you). With full BM, your pet has about the same DPS as you autoshooting.
This is the spec I suggest for leveling:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=mi0h0xgRttVohx
31 BM / 20 MM
Go BM until 40, then MM up to Aimed shot and then fill out the rest of MM. With BM, your pet holds agro like a champ and you won’t be able to peel it off of it.
Method of pulling: pull with a serpent sting, send in pet, auto shoot it until dead. If it runs, concussive shot it and maybe fire off an Arcane shot. The most important thing when grinding/questing is to stack your mana use, so you get long periods of mana-regen (eg. hunter mark mob, sting it, wait until mob starts to run, then conc shot+arcan shot it. This way you have 20 or so secs of mana regen). This way you don’t need drinks at all.
Gear
Hunters get mail at 40 and a nice set for that is the ‘tough scorpid’ set.http://www.thottbot.com/?s=tough+scorpid It’s all AGI and SPI, so you hit hard and regen mana fast. It can be a bit tricky to get the set, so feel free to mix in any kind of AGI gear. AP-gear can often be had as well, so if you get some cheap AP gear toss that in the mix. The endgame guide: hunter has a bit more on gear, so check that out for gear at 58-60.
PETS!
A good site for pet info is this one:
http://www.goodintentionsguild.info/hunters.html
It’s a bit outdated, but the lay out is really good and it has a lot of info.
Getting a pet is a question of doing a quest at lvl 10 (get it from your trainer), then go tame a pet. As you progress your career, you can put down a freezing trap, use aspect of monkey and tame it. This way you won’t get hit much.
Pet choice up to 37-38 is optional, but cats are always good. Alternatively get a boar, since they have some nice specials (a root). At 37/38 go to Badlands and get Broken Tooth. He is a rare spawn with a 1.00 attack speed, which almost guarantees he will get a frenzy proc early in the fight, so he is worth the wait.
Here is some info about him:
http://www.thottbot.com/?n=657251
And here are his spawn points:
http://www.thottbot.com/?m=657251
You will have to camp the spots for him, since he is rare, but if you stand in the middle of the map up on a ledge you can ‘Eagle eye’ all 3 spawn points. He spawns around the ridge stalkers in the area, but he is NOT stealthed, so if you see a sand-coloured cat, it’s most likely Broken Tooth.
Keep and use Broken Tooth until 60. At 60, get a boar as well (From EPL) and get a wolf from LBRS (since they have the highest rank dash and bite, and they also have furious howl, which is a pretty decent raid damage adder).
The boar is easy enough to get, but the wolf can be tricky to get without a group. You can however easily duo it with another hunter (the easiest wolf to get is in a patrol with 2 wolfs and one humanoid after the ogres and the small insects) and 2-3 pots of invis and liberal use of FD+pet distraction. PLEASE bring a pet you don’t mind getting rid of when you attempt to get the wolf
Here is a walk-through to getting it. Soloing takes very good gear, so I recommend bringing a friend or being willing to use a lot of pots and elixirs.
http://petopia.brashendeavors.net/html/tameLBRSworgsolo.html
Life after 60
I wrote an Endgame guide: hunter, which you should read if you plan on PVE-raiding
http://www.mpsgames.com/ms/index.cfm?page=…&forumid=62
Other than that, enjoy your hunter. It’s a rewarding class, and people will love grouping with you…if you are a good player. There are however a lot of sucky hunters, so be ready to take some prejudice But it’s still by far the best farmer and in PVE it’s a very good DPS’er.
Ignis - Ulduar - Hobbs - World of Warcraft
For more information on the items dropped this video head to wowhobbs.blogspot.com
Fishing Money Making Guide (Icecrown gold)
(Horde)First get fishing and train it in Orgrimmar to about 70. Then head to the Barrens and enter Wailing Caverns (the instance). Head into a enclosed area with some water around (prefereably the croc place) and start fishing. In a while you should start collecting Deviate Fish (Nightcrawlers or shiny baubbles shouls help), these little buggers can sell up to 20g for 10-20 in the AH depending on the server. To make even more money train in cooking and get it to the same skill level as your fishing(probably 80-90) and head to the lower Barrens and get ready to kill some boarmen because they have a chance of dropping a cooking recipe of Savory Deviate Delights, which after they are made sell even more.
Paladin Guide (Uther gold)
I posted this as a reply elsewhere, but thought more people wouldm ake use of it here. So here it is:
When when you’re grinding you want to head up the retribution tree, to max out your dps. So you wanna head for SoC, then up vindication eye for an eye, etc etc. However the retribution build is next to useless end game (in my opinion), As it does not help the paladin in it’s princible ability (survivability). Anyway below is the first template, for grinding to 60 - and then below it there is an end game build.
Grinding build:
Retribution:
10-11-12-13-14: Improved Blessing of Might Rank 5/5 (This is your first step toward greater dps).
15-16-17-18-19: Benediction Rank 5/5 (Whilst not useful at these levels it brings you closer to the grinding essential Seal of Command.)
20: Seal of Command Rank 1/1 (/cheer).
26-27-28-29-30: Conviction Rank 5/5 (More crits = more dps).
31-32-33: Vindication Rank 3/3 (Potentially reducing the ammount of damage you take, thus decreasing downtime)
34-35: Eye for an Eye, Rank 2/2 OR Pursuit of Justice Rank 2/2 (Neither are that useful but are good point fillers).
36-37-38: 2 Handed Weapon Specialisation Rank 3/3 (Again allows for higher damage, great crit chance, etc).
39: Santicity Aura, (Bit more dps).
40-41-42-43-44: Vengeance Rank 5/5 (Again dps increase).
45: Repentance Rank 1/1 (Not that useful for grinding, but cant hurt if you need an emergency heal).
Protection:
46-47-48-49-50: Improved Devotion Aura Rank 5/5 (Less damage taken = less down time).
51-52-53-54-55: Toughness Rank 5/5 (See above)
Holy:
21-22-23-24-25: Divine Strength Rank 5/5 (This adds to your attack power, thus increasing dps).
56-57-58-59-60: Useful for healing when taking a beating.
When you hit 60 immediately respec if you want to be vaguely respectable in pve. Paladin is about survivability, and support healing (and primarily cleansing). Retribution helps you with none of these. The following 2 are 2 reasonable templates for end game raiding.
Template 1:
Holy Talents - 31 points
Divine Intellect - rank 5/5
Spiritual Focus - rank 5/5
Healing Light - rank 3/3
Unyielding Faith - rank 2/2
Illumination - rank 5/5
Improved Blessing of Wisdom - rank 2/2
Divine Favor - rank 1/1
Lasting Judgement - rank 3/3
Holy Power - rank 5/5
Protection Talents - 9 points
Improved Devotion Aura - rank 5/5
Toughness - rank 4/5
Retribution Talents - 11 points
Benediction - rank 5/5
Deflection - rank 5/5
Seal of Command - rank 1/1
Template 2:
Holy Talents - 15 points
Divine Intellect - rank 5/5
Spiritual Focus - rank 5/5
Healing Light - rank 3/3
Unyielding Faith - rank 2/2
Protection Talents - 25 points
Improved Devotion Aura - rank 5/5
Precision - rank 3/3
Guardian’s Favor - rank 2/2
Toughness - rank 5/5
Blessing of Kings - rank 1/1
Improved Hammer of Justice - rank 3/3
Improved Concentration Aura - rank 1/3
Reckoning - rank 5/5
Retribution Talents - 11 points
Improved Blessing of Might - rank 5/5
Benediction - rank 5/5
Seal of Command - rank 1/1
Speed-running Blackrock Depths Level 50-70 (Eq account)
Blackrock Depths Guide
Introduction:
Blackrock Depths is to this day the biggest instance you can find
in Azeroth, it is a huge zone, and this guide will help you to find
your way in it. This zone has also the biggest amount of quests ever
seen in an instance. We try to keep everything to the minimum in the
walkthrough.
We highly recommend you read the quest gathering
section carefully before anything, because many quests are
linked to each other, many have pre-requisites, some start outside
the instanced area even. Be aware that BRD (BlackRock Depths), has
been designed for a solid 5-man group, and that it also has been
designed to clear the instances a few times before you get to
complete every quest (especially the most rewarding ones). You can be
sure you will at the very least do 3 BRD runs before you have all the
quests done. Anyways, when you will be feeling at home with this
place, you will realize it is a goldmine, and you will probably want
to go back to it a few more times. (You will have to one day or
another anyways, because the portal to Molten Core is there.)
Gathering the quests:
–> There is a great map here that you will definitely need.<–
Horde & Alliance:
NOTE (Important): The quests marked in Orange
are the ones you must have up (or already completed) before you enter
the instance for the first time. Try doing the Disharmony of
Flame (Horde) / Overmaster
Pyron (Alliance) quest as soon
as possible, so you can get access to all the Orange quests listed.
If there is still a quest you can’t access, don’t worry, come back
later after your first BRD run and check again, it should get
unlocked at some point.
- [60] Attunement to the Core
(Elite) , given by Lothos Riftwaker, an elf
outside the instance. You need to do this quest to be able to
teleport easily into The Molten Core by jumping out of the window
next to Lothos Riftwaker. A must do for when you are level 60.
- [52]Dark Iron Legacy (Elite)
, given by Franclorn Forgewright, outside the instance (see
map). Franclorn is a ghost, so in order to talk to him, you must be
in ghost form (die pls!). It’s important that you get the quest from
him before entering the instance, because it’s the only way to get
the Shadowforge key, which unlocks the doors to the
interesting areas of BRD. Don’t bother with any quest not marked in
orange for now, and follow this guide blindly.
- [53]Ribbly Screwspigot (Elite)
, given by Yuka Screwspigot in Flame Crest, Burning
Steppes.Pre-req for this quest is to complete the quest Yuka
Screwspigot, given by Yorba Screwspigot in Tanaris.
- [54]The Love Potion (Elite), given by Mistress
Nagmara inside BRD, at the Grim Guzzler Tavern.
This quest requires you to gather different components in different
places of Azeroth. Completing it is worth it, besides the item
reward, Mistress Nagmara has another function. When you have
completed the Love Potion quest, on your next runs to BRD, she will
open the backdoor of the Tavern for you if you talk to her. That way
you won’t need to kill Phalanx everytime you go through the Grim
Guzzler.
- [58]The Heart of the Mountain
(Elite) , given by Maxwort Uberglint, at the
Flame Crest, Burning Steppes. This quest’s objective is to
open every coffer in the BRD Vault. For that you need your group to
have gathered 12 Vault Coffer Keys. They can drop from any
Iron Dwarf in BRD.
- [58]A Taste of Flame (Elite)
, given by Cyrus Therepentous. Objective is to kill
Bael’Gar in BRD (see map) and to capture his fiery
essence with the help of an Altered Black Dragonflight
Molt. How to get the Dragonflight Molt:
A long series of quests starting with Kalaran Windblade, in Searing Gorge, you
can find him North of the area called ‘The Cauldron’ (loc 39,39). He
will have you do a bunch of quests, starting with [48] The
Flawless Flame, until you get to the point where you get the
Torth of Retribution, and then he will send you to Squire
Maltrake. Squire Maltrake will give you the quest [52]Set
Them Ablaze!, you will have to use the Torch on the braziers
in each of the 4 towers. After you finish the quest, Kalaran will
turn into a dragon (not an aggressive one, don’t worry) and talk to
you, and a chest will appear on the ground. Opening it gives you a
quest, complete it and you will get a box. Inside this box is the
Black Dragonflight Molt. Now that you have the Black
Dragonflight Molt, go talk to Cyrus Therepentous, he is in the
Eastern part of Burning Steppes, in a cave (loc 39,39).
Horde:
- [52]Disharmony
of Flame (Elite), given by Thunderheart, in
Kargath Outpost, Badlands. Objective of this quest is to kill
Overmaster Pyron, who can be found outside of the BRD instance, he
roams around the bridge leading you to the instance portal.
- [56]Disharmony of Fire (Elite),
given by Thunderheart as well. This quest is the follow up of
Disharmony of Flame.
Objective is to kill Lord Incendius (details
about this can be found in the walkthrough) and to loot a tablet
from him.
- [52]KILL ON SIGHT: Dark Iron
Dwarves (Elite) , given by the WANTED poster
in Kargath, Badlands. Anvilrage Footmen, Warden and Guardsmen
can be found in the first areas of BRD, you can hardly miss them.
This quest leads to the following:
- [54]KILL ON SIGHT: High Ranking Dark Iron Officials
(Elite), given by the same WANTED poster after you
completed the previous quest. You can find those Dark Iron Officials
mostly on the Dark Iron Highroad (close to Bael’Gar, check
map). When you have both KILL ON SIGHT quests done, a new
quest will unlock:
- [58]Grark Lorkrub (Elite), given by Lexlort
in Kargath, Badlands. This quest will send you to Burning
Steppes, you can find Grark Lorkrub inside the Blackrock
Orc fortress, east of blackrock moutain. Finishing this
quest unlocks a last one:
- [58]Operation: Death to Angerforge (Elite),
given by Warlord Goretooth in Kargath, Badlands. (See
above for pre-requisites). Will describe later on how to get to
General Angerforge and how to kill him.
- [52]Commander Gor’Shak (Elite)
, given by Galamav the Marksman in Kargath,
Badlands (he is on top of the Guard Tower). If you don’t get
this quest, then try doing Disharmony of Flame to
unlock it. After you complete the Commander Gor’Shak script
sucessfully (Commander survives), go talk to Kharan Mighthammer. He
is in the opposite jail. Listen to his story and then you will be
sent to Thrall.
- [59]The Royal Rescue (Elite), given by Thrall
in Orgrimmar, the pre-req for this quest is to complete the
Commander Gor’Shak quest. The objective is to Kill
Emperor Dagran Thaurissan and to rescue Princess Moira
Bronzebeard. (Will be described later)
- [55]Lost Thunderbrew Reciepe
(Elite) , given by Vivian Lagrave in Kargath,
Badlands. Will describe how to get that reciepe later in the
guide.
- [55]The Last Element (Elite),
given by Shadowmage Vivian Lagrave in Kargath, Badlands.
Pre-req for this quest is to complete Disharmony of Flame.
Objective is to gather 10x Essence of the Elements, which can be
dropped by Golems and Elementals inside BRD.
- [58]The Rise of the Machines
(Elite),given by Lotwil Veriatus, East of Kargath,
Badlands. Pre-requisite for that quest is to complete [54]The
Rise of the Machines, given by Hierophant Theodora
Mulvadania in Kargath, Badlands. The pre-req quest can be
done solo at lvl 54+.
Alliance:
- [52]Overmaster Pyron (Elite),
given by Jalinda Sprig, at the Alliance outpost in Burning
Steppes. Overmaster Pyron is a Fire Elemental, you can find him
right before the intance portal to BRD.
- [56]Incendius! (Elite),
given by Jalinda Sprig as well. This quest is the follow up
of [52]Overmaster Pyron.
- [55]Hurley Blackbreath (Elite),
given by Ragnar Thunderbrew at the Tavern in Kharanos, Dun
Morogh.
- [56]The Good Stuff (Elite),
given by Oralius, at the Alliance outpost, Burning
Steppes. Any humanoid type inside BRD can drop Dark Iron Fanny
pack. You will complete this quest on your way through the instance.
- [54]Marshal Windsor (Elite)
, given by Marshal Maxwell, at the Alliance Outpost,
Burning Steppes. Objective is to find Marshal Windsor in BRD.
(see map)
- [54]Abandoned Hope (Elite), given by Marshal
Windsor in BRD as a follow-up from previous quest.
- [58]A crumpled up note (Elite), found on any
mob in BRD. Right-Clicking the note starts the quest, which
requires you to go and talk to Marshal Windsor again. The note only
starts to drop AFTER you’ve turned in [54]Abandoned
Hope (Elite) at Marshall Maxwell in Morgan’s Vigil.
- [58]A shred of Hope (Elite), given by Marshal
Windsor after bringing the Crumpled up note to him.
Objectives of that quest is to gather the marshal’s lost
information. For that you have to kill General Anvilrage and
Golem Lord Argelmach (details about this in the walkthrough).
After you complete this quest and turn it in at Marshal Windsor, he
will give you the follow up below:
- [58] Jail Break! (Elite) This is the dreaded
escort quest, you will have to escort Marshal Windsor out of BRD.
And you MUST do it, it’s a very important quest as it’s your onyxia
key quest line. Details about this will be given in the guide at the
proper moment.
- [59]Kharan Mighthammer (Elite),
given by King Magni Bronzebeard himself, in Ironforge.
Kharan Mighthammer is in one of the jails in BRD. (see map) The
pre-req for this quest is to complete [54]The Smoldering Ruins
of Thaurissan given by Royal Historian Archesonus, in
Ironforge. That quest is easy to complete solo, go to the
Ruins of Thaurissan in the Burning Steppes and look around for
little stones and click them.
After finishing the previous quest (talking to Kharan
Mighthammer), he will give you the quest The Bearer of bad
news ,go back to King Magni Bronzebeard who will give
you the follow-up quest:
- [59]The Fate of the Kingdom (Elite), objectives
are to kill Emperor Thaurissan while letting Princess
Moira Bronzebeard alive (even though she will be beating on your
group). Details about this later in the walkthrough.
Where:
The entrance to the Blackrock Mountain can be accessed
either from Searing Gorge or Burning Steppes. It
doesn’t matter what side you come from. You will appear in a large
cave, with a floating rock over the lava pit, bound by huge iron
chains to the inner walls of the moutain. This area appears on the
map, this is where Franclorn Forgewright is marked. You aren’t
in the Instance part yet, but the guide will start here…
Walkthrough:
We’re assuming you followed our directions so far and have all the
Orange quests up (or completed). Starting from that, let’s move to
the first step:
Group composition:
Note: We strongly recommend NOT going there
unless your group average is 55+ at least.
- 1. Healer:
Priest or Restauration-heavy Druid
- 2. Tank:
Warrior or Prot spec Paladin
- 3. Mage
or Warlock: TRY to get a mage (with Improved Arcane
Explosion talent), you can still do the instance without a mage, but
your life is gonna be much easier if you got one with you. Not only
for the usual benefit of having a mage (Polymorph and DPS), but more
because when you will get to the Lyceum you will need
to use AEs (Area Effect attacks) a lot.
If you don’t get a mage, try hard to get a warlock. Hellfire is a nice replacement for Arcane
Explosion. But also, Warlocks are really great to have in BRD.
Because they can banish elementals, and you will see how hard those
elemental pulls are. Having Both Mage and Warlock is great as
well.
- 4.
Support:Backup healer, tank and buffer such as Shaman
or Paladin is very nice to have.
- 5. DPS: A Rogue is the
primary choice here, improved sap helps a lot and their DPS is most
welcome. Can also go with a Hunter which is really nice dps
plus some offtanking power.
PS: This was just a
list of classes that make your life easier in BRD, it’s basically
your ‘ideal’ group setup for this zone. BUT you can still (if
playing with skill) clear BRD with weird group compositions, it will
just be harder.
1. The Jail Area:
If you don’t have a rogue with a high enough Lockpicking skill,
you will have to hunt for the Prison Cell key. It’s dropped by High
Interrogator Gerstahn, 50% drop rate. You can find Gerstahn in the
middle of the jail area. Once that is done, you can open the cells
and talk to NPCs trapped in there.
Alliance: Go talk to Kharan
Mighthammer and Marshal Windsor. (Both marked on the map)
You will normally get the follow-up quests: [54]Abandoned Hope
and The Bearer of Bad News. Don’t forget to turn those
quests in before your next BRD run. Or, if your group is ok with it,
warp to Ironforge, turn in The Bearer of Bad News and
get the follow up, then fly to Morgan’s Vigil and turn in
[54]Abandoned Hope, get the follow up, also turn in
[52]Overmaster Pyron (Elite)
and get the follow up [56]Incendius!
(Elite).
Go back to BRD, kill mobs until a
"Crumpled Note" drops, right click it to get the
quest [58] A Crumpled Up Note,
go to Marshal Windsor and turn in it, get the follow up A Shred
of Hope.
Horde: Go to Commander
Gor’Shak, and clear the camps of mobs around his cell before
talking to him. When you will talk to Commander Gor’Shak and
activate the rescue quest, a huge bunch of mobs will storm the cell
and try to kill Gor’Shak. You must protect him at all cost. This
fight is surprisingly one of the hardest to accomplish in the zone,
there is a lot of Elite mobs in the pack, you are fighting them in a
very small area, so targeting is a bitch, and on top of that,
Commander Gor’Shak doesn’t have much Hit points.
Hints:
Warrior, spam that Demorilizing Shout and then try to build solid
aggro on everything. (having Thorns or Warlock Imp DS
helps)
Everybody else, assist on the same target, take them
down one by one and fast. Watch the Health of Gor’Shak permanently
and try to see if something is hitting him (use " V "
Targets). If it’s the case, try to draw aggro from that mob, even if
you aren’t a tank type. If you fail, you have two choices, either you
reset the instance and try it again right now (you are still close to
the entrance), either you decide to try your luck on your next BRD
run.
If you suceed, congratulations, go talk to Kharan Mighthammer in
the opposite cell, listen to his story, and then you can get the
follow-up quest from Thrall ([59]The Royal Rescue),
after turning that quest in Kargath. Don’t forget to do it before
your next BRD run.
2. The Ring of Law
Get out of the jail area, head to the next tunnel to the east, and
enter the Arena where you will have to defeat the Ring of Law (Check
map). The ring of Law is a script, it is started when someone steps
on the circle in the middle of the arena.
After about 20 seconds,
waves of mobs will start to attack you.
There is 3 waves, which consist of a few Elite mobs for the first
two, and a Boss mob for the last wave.
The mobs you will have to
face are randomly generated from a set list. As far as we can tell,
we fought 5 different type mobs / bosses in this script.
The boss mobs have a chance to drop decent blue items. But the main reason why
you are doing this script, is that it’s the only way for you to
access the Shadowforge city and to get your key done, and it also
puts every arena spectator in non-agressive mode, which is handy
because you will have to cross the upper part of the arena.
Once you have completed sucessfully the Ring of Law script, the
gates on each side will open, the one that interest you is the West
gate, take it and go up a small corridor, you will end up in a room
which we will named the ”Shadowforge Lock” room, you will see later
why. After clearing a few mobs in this room, take a Hairpin turn on
the right, and up the stairs. You will then be on the Upper part of
the arena, where the spectators are. Go all around it to the opposite
side, then start clearing your way North, toward the Vault room area,
through the Domicile. Pulls can be tricky here, so pull with caution.
Once you reach the Vault room, skip it, you most likely don’t have 12
Vault coffer keys yet, so no need to bother with that room for now.
Keep going forward and go down the slopes toward Fineous
Darkvire, the Architect. Pull the golems carefully until you
can get Fineous Darkvire solo. (he roams up the slopes at some point,
just wait until he does). After you kill Fineous, look the hammer
from him, Ironfel. Now go
back the way you came from until you reach the entrance of the arena,
but this time go further south, to the Shrine of Franclorn
Forgewright, and get your Shadowforge Key done.
[img]Wow-Pro_Blackrock%20Depths%20(Level%2050-60)_html_m48a2508.jpg[/img]Note:
(Horde) we would now recommend
that you finish your first KILL ON SIGHT quest and then go turn it in
and get the follow up KILL ON SIGHT quest from Kargath. Because on
the way to bael gar you will find all the Dwarves you need to kill to
finish this quest.
3. Bael’Gar
Use the map to find your way to Bael’Gar, you can easily access
him now that you have the Shadowforge Key. He is a LVL 57 Elite
magma-giant looking monster, is pretty straight forward battle, he
hits hard and has a lot of HP, every once in a while he summons a
mini bael’gar and does a 1500DMG area effect attack at the sawe time.
So when you see him starting to summon, go out of range (unless you
are the warrior). The adds he summons can be killed very quickly,
they have low hit points.
When you take him down, don’t forget to
use the Altered Black Dragonflight Molt on his corpse to get
the Encased Fiery essence. [58]A Taste of Flame
Completed!
4. Lord Incendius
Follow the Dark Iron highway east until you reach the lair of Lord
Incendius. Lord Incendius is an easy fight, he is a level 56
Elite fire elemental boss, hits reasonably hard, nothing too hard
about him. Kill him and don’t forget to loot the Tablet of Kurniya
from his remains. Congratulations, you just finished [56]
Disharmony of Fire (Horde) / Incendius! (Alliance).
5. General Angerforge
To get access to General Angerforge, you must first go to the
”Shadowforge Lock” Room, it is now easily accessable to you because
you have the key, and the door to this room is actually quite close
to the entrance.
Up the stairs and on the left is a little passage
toward General Angerforge, but you can’t access it yet because you
need to unlock a gate. To unlock it you need to click a giant
trigger.
This huge lock is located downstairs in the room, and it requires
the Shadowforge Key to be activated.
Now that you unlocked the gate to shadowforge city, go upstairs
and take the little passage toward General Angerforge.
General Angerforge is your first ‘real’ fight in BRD. So
prepare it well and clear everything in his room before you engage
him. Getting adds while fighting him would probably mean total
wipeout.
How to: The General has 4 guards, but they are non
elite and have about 1000 Hit points. They die extremely fast, so
take them out while your Warrior tanks the general. The General
himself has a lot of HP and hits reasonably hard, but the real
difficulty in this fight is that when he gets low on health, he will
call for help. About a dozen of dwarves will come to his aid, don’t
panic though, most of them are the wuss type (1000 HP). Finish the
General as fast as possible first, then use your AE attacks to kill
the weak mobs quickly. Some of them are Elite AND Healer types
though, make sure your tank taunts those well. Once the 1K HP adds
are dead, stop AEing, just Assist each other on the same targets, and
interupt their heals.
Congratulations on winning your first big fight in BRD!
Note: (Horde) Try
to complete the WANTED quests as fast as possible and the [58]Grark
Lorkrub (Elite) quest so you get [58]Operation: Death
to Angerforge (Elite). Don’t hesitate to go out of your way
and kill the remaining Dwarves you miss to complete the WANTED
quests. If you do it well, you should have the last quest up for your
3rd BRD run. And the quest reward for killing Angerforge is then very
interesting.
and 7750 XP.
Note: (Alliance)
"Loot Marshal Windsor’s Lost information".
6. Golem Lord Angelmach
After killing the General, go back up the stairs and then across
the room down a few stairs. You will enter a large room, full of
little engineers (non elite) and a few Golems (Elites). Pull very
carefully in this room, and don’t charge, PULL, way back to somewhere
safe. You need to clear the whole room, because Lord Argelmach will
call for help and the whole golems + little engineers will aggro.
Once you have the whole room clear, prepare for Argelmach, which
is not an easy fight.
How to: Golem Lord Argelmach himself hits fairly hard. He
procs quite often a 500dmg DD. He has good amount of Hit points, and
on top of that, has 2 Golem guards, which both hit quite hard.
It’s gonna be hard fight. So prepare beforehand.
The warrior will be focusing on Argelmach himself and one
of the two golems if needed (if lacking offtanks), and make sure to
have solid aggro. The rest of the group will be taking out the adds
one by one. Decide before hand who will be offtanking one of the
adds. A hunter pet, a warlock pet, a druid in bear form, a paladin or
a shaman, you have multiple choices… You decide who will be
offtanking what before engaging. And you also decide in what
order you will kill the golems.
Stick to the plan, focus, and you should make it.
Note: (Horde)
"Loot Argelmach’s Head".
Note:
(Alliance)
"Loot Marshal Windsor’s Lost information".
7. The Grim Guzzler
There is one thing preventing you to reach the next room, the grim
guzzler: 2 pulls of 3 Fire Elementals.
They are maybe harder than many boss fights in BRD, so don’t take
them lightly. They hit for 400+ on average, and have some nasty
damage hield. Whoever stands close to them gets damaged.
If you
have a warlock, one can be banished, which is a huge relief. If you
don’t, you gonna have one hell of a fun fight.
Basically you have to face 3 of those fire elementals at a time.
Use every ability you have to win. You can’t have a warrior tank
all 3 at the same time, he will most likely die too fast, or the
healer will get jumped after the first heal. So have the warrior tank
just one, and kill that one first. About the 2 remaining elementals,
you have several options:
Hunter freeze trap (even if it’s only a 20 second duration, it
buys you time, its a big help), sacrifice a hunter or warlock pet on
one of the elementals, it has a high chance to die but it will buy
your group enough time to finish the first elemental. Have a mage
kite one of the elementals around (lots of space in this big room)
while you deal with the others.
You can also use a paladin /
shaman / druid to offtank one of the elementals.
You must try at all cost to take the first elemental down fast,
then the warrior will be free to tank the 2nd one. Also, try to space
those elementals, so you don’t get hit by the 3 damage shield auras
they have at the same time.
Set up a plan depending on what classes you have in your group,
and stick to it. It WILL be a hard fight. You have been warned
After those 2 hard pulls are behind you, you can enter the Grim
Guzzler.
The grim guzzler is a tavern, full of non agressive mobs,
you can talk to all of them BUT one: Ribbly Screwspigot, as he
becomes agressive if you talk to him, so save that for later.
Get the quest [54]The Love Potion (Elite) from Mistress
Nagmara.
Lost Thunderbrew Reciepe:
Move your group to the side room (filled up with kegs), and start
destroying the kegs there. A bunch of elite mobs will come for you,
pretty standard fight, once they are dead, loot them, one of them has
the item you need to complete [55] Lost thunderbrew recipe
(Horde) / [55] Hurley Blackbreath (Alliance).
Stay in this room for the next fight:
Ribbly Screwspigot:
Send your warrior to talk to
Ribbly Screwspigot, he will turn agressive, and so will
his cronies. Have the warrior run then back to the keg room and fight
them there. Loot ribbly’s head, congratulations on yet another
completed quest.
Phalanx:
Set up your group right next to where
Phalanx stands, up the stairs in the corner. Have one person of your
group (preferably not the warrior or the priest) go talk to the
barkeeper and buy the beer he has (6 should normally be enough).
(Note: He sells alchemy Recipe: Transmute Fire to Earth)
Then look around for Private Rocknot, he will be ASKING for beer.
So give him beer a few times, until he gets into a drunken rage and
starts to mess around in the tavern.
When he does, Phalanx will
become aggressive, acting as a bouncer, and destroy the backdoor of
the Tavern (right next to where your group is positioned). Right
after the door is shattered, engage Phalanx and fight him in the
corner. He is an easy fight, just hits hard. He also just opened the
door to the last areas of Blackrock Depths.
Note: If you have
completed the Love Potion quest, in your further BRD runs you won’t
have to activate Phalanx to break the door anymore, you will just
have to talk to Mistress Nagmara and ask her to go get a room with
Private Rocknot. And she will do that, and open the backdoor in the
process
8. Ambassador Flamelash
Check the map and start working your way to Ambassador
Flamelash, once you get to him, pull him. He is a DPS fight,
the faster you kill him the better it is. As long as he is alive he
spawns little fire elemental adds, which can become quite dangerous
if they live too long.
If it’s getting ugly and your healer is
getting swarmed by adds, don’t hesitate to use Challenging shout
or Intimidating shout.
9. The Seven Dwarves
Work your way towards the chamber of the Seven.
When your group
is fully buffed and ready, talk to Doom’Rel, he will start the
Script.
The script consists of 7 Boss mobs, they will come one by one on a
set timer. So the faster you kill them, the better it is. If you are
too slow in killing one, you will end up having two of them on you at
once, etc.
They are all different classes (Priest, warlock, warrior, rogue,
etc) with all the abilities it implies.
Note: They can be Stunned and Interrupted.
And also Shackled!
If you are quick enough, you will overcome this tough battle, and
the chest of the seven will appear on the floor. (Good items) and the
door to the lyceum will open.
Also, if you are a miner, you can learn Smelt:
Dark Iron from Gloom’Rel in this room, talk to him
before you start the script. He asks 10 Truesilver Bars, 20 Gold bars
and 2 star rubies just to teach you the skill.
- To smelt dark iron ore into dark
iron bars, you need to get to the Dark iron forge. After the Seven
Chamber, go down the stairs and take a right, clear a few fire
elementals and you will find the forge.
- To Create dark iron items (such as Dark Iron Pulverizer), you
need to use the Dark Iron anvil, which is located in the lair of
Lord Incendius).
Once you are done with this room, move down the stairs toward the
Lyceum, a fun area!
Straight ahead will be a big gate, to the Lyceum, to the right
though is a path guarded by two groups of fire elementals, if you
want to complete your quest [60]
Attunement to the Core, that’s where you must go.
Right next to the green instance portal (to the raid instance: The
Molten Core), the core fragment can be obtained from a
stalagmite that is to the left of the entrance. Loot the core
fragment to complete the quest.
10. The Lyceum
Goal: Light up the two braziers in two corner of the
Lyceum. It will open up the door to the Emperor area.
How to: Scattered around the room are Shadowforge Flame
Keepers, they have a 75% chance to dorp the Torch you need to
light up a Brazier. So you will have to kill those twice AT LEAST if
you are lucky.
Now the problem is that room is FULL of bunches of mobs (packs of
20 mobs or so). And the second problem is that they are on a 2min or
so respawn timer.
The good news is that they are those weak 1K hp mobs, and die in
about four Arcane Explosions from a mage. Or Hellfire from a warlock.
Now all you have to do is charge those bunches of mobs, AE them
quickly, drink, move on to next bunch, while hugging the wall as much
as possible. Be careful about the patrols, and try to find the Torch
keepers. Once you got a torch, work your way toward a brazier and
light it.
This is where having no mage or no warlock becomes a real pain. It
is NOT impossible, but it is really a lot harder.
Key to win in this area is to be fast, to all move as one, and to
beat the respawn rate.
Once you manage to light both brazier, the door to the Emperor
area will open. Work your way there, congratulations if you manage
it!
11. Magmus
The last guardian before the Emperor stands before you. Magmus
isn’t hard once you know the only surprise feature of this battle.
The statues on each side of the corridor actually are Flamethrowing
devices, they activate when you engage Magmus.
So the key to this fight is to position your group at a spot with
no statue on the side. Magmus hits hard and has a lot of HP, but
besides this, he isn’t hard.
11. Emperor Dagran
Thaurissan:
Finally the big boss!
Step 1: Clear the whole room (including the side
floors)
Step 2: Engage the Emperor, have your warrior tank
him. The princess will help him, but she doesn’t hurt nearly as much
as the emperor. Best would be to have a Voidwalker or a Hunter pet
tank her while the rest of the group deals with the emperor.
Note: If you have the final quest up [59]The
Royal Rescue (Elite) (Horde) / [59]The Fate of the Kingdom (Elite)
(Alliance), you must NOT kill the princess. If you do the
quest fails. You must kill Emperor Thaurissan and then the princess
will be non-agressive. You can then talk to her and finish the quest.
Emperor Thaurissan has a large loot list, and some of them are
great. On top of that, finishing the princess rescue quest nets you
8000 XP and one of the following rewards:
Note: (Alliance) There
is still one quest we haven’t done: [58]
Jail Break! (Elite). You actually don’t have to do it
during this BRD run, you can come back later and do it. That’s what
most people do, they shout "LFG Jail Break" in the LFG
channel. People see it as a very difficult quest, but it’s actually
quite easy if you do the following before accepting the quest:
- Clear the whole Jail area,
including the cells. Marshal Windsor will go through the whole ring
to retrieve his gear.
- Clear the Ring of Law
If you have the whole path cleared, it will be quite easy, there
will still be a few mobs that spawn to ambush Marshall Windsor, but
nothing too hard.
Now that those preparations are made, go to
Marshall Windsor, have everyone turn in [58]
A Shred of Hope (Elite). Once everyone has done that,
one person should start Jail Break! and everyone will get the quest.
Marshall Windsor can’t be healed, so just watch out for his health
and taunt things off him asap, that’s the only risk. Good luck!
Onyxia Key Walkthrough, For Alliance (Proudmoore gold)
Ok. I’m sure a few people could look this up quickly. But i will post it here also. How to get Onyxia key to Onyxia’s lair. Ok here goes.
Step 1
Dragon Kin Menace
Helendis Riverhorn
Level 54 Burning Steppes
Obtained at level 48
Slay 15 Black Broodlings, 10 Black Dragonspawn, 4 Black Wyrmkin, and 1 black drake. Return to Helendis Riverhorn when the task is done.
http://www.thotbott.com/?qu=4182
Step 2
Travel to Lakeshire and deliver Helendis Riverhorns Letter to Magistrate Solomon
http://www.thotbott.com/?qu=4183
Step 3
Travel to Stormwind and deliver Solomons Plea to Highlord Bolvar Fordragon in Stormwind Keep
http://www.thotbott.com/?qu=4184
Step 4
Speak with Highlord Bolvar Fordragon after speaking with Lady Katrana Prestor
http://www.thotbott.com/?qu=4185
Step 5
Return to Magistrate Solomon in Lakeshire and deliver this Decree
http://www.thotbott.com/?qu=4185
Step 6
Go to Marshall Maxwell in Burning steppes and he is in Morgans Vigel there.
http://www.thotbott.com/?qu=4223
Step 7
Talk to Ragged John in Flames Creast in Burning Steppes
http://www.thotbott.com/?qu=4224
Step 8
Find Marshall Reginald Windsor in BRD —> he’s in the right hand side jail loop you have to off killed the name in order to get the key to free him.
Step 9
Find a random drop In BRD called a ‘Crumpled up Note’ ive been told it drops of the dwarves outside the dungeon but i cannot confirm this.
Step 10
Return the Note to Marshall Windsor
He will now give a quest Shred of Hope.. Kill General Angerforge and Golem Lord Arglemach for 2 pieces of lost information. ‘General Angerforge’ is to the left of the area with the gnomes and golem lord is within the area with the gnomes. .. clear out the room before engaging Golem! Or he will call them to aid him. Return to Marshall windsor to begin the next part.
Step 11
Jailbreak! The most tiresome part as you have to clear BOTH jail loops and the whole center area of any mobs and also mobs will pop as you journey through. Also a few named encounters .. Keep windsor ALIVE until you clear both loops and find his friend Tobias.. talk to Windsor near the entrance once again and proceed to the next step
Step 12
Find Windsor in Morgans Vigel.. He wont be there. But the NPC ‘forgot his name’ will tell you that he has left for Stormwind.
Step 13
Go to stormwind and Run/Walk/Ride/Jump/crawl/skip/whatever out of the city for some distance then walk back. Windsor should be riding up. Talk to him then walk with him to the entrance of the keep. He will call you to gather an army for this part. ‘It was solable until prepatch but i now here that is is possible to fail without a whole raid.
Step 14
Enter the keep. Watch hell break out loose or fight with a raid to maintain peace but normally Bolvar does all the work for you, all you do is hang in there and stay safe.. If your a rogue stealth
Step 15
Take the fragments of the Dragons Eye to Kaleh in winterspring. ‘Shes at the back off Mazorithill’ . I suggest banking all of your and death hopping it to the back . Stand on the rune and you will be teleported to her.
Step 16
Venture up to Upper Black Rock Spire. And Slay Lord Drakasith and retrieve the blood of the black dragon champion
Step 17
Congrats you have your key for Onyxias Lair!
Hope this helped, its not that detailed. I could only give out some from thotbott because i couldnt find the others. This if for ALLIANCE. Hope this helps some of you. Any comments for the guide from anyone? 
Cheers
Twinking Guide for Shaman (Azgalor gold)
Best Races: Tauren, Dranei
GEAR
Head: Lucky Fishing Hat (+100hp/+8healing and spell dmg)
Neck: Honored wsg neck
Shoulders: Talbar Mantle
Back: Firebane cloak/ Battle Healer’s Cloak/ Caretaker’s Cape (+70armor)
Chest: Blackened Defias Armor (+100hp/+4all stats)
Bracers: Bandit Bracers of Healing/ Mindthrust Bracers (+24healing/+9stam)
Hands: Jutebraid Gloves (+30healing)
Waist: Screecher Belt
Legs: Leggings of the fang (+100hp/+8healing and spell dmg)
Feet: Nat Pagle s Extreme Anglin Boots
Ring #1: Seal of Sylvanas
Ring #2: Honored wsg ring/blood ring
Trinket #1: Arena Grand Master/Minor Recombobulator
Trinket #2: Insignia of the Alliance/Insignia of the Horde/Minor Recombobulator
Main Hand: Stinging Viper (+22intel)
Off hand: Arctic Buckler (Thorium Spikes/+7stam)/Deadskull Shield (Thorium Spikes/+7stam)
Herbalism 1-300 (Horde Biased) (Uther gold)
Herbalism Guide
First off, a bit of background to this guide. This is the second guide that I’ve written for WoW Professions, I do not pretend to be the most knowledgeable of players, and am defiantly not one for playing for massive swathes of time. However, I do tend to persist at things until I have a good understanding of how things work.
My main character is a level 60 Tauren Shaman (go cows!), I dropped Skinning (very easy to level) and picked up Herbalism, for one reason - cash. Although all server economies vary alot (and I do mean alot!), high level herbs sell for enough to make it worth spending an hour picking them and selling them on the auction house. At the top end, a stack of herbs might sell for 10g/15g (or more), and getting a couple of stacks in an hour isn’t too difficult.
If you have picked up Herbalism at level 5, then you can largely discount this guide as a way of skilling up. By picking Herbs where you are currently levelling, you should naturally improve your skill in Herbalism. Instead this guide is really intended for people who have already reached a high level, and wish to either change or pick up Herbalism as a profession.
There are a few things that you can do to speed up levelling Herbalism. First off, is that Tauren receive +15 Herbalism as a racial skill - not (in my opinion) as good as Human’s bonus to reputation gains, but better than a kick in the teeth if you take up Herbalism Next up, there are two glove enchants that provide a small bonus to Herbalism (+2 and +5). These bonus’s don’t make much difference, but will mean that you can go from one area to another just that little bit quicker. One tip that I can give, is that if you have a set of gloves with either +2 or +5 enchant on them, only use them if you can pick herbs you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. By not wearing them, you can eak out more skill ups than otherwise (eg, if you have a skill of 195 and Herb goes grey at 200, wearing a set of +5 gloves will mean there’s no chance of a skill up, not wearing them gives you 5 potential skill ups and a stack or so of herbs). Finally, Druids and Shaman have a distinct advantage over other classes as both have a travel form. In Ghost Wolf form, you can actually pick herbs (no need to come out of it), and Druids can flick into Travel Form and back again, with no time issues. If you are using a mount between each spawn of herbs, then you have the extra 3 second cast time to summon your mount after each pick.
To grind out a gathering skill from 1 to 300 is a relatively simple process for a level 60. Very few mobs will give you real jip, and most won’t even aggro you. For Herbalism, I reckon that a 4 or 5 hour solid grind would be enough to sort you out (excluding travel time).
The following is a rough list of where I would recommend to pick herbs and at what skill levels. Please use your own intelligence when it comes to picking herbs! Grey herbs won’t ever give you a skill up, so unless you want/need them, leave them alone. Don’t go into a new zone until you can pick at least 50% of the herbs available. Download and install the gatherer add-on and gatherbook (use this to download a large file with every spawn point), this will allow you to make educated guesses as to what areas to go to, to collect different herbs.
1-100 - Durotar.
Couldn’t be simpler, just go the length of Durotar and collect anything you can. Herbs are close together and to be honest, pose no real difficulties. You can quite happily stop Durotar at skill level 75, and go onto The Barrens. However with the very high concentration of herbs, I actually found it quicker to carry on until 100 (where almost everything goes grey).
100-150 - The Barrens.
Begin in the Northern Barrens and then head south. Although there are lots of spawn points, I found that most herbs seemed to appear in clumps of two or three and then a big gap between them. As such using a mount isn’t a bad idea.
150-200 - Alterac Mountains and Arathi Highlands
Two options that to be honest, arn’t too different from each other. Arathi has more spawn points, but is slightly larger. However I actually preferred Arathi Highlands as it allowed me to do Arathi Basin Battleground runs and flick back to picking herbs with no downtime
200-240 - Tanaris
This was the slowest place for my grind but I wanted Firebloom to level up enchanting The spawn points are miles apart and its frankly in the middle of nowhere. Better alternatives would be Stranglethorn Vale (for those not on a PvP server!), Dustwallow Marsh or Swamp of Sorrows.
240 - 280 - Feralas and Swamp of Sorrows
Feralas has an abundance of Sungrass and the Swamp of Sorrows an abundance of Blindweed. Simple really. By now you are picking herbs that sell for OK cash. As such, I’d recommend sticking to a single zone and try to get stacks of the same herb as this ought to bring in more cash (whole stacks rather than part stacks).
280 - 300 - Varies
To be honest, I’d say that there isn’t a single area that is better than another for the last 20 skill levels. Winterspring is nice once you hit 290, as there are only three different herbs there that sell for good money. The Eastern Plaguelands has an OK amount of Plaguebloom. Pretty much, do whatever you fancy, providing you’re getting skill ups, who cares!
On the Auction House
OK, some pretty fundamental ground rules for using the Auction House.
First off, know your punters and your opposition! If you are wanting to sell something as a regular event (such as Herbs) check the Auction House every night for a week or two, for the item you are selling. Look for patterns. If there appears to never be your item on the Auction House every Monday, Tuesday and Friday, but its overloaded on a Wednesday and Saturday, then you’ve already spotted a trend that you can exploit. Next up ensure that you know what professions and recipies require your item. One example of this is the herb Wildvine. Wildvine is used in Alchemy, Tailoring, Blacksmithing and Leatherworking, it drops from other herbs when you pick them. Now the greatest single quantity of Wildvine used in one recipie is 6. Others use 1, 2 and 4. As such, selling a stack of 7 Wildvine is not as desirable as a stack of 4 or 6 to most punters. Not all customers have big blobs of cash to spend, and if somebody just wants to make an item that requires 4 Wildvine, why do they want to spend extra gold on 3 more when they’re never going to use them!
Next up is overloading. If you’ve spent 4 weeks farming Icecap from Winterspring, and have ended up with 40 stacks of the stuff, don’t be so stupid as to stick all of it onto the Auction House all at once. As well as costing you for each listing, it will actually lower the cost of that herb as your opposition undercuts you, and customers see that there is now an abundance of it available.
Don’t forget that many players have real lives. During the weekend, the Auction House goes mental and items are bought and sold every minute. During the week, this is much, much slower. Having said that, never be afraid to try selling items in the week. If the regular farmer of an item only plays at the weekend, and there’s a person out there who plays every night, then you’ve found your corner of the market!
Finally, don’t forget the basics. If you are farming for a specific profession (herbs for Alchemy, ore for Mining, etc), then identify the most basic item required and farm it like mad! Selling Copper Ore at 50s for a stack of 10 will make you quite a bit of cash over time
Kite Commanders in Alterac Valley Alliance (Kilrogg gold)
Introduction
This exploit will allow you to run the Commanders, two level 61 elites (one at the Iceblood Tower, one at Tower Point), Located at the top of each tower, around in circles for a good amount of time while a friend taps the tower, possibly until all five minutes needed for the towers to burn pass. To do this for a long time, you need to be a caster or a Hunter……
(Download the .pdf file below to read the entire guide and view the images)
http://rapidshare.com/files/9209196/AV_elites.pdf