Mods / Software:

* CT_RaidAssist - http://www.ctmod.net/downloads.ct
* Ventrillo - Official Site http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php
* Drakonid Kill Counter - Download http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=2642

Facts:

* There is no one way to do Nefarian phase 1. Some guilds AoE both gates, some guilds Assist both gates, some guilds do a "throne strategy" in which they set up at the base of Nefarian's throne and simply AoE all the drakes at that location. However, the following Nefarian strategy of Phase 1 AoE'ing one gate and Assist Training another gate will always work with a balanced raid, and is perhaps the most simple and intuitive method to do Nefarian. However, there's always a lot of thoughts on just how to do Nefarian
* Nefarian (as of v1.9.3) respawns after 15 minutes after you wipe, no matter which phase you wipe in.
* If you don't have an Onyxia Scale Cloak equipped, you will die during the transition from phase 1 to phase 2. (Unless you're a paladin and can bubble!)
* It's Nefarian. Not Nefarion. Spell it right!

Consumables:

Flask of Titans (for MT + OT)

* Phase 1 (all about increasing DPS!)
o Elixir of the Mongoose
o Elemental Sharpening Stones (or Dense Sharpening Stones)
o Greater Arcane Elixir
o Brilliant Wizard Oil
* Phase 2 (rogues need survivability)
o Greater Shadow Protection Potion
* Phase 3 (AoE'ing the constructs)
o Stratholme Holy Water Engineering Bombs - EZ-Thro Dynamite II for the non-engineers
o Thorium Grenades / The Big One for the engineers.
o Crystal Charge (10 Red & Yellow Crystals from Un'Goro)
o Limited Invulnerability Potion

Phase 1 - Drakonid Zerg

Phase 1 is arguably the hardest part of the entire Nefarian encounter. To summarize, the key to succeeding phase 1 is that on the AoE side drakonids are always kept under control by the warriors so that no drakonids escape the AoE area, and on the assist train side, that the drakonids are simply killed fast enough not to overwhelm the raid. Phase 1 ends when 20 drakonids of each color are dead, or roughly when ~42 drakonids are killed on the drakonid kill counter.

When the event is started by one person talking to Nefarian, Nefarian will exclaim "Let the games begin," go into a shadow form and becomes invulnerable. He has 4 attacks:

* Shadow Bolt (highest aggro, usually a healer)
* Shadow Bolt Volley (infrequent)
* Mind Control
* Fear (infrequent)

Nefarian will spam shadow bolt on the highest aggro person, which will often turn out to be a healer. That healer will have to be aware of his own spiking health. The only other attack of concern is mind control. If someone is mind controlled, then that person should be sheeped immediately if possible (if he isn't standing in AoE) because the mind controlled person can quickly wreck havoc by AoE'ing the group, or killing away at the healers, or whatnot. The person who is mind controlled gets a huge boost of damage and can dispatch the raid if not controlled.

At the same time, drakonids will begin flooding into the room from the left and right gates. One color spawns from the left gate; one color spawns from the right gate. These colors are fixed and will remain the same from the same gate for every future try, even if Nefarian is attempted on different days (as long as the entire instance does not reset). There are five different colors of drakonids, and one fixed spawn - Chromatic Drakonids. It is important to split up the raid to take advantage of the weaknesses of these colors of drakonids.

* Blue Drakonid - Mana draining attack, "aura" of -50% attack speed. Resistant to Frost
* Red Drakonid - Short-Range Cone AoE fire attack DoT in the direction it is facing which stacks and hurts quite a bit. Resistant to Fire
* Green Drakonid - Single target sleep which essentially stuns those near the dragon occasionally for 2 seconds. Resistant to Nature
* Black Drakonid - Single targeted fire blast attack which hurts. Resistant to shadow and fire
* Bronze Drakonid - Has a weak direct damage shock which also debuffs the target with -50% Attack / Casting speed. Resistant to Arcane

In general, there are certain colors that you should AoE, and certain colors that you should "assist train". AoE means mages Blizzard and Warlocks Rain of Fire, whereas "assist train" means one rogue is designated as the main assist, and all rogues and hunters assist the MA to quickly down the drakonids one at a time.

* Red: AoE (with blizzard)
* Blue: Assist Train
* Bronze: AoE (blizzard + rain of fire)
* Green: Assist Train
* Black: Assist Train

However, then it turns out that sometimes you will get two sets of colors that both ideally either get AoE'd or Assist Trained. There are basically two colors where you must NOT either assist train or AoE:

* Red: Do not assist train. The AoE fire aura really hurts and will require too much healing.
* Blue: Do not AoE. They are resistant to frost. Blizzard won't hurt them too much.

Breakdown of colors and what should happen to each color:

Meaning, if the drakonid color combination is bronze/black for example, the raid should AoE the side the bronze spawns on, and Assist-train the side the black spawns on.

In all cases where red is being AoE'd, warlocks should be helping by DoTing the drakonids in the AoE with shadow spells - Corruption and Curse of Agony. They don't Rain of Fire because Red drakonids are resistant to fire.

Advanced Note: In your first couple Nefarian attempts, you'll want to have the first "attempt" just be a wipe by everyone getting naked, seeing the colors, and setting the AoE and Assist groups on their optimal sides. However, after enough successful Nefarian kills, one can take Nefarian down on the first try all the time even by setting the groups up in the worst possible setup (for example - AoE'ing the blue side, and Assist Training the red side). In this case, one can try to beat Phase 1 by just Flamestriking blue drakes, and easing the healing load on the assist train side through the liberal use of healing consumables. But really, there is no particular drake color where AoE does not work, or assist training does not work - there's just "optimal" ways of dividing up the raid.
Phase 1 - Warrior Guide

Summary: The warrior's job on both sides is very important - simply, it's to keep the drakonids from going after the healers, who will be a constant aggro magnet through their healing.

The ideal warrior team is 3 warriors per side. The warriors set up an order and cycle through this as the drakonids stream out. The reason you do an order and not just free-for-all tanking is that as the encounter progresses it gets more and more difficult to "grab" the drakonid as it comes out because the drakonids are going to be more and more likely to be very upset with your healers. Taunt is therefore invaluable in grabbing the drakonid at the start and allowing you time to apply a few sunders, heroic strikes, shield slam, taunting blade etc. It's also helpful because it ensures a few seconds of the drakonid beating on you and thereby supplying you with some rage. By having an order you pretty much ensure each warrior enough time to have their taunt cooled down so they can catch their next assigned drakonid. One last thing to be aware of is that while the small drakonids spawn at a set interval, there are also going to be at least three chromatic drakonids per side (if you see more than 3 during stage one you are killing much too slow). The first of these will spawn right at the start so warriors in the 1 and 2 slots per side will be having a drakonid right from the get go. The other two will usually spawn just before or just after one of the colored drakonids so communication is the key to ensuring a body on every drakonid. How you set up your communication is up to you but the way my team does it is the player grabbing a drakonid calls out the person's name who is after them in the tanking order.

Taunts are occasionally resisted and that is why it is helpful to have a druid in bear form ready to taunt an escaping drakonid and bring it back to the warriors. It is a bad idea for a warrior to leave the killing area to chase a drakonid since you will often be pulling mobs with you that could do any number of bad things to those who you are trying to protect in the first place.

Unless you have 7 warriors for this, your main tank is likely to be needed for the warrior rotations. If he is then it is very important for you to try to get the mobs off him when he needs to leave to greet the landing Nefarian. If you are doing this without fear ward then you need to do the same for whoever is going to be your off tank. It is a good idea to make sure you have your OT and MT on different doors so that you have two warriors per side to try to clean the mobs off them. The MT should be on the Assist side because it is easier to break off to catch Nefarian.

Phase 1 - Positioning

The healer clump in the middle should be in range to heal the people from both gates. The Mages & Locks should stay a good distance away from the drakonids that come out from the AoE side and AoE from there. Hunters are the same - stay a good distance away from the drakonids that come out from the Assist side and shoot from there. A bear druid will stand watch on both sides to pull drakonids back to the warriors if any get loose. It is important not to spend time chasing any drakonids that run loose, because that will waste too much time - let the bears pull the drakonids back to the warriors.

AoE Side

AoE side: The first two drakonids should be focus fired by the mages and warlocks. However, past that, the casters should just constantly rain area of effect spells down upon the drakonids. The warriors will have the tough job of keeping all the drakonids in the position; healers should be aware of when they have aggro and should keep their aggro levels equal. In the event that a drakonid breaks loose and goes after the healers, the bear form druid will taunt and pull the drakonid back into the AoE. TALENTS will help a lot here. Mages with improved blizzard and one hunter with entrapment constantly lay traps / feign death will make the drakonids easier to control within the AoE spot.

Assist Train Side

Assist Train side: As each drakonid comes out, /assist the MA and kill it FAST. The MA must be quick on switching targets, and he will pick colored drakonids before the chromatic ones. There is no cap on the amount of drakonids that can spawn - simply that they stop spawning when 20 of each color are dead. If there are ever 5 drakonids or more out at any time on the assist train side, it means that you have killed them too slowly and you're pretty much screwed. If this is the case, you'll need to use more consumables, extra buffs, need more DPS on that side, etc.

Tips:

Learning Stage 1 will be a gradual process. There are a number of things that can go wrong:

* Drakonids are leaking to the healers.
o Solution: Usually it is one healer pulling the aggro, have that healer cut down. It could be a warrior problem, make sure the warriors are on top of their taunting chain. The druid in bear form can help taunt a couple back but if there are a lot of drakonids leaking then there's something wrong.
* Drakonids are overwhelming just the AoE side .
o Solution: Make sure the drakonids really are all being controlled within the AoE spot. Maybe there isn't enough AoE power (our guild uses 5 mages / 3 warlocks there usually and it is sufficient) in which case you can help by giving each AoE person Greater Arcane Elixirs. If that still isn't enough, you might want to just simply bring more Mages and Warlocks to Nefarian.
* Drakonids are overwhelming just the Assist Train side.
o Solution: Make sure the MA is switching targets well before each drakonid is dead, make sure everyone is on top of assisting and killing quickly. If the drakonids are running towards healers, a lot of DPS is lost so make sure the drakonids are caught well by the warriors. If they simply are not dying fast enough, this is usually a DPS problem; use more consumables to increase DPS, bring a warlock over from the AoE side to help damage, or just bring more rogues/hunters to the raid.
* Drakonids are overwhelming both sides.
o Solution: Keep working on it! It'll be smoother and smoother as warriors work together better to keep the drakonids in control, druids get quicker at pulling drakonids back if they slip, healers realize their place in aggro, and the assist train becomes a well-oiled machine in killing one drakonid after another in a machine-like manner.

At approximately 42 drakonids, (when 20 drakonids of each color is dead), Nefarian will land. Congratulations, you have finished the hardest part of the Nefarian encounter - hopefully, your entire raid is intact (you shouldn't have more than 2 deaths in phase 1, and those deaths should be rare occasions where Nefarian's mind control hits an unfortunate target). Have the MT / OT break off at the "Nefarian landing in 10 seconds" message along with about 6 healers to heal the tank. Nefarian will land as his dragon form while breathing a shadow flame which will hit the entire raid (hope you have an Onyxia Scale cloak on!) The rest of the raid finishes off the rest of the drakonids. They will stop spawning. Then, the raid should get into Stage 2 positioning.

Stage 2 - Positioning

The positioning is basically all ranged & healers stand at max range from Nefarian so his Bellowing Roar AoE Fear (Range: 30 yards) doesn't hit you. The rogues are on the other side of Nefarian and are outside the range of heals: they are responsible for keeping themselves alive.
Stage 2 - Abilities

* Cleave: Rogues shouldn't be getting hit by this.
* Tail Whip: A stun if you stand behind Nefarian, by his tail. Rogues shouldn't be getting hit by this either.
* Shadow Flame: Very high shadow damage cone in front of Nefarian.
* Bellowing Roar: A periodic AoE fear centered on Nefarian with ~30 yard range. All ranged / healers need to stand at max range to avoid this fear. Quick-Reflex Stance dancing & a quick Off-Tank will be required. Or a dwarf priest.
* Healing Curse: Nefarian occasionally casts a curse which reduces healing on the MT by 75%. This needs to be removed ASAP.

Stage 2 - Warrior Guide
This is most complicated when you have no fear ward and so the below is assuming you do not have it.

When Nefarian is going to cast a fear, the ground will shake just like it does for Onyxia. From Ground Shake to Fear, you have 2 seconds to change stances. That is not much time at all, especially if your MT just used an ability and is on his global cooldown, but it is very possible for your MT to be able to switch to berserker stance to pop their berserker rage. Possible doesn't equate to success every time, nor does Nefarian help by his unpredictable fear timer. The point here is that your MT will miss fear sometimes - while he is feared, Nefarian will ignore him until the fear times out and switch to the person he hates the most who isn't feared. If your raid likes living, this must be your off tank.

The off tank will spend the entire rest of the fight being unconcerned with damage and only with generating enough threat to be higher on Nefarian's hate list than any healers or any DPS that is not getting feared. Because you will sometimes see more than one fear in 30 seconds, the cooldown time for your MT's berserker rage, it is important for your off tank to be ready to use his berserker rage before the fear goes off so that aggro will transfer smoothly from the feared main tank to the immune-to-fear off tank. The off tank will then immediately run to the spot where the MT was tanking. When the fear breaks from the MT, Nefarian will switch back over so the MT needs to get himself back into position ASAP.

Even with fear ward it is recommended to have an off tank for the situations where fear ward is on cooldown and the MT is either unable to get into berserker in time or has his rage on cooldown for some reason.
Class Call-Outs:

At a set interval, roughly every 30 seonds, CT-Raid will announce ** CLASS CALL INCOMING ** and a few seconds later a random class call will occur.

* Druids: Druids will be stuck in cat form. Can't heal in cat form so paladins/priests have to pick up the healing. Just sit around… Jump… Look pretty. Resist the temptation to go up and melee, as a fear could bring you into Nefarian's Shadow Flame Breath.

* Hunters: Your ranged weapon will break. This effect is permanent. Therefore, whenever ** CLASS CALL INCOMING ** is announced on CTRA, you should remove your weapon and put it in your backpack. After the class call is given, put it back on and start firing again. Alternatively, if your hunters are rich, they can place a repair bot and just always fire and simply repair when their hunters break. This will increase DPS.
Tip: To remove your ranged weapon and put it in an inventory neatly in one button, here's a nice macro:
/script PickupInventoryItem(18);PickupContainerItem(0,10);UseContainer(0,10)
(0,10) means bag space 0 (counting from the right, so 0 would be the original backpack), 10 is the bag slot, starting from top left.

* Mages: You are still in control of your character, but you will cast instant random polymorphs on the raid. These must be dispelled/cleansed instantly, ESPECIALLY if the MT gets hit by one. The talent Ice Block works to remove the debuff, so picking up the talent will be extremely valuable.

* Paladins: Will cast Blessing of Protection on Nefarian, rendering all attacks useless. Take a nap.

* Shamans: Corrupted Windfury and Healing totems are placed which help Nefarian and not the party.

* Priests: Your heals will DoT your target so stop healing. Druids/Paladins/Shamans need to pick up all healing when this occurs. The moment he calls out the priest call all heals (except renew and shield) will give corrupted healing, so instead of waiting for the priest call to stop (by then it will be too late and the main tank will have 3 corrupted heals on him), priests should stop healing whenever ** CLASS CALL INCOMING ** is announced.

* Rogues: Nefarian will turn to you and you will be teleported and rooted either in front of Nefarian or in the back/side of Nefarian. If you take a shadow flame you're going to die, unless you have a Greater Shadow Protection Potion's effect on you. If you get teleported in front of Nefarian, the main tank should run through Nefarian and turn him 180 degrees.

* Warlocks: Warlocks summon a small zerg of infernals that have a light AoE fire aura. Easily AoEable. Mages will arcane explosion these.

* Warriors: Warriors will be stuck in berserker stance. DPS needs to lighten up since the MT will be generating 20% less agro than usual. Healers amp up the healing a lot since MT will be taking 20% more damage than usual.
Tip: Perhaps the most devastating thing that can happen is the warrior call combined with the healing curse. Just spam heals whenever the warrior call is given, and make sure the healing curse is quick to come off.

Stage 3 - Construct Zerg

Nefarian Stage 3 occurs when he reaches 20% HP. All the corpses from the previous zerg come back to life as Constructs (similar to those in the Scholomance basement). They have very little HP and are easy to AoE down.

Preparation: Set up half your casters to AoE the left side, half your casters to AoE the right side. Have them wand to regain lots of mana from Nefarian 30% and onwards. Assign one mage each with Improved Blizzard to start blizzarding on top of the corpses so the moment they pop up they will be slowed. Assign one or two healers to each side to heal the warrior tanking the zerg.

When Nefarian is ~22%, the raid should be getting into position to prepare for Stage 3.

Warriors: All warriors will cease DPS and run through Nefarian to park them in front of the zerg. We will set up a chain Challenging Shout/Shield Wall rotation. You will have ~50 mobs beating on you for ~200 dmg per hit, so that's why you will need shield wall.

Melee DPS: Rogues can either help out with AoE'ing the constructs by throwing Stratholme Holy Water or engineering bombs at the constructs, or just keep whacking away at Nefarian. Initially, the rogues should bring Stratholme Holy Water to help AoE until your raid is familiar with this phase.

Casters / Ranged: Frost Nova rotations + snare effects and AoE the constructs into the ground. Casters, use a Limited Invulnerability Potion and go nuts! Healers: When the Stage 3 zerg occurs, send one or two healers to each side to help heal the warriors tanking the constructs.

After the zerg is finished, this fight is just a continuation of Phase 2 with no extra surprises thrown in. Keep cracking away steadily and take down the last 20%!

Mods / Software:

* CT_RaidAssist - http://www.ctmod.net/downloads.ct
* Ventrillo - Official Site http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php
* Drakonid Kill Counter - Download http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=2642

Facts:

* There is no one way to do Nefarian phase 1. Some guilds AoE both gates, some guilds Assist both gates, some guilds do a "throne strategy" in which they set up at the base of Nefarian's throne and simply AoE all the drakes at that location. However, the following Nefarian strategy of Phase 1 AoE'ing one gate and Assist Training another gate will always work with a balanced raid, and is perhaps the most simple and intuitive method to do Nefarian. However, there's always a lot of thoughts on just how to do Nefarian
* Nefarian (as of v1.9.3) respawns after 15 minutes after you wipe, no matter which phase you wipe in.
* If you don't have an Onyxia Scale Cloak equipped, you will die during the transition from phase 1 to phase 2. (Unless you're a paladin and can bubble!)
* It's Nefarian. Not Nefarion. Spell it right!

Consumables:

Flask of Titans (for MT + OT)

* Phase 1 (all about increasing DPS!)
o Elixir of the Mongoose
o Elemental Sharpening Stones (or Dense Sharpening Stones)
o Greater Arcane Elixir
o Brilliant Wizard Oil
* Phase 2 (rogues need survivability)
o Greater Shadow Protection Potion
* Phase 3 (AoE'ing the constructs)
o Stratholme Holy Water Engineering Bombs - EZ-Thro Dynamite II for the non-engineers
o Thorium Grenades / The Big One for the engineers.
o Crystal Charge (10 Red & Yellow Crystals from Un'Goro)
o Limited Invulnerability Potion

Phase 1 - Drakonid Zerg

Phase 1 is arguably the hardest part of the entire Nefarian encounter. To summarize, the key to succeeding phase 1 is that on the AoE side drakonids are always kept under control by the warriors so that no drakonids escape the AoE area, and on the assist train side, that the drakonids are simply killed fast enough not to overwhelm the raid. Phase 1 ends when 20 drakonids of each color are dead, or roughly when ~42 drakonids are killed on the drakonid kill counter.

When the event is started by one person talking to Nefarian, Nefarian will exclaim "Let the games begin," go into a shadow form and becomes invulnerable. He has 4 attacks:

* Shadow Bolt (highest aggro, usually a healer)
* Shadow Bolt Volley (infrequent)
* Mind Control
* Fear (infrequent)

Nefarian will spam shadow bolt on the highest aggro person, which will often turn out to be a healer. That healer will have to be aware of his own spiking health. The only other attack of concern is mind control. If someone is mind controlled, then that person should be sheeped immediately if possible (if he isn't standing in AoE) because the mind controlled person can quickly wreck havoc by AoE'ing the group, or killing away at the healers, or whatnot. The person who is mind controlled gets a huge boost of damage and can dispatch the raid if not controlled.

At the same time, drakonids will begin flooding into the room from the left and right gates. One color spawns from the left gate; one color spawns from the right gate. These colors are fixed and will remain the same from the same gate for every future try, even if Nefarian is attempted on different days (as long as the entire instance does not reset). There are five different colors of drakonids, and one fixed spawn - Chromatic Drakonids. It is important to split up the raid to take advantage of the weaknesses of these colors of drakonids.

* Blue Drakonid - Mana draining attack, "aura" of -50% attack speed. Resistant to Frost
* Red Drakonid - Short-Range Cone AoE fire attack DoT in the direction it is facing which stacks and hurts quite a bit. Resistant to Fire
* Green Drakonid - Single target sleep which essentially stuns those near the dragon occasionally for 2 seconds. Resistant to Nature
* Black Drakonid - Single targeted fire blast attack which hurts. Resistant to shadow and fire
* Bronze Drakonid - Has a weak direct damage shock which also debuffs the target with -50% Attack / Casting speed. Resistant to Arcane

In general, there are certain colors that you should AoE, and certain colors that you should "assist train". AoE means mages Blizzard and Warlocks Rain of Fire, whereas "assist train" means one rogue is designated as the main assist, and all rogues and hunters assist the MA to quickly down the drakonids one at a time.

* Red: AoE (with blizzard)
* Blue: Assist Train
* Bronze: AoE (blizzard + rain of fire)
* Green: Assist Train
* Black: Assist Train

However, then it turns out that sometimes you will get two sets of colors that both ideally either get AoE'd or Assist Trained. There are basically two colors where you must NOT either assist train or AoE:

* Red: Do not assist train. The AoE fire aura really hurts and will require too much healing.
* Blue: Do not AoE. They are resistant to frost. Blizzard won't hurt them too much.

Breakdown of colors and what should happen to each color:

Meaning, if the drakonid color combination is bronze/black for example, the raid should AoE the side the bronze spawns on, and Assist-train the side the black spawns on.

In all cases where red is being AoE'd, warlocks should be helping by DoTing the drakonids in the AoE with shadow spells - Corruption and Curse of Agony. They don't Rain of Fire because Red drakonids are resistant to fire.

Advanced Note: In your first couple Nefarian attempts, you'll want to have the first "attempt" just be a wipe by everyone getting naked, seeing the colors, and setting the AoE and Assist groups on their optimal sides. However, after enough successful Nefarian kills, one can take Nefarian down on the first try all the time even by setting the groups up in the worst possible setup (for example - AoE'ing the blue side, and Assist Training the red side). In this case, one can try to beat Phase 1 by just Flamestriking blue drakes, and easing the healing load on the assist train side through the liberal use of healing consumables. But really, there is no particular drake color where AoE does not work, or assist training does not work - there's just "optimal" ways of dividing up the raid.
Phase 1 - Warrior Guide

Summary: The warrior's job on both sides is very important - simply, it's to keep the drakonids from going after the healers, who will be a constant aggro magnet through their healing.

The ideal warrior team is 3 warriors per side. The warriors set up an order and cycle through this as the drakonids stream out. The reason you do an order and not just free-for-all tanking is that as the encounter progresses it gets more and more difficult to "grab" the drakonid as it comes out because the drakonids are going to be more and more likely to be very upset with your healers. Taunt is therefore invaluable in grabbing the drakonid at the start and allowing you time to apply a few sunders, heroic strikes, shield slam, taunting blade etc. It's also helpful because it ensures a few seconds of the drakonid beating on you and thereby supplying you with some rage. By having an order you pretty much ensure each warrior enough time to have their taunt cooled down so they can catch their next assigned drakonid. One last thing to be aware of is that while the small drakonids spawn at a set interval, there are also going to be at least three chromatic drakonids per side (if you see more than 3 during stage one you are killing much too slow). The first of these will spawn right at the start so warriors in the 1 and 2 slots per side will be having a drakonid right from the get go. The other two will usually spawn just before or just after one of the colored drakonids so communication is the key to ensuring a body on every drakonid. How you set up your communication is up to you but the way my team does it is the player grabbing a drakonid calls out the person's name who is after them in the tanking order.

Taunts are occasionally resisted and that is why it is helpful to have a druid in bear form ready to taunt an escaping drakonid and bring it back to the warriors. It is a bad idea for a warrior to leave the killing area to chase a drakonid since you will often be pulling mobs with you that could do any number of bad things to those who you are trying to protect in the first place.

Unless you have 7 warriors for this, your main tank is likely to be needed for the warrior rotations. If he is then it is very important for you to try to get the mobs off him when he needs to leave to greet the landing Nefarian. If you are doing this without fear ward then you need to do the same for whoever is going to be your off tank. It is a good idea to make sure you have your OT and MT on different doors so that you have two warriors per side to try to clean the mobs off them. The MT should be on the Assist side because it is easier to break off to catch Nefarian.

Phase 1 - Positioning

The healer clump in the middle should be in range to heal the people from both gates. The Mages & Locks should stay a good distance away from the drakonids that come out from the AoE side and AoE from there. Hunters are the same - stay a good distance away from the drakonids that come out from the Assist side and shoot from there. A bear druid will stand watch on both sides to pull drakonids back to the warriors if any get loose. It is important not to spend time chasing any drakonids that run loose, because that will waste too much time - let the bears pull the drakonids back to the warriors.

AoE Side

AoE side: The first two drakonids should be focus fired by the mages and warlocks. However, past that, the casters should just constantly rain area of effect spells down upon the drakonids. The warriors will have the tough job of keeping all the drakonids in the position; healers should be aware of when they have aggro and should keep their aggro levels equal. In the event that a drakonid breaks loose and goes after the healers, the bear form druid will taunt and pull the drakonid back into the AoE. TALENTS will help a lot here. Mages with improved blizzard and one hunter with entrapment constantly lay traps / feign death will make the drakonids easier to control within the AoE spot.

Assist Train Side

Assist Train side: As each drakonid comes out, /assist the MA and kill it FAST. The MA must be quick on switching targets, and he will pick colored drakonids before the chromatic ones. There is no cap on the amount of drakonids that can spawn - simply that they stop spawning when 20 of each color are dead. If there are ever 5 drakonids or more out at any time on the assist train side, it means that you have killed them too slowly and you're pretty much screwed. If this is the case, you'll need to use more consumables, extra buffs, need more DPS on that side, etc.

Tips:

Learning Stage 1 will be a gradual process. There are a number of things that can go wrong:

* Drakonids are leaking to the healers.
o Solution: Usually it is one healer pulling the aggro, have that healer cut down. It could be a warrior problem, make sure the warriors are on top of their taunting chain. The druid in bear form can help taunt a couple back but if there are a lot of drakonids leaking then there's something wrong.
* Drakonids are overwhelming just the AoE side .
o Solution: Make sure the drakonids really are all being controlled within the AoE spot. Maybe there isn't enough AoE power (our guild uses 5 mages / 3 warlocks there usually and it is sufficient) in which case you can help by giving each AoE person Greater Arcane Elixirs. If that still isn't enough, you might want to just simply bring more Mages and Warlocks to Nefarian.
* Drakonids are overwhelming just the Assist Train side.
o Solution: Make sure the MA is switching targets well before each drakonid is dead, make sure everyone is on top of assisting and killing quickly. If the drakonids are running towards healers, a lot of DPS is lost so make sure the drakonids are caught well by the warriors. If they simply are not dying fast enough, this is usually a DPS problem; use more consumables to increase DPS, bring a warlock over from the AoE side to help damage, or just bring more rogues/hunters to the raid.
* Drakonids are overwhelming both sides.
o Solution: Keep working on it! It'll be smoother and smoother as warriors work together better to keep the drakonids in control, druids get quicker at pulling drakonids back if they slip, healers realize their place in aggro, and the assist train becomes a well-oiled machine in killing one drakonid after another in a machine-like manner.

At approximately 42 drakonids, (when 20 drakonids of each color is dead), Nefarian will land. Congratulations, you have finished the hardest part of the Nefarian encounter - hopefully, your entire raid is intact (you shouldn't have more than 2 deaths in phase 1, and those deaths should be rare occasions where Nefarian's mind control hits an unfortunate target). Have the MT / OT break off at the "Nefarian landing in 10 seconds" message along with about 6 healers to heal the tank. Nefarian will land as his dragon form while breathing a shadow flame which will hit the entire raid (hope you have an Onyxia Scale cloak on!) The rest of the raid finishes off the rest of the drakonids. They will stop spawning. Then, the raid should get into Stage 2 positioning.

Stage 2 - Positioning

The positioning is basically all ranged & healers stand at max range from Nefarian so his Bellowing Roar AoE Fear (Range: 30 yards) doesn't hit you. The rogues are on the other side of Nefarian and are outside the range of heals: they are responsible for keeping themselves alive.
Stage 2 - Abilities

* Cleave: Rogues shouldn't be getting hit by this.
* Tail Whip: A stun if you stand behind Nefarian, by his tail. Rogues shouldn't be getting hit by this either.
* Shadow Flame: Very high shadow damage cone in front of Nefarian.
* Bellowing Roar: A periodic AoE fear centered on Nefarian with ~30 yard range. All ranged / healers need to stand at max range to avoid this fear. Quick-Reflex Stance dancing & a quick Off-Tank will be required. Or a dwarf priest.
* Healing Curse: Nefarian occasionally casts a curse which reduces healing on the MT by 75%. This needs to be removed ASAP.

Stage 2 - Warrior Guide
This is most complicated when you have no fear ward and so the below is assuming you do not have it.

When Nefarian is going to cast a fear, the ground will shake just like it does for Onyxia. From Ground Shake to Fear, you have 2 seconds to change stances. That is not much time at all, especially if your MT just used an ability and is on his global cooldown, but it is very possible for your MT to be able to switch to berserker stance to pop their berserker rage. Possible doesn't equate to success every time, nor does Nefarian help by his unpredictable fear timer. The point here is that your MT will miss fear sometimes - while he is feared, Nefarian will ignore him until the fear times out and switch to the person he hates the most who isn't feared. If your raid likes living, this must be your off tank.

The off tank will spend the entire rest of the fight being unconcerned with damage and only with generating enough threat to be higher on Nefarian's hate list than any healers or any DPS that is not getting feared. Because you will sometimes see more than one fear in 30 seconds, the cooldown time for your MT's berserker rage, it is important for your off tank to be ready to use his berserker rage before the fear goes off so that aggro will transfer smoothly from the feared main tank to the immune-to-fear off tank. The off tank will then immediately run to the spot where the MT was tanking. When the fear breaks from the MT, Nefarian will switch back over so the MT needs to get himself back into position ASAP.

Even with fear ward it is recommended to have an off tank for the situations where fear ward is on cooldown and the MT is either unable to get into berserker in time or has his rage on cooldown for some reason.
Class Call-Outs:

At a set interval, roughly every 30 seonds, CT-Raid will announce ** CLASS CALL INCOMING ** and a few seconds later a random class call will occur.

* Druids: Druids will be stuck in cat form. Can't heal in cat form so paladins/priests have to pick up the healing. Just sit around… Jump… Look pretty. Resist the temptation to go up and melee, as a fear could bring you into Nefarian's Shadow Flame Breath.

* Hunters: Your ranged weapon will break. This effect is permanent. Therefore, whenever ** CLASS CALL INCOMING ** is announced on CTRA, you should remove your weapon and put it in your backpack. After the class call is given, put it back on and start firing again. Alternatively, if your hunters are rich, they can place a repair bot and just always fire and simply repair when their hunters break. This will increase DPS.
Tip: To remove your ranged weapon and put it in an inventory neatly in one button, here's a nice macro:
/script PickupInventoryItem(18);PickupContainerItem(0,10);UseContainer(0,10)
(0,10) means bag space 0 (counting from the right, so 0 would be the original backpack), 10 is the bag slot, starting from top left.

* Mages: You are still in control of your character, but you will cast instant random polymorphs on the raid. These must be dispelled/cleansed instantly, ESPECIALLY if the MT gets hit by one. The talent Ice Block works to remove the debuff, so picking up the talent will be extremely valuable.

* Paladins: Will cast Blessing of Protection on Nefarian, rendering all attacks useless. Take a nap.

* Shamans: Corrupted Windfury and Healing totems are placed which help Nefarian and not the party.

* Priests: Your heals will DoT your target so stop healing. Druids/Paladins/Shamans need to pick up all healing when this occurs. The moment he calls out the priest call all heals (except renew and shield) will give corrupted healing, so instead of waiting for the priest call to stop (by then it will be too late and the main tank will have 3 corrupted heals on him), priests should stop healing whenever ** CLASS CALL INCOMING ** is announced.

* Rogues: Nefarian will turn to you and you will be teleported and rooted either in front of Nefarian or in the back/side of Nefarian. If you take a shadow flame you're going to die, unless you have a Greater Shadow Protection Potion's effect on you. If you get teleported in front of Nefarian, the main tank should run through Nefarian and turn him 180 degrees.

* Warlocks: Warlocks summon a small zerg of infernals that have a light AoE fire aura. Easily AoEable. Mages will arcane explosion these.

* Warriors: Warriors will be stuck in berserker stance. DPS needs to lighten up since the MT will be generating 20% less agro than usual. Healers amp up the healing a lot since MT will be taking 20% more damage than usual.
Tip: Perhaps the most devastating thing that can happen is the warrior call combined with the healing curse. Just spam heals whenever the warrior call is given, and make sure the healing curse is quick to come off.

Stage 3 - Construct Zerg

Nefarian Stage 3 occurs when he reaches 20% HP. All the corpses from the previous zerg come back to life as Constructs (similar to those in the Scholomance basement). They have very little HP and are easy to AoE down.

Preparation: Set up half your casters to AoE the left side, half your casters to AoE the right side. Have them wand to regain lots of mana from Nefarian 30% and onwards. Assign one mage each with Improved Blizzard to start blizzarding on top of the corpses so the moment they pop up they will be slowed. Assign one or two healers to each side to heal the warrior tanking the zerg.

When Nefarian is ~22%, the raid should be getting into position to prepare for Stage 3.

Warriors: All warriors will cease DPS and run through Nefarian to park them in front of the zerg. We will set up a chain Challenging Shout/Shield Wall rotation. You will have ~50 mobs beating on you for ~200 dmg per hit, so that's why you will need shield wall.

Melee DPS: Rogues can either help out with AoE'ing the constructs by throwing Stratholme Holy Water or engineering bombs at the constructs, or just keep whacking away at Nefarian. Initially, the rogues should bring Stratholme Holy Water to help AoE until your raid is familiar with this phase.

Casters / Ranged: Frost Nova rotations + snare effects and AoE the constructs into the ground. Casters, use a Limited Invulnerability Potion and go nuts! Healers: When the Stage 3 zerg occurs, send one or two healers to each side to help heal the warriors tanking the constructs.

After the zerg is finished, this fight is just a continuation of Phase 2 with no extra surprises thrown in. Keep cracking away steadily and take down the last 20%!

horde to alliance communication:

101 101…………………………………Zug Zug

UO UO……………………………………..HA HA

27 11 11………………………………..mu ha ha

D F Z………………………………………..L A G

U G U……………………………………….L O L

As As As………………………………Ha Ha Ha

aw……………………………………………….no

d e d…………………………………………….l o l

Making your own phrase using the below chart only works if you put a space between each letter.

Orcish: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Common: g g o l o a o o l n l n a o l n g n n l l l a n o g

==============================================

(alliance to horde)



h i………………………………………….y o………..

ss ee oo p…………………………..Me love u…….

D a p Ee bb………………………….You Lose…….

b ppp…………………………………..evil…………

zz fff………………………………….never…………

Fff d Ss pp………………………..Very Mean…….

Ss B ppp……………………………Me Evil…………

D a p aa B ppp……………………Youre Evil……..

D a p aa Ss pp……………………Youre Mean……

Making your own phrase using the below chart only works if you put a space between each letter.
Common: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Orcish: o e o y y e o y o e o o o o y u e y y y y y y y o e

I have been in beta since june, so this might help some people… Im not going to cover night elf land though. This should get you to level 20 in 2-3 days 95% solo.

When you start off as a level 1 in any area that you are in make sure that you do every single quest possible in your "newb area"…
If you pick human you will start in northshire abby. Talk to all the people with the yellow question mark above thier head. The newb mobs you will kill are behind your starting area. After you finish those head to goldshire it should be on the map. Now the idea of getting every single quest that you can at the time, is that some are collection quests wich you do while you are on the main quests. If you get a delivery to storm wind dont do it untill you finish the others. The lost guard quest and the elite trogg Hogger is where you should hit around level 8-10 or so.. This should be about the end of quests for this area. Keep reading for the rest.

Dwarf or Gnome you start in the same area. Basic run down pick up all the quests you can the newb mobs are back to the SouthWest just follow the road do everysingle one of these untill the only ones you have left are the delivery quests. Then go up to khranos and do those ones. When you finish Khranos head up the road to Steelgrill depot your quest log will give you directions. There is also Brewnwall village wich you should do. Do everysingle one of these quests. You will need at least a 3 man group for the wendigos, frostmane hold, vegash.

Now if you were a human and you finished Elyyn Forest, you need to travel to Iron Forge. Take the gryphon to out of Stormwind city to there. Start on the quests in khranos.

If you started dwarf or gnome go to iron forge and take the gryphon to stormwind. Now do the quests in elwyyn..

Basically your leveling in the other races starting lands now the mobs your killing should be a little lower level than you so that you can cut right through them.

After you have done both of these. You will head to westfall or Loch modan. Do the lower level quests in these, DO NOT attempt the high level ones yet. As your trying to do quests that are around 1-3 levels below you right now for increased xp gain.

After you finish the tunnel rat ears and some trogs in Loch Modan go to West Fall and do some defias from sentinal hill. Also when you kill the harvest watchers there keep 5 flasks of oil, 5hops, and 5 okra as these are for other quests that you will get to later on.

Once the quests start getting hard in the loch go to westfall untill they get hard and then go back the loch when the westfall ones get hard vice/versa depending on where you are at the time.

If you do go to redrige you can do a couple there at level 16-18 or so. Dragon whelps after you do a delivery to goldshire. Also kill some trogs there. The delivery quests make sure that you do these as 90% of the time they lead to other quests.

Well i hope this can help some people if you have questions just ask..

Also see www.thottbot.com for quest locations.
If you are night elf and want to get to the human or dwarf lands take a boat from darkshore to menethial harbor and you arrive in the wetlands. Make sure you stay on the road, and nothing should kill you. Run up to loch modan through the dun algaz gates.

This is tricky and may take some time but go out of ironforge and when coming out of ironforge go to the left keep going up the road until it ends then stick to the wall push the '/' button to walk slowly must have it on then keep walking against the wall/ice/mountain or walk straight eventually after a while u will be able to go up a hill from there look on the map and go into wetlands because its where ur able to go keep walking u will see a airport kind of keep walking and go over the hill to ur right and fall off it may be to the left and it may take some time aka its a HUGE fall so ud have to be a lvl 60 with alot of health or a priest with levitate then ull see a unfinished town go into there and look around u will then be able to buy mounts for either 5 silv 10 silv 25 silv or i gold i fogot and i believe u can selll them back to vendor for 25 gold do this to get a cheap mount or make hundreds in minutes of gold

The best guide written ever for the alliance in WoW.

Featuring Easy to understand Step by step instructions.

Includes map coordinates for easy navigation.

Downloadable in an easy to read format.

Links to every quest with thottbot.

Blazing fast leveling speeds!
Here is a small sample of what you will find in the guide before you download.

6) Go to The Shimmering Flats to 77,77 and turn in Rumors for Kravel accept Back to Booty Bay
7) Just beside him turn in News for Fizzle
Go to 80,75 and accept Keeping Pace do it by talking with zamek just south of here, has a blue ? on his
head. Don t follow him, run to rizzles house at 77,77 and when he leaves grab the unguarded plans which turns in Keeping Pace accept Rizzle's Schematics turn it in at 80,75
9) Hearth to Gadget
10) Run out to Steamwheedle Port at 59,80
11) Turn in 'Stoley's Debt' at the southern most house, accept Stoley s Shipment and Southsea Shakedown
12) Go to the northern houses, accept Pirate Hats Ahoy! and Screecher Spirits

— Start Fishing FAQ —

This guide covers the Fishing profession that is now a secondary skill. Which means that you can have this skill in addition to your two primary skills. I suggest getting this skill as it can be a nice way to pass time and make a lot of cash as a newbie. Whether this skill is truely usefull at high levels is under debate. There are however some pretty high price catches as well as different trade recipes and locked chests containing materials for almost all the trades.

You can check the WoW site for additional info:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/professions/

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/professions/fishing.html

For searches on specific fishing areas and drop information you can check out either of these. Although I suggest Thottbot because it is linked to the Cosmos software that is availible in the downloads section. I believe a newer version is availible now at www.cosmosui.com

http://www.thottbot.com/
http://wow.allakhazam.com/

Where are the fishing skill trainers?

They are generally near bodies of water. Your best bet is to simply ask a guard. Guards can provide a LOT of good info as well as marks on your map to where they are.


What are the different levels/ranks in the professions?

Rank (Min - Max Skills) (Req Skill)

Apprentice (1-75) (0)

Journeyman (50-150) (50)

Expert (125-225) (125)

Artisan (200-300) (200)


Why is my skill no longer gaining?

1. You have reached the highest skill points for your Rank. Go train to the next rank.

2. You need to move to higher level area to fish.

No-one teaches Expert Fishing?!? How do I get it?

You need to buy the Expert Fishing - The Bass and You from the Old Man Heming in Stranglethorn Vale (Booty Bay).

No-one teaches Artisan Fishing?!? How do I get it?

You learn Artisan level of a Profession by completing a quest given by Wigcik in Stranglethorn Vale (Booty Bay).


What are some zones I can fish in and what fish do they have?
For more indepth information to these zones I suggest using the thottbot link above. They provide near exact percentages on the drop rates as well as what rares are dropped.

Alterac Mountains - Raw Mithril Head Trout & Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish

Arathi Highlands - Raw Rockscale Cod & Firefin Snapper

Adhenvale - Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish & Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper

Azshara - Raw Spotted Yellowtail, Stonescale Eel, Raw Glossy Mightfish, & Winter Squid

Darkshore - Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper, Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish, Raw Brilliant Smallfish, & Darkshore Grouper

Desolace - Raw Mithril Head Trout & Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish

Don Morogh - Raw Brilliant Smallfish & Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper

Durotar - Raw Brilliant Smallfish & Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper

Duskwood - Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish & Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper

Dustwallow Marsh - Raw Rockscale Cod & Thick-shelled Clam

Elwynn Forest - Raw Brilliant Smallfish & Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper

Felwood - Raw Redgill, Raw Sunscale Salmon, Big-mouth Clam & Lightning Eel

Feralas - Raw Spotted Yellowtail & Winter Squid

Hillsbrad Foothills - Raw Rainbow Fin Albacore, Firefin Snapper & Oily Blackmouth

Ironforge - Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper, Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish, & Raw Brilliant Smallfish

Loch Modan - Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper, Raw Loch Frenzy, Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish, & Raw Brilliant Smallfish

Moonglade - Raw Redgill, Raw Nightfin Snapper, & Big-mouth Clam

Mulgore - Raw Brilliant Smallfish & Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper

Orgrimmar - Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper, Raw Brilliant Smallfish, & Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish

Redridge Mountains - Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish & Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper

Silverpine Forest - Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper, Old Skull*, Sickly Looking Fish, Raw Brilliant Smallfish, & Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish

Stormwind City - Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper, Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish, & Raw Brilliant Smallfish

Stranglethorn Vale - Raw Rockscale Cod, Thick-shelled Clam, Firefin Snapper, & Oily Blackmouth

Tanaris - Raw Spotted Yellowtail & Raw Glossy Mightfish

Teldrassil - Raw Brilliant Smallfish & Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper

The Barrens - Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper, Deviate Fish, Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish, & Raw Brilliant Smallfish

Tirisfal Glades - Raw Brilliant Smallfish, Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper, & Sickly Looking Fish

Westfall - Raw Rainbow Fin Albacore, Oily Blackmouth, & Raw Slitherskin Mackerel

Winterspring - Raw Whitescale Salmon, Raw Sunscale Salmon, & Big-mouth Clam

These listed items are based on the drop rates given on thottbot.

So how much can I sell these fish for??

Big-mouth Clam - 46 cp

Darkshore Grouper - 6 cp

Deviate Fish - 25 cp

Firefin Snapper - 50 cp

Lightning Eel - 3 sp

Oily Blackmouth - 25 cp

Old Skull* - 17 cp

Raw Brilliant Smallfish - 1 cp

Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish - 20 cp

Raw Glossy Mightfish - 3 sp

Raw Loch Frenzy - 5 cp

Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper - 5cp

Raw Mithril Head - 50 cp

Raw Nightfin Snapper - 80 cp

Raw Rainbow Fin Albacore - 5 cp

Raw Redgill - 80 cp

Raw Rockscale Cod - 40 cp

Raw Slitherskin Mackerel - 1 cp

Raw Spotted Yellowtail - 80 cp

Raw Sunscale Salmon - 80 cp

Raw Whitescale Salmon - 1 sp 60 cp

Sickly Looking Fish - 1 cp

Stonescale Eel - 2 sp 50 cp

Thick-shelled Clam - 21 cp

Winter Squid - 3 sp 50 cp

This required max fishing of 300, a good fishing pole & and a good supply of the +100 lures. Somesort of water travel form is a big bonus.

There are 6 fishing spawns in the waters on eastern Azshara, Pools of Elemental Water. From these pulls you can fish Globe of Water, Elemental Waters & Essence of Water(which sell decently). As a shaman I get waterwalking, which is basicly cheating when it comes to any competition.

Here is a map of all the spawn point.
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/8586/azsharafishsk4.jpg

This map was created from memory as the realms are down for maintainance, but that is roughly where each spawn is. They have a respawn timer of around 1 hour. If you manage to get all 6 points uncontested you can easily harvest 8 Essence of Water in under 30 minutes.

There are essentially two parts to soloing Mother Smolderweb… getting to her, and killing her. Neither are easy if you don't know how, hence this guide 8-), so I'll be covering both in fair detail.

Rather than miss out something important, I'll be assuming that you've never used Stealth before and need to know everything. Sorry if any of it seems condescending.

I should point out here that I'm not in an Uber Raiding Guild, I run a small friendly guild, and so this guide should be usable by everyone, even the little folk like me!

I did this with no points in Improved Prowl, although I do have Innervate which saved me a fortune in mana potions The only other talent points I have which have any real effect is two points in Improved Starfire, as the chance of stunning her and so getting a free shot is nice, but not at all vital, and Nature's Swiftness, which can be handy for repositioning her.

Other things that would be helpful to bring along:-

Major Health Potions and Major Mana Potions. While it's easy enough to do her without either of these, there's nothing like being well prepared to increase your chances. Running out of either HPs or Mana is pretty much a game over situation! If you don't have Innervate, then Major Mana Potions are absolutely vital, it's possible to do her without Innervating or potioning if you're very patient but it's much much more risky, and why take the chance of dying when she's on 5%?

Heavy Runecloth Bandages. Again, you don't absolutely have to bring these, but they'll save you mana, which makes things easier, and First Aid is so easy to max out why not do it? The reason I say bring Heavy Runecloth rather then the lower ones is for speed, the faster you can heal up the better, as you'll see later.

Ok, so you have your supplies, and you're all ready to go, so where is she?

She's inside Blackrock Spire, an instance inside Blackrock Mountain, which straddles the border between Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge. Blackrock Spire has two halves, Lower Blackrock Spire (LBRS) which is where you start when you zone in, and Upper Blackrock Spire (UBRS), which is accessed from inside LBRS using a quested key. Luckily she's in LBRS, so you don't need the key. She's about half way through the zone, so it takes a little work to get to her.

If you die (and you most likely will), you appear at the Graveyard at Thorium Point in Searing Gorge. It's a simple trip to the South West of the zone to get back.

Once inside Blackrock Mountain, there are no mobs until you get close to the instance entrances, so it's safe to move around a bit. There are two instances inside the Mountain, BRS and BRD (Blackrock Depths).

If you travel around the ring in Blackrock Mountain, you will find a meeting stone for Blackrock Spire, and a tunnel leading to it. DO NOT GO IN HERE! It leads past lots of Orcs, and while it's possible, even easy, to Stealth past them, there's no need, as there's a cunning shortcut you can take!

If you go to the northern (and highest) point on the ring inside Blackrock Mountain, there's a chain leading down to the floating island in the middle, and a rock ramp on the west side of it allowing you to climb onto it. Go up onto the chain, and then go left and up the chain, and drop off the end onto a shelf. It's very dark at this point, so you might need to turn your gamma or brightness up. Follow the shelf round to the right and up, and you'll see a balcony ahead of you. There's a gap just before the balcony, so you need to jump the last few feet. Once on the balcony, look into the room and you'll see the instance entrance to BRS. There's also a door to the right, don't go through there as there are Elite Orcs.

This would be a good time to cover the basics of Stealth.

Stealth in WoW is quite different to Invisibility in other games such as EQ, in that it's not 'Stealth up and nothing will see you', but an agro-range reducer. Get close enough to something and it WILL see you and attack. There are also mobs with Detect Stealth, who see you at an even wider radius.

How close you can get to a mob without being seen is determined by how much higher or lower level than you the mob is. For mobs lower than you your agro radius is very small, about the same size you are in fact, so unless you walk right into the mob you're usually ok. However, the higher above you the mob is, the further away it'll spot you from.

As if that wasn't enough, there are actually two agro ranges when Stealthed… the 'I seeeeee youuuuu!' one mentioned above, when the mob just comes along and splats you, and the 'Did you hear something?' one, where you attract the mob's attention, but don't actually agro it yet… yet being the operative word here!

If you get close enough to trigger the 'Did you hear something?' reaction, the mob will turn to face you (and if it's a roamer, stop walking and stare at you). While this is very scary when it happens, as long as you don't move the mob will eventually shrug it off as the wind or something, and turn back to what it's doing, allowing you to carry on.

Those two agro ranges are VERY important here, and I'll be referring to them a lot.

Zone into BRS, and you're at the bottom of a ramp. This is a safe spot, so once you're in you can Stealth up quite safely.

The entrance ramp to BRS


At this point, you might want to take off all your equipment and stash it in your backpack, as you will most likely die several times getting it right, and most likely a couple of times just through bad luck. You have to be *very* patient for this. If you do get spotted, all the gear in the world won't save you, so you might as well save on repair costs

Head up the ramp, and there's a room with various Orcs around the edges. They won't react to you at all as long as you stay in the centre of the room, however the one at the end will wander from side to side as it gets chunks of the roast pig and goes back to the table to eat it, so you have to be careful of that one. Also, there's a patrol of two that circle the area and cut across the end of this room, again mind them.

First room, with Roamer and Patrol marked.


Across the room there are ramps leading up at either side, and a big ramp down across the centre. You want to head down the ramp, hugging the right-hand wall. There are two doorways in that wall, you want to take the second one. You will get *very* close to an Orc as you go, but it doesn't react, so hug the wall and you'll be fine.

Down the ramp, showing the doorway you want to go through


Once through the doorway, you're in a short passage that leads to quite and open area. Two Orcs patrol into this passage, and they both react, so be very careful here.

Passage, showing Orc patrol


You want to wait 'til the patrol leaves, and then move down the passage and a little to the right. At this point, wait for the patrol to come back, and when they go past you up the passage you just came from, head off down the ramp and through the doorway on your left. This saves you having to hide from the patrol in the tunnel, which is possible but riskier.

Wait point and doorway to passage


Once into the passage, follow it through and you come out in a large chamber. At this point, turn sharp right and move away from the door so the patrol don't spot you when they come back.

This is the view you'll see after turning right in the chamber.


You can safely ignore the Ogres, they're actually on the other side of a chasm. You, however, are going into that chasm! It's a handy shortcut that saves a lot of work. Move forward until you're on the wall, and you'll see two rock platforms below you.

Rock platforms


Jump down onto the first, walk to the end, and down onto the second. You then need to head down the second to the left-hand side corner. Looking down, you'll see a lava river, a metal edging, and a stone path. You want to jump off and land on the metal edging.

View over the edge, showing the metal edging.


Ok, so far it's all been easy, now's when it gets tough…

If you turn to look down the corridor, you'll see it is *packed* with Orcs, with only a very small leeway in between. To make this even harder, there is a single-Orc patrol that comes down it, and a Roamer half way down who wanders from side to side and stands in the middle.

View down corridor, showing Roamer


From this point on, you need to have a very steady hand, be very patient, and most importantly of all be in third-person view. Personally I like to play in first-person, however this section is quite simply not possible that way, you have to be able to see all around you.

Timing is important here. The first thing you have to do is wait for the Patrol to come down the corridor towards you. It might stop and stare at you, however as long as you're standing on the metal edging facing down the centre of the hallway you'll be out of attack range, so just be patient and let it wander off again.

Now, once it's gone it's time to set off. If you're lucky, the Roamer shown in the last picture will have wandered onto the right hand side and be easier to pass, however it doesn't stay there long, and is your biggest obstacle for this section.

With the Patrol past you, start off down the centre of the corridor, slowly. Remember what I said earlier on about the 'Did you hear something?' reaction, well you're going to see a lot of it now. Every time a mob looks your way, stop and don't move again until it turns away. You have some time until the Patrol comes back, so you can afford to be careful, however don't over do it

Moving down the corridor, and an Orc reacting.


Having made it past the first lot, the corridor continues round to the left. Although the Orcs are more spread out here, they still react and you have to still be careful.

Heading round to the left.


You're heading to the far wall, and ultimately towards the group containing the sitting mob you can see top centre of the last picture.

View from the far wall


This part is the bit that requires the most patience, as (at level 56 certainly) you have *barely* enough room to squeeze through these mobs, and most of them react. You need to cross to the left hand half of the passage, and squeeze diagonally through the mobs as show in the next picture. The mob with his back to me in the picture doesn't react, however the other four all do, so you have to take this literally a step at a time. When you're certain that none of the mobs are looking at you, take one step forward and stop, then wait until you're certain you're clear again and take one more step, then stop again. Keep doing this until you get onto the ramp, at which point you're clear of the Orcs.

Path through the Orcs


Congratulations, you are now past all the Orcs… now it's time for Spiders!

View up the ramp, showing the Spiders


To get past these, you need to hug the left-hand wall up to just below a couple of boulders, as show here, and then wait.

Boulders and wait spot


There are three spiders you need to keep your eye on here, the little one to the right of the boulder, the little one behind the boulder, and the big one just past them. Eventually all three of them will wander away from the left hand wall, at which point you head up. You need to watch yourself here, there's an overhang you can see in the previous picture that you can get stuck under.

Once past those three spiders, carry on up into the top left corner. Turn right, and follow the wall past Mother Smolderweb. Keep going all the way to the far side.

Sneaking past Mother Smolderweb


As well as Mother Smolderweb herself, there is one other spider you need to be aware of, a roamer that wanders up and down the girders.



Mother Smolderweb moves around a little bit, and if she's at the girders end of her path as shown below then it's vital that you wait for the roamer to leave before pulling her, otherwise you'll agro that too, and that'll agro all the others nearby, and then it's game over.



The safer path is just to wait for her to move back up to the wall end of her path…



Make sure you're standing right up against the far wall before pulling her



This is as far up as she goes, so once she's here and stopped, it's time to start the madness

BTW, if you took all your gear off before starting the Stealth in, now is the time to put them back on again!



So, Part 1 of the guide, Getting To Mother Smolderweb is over… now for Part 2, Killing Mother Smolderweb!

It's actually a very simple process, in theory, it just takes time. In practice however, there are lots of things you need to know and obviously things that can go wrong. It is fairly unlikely that you'll kill her first time, in fact I died several times before I worked all this out, and even having it all written down for you is no substitute for practice. So, don't be disheartened, just keep plugging away, those boots are worth it in the end!

So, things you need to know before you start…

Firstly, and very importantly, is DO NOT have Thorns up! If you have Thorns on, click it off right now, as it *will* get you killed. We're going to be using Hibernate to keep her asleep, and if she hits you with Thorns up it's quite common for the damage from Thorns to land after Hibernate does, and it'll wake her right back up again. This is A Bad Thing!

Secondly, and equally importantly, is that you need to have Abolish Poison hotkeyed. You will need this a lot! She procs a poison called Mother's Milk, which has the very nasty effect of making you cast an AoE web explosion, which has the two very nasty effects of glueing you to the floor and interrupting casting. It is therefore essential that you get rid of it as soon as she's back asleep. It takes a few seconds before it goes off, so you have time. If left uncleared, it will keep going off every few seconds.

The third thing is something you probably all know, but as I said at the start I'm going to cover everything just in case… You can cast buffs, heals and cures on yourself (or anyone) without changing your target away from the mob. This is very important here as you cannot afford the delay in re-targetting her if Hibernate breaks at a bad time, and it will! So, keep Mother Smolderweb targetted at all times, and if you need to cure the poison or heal yourself or Innervate, then do it like this: Press the spell hotkey (or click the icon, but that's slower) and then press F1 (or click your portrait, again slower). If you do it in that order you will keep Mother Smolderweb targetted, but cure or heal yourself. The same is true if you need to bandage up, press the Bandage key then F1, and you'll bandage without losing her as your target.

Fourth (yup, LOTS you need to know! ) is that as well as Mother's Milk, she can also proc Crystalize, which is a 5-second stun that interrupts casting. Not nice! However, the good news is that it only lasts until she next hits you, so the moment you're under attack you're free again. This is basically the worse situation you'll find yourself in (if you do everything right, anyway ), and it's important not to panic

Finally for the pre-start info, the key here is keeping her asleep with Hibernate. That is the #1, #2 and #3 priority! It is not as easy as keeping a bog-standard mob under either, she will frequently break it early. When she does this you *must* immediately stop anything else you're doing, even if you're half way through a cast, and put her back under. You have to keep out of her melee as much as possible, or you're toast!

Ok, so by now you have your supplies, you're in position, and you know the drill… time to get our Spider on!

I hope you went to the toilet first btw, you'll be here for a while now!

As I said before, the tactics for the fight are very very simple… all we do is slowly wear her down with Starfire, and keep her under control with Hibernate. Other than all the points above, that's pretty much it!

Standing in the corner as shown above, with Mother Smolderweb properly positioned and no sign of the roamer, drop a Starfire on her head, and the instant it finishes casting cast Hibernate on her too. Don't wait for her to move or get near you or anything, cast Hibernate the instant Starfire lands, even if it's resisted. Hibernate takes 1.5 seconds to cast, and you're trapped in a very small area with a very angry Spider, you do not have a lot of room to play with here

During those 1.5 seconds you were casting Hibernate, she'll have moved towards you. For this first pull she might not have got very far, or she might have got all the way up to you. If she's barely moved, stay where you are and do another Starfire and Hibernate, and this time she'll stop very close to you (which is exactly what you want).

Now that you're staring terrified into her dripping mandibles, it's time to move. This is the key to the entire thing, keep moving and out of her range. You have *very* little room to work with here, there are spiders all around you, so it's vital to know how far you can safely go. The corner you started in is obvious, after that it's less so, so here's a nice picture of exactly where you should now be standing…



And this is the view you should have…



You now simply repeat this process over and over again… Starfire and Hibernate, move to the other side, and Starfire and Hibernate again… Remembering all the time that if she breaks Hibernate early, stop anything else you're doing (usually casting Starfire) and immediately re-Hibernate, and move out of her way.

As you can see from this picture, it takes a long time… I refreshed Mark of the Wild before I started, and so far 9 minutes have passed. You can also see from this picture that I have by now used Innervate. You will see in all the subsequent pictures that I keep my mouse over the Innervate icon, so that I can always see the countdown until I can use it again… that countdown is your lifeline, if you run out of mana before it's hit zero, you're dead! What you *must* do therefore is conserve mana as much as possible, and the easiest way to do that is to wait a few seconds after getting into position before casting Starfire / Hibernate again. Let the mana build back up a little bit, and then start again. Don't give it too long though, as I said she does like to wake up early!



A few more pictures of the fight, to give you a rough idea how long it takes… keep an eye on the Mark of the Wild timer…









As you can see in that last picture above, I took a lot of damage, I got stunned and then she resisted Hibernate… this will happen a few times every fight, more until you get the hang of it. The key here is to not panic, keep working on Hibernate, and only once you've got her under should you worry about healing up. Unless of course she gets you dangerously low, in which case click a Health potion and go back to trying to Hibernate her.

Once I had her back under, I moved to the new position and bandaged myself, all the time keeping her targetted and one finger on the Hibernate button… even if you're bandaging you have to stop it to re-Hibernate her the instant she wakes up.

Occasionally you will get into the unfortunate position of having her stop right in the middle of the area, so that no matter where you stand she will get to you in the 1.5 seconds Hibernate will take to cast. This is obviously a problem as it greatly increases the chances of you getting stunned, poisoned and beaten to death. However, there is a very handy little trick you can do in these circumstances to re-position her…

If you took the Nature's Swiftness talent, you now have a nice little trick up your sleeve! As you know, it makes the next Nature spell you cast into an instant cast spell. Everyone knows that's heals and the Wrath nuke, but what a lot of people don't realise is that Hibernate is also a Nature spell, and so is affected by Nature's Swiftness. Starfire, however, is an Arcane spell, and thus unaffected.

So, the trick for getting out of a 'she's gonna get me!' situation and back into the 'Ahhh, she's miles away' place you want is simple… cast Nature's Swiftness on yourself first, BEFORE casting Starfire. Then cast Starfire on her as normal. As it's an Arcane spell Nature's Swiftness will still be up. Then pause for half a second or so, just until she starts moving, and then hit her with the now instant-casting Hibernate. Provided she doesn't resist it (always a possibility), you now have her nicely dozing away near to you without ever having got close enough to hit you, and it's back to the cycle.

If you don't have Nature's Swiftness, or you already used it and the timer's still counting down, then the best thing to do in this situation is to cast Rejuvenate on yourself just before casting Starfire, so that when she does get to you you still have a few seconds of high regen left to soak up some of the damage.

After about 15 minutes, you should have her pretty low…



Not quite low enough though… remember how many HPs she has, and how relatively little Starfire does. Where you actually want her to be now is this low…



At this point, there's a good chance that your next Starfire will kill her. That's obviously a good thing, but it does also have a downside… when she dies, a horde of little spiders will spawn from her corpse, and they will kill you. Oh, did I forget to mention that at the start? Yup, you're on a suicide mission, there's no way you're coming back from this alive, sorry!

The good news is that the little spiders have a tiny agro range, and if you've done everything right then when she dies you'll be far enough from them for them to not instantly agro you… however, we've not taken any chances this far, so why risk it eh?

When you get to the point that you're pretty sure your next Starfire will kill her, cast Rejuvenation on yourself before casting Starfire, and as well as the finger over Hibernate also keep a finger over Dire Bear form.

If when you cast Starfire she doesn't die (even if you're certain the damage will be enough, she could resist it) re-cast Hibernate, then re-cast Rejuvenate and start again.

When she does die, however, immediately cast Dire Bear form. You can loot as a Bear, and have the advantage of more HPs and Armour, giving you longer to do so.



All that remains now is to run in and loot the corpse. The little spiders will attack the moment you get near her, so you have to be fast. If they haven't attacked yet and you have enough mana left, you can de-Bear and stack Regrowth and Rejuvenate on yourself, then re-bear and go in, to give yourself the maximum looting time, however even with no regen Dire Bear will give you enough, so it's up to you.

Remember that the boots are Bind On Pickup, so as well as clicking on them you will also have to click the Yes button to grab them, so be prepared, and even though it might sound amazingly obvious, if she does drop them click them first!



As you can see, she didn't drop them for me on this run, or any of the dozen or so previous runs, or the half dozen group or raid runs at her I've done too… basically, she hates me! 8-( Still, my revenge upon her is that now hopefully lots more people will kill her too, muhahahaha!

*cough*

Now that you're dead, you can run all the way back to BRS and zone in again to res yourself, and then gate home muttering to yourself about how that Spider's going to get hers one day, and prepare for another run tomorrow! The good news is that at least she'll drop a Green item if you don't get the boots, which will easily cover your repair costs from the death at the end.

Never res at the Spirit Healer at Thorium Point, it takes 2 minutes to get back to BRS to res normally, and it's perfectly safe to do, so why waste cash on more durability loss

Well, that's it for this guide, I hope you enjoyed it, and that you'll offer up a quick plea on my behalf while you're strutting round in your new boots that one day I'll get mine!

Dianius, 60 Night Elf Druid, Teranas (Euro)




Well, it turns out that perseverance pays off, and on my 20th solo kill of her she decided to be nice to me

This paragraph is the exact same text for all my solo and group PvE templates, so after you read this once you can just skip it for other classes. These are my templates for what I consider the best viable templates for PvE purposes ONLY. A solo template is assuming that you never plan on grouping. A group template assumes that you are in a group 100% of the time, such as end game instances. I have also been asked to provide info on what skills should be taken at which levels, this is really difficult as it would depend on exact individual play styles. However, I put a number in parenthesis before each skill, this number is the level that I would take the skill at, of course this is extremely prejudiced because it is based on my own play style. Of course if you think you have a better template please share it with us.

Assassination Talents - 16 points

(10-11-12-13-14)Malice - rank 5/5

(50-51-52)Ruthlessness - rank 3/3

(48-49)Improved Slice and Dice - rank 2/3

(53)Relentless Strikes - rank 1/1

(54-55-56-57-58)Lethality - rank 5/5

Combat Talents - 35 points

(17-18-19)Improved Gouge - rank 3/3

(15-16)Improved Sinister Strike - rank 2/2

(42-43-44-46-47)Lightning Reflexes - rank 5/5

(20-21-22-23-24)Deflection - rank 5/5

(26-27-28-29-30)Precision - rank 5/5

(59-60)Improved Evasion - rank 2/2

(25)Riposte - rank 1/1

(31-32-33-34-35)Dual Wield Specialization - rank 5/5

(37-38-39-40-41)Mace Specialization - rank 5/5

(36)Blade Flurry - rank 1/1

(45)Adrenaline Rush - rank 1/1