[H] Drak'theron Keep: Guide

[2ndNin]

I need to get the boss names and exact healths for this, this makes a good early heroic instance, with only a single boss really challenging beyond the normal instance. I will clean this up a little, when I ran it I wasn't keeping notes since it was going rather fast.

This instance is very linear and like its normal counter part the trash in general poses little to no threat to a reasonably geared tank (20,000 health, 20,000 armour, 520ish defense). The undead pull (2 aboms + ghouls) should be manged in small groups, while it is possible to survive the 2 abominations and the ghouls it is not recommended. For this pull cleanse yourself a lot, blow trinkets and be prepared to wipe, you can successfully pull the 3 packs of ghouls and the abominations separately making it easy. This leads into the first boss

The spiders poison should be cleansed, however no major issues, and onto the second boss. After this the raptor packs are managed easily on this level of tank without crowd control, and the third boss. For the packs leading to the final boss, the first pull has 2 undead in it, and 2 trolls, the undead stun and this can kill you, a frost mage can solo the entire pack (and did in my run), however in genreal cc one undead, and burst down the second. The remainder of the pulls are carried out as per the normal instance, taking the death knights in a 2/1/2 set to prevent the fear and damage from being overwhelming, the mobs can silence.

1.Trollgore
- 340,000 ish health
- 3-4k on 20,000 armour
- Corpse explosion every 60s or so

Tactics:
Tank the boss on the stairs, when you see the emote for the corpse explosion (and the cast bar) run away around 10 yards from him, while the corpse explosion is survivable (6-10k damage) it adds to the healing stress, there is aoe damage in this fight that we are not concerned with, just move out of range and the fight is little more than tank and spank.

2.Novos the Summoner
-
- Spawns non-elite undead adds from the stairs on the left of entry
- Spawns four elite humanoid channelers (entry, behind boss, entry, behind boss) which must be killed to free the boss
- Frostbolts - 2-4k
- Blizzard, targetted on tank, 1-2k/tick

Tactics:
Identical tactics to non-heroic version. Alllow dps to focus on the non-elite adds until the channelers spawn, then kill them, a single dps can typically kill all of the spawning undead. Once the boss is loosed, avoid the blizzard, and tank and spank. The frostbolts will target random party members ina similar way to Rage Winterchill.

3.King Dred
- 340,000 health
- Bite 3-5k on 20,000armour
- Bleed effect
- Summons adds (3-4k on 20,000 armour)
- "enrage" attacks, 8-11k on 20,000 armour
- Fears every 60s roughly

Tactics:
clear the nearby dinosaurs, then pull the boss into the hallway rather than the pen where he spawns. If you have a plate DPS class allow them to take the adds from you, otherwise nuke hard, bubble/cancel and trinket out of fears.There isn't a lot to this fight, but the potential is there for massive burst damage.

4.The Prophet Tharon'ja
- 340,000 health
- hits you lightly
- hits your skeleton lightly

Tactics:
Run in, tank backwards for the lols (actually tank forwards, but if you survived Dred, this guy is easy).
When you enter skeleton form, use bone armour on cooldown (key 3) and spam taunt (key 2), the life drain (key 4) can also be used.

This boss is honestly a joke, his damage is very light,and the gimmick of the skeletons well explained in the normal version. If you survived the dinosaur King Dred, enjoy the free loot.

[caboom]

Wonderfull initiative and thank you for that, these guides were exactly what i was looking for, keep it up, maybe you could compile them in a big 1 thread guide rather than spread around this forums.

On the guide itself, it is notable to say that:

1) on 2nd boss i think on 2nd phase(when you are attacking him) he has no aggro table(at least that's what my tank said last nite), also all the adds are tankable by any class wearing anything better than cloth, except the big melee ghouls that should be picked up by the tank.

2) With having 4 bosses out of wich 2 are complete tank'n'spanks and the other 2 beeing CC and fun gimick fights, this is the SP of WOTLK, by far the easiest instance i've been in so far on heroic mode.

3) boss names :

1.Trollgore
2.Novos the Summoner
3.King Dred
4.The Prophet Tharon'ja

wowhead ftw

Cheers and keep em coming!

[2ndNin]

Not sure if he lacks an aggro table, the Blizzard and melee damage seemed targeted at me at all times, however the frostbolts appear to pick random targets, will try and get another run in to confirm. It is why I think its a mechanic more like Rage Winterchill rather than a no-aggro type effect, easiest way to confirm will be to turn off RF and see who he smashes.

Basically none of the undead need tanked at all (I never have), but we likely had a decent kite / kill (I normally assign a mage or retadin to handle the stairs with the other 2 dps taking the role of killing the adds as needed).

This is the SP of WotLK from the looks of it, especially since the hardest boss is 100% skippable, meaning you can run it as a fast 3 badge instance. The only real problem is in King "dino" Dred, who can make mincemeat fast (I took 22k damage in 2 hits, and then add polished me off).

One thing I would advise though is spamming sacred shield on yourself, if you don't have a holy paladin, the extra DR is always nice.

[Arcia]

Anyone done the achievement for Trollgore and has some tips?

I did the achievements for Novos the summoner and Kind Dred which were both very easy (especially Novos achievement) and kinda self-explanatory but the one for trollgore seems abit trickier and I couldnt find any achievement for Prophet.

[Belloc]

Anyone done the achievement for Trollgore and has some tips?

I did the achievements for Novos the summoner and Kind Dred which were both very easy (especially Novos achievement) and kinda self-explanatory but the one for trollgore seems abit trickier and I couldnt find any achievement for Prophet.

Trollgore uses an ability that gives him a consumption charge (or whatever) for every living player/npc in his LoS. So, make sure the adds are dying immediately, first of all. Next, if you use certain mods, you can put a rule in that will broadcast when he uses one of his abilities (I don't remember the name) and have your DPS break LoS when the broadcast occurs.

The best way is just to burn him down as fast as possible, though.

[Veilan]

Is wrath of misery dispellable in some fashion? Tooltip doesn't classify it as curse or magic or anything, yet I got told it should be dispelled by remove curse.

[Ilara]

c'mon, Dred is hitting for 10k twice in a row. Healer cant possibly keep up with this shit. Whats the secret?

[amh]

It´s three times in a row, I think? What I do on Dred is to time cooldowns, and never have any adds up when he "raises his talon menacingly". You have a little while between each time he does it, so grab 1-2 adds and aoe them down in between.

Pretend like it´s Brutallus :) Not that far from it anyway, considering the damage-intake and fast pace. If you´re going for the achievement it certainly doesn´t hurt bringing an extremely overpowered healer. You do not want to fight more than Dred + 1 add at any given point, except on the initial pull. Dred + 2 adds is ok if you´re bringing proper dps. Having live adds during a nuke is very dangerous. They will literally rip through you.


Pre-pull: Ironshield if you´re feeling squishy.
On the pull I usually grab 2 adds right away.
You now have 10-30 seconds to kill your current adds.
2/6 adds

First nuke: nightmare seed.
Have a ranged dps assigned to picking up a new add after each nuke.
Pick off the new add.
You now have 20-30 seconds to kill the add you currently have
3/6 adds

Second nuke: stoneform / health potion
New add
20-30 seconds
4/6 adds

Third nuke: avoidance-trinket / ironshield potion
New add
20-30 seconds
5/6 adds

Fourth nuke: health-pot / bubble-wall
Bring in the last add, kill them together.

It just gets progressively harder to keep up, since the dps required to kill off one add between each nuke is kind of high. The bleed he does requires you to be healed to 100% to fade off, and having Dred + adds pouding on you makes those 100% very hard to reach.

Survive nuke -> kill add - survive nuke -> kill add..

PS: If you have the Mangling Slash-debuff, wait till it wears off before you bring in new adds. It´s only a dps-race when you got adds on you, otherwise you can just stand there and enjoy endless mana.

[amh]

One thing I would advise though is spamming sacred shield on yourself, if you don't have a holy paladin, the extra DR is always nice.

This is also pure gold

[Crathus]

Ran through this last night for the first time. It was extremely easy just following Nin's strategy above.

Grp:
Sub Rogue
Demon Lock
Balance Druid
Holy Priest
Me

As a note on dred, with this grp we were able to dps him down with only a single add called at around 10% (ignored add and nuked). Just make sure to carefully pull all the adds that you can in his pen before him (3 easy), then pull him out into the hall, near the base of the stairs as indicated by Nin

Priest had little trouble healing through the larger hits, though there were some times when bursts took me below 10%.

[Senador]

As a note, for King Dred, if you feel that a raptor + Boss is a bit too much, it is possible to kill every raptor in the pen before pulling the boss. Dred's ability of Call Raptor only gets a live raptor, if there are none alive, you never have to deal with any adds.

[daemonym]

just to add a few notes, on trollgore the corpse explosion ability, it is semi difficult to get out of range in time, perhaps my raid warning msg was a bit behind, but i could never manage it, but it wasn't difficult to heal through it.

for summoner, hit frost aura and have consecrate runnign on the stair case, easy mode fro anybody that's ever picked up swarms of adds.

king dread, couldn't get him under 50% last night. our priest healer just couldn't keep up with the burst weather or not there was an add around. after buffs i was at 24k armor 26k health, uncrit. i popped the JC crab fro dodge on one (luckily dodged most of the hits+auto swings), and dabiri's enigma on another (lucky again, blocked every attack till i was topped off), lay hands another, bubble wall another, died the next time.

so in other words if you don't have something to use on those bursts, an OP healer is the only thing that will keep you up.

for the last boss we just spammed skills 1,3,4 and used the taunt (2) whenever somebody had lost about 1/3 of their life.

for the trash, kill aboms first and keep separate if possible, and if it has a mana bar LoS and kill them first.