WoW Reviews & Guides

M’uru is a fallen naaru and former guardian of Tempest Keep. He was captured by Kael’thas’ blood elves and taken to Silvermoon City. After his defeat in Tempest Keep, Kael’thas and his felblood minions captured M’uru from Silvermoon and took him to the Sunwell Plateau, presumably to drain his power and aid in the summoning of Kil’jaeden. He thus represents the fifth encounter of the instance.

Possible origins of name

M’uru’s name is possibly derived from the early writings of Tolkien. In some early drafts, the evil spider goddess Ungoliant was called Múru in the Quenya language. (Many see this as a pretty unlikely connection, a coincidence at best.)

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Void Reaver is the second boss in the Eye of Tempest Keep. It is a Fel Reaver guardian. Since it is a rather simple fight (probably easier than High King Maulgar or Prince Malchezaar), it has earned the nickname “Loot Reaver.” The only pre-condition is that the raid’s total DPS be high enough to kill it prior to its enrage (after 10 minutes).

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Jan’alai, the Amani lord of dragonhawks, is the third animal boss within Zul’Aman. He holds Kraz captive in a cage near his platform, awaiting his sacrifice if the raid cannot rescue him before the timer runs out. Defeating Jan’alai with time remaining does not add any additional time but still allows the raid to free Kraz. He will, in turn, reward the raid with access to a small share of gold and unlock Kraz’s Package which will contain an epic ring.

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Beneath the floating city of Dalaran is the 5 man dungeon The Violet Hold. Kirin Tor prison guards are fending off invaders of the blue dragonflight and under orders from Malygos, they are using magical portals to enter the hold and try to break through the exit in order to enter the city.

This dungeon used to be to the southeast of Silverpine Forest and to the north east of the Dalaran Crater, but was moved with the city to Northrend.

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Investigate the Ruby Sanctum beneath Wyrmrest Temple.

Description

<race>, something terrible has transpired within the Ruby Sanctum beneath the Temple.

The entry to the Sanctum is in ruins, and its guardians violently slain. We sent scouts to investigate, but they have not returned. I cannot help but fear the worst.

Enter the Ruby Sanctum and discover what has befallen the home of my flight. Once we have more information, we can plan our next steps accordingly.

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In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta we’ll be making several changes to the Paladin class talents and abilities across the board. While this list only outlines some of our plans for the paladin class, we want to give you a look at the new high-level abilities and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with each talent spec.

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Flame Leviathan is the first boss encounter in Ulduar, found in the Formation Grounds. Most of the players in this encounter do not use their regular class abilities, but instead use vehicles (similar to drakes in Malygos’ third phase). The rest of Ulduar is not accessible until this boss is destroyed.

Overview

This is a vehicle fight, similar to Ley-Guardian Eregos and Malygos’ Phase 3. In the beginning of the instance, players will find an Expedition Camp, where they can choose their vehicles – Salvaged Siege Engine, Salvaged Demolisher, or Salvaged Chopper; players may select to be passengers or drivers in either Siege Engines or Demolishers. Choppers’ passengers have no function. There are 2 (25 Player: 5) of each kind of vehicle. There are two stages of the fight – a gauntlet event, where the Iron Army tries to stop the players from proceeding farther into the instance; and the actual fight against the Flame Leviathan.

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The Ruby Sanctum is the red dragonflight’s sanctum within the Chamber of Aspects beneath Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight. It is a raid dungeon with both 10 and 25-player normal and heroic modes.

The dungeon’s release was delayed until a week after patch 3.3.5 went live in the US, in an effort to make sure all players world-wide could access it at the same time, (with the exception of the U.S. servers down for 24 hour maintenance the day of it’s release.).

The Ruby Sanctum is an extension to the Wyrmrest Temple dragonflight Sanctum raids. Sacred grounds of the red dragons, the Ruby Sanctum was invaded by the Twilight dragonflight. It was released in patch 3.3.5 and it’s is very similar to the Obsidian Sanctum – both in its physical appearance and encounters. Three hills, guarded by mini-bosses overlook a central area, where the only real boss of the raid resides – in this case that’s Halion the Twilight Destroyer. His lieutenants are Baltharus the Warborn, General Zarithrian, and Saviana Ragefire.

All three of the mini-bosses, as well as Halion drop Emblem of Frost. Halion himself, the only boss with loot drops epic gear half a tier (7 item levels) higher than the ones in the Icecrown Citadel. New trinkets, amongst other things, await those strong enough to defeat the Twilight Destroyer in a place where he is equally able to fight in both the physical realm… and the twilight one.

Lore

When a clutch of twilight dragonflight eggs was discovered within the Obsidian Sanctum, Korialstrasz asked the Council of Six to send adventurers to destroy them. The deed was done quickly, and without fanfare or acknowledgment. At first all seemed quiet, but then all communication with the guardians in the Ruby Sanctum ceased. The guards stationed at the portal were slain, and the mystic stones shattered. The implications of the Ruby Sanctum being breached are dire, and little is known of the identity of the attackers, as the black dragonflight’s numbers in Northrend seem too limited to have pulled off such an attack. What power would dare to attack the stronghold of the red dragonflight, and how did they get past the guards undetected?

Encounters

The black dragonflight has assaulted the sanctum and is attempting to destroy it to facilitate Deathwing’s reemergence into Azeroth. Halion will be the primary encounter, along with three mini-encounters that must be completed prior to him. Unlike the Obsidian Sanctum, there are no progressive hard modes from leaving up some or all of the minibosses. Loot is comparable to that of the Lich King.

Quick Facts

Sartharion is a member of the Black Dragonflight and is in charge of watching over the eggs bred in The Obsidian Sanctum. This chamber also serves as a secret meeting point for the dragons of the Black Dragonflight, located below the Wyrmrest temple in Dragonblight.

Overview

The Sartharion fight requires moderate movement skills because of the lava waves that Sartharion repeatedly evokes.
The tank must have Sartharion facing away from the raid and the DPS should stand at his sides rather than his rear because of his Tail Lashes. During the fight, lava walls will emerge by the sides and sweep over the platform. They easily can be passed by going between the gaps. Other than this and a couple of attacks, the fight should not cause too much trouble if the offtank picks up the adds when Sartharion’s health is low.

Sartharion’s hard mode difficulty scales with the amount of Twilight Drakes left alive. Engaging Sartharion will cause them to join the fight in intervals, severely debuffing the raid.
The general strategy is to damage Sartharion until Tenebron lands after 30 seconds and is picked up by an offtank. The raid will burn her down while Shadron lands after 75 seconds and is taken care of a second offtank. The raid should have killed Tenebron before Vesperon lands after 125 seconds. The DPS will switch from Tenebron to Shadron while the first offtank picks up Vesperon. If the raid is fortunate, Shadron does not get to cast his immunity shield before his death and the raid can continue on killing Vesperon while the main tank should be busy with surviving the increasing damage of Sartharion who frenzy’s as each lieutenant dies. After Vesperon has fallen dead, the raid must use all its cooldowns and push out maximum DPS before the main tank gets overwhelmed by the massive amount of damage.

Strategy

Lava Waves

At certain intervals, a raid warning will appear saying, “The lava surrounding Sartharion churns!” Lava waves will then spawn that originate from the left or right of the encounter area. These waves place a DoT on any players caught in them, so players should move to the gaps between them. The location of the gaps is predictable depending on the side that the waves originate from, as shown in the illustrations. They are huge, obvious, and slow-moving, however, so players should have no trouble watching for them and moving out of their way.

When the wave originates from the left, the tank will need to rotate Satharion away from the group to avoid the wave, as shown. When the wave originates from the right, the tank should not have to move. At all times players should avoid Satharion’s cleave, breath, and tail swipe.

It is possible to heal the tank through the lava waves and resulting DoT, if your group desires so.

Sartharion’s Fire elemental Adds

• Health: 65165 (25), ~26,000 (10)

These adds are summoned every ?s in groups of 2-4 to be offtanked. If these adds are hit by the lava waves they will enrage to deal 400% more damage, so ~800 becomes 4k, modified by Shadron’s aura. Adds should be moved out of the path of the Lava Strikes. DPS will have to drop these as priority after they spawn and are picked up by the OT. The offtank must be careful using area of effect taunts when gathering the adds because Sartharion is not immune to taunt. Rogues can use Fan of Knives with Anesthetic Poison and Hunters can use Tranquilizing Shot to dispel the enrage from the adds, greatly reducing both the damage they inflict and the DPS needed to eliminate them.

The major drake of issue is Shadron since everything in the encounter is fire damage. Vesperon is less an issue as your raid is better geared. First time groups should take down all 3 drakes, making the encounter a tank and spank, minor add control, and minor movement to avoid waves. Subsequent visits may provide the chance to try while leaving Tenebron/Vesperon up.

At 10% he goes into a sort of soft enrage, summoning what looks like 5-10 of the elemental adds.

Lava elemental add’s do not cross over into void zones when you go into them, but whelps do.

Engaging With Drakes Still Alive

When clearing the instance with the intention of leaving one, two, or all three drakes alive all trash must still be cleared before engaging Sartharion. It is possible to clear trash without grabbing aggro from the drakes simply by moving along the wall far behind them. All trash and the drakes are linked with Sartharion.

When engaging Sartharion with drakes left alive, they will join in the fight as if you were encountering normally: they will melee whoever is tanking them, cast the Kael’thas-like Flamestrike, and create portals for adds. Needless to say, the fight takes a huge jump in difficulty as not only do you have to pay attention to the elemental adds and waves around the area, but now you have to simultaneously deal with drakes and clearing their adds. The drakes, upon engaging Sartharion, can and should all be killed first. At the start of the fight, they will hover overhead and apply their respective aura then come down at their respective times and start attacking and summoning portals.

Drake Lieutenants

The offtank should remember that the drakes do a frontal cone shadow breath and to keep them faced away from the raid, preferably parallel with how the main tank is turning Sartharion to make avoiding waves easier. If there’s a good supply of rogues and hunters, misdirects can be used to bring fire adds over towards the offtank to give ample time for taunts and aggro upkeep. If this is too much trouble, a third offtank should handle the fire adds and pile them near the drake so AoE can be at its most effective.

Portals

A subgroup of a healer and DPS (the less needed to eliminate a disciple or eggs, the better) should focus on going into the portals and taking care of the adds drakes spawn. At a certain level of gear, almost anyone is able to tank a disciple but will take amplified shadow damage from Tenebron’s aura.

Its date of creation is unknown, but it is known that Atiesh was forged from the “seed of hate” and was wielded by each Guardian of Tirisfal until the line ended with Medivh. This would set the age of Atiesh at thousands of years.

Following the assassination of Medivh, the staff was brought to Dalaran where it was held by successive members of the Kirin Tor, who all found their deaths soon (except for highborne sorcerer Tarsis Kir-Moldir, it appears). After all these deaths, it was decided that the staff was to be put “behind impenetrable barriers of magic” and a “watcher” was appointed: Angela Dosantos. The shattering of the staff came about following the destruction of Dalaran by Archimonde, probably due to the failsafe system of the magical barrier. Atiesh was shattered into forty-two pieces which were scattered across all of Azeroth[3]. Brann Bronzebeard held the Base of Atiesh, which he somehow lost to C’Thun. The Scourge captured the forty-one other pieces, twenty of which were initially held by Tarsis. Forty pieces of Atiesh were each entrusted to a different lieutenant of Kel’Thuzad within Naxxramas, while the fallen mage himself held the staff’s head.

When Naxxramas appeared over the Eastern Plaguelands, the Argent Dawn attempted to prevent this powerful focus of power from falling into the hands of the necromancer-lich, Kel’Thuzad, and were apparently successful in this regard.

Later, Meryl Winterstorm sent Garona Halforcen on a mission to retrieve the base of the shattered staff from within the remains of C’Thun. Garona succeeded and gave the base to Med’an, who restored the whole staff simply by holding it while being imbued with the powers of the New Council of Tirisfal.

Description

This final task will be the most difficult of all, <name>. You have faced and defeated both an Old God and the Lich King’s General, but now you must face the hand of Sargeras.

Take the staff to Stratholme. It is there that you will find a piece of consecrated earth: ground where the greatest knights of Lordaeron were murdered. Place the befouled staff upon the holy ground and prepare for an entity of immense power to break from within… Defeat the demonic being that controls the staff and return to me.

Rewards

You will receive:

Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian

Quick Facts