Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde

[Arcdelad]

Some notes on Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde….

Lynette, vesuvius, moonrose, a pug dwarf priest, and myself finally beat this last night…I say finally because the first time we tried this we fell short due to a lack of crowd control and an understanding of what was coming down the pike at us…

This instance is limited to those level 66 and higher, but I think youll have a much easier time if you go in with a group of 68’s +…its important to note that there are two pre-requisite quests before they will let you step foot in here…when you get to the cave of time entrance in tanaris, first talk to the dragon right outside the cave, and he gives you a quest to talk to someone in the cave…he will then fly you down to that person…talk to the person and you have one quest down…that person will give you one of those ‘touring’ quests (like the guy in shat’rath), where you have to follow and listen to a ghostly figure for about 5 minutes…it seriously seems like your ferris buehler listening to ben stein, but once its done you talk to the person again and they give you the quest to go in and save thrall’s timeline. All this takes about 5-10 minutes, so if you’ve never done this and are signed up, the polite thing to do would be to show up a little early and get these done…besides…then you can help port people at the meeting stone J

When you first get in there, there will be a BE NPC that will give you a pack of explosives and a quest to blow up 5 huts in durnholde…after you get that quest, talk to the dragon next to him, and he will fly you down to durnholde…if anyone has ever done any questing in Tarren Mill on the horde side, durnholde will seem VERY VERY familiar, because essentially all they did was rework the durnholde horde quest area…it has the exact same layout and enemy types…

First step is to go down into the pits and blow up the five bldgs…the ramp to get down into the pits is across from the upward path to the castle, but if your feeling froggy (and want to aggro 3 mob groups at once), just jump down in there this area has roaming pat groups of a guard and a wolf pet, and each building consists of a warden (priest type with annoying fear and will heal other mobs), a rifleman (long range attacker), and two guards pacing inside the bulding….from first look you might think there are only two mobs since the warden and rifleman are standing outside the doorway, but no matter when you attack or how far away the other two have walked away, you will always grab all 4 of them….i cannot stress how important crowd control is in this instance. You want to do something to that warden first â€" if you have it, sheep / sap / succy succy that guy first…if not, he needs to go down quick, beucase he will fear spam you into other mob groups…the other guys are straightforward and easy…if you have a druid and a pat group walks by, it might be a good idea to sleep the wolf…

When you have cleared a bldg, go inside and click on the barrel of gun powder…you do this five times…when you set the last one, all 5 bldgs will start to burn, so bring your [Roasting Marshmellows]. At this point you need to run over to the bottom of the stairs and wait…a boss is going to shout something about needing to put out the fire, and then spawn…he is your typical stun / knockback type of boss that will make the tank lose aggro when he does one of those moves, but he is not difficult at all…he drops a really good rogue / cat form druid cape too…

After you kill that guy, head up to the castle…there are a few mob groups to clear both outside and inside the castle that cosist of wardens and such, but they aren’t hard if you do the same CC pattern as you did before…when you’ve cleared them, head downstairs and youll see thrall locked behind bars….buff up, mana up, and then set him free…hell first run to a room, punch a dude out (freaking hilarious), then put on some weapons and armor…I would STRONGLY suggest you throw buffs on thrall like MOTW, BOM, thorns, etc etc, since your whole success depends on this guy staying alive…

After he suits up, hell run immediately outside and the first group will appear…these groups consist of a mage (who will sheep you), a warden, and two other mobs….as with before, your entire success hinges on either CC’ing the warden or killing him first…the mage is pretty damn annoying too, so he should be next in line…on the flip side though, if he sheeps thrall count your blessings because then thrall gets a free heal and that green aggro machine wont run to the next group so quick…if you have a mage in your group and have someone sheeped be careful…thrall isn’t too bright about laying off the sheep until last, so he may pop it prematurely…

These fights take a lot of mana and a crapload of healing, and unfortunealy thrall doesn’t wait before he runs to the next group, so bring mana pots, use your innervates, etc to keep your mana up…I think there are 4 of these fights total…when you finish the last fight, thrall will walk outside the masonry walls and a horseman with two mobs with him will trot up and start trashtalking to thrall…this is your chance to mana / heal up…this is boss #2…he is a paladin type boss, and he is accompanied by a warden, and a guard…the warden and the boss will sit there and heal each other to full health all day long, so have the tank aggro the boss, and kill / cc the warden asap…the adds need to go down first, then just jump on the boss…he really isn’t that hard either, and he drops some great warrior / druid stuff…

After you kill the boss, thrall will wait for you to talk to him…heal up / rebuff, mana up, then talk to thrall…he is going to jump on a horse (so mount up) and take you guys to tarren mill…the first time we tried this noone attacked thrall on the way to tarren mill, but the second time some wandering guards were there and they started attacking thrall…also, there is a wandering salesman by tarren mill â€" he sells some patterns and formulas, and will repair all your items, so if you see him, go talk to him…thrall will first go into the barnhouse at tarren mill…after he goes in guards are going to rush in, so kill them (same warden scenarios)…next thrall decides its time to talk to god and heads into the chapel…mobs aggro him there too….after that he goes into the second floor of the inn, where more guards await you…on the second floor you will see a woman NPC with a glowing orb circling her…mana / heal up, and when your ready, talk to this NPC..she is thralls lover or something, and basically the final boss is holding her captive unless thrall goes outside to fight him…

When you go outside, you will see a huge dragon flying overhead…that is the final boss, but you have to kill four waves of MOB dragons FIRST before you fight him…these mobs consist of one dragon mage, and two dragon melee attackers….the mage does 4K damage when she crits, and I think the other dragons do some major damage too…make sure your clothies stand by the door to the inn so they don’t aggro any of the dragons..if you have a druid, these dragons CAN be sleeped, so I would recommend sleeping the mage, killing the other two, then killing the mage…once you kill a group, the next one immediately spawns…after you kill groups 2 and 3, group 4 spawns and it has an extra guy in it, making one dragon mage, and three melee attackers…

After you kill group 4, the big dragon will fly down and start attacking…have your tank grab aggro first and point him away from the group (he has a dragon breath type attack)…if your tank stays alive and holds aggro, the only thing the other people need to worry about are his tail attacks…which don’t really do that much damage…this guy drops some great +healing maces and gear, so any healadin is going to walk away happy…

The NPC quest guy will spawn right there in tarren mill…turn in your quest and hell give you another quest to turn in for some great times back at the cave, and will teleport you back to the cave if you ask him…

One of the cool things about this instance is that it turns everyone into either dwarves or humans…if you’re a NE in here it will disguise you as a human, which is kind of different J also, we we did this ves couldn’t get his quest completed for whatever reason, so make sure everyone talks to thrall before he runs off…

This place gives AWESOME keepers of time rep…I went from neutral to honored in two runs through here…