I am a little behind in posting, but it has been the holidays and all of that. So this is from the week before Xmas when we got together to take a look at the next dungeon on our Northrend list, Drak’Tharon Keep.
Drak’Tharon Keep is out in Zul’Drak, one of the zones I have pretty much avoided so far in Wrath Classic. However, there was one quest in Dragonblight that I did that sends you off to the first flight point in the zone at Light’s Breach, so I had that already. And, as it turns out, that is also where Drak’Tharon Keep is.
Just into Zul’Drak
However, only I had the flight point, so when Beanpole showed up I met him over in Dragonblight and we rode over from there to Zul’Drak together. He got the flight point and, together we would be able to summon the rest of the group from the meeting stone.
We were a bit early though, so we ran around doing this and that while we waited. I was fishing a bit while he was off collecting soul stones. He burned down enough mobs that there was a Heavy Frostweave Bandage tome in the loot for me. One of the quirks of Wrath is you can’t just train that, you have to get it as a drop and only in certain zones and only when you’re first aid skill is high enough.
The rest of the crew logged on as we were doing our thing, so we headed down to the summoning stone to bring us all together.
It is just down stairs
We got ourselves together and sorted and walked on in to the instance.
Drak’Tharon is one of those middle-game instances that I didn’t really have much of a memory of doing. We obviously didn’t have Prince Keleseth levels of issues with it.
Into the instance
Going inside didn’t really shake loose any more memories, though the map of the instance did at least bring something up.
Drak’Tharon Map
The raptor pens sounded like a place I had been, but we had a bit to get there.
We rolled on up to the first boss, Trollgore, and having no memories of the fight, I went to take a look at what WoW Head had to say There I found a series of dire warnings about Trollgore, his abilities, and how the fight might go wrong. And then we fought him and won without an issues as all.
Trollgore down
I just kept him on the steps and backed up a bit when he was in an ability wind up, and that seemed to do the trick.
From there it was around to the Temple of the Forgotten and Novos the Summoner.
Arriving at Novos
Novos was another boss I read up on who had a whole bunch of stuff going and who, in the end, went down without a lot of effort. I don’t think we’re over leveled at this point, hitting the instance at level 75… I forgot to take a pic of the group and levels this time… and all the more so when the hunter DPS is mostly on auto attack. But there we were.
Novos did, however, drop something nice for us. Or for the casters at least.
Robes of Novos
Those robes went into a need off between Ula and Beanpole, with Ula getting a new set of threads. They were nice enough though that Beanpole suggested he might want to re-run this far into the instance for another shot at them.
After Novos we made our way into the raptor part of the instance.
Welcome to Raptorville
And the raptor in chief is King Dred, the next boss, who set us to our first wipe of the day.
That did not go well
That wipe was my fault. The notes on him suggest clearing out ALL of the raptors in the area as they will come join King Dred during his fight if left alive and two of the raptors are behind where King Dred wanders. Seeing a gap, I thought I could successfully pull them without getting King Dred… and I was very wrong.
We ended up, on the second try, sneaking past King Dred to get the two hidden raptors, but then had to take the boss when he came back. But this time around we managed to take him down. It wasn’t as easy as the previous fights… we weren’t really ready and I ended up laying hands at one point, but that is what it is there for… and he went down.
King Dred, now King Dead
And, like Novos, he has a nice upgrade for the casters. This time it came in the form of a staff.
Staff of the Great Reptile
That went to Beanpole, and there was an opinion expressed that we might have to come back.
At that point, however, Beanpole was called away and we were left without our Warlock. No more health stones to heal us or soul stones to revive us.
But the four of us decided to carry on… and got in over our heads almost immediately. The trash mobs on the way to the final boss mix together in uncomfortable combos if you don’t pull correctly, and I ended up pulling a group that got us to wipe. We were wondering if we would make it to the final boss.
With some care we managed to move forward, keeping the pulls simple and separate, until we found ourselves at the base of the steps look up to the platform where the final boss lay.
Behold The Prophet Tharon’ja… up the steps
This was another fight with a lot of details, including a whole mid-fight event where your group is transformed into skeletons with a special set of skeleton attacks. The whole thing seemed like it might be a bit sketch… but then we started the fight and rolled on through with just the four characters. The skeleton phase of the fight went by very quickly. I guess we all pressed the right buttons.
And with the death of The Prophet Tharon’ja the achievement popped. We had finished the instance.
Drak’Tharon Keep Complete
We were a bit surprised to be done, but went and took that final victory shot.
Victory over The Prophet Tharon’ja
Then we took the way out, which involves jumping down the back of Tharon’ja’s tower into a stair step of drops with water landings until we were back in the aptly named Hall of Return.
We may have to go back because Beanpole didn’t get to finish the instance with us… and because of the drop. We also didn’t do any pre-work to pick up any of the quests for the instance, so that might take some looking into as well.
Our run was about on par with our original run at the instance back in 2009. We wiped on King Dred then as well.
That was also likely our last Wrath Classic instance run of the year.
We will return once we’re past the holidays.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 