Having finished up Zul’Farrak we ended up skipping a couple of weeks due to the real life, but got back together this past weekend. The next instance on the list was Maraudon.
I know I always say something about hazy memories and having forgotten places, but for Maraudon that was especially true for me. I remember there being an orange side, a purple side, and the final boss… not the fight, just the boss herself. Aside from it being in Desolace, that was about it.
Add into this the fact that we do very little research before we head into an instance, preferring to learn on the go, and we sometimes set ourselves up. The only thing we really look into is the quests, just to make sure we have them all going in. There were three we needed to grab on the way in, one in Theramore and two more out in Desolace. Everything else was said to be in the instance, so when we got on, we didn’t know much more than that. Our group for the evening was:
- Moronae – level 50 night elf druid
- Viniki – level 50 gnome warrior
- Skronk – level 50 dwarf priest
- Ula – level 50 gnome mage
Everybody was 50 at last, and I think we all have our class quests. We’ll get to that later, since that involved the next instance.
We picked up our quests, riding across Desolace from the flight point.
Out in the aptly named Desolace
I had scouted the locations up front. It was a matter of going to out outpost, then finding a wandering NPC in the south of the zone, then turning to the Valley of Spears and Maraudon.
Our path across Desolace
Also, as a side note, I am thinking of doing a series of short weekend posts featuring the in game map of each zone, completely explored, as finding maps for anything classic on Google has been problematic at times. Just the map and a few notes about the zone, just so I can find them later.
Anyway, once to the Valley of Spears there is a big door, which we found straight away. There is no key or anything required, you just click on it and in you go, you are in the foyer of the dungeon. We stopped for a bit there to get ourselves buffed up and ready.
Setting up inside
Inside we ran into the Nameless Prophet, killed him, got his drop, and then ignored it while we went wandering around in the caves. Unlike some other instances, the “outside the instance but part of the experience” area was not all elite mobs. Maraudon was a post-launch addition, so maybe that changed their minds. There was also at least one collect drops quest where we all got to loot a drop rather than only one of us getting the update. Modern times.
We came to a point where things were clearly split into the orange and purple sides. We looked at the orange side.
Orange, this way…
And the promptly went off towards the purple side of the caves, finding our way to the instance.
Into the purple zone
Once in, we began our advance, facing off against multiple groups of four or five. But at level 50 we were well above the level of most of the elite mobs early on, and some of the mobs in groups were non-elite, so we were able to clear and move pretty well. And well all had a “collect 25 items” quest that was of the old school, with only one person getting the drop, but everything seemed to drop them, so we were happy enough to slaughter everything as we went. 100 drops is a big ask, but we seemed to make decent progress.
We made out way to Lord Vyletongue, the first boss encounter. We were not fooled by the two minions in stealth at the entrance to his chamber. However, rushing in to grab him, we were surprised to find two additional stealthed guards in with him. That could have gone more smoothly, but we managed to muddle through on an innervate from Moronea to get Skronk back his mana.
Lord Vyletongue down, dealing with his minions
Somewhere along there Moronae asked about the drop we got from the Nameless Prophet, a gem that we needed to use somewhere along the way.
The amulet in the bag
After trying to use it in a few likely spots, we happened upon one of the spirit Khans, so used it on him. That does indeed manifest them in to the physical world… and they are aggro and attack right away. Fortunately we were prepared.
We carried on into the center of the instance, where the purple and orange sides join and started in on that.
The middle of Maraudon is icky
The mobs started getting up to our level, but we kept on, clearing our way until we found Celebras the Cursed.
Celebras and his droogs
We got ourselves buffed back up, then Moronae and I waded into the green water to start the attack. We decided to kill Celebras first. He summons more minions as the fight goes on, but we were able to power though, drop him, and then clear his help.
That left us talking to the ghost Celebras, which something in the back of my head knew was the result, but something was missing.
Celebras, post fight
I believe Skronk asked aloud, “Aren’t we supposed to get a staff or something?”
Yeah, that was the ticket. But no staff here. So we started looking up the instance and the quests and found that we had gone the wrong way. There is an NPC early on in the orange side that sets you up with the quest you need. Then you need to kill a boss on the orange side and a boss on the purple side to get yourself set for Celebras.
We did not have that quest. We should have done the orange side first. Plus, we had already killed the purple side boss, Lord Vyletongue. We were in a “what do we do now?” situation.
We decided to just go back the way we came, go over to the orange side, get the quest, then see if we could make it to the boss there to at least move the quest along.
Fortunately, not much had respawned behind us, just the first few mobs in the instance. Unfortunately, getting back was a bit of a maze of bridges and paths, though in our wandering we did wrap up another quest.
We found another khan along the way. We ended up with four of the five gems from them, and I think the last one we need is right at the start when you come in, so we should be able to finish this up next time.
Eventually we unwound the maze and made it into the orange side and found the quest giver, Cavindra.
Quest obtained
That done, we decided we had time for one more objective, to take down the boss on the orange side for the quest. On the mini map that boss, Noxxion, looked like he was pretty close by. But the mini map lies, Maraudon is twisting caves and ramps. We had a ways to go. But we managed to move fairly quickly.
The one test on the way was in a room with a bunch of non-elite larvae. I grabbed a bunch of them so we could do freeze and burn, and in the middle of them an elite showed up. I hadn’t seen an elite before, but grabbed aggro and focused on him. Then another showed up, seemingly out of nowhere. Something was amiss.
I looked up and around the room and saw a large pulsing tube that ran from ceiling to floor, and when I moused over it I got a cog wheel cursor. With that a little light went on in my head, the tube was the source of the elites.
Moronae worked his way over there as another elite appeared from the tube to prove my point. He clicked on it, we finished off the last elite, and were set to move forward again.
The deflated larvae launcher in the background
From there it wasn’t much farther to Noxxion. The fight with him had a mechanic where he divides into multiple versions of himself that you have to burn down, then he reappears to resume the fight. We had enough power to burn through that and bring him down. That accomplished our goal for the night. We lined up for a picture then stoned back to Ironforge.
Maraudon very orange
For next time we have a couple of quests to turn in, the third khan to find, Lord Vyletongue to slay once more, and then a return date with Celebras. Then we can move on into the end of the instance and maybe wrap it up.
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