If you enter Northrend via the Howling Fjord then your introduction to Wrath of the Lich King instancing is very likely to be Utgarde Keep, home of Ingvar the Plunderer and just two other bosses. So how to take em down on Heroic? Like this…

Prince Keleseth

The first boss you come to is the Prince and it is a relatively easy fight if you follow these simple tactics.

There’s really only two things to worry about. Firstly, he will occasionally Frost Tomb one of your party. This will cause 400 damage every second for 20 seconds. That’s 8,000 damage.

There’s two ways to deal with this, Firstly, your group can destroy the tomb, freeing the player. OR…you can go for the achievement On The Rocks, where you don’t shatter any tombs. This requires a good geared or skilled healer and a bit of luck that it’s not the healer that gets entombed – though the PvP trinket will free them, so carry one if you want to go for it.

The other thing to be aware of is the four skeletons he’ll summon. In my experience, they’ll generally go for the healer, so just have him stand by the tank so he can pick them up fast. Then get your DPS to AoE them down.

Doing it this way has two benefits: you’ll continue to DPS the boss at the same time and the skeletons periodically resurrect, so it’ll be easier to take them down again. Follow that, you’ll get him down easily.

Dalronn & Skarvald

A two-boss fight that just requires a bit of organisation. Or not, if you are confident your healer is competent. The safe way first.

Get your tank to pick up the bosses and build a bit of aggro. All DPS then nuke Skarvald down to around 10%. At this point, switch to Dalronn, where your tank will now have plenty of aggro and nuke him dead. He will now respawn as a spirit which can’t be damaged but has all his original abilities. But with Skarvald already on 10% or so, you will be able to finish him in a few seconds, reducing the damage Dalronn can do while immune. Once both are dead, the spirit despawns. 

Why do it this way round?

Dalronn will attack in spirit form with his Shadow Bolt, which is easily healed through. But Skarvald will randomly Charge any of your party – and this puts your healer at risk. So leave him until last on low HP and you’ll be fine.

The unsafe way to do this is to just nuke them down one at a time. If you have good DPS you’ll be fine doing this, though I still suggest you take Dalronn out first.

Ingvar the Plunderer 

Finally we have the hardest boss in the instance – Ingvar the Plunderer. It is basically a tank and spank fight but you do need to be aware of his capabilities in order to keep yourself alive and not put too much pressure on the healer.

This is a two phase fight, so let’s take a look at Phase One first.

Have your tank pick him up and tank him at the back of the platform, right near where he was standing in the first place, but turn him so he’s facing the edge. He will turn but this does give your DPS the opportunity to get behind and avoid his frontal abilities to some extent - namely Smash and Cleave.

It goes without saying that your ranged DPS should be at maximum range throughout the entire fight, along with your healer. Your melee DPS need to be aware of those two abilities mentioned. Smash has a cast time, so they should use that to get out of range or behind Ingvar if they aren’t already.

His other ability in Phase One is Staggering Roar. More dangerous to casters and healers due to the silence, but still damage dealing. If you feel you need to there’s a two second cast time for you to try and get out of range or Line of Sight (there are two pillars you could try to use).

Speed is also of the essence as he has an Enrage that stacks up to 50 times, increasing attack speed and size by 5%. Your DPS need to work well to avoid this getting out of hand.

Once he’s down Phase Two will begin when he gets resurrected. His new abilities are similar to those in Phase One – but more powerful. Once again, tank him at the far end of the platform and try and face him outwards. Ranged stay at maximum distance and melee DPS stay behind him as often as possible.

I’ll list his abilities here – hover over them for the full details and note the changes from Phase One. It’s very similar tactics, you may just need to adjust things slightly, especially with the 8 second silence from Dreadful Roar.

• Dreadful Roar
• Woe Strike
• Dark Smash
• Shadow Axe

The new ability to be most wary of is, of course, Shadow Axe. It is completely random so you WILL need to look for it and then get out of the way as fast as possible when it hits.

Remember that and follow the previous tactics and you’ll down him relatively easily.

For The Warlock

Warlocks should be hoping that Wand of the San’layn drops from Prince Keleseth. The Blue drop to watch from Ingvar is Breeches of the Caller, while the Epic is a ring, Annhylde’s Ring to be precise. There is nothing for a Warlock from Dalronn and Skarvald unfortunately.

Welcome to the first in a new feature of Heroic Dungeon Strategies. If you’re stuck or struggling with a particular boss, then this is where you should hopefully find they key to your problem.

Starting then with the introduction to Wrath of the Lich King dungeons, The Nexus.

There are a number of routes to take in the Nexus, but I’m going to take you on my Guild’s usual route. Seems to be the fastest for us, but feel free to use your own.

Commander Stoutbeard (Horde) / Commander Kolurg (Alliance)

This boss is optional but why would you ignore him when he drops Blues and an Emblem of Heroism?

His main attacks are a Charge, an AoE Fear and Whirlwind. It is the Whirlwind you most need to worry about. So, all ranged and healer stand at max distance at all times. When the tank pulls and picks up the Boss and his two adds he should pull them back away from other frozen mobs to avoid any ninja pulling. Unless you want the fun and are geared for it…

All should focus on the adds as they heal. Mark them to make this easier. When both are down, nuke the Boss.

Healers need to watch for Whirlwind and make sure the big heals are queued up and ready, especially if your party is melee heavy. There is no excuse in this fight for ranged players to get hit. None at all. Keeping your distance will minimise the probability of getting AoE feared as well, though it’s duration is fairly short, so melee players shouldn’t have to worry too much if you’ve pulled the Boss back far enough.

That’s it for this guy. It’s fast and with a bit of care very easy.

Grand Magus Telestra

Moving on to the mage then, and we find her in circular room all of her own. You don’t all need to be in the room before the encounter starts as it doesn’t close. However, you might be better clearing the trash outside as she does occasionally run outside. I haven’t figured out why yet…

Anyway, tank starts the fight as normal. Melee and ranged nuke as normal. This is a test of the healer. Telestra has several AoE attacks which, while not hitting for too much, will require significant and skilled group healing.

She casts Firebomb on one target which damages the target and anyone surrounding that target. She casts Ice Nova, damaging and stunning anyone within 60 yards. And she casts Gravity Well, which will fling you around the room causing fast damage over 6 seconds. You can’t do anything that has cast time during this 6 seconds, so if you have DoTs, get them up.

The healer will have to keep an eye on all party members through this first Phase. Phase 2 occurs at 50% health. She will vanish and create three clones. A frost mage, arcane mage and fire mage. Kill the frost mage first to reduce AoE damage (Blizzard – stay out of it) then nuke the other two down. They can be CC’d if you want to reduce damage further. No Mind Control though…

On Heroic the arcane mage will cast Time Stop and no-one can move or cast – so your healer will need to make sure everyone is topped up at all times.

Once you’ve killed the clones Telestra will reappear at 50% health. She’ll carry on as before with the same attacks. At 25% health she’ll freeze you all and cast Fireball Volley that will hit everyone within 30 yards. On Heroic there is a chance she will vanish and create the clones again, so be ready to repeat that process. After that, nuke away until dead. It’s a very simple fight for DPS and tank, but your healer is going to be tested.

Anomalus

Next we come to Anomalus, the arcane elemental. Essentially a very easy fight. Anomalus casts various arcane spells which your healer, depending on his level of skill, should have no problem with. The Boss, however, will spawn Chaotic Rifts which WILL cause huge amounts of damage. All DPS should focus on those rifts immediately and nuke them down. Just keep doing this and the fight will be cake.

At 75%, 50% and 25% health Anomalus will create a Rift and shield himself, becoming immune to all attacks. To free him up nuke down the rift as fast as possible. Rinse and repeat this strategy until he’s down. Oh, Mana Wraiths will spawn – get a DPS take them out if they cause you trouble. That’s it!

Ormorok the Tree-Shaper

Ok, here’s the deal with this guy. It’s another relatively easy fight. Tank as normal to start the fight. All DPS nuke and the healer keeps the tank up.

Ormorok will use these abilities: Trample (damage to all nearby enemies); Spell Reflect (stop casting!); Crystal Spikes (these appear outwards from the boss and will erupt after a few seconds causing damage and flinging you into the air – just run away from them).

Keep that in mind and you’ll do fine. He will occasionally summon adds which will slow the healer down so assign a DPS to take them out. They’re very weak. At 25% health he will enrage, doubling his damage output. Just keep nuking and let your healer worry about the tank. He WILL hit plate for about 8k, if not more, so make sure your healer is aware of this.

And finally…Keristrasza

In the centre of The Nexus you’ll find the final Boss, the dragon Keristraza. Make sure you’ve cleared all the patrolling adds from around her tomb (that includes the passageways leading out to the other areas of the instance). To start the fight, position the tank near the Boss and begin clicking the 3 orbs surrounding her.

This will release her from her ice prison and your tank can pick her up. DPS and healer need to stand to the sides of her, as she casts Crystal Breath in front and has a Tail Sweep behind. There is a constant debuff in place called Intense Cold. This will stack up to nine times and cause increasing damage as it does. To remove this debuff each member of your party need only jump between casts / shots / melee – THIS INCLUDES THE TANK.

Keristraza will also cast Crystal Chains, quite frequently on Heroic, which will bind the party to the floor for 10 seconds and allow Intense Cold to build up. You can either heal through this or better yet, have a Shaman use Grounding Totem at all times or all have the PvP trinket which also removes the chains.

At 25% she will Frenzy. This is going to hurt your tank. DPS go full nuke, use all cooldowns and get her down within 15 seconds. If you don’t, your tank is going to take one full on Frenzy melee hit that your healer may not be able to handle! Sounds scary, but it’s not that bad – just do your jobs at this point to the best of your ability and you’ll have her down for some nice Emblems and loot.

For the Warlock

Loot from The Nexus that will suit the Warlock includes Telestra’s Journal (Grand Magus Telestra), Gloves of the Crystal Gardener (Ormorok) and Gloves of Glistening Runes (Keristraza).

There are other caster drops but they suit healers better so unless they really don’t need them and they represent a real upgrade for you don’t bother with them.

With 3.1 comes dual speccing – at a pretty hefty cost, however.

What is it?

Once you paid for the dual speccing….’talent’, I suppose I’d better call it, you will be able to switch between two different talent specifications at the click of a button. The ‘talent’ will also switch your chosen glyphs and action bar set ups (though how this will work with Bartender etc is yet to be seen). Importantly, this will be at no cost to you.

The easiest way to demonstrate this is, mid-raid you lose a healer. You have three tanks with you but one is largely redundant. Your Druid hits his dual spec button and there he is, fully talented, glyphed and action bar-ed as a healer. He need only switch his gear. (In comes Outfitter, proving even more valuable now.)

Sounds good, right? It is, but…

What does it cost? 

Available from level 40, presumably from your Class Trainer, you can buy the dual spec ‘talent’ for a ‘mere’ 1,000g. For level 80′s or those alts with level 80 sugar daddies, that’s no problem. But for your fist time level 40, that’s going to be quite the challenge!

Not that you’d need to dual spec below, say, level 70 anyway?

What use for warlocks?

Clearly, this option is is better suited to the Druid/Priest/Paladin when it comes to end game raiding and the like, but it’s useful for EVERY Class when you consider PVE and PVP specs. I can’t see too much point in having dual specs for raiding personally, but a warlock’s spec for PVE is vastly different from that for PVP. 

Think Destro to Demo/Affliction if you like. You know what you prefer for each kind of gaming. In this, it will shine. And, quite possibly, SAVE you money. 

I know it may well lead to me PVP-ing a LOT more, as there’s no way I could ever be bothered to respec every time. Any time I PVP I do it in my raiding gear and raiding Destro spec. As you can imagine, the results are not usually pretty…

So…overall a GOOD THING, in the Dead Man’s opinion. Does it seem like value for money to you?