User:Gogmagog/Escape from Durnholde Keep

Escape from Durnholde is an escort quest which takes place in Old Hillsbrad Foothills, the first instance in the Caverns of Time. In the original timeline, Taretha Foxton set off a diversion that allowed the young Thrall to escape Durnholde and start his journey. Meddling agents of the mysterious Infinite Dragonflight, however, have kidnapped Taretha. Since she is unable to create a diversion, the Bronze Dragonflight asks players to do it themselves.

In order to be able to access the Old Hillsbrad Foothills instance where this quest takes place, the player must be level 66 and complete the quest Quest:To The Master's Lair from Steward of Time, and then the other quest Quest:The Caverns of Time from Andormu. These are both simple quests, but the second is time-consuming, so ensure that you do them before the rest of your party arrives so as not to make them wait! See Old Hillsbrad Foothills and the descriptions of the other quests for more details.

Completing this quest will allow the player to enter the second instance in the Caverns of Time, Quest:The Opening of the Dark Portal, featuring the Guardian, Medivh.

Objectives

 * Escort Thrall from Durnholde Keep
 * Help Thrall free Taretha Foxton
 * Speak with Erozion in Old Hillsbrad Foothills

Details
For details about the quest, like the geographic coordinates of an NPC, consider including that information in the NPCs article. Also, be sure to create links out of pronouns, like items, names, places, and quests mentioned in the quest text.

Description
You look upon me now and see only a boy, but in my heart and soul I hide my dreams. I have plans for my people, stranger. One day, they shall overthrow their oppressors and rise as one. They will break free from the bonds that hold them and from that uprising shall be born the orcish Horde.

I promise you, stranger, should we make it out of here alive, when I have the means to reward this selfless deed, I will seek you out... I will find you.



We will leave when you are ready.

Reward
Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

* 17950 experience (or at level 70) * 1000 reputation with Keepers of Time

Completion
You have done a great thing,. Alas, the young warchief's memory of these events must be as they originally were... Andormu awaits you in the master's lair.

Bosses
Lieutenant Drake - Humanoid Elite level 68 - (Optional - see "Stealth Tactics" below)Strategy

Captain Skarloc - Humanoid Elite level 68 - Strategy

the Epoch Hunter - Dragonkin Elite level 68 - Strategy

Normal Mode Walkthrough
Important note: Your party can only wipe three times during the escort of Thrall. After the third wipe, Erozion will no longer appear and reset the encounter. You will need to reset and restart the instance.

Durnholde Internment Camp
Players are asked to set incendiary devices in the various buildings of the Durnholde Internment Camp. The Durnholde Internment Camp has five buildings, each with 4 guards. When pulling this area, be sure to keep an eye out for patrols. (Note - there is an alternate strategy, see "Stealth Tactics" below) Once all the explosives are set, players can choose to fight Lieutenant Drake.

If you want to make your life a little easier, go ahead and clear any mobs in Durnholde Keep and in Tarren Mill before speaking to Thrall so that you will not have to deal with them later as adds or while Thrall is running around with no regard to mana or health.

Freeing Thrall
To continue, the party must then free Thrall from his cell in the basement of the keep and escort him out, telling him that they are friends of Taretha Foxtonwho have come in her stead.

As Thrall runs very quickly and does not rest after battles, this may be difficult on some parties. If you find yourself running dry on mana, just stop and rest after a fight and let Thrall go on his own for a bit--he can take care of himself for a little while. Healers will need to make sure that the young Warchief-to-be is kept alive, though.

Captain Skarloc
After clearing the walls of Durnholde, Thrall and the party will encounter Captain Skarloc and two bodyguards. Once Skarloc is killed, Thrall will commandeer his mount and lead the party to where he believes Taretha Foxton is being held -- Tarren Mill.

Tarren Mill
You will fight several packs of Tarren Mill guards before entering the Inn, where Taretha is held captive by the magic of the Infinite Dragonflight.

Important: Before talking to either Thrall or Taretha, be very sure to buff up completely and get to full mana and health - talking to either of them starts the final boss event. However, if you wait too long before talking to Thrall or Taretha, she disappears and you have to restart the quest from the beginning.

The Epoch Hunter
Once you talk to either one of the two, The Epoch Hunter--a Drake of the Infinite Dragonflight himself--will announce his presence and tell Thrall that Taretha's life hangs in the balance. Naturally, Thrall asks if the party will accompany him in this last battle, though you really don't have a choice.

The Epoch Hunter will fly overhead doing nothing for the first phase of this event. He will spawn three waves of Infinite Dragonkin, which have some spell resistance and have various abilities like Shadowbolt. Since they are Dragonkin, the Druid Hibernate spell is very helpful here. The waves are on a timer, so you must kill them fast. Keep close to the inn, for they have a tendency to come from the other side and aggro the first person they see. Thrall can survive their assault longer than you can, of course. The best thing during this phase is to let Thrall tank all the others and DPS the Defilers down. Then work on the rest.

Note about Druid Crowd Control: In addition to hibernate working, you can also root the dragonkin as you are considered outside. A single druid can basically Crowd control both melee dragonkins and leave the caster to her quick death at the hands of your DPS crew.

Once all three waves are down, the Epoch Hunter himself will land. He, like most Dragonkin, has a frontal breath attack (arcane damage) that reduces movement speed and attack speed significantly, so keep him faced away from the raid. This phase is significantly easier than the first one.

Completion
Once you've killed the Epoch Hunter, the agent of the Bronze Dragonflight who sent you will remove the memory of your interference from Thrall and Taretha. Though Taretha's sad fate is unavoidable, Thrall goes off to meet his destiny--and the flow of time is preserved.

Stealth Tactics
If you have a Rogue in the party (and they know what they are doing), it is possible to bypass most of the encounters that occur before freeing Thrall. To do this, your rogue must stealth into the buildings and set the bombs! This will cause 2 things to occur:
 * 1) The patrols will despawn (a lifesaver in Heroic)
 * 2) Lieutenant Drake will emerge.

At this point your party has 2 options. You can clear the area at the bottom of the stairs and take Drake as normal, or, since you have already fulfilled the "mission" (which is just setting the bombs as a distraction) the party can now continue on to Thrall and never take on Drake at all!!

However, the rest of the party might not get quest credit for this if they are too far away from the buildings.

Suggested Party Makeup
Certain mobs are immune to certain types of Crowd Control, so it can be useful to have multiple types of Crowd Control available in your party, for example:
 * Tank, Healer, Mage x 3 - Sheep 3
 * Tank, Healer, Mage x 2, Warlock - Sheep 2, Fear 1
 * Tank, Healer, Mage, Warlock x 2 - Sheep 1, Fear 2
 * Tank, Healer, Mage, Warlock, Druid - Sheep, Fear, Cyclone
 * Tank, Healer, Mage, Warlock, Hunter - Sheep, Fear, Trap

Entering Durnholde
You enter the instance and clear the smaller groups up till over the bridge. Thus far, everything should be fairly easy. While you stand on this side, walk along the sides of the large prison pit to spot the patrolling Lookouts and give them marks, so you know where they are at any given time. These patrols are extremely difficult: they have a very large aggro range, and upon aggro will summon two additional mobs, both of which run very fast and hit extremely hard, not to mention being immune to most types of CC. There are five of them in all that you need to worry about: two patrolling the walls around the prison pit, two inside the prison pit, and one patrolling the right side of the pit, with a route that will take it near the stairs into the pit (making the top of the stairs unsafe).

At this point, you must determine whether your party will try to kill the groups in the buildings, or ninja them. In both cases, your major concern will be avoiding the patrols.

The ninja strategy essentially requires one party member or group of party members pulling the mobs while another drops down and sets the firebombs. The person setting the bombs may want to simply remove their armor: if the mobs come back too soon, they will most likely die almost instantly. For the puller, a hunter using eyes of the beast with a beast that can dash and then feign death is ideal. Expect some deaths with this strategy: the bomber is likely to get trapped, and the puller to get ganked: as long as you leave your rezzing character outside the walls of the castle and away from combat, they can simply res members that have died in open spots.

The killing method is more straightforward, but often quite brutal unless you have enough CC: remove the mobs from each building and set the bombs, working your way through the groups while avoiding the pats.

Once you cleared all the buildings, you are free to run in and set fire to the houses. The best way to do this is leaving one building close to the wooden ramp to trigger as last, so you can set up for the boss fight. Once you set fire to all the buildings, the patrols will despawn.

The first boss : Lieutenant Drake
Drake hits extremely hard: he has a mortal strike that can do upwards of 7k on a tank, and a hamstring that can do up to 4k in addition to his regular attacks, whirlwind, and fear. Fear temporarily lowers tank threat and boss goes for casters and healers.

If you can afford dual tanking him (have two warriors, or have a feral druid, or protection paladin), keeping boss busy and away from group is a joke, and you can skip the rest of this strategy and proceed to looting. Else read on.

If you've killed all the mobs, then position the party on TOP of the ramp, while you stand below the ramp tanking. Avoid his whirlwind and be ready to counter overaggro. When he fears the tank he will reset his aggro and move to a random person on top of the ramp. When Drake reaches the top of the ramp, the one being targeted jumps down before getting hit and the tank can then take over with Taunt and if that fails, Mocking Blow, or even Challenging Shout.

If you haven't killed the mobs, simply pull Drake behind one of the burning buildings when he is away from them on his patrol back and forth.

Saving Thrall
Getting to Thrall is not as hard. The burning houses despawned the patrols, so the patrol that normally walks in the armory no longer walks there.

After talking to Thrall, immediately run to the entrance of the Armory. Sheep, fear, trap the first group as soon as they spawn and tank the mob(s) that are left. Thrall will regularly hit a random sheep. If this is a bad target ( example : The Warden, which dispels sheep ), quickly get a different target and keep resheeping the one Thrall is hitting. After a couple resheeps, Thrall will hit the one that's not sheeped.

Thrall can take quite a few hits, and will allegedly heal himself to 100% between fights.

This is a mana-battle. Let Thrall run up front from now on, let your healer drink while other players CC the mobs. The one Thrall is hitting first is your main target, to avoid Thrall breaking sheeps.

When you survive this short gauntlet, the second boss will come forward.

Second Boss : Captain Skarloc
This guy has 2 adds. He himself dispels magical effects ( including sheeps and perhaps even fears ), but if you dot him up fully and have mages burn him, he will be too busy dispelling himself and he will not dispel the adds. They can also be kited out of his range. He does not hit hard and his stuns are only dangerous in that they reduce the aggro generation of the main tank.

Grabbing the beast by its throat

Thrall next rides behind you on his 60% mount. Prepare for the next series of events.

Once everyone is ready, trigger the event and run into the barn. Have the tank position at the hallway into the barn, where the mobs spawn. Sheep the Protector as fast as possible. This mob heals and dispels sheeps. We made this mistake and the only way we prevented an actual wipe was keeping Thrall to tank him, while the Mage kept sheeping the mob indefinitely and I used demo-shout and thunderclap. The rest ran in, got mana back, prepared and in the end rejoined us to continue the event.

The next spawns are repeating this and are easy once you figure it out.

When you are ready, the entire party runs to the entrance of the Church. A series of 2 groups with 3 mobs will spawn and the last group has 4 mobs ( a total of 3 groups after each other ). These mobs can not be sheeped, but they can be Feared or Hibernated and are affected by Hurricane, Frostnova and slowing/stunning abilities.

In my case, we had 3 Mages and we discussed in advance how we would manage this fight. We had an order in which the Mages would Frostnova the Melee mobs to the ground, while quickly DPSing down the Casters. Thrall tanked one mob, the tank tanked one mob. Frostnova is there to prevent death from initial heal aggro and to give a clear view of what is happening. Be very careful on the last group, I used a Challenging Shout and got eaten by two Mortal strikes hitting me for 6.5K each. Frostnova can do miracles, but many more means of CC are available for these mobs.

Final boss : the Epoch Hunter
The last three waves of dragonkin hit much harder than before, but just as on normal, the real battle is making sure your party has enough mana and health to face the final boss after these waves. Tank the boss away from the group as normal.

Reputation Gains
Killing creatures in this instance gives reputation with Keepers of Time.
 * Elite guards 8 rep (heroic: 15 rep)
 * Bosses 150 rep (heroic: 250 rep)

Miscellaneous notes


The background music played in the instance when not specifically at the Keep or Tarren Mill is an adaptation of one of the orc music tracks from Warcraft II. It was also featured in the bonus orc campaign, "The Founding of Durotar", in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.

Videos

 * Thrall's Destiny (Highlights of the instance)
 * Full Run from WarCry.com