World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade – Tempest Keep: Arcatraz

ARCATRAZ KEY ATTUNEMENT

To get attuned to Arcatraz and to obtain the key you must complete a series of quests with the Consortium.  The questline starts with Ethereal Nether-Stalker Khay’ji located at Area 52 in Netherstorm.  He asks you to kill some Braxxis faction Ethereals at The Heap, south of Area 52.  Once done, you may notice the Blue question mark on his head.  You can gain further Consortium reputation repeating that quest.  However, he sends you to an NPC in Midrealm Eco-dome in the quest titled: Request for Assistance.  This new NPC: Gahruj starts the quest Rightful Repossession where he asks you to collect 10 Boxes of Surveying Equipment from the Blood Elves at Manaforge Duro (NOTE: These boxes are by the walls within the Manaforge). Gahruj will ask you to deliver the supply boxes personally to Nexus-Prince Haramad at the Stormspire in northern Netherstorm (Quest: An Audience with the Prince).

Nexus-Prince Haramad starts the quest: Triangulation Point One and he gives you a triangulation device.  Click the item in your bag, and your character will point in the direction you need to go to find the triangulation mark which looks like a Hunter Mark.

FULL TRIANGLE

With the data from both the first and second points, I’m now certain that the crystal is at the top of the Ruins of Farahlon to the northeast.

Unfortunately, the data indicates that the crystal is moving, which means that it has already been discovered, probably by the Burning Legion!

Just in case, I recommend that you take some friends along.

Slay the demon that has the crystal and return it to Nexus-Prince Haramad.

OBJECTIVE

The NPC you need to kill is an elite dreadlord named Culuthas.  He is at the Ruins of Farahlon. You need at least two or three players to take him down and at least one of you needs to be a healer.  If you do not find someone to help—only if you are a caster—you can solo him by kiting and dotting him along the road.  If you have the Arathi Basin PvP boots or Terokkar Spirit Shard reward speed enhancement(meta gem) wear it for this. NOTE: I am a priest and soloed him using word: pain and word: death while running from him. Warlocks can do the same, and Mages could slow him down with frostbolts and frost nova.

SPECIAL DELIVERY TO SHATTRATH CITY

I am an ethereal of my word. You have truly inspired me.

I am now going to give you the ata’mal crystal to hand over to the naaru. As it was your heroics that made this possible, I wish for you to deliver it.

You may use my personal teleporter to go directly to Shattrath City. Simply step through it and you will be transported there.

HOW TO BREAK INTO THE ARCATRAZ

A message was embedded in the ata’mal crystal that you recovered. Nexus-Prince Haramad has given us information vital to our campaign against Tempest Keep.

He tells us that there are two pieces, shards to a key, which, when combined, will unlock the keep’s Arcatraz satellite.

One half is possessed by an ancient in the Botanica known as Warp Splinter. The other is held by Pathaleon the Calculator inside the Mechanar.

Bring both shards to me and I will combine them into the Arcatraz key.

OBJECTIVE

BUTCHER’S STAND

You will find a two-way stairs.  One each stair-end you will find two Arcatraz Wardens (Blood Elf Archers).  There is a total of four, but are separate groups.  You can sheep one and kill the other one.  They have an arcane explosion (AOE).

Next you see a scene where three Arcatraz Defenders are killing Protean Horrors and a Protean Nightmare.  They keep coming every few seconds after the blood elves kill them.

Pull them after they have killed the flesheaters.  Mage should sheep one.  If there is a Hunter place a trap.  If no hunter, Warlock can use his succubis to charm.  Kill the one with the skull mark.

The Protean Horrors come next.  They are small white flesheaters.  They can be easily disposed.  The Tank should charge them to gain aggro.  The mage and warlock should AOE them.  The Tank should be expecting the Protean Nightmare to show up anytime.  It is a bigger flesheater with lots of Hit points.

They will usually debuff the tank with Incubation.  After the timer on the debuff is over, the target player will spawn two or three Protean Spawns (Larva / worms).  These worms have a crazy hit rate and like to aggro priests and mages mostly.  Their hit rate will practically make it impossible to cast.  Either AOE them or have some DPS player be on clearing worms duty.  Otherwise, you will get no healing for the tank because the worms interrupt casting.  Additionally, the worms infflict Acidic Bite –  Armor reduced by 575.  They can kill a cloth player fast if you leave them unattended.  Get those worms off your mage and priest ASAP.

On the next room, there are two patrols.  One patrol consists of a Protean Nightmare (Big Flesheater) and three Protean Horros (Small flesheaters), which roam clockwise.  The small room is circular and to the right is another doorway to a tunnel connecting to the next block.  They patrol around the room and move toward that far doorway.  Then stop in front of your doorway for 15 seconds before resuming their patrol pattern.

STASIS BLOCK: TRION

Next block is packed with mobs.  Ask your team to stay on the previous block.  No one should be by the tunnel connecting both blocks.  These mobs have serious aggro range and you don’t want two coming at you.

Send in a Hunter, or if lacking one, the Tank should range with his gun to pull.  The first pull is a demon dog with two heads and many eyes.  They are exactly like the model of the demon imprisoned by the Prince in Dire Maul (West wing).  These dogs are named Soul Devourer.  The Tank has to rotate him toward the doorway so that the flame AOE he sprays from the mouth won’t affect the team.  They inflict Sightless Touch – Movement speed slowed by 40%.  Time between attacks increased by 50%.  Casting speed slowed by 50%.

Every few seconds an eye will spawn from him and pick a random player.  The eyes can be killed in two or three hits / spell hits.  There are at least two of this dogs in the room.

Stay on the Butcher’s Stand block, and pull the next mob … a Death Watcher (lvl 70 Elite).  They look like Giant floating brains with huge teeth a big eye and tiny eyes around the big one.  Underneath they have tentacles.  When the Death Watcher reaches 20% health it will cast an AOE debuff marking everyone with Death Count – Marked for death.  It will start a 12 seconds counter.  If you haven’t killed him by the time the timer is over, everyone will be afflicted with a bomb that will either kill everyone or cause massive damage.  Just DPS him down as fast as you can.  There are at least a total of three Death Watchers in the room.

Be alert … there is a single Protean Horror patrolling back and forth going upstairs through the ramp and down to the room you are at.  If you didn’t stay at Butcher’s Stand block as suggested and fight within the Stasis Block: Trion while fighting another mob—if he aggros while there are other mobs in the room, he will bring with him more mobs than you can chew.

Next pull might be a Protean Nightmare and three Protean Horrors.

There is another variety of Death Watchers – this one is called Entropic Eye.  Its abilities are different.  They debuff the tank or nearby targets he strikes with Fevered Fatigue (Disease):  Intellect reduced by 43.  Spirit reduced by 43.  Priests may cast Abolish Disease.  Another ability is Corrosive Poison – 722 to 928 Nature damage inflicted every 5 sec.  Armor reduced by 5000.  This one is definitely not nice for a tank.  If you have a druid in the team alert him to cure poison ASAP.

Entropic Eye has another ability named Withered Touch (Disease) – 463 shadow damage inflicted every 10 sec.  463 mana leeched every 10 sec.  This one is pretty bad too.  Priests need to be on their toes watching these debuffs.  Cast Abolish Disease.

Make sure that you have cleared the room, and I mean it … don’t start the boss event without clearing the room, including the area underneath the transparent semi-circle ramp.

Once the room is clear, drink up.  Ask the priest to cast shadow protection buff to the team.  Make sure to rebuff the whole team with Prayer of Fortitude, Arcane Intellect, Mark of the Wild and anything else depending the team configuration.

This is a hard-to-position boss, so make sure your team understand the strategy.  Your team has to walk in and position themselves on the right side of Zereketh the Unbound (A Voidwalker lvl 72).  His right side is your left.  That corner is good.  Everyone should have their back against the wall in a a semi-circle formation along that corner.  Spread just a bit.

The tank has to charge Zereketh and position him at least 15 yards away from the wall your team is standing at.  Rotate him so he faces your team.  So what’s the logic on this?  Zereketh has a massive knockback.  If your team is not hugging a wall he will knock them back at least 50 yards away.  And a healer tossed that far away from a tank means someone is gonna die because the healer (Priest, Shaman, Druid, Paladin) won’t be able to reach you in time.  So hug that wall.  If the tank is knockback against the wall, he should grab aggro again and VERY important. Position him again facing the wall your team is at.

If you don’t do so you will force your team to rearrange their positions and it may cause them to no longer be against the wall and get tossed far away.  The tank has to rotate the boss, not rotate the team.

The second thing you should be mindful about Zereketh the Unbound is that he summons void zones.  Think of the first boss of Hellfire Citadel: Shattered Halls.  However, the void zones are huge and do the same effect of Death and Decay.  If you stand on the disc you will get approximately 2,000 shadow damage per tick.

This is in part another reason why the tank has to position the boss 15 yards away from the wall.  If the tank was in a corner, he wouldn’t be able to see the void zone underneath his own feet.  Specially a druid tank wouldn’t see a thing with his big rear.  Being this far from the wall, the tank can position his camera in a way he can see his own feet—looking out for any void zones spawning beneath himself.

At this point if you manage to be alert on positioning, rotation and looking out for void zones, you may be successful in the event.  The third ability of the boss is to hit everyone in the room with a shadow volley.  Since everyone is in the same corner the priest can handle that with prayer of healing (AOE heal).  Healers—bring mana pots.  Melee—bring health pots.  If a non-tank druid is in the team, toss a innervate on the priest.  This fight can be long usually.

The last ability of Zereketh the Unbound is nasty.  He casts Seed of Corruption – causing 400 damage per tick.  There is no way to dispell it.  Cast a shield on the afflicted player, and a renew.  Druid Healers should toss a regrowth and rejuvenation. Shamans could help too.  This seed of corruption can last long enough to kill a player.

After killing the boss, go upstairs through the transparent ramp.  There you will see a damaged robot named Arcatraz Sentinel (lvl 70 – Mechanical Elite) and blood elf corpse or two.  The corpses can be hit, and they spawn two Protean Spawns (worms).  If a robot and a corpse are near to each other, never attack the corpse first.  Pull the robot instead.  Attacking the corpse will cause the robot to aggro.  However, if you pull the robot, the corpse won’t spawn worms.

Although they only have 30% health, they can be nasty.  They constantly pick a random target and discharge them with an electric bolt.  DPS him down fast.  After the Arcatraz Sentinel dies, move yourself at least 20 yards away from it.  They will keep discharging electric bolts after death for 10 seconds.  Each bolt can cause around 900+ damage.

Along the tunnel you will possibly find corpses.

Ask your team to stay on the back side of the tunnel.  The tank or a hunter will have to pull the next mobs into the back of the tunnel.  They are big voidwalkers.  There are two types you have to memorize:  Nexus Screamers and Nexus Warp-Master.  Here is why you have to stay on the back of the tunnel.  The Nexus Screamers fear the team and that room has at least six voidwalkers.  The Screamers also cast a single frost bolt to a random player, and also a frostbolt AOE.  Everyone is hit.

The Nexus Warp-Master (Voidwalker) doesn’t seem to have many abilities except they open a void zone underneath themselves.  This void zone increases their armor and strength.  In short, make sure your tank knows about this.  The tank has to kite him backwards through the tunnel and toward the ramp of the first boss if needed.  Do not let the Warp-Master stand still.  He will leave a trail of void zones and he won’t get what he wishes …  he will die pretty fast without his void zone to empower him.  If your tank lets him stand still for three seconds you will notice the difference.  He will chew the tank in no time with increased strength.

QUEST: THE SECOND AND THIRD FRAGMENTS

Khadgar: I hid the second fragment at the bottom of Serpent Lake, long before it was called that. The giant drain installed there after the naga took over has likely pulled the container into the depths of Coilfang Reservoir.

Once you have cleared the room, stay on that room.  The tank will go through the tunnel and pull an Eredar Deathbringer.  There are three Eredars in that room.  Two types:  Eredar Deathbringer and Eredar Soul Eater.  Both are melee types but they have different auras.  The Auras affect everyone within 40 yards.

Eredar Deathbringer – their aura does around 433 damage per tick.  I suggest conserving mana by waiting until everyone is 75% health, then cast prayer of healing.  Secondary healers should only mind the tank, while the priest uses Prayer of Healing AOE on the team.  Priests could also help with Mending on the tank.

The Eredar Deathbringer casts Diminish Soul on the Tank and lo and behold … it stacks – all damage taken by 150 per stack.  If it stacks four times that is damage taken by 600.  Watch your tank’s health.

The Eredar Soul-Eater has a different aura:  Entropic Aura – Time between attacks increased by 25%.  Casting speed reduced by 25%.  Movement speed reduced by 25%.

He can also cast Soul Chill (Magic) – Movement speed reduced by 50%.  It can be dispelled.  And casts frost nova encasing everyone’s feet in ice. Another ability is Soul Steal (Magic) – Physical damage done reduced by 45%.  All stats reduced by 45%.  It can also be dispelled by priests.  Although Eredar Soul-Eaters can be killed under a minute, they do have their box of surprises.

Once the Eredars are dead, inform your team to stay on that room on the back.  You will see an Arcatraz Sentinel (robot) and a corpse on both sides of the door.  Don’t pull.  The tank should go near the platform (back of the room) to the far edge.  Now you can carefully view a hidden Arcatraz Sentinel covered by the wall—on the left side of the door.  On each side of the door is a Arcatraz Sentinel and a corpse.  Don’t touch the corpses or both robots will aggro. Single pull the left robot.  When it dies, pull the corpse worms on the left.  Then the next robot, and the last corpse.

STASIS BLOCK: MAXIMUS

The next room has two felguards titled Unbound Destroyer and Fel Overseer. Two visible Spiteful Temptress (Succubis) and possibly two or three stealthed Skulking Witches (Succubis).  The Fel Overseer has mortal strike—make sure to shield the tank when you see the mortal strike icon—and he has an AOE named Intimidating Shout.  You will be silenced for around 8 seconds.  That means … healers should toss heal-over-time spells on the tank, in preparation to the next shout.  When the silence is over, toss a shield on the tank to allow other healers to heal the tank while you cast your 3 second big heal.

The next pull is a Spiteful Temptress on the right of the door.  I recommend the rangers/casters going up the platform ramp on the back of the room to range the mob.  That will give you time to see when she is going toward you, to jump off the platform and run toward the tank—basically staying away from damage and kiting her until the tank regains aggro.

Skulking Witches are stealthed.  Only the Tank and the Priest should be in the tunnel connecting to the next room.  Cast a shield and mending on the tank.  The tank should move slowly in the next room attempting to catch the attention of stealthed Skulking Witches.  They are by the walls.  Once you get aggro pull them fast into the previous room toward your team.  The priest can cast renew and shield again if possible.  Skulking Witches can Gouge, incapacitating the target for few seconds.

The next room has a shape of a star with three sides. On the center it has an hexagone arena.  There may still be a Skulking Witch near Dallia the Doomsayer.  So be alert and let the tank do the scouting.  With stealthed mobs around you know how the saying goes … curiosity killed the cat.  Hunters could probably use their flare to detect stealthed units or Warlocks cast detect invisibility on the tank or paranoia with a summoned Felbeast.

There are two mini-bosses here: Dallia the Doomsayer and Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates.  Dallia is a six-armed female demon.  Soccothrates is a Wrathbringer demon.  Your first target should always be Dalliah.

Dalliah the Doomsayer is a straightforward tank and spank fight.  She will rarely lose aggro on the tank.  However, healers need to be careful in this fight and cancel their healing if they are fast enough.  She will cast a debuff on the tank.  As soon as you see it, stop healing or cancel an incoming heal immediately.  That debuff will heal her along with the tank.  Once the debuff is expired, you can heal the tank and toss renew/regrowth/rejuvenation on him so that he can recover until the next debuff.  If she gets no heals with her debuff, she will die pretty quick under 3 minutes.  The other ability should be important to melee players … as soon as she starts whirlwind, move away.  She will remain spinning for 8 seconds.  No problem … she won’t lose aggro while spinning.  Get back on her after she stops spinning.

Once she is dead, ask your team to stand around the hexagonal arena at the center.  Three sides of the hexagon has a wall column.  Three sides are openings.  Pick one of the three walls and hug it.  The Tank and a rogue or feral druid (if any) should pull the mini-boss Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates into the center of the arena.

This mini-boss is pretty hard, no lie.  He does a knockback tossing you 40 yards away. That is why you are hugging the walls.  Now the reason each of the players are on one of the column-walls is that he will randomly charge a player—leaving a trail of fel fire on the ground.  That fel fire will cause you instant damage and also damage over time.  As soon as you see him charging you run toward the tank, and across the hexagon toward the healers.  Otherwise the damage over time will kill you.

Another tip—- don’t stand near the boss, he seems to have a fire aura of 15 yards.  Anyone going near him will be debuffed with a fire icon, taking damage over time.  It can be dispelled by priests.  Druids should be alert on the Priest’s mana and innervate them.  Your team needs to DPS this guy as fast as possible.  Healers won’t be able to sustain the healing of the team for too long.

Once he dies, the door field will be shut down, and now you can access the stairs toward the third floor.

Upstairs you will find a robot and 2 corpses.  Kill them—always pulling the robot first.  Don’t be wandering ahead of the tank.  By the bridge connecting Stasis Block: Maximus and Containment Core on the third floor—there is a patrol—a Protean Horror.  Across the bridge you will get an inevitable pull of two robots.  You might wipe here.  Keep your main healer alive if your team has a second healer.  When the first robot dies, the tank has to immediately pull the other robot away from the dead one.  Otherwise, the after-death discharge combined with the remaining robot will kill your team.  Electric discharges do 900 damage per bolt.

CONTAINMENT CORE

Again ask your team to remain on the back of the tunnel.  This is to avoid patrols aggroing near the door during the fight. The tank should approach the door and position himself on the left side to see diagonally toward the right side of the door.  To the right is a group of four ethereals.

– Ethereum Life-Binder
– Two Ethereum Slayer
– Ethereum Wave-Caster.

Ask your mage to come to the front and to target the Ethereum Life-binder.  Once the mage has targeted it, ask him to move to the back of the tunnel.  If you have a hunter, ask him to trap an Ethereum Slayer.  Kill the Ethereum Wave-Caster fast, then a Slayer.  They infflict poison on a target to slow casting time.  Mages should keep the Life-Binder sheeped at all times.  A Mage shield and Priest shield on the mage would be wise periodically in case sheep breaks during the fight.  It will allow the mage to not lose casting time while getting hit by the Life-Binder, trying to re-sheep.

Ask your team to stay in this room.  I recommend casters/rangers to stand atop the platform in the back of the room.  The Tank should walk through the tunnel with care and position himself on the left wall of the tunnel to see diagonally to the right edge of the doorway.  There are two satyrs on the right and two satyrs on the left.  Plus a Infernal is patrolling back and forth toward the door and away from the door.  Naturally pull the satyrs when the infernal is walking away.

You have now a two satyrs:  Sargeron Archer and Sargeron Hellcaller.  Kill the Hellcaller first.  As his name indicates he casts rains of fire.  The Sargeron Archer shoots poisoned arrows that slows your spellcasting time.  When you kill them, stay in the room and return to the platform on the back of the room. This is in case the tank loses aggro and the satyrs run toward you.  At least you can see him running around the platform.  Jump off the platform and run toward the tank.

Heal and drink and prepare for the Infernal pull.  This time all the players have to stack on the same spot by the door.  Stick together.  The tank will go pull the Gargantuan Abyssal (Infernal).  It has a fire damage aura causing over 300 damage per tick, but you would rather take that sticking together stacked on each other than what he will summon.

The Gargantuan Abyssal summons down a meteor crashing on the team.  Now for the sake of explaining why no one should stand apart from the stacked team players … if you stand alone away from the team (points at Hunters/Mages)  the meteor will strike you for 12,000 damage.  When everyone is stacked together, the 12,000 damage splash is split between each player.  In short, 12,000 divided by 5 players = 2,400 damage per player.  There are ways around this … depending on your team configuration.  For example, Hunters and Warlocks can summon a pet to take some of the damage while stacking on each other.  And a non-tanking druid could summon treants.  That would further split the damage caused by the meteor.

Priests must keep a pace of prayer of healing the team when they reach 75% health, while mending and renew on the tank.  Any other healers should only heal the tank and DPS the Gargantuan Abyssal.  DPS is needed to kill him as fast as possible.  The next pull might be a Doomguard.

The team needs to stand on the door of the previous room.  The tank should pull the Unchained Doombringer (lvl 71 Elite Doomguard)  to the door of the other end of the tunnel.  In short, casters/rangers should stay on the other side of the tunnel.  If the tank brings the doomguard toward the team, prepare for a wipe. ‘Nuff said! Stay at Max Range.

WARDEN MELLICHAR

By now depending on how much time you have spent clearing the dungeon up to this point, you might have repops on the starting point—Butcher’s Stand section—after the zone-in.

You have a one-shot chance to succeed on this final showdown. Otherwise, you will have to clear trash mobs up to the third floor: Containment Core.  The third floor won’t have repops by the time you arrive after clearing.

Now to explain the Warden Mellichar event.

When you approach him he will bubble up. You don’t fight him.  He will cast a red spell toward the stasis cell (cage) on the left of the room.  The first mob is random.  It will either be an Imp or a Phase Hunter (Warpstalker).

One thing you should know is that this is a timed event.  Meaning:  If you don’t DPS him fast enough, the next cage will be opened and you will have two mobs instead of one.  If you kill him fast enough you will have a grace time to drink.

The second cage opens and a gnome named Millhouse Manastorm.  He is for a quest given by A’dal in Terrace of Light.  Your mission is to free him, which only happens if you are successful with the event.  The gnome will help you kill the next two mini-bosses set loose from the cages by Warden Mellichar.

The third cage opens to set loose a wind elemental named Akkiris Lightning-Waker.  This mob will do an AOE lightning hitting all players.  He will do this often every 10-15 seconds.  Mages and resto-Druids should be alert on this round on curse-clean duty.  Akkiris will cast Lightning-Waker’s Curse on the tank or a random target—Magical damage taken is increased by 100%.  Very dangerous curse.  The event depends on you cleaning the curse.

Right now I will tell you that you won’t have enough DPS on him if you have a Restoration Druid.  He is immune to Nature damage.  A resto-druid commented he usually hits for 2,600 damage.  His nature spells were doing merely 600 damage to him and sometimes he would miss.  A mage reported low DPS on arcane damage.  Restoration Druids should possibly have to fight him in bear or cat form.  Or simply stay at max range and dedicate to heal the team.  Priests and Paladins can go DPS on this boss.  He is not immune to Holy damage.  However, remember this is a DPS race against the timed-event.  If Akkiris doesn’t die fast, the next cage will be opened and you will have both mobs together on you.

If you were lucky to kill him in time, casters should drink fast before getting in combat mode.  The tank should be smart and move toward the spawning-spot on the left side of the cage-platform.  There is an explanation for that.  Blackwing Drakonaar will engage in combat as soon as he is set loose off the cage.  He does a warstomp that sets everyone flying on the air—a knockback.  In short, everyone that was rushing to drink to regain mana will be interrupted.  Tanks don’t want that to happen.  Therefore, run toward the left side to welcome him. Away from casters drinking.

Blackwing Drakonaar is mostly melee, but he does have the warstomp that causes damage to everyone nearby while knocking them back at the same time.  I recommend casters/rangers to move toward the wall he spawns at, with their back on the wall.  Treat this guy like you did the first boss of Arcatraz—Zereketh the Unbound, to avoid his knockback.  The tank needs to maintain him on the left side near his cage.  The team doesn’t want to get knockbacked from the healers, nor would healers wish to get slammed far away from the tank.

If you killed him fast enough, you might have some seconds to drink.  The last mob to be set loose is no less than a clone of Skeram—not literally a clone, but looks like him and does similar things.  The Naaru had imprisoned this Qiraji emissary that for some reason wished to conquer the worlds in the universe as a harbinger of the Old gods.  Warden Mellichar did not know what was inside this cage, and cost him his life when he set him loose.

The Qiraji has some very nasty abilities and I really wish you luck.  He mind controls a single target forcing you to spend some mana on your own teammates.  Fear and knockback. You can also see a ray casted on a player similar to mindflay … it will cause around 5,000 damage over 8 seconds.  Healers on your toes when seeing this mindflayer ray.  You become immobilized during the mindflay unable to cast.  The last two seconds of mindflay you regain mobility—you may cast shield on yourself those last two seconds—if by chance you are the Priest.