by Robin Torres

Before the Dungeon Finder Tool, leveling through instances just wasn’t possible for those of us with limited playtime unless we had 4 friends with similar schedules and an appropriate selection of classes. But now, we can take advantage of the speedy XP, better gear and grouping practice.

More importantly, dungeons are fun. In order to research this guide, I dusted off a level 18 paladin I hadn’t played for at least 2 years. I picked up skills that were new since the last time she trained, redid her talents and tested the Dungeon Finder waters. It was an absolute blast running through Deadmines with an appropriately leveled group. I’ve also had a great time leveling a priest in her 30s and a mage in her 60s using the Dungeon Finder. If you too want to try some instance leveling (and I bet most of you already have), here are some tips to make the most of it:

Set aside uninterrupted playtime

The great thing about soloing is that you never have to worry about interruptions bothering anyone else but you. And if you have close friends or understanding guildies, you can usually impose on them with non-emergency AFKs as needed. But if you’re going to PUG it up using Dungeon Finder, you should make arrangements to only be interrupted if absolutely necessary. Captain Obvious says it’s inconsiderate to do otherwise. If you’re a parent, I find that after bedtime is great.

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by Messiah @ tentonhammer

The Pit of Saron is the second of three instances that make up the Frozen Halls in Icecrown Citadel.  It was added in patch 3.3 which added all of the Icecrown Citadel content to the game.  Until it has been completed you will not be able to enter the third and final instance of the Frozen Halls called the Halls of Reflection.  This is so that you can see and follow the storyline involved in the three instances as it evolves.

The Pit of Saron is a very story line heavy instance that walks you through finding out where the Lich King is in the Citadel.  When you enter you face the Scourgelord Tyrannus right away, however, he leaves the area as soon as you engage his minions. 

Jaina Proudmoore (if you are Alliance) or Sylvanas Windrunner (if you are Horde) meet you at this point and ask you to rescue the prisoners held in the mine and defeat the Forgemaster of the Pit.  There are three bosses that inhabit the instance and each must be defeated to complete the storyline.

Once Tyrannus flys away you should make your way along the right path of the pit freeing prisoners along the way.  If you follow the right edge you will come to Forgemaster Garfrost who will be your first big fight in the instance.

Forgemaster Garfrost

The first boss that you come to is The Forgemaster Garfrost who is a Giant that walks around carrying a load of Saronite on his back.  The fight has three different phases as he makes his way from forge to forge.  It can also be fairly healing intensive due to the AOE damage inflicted, especially if DPS is light and the fight drags on. 

Abilities

Permafrost – This is a stacking debuff that does two things: it inflicts a small amount of damage per tick and increases frost damage taken.  While the damage starts off small it ramps up fairly quickly due to the stacking increase to frost damage taken. 

Thundering Stomp – This is an AOE stun to everything in the area.  He does this when he leaps to one of his two anvils.  He does this at 2/3 and 1/3 health remaining.

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by Messiah @tentonhammer

The Halls of Reflection is the third of the three new instances that make up the Frozen Halls in Icecrown Citadel.  The Halls were added in patch 3.3 which added all of the Icecrown Citadel content to the game.  You can only enter the Halls of Reflection once you have completed the other two instances: The Forge of Souls and The Pit of Saron.  This is so that you see and follow the whole storyline involved with finding the Lich King himself.

When you enter the Halls of Reflection you get to see a conversation between the spirits and Jaina Proudmoore (if you are Alliance) or Sylvanas Windrunner (if you are Horde), before the Lich King comes out to confront them.  Your faction’s champion chases after Arthas leaving you to deal with a gauntlet type event while fighting two bosses.

Falric

The first boss that you have to fight is Falric, one of Arthas’ old captains.  Before Falric activates and enters the fight you need to defeat four waves in the gauntlet.  The gauntlet consists of several different enemies.  The priority needs to be the Priests which heal, and the mages and riflemen who attack from range.  The others can easily be tanked.

To deal with controlling the enemies as they come in, you can fight in the hallway or behind one of the bosses.  This ensures that the enemies can not see the whole group and funnel into a choke point where the tank can pick them up.

Abilities

Defiling Horror – Falric yells out occasionally during the fight causing players to run in horror.  It also deals shadow damage to all players for 4 seconds that will take most players to below half health.

Hopelessness – This is a stacking debuff that Falric places on players that reduces the damage and healing dealt by 20% (25% on heroic).  It will stack up to three times on players as sort of a soft enrage.

Impending Despair – This attack hits a random part member and stuns them for several seconds.

Quivering Strike – This strike deals damage and lowers the target’s dodge by 20% for 5 seconds.<

Strategy

The fight is fairly simple, with the only real complication being the fear and soft enrage.  As time goes by his fear and DOT will be harder and harder to heal through after due to his debuff.  After a fear players that can prevent damage or heal some of the damage against themselves should, especially once hopelessness starts to stack to higher numbers.

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Im going to be going over the following things on how to solo instances as a demonology warlock

1) Spec
2) Buffs
3) Pet
4) Instances

So this is how you spec…

Warlock Talents – World of Warcraft Talent Calculator version 3.2.2 – WoW Tools

Fairly simple spec, must have meta or this is pratically useless.

Buffs
Must have Soul Link, and your armor. If your going to be doing low level instances then I recomend demon armor. If your going to be doing higher instances then I recomend Fel Armor mainly because of the health regen

Pet

Once again if your going to be doing low level instances, you HAVE to use voidwalker because of the sacifrice ability. Instances that have alot of mobs (dire maul, stratholme, sunken temple) I would use felguard mainly because of the charge and of the demonic empowerment.

Instances

Im not going to cover all of them, but just some of the basic’s…

Rfc, Vc, Wc,Sfk, Bfd, Stocks, Rfk, gnomer – You mainly are going to use void walker and pull as much as you can. Dont use pet to attack because he will 1 shot most of the mobs and you will get no loot. So you mainly have to go up to each mob and hit them with your bare hands (dagger,stave. etc.etc) Just remember to keep up void’s sacrifice at all times. A simple void sacrifice and a RAIN OF FIREEEEEEE will kill these mobs. But since you have meta why not use it and go imm aura.

Sm, Rfd,Uld, ZF, Mara, St, Brd, lwbrs – Here you are going to use your felguard. Keep demon armor up and just keep pulling as much as you can until your pet cant handle it anymore. Meta then imm aura then a quick soc then rain of fire and all of the mobs will be dead I guarentee  .

Dire Maul, Stratholme -Aye  my favorite two instances. Believe it or not warlocks can do pretty dam good for a clothie in these two instances. Im going to start off with stratholme. You MUST have fel armor on. These guys give you a debuff which makes it so that you cant eat, or heal yourself (you can use healthstone if you really need to but fel armor helps alot). Your going to use felguard in a situation like this because of the fact that most of these guys stun (depends on what side) Just have Demonic Empowerment ready to go and your all set  . Remember to keep shadow res up. As usually a meta and imm aura and a soc then rof . You might have 1 or 2 mobs that are still up just spam inncen until dead  .

Ramps, Bf, SP, Ub, Mt, Ac – This may be tricky depending on how geared you are. Im basically naxx 25 geared so I cant really pull as much as I would want to be o’well. Just dont pull to much, If your ever do pull do much and your pet dies then just use Master Summoner and pray that will help. Its mainly the simple O’l meta, imm aura, Soc, Rof, (Inncc leftover mobs). You want to use felguard in this situation and use fel armor.

Unfortunately im not geared enough to do the later instances, so I guess this is the end of ma guide.

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First of all we have the boss: Bronjahm

Bronjahm picture – Photobucket

First he has 688k HP, he starts with normal attacks + sometimes a AoE attack that deals 8000 Damage to the party.At maybe 75% he summons Ball named something Corrupter i think, i guess it’s something like those at the trash after Kolorgan, we just nuked it as fast as possible, then we just did tanked and spanked, at 30-25% he started a AoE

(Here is a picture of it AoE picture – Photobucket )

And when that comes just stand in the middle , becuase if u stay at the corner of far away from the boss you will take 800 damage (Some can be resisted) every 1-2 Seconds.

So really easy boss.

Next Boss Devourer Of Souls

Devourer Of Souls picture – Photobucket

Okay he has 647K HP and hes also a really easy boss, just start nuking, every 10-25% Hp he loses he will use a ability called Mirrored Soul

(Mirrored Soul picture – Photobucket )

And this spell will share the damage that the boss takes to the one he has cast the Mirror Soul on so all should stop DPSing there or continue if u got a nice healer – Thnx to Lemonsarenotfun for telling me this

At something like 50% he will cast a spell called Unleashed Souls

( Unleashed Souls picture by t1mPan – Photobucket )

There will be alot of ghosts spawning you can not do a single thing about them but the will disapear after some secounds, really easy, also watch out for black holes on the ground becuase they do damage.

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Simple way to bypass the ID-limit in instances.
1 SM-Cath-Run takes 3 minutes with 1 pull. I RAF’d 2 chars, so 3 accounts.

First, clear instance with your main. I just ran to the boss and killed him, you have to survive the 9sec stun. Run back to your toons at entrance and bomb everything.
If everything is dead, log out with your main. A toon has lead now. Go with both out of the instance and reset normally. Disband the group and log back in with your main. He is now in a new ID. Invite the two toons and enter instance, repeat.
I always disable addons because of faster login and entering instance. If your toons are too low, they will aggro the first mob, so kill this first.

Perfect method for fast RAF’ing, also great for farming the Deathcharger’s Mount or chests.

Short version:
1. Clear instance.
2. Log off with main.
3. Leave instance with toon(s) and disband group.
4. Reset normally.
5. Log back in with main.
6. Invite toon(s) and enter instance.
7. ???
8. Profit

“Additional instances cannot be launched” is the problem. DO NOT do this at peak times or whenever you can’t enter the instance immediately. You get ported to hearthstone-location.

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It is very frustrating when you cannot get into an instance and you get the message “Additional Instances cannot be Launched”. I do not remember this occurring often pre WoTLK, however now I get it for instances from Stockades and SM to Nexus and HoL.

This trick I have been trying lately is for resetting the instance once you have gotten in. Many times I am doing instance runs of the same instance and it took a long time to get in because “Additional Instances cannot be Launched” and you will get the same message when you go out and reset to go back in.

What I have been doing is going out while the group stays in the instance, then resetting the instance. Now, as I run in the group runs out at the same time. Now I get in to the reset instance without getting stalled by the message of the instance being full. Then the rest of the group turns around and runs back in.

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1. Basically, after you finish a instance, have everybody get out of there and wait in front of it. (Considering you have lead)
2. Now that everyone is outside, you keybind your autorun to a easy to reach key.
3. Stand as close to the instance portal zone portal as you can, without zoning in.
4. Reset the instance and AT ONCE hit autorun.
5. The moment you reset it, you basically open a free slot on the instance servers. So AUTORUN AT ONCE AFTER YOU RESET.
6. You are the one that took the free spot the moment you opened it up .

Downsides: Somebody might be running in faster the moment you reset it and take your spot . So this trick is very reaction/latency dependant.

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Many people like to solo old instances for Mando’s raptor, Thekal’s tiger, Attumen’s Horse or just for fun. To do this as a warrior at first you need a tankequip(blockequip is the best), Glyph of Bloodthirst, Glyph of Enraged Regeneration and talents like this:
Talent Calculator – World of Warcraft

How to fight:

Go in Defense Stance, equip a tankgear and use the following skills,
1. Commanding Shout up
2. Bloodthirst>Revenge>Shield Slam
3. if you want: 5x Sunder Armor
4. if you have low HP use: Enraged Generation/Shield Wall/Last Stand/Trinket
5. if you have full HP you can use Deathwish
6. Use Shield Block on cooldown
7. Renew Commanding Shout when needed

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