HALLS OF LIGHTNING

Lightning Struck

As long as your tank and healer aren’t in greens, this isn’t an overly difficult achievement. Bjarngrim and his adds path around a tiffany series of 3 platforms and will pause at each, gaining a Temporary Electrical Charge that increases their damage. You simply need to pull Bjarngrim while he still has this buff. During the fight you can force him to lose it by killing his adds, and if you’re still gearing up,cheap wow gold, that’s a more reasonable option than trying to survive the damage. The abilities of note here are Mortal Strike, which is a fairly nasty hit in the range of 15-16K, and Whirlwind, which can two-shot melee DPS.

Tanks/healers without the gear to power through this easily should burn cooldowns until the adds are dead, at which point Bjarngrim will lose Electrical Charge and becomes a glorified tank-and-spank (as long as your melee stay out of the whirlwind. If they don’t, it becomes a long glorified tank-and-spank).

Shatter Resistant

This was another achievement my group got entirely by accident. Until I actually sat down to look up information for this article, I confess my usual advice to groups was, "I’ll pull him back and you burn him down…I think."

It turns out that’s still decent advice, because all you need to do is kill Volkhan before he shatters 4 of his summoned golems. While this is a DPS check, it’s not a particularly strong one, and most groups can kill him well before that point. However, if your damage isn’t that great, you’re best off killing adds as necessary. This should be an easier task for ranged DPS, as the golems get slower and slower as their health drops. However, because Volkhan will continually summon these golems during the fight, you’re still better off just burning him down.

Because this (and the Loken achievement, next) is one of the easiest DPS checks for the meta Glory of the Hero, Halls of Lightning is a good trial heroic to evaluate the damage capability of your group. If you have trouble with HoL, you may want to postpone tougher DPS-dependent achievements like Less-rabi and Volazj’s Quick Demise.

Timely Death

Easy, easy, easy. And yes, I said that about Loken.

The deal with Loken is that, despite cheap wow gold being the scourge of early Wrath heroic groups, he doesn’t actually have a lot of health. In order to get him down within 2 minutes, your three DPS need to manage a little less than 1,500 DPS each. Given that your tank will also be doing some damage, the true DPS requirement is even less, and probably closer to about 1,100-1,200. If your group can’t manage this, there’s a lot in Glory of the Hero that’s going to be difficult or outright impossible.

Groups with a strong AoE healer will sometimes elect to stay in for Lightning Nova and simply heal through it to preserve uninterrupted DPS time, but to be perfectly honest I think that’s an unnecessary stress on the healer (although I’ll grant that, as someone who’s often Resto, I also have a reflexive dislike for dumping all responsibility on the healer just because the DPS can’t be arsed to budge). Now, if your healer doesn’t object to it and each group member has at least 16K health, don’t let me stop you, but generally my groups move out for the Nova.

Keep Loken tanked on the strip of light running between his throne and the large globe in the center of the hall. When he emotes that he’s casting the Nova, use your mouse to flip your character around quickly and run in the opposite direction on the strip until the Nova hits. Immediately flip back around to meet Loken again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually you’ll be unable to move any further as you’ll hit the globe; simply rotate Loken until your back is to his throne. At no time do you ever need to move from the strip.The only real secrets are:

Keep your back to the direction in which you need to run: If you have to run through or around Loken, you’ll get hit by the Nova.

Do not keyboard turn: This will kill you. If you’re uncomfortable using the mouse to turn, simply strafe out of the Nova along the strip.

Keep the group together: His AoE damage pulse is much worse if people spread out. While this is somewhat more difficult on Hunters, keep the group as clumped as possible.

If your group lacks the coordination to do this, things like Oculus are going to be an absolute nightmare, which is one of the reasons that I really don’t suggest the "lol heal through it" strategy; it gets people accustomed to shoving tiffany jewelry responsibility to one or two group members, and that’s no good. If your group kills Loken quickly and cleanly with no practice or only a bit, then uninspiring DPS or notso-hotso gear can be fixed. If your group is all blues or epics but can’t kill Loken without people dying or getting hit by the Nova, you may want to reevaluatewhether they’re ready for the tougher heroics.

Blowing Hodir’s Horn
This quest becomes available at Neutral.  It’s a once a day quest that rewards 250 reputation with Sons of Hodir.  The objective of Blowing Hodir’s Horn is to head northeast of Dun Niffelem to Thunderfall, which is the Frozen battlefield cheap wow gold due to Thorim’s ridiculous temper.  Once there, you must kill Restless Frostborn Ghosts and Restless Frostborn Warriors.  After each kill stand over the corpse and blow Hodir’s Horn.  Do this five times to each mob and you are done!  Estimated time- 5-8 minutes.

 Hot and Cold
This quest becomes available at Neutral.  It’s a once a day quest that rewards 250 reputation with Sons of Hodir.  The objective of Hot and Cold is to gather Essence of Ice from Brittle Revenants at Frostfield lake just east of Dun Niffelem.  After you’ve gathered 5 Essence of Ice head south to Fjorn’s Anvil, once there get near the Smolder Scraps scattered on the ground and use the Essence of Ice to freeze them.  When they’re frozen, pick them up and head back to Dun Niffelem to recieve your rep.  Estimated time- 8-10 minutes.

 Polishing the Helm
This quest becomes available at Friendly.  It’s a once a day quest that rewards 250 reputation with Sons of Hodir.  The objective of Polishing the Helm is to go west of Dun Niffelem into the valley, then go into the cave in the mountain to the north.&nbsp,cheap wow gold; When you’re there kill the Slimes to recieve your 5 Viscous Oil.  Estimated time- 4-6 minutes.

 Spy Hunter   
This quest becomes available at Honored.  It’s a once a day quest that rewards 350 reputation with Sons of Hodir.  The objective cheap ugg boots of  Spy Hunter is to make your way west of Dun Niffelem until you reach the Corpse of the Fallen Worg.  Use the Ethereal Worg’s Fang within 15 yards of the corpse.  Then follow the Worg that spawns til it finds a spy, kill the spy, rinse and repeat.  Estimated time- 5-7 minutes.

Thrusting Hodir’s Spear
This quest becomes available at Honored.  It’s a once a day quest that rewards 500 reputation with Sons of Hodir.  The objective of Thrusting Hodir’s Spear is to take the spear recieved from accepting the quest, venture west of Dun Niffelem and use the spear while targeting a drake flying above.  When that is complete you will be pulled on top of the drake and begin fighting it.  Use the abilities given once mounted on the drake to eventually thrust the spear down its throut.  Estimated time- 3-5 minutes.

 Feeding Arngrim
This quest becomes available at Revered.  It’s a once a day quest that rewards 350 reputation with Sons of Hodir.  The objective of Feeding Arngrim is to go west of Dun Niffelem and use Arngrim’s Tooth on the Roaming Jormungar in the buy wow gold area.  Once they’re disembodied kill them down and a Arngrim Giant will come eat the worm when it becomes weakened.

Repeatable Quests

Hodir’s Tribute- Is worth 250 reputation.  The quest is to turn in 10 Relics of Ulduar to the Sons of Hodir quartermaster.

Everfrost- Is worth 350 reputation.  The quest is starts from an item called Everfrost Chip.  You can find Everfrost Chips scattered around the area surrounding Dun Niffelem.

This achievement cannot be placed with any one boss as it requires you to kill all of the bosses inside the instance with the exception of Cyanigosa. This achievement is based mostly on luck as the bosses spawned in the instance are random. If you can clear the Violet Hold with no problems, then it just becomes a waiting game. Keep running The Violet Hold every chance you get and eventually (probably when you least expect it) you will finally have killed all the bosses and gain this achievement. A brief description of the boss fights, and other achievements that go along with them are below.

Erekem
An arakkoa type boss, Erekem will spawn from the left side with 2 guards that cannot be crowd controlled. All DPS should be on the boss, ignoring the adds. If the adds are killed first he will apply the Stromstrike debuff which will do tons of damage to your tank. The boss will throw Lightning Bolts from time to time, has a Windfury attack, a quick casting Chain Heal, and can Bloodlust.. All of Erekem’s spells are interruptible. Overall a very simple tank and spank.

Erekem related Achievements:

Moragg
A giant floating eye located on the right side of the Hold. Will cast Ray of Suffering (DoT that inflicts 8% of the target’s total health every second for 5 seconds), Ray of Pain (shadow damage to a target and reduces healing received), Optic Link (channeled beam that does damage over time), and Corrosive Saliva (stacking debuff that reduces the targets armor). This boss encounter is mostly a tank and spank, with the majority of the damage going out going to the tank. It should be noticed both the Ray of Pain and Ray of Suffering can be reflected back on the boss by a warrior, making the fight faster and easier.

Moragg related Achievements:

Ichoron
A water revenant located near the center of the instance, in the only cell with water in it. Ichoron will come out with a protective bubble with about 35 charges on it that needs to be removed. Each attack that hits it will remove one charge from the shield. Once removed Ichoron will collapse and a few water elementals will spawn. The boss will become active once again when all of these have been slain, or if one of the elementals reach him. If an elemental reaches him, it will restore some of his health so they should be killed quickly. Keep in mind the elementals do AoE damage when killed, so rounding them up and killing them is not a good idea. For an easy kill simply use the levers around the room when the adds are spawned. The resulting damage should wipe out the adds and save your group the AoE damage. Rinse and repeat a few times until Ichoron reaches 25% at which time he will stop summoning adds, but will enrage.

Ichoron related Achievements:

Dehydration
This achievement requires you to defeat Ichoron without allowing any Ichor Globules to merge. To make this achievement easy assign someone to click one of the levers around the room each time the adds spawn. The result should be the adds are killed instantly before they even have a chance to move closer to Ichoron. Keep an eye out just in case any manage to escape. Do this until Ichoron is dead and this achievement will be yours.

Xevozz
An ethereal, and probably one of the toughest mini-bosses in the instance. Xevozz has three man abilities: Arcane Barrage Volley which shoots arcane blasts at nearby players, Arcane Buffet which will increase his damage, and he will also summon Ethereal Spheres. The handling of the Spheres will make or break this fight for you.

Throughout the fight Xevozz will summon Spheres, while Xevozz himself does not do much damage if you allow him to get close the Spheres he will feed off them and gain an extra damage boost. If Xevozz is in line of sight of the Spheres for any length of time, he will teleport your entire group right on top of one of theses Spheres. Since the Spheres themselves have an damage aura this should be avoided. The first Spheres should be spawned at the bottom of the instance, so move the boss (making use of the rubble) to the top walkway. Kite him slowly with healers and DPS following along. If all goes well, continue to make circles like this until the boss is dead.

Xevozz related Achievements:

Lavanthor
A giant core hound located on the bottom right of the room, Lavanthor proves to be a very easy fight compared to most. A basic tank and spank, simply face Lavanthor away from the raid and have your DPS go to town. The tank can try to step away to avoid Lava Burn, but since the rest of the group should be taking almost no damage the healer should have no trouble healing through it.

Lavanthor related Achievements:

Zuramat the Obliterator
A void lord located in the top left of the Violet Hold, Zuramat does little himself, but relies on his adds to do the dirty work. Throughout the fight Zuramat will summon adds, but these adds can only be seen by the person who at the time has Void Shift. It is this persons responsibility to kill the adds while they are visible. The effect lasts roughly 15 seconds, but even a healer should be able to take out a few adds during that period. If not killed the AoE damage from the adds can add up very quickly and can wipe your group. Those not affected by Void Shift should burn Zuramat as quickly as possible.

The boss himself does however do Shroud of Darkness, which when damaging the boss reduces healing received on the player by 20%. This debuff can stack but can also be purged and/or dispelled. If it cannot be taken off, your group will have to drop DPS until the debuff is gone.

Zuramat related Achievements:

A Void Dance
This achievement requires you to kill Zuramat without killing any void sentries. Probably one of the more exciting DPS race encounters in WoTLK 5-man, your group will have to push their limits to defeat the boss before the damage becomes overwhelming. To make this easier bring a class that can dispell/purge Shroud of Darkness, making the healing less intense for your healer. If you are lucky enough to have a DK tank have him place an Anti Magic Zone for your group to stand in. Otherwise cross your fingers and DPS, DPS, DPS.

Cyanigosa
The final boss in the Violet Hold, Cyanigosa will spawn after the final portal without a pause, so mana users should try to conserve during the last few portals. Cyanigosa is a typical dragon, don’t’ stand behind her (Tail Sweep), or in front of her (Uncontrollable Energy). Cyanigosa will also cast Blizzard on a selected area, move quickly out of this to avoid taking additional damage. Cyanigosa will cast Arcane Vacuum throughout the fight, which pulls your entire group to her. Return quickly to your original positions to avoid the Tail Sweep and Uncontrollable Energy. This effect also causes an aggro wipe so allow the tank to regain threat before continuing DPS. Overall Cyanigosa ends up being a pretty simple tank and spank with a few twists.

Cyanigosa related Achievements:

Defenseless
This achievement asks you to defeat Cyanigosa without using and Defense Control Crystals while keeping the Prison Seal Integrity at 100%. This achievement is rather straight forward, do not allow anyone to click on the levers throughout the room, this will take away your crutch and make things harder for those who struggle with some of the bosses and portal packs, but can easily be done. The only real difficulty is keeping portal packs who spawn 3-4 adds from reaching the Prison Seal. Have a good tank who does quick pick ups and slow them when needed and this achievement will be yours.

Getting Started
The Oracles are a murloc-like gorloc tribe that inhabits Sholazar Basin. They feel they are guardians of the titan technology that remains in the Basin. The Oracles are part of an ever escalating territorial war with the Frenzyheart Tribe. The Frenzyheart Tribe are fierce wolvar who were driven from their lands by the Scourge. Once they came across Sholazar Basin they decided to make it their home. Their aggressive nature is the reason for the war with the Oracles.

Starting with the quest Playing Along, which is given by Tracker Gekgek after you have killed Pitch, you will begin a chain of quests that will first acquaint you with the Frenzyheart Tribe and then with the Oracles. This has no actual bearing on your ultimate choice of faction so don’t panic. Just continue to do the quests until you reach A Hero’s Burden.

A Hero’s Burden
Upon completion A Hero’s Burden will allow you to begin your journey towards real reputation gain with either the Oracles or the Frenzyhearts . The quest is given by Moodle and requires the player to kill Artruis the Heartless. Artruis is a level 77 elite lich, located in the Sundered Shard which is east of the Lifeblood Pillar. While Artruis is very powerful he may be killed solo by some classes, but it is always smart to bring some help along just in case.

Once engaged, killing Artruis comes in three phases. In phase one Artruis will position himself at the back of the cave with a wolvar, Zepik the Gorloc Hunter, and a gorloc, Jaloot on either side of him. He will cast Frost Bolt, Frost Nova, Ice Lance, and even engage in melee in his attempts to kill you

In Phase Two Artruis will encase himself in ice and will turn Zepik and Jaloot against you. This is the crucial point in the fight. Killing one of the NPC’s allows you to align with the other faction after the fight. So if you want to ally with the Oracles, you would need to kill Zepik, however if you choose to ally with the Frenzyheart Tribe you will need to kill Jaloot.

Once either Zepik or Jaloot is killed, Artruis will reactivate, starting Phase Three. Phase Three is much like Phase One except the NPC that you left alive will now help you complete the battle. Once defeated you will be offered a either the quest Frenzyheart Champion from Zepik or Hand of the Oracles from Jaloot allowing you to become aligned with that faction.

Changing Factions
If at any time you feel you have made a mistake in your choice, or you have simply reached exalted and are ready to change from one faction to the other all you need to do is go back and kill Artruis. This time though you will want to kill the opposite NPC than you did the first time. Keep in mind that once you switch factions all reputation gains will be lost permanently. Also any items you purchased from the opposite faction that required a certain amount of reputation (Revered, Exalted) will no longer be useable. You may only switch between the two factions once a day.

Trash Mobs and the 3 Drake Lieutenants

Trash

While there is not much trash inside the Obsidian Sanctum the trash can easily wipe even an over geared raid group who are not prepared. There are 2 types of add packs inside the Sanctum: a pack of 4 dragons, and a pack with 2 Onyx Sanctum Guardians. The Guardians require a tank on teach and are a hard hitting tank and spank. They cast a Curse of Mending on random raid members which will heal them every time that player attacks. This needs to be dispelled or the targeted player needs to stop DPS till it wears off. The pack of four consists of an Onyx Brood General who when killed will break all CC from the other dragon kin and prevent them from being Cced again for the rest of the fight, 1-2 Onyx Flight Captains who have no major abilities but tend to hit very hard, and 1-2 Onyx Blaze Mistresses which should be killed first as they conjure up Flame Orbs that do damage to anyone near it.

Drakes

All three drakes are very similar fights with small differences. All three drakes have a Shadow Breath so no one except the tank should be in front of them, all three will spawn void zones that should be avoided by all players, and each drake will spawn portals throughout the fight that can be taken by the raiders. While in a portal everyone will take shadow damage, and what you do in the portal depends on the drake you are facing. Depending on the drake you are facing it is currently acceptable to skip some of these portals.

Tenebron - located on the terrace to Sartharion’s right side, she will open portals into the Twilight realm that give players a chance to destroy her eggs. Left untouched these eggs will eventually spawn Twilight Whelps which will attack the raid. Currently it is much easier for players to ignore her portals and focus on DPSing her down while an off tank picks up her adds. Unless killed before engaging Sartharion, she will be called to aid him after 30 seconds, strengthening Sartharion even more.

Shadron - located on the terrace to the rear of Sartharion, Shadron will regularly open portals to the Twilight realm that will give players the opportunity to slay acolytes which Shadron will summon. Players will need to take these portals as the acolytes will give Shadron the Gift of Twilight which decreases Shadron’s suffered damage to zero. Send in an off tank, all your DPS, and a few healers (or just one on 10-man) and the acolyte will easily go down. Unless killed before engaging Sartharion, he will be called to aid him after 75 seconds, strengthening Sartharion even more.

Vesperon - located on the terrace on Sartharion’s left side, he will open portals to the Twilight realm that give raiders the chance to kill acolytes that will be summoned by Vesperon. These acolytes have an ability that inflicts damage to players who attack Vesperon or the acolyte. Depending on how confident you are in your healers and your DPS to take down Vesperon quickly you can skip these portals, however to make it easier simply send in an off tank, a few healers and your DPS and take out the acolyte. Unless killed before engaging Sartharion, he will be called to aid him after 75 seconds, strengthening Sartharion even more.

Each drake will drop an Emblem of Conquest upon their death.

Sartharion

While being an old fight Sartharion still requires the raid to have moderate movement skills and situational awareness, especially when attempting 3 drakes. Sartharion is most frequently done with no drakes alive, or all three drakes. While 1 or 2 drakes can also be done it seems almost silly not to just do all 3 and get the whole shebang out of the way.

No Drakes

Sartharion has all the abilities you would expect from a dragon: tail whip, a frontal Cleave, and a cone fire breath. Keeping Sartharion faced away from the raid with his tail out of the way is key here. The best spot I have personally found for the tank to stand is on the eastern tip of the island. That way Sartharion faces out toward the lava, his tail is towards the lava on the other side, and the DPS can spread out along his side while the tank can avoid the Lava Wave with just a few steps.

Sartharion has several unique abilities that make the fight a little bit more difficult, and fun. Throughout the fight Sartharion will summon Fire Elementals. They do not hit hard initially and should be picked up by an off tank. However if they are not killed and they manage to hit a Lava Wave they will enrage, gain more health and hit very hard. Killing the Fire Elementals at regular intervals and having your off tank drag them out of the Flame Waves is key. Lava waves will also be summoned throughout the fight. You will receive an emote about the wave, and then a wall of lava will sweep over the island. The waves can either move left to right or right to left. Each wave will have a safe spot that players will need to get to. If the wave moves left to right (looking in from the entrance of the room) there will be two openings on each end of the Lava Wave. If the wave sweeps right to left there will only be one opening in the center.

Between avoiding Lava Walls, and killing Fire Elementals all DPS should be on Sartharion. Getting up as many DoTs as possible makes this fight go much faster. Avoid the Lava Waves, kill off the Fire Elementals regularly, and keep Sartharion from turning to the raid and you will easily win this boss fight.

Three Drakes

Doing Sartharion with three drakes up means he will continue to do all his normal abilities discussed above plus the drakes will now join the fight in intervals, buffing Sartharion and debuffing the raid. Void Zones will now appear throughout the fight and will one shot a player and should be avoided at all costs. The most viable tank for this fight is a Death Knight as they have the most cool downs. A priest healing the main tank is also a good idea as they can lend their wings or pain suppression as extra cool downs for the tank.

The drakes give the following debuffs to the raid and buffs to Sartharion:

Power of Tenebron - Increases Shadow Damage by 100%
Power of Shadron - Increases Fire Damage by 100%
Power of Vesperon - Decreases maximum health by 25%

Will of Sartharion - Increases Sartharion’s health and those of the other drakes by 25%
Twilight Revenge - Increases Sartharion’s physical damage and attack speed by 25% every time a drake dies
Berserk - When Sartharion reaches 35% health while at least one of the drakes are alive, he will berserk, increasing his attack speed by 150% and damage done by 500% for 5 minutes.

Once pulled all damage should be on Sartharion until Tenebron lands after 30 seconds. Tenebron should be picked up by an off tank and the raid will burn her down. Shadron will land after 75 seconds, and should be taken care of by a second off tank. The raid should have killed Tenebron, and have a good start on Shadron by the time Vesperon lands after 125 seconds. If the raid is lucky Shadron will not cast his immunity shield before his death and the raid can continue on to kill Vesperon. The damage to the main tank at this point will be extreme and the tank and his healers should do everything possible to keep him alive. If Shadron does manage to cast his immunity shield the DPS , a healer, and an off tank (or a plate wearing DPS) will have to enter the portal to kill the add inside to be rid of the immunity debuff. During this time Fire Elementals as well as Whelps will still spawn which should be picked up by an off tank. Once the last drake dies the raid should kill off any adds (Whelps, and Fire Elementals) that have built up and then move quickly to Sartharion. It now becomes a race to the finish with your raid trying to defeat Sartharion before the damage overwhelms your tank. Void Zones will have stopped spawning after all the drakes are defeated however your raid will still need to dodge Lava Waves.

Three Drakes Zerg

A recently developed and commonly used strategy (by well geared groups) is the zerg method. The zerg strategy requires little skill, a large amount of DPS, and may be made impossible to do by Blizzard at a future date. It is largely controversial as some consider it cheating, especially those who completed three drakes the way it was intended.

This strategy will require 1 tank, 1 healer and 8 DPS (10 man) with more healers being used for 25 man. A feral druid or another class that can DPS but still taunt is also required here. Players will need excellent gear, and need to come with all available buffs (flasks, food, etc). Heavy melee here is a plus. The main tank will grab Sartharion and pull him into position while the DPS goes all out, blowing all cool downs. If there are any Rogues or Hunters in the raid they should use their abilities to help the MT keep aggro. The MT should grab all the adds that he can, including Tenebron when he first lands. Once Sartharion reaches 25% the Druid, or another class with a taunt ability should taunt Tenebron off the MT as he will enrage and kill your MT quickly. Tenebron should then be kited by the OT back to the instance portal. All that is left is to continue burning Sarth down. It will be a close call, don’t be distracted by Shadron if he lands, just continue to DPS.