Lore:</>

Blackrock Mountain has been the home of a lot of crap in World of Warcraft. Orc cults, the black dragonflight, hell Deathwing himself hung out there for a while. But mostly, it’s been known as the home of the evil fire lord Ragnaros. It might be “Too Soon” yet for him to show up again, but all his crew that you didn’t kill in Molten Core are sitting around in Blackrock Caverns.

But they’re not just stretching out their legs in there. They’ve got a portal open to Mount Hyjal, and they’re pushing as many troops as possible through that thing in an attempt to get Ragnaros into Hyjal and let him set the World Tree on fire. Do I even need to tell you that letting them do that is probably not a good idea.

Degree of Difficulty: Medium

There is a LOT of trash here. So much that fighting through it all is a boring slog. A lot of random dungeon queuers hate the instance for just that reason, though Raz the Crazed, a friendly NPC, will clear a good deal of the middle of the instance on your behalf.

The difficulty of the bosses in this instance varies wildly and is the other reason why a lot of people hate this place. Rom’ogg Bonecrusher is an ogre who patrols through groups of mobs that you need to carve out so you can fight him cleanly. At times he drops a set of chains that you need to destroy the center of or they will explode, wiping the group. Corla, who is skippable, is probably the worst, DPS needs to swap in and out of geting a debuff or they or the NPCs surrounding Corla, will turn into giant dragonkin who will wipe the group, which takes a lot of coordination. Karsh Steelbender, a Dragonkin, is an interesting fight. The tank needs to kite him through the lavafall in the middle of the room to reduce his armor for the DPS. Beauty is a corehound, and also entirely skippable. She has four pups that you should CC while you DPS Beauty down, if you kill Runty she will enrage. Ascendant Lord Obsidius is the final boss of the instance, and probably the easiest. One DPS will kite the adds away from Obsidius while the rest of the party attacks. He will twice switch out with the adds, and the team will have to switch out on who they’re attacking, but it’s never difficult.

Special Features:

Using a Dwarf Rune Stone Item in the clam at the beginning of the instance will grant 5% damage reduction vs. elementals. Completing this dungeon grants reputation based on the tabard equipped.

Recommended for Levels: 80 (Normal)/85 (Heroic)

The Cataclysm instance difficulty ramps up in a hurry. People don’t like running Blackrock Caverns, and for good reason. The bosses all require a lot of team cohesion and communication, which you don’t often get out of doing LFD. Corla, especially, requires people to be constantly paying attention and coordinating with each other, and it rarely goes well, even as gear has scaled up.

It’s worth doing once or twice, as it’s a great primer for some of the tactics that are introduced during raids. If you’ve never been a raider or haven’t been raiding for a while, I think this is a great step up into something like LFR.

Lore:</>

You chased the Naga all over Vashj’ir until they dove into the Abyssal Maw and attacked Neptulon, which is probably the worst thing that could happen. So, uh, maybe we should go down there and help him?

And that’s what we do, swimming down into the cave system that leads to his palace, killing as many naga and other nasty things as we possibly can to help Neptulon drive them out of his kingd…Is that a giant octopus?! EVERYBODY RUN!

Degree of Difficulty: Easy/Medium

Consistent with most of Cataclysm’s content, there’s a fair amount of trash in Throne of the Tides, but most of it can be engaged in small groups without much interference. Most of the trash won’t give you any problems, but the Faceless Watchers in the (entirely optional) east wing tend to hit for a lot of damage. The Murloc and Tainted Sentry swarms in the first and last corridors spawn constantly until you move past their area.

The difficulty of the bosses in this instance are very much dependant on group coordination. The Naga Lady Naz’jar must be interrupted when casting her lightning spell, you must also watch the ground for her geyser attack, and CC at least one of her adds when she becomes immune to damage. Commander Ulthok, a faceless one, is a fairly simple fight if your tank can keep him kited so the DPS can stay out of the AoE he drops on the ground. Mindbender Ghur’sha is a mindcontrolling octopus, and definitely the most difficult encounter of the instance, though he is skippable. When controlling his host, he does a light cone attack, a heavy cone attack, and a knockback. When loose he is uneffected by any spell damage, a stun AoE, a DoT, and an instant kill mind-control attack (if he’s not DPSed off quickly enough). Ozumat (the aforementioned giant octopus) is an interesting encounter. You start by keeping trash off of Neptulon until phase two, in which the tanks pick up AoE dropping blight bests (healers must be especially on the ball to keep players up during this phase as the AoE can quickly get out of control). During phase three, the players get a massive damage buff and can just wail away at Ozumat. Or whale away, if you prefer.

Special Features:

Using a Scroll of the Highborne Archaeology Item in the clam at the beginning of the instance will grant 10% extra damage to the party against humanoids. Completing this dungeon grants reputation based on the tabard equipped.

Recommended for Levels: 80 (Normal)/85 (Heroic)

As a starter instance for Cataclysm dungeon content, this does its job. You have two fairly simple boss fights at the beginning, one of which (Naz’jar) trains you to develop group strategies that you will use in future content. Then there’s an advanced, but optional boss that really tests your ability to put those skills into practice, and a fairly easy but convoluted end boss.

At this point in the Cataclysm life cycle, it’s hard to recommend running this instance as there are just so many more and better ways to gear up and get points these days. But if you’re new to the game or this level of content, it is a good training wheels instance for you to build on as you get deeper into what Cataclysm has to offer.

Lore:

So, let’s recap our time in Northrend. We killed the Blue Dragon Aspect, we beat back an Old God, we killed trolls…for some reason, and now we’ve taken out Arthas himself. It’s sure as hell time to leave, I heard Deathwing’s throwing a killer barbecue.

What’s this? The Black Dragonflight snuck into the Red Dragonflight’s house for a pre-party and didn’t invite anybody? Well, that’s a definite party foul. We should go…kill them. Or something? I don’t know. Can’t the damn dragons handle this for once?

Degree of Difficulty: Easy

The trash is nothing to speak of, as this is just a filler raid to eat up time between raiding at Icecrown tier and raiding at the first tier of Cataclysm content.

But there are four bosses:

Saviana Ragefire: A Black Dragon, who is basically like a dungeon boss but with a lot of help. Not really complicated. If you get the debuff move away from the raid so as to minimize the radiant damage, and afterwards she’ll launch into an AoE of her own until you can interrupt.

Baltharus the Warborn: A Drakonid, and a real swell guy. Again, move away if you get the debuff or your raid will lose DPS fairly quickly. At half health, he produces a clone of equal health, off tank that sucker and continue to burn down the one you’ve been killing this whole time.

General Zarithrian: A black dragonkin. He’s got a stun and summons some adds throughout the fight. Switch tanks as he stacks up the armor reducing debuff and just DPS him down.

Halion: One of those spooky Twilight Drakes that Deathwing has been hanging out with. He too has a debuff that players must move away from the group with to minimize AoE (it was apparently Debuff Discount Day at Blizzard HQ). Watch the ground to make sure you aren’t killed by a fireball in phase one. In phase two you get transported to the Twilight where you have to choose between your Blood Elf lover and a Worgen with a heart of gold.

No?

Anyway, in phase two everybody but one tank and one healer (who nap) runs through a portal and avoids orbs that shoot lasers and more AoE debuffs (seriously, you guys?).

Phase 3 is a fight on both sides of the portal, so split your raid group. The more damage you do in one realm, the less you do in the other, and that stacks, so you want to keep the damage about even on both sides Do that and collect loot.

Special Features:

None

Recommended for Levels: 80-85

There is really no point in doing this raid unless you need a little (tiny) bit of Cataclysm flavor or just want to whore out the achievements. Even after it was first released, Ruby Sanctum did not see a lot of play.

Still, the raid itself is very easy and until the last fight has very few weird mechanics, making it a pretty good “starter raid” for people who are new to endgame content. At this point all 85s vastly outlevel this content anyway, so it could be used as a decent teaching tool in the future.

Lore:

Here it is, the moment we’ve been waiting years for. We’ve finally browbeaten Arthas into a corner and now we’re ready to break into his house and end his reign as the Lich King forever.

Only…does this seem relatively simple to anyone else? Like we’re totally being set up and he wants all of Azeroth’s best fighters in one spot so he can raise us all from the dead as his unholy minions. No? Just me? Ok! Let’s do this!

Degree of Difficulty: Hard

Like Ulduar, there is a lot of trash here, most of it quite capable of killing you, but none specifically worth getting your loincloth in a bunch over. Icecrown was meant to be tackled over one lockout period, not really one evening.

As for bosses, here’s a brief look:

Lord Marrowgar: A BONESTOOOOOOOOOORRRRRM! Seriously though, stay out of the fire, knock your friends off the spikes if they get impaled, and watch the hell out for Bonestorm.

Lady Deathwhisper: The only female lich I can remember. A curious fight in that you have to kill the adds she’s spawning to lower her mana so that you can eventually just DPS her down. She’ll also mind control a player (more in heroic), so that’s pretty cool.

Gunship: A fairly easy little brawl between Horde and Alliance. Use cannons to attack the other ship, jet packs to clear out the enemies attacking your ship, and stop any mobs that hop over to your ship to attack.

Saurfang: The former orc hero turned deathknight. Saurfang gains power the more damage he and his adds do. Tanks need to be prepared to switch out if one of them gains the Rune of Blood debuff.

Festergut: Mostly just a gearcheck for DPS with a lot of AoE going on in the background. Ranged and Melee need to stay stacked up in different parts of the room to soak up the spore buffs Festergut drops. If two spores appear in the same group, one of the spored players just finds the group without a spore.

Rotface: A bit of a tanking/healing race as there’s a lot of AoE and cone damage flying all over the place. The second tank is focused on kiting Big Oozes around the room until it can merge with smaller oozes and explode far away from the rest of the raid.

Professor Putricide: An undead in three phases. First phase is killing adds as they spawn with one player riding an abomination “vehicle”, second phase is just more of the same, DPSing and Healing through AoE and DoTs, and third phase is about tanks switching off so as not to allow Putricide’s AoE debuff to stack on them and heal him.

Blood Prince Council: Keleseth, Valanar, and Taldaram have all been raised from the dead to be slightly more annoying. All three princes share one health bar, but only one can be damaged at any time. So it’s a matter of swapping your targets. Keleseth can only be range tanked, Valanar requires ranged players to keep bombs juggled in the air, and Taldaram requires one player to run away from a fireball so it doesn’t explode and kill everyone.

Blood-Queen Lana’thel: A valkyr with a fun, but difficult fight. She will cause players to soak up the same damage as the tank, heal herself, and shield herself. One of her attacks gives players a “vampire” ability to do more damage and heal themselves, but become mind controlled unless they pass the buff onto another person (who has not recently been bitten). Players also get “linked” meaning they take increasing damage until they “touch” (i.e. run through each other), all that and she has an aerial attack and a fear.

Valithria Dreamwalker: A green dragon being poisoned by Arthas. Another curious fight in that it’s all about grabbing and DPSing the mobs that are attacking her while the healers in the party attempt to heal her to full HP. Occasionally portals to the Emerald Dream will spawn where the healers will be away from the raid (bad) but more effective in healing Valithria (good).

Sindragosa: The Lich King’s epic mount and the former consort of Malygos. Arthas raises her from the dead in the trailer for the expansion. During phase one, she has a pull followed by a hard AoE, a cone attack, a constant DoT (to both melee and casters). In phase two she’s flying, so mostly you’re just looking to see who gets iceblocked and then hiding behind them until her air attacks are finished. Then it’s just a DPS race.

The Lich King: A lot to deal with here. In phase one, Arthas has a couple of summons, all which must be dealt with quickly by DPS. He also has a DoT that spreads if you die or it is dispelled while it’s on. He also casts an exploding trap that will throw you off the platform, because he’s a dick. Then the raid stands at the edge of the platform while Arthas mopes, killing the adds that spawn, then you move in. Phase two brings a new add, valkyr that drop raid members off the platform. Kill them. He also starts casting Defile, an AoE that spreads off a random raid member as it does more damage. Stay away from that guy. Then move to the outside again. Raid members will be taken into Frostmourne to help old King Teneras kill an add, if you don’t do it in the first minute, you die. Eventually, Arthas will kill you all and eat up your souls, but Tirion Fordring will cast Mass Resurrection on the raid, and you’re back at it. At this point, there is no way you can lose, so enjoy the end of the fight.

Special Features:

Many many. A brief cinematic (viewable at any time in Dalaran) details the end of Arthas’ life and the fate of the Lich King mantle. Arthas himself has a small chance to drop a legendary weapon (Shadowmourne, which can only be gained after completing a rather lengthy quest) and his legendary horse Invincible. Players wielding Shadowmorne get a further quest after killing Arthas in which they get a chest with some tradeable baubles (including a mount, a hearth to Dalaran, and a few cosmetic items).

Recommended for Levels: 80-85

it’s almost a requirement to do this raid at this point. Not because it’s fun or a good example of teaching you how to raid (though it is), but because it is the ultimate culmination of the storyline from Warcraft III, the game that gave rise to this one.

It is much easier to do these days, with the gear we have now, though it can still be tricky in spots thanks to the multiple gimmicky bosses. But groups for achievement runs still pop up hourly for ICC on most every server, so if you want to see the content, there won’t be much trouble getting in.

Lore:

Oh man! That Argent Tournament is still going on! Should we…go check in on that? Crap. I suppose we should. After all, how are we going to decide who gets to take on Arthas if we don’t know who to send to kill him?

And we get back just in time for the main event, when we fight a bunch of beasts and demons trapped just for us to fight. And the champions of the other team for the honor of our King/Warchief. I’m so excited! I just hope Arthas doesn’t find out about this.

Degree of Difficulty: Medium

There’s no trash to speak of, so let’s get right into the bosses:

Gormok: A magnataur who has a bunch of adds and a stun. It’s the DPS’s job to get rid of all the snobolds and their bombs.

Acidmaw and Dreadscale: Two jormungars. Acidmaw spits acid (really?) and Dreadscale spits fire.

Icehowl: A wendingo. He’s got a lot of heavy damage attacks including an AoE and a freezing spray.

Lord Jaraxxus: The Eradar (demonic draenei cousins) who is summoned by a warlock and then goes out of control. He can hit you with AoE, DoTs, regular old Fel Damage, summon an add, and soak up your healing spells.

Faction Champions: In a PvPesque fight, you’ll take on a member of each class and race of the opposite faction. It is a curious (and sort of awesome) fight in that the battle is pretty much just a brawl between your raid and the mobs (no threat) and that Resilience (the PvP gear stat) is factored in, so you should be in PvP gear.

Eysdis Darkbane and Fjola Lightbane: Two valkyr who control opposite elements of light and dark. They have the same healthbar. You have to use portals to give yourself a buff to protect yourself against their respective powers. And they can shield each other.

Anub’arak: You thought you killed him Azjol-Nerub?! THAT WAS JUST A SETBACK! Now he’s digging under the tournament grounds so that he can make you all fall into a sink hole, and why did we all gather in one place on Arthas’ doorstep again? Anyway, in phase one he’ll hit you with ice attacks. In phase two he burrows and chases you around (summoning adds in between). In phase three he summons a bunch of adds that suck out your health and give it to Anub.

Special Features:

The heroic version of this instance is called “Trial of the Grand Crusader” but is otherwise the same. An epic ground mount drops upon completion of the Trial of the Grand Crusader portion of the instance.

Recommended for Levels: 80-85

The Trial of the Crusader is an instance that got a bit of a bad rap. After all, there’s not really much to it, and ultimately, if you’re good enough to get past Ulduar, you were good enough to get to Icecrown, so why not skip the formality?

But there’s a little bit to love here, what with the mount, the badges (for mounts and pets in the Argent Crusade stores) and the fun and different PvP battle. But not a lot of people feel the same way I do, so you’ll probably have a lot of difficulty getting a group together these days.

Lore:

So we’re taking on Arthas and the Blue Dragonflight and…wait…what’s that? There’s an Old God here too? With mouths everywhere and cultists running around killing everybody’s armies?

Well, whatever. We’ve banished one Old God, so it’s no big…wait. Yogg’Saron?! As in…Saronite?! As in the armor we’re all wearing is made out of his dried blood. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Degree of Difficulty: Hard

There’s a ton of trash, and none of it is really worth talking about. Just know going in that Ulduar is an old school instance that will likely take you several hours to crawl through, and all those hours will be filled with trash.

As for bosses, here’s a brief look:

Flame Leviathan: Unique in that you will fight this tank entirely as vehicles. He’ll charge one vehicle, and the others DPS it down.

Ignis: A giant with lots of ads and all kinds of fire damage (he’s skippable)

Razorscale: A proto-drake who also shoots fire everywhere and has adds.

XT-002 Deconstructor: A robot that just wants to play

The Assembly of Iron: Steelbreaker (a giant), Brundir (an iron dwarf), and Molgeim (a vykrul) who all get progressively stronger as you kill the others. Killing Steelbreaker last engages the hardmode of this fight.

Kologarn: Is a construct whose arms have to be knocked off.

Auriaya: A Titan Watcher that is sort of optional and has lots of adds.

Mimiron: A clockwork gnome who fights in four different vehicles throughout the fight. The Leviathan, the Antipersonnell Cannon, the Aerial Command Unit, and the V-07-TR-0n. All fights require massive healing, pushing the red button before the fight initiates hardmode. Mimiron has a small chance to drop his head (a mount).

Freya: A Titan watcher who has a ton of adds and AoE.

Thorim: A Titan watcher with lots of adds (see a pattern yet?) and a bunch of lighting damage.

Hodir: A Titan watcher with frost damages that can freeze party members and adds (that actually help you if you free them!)

General Vezax: A faceless and the second to last boss of the instance. Drops a lot of AoE including Saronite crystals that will kill you (but restore your mana) and stack forever.

Yogg-Saron: The Old God, who fights in three phases. First as Sara, who can only be killed by killing her adds near her. Then by killing the brain and tentacles. He’ll spawn portals, which one player (per portal) must enter, usually melee DPS. At phase 3 it’s just a race to kill Yoggy.

Special Features:

Lots. There’s the vehicle section, the mount, hardmodes, and lots of optional stuff. If you leave up the watchers, the Yogg-Saron fight is much, much harder but in 25 man he may drop the legendary hammer Val’anyr (which you also must forge during a fight with Yogg-Saron). Additionally, there’s a completely optional hardmode fight after Yogg-Saron, a particularly difficult encounter with Alganon the Observer.

Recommended for Levels: 80-85

A lot of people love Ulduar, and there’s a lot here to love. There is an encounter for just about every type of player in the game, the environments are all pretty fun and good looking, and there’s just a lot going on here.

It’s still a popular instance that is a bit easier, but still provides a challenge for groups looking to get in on some achievements, mount, legendary, and whatnot. So yeah, I think you should do this instance if you can get a group together for it.

Lore:

Ok, so a while back we were fighting against the blue dragonflight. Then we got a little sidetracked with the whole fight for Azeroth’s survival against the Lich King and everything.

But you know what? let’s take a break from all that dumb stuff, because Malygos is trying to eat all the world’s magic. Magic that we might need to shoot Arthas with Arcane Missles or something. So let’s kill us a Dragon Aspect!

Degree of Difficulty: Medium

The trash is very simple and only really serves as filler to extend the length of the raid. It’s just a bunch of mobs to kill. There is one section where several raid members will need to fight on hovering discs which is fairly annoying, but not exactly raid threatening.

Malygos is the only boss, and he’s an interesting one. Phase One is a fairly simple tank and spank, interrupted only briefly by a Vortex attack that draws everyone in and drops them and Power Sparks that need to be stopped or else will increase his damage. Phase two is the aforementioned floating discs section, in which some melee DPS need to pull off Maly and chase down the Nexus Lords floating around him.

The final phase starts when Malygos collapses the platform and the Red Dragonflight picks you up. Then it’s a vehicle section. So…yay. I guess? Keep your raid spread ou to avoid being nuked by AoE, have the healers keep healing and everybody else fire off some spells. It’s not a difficult section.

Special Features:

Killing mobs in this raid grants you reputation with either the Alliance Vanguard, or whatever faction’s tabard you are currently wearing. A key is no longer required to start the instance. Malygos will drop an Azure Drake (25 man) or Blue Drake (10 Man).

Recommended for Levels: 80

There’s no reason…not to run it, I guess? Especially if you want a shot at one of those drakes. Current gear vastly over-levels the content, and with only a few trash mobs and one boss the raid does not take long.

Plus, current storylines reference the events in the Eye of Eternity fairly often, so it’s worth seeing if you’re interested in the Lore aspect. Otherwise, as with so many other old raids, there isn’t really a concrete reason to kill this particular Dragon Aspect right now.

Lore:

So, in Northrend there’s this giant Keep in Wintergrasp. Holding that keep would give the Horde or Alliance an advantage in their inevitable skirmish once Arthas gets killed. And in that keep there’s a Vault.

But what’s in that Vault when it gets cracked open? Treasure? Hillarious guards telling stories about arrows to the knee? Er…Oh. Just…a bunch of elementals?

Degree of Difficulty: Easy

The trash here is of essentially no consequence. It’s just a few lower level elementals standing in your way as you go from boss to boss.

Of the four bosses in the instance, only Archavon gives “credit” for finishing the raid, but they can be killed in any order, and you can choose to kill all or none of them. For what it’s worth, Toravon drops the best (now vastly overleveled anyway) gear.

-Archavon the Stone Watcher: Shoots rocks and charges random raid members leaving damage in his wake. Vastly over leveled these days and shouldn’t provide any difficulty.
-Emalon the Storm Watcher: Emalon just fires lightning AoE everywhere. The one thing of note is that he always has four adds up, and once one add hits ten stacks of charge, it will explode and do quite a bit of damage, so you have to rotate off them.
-Koralon the Flame Watcher: A standard assortment of flame based damage. He’ll drop fire on the ground occasionally don’t stand in it.
-Toravon the Ice Watcher: He summons a Frozen Orb add that needs to be knocked out by the DPS quickly as they deal constant damage. Also, he casts a DoT called White Out that does quite a bit of damage even now.

Special Features:

Killing mobs in this raid grants you reputation with either the Alliance Vanguard, or whatever faction’s tabard you are currently wearing. Killing Sartharion while the three other drakes are alive grants him heavy buffs for the duration of the fight (and spawns their adds) but causes him to drop the Black Drake mount (in Heroic 10 man) or the Twilight Drake mount (in Heroic 25 man).

Recommended for Levels: 80

Other than the fact that it’s really easy, there’s not a ton of reasons to do VoA anymore. There’s a mammoth mount that drops there if you’re into mounts, but otherwise it’s pretty much just…old PVP gear? Cool for your 80 twink alts, I guess.

Frankly, there’s not much reason to go back to Northrend these days, even if you do want a mammoth mount. And there might not even be much opportunity anymore if your faction doesn’t bother to put a Wintergrasp team together to control the zone.

Lore:

Even before the Cataclysm, we kind of knew that the Black Dragonflight was up to no good. And while our main focus has been fighting off Arthas and Malygos, the Black Dragonflight seems like a small problem, even though they too are hanging out at Wyrmrest Temple.

But you know what? Black dragons are black dragons, and they’ve got some Twilight Drakes and some loot, so what the hell. Let’s go kill us some dragons. Seriously. That’s all there is to it.

Degree of Difficulty: Medium

The trash is fairly easy. It’s just a matter of keeping them fairly clumped together. You can complete the instance without killing most of the trash.

There are four bosses in the instance, but only Sartharion needs to be killed:

The Sub-Bosses:
-Shadron: Shadron opens a portal during the fight with several spawns inside it. A group needs to go inside the portal and burn down the adds.
-Tenebron: Also opens a portal which you have to run through and destroy eggs, unless you like fighting lots of whelps.
-Vesperon: More portals, more adds.

Main Boss:
-Sartharion: He has standard dragon stuff, a breath attack, a cleave, and tail swipe. Occasionally, he will attempt to wipe the raid with a lava wave, which you can avoid by finding gaps in the lava.

Special Features:

Killing mobs in this raid grants you reputation with either the Alliance Vanguard, or whatever faction’s tabard you are currently wearing. Killing Sartharion while the three other drakes are alive grants him heavy buffs for the duration of the fight (and spawns their adds) but causes him to drop the Black Drake mount (in Heroic 10 man) or the Twilight Drake mount (in Heroic 25 man).

Recommended for Levels: 80

Obsidian Sanctum is a nice little instance that introduces two concepts that Blizzard has really glommed onto. The “Loot Room” where all the raid bosses can be found loitering around one central room, and the +Enemy mechanic, where killing a boss with the other bosses up buffs the fight but gives extra loot.

It’s not much use anymore. The fights have gotten easier, and while everybody would love a shot at the mounts, it’s probably not worth the time or effort right this second to go back and do. We’ve got bigger black dragons to kill.