C’s Guide to Razorfen Downs ***

Entering the Downs

If you're going to work the kill tasks, stay outside and run around the valley whacking piggies until it's complete.  Revisit Myriam Moonsinger to turn in the quest and head into the maw of the piglet.

You'll have a few singles in the way, so either kill them off or make a mad dash to the zone.

Once inside, you'll have an immediate right/left choice at map location (1).  Staying to the left will keep you in the upper dungeon, which will be lower level mobs and the Belnistrasz escort quest.  Going right will take you into the Scourge area and the tougher mobs and bosses.

We'll stay left for this walkthrough.

Initial mobs will be singles, two's and three's.  Typical instance behavior carries here, kill casters and healers first, then the other mob types.

Quillboar hunter types will have boar companions, and the warlock types will have small skeletons nearby.  In all cases, the companion mobs are non-elite and go down easily.

There are occasional patrols of 2 non-elite boars that spawn and run down the hallways, as well.

Something About This Room... - Map Reference (2)

Work your way towards map location (2).  Here you'll find a hot glowing furnace surrounded by two nearby groups of 4 mobs.  Crowd control one of the melee types, take out the caster first, then work down the rest.

Tip: Priest's shackles work great in RFD, most mobs register as undead!

Make note of this room, you'll be back here shortly.

Cliff Notes - Map Reference (3)

Continuing down the hallway will bring you to an open area on a cliff.  Careful with pulls here as many groups are close together and it's very easy to get tangled up with 6-8 elites accidentally here.

There is quite often a chest on the edge of the cliff, so don't forget to check it after the area is cleared out!

Looking down, you'll see lots of undead in the trench below.  This is an alternate way down to the "spiral" area of the dungeon if you didn't want to take the first right at (1).

When you're done with the view, continue up the hallway towards (4).

Bang a Gong! - Map Reference (4)

More of the same mob types here, in clusters of three or four.  Clear out this room so that there are no mobs around until you enter the hallway to the southeast.

Get healed up, have your AE ready and ring the gong.

8-10 non elite bugs called Tomb Fiends will flood the room from both hallways.  They're standard melee mobs with no special gifts, so kill 'em all!

Rest up and ring the gong once again. 

(Can't ring the gong yet?  Make *sure* you've killed all the bugs, it won't light up again until the whole wave is dead.  If you're higher level, they may have wandered off down the hall without aggroing on you, so check that too.)

This time 4 elite bugs called Tomb Reavers will enter the room.  This fight is a little tougher, but not much.  The big difference is that they're elite, so they go down slower, and they toss a little poison around during the fight.  However, there's fewer of them, so take care of these and get ready for the final wave.

Rest up and ring the gong a final time.

Tuten'kash - Map Reference (4)

Here comes Tuten'kash!  He's big and ugly, but a face full of tanking will keep this fight manageable.  Keep aggro on the tank and wear him down.  He will occasionally net the tank and switch targets, so any movement buff to release the net will help the tank snap the aggro back.

Tuten'kash drops a gorgeous plate chest, which is very worth running RFD a few times to get.

After looting, head southeast and wend your way to map location (5).

Jail Wardens - Map Reference (5)

More of the same mob groups, clustered in fours.  Take the group around the ramp up, then clear the next group to the east.  From this point you should be able to see some enclosed cells to the northeast.

The Murder Pens - Map Reference (6)

You'll find 3 enclosed cells in this area, each with an NPC inside.  Belnistrasz to the northwest, Henry Stern to the northeast, and Sah'ree to the southeast.

Belnistrasz will start the quest Scourge of the Downs (make sure everybody is on step two before starting the escort, or some in the group will miss it).  He will move quickly and the insanity will kick off before you know it, so make SURE you're ready to start the quest before you accept it.  You won't get a second chance unless you reset the instance.  See below for details of the encounter.

Henry Stern will teach you how to make a Mighty Troll's Blood Potion and Goldthorn Tea, providing you have enough skill in Alchemy/Cooking to learn them.

Sah'rhee is a friendly ogre.  I have no idea what his purpose is.

When your group is rested up and buffed for at least 5 minutes remaining, speak with Belnistrasz and kick off the escort quest.

Where Did All These Pigs Come From? Plaguemaw the Rotting - Map Reference (2)

Belnistrasz will hustle his robed heiny back to location (2) and start his routine.  Your job will be to keep him alive, and this is a tall order.

On the way there, you'll probably run into the dual boar patrol for the area, which Belnistrasz will ignore and continue on to the furnace.  If you have to, just aggro them and pull them along until you catch up.

Quillboars will start spawning almost immediately when he starts his magicks.  If you're not there to yank aggro off him, he'll die very quickly.

The trick to this encounter is to treat it as a test of duration, rather than a fast burn.  Four minutes has never seemed so long!  Quillboars will start spawning in pairs or triples, nothing extreme and nothing you haven't encountered before.

You *must* have your assist routines worked out to survive.  Priests can shackle adds, so don't break them.  Follow your tanks and EVERYBODY work on dropping the same target.  If the group splits up on 2-3 different mobs, then you are not likely to make it.

Belnistrasz will shout every time another minute ticks down.  "Three minutes to go!" "Only two minutes left!" etc.  Watch for the red text to give you an indication of how well you're doing.  If you're team is bruised and bloody and out of mana with 2 mins left, that's not good.

During the last minute, you need to start watching for Plaguemaw the Rotting to spawn.  Once he's up, he MUST be the primary target for the group.  He will spam AE silence, and if left to his own designs, he'll run around the room and get your whole group silenced, which will wipe you in the 10 seconds following.  Many groups have been sitting on a domination of the event up to this point, and found themselves with a wipe due to the silence turning the tables in short order.

Take Plaguemaw down and clean up the final few quillboars.  During this fight, Belnistrasz will shout something about being complete and will disappear.

When the last piggie drops, use the brazier he leaves behind to complete Scourge of the Downs and receive your reward.  If you've handled this encounter, the rest of the dungeon should be a cakewalk!

Skelly Mosh Pit - Mordresh Fire Eye - Map Reference (7)

Head back to area (5) and take the bridge southeast to the bonepile at (7).  Take a moment to listen to Mordresh Fire Eye's speech.  Quite the orator, eh?

This encounter isn't as bad as it looks.  All those fanatical skellies will die in one hit, and Mordresh isn't all that tough.

If you've got a good AE class, have them do their bit.  A warrior with retaliate up can also rush into the group and level all of them with it.  In the meantime, your priest should shackle Mordresh to keep him from interfering with the decimation of his followers.

When all the little guys are down, rush the bone pile (the sides are easier to climb than the the front, based on the direction Mordresh is facing when you first arrive) and take Mordresh out.  Interrupt his casting and he'll fall very easily.

Warriors should be careful using charge or intercept as those abilities will ignore some geometry and drop you in a spot that you can't walk or jump out of (this has happened to me twice, where I got stuck under a bone and couldn't move).  Make sure you walk up the pile under your own control.

Loot Mordresh and head west to the final group of quillboars in the dungeon at (8).  There is also often a chest here, so don't forget to loot it!

Time to head southwest towards the spiral and the Scourge.

They're Not Called Scourge for No Reason - Map Reference (9)

As you're headed towards location (9) you'll start encountering pairs and foursomes of undead.

Two skeletons running are not a big threat, they'll both be non-elite and will drop in a hit or two.

A spirit/ghoul pair is a bigger threat.  The spirit does AE silence, so make them your priority.

The bigger groups will have 2-3 elites and the rest will be non-elites.  Take out the spirits (that damn AE silence!) and frostweavers (damaging AE frost attack) first, keeping one elite shackled.  Take out all the primary threats and then the little guys, and finish up on the shackled mob.

When you're right at (9) on the map, you'll have a vantage point to see Glutton wandering up from the south.  His path just barely overlaps with the final big group of mobs, so be very sure that you pull back a bit and don't stand right on top of that last group to fight, or you may get a L40 miniboss dogpiling you while you're still weak from fighting.

Glutton - Map Reference (10)

With the last group of undead out of the way, wait for Glutton to come your way and take him down.  He's got no big surprises, besides a few debuffs and a frenzied attack as he gets low on health.  Keep tank aggro and whittle him down.

With Glutton out of the way, you're officially in the spiral area.  This looks like a huge area, but it's just a linear path counterclockwise up to the top of the mound to your left.

Spiraling Inward - Map Reference (11)

The only big tip for traveling up the spiral is to avoid pressing right up against the cliff to your left.  Mobs up above have been known to physical aggro players lower in the spiral, showing up with 15-20 good friends for a crash party.

Mob types will be as you've found so far, with a few additions:

Skeletal Summoners will bring non-elite adds into the fight.  Keep them shackled and interrupted to avoid this.  They have the annoying habit of running backward when meleed, so be careful not to chase them into the next camp.

Splinterbone Captains are hard hitting meleers.  Disarming them drops their threat to nil.

Carefully work your way around the spiral until you emerge at the top of the plateau at (11).  Treat this last group very carefully, and be especially cautious about moving left/east in this area, because Amnennar the Coldbringer is standing very close by.  It won't take much at all to get him to notice you pummeling his friends and getting him roused to help them.

The biggest threat in this final group of mobs is the Skeletal Summoner, who, as I said above, will back up to get range for casting.  Meleers must *not* chase him east or you'll get the lich on you before you're ready.

If you've got silence in your group, this is a great spot to use it to bring that bad boy right down into your group and keep him from getting reinforcements.

Now that the last group of Scourge is down, it's time for the boss fight!

Amnennar the Coldbringer - Map Reference (12)

Amnennar's gorgeous, in a purely undead platonic sort of way I mean.  Get your group healed up and make sure you're buffed and ready.

His tactics will be to frost nova your tank and back up so he can't be hit.  In the meantime, he'll summon non-elite adds to hassle the backline ranged folks.

Any kind of movement buff will keep your tank free to hold aggro, and the rest of the group should ignore the adds and concentrate on Amnennar.  Once he drops, everything disappears!

Keep the interrupts and armor debuffs on the lich and he'll fold.

Loot him and revel in the chilly air for a moment before recalling home and turning in Bringing The Light back in Stormwind!