Unbearably HoT

Now that Doomhammer has an established portal from Shattrath to the Isle of Quel’danas, getting from Outland to the hub of Shattered Sun activity no longer requires any annoying ports to Ironforge and occasionally buggy flights up North.

Step 1: Pack for your Island Adventure

Unless you’ve already unlocked the Armory, chances are good that you won’t have any place to repair on the Isle of Quel’Danas. Additionally, if you’re not Honored with the Shattered Sun Offensive, you won’t be able to buy food, water, or reagents on the Isle either. So before you get going, make sure you stop, repair, and hit up an AV to ninja a few stacks of manna biscuits from an unsuspecting mage. Once that’s all taken care of, either take the portal to the Isle (if your realm has it up) or take the long way, from Ironforge.


Once there, head to the location marked with the “1″ below. Regardless of the progress your realm is making, these quests will always be there. Note that I’m skipping the quest that takes you through Magister’s Terrace since it’s not repeatable. Pick up the quests Further Conversions and Arm the Wards!, and head to the quest hub marked with a “2″. There, again depending on your realm’s progression, you’ll pick up: Distraction at the Dead Scar, The Battle for the Sun’s Reach Armory and Know your Ley Lines. From now on, please refer to the map I’ve created below for all quest locations.

 

Step 2: Robots and Freaks

Head Northwest to the coastline above Dawnstar Village and look for Wretched Fiends, Devourers and the like—basically any sort of emaciated blood elf who lurches into life when you proximity aggro the eight million respawns. These mobs will occasionally drop [Mana Remnants], which are necessary reagents for “Arm the Wards!” If the area just north of Dawnstar Village is totally camped out, try and head down the West Coast a little bit where the mobs are generally more plentiful—just check out the blue dots on the map.

Interspersed between the napping wretches, omnipresent rain and hordes (no pun intended) of players farming mobs, you’ll also find Erratic Sentries for “Further Conversions”. If you’re like me and have a metaphorical hard-on for Optimus Prime, you too might have read it as “erotic” the first time around. Regardless, these sentries remain neutral (think critters) until you attack them. All you need to do is kill five, loot the corpses, and use your [Attuned Crystal Cores] on their metallic remains. Here’s a pro-tip: if you manage to group with anyone to do these already simple quests, activating your [Attuned Crystal Cores] simultaneously will dual-shock the robots and give you credit for two rather than one.

Once you’ve bent a few robots to your whims and rounded up four [Mana Remnants], mount up and head Southeast. First, make a stop at the orange dot just south of Dawnstar Village. Whip out your Astromancer’s Crystal and take a reading of the Blood Crystal there for “Know Your Ley Lines”. After that, you’ll be looking for the place corresponding to the red dot on my above map, and it’ll look like a big red crystal near Quest Hub 2. Use the four [Mana Remnants] in your bag on the Crystal Ward, complete “Arm the Wards!” and get ready to finish the last few quests.

Step 3: Sticking it to The Man

Or rather, The Emissary of Hate. If you continue to head Southeast from the Crystal Ward you just armed, you’ll immediately (and I mean right-the-fuck-away) happen upon a cornucopia of demons having a picnic in the park. The Battle for the Sun’s Reach Armory will have you kill any six you’d like and then slam your pole into the Emissary of Hate’s dead body. Don’t worry about killing him; I can count the times I’ve actually seen that guy alive and/or not instantly tagged by another player on one hand. So long as you can target his corpse, you can plant the banner and receive quest credit.

Before you head out of the omg-always-in-combat zone, take out your trusty Astromancer’s Crystal again and take a reading of the portal that the demons are flying out of. This is also where the second orange dot is on the quest map and gets your your second reading for “Know your Ley Lines”.

Step 4: Naga, please!

Mount up and prepare for a little excursion. To find the final site for your ley line measurement, you need to steer your toon to the East Coast of the Isle through swarming camps of naga (as shown by the third orange dot on the map). The best way to go is to take the road to Magister’s Terrace and then veer off to the right when there’s an opening pointing toward the Forbidding Sea. If you don’t feel like fighting through the naga, I recommend hugging the right wall. There isn’t always a path up there, but you can scoot your mount up with a little perseverance and follow it down the entire length of the coast without being dismounted.

The Naga Shrine is extremely hard to miss and brings to mind fond memories of similar altars visited during questing. If you’re especially lucky, some other dude has been through right before you and killed all of the Myrmidions patrolling the shrine. If not, they’re a fairly quick kill. Just use your crystal, mount back up, and head back to the questing hubs.

Step 5: Bombs over Bad Guys

I left the bombing run for last because there isn’t really a logical place for it to fit in with normal questing. After everything else is finished, make your way up to the docks, where the green dot is located. Most of you will remember this as the same place you arrived if you took a bird in. Instead of talking to the Flightmaster, however, check in with Aryen on the right. Make sure that you have the [Arcane Charges] you received earlier (check your bags; druids will recognize it as the tooltip for Starfire) hot-keyed. Yes, that’s right. If it means unbinding your auto-attack button at 1, do it. Successfully soloing this quest without taking a thousand infuriating attempts require that you click and spam your hot-keyed [Arcane Charges] on anything that moves in the Dead Scar.

First thing’s first: if you can get into a group for bombing (without being That Guy who spams general chat), it’ll make the quest go a lot quicker. If you’re flying without a wingman, exercise some common sense. Don’t mount up and fly off if you just saw an entire group go. They’ll kill the mobs before you have a chance to blink and you’ll be left with scraps—and an unfulfilled quest log. But when you’re relatively on your own, mount up and enjoy the view; the dragonhawk will take you on a Disney World-esque adventure flight around the island until you finally reach The Dead Scar, a barren strip of land ridden with demons and flame. The trick here is to essentially spam the living daylights out of your hotkey and target anything that moves. Most of the larger mobs, Pit Lords and Sorcerers, take three hits to kill. Wrath Enforcers are a lot easier and a lot more plentiful. Be prepared to take two and half swings through The Dead Scar before your dragonhawk gets sick of it and takes you back to Aryen. If you still have mobs left, mount back up and keep trying. I haven’t successfully gotten all the mobs (damn you, Eredar Sorcerer!) in one run, but I’ve definitely done it in two.

Toward the end of the run, you’ll even see the second boss in Sunwell, Brutallus (as pictured below).

 

That’s it. Turn everything in, reap your rewards (approximately 53 g 49 s) and teleport back to Shattrath using the scroll obtained from the “Know your Ley Lines” quest.