We're under attack! (a guide for the pre-cataclysm event) (new update 06/11/10)

Post by Rankkor

Hi there, as you all know, the pre-cataclysm event of the elemental invasion is already LIVE!; that being said, I haven't been able to find a proper guide for this event, at all. And since many people get confused about where to go and what to do, I'm making this practical guide.

(I know the wowhead site has already a guide about this, but all it says is listing the quests for zalazane's fall and operation ~~fail~~gnomeregan and the twilight infiltration in stormwind and orgrimmar, it doesn't even provides a guide for these quests and there's a couple of quests in the last chain that are quite confusing)

This event will happen randomly once every 1-3 hours, and no you DON'T need to do all the quests associated with it to participate (there is a rather long chain about this including members of the earthen ring on multiple alliance and horde towns) but these quests are nothing more than to expand the lore, you don't really have to do them in order to participate.

in a nutshell, this event will be divided in multiple phases, and during the whole event all of stormwind, Ironforge, Thunderbluff and orgrimmar will be completely phased, and all regular NPC's (including trainers, banks, and AHs) will be UNAVALIABLE, if you have need of any of these services while the event is underway, then go to a different city, because the mentioned capitals are kind of busy surviving an invasion.

First phase:

Preparation phase

You will know when the event is about to begin if the guards in orgrimmar/stormwind/ironforge/thunderbluff start yelling to the civilians to evauate, once the first yell has been sound, you have 4 minutes to prepare for the event if you wish to participate, or 4 mins to leave the city if you don't. Portals will spawn in multiple places on each city just step into one to leave.

When you see that all NPC's are gone and replaced by guards everywhere you know the event has begun. This phase will have 2 different objectives the first one is to get the civilians out of the city, and the second one is to fortify the city and prepare it for the attack.

On this phase multiple "Elemental rifts" will open in all sectors of both capitals, at the same time in the entrance of each sector there will be a representative of the earthen ring, and a crate with defense supplies.

at the same time, a massive storm will cover all of stormwind and thunderbluff, this aint no ordinary rain, I'm really amazed at how blizz pulled this off, this is a THICK rain, loud, thunder everywhere, strong winds, and fog.

in orgrimmar, fire will rain from the sky, multiple buildings will catch on fire, and earthquakes will shake the city. This will also happen on Ironforge

On orgrimmar you must gather a Spike barricade (screens and details will follow soon) and place them at specific locations both in the entrance of each sector as well as some places inside each sector. The place to plant the Spike barricade is marked by a red arrow, you can only carry 1 Spike barricade at a time but every time you plant a Spike barricade you get a buff (called First Responder) that increases your movement speed by 20% and can stack 5 times (1 per Spike barricade) this buff lasts 1 min and it’s useful for getting and deploying Spike barricade quickly without having to mount and dismount.

Thunderbluff is similar, having to gather "wind-stops" and deploy them all arround the edges of each bluff on the city.

the Stormwind version is identical except you deploy sandbags rather than spike barricades.

While all this chaos is going on, a portal is opened inside the city (this portal is in grommash hold for the horde, and near the stockades for the alliance) during the crisis the civilians will run for their lives and enter these portals to be safe from the attack. Entering a portal will take you to the outside gates of the city (funny enough, Orc mages will make their debut here on grommash hold and other zones in orgrimmar)

Low level players can also use these portals to be safe from the carnage (the monsters are aggressive and use many AOE skills that can and WILL kill you if you get hit by them at a low level, so if you happen to log during an attack and don’t want to die use the portal to get to a safe spot)

Phase 1 ends when 50 Spike barricades/Sandbags/windstoppers/thunderheads have been deployed in the strategic places on each capital.

Edit: THIS PHASE IS OPTIONAL, if after 5 minutes the sandbags haven't been deployed the next phase starts anyways, Deploying the sandbags serves mostly to haste the event by not having to wait the full 5 minutes

Rescue Phase

Phase 2

During this phase, multiple elemental rifts will open on both capitals (water and wind in stormwind and thunderbluff, Earth and Fire on orgrimmar and ironforge)

From the rifts multiple elementals will pour out, these elementals aren’t really dangerous they are non-elite and hit for low amounts of damage. However, there will be multiple civilians trapped in each sector of both capitals, and it’s our duty to rescue them before we can repel the invaders. To rescue a civilian you need to talk to an Earthen ring representative (there will be one at the entrance of each sector) he will hand you a Totem, once you have it, enter a sector, and go store by store, house by house, do a full check of any and all trapped civilians and once you spot one, use the totem on them (click on the totem then click on the ground where the civilian is standing)

Alliance civilians will be frozen in a block of ice, horde civilians will be trapped in a prison of fire.

As with the previous phase, the same buff will be cast on you for each civilian you rescue, and it can stack to 5 again to speed things up. Once all civilians are secured, the third and last phase of the event will begin.

Defense phase

Phase 3:

When this phase starts, the elemental rifts in all sectors no longer will spawn non-elite elementals, instead they will spawn rather strong lvl 80 elite ones, with 300k HP each. All rifts will have 4 elementals up at any time, and whenever 1 of them is killed, a new one spawns to replace them.

DO NOT try to solo these elite elementals, you WILL get killed, (author's note, as a DKblood tank with 6k GS, 30k armor, 25% dodge, 22% parry, 46k HP unbuffed, I got my ass handed to me by a single one of these elementals, each hitting me for over 7k, and nuking for for 9k, also they can stun for 15 secs) best bet is to form a group and take them on with full suport of a tank healers and DPS.

These Rifts have to be closed to finish the attack, to close them you must bring their HP to zero, they all have 32 HP, but are immune to all spells and attacks, however every time an elemental dies, they lose 1 HP. So during this phase just kill any and all elementals you see, for each of them killed the rift that spawned it will lose 1 HP.
You can see on the map which districts are secured or not: if a sector has the Horde/Alliance crest on it, then it’s secured, if it has a flag then there are still rifts open in there.

Named NPC's will help defend each city on top of the guard. In Stormwind, the trade district is defended by King Varian Wrynn, Mage's quarter is defended by Lady Jaina Proudmoore, and the Cathedral district is defended by Archbishop Benedictus.

On Orgrimmar the valley of strenght is defended by Warchief Garrosh Hellscream, Valley of honor by Champion of the Horde Rexxar, and valley of spirits by Shadow Hunter Vol'jin.

On thunderbluff the central rise is defended by High Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof, Spirit's rise by Baine Bloodhoof, and Hunter's rise by Sunwalker Aponi Brightmane (who is making her debut as a paladin, sporting paladin tier9 armor, and full paladin skills)

as each district defended by a named NPC is secured they will perform a yell informing the other players.

There is a feat of strength associated if you help close 1 rift on each sector of your city, so just focus on 1 sector every time the event start.

Once all rifts are closed the attack will be over, the phasing will lift, and 2 portals will open in each city: A portal of water and wind on the trade district of stormwind and a portal of fire and earth on orgrimmar.

Edit: YOU HAVE EXACTLY 60 MINUTES TO CLOSE ALL RIFTS, since obviously this event can't go on forever, if for some reason there are not enough players to close the rifts, after 1 hour, a super-elite lvl 85 earthen ring named NPC (with over 3 million HP) spawns and closes all rifts in the city, however if the invation is halted this way, no rewards are given, players won't have access to the bosses untill the event resets.

COUNTER-ATTACK

The next part of the event is the retaliation, which involves killing the bosses responsible for the attacks. The 4 bosses are Grand Ambassador Flamelash in BRD, Crown Princess Theradras in Maraudon, Kai'ju Gahz'rilla in Zul'Farrak and Prince Sarsarun in AQ20

Note that in the case of Theradras, Flamelash, and gahz’rilla these are all updated versions of the older bosses, don’t just go in there thinking they are their lowbie self.

They are all marked as lvl ? and have 1.5kk HP each, only boss that is completely new is Prince Sarsarun (who has a model identical to Prince Thunderaan)

To kill one of these bosses you MUST use the random LFG tool, in fact clicking on the portals simply brings up the LFG screen, so use the LFG and queue in. Forming a group and stepping inside these instances the “normal” way will NOT spawn any of the new bosses, as these bosses are phased in (if you enter BRD to kill the new flamelash, the rest of the place is completely empty) So don’t leave the dungeon before it’s complete.

Why not? Because you will get the deserter debuff, the bosses are only available for a limited time, and wasting 30 minutes will effectively make you miss all of them until the event resets.

While each boss has a lot of HP, 1 Faction leader will be there to help you kill them, the leader himself hits quite hard, but oddly generates little agro, so the tank must keep the group safe. According to the combat log, the leader alone can chew up over 40% of the total boss HP

The leaders that help you defeat the bosses are as Follow:

For alliance players, King Varian Wrynn helps you defeat the water and wind bosses, King Magni Bronzebeard (who is sporting a new model and new weapons) helps you defeat the Fire and Earth bosses.

For Horde players, Warchief Garrosh Hellscream (on his cataclysm model) helps you defeat the Fire and Earth bosses, and High Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof helps defeat the water and wind bosses.

From the moment a city is secured players have exactly 30 minutes to kill as many bosses as posible, then they must wait untill the event starts again. Alliance players can do the fire and earth bosses once ironforge is secured, water and wind when stormwind is secured. Horde players can do the fire and earth bosses when orgrimmar is secured, water and wind when thunderbluff is secured.

vids of the bosses:

Flamelash

Theradras

Garh'zilla

Sarsarum

REWARDS

The bosses drop gear equivalent to ICC10, 1 per boss, these bosses are only available for 30 minutes after the event is over. and to get access to them, your faction needs to secure their cities.

Here are the drops:

Barrier of the Earth Princess (tank shield)
Amulet of the Centauri (AGI-based Melee Neck)
Earth Bride's Gown (Healing Cloth chest)
Tectonic Plate (DPS plate chest)
Zaetar's Deathshroud (Caster DPS Cloak)

\n\n

Flamelash Amulet (STR-based Melee Neck)
Sulfuron's favor (AGI-based Melee Ring)
Pendant of Burning Spirits (Healing ring)
Flamewaker's Threads (Healing Leather Boots)
Salamander Skin (Tanking plate chest)

\n\n

(##RESPBREAK##)652##DELIM##Neutronimity##DELIM##

Post by Rankkor

ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD:

This event is not limited to the 4 mentioned Capitals, all across azeroth and outland, Elemental rifts will spawn as well, these will have a level apropriate for their zone, meaning all players can participate in closing these off regardless of level, they all have an element asociated with them (fire, earth, wind, water) and spawn in multiple zones once every 60 minutes.

when a rift spawns, it usually does either within an alliance/horde base in the area, or in a Mob base in the area. They will never spawn in the middle of nowhere as the intention of the elementals is to disrupt the forces in the zone.

to close these rifts is the same as in the capitals, each elemental you kill reduces their HP by 1, also they have a mana bar wich indicates how much time you have left, if you haven't closed the rift by the time it's mana runs out, the rift despawns and no reward is given.

REWARDS

closing the smaller rifts is a bit less rewarding than the other big ones on the capital, but still yields some goodies.

for a start, if you're close to a rift when it's closed (even if you didn't helped at all, just be there when it DIES, not despawn) you get a buff that lasts 60 min, this buff depends on the element of the rift closed and yes you can have all 4 at the same time (wich would give you a rather nice buff in PVE, PVP, or just leveling your toon up)

the buffs are:

Earth Powered (all attacks have a chance to heal you for 2% of your HP)
Water Powered (Each attack has a chance to increase the speed of rune/rage/energy/focus/mana/and runic power by 15% for 20 secs)
Fire Powered (each attack has a chance to place a fire-dot on the enemy wich deals damage based on your lvl over 15 secs, and stacks 5 times)
Wind Powered (all attacks, spells and heals have a chance to increase your haste rating for 10 secs)

also, if you manage to close a rift of each element (regardless if it was a big one on the capitals or a small one elsewhere in the world) you get the Feat of Strengt Tripping the rifts

last but not least, once a rift is closed, it will drop to the ground a "misterious device" this is an object that will give a daylie quest (gold if at lvl cap, good exp if not) Do note that in order to be actually able to recieve the quest you MUST be of the apropriate lvl of the rift, (AKA the mobs it spawns must be green or higher, no quest if the mobs were grey lvl to you) The daylie is very simple, you pick up the misterious device, and then turn it to any earthen ring representative in any of your faction's capitals (there's 2 in each capital)

LOCATIONS

Fire
1. Westfall
2. The Barrens
3. Dustwallow Marsh
4. The Hinterlands
5. Searing Gorge
6. Blasted Lands
7. Winterspring
8. Hellfire Peninsula
9. Zul'Drak

Water
1. Silverpine Forest
2. Ghostlands
3. Wetlands
4. Thousand Needles
5. Stranglethorn Vale
6. Swamp of Sorrows
7. Un'goro Crater
8. Zangarmarsh
9. Shadowmoon Valley
10. Dragonblight
11. Icecrown

Wind
1. Darkshore
2. Hillsbrad Foothills
3. Duskwood
4. Eastern Plaguelands
5. Terokkar Forest
6. Netherstorm
7. Borean Tundra
8. Sholazar Basin

Earth
1. Loch Modan
2. Redridge Mountains
3. Desolace
4. Western Plaguelands
5. Burning Steppes
6. Silithus
7. Nagrand
8. Blade's Edge Mountains
9. Howling Fjord
10. Grizzly Hills
11. Storm Peaks

as a last note, in order to recieve the Feat of Strenght, the rift you close must also be your lvl (if you can recieve a quest from it, then u're doing it right) No free FoS for closing a lowbie rift.

some people have been concerned about the location of each rift on every zone, the exact location varies, but they all have 1 thing in common, they never spawn in the middle of nowhere, they spawn wherever is defined as a "Base" (sometimes alliance, sometimes horde, sometimes neutral, sometimes mob-base)

on Dragonblight the rifts spawn on Angmar's Hammer(orcs and taunka), Wintergarde (valiance expedition), Moa'ki harbor(Tuskkar), Venomspite(Forsaken) Icemist Village (Formerly Taunka, now Scourge base) New Heartglenn (Scarlet Onslaught) Star's Rest (Night-elves) and Light's Rest (Argent Crusade)

on a much lower zone like Barrens, these rifts spawn on the Crossroads (horde base) Ratchet (Neutral) and the many Centaur camps in the area.

on a place like Westfall, they spawn in Sentinel Hill (Alliance base) and Moonbrook (Defias Hideout)

if you're not sure where to go when you look for a rift, simply go to any major base in the area

Post by hymer

/hat off.
Thanks a lot for the work! Will look forward to the screenshots.

Post by Cambo

Awesome rankkor!
I am wetting myself with excitement.

Post by 292559

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Hesten

Im confused, you only get 30 minutes to kill the bosses after the event is finished?
What if you join a group full of baddies that wipe you hard?

Post by 487010

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Wildhorn

Im confused, you only get 30 minutes to kill the bosses after the event is finished?
What if you join a group full of baddies that wipe you hard?

You wipe hard and you try again next time.

Or you do the smart thing and run it with people you know who are not baddies.

Post by Thandion

Nice work Rankkorr!

I'm rather looking forward to this! I wasn't playing when Wrath was released, so this will be my first pre-expansion event (along with Operation Gnomeregan), should be fun!

Post by Monday

/hat off.
Thanks a lot for the work! Will look forward to the screenshots.

^

This.

Also, I suggest replacing your ------------------- lines with the function (quote my post for the code.)

Post by Rankkor

Im confused, you only get 30 minutes to kill the bosses after the event is finished?
What if you join a group full of baddies that wipe you hard?

I will confirm just exactly how much time you have to kill the bosses soon, for now I'm 70% sure is 30 min but I'll edit my guide and add exactly how much time you have, and also, this is 100% confirmed, when you are alliance at first u can only do the water and wind bosses (gahr'zilla and sarsarun) while horde can only do the fire and earth bosses (flamelash and theradras) but after a while you can do the other 2.

and yes it is very limited the time you have to kill these bosses, I've never been able to kill all 4 in a row on the PTR; and this is without wiping (with me as a tank wipes are unlikely xD) at best I get 3 bosses completed, at worst I get 1.

I forgot to add that you will get quite a bit of gold doing this event, there's almost 30+ quests in total, and when done at 80 will yield 13g each, you can expect to have up to 390g when you've completed them all, plus your faction leaders will offer a quest when you're about to kill the 4 bosses, all of these quests are as simple as A: kill the boss, and B: turn the quest in for 13 easy gold.

since the time you have to complete this thing is limited I suggest you group with your friends rather than random strangers to make sure you won't get WTFPWD the bosses (particulary flamelash and sarsarun) are really nasty.

so the four elemental bosses are 5-man fights?

yep, even sarsarun who is in a 20man raid is really a 5man fight, don't be decieved by their huge HP, they have 1.5kk HP because your faction leaders are there and they join the fight to help (have you seen just how hard Magni hits when in avatar mode? o_O or how hard garrosh hits when he bladestorms?)

Nice work Rankkorr!

I'm rather looking forward to this! I wasn't playing when Wrath was released, so this will be my first pre-expansion event (along with Operation Gnomeregan), should be fun!

thanks, it's gonna be my first pre-expantion event too :D I only read about the scourge invation and the opening of the dark portal, hopefully this event will either live up to them, or surpass them (so far they look amazing, each leader does a small speech, and multiple sectors of each city is defended by someone, like garrosh defending the valley of strenght, vol'jin defending the valley of spirits, Varian defending the trade district, or Benedictus defending the cathedral)

/hat off.
Thanks a lot for the work! Will look forward to the screenshots.

^

This.

Also, I suggest replacing your ------------------- lines with the function (quote my post for the code.)

thanks bro' ^_^ I'll use that HR function, it will save precious characters on the firstpost (wich I'll need for the screenshots and links to the buffs and items) for now this is just a draft, I'll be polishing this troughout the week.

Post by Felicitas66

Nice work indeed.

Just to add that while I cannot speak for Ironforge, there is also an invasion/rescue event in Thunder Bluff involving wind elementals. It takes place in the Pools of Vision. The citizens are trapped in whirlwinds and can be surprisingly hard to find. Of the three events I have been able to take part in on the PTR, I found the Thunder Bluff one the most challenging because of how tightly packed the mobs were in the Pools of Vision. You're pretty much constantly in combat while you're in there.

Post by 286545

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by taurenmoo812

Good write up Rank.

Feck it, so even before cata garrosh derpscreams gonna be shoved down everyone throats in this event, swell..
Would have been nice to have him in action before the change.

Post by Rankkor

Good write up Rank.

Feck it, so even before cata garrosh derpscreams gonna be shoved down everyone throats in this event, swell..
Would have been nice to have him in action before the change.

thanks.

but really, garrsosh isn't the star of the show nor is it all about him, not by a long shot, if orgrimmar is under atack do you expect him to cower away? Vol'jin participates too, so does cairne, and even lorthemar theron, Aponi brightmane, Baine, Magni, Mathias Shaw and Benedictus. So is not really like he's on the spotlight, in fact all he does is defend the valley of strenght.

elemental invading your city is kinda everyone's business ;)

also, for all the horde fans out there I got a goodie for ya all (i'll update more screenshots tomorrow)

Aponi Brightmane, Matriarch of the Sunwalkers and first Tauren Paladin starts her debut in this event.

Fully dressed up in Paladin tier9 armor (exept for the helmet) and using every paladin spell in the book (from avenging wrath, divine storm, crusader strike, seal of command, judgement, exorcism and holy light) she aids in the defense of Thunderbluff wich is also under atack by the elements (is not just orgrimmar and stormwind, thunderbluff and ironforge get hit too, and I'll confirm if Silvermoon undercity exodar and darnassus get hit as well)

no more words, Bask in the awesomeness of the first tauren paladin: clicky

Post by Robotusch

Post by taurenmoo812

Well its cool seeing Rexxar and Vol'jin in action, and this Aponi Brightmane I hope will get some nice lore to her, cause I'll be rolling a sunwalker in cata.

I just meant, its a fight against elemental lords, and instead of the worlds best shaman fighting beside you in an instance you got the derp there. pff, guess I'll have to hold my breath and wait.. maybe even ask my hunter guildmate to misdirect agro onto him to see if the boss kills him.

Post by Monday

What a surprise...

Post by taurenmoo812

What a surprise...

that I find rexxar and vol'jin cool. I know, big surprise.

Post by Rankkor

If people are interested, I can hit up the PTR and get some screenshots of the Alliance event and the event bosses. I've purposely decided on Alliance on the PTR, since I don't want to spoil too much of the Horde event (Horde being my faction on live).

I could certainly apreciate any imput to my guide, I intend to add screenshots to both sides of the event (actually 4 sides since it's 4 cities under atack) but by all means if you wanna add yours post them and I'll add them to the main guide on the main post.

Well its cool seeing Rexxar and Vol'jin in action, and this Aponi Brightmane I hope will get some nice lore to her, cause I'll be rolling a sunwalker in cata.

I just meant, its a fight against elemental lords, and instead of the worlds best shaman fighting beside you in an instance you got the derp there. pff, guess I'll have to hold my breath and wait.. maybe even ask my hunter guildmate to misdirect agro onto him to see if the boss kills him.

there's a TON of earthen ring members in all cities helping with the atack (there's a particulary badass elite earthen ring shaman in thunderbluff, lvl 85 and with over 3kk HP leading the lesser earthen ring members)

the major shamans however are not in the front lines for a simple reason: those atacks aren't made by elemental lords, those are minor elementals (not even the "WOTLKmodel" elementals, but the basic ones) so while the smaller earthen ring shaman and warriors of the horde and alliance battle the lesser ones, the major shaman are investigating the real threat, in the throne of the elements all the major shamans have gathered and there's elemental atacks going on in outland and nortrend too, but in a much smaller scale, I'm gonna be investigating those soon enough too.

as a last bit neither flamelash nor Gahr'zilla are elemental lords, and theradras with sarsarun are small-time elementals too. wich is why only warrior-leaders help you (well, out of the 4 varian magni garrosh and cairne, magni aint exactly a warrior but he's close enough)

also as a last note all the lore-critical NPC's are inmortal, I know this because in the thunderbluff atack, Baine and Cairne were brought to 1 HP and still didn't died.

this also goes for the instance, they avoid 90% of the AOE damage, and the bosses will NEVER atack them as they generate zero aggro (despite the fact that they all eat up to 40% of the bosses' HP) and in the unlikely event that the bosses do hit the faction leaders helping you, they have up to 600k HP it's gonna take a long time to bring them down and as a last bit, yep they also don't die, at 1 HP they stop taking damage.

We're under attack! (a guide for the pre-cataclysm event) (new update 06/11/10)

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