Magister’s Terrace walkthrough: Part 1

By Spooner • February 22, 2008

Hello everyone! I figured I spend enough time goofing off on the test realms with my friends that I should write a really simple and basic guide about the new 5 man instance in Patch 2.4, Magister’s Terrace.

This little segment will run four different parts broken up by boss. I’ll explain the pulls and the types of mobs as well as how to counter them and explain the bosses so you don’t get caught off guard. Now this isn’t exactly like trying to 5 man Illidan, it’s not a really hard instance. However it is a noticeable step above any other 5 man in game so far.

The normal mode plays a lot like your typical heroic without the trash 1 shotting you, and the heroic mode is scaled properly for the instance. It isn’t even really such a large instance and the path you take is pretty straight forward with only a few groups that can be skipped if you really feel like it. Easily you can do this in about 45 minutes depending on group make up and gear level.

The dungeon is located on the new Ilse of Quel’Danas to the right of the island. Your base-camp is in the center of the zone just north of the dead scar’s end.

Let’s begin with the standard information such as group make up and location. First off you’re going to want some form of CC or else you better have an amazing tank and healer.

Having a paladin tank or a druid who can swipe tank multiple mobs really makes a difference in the difficulty level of the instance when you get to the bigger pulls also on how much CC you have to bring. A warrior isn’t a bad tank either as long as your DPS knows to focus fire quick enough so that the warrior isn’t jumping after mobs every 2 seconds that try to kill your healer.

You don’t really need more than 1 healer, the only real time that healing should become difficult is for the last boss because the entire group takes damage regularly. A mage, hunter, or rogue are great for CC but bringing two of the same isn’t going to make a difference, for the sake of this walk-through I had a paladin tanking, an elemental shaman and myself (enhancement shaman) as well as a fire mage DPS and a resto shaman as the healer. We’re all pretty much fully geared from Karazahn and Gruul’s with heroic badge loot mixed in and our mage is a mix of seasons 1-2-3 arena gear along with raid items.

The whole breakdown is really simple. If you have a strong aoe tank then you don’t have to bring 2 CC classes. If you have a tank that cannot tank multiple mobs at once or DPS that cannot off-tank then you’re going to want to bring at least 2 CC classes to help keep control of the mobs. A druid can heal this well through the countless hots so can a priest and a resto shaman does wonders with chain heal.

Before even walking towards the dungeon you’re going to want to head to the main quest hub. Depending on your server’s progression the quest giver will either be by the little tents or he’ll be inside a legitimate building. He will ask you to go into the instance and find Tyrith, a blood elf spy. The quest can be researched further here.

On to the instance!

When first walking in you’ll notice two mobs, these Mage Guards are pretty consistent throughout the instance.

They don’t do anything particularly special and have crappy HP but they do throw their little ninja star deals and chain stun the group like axe throwers in ZA/ZG. Also they will cast a bubble on the floor at some random party member that causes a major healing debuff (75% healing cut) and decreases the same amount of magic damage you take if you’re in the bubble. So its not too bad if your ranged DPS stands there while killing off one of the magister mobs or even the warlock ones since they will not melee at all unless you’re at point blank range.

They can throw out more than one at a time and the stuns get REALLY annoying after a while especially if the healer gets stunned for a good 5 seconds straight.

As you progress after that pull you’ll come across a patrol, afterwards you get to see the first group pull. 99% of the rest of this instance will be these big 5-6 mob pulls.

Here’s a breakdown of the mobs you’ll find in just about all of these group pulls. They’re all easily identified by gear and title. Just about every buff they give themselves can be purged, dispelled, or spell stolen by mages.

Warlocks have an imp pet that will keep spamming a fireball, the warlocks themselves have fel armor on and will only either cast immolate (that tics for around 1000+ fire damage) and an extremely fast incinerate fire spell.

Bloodknights are just paladins. They should be sheeped or killed first because they can hit pretty hard with their seals activated as well they cleanse and they can fully heal themselves and any other mobs nearby.

Physicians are priests. They will cast heals on other mobs, they will also throw out prayer of mending that can heal mutiple mobs quickly if you’re DPS is spread to different targets. As well they will coat their weapons with a poison that will dot a player (usually the tank) but that can easily be cleansed.

Magisters are just mages that spam arcane nova and frost bolts. They have a little gimmick though, for every spell they land they get 10% spell haste. Eventually if left alone they will be firing off high damage spells almost instantly cast. The buff can be stolen though so this can be nice for a mage in the group that wants to get a little boost to their DPS.

Eventually (and rather quickly too) you’ll get the hang of which mob is best to CC and which is best to DPS down for your group. Each one has a certain ability that can ruin anybody’s day if left alone. It’s not complicated but as long as you’re not eating wall candy (paint chips) you should be fine.

After the walkway you’ll reach the first boss which is like a cheap Steam Vaults knock off. His room has 3 groups of wretched looking crack head mobs, one in the middle and two on either side.

They are very weak, have garbage HP and hit for nearly nothing. There are a lot of them though so it’s intimidating for the first timer.

Don’t get too comfy though because they can self buff with fel infusion that will make them glow green. This will increase their DPS output by about a solid 200% as wella s their attack or casting speed. So those little frostbolts that were hitting for 50 dmg will hit for a little over 1000 and the rogue types will be playing ping pong with your healer as soon as he has to start dumping big heals on the group (or mage) if too many mobs go green.

Finally go after the boss, you can tank him anywhere but close to a crystal works best as he will begin to syphon mana from it at 10% mana per tic. It’s best to kill the crystal because he will use the mana he drains to fuel his mega aoe explosions (that look really cool actually) and the less mana he has to fire them off the better you’ll be. He will also channel drain life at a target which does drain A LOT of HP per tic so kick it if possible or be prepared to heal through the attack and DPS twice as hard to make up for his regained health.

kill the gem

don’t get blowed up

Didn’t have a screenshot of his drain life, it got corrupted, damn PTR. But yeah… kick the channeled spell.

collect phat loots

His HP really is a joke for the most part and when you’re done with this piÃ±ata you can enjoy some new loot or shards. The only difference in heroic aside from increased damage done is he will drain mana as well as life from the entire group at once not just one player.

Here is a list of the known drops:

Normal Mode:

Heroic Mode:

Stay tuned for my next installment where I show you folks the pulls leading up the 2nd boss as well as the continuation of the quest!

Share and Enjoy: