The Pit of Saron: The Skull is Watching

The second instance in the Frozen Halls of Icecrown is the Pit of Saron. Think of it as the main armory and forge for all the Scourge weaponry. It’s like a central hub where saronite gets excavated and refined and where all the armor and weapons are made, very cool place. It’s full of surprises though and progressing through at a fast pace means you better have a great healer and the ability to shut down tons of casters.

First thing when you step foot inside you’ll have a bunch of friendly faction forces there, Alliance or Horde and you’re rushing into combat. They all get killed and raised as scourge and attack you – so much for that. Killing off the necromancers is the new theme of this instance, and so is emancipating slaves. You’ll run through packs of these necromancers with their skeleton buddies and little groups of torturers which simply translates to: A lot of diseases, curses, and magic damage debuffs that suck terrible amounts of ass.

Forgemaster Garfrost

This boss is somewhat of a pushover to be honest. He’s constantly going to pulse out an AOE that stacks a frost debuff, he’ll also target a member and throw a chunk of saronite at them. Use the saronite like you would iceblocks on Sapphiron to line-of-sight the boss and that will allow the frost debuff to wear off. He’ll swap weapons a few times, do some frost damage and a few knockbacks typical of a big giant – other than that just beat him into the ground.

Ick & Krick

If you try to move on in the instance a huge ice wall will stop you, turn back down the ramp and look for the plague spreader abomination like mobs and the slimy leper gnome Ick and his “mount” Krick. The trash around him will toss toxic waste on the floor (don’t stand in it) and do some poison/disease stuff (cleanse that). The boss himself will just drop slime on the ground so you’ll have to kite, he’ll do some debuffs that cause stuns, he’ll throw exploding mines on the floor you need to avoid – a very situational awareness type boss. Once he’s dead you’ll be forced to go up the ramp in preparation for the final boss.

Scourgelord Tyrannus

He’s not that hard, but the fights leading to him are. The slaves you saved will be using armor gathered and created at the forge you cleared at the start but they won’t join the fray yet. You have to fight up the ramp against a bunch of undead vrykul and they’re nasty as all hell. The female type in the middle does shadow damage up the ass, the two flame casters will spam fireballs and hellfire, finally the two melee types will spam diseases left and right, in the end it just plain sucks. Oh, and you’ll also get skeletal mages casting frost spells at you.

Make it up to the cave and get ready for some Indiana Jones gameplay, it’s like the Hodir fight with ice dropping from the ceiling constantly as you fight through waves of spawns as you move through the cave, keep going until you’re at the end. Once you engage Tyrannus he’ll throw an army of scourge up the ramp/cave you just came from but the NPC army of rescued slaves will hold them off, don’t stand too close to the exit as you will aggro the undead and get your healers caught up in that fight. Tyrannus’ frostwyrm will be dropping ice bombs on your players, he’ll cast a brand on a random player which transfers any heals he gets to the boss and any damage he deals to the main tank; and finally he’ll go Starcraft on your ass and scream “Power overwhelming” at which point your tank should kite him around and not get beat on (unless you have a tremendously overgeared or overbuffed tank).

Once you’re done, enjoy the event and get ready for the final confrontation with the Lich king himself int he last instance!