Spooncraft

This entire article comes courtesy of World of Raids. I really love their site and have been a follower of Teza for a very VERY long time. The writeup was so perfect that I cannot best it in my own words. Frankly I feel as if the writer was speaking from my mind (in seeing videos and screenshots) with this and I recommend everybody to give it a read. The video I posted earlier of the Nexus instance ran by Totalbiscuit and the WC Radio crew makes a lot more sense now in regards to the final boss. This is why I chose to hit the Borean Tundra instead of the Howling Fjord when WotLK comes out.

Coldarra is located in the southwestern part of Borean Tundra and it’s technically a subzone, but aside from the shared General Chat it doesn’t really feel like it. This article is about my experience there containing HEAVY SPOILERS!

First problem to solve is actually getting there. The bridge I read about in Lands of Mystery is in ruins, and the mountain closing around the island of Coldarra is too steep to climb from the water. Hm. There’s a questhub called Amber’s Ledge, where there are Kirin-Tor and Red Dragonflight NPCs. They are not exactly friends of Malygos lately so let’s try them.

I’m told to rescue some abducted people and later to abduct the abducter. According to the Dragon Code of Conduct they can’t torture enemy combatant, but since I’m there I may as well do it. Nice. So they get some valuable information that helps them devise plans to attack. And we do, on mounts! No vehicle combat this time though, bugreport filed! All in all it took 5 quests to be directed to Coldarra to continue fighting against Malygos.

13 images from Amber’s Ledge (chronological order from top to bottom)

I’m taken inside the island on a big red drake and the scenery… just wow! The dragon takes 5 spins around the Nexus, ample time to see all its beauty. Amazing! There’s a bubble that strongly resembles the old Dalaran in Alterac Mountains, the dragon lands there.

Warmages channel magic into the shield from the inside, where there’s a small questhub with some Dalaran people and human form Dragons. The quests don’t seem to be too important. Kill 10 of this, 10 of that, kill some named mobs for prison keys, destroy eggs, capture drake hatchlings. But then there’s this female dragon (again in human form) who seems to be lost.

When she comes to her senses she tells me about her plan. She must be the boss around here. So Saragosa, consort of Malygos is always scouting Coldarra for incoming enemies. The plan is to lure her into a trap and have me kill her. After building the trap from crystals I got teleported up to a platform high above the surface (again, the scenery is just beautiful), where I deploy the trap and find myself facing a level 73 elite dragon… transformed into a non-elite in humanform thanks to the trap.

Things get a big uglier now, as I have to bring her corpse with me (without a teleport to bring me back to the surface I must say…) and then Kelistrasza breaths fire on the body, too. Very nice. Obviously Malygos gets angry, so much that the plan - however disgusting a method it was - actually worked. On the boss’ back I travel up high where the other red dragons already fight with the head of the Blue Dragonflight. After a few minutes we land and I’m advise to run for my life, then Malygos arrives and casts a really powerful spell, so powerful that it froze the entire dragon and put some kind of mind control on her too, making her the new consort. Ouch.

Sadly I return to Transitus Shield only to get even sadder. Kelistrasza has to be releaved of her suffering so the next quest takes me and my group inside The Nexus (first dungeon of the zone). Yes, to do that.

83 images from Coldarra (chronological order from top to bottom)

At this point there are a few bugs, but the scenery compensated for them more than enough. There’s a bit of Malygos lore too and hey, I saw Malygos from real close This subzone is - just like Ebon Hold - a musthave experience for everyone. Now I know which side of the continent to choose when WotLK is released!