Utgarde Pinnacle

Northrend is one of those areas that I never fully explored until recently. Turns out I've been missing out on quite a lot. Unlike most dungeons in BC the WotLK dungeons offer achievements for not only killing bosses but completing certain tasks within them. This brought another level of fun and challenge when I set out to solo through Northrend to complete them.

Utgarde Keep is hard to miss, the massive dungeon hub stands in the centre of Howling Fjord. The entrance to Utgarde Pinnacle is on the north side of the tower on a round platform. The instance contains 4 bosses, and most mobs drop a good amount of Frostweave Cloth (2-3 stacks per run) which at the moment sells for anything between 70g-100g a stack on my server. Not to mention - there's a mount. Reigns of the Blue Proto-Drake has a 1.5% drop rate off of Skadi the Ruthless.

The first boss, Svala Sorrowgrave, is an annoying fight. When you first meet her she'll be talking to the Lich King, he'll soon disappear and you can jump on in and kill her. At some point, probably just before you do your killing blow, she will stun you for a good 20 seconds. Luckily at level 90 she does next to no damage over that time and you can go back to wiping her ass on the floor when she lets you go.

Gortok Palehoof is an easy boss. You will find a trophy room with some lovely stuffed creatures. After activating them with the little platform across form the entrance to the room they will attack you one by one in a random order until all 4 minor beasts are down, then Gortok himself will attack. Very straight forward and an easy fight.

Boss number 3 is the one you are here for - Skadi the Ruthless. This fight is a little more technical than the first one but if you do it right it's very simple. Basically, kill all the adds, some of them will be Ymirjar Harpooners who will drop harpoons that you need to pick up. If you wanna do it quickly and get yourself an achievement while you're at it collect 4 harpoons before heading to the launchers (located at the north end of the fight) and wait for him to come in range of the harpoons. 

Once he's there click the launcher, run to the next one and click that, so on and so on until you've hit him with all 4 harpoons. The launchers go out for a few seconds after you use them so you have to run from one to another unfortunately instead of just staying on one. That being said it is easily done solo. That should be enough to knock him off his mount in one go and will earn you the My Girl Loves to Skadi All the Time achievement.

After that just attack attack attack til he's dead and hope to god he drops the mount.

*sigh*

I'm still hoping. Really, really hard.

The final boss is King Ymiron himself, and he is a pain in the royal ass. Basically he will attack you for a bit, and then run from boat to boat stuning you for 8 seconds each time. Unfortunately if you kill him before he gets to the last boat he will continue stunning you until he's done. Bastard. 

Look at him sitting there all smug on his throne... ugh.

Once he's dead a door will open allowing you to walk back to the entrance with ease. If like me you didn't get the mount, at least you've made some cash and collected a few nice vendor items! 

If you're lucky Ymiron might drop the Red Sword of Courage which is a really nice sword for transmog. It's my favourite sword at the moment... if I didn't have daggers I would transmog my weapons to that in a heartbeat. 

It takes about 20-30 minutes to fully run through Utgarde Pinnacle, it can be a confusing instance with many doors and openings along the way, rest assured there is only one way to progress, making it impossible to get lost.

With a good amount of cash, frostweave, and vendor trash, as well as a chance at a mount drop this instance is a good easy way to pass some time and earn a few achievements.

Happy Hunting (^_^)

Sethekk Halls

Whenever I need some gold I run through old instances. Not only to they drop a good amount of cashola and vendor trash but they are easily soloable at level 90 and take very little time to clear.

... Plus, like, old content rocks ok.

Sethekk Halls is one of my favourites. It's short, simple, visually appealing... and drops Reigns of the Raven Lord if you are the luckiest son of a bitch in Azeroth. 

As the eastern wing of Auchinoun, the instance is located in Terokkar Forest (Outland). You will find the entrance inside a small room accessible from the centre of Auchinoun.

There's a fair bit of trash that wont agro unless you are on top of them which you can skip if you are only doing a mount run. I tend to kill them all because I am totally desperate for every piece of copper I can find at the moment. The mobs are level 63-70 and are practically one shots on heroic mode. 

The first boss, Darkweaver Syth will summon elementals but if you keep your eyes set on him he will be down before they can even get to you. If you can stealth past him, or even just walk without him catching you, go ahead. He does drop a JC design but otherwise it's just trash.

Anzu on the other hand... is the very bane of my existence. 

Every time I see someone with that mount I die a little inside.

*sigh* >_<

Apparently it has a 1.6% drop rate. No, it doesn't mean that if you run it 100 times you will get the mount, it means that every time you walk in there there is a 1.6% chance for the mount to drop, it doesn't matter if it's your first run, your hundredth run, or your thousandth run, there is still a 1.6% drop rate. 

Every. Single. Time.

Other than that, he is a slight pain in the ass for me, I get him down to 1/10th of his health and he summons his stupid little bird friends which make him immune until you kill them. Fan of knives tends to down them instantly. I'm not sure if any other classes have this issue as I take it that anyone with a higher dps would be able to kill him much quicker than me.

Obviously it's a very straight forward fight - attack - kill the birds - attack - cry because the fucker didn't drop the mount AGAIN.

The final boss is easy as apple pie, Talon King Ikiss won't pull any tricks on you, he'll probably be dead before he even finishes his speech. He drops some nice BC gear you can transmog if you are into that kinda thing, otherwise his items will fetch a nice price at a vendor.

Once you are done with him a door will open which takes you back to the entrance, a nice little shortcut if you chose to leave all the trash.

All in all - you are looking at a 20 minute run (fully cleared), a chance at a really nice mount, and 100g or so in vendor trash.

Happy Hunting (^_^)