So You Want To Be a Furbolg
Every once in a while you see someone cast a spell, and transform himself into a Furbolg. How do they do it? Well, the answer is this…the power to become a Furbolg is accomplished by obtaining Dartol’s Rod of Transformation. This is a quest item that can be obtained through a short series of quests.
The quest line begins in the inn at Astranaar (Ashenvale)…the quest giver is Raene Wolfrunner, who is easily spotted, as she is a night elf accompanied by her pets, Dagri (a wolf) and Korra (a striped cat).
Raene’s Cleansing (1)
Speaking with Raene allows you to pick up the quest Raene’s Cleansing. She wants you to locate her friend, a night elf named Teronis. He is located on a small island in the center of Lake Falathim (Lake Falathim can be reached by traveling southwest from Maestra’s Post). Unfortunately for everyone involved, he is dead…presumably slain by the Saltspittle murlocs in the immediate vicinity.
Raene’s Cleansing (2)
Examination of Teronis’s body completes the quest and permits the next step. You need to recover the Glowing Gem (the object Teronis was seeking), which is now in the possession of the murlocs. You’ll have to kill the murlocs nearby until the gem drops. I’ve been fortunate, as the gem usually drops for me within the first few kills. This object is then retuned to Raene Wolfrunner at the Astranaar inn.
Raene’s Cleansing (3)
Raene is dismayed to learn of her friend’s death. She now asks you to complete Teronis’s task…by reading his journal and listening to Raene, we learn that Teronis was trying to recover an object to help deter the furbolg attacks on the elves. Raene now sends you to find a dryad named Shael’dryn.
Raene’s Cleansing (4)
Shael’dryn immediately tasks with you with recovering a piece of the rod, the Iron Shaft. This fragment is locked in a chest hidden in a small glade. This chest is unlocked with the Wooden Key, which can be obtained by slaying treants (Withered Ancients and Crazed Ancients) found along the border between Ashenvale and Felwood. I had to kill at least a dozen of these treants before the key would drop. The Iron Shaft is then returned to Shael’dryn.
Raene’s Cleansing (5)
Shael’dryn wants you to recover the final piece of the rod. This is the Iron Pommel…she doesn’t really know where it is, but you’re sent to find it anyway. We learn that this fragment was given to a group of druids for safekeeping, but these druids have been slain and their encampment has been run over with slimes. You follow the roads toward the Barrens, but before entering the Barrens, you leave the road to the east…the area is brimming with slimes. Kill them all, and eventually one of them will drop a chest (a strange sort of surprise). The chest contains the Iron Pommel.
Raene’s Cleansing (6)
Shael’dryn wants to help you reconstruct the rod. She assembles the fragments into a rod, and you are tasked with getting it re-enchanted. In order to do this, you must bring the rod to a small shrine nearby. It’s sort of hidden…you’ll travel south and east away from the dryad, and then follow a winding path up the nearby mountain. At the top (and now given away by the golden question mark on your minimap) is the shrine. Use the rod at this shrine, and you will receive Dartol’s Rod of Transformation. This is what you want!
The rod itself is used further into the quest line, but most people would rather keep the rod and enjoy being able to transform into a furbolg. This transformation effect lasts for three minutes. As usual, you cannot ride your mount or ride a gryphon taxi while you are shapeshifted like this.
How many times can Dartol’s Rod of Transformation be used?
This item has an infinite number of uses. As usual, each use is subject to a one-minute cooldown.
How long does the shapeshift effect last?
You remain in furbolg form for three minutes (at which point the buff expires), until you manually cancel the buff, or until you take combat damage of any sort.
Can a furbolg dance?
Unfortunately, this is no dance animation for toons shapeshifted into furbolg form.
Rockstar Takes on Karazhan
Rockstar poses in front of Karazhan. Our team, including 4 completely new members, was able to one-shot all of the bosses through Illhoof on our maiden raid into Karazhan. We also got Shade of Aran down, a good introductory try on Netherspite, and Prince Malchezaar deep into phase 2 numerous times (and even once into phase 3). Rockstar is proud of the group’s efforts so far.
Rockstar and Karazhan Part 4
Monday night’s Karazhan raid was relatively quick to form. Seraphyne and Armandeluz were on board from the beginning, and Radiantys was of course ready to roll when we needed to bring in a third healer. The evening’s goals were to drop as many of the remaining bosses as possible. Only three were left…Netherspite, Prince Malchezaar, and Nightbane. We were trying to decide who to go after first. Trivia decided to leave it up to Amrys, a newcomer to the instance. She decided on Prince.
I was pretty optimistic about Prince, because we had done so well on our previous attempt against him. On our previous run, we had gotten him into phase 2 on the only try we made. This time, the combined mana pool (buffed) of our healers was about 36k, and they were ready to heal.
On the first attempt tonight, we got to phase 2 once more. However, a moment into phase 2, I died and that was it. This was extremely strange to me, as I reviewed the numbers from Grim Reaper and inspected the combat log manually myself. I was hit a few times for a few thousand damage each, sure, and then Seraphyne hit me with a 7500 critical heal. That brought me to 93% of my 15k health. I was then hit for 3700 by Prince, and died. I followed all of the numbers in the combat log, between the flurry of hits, to the critical heal, to the single hit by Prince after that…I was at 50% of my health when I “just died”. I’m thinking this is some type of bug. My threat was way up, there was no way someone had passed me in threat and stuck me with Enfeeblement. There’s nothing really we can do about it, except try again.
On the second attempt, we wiped quickly. Infernals immediately dropped into positions that were not lucky for us, and several of the group died. The good news is we had our first quick-thinking rotation of the tank and the DPS group. It was handled really well.
Subsequent attempts were much better. I felt I was choosing good times to pop Last Stand and Nightmare Seeds during phase 2. It’s hard to feel flurries of damage coming, but I guess that’s all just part of the luck. At times my health bar was topped off. At times I was down to 2000 health and thought for sure I was going to go down. It’s really nerve-wracking seeing that bar, I try not to look at it too much…I’m sure the healers are even more anxious about that bar. On one occasion we were able to enter phase 3 for a short bit…we got Prince down to about 27% on our best attempt.
At this point, we’re able to take Prince Malchezaar into phase 2 pretty consistently (as the DPS group is more and more comfortable with moving into and out of range). We’re able to get Prince into phase 3 at times. We’re getting Prince down to about 30% at times, and the battle is lasting 3 to 4 minutes on solid attempts. I feel very good about our chances next week.
Without any success on Prince, we decided to move to Netherspite and at least give him one shot. This would let the newer people have a chance to see these color beams in action. There are a lot of things to pay attention to in the Netherspite fight, so the more chances you get to see what’s going on, the better.
Trivia led a long pre-fight talk. This was my first chance to handle the red beams (obviously). Predictys and Rockstar would be sharing red beam duty. Now, I’ll be honest here. The tank is supposed to “dance in and out of” the red beam to minimize the debuff. I was strafing left and right for the entire duration of my portal phase, but I seemed to be “in” the red beam at all times. I’m pretty good at moving out of the Void Zones when they open up, but there are others who need to definitely work on that. I also hope everyone is bringing bandages to look after themselves during the banish phase.
We gave the fight a shot. Tanking him from the red beam is pretty fun…though like I said, I didn’t appear to be able to move out of the beam. The portal phase felt really short. We were able to get Netherspite down to about 75% over a couple phases…then miscues picking up the green beam resulted in Netherspite healing himself to full health. And that’s no good. When he regains that much health, we’re very unlikely to down here in the allowed time (the enraging limitation).
When it was all said and done, we lasted a little over 8 minutes and had again brought him down to 75% health. This is pretty good I figure, for a first attempt, including at least 4 raid members who had never seen this fight in action. When we try for Netherspite next week, I’m not sure we’ll beat him, but I think we’ll get him to 50% health or below.
No badges, no loots for us this night…but lots of experience and a good amount of confidence I think.
Rockstar Downs Maiden of Virtue
Rockstar tanks Maiden of Virtue. We one-shotted her with a holy Paladin in the group…when that’s the case, this becomes another one of those fights that’s easy for the tank. Eternal Force Karazhan group 3 keeps rolling.
Rockstar and Karazhan Part 3
Sunday night…and Rockstar is picking up a continuation run of Karazhan this week. Everything through Curator is down. The lineup for tonight includes Illhoof and the Shade of Aran, but hopefully we’d be able to do the Chess Event as well.
This week we brought a Warlock with us. Again we experienced smooth clearing right to Illhoof’s bookcase. We quickly setup for the fight, and I tanked Illhoof right on the edge of the green circle on the floor, with Illhoof’s back to the group. This would maximize the speed with which the melee DPS could turn around and destroy the Demon Chains when needed.
The fight was as usual, a flurry of imps, impressive DPS, great heals, and looked as chaotic as it was fun. This is another one of those easy tanking fights…I get to spam threat moves, throw in a few Thunderclaps to try and get the imps to focus on me for a second…not much difficulty for the main tank. I try to stay on top of the Deadly Boss Mods bars and help announce when things might happen.
We dropped Terestian Illhoof in 4 minutes, 27 seconds. He dropped Shadowvine Cloak of Infusion (disenchanted) and the Lightning Capacitor (needed by Amrys). This was a great start to the evening. Just as with the Maiden of Virtue, we had an experimental attempt with the group at hand, saw how the fight worked, and came back on the next outing with the appropriate skills to one-shot the boss fight. Great work.
With this bolstered confidence, we went once again to the Shade of Aran. The Shade of Aran wiped us for four straight attempts, but yielded on the fifth. One attempt had us caught in a Flame Wreath when the elementals came up. Bad news for us, the raid was snuffed almost instantly. Having healthstones to use after theMass Polymorph was big for us. I think people are getting the hang of this fight…and a few people need to work on some stamina gear to ensure the pyroblast doesn’t one-shot them.
The Shade of Aran was dropped on our fifth attempt in 4 minutes, 42 seconds. He dropped the Boots of the Incorrupt (disenchanted) and the Saberclaw Talisman (needed by Amrys). I think everyone was celebrating after this fight…this is a real Karazhan milestone. We dropped him (sure after a few wipes) on our first foray into the instance. Good times.
On to the Chess Event. It’s nice to have such a pushover encounter after the big Shade fight. Trivia explained to the newcomers how to use their chess pieces. I got a chance to be the king. I was charging forward towards the opposing king, but was eventually caught trapped between 5 of their pieces and 3 of our pieces. I was surrounded. I was spamming my attack and heroism as best I could. I was getting great heals. Eventually I was able to break through and attack the opposing king. It was a relief to see his health going down faster than mine. Great healers on our side.
The Chess Event chest dropped the Girdle of Treachery (needed by Predictys) and the Headdress of the High Potentate.
The group decided to take a shot on Prince, although time was winding down quickly. We had Armandeluz in the group, he’s a top-notch holy Paladin. It took a while to get the explanation of the fight off, and we took our shot. I was thoroughly impressed…I was just hoping I wouldn’t go down like a rag-doll in the opening seconds of the fight. We got lucky with the infernal drops (I was tanking Prince in one of the “typical” spots, about 40 yards in front of the door). Amrys got some hard lessons about Enfeeblement and what happens if you don’t get out of range in time. We were able to get into phase 2 (albeit just barely) on our first-ever try. That’s hot stuff.
We got the pep talk from Trivia and Armandeluz, which is good for the newcomers I think, to put things in perspective. Our first week together as a group, including 4 completely new people, and we one-shot mots of the bosses in Karazhan and get Prince to phase 2 on our first try. Good things lay ahead for the group. This was a great evening. We could have moved faster in places (such as getting back after a death and buffing up), but Illhoof and Shade and Chess down, that’s a great accomplishment. We would be back for a shot at the remaining tougher bosses.
Rockstar Downs Big Bad Wolf
This is the group’s first Opera Event; the first draw was Big Bad Wolf. One-shotted. Rockstar poses next to the wolf’s corpse. Eternal Force Karazhan group 3 is off to a terrific start.
Rockstar and Karazhan Part 2
Friday night marked Rockstar’s return to Karazhan. Once again we were having some troubles filling the raid at the assigned time; hopefully that problem is alleviated as time goes by. Rockstar doesn’t like being kept waiting. On this night Predictys would be swapping in and out as needed with Radiantys…tonight’s card starts with Maiden of Virtue and then the Curator.
As we lined up the start the trash pulls, someone was walking around and got aggro from the patrol in the Maiden’s hallway. Very careless. If you’re new (or even veteran), why would you go farther than the tank? If you’re stealthed and marking or assigned to check something, then you can go past the tank. If you’re not stealthed, there is no reason to go past the tank. I immediately jumped in and took aggro from both members of the patrol, and hoped the healers would notice and jump into action. Luckily for me, they did, and we survived with no deaths. We waited for the rest of the group to arrive.
We quickly cleared through the hallway leading to the Maiden, and had a quick briefing on what would ensue. With a holy Paladin in the group, Blessing of Sacrifice was now on the table. Radiantys did a great job of keep that on me during the fight, and the heals were good through Repentance. At the very end of the fight, Radiantys was killed, but Seraphyne kept up the heals for the last bit of time.
On this night, Maiden of Virtue got one-shotted in 2 minutes, 22 seconds. She dropped the Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden (needed by Rockstar) and the Bracers of Maliciousness (needed by Calithis).
Because Opera Event was already cleared, we moved through the empty chambers to begin clearing to the Curator. The pulls involving the Arcane Anomaly and Syphoners were educational for a lot of people. We had spotty deaths, this person on this pull, or that person on that pull…I focused on tanking the Arcane Anomaly while the others burned down the other mobs. And then it was time for the big event…Curator.
I was a little surprised to see that Trivia called for the DPS to be more spread out. There were a couple of rogues and a cat Druid in the group…with that much melee DPS I figured they would use a cluster strategy. But no matter…I can watch and learn. I pulled the Curator and spun him right at the requested spot (the tip of the third diamond in the floor). Seraphyne was on my left wing providing my with heals.
Tanking the Curator is really a simple task. I’m left alone with him, spamming my best threat-generating moves and trying to do as much “damage” as possible. I have no idea what DPS tanks or high-end tanks are supposed to be capable of, but it seems like I’m very consistently in the 200-230 DPS range…with not a lot of room to improve on that. I was able to call out the Evocation state, but ideally I’d like to be able to call out how many Astral Flares have spawned, so that people have a better idea where we’re at in the phase.
We one-shotted the Curator in 5 minutes, 5 seconds. I died right at the 5 minute mark, literally just before the Curator was killed. The Curator dropped the Gloves of the Fallen Hero (won by Lofkalar) and the Wrynn Dynasty Greaves (needed by Rockstar).
We had a short break and continued. The clearing was moving flawlessly. When we got to the bookcase leading to Terestian Illhoof and killed the demon trash, the group decided to take a shot on Illhoof. I was dubious, because we had no Warlock in the group. I was even more dubious about this attempt when the strategy was unfolded…the two mages in the group were going to be trading off AoE duties on the imps. I’ve heard this strategy works, but I’m skeptical. The key is DPS to the Demon Chains in this fight, and losing two mages doesn’t help that out. Mage AoE against infinite spawns of imps seems counter-productive due to the extensive mana drain that ensues.
We had another one of those moments where someone carelessly aggros the mobs because they’re not paying attention and just walks too close to them. As a tank, I have to sigh and immediately jump into the mobs…I burned my Challenging Shout picking up those imps standing right at Illhoof’s doorway because of someone’s mistake. Then we jumped into the Illhoof fight, and had a wipe after several minutes. This let people have a chance to use their macros to target the Demon Chains and see how things work. Just like our withdrawal from the Maiden on our previous night, we withdrew from Illhoof after one “experimental” attempt. Onwards to the Shade.
Time was winding down, but we wanted to have one experimental attempt on the Shade of Aran as well. The fight required a long explanation…survivability is of course stressed in the fight, as well as the DPS race, but of course that isn’t clear until you actually jump into the fight and see how it works.
We did okay…the attempt lasted over 2 minutes…Radiantys learned that when the Shade uses Arcane Explosion, you MUST immediately get to the edge of the room. No time for an extra heal. I think Lofkalar learned a similar lesson with moving out of the Blizzard effect. For me as a tank, it’s a bit depressing because the Shade seems to have a random aggro table. I ended up being unable to tank and able to do a meek 215 DPS.
The group did pretty well for the second night in Karazhan…two more one-shotted bosses (including our first look at Curator). We had a couple of looks at the Illhoof and Shade fights. Overall, I’m happy with the group’s ability to destroy trash, improvise in emergency scenarios, and analyze boss fights. Big things to work on are refraining from careless aggro (on both trash AND bosses) and focusing on the clearing speed of the raid.
On this night I would have to spend 300g on stamina gems and enchants for my new gloves and leggings, but I am extremely pleased to do it.
Rockstar Downs Attumen
Rockstar poses in front of the slain Attumen…this is the first kill for Rockstar. Predictys tanked Midnight and Rockstar tanked Attumen.