Razorfen Downs

The capital of all pigs in Azeroth which recently has been taken over by the Scourge.

It has very nice drops and if you want to, you can farm it over and over until your chars are geared nicely.

Except for the bosses, there also is a cooking trainer in one of those cages there. If you have at least 175 cooking skill you can learn to make, no, not Schnitzel, but Goldthorn Tea.

Tuten'kash

A giant spider that needs to be summoned by ringing a gong 3 times. Each time another wave of spiders will come. If you kill him fast enough you can avoid his nasty curse that reduces your casting speed and lasts for 15 minutes.

• Silky Spider Cape
• Arachnid Gloves
• Carapace of Tuten'kash
  

Plaguemaw the Rotting

This was by far the toughest fight I had experienced yet. I actually wiped during the escort that is needed to spawn this boss. After I killed wave after wave of attacking pigs, my shaman went out of mana and bit the dust. Strangely enough, the pigs didn't turn on Belnistrasz who was still performing the summoning ritual but instead decided to corpse camp me. Only by running from the graveyard was I able to resurrect my team and give that future ham some payback.

Plaguemaw also has some kind of silencing aura and drops absolute crap for elemental shaman. Absolutely not worth the effort.

One thing of note is that you can only summon him if you do the escort quest from Belnistrasz. It is not repeatable, so once you handed in the quest, you can never summon him again, even after resetting the instance.

• Swine Fists
• Plaguerot Sprig

Mordresh Fire Eye

Mordresh has nice caster drops. Beware of his adds, they can be lethal. Try to fry them with Fire Nova Totem.

His drops are quite nice for casters.

• Mordresh's Lifeless Skull
• Glowing Eye of Mordresh
• Deathmage Sash

Glutton

A big pile of meat that hits like a truck. But no real match for the shaman team.

• Glutton's Cleaver
• Fleshhide Shoulders
  

Ragglesnout (rare)

He drops a nice sword that shaman unfortunately are not able to wear.

• Savage Boar's Guard
• Boar Champion's Belt
• X'caliboar
  

Amnennar the Coldbringer

Ignore his adds and nuke. They will despawn once he is dead.

Most of the time, he drops two items. The gloves are nice to have and there are even two usable chest items: the robe and the mail armor. Stats wise, I would recommend the robe, but I didn't like the look of it and went with the mail armor.

• Robes of the Lich
• Icemetal Barbute
• Deathchill Armor
• Bonefingers
• Coldrage Dagger
  

Scarlet Monastery: Cathedral

The cathedral is very similar to the library and armory: pull carefully and stop runners.

There is one trash mob in particular that is really nasty: the Scarlet Wizard. He comes into melee range to cast Arcane Explosion. As with all AoE spells, grounding totem is useless. The Arcane Explosion will also cause casting pushback. Make them your priority target, even over melee.

One thing to remember is to clear out the whole cathedral as engaging Mograine will aggro any remaining mobs.

Drop wise, it's one of the best instances. You will get tons of good caster items in here, as well as mail items for level 40.

Fairbanks

A hidden boss in the left chamber on the right side of the cathedral. You can open the door by pulling on a torch on the wall. He only drops greens, but as mail will be available with level 40, the boots are quite nice. They have lots of armor and stamina which is lacking on the cloth caster stuff.

• Dusty Mail Boots
• Inquisitor's Shawl
• Branded Leather Bracers
  

High Inquisitor Whitemane

Do not overnuke! If you accidently kill her, she will not resurrect Mograine and you will be missing out on half of the loot.

Her drops are awesome: caster necklace and hat, a healing mace and one design for jewelcrafters.

• Tribune Amulet
• Whitemane's Chapeau
• Hand of Righteousness
• Design: Citrine Pendant of Golden Healing

Scarlet Commander Mograine

Total wuss. Can be two-shotted with Elemental Mastery and Blood Fury.

I cannot stress enough how incredibly awesome his shield is. It gives 1548 armor. At level 40, with a mix of mail and cloth items, it more than doubled my armor when I equipped this shield. The next best shield that can be farmed effectively is the Battered Viking Shield from Olaf in Uldaman. It comes with considerably less armor. If you have an Alliance shaman team then even this is not an option as the three vikings can only be attacked by Horde.

Anyway, get it! With all 5 shaman. The other crap he drops can be safely sharded.

• Aegis of the Scarlet Commander
• Gauntlets of Divinity
• Mograine's Might
• Scarlet Leggings
  

Scarlet Monastery: Armory

Take a look at the High Elf statue in the middle of the picture. That's what the Blood Elves looked like before they collectively joined the Village People. Since then they have evolved and nowadays each and every one of them looks like Son Goku.

Like in the library, be very careful with runners as they will aggro more mobs and things will be going south sooner as you might expect.

Herod

Another opportunity to practise that fine positioning strategy we learned in the Library. Just spread out a little behind him so that his cleave won't hit more than one. When he does his whirlwind he will be immune to all damage, so stop attacking then and heal the one that is tanking him.

After Herod is down, the fun part will start: the Scarlet Trainee zergfest. They are weak and don't have much life but they come in masses. You essentially have two choices:

1. Easy: fry them with Fire Nova Totem
2. Hard: kill them off one by one using Chain Lighning, Lightning Bolt and shocks

If you choose the easy path, you will not be able to loot them to get the tabard. To be able do it the hard way mainly depends on the amount of mana you got left from the Herod fight. In any case, distract them first with Stoneclaw Totem or else they will immediately kill off the Fire Nova Totems or do too much damage to your team.

During my first run, they clubbed my team into pieces as I totally underestimated them.

Drop wise, the only interesting item from Herod are his shoulders which are mail and have a decent amount of stamina.

• Herod's Shoulder
• Raging Berserker's Helm
• Scarlet Leggings
• Ravager
  

Scarlet Monastery: Library

Things are getting a little bit tougher within the library wing of the Monastery. The mobs are hitting harder and tend to flee. So, make sure to stop them or they will come back with a bunch of angry friends.

Houndmaster Loksey

Nothing special here, just make sure to have enough mana before engaging the boss and kill off his hounds with chain lightning.

I got the dog whistle off him for 3 of my chars. Now I just have to decide whom to scare off with my new pack...

• Dog Training Gloves
• Dog Whistle
• Locksey's Training Stick
  

Arcanist Doan

This is the first fight that requires something different than the usual nuke strategy. He only casts AoE spells, so grounding totem is useless here. Additionally, he is able to silence and has an invulnerability bubble (that one alone prevents nuking if you don't happen to oneshot him). Just going in and standing in one place is a safe way to meet your ancestors.

A strategy that works would be to place one shaman each into every corner of the room before and pull him out with the main. That way it will take a little time for him to run towards the one who has aggro and also will prevent him to cast silence on your whole team. At some point during the fight he will bubble and immediately begin to cast his Detonation spell which does massive damage. He might even kill one of your chars if it was not on full health. But don't worry, just throw out a group heal and continue burning him down.

His cloth drops are not really interesting, they are ok if you don't have anything else, but the chest from Razorfen Kraul and shoulders from the Graveyard are better in my opinion due to the amount of spell crit.

His weapon drops, on the other hand, are really, really nice. I farmed both the staff for normal questing and the dagger for instance runs.

He has a low chance of dropping the first epic item (level wise) in the game. A ring that is mostly suited for twink pvp. Unfortunately, I didn't see it drop on any of my runs.

Also, don't forget to loot the Scarlet key from the chest in his room. It's needed to enter the Armory, Cathedral and, at later levels, also the living part of Stratholme.

• Robe of Doan
• Mantle of Doan
• Hypnotic Blade
• Illusionary Rod
• Deadman's Hand
• The Scarlet Key
  

Scarlet Monastery: Graveyard

The graveyard can be done as early as level 30, probably sooner and is not very challenging. Just make sure to pull carefully in the torture chamber.

One thing that makes the graveyard special is the diversity of bosses. In addition to the 2 normal ones, there are 3 rares and 1 special boss that only appears during the Scourge event. Also, there is the Headless Horseman which I will not list here as it's a level 70 encounter and deserves it's own article.

Interrogator Vishas

Seriously, this guy gives me the creeps. His favorite pastime it to torture fellow Forsaken for the greater good.

• Bloody Brass Knuckles
• Torturing Poker
  

Ironspine (rare)

Bony guy with horns. No interesting drops.

• Ironspine's Ribcage
• Ironspine's Eye
• Ironspine's Fist
  

Fallen Champion (rare)

Unfortunately, the Fallen Champion was too shy and didn't show himself on the numerous runs that I did.

• Ebon Vise
• Embalmed Shroud
• Morbid Dawn

Azshir the Sleepless (rare)

He can drop a caster necklace and pants, but not worth the effort to farm it.

• Necrotic Wand
• Blighted Leggings
• Ghostshard Talisman
  

Bloodmage Thalmos

He drops a nice shoulder piece with spell crit that is more suited for Elemental shaman than the shoulder piece off Doan in the library. You can wear them until mail becomes available at level 40.

• Bloodmage Mantle
• Orb of the Forgotten Seer
  

Gnomeregan

Gnomes! You either love them or hate them. Horde players tend to fit into the latter category, so I might be the exception here, cause I love those cute little guys. Many players, even Alliance, tend to skip Gnomeregan, maybe because they don't like the instance design or because of their animosity towards Gnomes. Probably both. But I enjoy helping them in their endeavour to retake their city.

Gnomeregan is the first instance that can be a little tougher at times. First of all, make sure to kill those alarm bots as they can pull half of the instance if they are not stopped in time. Also, make sure to pull carefully.

Techbot

Techbot is outside of the instance and has therefore been nerfed, he is no longer elite. For Horde there is no point in killing him really, but I decided to give him a visit anyway as he has some of the coolest quotes in the game. He comes second only to Cro Threadstrong in Shattrath.

Grubbis

This boss is only available at the end of an escort event where you help a cute little Gnome in blowing up the caves to prevent further invasion of Troggs.

• Grubbis Paws

Fallout

My favorite boss of the instance. Fallout drops one of a few evergreen items in the game. While many will be replaced by better gear, his Hydrocane is still of use to high level characters. Even if you are playing a class with underwater breathing like druid, it can still be better to equip this staff when you run out of air than to switch to waterform. It doesn't use mana and you can continue casting (or use melee attacks if you are feral). The only downside is that it will take up 1 slot in your inventory.

At level 70, it's very easy to farm Fallout. Just jump down right after you enter the instance, kill Fallout and reset.

• Acid Walkers
• Toxic Revenger
• Hydrocane
  

Electrocutioner 6000

Killing the Electrocutioner will complete the first Dungeon attunement in the game, by looting the Workshop Key. It will open a shortcut to the last bosses in Gnomeregan, Crowd Pummeler 9-60 and Mekgineer Thermaplugg.

• Electrocutioner Lagnut
• Spidertank Oilrag
• Electrocutioner Leg
• Workshop Key
  

Crowd Pummeler 9-60

If you want to make a level 29 twink that can use maces, I suggest you farm this boss over and over. He drops a mace with an insane amount of haste rating. Unfortunately, the effect is on use and only has 3 charges, so it's kinda limited. But the mace is not unique, so you can have many of them in your bags.

• Gnomebot Operating Boots
• Manual Crowd Pummeler
  

Dark Iron Ambassador

A rare boss in the instance. I was unlucky in my run, so no screenshot.

• Glass Shooter
• Emissary Cuffs
• Royal Diplomatic Scepter
  

Mekgineer Thermaplugg

The final boss of the instance. Usually you need a strategy for him with one member pushing the buttons to prevent bombs from dropping, but that's not necessary with 5x dps. Just nuke him. He deserved it.

Besides the usual blue items, he sometimes drops Engineering recipes, including the one for Flame Deflector that can not be obtained any other way. It's not bind on pickup though, so you might be lucky and see it on the auction house.

• Charged Gear
• Thermaplugg's Central Core
• Thermaplugg's Left Arm
• Electromagnetic Gigaflux Reactivator
• Schematic: Flame Deflector
  

The One Where They All Turn Thirty

I am lagging a little behind with my blog posts. My shaman squadron not only reached 30 but is actually nearly 40 now and I have already completed three more instances (Gnomeregan, Razorfen Downs and the Scarlet Monastery).

But first things first.

The most recent patch (2.4.3) brought a change that I thought would never come: mounts at 30. While it certainly was convenient to be a little faster, I didn't really like the change. Previously, it was something to look forward to at level 40. Something that kept you on grinding and questing. The feeling "Nice, level 30, now only 10 more levels until I get my mount" was exchanged with "OK, level 30, now only 28 more levels until I can enter Outland". Sure, there are other things you get at 40 and 50 (more about that in later posts), but nothing that felt as big a step as the mount at 40.

Besides the riding skill, I also got the last of the totems: Totem of Air. It came in a package with the totally overpowered Grounding Totem. This totem alone trivializes most fights against casters as their spells will be absorbed by the totem. It's only not effective against AoE spells, so those can be still quite deadly.

Then there is Elemental Fury which will increase the damage of all spell crits.

And finally, Astral Recall which replaces the Hearthstone and only has 15 minutes cooldown. I should relocate my home to Shattrath as being able to port to any city every 15 minutes would be very convenient.

That was all for level 30.

But there will be another huge upgrade just 2 levels later: Chain Lightning.

Razorfen Kraul

Razorfen Kraul, a nice cosy pigfarm in Southern Barrens... Ok, actually not that cosy, there are armed pigs all over the place, but perfect if you run out of pork chops.

Aggem Thorncurse

I was suprised that he dropped anything, if I recall correctly he was just a quest boss before the dungeon redesign.

• Thornspike
  

Death Speaker Jargba

By a large margin the winner of the Pig of the Month award.

He only drops items which are useful for elemental shaman and is relatively easy to reach, after only a couple of trash mobs. You can even take a little shortcut if you climb up a root, although the pull will be more dangerous this way as he sometimes will run towards you and come in range to cast mindcontrol on one of your chars. My first wipe ever since I started the shaman team was due to one of those pulls.

Anyway, as I said, he will only drop useful items, a robe with spell crit, a shoulderpiece and a mace with a little bit of spell damage. The drop chance for the mace is kinda low, though, so I would recommend to only get the chest and shoulderpiece for all chars. A typical farm run takes about 10 minutes.

• Death Speaker Mantle
• Death Speaker Robe
• Death Speaker Scepter

Overlord Ramtusk

Drops a nice melee weapon, but nothing of value for elemental.

• Tusken Helm
• Corpsemaker
  

Razorfen Spearhide

Ramtusk comes with two adds who have a chance to drop a blue item of their own.

• Armor Piercer
  

Earthcaller Halmgar (rare)

I have not seen a drop at lower levels that would have been more geared towards elemental shaman than the leather headpiece that drops off this rare boss. As much as I wanted the item, the idea of farming a rare in a middle of an instance was so painful that I decided to not pursue it any further.

• Whisperwind Headdress
• Wind Spirit Staff
  

Agathelos the Raging

Another one of those pigs.

• Ferine Leggings
• Swinetusk Shank
  

Blind Hunter (rare)

Surprisingly, not a pig.

• Nightstalker Bow
• Batwing Mantle
• Stygian Bone Amulet
  

Charlga Razorflank

Final boss pig of the instance. Tougher than the other bosses pigs, but not really dangerous.

• Agamaggan's Clutch
• Heart of Agamaggan
• Pronged Reaver
  

Blackfathom Deeps

A partly flooded cave system, Blackfathom Deeps reminds me a little bit of the Wailing Caverns. It can be completed much quicker though because the instance is not as big and there is much less chance that you will get lost.

Ghamoo-ra

Like Kresh in Wailing Caverns, this is another turtle variety that has a nice drop and is very easy to farm. To get to Ghamoo-ra you only need to kill 3-5 trash mobs. It's possible to reach him in little over 2 minutes. Add another 10 seconds to make turtle soup. Loot, reset, rinse and repeat.

• Ghamoo-ra's Bind
• Tortoise Armor
  

Lady Sarevess

The first boss that I encountered that actually felt like a boss. Sarevess can do quite some damage with her Forked Lightning spell.

• Darkwater Talwar
• Naga Battle Gloves
• Naga Heartpiercer
  

Gelihast

A Murloc boss. Before you kill him, make sure to put away Murky, Gurky and Lurky to prevent pet trauma.

• Reef Axe
• Algae Fists
  

Old Serra'kis

It's best to cast Water Breathing on your shaman party before engaging this boss, so you don't have to return to the surface midfight.

• Glowing Thresher Cape
• Band of Serra'kis
• Bite of Serra'kis
  

Twilight Lord Kelris

He drops two nice items for casters. Not very convenient for farming though due to his position at the end of the instance.

After killing him, make sure to activate all four candles at once. If you do so, you will receive a free epic item.

• Rod of the Sleepwalker
• Gaze Dreamer Pants
  

Aku'mai

A pet of the old Gods. He does drop a leather belt for casters and also a very stylish two-handed Sword. Too bad shaman can't use swords.

• Moss Cinch
• Leech Pants
• Strike of the Hydra
  

Shadowfang Keep

I always liked the Shadowfang Keep for it's creepy atmosphere. Makes me want to get a keep of my own someday where I can lure all those greedy adventurers into my cleverly devised traps, protecting the gold in the treasury and the princess in the tower.

Rethilgore

Pushover cellkeeper. He is so easy that I confused him with normal trash and forgot to take a picture of the guy.

• Rugged Spaulders

Razorclaw the Butcher

Pushover butcher. As easy as his cellkeeper friend.

• Bloody Apron
• Butcher's Slicer
• Butcher's Cleaver
  

Baron Silverlaine

The previous owner of the keep. Judging from his outfit probably not a real baron. He looks more like a lunatic clown that recently escaped from his cage at the Darkmoon Faire.

• Baron's Scepter
• Silverlaine's Family Seal
  

Commander Springvale

This boss resides in the room with the most annoying mobs in the whole instance. They have an AOE silence spell and will cast it quite often. So it happens alot that you feel chain-silenced although there is only 1 of them around. In groups they can be fatal, so pull carefully.

• Arced War Axe
• Commander's Crest
  

Odo the Blindwatcher

Odo actually drops one of the few true shaman items in Shadowfang Keep, a leather belt with plenty of intellect. However, as his position is quite deep in the instance, it's not very convenient to farm him.

• Girdle of the Blindwatcher
• Odo's Ley Staff
  

Deathsworn Captain (rare)

I only did one run and he didn't spawn then, so no picture.

• Haunting Blade
• Phantom Armor
  

Fenrus the Devourer

Arugal's doggy version of Mr. Bigglesworth.

• Fenrus' Hide
• Black Wolf Bracers
  

Arugal's Voidwalker

After defeating Fenrus, 4 non-elite voidwalker will spawn. They are no real threat and will be killed very quickly, but have a small chance to drop blue bracers. If you want to loot them, make sure to kill them with spells and not with totems. I used Fire Nova Totem so they were not lootable.

• Rift Bracers

Wolf Master Nandos

The second to last boss in the instance. Make sure to first kill his pack. If you attack him first, you will have to fight all of them simultaneously. He drops matching shoulders for Arugal's robes and belt.

• Feline Mantle
• Wolfmaster Cape
  

Archmage Arugal

Level 21, but wants to be called an Archmage... This guy really lives in his own little world.

But at least he is properly dressed. His robes and belt have really nice caster stats for their level.

• Robes of Arugal
• Belt of Arugal
• Meteor Shard
  

Leveling Speed

After only one week, my shaman are in their twenties and it made me wonder how long it would take to get them to 70. Will I be able to manage it before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion comes?

It's hard to predict the leveling process as the earlier levels are much easier than the later ones. It's also not a solution to measure your XP/hour ration and then calculate how long it would take to get the points needed to reach 70 (that would be 10.8 million XP in total) as you will receive more XP from mobs and quests at later levels.

To get a measure for the leveling speed that remains more or less constant during the leveling process, I calculated the number of mob kills that are needed to gain a level. It starts with 8 mobkills at level 1 and reaches up to 1344 kills at level 69. In total, nearly 28000 kills would be needed without rested bonus if one was only grinding to 70.

During the first week, I reached level 22 which amounts to about 2000 kills worth of XP. Using this speed I came up with the following estimation:

Week 1: Level 22
Week 2: Level 32
Week 3: Level 39
Week 4: Level 45
Week 5: Level 50
Week 6: Level 55
Week 7: Level 58
Week 8: Level 61
Week 9: Level 63
Week 10: Level 65
Week 10: Level 67
Week 12: Level 69
Week 13: Level 70

That means I would hit 70 in about 3 months in the middle of October. This might be the time when Wrath of the Lich King will be released. Hopefully, I will be able to keep up with the schedule.

Theorycrafting source:

• http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Mob_XP
• http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:XP_To_Level

Tranquillien

I chose to quest a lot in the Blood Elf starter areas. The quests are designed with much less running required than in the old zones. Also, there are some nice rewards for the final quests in the Ghostlands. One of those rewards is the Tranquillien Champion's Cloak.

It's one of the best low level cloaks in the game and can be worn even until 30. It's not a quest reward but can be bought from a vendor upon reaching exalted with Tranquillien. That sounds harder than it actually is. You will reach it by just doing all the quests in the area. I even skipped some of the not-so-multiboxing-friendly collection quests and still it was no problem.