Deadmines Walkthrough #21,735,113 (long)

[goomba_boy]

This is probably the 18 billionth walkthrough of the Deadmines out here in cyberspace, but I was touched by the inspiration that spawns these kinds of things - being bored at work. So I started scribbling this walkthrough. If you have already been through the Deadmines, please post your comments here and I will try to get them added to the writeup (with proper credit, of course). If you ever happen to see me on the Silver Hand server, say "hi". Oh, and give me a hand with the 14 mobs I always seem to be training around these days.

Guumbah, NE Druid and Artisan Mob Aggroer

P.S. There be spoilers ahead - enter at yer own risk (insert maniacal laughter here)

Before leaving on your Deadmines Vacation:

First off, make sure you are stocked up on your quests. Running the Deadmines is fun and profitable, but you want your XP experience as well, right? There are three quests that I am aware of that require you to go into the Deadmines instance itself - one is the quest for Van Cleef's head - you get that from one of the Sentinels at the Sentinel Tower in Westfall at the end of the Defias Brotherhood series of quests. The second is for Paladins only - Test of Righteousness (it't not a full quest, just an item you need to get from within the instance). The third is from the Gnome Snori the Shilent that you pick up in the Dwarf Section of Stormwind (Underground Assault).

There are a couple of other quests that also involve the Deadmines, but do not require you to enter the instance. Both (Collecting Memories and O Brother) are available from a Dwarf in the dwarven tavern in Stormwind (The tavern is in the Southwest corner of the Dwarven area). It is easy to find the section of the Deadmines that these quests are performed in - it is a different color than the rest of the mines on your mini-map. In my experience, some Deadmines instance parties will complete these quests as a warmup before entering the instance itself (the undead area is just past the instance portal).

Note that this section is filled with Level 16-18 Undead Elites - and when you pull them you won't get just one. I was in this section with a couple of "Sawed Off" members last night (lvl 20 Mage, lvl 20 Warlock) and we had a bad pull that completely wiped us out. Some of the mobs have a nice little "dead-man switch" curse that they put on you - 60 seconds after getting cursed you are pounded with a 300+ HP hit. Having remove curse or making sure you have enough health to weather the curse is key here.

Now that you have your quests, it's time to get together a hunting party. If you are fortunate enough to be in a decent guild or have a good groups of friends you won't need to read the rest of this paragraph. For others such as myself who are not yet guilded (and not all that friendly, if the truth be told...), it is a much more haphazard process. The usual process is to get to Westfall, and start monitoring the General chat for group notices. If you are a type "A" humanoid, you will want to get into general chat and start advertising your own party (feel free to lie, cheat, steal, say bad things about your grandparents, anything to get your party together. Just don't come complaining to me when a couple of "Collection Specialist" ogres show up at your favorite tavern to talk with you about the promises that you made to Vinnie "Punitive Interest" Bonecrusher).

Now that you have a means of getting a party together, it's time to see what you are dealing with. First question you want to ask the others is "have you been in the deadmines before?". Depending on the response and the type of realm you are on you might want to try "Have you heard of the English language?". A no to either of these questions is a definite red flag.

Seriously, you want to be careful with first-timers in an instance. Instance play is all about strategy, and not the same strategies that work in the rest of the wide world. There is nothing wrong with taking one or two first timers along, as long as they understand that they should follow the direction of the group boss or risk wiping the group just because they saw an ore deposit they just had to have. It doesn't hurt to give them a quick tutorial on what they should expect while in the instance.

This is also a good time to feel out the others in the group to see what they will be like in the instance - if they have been in before, ask them about how they dealt with some of the areas mentioned below (Mast Room, Foundry, VC's ship). If they don't have a clear strategy, be afraid. Be very afraid.

All in all, the composition of your party (which I'll get to in a minute) has less of an impact than the personalities / skills of the group. You don't need the perfect composition of classes to be able to pull this off, but you MUST have people who will work as a team and play their roles. If you happen to find yourself in a group with others who just run in and start whacking mobs, or aren't fair on how they loot - make your apologies and get the hell out of there even if you are in the middle of the instance. You'll thank me later.

Now let's talk about party composition. Really, any combination of classes will work, as long as people know how to play their classes. Rather than trying to compose the "ideal" group and then deal with the endless discussions about that, I'll stick to identifying the roles that are useful in the instance (not listed in order of importance):

1) Puller - someone with a ranged attack that will pull mobs to the rest of the party for their smacking. This one is pretty important because some of the pulls can be tricky.

2) Sheeper - someone who can deal with adds and keep them out of the fray until the group is ready for them. If you have the ability to keep two targets sheeped at the same time you are giving another mob a good seeing-to you will be in good shape.

3) Tank - Self explanatory, but what you are really looking for here is someone who knows how to hold aggro - a lot of players don't. That bears repeating. Just because they have a big shiny sword and have figured out the "flex" emote it doesn't mean that they can hold aggro. Find out if they can before your butt is on the line.

4) Healer - Again, self explanatory. I personally play a druid, so I have done more healing than anything else in Deadmines. The really good ones will keep pets and servants healed up as well.

5) Rezzer - When you get to those inevitable times where you've been byotch-slapped by one of the bosses, a rezzer is a life saver. If the fight goes south fast, your rezzer should be smart enough to get out of dodge so they can rezz the party for round two (or three, four, sixty eight, whatever).

Regardless of your group composition, take the time before you go into the instance to make sure everyone understands their roles. I went in with a pickup party once that had two mages - both determined to be the puller. Until they were sorted out we were dealing with 4-6 mobs at a time because they would both pull.

Enough with the war stories. Let's talk about looting policy for a minute. Take the number of people that are on all of the servers, multiply by two, and then add one. That is the approximate number of opinions on what the best loot policy is. Honestly, it doesn't matter as long as you are happy that the policy is fair.

What you do want to watch out for is loot whores. They reveal themselves in a couple of ways. First of all, they will roll on every piece of loot that it at or above the threshold, even if they can't use it. Second is that they loot when other players are in combat or even dead (this is even more sleazy).

Sometimes a gentle reminder is all that is needed. If that doesn't get the point across then the best solution is to get to the next boss, let the loot whore aggro the boss while the rest of the group is suddenly afflicted with an acute case of temporary pacifism. Have a moment of silence for the dearly departed loot whore before kicking them out of the group.

Just remember that setting the looting style is frequently not enough in pickup instance groups. Talk about looting policy before you go in. I like to ask others what types of items they will / will not be rolling on as a way of checking to see if they play honorably. Just like they used to say in Sunday School, your reputation as a good player is worth a lot more than some sparkly gew-gaw that you might get by being a selfish bastard and/or bitch.

One last thing - Since the Gnome and Dwarf quests are starting quests, you can share them with others in your group - do this before you go in. It's a nice way to win friends and influence people. Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to tell them where to go to complete the quests (nothing worse than finishing a quest and not knowing where to turn it in).

Let's see, we talked about getting a group, the roles, looting and sharing quests - what was next? Oh yeah - entering the instance.

[goomba_boy]

Diving in to the Deadmines

You have your party, everyone knows their job, and now it is time to bring da pain, da noise, da in-laws... Oh wait - I got my "day planner" list mixed in my notes. Sorry.

For the most part, the non-instance areas of the deadmines are simple for a group above level 17-18, with one exception. Just make sure that if you come across one of the elites in the non-instance part you take care of them first. The miners should present no problems for the group unless you happen to aggro too many of them. Don't do that.

If you are taking the optional signtseeing tour of "Undead" portion of the deadmines you need to be a bit more careful. As a matter of fact, this is a good place for you to practice your group strategy in dealing with tougher mobs (after you get to the Mast Room in the Deadmines instance most of the mobs will be elites). What I would recommend is to treat this undead area as if it were the instance and see how well your group pulls mobs, sheeps adds, and so forth. If your group has trouble over here, don't bother entering the instance (I'm not kidding here). You will get slaughtered when you get to the tougher areas of the instance.

Assuming all went well here (or that you didn't bother with the dwarven quests) it's time to get to the instance. You can't miss the instance portal - there's not too many 20 foot tall pulsating portals down there. Take a couple of minutes to get your buffs in place and work out last minute strategy changes before you go in.

Into the Instance

Now that you are in the instance, you will notice that the composition of mobs isn't that much different than in the non-instanced part of the Deadmines. There are a few more elites around, but you shouldn't have much trouble. Let the beatings begin!

After you wander down a few passages you will come to a decent sized cavern with a closed door. Standing in front of the door is a rather grumpy Ogre by the name of Rhahk'Zor (the Foreman). You have to kill him before the door opens in here. I'd strongly recommend pulling all of the rest of the elite mobs in the room before you get his attention. Although he is tough, he is the easiest boss in the instance. If you managed your pulls correctly you should be able to take him down without a problem.

You can pull and fight Rhak'Zor without aggroing the two elites by the door if you are careful. Submitted by Dryfft

This area is also where you need to start keeping an eye out for the wandering patrols. Each major section of the instance has their own patrol that respawn more rapidly than the rest of the mobs, so be alert. The patrols wanddering between to Rhahk'Zor and the Mast Room are 2 elites, the patrols after the Mast Room are 3 elites. Nothing can ruin your day faster than being jumped by a patrol while you are in the middle of a boss fight. The "Detect Humanoids" ability is a real plus for advanced warning of patrols.

After sending Rhahk'Zor to his dirt nap, you will see more of the same (miners, elite henchpersons) until you get to the Mast Room. This is your first decent fight.

The Mast Room

This was one of those rooms that made me stop and go "Gahhh..." when I saw it. Yeah, it's cartoonish, but it was really cool as well. Before you enter this room you need to have your pulling strategy down pat. In addition to the boss you are facing in here, there are several elite goblins (lvl 19-21) as well. If you happen to be unfortunate enough (or dumb enough) to get their collective attention, you are in for a kicking.

Start your pulling outside of Mast Room itself. Have your puller be the only one that approaches / enters the Mast Room until you don't see any goblins from the doorway. From there bring the group into the very back of the Mast Room (far right as you enter) and stay there until the rest of the room is cleared.

Once you get into the room you will see Shredder - a deranged refugee from a Mad Max junkyard (yes, I'm dating myself here). Shredder wanders a path from in front of the exit door to an area off to the right side of the room. If your puller is careful and talented, you can pull the Goblins near the exit without pulling Shredder. There is one goblin that hides to the far left of the exit door that a lot of groups miss. Once all of the goblins are cleared, it's time for Shredder.

Shredder can cast Fear - Submitted by Dryfft

Shredder is actually two battles - one is with Shredder itself, and the second is with Sneed, the goblin that drives Shredder. Once Shredder is killed, Sneed will pop out and you will have to beat him down as well. It's not an incredibly tough battle, just be ready for round two when Shredder goes down. Oh, and I swear that this is the exact time that the wandering patrol will show up. Keep your eyes peeled, and if possible take the patrol out before you tackle Shredder (the patrols do re-spawn, but not too quickly).

If you want to have some fun, before you aggro Shredder you can get up on one of the big massive logs in the room. Sneak your party up on the log and attack Shredder from above. I haven't tried it, but Shredder can't be much of a climber, right?

If you survive Shredder and the Mast Room without serious injury you are doing fine. The next few boss battles are a lot tougher, but if you are this far there is hope for you.

Final notes on the Mast Room - Pallies - this is where you get your Whitestone Oak Lumber from for your Test of Righteousness Quest. If you picked up the Underground Assault quest from Snori in Stormwind you will get your dohickey from the pile of scrap that used to be Shredder.

[goomba_boy]

The Foundry

Once you are past the Mast Room you are back to caves, miners and elite henchmen. There will be a few more goblins in this area, but sticking to your tactics should get you through here smelling like a rose (figuratively speaking - after all, you have been fighing your way through a cave for the past several hours - a shower wouldn't hurt at this point).

After purging a few more tunnels in the name of Azeroth (Elune, Ironbeard, Archimonde, your friends hot sister, whomever) you will enter the top of the Foundry Room - a long curving ramp that wraps around a center furnace. Here's a little pointer to those of you that love to play practical jokes on your group mates - jump over the railing right down to the floor of the Foundry, and then run back up the ramp to your friends waiting at the top. Wait 'till you see the look on their faces when your little train arrives at their station ;-)

Getting back to reality, keep your party away from the edge of the ramp. If you are unfortunate enough to jump/fall off, just stay down there until you die (or beat down all of the mobs). Training every mob and their sister back to your party has a tendency to offend. I haven't personally seen it, but I have heard stories about getting too close to the edge of the ramp and aggroing mobs on the foundry floor (even though you are way above them). Best bet is to keep the party to the left all the way down the ramp.

On the way down you will see pairs and triples of mobs on the ramp. When you pull one, you'll get all of them. Just be prepared to sheep the adds, or assign specific mobs to people in the group. Again, watch out for wandering patrols - you get three elites per patrol from here onward.

One thing about these battles - some of the Goblins will conjure up "battle bots" when they are attacked. These mechanoids are not elite, but do take a beating. Your best bet is to deal with the goblins in small numbers so they don't have time to drop too many of these constructs.

It is the Goblin Engineers that drop these bots. Concentrate on killing the engineers - the Bots will despawn at half health if their engineer is killed - Submitted by Dryfft

When you get to the bottom of the ramp you still have to clear the foundry floor. The mini-boss for this area is Gilnid and he hangs out by the door for the next section. Clear out all of the other mobs first, and then work your way over to him. Parties I have been in have had good success with staying at the bottom of the ramp and clearing mobs off of the foundry floor by sweeping from right to left (clearing the area around the furnace first, then moving over to the door area).

One strategy that makes the Foundry much easier is to keep your group a little way up the ramp, and have the puller bring the mobs up the ramp. Very little chance of aggroing other mobs - Submitted by Dryfft

I've never really noticed the battle with Gilnid to be particularily tough, but all successful runs I have been in have done an excellent job of clearing the room before starting in on Gilnid. Feel free to experiment to see if he calls in the rest of the goblins in the foundry when you engage him before killing the rest. Make sure you take screen-shots - I like my desktop background to have a strong "red" theme.

After you wave bye-bye to Gilnid the door to the next section opens and you are back in the mines again. Most of the mobs here are elite, and as usual, watch for wandering parties. After a time you will come up to a closed door with a cannon parked in front of it. If there were only a way to set off the cannon...

In a side passage right before the cannon you will find a small keg of powder. This will activate the cannon, shattering the door beyond. I'd strongly recommend doing all your heals and buffs at this point because the action is about to heat up.

The Ship

When you blow away the door you will hear First Mate Smite yelling at some underlings to check out the explosion - You are about to have company. Three elite pirates will show up to express their annoyance that you have just destroyed the door that they spent a whole weekend putting up (and they could have been out pillaging with all of their pirate friends). Forget about the subtle approach at this point - even the parrots know you are coming.

If you high-tail it back away from the door as soon as the cannon goes off, the investigating pirates will not see you and return to their posts. You can then pull them individually instead of fighting all three at once - Submitted by Dryfft

Once you deal with this initial group you will be looking out at a long dock stretching out towards a behemoth pirate ship. This thing is huge (and to me looks quite a bit like the cannon ships from WC2). Along the dock you will see groupings of pirates (and their freaking birds - you'll come to hate them). Again, if you have a good puller you will not have any trouble with this area. Be careful you don't fall off the dock into the water - all of the places where you can climb out have elite mobs inconsiderately wandering around. As you approach the end of the dock note the big Tauren standing at the top of the gang-plank. Meet Mr. Smite.

There is an alternate path to get onto the ship without facing Mr. Smite. After entering the cavern with the ship, drop off of the dock and swim around to the opposite side of the ship, killing the Goblins along the shore as you go. You skip the battle with Mr. Smite, but you have to deal with Cookie instead. According to Dmitry, he drops a very nice rolling pin (mace) that was used with great success in the WoW beta to teach Whizbang Dustyboots the error of his ways. Submitted by Dryfft and Dmitry the Wizzy

Mr. Smite

Whatever you do, don't get too close to the end of the dock here. Depending on your level, Smite will aggro from quite a ways away, certainly by the time you reach the little island that the dock and gangplank meet at. Do all of your buffing and healing because you are in for a real fight here.

When the Battle with Smite begins, two stealthed elite rogues pop up out of no-where. Have your strategy ready in advance for dealing with them - The one I have seen used with success is:

Set one or two tanks on Smite to gain aggro, and have the rest concentrate on putting down the rogues. Then concentrate firepower on Smite.

I have also seen parties that sheep the rogues and deal with Smite first, but this is tougher due to Smite's little trick:

Once Smite reaches 2/3 hit points, he casts an AOE stun while he runs back to the ship to get different weapons. The stun goes away right at the time he runs back down to start throwing down again, so you have a few seconds to do heals, etc. Be careful - aggro was lost, so if healers are throwing around major health spells, you will get his attention. I've never been able to fight off this stun, and I have tried parking myself a ways away from the main party. If you have ever not been stunned in this fight, let me know about it.

He does this one more time when you get him to 1/3 points.

Smite battle info updated based on submission by Dryfft

If you survive this battle, it is time to do the rezzes, heals, buffs, etc prior to getting on the ship. Oh, and Smite drops a very nice "Blue" Hammer. Remember kiddies - if you can't use the weapon, DON'T ROLL ON IT!!!

The Ship (again)

The battles on the ship are similar to the battles across the dock, only more of them. Your puller has to be much more careful here because a bad pull or someone wandering in the wrong spot will aggro more pirates than there were extras in "Pirates of the Carribean". Be careful and you will be fine. Whatever you do, do not attack pirates that are not on the same deck of the ship as you are. AOE nukes tend to get groups in trouble here.

The pirates on the ship actually have a relatively small aggro radius to keep from aggroing groups below them. Other than the boss battles on the top deck, you should be able to pull them singly or in pairs. The AOE ban still applies unless you know EXACTLY where the AOE radius ends - Submitted by Dryfft

If I remember correctly, you go back and forth across the ship 3 times to get up to the top deck. As you approach the last deck you will notice three mobs that are doing laps around the top deck. This is Captain Greenskin and his guards. Your next mini-boss appointment.

Prior to getting to Greenskin you still have the rest of the pirates to kill. As you get closer to that top deck you will have to time your pulls to when Greenskin and company are on the other side of the deck. Be aware of the fact that some pirates will not immediately chase you when you tap them - sometimes they stay in place for a bit and aggro the other bad guys around them.

After you have cleared all of the rest of the crew, position your group a little ways down the gangplank leading to the top deck (I personally prefer waiting at the bottom corner of the highest gangplank). Have your puller go and tap the Captain. The others will certainly be along for the ride.

Before you tap these guys, make sure that you have your strategy all ready to go - all three of them hit hard and have lots of hit points, so you will want to tank / sleep as is your group preference. Captain Greenskin doesn't have any tricks like Smite, but it seems that there are more deaths in this battle than with Smite - I think that they are just tougher mobs.

Once you take the Captain and his guards down you are ready for the big dustup - Van Cleef. Time to do your rezzing, heals and buffs, say any prayers you feel need saying, and be sure to change into your clean pair of underwear (just in case). It's time to meet the boss.

[goomba_boy]

Van Cleef

Personally, I think that Van Cleef is seriously mis-understood, and we can straighten this whole Westfall / Defias business out over a few pints at the pub. Unfortunately, Van Cleef is a "reach out and touch someone" kind of a guy only in the terminal sense. I even offered to buy the first round, but he still insisted on decorating the mizzenmast with my colon. Oh well, it's a wolf-eat-wolf world, and I seem to be wearing bunny flavored underwear.

If you think the rest of the battles were tough, theu were just the warmup act. This guy will put a serious crimp in your after-instance plans. Before we get to a blow by blow, let's talk about geography.

When you climb up to the top deck you will be looking at the side of a cabin. Several meters forward (towards the pointy end of the boat for those of you without a nautical background) there is a black opening into another cabin area. Note the nasty red text in here. Don't get too close unless you are really in a hurry for a corpse run.

You can go where you like (and you will, I'm sure - my wife doesn't even listen to me), but I'd recommend positioning the group next to the wall of the cabin you are facing when you step on the top deck. From there have your puller slide around the front of that cabin so they can see directly into the dark area that Van Cleef is standing in. Pull when ready.

When Van Cleef comes for you he is accompanied by two very tough rogues. As with Smite and Captain Greenskin, have your strategy ready before you pull him. Once you get Van Cleef down to 50% health, he will spawn two more rogues. Unfortunately for me in my last trip, this was right at the time that I had to throw out some serious healing, so they both aggroed me and I died right as Van Cleef hit the deck. That was just plain embarrassing.

Again, a good plan will keep you alive and healthy here. As I mentioned above, the second set of rogues pop right about the point in the battle where healers will have to start dealing some serious "chicken soup" type attention, so if you don't have these adds sheeped or properly tanked, healers go bye bye, then everyone else does.

If you happen to die during the final battle, DON'T release unless you don't have a rezzer, or your rezzer has gone down as well. If you try to corpse run back, you will never make it by the time the body decomposes. In the run I mentioned above I released as soon as I hit the deck, and with NE wisp abilities I got back to the instance post haste. Even moving at top speed, I got back about 20 seconds after VC's body had evaporated. Dwarvish swearing ensued (yes, I know - but Dwarvish is such a great language for swearing in). I'm still not sure if you can loot VC's head if you died during the last battle, so if anyone knows, post a reply and I will update this part of the walkthrough. I have also heard that if someone opens a loot window but doesn't actually loot the body will stay long enough for others to make a CR. Again, this is a rumor, so let me know...

So now you have killed the bad guy, stuffed his bloody head in the bottom of your backpack and spent a moment thinking how much better the world would be if everyone was just a little nicer to each other. Now it's time to kill the cook. On the other side of the ship from where you entered, you will find a really irritating murloc elite by the name of Cookie, who is the ship's cook. I do a little moonlighting as a food critic for the Stormwind "Evisceration Weekly" magazine, and I wrote up a really bad review of his cooking last month. I hear he isn't happy about my review and wants to play full contact "hide the ladle" with me the next time I stop by the ship. All kidding aside, I haven't fought Cookie yet, so I can't say what the battle is like. If you feel the urge, reply to this post with your Cookie battle comments and I will edit this section as well.

When all the dust has settled you have three choices of departure plans. First, you can port / hearthstone out. If I have to explain how to do that you really need to go and turn in your "Junior Azeroth Adventurer" badge. Second, you can run back through the rest of the instance. Depending on how long your group took to get to this point you may or may not have too may respawns.

Your third option is to use the back door. On the far side of the cavern you will see a tunnel heading outward. If you jump / swim over here the tunnel will take you to the shoreline of Westfall, just southwest of the Dagger Hills. If you haven't dealt with Cookie yet you will meet him if you use this exit. Note that this passageway is a one-way trip - once you are out you can't get back in (at least I can't, and I even tried standing on a convenient Gnome to get up on one of the ledges).

That wraps up your walking tour of the Deadmines. The Moonbrook Travel and Tourism Bureau and the Defias Civic League thank you for your visit and asks you to tell all of your friends about the exciting adventures you had while visiting their picturesque village.

[Beli]

You poor thing. I knew you suffered through bad luck and pick up groups for this dungeon, but omg, this is baaaaad.

[Dryfft]

You can pull Rhak'zor solo before pulling the two elites by the door, just watch his pathing. Whenever I pull either guard by the door, the other ALWAYS comes.

Single pulls in the foundry are possible, just watch the timing. Goblin Engineers will summon their robot pet, they also will stop and shoot. Get out of line of sight up the ramp to get him to come to you. The bots don't do much damage. Concentrate on the Engineer. Don't bother killing the bot until after, since he'll just summon another one, and it was all for waste. Also, the bots WILL despawn at around half health after the Goblin dies.

After blowing down the door to the ship, rush back the way you came. That way you can avoid engaging the party that charges the door. Once they go back to their spot, you can control the pulls.

Mr. Smite actually AoE stuns the first time after 1/3 of his life is gone, goes back for his dual cleavers, fight until he's down 2/3, AoE stun, goes back for his hammer, then dies.

The pirates on the ship have a VERY small (social?) aggro radius (I think this is so you don't get z axis aggro). You can single pull just about every single one of them.

The biggest threat is the respawning wandering elites. WATCH YOUR BACK. Nothing worse than getting jumped in the middle of a big fight.

[Dryfft]

Also, the Shredder has the ability to fear.

[Dryfft]

There's another boss on the ship. His name is "Cookie", and he's a 20-21 murloc. If you go the front way, he's between Smite and the Captain.

We've been duoing/trioing the deadmines a lot lately. We don't really have the dps for Mr. Smite, but you can still get to Cookie and the other pirates on the ship if you go around the back. When you enter the cove, turn right and kill the goblins there. Jump in the water and swim around the edge, killing the stuff on land as you go. When you get to the other side of the ship, there's another dock. Cookie is the first mob on the ship from the dock and will come solo.

[DmitrytheWizzy]

Also, the best thing about Cookie is that he drops a one handed mace that looks like a rolling pin. Pedi used to routinely beat WHizbang with it when he got out of hand in beta.

[Mileron]

The pirates on the ship have a VERY small (social?) aggro radius (I think this is so you don't get z axis aggro). You can single pull just about every single one of them.

Three times when I did this on Wednesday, someone would run up the final ramp to the top of the ship, thereby aggroing the three wandering pirates + Captain Greenskin, as well as everyone on the south side of the ship.

Ouch. Couldn't jump off fast enough.

They finally listened to me, and using a long camera angle, let me tell them when to run up, and we survived.

[Khael]

Great writeup.. not sure what level you guys were when you did this instance, but could a 31 hunter + 31 druid duo all the way to VC and kill him, in your opinion? We regularly take bunches of 31-32 mobs and have killed stuff as high as 37, but of course that's not talking about elite mobs.

Thanks!

[Dryfft]

Great writeup.. not sure what level you guys were when you did this instance, but could a 31 hunter + 31 druid duo all the way to VC and kill him, in your opinion? We regularly take bunches of 31-32 mobs and have killed stuff as high as 37, but of course that's not talking about elite mobs.

Thanks!

Depends on your level of suckage.

[goomba_boy]

It would be a challenge, that is definite. I play a druid, and can solo elites up to about 5 levels below me without using any special tricks. But the bosses in Deadmines are tougher than your average elite. I do think that you could get to Van Cleef if you bypassed Mr. Smite, but taking out VC is another story (given that you have to deal with 4 tough elites during that battle).

Give it a try and let us know how it goes.