Instances
Instances
Prelude: For details about the quests and currency behind the instances, please check out the Dailies article. After consideration, there were a number of details about each of these instances to warrant a completely separate post. There's also quite a number of screenshots with the groups that can be added down below. Scenario explained during a stream that the landscape in the instances were simplified in an attempt to see how it improves performance on the new servers.
(3-man) The Treasure Caves of Hurum Kâna: The Doorwards of Zajâna have tasked you with bringing the brigand king, Bârlat the Bold, to justice. The instance is covered with the great treasures he stole from travelers on the Great Road. There is very little of this instance that pertains to the quests in the region. This instance has proved to be initially difficult with some adjustments made in Update 46.2 and Update 47. There's a few different types of enemies that guard the tunnels: overseers that like swinging their blade, rat-masters that can summon up to three viscous rodents, and an apothecary whose fear that can reassign threat in T2 needs to be interrupted. The first boss Pakhán-gebar, Servant of Stone has some things you need to avoid - sandstorms that drop a number of dust devil puddles on a target, swirling sands that hurt nearby players, and whirling dervish where he swings his blade around after getting angry of losing his sandman.
The Council of Thieves is perhaps the toughest challenge. There are three targets that need to be countered with interrupts. A tank can interrupt two of them since the timer matches the 10-second cooldown of the skill, but having each member assigned one person can help too. Their effects on players need to be removed. Gizûshu, Thief of Shadows needs to be taken out first as his buddy that comes in cannot be harmed and grows stronger overtime. Don't panic if they randomly run to someone since that is part of the fight as well. If you are going solo, remove the poison effect as quickly as possible.
Bârlat the Bold essentially has the same "fun" mechanic in every tier. He runs into a room with a bunch of treasure that needs to be picked up while tornadoes spin around. Each treasure you pick up interrupts his self-buff that can tier up 10 times (which can jump from 2.5 at Tier 9 to 5 at T10). Higher tiers require more treasure to be picked up. His Gold Pile becomes distributed, which means you want everyone together in the box when it happens unless the target is the tank. Molten Gold puddles stay forever in T3.
"I'm going to need a bigger backpack." - Hatric
(6-man) Kôth Rau, the Wailing Hold: The rangers of Faeron and Rhadrog really want to put a stop to sorceress Ombátha's control over the miners. The problem is the Utûgi leader, Râkdakul watches over the prisoners. You don't get to face these two immediately in the instance. You first need to face their champions Rátinur and Gáthtrag. Interruption, effect removals, and staying out of puddles are all par of the course. On T2 or T3, you will want to pit them against each other with Rátinur removing Gáthtrag attack buff with her line attack.
Sorceress Ombátha is puddles galore with a couple spirits appearing every 45-seconds on T2 and T3. Your goal is to conserve clean space and to stay alive. Râkdakul is a little more complicated. He occasionally becomes immune until you defeat his reinforcements. His Calamity damage aura hits everyone who isn't standing in the Calamitous Shelter square that drops off a random player. T2 adds the fun Cacophony wound effect that needs to be quickly removed from the whole fellowship.
(6-man) Ekal-nêbi, the Fallen Palace: After the exhaustive questline in Idagâl, you finally get to see the hidden pathways of the palace. There is one problem. Perhaps the most unusual decision by the developers inside the solo version of the instance was to have Mizâdi cast an aura that creates an immunity to all boss mechanics. The shadows and illusions that Mizâdi mentions can be seen in the corridors as you move around. In addition, not all enemies need to be defeated to open up pathways like in the Wailing Hold. You can skip waiting for the dialogue to finish in the beginning of the instance by pulling the lever to the left of the chamber. Once you defeat the first boss and run upstairs, a pathway will become available where you don't have to retrace your steps in the basement area. When entering the main chamber, you do not have to discover that the path is blocked by the smoke wall on your right or run into the locked door in front. You can go straight to the nearest door on your left. The guards are the most notorious to take down as they have buffs that reduce your damage 50% and debuffs that increase their damage 25% & 50%.
Ratúlko the Bloody is a key character in Idagâl that you see in Gaol-break as warden for the pit-mine at Esh Mêkag, the Silent Mouth. Although Góramul Sai believes he saved his son and slain the King of Rohan Théoden, his actions in the session play and the instance say otherwise. He was slowly poisoning him through the advice of Dark Priestess Barkhuráni. His Grisly Wound that can tier up to 10 can be removed once it reaches 4 on T1 or his Cauterize skill that only hits up to 4 players on T2 (or 2 players on T3). On T2 or T3, he also locks people up with a Bloody Torturer that drops a Brand on the ground that can be used once to remove your or another targeted player's Grisly Wound (in melee range). Healers can use aura healing through the bars. His poisoned knives can be removed. He can throw chains at everyone on T2 or T3. In addition, there are moments where the boss rushes over to a cauldron. One phial needs to be destroyed for a special effect.
- Green phials summon animated oozes that have a very long induction ability.
- Yellow phials creates three sticky puddles that root players and a barrier on the boss.
- Blue phials consume more power in exchange for more tactical damage and healing.
- Red phials reduces physical mitigation and increases physical attack.
- (T2+) Purple phials increases inductions, lowers run speed, and heals the boss overtime.
- (T3) Orange phials reduces induction & healing and increases run speed & damage.
"This new batch is particularly deadly!" - Ratúlko the Bloody
Dark Priestess Barkhuráni has a number of odd shadow techniques under the guise of Domination. The Gaze of the Eye can not be avoided and increases the tier. Bend Will increases the tier of a random player every 3-seconds until interrupted. A Shadow Seeker is a pet with a damage aura and puddle that should be destroyed as quickly as possible. The second tier of Domination brings Grasping Shadow that roots a player until a distributed (everyone needs to hug each other) hit by the boss. The fourth tier brings Overwhelming Despair which needs to be removed. When you reach the seventh tier, a Vision of Doom (aka Sauron) slowly walks toward players and uses Shadow Leash until he is defeated. Once the tier reaches ten, the player instantly dies.
In T2, the boss applies Welling Dread on the tank which pretty much destroys the whole fellowship once removed. This means that no one should group cleanse and players should use fear potions to remove their own fears. Once the curtains fall, the ropes need to be pulled. There is one in solo, four in each corner in a fellowship, and shadow creatures that need to be defeated in T2 & T3.
Góramul Sai is actually the first part of the final boss encounter. He does a bunch of things with his spear. Thothril the Entangler is the second part that does a bunch of stuff to generate the Madness mechanic. You cannot lower the tier. Once you reach the 7th tier, your damage is cut in half and can only reset your Madness through death. Entering into a Fractured Reality square or defeating Animated Armours will spawn Shards of Reality that can be picked up and used to freeze your Madness for 90-seconds. Each Madness tier is different. The suggested tiers are 3 and 6.
(12-man) The Folly of Nagakhêdi: It is hard to imagine the raid coming out three months after the expansion released in Update 47, March 2026. Even now, there are still no notes on the wiki on how to defeat the bosses. Perhaps this is because of the numerous adjustments made over the next month or Orion postponing T3 due to complications until April. Even the usual raiders weren't able to complete that for a whole month. Though soon after, overall nerfs to the raid and buffs to T3 specifically were made in Update 47.4. A lot of the background information comes from the raid questline, but there appears to be some Merrevail causing mayhem in the depths of this ancient place. Three of them are part of the Legion of Lhaereth that you encounter periodically until the third boss fight. As of Update 47.3, dialogue has been added to each of the bosses and call-outs included for the troll boss. You can read them here on the wiki.
"We must try. I will be able to break through this wall, but it will take time. You must defend me while I concentrate." - Irsinith
The rangers Faeron and Rhadrog first get stopped by Commander Mornang and her band of Uruk-hai that carry the heraldry of Lhaereth the Stained on their shields. You are stopped by a wall of blight to which Irsinith, warden of the Mother tree, needs time to clear. Upon checking out another path, Blood Sorceress Agaris confronts you while conversing with your first boss, the immovable spider Badharál the Gorger. Because of how the developers feel T1 should be more difficult, she has an enrage timer that can kill anyone in melee range after about 6-minutes. She calls forth an invincible unnerving weaver that casts fear on anybody it touches. She also summons spiders out of her eggs. These include:
- Blighted Spiderling attacks and erupts a pile of blight when low in health.
- Plump Spiderling is an unstoppable source of food that goes straight toward their mother.
- Venomous Spiderling with standard attacks that can lower player mitigations in T2.
"I was a disappointment to my mother as well. I did not come when called..." - Badharál the Gorger
Since Irsinith still needs more time to clear the blight, the rangers go down yet another path and spot Cristhir the Night-shadow doing something mischievous to a troll. She tries to stop us when her mother Lhaereth the Stained comes down to see what her new experiment will do to us up close and personal. Maukhorn is your second boss encounter that throws a couple of skills and mushrooms out that will make players dance around. He also has a very unusual ability the developers started adding to bosses to counter exploits called Smack that only hits pets roughly every 4-seconds that resets their threat. There's also a weird Unstable/Avalanche mechanic that is still seeing changes made in the latest patch. After you defeat the troll, Irsinith would have the path cleared.
"What... what are they doing to that troll?" - Rhadrog
The third encounter of the raid technically has four phases. You will fight each of the three Merrevail one at a time until they are critically wounded and then all three at once.
- Blood Sorceress Agaris is known as the healer who can restore morale from Blood Drain if not interrupted. She can weaken enemies with Beckon (purple eye). Bleed for Me constantly does damage until each player is healed to maximum. T2 has each of the 12 blood pools turn into slugs that move around.
- Commander Mornang likes to call forth minions that bump into players. These include Armoured Morvul, Seregost Black Uruk, and a Troll Demolisher. T2 includes a new mechanic where he "steals" your weapon and you must run to a blade on the battlefield to get it back.
- Cristhir the Night-shadow is the assassin that really likes to throw poison knives at people. If her ability is empowered (when a boss isn't the first one you fight), she uses Fan of Knives multiple times. She also has two friends (four in T2) that come in that like stabbing people.
Each Morroval also has a special "arena ability" that plays out when they are not in play or that occurs when all of them are fighting at once. This was changed in Update 47.1 where T1 only Morvul Darkwings strike across the arena, T2 rains arrows, and T3 drops a deadly puddle.
"Sisters, do you not think it unfair for the three of us to fight them at once? We should give them a sporting chance!" - Blood Sorceress Agaris
After you defeat the Sisters and head into the depths of the dungeon, you will soon realize that there is no hope as deadly mushrooms, spores, and rivers of ooze will impede your every step. Don't worry as being defeated is all part of the plan for the next event to start. Lhaereth the Stained wakes up a Balrog as your final boss encounter. Zamaktar the Putrescent will break free and start dropping a number of mushrooms (more in T2). Your job is to pick up the colored ones within 10-seconds before the boss consumes them (unless you decide to pull him away from them). Never use two of the same color within 30-seconds of their effects as that kills you (though you can still hold onto them until they automatically are used). As of Update 47.2, picking up a colored mushroom while holding one of the same color will instantly detonate one. Consuming all three mushrooms in the time span will create Blight Mastery (which still counts as having all three mushrooms active) that increases all healing, damage, and how bad you can get hurt. Interestingly, a special necklace from the raid can remove these effects.
"However, I believe Lhaereth's words were true: This was not the source of the blight." - Irsinith
