Four Demons and a n00b

[xlAnonym0uslx]

Four Demons and a n00b


A Guide to the Hunter Epic Quest




Introduction


Purpose of this guide:


This guide is for any hunter that has made WoW their first MMO, like my self. If you have played every MMO that was ever put out on the market, can solo anything without your pet, and hold the highest PvP rank for your faction, you don’t need this guide. However, if this is your first MMO and you have managed to level from 1 to 60, make enough runs through BRD, BRS, Strath and Scholo to get a decently geared character and lastly made it into a guild that runs MC on any kind of a regular basis, this guide is for you. It’s for the hunter who can play his class well enough to make it through to Majordomo but watches in dismay as he/she is repeatedly and brutally owned by the demons for this quest.



This guide focuses on killing each of the four demons you need to get the Rune Etched Staff that will eventually become the epic bow Rhok’Delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers. The other two quests you get from the leaf require a forty man raid, a setting which most people who have this quest are bound to be familiar with. The demons are what make this quest epic, and each could be the subject of a guide all on their own. Each fight is unique and difficult, and will take all but the best several attempts to learn. This guide is simply here to aid that learning process.




Welcome to the Next Step:



This is the next stage of your growth as a hunter. Each Demon requires that you master some essential skill as a hunter. This makes it worth doing even you never plan to use the bow. Completing this quest will make you a better hunter, it will also teach you where your weak points are and how to work around them. At the beginning of each fight description I will state and explain briefly what it is you will have to learn to defeat this demon. By completing this quest on your own you will become a better hunter, more flexible and deadly, better able to cope with all situations and opponents. Don’t look at this as just a pain in the ass road block on your way to a nice bow; this is here to take you from knowing your class to mastering it. Learn from it.




About the maps shown:



The blue lines or circles represent an approximate patrol route for each demon. The small red spot or circle is the spot I suggest you spawn each demon at. Yellow lines represent a route you should run while kiting.





One more note before we get started:



You’ll see me use the terms strategy and tactics through out the guide, I don’t want people to get the two confused so I’m going to explain them here. Strategy is a prepared plan you have for a fight, almost like a loose script for the battle. Tactics are tools that you use to carry out your strategy. I’ll make an example of the demon in Winterspring. The strategy is to kite him down the road and let serpent sting kill him, never letting him get within 30 yards of you. The tactics you use are to jump shot him while using Aspect of the Cheetah to stay ahead of him. I’ll give more details on the fight later.

In some of the other guides I have read, they give only a loose strategy for each battle. That was my main motivation for writing this guide to give a more detailed description of each fight from the perspective of a hunter who’s familiar with the game but has trouble turning the phrases like “Kite the demon up the hill and down the road” into jump shots and ultimately a dead demon.



In summary, an old police and military saying goes, “Tactics is what Strategy becomes after the first shot is fired.”




Spoiler Alert!



This guide explains one part the hunter epic quest series in explicit detail. If you do not want to know how these fights work in advance, if you are not interested in knowing how I beat each of the elite demons, if you want to figure it out for yourself, DO NOT READ ON! This guide is a spoiler, it’s meant to help people who do not have the time, motivation or MMO background to attempt each demon over and over again and discover the strategy on their own.



Spoiler Alert!



Section one – Preparation, essential skills and supplies



Skills first:



The most important thing you need to learn is how to jump shot. There are several instant cast spells that can be fired on the run. Arcane shot, Scatter shot, Concussive shot, and all your stings. For two of the four fights, being able to land these shots while the demon is behind you and you are moving forward at top speed is essential. If you cannot jump shot, don’t even attempt Winterspring or Un’Goro. Practice jump shots first.



Jump shoting comes in two parts, first is how to move. Forget WASD all together, you’ve probably noticed that if you hold both mouse buttons you run forward and you can turn by turning the mouse. That is what you will use to guide your character. Your left hand (assuming you’re a righty) will control the jump and shoot part.



On your main action bar arrange it so that Arcane shot and Serpent sting are in a natural position and easy to reach, I like having the sting in slot 4 and Arcane shot in slot 5 but you should put them in a spot that feels right for you. Now you can use two of the number keys on your keyboard to shoot. You could also bind the spells to any open keys on your keyboard with the key bindings menu. Experiment with different options till something feels natural.



Execution is a matter of timing, while running with the mouse you jump, rotate your character 180 degrees, shoot, and spin back 180 degrees to face the direction your running. Be warned if you try to do those events in sequence, you’ll have a tough time of it. If you can separately press each button more power too you, but if your lazy fingered like me you soon discover that the game doesn’t execute a spell until you release a key. So you can hold down the five key, hit the space bar and as you spin simply let off the five key to shoot. Another little cheat is to only spin 120 degrees or so. You can fire at an almost 90 degree angle from the direction your character faces, so you don’t have to spin completely around to shoot. Again experiment until you find something that feels natural.



Practicing jump shots is key, change Arcane shot to rank one, and try killing high level bears with nothing but serpent sting and Arcane shot to keep aggro. Most bears and yetis run slower that Aspect of the Cheetah so keep it on and see how far you can get them from their spawn point. I once got a yeti from north of Everlook all the way through the tunnel to Felwood. You know you have it right if it looks like the arrow comes out of your back at times.



Strafing is another important skill, though it’s much easier to master jump shots. If by some travesty you are unfamiliar with what the Q and E buttons do learn now. Practice Wing Clipping and strafing away from mobs if you’ve never done it before. You’ll need to strafe, not run forward or back, as a reflex later on.



Supplies second:



Mana pots, take the big Major Mana Potions along, the ones that cost like 2 gold on the auction house, at least one per demon, per fight. Roughly four or five for each time you spawn a demon.



Health pots, again spring for the best you can by or farm for them. Health pots seem to drop more frequently that mana.



Whipper Root Tubers, these are items that you get from a repeatable quest in Felwood. The replenish health and are on a separate timer than you pots. Also their cool down is 1 minute instead of two. Pretty handy little items.



Night Dragons Breath, also from the same quest in Felwood only these replenish around 500 health and mana at the same time and also run on a separate timer.



Demonic runes, these drop off of demons in Azarah. They give you 1000 -1500 mana at the cost of 600 – 900 life, they have a 3 minute cool down.



Crystal Restore, another handy item. Heals you for 650 damage, these are from a repeatable quest in Un’Goro.



Elixir of Demonslaying is a must for the Burning Steppes fight but optional for the other three.



Greater Shadow Protection Potion, take three per fight for the Silithus fight. I know the damn things are expensive but you HAVE to have them.



Start farming or buying all of these in large amounts. Nothing is more frustrating than to know you’re close to getting a demon and having to waste time farming for supplies. If your guild kills Domo on a regular basis and you plan on rolling for the leaf at anytime in the future, start farming and then bank the stuff so you’re not tempted to use it until you’re going for a demon. The supplies you need for each fight are listed at the beginning of each fight description. This is the amount you will need for the worst case scenario, that you spawn a demon and die on every attempt until the demon despawns. This is so that you have the supplies to get the maximum amount of practice in, which will help you complete the quest sooner.


Section two - General fight information.



This quest is one of three you get from The Ancient Petrified Leaf, an epic item that drops out of the chest from the end of the Majordomo fight in Molten Core. The leaf starts a quest to find its owner who happens to be a giant tree spirit in Irontree Woods in Felwood. In a small lake at the bottom of the basin you’ll see what looks like three petrified Ancient Protectors from Darnassis surrounding a small island. Run to the top of the tallest hill on that island and three tree spirits will spawn, each one has a quest for you. One gives you a quest for an epic 18 slot quiver, another has a quest to get a mature black dragon sinew for your bow string and the third gives you a quest to kill four demonic corruptors. Once you complete the quest to kill these demons you’ll get a rune etched stave that will combine with the black dragon sinew to form the bow/stave.



You, the hunter, must solo each demon without your pet. If you are aided in any way, a heal, a buff or by someone attacking the demon the demon disappears and doesn’t respawn for two to three hours. You can be buffed, healed etc before you engage the demon but once you have aggro, you’re on your own. One quick caution about Paladins, you can fight with a pallie aura on you but if the pallie gets out of range and the aura fades from you he has to stay out of range. If he gets close again and you gain the aura it’s treated like a new buff and the demon leaves. Same with Trueshot, Bloodpact or Aspect of the Wild.



It’s extremely helpful to take a rezzer along with you. Once you spawn a demon you only have 15 to 20 minutes to fight him so not having to run back helps you get more attempts in and more practice. Druids and mages are nice to take along for buffs but I never used them. Priests can make the Silithus fight easier with their shadow resist buff, but you still need the potions. When you are fighting the demon, have your friends watch for people coming near and warn them not to interfere. When your regening or setting up for a fight keep everyone who does not have the quest well back, the demons have a 8000 – 30000 damage instant kill AoE for interlopers. Once your 15 to 20 minutes is up you have to wait two to three hours before the demon will spawn again.



It’s possible to share spawns with other hunters as well. As long as no one attacks at the same time, you can split a spawn between several hunters and still get credit for the fight if you win.



But how and where do you spawn the demons?



Good question.



Winterspring


Skill Taught:



Kiting, this battle is a lesson in kiting. You as a hunter have the ability to kill without being touched even without your pet. You must master it here.



The demon looks like a male tauren until you spawn him. He walks in a big oval pattern in north east Winterspring in an area that’s absolutely crawling with high level bears and chimeras.





Supplies needed: Major Mana Pots (5 – 10), Night Dragon’s Breath (5 -10)



The set up:



Take your rezzer and another helpful person along with you. You’ll follow the road north from Everlook until you almost get to Frostsaber rock. To your right you’ll see a long hill leading down into the valley where the demon patrols. At the southwestern most point in his route he’ll be at the base of the hill. Have your support crew clear the hill while you wait for the demon to get in place, they have to keep it clear for you to run through, if you get aggro, get hit and stunned, you’re a goner. Buff if you need to and head to the bottom of the hill.



Key point to notice:



Just as you leave the road look to your right, you’ll see a gully leading between the road and a hill there. You need to run up that gully to get to the road so remember where it’s at. Follow the path show in yellow on the map linked above. Make sure your UI is set up to jump shot and that you have Aspect of the Cheetah on.





The Strategy:



Kite the demon. Using Aspect of the Cheetah and jump shots, kite the demon up the hill, onto the road and towards Everlook. You must stay outside of 30 yards or you will be hit with a DoT spell that does 650 shadow damage every second for 30 seconds, once you are hit with this spell you are unavoidably dead. Fortunately this demon is weak against serpent sting, it does 600+ damage per tick to him. That is what will kill him. Talk to the demon at the south western most point in his patrol route and move away from him before he changes to demon form. Stand in the middle of the hill that leads to the road, or slightly north of the middle when you are ready to start.



The Tactics:



Serpent sting alone will not hold his aggro, nothing is more frustrating than having one of these guys get bored and run back during the fight. To start lay down an immolation trap, let your mana regen to 100%. Open with Serpent sting, as soon as your shot lands turn and run, DO NOT concussive shot him, use a frost or freeze trap or any slowing effect or you will loose aggro. Run up the hill diagonally towards the gully, jump shot Arcane shot rank one every time it cools down, every time you use Arcane shot Serpent sting him again.



Run as straight as possible, if you turn he will cut you off and DoT you. Angle to the gully, the mountain will prevent him from cutting you off. When you get to the fork in the road, head left towards Everlook, again terrain will keep you from being cut off .



For the duration of the fight, jump shot Arcane shot rank one every time it cools down (six seconds) every time you do, jump shot Serpent sting. You should need one mana pot for this battle. Ideally you will make two shots inside of 2 – 3 seconds and have a four second interval to run. Unfortunately the demon runs slightly slower than you do with Aspect of the Cheetah so there will be times that you have to stop and wait for him. You can tell when he’s out of range because the numbers on your main action bar turn red, DO NOT turn to watch him! Face the direction you’re running and jump shot him. When you stop, stay sharp, the moment he’s in range Arcane shot him and haul ass. He should die just after the turn towards Everlook.




Keys to this fight:



This is a technique battle, it cannot be won by stats, DPS or stamina. Your jump shots need to be perfect, your path needs to be clear and you cannot make any turns on open ground. There is little room for error. It is also the easiest to practice for. Kite bears and yeti’s as a warm up.



UnGoro.



Skill taught:



Using different aspects and tactics for different opponents. Choosing the right way to win a battle is important, changing aspects and stings is key to this.



This demon looks like a female troll with a wolf pup for a pet. She walks a long serpentine pattern in UnGoro that takes her through most of the south and west of the crater. This area is also full of adds so selecting the right spot is essential.






Supplies:



Major Mana Pots (5 -10), Night Dragon’s Breath(10 -15), Major Healing Pots (10), Whipper Tuber Roots (10), Crystal Restore/Healthstone (1) , Elixir of Demonslaying(4 -5, optional)





The set up:



Bring your handy rezbot and anyone else who wants to come along. Find a small lake in the western part of the zone that looks like a figure eight or a peanut. Wait for the demon there, she will walk up to a large gray rock pillar, actually a geyser, talk to her there to spawn her.






The Strategy:



This demon has a pet, it’s a giant translucent fellhound named Precious, you can’t miss seeing it, you also can’t melee it. You will kite the pet around the small figure eight lake using Aspect of the Cheetah, Serpent sting and Arcane shot just like you did in Winterspring. The pet does only melee damage so you don’t have to worry about distance as much, it’s okay to keep it just outside of minimum range if you need to. You will also have to stop and wait for it on occasion like Winterspring.



During the kite you will likely get a debuff for -1500 ranged attack power, ignore it, Serpent sting and Arcane shot are spells and won’t be affected. Keep both of them moving, if the demon is able to stop with you in range she’ll hit you with lightning and stun you.



Once the pet dies, switch aspects from Cheetah to Aspect of the Wild, this will mitigate the majority of the lightning’s damage to you. Get up close and melee the demon to death, she’s pretty weak against physical attacks. If you feel you need to Wing clip or scatter shot and Viper sting her, it will silence her completely for a while. I never needed it.





The Tactics:



Some people will freeze trap or concussive shot the demon to start with. I didn’t but I’ve seen people open that way and win. If you have a hard time holding aggro during the kite, use Arcane shot rank two or three instead of one. I also had trouble with the demon going into evade mode if she got too far away from the pet, which is why I skipped the snare.



Aimed shot the pet to open, immolation trap if you want too, and kite around the lake, they will not swim across to cut you off. The banks of the lake are steep so don’t fall in. This kite is longer than Winterspring so settle into your rhythm and stay there. Once the pet dies switch to Aspect of the Wild and melee the demon down. Keep a health pot, whipper tubers, night dragons handy. Keep your health up and use Raptor strike Mongoose strike and if you have it Counter attack every time the are available. Hunker down and hold on, it’ll take a while but she will die before you.





Keys to this fight:



A clean kite on the pet, it doesn’t have a lot of hit points but it hits fairly hard in melee. Self healing is vital, you need pretty much any thing you can get that will give you health. Get a stamina buff from a priest before the battle. Don’t panic about the debuff, you’ll never auto shot this demon once if done right.



Burning Steppes.





Skill taught:



Getting in and out of melee range. You cannot stay at melee range and win, you cannot keep this demon at bow range, movement is your key to this fight.



This demon looks like a human male until you spawn him. He walks in a big circle around Draco Dar in the Burning Steppes.






Supplies:



Major Mana Pots (5 -10), Major Healing Pots (5), Night Dragon’s Breath (10 -15), Wipper Root Tuber (10 -15), Demonic rune(5), Healthstone/Crystal restore, Elixir of Demonslaying (4 -5)






The set up:



Again get your handy rezbot and any buffers you feel are needed. Wait for the demon on the road between Draco Dar and Black Rock Mountain. Spawn him just as he reaches the road and no clearing should be necessary.



Note:



Because you’re fighting on the road, in an area that usually has a lot of farmers, this is a bad spot for interference. People get too close, get one-shotted and decide to take it out on the demon which ultimately just hurts you. Spamming the zone seems to draw people in and tempt them to attack the demon. It seems to work better if you have your support crew send whispers to any that get near.





The Strategy:



This demon enrages which causes him to hit for massive damage in melee. Tranq shot will clear his enraged state but he normally hits pretty hard. He runs fast and drops aggro easy, so kiting him is almost impossibly hard (Author’s Note: I know of one person who kited this demon on my server but to this day I have yet to hear of anyone repeating this nor could I do it myself). However, he’s weak against Scorpid sting. If you Scorpid sting him it reduces his melee damage to 1, you will see this effect shown as Entropic Sting under his portrait. The catch is that when he enrages all debuffs are cleared. So you need to kite or slow him until he enrages, Scorpid sting him, let him close to melee range, Wing clip him and run. Use an Elixir of Demonslaying to increase your damage dealt and shorten the fight.





The Tactics:



Pull him with an Aimed shot, and use an immolation trap for a one time boost to damage. Concussive shot and walk backwards till he enrages then Scorpid sting him. Let him close to melee range and Raptor strike. Immediately follow with Wing clip. Once he’s clipped it’s time to move, you can stay in melee range to Mongoose strike or Counter attack him but no longer than that, STRAFE (remember that from the skills section?) away from him, if you run forwards through him or turn your back to him he will daze you. If you are dazed you cannot get far enough away to sting him again when he enrages. Once you have strafed out to the point where you are no longer getting hit by the demon, you can turn and run forward. I found it best to do a half jump shot to apply the sting, (spinning 180 degrees and stopping) which gave me more time for auto shots as the demon approached.



Strafe out to bow range and stay there until he enrages. Wing clip usually stays up for longer after he enrages than the sting does, giving you some extra leeway. Sting him and let him close again, Raptor strike, Wing clip and move again. In the process of all this running around you should be getting far enough away that you get at least one auto shot in as he’s running up to you. Trying to kill him with melee damage only is a mistake. If you have improved Wing clip, Counter attack or a Weapon with the demonslaying enchant, use the times when he is full immobilized to get extra auto shots in.



If you do not get any auto shots in, you will eventually loose aggro or get killed. I found it helpful to jump shot Arcane shot as I strafed away from the demon as an extra measure to hold aggro.



If you do find yourself inside of minimum bow range with an enraged demon, Scatter shot and move. Be prepared to Scorpid sting him twice to get the effect after a Scatter shot. Use a health pot or what ever is cooled down when needed to get back to full health.





Key points:



This like the Winterspring battle is a technique kill. If you have a perfect run you will loose almost no health. Timing is everything, you have to get into, apply Wing clip and get out of melee range between enrages. While there is more margin for error than Winterspring there isn’t much. Getting those auto shots in is essential. Mana is critical on this fight, use everything you can to keep your mana up, including a Demonic rune. If you cannot sting or wing clip this demon you’re dead, end of story.


Silithus



Skills taught:



Recovery from fear effects and engaging multiple targets. If you cannot deal with the adds they will deal with you.



This demon looks like a male gnome until you spawn him. He walks in a small circle in southern Silithus near the Twilight camp.






Supplies:



Greater Shadow Protection Potions (as many as possible, you will use three each time you engage him), Night Dragon’s Breath (10 -15), Whipper Root Tubers(5), Demonic rune(5), Crystal restore/Healthstone.



.


The set up:



Take a priest with you for the shadow resist buff. Greater shadow protection potions are also a must. Just to the north and west of the Twilight camp there’s a spot along some mountains that has almost no mobs in it. This is where you will spawn him.





Important note:



Do use a weapon with demonslaying against this demon. I had the enchant proc once and the immobilizing effect of wing clip would not proc until the demonslaying effect cleared, also the demonslaying effect did not fully stun him. Just don’t use it.





The Strategy: Two parts, a false pull and the real fight.





The false pull:



For reasons I have not seen satisfactorily explained the demon will have a bright red color when first spawned. You need to pull him into a frost or freeze trap and feign death to get him to change to his normal color and be fightable.





The real fight:



Fully one third of this battle is mitigating shadow damage. You will be feared by this demon. And each time you are you will take 700 shadow damage so pots and the resistance buff are key.



The other two thirds of the fight are recovering from the demon’s fear and dealing with his adds. Once you have mastered this you can get in plenty of auto shots between fears and Wing clips. Wing clip will totally immobilize this demon for 1 to 2 minutes or more, once you have him clipped move out to max range and hammer him till you’re feared. After every fear take out some of the adds, they are little slow moving beetles called creeping doom. They are soft, but hit hard, use multi, volley or anything AoE that you think might be helpful. Effects like lightning shield, thorns or oil of immolation that require a mob to hit you to do damage are useless.





The Tactics:



After the false pull, lay an explosive trap about 10 yards away from the spot you will pull the demon to. When you pull and wing clip the first time strafe away and stand on the other side of your trap. The trap will take out the first few bugs and give you some time to do extra damage. You will get feared about every 60 to 75 seconds, each time you get feared target a beetle and multi shot. Target the demon again and hit him for a while. On the next fear, multi shot, hit the demon and then volley any remaining beetles that are still up. You want to make sure there are fewer than seven or eight beetles up at any given time. If you have too many beetles up, you’ll get feared into them and die.



As you fight this demon, your shadow protection potion will eventually wear out, make sure that this timer is cooled down so you can take another one when needed. So do not use health or mana potions during this fight because they run on the same timer as the Shadow pots, bring whipper tubers and night dragons instead.



As you deal with the beetles, make sure to keep up damage on the demon. Plain old auto shot is the best thing to hit him with. Circle around him to keep the beetles from getting too close to you. Run a little, get two shots in and move again. Eventually WC will wear off of the demon. Don’t panic, he doesn’t hit that hard, just clip him again and move. Keep on clearing the beetles, circling and auto shooting the demon. He’ll die eventually.





Key’s to this fight:



Movement, never hold still for longer than two auto shots. Shadow pots, you’ve got to have them, there’s no way around it. Keeping the beetle population down is also a must. Mana, just as in the Burning Steppes fight, is very important as well as managing the cooldowns on Volley, Multi Shot and your potions. Again a Demonic rune is a good thing to have in this fight, use it and immediately use a Healthstone to mitigate the loss of health.





The cheat:



If you’re just not getting this battle there’s used a simple cheat available for alliance hunters. Have a dwarf priest cast fear ward on you. This spell is only available to dwarf priests, it’s a 10 minute buff that prevents you from being feared. The fight is still tough with fear ward, but it takes much less coordination than without it because you do not have to time your volleys between getting feared. You also don’t have to worry about keeping the beetle population quite as low. If you’re just out to get a good bow, feel free to use this. If you want to prove you’re the best of the best, try it without fear ward.



If you have made it this far…..













CONGRATULATIONS!







You’ve just finished the toughest hunter quest in the game!



Relax, drink an age appropriate beverage of your choice and bask in the glory of your accomplishments. Then join the ranks of dedicated sinew farmers the world over.







References:





http://tkasomething.com/avatarfaq.php




A good complete guide to the quest that includes information on all three quests that you get from the Ancient Petrified Leaf. Thanks so much to Avatar for posting this.



http://home.gmoo.net/drupal/?q=node/378

[raamoz]

nice stuff man. where do you get these quests? and on what lvl?

[venomx]

Cool nice guide :-)

And you get the quest from the Ancient Petrified Leaf that drops in Molten Core.

[Shandriel]

Btw you can always have a duel with a warlock and they can put a curse called "Curse of Recklessness" and just be careful to not leave the duel area at the Silithus demon.

/60 mage Kul Tiras

[husky003]

This is a Hunter only quest. And I recommend downloading the video of this off www.warcraftmovies.com. A very nice video of it there.

[Vital]

nice guide

[Orochimaru]

Cool! Thank for the Guide 'mon