The Deadmines/VC Guide

[Squirllz]

Introduction

The Deadmines is the first instance that most Alliance players will encounter. It’s a fun and fairly easy instance, with very few surprising encounters. It is a learning ground for most new players on group dynamics and multiple elite mob pulls.

• Also known as: VanCleef, VC,
• Found in: Moonbrook/Westfall
• Enemy Level Range: 16-22 Elite
• Expected time to complete: 2 to 2 1/2 hours

Group and Level Guidance

The Meeting stone says level range 17-26. Recommend having average level 18-23. Its recommend that your main tank be level 21 or higher, to ensure that his hits actually land. If your healer is lower level, it’s of less concern that the mobs con orange to them.
You need at least one dedicated healer and one tank (Warrior, Paladin, Druid bear form). Make sure your healer understands his role, and tries to conserve mana for heals.

Enemies

You will almost exclusively encounter humanoid mobs in this instance. One boss (Sneed's Shredder) is mechanical and immune to Stun and bleed effects

Quests
Alliance Only

• [14/22+] The Defias Brotherhood(tb) Main Quest and [Not shareable]. Kill VanCleef! Rewards
• [14/17+] Red Silk Bandanas [Not Shareable] This quest is given by Scout Riell on top of the tower in Sentinel Hill. This quest is available only after you complete the Defias traitor escort quest. RewardsThe Wilder Thistlenettle quests are completed in a section of the Deadmines before the instance:
  Given by Wilder Thistlenettle, a dwarf NPC inside a inn in the Dwarven district of Stormwind.
• [14/18+] Collecting Memories [Shareable] Rewards
• [15/20+] Oh Brother... [Shareable] Rewards

• Shoni (Gnomergan Quest):
  
• [15/15] Speak with Shoni Obtained from Gnoarn in Ironforge
  
  • [15/20+] Underground Assault [Shareable] Given by Shoni the Shilent, a little gnome in the middle of the Dwarven district in Stormwind. Rewards

• Paladin quests:
  [20/22+] The Test of Righteousness (tb) The quest is given by Jordan Stilwell, outside of Ironforge’s gates. See Paladin quests for details on the full quest chain. The Whitestone Oak Lumber drops of any of the Goblins in the instance.

Preperation
Mages, Warlocks, and Healers should carry drinks and potions to replenish their mana. Be sure to have your weapons repaired prior to the instance run, and always keep foods for you and other party members (hunter's pets). It is essential to be prepared for this instance run as it is quite long, and there are no places to get weapons repaired, buy supplies , etc.

WALKTHROUGH

You should know where the entrance is, since you probably did the Defias Traitor escort quest. The entrance is in a house in the village of Moonbrook, in the Southwestern area of Westfall. Loc 42,73 (if you use a UI that shows locations).


The first 2 quests

If your group doesn't feel like doing the first 2 quests, then go straight to chapter 2.

When you enter the house in Moonbrook which leads you into a mine, your minimap will look like this:
Before entering the actual instance, you encounter non-elite miners, and some elite overseers, taskmasters and wizards. Just go carefully and do not pull more agro from mobs that you cannot handle.
Go towards the area where Foreman Thistlenettle is and kill him, loot the badge off his corpse to complete the quest Quest:Oh Brother... and keep killing the skeletons / zombies in the area until everyone has 4 Miners' Union Cards to complete the second quest: Quest:Collecting Memories. They drop fairly often. The spawn rate is a bit slow.
Having a Hunter or Paladin track or detect Undead will help you spot the respawns.
When you are done with these 2 quests, you can head towards the Instance Portal and zone in.

The Red Silk Bandana drops of any of the elite Pirates. You'll find more than enough through the instance for each group member with the quest.
To Rhahk'Zor

From the entrance to Rhahk'Zor, you will have to kill a bunch of miners, they aren't elite and they die easily. There will also be a few Defias Overseer, which are elite, but not so tough. There is also a couple of Defias Wizards most of the time.
The main danger to a group for the instance are runners. Try to always pull mobs back to your group, don't rush into them, so that if they run, you have room to finish them off before they bring friends. Best is to have a class with some kind of snare though, such as a Rogue with Crippling Poison, Shaman with Frost Shock, Warrior Hamstring, etc. Make sure you designate a person who will be responsible for either snaring or have a instant damage spell available to finish them off.
You will encounter Rhahk'Zor, your first mini-boss. He is not that tough, as you can pull him solo, if you wait for him to be far away from his 2 guards (two Defias Watchman), aka close to you. He hits reasonably hard but slow, has a lot of health, as any boss should have. This fight should be easy. Rhahk'Zor almost always drops a non-magical two-hander, and rarely a green Axe instead.
Note: Every time you kill a boss (up to Gilnid), the door he was guarding opens up, and a patrol respawns behind you and heads down towards you. After every boss fight this will happen, and the further you go down in the Deadmines, the bigger the patrols will be. So be on your guard and look behind you every now and then. The patrols are a mix of melee and spellcasters. Try to kill the spellcaster first, as their fireballs hurt a lot.
To Sneed

When Rhahk'Zor dies, the big door behind him opens, kill the two Defias Watchmen (they use ranged weapons until they enter melee) and go through the now-opened door, you'll see the path fork off to the left and right. To the left is where Miner Johnson spawns, but only once every 5 instance runs or so. It just takes 2 minutes to check if he's up, and he most of the time drop a blue item.
To the right are goblins and further down the big goblin, aka Sneed on a Shredder. I suggest clearing the room where Sneed roams about as much as possible before you pull Sneed, you don't want to get adds during this fight. Pull the Goblins back or through the door to fight them. The Goblins have an annoying “knockdown” with their thrown axes (even works on level 60s!). Other than that, they are tough, with plenty of health.
If you have a Paladin with the quest The Test of Righteousness, one of the Goblins should drop the Whitestone Oak Lumber piece the Paladin needs.
Sneed is slightly harder than the ogre, because you actually have to kill him twice. First destroy his Shredder (which he occupies) and then kill him. Make sure the party is aware of this and do not run off the moment the Shredder dies. The Shredder can be controlled by the Gnomish Universal Remote. Take a moment to look for a chest, either near the door that opened, on the “hill” in the middle of the room, or in the back corner as you entered.
Don't forget to loot the Gnoam Specklesprocket from the Shredder's corpse. Underground Assault completed! Sneed has two frequent drops: a nice axe Taskmaster Axe and green gloves which could be considered DE fodder.
Gilnid

Remember the patrol than spawns when Sneed dies, then move down the corridor and clear up to Gilnid's room, once there, clear his room and save him for last. Have the lower level characters and casters hug the left wall at all times to prevent agro from the center of the room. Some of the goblins here are equipped with guns and others send in Mechanical pets to combat you. Make sure your tank does not charge up to them and aggro more, but focus your ranged attacks to take them down.
This room contains smelters that allow miners to smelt their ore into bars, as well as boxes filled with lower level engineering reagents.
Gilnid isn't hard either, the only difference with previous bosses is that there is one goblin that always stays too close to him to be pulled solo. So you have several options: Kill the little goblin fast and then Gilnid. Only your tank should take on Gilnid from the start. Or you could polymorph the goblin during the whole fight, provided you have a mage. Take time to check under the ramp leading down to the room for a chest.
If you are lucky, Gilnid will drop a nice ring.
The Cannon and Mr. Smite

Remember the patrol than spawns when Gilnid dies, then move on. Clear up to the Defias Gunpowder as shown on the map above, have someone loot it, but be aware that looting it causes a Defias Taskmaster to spawn in the corridor. Then clear up to the next gate. The person who looted the gunpowder will have to activate the cannon in this room, which will blow up the gate. The gate can also be picked by a Rogue or blown up with Seaforium charges, if you have an Engineer in your party.
As the gate explodes, Mr. Smite starts shouting orders, and mobs will rush for you (usually two Pirates with a parrot). Once the attack is dealt with enter the docks and fight your way up the boardwalk.
Warning: This is where things get serious, so make sure your group is sticking together and that nobody rushes toward the ramp going up to the ship or the dummy chest at the bottom of the ramp.
Your group must be aware that as soon as you get close to that ramp, 2 Assassins appear and attack your group, and as soon as they do so, Mr. Smite rushes down from the ship and engages you as well.
The trick to this fight is that Mr. Smite actually doesn't hurt that much as long as his hit points are high. So it's best to deal with the 2 assassins while your tank keeps Mr. Smite busy. Once both Assassins are either dead or under control (polymorphed), focus on Mr. Smite. Also, try to carry the fight away from the ramp, that way every time Mr. Smite stuns your group and goes to his chest to find a new weapon, you have some time to recover while he runs back to you. This is an important reason that you should kill the two assassins first.
I suggest to save up some mana/rage for the end of the fight, because he increases in damage output twice during the fight, and hits really hard when he is low on HP. So save some mana for the last portion of the fight.
With luck, Mr. Smite can drop the best two-hand weapon you can get at this level, a nice blade or a one-hand Axe.
The Pirate Ship and Cookie

Go up the ramp, kill a few pirates and go to the left first, you'll find Cookie (a Murloc), he's easy as long as he does not run off and bring adds. He can drop a blue wand with 22.7 DPS, and the coveted Siamese cat pet. After Cookie has been taken care of, go backwards and this time go right, to the other side of the ship.
Before we proceed I must warn you that on the ship there is not much room and it's quite packed. I suggest you have your puller always pull way back to your group. Tell him to do it carefully, especially when reaching the 2nd floor of wooden boards, on the right-hand side of the ship, because Captain Greenskin roams right above it. It is very easy to agro the captain and cause a party wipe. Try to have someone keep a watch on the Captain for early warning if he does agros. If Captain Greenskin aggros on your puller, have everyone jump off the side of the ship into the water, and swim to the right-hand side of the entry to the deck-area. You might just survive or have a rezzer survive to resurrect the dead.
So if you want to save time, let one puller carefully take mobs down to your group. Once the path is clear and that the only thing left on the top deck is Captain Greenskin and his guards, your group can move up and engage him.
Couple of chest locations:

• near the bottom of the ramp at the front of the ship (beware of pulling aggro from the other side of the ship);
• on the middle level of the ramp – near the ship;
• on top level of the ramp – near the ramp.

Around the perimeter of the cave where the ship is located, additional Pirates and goblins are located. There is no need to kill them, except if you want or need the XP and possible drops.
Captain Greenskin

Captain Greenskin isn't that hard himself, the problem is that he has 2 guards, but that should not be a problem for your group; now that you managed Mr. Smite, you know how to deal with such encounters. Just do not move too close to VanCleef’s cabin.
The recommended tactic here is to tank the Captain and polymorph the caster. Kill the Captain first, then the other melee mob, and then the sheeped caster.
Captain Greenskin can make casters happy with a very nice staff, and Hunters with a Harpoon. He can also drop the Belt of the Defias set.

Note: it is not uncommon to pull Greenskin at an inopportune moment and wipe. To prevent this, if you pull Greenskin without meaning to, you can jump on the boat's waterwheel. While on the wheel, the Captain and any mobs who followed him will evade, and eventually reset. At this point, your party can jump down from the wheel, resurrect the dead, and proceed once more. It should be noted that low level characters may need to stand at the far outside edge of the wheel so that the pirates no longer "see" them, at which point they will stop evading and will reset. In addition, the non-elite parrot pets occasionally cross onto the wheel, but these can be dealt with easily.
Edwin VanCleef

Edwin VanCleef is waiting for you in his cabin, looking all by himself, but actually as soon as you aggro him, 2 guards will spawn and attack you. There is a trick to this fight: Kill him first, don't try to kill the guards, just polymorph them if you can.
The thing is, if you kill VanCleef's guards, he respawns more of them. If you take too long to kill VanCleef (at 50% health), he spawns additional guards.
One or three words of advice: Kill him fast. And he will be an easy fight. After VanCleef is dead, deal with the guards and you are safe. Alternative strategy: If you do not have enough DPS for a fast kill, have your tank be on VanCleef, while the rest of the group kills the 1st two guards. Then assist with VanCleef. If he spawns a second set of Guards, kill VanCleef then the guards.
Don't forget to loot his Head of VanCleef, which is needed to finish the main quest of the Deadmines. Also loot an Unsent Letter, which begins a quest line for your next instance: The Stockade.
Being the big boss of the Pirates, Edwin VanCleef has a large loot pool, and can drop one of 4 blue items - only the cloth shirt being fairly useless.
If you think that was your last blue item of the day, well that's incorrect, because now is the time to go and turn in your quests! Your group can either use hearthstone or clear the path towards the exit (see map). The mines exit on the southern end of Westfall, near the Lighthouse

LOOT
Edwin VanCleef

• Cape of the Brotherhood
• Blackened Defias Armor
• Cruel Barb
• Corsair's Overshirt

Captain Greenskin

• Emberstone Staff
• Impaling Harpoon
• Blackened Defias Belt

Miner Johnson

• Gold-plated Buckler
• Miner's Cape

Gilnid

• Lavishly Jeweled Ring
• Smelting Pants

Mr. Smite

• Smite's Mighty Hammer
• Thief's Blade
• Smite's Reaver

Sneed and His Shredder

• Taskmaster Axe
• Gold-flecked Gloves
• Buzz Saw
• Buzzer Blade

Rhahk'Zor

• Rockslicer
• Rhahk'Zor's Hammer

Cookie

• Cookie's Stirring Rod
• Cat Carrier (Siamese)
• Cookie's Tenderizer

Foreman Thistlenettle

• Foreman's Boots
• Foreman's Leggings
• Foreman's Gloves

Quest Rewards
The Defias Brotherhood Quest

• Chausses of Westfall
• Tunic of Westfall
• Staff of Westfall

Red Silk Bandanas Quest

• Solid Shortblade
• Scrimshaw Dagger
• Piercing Axe

Collecting Memories Quest

• Tunneler's Boots
• Dusty Mining Gloves

Oh Brother Quest

• Miner's Revenge

Underground Assault Quest

• Polar Gauntlets
• Sable Wand

[Glikko92]

Thanks, it's a good guide but honestly, who needs a guild to VC?

[Squirllz]

People new to WoW and instances.

[Selce]

good guide none the less, BTW on the item list, smites reaver isnt a blue item, its green

[Squirllz]

Whoops, i'll fix it =]

[mauzer]

its good...remember, the people doing deadmines r complete noobs

[Squirllz]

its good...remember, the people doing deadmines r complete noobs

Not exactly, I have some 60 friends who grinded their way up to a 60 so they ran all the lowbie instances to see what they were like, plus twinks run it for gear =]

[1bb3]

Nice guide +rep for u

[Gelormino]

nice guide...cool breakdown of loot
+REP