If you have already finished all your questing in the Hellfire Peninsula and have ran Hellfire Ramparts and the Blood Furnace you are likely ready to step up to another more difficult pair of instances. The first of which is The Slave Pens, which is one of four instances located in the Coilfang Reservoir deep in Zangarmarsh.

The Coilfang Reservoir is a strange instance area as it is an underwater pumping station built for some as yet unknown reason adjoining a complex of caves. Even though it is located underwater they are full of air. The predominant MOB type in the instance are Nagas and aquatic wild life in many different forms. It also houses Lady Vashj as the last raid boss, who was the second naga created and had an appearance in Warcraft 3.

The instances in the Coilfang Reservoir are as follows:

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The first thing to figure out for most players is how to get to the new instances. For that I headed over to our trusty map of the outlands. It shows the instance as being in the middle of the lake in the north area of Zangarmarsh, however this isn't the whole story. This instance is tucked away deep inside a huge pumping station in the middle of the lake. There is also no obvious entrance, instead you must swim to the center of the lake and the building and then swim down... way down. At the bottom you will find a tunnel that leads even further down. Once far enough into the tunnel there is steam entering the water and you will find that you can breath at certain points, allowing you to get deep enough into it to reach an underwater cave full of air. This is the Coilfang Reservoir Instance area.

When you come out of the water you will see Watcher Jhang and a meeting stone along the shore. If you are at least level 62 she will give you a quest to complete in the Reservoir for her. Once you are ready to go into the instance the Slave Pens are the left most instance in the area.

There is only one quest available in the the Slave Pens and it can only be half accomplished there, the other half is in the Underbog.

Lost in Action – Discover what happened to Earthbinder Rayge, Naturalist Bite, Weeder Greenthumb, and Windcaller Claw. Then, return to Watcher Jhang at Coilfang Reservoir in Zangarmarsh.

Naturalist Bite and Weeder Greenthumb can be found in the Slave Pens. Weeder can be found at the top of the ramp just after you drop into the pool of water from the walk ways. Naturalist Bite is found in Quagmirran's room.

There are many types of new Naga and sea life MOBs in the Slave Pens, the ones that are critical to know about are the following.

Coilfang Enchantress – These enjoy casting mind control on the party, which can lead to fast wipes if the wrong person gets targeted by it.

Coilfang Champion –They cast a paladin like protection bubble, that protects them from all damage for a short while. Don't waste your mana, energy or rage on them at this point, it won't do anything.

Coilfang Ray – These are similar to the sporebats found in Zangarmarsh but cause fear. The whole instance has groups of MOBs in close proximity and it is very easy to get feared into another group of MOBs, because of this they should be dealt with quickly and as far away from other groups as possible.

The first boss that you come across is Mennu the Betrayer. He can be found patrolling a ramp surrounded by groups of other MOBs. He is a shaman based boss and can be difficult if you are not equipped for longer fights or try to do the instance at too low a level.

Totems - Mennu will place totems at various times in the fight. He can place healing, fire nova, earth grab and stone skin totems.

Lightning bolt - He can cast a very high damage lightning bolt.

To deal with Mennu you need to clear the area around him and then try to keep the totems down as soon as they appear. All of the totems are dangerous however the healing and fire nova ones can be especially devastating. He has a ton of health so the fight is a mainly an endurance test for the group, make sure you keep the totems dead and stay up on mana and power through it.

The second boss is Rockmar the Crackler, a giant lobster creature. Rockmar moved back and forth in his lair and will aggro anything that comes within a fair distance of him. Stick by the rock near his entrance and let the tank aggro him or your off to a bad encounter. Rockmar has a few abilities that need to be dealt with. They are:

Frost bolt - Occasionally sends out a group of water bolts that hit everyone within 40 yards. It hits hard enough to notice at about 1500-2000 damage.

Enrage - He will enrage and do more damage starting at 20% health remaining.

Bleed Debuff - This hit causes the player to bleed for about 900 physical damage every tick until the player is healed to full health. It is not disspellable.

This fight is a tanking and healing endurance test. Rockmar can hit very hard and all the damage needs to go onto the tank, if anyone else pulls aggro you could be looking at a wipe due to healing priorities being very strict in the fight. When Rockmar attacks and puts his bleed debuff on a player it needs to be on the tank due to the speed at which it drains life. There is no way to remove it other than to heal the player to full life or use stoneform if you are a Dwarf. Even Rockmar dieing does not end the debuff. This means that the healer needs to always have enough mana to get the tank to max health to remove it. To do this, they need to not have to worry about the other players in the group. If you have a secondary healer in the group it will make this fight much easier.

Some level of frost resistance can help the rest of the group since the only damage that should be getting anyone is the occasional volley of frost bolts. With frost resistance gear on, the damage will be minimal and almost no healing will be required.

The last boss in the instance is Quagmirran. He is a giant swamp creature with tentacle arms that can be found in the lake just past the druid that you free from the cage. Quagmirran has a few abilities beside the ubiquitous ability to hit hard that all instance bosses have. Hi abilities include:

Cleave - Hit everyone in his front arc with a powerful melee attack.

Poison AOE - Hits everyone in front arc with a poison aoe attack and places a poison DOT on them.

Poison Volley - Hits everyone within 40 yards with a powerful poison based missile, that also places a poison DOT on the player. Can hit for up to 2,000 damage and then the DOT kicks in.

To fight him you really need to start by freeing Naturalist Bite from his cage. Once free you can talk to him and he will give you a buff that grants you 100 nature resistance and 5% to all stats. Since most of Quagmirrans attacks are poison based and hence cause nature damage this is a huge help in surviving the fight. Once the fight begins the tank should keep him as far from the casters as possible and establish aggro. Due to the healing requirements aggro can be a big concern as the healers will be throwing large heals.

Once held, the priority becomes removing the poison DOTs from players and keeping everyone alive. The fight is a simple tank fight as long as the healers and de-cursers can keep up. If they can't it can be a short painful fight to learn. The first few times you attempt it if you are on the lower levels still poison resistance potions and gear can help greatly. Anyone that has ZG or AQ nature resistance gear can walk through this fight easily.

This instance is only slightly longer than Hellfire Ramparts of the Blood Furnace and should not take much longer. It is a step up in difficulty though and you should be prepared for a few wipes learning it. The gear that you can get is also a step up from the earlier instances and again, you really should get the gear from here and the Underbog before proceeding to the next instances. Players also need to be careful on pulls as there are several places were a wrong pull can bring more mobs than a group can reasonably handle.

I took many additional screen shots which are all available in our gallery here: TenTonHammer visits the Slave Pens .

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