In this guide we head to one of the instances in Tempest Keep in Netherstorm, The Botanica. The Botanica is the second wing of the Tempest Keep and it's located north of the main palace in the blue crystal building. Like the other instances in the Tempest Keep, this is a rather tough one and you'll need a full party and a good bit of wit and daring to survive the instance alive! In it High Botanist Freywinn awaits, with one of the more unique boss fights in the game! And should you make it all the way to the end, Warp Splinter is waiting for you.

The other instances in Tempest Keep are as follows:

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Tempest Keep is located at the very south east tip of the Netherstorm zone in the Outlands. There is a small neutral town located nearby with a place to repair, a flight point and a meeting stone, but not much else.

The Tempest Keep is located just off the edge of Netherstorm and you need to have a flying mount to reach it, since Warlock summons do not work nearby. This means that you MUST be level 70 to get there.

There is only one real quest in The Botanica and it is to find a way into Arcatraz.

How to Break into the Arcatraz - A'dal has tasked you with the recovery of the Top and Bottom Shards of the Arcatraz Key. Return them to him, and he will fashion them into the Key to the Arcatraz for you.

The quest takes place in the first two instances of Tempest Keep (Mechanar and Botanica) and require that you kill the final boss in each to gain access to the third instance in the Tempest Keep.

There are MANY difficult and obnoxious trash MOBs in the Botanica. While there are more than listed here, these are the most difficult that must be watched for:

Bloodwarder Protector –This warrior based MOB can strike for over 3,000 damage on the tank and has a reflect magic shield. This is a very dangerous MOB and the only saving grace is that they have very low health and can be dropped quickly when focused on.

Menders and Botanists – Both of these MOBs are healer based and need to be either crowd controlled or dropped quickly.

Sunseeker Geomancer - These are immune to crowd control and casts AoE arcane explosions. They also always appear with Frayers which are on a timer, and grow and become enraged if they are not dropped quickly.

Sunseeker Gene-Splicer – Casts an AoE debuff called "Death and Decay" that does 2,000 shadow damage per tick! Also summons adds to the fight. Extremely dangerous and always a priority 1 on the kill list.

Mutate Fear-Shrieker and Horrors - Fear-Shiekers always come with a group of Horrors as well. Both are immune to crowd control and the Fear-Shrieker has an AoE fear. Make sure you pull these away to a clear area.

The first boss is Commander Sarannis, and you will find him at the first bridge that you reach in the instance. The first part of the fight is to ensure you clear the MOBs near the commander before engaging her.

Arcane debuff - Increases all arcane damage taken by 1200, can stack twice.

AOE Arcane Blast - Hits everyone in range for 1000 - 2000 damage.

Summon - At 40% health she will summon 4 adds. 1 elite healer and 3 non-elite fighters.

The fight is fairly simple but requires that someone be on their toes taking off the arcane debuff. The damage that she does can be handled easily if no one is taking the extra damage, however if each blast is causing an additional 2400 damage it becomes rough.

When the summons come in, you must drop the healer fast because it can heal a significant amount of her health very quickly. Once the healer is dead you can either finish off the Commander or the adds first.

The second boss is High Botanist Freywinn who is a caster based boss. He appears dressed like a druid and has several druid based abilities, such as tranquility and more.

Summon Seedling - Every few seconds he summons a seedling. They have very low health (less than 1000) and have to be killed quickly. The appear in 3 different colors representing 3 different abilities: White - Freeze, Red - Damage, and Green - Root.

Transform - Every 30 - 40 seconds he transforms into tree form and becomes immune to all damage.

Tranquility - While in tree from he channels an AoE tranquility, healing himself and all of his summons within range.

Summon Lashers - When he transforms to tree form, he will summon 3 lashers that hit for roughly 1,000 damage each. They need to be dropped quickly. He will not revert to normal form until all 3 are dead.

During the fight, one player should be assigned to take down the seedlings as soon as they appear. Since they have such low health any class is ok to deal with them, although ranged is best.

When Freywinn transforms everyone including the tank must jump on the lashers and get them down as quickly as possible to stop Freywinn's tranquility effect. They only have about 4k health each so can be dropped very quickly if you focus on them. One alternate strategy is to pull them out of range of his tranquility to make them easier to kill, but that just means that he will be healed for a longer period of time since it takes longer to move them.

When they are dead, he returns to Blood Elf form and you start the summoning timer again. With a competent group you should be able to down him before the 3rd round of lashers, beyond that you will be getting low on mana for all involved.

The third boss is a satyr that can be skipped but is worth fighting for his loot. He has several nasty abilities though so some groups just ignore him.

Hellfire - A small AoE effect that does 1300 damage per second to everyone in range.

Enrage - When at low health he will enrage and gain 75% attack speed and increased damage.

Sacrifice - Cast every 30 - 40 seconds, Thorngrin will sacrifice a random player. The player is selected randomly from those that do not have aggro and are within LOS. The player is teleported to his starting location and held in place by magic for roughly 10 seconds. During that time you will take roughly 6,000 damage in ticks of 750. You can not cast or do anything while being sacrificed. Sacrifice also clears his aggro table.

The fight is not that hard unless you are unlucky and have your healer picked for back to back sacrifices or at a critical time. The basic plan of the fight it to have the tank hold him in one spot and everyone damage until he either casts hellfire or sacrifice.

When he casts hellfire, everyone including the tank clears the area. Once Hellfire is over he should return to the tank. Allow him to get a hold of him and then keep going on DPS.

When he casts sacrifice, have the healer try to keep both the tank and the sacrificed player alive, but not until the tank grabs aggro again on Thorgrin as he will have cleared his aggro table. Many groups wipe when the priest immediately starts to heal the sacrificed victim, thereby pulling aggro on Thorgrin. Sacrifice rarely kills a fully healed player no matter their class. As long as the group is avoiding the hellfire bursts, you should not have an issue with waiting a few seconds to cast a heal on the victim or tank.

The forth boss is a giant lasher called Laj. When you enter the room a fight with other MOBs will be going on, you can wait until Laj kills them before entering the fight. Laj has several abilities:

Summon - He can summon two Thorn Lashers. They come in various types including mindflay, direct damage, thorn damage and more.

Nature Debuff -Puts a Debuff on players hit that increases damage taken. Should only ever get put onto the tank.

Magic Resist - Laj changes color and becomes immune to different types of magic throughout the fight. The color he becomes represents the magic he is resistance to: Blue - frost, Red - fire, Green - nature, and Black - Shadow.

As you fight La the main difficulty is keeping the summoned Thorn Lashers under control. You should assign two players to drop them as soon as they appear. Everyone else can stay on Laj. If at any point Laj become immune to the type of attack that you are doing, you should switch to the adds until he changes resistance.

Overall though this is a simple fight.

The last boss is Warp Splinter, a giant ancient similar to you would see in any of the Night Elf areas. He is a very interesting fight, but can be very difficult if you do not have enough DPS in the group. His abilities are:

Warstomp - This is a 30 yard AOE which stuns everyone for 2 seconds and does 1500-2500 damage.

Arcane Volley - He sends out arcane magic missiles at everyone in range going about 2000 damage.

Summon Treants - Every 45 seconds Warp Splinter will summon 6 Treants at various points around the room. They each have roughly 3000 health and will live for 20 seconds advancing towards Warp Splinter. After 20 seconds they will despawn and heal Warp Splinter for whatever health they have remaining.

For this fight you should have the tank fight him very near the bridge that you use to enter his room. This is for two reasons, first, it moves him to the furthest point from his spawns. Secondly, you can reset the fight by moving everyone over the bridge, causing him to leash back to his starting point.

The first thing to note is that all players able to do damage at range should be at max range against Warp Splinter to avoid the warstomp. Secondly, as soon as he summons Treants, all players other than the tank and healer should immediately attack them to drop them as fast as possible. If you ignore them, they can heal him for almost 1/4 of his health. A good method to kill them fast is to have one player form each side of the room gather the 3 from that side to them and move to the center. The other side does the same and then a mage or warlock AoE's them down quickly.

If you can kill all of the adds before the 20 second despawn point the fight should be over quickly, usually 3 - 4 spawns. If the fight goes to long, you will run out of mana and have to flee over the bridge to reset the fight or die.

The instance longer than most of the others that you will have fought up to now (other than the Shattered Halls), and takes some planning on many of the fights. The boss fights are varied and rewarding though, and the loot will keep many players coming back despite the annoying trash MOBs throughout the instance.

You can see more images from the Botanica in our: Botanica Gallery.

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