This week I explored another of the instances in Tempest Keep in Netherstorm, this time The Arcatraz. The Arcatraz is the most difficult 5 man wing in the Tempest Keep in Netherstorm. It is located far above the other instance of the Tempest Keep, and has some pretty heft requirements before you can enter it. First to get into it you have to complete a quest chain that involves visits to Mechanar and Botanica, and then you need to equip yourself to be able to handle the instance itself. Many of the MOBs and the bosses are far more difficult than any you will have faced previously in a 5 man. You and your group need to work together and be almost perfect to be able to fight your way through the instance to defeat Harbinger Skyriss.

The other instances in Tempest Keep are as follows:

Instance
MOB Levels
# of Players
The Mechanar
69-72
5
The Botanica
70-72
5
The Arcatraz
70-72
5
The Eye
72+
25

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Getting to Tempest Keep and finding a group

The Arcatraz

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.

The Arcatraz is the instance far above the other ones in the sky.

Quests

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

Seer Udalo - Find Seer Udalo inside the Arcatraz in Tempest Keep.

The Seer can be found dead, just before the final boss. You can inspect his body to complete the quest.

The Second and Third Fragments - Obtain the Second Key Fragment from an Arcane Container inside Coilfang Reservoir and the Third Key Fragment from an Arcane Container inside Tempest Keep. Return to Khadgar in Shattrath City after you've completed this task.

The fragment is located just after the first boss to the side of the large room full of giant void walkers.

Trash MOBs

There are many difficult and varied trash MOBs in the Arcatraz. The most difficult that must be watched for are:

Arcatraz Sentinel

Arcatraz Sentinel –These start off all fights appearing dead, however when you get close they "wake up" and attack you. They randomly attack people in range for 1000 arcane damage while they are alive and for several seconds after they die. They also explode once they are ready to die hitting everyone in melee range for about 4k damage.

Protean Spawn – Located around the instance are dead Blood Elf corpses. When you get to close to them or attack at a distance they will spawn two protean spawn worms, that attack for a small amount of damage but explode upon death for up to 2k in an AoE.

Gargantuan Abyssal

Negaton Warp-Master - These look like giant void walkers are easy to deal with if you keep them moving. If left in one place they put a glowing purple aoe at their feet that heals them and increases their damage by 250 per hit, that stacks 10 times.

Death Watcher – Places a debuff called "marked for death" on players, and if the death watcher is not killed within the count down time for the debuff, anyone with the debuff will take 5,000 damage. The count down is 30 seconds.

Gargantuan Abyssal - These Giants are located late in the instance and call down meteors on everyone around them. The meteors are much like the ones in AQ40, in that they do an amount of damage divided by everyone in range. This means everyone must cluster around the tank.

Zereketh the Unbound

Zereketh is the first boss you will come across in Arcatraz and appears similar in shape to a giant void walker. As a shadow based demon you can guess the type of damage he does, so having a large amount of shadow resist can help in this fight.

Zereketh the Unbound

Seed of Corruption - The same as the Warlock spell, cast on a random target in the group.

Shadow Nova - This is a large AoE blast centered on Zereketh, that hits for about 2200 and does a long distance knock back. The AoE only effects those within about 30 yards and LoS, so can be avoided.

Void Zone - Zereketh created void zones at random spots around the room, that appear as black holes on the floor. Anyone in the void zone will suffer about 1200 shadow damage per second.

The fight mainly involves having the tank fight Zereketh with his back to the wall so that he can avoid getting knocked back. The best place is next to one of the corners in the room so that the DPS players can step around the corner as shadow nova is being cast to avoid the damage and knock back. The tank will also very likely need to move at least once during the fight as inevitably a void zone will be spawned where he is tanking.

All ranged DPS and healers should stay at max range to avoid the shadow nova and be prepared to move if a void zone appears near them. Also since Seed of Corruption can not be dispelled it is best to spread out and to try to keep everyone at max health.

Dalliah the Doomsayer

The second boss that you should fight is Dalliah the Doomsayer. I say "should" as you can fight the third boss first if you like as they are in the same room. Due to his abilities though, fighting Dalliah and clearing the room of her first is the better option.

Dalliah the Doomsayer

Healing Debuff - Places a very nasty debuff on the player with the most aggro (MT) that heals her as well as the player whenever they are healed. It is not dispellable.

Whirlwind - What seems to be her favorite attack as she does this very often. Hits everyone in melee range for up to 3000 damage per tick.

Heal - As soon as she is done her whirlwind attack she will heal herself. It is a 2 second cast time though and interruptible.

The fight is a timing based fight. The tank just needs to hold aggro and then when a whirlwind starts, everyone needs to clear out of range, including the tank. While the tank is out of range everyone should stop DPS as she is immune to taunt and aggro must be controlled carefully or she will switch targets. As soon as the whirlwind has stopped someone needs to interrupt the heal that she starts to cast.

The healing debuff should always be placed onto the tank, as they will have the most aggro. Because of this the Tank should not have HoTs on them, and you must stop healing them, this include Vampiric Embrace from Shadow Priests. A priests Shield is effective at this point on the tank as it is not healing and will save some of their life. As soon as the debuff fades you must heal the tank to full health and prepare for the next debuff. Keep the tank at full health between the debuffs and they will not go down in the timeframe that you can not heal, it even give you a chance to get some mana back.

Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates

The third boss is Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates, who is in the same room as Dalliah. He has several nasty abilities that make it better to fight him after she is down though including a random charge.

Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates

Charge - At random intervals he will knock back everyone in melee range to charge a random player. When he does so he will leave a wall of fire from his starting to ending point that will hit anyone in it for about 2000 damage per tick.

Flame Shock - Hits target for 2k fire damage and leaves a DoT on them.

Immolation - Hits everyone in melee range for roughly 400 damage every 3 seconds.

The main thing to worry about in this fight is to spread out to avoid having more than one person hit by the flame wall when he charges a random person. His knock back and random charge does not reset his aggro table so he should return to the tank immediately after charging.

The fight is basically a full out DPS fight to down him before his flame damage kills everyone. Fire resist on the melee players that need to be in his immolation aura is extremely helpful, but not necessary if players are good at stepping out and bandaging before they get to bad. This saves the healer a lot of mana for the MT and times when others get too low.

Harbinger Skyriss

The forth boss is Harbinger Skyriss, who if you have ever been to the Temple of Ahn'Qira you will recognize him as a clone of the Prophet Skeram. The fight however is not just against Harbinger Skyriss, instead you must defeat 3 preliminary mini-bosses first. The 3 mini bosses are essentially buffed versions of mobs that you have fought in the instance before and are set lose 1 at a time. If you finish each off quickly you should have a brief amount of time between each one and be able to enter the next fight at almost full health and mana by eating and drinking.

Harbinger Skyriss

After the first mini boss an NPC will spawn that will help you. He is Millhouse Manastorm and is a gnome mage that was imprisoned. Now that he is out, he's pissed and ready to help anyone. You should do your best to keep him alive as he adds a significant amount of damage to the fight. Once you defeat the three mini bosses and get to the Harbinger, he has the following abilities:

Mind Flay - A random target huge damage over time channeled spell, inflicts roughly 1800 damage per tick for 3 ticks and stuns them for 2 seconds.

Dominate - A short duration mind control, that hits a random player in the group.

Fear - A random target fear of one party member..

Clone - At 66% and 33% remaining health Skyriss creates a clone of himself with all his abilities, but very little health.

Not only does Skyriss look like Skeram, he fights in a similar manner, with the clones coming as he loses health. The tank must mark Skeram and then remark him as each clone appears. For the duration of the fight the tank should stay on the original to ensure that he holds him. Everyone else in the group though must switch targets as soon as a clone appears as having 2 mind controls of 2 mind flays at a time is a horrible thing to have to fight through and can lead to a wipe very quickly. As a result, switching to and dropping the clone is the key component of this fight.

Since you can time the point at which the clone will appear sometimes it is worth slowing down DPS to allow the healers to catchup just before the 66% or 33% mark. This can be risky though as an unlucky MC or mind flay can cause last second issues. Many of Skyriss's attacks (including the MC and mind flay) are shadow based, and a shadow buff or high shadow resistance can help in the fight.

Because of everything going on in this fight, healers will generally be very low on mana very quickly. It is important to have a backup healer if at all possible. It is also important that healers come prepared with mana pots, elixirs and other consumables. With a single healer, no matter how good, be prepared for a few random wipes due to unlucky MC or mind flays.

Conclusions

The instance can go by very quickly, and can be done in less than 2 hours easily with an experienced group. The MOBs and bosses are interested and fun, especially Skyriss (although the randomness is sometimes a drag). The only thing missing to me in the instance is any quests of note. Sure there are two quests, but shouldn't there be more from someplace? For such a great instance, you almost have no story line reason to be there. Don't worry though the loot will get many players heading to it, so finding a group should never be hard.

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


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.

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