Once again we brave the Tempest Keep in Netherstorm, this time to visit The Mechanar. The Mechanar is the home of Pathaleon the Calculator, who can be found at the end of the instance. Pathaleon has been identified as being behind the Blood Elf issues throughout the Outlands and reports directly to Kael'thas. It won't be an easy fight to get to the end of the instance to stop him.

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 Outlands! A complete map of the world and where everything is in it

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 Mechanar is the floating building to the right of the main Keep.

Trash MOBs

There are many different types of trash MOBs in the Mechanar that you must be aware of, some of the more dangerous ones are:

Sunseeker Astromage - They have a very nasty fire shield aura that hits for roughly 500 damage per tick to everyone in melee range. A mage can spell steal this and it can be quite useful, however causes high threat.

Tempest-Forge Patroller - This MOB summons other nearby MOBs and has an AoE knock back. Make sure you pull him far back, and / or stun him to prevent the summons.

Tempest-Forge Destroyer - Has a power slam ability where his hands start to glow and then he slams the ground causing an AoE that hits everyone in melee range for up to 2k per slam. He does 3 slams back to back when he is glowing so it is critical to clear the area when he does.

Bloodwarder Physician - This caster based MOB has two very annoying abilities. First they sleep the closest non-tank player and secondly they heal other MOBS. Should be crowd controlled or killed first.

Sunseeker Netherbinder - Another caster based MOB that summons two arcane elementals that have very strong arcane magical attacks.

Mechanar Driller - Has a stacking stacking debuff that reduces armor by 20% as well as a 50% movement speed debuff. These should only hit the tank, so don't pull aggro.

Mechanar Tinkerer - This is a fairly weak non-elite MOB, that does a ton of damage. Throws netherbombs constantly for roughly 500 AOE damage per bomb.

Mechano-Lord Capacitus

Mechano-Lord Capacitus is the first boss in the Mechanar and as his name implies is mechanical. The fight mainly involves watching for his various shields but he has other abilities as well.

Head Crack - This debuff hits the person with the most aggro (which should be the tank) and decreases stamina by 200.

Nether Bombs - He constantly throws nether bombs that circle around on a timer. Then they detonate they with everyone in an AoE for up to 3000 damage.

Reflect Melee Shield - This shield reflects melee damage causing roughly 1000 damage per hit back on the attacker. He will glow red when this shield is active.

Reflect Magic Shield - This shield reflects spell damage and reflects all spells back onto the caster.

Because of his abilities this is mainly a ranged DPS fight, although players that are careful about the shield can get in and melee DPS. The tank should engage and keep him planted away from the group. The tank and any melee DPS also needs to keep their eyes open for any bombs and get out of their way. If melee in causing the bombs to go off and damage the tank, they should pull out of melee.

Someone needs to be assigned to watch the shields and announce when one becomes active and which one it is. If it is the melee shield, ALL players must stop DPS since the tank will lose some of his aggro generation during this time. If it is the magic reflection shield then all magic must stop (including any hunter attacks other than auto shot).

Other than that everyone at range should keep spread out and watch for the bombs. They are easy to avoid if you watch for them, and they even give warning before exploding by blinking a few times. As long as players are not grouped this shouldn't be an issue.

Heroic - On heroic mode Capacitus does not have a shield and spawns fewer nether bombs. He replaces this with an ability called polarity shift. When he casts this ability, everyone will be assigned either a positive or negative polarity randomly. Your polarity is indicated by a debuff on your screen. If you stand next to a person with the same polarity all the damage you do is doubled. If you stand by someone with a different polarity you each suffer 2,000 damage every 2 seconds, quickly killing you both.

The easiest way to fight Capacitus on heroic mod is to pull him to the stairs (on the elevator side) and tank him about 1/2 way up. He will remain on the ground fighting. This means that you will take no bomb damage at all during the fight. Anyone that gets the same polarity as the tank moves towards the tanks position and anyone having a different polarity moves back and away from the tank. Most players believe this fight is far easier on heroic than normal as long as your tank and healer can stay up.

Nethermancer Sepethrea

The second boss is a fire based fight against a very nasty Blood Elf called Nethermancer Sepethrea and her fire elementals. In addition to her two fire elemental adds she has the following abilities:

Dragon's Breath - This attach confuses the target for for 3 seconds and drops them from her aggro list during this time.

Frost Based Attack - To throw a twist in the fight she can cast a frost based debuff that hits for about 500 damage and reduces the targets attack speed significantly.

Arcane Blast - An AoE that hits everyone in it for about 500 damage.

This fight starts with the initial setup of the group. You must spread the group out as much as possible in the room before the pull. When the tank engages her, she will summon two fire elementals that are immune to damage and all crowd control, banishing and fear. They will then select a player at random to aggro and start following them around. This is why you should start spread out. Luckily they move slowly (walk speed) so are fairly easy to avoid, however they leave a path of fire behind them where they move that's stays up for quite some time and does a significant amount of damage to anyone that moves through it.

Anyone who has aggro form an elemental should move to one of the ends of the room and then kite them back and forth to keep the fire out of everyone's way for as long as possible. You can do length wise runs as well as long as you keep them near one side of the room to allow players to move. The elementals will change aggro at different points in the fight, so be prepared to start kiting them at any point. To announce a change in their target they stop moving and blink slightly then chase someone new.

Everyone not being chased should keep DPS up on Sepethrea so that you can drop her as quickly as possible. As soon as she dies the elementals will despawn.

Heroic - The mechanics of the fight stays much the same as on normal mode. However, don't let that fool you the fight is MUCH harder, in fact most groups skip her entirely and move on to Pathaleon. Instead of two, three fire elementals are spawned. Also instead of walk speed they move at a full run speed. As is expected they all hit much harder as well.

Try to kite her and the elementals around, while being aware of your healers location. Always try to move to a clear area away from the fire elementals so that you have space. Having lots of range DPS and a warlock and/or shadow priest for DoTs really helps. Good luck, it's a hard fight.

Pathaleon the Calculator

The last boss in the Mechanar is Pathaleon the Calculator. Who is another of the evil Blood Elves that are infesting the Keep. Before you get a chance to fight him though you must clear six different groups of adds in a scripted type encounter. The adds are made up of the various MOBs you have already fought in the instance. The first three groups come one after another, then you get a break until you move further into the room, and then you get the next three groups. As soon as the last MOB from the 6th group dies, Pathaleon aggro's. His powers include:

Mind Control - Pathaleon can mind control a random player, this lasts for about 10 seconds.

AoE Silence - He has an AoE silence ability called that hits everyone but has a short duration (about 5 seconds).

Drain Mana - Random target channeled drain mana ability.

Summon Elementals - He can summon 3 arcane elementals roughly every 45 seconds. They hit very hard (about 800 per hit) but do not have all that much health.

This fight tends to be a max DPS fight, you really want to drop him before the second group of elementals if at all possible, and for sure before the third. The best way to accomplish this is to have the tank hold him, and everyone else do as much DPS as possible before the first elementals. As soon as the elementals appear, your AoE person should collect them and move them to the tanks location and continue to AoE.

In this way, any melee DPS can help drop them quickly without moving to get back on Pathaleon quicker. One AoE player may fall a little short of being able to drop them, however if you are lucky enough to have 2 AoE characters (for example a mage and warlock or 2 mage's) they will go down very quickly. Instead of someone pulling the adds, a Paladin tank can keep consecration up and gather all the adds as they spawn, making the healers job much easier.

As soon as they are down return full DPS to Pathaleon. His mind controls can largely be ignored since they are too short to do much damage if players are spread out.

An alternate strategy that I have seen work is to not engage the elementals at all, instead fear them. This works especially well if you have a warlock for DPS and a priest for your healer. The tank can fear first and then the warlock and priest can alternate. With this method, you can focus more dps on Pathaleon for a longer time and more easily drop him before the second set of elementals.

Heroic - His abilities and the fight are not much different or more difficult than normal mode (assuming you are geared properly for heroics), the main difference being the addition of an arcane explosion that hits everyone in melee for about 2000 damage. All the tactics remain the same as normal mode though.


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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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