Once the waves have been defeated and start the next portion of the instance by talking to Arthas, he leads you through the streets to town hall. Here he tells you that there is a way through to another part of the city. However, when you enter the town hall and he tried to purge the citisens they reveal themselves as members of the Infinite Dragonflight.

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Chrono-Lord Epoch

You must then fight your way through the town hall, along side Arthas until you reach the third boss in the instance, Chrono-Lord Epoch. The fight uses mechanics similar to the Warchief Kargath Bladefist fight from Shattered Halls in the fact that he has a spinning blade attack. When used he attacks players in the room and spins to the next. So far in beta the attack order and number of players attacked seems to be random. Several times I was not attacked at all when at a distance as the healer. It would seem best to keep spread out as much as possible though to minimize the impact of his attack.

Once Chrono-Lord Epoch has been defeated Arthas will lead you down a passageway behind a set of book cases to a back alley that is in flames. Here you start a brief gauntlet type area with relatively quick re-spawn times. You must follow Arthas down the burning alley to a resting spot and then to a market. The fight is not that difficult as the creatures are mainly non-elite.

Once at the market area you emerge through gates to the familiar fortress at the end of what was commonly called the Live (or Scarlet) side of Stratholme, where you are once again are confronted by the Dread-Lord Mal'Ganis

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Mal'Ganis Leaves for Northrend

Mal'Ganis first taunts Arthas and then attacks. Being a Dread-Lord he has several shadow based special attacks that must be dealt with. These attacks include an AoE attack, sleep ability, mind blast and vampiric touch.

His area of effect (AoE) attach his everyone in his front arc for a large amount of shadow damage and places a damage over time (DoT) effect on them. This makes it important for the tank to face him away from the group, or for players to move to his back arc if he becomes stuck attacking Arthas.

During the fight Mal'ganis casts a sleep effect on any non-tank player at a roughly 45 second to one minute interval. The sleep effect lasts for 10 seconds and can cause issues if the tank or anyone else is not at full health and the healer is effect. For this reason the healer should keep everyone at as near full health as possible. Damage or Bubble effects cause the sleep to break, as well as PvP trinkets. This makes a Paladin healer a good choice for this instance as they can treat Mal'Ganis's sleep effect the same as the Maiden from Karazhan and use Blessing of Sacrifice to stay awake throughout the fight.

Throughout the fight he will also hit players with a mind blast direct damage spell and a vampiric touch DoT spell. You simply need to heal through the mind blast, but the vampiric touch must be removed as soon as possible so that Mal'Ganis does not gain to much health back from it.

The fight is difficult, but completable and entertaining. You just need to deal with his abilities while also keeping Arthas alive. Arthas can be healed, and should be set as a focus target for the healer so that you can keep track of his health throughout the fight.

When Mal'Ganis is reduced to 10% health he stops attacking and leaves combat to taunt Arthas. When he has finished with his luring of Arthas to Northrend he disappears, leaving a frustrated Arthas behind. You will find your loot for winning the encounter in a chest by the stairs.

With that the instance is completed. You can find a quick way out through a tunnel to your left.

Overall impressions from the various groups that I ran the instance with were all extremely positive. This is the 5 player instance that most players are looking forward to and it did not disappoint. The storyline is great, the fights are entertaining, and the instance can be completed easily in less than an hour. The only issue that anyone had with it was the first section where you must stop various waves of undead. We all thought it would have been much better story wise for Arthas to fight along side you in the fights, rather than hang back at the city entrance dispatching the odd wandering undead. Other than that one issue though, this is sure to be an instance classic!

If you want to see more images from the CoT: The Culling of Stratholme check our Culling of Stratholme Gallery.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 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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