Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

First, get the quest "Crawler Extermination" from Gomp Soilscratch, in NW Splitpaw Den.  The zone-in is slightly farther to the northwest.

This is a heroic zone, meaning you will need a group to enjoy success.  And one heck of a group, too, one that can deal with multiple large groups of nasties.  Make no mistake, this is probably the toughest of the entry-level Splitpaw Den quests.  I don't recommend exp'ing in this zone- definitely do it to meet Splitpaw trust requirements- but it's no exp'ers picnic.

Whatever your feelings are about mentored instancing (entering an instanced zone mentored to someone at a lower level, so as to reduce the group's average level and spawn easier mobs, then un-mentoring inside), it's more or less a must unless you have a full, balanced group of extremely skilled players, including a mez unit of some sort.  I've heard arguments about mentored instancing ranging from "it ruins the spirit of the mentoring system and game itself" to "it's a legitimate ruse-de-guerre," anyway I'm not going to discuss whether or not it's an exploit here.  All I'm saying is, if you try it once and fail miserably, you might want to try bringing along someone 5-7 levels below you, mentoring them to zone in, then un-mentoring inside.  Enough said. :)

Walkthrough:  Descend into the cavern, dealing with every group you come to singly.  Follow the left-hand wall if you want to go straight to kill Queen Zkchriy and finish the quest, or explore a bit and gain some experience, your choice.  An NPC crawler with show up about halfway in and lead you the rest of the way to the queen, but again, if you follow the left-hand wall from the zoneline you'll be fine.  You'll soon come to a large room with lots of egg sacs on the floor (note that you do not need to do anything whatsoever with the egg sacs to complete the quest) and a pedestal in the middle.

Clear out all aggro in the room before touching the group on the pedestal.  When you attack or aggro this group, a barrier is placed in front of the exit and a ring event begins (i.e. a "ring event" is a series of aggro encounters, a new encounter group spawning every few moments whether or not you've killed the preceding group - it can get hairy fast!).  If your mez has a group mez, now is when he / she will shine.  Keeping a majority of the mobs mezzed will allow the healers to conserve power, which is especially important since you'll be facing off with the queen about 5 sec. after you've killed the last crawler mob.

Pay attention to what's spawning.  When you notice that you're whittling down the number of mobs and no more are coming at you, slow down and gain back some power!  The Queen doesn't spawn until the rest of the nasties are dead.  It might be a good idea to pull the rest of the mobs to a wall, with "soft" classes behind him, as well.  During our battle, the Queen popped behind our necro off the pedestal, then came up and killed the necro with a few swings, so keeping the aggro named mob in front of you is never a bad idea.

If you've gotten this far, the Queen won't be too much trouble as long as your tank gains the hate of the Queen before anyone dies.  Kill her to complete the quest, collect some minor coin, and put yourself one step closer to a Splitpaw Den teleportation shard!