Bones of The Dead

Quest Guide to the Great Barrows

By Darkgolem

The Great Barrows is a massive, haunted crypt found among the festering evil of the Barrow-downs.  Found in the Southern Barrow-downs, this pit is filled with wights, and fell creatures corrupted by the spirits sent to the Barrow-downs by the Witch-king of Angmar long ago.

There are 5 quests which involve entering the instance of the Great Barrows.  Some of these build upon previous quests, others are separate but can be completed while completing the major Great Barrows quests.

Getting Ready

If you wish to do all the Great Barrows quests, the first step is for this is to reach about level 21.  Your going to want to be at least level 21 before starting any of them, and you will need a fellowship of at least all level 21, and probably higher, to complete the beginning quests of the Great Barrow.

The second task you will have to prepare for the Great Barrows quests is to do the “Foray Into the Barrow-downs” quest (found at the Scholar’s Perch in Bree-Town) and “Calming the Wake” (Bree-Town Hall).  You will need to continue doing the “Scholar’s Perch” quests until you have done “Ruins of Cardolan”, which unlocks the Collecting History quest.  When these quests are completed you will have all the quests unlocked you need for the Great Barrows.  You should at this point have Purging the Dead, Collecting History and Ancient Story of Evil.

Adventuring in the Barrows

When in the Great Barrows, there are standard, common sense strategies you should be using.  In these quests, these strategies become critical for success.

1.  Fellowship makeup:  Your fellowship should have someone who can heal, someone who can control crowds, someone who can tank, and 2 damage dealers.  It would not be remiss to have someone who can buff, such as a captain or a damage mitigator such as a minstrel.  All members of your fellowship should be at least level 21 for Purging the Dead, Collecting History and Ancient Story of Evil, and frankly, you should try for higher levels such as level 23 if you can.

2.  Duties:  When in combat, your tank should draw aggression first, and lead when traveling.  Before a combat starts, the tank should give time for other classes to prepare (hunters to lay down traps, etc).  The tank should draw aggression, all damage dealers should target the tank and use the F key to target whoever the tanker is fighting.  Crowd control should mezz others.  Any adds (and there will be plenty) should be dealt with by the damage dealers if they are attacking anyone besides the tanker.  Don’t let your support or less durable classes get killed by adds.

3.  Don’ts:  Don’t use aoe’s if they draw agg.  Don’t “peak”.  Only the tanker should lead.  Don’t start combats until you are sure everyone has prepared.  Don’t rush into areas, always try to pull small groups at a time.

4.  Pulling:  You won’t always be able to choose your pull in the Great Barrows, but always try to pull at range and as few opponents as necessary.  There are many, many elites, and there are large groups of multiple weaker opponents, and both of these scenarios can cause a fellowship wipe in short order unless you are organized.

5.  Remember who the most dangerous opponents are:  Wight Elite Archers are very deadly at range, less so in melee.  It’s wise, when you have the choice, to draw these opponents' aggression, then move back around a corner (forcing them to run up to you).  Wight Callers are dangerous in melee, so try to mezz all but them, then gang up on the caller, and so on.  Experience will be your best teacher here.

6.  Remember respawns:  There are rare respawns in the Barrows.  When you die, if you find that there are respawns between your fellowship and yourself, then you and your fellowship have to decide what to do.  Either you can try to get to your fellowship from the entrance of the instance (where you appear) or your fellowship can continue until all your fellowships' members die (while you wait at the entrance).  There are not enough respawns to be a major problem for a full fellowship.

Layout of The Great Barrows

The Great Barrow can be best divided into 4 sections.

The Entrance

The entrance of the great barrows consists of several winding stairways, a couple chambers, leading eventually to a room I refer to as “The Crossroads”.  The entrance is full of mainly non wight creatures, massive elite tomb spiders, Barrow worms (which come in swarms) and similar.  At a couple points, these worms will attack, and then another group will appear behind you, so damage dealers should be prepared to defend your support classes.  The Crossroads room is self evident.  You have the choice of a stairway on the left or the right.  The left stairway has some archers at the top of the stairs, the right has a Barrow caller and some other wights.  The left leads to the Maze, the right leads to the Great Hall.

The Maze

The Maze is found by taking a left at the Crossroads mentioned above.  The Maze has many twisting passages, several side chambers, has a large room, and leads eventually to Gaedring’s Room (an elite wight lord).

The Great Hall

The Great hall is found by taking a right at the Crossroads.  This way leads to an an open area, with groups of wights and so on found at various parts of the chamber.  Near the rear of the Great Hall you can find the chamber of another elite wight lord, Thadur the Ravager.

The Rear Halls

The rear halls can be reached by traveling through the Great Hall mentioned above.  At the end of the Rear Hall you find the lord of the wights here in the Great Barrow, Samborg.  There is are some enemies here on the way, but if you have gone through the Maze and Great Hall, you will be familiar with the enemies you face, with the exception of Fell Spirits.  Fell Spirits are wights which have two dangerous abilities.  They can become immaterial, and they can stun opponents.  Other than they, they are no tougher than most elite opponents.

Individual Quests

Purging the Dead

Purging the Dead is probably the easiest of the Great Barrows quests of the 5 available.  Your goal is to defeat at total of 15 wights.  In the process of doing the Ancient Story of Evil and Collecting History quests, you almost certainly will complete this quest, and then some.  However, if you specifically wish to complete this quest, once you reach the crossroads, simply head left to the maze, and you will find many of these wights here.

Collecting History

Collecting History involves collecting several chalices from the Great Barrow.  You can find these in all the niches and side hallways found in the Great Barrow.  The biggest problem with this quest is how many are needed.  A full fellowship will need 60 chalices total.  To get this many chalices, a fellowship will need to travel fairly extensively into the Barrows.  It’s a good idea to “keep an eye on the ball” when gathering these, making sure combat is over and safe before one collects this ball.  There seems to be a lot of ninja-looting of these chalices by over-eager fellowship members.  The niches in the Maze has some of these chalices, as do most of the main rooms other than the “boss” rooms in the Great Barrow.

Story of Ancient Evil

Story of Ancient Evil involves getting two different halves of a key from bosses in the Great Barrow.  The bosses are not easy, but an organized, well made up party can defeat them.  Bring some food to eat before entering the boss fights, and perhaps some of the tougher fights.

One of the bosses is Geadring.  Traveling through the Maze, you will run across Gaedring’s room at the end.  There are two wight lords here at the bottom of a landing of stairs.  As soon as Gaedring is spoken to, one wight lord at a time will attack, and from tombs laid out around the room, creeping arms, barrow worms, and normal wights will continue to spawn.  Everyone should fight in the bottom of the stairs.  The tanker should keep the Wight Lords occupied, and any damage dealers should first kill any adds, and damage Gaedring when no adds are around.  The key here is to take care of the adds first, so that support members of your fellowship are not overwhelmed.  After both wight lords are dead, simply take the key and your done.  Head back to the Crossroads and head to the Great Hall.

The Great Hall is dangerous.  Clear out enemies bit by bit until you the hall is clear, and you will find a water filled room at the end of a hall occupied by Thadur the Ravager.  All members of your Fellowship must enter this room, or else the room will reset.  Simply spread out, have the tanker keep Thadur occupied.  Three times, Thadur will summon allies, who are dangerous wights.  You must concentrate on the wights who add when Thadur summons them, first those who are on your support characters, then those on the damage dealers, and finally those on your tank.  Then go back to Thadur.  The amount of wights double each time (I.e. he summons 2, then 4, then 8 and so on).  As long as you deal with the adds as soon as they appear, and get them off your “squishie” fellowship members first, you should be fine.  Make sure to eat food before these combats, and if you wish, some of the other tougher combats if you can.  After the combat, simply collect they key from Thadur the Ravager’s body.

After you have both keys head back to town, turn in the key halves (you will have a quick quest to get the key put together, and then Evil’s Final Chapter will be available), and return to the Great Barrow.  If you wish to avoid fighting too much, you can simply have members of your fellowship stay in the barrow to “keep it open” until you get back into the instance.  Also remember that after you have Evil’s Final Chapter available, Heading West, the fifth and last Great Barrow’s quest is available at Adso’s Camp.

Heading West

Heading West is available after you have completed Story of Ancient Evil and advanced to being able to receive Evil’s Final Chapter (I.E. put together the key).  You must pass to the Rear Halls to be able to reach the Fell Spirits that Heading West requires to be destroyed.  I strongly advice getting Evil’s Final Chapter so that you don’t have to do this quest twice, since you must fight Fell Spirits to get to the final wight lord of Evil’s Final Chapter.  As you reach these opponents, simply avoid pulling to many at once, and you will be fine.  You will easily recognize them, they are white and semi-transparent.

Evil’s Final Chapter

This quest is easy enough, for an accomplished fellowship.  You should have a fellowship of about 24th level doing this quest.  You should be familiar with the Great Barrows at this point.  Simply fight your way to the Rear Halls through the Great Hall, and you then fight your way through Fell Spirits until you finally reach the end boss, Samborg.
Once you start fighting with Samborg, like all the other fights with bosses in the Great Barrows, you should have the tanker keeping Samborg occupied, and concentrate on the Fell Spirits (and others) that join the combat, saving the squishies, then the damage dealers, and finally the tank, and so on, concentrating on Samborg when not otherwise doing this.    Remember to eat food.

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