World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

As you scramble through the cold mist, you finally see your goal, the majestic Utgarde Keep. Thoughts of the treasure to be found inside dance through your roguish mind and your fingers itch to loot everything that isn’t nailed down. Utgarde Keep, its forbidding stone walls give mute testimony to the strength of the dangers you’ll face inside. Utgarde Keep, where men are men, women are spellcasters, and worgs are worgs. Fortunately for you, you’re not alone. To help you in your quest to survive a heroic Utgarde Keep, you are accompanied by some suckers….I mean, companions. Together, you’ll face the challenges ahead and emerge victorious over your foes, and hopefully a great deal richer in gold and items. This guide is here to help rogues, cool and deadly members of the shadow brotherhood, negotiate the perils and pitfalls to be found in Utgarde Keep.

Gear

When heading into heroic Utgarde Keep, the basics for raid gear and equipment apply. You should have level-appropriate blues for your gear. You can get away with lesser gear if the rest of your party is really good. Make sure you have your poisons, food, bandages, flasks, scrolls, and elixirs handy. Utgarde Keep does not take a long time to get through, usually an hour to an hour and a half, so you won’t be taxed too heavily on consumables.

Role

Your role in Utgarde Keep is pretty simple. It falls into two basic rules:

Rule #1 – Do as much damage as you possibly can whenever you can.
Rule #2 – While doing rule #1, don’t pull aggro off the tank.

If you pull aggro off the tank, you’ll get yourself killed, and then you endanger the rest of the party since your damage output is now negated. Keep an eye on your threat, and if it gets too high, back off a bit. Most likely, you really won’t have to worry too much if you have a decent tank, but still, it’s polite to keep your threat as low as possible. Use the Omen addon to help keep track of your threat, and if it gets too high, use your Feint ability to lower it. In a pinch, use your Vanish ability to reduce your threat.

While we’re wearing leather, it’s only one step above cloth. If the bad guys start to pound on us, we’ll die. We’ll die in a very messy way. The best way to avoid that is to not have the enemy attack you. Let him beat on the moron in the plate armor who’s begging for it.

During fights, the healer will be concentrating on the tank to keep that buffoon up. (Yes, I said buffoon. Who fights face to face? Not we rogues! We’re too smart for that. Stab your enemies in the back is the best way, unless they’re asleep, which is better still.) Don’t be shy about using a healing potion or bandaging yourself to get you back into fighting shape. A good healer will still show you lots of love, healing wise, but be prepared to keep yourself alive if need be.

Trash Mobs

As a rogue, fighting trash mobs is pretty straightforward, with one or two exceptions. If there’s only one or two opponents, let the tank rush up and get aggro on them. You can then sneak up and begin your attacks on the enemy. Make sure that you’re assisting the tank (attacking the same opponent he is). If there are a larger number of foes, then you’ll be called upon to sap one of the enemies. Sneak on up and sap whichever one you’re supposed to, then move to attack the rest. Just be careful around Worgs. They’re really good at detecting people in stealth, so steer clear of them. For attacking, just follow your basic attack procedure depending upon your spec.

Enslaved Proto-Drakes are trickier. Those fiends breathe fire in their front arc, hitting everybody there. For them, let the tank run up and turn them around. Then, you can move up and begin your attack. Make sure you keep on the backside of the Proto-Drakes. As for Runecasters and Spiritualists, your group should attack them first. Just pile on the damage and drop those spellcasters as fast as you can.

As for Frenzied Geists and Tunneling Ghouls, you should pretty much ignore them. Concentrate on the Dragonflayer Overseer, while letting your companions rain down their AoE damage upon the Geists and Ghouls. They should drop the enemy pretty quick.

Bosses

There are three boss fights in Utgarde Keep. The first is Prince Keleseth, the second is Dalronn the Controller with Skarvald the Constructor, and the final fight is against the mighty Ingvar the Plunderer. We’ll look at each fight separately. I would recommend using an addon like Deadly Boss Mod, which tells you when a special attack is getting ready to take place. As with trash mobs, keep an eye out on your threat level. Don’t pull aggro away from the tank.

Prince Keleseth
This fight is pretty straightforward, with a few twists. Basically, you’ll just run up on him and continue to attack until he’s dead. However, he does throw a few curveballs during the fight. The first is that he’ll summon a group of skeletons to help him. You should ignore them. Let the ranged DPS take them out with whatever AoE they’re using. Keep concentrating on the Prince. The biggest challenge is the Prince’s frozen tomb. Periodically during the fight, he’ll entomb a party member in a frozen tomb, which is basically a big block of ice. When this happens, run immediately to that person and target the frozen tomb. Whack at it as quickly as you can to free your comrade. Having someone like the healer getting taken out of the fight by being frozen is a very bad thing. Other than the frozen tomb, just keep attacking the Prince.

Dalronn the Controller/Skarvald the Constructor
This fight is only slightly trickier than normal. The main difference in this fight is that if you kill one of the two bosses, he’ll come back as a ghost, with all his normal abilities, and continue to attack until the other boss is killed. The normal method is to kill Dalronn first, then Skarvald second. The reasoning behind this is you can keep aggro on Skarvald while he’s alive, but once he’s dead, he’ll randomly attack. Having your healer aggroed on is not a good idea. Usually, this fight tends to be pretty short. Let the tank aggro the bosses, then you attack Dalronn, along with the rest of the group. Once he dies, ignore his ghost and attack Skarvald. Once he drops, the fight is over.

Ingvar the Plunderer
This fight is a fight worthy of a saga! Sadly, we rogues don’t like to have our names mentioned in the limelight too often. (I wasn’t there, I swear! I was visiting a sick friend in a neighboring city. And I just happened to find this gold and cool magical belt!) This fight has two distinct phases. In the first phase, Ingvar is alive and fights a particular way. The second phase occurs after he dies and is resurrected.

In the first phase, your main worry is Ingvar’s Smash attack. This attack does a lot of damage (normally close to our full health) to all players in a 10 yard cone in front of him. At the beginning of the fight, the tank should run up and engage Ingvar. Whilst doing so, the tank should turn Ingvar around. You then run up and begin your attack from Ingvar’s rear. Keep an eye on how Ingvar is positioned. The tank will be moving around to avoid his Smash attack. Back away or move to the side when that attack comes. Then, move in and continue attacking his back. Keep this up until he dies.

When Ingvar dies, make sure you run behind a pillar. He usually starts the second phase with a Dreadful Roar, which does over 3K in damage. However, if you’re behind a pillar, then you’re safe. Hiding behind a pillar also helps against his Shadow Axe ability, which is when he throws an axe at somebody and it spins for 10 seconds. The axe deals around 2K damage per second if you’re in its radius. Don’t be! Ingvar’s main attack is his Dark Smash, which is a suped-up version of his normal Smash attack. This attack does an average of 9K damage to all players within a 10 yard cone in front of him. Also, everybody gets knocked down and takes around 2K shadow damage to boot. For a rogue, you basically continue attacking his back and keeping an eye out for his special attacks. Haul butt to get out of his front cone if he turns and avoid his Shadow Axe. It’s better to run away for a few seconds than to be foolishly brave and die. Eventually, you’ll whittle him down to being dead again.

As a rogue, Utgarde Keep is pretty straightforward. Just stab everything in front of you (but not your companions!) and loot the dead bodies. Hopefully, this guide will help you navigate your expedition through the smoky halls of Utgarde Keep. With solid teamwork, you and your party will conquer the denizens of Utgarde Keep and you’ll be toasting your heroism with frothy mugs of ale!