The Shattered Halls are the third and most difficult of the five man instances in the Hellfire Citadel. The citadel itself straddles the Path of Glory leading to the Dark Portal and contains 3 other instances. The Citadel is the home of the Fel Orcs in Hellfire Peninsula and was built by Blackhand and Gul’dan and still houses the Kargath Bladefist.
As mentioned The Shattered Halls is one of the most difficult 5 man instances you encounter on regular difficulty. This is largely due to the large pull groups that you have to deal with. It also ends with a very difficult fight with Kargath Bladefist that gives many groups issues until players are better geared than new level 70 players.
The other instances in Hellfire Citadel are as follows:
Instance |
MOB Levels
|
# of Players
|
Hellfire Ramparts |
60 - 62
|
5
|
The Blood Furnace |
61 - 63
|
5
|
The Shattered Halls |
70 - 72
|
5
|
Magtheridon's Lair |
72+
|
25
|
As always, click any image in this article to see a bigger version of it
Quests |
There are several quests in the Shattered Halls, two available to both factions, two to the Alliance and one for the horde.
Quests for Both Factions
Pride of the Fel Horde – Field Commander Romus at Honor Hold wants you to kill 8 Shattered Hand Legionnaires, 4 Shattered Hand Centurions, and 4 Shattered Hand Champions.
These are found along the normal route through the instance, just kill them as you come to them.
Tear of the Earthmother– Recover the Tear of the Earthmother from Warbringer O'mrogg and return it to David Wayne at Wayne's Refuge.
Drops for those that have the quest from O'mrogg.
Alliance Only
Turning the Tide– Bring Warchief Kargath's Fist to Force Commander Danath Trollbane in Honor Hold.
Simply (or maybe not so simply) kill Kargath at the end of the instance
Fel Embers – Magus Zabraxis at Honor Hold wants you to bring her a Fel Ember.
Grand Warlock Nethekurse will drop an item that allows you to collect the flame from the brazier near him.
Horde Only
The Will of the Warchief – Bring Warchief Kargath's Fist to Nazgrel in Thrallmar.
Same as the Alliance quest "Turning the Tide"
Trash MOBs |
There are many new mobs and several interesting trash MOBs in the Shattered Halls. The most important to watch for and be aware of are:
Shattered Hall Acolytes - These are priest based MOBs. They can cast fairly big heals and have a bubble ability. They are a high priority to kill or crowd control.
Shattered Hall Legionnaires - These MOBs are in charge of each of the large groups in the Shattered Halls. They are melee fighters and generally have 4-6 other MOBs with them. They MUST die first, as their ability is to call in replacements for any MOB that dies while they are still alive. No one should jump to any other target until the Legionnaire is down.
Shattered Hall Centurions - These are close combat MOBs what are immune to pretty much all crowd control. Come in groups of two.
Shattered Hall Champions - Similar to Centurians they are immune to CC other than frost nova.
Shattered Hall Gladiators - These are another MOB that is immune to CC, other than fear and slowing effects. They have a mortal strike attack that they hit with that can hit a tank for over 1000 damage and can sometimes kill cloth wearers in 1 or 2 hits. They come in groups of 4 but start off fighting each other and will knock each other down to about 35% health before resting and repeating the fight. Wait until they are at about 40% health before pulling for a much easier fight.
Shattered Hall Reavers - They have a nasty cleave with a significant range (about 7-8 yards). Unless you have to be close, stay away from them.
Shattered Hall Dark Casters - These are essentially warlocks, they have a short range AOE fear and an AoE fire attack. The AoE does big damage so you need to stay out of it and they need to die quickly.
Shattered Hand Sharpshooters - These have a fire based DoT shot and a scatter shot that confuses the target. VEry annoying when they target your healer, as such they should be CC'ed or droped quickly in from the groups.
Grand Warlock Nethekurse |
Netherkurse sends in his flunkies |
The first boss you come to is Grand Warlock Nethekurse and his four cronies. When you first engage him he sends them at you with some very cool voice commentary. Once the last one dies though, the real fight begins.
Death Coil – This attach does up to 2,000 shadow damage and causes fear for about 5 seconds.
Void Zones – During the fight Nethekurse will spawn multiple black/purple spots around his room. These void zones hit for 1000 shadow damage per tick, so you must move out quickly. He continues to summon additional ones as the fight goes on and they last for a while, so do not be surprised if there are 3 or 4 around the room by the end of the fight.
Whirlwind - At roughly 20% remaining health he will stand in place and perform a whirldwind attack.This attack will hit everyone around roughly 2000 damage per hit. He will also start throwing Shadow bolts at random players, that hit for up to 2000 damage
Before starting the fight everyone should get a shadow protection buff from the priest if at all possible as much of the damage is shadow based.
Due to the void zones, this fight generally turns into a moving tank battle as at least once or twice a spot will form on the tank. The rest of the players need to be aware of their surroundings as well and move when a void zone appears near them. Stay spread out so that he can not place a void zone where it will effect 2 players at the same time. Also stay away from the zones so that when you are feared you do not run directly into one.
When he enters his final stage, it becomes a DPS race as he does not track aggro any more. Everyone should go full out, and if you hit this stage with almost full health he will drop quickly.
Warbringer O'mrogg |
The second boss is a giant two headed ogre with personality conflicts, named Warbringer O'mrogg. He spends most of the whole fight arguing with himself, which is quite entertaining. During the fight he will has several witty comments to himself and other players such as "I kill someone else now" and "I bored, I squish you instead" and then moves to attack a different player.
Personality Conflicts... |
Immune to Taunts – Due to his multiple personality disorder he is not effected by taunts.
AoE Fear - He can cause a medium range AoE fear of about 15 yards that lasts for roughly 5 seconds.
Thunderclap - This Aoe hits everyone in melee range for about 1000 damage and reduces their movement and attack speed by 35% for 10 seconds.
Burning Fist - At several points during the fight O'mrogg's fists will start to glow and he will hit for up to 1000 additional fire damage. After a few seconds he will cast a fire based AoE around him that does up to 3000 damage.
The fight with O'mrogg is very entertaining and challenging due to his two heads. Each head has its own aggro list! When he emotes and switches to the other head being incharge he will attack the person highest on that aggro list, as long as that person wasn't the highest on the first aggro list. Because of this, it is either best to have all cloth wearers slow down their damage a bit to not be number 2 on the list, or have everyone burn through him as fast as you can.
Kargath Bladefist |
This is the most difficult fight in the Shattered Halls due to the many adds that Kargath summons that you need to deal with. In addition to a constant stream of additional MOBs you need to deal with Kargath's abilities which are:
Kargath Bladefist |
Blade Frenzy – Every 30 seconds Kargath will drop aggro and run around the room hitting players at random for roughly 2000 damage. He does this for about 10 seconds and then returns to the tank.
Summon Adds – Kargath will call in reinforcements on a regular basis that add to the fight and need to be DPSed down or feared.
As soon as you start the encounter, you are confined to Kargath's room as two elite Assassins will spawn just past each set of stairs into the room. If anyone goes past the bottom step of the stairs they will aggro into the fight.
When he Blade frenzies everyone needs to spread out so that he does not hit anyone very often or hopefully more than once. Also the last hit of his frenzy is a cleave that hits everyone within 10 yards, so no one should be grouped together for it.
The fight is a healing endurance test and a DPS race. The healer needs to have enough mana and regen to keep the whole party up, while DPS gets him down before the healer runs out of mana. The charges and cleaves do enough damage that you will need to heal at least a few people after each round so that the next round of charges does not kill anyone.
The best way to deal with the fight is to DPS Kargath while keeping one person taking care of the adds or a few people taking turns fearing them. While difficult it can be a very entertaining and fun fight.
Conclusions |
The instance is fairly difficult even for well geared groups, due to the size of the MOB groups. Expect to take at least 2 hours in the instance, with 3 hours a real possibility.
The loot in the instance is outstanding and many players will keep coming back for that one piece they just have to have. There are several pieces of the Dungeon Set 3 that drop from the various bosses. You can find the drop locations in our: Dungeon Set 3 Drop Location page.
I took many additional screen shots which are all available in our gallery here: TenTonHammer visits the Shattered Halls.
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