Maraudon Instance Guide
Introduction
Maraudon is a beautiful instance located in Desolace.
It's designed for a group of 5 players, and can be really rewarding
– if done the correct way. It's pretty big, but you can do it
in two chunks (roughly 3 hours each) without having to clear
all the way again. The first half of the instance is where you will
find and complete the quest that rewards you with the Scepter
of Celebras. Right-clicking the scepter will teleport you
directly to the 2nd half of Maraudon, where the strongest boss mobs
are (and where the best loot is, mostly). Thus, Maraudon is a great
instance that you can run several times 'til you get all the rewards
you want. Follow this guide, and you will.
Level recommended
- For the first half: 47+
- For the 2nd half: 49+
Overall, if you want to be able to kill everything including the
last bosses, try to have everyone level 49+, besides the main healer
of course, who can be a tad lower.
Group composition
- Healer: Priest or restoration specced Druid
- Tank: Warrior or Paladin/druid bear
- AE class: Mage is the best choice followed by Warlock. Try to have one of these, it will really help.
- Try to keep it down to two melee classes (Warrior + Rogue for example). Maraudon is not so melee
friendly, several mobs (like the Princess) are tough for melees.
- It is IMPERATIVE that you have at least one range attack
class (Mage, Warlock, Hunter, Shaman, Druid/Priest if they aren't
your main healer). The Creeping Sludges will require kiting (will
explain that in detail), so you need at least 1 range attack class,
preferably two.
Quest gathering
Alliance:
- [42] Shadowshard Fragments [Shareable] From ArchMage Tervosh
at Theramore Keep in Dustwallow Marsh.
- [47] Vyletongue Corruption [Not Shareable] From Talendria at
Nijel's Point in Desolace. This quest has been made easier since
patch 1.12, so go for it.
- [51] Corruption of Earth and Seed
[Shareable][Main Quest] From Keeper Marandis at Nijel's Point in
Desolace.
Horde:
- [42] Shadowshard Fragments [Shareable] From Uthel'Nay at the
Valley of Spirts in Orgrimmar.
- [47] Vyletongue Corruption [Not Shareable] From Vark
Battlescar at Shadowprey Village in Desolace. This quest has been
made easier since patch 1.12, so go for it.
- [51]Corruption of Earth and Seed
[Shareable][Main Quest] From Selendra south of Shadowprey Village in
Desolace.
Both:
- [47] Twisted Evils [Shareable] From Willow in at Kormek's Hut
in Desolace (62,39), northeast of the Kodo Graveyard.
- [48] The Pariah's Instructions
[Not Shareable] From Centaur Pariah in Desolace. He wanders from
(50,86) to (43,84), that's in between the Gelkis Village and
Mannorok Coven.
Where is Maraudon?
Alliance: From Nijel's Point
go southwest until the entrance to the Valley of Spears (40,60),
which is located west of the Kodo Graveyard. Go through the valley of
spears until (38,57), there stands the gate to Maraudon.
Horde: Go east from Shadowprey
Village until (29,74), then go north and through the Valley of
Spears until (31,61). There stands the meeting stone and the
entrance to Maraudon further up.
Before going in:
We'd suggest binding yourself in Desolace. At Nijel's Point
for Alliance, at Shadowprey Village for Horde. The only way out of
Maraudon when you are deep in is to use hearthstone, Mage portal or
death. So it's much more convenient to hearthstone to desolace so you
can turn in your quests after you are done with Maraudon.
Walkthrough[/size]
1. The Amulet of Spirits and the 1st Kahn
After entering the gates of Maraudon, go through the first tunnel
until you find a centaur with the name 'The Nameless
Prophet'. Kill him and loot the Amulet of Spirits
from him. You can find The Nameless Prophet anywhere between the
entrance and the fork to the crystal tunnels. As soon as you kill The
Nameless Prophet he respawns instantly somewhere else.
Put the Amulet of Spirits on a hotkey.
Then go further in and you'll be at the first fork. On he left
you'll see purple crystals, to the right orange crystals, and
straight ahead is an arch with 2 centaur statues. Go straight ahead
until you find a non agressive centaur named Spirit of Kolk.
Use the Amulet of Spirits on him, this will make him agressive, kill
him and loot the Gem of the First Kahn.
Note: Behind Kolk is a room with a pedestal. It's on this
pedestal that you have to stand and click on your Scepter
of Celebras to be teleported to the 2nd half of Maraudon.
But you don't have the scepter… yet.
2. The Orange crystal path
Go back to the fork and this time go to the tunnel with the orange
crystals, in the first cave you'll find a friendly NPC centaur named
Cavindra, get the quest [49] Legends
of Maraudon from her. It is the quest which allows you to
forge the Teleport Scepter we told you about before.
Just a bit further in and around the corner to the left you'll
find a red pool, if you want to do the quest [47]
Vyletongue Corruption, fill up the Cerulean Vial
you should have in your inventory (a black potion looking thingy).
Then from the red pool, if you look in the northeast direction,
you'll be facing two ways: one to the right going down, and one to
the left going slightly up. Take the left one, and go to the end of
it (39,57), you'll find the 3rd Kahn there next to a big
crystal. Use the Amulet of Spirits on him, kill him and loot the Gem
of the 3rd Kahn. From the big crystal look towards the east and
you should see a tunnel. Go through this tunnel you'll find the
instance portal quickly, zone in.
There is a good map here. Grab it - you'll need it.
3. To Noxxion
After zoning in, start clearing your way towards the area where
Noxxion is. Decision time: Do the quest [47]
Vyletongue Corruption or not? It's optional, but this
quest has been made much easier since patch 1.12, so you should go
for it for some easy extra xp reward.
If your group decided to do the [47]
Vyletongue Corruption quest, you should be looking for the
little plants.
You just have to stand next to one and right-click your Cerulean
Vial. These plants are only found on this side of the instance,
from here until the poison falls. Everytime you cleanse a plant, 3
elementals will spawn, they are not elite so it's really easy to deal
with them.
Basically you have to find 8 of these red plants and
do that 8 times to complete the quest, and the whole group gets a
quest update for each plant.
On your way down you'll most likely find the 5th Kahn
sooner or later, kill him and loot the Gem of the 5th Kahn.
At some point you'll face the following mobs:
If you don't read the following, your group will be destroyed. 
Info: Creeping Sludges come in packs of 2, 3 or 4,
they must NOT be melee'd. They pulse a 200 dmg poison area attack
every 2 seconds to anyone that is in close to them. So imagine 3 of
these in a bunch, pulsing 600 dmg every 6 seconds on all of your
melees.
How to: Let your Mage or Warlock do the initial pull with
an AoE (Blizzard, Rain of Fire for exemple). The Creeping sludges
walk extremely slow, they can be easily kited. (To kite
something means to kill it without ever being in melee range, using
ranged attacks). Basically have all your classes with range attacks
use them ( shocks, hunter bow shots, etc) while running these
Creeping Sludges in a large circle. This of course means you'll have
to have cleared a rather large space before pulling.
They are actually very easy to kill once your group knows the
drill, just don't let them get close to you and fire at will!
Once the creeping sludges are split, your melees can go chase one
(only if it's far away enough from the others) and melee it fast, if
they get low on health they can move away and wait for a heal.
So that's how you deal with Creeping Sludges. 
Normally, there is only 4 Creeping sludges on your way to the
larva spewer, and you should be able to get them by pairs if you pull
smart.
After you got those 4 Creeping Sludges clear, take the tunnel to
the left and you should be in the room with the Larva Spewer. Pull
the two Barbed Lashers in the way and also wait on the centaur
patrol if you didn't catch it yet. (2 elite centaurs, which are
humanoids so they can be crowd controlled).
You'll be facing a swarm of non-elite larvas and a Larva
Spewer. The Larva Spewer spews an elite larva and keeps
respawning it so it's useless to kill the elite larva, just let it
wander away. When the elite larva is away, pull the small larvas and
AE the hell out of them while one person (a melee preferably) goes to
the larva spewer and destroys it. (Takes a click and 5 seconds
channeling without being interrupted).
One word about AE though, if you have a Mage and if that Mage uses his/her AE effects like
Arcane Explosion in order to kill the bunch of larvas, the Mage will
take A LOT of daMage. So make it clear with your healer that
while the Mage is using AE on the larvas he needs to be perma spam
healed with fast heals and preferably shielded (with PW:S). This is
really essential, your healer must pay full attention, he can't be
watching TV and start healing after 30 seconds… the Mage will loose
health rapidly, so brief your healer well.
Once you got the Larva Spewer destroyed, clear your way down to
Noxxion.
Noxxion is the toughest boss of the first half of Maraudon,
but he's actually quite easy if you got a sharp Mage (or Warlock) and
a decent healer.
Here's how the fight should go:
- Tank charges Noxxion and everyone starts damaging him
- After about 10 seconds, Noxxion
will split into 8 Noxxion Spawns. Your healer (who should be
standing back) must shield the Mage/Warlock immediatly and then
focus on healing him. The Mage/Warlock should immediately start to
AE the spawns, the rest of the group must of course help with any ae
attack they got.
- Once the spawns are dead, Noxxion will repear, your tank must
try to get aggro on it as best as he can, and others should use
their long cooldown daMage abilities at this point. If your group
has sufficient dps, Noxxion will die before he gets to split up a
second time. If he does split up again, well don't panic, just
repeat what you did before and clear the spawns.
Key to this fight is to make sure your healer is standing away
from Noxxion when he splits up, so as to not get the initial swarm of
elementals, and the rest of the group must get those spawns dead as
fast as possible. AEs are of course the best way.
Noxxion mostly drops nature resist gear, but if you are lucky (15%
chance) he can drop a very nice caster wand, the Noxious
Shooter. Also some nature resist gear, for the Ahn'Qiraj
lovers.
Most importantly, don't forget to loot
the Celebrian Rod from Noxxion. Congratulations, your Scepter
of Celebras is 1/3 complete!
4. To Razorlash (Optional)
Don't bother with Razorlash
unless you are interested in one of the following drops, it's mostly
Nature Resist gear, for those who plan to go to Ahn'Qiraj
later on, this should be interesting.
If you decide to skip Razorlash, go to the next paragraph. If you
decide to go for Razorlash, there isn't much you need to know
besides:
If you encounter pulls consisting of 3 Constrictor Vines
and 1 Barbed Lasher, make sure you kill the Barbed lasher
first, they are really annoying with their AE knockdown ability.
Besides this, there's no real difficulty going to Razorlash, who's
also quite an easy kill. Send tank in, heal tank, dps Razorlash until
hit points=0%. That's it
5. To the Violet Crystal Path
Go backtrack, zone out of the instance, go back to the fork but
this time go through the violet crystal tunnel. At the first fork go
right, you'll find the other instance portal, don't get in though
yet. On the opposite side of the instance portal you'll see a bridge
with two blue flames, go over the bridge, after the bridge go left
and then a u-turn left again down a small slope which takes you to
another bridge (a smaller one). At the other hand of the bridge
you'll find a small shrine, and the 2nd Kahn. Kill it and loot
the Gem of the 2nd Kahn.
Before you go to the instance portal we passed on the way, kill
Shadowshard Smashers or Shadowshard Rumblers (those
rock elementals) in the violet crystal cavern until you got 10
Shadowshard Fragments. It's a very quickly done quest as the
elementals always drop a fragment, and the whole group can loot it!
When you're done with that, zone in the instance. You should
follow the violet path (Path 2 on map)
6. To Lord Vyletongue
The way to Lord Vyletongue shouldn't be a problem. The
hardest pulls you'll meet consist of 2 Satyrs (elite) and 4 Imps
(non-elite). Let your Warrior charge a Satyr and then your casters
should go in and AE the imps.
On your way to Lord Vyletongue, you should find the 4th Kahn. Kill
it and loot the Gem of the 4th Kahn. Open your inventory and
right click one of the gems, they will assemble into the Amulet of
Spirit and forge the Amulet of Union. You just completed the
quest [48] The Pariah's Instructions
(and made some space in your bags by getting rid of the 5 gems).
When you are in front of Lord Vyletongue's building, don't rush in
carelessly, there are 2 stealthed satyrs guarding it's entrance, pull
them and kill them. Then the only thing you'll be facing will be Lord
Vyletongue and his two stealthed guards (those you'll have to fight
at the same time as Lord Vyletongue).
Lord Vyletongue is actually a pretty easy fight. If you got
a Warlock, banish one of the satyrs, kill the other satyr and then
kill Lord Vyletongue. If you don't have a Warlock, just kill the two
stealthed satyrs first and then deal with Lord Vyletongue.
The best way to deal with this battle is to kill the stealthed
guards first while your tank is on Lord Vyletongue. Lord Vyletongue
actually doesn't hurt that much but is annoying to kill because he
teleports about. So save him for last.
Loot the Celebrian Diamond from him, thus making your
Scepter of Celebras 2/3rd complete. Lord
Vyletongue can also drop some interesting items at times.
7. Celebras the Cursed
After Lord Vyletongue, keep going until you reach the point marked
as 'drop off' on the map. You'll have to go through
a couple more of those 'creeping sludge pulls', but
it shouldn't be a problem for your group anymore. If you are lucky on
your way to the drop off, you might find Meshlok the Harvester,
he is a rare spawn, he looks like a cavern lurker (those ugly treant
looking things) and he wanders in the yellow waters before the drop
off, as shown on the map. He can drop some good stuff, such as the
blue Fungus Shroud Armor.
Sadly he's not there most of the time, but anyway, time to move
on.
Go to the 'drop off' point and jump down, you might
aggro a cavern lurker when jumping down, kill it while staying close
to the waterfall. Go west while staying close to the southern wall,
you can skip several thrash pulls this way. Keep going until you see
Celebras the Cursed.
Celebras the Cursed is guarded by 3 non-elite treants, and during
the fight he will attempt to summon more treants. Thankfully Celebras
can be interrupted, counterspelled and stunned. So make sure everyone
in your group uses their spell interrupting abilities on Celebras so
he doesn't get to summon more treants, or you will be swarmed.
No matter what, ignore the treants and just kill Celebras the
Cursed as fast as possible, then kill the treants with AEs.
After Celebras is defeated, he will reappear as a non agressive
NPC named Celebras the Redeemed, talk to him, go through his
dialogue, take his quest, watch him walk to the altar and forge the
Scepter of Celebras, complete the quest and voila!
You now got your Scepter of Celebras, which will allow you in your
future Maraudon runs to skip all the previous area and start the
instance after Celebras the Cursed!
So now there is about 2-3 hours to go if you want to get all the
remaining bosses, including the most important one: Princess
Theredras. If your group is still up for 2-3 more hours, go to
the next paragraph of the walkthrough. If not, you can get out of
maraudon and form another group and directly teleport them to the 2nd
half of Maraudon and continue on the next paragraph!
8. Earthsong Falls
This is where you end up after using the Scepter of Celebras from
the pedestal behind the 1st Kahn, or after going further past
Celebras the Cursed and jumping down the waterfalls. Follow the
yellow path from the map for now.
You'll quickly find some Thessaly Hydras roaming around the
cavern south of earthsong falls. They hit reasonably hard and have
one special ability you must be careful with, they knockback every
now and then anyone in too close range. So you want to avoid being
knocked back into more of those hydras.
Melees: always
fight so your back is facing a wall or a safe place (like the
waterfalls from where you arrived).
Casters: Fight at max
casting range so as to not get hit by the knockback.
Clear all the
Hydras on your way until you reach the tunnel to the south, and make
sure you don't skip any of those hydras, because some of them roam up
to the tunnel, you don't want them to add on you while you're already
dealing with the next pull.
The next pull consists of 3 Subterranean Diemetradons, they
are beasts so they can be sheeped or hibernated. Their special
ability is an area effect 10 seconds silence. Casters: Stay at max
casting range.
Once you've dealth with the 3 Diemetradon, wait for the first
patrol of elementals. Elemental patrols are either composed of 2
Theradrim Guardian or 1 Theradrim Guardian and small
elementals (non elite). If you got a Warlock in the group, they
can banish the elementals, making it easier. If not, you must know
that when a big elemental dies, it splits in 4 tiny elementals. What
our group usually does is kill the two big elementals and then AE the
8 tiny elementals. It works well.
After you've taken care of the 1st rock elemental patrol, go
further in and kill the next 3 pulls which consist of diemetradon
again, then go up the slope and wait for the 2nd elem patrol, kill
it. Now you have a choice, you can either decide to skip Tinkerer
Gizlock or not. If you decide to skip Tinkerer Gizlock, go
directly to paragraph #10.
9. Tinkerer Gizlock (Optional)
If you want to kill Tinkerer Gizlock (read: if your group is
interested in one of his drops), take the tunnel to the north, the
one with snake packs called 'Deep Borer' and follow
the pink path on the map. These snakes are easy, with or without AEs.
After the first snake pull you'll be entering a larger room with a
ramp going down, try to get the rock patrol out of the way as soon as
possible, then work your way down until you end up facing a goblin
named Tinkerer Gizlock.
He is an easy fight, just make sure non-melees stay at max range
from him, he is a caster and casts some AEs. He doesn't have much HPs
for a boss, burn him down quickly. He drops decent items including a
very good caster sword.
After that, go backwards and back on the Princess path,
until you reach your next choice. Kill Landslide or not? If you
decide to skip Landslide, just go to the last paragraph and stay on
the princess path (yellow path on map).
10. Landslide
Go further up the 2nd part of the slope (to the south) and wait on
the 3rd elemental patrol, dispatch it. Now you should have some big
giants in sight, named Primordial Behemoth. Go over the bridge
and kill the first one if he is alone, if not wait for the behemoth
patrol to wander off, nothing much to say about these giants besides
they hit rather hard.
About the Primordial Behemoth patrol, you
should lookout for it but this giant walks really slow, so you should
see it coming from afar and be able to pull it solo. After having
killed the first giant after the bridge, you can decide either to
skip Landslide or to go directly for the princess. If you decide to
skip Landslide (nobody in your group wants any of his drops), skip
the following and go directly to paragraph #11.
If you do want to kill Landslide, follow the green path from the
map, work your way up the slope. Your last pull before Landslide will
be 2 giants at the same time, we strongly advise that you assign one
tank to each giant before engaging (your secondary tank can be a ,
paladin, druid, or even a Warlock/hunter pet, but just make sure the
giant won't be on the loose).
After that you'll be facing Landslide, the giant boss. He hits
hard, has a lot of HPs, and has two abilities you must know of:
- 1. He knockbacks his main
target (the person on top of his aggro list, most likely your tank)
far away. So your tank must position himself with his back to a
wall, that way he won't get punted far away and lose aggro.
- 2. He does a wide area warstomp, which stuns everyone
for a painful 5 seconds. Casters should try to fight Landslide at
max range to avoid the stun. Also, make sure to never let your tank
go low on health, because if you get stunned at that moment, odds
are your tank will die during the 5 sec stun.
Everyone must make sure to control their daMage output at the
start to let the tank get sufficient time to build a solid aggro.
After that they can go all out. With that in mind, Landslide should
be easy. He also drops some nice items.
11. Princess Theradras and Rotgrip
Go towards Princess Theradras, follow the yellow path. Pull
the 4 diemetradons and kill them, then go further in and you'll be
entering an open area called 'Zaetar's Grave'. Wait
for the rock elemental patrol and kill it. Then you have to start
clearing your way through pairs of giants. You can skip the first 2
behemoths to the left, all the others you will have to kill on your
way down the slope leading to Princess Theradras. Shortly you should
be facing the charming Princess Theradras. Here is how you kill her:
Abilities:
- Every 20 seconds or so she does a
point blank area effect with several waves that knockback
anyone in melee range and also daMage them.
- Every now and then she will
randomly cast fear on people, it can't be dispelled, but
undeads can use will of the forsaken, Warriors in berserker stance
(not recommended if you are tanking though) can use berserker rage.
If you got a dwarf priest with you, he can use fear ward on your
tank, it works!
- Every now and then she'll throw a rock randomly at a ranged
attacker, disrupting their casting.
How to:
- Melee classes are heavily crippled
in this battle, she keeps pushing them back and damaging them with
her ae, so you should only let pure melee classes (Tank, Rogue) in
melee. Paladins or Shamans will be more useful standing back and
healing or nuking, unless they are the main tank of your group of
course.
- Melees: when she uses her AE knockback waves, don't even
try to fight the knockback and stay close to her, just let her push
you away and wait till she's done farting before you go in again.
- Casters: stay at long range, you should never get hit
by her AE knockback.
Anyway, it is a slow and long fight, probably the hardest battle
in Maraudon, but really manageable if you follow the above.
Congratulations on killing Princess Theradras and completing the
main maraudon quest! The princess also drops nice things, always
2 blue items out of 7.
After the princess is dead, a ghost centaur named Zaetar's
Spirit should appear in the middle of the Princess' lair. Talk to
it and get the quest [51] Seed of Life
(Dungeon), which you can turn in at Moonglade for extra XP
and 1gold 50silver.
Don't go yet, there is still one boss to get, and it's very close.
Buff everyone with underwater breathing if you got a Warlock in your
group, if you don't it's ok, it will just be less comfortable.
Go to the northern waterfall directly next to the princess lair,
look down from there before you jump, make sure you don't see a huge
crocodile named Rotgrip swimming there before you jump. If the
croco is not around, have your whole group jump down there and stay
close to the waterfall. Wait for Rotgrip to come close and pull it to
this corner. He is an easy fight, he just hits hard and is
underwater, no difficulty besides this. Rotgrip is worth killing
because he can drop some great items, including Gatorbite
Axe, Albino Crocscale Boots,
and/or Rotgrip Mantle.
That was all the bosses! Congratulations on clearing Maraudon
completely. The only way out is to use Hearthstone or ask a Mage for
a portal, or to suicide! We hope you enjoyed this guide and the
maraudon instance.
Note: For the AQ20 / AQ40 nature
resist gear farmers, when you go as deep as Landslide or Princess
Theradras, the fastest way to go out and reset the instance is:
- Go naked
- Suicide
- Run back in as ghost and zone out, reset the instance
Congratulations, you've made it through the whole guide.