WoW - Uldaman and Zul'Farak instances

[Kuch]

I had asked this question in the 'Instances' thread, but that thread seems to have been lost in the shuffle so I'm going to ask it again.

I'm level 48 now and last completed instance is still SM. I made a short run into Uldaman before 2 guys had to leave so we all hearthed out. Only killed one named who was level 40 I think. I have a bunch of quests for Uldaman and Zul'Farak, but I've heard these are not peoples favorites with comments such as too hard or poor loot. I'm close to high enough to go to Mauradon. I've heard it is a much better instance with great drops. Do I drop all the quests from Uldaman and Zul'Farak and not even do them and just start trying Mauradon, or is it worth it to go to these 2 and finish off the quests?

Thanks in advance,

Kuch

 

[CVSiN]

Zul is highly worth it... and you need it for the Sunken Temple line...

Zul has great loot and is one of the more fun instances in the game

uldaman on the other hand sucks a big fatty..
and the only reason to go to maraudon are thrash blade and albino croc scale boots....
rest was super crappy..

zul for sure... Sunken Temple for sure...
maurad get your loot and get the heck out..
Uldaman dont even bother...

 

[mchammer187]

i despise Uldaman

i went in once wiped early (was lvl 41 or so)

went it again several levels later and completed it but it was one of the most boring experiences of my life


it might be worth doing once but when my 2nd char gets to that level i am completely skipping that

Zul is alright not too hard but getting the hammer / mallet to summon the gator is hard if you are low-leveled
it is so so

maraudon is worth it for the qeust reward and the trinket (mark of the chose)
zul you need to kill ghazrilla for the carrort on a stick and you need to do the protect quest for the mason's fraternity ring (+13 agil +5 stam)

if you are cloth i have no idea how worthwile it is

i can tel you one thing is maraudon is not fun

 

[torpid]

Yeah I was going to mention the mark of the chosen as well. Is there a better trinket that one can get to accompany the carrot on a stick at level 45-50?

 

[abaez]

Uldaman is awful. ZF is ok, lots of quests and yes getting the mallet for gahz rilla is more difficult than actually killing gahz himself.

Maraudon is awesome once you get the staff where you can teleport into inner maraudon. Then you can do princess runs every 30 minutes (you can just walk by alot of the giants and lizards with a druids sleep spell).

Landslide drops a nice 35 dps one hand mace that gives +50 mana on hit (good for priests), and also a nice off hand globe. Princess drops really great plate leggings, great caster headpiece, lots of classes neck and two caster daggers, one is uber rare though (purple item), the other is +11 int and pretty decent 35dps.

I did ST once and its very very long (if you are doing the regular quest), there is the regular quest guy, Jammal something, and a level 55 dragon elite with a wicked undispellable sleep spell that kicked our butts.

 

[NeoV]

I love Mauradon, I've gotten some really good items there, including the aforementioned croc boots....and the scepter from the princess....the place is huge though

Zul is ok - the one area where the guy spawns 15 basilisks at once is a bit much, but other than that it's cool.....

I just got my mount yesterday, so I really want that carrot now!

Haven't been to Uldamon or Sunken temple yet, been hanging out in the Un'Goro crater, which is almost like an instance all over the place

 

[torpid]

Ehhh... you just got your mount but have been through mauradon and zul?

 

[imported_obsidian]

Originally posted by: torpid
Ehhh... you just got your mount but have been through mauradon and zul?

Haha, just noticed this. Looks like someone needs to start saving their money better.

I guess I shouldn't be one to talk though since I currently have more money on my 23 alt than I do my 52 main.

 

[Litchfield285]

i dont mind ulda... ive gotten a bunch of good xp from that instance, and my nice shiny new polearm grimlok's charge (+15 agil +15 stam and +10 str) which is great for me being a hunter and all...

ive ran ZF once, and im 46 so it was kinda rough... im going to run it a few more times before i hit 50 and run mara...

 

[imported_obsidian]

Yea, grimlok's charge is nice but everytime I ran it we got that damn cloth armor from grimlok. Recently, I just finished getting my 2 dawn's edges which more than make up for it though (am also a hunter). Pretty expensive though at 45g each.

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: torpid
Yeah I was going to mention the mark of the chosen as well. Is there a better trinket that one can get to accompany the carrot on a stick at level 45-50?

Depends what class and profession you are. If you are a melee, then smott's compass ( a 1% dodge trinket ) is a much better choice than the carrot ( swap it when you have a long run to do ).

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: Kuch
I had asked this question in the 'Instances' thread, but that thread seems to have been lost in the shuffle so I'm going to ask it again.

I'm level 48 now and last completed instance is still SM. I made a short run into Uldaman before 2 guys had to leave so we all hearthed out. Only killed one named who was level 40 I think. I have a bunch of quests for Uldaman and Zul'Farak, but I've heard these are not peoples favorites with comments such as too hard or poor loot. I'm close to high enough to go to Mauradon. I've heard it is a much better instance with great drops. Do I drop all the quests from Uldaman and Zul'Farak and not even do them and just start trying Mauradon, or is it worth it to go to these 2 and finish off the quests?

You should finish uldaman at least once, perferably while the mobs in there still give experience. The skills you learn dealing with the swarms of non-elite dwarfs will serve you well later in the game, and the Arcaedas fight is very different and a great intro to how you are going to have to use different tactics to beat encounters.

Zul'Farrak is buggy and annoying, but the pyramid slave swarm event is fun and hectic, but very very hard if you do it in the proper level range. Good for a challenge, but the loot in ZF is not really anything you are going to hold on to for a long period.

You'll most likely get a lot of mileage out of maraudon loot - numerous people I know who have been 60 for more than a month still have some maraudon loot - but be warned that maraudon is a very very long dungeon if you go through at level 48-50. The people talking about doing it for loot in 30 minutes are higher level people who use the teleport staff to skip the first 80% of it, and then avoid a lot of the fights to just kill a few named mobs.

 

[Litchfield285]

Originally posted by: obsidian
Yea, grimlok's charge is nice but everytime I ran it we got that damn cloth armor from grimlok. Recently, I just finished getting my 2 dawn's edges which more than make up for it though (am also a hunter). Pretty expensive though at 45g each.

hehe yeah i ran ulda 9 times before the charge dropped and that damn vest dropped all of my first 8 runs... i was lucky i was in a group with a high lvl pally, a rouge, a priest, and a warlock... so the only other person who could use it didnt need it, and i rolled a 9 so it was definetly my lucky day...

 

[NeoV]

ok ok I admit I didn't save money for a mount, but it was worth it!

I have that teleporter thing for Mauradon, it's a must!

 

[Gurck]

All of the instances mentioned have great scenery and shouldn't be missed because of that alone. As far as loot alone though, the boss in Ulda drops 50ac rings of the ____, usually 8 each to two stats - pretty nice. The dwarves have some cool and funky rare loot, I like "Oil of Olaf" :laugh: His all-purpose shield is very useful as well. They also can drop a 30+ dps 1hander and a good plate helm, both nice for the level at which you can obtain them. Like Ulda, there's a lot in Maraudon people have failed to mention - the ~28 dps gun, hypertech buckler, pretty much everything off Princess Cutiepie (and dear god is she wearing a thong? :Q), the cloak off Cerebras, etc... ZF is needed for the carrot on a stick and as a precursor to the sunken temple quest for the lifeforce dirk (35.9, 11sta) or the avenguard (plate) helm. Also some nice drops there, including a 37ish dps 1h axe. Try to enjoy the game itself a little, sheesh

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: Litchfield285
i dont mind ulda... ive gotten a bunch of good xp from that instance, and my nice shiny new polearm grimlok's charge (+15 agil +15 stam and +10 str) which is great for me being a hunter and all...

ive ran ZF once, and im 46 so it was kinda rough... im going to run it a few more times before i hit 50 and run mara...

Is this a common drop off of someone (grimlok?). That is somewhat better than my current weapon (2h sword +12 agi +12 spi 34dps) so I'd be interested to know more.

To obsidian... I don't think it's uncommon to have more on your alt. Training is very expensive and you tend to ship a lot of stuff to your alt for crafting. My main has 28g but if I were to train everything that is available I'd need another 10g or so.

 

[Kuch]

Well, I finally completed Uldaman last night. No wipes, but the main healer (druid) died twice during slithid zergs (I don't think our warrior knew how to hold aggro well, and the only AOE we had was from my fire totems which don't match a mage or even a warlock). It was tough to get a group together (took over an hour). There were plenty of Alliance groups going in, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I'm on a server that has 3 times as many alliance as Horde. I thought it was a pretty good instance, and Velk is right about it preparing you for zerg events (slithids) and mutliple pulls of elites and non-elites. The loot wasn't great, but my group was all between 47 and 51 so maybe we were too high. A lot of the mobs at the beginning didn't give any experience. The only items that dropped that seemed useful to our group was a hunter got a gun off the named 'skull-level' dwarf (Firebeard??), the rogue got a set of legs with high agility and of course the ring that Arcaedus dropped (which I didn't get). I did get a random green cloak that was an improvement.

The part that sucked for me was that in the instance drops the necklace needed for the Necklace Recovery quest. In order to finish the quest you need to take it back to Orgrimmar where they tell you to look for the gems in Uldaman. This just makes you have to do the damn instance twice. Stupid. However, I think the quest needed to get the final guy in Zul'Farak to spawn is the same thing. It will make you go there twice.

Next is Zul'Farak, probably this weekend. Very soon is Mauradon.

Thanks for all the information.

Kuch

 

[Stangs55]

Get some high lvl guildies to help you through Mauradon...I did and ended up with the Thrash blade @ 47. This thing rocks and you be keeping it for quite some time.

 

[torpid]

I got the necklace off the guys outside uldaman while doing a quest for power cells. I can see that it would suck to get it only once inside and already doing the instance, though.

 

[Litchfield285]

Originally posted by: torpid
Is this a common drop off of someone (grimlok?). That is somewhat better than my current weapon (2h sword +12 agi +12 spi 34dps) so I'd be interested to know more.

it really depends on your luck... ive ran ulda about 11 times now and seen the charge drop twice off of grimlok... some guildies had it drop within their first few runs...

but its not hard to get to grimlok if you take the back way... so its easy if you can find some nice friends to help you farm him till the charge drops...

 

[Pepsei]

I love them all, we have nightly runs of various instances as a guild.

So far, the only ones that we're having issues with are the 3 hardest normal instances of Strat, Scholo, and UBRS

 

[abaez]

Originally posted by: torpid
I got the necklace off the guys outside uldaman while doing a quest for power cells. I can see that it would suck to get it only once inside and already doing the instance, though.

THat's for the shattered necklace, the very first part of the quest, it drops on several mobs, after you get that you have go to ORG and he says to find a necklace on the dead paladin in there (near the entrance), and then go back AGAIN. The thing is the paladin to find the second necklace is right near the entrance, so it's worth your time to get the necklace, hearth back and hopefully get summoned back and continue.

 

[Kuch]

Originally posted by: abaez

Originally posted by: torpid
I got the necklace off the guys outside uldaman while doing a quest for power cells. I can see that it would suck to get it only once inside and already doing the instance, though.

THat's for the shattered necklace, the very first part of the quest, it drops on several mobs, after you get that you have go to ORG and he says to find a necklace on the dead paladin in there (near the entrance), and then go back AGAIN. The thing is the paladin to find the second necklace is right near the entrance, so it's worth your time to get the necklace, hearth back and hopefully get summoned back and continue.

Yes, that's the problem. It wouldn't be a big deal if people all used Throtbot and researched each instance before they went. But it would still require 3 trips to Uldaman from Orgrimmar and back. First you find the necklace and go back to Orgrimmar, then you have to find the dead paladin and go back, finally you now can start collecting the gems and complete the whole instance. Even with zepplins and bats, these aren't short journeys even if you hearth in one direction. However, I like a little surprise so I didn't know all this a head of time. So this means that I would essentially be doing this instance 3 times (2 and a bit, if you can convince your groupmates to wait for you to go to Orgrimmar and back after you find the dead paladin). Now maybe for some instances this isn't a big problem as you will want to make several runs there to make sure you get the loot you want, but I definetly don't want to do Uldaman again. Not that I didn't enjoy it, it's just because the loot wasn't great, it was tough to get a group to do, and I'm at a level where half of the place doesn't give experience.

On to Zul'Farak. Now if only I can find someone to group with who already has that Hammer to summon Godzilla (I know, different name, but close), so I won't need to make multiple trips (yes I did research this instance somewhat).

Kuch

 

[Vortex22]

I despise Uldaman.. especially those stupid shadow dwarfs that cast spellbomb. I don't really like ZF, but I do it just for the massive pyramid fight, which is AWESOME. Maraudon is my favorite instance so far (I'm a 50 druid, haven't been to temple yet), awesome loot and a very fun dungeon. Lots of my equipment came from Mara: the 1H mace with 50 mana on hit proc, the headpiece and amulet from the princess, and a nice green leather legs drop I got from a treant miniboss in the orange section.

 

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: Pepsei
I love them all, we have nightly runs of various instances as a guild.

So far, the only ones that we're having issues with are the 3 hardest normal instances of Strat, Scholo, and UBRS

Yall having issues with the big3?

what kidna group make up?
raid or 5 man?

we do raid groups on all these only takes about 2 hours to clear any of them using a 10 man raid

5man till they make some adjustments (which they have already noted) especially in strat and scholo are very hard... but will be adjusted so that 5 man teams can do it..

I dont think Id want to fight Rend in Upper BRS in a 5 man group
man he hits hard...

I got super lucky last night... sometimes being the last rogue to 60 can be a good thing...
got the + crit rare necklace from the fire elemental,
got Rends Offhand sword... the tribal guardian... got Blademaster leggings off beast
and then on a rait to kill the Baron in strath he dropped the cloak and the Rogue set pants...

all the other rogues were alerady equipped .. loot by default rules sometimes hahah....
i felt guilty by the time they told me to loot both the baron drops 5 blue items in 2 raids... in under 3 hours...