Greetings, My name is Monte (Dreamwalker online). In case you are wondering
why I would ever write a FAQ for a low level instance like the Deadmines, the
answer is threefold: 1) New players need help too, 2) I hope to write FAQS for
other instances in the future including but not limited to The Stockades,
Shadowfang Keep, Blackfathom Deeps, Blackrock Depths, The Scarlet Monestary,
Onyxia's Lair, etc. thus this is really just a stepping stone for me iron out
my FAQ writing skills. 3) Instances aren't likely to change much, so after
this FAQ is done I won't need to do much updating.
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102. What is an Instance?
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You may have heard the term "Instance" or "World Dungeon" used either ingame
or on a website. An instance is a zone in the game where only you and your
group can enter. Instances are easy to spot as you have to enter a cloudy
vortex to get in one. There will be a small loading time and voila, you are
in your instance. Instances are on seperate servers (thus the loading time),
so you may or may not notice an increase or decrease in lag - it really all
depends on how many people are doing instances at that point in time.
Instances usually have several elite mobs in them and very hard to solo
unless you are several levels above the mobs in the instance.
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103. Forming a Balanced Group.
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Forming a balanced group is very essential to being succesfull in any instance.
While almost any group combination can take on an instance, 5 mages aren't
going to fare very well, especially against boss mobs. So what makes a
balanced group? There are several roles to be filled in a group, the 3 most
prominent roles are that of the tank, the DPS character, and the healer.
Considering that you have 5 spots to fill you can double up on some roles.
For example a good group would be:
Tank
Tank
DPS
DPS
Healer
What exactly is the job of each of these roles? Well that brings us to...
As I mentioned before there are 3 prominent roles in any group, there are also
several other roles but they are generally less important and are easily
looked over when forming a group. The three roles again are the tank, healer,
and DPS character.
Tank: This characters role is twofold. His first job is to make sure he holds
the attention (or hate) of the mob at hand. This means that when a mob is
attacking it should be attacking the tank. Making sure that the tank has the
mobs attention is not just the role of the tank himself, but the whole group.
DPS chars that are spamming their most damaging spells or healers that are
healing needlessly do not help this case at all.
Hate is a term used to describe who the mob is focused on when faced with a
group of adventurers. In reality hate is calculated by the AI of an enemy to
determine who is the most detrimental to its health. Players can aquire hate
from a mob by doing many things. Hitting a monster produces hate based on how
much damage you are doing to it, special abilities such as Taunt (for Warriors)
and Seal of Fury (for Paladins) provide extra hate for each hit done, Healing
also produces hate based on the amount of damage healed.
The second role of the tank is to make sure his damage mitigation (how much
damage he can soak up per hit) is up to snuff. A warrior with poor gear isn't
going to be very good at tanking. It is also the other party members job to
make sure he is always buffed up to the fullest he can be.
Good tanking classes: Warrior, Paladin, Druid (in bear form).
DPS Character: Perhaps the simplest to explain. The DPS characters job is
put in as much damage in as little time as possible on a mob. The only thing
you need to watch out for is when the mobs start coming after you, at which
point you should stop attacking and wait for the tank to pull the hate off of
you. If you manage to draw hate, never ever run away..it will do you no good
and will make it harder for your other party members to pull the hate off of
you. This character usually doubles in to fill the crowd control spot, which
is to say he would deal with any additional mobs that may attack players by
disabling them from the fight (hopefully using some long term spell such as Sap
or Polymorph)
Good DPS classes: Mage, Rogue
Healer: Simply put, you keep people alive. While most of your healing time
will be spent keeping the tank alive and protected don't forget about any other
party members that may be taking damage. Your main concern should be mana
efficiency. If a player has a sliver of health missing and there really isn't
a call for healing, simply don't heal and conserve you mana instead. There may
be times when you will be bored, but things can go wrong in an instant, and you
wouldn't want your party to wipe because you got bored and wasted all of your
mana on nukes, would you?
Good healing classes: Priest, Shaman(restoration specced), Druid
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104. Quests involving "The Deadmines"
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Quest Name Quest Starter
Red Leather Bandanas Scout Galiaan (Sentinel Hill, by the mill)
Comments: Although you should have this quest finished by doing "The Peoples
Milita" quest series, it is possible to find the leather bandanas inside the
mine.
Red Silk Bandanas Scout Riell (Sentinel Hill, top of the tower)
Comments: The silk bandanas can be obtained off of any elite inside the
deadmines.
Underground Assault Shoni the Shilent (Stormwind, Dwarven District)
Comments: The Gnoam Sprecklesprocket is found on the goblin shredder which is
one of the minibosses inside the instance.
The Defias Brotherhood Gryan Stoutmantle (Sentinel Hill, Tower)
Comments: This quest is part of a series that sends you to Redridge, Storm-
wind and back. The part where you need to kill Edwin Van Cleef and retrieve
his head is the very last part of this quest. Edwin Van Cleef is the last
boss of the instance.
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105. The Deadmines
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Yay! On to the meat and bones of this FAQ. The Deadmines are located under-
neath Moonbrooke in Westfall. Before you even enter the Instance you enter a
"public" area that leads to the instance. If your group can't make it through
this area, don't bother entering the instance as you will never get through it.
To get to the actual instance you are going to hug the right side of the mine.
When you get to a bridge you should be able to see the entrance over the side.
Jumping off from there will get you to the instance.
Once inside be sure to wait for your other groupmates to finish loading before
you venture deeper. There are many elites inside and disorganization from here
will get you all killed. The first things you should be doing are reapplying
all of your buffs to you and your party as well as discussing who will be the
main tank, backup tank(assuming you have one), who will cover crowd control,
who will do the healing. Basically make sure that everyone know their role.
The first room you come too will have a couple elites along with several defias
miners. You can take out the groups in the center without aggroing the miners
off to the side. The first room(as well as the whole dungeon) is pretty linear
so it's hard to get lost in here. You will eventually come to a small clearing
where you will meet:
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Mini-boss: Rhahk'Zor (20+ Elite Ogre Mob)
Hit Points: ~4050
Rhahk'Zor (Zor from now on) is the first (and easiest) of many bosses inside
the Deadmines. There are two ways to go about killing him, one is easy and one
is stupid. Zor will walk back and forth pausing at each stopping point for
roughly 30 seconds. When he is closest to your party, you can have a member
used a ranged attack on him which will cause him to come towards you guys
without alerting the two archers standing guard with him. He is pretty easy
to take down with a group of five people and hits for very minimal against a
well equipped tank. If you draw aggro from the two guards don't worry too much
as the battle doesn't get that much more difficult. A mage can Polymorph one
of the extra mobs if need be.
////////////////////////////////////////
After the boss take out the two guards if you haven't and rest up and reapply
any buffs that need reapplying. Don't open the door in front of you just yet
as there will be a patrol coming up from behind you. The patrol spawns after
you beat Zor, so don't bother trying to get them ahead of time. Open the door
after you are done. This is another linear path just like the first one,
except with slightly higher harder mobs. Enemy mages will start using Chains
of Ice on the melee characters while they go after the cloth wearers. Proceed
down the path and you will come to yet another door. Open the door, but don't
go in just yet. Inside the next room is the goblin shredder and several dan-
gerous goblins. You are going to want to pull the goblins towards you one at
a time starting with the closest ones. The goblins use axe throw, an ability
that knocks down its target for a few seconds, before engaging in melee range.
When you get to the goblins that are near the shredder, wait for the shredder
to go up the small hill before pulling the ones on floor. If you do this, you
can safely pull the ones on the floor without fear of aggroing the shredder.
After all of the Goblins are dead go for:
////////////////////////////////////////
Mini-boss: Sneed's Shredder (20+ Elite Shredder Mob)
Hit Points: ~3500
Sneed's Shredder will chew through the health of even the best tank. It's
very important that you keep the tank healed throughout this fight. I should
also point out that this is the shredder that drops Gnoam Sprecklesprocket for
the Underground Assault quest, so be sure to loot it after it's dea...err,
broken. After you best the shredder don't stop to rest just yet, because out
pops Sneed himself and he's upset that you broke his toy.
Mini-boss (part 2): Sneed (21+ Elite Goblin Mob)
Hit Points: ~3000
This guy still packs a punch, so don't throw down the towel yet. He has sig-
nificantly less HP's than the shredder so he should go down rather quickly.
He does however attack very quickly with two claw weapons.
////////////////////////////////////////
After this boss, there is another door in front of you. I wouldn't advise
opening it just yet as there will be another patrol aproaching from behind.
Take care of the patrol and head through the doors to meet the ever annoying
taskmasters. Taskmasters are elite mobs that like to run away and shoot at
range no matter what you do. If you chase them too far they will run away and
undoubtedly aggro more mobs for you. Best thing to do with them is either
freeze them in place with some form of root before attacking them, or run
backwards untill they are a good distance away from another mobs and then
chase them.
Anyways, entering through the doors will lead you down another linear hallway.
Heading down here will lead you to a door which leads to a larger room known
as the smelting room. If any group has ever wiped, they did it here. The
Goblin Engineers here like to summon robot defenders that attack your group.
Aggroing 3 mobs can quickly turn into a 6 on 5 fight, which makes it harder
to finish off mobs that are about to die, which means they are free to run
away and aggro even more mobs for you! Sounds like fun, right?1? The key
here is again to pull one mob at a time and finish them off before they can
run away. There will be time where you will pull two mobs, but that can't
be avoided, do don't worry. The whole room is actually one spiralling stair-
case and is filled with goblins. At the very end is the big-daddy goblin:
Chances are you couldn't get the 2 other goblins mobs near him away so you
are probably fighting three mobs total in this fight. Have one person tank
Gilnid while the rest of the group takes out the other two goblins (see why
it is important to have 2 tanks in a group now?). After the other goblins
are disposed off, focus fire on Gilnid who should go down pretty easily.
/////////////////////////////////////////
Done yet? Good! In case you haven't guessed yet, there is another patrol
coming up from behind you. They will take awhile to get to the bottom of the
spiral so you can skip them if you'd like. Entering the large door behind
Gilnid will take you to another path that has a small branch stretching out
to the left. In that stretch is a lootable barrel that has a key item
required for you and your group to continue, so have someone loot it. Finish
taking out the mobs in the rooms and have everyone stand about 10-15 yards
behind the cannon. Have the person who looted the gunpowder use it on the
cannon and then join the rest of the group behind the cannon. If all went
well 3 mobs will coming rushing through the door, look around and then go back
to patroling leaving your group free to take them out one by one. Also note
that a rogue can lockpick this door which won't alert the pirates. If all
didn't go well you will be facing three different mobs at once. Concentrate
on one at a time as you take them out.
Welcome to the final room of the instance! Take a second to marvel at the
ship and it's very large cannons, also take a quick look at the cave walls
and see if you can spot an exit for the ship. I guess they were planning on
blasting their way through the mountain to get out ^_^. Believe it or not
this room is actually the hardest room to wipe in if you have a smart party.
In case things start to go arwy, the designated rezzer of the group(provided
you have someone in the party who can rez) can jump in the water. Doing this
will stop any mobs from following him (except for one, but we will get to it
later). So keep that in mind and you progress across the wooden dock. When
you reach the ship enjoy the cool music, and don't run for the fake chest.
Be sure to watch out for:
/////////////////////////////////////////
Not so Mini-boss: Mr. Smite (21+ Elite Minotaur Mob)
Smite comes equipped with two of his own guards. Getting through this fight
requires a lot of teamwork and planning. After you get Mr. Smite's health
down about 1/3 of the way he will excecute a stun attack that stuns your
entire party while he switches weapons. This is very bad if you haven't taken
out the guards first as they will continue to beat on your party. The best
way I have found is to have your main tank go in first and attack Mr. Smite.
The rest of the party will follow and focus attacks on one guard at a time.
IF there isn't another mail wearing party member the healer of the group will
have his work cut out for him as he will be dividing heals between the tank
and the rest of the party who will be taking severe damage from the guards.
Once you take out the guards the rest of the fight is smooth sailing. Another
thing to note is that while the tank is soloing Mr. Smite he should use his
most damaging attacks to build enough hate before the rest of the group joins.
After the rest of the group starts on Smite, the tank should switch to either
Seal of Fury (Paladins), Taunt (Warriors), Roar (Druid Bear Form).
/////////////////////////////////////////
So you've finally bested Mr. Smite, Good for you! Guess what? No patrol this
time ^_^. Instead progress up the ramp to the ship. This is your final
stretch before you take on Van Cleef. You'll notice right away that you can
either head left or right around the ship, while the path to the right leads
to Van Cleef I would advise you take a small detour and head left. Doing this
will lead you to Cookie, the ship's cook. While he isn't really in the way,
it does pay to take him out as he is the only mob that will follow you into
the water. Cookie patrols the back side of the boat so he is usually in a
random area back there. Once you've disposed of Cookie head back around and
take the right path. Time your pulls carefully and be sure to stay as far
away as possible from the ramp leading to the top of the ship. I say that
because if you accidently aggro one mob on the ramp about 5-6 others like to
join in. Keep taking out mobs on the ramp untill you get near the top. Pull-
ing here is slightly more tricky because Captain Greenskin and his posse are
on patrol around the top of the ship and will aggro you if you get too close
to them. After you've finished all of the regular mobs it should only be C.
Greenskins crew and Van Cleef left! Wait untill Greenskin comes around and
let him have it:
Overall this is one of the easier mini-bosses, I would advise using the same
stragety as you did with Smite, but it isn't that neccesary here. Greenskin
can poison you so make sure the priests and paladins are watching out for
that. Keep up the pressure and he will go down pretty easy.
//////////////////////////////////////////
Assuming you took out everyone on the boat, the only person left should be
the defias kingpin himself, Edwin Van Cleef!
//////////////////////////////////////////
Final Boss: Edwin Van Cleef (22+ Elite Humanoid Mob)
Easily the hardest battle you've faced so far. Vancleef (VC from now on) hits
hard and fast. Your best tank will not be able to stay alive without proper
healing. It is imperitive that you take out the two guards that accompany
VC as he will summon two more when he reaches half health. No party at that
level can handle 5 elite mobs at once. I would hate to see your party kill
VC and then die to the guards without being able to loot his body. Once you
take out the initial guards focus on VC, when he summons more guards you can
safely ignore them untill you take out VC.
//////////////////////////////////////////
Once Van cleef and his guards are dead, loot his body and roll any cool items
he may have dropped. Be sure to get his head, as you will undoubtedly need it
for the defias brotherhood quest series. Also of some importance is the
unsent letter which begins a quest that will inevitably send you to the
stockades (a slightly higher, yet shorter instance). However, that is another
FAQ for another time. Good job on your successful completion of the
deadmines!
Before I go into the loot tables I would like to take this opportunity to
go over basic etitquete in regards to looting. This may be your first time
grouping with a full group of 5 people in a dungeon that offers some pretty
nice equiptment for your level. People tend to see these rare items and get
greedy. Most group leaders will set the looting option to group loot, which
means that anyone can loot any corpse and any green or above items are
rolled on by the group(Note that there is an "Need before Greed" looting
option that doesn't let people roll on items they can't use, but all
this really does is discriminate against cloth wearers since mail wearing
PC's can still use cloth if they desired). When a roll comes up on your
screen take a second to look at what the item is, whether or not you CAN
use it, and whether or not you WILL use it. If you think there is another
party member who is more needing of the piece of equipment that dropped,
pass on the item. If you do this your group is less likely to get pissed at
you, and people are more likely to return the favor later on. If noone is
going to use the item, then feel free to roll on it like normal. In the
event that somebody rolls on an item they can't use and wins it, the worst
thing you can do is blow up at the person and start yelling at them. This
only serves to distract the group and make everybody tense. When you need
everybody to focus on the task at hand, the unneeded animosity doesn't help
at all. I find the best thing to do is ask them why they rolled on it, in-
form them that they can't use the item and ask them to pay better attention
next time. If they do it a second time, feel free to kick them from the par-
ty and find a replacement.
~~~~
Item name - The name of the item
# - The minimum level required to equip the item
# (#) - Either the AC value of the item (armor) or it's damage and DPS.
BoA - All Green items and up are either Bind of Aquire or Bind on
Equip.
Comments: - Additional effects the item may have as well as comments about
it
Corsair's Overshirt (Cloth chest piece)
Lvl: 19
AC: 45
BoA
Comments: +5 Sta, +11 Spi
(Dropped by Edwin Van Cleef)
Cape of the Brotherhood (Cape)
Lvl: 20
AC: 21
BoA
Comments: +6 Agi, +3 Sta
(Dropped by Edwin Van Cleef)
Blackened Defias Armor (Leather chest piece)
Lvl: 19
AC: 94
BoA
Comments: +4 Str, +3 Agi, +11 Sta; Part of the Defias leather set.
(Dropped by Edwin Van Cleef)
Cruel Barb (1h Sword)
Lvl: 19
Dmg: 30-57 (15.5 DPS) Speed: 2.80
BoA
Comments: +12 Attack on equip
(Dropped by Edwin Van Cleef)
Cookie's Stirring Rod (Wand)
Lvl: 17
Dmg: 20-38 Arcane (22.3 DPS) Speed: 1.30
BoA
Comments:
(Dropped by Cookie)
Gold-plated Buckler (Shield)
LvL: 15
AC: 471, 9 Block
BoA
Comments: +2 Agi, +5 Sta. Miner Johnson is not inside the instance
(Dropped by Miner Johnson)
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