Utgarde Keep

[Fuzzyboy]

Fun instance - mobs are a bit too far apart for my taste. Only boss that caused me trouble was the first boss until I found the tactic. I will upload a video sometime tomorrow.

Anyway, the tactic is to bunch up at the boss with your whole party. Ignore chains of ice and the curse and just heal when needed. DPS boss and divine shield if he tombs the tank (consecrate needs to be up to catch the adds). No need to kill the adds (they died from my chain ligtnings without me targetting them.

[Fuzzyboy]

Oh yeah, and on the last boss, save heroism for when he's undead. The first part is pie, just dps and go behind him with tank when he starts casting (keep rest of party away), when he awakens again, go to town on the dps :-)

[puppychow]

I cleared UTK on my 70 team, took me about an hour although I went slow and explored a bit. Other people in general were saying they were clearing it in 20 mins and less (!), don't think I'll get that fast unfortunately.

I wiped twice on the last boss before killing him. First boss is not too bad, just keep group kinda near and chain lightning and chain heal alternate. You could probably kill him with 5 shamans and maybe 1 EE. Second boss is also easy, just DPS one till its at 30%, then the second, then bring em down together. I think this would be harder without a tank, since the melee guy hits really hard.

For final boss, an easy way is to make sure you are passing space (jump) to all your toons. positions your guys like so:

tank <-- BOSS facing


team

You just have to be really fast on your tank. When you see him doing his roar, immediately JUMP so you cancel any casts on your team. Chain heal and heal up the tank after. When you see the boss do his Smash ability, immediately run the tank "through" the boss so he is on the other side. The boss doesn't move when he is casting Smash, so you basically flip him 180 after he is done with it. Every time I wiped its because I jumped instead of moving on Smash, or moved instead of jumping for Roar -- I need to make my enemy boss cast bar bigger on my screen on my tank I think.

Your tank will pretty much die if your team takes the roar, or if your tank forgets to run out of smash. Once you get down the pattern its not too bad (he smashes, then 4-6 secs will roar), its a little bit of coordination in moving the tank, making sure you jump for roars, and healing both the tank and team. I didn't bother decursing (mage is 5th team member), found I could just chain heal through any damage. I think in heroic this is going to be very hard. I suppose 5 shamans could do this boss with a few EE's tanking, but you are basically going to have to kill the boss in phase2 in 20-30 seconds since he will 1 shot the EE's and then come kill the shamans.

I am bummed you get 0 Vengeance Hold rep for doing the instance, its basically just XP and nothing else. Each mob was giving me ~1200xp unrested, or 2400xp rested. I was averaging around 150k xp/hour, but this was going very very slow - hopefully I can speed it up a bit tomorrow.

[Fuzzyboy]

Video: http://www.wegame.com/watch/Utgarde_Keep_The_Keep/

[DLoweinc]

this was the key for me JUMP!!!

For final boss, an easy way is to make sure you are passing space (jump) to all your toons. positions your guys like so:

TO JUMP when he roars! no silence makes him easy as hell!

when he does his axe thing... just heal until it goes away, only lasts 6 seconds or so

[lexuspartsdude]

Video: http://www.wegame.com/watch/Utgarde_Keep_The_Keep/

Nice Video man, straight and to the point. Gives me a better idea of how to position my toons.

[phara]

Thanks, great video. My PVE team barely dinged 70 so when I tried prince this morning it was pretty rough, only got him to 50% ... if I bring in my badge geared boomkin and keep it more simple like you did, should be easy.

[phara]

Just read your blog too - good thoughts there. How well is your team geared? I assume mostly badge gear as you indicate on your blog that you were farming heroics. Unfortunately my PVE team may need more gear so I'll need to do a few quest areas before I can clean sweep the instances (not horrible, just a lot of blues from ub / sp / mt still).

On that note, I think I'm going to change my team makeup also. I'm running 1 paly, 2 sham, 2 mages right now. You were actually one that gave me advice to drop a mage for my boomkin (already 70) back when I started my team, I should have listened then I'm going to drop 1 mage for the boomkin. The mages are too squishy, and the second doesn't add any benefit really ... and I did clear most trash in UK and didn't really need the CC (and druid roots / hex totem now will help).

[puppychow]

How fast are you guys able to clear UtK? I just did a timed run, it took exactly 40 minutes and I killed every mob in the instance. Got 98k xp total, or 140k xp/hour. Not bad, and so far (for me) its faster than questing, but I was hoping to do even better I might be able to shave 5-10 mins off the time but I don't think really much more than that, and the XP will drop as I level -- currently level 71.

[Gares]

My team of 5 shammies is getting owned in there...I can't even get past the Proto Drakes at the start...sigh