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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Solo-ing Coilfang Reservoir: The Slave Pens


These days, it seems like the only way to get into an instance (especially as a solo player) is by doing it in the dead of the night. Otherwise you are confronted with the dreaded "Additional instances cannot be launched..." message that seems to be rearing its ugly head at any hour when "normal" people play.

So in order to alleviate my frustrations, I decided to go to bed early (around 8PM) and wake up at 4AM. Needless to say, at that hour you can easily get into any instance.

After solo-ing Blood Furnace and Hellfire Ramparts, the first dungeons in Outland that I have ever visited, I decided to have a go at Coilfang Reservoir. Coilfang Reservoir is made up of 3 dungeons: The Slave Pens, The Underbog and The Steamvault. The first 2 are entry-level 5-man dungeons while the last one is a level 70 5-man which is somewhat harder.

Between 4 and 6.30 AM I completed the first 2 of these instances. I left the "hard" one for later since I didn't have enough time for all three.

A short word on getting to these instances. All 3 entrances are in the same location. To get there, go to the lake in the middle of Zangarmarsh and swim down the hole of the big pumping station there. As you exit the water, there are 3 passages: to the left is Slave Pens, to the right is The Underbog and straight ahead is The Steamvault.

For now, The Slave Pens. Just like the previous 2 instances that I cleared in Hellfire Peninsula, this one was easy but its difficulty was slightly higher, which is normal of course. The instance itself is pretty straightforward although there are a couple of ramps that you have to climb but overall it's very hard to get lost.

There are 3 bosses here which I won't detail but you will find them listed on Wowhead's page for the instance. The final boss, which also gives the achievement is Quagmirran. Although on normal (as opposed to heroic) he has over 100K HP, he's a pushover. Just make sure to free the druid that's in that area and he will give you a nature resist buff (which you'll need when fighting this boss) as well as a stat boost. Since I did this on my 80 Hunter, the fight was easy. I also used Aspect of the Wild for extra nature resist and he didn't even scratch me or my pet.

While you're here, also pick up the quest Lost in Action from an NPC outside the entrance. It will ask you to locate 4 missing druids for the Cenarion Expedition. You will find 2 of them inside The Slave Pens and the other 2 inside The Underbog.

In all, it was an easy instance and an easy achievement. Here's Quagmirran as he comes out of the water.

5 comments:

Celebrandil said...

I still hate everything in Coilfang Reservoir, must have done it too many times in the past. But farming the Underbog for Sanguine Hibiscus is probably the fastest way if you want to push your reputation with the Sporeggar. It grants you access to an additional tabard, another vanity pet and several alchemy recipes - for all those achievement and recipe hunters. Like me.

Anonymous said...

You also get a great shield, especially for an AoE-specced Paladin (as mine is), and I think it's one of their quests grants you one of those helpful trinkets that restores health or mana upon killing a mob.

Unrelated to the post, why don't you just start up a blog Celebrandil? :D You post so much useful content in comments on here, you could share it much more easily through your own medium, where more people might see it.

- Vel (unable to verify my "OpenID credentials" for some reason)

Celebrandil said...

I prefer leaving a comment and/or giving hints here or there, much easier as I am quite lazy ;-)

TB said...

Slave Pens is cake at 80. I never ran it leveling up but went back to experience it after I hit 80. I also ran Steamvault quite a few times a couple months ago to get my CE rep to exalted. After a few runs I got it down to where I could finish it completely (kill everything) in about 30 minutes on my druid (bear form of course). It wasn't hard but I really had to be careful in some areas that I didn't pull too many mobs at once. I was made into a bearskin rug a few times in those early runs. The biggest issue I had at first was the last boss where you have to break the water coolers. You only have 10-15 seconds to break them when he starts channeling. If you can manage that, he's simple, but once he enrages he hits like a truck, even at 80. When I started counting I think I had to run it 11 or 12 times to finish CE rep. Probably 5-6 hours. I love the Hippogryph mount.

Darth Solo said...

@Celebrandil yeah you should start a blog! Sanguine Hibiscus is plenty in there, of course.

@Anonymous the problem here is that those items are useless for a level 80. Back in BC I never got the chance to run these dungeons.

@TB thanks for the heads-up. I'll have to make sure I break those coolers.