[16-26] Snowflake’s Shadowfang Keep Guide

Shadowfang Keep Guide

Introduction

The Shadowfang Keep is a level 18-21 instance which is located in Silverpine Forest. The trash monsters in this instance range from level 18-20, but the bosses are level 20-21. This instance, although in the same level range as the Wailing Caverns and Deadmines, it is significantly harder than either of those instances, and all five players need to have at least some instance experience (even if it is just one run) of what function they are playing in the group, or you will have troubles.
This instance is made for Horde. Nonetheless Paladins and Warlocks have class related quests there.
Time needed approximately for this instance: 1-2 hours

First, a couple of more advanced instancing terms. This instance is significantly harder than any of the other instances in this level range, and assumes at least a basic knowledge of group mechanics. Therefore, you should learn the following techniques, and learn whether your class is capable of performing them. This guide will not cover each of the spells each class has for performing each of the following techniques; class guides for your individual class are more than sufficient for that purpose. The new terms are:

Spell Interrupts: This is interrupting a mob’s spell mid-cast, preventing them from completing it. A couple of UI (User Interface) features can be turned on to show when your target is casting something. Go to Combat, and click *show target cast bar* (or something like that), and now you can see when your target is casting a spell, and what spell they are casting. Quite handy feature. Ok, so now that you know that the boss is casting the 300 damage uber nuke, now what do you do? You interrupt it. Counterspell, Earth shock, any spell that interrupts your opponent’s spell casting will do the trick. So will a stun…. kinda. While a stun will interrupt the cast of any non-boss mob in a pinch, they usually have a long cooldown, or minimum time between use (usually 1 minute cooldown), plus they don’t work vs. bosses. In any instance where the bosses cast rather dangerous spells it’s a good idea to bring someone that can perform that can interrupt their spells. This instance falls into that category. Note that you cannot interrupt a spell that is instant cast; that instant cast “stun the tank for 6 seconds and go beat up the healer”, can’t be interrupted.

Dispels: This is removing harmful debuffs (conditions that impair your character in some way) from friendly characters. Debuffs fall into one of 5 categories: Poisons (typically short, as in 15-30 seconds, and usually only deal damage, although a few have nasty side affects), Diseases (Loooooong, as in 10-30 minute duration, usually reduces some attribute by x amount), Magic (Variable length, although generally short, usually from 5-90 seconds, varied affects, ranging from damage to slowing affects), Curses (Variable length, but generally fairly long, as in 1-5 minutes, and come with a whole slew of nasty affects), and Undispellables (can only be removed by affects that render you immune to damage). Your current debuffs can be seen to the lower left hand corner of your minimap. Mousing over a debuff will show you the debuff box. The name of the debuff is in the upper left hand corner, the type of debuff is in the upper right hand corner (a debuff with no type cannot be dispelled), and the description of its affects is below. Certain debuffs can only be dispelled by certain classes; bring the right one! This instance dabs mostly in magic affects and curses.

Crowd Control: Also known as CC. Remember that acronym. It’s used almost exclusively in place of the original words. Look at Jame’s guilde to Ragefire Chasm if you don’t know what that means.

Quests

Horde

• [27] Arugal Must Die (Elite): This is your main quest, you can get it from Dalar Dawnweaver in The Sepulcher (Silverpine Forest). The goal of this quest is to kill the main boss of Shadowfang Keep: Arugal. Rewards:Seal of Sylvanas
• [25] Deathstalkers in Shadowfang (Elite): You can get this quest from High Executor Hadrec in The Sepulcher (Silverpine Forest). You need to find the Deathstalkers in Shadowfang. One of the Deathstalkers is still alive and will open the door for you to the CY, the other one will be dead lying in the Courtyard. You will be able to finish this quest by turning it in to the dead Deathstalker Vincent. Rewards:Ghostly Mantle
• [26] The Book of Ur (Elite): This quest is available from Keeper Bel’dugur in The Apothecarium of Undercity. You need to find the Book of Ur in Shadowfang, you will find it in a shelf after killing Fenrus the Devourer. As a reward you will be able to choose between:Grizzled Boots
  Steel-Clasped Bracers

Warlock

• [25] The Orb of Soran’ruk (elite): Warlocks get this quest from Doan Karhan, who can be found in a tent between Camp Taurajo and Northwatch Hold in The Barrens. One part of the quest involves killing in Blackfathom Deep, the other one requires you to loot an item in Shadowfang Keep. As a reward you will be able to choose between:Orb of Soran’ruk
  Staff of Soran’ruk

Alliance Paladin

• [22] The Test of Righteousness (elite): This Paladin only quest requires the Paladin to get one part out of four (“Jordan’s Smithing Hammer”) from the Shadowfang Keep instance. While the quest says 22, it will be quite challenging at that level to do solo. Higher level + better gear will make it easier to do. Don’t fret if you can’t get it right off the bat; Verigan’s Fist is still quite effective even until the lower 30’s.
  The final reward for this quest (after 2 more steps in the quest line) is:Verigan’s Fist

Horde Paladin

• [23] The Path of the Adept (elite): The horde equivalent to the quest stated above. The Crate of Bloodforged Ingots can be found in the stables. This is fairly doable solo at level 23, assuming you have at least a couple of blue items. The final reward is:Blood-Tempered Ranseur

Group Composition

A few important things to keep in mind:

• A curse remover – Curse removal is almost necessary to complete this instance thanks to Baron Silverlaine and his 75% healing reducing curse. You need to be severely well geared to attempt that fight without curse removal or a spell interrupt. Either a druid that will be remaining in caster or cat form (druids in bear form can’t dispel without shifting out of form, which is very mana intensive, and they have about 1/2 their bear form armor in caster form, which will result in them getting gibbed EXTREMELY quickly) or a mage can dispel curses.
• A priest is a very nice addition thanks to shackle and the ability to dispel magic, however, they are not an absolute requirement. They will, however, make the run much easier.
• A Shaman is useful for the end boss (purge) he can also support heal and interrupt casters.
• Either a Druid or a Warrior can tank this instance just fine; the little nuances between their tanking styles don’t really matter this early in the game. Paladins can’t tank this instance thanks to the AoE silence from the Wailing Guardsmen, and the fact that Razorclaw drains 350 mana from the tank on every hit. Silenced/OOM Paladins don’t generate threat.
• Don’t get too many casters as damage dealers into your group as the Shadowfang Moonwalkers cast immune magic shields and there are Wailing Guardsmen who cast silence (although if your casters are positioned properly they should never get hit by it)

If you don’t understand any of the terms I just used, you should read up on some of the WoW instance terminology before entering. Keep in mind that this instance is much harder than Deadmines or Wailing Caverns, and is far less forgiving of the “reckless noob” style of play.

Walkthrough

Opening the Door to the Courtyard

As you enter the instance your only way is to go directly right into a building. You will encounter pulls of level 18 Shadowfang Whitescalps and Bleak Wolves, nothing special about these, keep on killing them to penetrate further into the building.
Once you climb up the second pair of stairs you’ll get to a platform with a door that leads to the courtyard, however you can’t open it yet, that’s normal, just continue killing to the left, towards position 1 of the map.

After turning left you’ll see two more wolves and werewolves in front of you, kill those before moving on to Rethilgore.

Now when you look down to the prison cells where Rethilgore stands. You see that you’ll have to deal with 2 wolves, one werewolf and Rethilgore himself. CC the werewolf and as many of the wolves as you can. The tank needs to pick up anything that is left. As a note, if the tank has 3+ mobs on him, wait a couple of seconds before starting DPS on the mobs, just to make sure your tank has enough aggro on the mobs. Kill all of the trash mobs that aren’t CC’ed and then Rethilgore as fast as possible. Rethilgore doesn’t do anything of note. After all of the mobs that weren’t CC’ed are dead, kill the CC’ed mob(s) 1 by 1. Rethilgore will basically always drop these:

Rugged Spaulders

Now if you take a look at the cells you will see one with Sorcerer Ashcrombe inside – and one with Deathstalker Adamant. Sorcerer Ashcrombe is the NPC that will open the door to the Courtyard for Alliance characters (as Paladins and Warlocks need to do quests here too) and Adamant is the equivalent for Horde. Use the lever next to the cell that corresponds to your faction. Enter the cell and talk to the NPC.

You can ask him to open the Courtyard door for you that was looked before.

Clearing the Courtyard

After he opens the door make sure not to run down fast, stay on the top of the stairs and carefully pull to there. The Shadowfang Moonwalkers cast a magic-immunity shield on themselves; casters should hit a different target when this happens (agree which one beforehand). You will see when this happens as there is a green bubble that appears around the werewolves.

TURN IN QUEST HERE: After taking a look to the right you will notice Deathstalker Vincent lying dead on the floor. Clear around him by pulling to the stairs up until the way is safe so your group can run to the NPC and finish [25] Deathstalkers in Shadowfang (Elite).

From the place where the Deathstalker is lying you have a safe spot to pull to. Always watch out with the Haunted Servitors, those wander around like patrols and cast a nasty curse:

GENERAL INFO: Haunted Servitors cast a debuff on you that is called “Haunting Spirits”. This is a 5 minute curse, which periodically and randomly will spawn ghosts called “haunting spirit” that have very low HP but hurt a lot. As you don’t want those to add in fights, have your mage or your druid remove this curse asap

Now after the CY is clear you will see stables to the left with one werewolf guarding them. This is an optional target, you don’t have to kill the Steeds, but if you do you have 3 times a 20% chance of receiving a 10 slot bag.

PALADIN NOTE: ‘Jordan’s Smithing Hammer’, or ‘Crate of Bloodforged Ingots’ for your quest (depending on whether you are alliance or horde) is here in the stables, you can loot it after the way is clear.

If you decide to go for these you should first pull out and eliminate the Werewolf inside the stables.
Now you’ll be standing in front of three horses which are not aggro yet, have your druid and/or mage crowd control one and kill off the other two. (Once you attack one of the steeds, the other two will aggro too) Make sure that your tank holds aggro on these as they hit fairly hard. After killing the horses step out of the stables. You have two ways now.

Through the Dining Room into the Fortress

One way leads upstairs and one, to the left that leads into a building. I suggest you to take the way through the building as this way includes two extra bosses that can drop nice loot. When you step into the building you need to kill two Haunted Servitors first then you can see a room with more of these servitors along with our second boss mob Razorclaw the Butcher. Stay in the room where you are and pull the Haunted servitors to you.
Now you can step into the Butchers room and kill him carefully. Be careful to kill him close or inside the room where you come from because on the other side of the Butchers room there is a werewolf patrol that sometimes enters and can aggro.

The Butcher is a fairly easy fight, the only thing to keep in mind is that when he hits he casts a spell called “Butcher Drain” which drains 350 mana. Else it’s just tank, heal and dps. He can drop these items:

Bloody Apron
Butcher’s Slicer
Butcher’s Cleaver

After the Butcher you will be able to access the ‘dining’ room which is full of mobs. Werewolves as well as Haunted Servitors. The Shadowfang Gluttons drain life. Have someone carefully pull mobs from the dining room into the room before, where your group is standing. Pull out all the mobs that stand around the table until there is none left in the dining room anymore beside Baron Silverlain at the other end.
Wait until the Shadowfang Wolfguard patrol roams down into the room and eliminate this one as well before proceeding to Baron Silverlaine.

This fight is very easy if you know the trick. Baron often casts a curse that is called ‘Veil of Shadows”. This curse reduces all healing effects by 75%. The mage or druid need to remove the curse as fast as possible. Apart from this, the fight is pretty easy, tank heal and dps. He can drop these items:

Baron’s Scepter
Silverlaine’s Family Seal
Or a BoE green

Now getting up the stairs is tricky, because there are Shadowfang Darksouls patroling on top of the stairs behind walls. But as those werewolves move around a lot you can get them solo. Make your rogue hunter or warrior climb the stairs behind the Baron’s spawn location and scout for the Shadowfang Darksouls. When they move away and when there is only one standing on the left pair of stairs you quickly pull them down to your group which still stands at the barons spawn location. Rinse and repeat until all three Shadowfang Darksouls are dead that roam these two sets of stairs.

NOTE FOR WARLOCKS: Shadowfang Darksouls are the mobs that drop the Large Soran Fragments that you need, be careful these are immune to shadow magic.

Commander Springvale

Now that the way is clear you can go up left or right, go left… as there is nothing particular waiting on the right, just more mobs to clear.
In front you’ll find Shadowfang Darksouls. They are pretty easy, the only special thing about them is an occasional Shadow Word: Pain that can be removed if you have a priest with remove magic. Just clear the way into the next room.

Now up the little stairs in the next room waits a new type of monster:
Wailing Guardsmen. These are particularly annoying because they cast “Screams of the Past” which is an area silence. This means: have your casters and especially your priest stand back at max casting range while the melees fight the Guardsmen. Taunt them well and keep them at one spot so that the silence only hits the melees, this is vital, else you might die without even recieving a single heal.
IF your mage for example gets hit by the silence nonetheless, your priest can remove this debuff with “Remove Magic”. Pull out the Wailing Guardsmen carefully one by one out of the room to empty it. It might be that at some point you get 2 or even 3 if unlucky, should this happen have your priest (if you have one, if not, ignore this) stand back far away and shackle undead one. If you have a hunter he can freeze trap one as well… etc.
Really make sure you are full mana before the second and third pull out of that room and that your casters stand back far enough. Clear everything beside Commander Springvale and his two Guardians that stand on the left side of the room on a platform. Carefully move into the room with your group.

Next fight is tough as it is three undeads. Make your priest stand in the back of the room and let your warrior charge one Wailing Guardsman. While all three are on him your party needs to CC one fast (prepare as the tank is pulling). The Commander is a lvl 20 Paladin and doeasn’t hurt that much, he should be offtanked by either a druid in bear form, a hunter pet or a rogue with dodge disc – just make sure that they stay in front of the room and don’t get close to your healer.
Now burn down the Guardsman as fast as possible while keeping the other one shackled, then kill the Captain, he is annoying and heals himself, or uses invulnerability disc…. just kill him, and if you have a class with spell interrupts, like a shaman’s Earth Shock or a Magi’s Counterspell, use them when he tries to heal….. It makes the fight shorter. Enjoy the loot:

Arced War Axe
Commander’s Crest

Attention: Commander Springvale’s death spawns a two mob Shadowfang Wolfguard patrol which roams from the stairs to Baron Silverlaine all the way up, past the room where you are in currently. Have your puller pull this patrol to your group and take it out before moving on.

To the Bat Tower

Now after drinking etc, move on down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs you’ll find two more Wailing Guardsman that patrol from there over the outside wall and back. Clear those safely before moving outside on the wall.
Move out over the Wall and carefully kill the Wailing Guardsmen. At the end of the wall lies the entrance to the bat tower.

In this tower you have two bats and Odo the Blindwatcher. The two bats will forcefully aggro at the same time as Odo, so CC as many as possible. If you only have either druid or mage, offtank Odo while fast killing one bat and keeping the other one sheeped/hibernated. The bats don’t have any special abilities, just a minor physical damage increase debuff (which can safely be ignored). Proceed quickly to kill Odo, be very carefull as he might not hurt much at the start but while his hitpoints decrease he gains several stages of ‘Howling Rage’ where he grows and deals more damage – burn him down as fast as possible. Recover if needed and kill the last bat. Possible loot:

Girdle of the Blindwatcher
Odo’s Ley Staff

First Level of Arugal’s Tower

From the bat tower you can access the second wall. Heal up and cross that wall by carefully pulling the Tormented Officers to you. Beware, these patrol and roam, so you might want to wait in the batroom and split patrols with a puller from there. Tormented Officers randomly cast curses that decrease weapon skill, skills in general, spell damage etc. Very annoying curses but can easily be removed by a mage or a druid.

After crossing the wall you will get into a tower. At this spot you will sometimes find a rare spawn called Deathsworn Captain. Inside the tower there is a Shadowfang Ragetooth that patrols, pull that one first before stepping inside. These aren’t special, they just enrage towards the end of the battle, so finish them off fast. At the bottom of the stairs you’ll find another one of these, kill it and move your group to the bottom
of the stairs. Now inside the next room you will have one Son of Arugal (he is no boss mob) and a Shadowfang Ragetooth close to you, try to pull it out solo. Then pull the Son of Arugal. These hit fairly hard and cast a spell called “Arugal’s Gift”. This is a curse that inflicts 175 to 225 Shadow damage to an enemy every 60 sec. for 5 min. Make sure to remove that curse.

There is a Lupine Horror (a ghost wolf) on the left side of that room. Let a rogue or someone else carefully pull it. On the stairs there is another Shadowfang Ragetooth with a Lupine Horror, pull that one too if you didn’t get it as add already, remember those are humanoids and can be sheeped/sapped. The horrors are undeads and can be shackled. It would be good to shackle the wolf because he spawns ‘Lupine Delusions’ as his guardians which are non elite level 25 mobs. They dies in one hit, make sure to hit it fast before it damages you any further, then continue hitting the wolf. Either that or kill the ghost wolf as fast as possible so he cant spawn more Delusions.

Climb up the stairs, and wait infront of the upper room for a Shadowfang Ragetooth that will roam outside. After killing this one make your Mage cast Polymorph on the Son of Arugal. Two undead Wolves will run out, shackle one and kill the other.
After finishing off this pull proceed in the same way with next pull, sheep/sap/shackle what you can and then kill off slowly. Now move onto the stairs leading to the next level of the tower you come from. You will see another Son of Arugal. At the bottom of the stairs, pull it and kill it before moving inside. On the stairs you’ll find another Shadowfang Ragetooth
that you must kill.

Second Level of Arugal’s Tower

Now after climbing the stairs you will be infront of Fenrus the Devourer. Make sure that you are full mana and then rush into the room to kill him. He is a pretty easy kill, only casts some poison. However after you kill him be careful as there will be 4 Voidwalkers that will spawn right after the death of Fenrus. Those are level 24 non-elite demons, just kill them by using AE skills. Fenrus drops these:

Fenrus’ Hide
Black Wolf Bracers

QUEST ITEM HERE: On the left side of the door where you entered the room you can find “The book of Ur” to finish your quest, in a shelf.

Now move out of Fenrus’ Room. On the stairs you’ll encounter a Shadowfang Ragetooth, kill it and move up the stairs. You will find yourself directly above Fenrus room. From this platform pull the Son of Arugal that is roaming behind the door that you must pass to move on.

Third Level of Arugal’s Tower

After moving through that door and running up the stairs you will be in front of Wolf Master Nandos‘ room.

Some info:
Bleak Worgs cast “Worg’s Weavering Will” that will last 60 seconds, and reduce your attack speed by 25%, your casting speed by 20% and your movement speed will be reduced to 80%. This is magic and can be dispelled.

Upon attacking any of the wolves in the room they will all come attack you. Sheep a worg and shackle an undead wolf then kill off the rest. When these are dead, Wolf Master Nandos will rush to you and attack you. Kill him while shackling his undead wolf guardian. This is a pretty hard fight but with some organisation and eventual offtanking it can work. Some very nice loot:

After he is dead the door behind him opens and you can access Arugal’s room. From the top of the stairs where you are, carefully pull the sons of Arugal one by one to you and kill them. After clearing the three sons you will have to face Arugal himself.

Some infos: he is a mage and casts 300 damage void bolts which hurt a lot. He has a big mana pool so mana drain doesn’t quite work on him. Also he likes to blink around between three or four spots and nuke the heck out of you. What you have to do is keep the aggro with your warrior on Arugal. This way he will be the only target of bolts and the priest can heal him while others continue damaging him.

He also sometimes turns one of your party members into a werewolf that will attack your group (usually the tank), in this case sheep the werewolf or immobilize it, and if the tank got hit, have another high health party member (aka not the priest) eat the void bolts until the tank becomes un-werewolfed.

Arugal likes to Thundershock as well in order to stun you so he can move away and nuke you. Everything will be fine as long as your Warrior keeps the aggro well on him, if you have a support healer, he should help on healing the warrior. Also when he blinks, your warrior will most likely lose aggro and the closest person to Arugal will get it, so be sure to position yourself well so your warrior is always the closest one to Arugal. Sometimes this wont be possible (depends on where Arugal blinks to). If this should be the case just run out of his line of sight and give your Warrior time to get aggro back.This is by far the hardest fight, keep your long time abilities for this fight and burn down the mage as fast as possible.

QUEST COMPLETED: After he is dead you will have [27] Arugal Must Die (Elite): complete and one of these items can drop for you:

Robes of Arugal
Belt of Arugal
Meteor Shard

Congratulations, you have beaten this dungeon!

Original guide by Snowflake
Updated for recentness by Archerus

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