[78-80] Eric’s Culling Of Stratholme Walkthrough and Guide

This instance is one of my favorite instances in Wrath of the lich King. Not only of the good drops, fast and easy, but most of all the awesome storyline. It can be a little hard to understand what to do when you get into the instance, that’s why I’ve written this guide.
First of all, go to Caverns of time. It is located in Tanaris in Azeroth. You dont need the required quest too enter like the other ones. The easist way to get there is through the portal in Violet Citadel in Dalaran City.

LEVEL RANGE

• Level 78 is minimum. With a single dps or healer, it can be done easily at level 78.
• Level 80 is optimal. A level 80 tank is pretty much prefered, as it would be hard to tank for tanks below (maybe a protection specced warrior can go, though).
• Level 80 (heroic) group of average geared with blues and a few epics.
• Level 80 (heroic) timed Can be difficult without a well geared tank + healer, and some very good DPS, must be able to deal 2.500+ damage per second. If you reach it timed, you will get a brand new Bronze Drake epic flying mount!

QUEST

• [80] [Timear Foresees Infinite Agents in your Future!]
  This quest is given by Archmage Timear in Dalaran. Its one of the new quest called “Daily Dungeon”.

• [80] [Proof of Demise: Mal’Ganis]
  Given by Archmage Lan’dalock in Dalaran. Its a Daily Heroic.
  

• [80] [Dispelling Illusions]
  Given inside the instance. (more information will be given later in the guide)

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Heroic: The Culling of Strathholme
  Complete the Culling of Stratholme on heroic difficulty.
• The Culling of Stratholme
  Complete the Culling of Stratholme on normal difficulty.
• The Culling of Time
  Only possible on heroic difficulty, you must kill the extra boss which only shows up if you reach it and kill it before the time runs out (25 min.).
• Zombiefest!Quite hard Archievement, if you wanna do this one, you can’t reach it timed. So here is one way to do it:
  1. Just rush through the instance untill you reach Salramm the Fleshcrafter, kill him as slow as possible (minimum 6 minutes), the reason is, that the zombies won’t respawn after the boss is killed, so take your time to kill him, so every zombie can respawn.
  2. Alright, first of all: DO NOT KILL ANY ZOMBIES YET, then you will wipe the archievement. Help Arthas killing the infinite dragonkins, and Chrono-lord Epoch.
  3. Now get ready, the tank needs to run with a offhealer (a DPS specced, healer-class which have to heal abit (+ DPS) to complete the archievement) back through the last part gathering all the zombies and kill them at last with AoE (almost impossible with warrior or druid tank). While the tank + offhealer is running
     and killing, the rest of the group must quickly kill as many zombies as possible in the next part (burning street). Have a plate DPS tanking if the group got attacked by any mobs (which is not zombies ;))

THE WALK

1. Go to Violet Citadel in Dalaran, and take the portal upstairs. If you aren’t in Northrend with a cooldown on Hearthstone, do following:Alliance: Get to Ironforge. Fly to Menethil harbor and take the boat to Theramore Isle. Fly to Gadgetzan.

   Horde: Get to Thunderbluff. Fly to Gadgetzan.

2. Then walk from 1 to 2.
   
3. When your party is at the summoning stone, talk to the dragon just inside the cavern. Choose “take me to the masters lair”, and then you go.
   When you arrived, walk from 1 to 2 (at the new map).
   
4. Walk inside!
   
5. Get the quest [80] [Dispelling Illusions] from Chromie. She provide you with Arcane Disruptor.
6. Go outside the inn. You should now stay in a country like “Elwynn forest”.
   
7. Go to area 2. Right click on Arcane Disruptor when you are near these crates:
   
   You should now get 1/5 in this:
   
   In the top of your screen. Find all the crates and follow the red line up to the entrance of the instance. When you reach the area in fog (area 1) make sure to run on the road.
8. When you reach the entrance of the instance turn in the quest at Chromie and get the follow up [80] [A Royal Escort]. Uther the lightbringer and Lady Jaina Proudmore will appear. They will talk to Arthas and then leave him. After that, Arthas will run into the city. Follow him.

THE INSTANCE
– I’m briefly going to explain where to find the bosses, and the easist way through the instance.

When you are inside the instance, Arthas will stop running and then it’s up to you. Keep running from froms right to left until you’re running into a wave of mobs, kill them (if you have trouble finding the place where the mobs is spawning, look at the white flag on your minimap). Then run back to right. At wave 5, Meathook will spawn instead of a normal wave.

MEATHOOK
This boss is not any hard fight, really. We will go on with “Tank ‘n’ Spank”, means, that we just fight him to death with no strategy. Meathook will cast the folling spells:

• Constricting Chains – Inflicts 1,000 (Heroic: 1,800) Physical damage every 1 second for 5 seconds. Stuns the target for 4 seconds.
• Frenzy – Increases Meathook’s damage by 10% for 30 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Disease Expulsion – Inflicts 713 to 787 (Heroic: 1,710 to 1,890) Nature damage to nearby players, interrupt spellcasts for 4 seconds.

The group are gonna watch out for the chains/expulsions, if they hit the healer, it can be critical for the tank. The tank may die because he/she won’t get healed for four seconds (you may escape with PvP trinkets or other spells that let you escape from stuns). So the healer is gonna make sure that the tank the tank is topped off. The tank + healer must be prepared to use cooldowns when the Meathook goes into a frenzy which will increase his damage by 50%.

SALRAMM THE FLESHCRAFTER
At wave ten, this boss will spawn instead of a normal wave. Like Meathook, Tank ‘n’ Spank is the way to go, this one is just easier. He got the following spells:

• Curse of Twisted Flesh – Reduces the targets maximum HP by 25%, and inflicts 1500 damage every 3 seconds for 30 second.
• Explode Ghoul – Salramm will explode a nearby corpse (typical from one of his allies), that inflict 3800 – 4200 (Heroic: 5700 – 6300) to all within 10 yards.
• Steal Flesh – Salramm casts this on one of the party members, reducing the party members damage by 75% and increases Salramm with 75%.
• Summon Ghouls – The boss will summon 2 ghoul minions, they are week, and doesn’t hit hard.
• Shadow Bolt – Salramm will cast Shadow Bolt many times during the fight. Shadow bolt hits for 3500 – 3800 (Heroic: 4950 – 6050) with 2.5 seconds castime.

Curse of Twisted Flesh won’t be any problem to most heaers, they just gonna keeptracking on the one that is hit. When Salramm casts Steal Flesh, it can be critical if the healer is not focusing on healing max up the tank, as he/she will take very much damage. Neither Shadow Bolts will not hit for much, and can be reflect by a warrior tank.

When you’re done killing all the waves, go to the north were you will find Arthas. Talk to him (accept his question when you right click) and follow him inside the house next to him. Some of the citzens inside the house will be transformed into dragonkins, and you’ll have to kill them. Finally, when you’ve fighted you upstairs and trough the house, the third boss will spawn.

CHRONO-LORD EPOCH
Chrono-lord Epich is like the other bosses. Ofcourse he have some different spells:

• Time Stop – Stuns everyone for 2 seconds.
• Time wrap – Reduces the casting time/attack/movement speed of everyone in the room for 6 seconds.
• Wounding Strike – Wounds the target, dealing 100% weapon damage, reducing healing effects by 25%, and 750 Physical damage every 1 sec for 4 sec.

Nothing special to worry abput in this fight, really (maybe Wounding Strike). Should be down in a few minutes by most groups.
When you’re done with the boss, go click the bookshelfs behind him to get to the last part of the instance. Run down the stairs, and outside the house. If you’re trying to do it timed (25 min), you’ll have to speed up, and this part is a good place to do that. Let your tank run in the front pulling everything that attacks you, make sure the healer can heal it up.

MAL’GANIS
Continue Through the burning street untill you reach “King’s Square”. If you’re doing it timed, don’t go directly to Mal’Ganis, but run to the left, and you’ll find Infinite Corruptor which is the extra boss that only exist on timed, that you’ll have to kill if you wanna reach timed. The extra boss got nothing special, kill it as fast as possible.The strategy for Mal’Ganis is… guess what? Tank ‘n’ Spank! Here is the spells:

• Carrion Swarm – Inflicts 3,520 (Heroic: 6,510) Shadow damage to all enemies in front of the caster and an additional 380 to 420 Shadow damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds.
• Mind Blast – Inflicts 4,163 to 4,837 (Heroic: 8,325 to 9,675) Shadow damage to an enemy.
• Sleep – Puts an enemy to asleep for 8 (Heroic: 10) seconds. Any damage done to the target will awaken it.
• Vampiric Touch – Heals Mal’Ganis for the half the damage dealt by a melee attack.

Fairly easy fight, keep on tanking, healing and DPSing untill he is dead. Loot the chest and congratiolations with the epic drop!

HEROIC REWARDS

Plate

• Royal Crest of Lordaeron
• Bindings of Dark Will
• Legplates of the Infinite Drakonid
• Legplates of Steel Implants
• Pauldrons of Destiny

Weapons

• Greed
• Pierce’s Pistol
• Gavel of the Fleshcrafter

Cloth

• Mantle of Deceit
• Gloves of Distorted Time
• Forgotten Shadow Hood
• Belt of Unified Souls

Mail

• Legguards of Nature’s Power
• Cracked Epoch Grasps
• Spaulders of the Abomination

Leather

• Plague-Infected Bracers
• Bile-Cured Gloves

Miscellaneous

• Band of Guile
• Mobius Band
• Pendant of the Nathrezim
• Necromancer’s Amulet

Good luck!

– Eric

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