World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Auchenai Crypts

Auchenai Crypts is one of the four wings of Auchindoun Dungeon, recommended for players level 64-66. You can find Auchindoun at the center of the Bone Wastes, in southern Terokkar Forest. Whether you are in the Stonebreaker Hold (Horde) or Allerian Hold (Alliance), on the back of those villages is a backdoor access to reach the Bone Wastes. To find an entrance to the inner-walls of Auchindoun, find a massive door with two bright fires and walk down the ramp. Once inside Auchindoun, the entrance to the Auchenai Crypts is at the west wing. Looking for the two fire-lamps positioned to the left and right of the doors, help you identify the entrances to the dungeons.

Auchenai Crypts is challenging in its own way. Specially the skeleton event before reaching the Crypt of Remembrance. Priests must shackle Unliving Draenei and skeletons when possible to help crowd control. Mobs hit usually for 700+ damage. There are mobs you can optionally skip to move forward to the first boss event.

You should target Auchenai Soulpriests first. They summon unliving sorcerers and posessors. Summoned units are non-elite so kill them if they were summoned already. Kill posessors too if any unless you want a posessed tank or priest wrecking havok on his own team. Summoned Unliving Sorcerers cast shadowbolt which increases shadow damage by 10%, frostbolt and Blast Wave(AOE slowing movement speed). To counter posession, Shamans can summon a Stormstrike and Earthshock totems. Phasing Clerics are healers and Fear. Make sure to pull and stay far back. One fear and you are in a world of pain with additional adds. A nasty curse named Touch of the Forgotten should be dispelled immediately by mages. Healing effects on you are reduced by 345—a mana drain for any healer to keep you alive. Kill Auchenai Monks next, then Auchenai Vindicators should be last. Kill non-elites first. Any mob named Phasing Solider, Phasing Sorcerer, Phantasmal Stalker or Unliving are undead and can be shackled. Auchenai Monks are humanoids immune to Hunter traps and mind control.

Shirrak the Dead Watcher

Shirrak the Dead Watcher is the first boss of Auchenai Crypts. He is located at the end of the Bridge of Souls. He looks like a floating big brain with three eyes and tentacles below his head. The Bridge of Souls require a lot of carefulness. Randomly, a red-ball shaped Raged Soul spawns. It is recommended to run backwards away from it. It has a lot of Hit Points, and it self-explodes after few seconds. The explosion knocks you back into the air many yards away. If not properly facing it—and here is the funny and sad part—it throws you off the Bridge of Souls and you fall into the void to your death. Walking back into the instance will take at least 6-8 minutes and the way back to the Bridge of Souls is dangerous to solo. Sometimes there are Phasing Spirits of Draenei roaming the halls after you have cleared the way. Therefore, don’t die because of the Raged Soul knocking you off the bridge.

ABILITIES

? Inhibit Magic (Aura): After you have cleared the bridge, as soon as you get near the stairway you will notice an aura affecting you—similar to the Baron Rivendare aura, but ranges to around 40 yards or more. You can’t avoid it. However, this aura inhibits your magic. If your big heal or fireball casting time is 3 seconds, with the Inhibit Magic aura it will double or triple its casting duration.

? Carnivorous Bite: On cloth-gear, Carnivorous Bite does over 914 – 1,359 damage. And can inflict it three times in a row for a total of over 3,000 damage. Don’t stay near him too long if you aren’t a melee player.

? Telekinesis: Shirrak will randomly toss you into the air and pull you from afar toward him. He does this for no good intention. Stop casting and run back to your position.

? Fire Bomb (AOE): When you see a red-orange glow below his tentacles, you should worry. Look on the ground. You will see a flare, then another. He is channeling a fire bomb AOE. You can run away and escape the fireball if you carefully watch the ground for flares. NOTE: If you run away, you will see the glow on the ground chase you … then he launches the fire bomb. Upon impact, the bomb spreads nearly 20 yards afflicting everyone within its radius for 2,500+ damage. He does fire bomb every 12 seconds. (Watch our video at the bottom of this article)

STRATEGY

There are basically two strategies to beat Shirrak the Dead Watcher.

First: Tell your team to take positions. Imagine a square. It has four corners. Two players on the left, and two players on the right—if most are ranger/casters. The tank needs to pull him to one of the square corners. Your priest or main healer needs to survive. Therefore, the priest goes by the stairs—this helps priests avoid the fire bomb. The square-position helps a lot because when everyone is spread, the fire-bomb won’t cause damage to more than two players.

Second: Priests and/or druids save the day. Cast instant spells. Priests should cast renew on everyone starting with yourself, the tank, then everyone else. The only player you should use Big Heal is the tank—because the aura of Shirrak slows the casting time of your big heal’s 3 seconds-cast to nearly 10 seconds. Power-Word: Shield is the most important part of this boss event. Shield all players the whole length of the event and toss a renew. Make sure to redo Power-Word Shield once Soul Weakness is over. Don’t wait until people gets damage. Just spam renew on all players, then a shield on each player. Then redo until Shirrak is dead. You won’t need mana pots, but take a few just in case.

This is a no-joke boss. He means business with that fire bomb. Once you know how to position yourself, and how to run away from the fire bomb, it is easy.

Shamans should place a Mana totem at the center of the square and help toss instant-heals to the tank. Hunter, Mage or Warlocks should bandage themselves or bandage the priest at all times when possible. Tanks can optionally drink a fire resistance potion. If everyone DPS and watches the fire bomb, and the priest has done a good work rotating renews and shield, Shirrak the Dead Watcher will die in one minute and fourty-five seconds. (1:45)—However, at the moment of taking this video everyone was above level 66 (closed beta). It may take longer than two minutes if your first time is at level 64. Things may change in retail version.

Exarch Maladaar

After killing Shirrak the Dead Watcher, you have some challenge past the next room at the Chamber of the Restless. Once you see skeletons, you will be in a world of pain. They have a lot of Hit Points (HP), elite and hit for around 700 damage to cloth-gear. It is important for Priests to shackle one of them to crowd control, and to keep an eye on renewing it. And very important that no one breaks the shackle. Create a macro if necessary alerting people not to break the shackle.

Mages … AOE is not recommended. At 700 damage, a flash heal and renew from a priest won’t help to keep you alive for long. Far less if you have more than four skeletons hitting you. Use frost nova. Hunters, Warlocks and Priest will need it for breath-space.

Hunters … make sure to stick near the priest and help by placing traps when possible. Your task is to keep yourself and the Priest alive because this is an insane fight.

Once you reach the Crypt of Remembrance, the skeletons are easily killable non-elites. If you have no mage a priest will do with Holy Nova. Otherwise, Priests should renew and shield the mage before he engages AOE. Then spam Flash Heal. Once the skeletons die, assist the Tank with the Auchenai Necromancer. There are at least 6 similar pulls before reaching Exarch Maladaar.

This final boss has some nasty tricks up his sleeve. He will create a shadow copy of yourself—a shade named Dark Side. It is important that all the four players target the shade-NPC and kill it ASAP, while the tank is hitting the boss. If a shadow-npc is left unchecked, it will kill the priest or mage in no time. Shades hit cloth-gear for 706-878 and may mortal strike you for around 1,501 damage. It is recommended that Mages frost nova the shade, and everyone hits it. Then focus back to the boss for DPS. If you don’t kill the shades asap, you will get more shades overwhelming you. It is timed.

When Exarch Maladaar reaches around 20% health, he will do something unique—he summons forth an Avatar of the Martyred that hits like a truck. However, DPS Exarch Maladaar and kill him. Otherwise he will keep spawning shadows. Then focus on the Avatar of the Martyred. If you are on the quest, talk to the Naaru. The mirror is a floating crystal near the Naaru.

Quests

To find the epic quest leading to Auchenai Crypts you should talk to Jorin Deadeye in Garadar Village (Nagrand) for a very long chain of quests.

The quest is epic because you will find out the truth about the Naaru and Oshu’gun Crystal in Nagrand. Oshu’gun is revealed to be the landing site of Velen and the Draenei upon reaching planet Draenor. Oshu’gun crystal is the transdimensional ship of the Naaru that brought the Draenei to planet Draenor. It is Oshu’gun where the orcs heard the voice of a Naaru to inspire their shamanistic ways.

The quest chain eventually takes you to Auchenai Crypts to defeat Exarch Maladaar who holds prisoner a Naaru named D’ore. Coerced by Exarch Maladaar to draw shadow magic from him. Upon freeing D’ore, and finding his mirror, you are sent to find 15 orc spirits in Nagrand and to reflect their image on the mirror. It triggers them to become voidwalkers that you must destroy. After talking to a spirit in the Ancestral Grounds (northwest of Oshu’gun), you are sent to Garadar village, where the quest to talk to the Greatmother starts. She reveals to be the mother of Durotan. You tell her how Durotan is considered a hero, and that her grandson Thrall is warchief of the new horde. You go to Orgrimmar to deliver the news to Thrall that his grandmother still lives. And Thrall himself comes to Outland to sit besides her.—this section will be updated with a quest list, soon.

Lore Flashback

In Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal, Kurdran found in one of his reconnaissances, atop his flying mount Sky’ree, the stronghold of Auchindoun. Danath and Turalyon raided this Bleeding Hollow Clan bastion with the Alliance Expedition Force. Read More.