Azuarc's Leveling Guide part 25
Azuarc's leveling guide for Alliance, Act 25: Borean Tundra (70-72)
As of reaching this point in the guide, you should have:
- done some early quests in Howling Fjord
- traveled (preferably through the Tuskarr villages) to Borean Tundra
- reached level 70
- possibly run Utgarde Keep for loot and experience
This brings us to your arrival in Valiance Keep. Valiance Keep has a very bizarre design. The town is split in two by a boat that is permanently moored there. The inn, the docks, and most of the merchants are on one side and the barracks and some of the professions trainers are on the other.
Don't forget to set your hearthstone. You'll regret it.
Scene 1 - Valiance Keep (level 70)
Quests completed: Enlistment Day, A Time For Heroes, The Siege, A Soldier in Need, Cultists Among Us, Notify Arlos, Death From Above
The first scene is going to involve running around town, more or less. Begin at the docks and grab Enlistment Day, which will take you into the barracks. General Arlos will send you back outside to his ops man for orders just outside the stronghold's walls. At the outer moat, you'll also grab A Soldier in Need. Kill 6 of the mobs outside of town on the beach head, and then come back in to complete.
The ship that divides the town is your next objective. Go into the lower holds and grab the anti-venom from the chest. While you're there, you'll get another quest when you note the cultist activity on this floor of the ship. Go talk to the ship's captain about the matter.
Return to the town entrance, step outside the gates, and stop before you cross the footbridge. Instead, turn left and look up. The Scourged Flamespitters are up above you. Blast them down, or use your nets if your ranged damage isn't so hot. Head back in and complete the quest. Go back into town, and then up to General Arlos. You should get three new quests, A Diplomatic Mission, Enemies of the Light, and Plug the Sinkholes.
Scene 2 - The Riplash Strand (level 70)
Quests completed: Enemies of the Light, Plug the Sinkholes, A Diplomatic Mission, Cruelty of the Kvaldir (maybe), Gamel the Cruel, A Father's Words, The Trident of Naz'jan, The Emissary
Run straight out of town and up onto the ridges beyond. From there, turn right (north) and follow along until you see some bizarre holes in the ground. Stand over one and use the explosives you got for Plug the Sinkholes. Very nearby, you should see some cultists standing around arcane rings performing some kind of rituals. Kill them until you get a communique. Then travel south along the ridges until you find another set of sinkholes to blow up. From there, continue west along the coast to Karuk.
Karuk will send you onto the beach itself to fight the viking-like Kvaldir. These guys should look familiar from your time in Howling Fjord, except they're green and ghost-like. Kill a bunch, and see if you can't rescue a captured tuskarr prisoner in the process. Karuk's second mission will be to kill the named guy in the cave at the center of the beach. When you return, he will send you to talk to Veehja, the female naga at the Shrine of Scales on the right (west) end of the shore.
Veehja will send you swimming (unless you're a death knight with path of frost) to the southeast. The Riplash Ruins contain some curious wonders, including Ragnar Drakkarlund. Ragnar is at the very northeast corner of the ruins, but to get to him, you'll have to go through a portion of the western half of the ruins or get creative with hopping up the bluffs on the north-central side by the ice floes. Kill him and return so...you can go right back to those ice floes on the north-central side. Beneath them is Leviroth. Get close enough to spear him, and then finish him off for a very easy kill. Take your news back to Karuk, and return to VK with an entirely complete quest log.
Scene 3 - Errands (level 70)
Quests completed: Word on the Street, Further Investigation, The Hunt is On
There will be a couple new quests available in town. In particular, get Further Investigation and go to the second floor of the inn. (Leryssa for Word on the Street is here as well.) Vindicator Yaala will ask you to track down 3 cultists. Use the Oculus of the Exorcist she gives you and take a look at the following people. Talk to them when they have the purple taint of the cult of the damned.
- "Salty" John Thorpe in the inn's kitchen.
- Tom Hegger on the docks below the flight master.
- Guard Mitchells in the basement of the barracks.
Be sure to do decent damage up front to Mitchells when you are fighting him. The guards join the battle and may keep you from getting credit.
Your current quest log should include:
Scene 4 - Farshire (level 70)
Quests completed: Farshire, Military? What Military?, Thassarian, My Brother, Pernicious Evidence, The Late William Allerton, It's Time For Action, Take No Chances, Reference Material, Repurposed Technology, Fruits of Our Labors, One Last Delivery, Weapons For Farshire, Call to Arms!, Lost and Found
Look at that sweet, sweet list of quests completed. It's probably a good time to point out that there are actually two exits from Valiance Keep. On the inn side of town, back by the "physical" profession trainers and merchants is an archway in the wall that leads to the town of Farshire. You want to go through that opening and up to the remaining citizens of Farshire.
Unfortunately, Farshire and its mining operations have been overrun by the Scourge. It's up to you to take care of things. To start off with, enter the mine in the back of town. There you will find suspicious crates full of the plague, and also William Allerton's body. Unfortunate news. Return to Gerald Green so you can begin efforts to reclaim, or at least salvage the town.
Your first foray into the town will require you to kill a number of the ghouls in town, burn all the grain sacks you can find, and also enter into the burning building near the mine for a book. When you return with the book, you'll be asked to destroy the Harvest Collectors and fix them up to fight the Scourge. Every time you do, a special ghoul will come by and attack the machine. Just ignore them if you can.
When this set of quests are complete, you'll be asked to return to the mine. Go all the way to the rear and look for Captain Jacobs. He's one of the Scourged soldiers, but he stands out. You'll find a key for the mine cart on his body. Release the cart and return to Gerald, who will send you into town for a quick errand. Return to him. Then enter the town hall -- the nearby building on the right side -- and climb the stairs at the entrance. At the top is a rope for the bell to call the peasants to arms.
Your new quest log:
Scene 5 - DEATH c/o D.E.H.T.A. (level 70)
Completed quests: A Mission Statement, Ears of Our Enemies, Help Those Who Cannot Help Themselves, Happy as a Clam, The Culler Cometh, Ned, Lord of Rhinos, Unfit for Death
Fur is murder, just remember that. Yeah, I'm talking to you, hunters. Don't ask so smug like you're a nature lover when all you do is slaughter beasts for sport...and loot and exp.
Leave town by the "main entrance" and get out to the road. Follow it northward to the D.E.H.T.A. encampment. The Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals are not amused by Hemet Nesingwary's syndicate of trappers and poachers that are killing the beasts of Northrend wholesale. They want you to join them in stopping this menace. Take the mission statements -- oh yeah, and don't go into the camp with "Animal Blood" from slaughtering one of the beasts yourself -- and then walk south to where all the caribou are.
In the southern fields, place furs over the traps, return to camp, and then kill Karen "I Don't Caribou" the Culler in the far southeast corner of the area by a large rock. She's got two buddies hiding in stealth, so take the fight a little bit seriously, but she should still be a pushover. While you do not need to kill any of the lackeys in the area, collect ears from any that you do. Return to DEHTA.
Stop #2 on the animal rescue train is to the north. Ride around the mammoths looking for trapped calves so you can smash open the traps. Once you've rescued eight, go (south?)-west to Lake Kum'uya. There are a bunch of Loot Crazed Divers throughout the area. Kill a bunch of them for Happy as a Clam, and then continue killing Nesingwary people enough to have a set of ears to hand in. Leave the lake area to the *WEST*. Avoid Harold Lane.
On the far side of the lake, or perhaps just a little to the west of the northern bank, will be Nedar, Lord of Rhinos atop his trusty steed, Lunchbox. Kill them both. Start with Lunchbox since he dies much easier. Ned's supposedly elite, but he goes down pretty easy.
At this point, you will want to travel northwest to Amber Ledge. There are a few paths up the cliffs to where the Kirin Tor and the red dragonflight are based. This is where we *really* want to be next, and here's why: the instance for the zone, The Nexus, requires you to use a flight point from Amber Ledge to reach it, and all the quests come from this general area as well. Scene 6 is gonna be for Amber Ledge quests; Scene 7 is for the island to the northwest, Coldarra.
Scene 6 - Beryl Point (level 70)
Quests completed: Prison Break, Abduction, The Borean Inquisition, The Art of Persuasion, Sharing Intelligence, A Race Against Time, Monitoring the RIft: Cleftcliff Anomaly, Reforging the Key, Taking Wing, Rescuing Evanor, Dragonspeak, Traversing the Rift
The area below Amber Ledge to the southwest is Beryl Point, where the blue dragonflight is holding imprisoned mages. ATTACK!
Goal 1: Kill wyrmkin, get a key, open up one of the little floating cubes over a blue glowing platform. Goal 2: Beat a sorcerer to an inch of his life, and then take him prisoner. Goal 3: Torture the prisoner inside the guard tower. Goal 4: Go back to Beryl Point, clear the big central blue glowing platform, toss your bomb-grenade thing to lower the energy field, and kill the formerly-floating elf. Goal 5: Talk to people in town, including the big red dragon in the middle and the mounted battlemages to the south.
During one of your trips into Beryl Point, either for goal 1 or 4, jump off the cliffs into the water below, (*INTO* the water,) and swim through the chasm until you find a seismic rift along the surface. It should be along the far wall. There are a number of different paths leading back up onto the plateau where you've been questing once you've used your Arcanometer on the rift.
After completing the last mission for the Kirin Tor here, you will talk to Surristrasz in the center, who will immediately take you to Coldarra when you accept Traversing the Rift. You don't have to stay there, but consider yourself warned.
Scene 7 - Coldarra (level 70)
Part 1
Quests completed: Puzzling...
You should have just been flown into the secret Kirin Tor base in Coldarra where they spy and occasionally sabotage the affairs of the blue dragonflight. Grab all the quests. Note that Coldarra is a big circle and the shield is at roughly 5:00.
Leave the "town" counterclockwise and look for Coldarra SpellBINDERs -- the humanoids. Kill one, grab a Scintillating Fragment from him, and return to the shield. This will open up a long questline that you might as well do alongside everything else.
Part 2
Quests completed: Basic Training, Nuts for Berries, The Cell, Secrets of the Ancients, Keristrasza
You are now going to do a gradual circuit around the entire area. Do not go down into the trenches in the center yet. That's for later. You need to be on the look out for the following:
- Coldarra Spellweavers, spellcasting wyrms.
- Frostberry bushes, which are trackable by herbalists.
- Both kinds of jumbo trees; you need to kill 3 of each.
- General Cerulean and Warbringer Goredrak on their respective pads at roughly 9 and 12 o'clock
- The bizarre structures at three points along the outer rim, each with a trench leading up to it, and an elevator above them. Go into the actual alcove and grab one of the small orbs on the ground from each of these three sites. There will be a fourth to get in the next section.
Once you return to the Transitus Shield, use the Augmented Arcane Prison you are given to summon Keristrasza for a new quest.
Part 3
Quests completed: Hatching a Plan, Keeping the Secret Safe, Bait and Switch, Reading the Meters
Go exploring the upper areas of Coldarra once more. This time, kill 5 Wyrmkin (the big guys with axes) and grab the small pink crystalline shards all over. When you're done with both of those tasks, ride down one of the canyons toward the Nexus. There are large glowing pink flying ribbon snakes (drugs much?) that you'll want to kill, as well as dragon eggs to break open with the axes you grabbed. Finally, near the summoning stone, just inside the building, is the final measurement orb you'll want a reading from.
Part 4
Quests completed: Saragosa's End, Drake Hunt, Mustering the Reds
Summon Keristrasza again, and talk to her. She'll teleport you to the top of a platform. Use the item you're given to summon Saragosa and kill her. Then summon Keristrasza again to get down (unless you've got Levitate or Slow Fall, of course.)
Ride to the northwest corner of Coldarra and look up. You want to target one of the young drakes in the area and spear it with your harpoon. It will attack for a few seconds before chilling out and letting you take it to Raelorasz.
Part 5
Quests completed: Springing the Trap, Cracking the Code
Ride back toward where you just speared your drakeling, and get closer to the Nexus. Fire off the flare near the "northwest entrance to the Nexus", assuming nobody else has done it recently. (The quest bugs if you're too soon after someone else.) Watch the sequence of events, and hang out until you get a complete message. If you don't get one, go back and do it again!
Near where you are put down by Keristrasza, a little to the west, is the humanoid casters. Kill a bunch of them, including their honcho in the center, and then go back to the shield, which is just a little to the south.
After you are done, return to Valiance Keep. Go take a nap.
Scene 8 - The Abandoned Reach (level 71)
Quests completed: The Abandoned Reach, Not on Our Watch, Nefarious Clam Master, Khu'nok Will Know, Kaw, the Mammoth Destroyer, Distress Call, The Mechagnomes, In Wine, Truth, A Deserter
Return to DEHTA to turn in those quests you've still got. In response, you will be sent to The Abandoned Reach, which is to the southeast. Specifically, you will want to find Hierophant Liandra, who is in storm crow form along a path that descends to the beaches.
Liandra will ask you to collect the shipments of fur in the area. You can either pick up the boxes and bags on the ground, or loot them off the Northsea Thugs in the area. Return and she will ask you to kill Clam Master K. K can be found exploring the wreckage of a ship just off the coast. Go track him/her down, and also explore the wreckage yourself for some Kul Tiras Wine...
Return to DEHTA, and travel northward, but east off the road, looking for Khu'nok. The mammoth patriarch will ask you to kill Kaw in the northwest. You have two choices -- you can either kill Kaw on the back of a mammoth, or stay on foot and wait for someone else to do it. Many folks think it's easier to fight Kaw on foot anyway. Either way, when he dies, he'll drop a halberd you can loot.
With Kaw dead, travel northeast up the road to Fizzcrank Airstrip and say hi to Fizzcrank himself on the second floor of the lone building there. Listen to his story, grab quests and the flight point, and return to Valiance Keep. Be sure to complete In Wine, Truth and A Deserter.