Unlocking

Starting

Numbers count

… wait, I can only carry 400 mana!

I have a 2k mana cap, but I can’t get that much!

I tend to run around Surama City looking for Ancient Mana, which comes as plants, leypetal powder, glowing tomes or arcwine; the areas I tend to concentrate on is the market area near the Waning Crescent or the Vineyard:
Gatherers may find it easy to farm materials in Surama as you can get quite a bit of mana that way – certainly my 105 DK herbalist was getting quite tired of hearing “You can’t loot any more of those” pre-7.1 when she gathered Startlight Rose!

These guides say its really easy, but I’m not finding that!

Points mean prizes!

The Withered start out in Follow Me! mode; they follow you and attack any target you start to attack – throwing rocks which have a small AoE damage area. Whilst 15-20 rocks flying at a mob will do very large amounts of damage, around 65-75k per rock – 975k to 1,500k per hit – there is a problem.

The rocks have a slow travel time.

It is common for you to start attacking a mob, have the withered throw the rocks and then the mob runs towards you – thus taking them out of the damage area for the rocks! The following animation shows this best. Your attack is deemed to have started when the ranged attack actually damages or interacts the mob and not before!

How to get around this problem? Well, there are several ways to handle this.

Melee can just run up to the mobs and hit them where they stand – that keeps the mobs in place whilst the Withered rain down rocks on them.

Ranged have a few options:

1. Use the “Hug the mob” method melee use, although that could be hurty
2. Pet classes can send in the pet and let it tank the mobs in place
3. Turn a starter attack into a macro and use /startattack at the front of it
4. Stun, hold in place or otherwise slow the mob with your attack

The last is what I normally do on my shadowpriest – pulling with Mind Flay or the AoE stun Mind Bomb. Other classes will have other tricks – eg warlocks can ranged stun, frost mages can use their pet’s ranged freeze followed by Blizard. Curiously, frost mage’s pet freeze doesn’t cause the Withered to attack.

This normally results in something like the following, with the mob frozen in place waiting for your attack & that of the Withered to hit them.

In the normal “Follow Me” mode you’ll notice you have an extra action button labeled Mayhem:

The 75% damage increase is a major buff, but there is a downside. Your Withered become somewhat distracted and will wander around the place and attack all sorts of things – mostly things they probably shouldn’t be!

They don’t really follow you that closely – a major problem as when they stray too far away they’ll drop out of your army.

The mayhem buff is very useful if you put it on for short periods – there are certain trash mobs where its handy and its almost essential to use during the boss fights.

You can put them back into the “Follow Me!” by using the extra action button again:

If a Withered health gets too low it’ll may end up fleeing – if it does Thalyssra will emote “One of the Withered is running away! Catch it before it is lost in the tunnels“.

You then have a few seconds to find the Withered with the fearskull over its head and dispell its fear.

Fortunately you just have to click on the feared withered to dispell the fear & bring it back into the army.

The full scenario layout is shown below – including the treasure chests which contain buffs for the Withered and the bosses which often guard them.

The larger chests which cost Withered to teleport out only have to be looted once per account; once you’ve got their contents once you’ll never have to get them again. Small chests – containing gold, mana and sometimes teleport scrolls – always spawn in the scenario randomly.

1. The locked door requires two Withered Berserkers to open
2. The locked door needs you to have at least 10 Withered in your army to open

   Behind the door you’ll find the boss Lapillia – stay clear of the Withered when you fight her

   The 10x Withered Chest contains a Berserking Helm for your Withered

3. This chest is downstairs; once you’ve gotten this 5x Withered chest there is little reason to go down there. Unless Withered in Mayhem mode decided to go play down there, as they’ll often do!
4. The locked door needs you to have at least 10 Withered in your army to open

   Behind the door you’ll find the boss Brood Guardian Phyx who guards a 5x Withered chest

5. The locked door needs you to have at least 10 Withered in your army to open

   Behind the door you’ll find the boss Volatile Wraithlord

   The 10x Withered chest contains a Spellmask helm for your Withered

6. The door is unlocked by the key Laystalker Dro drops – more on him later

   The 10x Withered chest contains the helm which allows you to see hidden treasure

7. The locked door needs you to have at least 10 Withered in your army to open

   The hidden chest – requires you to have the helm from the chest at #6 – contains a Spellmask helm for your Withered

   This door is very handy to open as it’ll always contain 3 Withered for you to add to your army

8. You can’t interact with this door until you’ve killed the Fal’dorei Silkwitch in the room oppposite

   In the same room the 10x Withered chest contains the second Berserking helm for your Withered

9. The area in red is the Spiderling gauntlet – large numbers of small spiders constantly spawn!

   The boss in the room is Furog the Elfbreaker

   The Spiderlings continually spawn until you’ve reached the boss Psillych; easiest way I’ve found to handle them is to move up the stairs, put Mayhem on, move further up, put Follow Me on to get the Withered with you & then use Mayhem again. There are a few Withered you’ll be able to add to your army here. Mayhem gives you time to collect them

Laystalker Dro – the black skull above – is a boss you have to kill every time to reach the second half of the scenarion as he drops Dro’s Key which opens the door at #6 on the map.

However he moves around and for added fun is stealthed! The map below has all the areas I’ve encountered him at:

Thalyssra yells “Look out! when Dro is close enough to attack you.

If you kill the hostile mobs from the cocoons it seems like he is more likely to appear, but its not guaranteed. He is a somewhat annoying fight – you must interrupt his charge spree ability via a stun otherwise your Withered army will be cut own very quickly.

A number of mobs – especially when you’ve got less Withered early on – are made easier by using a body pull. That is, running up to a mob to aggro it and then running away to kill elsewhere. You want to avoid doing anything to the mob – no stuns or silences – otherwise the Withered will start to attack and that’s what you don’t want to do.

The animation below shows how I’ve pulled a Volatile Wraith around a corner so it was safer to use Mayhem! on my Withered.

	Withered Shambler The basic hostile mob you’ll encounter; melts in the face of the Withered army
	Volatile Wraith A nastier mob, made easier by stuns and putting the Withered into Mayhem! mode Interrupt the arcane blast – it does AoE At low health the mob does an non-interrupting explosion which will do a lot of damage to mobs near it. Either stun it or nuke down
	Spiderlings Coming in packs of three or four, these don’t have much health, but they leave nasty debuffs on you and your Withered. In some rooms you’ll find eggs which if you or your Withered touch will break to let Spiderlings out. Break the eggs from afar and nuke the spiderlings as they run towards you
	Shardmaiden Looks like a corrupted Dryad; melts just as well as the shamblers do!
	Skitterer Looking like the crystaline crabs you’ll find in Deepholm, these die quickly
	Web Wrap The web wraps can hold two different mobs. Most of the time you’ll get a Shambler, but sometimes you’ll get a Withered you can add to your army
	Faldori Slicers These slicers don’t present much of a threat; they tend to come in packs of two
	Web spinner packs You’ll often see Faldori Webspinners with a couple of Faldori Slicers
	Ambush mobs In typical spider fashion, some like to dangle from the ceiling and drop down when attacked. Or you aggro! Don’t forget to look up in the central area of the scenario!

The bosses mostly guard chests you’ll only loot once; the only boss you’ll kill every scenario is Dro.

Most of the bosses are just a matter of clearing mobs near them, popping Mayhem! and bursting them down. Using stuns and interrupts make life easier here. Notable boss are:

Leystalker Dro

The boss you have to kill every time to access the 2nd half of the scenario, he is stealthed so you can’t plan when you fight him

Use a stun when he starts his Charge Spree otherwise your Withered army will be decimated in short order

Lapillia

Keep away from your Withered when the debuff on you wears off – does an AoE pulse

Volatile Wraithlord

A larger version of the Volatile Wraiths, you’ll need to keep away from your Withered and stun during the final explosion

I also recorded my route; you can see it below. Its been sped up in a number of places to make the video a little faster to watch. You’ll probably note that I failed to use Mayhem! on Dro, but still got him down without too many issues. Using Mayhem! would’ve made it faster though!

On the layout of the scenario there are a number of chests available; these give the Withered army buffs which become available the next time you run the scenario.

A fully equipped Withered army will have:

2x Berserkers

These continually taunt, charge mobs and act like the worst tanks you’ve encountered in LFG. That said, they do hold mobs in place for the other withered to drop rocks on them

2x casters

The caster helms give two Withered powerful spell caster abilities, including chain lightning

The army will also:

• Let you see hidden chests
• Have 25% more health
• Do 25% more damage
• More focused attacks
• Not as likely to flee when at low health

The following map has the scenario map laid over the world map. You can drop down in the middle of the scenario area as its exposed to the sky in the real world – a useful way to get out if you need to there. Not sure what happens if you try to leave the scenario that way!

Using this you can explore the areas you’ll going into in the scenario and experience some of the mobs you’ll encounter.