The pocket guide to Dire Maul

See World of Warcraft for other pocket instance guides.

Dire Maul is an instance in Feralas for level 56-60 players. It's in the middle north of the zone, midway between the gryphons at Feathermoon Stronghold and Thalanaar. (The Horde has a nearer gryphon.)

Dire Maul, like Scarlet Monastery, is broken up into several sections, which can be completed independently.

complete quest list

Dire Maul East

This is the easiest of the three sections. If you enter Dire Maul from the main entrance, turn right and continue right along the corridor until it narrows into a tunnel. The instance entrance takes you to the south west entrance to DM East.

big map
Atlas in-game map

Quests

Lethtendris's Web / Latronicus Moonspear / Feathermoon
Pusillin and the Elder Azj'Tordin / Azj'Tordin / Lariss Pavilion, Feralas
Shards of the Felvine / Rabine Saturna / Moonglade
Arcane Refreshment / Lorekeeper Lydros / Dire Maul

Walkthrough

Some quests refer to this side as the "Warpwood Quarter". The main enemies are plants and satyrs. You'll also find ground spawns called "Warpwood pods". They sometimes yield useful items, and sometimes spew poison clouds.

The first area is a walkway above a courtyard. There are patrols of trees, 3 in a group, single phase lashers, and single large trees. There are also groups of non-elite plants. You will find AoEs very useful in clearing up these clusters of little mobs. The single mobs are not very difficult to deal with. The groups of 3 might pose some problems, because your crowd control options are limited with plants. Try freeze traps if you have a hunter.

On the left side of the courtyard is the imp Pusillin. He will lead you on a chase across the courtyard, out the NE exit, and straight east. We found following Pusillin to be ridiculously easy. He'd run ahead. We'd clear up to him. He'd continue. So you might not have to clear these sections entirely. But if you do, the quest will be quite easy. In the easternmost room, he runs up onto a balcony on the right. Kill him and loot the incantations from him.

At this point, you can choose to continue east to the instance exit. This exit debouches into the Lariss Pavilion, where the Pusillin quest-giver conveniently waits. If you do not have a key, however, you cannot return to the instance. And besides, you've only just got going! Stay inside and backtrack a bit to the west. Head south into a corridor just before you reach the courtyard again. You will encounter stealthed satyrs.

The next room is a mix of single satyr patrols, single plants, and small satyr groups. Clear it. The ramp up ahead leads to your second quest target: Lethtendris. She has a single imp minion. The fight should not be difficult.

Head back down the ramp and continue left, down to Hydrospawn. Clear the area before fighting Hydrospawn, because he has a knockback. You don't want to get knocked into a warpwood pod by accident. He also spawns a few non-elite minions when he gets low on health. Have somebody AoE those while your main party DPS concentrates on Hydro. Hydrospawn is the target of the level 60 mage water quest, given by Lydros elsewhere in Dire Maul. (Lydros is in the library, which is accessible from the north and west sides of DM.)

Continue north and up to have a quiet chat with Zevrim Thornhoof. This is a pretty straightforward boss fight. He will teleport one of your party to his altar, possibly intending to sacrifice that player. Thwart his intentions by killing him.

Retrace your steps down and south to where Hydrospawn was. Clear the other side of the room, so you can leave through the southwestern exit. This takes you to the lower part of the entrance courtyard. The fights here are a little tougher. Use AoE to clear out non-elite plant clusters. Find ways to cope with the groups of 3 trees. Watch out for the AoE attacks from the Deathlashes. The area seems to be a dead-end, but it isn't. When you have the area clear. talk to the friendly tree, Ironbark the Redeemed. He will break open the door at the north end of the courtyard, then die. Sniffle.

North is the location of Alzzin the Wildshaper, the area's final boss. You have to clear some single large trees to reach him. His area also has several groups of mobs that you must clear before you fight him. The fight against him is a standard boss fight. He'll change shape several times during the fight, but doesn't otherwise do anything special. When he dies, a large group of non-elite minions appears. AoE them to death, and then loot. He should drop the boxtop you need to collect for Shards of the Felvine.

Now you're ready to head out of the instance and turn in a bunch of quests. Mages will probably want to head to the library first to get their new happy water spell.

Dire Maul North

big map
Atlas in-game map

Quests

Walkthrough

Dire Maul West

big map
Atlas in-game map

Quests

Elven Legends / Scholar Runethorn / Feathermoon
The madness within / Shen'drala Ancient / Dire Maul West

Walkthrough

This is the elemental section. You'll want a warlock to come with you. If you don't have a warlock, this section is much harder than it might be otherwise. Fortunately, lots of warlocks will want to do their epic mount quest in DM West, so you should be able to find one. And because there are lots of undead interspersed with the elementals, a priest is also very helpful.

Your main targets are the pylons scattered throughout the level. Each pylon has a group of elementals around it. Kill the elementals, and the pylon is deactivated. Deactivate all the pylons to get access to Immolthar.

The key to DMWest is skipping most of the mobs through careful timing and just plain running around them. The giant tree patrols at the entrance hit very hard and take a lot of killing. So don't kill them. Slip through to the central court and clear out a few of the easier trees. Then pull the elementals from near the pylon in that courtyard. You'll mostly get pairs of Arcane Aberrations and Mana Remnants. Your warlock should banish one while you fight the other.

When the pylon has gone dark, head straight across (slipping between patrols) to the ramp down. Tendris Warpwood is down the ramp ahead of you. He'll fall to a standard tank-and-dps fight.

Sidetrack: Magister Kalendris. Kalendris drops some nice caster loot, so you might want to take a side jaunt after killing Tendris. Backtrack up the ramp and head right (south). You're now in the undead section. There are many invisible mobs in the area; your warlock can give you See Invisible to avoid surprises. Clear undead and head through the opening to the south. Kalendris should now be visible in the far corner. Clear undead until you reach him, shackling if you can to make the fights easier.

Head back where you came from, this time heading to the north exit. Head forward, then through the opening to the ramp up. Pull as many undead as you need to reach the ramp. Remember that you can hug the wall to the right and skip a lot of them. At the top, you'll need to loop back to the pylon just east of you, clearing undead all the way to it. The pylon fights are exactly like the first ones, and shouldn't be difficult with a warlock to banish.

When that pylon is dark, head east then turn right (south) to cross to a quest NPC. You will have a couple of opportunities to use AoE spells to clear out crowds of non-elite skeletons. In the middle of this path you'll find the Shen'dralar Ancient who gives out the quest for the pylons and Immolthar. What a coincidence! You've already started doing all that!

Continue past the Ancient and around to the other side. There's another pylon over there to clear out. There is also Illyana Ravenoak and her annoying bear Ferra. The bear will rush and knockback members of your party over and over. Try to have your tank deal with it while your DPS kills the hunter.

When she's down, run around back near the Ancient and find a spot where you can drop straight down to where Tendris was. Find the door to the next section at the north end of the west wall. There are more invisible undead mobs in this corridor. Killing them should now be routine.

At the end of the corridor is a large open area. Patrolling the area are groups of air elementals: one big elite surrounded by non-elite minions. Beyond them is an area protected by a force field, and inside the field a big ugly boss. There's one pylon to the north side and one pylon to the south. Clear the elemental groups in the obvious way: Your warlock should banish the elite. Slaughter the minions as quickly as possible, then turn your attention to the big guy when it pops out of banish. There are maybe 3 groups like this you'll need to kill. The pylon groups are exactly as before.

Now the force field is down and you can see the boss in the middle clearly. Find a gap in the patrols around the boss area and slip through. Do not aggro the patrols if you can help it; they're a pain. When they die, they spawn a bunch of Mana Bursts, which explode. Just don't aggro them, okay?

Now Immolthar! Your Warlock will want to be on the alert to take out the Eyes that spawn periodically. Otherwise, this is a straight tank-gets-aggro, dps-smacks-him fight. He'll knock meleers into the air periodically. Enjoy the ride.

Backtrack through the patrols (once again not aggroing them) to the corridor heading north. This leads to the Library, where you'll find the body of the missing scholar, Loremasters who offer quests if you've been lucky enough to find an ultra-rare book drop, a merchant who'll buy your trash loot, and Prince Tortheldrin. The prince will be grumpy with you if you've killed Immolthar (and neutral if you haven't.) He is a tough fight, because he will do an aggro-wiping knockback, and his melee attacks hit hard. But there's only one of him, and you are a very skilled player at this point, so do what you usually do.

Run back up to the Shendralar Ancient to turn in Immolthar. She sends you back to the library to collect your reward from the casket under the ramp. The patrols between the library & the Ancient will have respawned, so be ready to fight. You can of course take the shortcut down by jumping.

You're done with Dire Maul West!

The Warlock steed fight

[tbd]

dhalgren : Tue, 07 Jun 2005 17:47:13 PDT

ceej : Sun, 17 Jul 2005 09:52:45 PDT

topcatbar : Tue, 08 Nov 2005 09:32:24 PST

mommok : Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:01:27 PDT

mommok : Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:12:47 PDT

ceej : Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:58:52 PDT