Stealthing Steamvaults – Second Kara Key Fragment

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I’m on my way to Shatt to turn in The Second and Third Fragments after soloing the second fragment in The Steamvaults.  It really wasn’t that hard and with decent gear you should be able to do it to.

The stealth to the Arcane Container was the easy part.  Once you enter the instance, you’ll turn right and head down a ramp.  At the bottom of the ramp are two Coilfang Warriors.  You’re going to be tempted to squeeze between them.  I didn’t try that and I’m guessing it’s suicide.  Instead, head to the left and prowl between the left hand wall and the lamp.  Stay glued to the left wall as you make a slight turn to the right to go behind the left hand warrior.  It will  hiss at you, but you’ll be fine.

Now, come up over the rise still hugging to the left.  You’ll be facing a room with all kinds of mobs.  Basically, you’re going to be staying towards the left hand side, splitting between the groups of mobs – walking through the water.  You’ve got to time three patrols – one of two Naga, and two other patrols of water elementals.  It’s really not that hard.

As you head forward on the left hand side, you’ll see you’re coming up to some bluish colored Naga at the entrance to a ramp.  You want to bear to the left of the entrance, go up and over the side of the ramp, and you’ll see a lake in front of you with some Naga hanging around to the left.  The Arcane Container is in that lake to the left.

Now here’s where the real strategy comes in.  I hate to admit it, but I died about 5 times trying to kill the Guardian to get the key. 

The first mistake I made was trying to fight him underwater.  Unless you’ve got some Nagrand Cherries still lurking around in your backpack, shifting to aquatic form and getting your breath back just takes too much time and you get beat on too much.  I had much better luck drawing the Guardian back to the ledge I jumped into the water from.

The second mistake I made was fighting in cat form.  I was thinking the damage would just burn him down quick.  Well it doesn’t – he’s an elite with decent hit points and in cat I was just taking too much damage. 

The third mistake was listening too much to the comments on Wowhead.  One poster pointed out the Guardian was a beast and so could be Hibernated.  They recommended switching to Caster gear, hibernating the Guardian and burning him down with Starfire.  Well, this guy must be a much better caster than me, cause that strategy sucked the worst for me.

No, I finally got the Guardian in Bear form.  I just swam underwater to get in range and drew him out with Faerie Fire.  I swam back to the ledge and fought him there.  You’re getting hit for around 700 damage a pop during this time, but not having to worry about breath is worth it.  Once I got to land, it was a no-brainer.  My rage built up pretty quick and I waited to see how quickly my health was going down to see if I needed to save it for a Frenzied Regeneration or not.  It wasn’t going down too bad, so I got a Mangle and 5 Lacerate in place before letting some more build back up.  I then popped a Frenzied Regen to get my health back up.  When it was done, I hit Enrage to get my rage back, and went back to my Mangle/Lacerate strategy, which took the Guardian down just fine.  Don’t forget to keep your Fairie Fire and Demoralizing Roars active at all time also.

So – grats to me on my key frag.  I flew to Shat and turned it in.  Now it’s Old Hillsbrad, then Black Morass, then Kara with my guild.  Something to do this weekend…