The Lost Vale: Part 6 - Gorak The Ancient And Sarthain The Worldbearer
By: Damihdez
After making friends with the Butcher and picked up the next quest stage, head out of his place and head right. The trash mobs on the way are nothing special, except for a couple groups. One is a cluster of Branchwraiths on a narrow bridge. Nublet recommends pulling these things off the bridge due to a GTAoE that looks like the Diseased Ground in Warpblade Tunnels. I honestly have never noticed this, or any particular difficulty with this group, so that might be an excessive precaution.
After that, there's another one of those big Treekin. This one is named Vale Graybark, and he is pretty easy to assist-train to death. Clear all the junk mobs until you get to another set of stone stairs with a set of stone platforms in front of it. This is a neat little encounter. First kill all the sprites around, both because they silence you, and because it makes you feel better to end their existence.
Arrange your team like this: One tank and MDPS on the large central stone (if you have only RDPS, then have both of your tanks in the center). On the little stone disk closest to the stairs, have your second tank. Clockwise next, place your RDPS, then both healers on the next two disks. Once everyone is in position the statues at the top of the stairs will now come to life, and a forcefield will appear over the center platform. Everyone has to stay put on their respective platforms (this is why MDPS has to be on the center platform). The tank that's NOT in the center should try to get aggro on all three, then in tank IN the center can peel one at a time into the middle. Once there, smoosh them.
Turn in your next quest to the Everqueen right there on the center platform and get the following stage from her.
Continue on and clear out all the dryads. Make sure to go up the fallen tree so that you can get to the upper level and clear out the mobs up there too. Also, treat yourself to a little joy by killing all the sprites on the lower level. This guy, Gorak the Ancient, holds a special place in my heart. The first time my team encountered him we spent over two hours wiping on him and riding back, so that I could bring you the fruits of our early failures.
A few things before taking this neighborly guy fellow. First, he does not leash properly. He one time chased us all the way to the beach and then attacked Mournfire there. Since we were technically in combat, we had to reset the instance and then work our way back to him. Here's what we figured out about fleeing from him: have someone designated as a runner in case something goes south. This person needs to be ready to turn, summon their mount, and run all the way back over the bridge. They have to make it OVER the bridge before everyone else dies. If so, then Gorak should reset properly. That way, the runner can come back and rez people. This is where the upper ledge comes in handy. If one of your surviving members is a healer, they can pretty easily kite Gorak up the tree-trunk and then jump off the far ledge back to the lower level when he gets too close. Once the runner gives the all-clear, then you can stop kiting him around and die.
Okay, now for the fight itself. First of all, the tanks should face him away from everyone else due to his undefendable cleave. In this phase, just pour on the damage. Then he should do an AoE knockback and start channeling a lightning attack. It turns out that if you start running as soon as he knocks everyone back, then you can avoid taking multiple hits from this spell. If you stand still, this will probably kill you. Also, if you go near someone else, it will hit them as well, so spread out and run around like crazy. RDPS can still pop Garok with instant-casts. As soon as he stops casting, he will charge someone and try to separate them into parts, so the tanks should be closest to him and also taunt him ASAP. Just be careful and stay focused, and remember who your runner is.
Once you are finished, turn in the quest and pick up the next step. Continue along the path and kill mobs along the way. You will arrive in a glade with a huge treant on an island in the center. The trash mobs patrol around here, so pull them back out of range one pat at a time.
This boss fight is deceptively simple. I think that the developers intended that you kill the Darkpromise Channelers or something, but it's unnecessary. Have your tanks and MDPS charge onto the middle island (if you don't there will be an endless stream of animals attacking your casters. Once someone sets foot on the island, they stop). The casters need to stay off the island; I usually just place myself right at the extreme of my 80ft spells. If the casters go onto the island, they will likely die due to Sarthain the Worldbearer's thorns aura and AoE. The tanks and MDPS will have to deal with it, but they likely have the HP to do so. Sarthain will go belly up pretty quickly.
All finished with this wing! Now you have to head back to the beach and talk to Lanorith Mournfire to turn in this part of the quest and move on.
By the way, you should now have both the Whitefire Shard (from the spider) and the Runes of the World Bearer; two pieces of the 3 piece jewelry set gained in Lost Vale. Equipping both of these now gives you 5 AP per second, which is pretty nice.
To Be Continued! Next Episode: Charge of the Maggot Brigade!