When they reached the cages for the staircase event, they killed the Sandfury Executioner, looted the Executioner's Key, and freed the trapped NPCs.
Gabryell used the event dialogue time to explain the strategy.
"Keep Weegli and Sergeant Bly alive. The rest of the NPCs don't matter as much, but those two can't die. Carlos, stick with Weegli. If he dies, we lose access to the final boss. Quell, keep an eye on Sergeant Bly. If he goes down, we can't finish the Divino-matic Rod quest."
Chief Ukorz Sandscalp was the leader of the Sandfury trolls in Zul'Farrak and, in terms of dungeon progression, the final boss. As long as Weegli survived the staircase event, he would blow open the door leading to Ukorz.
"No problem," Carlos and Warquell replied.
Gabryell kept assigning roles. "A lot of mobs are going to spawn soon. Hugo, pull them up here. We'll let the NPCs help us burn everything down."
The main strategy for the staircase event was simple: let the NPCs do as much work as possible while the players fought from behind them. As long as Weegli and Sergeant Bly survived, the run was fine. The other NPCs were useful, but if they died, they died.
"There are three waves total. You get a short break between waves where combat drops, so eat and drink the second you can." The downtime was brief, so Gabryell made sure to warn them ahead of time.
"Carlos, stay near Weegli and pick up the elites when they spawn. Quell, handle the normal mobs. When the numbers start piling up, Coldhands and I will AoE."
He added, "Try to keep the other NPCs alive if you can. Only give up on them if things get messy. After the last wave, two bosses will spawn, and the more NPCs we have left, the easier that fight gets."
"Got it."
Everyone answered.
A moment later, the event started, and the first wave spawned. Several elites were mixed in with the normal mobs. Fortunately, there weren't too many of them. Otherwise, this fight would have been a nightmare.
This wasn't the nerfed Classic version from years later, where one player could ride down, pull the entire staircase, and AoE everything to death. Here, the Hunter had to pull the mobs up, the tanks had to catch them, and the group had to use the NPCs to help clear the wave.
With Gabryell calling the shots, the fight went smoothly. Running Zul'Farrak with eight players lowered the difficulty by a lot, especially with two tanks, two healers, and two Mages. The whole event felt at least half as hard.
"Drink, now."
As soon as the first wave ended, Gabryell sat down to recover.
The second wave spawned right after everyone finished eating and drinking.
They repeated the same strategy. After the second wave came another short recovery window, then the third wave.
"Good. We didn't lose a single NPC. The boss fight should be much easier now," Gabryell said, satisfied.
The NPCs didn't hit particularly hard, but they still counted as extra bodies and extra damage.
Once the third wave was cleared, Gabryell said, "Bosses incoming. Carlos, can you hold both of them by yourself?"
Carlos replied, "I've got it."
Gabryell nodded. "Quell, they'll summon adds. Pick them up as soon as they spawn."
Warquell had been getting more comfortable as a tank. "Leave the adds to me."
The bosses, Shadowpriest Sezz'ziz and Nekrum Gutchewer, spawned at the top of the stairs. Both could heal, fear, and summon adds, but with all the NPCs still alive, the fight wasn't too dangerous.
"Burn the Shadow Priest first."
In World of Warcraft, if a mob had "Priest" in its name, you killed it first. No debate. Troll Priests in particular almost always came with heals, fear, or some other headache.
Since the surrounding mobs had already been cleared, the AoE fear wasn't a real problem.
"If we had a Dwarf Priest with Fear Ward, the tank wouldn't even need to stance-dance into Berserker Stance for Berserker Rage."
As the game progressed, fear mechanics would show up more and more, which made Dwarf Priests increasingly valuable. Maraudon, which they planned to run later, had Princess Theradras, who also used AoE fear. Having a Dwarf Priest there would cut the difficulty by a lot.
Gabryell planned to bring one for tonight's Maraudon run if possible. The guild had two level 45 Dwarf Priests, BigHealsShortLegs and ServerHeals. Unfortunately, neither was online right now. Hopefully, one of them would log in later.
With all the NPCs still alive, Shadowpriest Sezz'ziz went down easily. The fear didn't cause any chaos, and the four DPS burned him down fast. Once he died, they swapped to Nekrum Gutchewer, who was even weaker and dropped even faster.
"Anyone with the Nekrum's Medallion quest, loot now."
Gabryell had already picked up every available quest long ago. "Don't turn anything in yet. Wait until the official launch and the level cap opens before handing in your quests."
Turning them in now would be stupid. The experience would be converted into silver, which was a huge waste.
Lunatori handled the loot, as usual.
Jinxed Hoodoo Kilt dropped. It was a blue leather leg piece with +10 Intellect and +24 Spirit. Obvious Restoration Druid gear.
Lunatori happily equipped it. From level 40 onward, healing leather started showing up more often, so she finally didn't have to fight the cloth classes for every healer piece.
After the staircase event ended, Gabryell spoke to Weegli and had him blow open the door.
"That goblin is way too happy around explosives."
"Goblins and Engineering. Name a more natural combo."
"Wait, holy crap. Why did Sergeant Bly go hostile?"
Igor had no idea that talking to Sergeant Bly would trigger combat. He thought the Divino-matic Rod would be handed over peacefully after they saved the man's life.
"Are you kidding me? We save his ass and this is what we get?"
Classic ungrateful NPC behavior. They rescued him, asked for the Divino-matic Rod, and instead of handing it over, he went hostile and attacked.
"Drop him," Gabryell said the moment Sergeant Bly turned red.
If Bly wanted a fight after being rescued, then fine.
After killing Sergeant Bly, the group looted the Divino-matic Rod from his corpse.
"Pfft. Trash."
"So we saved him for nothing?"
"How is that nothing? We finished the Divino-matic Rod quest."
The design really was ridiculous. Blizzard's logic made no sense here. Players went through all that trouble to save the NPC, only to kill him anyway for some betrayal storyline.
"Let's kill Ukorz first, then we'll go deal with Hydromancer Velratha and Gahz'rilla."
After thinking it over, Gabryell decided to prioritize Ukorz Sandscalp since his loot was more valuable, and everyone still needed upgrades.
The group left the staircase area and went through the doorway Weegli had blown open.
As soon as they entered, two basilisks ambushed them. Two mobs trying to jump eight players was basically free loot. After that came four guardians along the sides and four cobras. With two tanks, the pull wasn't difficult. A normal five-man group with only one tank, though, would have to carefully position the cobras away from the party.
Chief Ukorz Sandscalp, leader of the Sandfury trolls in Zul'Farrak, waited ahead with his elite guard, Ruuzlu.
"Carlos, tank Ukorz and keep him turned away from the group. He cleaves. Quell, grab Ruuzlu. We kill the add first."
Having two tanks made the fight so much cleaner.
"When Ukorz gets low, he enrages. Healers, spam the tanks when that happens. Don't let anyone get deleted by a bad crushing blow."
The warning was necessary. Ukorz was a level 48 elite, three levels above them. At this stage of the game, before tanks had proper defense gear and reliable mitigation, a tank could get crushed at the wrong time and drop instantly.
"Lunatori already looted Sang'thraze the Deflector earlier. I wonder if she can pull Jang'thraze the Protector too."
Gabryell thought back to the sword Antu'sul had dropped earlier. Sang'thraze the Deflector had an absurdly low drop rate, several times lower than Rend's paired swords from Upper Blackrock Spire, almost at Felstriker levels of stupid.
Jang'thraze the Protector, which dropped from Ukorz, was just as rare. If both swords were collected, they could be combined into Zul'Farrak's only epic weapon: Sul'thraze the Lasher, an incredibly stylish level 50 two-handed sword.
In his previous life, Gabryell had only ever seen one Warrior using it.
That alone said everything about how rare it was.