Rise of Isengard: Fangorn's Edge

[Simone B.]

From tentonhammer and wiki:

Location

Fangorn's Edge is a level 75 three-person instance in Nan Curunír. Players must have Instance Cluster: Isengard unlocked to enter and complete the deed Discovery: Instances of Isengard by visiting the Ox-clan Merchant Camp in northeast Nan Curunír [79.9S, 0.4E] (You can take the quest Gwin in Galtrev, after having talked to Mabon you'll get teleported to the Ox clan camp directly).
Also talk to Andras and get the quests from him. You'll get a Sigil of Orthanc that you can use at the forge (right click it when you are near the forge).

The instance has various deeds:
-Clear-cutter (Defeat Undúrz with all four Huorns in his area dead to get 20 Medallions and 5 TP)
-Isengard: Fangorn's Edge (Complete Fangorn's Edge T1, T2 and T2C to get 30 Medallions and 10 TP)
-Last Tree Standing (Defeat the three trolls with only one Ent alive to get 20 Medallions and 5TP)
-Save the Trees (Save all 8 Huorns in one run to get 20 Medallions and 5TP)
-Thoroughbred (Get hit by a deadly patrolling troll tree-attack to get 20 Medallions, 5 TP and the nice message "You have been log-rolled.")

This is a race to save the trees from the fires and cruel axes of the orcs, who need lumber to fuel Saruman's war machine.

Your first encounter is a group of orcs attacking a huorn and felling it. They kill it and hit the road, which is a two-lane highway carved into the cliffs leading up into Fangorn Forest, and is heavily patrolled by uruks, warg-riders and tree-lugging trolls. The patrols are very tough and will murder anyone they catch snooping around the place, so the goal here is to avoid them. Wait for gaps between the groups and dash through between them.

Speed buffs help a lot at these crossings - Hunters' Find The Path, or Captains' Make Haste or Second Breakfast Coffee, which comes from Decorated Westfold cook recipe scrolls.

One point of interest here - the first time you are killed by a patrolling troll on the road, you will complete the Thoroughbred deed and earn 4 Seals. It may be worth your while to do this at the first crossing point, where you don't have to make a long, dangerous trek back to where you were.

Once you get across the highway, you will start encountering groups of mobs. There are stationary groups of 4 orcs, patrolling pairs of warg riders, and groups of 6 or 8 orcs and uruks attacking huorns. The stationary groups and patrolling warg-riders are pretty standard, but the groups attacking the trees can be tough, and particularly if the group is attempting to complete the Tier 2 challenge of saving all the huorns.

For these groups, the fellowship needs to go in with area-effect attacks and pull all the mobs off the besieged huorn. On Tier 2 difficulty, the huorns go down really fast, so it's imperative to get all the orcs away from them right away, and healers may need to spend some time keeping the huorns alive before tending to their fellows.

Further down the path, after the second highway crossing, the group will encounter a pair of sleeping warg-riders - these can be avoided by walking wide around them to the right. Likewise, there is a pair of trolls on the hill overlooking the glade at the end of the instance that can be dodged.



Reaching the final glade, surrounded by great forest-clearing mobile sawmills, you will see the first boss, an uruk named Undurz who is standing alone in the middle of the clearing. He has a truckload of morale, and, once engaged, he will call in groups of adds to attack the 4 huorns surrounding the clearing. To complete the challenge, you need to save these huorns.

With a traditional Tank/DPS/Healer group, put the tank on the boss, keeping him more or less in the middle, and have the DPS handle the adds when they come in. If the DPS is a squishy class like a Hunter or Rune-keeper, pull the adds over to the tank. The huorns make fairly short work of the adds, but if left alone, they could fall to the orcs' axes. The trees can handle one or two adds on their own, but the rest should be pulled away. When the adds are down, return DPS to the boss.

Occasionally, the boss can be kited near to the huorns to draw their aggro, and they will contribute with ranged root-spike attacks. Sharp-eyed tanks can pull the boss over to the huorns when the add waves come in, and the huorns will continue to attack Undurz when the adds are all down. Don't bank on this happening, though - occasionally the trees will return to a "dormant" state when the adds are all dead, and Undurz may not get any tree-aggro. It's not a big deal if the boss doesn't aggro the trees, but the fight will take a little bit longer.

Be wary of Undurz's powerful attacks against secondary targets. These attacks have long inductions and can be interrupted, but if they go off, they hit hard. A medium- or light-armored DPSer (think Hunter or Rune-keeper) who is the target of one of these attacks can find himself in real trouble if he is in the middle of fighting the adds attacking the huorns - particularly the uruk adds, which have strong ranged attacks. Best policy is for the tank to watch for these long inductions and to try to interrupt them every time.

Once Undurz is downed, the real fun begins. A trio of ents enters the clearing, declaring that all orcs must be destroyed. Unfortunately, it's been a while since they have seen humans, elves, hobbits and dwarves - they don't realize that the players are not orcs, and will attack. Players will want to avoid the ents - stay well clear of them because they do have area-effect attacks and hit like freight trains.

This is a complicated and difficult fight, particularly on Tier 2 difficulty. Have the tank focus only on the adds, keeping them off the ents and the other players - especially the healer. Tanks will want to be very careful about their area-effect threat generation - pull the aggro of the ents or trolls and there will be trouble. The tank wants only the small, manageable adds. The tank will want to kite the adds, which is tricky because the orcs apply a slowing debuff. Keep them moving, running them through the legs of the ents, who will stay in dogged pursuit. The DPSer will want to kill a few of the orcs and help keep the healer add-free, running near the tank if he gets add aggro of his own.



After a few minutes of this, three fiery, named trolls will come stomping in. The ents will break off from chasing the puny, scurrying things around and focus solely on the trolls. The tank needs to keep kiting the adds and keep them away from the other players. DPS will focus on one troll at a time, taking them down as they battle the ents. Let the ents tank the trolls - once the trolls engage the ents, they are locked in and can't be pulled away. Hunters can go full-on Strength stance without worrying about pulling aggro, so Burn Hot and let fly. Even if the troll does aggro on the player, it will stay in position with the ent. If an ent dies, the troll attacking it will turn on whatever its next aggro target is, so if the DPS-focus troll manages to kill its ent, it's going to turn on the player attacking it. This is therefore a DPS race - you want to kill the trolls before they manage to take down the ents.

When the troll dies and the ent is still alive, it will move to the next closest troll and help its tree-brother. If the tank is managing to stay alive, this fight gets progressively easier as the ents gang up on the trolls. Continue focusing DPS on one troll at a time until they're all dead.

Loot the big chest for a Sigil of Orthanc, some relics and runes and other goodies. Your next step is into the Pits of Isengard, so be sure to soak up the afternoon sun while you're here. It'll be a while before you see it again.