Fanghorns Edge How to Guide

Fangorn's Edge


<blockquote>"You have found my lumber-camp. Very impressive. Few know of
its existence. Do you think you can stop the tide of progress? The war
will continue. The time of Man is over." - Saruman</blockquote>
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. And because it's
Fangorn Forest - a forest where even elves fear to tread lest they incur
the wrath of the ents who live there - you can be sure that the trees
are fighting back.

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 - kinda like playing Frogger.

Speed buffs help a lot at
these crossings - Hunters' Find The Path, or
Captains' Make Haste, or the speed buff
Destiny perk... or the newly-introduced Second Breakfast Coffee, which
comes from Decorated Westfold cook recipe scrolls. The standard version
of this recipe gives a 5% increase to run speed, and the crit version is
10%, and this buff stacks with other run-speed buffs. I tested it on my
Hunter - Find The Path, plus the +6% legacy on his spear, plus the 10%
coffee, plus the 10% boost from Fleetness gave him +41% (non-combat) run
speed for 10 seconds - faster than the Bree-land starter horse. With the
Captain's Make Haste, he would be faster than a standard mount.

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.

There are a number of deeds for the various ways this fight can pan out
- killing the trolls with 1 ent alive, killing Undurz with no huorns
left alive, saving all the ents and saving all the huorns in one run.
If all of the ents die, the fight will reset and you'll have to start
again. The first time you run this, you'll more likely be worrying about
developing a solid strategy and staying alive than about completing
deeds, but it's always a good idea to shoot for the best possible
outcome.

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.