Urugarth How to Guide

Urugarth





Overview

Urugarth is a level 50 6-man instance in Angmar. There are a number of
quests for this instance, but the main reason one would run it is to get
the various items for the level 45 class quests, items which drop from
the bosses in this instance. This instance is both very long (a full run
being anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 2 1/2 hours depending on the group)
and very difficult for an on-level fellowship, difficulty which is
lessened a good amount by being over-leveled and well-equipped. A
well-balanced fellowship full of 65s with great gear would find this to
be a pretty easy affair, but it would still be a long run, what with the
sheer amount of enemies to kill and the distance covered.



However, with the addition of the skirmish system, you can now get all
the quest items for those level 45 class quests from the Curiosities
vendor at any skirmish camp. So if you don't want to bother finding a
group of people to run this instance, feel free to ignore this guide. If
you want to complete the quests and deeds found inside the instance
anyway for completion's sake, or if you find the prices in skirmish
marks for these quest items to be far too much, then this guide will
tell you how to kill every last boss and lesser mob in the instance.



To get to Urugarth from Tarmunn Sursa (a camp complete with summoning
horn, vendors, a milestone, and most of the quest-giving NPCs), a
village inside of the city of Carn Dum (not the instance), follow this
map:







At the end of the red arrow is another summoning horn and a campfire, just outside the instance.





Quests & Items

Aside from the level 45 class quests, there are a number of other quests
found inside this instance that you may want to complete along the way.
I suggest looking up these quests in the lorebook or a LOTRO info site
of your choice to determine where to get these quests, and if there are
any pre-requisite quests to complete before they are unlocked. You don't
want to go through the trouble of finding a fellowship to run this
thing, do 90% of the quests, and then find out you missed one or two
quests afterwards. Getting people together for this instance can take a
long time, so it could be a real headache to put in the time and effort
to run Urugarth more times than you have to. Anyway, here are the names
of the quests:



- Skinning the Beasts

- The Enemy's Arms

- Thinning the Horde

- Ending Terror

- Further Upstream

- Moving Mountains

- Quenching the Flames

- The Matron's Brood



And here is a list of the items for the level 45 class quests that
appear in this instance, along with the classes that need them:



Emblem of Ritual: Minstrel, Loremaster

Goblin-Badge of Rank: Minstrel, Loremaster, Burglar

Insignia of Battle: Hunter, Champion, Burglar

Flawless Scale of Lhugrien: Guardian, Champion

Warg-keeper's token: Guardian, Burglar

Sigil of War: Guardian, Champion

Blood-stained tally-stick: Champion

Badge of Command: Captain

Teeth of Gorthorog: Captain





Walk-through



This walk-through is intended to describe how to run the entire instance
in excruciating, painful, tear-inducing detail. If you already know how
each boss fight generally works, just download the map I've provided.
It clearly shows where to go, where all the important objects and boss
fights are, and even what each boss drops, so it's a handy quick
reference to keep at your side as you run around killing the bad guys.









1)
You're at the entrance, hooray! This area is safe from all enemies, so
feel free to go over strategy talks with your fellowship here for as
long as you want. There's a road heading to the east from here which
leads to the rest of the instance. At the end of the road are two
bridges, and a pathway that heads southwest at an angle to an area full
of trolls (clearly marked by two patrolling Gertheryg walking up and
down the path).





2) The first thing you'll want to do is follow the Blue Line
moving along the North bridge. After killing the goblins hanging around
on the western end of the bridge, you'll run into a few groups of
crows, numbering about 4-6 per group. Once these small fry are dead,
you'll run into Sorkrank and Burzfil, two elites that have a laughably
small amount of morale. When you get close enough to them, they'll
summon one last pack of crows, and the whole crowd of them will charge
your fellowship all together, like a big happy family.



There's nothing special about this fight, just kill the crows quickly,
then kill one of the elites followed by the other. Each of the orcs will
drop an Insignia of Battle (for two total), making this the easiest
class item to get by far.





3) Once you're ready, it's time to head back over the North bridge, following the Red Line
to the troll area. After quickly clearing the second group of goblins
hanging around the western side of the South Bridge, you should work
your way slowly into the troll area, killing each group of 2-3 trolls at
a time. You'll quickly find yourself in a huge open space. At the
southern area of this troll commune, right where the number 3 balloon is
pointing, is the boss of the trolls named Dushkul. You can safely pull
every single group of trolls without starting the fight with the boss,
so do so before engaging him.



Once you get close enough to Dushkul, the great big troll charges at you
along with two newly spawned buddies of his. Don't worry, they only
spawn once at the start of the fight. Stick your tank on Dushkul and
quickly take care of the two troll adds, then switch your DPS over to
Dushkul and win the fight. When he dies, he'll drop a single Teeth of
the Gorthorog.





4) Once you're done with the trolls, you're gonna want to take the Light Green
(it's lighter than this, but eh, you know what I mean) back out of
here, across the South Bridge, and then along a generally southerly
route, killing all the groups of goblins along the way. At the end of
this route is a goblin boss named Arkur. Clear everything around him
before engaging.



The fight with Arkur is nothing special, and he's actually pretty wimpy.
However, you need to kill him or the gates leading to the east and the
west won't open. He also drops a Goblin Badge of Rank, so someone in
your fellowship may find that useful.





5) Once Arkur is dead, it's time to go meet the scary drake matron to the east: Lhugrien. Head east along the Yellow Line,
killing a few orcs and goblins along the way. Once you get to the
middle of the bridge, a scripted scene takes place: a few goblins come
charging in your direction, but before they reach you they get
incinerated by Lhurgrien in a flaming drive-by. When you reach the other
side of the bridge, you'll come across a bunch of baby drakes that
don't aggro unless attacked first. When you attack each one, a short
countdown timer starts, and about 5-10 seconds later a much larger big
brother drake swoops down and joins the fight. Lhugrien herself won't
appear until several moments after the last baby drake and big-brother
combo is defeated (so no matter how long you take to kill the last set,
the timer for her arrival doesn't start until both are dead). I would
pause before attacking the last baby drake, and make sure everybody is
ready for the boss fight.



The fight against Lhugrien, once she finally shows up, is a simple tank
and spank, with one caveat. Being a big terrifying drag- I mean, drake,
she has an AOE fire breath attack that hits everything in front of her.
That means you want your tank to be on one side of her, grabbing her
attention, while all the DPS, support, and healers are behind her on the
opposite side. This matron has a lot of morale and some wicked DPS for
her level, so this is one of the toughest boss fights in the instance.
Lhugrien will drop... (wait for it)... a Flawless Scale of Lhugrien! Who
woulda thunk it?





--SECRET PATHWAY--

Well I guess it isn't so secret. Marked by the "SP" balloon on the map,
and leading northwards as a teal line through a cavern to the castle
where the last few bosses are, this pathway offers a pretty big shortcut
to the end. You still have to kill a bunch of nasty orcs inside, but
once you do you'll have bypassed the entire middle portion of the
instance, which is quite lengthy. However, in order to use this secret
pathway, you need someone who rolled successfully on the Steel Key in a
previous run, which drops from Gruglok (the number 8 balloon). If you
have the key and don't need to do any quests in the middle portion, skip
to step 9 where I get into the battle with Morthrang (and then go one
step backwards to Gruglok's fight if your fellowship wants to kill him
too). If not, stay with me here and go on to step 6.



NOTE: The problem described in the special "Altars" section is not an
issue with this shortcut. When you get to Morthrang all the extra elites
have disappeared. Neat, huh?





6)
Now that Lhugrien is dead, it's time to backtrack to where you killed
Arkur and take the westward path from his little throne. Follow the Light Blue
path westwards, fighting goblins, orcs, and trolls along the way. At
balloon 6 there's an orc named Kughurz chilling out with a couple of
trolls. In the same general area, there is also an orc named Ghrisakrum
patrolling about. Both of these guys are hardly any stronger than a
normal elite troll, so just kill them like any other mob you find here.
The only special thing about these guys is that they each drop a
Blood-Stained Tally Stick.





--ALTARS--

You've probably been wondering about this for a while: "What is up with
the five altars marked A1-A5 scattered all over the map?" Good question.
You see, out by the end of the instance at balloon point 9 where
Morthrang is to the east, there are a bunch of trolls walking around in
the castle's courtyard. And by a bunch, I don't mean a number low enough
to count with your fingers. In fact, you'd need both hands and both
feet to have enough digits to count all the troll and orc elites that
are over there.



"So what," you may think, "they might be pretty crowded together, but I
think my fellowship could probably handle them even 5 or 6 at a time if
it comes to it." The problem is, once you step just a few feet into the
courtyard, Morthrang and EVERY SINGLE ELITE MOB inside charges at you
all at once. I've been on a PUG where no one knew the trick to getting
around this, and the resulting carnage when we tried to enter the
courtyard carefully was quite gruesome.



This is where the Altars come in. Near each and every altar there is a
torch which you can use to burn down the altar. Once the altar is
burning well, some magical fire alarm sounds in Morthrang's courtyard,
signaling a small group of three or so elites to come investigate what
heathens have just destroyed one of their evil shrines. Because they
have to move on foot, it takes them a couple of minutes to actually show
up. For every single altar you destroy, that's three less elites that
attack you when you go to see uncle Morthrang (even so, he'll still have
a few adds with him). Therefore it's a very good idea to spend time
destroying each altar. Just remember to kill all the orcs, trolls, and
goblins in the area around the altar before burning it down. Then, once
you do burn it down, be patient and wait for the patrol to come. You
don't want to engage a group of elites and then have a bunch more show
up halfway through the fight.





6 [CONTINUED])
Now that you know how important it is to burn the altars, you should
get a start on doing that here. There are two altars, A1 and A2, very
close by, so kill the orcs guarding them, then set one on fire, kill the
investigating patrol, and then set the other altar on fire and wait for
THAT altar's patrol to show up. Work your way along the Purple Line,
killing everything along the way, and destroying altar number three
when you get to it. Follow the route further north as it hooks westward,
and you'll have arrived at the area where all the wargs sleep.





7)
Kill the groups of wargs one by one like you've been killing the mobs
in every other area. At balloon point 7 you'll run into the goblin
Athpukh and his pet warg Lamkarn. You can't target either of them until
you get close enough for them to notice you, at which point their morale
bars will turn from NPC green to enemy red. The Warg will charge you
first while Athpukh stands back enjoying the show.



As you bring down Lamkarn's health, Athpukh will start releasing the
wargs in the cages behind him one a time. When one of these wargs
appears, Lamkarn becomes impervious to harm, his health bar becoming
green again (though that won't stop him from mauling you). Kill the warg
add and Lamkarn will return to normal, becoming killable again. A few
moments later, Athpukh will unleash a new warg: rinse and repeat until
Lamkarn is dead. You can then target Athpukh and kill him. Athpukh will
drop a Warg-Keeper's Totem.



Once Athpukh is dead, it won't be long before a pretty large group of
elites comes walking casually in from the entrance several yards behind
you. Loot his and Lamkarn's body, then form up to receive this new
group. There's nothing special about them, so just add them to the list
of orc and troll dead you've been keeping.





A4 and A5)
Once you're done with this group, it's time to finish off altars number
four and five. You can either follow the full route as illustrated by
the Green Line, or simply jump down
right on top of altar four from the top of the path just outside the
warg area. There are a few mobs guarding the altar, of course, and the
drop is high enough that it's possible some of the very highest spots
could prove fatal (I've never been suicidal enough to test this myself,
but it does look so high up in certain places), so it's important to
pick the right spot AND drop down with the rest of your fellowship at
roughly the same time. If you're gonna jump, remember to use the
"sliding down walls" trick to reduce the odds of your plummet being
fatal.



Once you've burned Altar four and dealth with the resulting patrol, it's
time to make your way along the waterside path, following the White Line
south to Altar five, passing under the large bridge that heads east as
you do so. Once the last altar is taken care of, head back to the bridge
and walk up the short path to the western end of the bridge, taking
care of the guards as you do so.






You're finally ready to take on the last three bosses of Urugarth, all
of which reside on the other side of this very large bridge. Follow the Pink Line
across, stopping just short of the entrance to the courtyard. To your
left (or North), there will be a long narrow hugging the side of the
castle, heading down. Take this path to the north, but stop short of
entering the area before you. Inside this rectangular arena sits Gruglok
and a pair of elite uruks. However, as soon as you step far enough into
the arena, these three orcs will run away to a doorway in the
northeastern corner of the arena, and shortly thereafter the gate to the
entrance of this area will snap shut. This is why you should only cross
the threshold when everyone is ready to do so.



Once you run into the center and Gruglok runs away, your fellowship will
have the pleasure of fighting an endurance battle. You'll be facing
four waves of elites that jump down from the high walls around you, with
each wave coming right after the other. Immediately upon defeating the
last elite in the fourth wave, Gruglok will decide to finally join the
fight. When he does so, the entire fellowship will be stunned. Being
relatively low on Morale and Power because of the extended fight and
being stunned to boot is what makes this fight particularly difficult.
The stun for each individual member of the fellowship varies; some
characters will be stunned for a fairly short time, maybe only 5-10
seconds, while others will face an agonizingly long stun. Oh, and did I
mention that Gruglok also brings a number of adds with him? They're
mostly those annoying, hyper-fast pale folk that you'll find throughout
the instance, but still, it doesn't help.



As each person slowly recovers from the stun, and assuming Gruglok
didn't decide to attack your squishy, defenseless healer first and kill
him/her, the fight is relatively simple. Just kill his adds and then
Gruglok himself, assuming your morale and power holds out long enough to
finish this mini-marathon. To make the last phase of this fight easier,
I would have the DPS go easy on the last one or two mobs of the fourth
wave of elites, and let everyone get fully healed, before finishing the
last one off. Anyway, when Gruglok is finally dead, he'll drop a Sigil
of War and a single Steel Key. If you already have the key, or if you
know this'll be your last Urugarth run for a very long time, pass on the
key and let people who know they've still got a few runs left have a
chance at making one of them a shortcut run. If you already have the key
in your keyset, you can still roll for it and win it. Since it's BOA,
this would be a tremendous waste.





9) Now it's almost over. Head back up the narrow path to the front entrance of the castle's courtyard, following the Brown Line
inside. You can advance a few steps beyond the threshold without
triggering Morthrang and all the adds, so it's possible to get close
enough to pull in a couple of patrolling elite trolls. After you've
pulled everything safely that you can, walk further in and have
Morthrang and his two elite adds charge at you (there's only two or so
assuming you've destroyed all the altars or have used the secret
pathway). You just need to treat this as a simple Tank and Spank. Kill
the adds first, then kill Morthrang. One or more of his troll buddies
will drop more Teeth of the Gorthorog, while Morthrang himself will drop
an Emblem of Ritual.





10)
Now that Morthrang is dead, the way will be clear to Lagmas. Walk up
the flight of stone stairs that Morthrang came charging down (there's a
raised platform in the east, with stairs leading down from it to the
North and South), and approach the room where Lagmas is. You'll notice
that there are a ton of elite crows flying inside around him. Don't
worry, they won't be attacking all at once. Have your entire fellowship
step across the doorway and into the room, and trigger the fight with
Lagmas. While Lagmas will attack you as soon as a single person gets
near enough, it's important to get the entire fellowship well within the
room. If a single person gets to close to the doorway, Lagmas will
reset and gain all of his morale back. So make sure no one backs up too
far during the fight.



As for the fight itself, it's fairly simple. Employ the good old tank
and spank approach on Lagmas. However, your DPS needs to keep one eye on
the crows, as Lagmas will summon them to his aide as the fight
progresses. You don't want those crows to kill your healer, so while the
tank keeps Lagmas busy your DPS will need to burn down the crows as
they join the fight. As long as no one accidentally resets the battle,
and you all pay attention to the crow adds, this is an easy fight. Once
Lagmas is defeated, he'll drop a Badge of Command.





CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE WINNER!

After all is said and done, you will have spent quite a while inside
this instance. However, using this guide (and doing your homework on the
quests involved), you'll keep the run efficient and wipe-free, while
getting every last thing you intend to get without having to repeat the
whole damn thing. That is, assuming someone else in the fellowship
didn't beat your roll for one of the class quest items