Strat instance guide?

[Elenore]

Evenin' everyone,

I was just curious if anyone knew of a good horde Strath guide out there?

Its my first time in Strat and I'd like to familiarize myself with some do's and don'ts.

Thank you in advance!

[Jotar]

I don't know of a guide, but I can give you a little advice from memory.

There is 'scarlet' strat, and there is 'baron' strat... (They are joined but usually people will only run one side or the other) Not sure which side you are talking about, but I'll assume you are talking about 'baron' strat. (There is a 45minute baron run, but if you're not familiar with the place I'm assuming you're not doing that)

Take a 60 priest for shackle(quite useful for crowd control), take a 60 mage for AOE (there are a couple of important points that AOE is needed). Take a warrior to tank the baron. And other two classes can be pretty much anything, probably dps (lock/rogue/hunter/whatever).

There are three towers (each one has a miniboss) that need to be cleared before you can fight the main boss. In my experience these mini-bosses are quite weak. One of them can mindcontrol a party member, just light dps the party member back to half health or so, and the effect will end. (Classes that can AOE fear might want to consider wasting this ability before fighting just in case, but usually people don't even bother). The only real problem you might have is if you get unexpected adds join your fight. Which can happen more easily than you might think, because the place is a little crowded, and also has these 'eyes' which can appear, and if you don't kill them right away, they summon a couple of elites for you to play with...

There is also a "trap" room, that can be avoided, but if you're not familiar you might have some issues. If you walk into this "trap room" the gates close, and about 50 little rats come and chew on you. Not a problem if you have good AOE, but otherwise, the poor party member will likely die if he is in there alone. I can't say too much, because you'll probably have to see it, to understand what I'm talking about.

Once you dispatch the mini-bosses, make sure you go inside the towers and kill the dudes inside the towers too.

After these three towers, you'll be up to a boss called the magistrate. Might as well kill him too, he can drop the key to the city, and of course loot. The key can be used to more easily come back next time. Usually somebody is there to open the gate for you the first time, but handy to have the key anyways, just in case.

Then make sure the whole party goes through the big gate, before pulling the abominations(or whatever they are called)... The first pull locks the gate, and party members outside are trapped out there unless they can be summoned in.... Easier if everyone walks in before an abomination is pulled. After abominations, I believe then is the ramstein fight, again, nothing particularly unusual. Just a stronger abomination really... But after he goes down.... The mage has to be on high alert, health, mana, shielded etc, for AOE duty. (Mind you I've done this AOE part as a lock, but I had a paladin's anti-interruption aura, and I knew what I was doing, I suggest mage is used until you're confident.)

After the mage does his thing, you have to fight 5 elites at once... So a shackle from the priest helps alot.

Then all you have to do is go kill the baron boss. Use shadow protection if you have any... During the fight the baron periodically summons bunches of skeletons. These skeletons have low health and should be AOE'd. If they are not killed in a certain amount of time, the baron will heal himself with the ones that didn't die. Other than that, pretty much treat him like any other boss. That's all I can think of for now...

Hope that helps...

[Elenore]

Thank you very much!! It helped a lot!

[Akasha]

Tips for a first timer in Stratholm? might also help you.