Instances: Moria Cluster Part II

The Moria instances do not scale with level and were designed for groups of 6 or 12 players between level 54 and level 58.

The instances are located throughout Moria and tend to drop a lot of loot, especially Moria reputation tokens, legendary item relics and heritage runes.

There are also a lot of deeds to be done so they can be a good place to gain some extra titles, virtues and Turbine Points.

The Forges of Khazad-dûm - 6 person instance, level 58

In Durin's day, the Forges of Khazad-dûm produced marvellous metal creations, but now the place is over-run by orcs and it now creates weapons to be used against the dwarves.

The entrance

The first area has a constant stream of mobs entering from the left and right doorways. The black powder kegs should be carried to the doorway, but be careful to quickly return to the main room or be crushed by falling rocks. When both doorways are blocked, the gate at the back will open.

Narkû stands in the middle of the next room while large trolls carrying heavy loads move around following pipework on the floor. The daily challenge is to defeat him then defeat Kranklûk within 30 minutes. Narkû summons many minions to help protect himself. Once defeated, hug the wall and head down, watching out for trolls as they will stun you if you get in their way.

On the next level down, Dhaub oversees the trolls from an elevated bridge. There are several doorways and black powder kegs. Block the doorways in the correct order. Once four doorways are blocked, trolls come in to fight. Dhaub keeps healing them, so you need to block the remaining doorways quickly before you get overwhelmed (use crowd control on the trolls if possible). Finally, Dhaub comes down from his bridge to fight you himself. Once he is defeated the trolls should be easier to take out.

Again, hug the wall and head down to the bottom. Thrug is relatively easy to defeat, but watch out for the fire debuffs, jets of fire and trolls. Kranklûk is on the other side of the forge, behind some Ghâsh-hai troll guards. When you attack the trolls, he joins the battle and gradually moves around the forge in a clockwise direction, going through short periods where he cannot be attacked as he summons more trolls to his aid. In the last phase, fire jets start erupting from the forge as well.

The forge

After defeating Kranklûk, a gate opens into a small tunnel to the exit. A brazier in the tunnel can be lit to summon Ruingal, a fire grim for the level 58 Lore-master class quest chain The Path of the Ancient Master.

The Sixteenth Hall - 6 person instance, level 58

The Sixteenth Hall in Nud-melek was once home to many dwarven labourers but is now inhabited by orcs who are being infected by the strange fungal plague spreading through the halls and corridors. Disease is rife, so come prepared.

Keep an eye out for unusual spores - there is a deed called "Investigating the Blight" that involves finding four different types of spore.

Defeat the Orcs known as "The Shunned" in the corridors of the 16th Hall, gradually working your way downstairs to Tramug's room. Tramug and his servants will wait on the podium while you clear the room. Tramug coughs, leaving puddles of disease, and his servants heal him, but without them he is quite easy to defeat if kited from range.

One of the halls

Beyond Tramug's room, globsnaga now fill the corridors. Up the curving stairs, the path leads to a large room followed by an intersection with a locked door in front and rooms to each side filled with globsnaga guarding wheels that need to be turned to enable access to Dhûrz. His room is damp and has many toxic mushrooms that can explode on contact, causing a knock back and disease debuff. Dhûrz drains power levels and summons crazed globsnaga minions that also explode revealing a group of aggressive crawlers.

Defeating Dhûrz unveils a cave tunnel which leads to a large cavern with several grodbog fungal queens and their fungal guards. Killing the queen makes her guards de-spawn.

The daily challenge is to defeat The Lost One without killing the fungal workers - don't use AOE attacks or reflect damage! However, killing the fungal workers weakens The Lost One. Mushrooms spawn during the fight and should be eliminated before they can explode as they debuff the players and buff the numerous fungal workers so they are faster and do more damage.

The Lost One's cavern

Dark Delvings - 6 person instance, level 58

Deep in the Foundations of Stone in Moria, the Nameless dwell. The Elves of Lórien have tried to restrain them, but their ancient evil casts a shadow over those that would reclaim Moria for the dwarves. Just by entering their domain, you will be afflicted by Grasp of Darkness which decreases run speed and increases attack duration and induction time. Rune-stones throughout the instance provide light, which removes the Grasp of Darkness debuff and also protects you from Gurvand's Challenge (another debuff increasing damage taken, associated with a vile gust of wind sweeping through the passages).

The entrance to the Dark Delvings

After crossing a retractable bridge onto a platform with several rune-stones, the Void Eater emerges from the ground. He does wound damage and a knock-back, so fight with your back to the rune-stones, so you don't get knocked off the platform.

In the next large cavern, the Doom-speaker emerges when you approach the green rune-stone. He douses the light from the rune-stone, summons minions and causes significant debuffs. Fight in the light of a rune-stone, cleanse debuffs, remove corruptions, kill minions and burn him down before all the rune-stones are extinguished.

Gurvand's chamber

The daily challenge is to defeat Gurvand with activating any of the rune-stones on his platform. This means surviving the escalating debuffs as the fight progresses.

The battle commences by talking to Gurvand. He does significant shadow damage, has a knock-back (prevented by light) and a periodic self-buff called "Bleeding Ears" which reflects 200% of damage received (so don't attack while he has the buff - it can be very deadly: Myndariel had Sic'em active when the buff started and her health went from above 80% to 0% in a few seconds). If you are using the rune-stones, make sure Gurvand can't destroy them with his club (e.g. face him away from the stone). Gurvand enrages when he reaches about 20K health.

Timing and positioning are critical for this encounter.