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Hard to Kill

This quest was marked obsolete by Blizzard and cannot be obtained or completed.

Kalecgos has asked you to defeat Kael'thas in Magisters' Terrace. You are to take Kael's head and report back to Larethor at the Shattered Sun Staging Area.

	Head of Kael'thas

Description

Welcome to the Sunwell, mortals. Your arrival is indeed timely.

As you've now witnessed, the Legion forces work tirelessly, manipulating the Sunwell's power to achieve their malevolent ends.

Kael'thas has risen from the ashes of defeat and once more leads them in their efforts. Find him, mortals. He must again be stopped.

Other, equally urgent matters require my immediate attention. I shall leave Kael's fate to you. Do not fail.

With luck, we shall speak again.

Progress

Completion

Rewards

You will be able to choose one of these rewards:

	Delicate Crimson Spinel		Brilliant Crimson Spinel

You will also learn:

	Heroic Countenance

You will also receive: 4 40

Gains

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

21,640 experience
250 reputation with Shattered Sun Offensive

Comments

Comment by Aircraft

Alas, Kael is now a feenin' crack-elf dealt with by five people.

Pic: http://images.wikia.com/wowwiki/images/d/d6/Kaelthasbroken.jpg

Comment by DicemanLucky7

Gems:

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35487 = Attack Power (20)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32197

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35488 = Spell Damage (12)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32196

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35489 = Healing/Dmg (22/9)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32195

Comment by Mancalledtommy

With the gems being BoP, does this mean it's a reward for non-JC'ers to just vendor?

Comment by Vlad

The gems are bugged, they apply their stats but when you socket they disappear from the socket list as if they are not there (but they are since the stats change). Will be fixed when 2.4 goes live.

Comment by badger101z

Looks as though this quest is the prerequisite to unlock heroic difficulty for the magister's terrace. In other words this has to be completed on normal before you can attempt it on heroic mode

Comment by nesh

i love the idea of making people have to do the normal instance before the heroic, this will give people experience in the run before attempting it on a far more difficult scale.

its just strange to see blizz do this after doing the exact opposite with all other 5 mans, by giving the key at honored rather than rev which means you can get a heroic without even doing a single 5 man for that instance hub.

also put a strength gem in there ffs, why is all the best high end gear AP never strength(rings and amulets i mean) i know this is a gem but it would be hard to make a 10 strength one to after all it does give more when your raid buffed, 10% from kings and a further 10% more if your a reti. 4 more AP ftw lol

Comment by Demonsummor

And nothing for the tanks? Where is +agi and +dodge rating? I think that blizz should make all kinds of red gems. You can only pick one anyway.

Comment by BraveFoot

Oooh, this time they're smart. They're making you actually remove his head, no chance of ressurection.

Comment by gretchinross

there is a small possibility that this quest, when live on the realms, wont give you heroic access.

in the BC beta they made the heroic keys drop off the last boss of an instance, so that they didn't make testers run the instances a bunch to earn rep and waste their time.

but when bc became live, the heroic keys stopped dropping off those bosses and were obtained through the rep grind.

Comment by PimpyMicPimp

I'm sure there will be a flood of tears over the lack of rep required, but honestly, one less rep grind makes me happy. TBC is winding down, I think Blizzard is getting ready for WoTLK and getting rid of time sinks. I still doubt WoTLK will be out before October/November, though.

/end tangent

Comment by Nubnut

Once again, another multiple gem quest reward, lacking any tanking gem. Any Idea why Blizzard does this?

Excuse me while I go cry in the corner.

Comment by oldmantime

Quest name is probably a reference to a Steven Segal movie(same name), guess someone at Blizz loves cheesy action movies too :)

Comment by Jagema

You need to kill Kael'Thas, who has just been 'implemented' into a 5man instance, Magister's Terrace.

Here's the link to Kael'Thas position in the instance, and the NPC you need to kill to complete the quest: http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=24664

Comment by Unagieater

This dungeon takes around 1-2 hours to complete on normal with a good group.

Heroic Countenance lets you enter this dungeon on Heroic mode. No more rep keys!

Comment by ramajuko

Cleverly named after a Seagal movie.

Comment by wowelderscrolls

I can just see Kael with a pumpkin head summoning skeletal phoenixes that leave pumpkins behind replacing Headless Horseman as the seasonal boss in SM graveyard XD

Kael'thas Sunstrider <Lord of the Blood Elves>

400000 HP / 630000 MP

Attacks:

Fireball: Hits target with highest aggro for 3750-4530 Fire damage

Skeletal Phoenix: Same as his normal phoenixes from Magister's Terrace, just more stats. Leaves a pumpkin instead of an egg behind, the same mechanics apply so smash the pumpkin quickly.

Shock Barrier: Absorbs 23000 damage, cannot be interrupted while this is up

Pyroblast: 45000-55000 Fire damage to highest aggro target if not interrupted

At 1% health, his pumpkin head will detach and Kael will wander around dazed, just like the Headless Horseman. Any remaining phoenixes will still attack the group and need to be dealt with, as Kael'thas will immediately summon more phoenixes when he gets his head back. There is no health reset if the pumpkin head is not bought down to 65%, there is unlimited time to do so.

After the pumpkinhead reaches 65%, it will return to Kael'thas and phase 2 begins. Kael'thas uses the same attacks as in phase 1 but will now mind control characters like he did in the Tempest Keep fight. He only mind controls 1 character at a time though, so it's less devastating, but there is nothing to dispel it. He will also use a Flamestrike periodically which deals 2820-3640 Fire damage and 500 every second for 10 seconds to anyone standing in the area of effect.

When Kael'thas reaches 1%, his pumpkinhead will detach again and you will have to now bring it down to 33%. The difference here is that now Kael'thas will use Arcane Explosion while wandering around if anyone happens to be in range, dealing 3570-4300 Arcane damage and disorienting for 3 seconds. After the pumpkinhead is brought down to 33% health, it will return to Kael'thas and phase 3 begins.

Kael'thas will now use Gravity Lapse and the 5-man group can fly around the SM graveyard. Kael'thas will summon pumpkins that hover around like the orbs in the Magister's Terrace fight, but they explode when touched and will damage any surrounding members. Kael'thas will also spawn phoenixes that will fly. Because they cannot be kited, they should be off-tanked while avoiding the floating pumpkins. After Kael'thas reaches 1% again, his pumpkinhead detaches for the last time. The Gravity Lapse is still in effect, and the group will have to kill it while flying. Immediately after the pumpkin is killed, Kael'thas dies (again), but the Gravity Lapse disappears and players will take fall damage if they are too high up. For this reason, group members should stay close to the ground, but not close enough for the Gravity Lapse to knock them back in the air, and use ranged dps to kill the pumpkinhead. Phoenixes will still be summoned, and floating pumpkins will still be spawned. Kael'thas himself will also target random group members with Fireball, but will not cast Pyroblast during this final phase. When the pumpkinhead is killed, it's lootz time!

Loot:

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33183
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33184
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33176
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33182
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34068
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34074
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34075
Lv.70 epic version of http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33292 with caster stats
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33154
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35504

Comment by demerkson

I liked what hapened to artas - the plot was great... but my favorite char lorewise was illidan and then frozen throne and illidan got pawned ;( and then kael was also cool and his lore was nice and in wow blliz kils illidan and then he kills kael twice xD the writers realy will run out of cool chars to kill when wotlk hits...

Comment by Ragaxen

i cant really see a headless kael flying around the sky on a land/air chicken thingy. maybe he gets a new head, or just a helmet that looks like it has a face in it kinda like the lich king inhabits the armour

Comment by kittyrar

As of 3.0.3 Runed Crimson Spinel and the Teardrop Crimson Spinel do the same thing due to the removal of +healing and +spell damage.

Comment by snowboyak08

Obviously, just from the look of his head for the quest gives away the he is already a forsaken, but a forsaken blood elf, not the undead human.

Comment by Gandalior

Just a funny thing i noticed...

The spanish title for: "Die Hard" it's "Duro de Matar"(or: "Hard To Kill")

just something funny that i discovered :P.

Comment by Kakarott99

It's possebly to solo him :) really hard but it's worth the challange,I did it whit a prot paladin (lvl 80) That fly thing really hurts..

Comment by Oniguru

WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE ALREADY!

Comment by TMWL

I just ran normal MGT, but Kalecgos did not give me the quest. :( Why?

Comment by 9mmx19

You can start this chain directly from step 2.

Comment by vune

Counts for Loremaster of Easter Kingdoms.

Comment by blackout31

Lacking a head is mearly a setback!

Comment by Safyre

Has anyone realized that Runed Crimson Spinel and Teardrop Crimson Spinel are the same?

Comment by herlzinger

If you are having trouble picking up this quest, it might be that you had started the questline but never finished. I had to retrace the steps of the quest, and found that The Scryer's Scryer was completed, but I needed to go into normal Magister's Terrace in order to use the orb again, then pick up Hard to Kill from Kalecgos after he flew down and transformed into a human.

Comment by mrwagga

i did the quest and turned in the head, and got the gem, but i dont seem to have the spell, and i ant join heroics still. anyone know why?

Comment by elionor

well this is nice first time it took 25 people and a 6 pack to kill him now any noob can do it when he comes back next he is going to be easier to kill then hogger

Comment by BattlingBard

As of Patch 4.2.0(28/06/11), players will no longer need to do this pre-quest to be able to get into the Heroic version of Magisters' Terrace.

Comment by sweboy99

"Unlocks heroic mode".. Heroic Countenance
Did this on heroic. Guess Blizzard was too eager to get rid of the keychain/key requirements for Outland heroics and didn't bother looking up old quests.
Quite hilarious :)

Comment by Maggieis

As of 5.3, the quest is actually still there and obtainable. Haven't figured out how to turn it in yet, since no one showed up to take his head.

Guess Kael is going to have his head banging around in my melon bag for awhile...

Comment by raychelleeliz

As of 5.3 the guy you turn the quest into appears in the room where you kill Kael'Thas after you finish the encounter.

Hard to Kill

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