Black Temple Spotlight: Original Raid Attunement

Posted 2017/07/12 at 2:19 PM by perculia

Black Temple Timewalking Strategy GuideA Distraction for AkamaAurleis1's excellent commentTablets of Baa'ri

Tablets of Baa'ri or Tablets of Baa'ri (Aldor or Scryer): Anchorite Ceyla at the Altar of Sha'tar wants you to collect 12 Baa'ri Tablets from the ground and from Ashtongue Workers at the Ruins of Baa'ri.

Oronu the Elder: Kill Oronu the Elder, Akama's lieutenant and take his Orders From Akama to learn if the Ashtongue have acquired the Medallion of Karabor.

The Ashtongue Corruptors: The four medallion fragments are scattered throughout Shadowmoon Valley; you must retrieve them.

The Warden's Cage: Even after obtaining the medallion fragments, you do not have a completed medallion. Interrogate Sanoru to learn about Akama's whereabouts in the hopes of obtaining the rest of the medallion.

Proof of Allegiance: It's revealed that Akama joined Illidan to protect his tribe, but has since had a change of heart and is secretly opposed. To prove that you're not loyal to Illidan, you are asked to defeat the satyr Zandras.

Akama: With the satyr defeated, the Ashtongue trust you and allow you to speak with Akama. In this dialogue, you learn that Maiev has been imprisoned and guarded by Akama; she is impatient to break free and get her revenge on Illidan. Akama is more patient and is waiting for the right time to overthrow Illidan.

Seer Udalo: Unfortunately, your hard work acquiring the medallion fragments has been for nothing--you've acquired forgeries. This was to prevent the medallion pieces from falling into the wrong hands and letting Illidan know the truth. Akama reveals that Seer Udalo, imprisoned in the Arcatraz, knows about the final missing fragment of the Medallion.

A Mysterious Portent: When you reach Seer Udalo he's dead; but you find the word Atam'al written on the floor next to his body.

The Ata'mal Terrace: Atam'al refers to the Ata'mal Terrace, an area outside the Black Temple infested with Fel Orcs. Here you must retrieve the Heart of Fury. In the novel Rise of the Horde, we learn this item was originally possessed by Velen, lost when Velen was captured by Durotan, and used by the Orcs to attack the Draenei.

Akama's Promise: Akama fuses together the Medallion of Karabor with the Heart of Fury; you then take the Medallion to A'dal in Shattrath. A'dal then tells of a vision involving Akama, Maiev, and an explorer fighting through Black Temple.

Raid Quests

Venture into Serpentshrine Cavern and speak to Seer Olum, captured by the Naga, who is located in Fathom-Lord Karathress's room and accept The Secret Compromised. You must kill Fathom-Lord Karathress for him to come out. This was a council-style fight that required the raid to neutralize different adds, and the boss dropped the popular weapon World Breaker. After defeating Fathom-Lord Karathress, Seer Olum asks to be laid to rest so Illidan does not track him down. Akama leads him into the spirit world and then lies to Illidan that he found the "traitor" Olum already dead, and that he believes Kael'thas in Tempest Keep to be a threat.

Return to Akama in Shadowmoon Valley. Complete Ruse of the Ashtongue by killing Al'ar in Tempest Keep: The Eye to prove that Akama retains the appearance of loyalty to Illidaan. Al'ar was a fight with heavy fire damage who dropped popular weapons like Netherbane and Netherbane. In this quest, you'll don the Ashtongue Cowl
to take on the Ashtongue's appearance. This quest item was very popular and was later turned into the Timewalking toy Mark of the Ashtongue.

Complete the attunement quest for series for Hyjal Summit: The Vials of Eternity. This requires players to loot vials from the end bosses in Tier 5 content: Lady Vashj and Kael'thas Sunstrider. Each raid has different attunements, which are further detailed in the Burning Crusade Dungeon Attunement Post:

Tempest Keep Attunement:
To get attuned to The Eye, players needed to complete the Trials of the Naaru after the Cipher of Damnation questline in Shadowmoon Valley.

Trials of the Naaru requires you to clear a speed run of Heroic The Shattered Halls for Unused Axe of the Executioner, Heroic Shadow Labyrinth (Murmur's Essence) and Heroic The Steamvault (Kalithresh's Trident), and Heroic The Arcatraz. Each Heroic dungeon had a special key and additional requirements.

For the final step, players needed to defeat the raid boss Magtheridon for Trial of the Naaru: Magtheridon.

Getting attuned for Serpentshrine Cavern was more complex: players had to get attuned to Karazhan in addition to defeating dungeon and raid bosses.

To pick The Cudgel of Kar'desh up, players needed to access the quest giver Skar'this the Heretic in heroic The Slave Pens. This required players to clear the first boss and some additional trash.

This quest sent players to defeat Nightbane in Karazhan and Gruul the Dragonkiller in Gruul's Lair. To further complicate things, Karazhan was a 10-player raid and Gruul's Lair was 25-player in addition to being very punishing.

Blazing Signet drops from Nightbane, but entering Karazhan required the The Master's Key and another lengthy attunement process involving dungeons, several of which had additional attunements or requirements like flying. The guide How To: Quick and Full Karazhan Solo Rep Farm to Exalted by Darkicon explains each step of the questline.

Summoning Nightbane required a quest series that starts when you have Honored reputation with The Violet Eye.

Enter Hyjal Summit and kill Rage Winterchill and loot Time-Phased Phylactery for An Artifact From the Past. With Illidan distracted by Kael'thas, Akama asks you to retrieve the valuable artifact Time-Phased Phylactery.

The Hostage Soul: In this quest, you learn that Akama's soul is chained inside the Black Temple and Time-Phased Phylactery will help you retrieve it. Go to Ad'al in Shattrath and explain your plan.

Entry Into the Black Temple: Xi'ri provides a distraction outside the sewer entrance of the Black Temple; Draenei and Blood Elves are fighting demons outside.

A Distraction for Akama: In this scripted quest event, you watch Xi'ri start the attack and Akama and Maiev fight through to the entrance of the Black Temple. You are then rewarded with the Medallion of Karabor to zone into the raid.

Upgrading Medallion of KaraborBlessed Medallion of Karabor

Seek Out the Ashtongue: Find the other members of the Ashtongue (Seer Kanai); these NPCs are located after defeating Supremus. Spirit of Olum will also spawn, providing a teleport from the entrance of the instance up to the other Ashtongue--a fitting tribute for his sacrifice. You'll also find the quartermaster Okuno who sells various class trinkets and Shadow Resistance gear recipes, useful for defeating Mother Shahraz back in the day.

Redemption of the Ashtongue: Defeat the Shade of Akama to finally help Akama reclaim his soul. In this fight, you will first kill waves of trash as Akama slowly walks towards his Shade, then defeat the Shade once he's activated.

The Fall of the Betrayer: The Ashtongue's final objective is to defeat Illidan; his defeat ensures their freedom.

black-temple

Comment by FilipseI allready have the Karabor Medallion, though i never raided black-temple itself in prime-content (because Kael is a b**** that we never got past lul)Comment by tazeelLuckily they understood they went totally out of tracks with attunements. I mean ok you have to do something to get in, but this was ^&*!ing insane. The proof is that after 2.1 they started to neft them and the following raids like SWP didn't had any.Comment by ED209Luckily they understood they went totally out of tracks with attunements. I mean ok you have to do something to get in, but this was ^&*!ing insane. The proof is that after 2.1 they started to neft them and the following raids like SWP didn't had any.Comment by ThanatasgrI would very much prefer these complex and lengthy quest lines. It was a great way to bring the player to experience the World in World of Warcraft. Even if you outgeared the raid, there was a very important reason to do it - which sounds so much better to me compared to forcing people to do LFR raids because of Augment Runes and to raise their chances for Legendary items.

All in all it actually got you to experience the new content as a living world rather than a host for a variety of mini-games.Comment by WinfreeIf you feel lost and unsure where you are in the chain for BT, use the following copy-paste scripts:

The Aldor

/run local y={568,571,574,575,622,628,705,706,707,708,944,946,947,948,949,985,958,957,959}print"The Aldor:"for i,q in ipairs(y)do q="10"..q print(i,"\124cffffff00\124Hquest:"..q.."\124h\124h\124r",IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(q)and YES or NO)end

The Scryers

/run local y={683,684,685,686,622,628,705,706,707,708,944,946,947,948,949,985,958,957,959}print"The Scryers:"for i,q in ipairs(y)do q="10"..q print(i,"\124cffffff00\124Hquest:"..q.."\124h\124h\124r",IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(q)and YES or NO)end

Simply copy the script and paste in chat. You'll find a lot of text saying Yes/No for each quest in the chain, chronologically. Find the quest that isn't completed and look that up on Wowhead to proceed.

Credit to Vlad for this scriptComment by TuckletutsIf you feel lost and unsure where you are in the chain for BT, use the following copy-paste scripts:Comment by GrortraughI appreciate an attunment, as they provide some background on the raid and reasons for why you're charging in. But, I can understand that those with alts would be less appreciative.Comment by btienyamWhy is this here? Is this relevant to anything?Comment by WinfreeIf you feel lost and unsure where you are in the chain for BT, use the following copy-paste scripts:I appreciate an attunment, as they provide some background on the raid and reasons for why you're charging in. But, I can understand that those with alts would be less appreciative.Why is this here? Is this relevant to anything?Comment by lovelywazWhy is this here? Is this relevant to anything?Comment by SaffronThe memories......Comment by crsh1976I can't believe I went through all this stuff on my priest (never killed Illidan in Black Temple, but we raided up to the Illidari Council IIRC); get attuned to X in order to access Y and Z to complete next steps were the bane of many guilds, until Blizz just removed most attunements altogether.Comment by 1761708TBC was the highest peak in the echelon of Raiding.

There was no catch-up mechanic. Both craft-able gear besides resistance gear petered out in SSC, and badge gear wasn't introduced until Sunwell which also removed attunement.

You knew exactly who was raiding and at what pace serverwide just from the guild name.

This should be the system for running Heroic or Mythic, leave Normal with welfare epics and handouts, but bring back so measure of a pure system.

I can't even imagine all of the things wrong with the culture this simple fix would bring of returning to attunement.Comment by 1761708Luckily they understood they went totally out of tracks with attunements. I mean ok you have to do something to get in, but this was ^&*!ing insane. The proof is that after 2.1 they started to neft them and the following raids like SWP didn't had any.Comment by MisterCrowThe big thing I get from looking back at BC's attunement process was that it put a lot of groups through the wringer. Coordinating getting keyed for heroics, then attuned to Kara, then SSC and TK, and then Hyjal, and THEN BT... that was a lot of roster acrobatics, made worse by having people come into the expansion late, but not late enough to see the attunements lifted.

This is still an improvement over the attunement process from classic, where the attunements themselves weren't complicated, but each successive tier of raiding basically required you to clear the previous tier in order to be viable. 40-player rosters allowed there to be some flexibility in that, but with all the other detriments that 40-player rosters brought, it was nightmarish.

If you're making this game for the sake of people who have a dedicated, reliable roster of people who all come into the expansion at the same time, then that's when an attunement process makes sense. The people who get left out in the cold, though, are people who come into the expansion late or have a long interruption, people who don't have those rosters, and people whose inconsistent schedules make it difficult to maintain a seat on the team.

If you're making this game for the sake of players who want to play the game, attunements are counter-intuitive and an obstruction that only serves to reduce the raiding population. While that serves the raiding population's desire of screening out undesirables, it doesn't serve the population of the game as a whole.

Having a bonus reward like a title for people who complete the epic questline that properly establishes the context and gravity of the raid, while also letting a freshly-boosted max-level alt into the raid with no restrictions, is the best possible way to serve the widest swath of the audience.Comment by 413549It sure has been long since i did such awesome attunement for raids... Those good old times when you were "forced" to raid 7 days a week and it was actually fun :) .Comment by AlphaOBack when WoW actually meant something. Appreciate the casual nature now, but everything can be brute forced.......