Warg Pens Guide
This instance is divided into an outside part and an underground cave – each with a boss at the end. The instance is populated with wargs (6 different kinds) and a few goblins. The goblins are quite straightforward; some of them do have a defensive buff that lasts as long as the warg with them is alive, but for reason I’ll return to there might be reasons to kill the goblins first just the same. With the exception of the first boss, none of the goblins are elite/signatures.
The wargs come in all sizes; the regular non-elite Guldur Howler, Stalker, Frostmane and then the signatures Dominating, Tainted, and Corrupted. The Frostmane, Dominating, Tainted, and Corrupted all have a permanent aura debuffing nearby fellowship members.
The Frostmane makes you vulnerable to frost damage, slow movement and slows induction times (the slowing debuff can be negated by clicking any of the nearby campfires – at the price of a few pips of fire damage). The Tainted decrease all incoming healing with 30%, the Dominating decrease all outgoing damage with 10%, and the Corrupted… I’ve forgotten what it does actually, but I believe its aura inflicts a non-removable fear DoT. Also one or more of these wargs can stun you, but we have yet to confirm whether this all wargs, part of them or only one type.
The Wolf-hunger
Through-out the instance slaps of meat will be scattered on the ground (distinguished from the barrels of meat, which is a different thing – of which you need 6 to do a normal quest). To complete hard mode all these slaps of meat must be cleared out and this is done by having the wargs eat them. A warg will, if relatively close to a slap of meat, when it reaches around a quarter of its morale, turn to the meat and eat it. This will remove the meat, heal the warg fully and give the warg a considerable damage buff – Enrage - doubling its damage and halving its attack duration. Talk of spiced food!
Sometimes you can kill a warg entirely before it eats, or you can pull it far enough away from any meat source and it will not eat, but the trick is then for you to make strategic choices on when to kill a warg or when to let it eat, and in what order to damage/kill the wargs. The approaches to this are many - Just make sure to see all meat cleared if you want HM.
Gobbo the pen-keeper
An elite goblin with a pen full of wargs. Two of them will attack immediately alongside the boss. The other wargs will join one by one as the morale of the boss drops. These wargs are not signatures, but they have the same debuffing auras as their signature name-buddies, just as they also stun and apply various removable DoTs/debuffs. There are no slaps of meat here, luckily.
Killing Peter will award you a Medallion of Dol Guldur – and open the path to the indoors.
The (less than) lone wolf
The final boss of the instance hosts a nasty wolf boss. She packs a whole lot of morale, a full range of poisons and wounds and a nasty punch. She keeps her abode well stacked in meat (5 slaps) and well stacked in male companions (3 Guldur Howlers and 3 Frostmanes). The wargs have been caught off guard – perhaps they’ve been howling at the new moon all night – so they sleep in pairs of two and two. And their sleep is tight! You can in fact pull the adds one-by-one leaving the other cluelessly sleeping.
The room also features a nice and big pillar – one you can go all the way around and back – and wolves not always being the smartest of creatures can be a bit dumbfounded if chasing their prey in circles for too long (and so can your brains if goin’ round n’ round). If using the pillar to play at cat and dog then beware the fire next to it, to not add fire damage to the damage done by the boss). The same fire is quite useful for removing the cold chill of the Frostmanes also – especially for people using either a lot of inductions or a lot of feet shuffling.
Killing the boss awards you two Medallions. Killing the boss in HM will add another 3 Medallions, making the total output 6 Medallions + another 3 if doing it for the first time on a given day (the daily HM quest). Of other special loot I’ve so far only seen a remarkable bracelet with no less than +70 Agility (99 ICPR and 22 Might)