Holy Crap, That Orc Voidwalker Quest

About two months ago, I mentioned that I created two Horde bank alts on era and played them up to level six - an undead warrior for my food and consumables, and an orc warlock for currencies and miscellaneous valuables. I've played them a little more since then (being a bank alt doesn't mean you can't get play time) and got them both past level ten.

Warlocks get the quest to learn how to summon a voidwalker at level ten. While I've never got a warlock to a very high level, I previously levelled a few of them past that point at least, and I didn't recall the voidwalker quest ever being a big deal. However, I noted that the orc version of the quest sends you to loot a tablet from a chest inside Skull Rock, the cave east of Orgrimmar full of Burning Blade cultists, and even though it had been a while since I last quested through Durotar, I had a vague memory of that place being pretty unpleasant.

So I stuck my nose in the door just to remind myself of how bad it really was... and it was very bad. The cave is mostly populated by two types of mobs: fanatics, who are melee fighters that aren't too hard to kill, though it's noteworthy for warlocks that they are immune to fear; and apprentices, who are warlock types themselves and come with a voidwalker pet of their own. It was mostly the latter who reminded me of why I remembered the place as nasty: at level ten you don't really have the tools yet to deal with multi-mob pulls very well, and due to the voidwalkers being tanky adds with a lot of health, every single apprentice was basically a multi-mob pull by itself. I quickly noped out of there and decided that it was more prudent to come back in a couple more levels. After all, I was doing just fine questing with my imp and there was no rush.

I decided to return at level thirteen, after having completed every other quest in the zone (bar the other ones that also ask you to go inside the cave), and confident that I was surely strong enough by now to rock the place. Spoiler: I was not.

I mean, I did slowly make my way through the cave and completed the other quests, but the apprentices hit really hard, and even with chugging health potions and eating healthstones, I still died a couple of times on the way.

Still, eventually I reached the back of the cave with the chest - however, it was guarded by no less than four mobs: a named level 14 with a voidwalker pet who drops a quest item, and a an elite(!) rare spawn, also with a voidwalker pet. My following attempts to get at the chest are a bit of a blur - I know I managed to kill the level 14 at least once, as I did get the quest item from him, but mostly I just died a lot.

I consulted the Wowhead page for the quest, and was quite amused by the old Thottbot comments that were advising people that it was much easier to travel to Undercity and do the voidwalker quest for undead instead, until Blizzard made it impossible to do that. There were also some comments about how you could deal with two mobs at once by setting your imp on one mob and fearing the other and then quickly looting the chest, but that didn't account for the two additional mobs I had to deal with. Bottom line is, I died a few more times and eventually respawns all around me doomed the whole endeavour, resulting in me giving up for the day.

I hadn't gained any more levels when I eventually returned, but there had been one piece of advice in the Wowhead comments that stuck with me: If you have a level 60, just clear out the cave with that, and then relog your lowbie warlock to quickly run in and grab the quest item. I decided to give it one more go the regular way (after all I'd had some success the previous time), but with my hunter parked at the entrance in case things went badly and I ran out of patience.

And it did go badly again - in fact more so than last time, since the level 14 spawned closer to the entrance this time, and he and his voidwalker jumped at me from around a corner and killed me twice. At that point I was like "screw this", relogged my hunter and had her carve her way through the cave. Naturally the rare elite next to the chest was up again too.

The funny thing is, when I relogged my warlock, I quickly revived and started running without healing up, since I just wanted to get the chest and get out, but even though I'd just cleared out the cave with my hunter, a fanatic respawned right on top of me as I was running. I instinctively tried to fear him, but of course he was immune, so I started running again, just to die right next to the chest and find myself being forced to do yet another corpse run. Fortunately after that, I was finally able to grab the tablet and hearth out. The part of the quest where you actually summon the voidwalker and fight it was complete cake in comparison.

The really funny thing though was that when I logged back on my hunter a little later to get her out of the cave, I found the space around the chest completely empty - not because anyone else had been through, but because the rare hadn't respawned, and the level 14 had respawned in a different, out-of-the-way location inside the cave. So I'd basically been very unlucky to encounter both the rare and the level 14 next to the chest several times in a row. Still, what a quest! I'm not against making some of the class quests in particular somewhat challenging to make them memorable, but that was just brutal.