Titan Rune Dungeon Guide

Titan Rune Dungeons are a new level of difficulty for 5-man Heroic dungeons coming to Wrath of the Lich King Classic. This optional difficulty offers groups Epic items that previously were accessible through 10-man raids, at the cost of increased difficulty in the raid. This difficulty shares lockout with Heroic, meaning that you can do each dungeon once per day.

To activate the Titan Rune difficulty, you will need to interact with the Mysterious Device found at the start of each Heroic dungeon. Selecting the dialogue “Activate Defense Protocol Alpha” will spawn a little orb called Defense Protocol Alpha. This orb can be channeled into, similar to a summoning stone. All five members of the group must channel into the Defense Protocol Alpha to activate it. The Mysterious Device will have a beam of light on it to indicate that you have correctly changed the difficulty.

Each boss will drop an extra item alongside their normal drop table. Normal bosses will drop an item level 200 Epic, and the final bosses will drop an item level 213 Epic alongside a Tier token. These drops are not fully random, with each Heroic+ boss having their own drop tables with specific pieces of 10-man gear, though some of these drops are shared. Under each dungeon, we have included drop tables.

Just like regular Heroic dungeons, each day one dungeon will be assigned as the Daily Dungeon, and the final boss will drop a Bounty Satchel, awarding 3 Emblem of Conquest to whoever wins this satchel. You do not need the daily dungeon quest for this to drop, so even if everyone forgot to pick it up, you should be set.

Each enemy will have a buff on this difficulty, giving them increased damage and health alongside a semi-unique modifier themed around the dungeon. For the most part these modifiers increase the damage of all enemies in the dungeon by 30% and their health by 100%. A unique exception to this is Halls of Stone & Halls of Lightning. Enemies in these dungeons have 5% increased damage and 190% increased health.

Halls of Stone, Halls of Lightning

Empowered: Titan Rune

Damage increased by 5%.
Health increased by 190%.
Pulsing Saronite-Corrupted Titan Energy that increases enemy damage done by 1% and damage taken by 2% per stack for 12 sec.

This Rune is notable in that it only barely impacts the damage enemies deal, while also almost tripling their health. This is because Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning were already very damage-heavy dungeons that could easily kill a freshly leveled tank in a matter of seconds.

The affix also contributes to the lower damage boost, giving players a stacking debuff that increases their damage dealt and their damage taken.

Halls of Stone

Halls of Lightning

Gundrak, Drak’tharon Keep

Empowered: Blood Rune

Damage increased by 30%.
Health increased by 100%.
100% Lifesteal when standing in Blood of the Loa.

Enemies will drop a pool of blood at their feet, and while standing in this blood they will have 100% Lifesteal on damage. This does not apply to players and necessitates that the group constantly kite enemies out of the blood.

This can be incredibly difficult to see underneath Death & Decay but Tank & Unholy Death Knights will most likely need to use this spell. If you do have a Death Knight, make sure you are almost always kiting.

Gundrak

Drak’Tharon Keep

The Oculus, The Nexus, Violet Hold

Empowered: Arcane Rune

Damage increased by 30%.
Health increased by 100%.
Attacks have a chance to summon Mirror Images of the caster.

Each time an enemy attacks they have a chance to summon two Mirror Images of themselves. These Mirror Images cast Arcane Missiles at a random target, dealing around 1000 damage per hit each second. Mirror Images will die to most sources of direct damage, but are immune to damage-over-time effects and most debuffs.

By themselves these images are mostly irrelevant, but on larger packs such as those found at the start of The Oculus, you can easily be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of Mirror Images, easily taking a pack of 4-5 enemies into double digits. If your team is awake and alert they should be able to quickly deal with images, but if they are left to freely cast you can easily be overwhelmed.

Worth noting is that these do only seem to be summoned by melee attacks, meaning that caster enemies will rarely ever summon Mirror Images, and bosses such as Mage-Lord Urom and Ley-Guardian Eregos are likely to never use this ability in a run.

The Nexus

The Oculus

The Violet Hold

The Culling of Stratholme

Empowered: Plague Rune

Damage increased by 30%.
Health increased by 100%.
Damaging attacks can infect victims with the Zombie Plague.

An off-shoot of the zombie plague we experienced in the Wrath of the Lich King pre-patch, this is a disease that will transform a player into a zombie after 1-minute. To avoid this happening the debuffed players will need regular Disease cleansing. Fortunately, the Stratholme Holy Water found in crates and dropped by enemies throughout the dungeon now convienently also provides a Disease cleanse. Unfortunately, the population of Stratholme didn’t consider that before they were purged.

This debuff will also fade upon leaving the dungeon, meaning you cannot bring a time-traveling zombie plague back into society.

Utgarde Keep, Utgarde Pinnacle

Empowered: Frost Rune

Damage increased by 30%.
Health increased by 100%.
Melee attacks have a chance to Glaciate a random nearby target.

Each time an enemy hits in melee, they have a chance to apply Glaciate to a random player. This causes the player to leave a trail of frost that damages and snares anyone walking in it. Effectively this creates damaging terrain where the player moves. This can be easily mitigated by simply not walking single-file, instead spreading out horizontally as you run through.

Utgarde Keep

Utgarde Pinnacle

Azjol-Nerub, Ahn’Kahet

Empowered: Shadow Rune

Damage increased by 30%.
Health increased by 100%.
Attacks have a chance to Webwrap a victim.

Whenever an enemy attacks they have a chance to web a random player, mimicking the spell used by Krik’thirs Watchers in Azjol-Nerub. Webbed players are stunned for 10 seconds and the stun can be broken early by dealing enough damage to destroy the web.

Azjol-Nerub

Ahn’Kahet: The Old Kingdom