If you want to get access to the new loot, you’ll have to get some faction! As of Patch 4.2.0 the best way to do this is to grind the faction reputation by killing trash mobs in the Firelands raid. I’m going to show you a few tactics that should help you keep the frustration down when trudging out the new content with your fearless friends.

For a list of Avenger’s of Hyjal Faction Reputation Rewards, see this page: http://franksplace.org/2011/06/world-of-warcraft-4-2-avengers-of-hyjal-faction-rewards-loot-table-and-faction-farming-guide/

For a complete list of Item Level 378 BoE’s dropped from Trash in the Firelands, click here: http://franksplace.org/2011/07/cataclysm-4-2-firelands-trash-mob-boe-list/

For more info about all of the new Cataclysm Factions check here: http://franksplace.org/2010/12/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-faction-and-reputation-rewards-guide/

The Firelands

The Firelands Entrance is located in the southern part of Mount Hyjal in the Sulfuron Spire.

Faction Caps

• “Small” Trash give rep until 5999/6000 Friendly.
• “Large” Trash give rep until 11999/12000 Honored. This trash includes: Unstable Magma, Flame Archon, Flamewaker Animator, Flamewaker Subjugator, Molten Flamefather, Molten Lord. Also the 3 trash mobs between Majordomo Staghelm and Ragnaros give rep. Lava Wielder, and Molten Spewer, Molten Erupter.
• Bosses give rep until 999/1000 Exalted.

The instance entrance hosts a Summoning Stone and the Avenger’s of Mount Hyjal quartermaster where you can buy your sweet rewards once you attain the required faction level. If you have the required faction level, Naresir Stormfury has what you need!

Party Selection

Two Tanks, three Healers, and a preference towards Ranged DPS is the rule of thumb here. Sure you can do it with 1 tank, if you are lucky. Sure you can do it with two healers, or even one. The point here is not to gain ego points, it’s to gain Faction Reputation. Keep it easy, and you’ll breeze through runs quicker then a dwarf can eat a stolen kids birthday cake! As you would expect a lot of these creatures use close fire based damage, so keep that in mind when selecting your party members especially when deciding how many Melee DPS to allow.

The Mobs

Blizzard programmers have happily given us a variety of creatures to destroy on our path to becoming exalted with the Avenger’s of Mount Hyjal. Most of these pulls are going to be best dealt with by Single Target Damage, but don’t worry you’ll get to break out the flashy AoE Cannons at least a few times per run!

Unbound Pyrelord with 3 Unbound Smoldering Elemental’s

Unbound Pyrelord Attacks:

Unbound Smoldering Elemental Attacks:

 

 

The Unbound Pyrelord and 3 Unbound Smoldering Elementals agro in a set of four. When you encounter this crew, it’s best to have one tank grab all four of the creatures. The off-tank can then taunt the Pyrelord, separating him from the 3 smoldering elementals. DPS Should continue to do damage to the Pyrelord, until he casts Ingite Elemental on one of his three adds removing their shield allowing them to be DPS’d down. Beware, once an elemental ignites, he will start to do Ticking AoE Damage to anyone close enough to get hit by the spray. Once the unshielded Elemental is dead, DPS can move back to the Pyrelord, until another Smoldering Elemental is Ignited. Rinse/Repeat for all three Elementals, then you can switch DPS to the Pyrelord for the win!

Fire Scorpions

Fire Scorpion Attacks:

 

Giant Fire Scorpion Attacks:

Fire Scorpions are a good source of Reputation while you are farming. Each of this little crawlers gives you a good amount of rep, and this fight you can utilize some mad AoE skills when putting down a gang of angry scorpions! The main tank should maintain good agro especially on any Giant Fire Scorpions while DPS does burst AoE Damage. You want to try to get the scorpions down to 50% life, then the off-tank should start pulling the scorpions away from the party before they die. When each scorpion dies, its flame sac explodes doing a good amount of AoE damage to anyone close enough. If you allow 2-3 or more of these occur quickly, it can, and will easily wipe your expedition! Once the tank pulls a damaged scorpion away from the party, DPS can utilize single target DPS to bring down the burning scorpion, doing minimal damage to the party.

Molten Lord

Molten Lord Attacks:

 

The Molten Lord is one big bad dude.  His Lava Jets deal a significant amount of AoE Damage, so your party will want to pay close attention to avoiding the rings of fire.  The Molten Lord’s Melt Armor ability applies a stacking debuff to tanks that reduces armor by 10% per tick.  The Off-tank will want to taunt the Molten Lord off of the Main-Tank when the main tank gets to four or five stacks of this debuff.  The Main-tank can wait for 10-12 seconds for the debuff to wear-off, then he can taunt the Molten Lord back.  Rinse, Repeat, Win!

Molten Surger

Molten Surger Attacks:

 

The Molten Surgers spawn alone, and have a wide patrol area.  They only have Auto-Attack, and one special ability.  When they charge someone, they will do an AoE Knockback effect that will send anyone close flying.  Make sure that you have plenty of room to work with when engaging these creatures, since they can easily knock you into a second pull, and cause some serious pain.

Fire Turtles

Patriarch Fire Turtle Attacks

 

Matriarch & Hatchling Fire Turtle Attacks

 

The Families of Fire Turtles have some majorly annoying mechanics involved.  The Patriarch Fire Turtle has a Spell Shield that reflects 50% of spell damage back to the caster, ouch!  Magic based DPS classes should focus on the smaller adds, switching only for brief bursts of DPS whenever the shield drops.  The other two Fire Turtles have a  “Spin-to-Win” attack that has a knockback effect.  On top of the annoying mechanics, several of the turtle spawns are in areas that are near ledges, fire pits, or other pulls.  The Matriarch and Hatchling turtles can be Rooted, Snared, Stunned, etc, which makes these pulls a lot easier.  Also, the Turtle Pulls are avoidable when going through the Firelands to actually kill the bosses, so you don’t “need” to practice the mechanics if your Raid plans on Skipping this trash later.