Originally part of a Hunter Class Guide, this guide will help you prepare for a class-exclusive quest that rewards you with two powerful epic weapons. Although, The Burning Crusade expansion has made the two weapons nearly obsolete, this guide will serve as a reminder for both veterans and future players of what was once one of the greatest quest chains of all time.

This guide will take into consideration all talent builds, along with their respective talent-only abilities, though I strongly recommend that you specialize in either Survival or Marksmanship, as you will be unable to use your pet for most of these encounters. This makes Beast Mastery somewhat of a handicap.

Molten Core

To start the quest, you must find an item called an Ancient Petrified Leaf, which has a 50% chance of appearing in the Cache of the Firelord, a chest that spawns as a reward for beating the Majordomo Executus encounter, the eighth boss in Molten Core. Before the 2.01 Patch, this would often take the average guild roughly five hours to reach, even more if the guild is inexperienced in raiding. Nowadays, a group of fifteen or so level-70 players could easily reach the encounter.

The quest takes you to Irontree Woods in Felwood, where standing atop a small hill will cause three Ancient spirits to appear. One will ask you to find four demons, kill them, and return with their heads. The second will ask you to get a Mature Black Dragon Sinew. The third will ask you to get a Mature Blue Dragon Sinew.

Onyxia’s Lair

In order for you to get the Mature Black Dragon Sinew, you will need to go
To Onyxia’s Lair, and slay her. Like Molten Core, this also required a steady raiding group, though a 10-man party can now take her down. The only problem, however, is that you have to go through a long series of quests in order to gain attunement to her lair, and part of that attunement requires that either you or someone you know has the key to opening the doorway into Upper Blackrock Spire.

When you kill Onyxia, the Sinew has a 50% chance of appearing.

The Blue Dragons

The Mature Blue Dragon Sinew has a 50% chance to drop from Azuregos, the out-door raid boss in Azshara, though the elite dragons in the Mazthoril area in
Winterspring have a chance to drop it. This Sinew is entirely optional, however. It’s only required to obtain a special 18-slot quiver.

Making Preparations

This section will help you prepare for your battle against the four demons.

Weapons and Armor
The encounters require that you have sufficient gear, as mana and weapon
Damage are going to become important factors in killing these demons. Before the ex-pansion, this meant having at least some Giantstalker Armor pieces, as well as a decent melee weapon, preferably a 2H weapon. The Barbarous Blade at the time was an excellent choice for this.

Consumables
You wanted at least a handful of Major Healing and Major Mana Potions, as well as some Whipper Root Tubers, and even a Healthstone, if there is a Warlock nearby. For two of the encounters, Major Shadow and Nature Protection Potions were also handy. For one encounter, you should get some Magic Dust, which drops off of the air elementals in Westfall.

Hunter Abilities
Make sure that you know how to do a Jump Shot, and are capable of kiting when the situation calls for it. This will especially be important for Artorius The Doombringer, the demon from Winterspring. For those who don’t know, here is what you do: while you’re running in one direction with auto-run, jump and quickly turn your character 180 degrees and fire a Shot or Sting. While you’re on your way back down, quickly turn your character back 180 degrees so that when you land, you’re still running in the same direction. This will take some practice, so don’t be discouraged if it takes you a while to perfect it.

Friends
Just in case anything happens, you should bring some friends with you.
Paladins, Shamans, Priests, and Druids are all great choices, thanks to their buffs and ability to resurrect you in the event that you get killed. A Warlock and second Hunter can help for two of the encounters.

Knowing the Rules
Each of the demons walks around in a specific path in a Humanoid form. If you turn on your Demon Tracker, they’ll appear on your minimap. To start the encounter, simply talk to them, and they will turn into their demon form. You must then fight them on your own without any outside assistance, which includes your pet. If another player gets aggro, the demon will despawn. You have 20 minutes to kill the demon before it disappears.

Originally, it would take three hours for a demon to respawn, but nowadays, it only takes 20 minutes. You can receive buffs and auras from other players, but they can’t buff you while in combat, as they must not aggro the demon at all costs. Also, if anyone who isn’t a Hunter aggros the demon, they will be instantly killed by an ability called Fool’s Flight, which inflicts upwards of 10,000 damage.

Klinfran The Crazed

HUMAN NAME: Franklin the Friendly
LOCATION: Burning Steppes
RECOMMENDED: Demonslaying Elixir

PATROL: Franklin looks like a Human and will patrol a secluded area in the southwest region of the Burning Steppes.

POSITIONING: There is a path in the south that goes up a cliff, leading into a wide open area filled with some mobs. Slay the mobs, and trigger Franklin when he walks up the cliff.

ATTACKS: Klinfran’s only attack is his bare knuckles, but he hits hard, and can tear you to pieces in just a few hits. It only gets worse when he enrages.

WEAKNESS: When he enrages, Scorpid Sting will remove the effect and adds a 10-second debuff that causes him to inflict 1 damage every swing.

Cross-Country Kiting
Originally, the strategy used to beating Klinfran was to simply use Scorpid Sting whenever he enraged, and then Auto-Attack him with your melee weapon, remembering to Wing Clip and run away before the 10-second timer on Scorpid Sting was done. However, the change to Scorpid Sting makes this strategy unusable, as it causes the Sting to no longer cripple his blows.

What you need to do is to simply kite him, using Aspect of the Cheetah, Serpent Sting, and Arcane Shot. If he’s getting too close, drop a Frost Trap on the road. The best way to set this up is to trigger the demon as close to the main road as possible so that you’ll run into the least number of mobs along the way.

Simone the Seductress

HUMAN NAME: Simone the Inconspicuous
LOCATION: Un’goro Crater
RECOMMENDED: Magic Dust, Demonslaying Elixir, Nature Protection Potion

PATROL: Simone is a female Troll that walks around the southwest region of the Crater with a wolf pup by her side.

POSITIONING: Make sure you find a nice open area with few mobs. Slay the nearby mobs and get ready.

ATTACKS: Simone puts a debuff on you that reduces your ranged attack power by 1400, and can cast a lightning spell that deals 800 damage. She also has a pet felhound that fights alongside her.

WEAKNESS: Her melee attacks aren’t very strong, and her lightning spell has a long casting time. Viper Sting silences her, and her Felhound pet is susceptible to Freezing Trap.

Keeping the Pet at Bay
The first thing that you need to take care of is the Felhound. Rather than killing it, the best way to keep it out of combat is to use crowd control on it. A Freezing Trap will do nicely, especially now that you can set Traps while in combat. However, another way to keep it away is to put it to sleep with Magic Dust, which will buy you about thirty seconds.

Talent Necessities
The original strategy was to use either Aspect of the Monkey or the Wild, and simply attack her with your melee weapons, as her debuff would make your ranged weapon too weak to be useful. Once you notice her casting her lightning spell, simply hit her with Viper Sting. However, the 15-second Cooldown on the Sting makes it difficult to use in quick succession, which means you’ll have to rely on your talent-based abilities.

If you’re a Marksmanship Hunter, you’ll need Scatter Shot and Silencing Shot to interrupt her. If you’re a Survival Hunter, you’ll have Wyvern Sting and Readiness. If you’re a Beast Mastery Hunter, you’ll have to hide behind the large trees. By stepping out of her line of sight, you’ll cause her spell to fail.

Steady Melee
Don’t waste your mana on Raptor Strike, as you’ll be needing the mana for your interrupts, and you’ll want to save your Potion Cooldown for either Healing Potions or Nature Protection Potions. With a strong weapon, and some good Hit Rating, you should be able to tear her to pieces.

If Your Timing Is Weak
If you find yourself struggling to interrupt her spells for whatever reason, then be prepared to soften the blow. Greater Nature Protection Potions will help absorb the damage, and if you have a second Hunter nearby, have him use Aspect of the Wild and Feign Death so that you can have Nature resistance, while maintaining the Dodge bonus that you get from Aspect of the Monkey.

Solenor the Slayer

HUMAN NAME: Nelson the Nice
LOCATION: Silithus
RECOMMENDED: Shadow Protection Potion, Whipper Root Tuber or Night Dragon’s Breath, a Warlock

PATROL: Nelson is a Gnome that walks around the southwest region of Silithus. If you look at a map, there are some cliffs that protrude out from the left side. He will patrol near the southern tip of that protrusion.

POSITIONING: Wait for him near those cliffs and clear out the mobs in the surrounding area. Because of their relatively high levels, you should get as much free space as possible.

ATTACKS: Solenor has a ranged shadow attack that causes you to run in fear, similar to the Warlock spell, Death Coil. Countless tiny bugs will gradually spawn, each one doing upwards of 200 damage if they manage to touch you.

WEAKNESS: Wing Clip causes a debuff that prevents Solenor from moving for thirty seconds. Also, the bugs move very slowly and have incredibly low health. Serpent Sting is rather effective on him as well.

Going In Fearless
If you have a Warlock nearby, there is an exploit that you can use. Start a duel with the Warlock near the demon, and have your friend cast Curse or Recklessness (Rank 1) on you. As long as you remain in combat, and your friend continues to refresh the Curse, you will be immune to his fear effect.

Circle Killing
What you want to do is Wing Clip him, stand back, and then run circles around him, attacking with Auto-Shots and Serpent Sting. Make sure that you have a feel for your Auto-Shot timer. Once the Crippling Clip effect wears off, simply Wing Clip him again, and lather, rinse, and repeat.

Managing the Bugs
The key to this fight is making sure that the bugs don’t get to you. Of course, without the Warlock exploit, this is much easier said than done. Stay as far away from Solenor and his bugs as possible, remembering to constantly keep running. With a Frost Trap, you can slow down the bugs tremendously, especially if you managed to have Solenor walk directly into the Trap when you Clip him. Part of winning this fight is luck, so don’t be discouraged if you fail a few attempts.

If enough bugs have spawned, you can use Volley to destroy them. Exploding
Trap also works, but has an incredibly high mana cost, so you may want to hold back on that.

Artorius the Doombringer

HUMAN NAME: Artorius the Amiable
LOCATION: Winterspring
RECOMMENDED: Friends

PATROL: Artorius is a Tauren that walks around the northern region of Winter-spring just east of Frostsaber Rock.

POSITIONING: Trigger the demon as far north as possible.

ATTACKS: Artorius can cast a debuff on you that turns you into a demon with a strong DoT that will kill you in seconds. Shadow Protection Potions don’t seem to help against it.

WEAKNESS: Serpent Sting causes a devastating amount of damage, and he can only cast the debuff on you if you’re within 30 yards of him.

Downhill Kiting
The strategy for this fight is the simplest of the four demons, but is also the toughest to execute. Simply run downhill with Aspect of the Cheetah, while letting Serpent Sting do its work. Use Arcane Shot (Rank 1) to keep the demon in combat so that it doesn’t reset. What makes this fight so tough is that it’s hard for most Hunters to turn around and fire without slowing down tremendously. Mastering the Jump Shot makes a great deal of a difference here.

One-Shot Deal
Consider the fight over, if you get the debuff. The damage that it causes is so high that you’ll almost never be able to finish him off, once you’re affected. This is why you must stay as far away from him as possible. Hunters with the Eagle Eye talent have an advantage here. With Aspect of the Cheetah, going downhill, you’ll run fast enough to not get within his range. In fact, you can even outrun him, even if you don’t have the Pathfinding talent.

Serpent Sting (Rank 8)
Since the encounter was designed with the highest available rank of Serpent Sting at the time, only Rank 8 will cause the vicious amounts of damage that you’re looking for. Improved Stings will probably not make a difference.

The Final Reward

With your four heads and the Mature Black Dragon Sinew, return to the Ancients, and hand them in. For all of your hard work, you get these two weapons:

Rhok’delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers
Ranged, Bow
89-166 Damage, 2.90 Speed
(44.0 DPS)
+1% Critical Strike
+17 Ranged Attack Power

Lok’delar, Stave of the Ancient Keepers
Two Hand, Staff
187-282 Damage, 3.20 Speed
(73.3 DPS)
+26 Stamina
+15 Intellect
+10 Nature Resist
+2% Critical Strike
+45 Attack Power when fighting Demons

These are the original stats of these two epic weapons. If you managed to find a Mature Blue Dragon Sinew, you would get this quiver:

Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina
18 Slot Quiver
EQUIP: +15% ranged attack speed.

The Memory Remains

Although the staff’s usefulness was questionable, the bow was the most powerful weapon at the time for a Hunter. The only other two ranged weapons, the Blastershot Launcher and the Striker’s Mark, had roughly 40.0 DPS each, as opposed to this bow’s 44.0 DPS.

The bow at the time was a rarity, and only the most prestigious raiding guilds had Hunters that owned this weapon, but as more guilds began to run Molten
Core and Onyxia, more players began to own the weapon. What also affected the growing population was the fact that many players relied on other Hunters to kill the demons for them, so even players who may not be well-skilled or were undergeared had the opportunity to own the bow.

Since the expansion, veteran owners of this bow have found stronger replacements, and with Molten Core now made obsolete by the weapons and armor in Outland, few up-and-coming Hunters can be found using a Rhok’delar. Today, the demons can still be found wandering about their usual patrolling paths. Although they are neutral, they can be attacked, and they will use their abilities, even in their Humanoid forms.

Read the full WoW Rhok’delar Guide