Onyxia's Lair

Raid Instance

Level: 60

History

From the World Dungeons page on the official World of Warcraft Community Site:

Onyxia is the daughter of the mighty dragon Deathwing, and sister of the scheming Nefarion Lord of Blackrock Spire. It is said that Onyxia delights in corrupting the mortal races by meddling in their political affairs. To this end it is believed that she takes on various humanoid forms and uses her charm and power to influence delicate matters between the different races. Some believe that Onyxia has even assumed an alias once used by her father - the title of the royal House Prestor. When not meddling in mortal concerns, Onyxia resides in a fiery cave below the Dragonmurk, a dismal swamp located within Dustwallow Marsh. There she is guarded by her kin, the remaining members of the insidious Black Dragon Flight.

Background

Onyxia's Lair is located in Dustwallow Marsh, and is accessible only when in a raid group and only if you have the Drakefire Amulet. It must be in your inventory, although it does not have to be equipped.

Defeating Onyxia will create a 6 day timer which will prevent further attempts until the timer expires.

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Strategy Guide

See The Onyxia Bible by the Pacifist guild.

Obtaining the Drakefire Amulet to Enter Onyxia's Lair (Horde)

Warlord's Command Start

The quest chain starts in Kargath, the Horde outpost in the Badlands. On top of the watchtower awaits a quest giving Tauren named Warlord Goretooth. The first thing he will ask for is some floss. Then he will give you the infamous "Warlords Command" quest. No doubt, anyone who's above level 55 has seen people looking for Warlords groups, and with good reason. It's the first step in the long, arduous Horde Onyxia key chain. It's also the most tedious part of the Onyxia keying, at least after they made getting blood easier, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Warlord's Command will take you into Lower Blackrock Spire on a search and destroy mission. You will be searching for an elusive set of documents, and you will be destroying 3 powerful racial leaders: Highlord Omokk, the rotund menace (wonder if he's rotund from getting the munchies constantly,) Super Troll War Master Voone, and finally the big bad of Lower Blackrock, Overlord Wyrmthalak. Read on for info about reaching and defeating each boss, as well as the super sneaky secret documents.

Lower Black Rock Spire

The first boss you'll likely encounter is Highlord Omokk, The easiest of the 3 leaders to get to. He resides in a large room relatively close to LBRS' entrance. After taking a right through the UBRS/LBRS junction, you will find yourself at the top of a large ramp that leads down to a wooden bridge. Cross the bridge and to your right is a door leading to yet another bridge, and beyond that, the Ogre leader. He's not a tough fight, and any group capable of fighting to him should be able to kill him easily.

Your next goal after defeating Omokk is War Master Voone. Turn around and go back the way you came in. After crossing the stone bridge, there will be a chasm ahead and to your left. Drop down and you should be next to a friendly Goblin named Bijou. She's involved in an unrelated quest, so ignore her Unless you picked up her quest in The Searing Gorge. Nearby is a very large room with a set of ramps leading to the bottom floor. Follow the ramp all the way down and look to your right. There is a room carved into the wall, and inside awaits the Troll leader. He's a slightly stronger version of Omokk. Again, you should not have any real trouble defeating him.

The final enemy is Overlord Wyrmthalak. The Dragonkin is the "final" boss of LBRS, and you're going to fight through a lot of trash getting to him. Getting to him's a little involved:

Starting from the Troll boss, head back into the large room.

In the opposite corner, there's another door. Go through it.

You're on a long, winding path filled with Orcs. Fight your way to the end.

There's a rocky ramp here covered with spiders, including a boss named Mother Smolderweb. You'll have to kill her to proceed. Continue following the ramp, and keep your eyes peeled for a second named spider, Crystal Fang. He's a rare spawn, and drops a pretty good Rogue dagger.

The ramp turns 180 degrees at a flat platform crawling with Ogres. Directly to the left, the ramp continues up, so kill as few Ogres as necessary to sneak by and keep going up.

The path ends at a set of stairs. Take them up and turn right. There's another boss here, a big freaking wolf named Halycon. Kill it if you like, or move past and continue up the stairs. If you do decide to fight her, be ready for her mate Gizrul to show up as she dies. Gizrul will be understandably upset, as you've just killed the only giant female wolf in existence, and let's be honest, you can only lick yourself so much.

The stairs terminate in a large room riddled with orcs and gaping holes in the floor. These guys need to install some safety rails. Kill the orcs and avoid the holes, and you'll find yourself in Wyrmthalak's room.

Clear up to him and go at it. Like the other two, this guy doesn't really have any tricks. However, he will summon adds when you get his life below about 50%, so get ready with the crowd control. Once he's dead, you've completed 3/4 of WC. Now all that's left to do is loot the documents, which should be right here, considering he's the boss of the whole damn place, right? WRONG!

Actually, the documents might be there, and if they are good for you, but they might be somewhere else and get ready to do some backtracking if you havent already found the documents. You see before patch 1.7 the documents would despawn after one person looted them and then respawn somewhere else, now they still spawn in a random location but the documents can be looted by all five party members, making your life much easier. Now lets say you dont find the documents behind the dead corpse of wyrmthalak here is a quick way to backtrack to each of the other bosses corpses'.

Remember that room with all the cracks in the floor? The one that's not up to code? Head back there and make like James Sunderland. Upon dropping down, you'll be back behind the flat platform with all the ogres. There's a hole in the wall here that leads right into Omokk's chamber. Jump in, kill whatever Ogres you left behind earlier, and loot the docs if they spawned there. Then you can easily head down to Voone's chamber again.

Once you've got the quest completed, head on back to Goretooth. He will probably yell something like, "Strength and honor" while simultaneously enveloping you with his vile breath. Such is the life of a hero. After his little outburst, you will be instructed to report to Thrall. Hearth to Org (you are hearthed in Org, right?) and go talk to the HOIC.

Upper Black Rock Spire

Thrall has another quest for you, this one in Upper Blackrock Spire. He wants you to kill Rend Blackhand, for crimes against fashion. Wait till you see his pants, and you will understand. There's good news and bad news here: the good news is that UBRS is a raid zone, meaning you can take 14 buddies with you to kill Rend. The bad news is that getting into UBRS is a bit of a pain.

While doing Warlord's, you may have noticed several odd items dropping. Namely, an unadorned seal from random trash mobs, and three BOP gems from the Warlord's bosses. When combined and forged with dragon fire, these items become the key to UBRS. Oh, did I mention that the bosses DON'T always drop the gems, and that only one can be looted per drop? Yeah, it takes a while to get a UBRS key put together. I'm going to go ahead and recommend that you skip it and just find someone with a key to take you, or at least open the door. Most people with keys have them because of the genorosity of others, and as long as you're willing to port them in and out, are happy to open up the door.

I'm not going to go into too much detail on getting to and defeating Rend. This is a guide to getting keyed, not raiding UBRS. Once you recover from the sight of his pants, kill the man and loot his head. Don't worry, the head acts like a regular quest item, meaning everyone who needs it can take one. Severed cranium safely ensconced in yon merry bag, head back to Thrall. You'll get a sweet trinket, and treat everyone in Org to a nice buff (delivered via lightning bolt to the noggin!) Thrall will now instruct you to seek out Rexxar, Beastmaster champion of the Horde. People who played the "rpg" campain in Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne will remember him and his life partner, the bear Misha.

Rexxar roams Desolace, along the road between Stonetalon and Feralas. And easy but time consuming way to find him is to sit your butt down near either zone entrance and wait. Or you can frantically travel the road, spamming locald with "haz ne1 seen rexxar!!!??!" The choice is yours. Once you find him, he'll send you to the Western Plaguelands to speak with the necrophiliac gnome Myranda the Hag. She can be found in the graveyard directly south of Andorhal.

Surprise, surprise, Myranda has some more stupid stuff for you to do. She wants you to head back into UBRS and get her 20 black dragon eyes. These drop off any of the Dragonkin in UBRS. Get into an UBRS raid and start looting them. Depending on how many other raiders need the eyes, you may or may not get them all from the same run. Once you've got 20, head back to Myranda. She will take the eyes and give you a nifty disguise kit.

Killing Dragons

She will now send you to Duskwallow Marsh, on the continent of Kalimdor. Fly into Brackenwall and ride down to the southernmost area, known as Wyrmbog. Ride around for a bit until you find Onyxia's Lair. Stairing at the lair, turn left and move along the mountain wall. Continue following this path until you see a cave on the left. Go inside and use the trinket. Hey look, you're a Dragonkin! Trundle your now slow self through the cave until you meet Emberstrife, the black dragon. Emberstrife is a sassy sort, and he will send you out to smack around 3 dragons from the other flights. These are the Drakes, and they're the second most tedious part of this quest chain, following Warlord's. These dragons are elite, and pretty tough. You will want a 5 man group.

Hearth to Org (you are hearthed in Org, RIGHT?) and fly to Tanaris. Head southeast from Gadzetzan and find the Caverns of Time. Flying around here is Chronalis, favored son of the... I don't know, bronze dragonflight. Kill him. Fly back to Org, then to Winterspring. Southwest of Everlook is a cave filled with blue Dragonkin. Deep inside you will find Scryer, the blue dragonflight champion. Kill him. Fly back to Org and take the zep to Grom'gol. Fly to Stonard in the Swamp of Sorrows and ride east, past the Sunken Temple. On the eastern lake shore you'll find Somnus, who green and has to be killed. Kill him. Hearth back to Org and fly to Brackenwall, then ride back to Emberstrife. Don't relax though, you're not done yet. He's going to send you to the Wetlands to kill Axtrox, lieutenant of the red dragonflight. Why he can't give you this quest with the other three, I don't know. Told you the guy was sassy. Anyway, you know the deal. Fly to Org, zep to UC, fly to Hammerfall, ride south to the Wetlands and head due east alone the nortern border. Make sure you kill any Alliance lowbies you see, FOR THE HORDE! Eventually you'll run smack dab into a gaggle of red dragonkin, and of course, Axtrox. Kill him and return to Emberstrife. Man's pleased with you, that's for sure. He gives you a shiny medal and tells you to show it to General Drakkisath, leader of Upper Blackrock Spire. But we're not going to do that. No, we have a date with a man & his bear.

Drakkisath's Blood

Once you've trudged back to Rexxar, he will tell you to get a drop of Drakk's blood. No biggie, right? Well, no it's not really. UBRS is a very popular raiding instance, so finding a group shouldn't be too hard. And the instance is fairly easy, and can be completed in less than 90 minutes if you're with a group that knows what they're doing. But like most things in life, there is a catch. Drakk's blood is a loot drop, not a quest drop. Not that you can loot it if you don't have the quest. However, regardless of how many people need the blood, he's not dropping more than 2 or 3. So yes, you will have to roll if a lot of people want it. Of course, you guys have it easy. Back when I got Drakk's blood, he only dropped one at a time.

Anyway, assuming you luck out and get your blood quickly, the quest is nearly over. Take the blood and head to Rexxar, who's still patrolling Desolace with Misha. Once you find him, he'll take Drakk's blood and turn it into a super keen amulet, that not only gives 10 stamina and 10 fire resistance, it gets you into Onyxia's Lair! Congratulations, you've done it! You've gotten keyed! OMG, you're totally awesome.

Obtaining the Drakefire Amulet to Enter Onyxia's Lair (Alliance)

To start the quest line, you must speak with Helendris Riverhorn in Burning Steppes. He will give you the quest Dragonkin Menace. Upon completion, you will receive another quest True Masters. Travel to Redridge and talk to Solomon. The next quest has you run to Stormwind and speak with Highlord Bolvar Fordragon. Once all of that is completed you will return to Redridge and talk to Solomon again, at which point he will send you back to Burning Steppes to speak with Marshal Maxwell. This ends the quest series for True Masters.

Marshal Maxwell will give you the quest Marshal Windsor, which will have you search for Ragged John.

Once you find Ragged John, he will give you Abandoned Hope, which sends you to Blackrock Depths in search of Marshal Windsor.

Find Marshal Windsor, and he will tell you to return to Marshal Maxwell.

After that, you must journey back to Blackrock Depths to find A Crumpled Up Note. This will drop randomly from any mob, and begins the quest. This quest will have you talk to Marshal Windsor once again. Marshal Windsor will give you the quest A Shred of Hope which requires you to kill and retrieve documents from General Angerforge and the golem lord Argelmach. Once you have retrieved the two documents an return to Marshall Windsor you will be able to start the escort quest Jail Break! Once you escort Marshall Windsor out of Blackrock Depths, he will tell you to meet him in Stormwind at the front gates with the quest Stormwind Rendezvous.

Upon meeting Marshall Windsor at the front gates you will start the quest The Great Masquerade where you escort him up to the Keep where he will expose Lady Prestor resulting in a fight where Highlord Bolvar Fordragon will fight her warders. In the past you did not have to fight here! However, with a recent patch to the game Highlord Bolvar Fordragon is no longer sufficient to kill all of the guards that spawn. You will want to bring a few friends with you.

Fordragon will then tell you to find a dragon living among humans... he does not know where such may be. However, to save you a lot of wandering, goto Winterspring and speak with a blue dragon, at which point you get a quest to go into Upper Blackrock Spire to get General Drakkisath's blood. Upon getting that and turning it in you will receive the Drakefire Amulet.