A few basic pointers on the zone. The the north are the owlbear caves. When the zone first sets out, naturally, it will be inhabited by owlbears. After a zone re-set, 65% of the nameds will be up. In my experiace, the most common owlbear nameds to be up are, Skrietat Cha, and Prince Skrietat.
To the east are the Sonic Wolf caves. Nasty sonic wolfs inhabit them, and are VERY hard in numbers, and will aggro till about level 63. Normally at a re-set, Ghowlik will be up, as well as Curefang.
To the south are the grimmlings. These are the worst of all. They are not animals, so rangers an druids have more problems with them. They are casters, and can nuke for 150dmg at times. The main named at the grimmling camp (a grimmling chieften) will stay in his spot, and can not be pulled. To top it all off, they are HUGE resisters. Nukes only work about 30% of the time for anyone under 50.
So how to you get one faction to win?
For the most part, it is random who will invade who, but it helps to kill the nameds of where ever you want to be taken over. For example. Lets say that you want the sonic wolf caves, to belong to the grimmlings. Just kill old Ghowlik and his PH, and eventually, you will see a message that anyone in the zone can see. It will read something like (I am not yet sure on exact quotes, in time I will have wordfor word quotes)
"The Grimmlings to the south gnash their teeth in anger, the sonic wolfs to the east look un-easy"
Here is a list of all the ones, not sure on wording, but that will come in time
"The nashing of Grimmling teeth fills the air, the owlbears to the north look shouth in quite panic" means grimmlings are invading owlbear cave
"The gnashing of Grimmling teeth fills the air, the owlbears to the east seem tense with antisapation" means that grimmlings are invading owlbears in sonic wolf cave.
"An ear piercing shreak screams from the north, Grimmlings to the south arm themselfs for battle" Means owlbears are going for the grimmlings in their camp.
"An ear piercing shreak screams from the north, the Grimmlings to the east look un-easy" means owlbears are going after the grimmlings in the sonic wolf cave.
"A howl to the east grows in volume, the owlbears in the north stare east in quite antisapation." means that the sonic wolfs are invading the owlbear's in their cave.
Here is a picture of the defenders at the owlbear cave (note, one was already killed when I took this picture)
EDIT: After the recent patch, there are sometimes messages along the lines of," A shill shriek fills your ears with pain, to the North Owlbears are planning an invasion. The Sonic Wolfs to the east are weakened and un-able to muster a defence!" This will mean that no defenders will spawn, and the OB invaders will just waltz on into the cave and take over. If you want to keep yer cave safe, you'll need to manually kill the invaders. This isn't a hard task, I just cast snare on all 5 and kill em, they only have 400 or so HP, so not hard to drop at all.
Anyhow, I'll have a complete, and acurate list eventually...once you see one of these messages (lets recall the grimmlings invading the sonic wolfs) outside whereever is being invaded, the 2 guardians, will multiply into 5 defenders. So outside the sonic wolf caves, 5 sonic defenders (about levels 30-35 each) will spawn. 5-7 Grimmling invaders will spawn their camp, and start walking to the sonic wolf cave. This can take up to 10 minutes at times. Once they get there, the defenders will no matter what, easily kill off all the invaders. However, you can help the invaders out. Important Note: All grimmling invaders, sonic fiends, and furious owlbears , will con DUBIOUS to all players! This is so that you can help them get safly into their invading cave. Once they take over, you have 30 seconds to run, before the guards outside spawn, that will consider scowling. So basically, if you kill the 5 defenders, the invaders can make it into the cave. IT DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU KILL ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE DEFENDERS. After the last one makes it into the cave, you will get a message like:
"The Grimmlings hunt down and kill the remaining Sonic Wolfs, claiming the eastern caves as their own"
About 30 seconds later, 2 defenders will spawn outside the cave, and after about 1-2 minutes, all the the former owners (in this case, sonic wolfs) will re-spawn as the new owners (in this case, grimmlings)
As soon as the re-spawn is re-set, all the nameds will spawn, except if the owlbear caves are taken over, in which case, only one of the two nameds will spawn. This includes the wandering ones. This is how you can put any faction into the zone. However if they do not win, something like this will happen.
Important note: Once a faction has been eliminated, it can not take over a zone, untill the zone is re-set. Thus if the first move you make is putting the sonic wolfs in the owlbear caves, you can not re-spawn any owlbears, untill you have re-set the zone.
Ok, so now you have grimmlings in their camp, and the sonic wolf cave, with owlbears in their cave. Now what? Well you have 2 options.
1) put the grimmlings in the owlbear cave. This is easier, and involves less work.
2)put owlbears in the grimmling camp, and the sonic wolf caves. I guess you could do it, but it would take longer.
HOW TO FINISH THE WAR, AND RE-SET THE ZONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To re-set the zone, simply put all three factions to one faction. Since we already put the grimmlings in the sonic wolf cave, and their own camp, we can go kill the named owlbears untill the war message apears, and then kill the defenders. NOTE: Defenders can be single killed, untill the invaders get there, at which point, either you, or the invaders will recieve aggro from all 5 defenders. My advive, kill the defenders before the invaders get there. ALSO, the defenders can SUMMON you back to them, so watch out, this could leave to quick, painful death. So now that grimmlings are in all 3 parts of the zone, simply head on over to the Vah Shir outpost, near Shar Vahl. The grimmlings have now massed their forces enough to drive off the guards and merchants there. You will now find two guards (about level 30 each) 7 normal grimmlings (or what ever faction) and one named. The sonic wolf named is Gnarlik, the Owlbear named is Skrieat Chakku, and the Grimmling named is Prince Garzemort. These have the best items in the whole zone, most of them NO DROP.
I wish you all the very best of luck in this fun, yet complicated and sometimes hard zone. This is great gear for anyone level 30-50 to wear for themselfs, or for an alt. I hope that this will help you. I think it will be the most popular, and helpful part of the site.
~Arksien
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