This looks like a sticking point for my small guild, so I was hoping people might post their experiences and any tips they have to make it a bit easier.

One thing I was considering:
Do you have to actually kill everything or just reach and kill the Baron? I've never been there myself, but I've played around with my alchemy and my guild did a full stealth run in Mara using invisibility potioons to get the non-stealth classes through. Would a similar tactic work here? Can you stack a swiftness and invisibility potion to get far quick stealth hops?

The ghouls in strath along with the eyes and some other mobs have HUGE see-stealth radiuses, stealth runs may still be possible, but it wont be simply skipping all the mobs, there will be killing involved.

Here is a guide to get you through it:

Class Structure:
Tank (Feral Druid or Fury Warrior)
- no sense using a prot. spec warrior, you need to down mobs fast
Mage (AOE)
Priest (Holy/Disc)
- needs to beed a good healer and be able to last a few pulls before he needs to drink
Shaman/Warlock
- need a class that can rez a dead party member when everyone wipes
DPS

Ziggurat Order:
1) Spider
2) Shrieker
3) Paladin

Potions to bring:
1) Major Health Potions
2) Major Mana Potions
3) Minor Invulnerability or Swiftness Potions

Clear the first two mobs of skeletons when you enter UD strat and make your way to the second gate. Everyone should rebuff and drink up before you open the gate. (Baron Ultimatium will start the second the gate opens)

First Zig:
Open gate, run to the next one and open it. Pull the first shrieker you see, have it silenced/earth shocked if it casts, and pull it to the group. Down it fast then start pulling either spiders or patroling bats that you can grab. It is important at this point that you make good pulls and not waste time. Its not a big deal if you pull 3 mobs during this part, but it should be 3 mobs you needed to clear anyway. If I couldnt pull a bat safely or a spider, I pulled the 3 ghouls to the right quickly and had them AOE'd down. Once the bats are taken care of, hug the left wall towards the West Zigg and pull the 3 ghouls in the cove there. AOE them down and move to where they were. This is where all your pulls will take place from while clearing the zigg for the boss. Pull the usual spider and shriker in the road and kill em. The only mob you need to kill around the ziggurat is the necro/skelies to the left of the zig. Pull them and hide around corner so they come running to you. AOE works really well for downing these guys. Once they are down, skip the shrieker if you can in the middle and pull the spider to the left of the ziggurat and fight him in the cove away from all mobs. Down the boss and then move back to the second gate you started pulling from, meanwhile the mage goes into the zigg and AOEs down the mobs in there.

Second Zig:
Start pulling all spiders/shriekers to clear them out of the road while hugging the right wall heading towards the NE zig. There is a little corner that allows you to pull mobs and then get out of their line of sight so they ahve to come to you. Thats where most of the pulls were dragged to. Once you get the shriekers and spiders, pull the 2 ghouls by the tree and down them. You are skipping the mobs to the right of this ziggurat. Everyone in the group should be at the corner you have been pulling from. The tank goes up and shoots the boss then runs back to where the group is. Down the boss. Mage stays with group and this point and begins clearing the direct path from the shrieker ziggurat to the paladin. (No one ever takes this route in a normal UD strat run but its much faster) Pull the 3 ghouls/spider and aoe them down. Next, pull the necros/skeles and AOE them down. That should be all the mobs guarding the entrance to the hallway. Have the priest shield the mage and let the mage go into the zigg and AOE down the mobs while the group continues on.

Third Zig:
Go through the hallway and pull the 3 ghouls at the end of it. Next pull the 2 ghouls along the right wall in the corner ahead of you. You will be skipping the mobs on the left wall by the cart. Next pull the shrieker and kill it. The group moves up to the corner that is across from the 2 ghouls and cart. This is where all the pulls will be done. Next, pull the group of necros/skeles along the right wall by the zig. AOE them down when they come to the group around the corner. Watch the patting bat and when he flys away pull the shrieker and down it. Next, pull the bat if hes close otherwise pull the necros/skeles on the zig stairs to the corner and AOE them down. Pull the paladin boss to the same corner and then drop him. The entire group runs into the zig and downs the mobs.

Abominations:
If you have a warlock, have him SS the priest otherwise the shaman can ankh. Everyone quickly heal up, dont worry about mana because you will be dieing. Go out of the ziggurat and have the priest shield everyone in the group. If you have a good rogue, you have can have him lead the group by sprinting and evasions to pull all the mobs to the Abomination gate. I led the group as a Feral Druid and I just had the priest sheild me, switch to cat hit sprint, then switch to bear tank the dmg while getting to Abomination room. The group shouldnt hit any of the mobs or frost nova them because it will draw aggro to them. The goal is just get to the Abomination room. Once there, die about halfway in the room and when the mobs leave ankh/ss up. Rez the group and rebuff. Use mana/health potions here to speed up the recovery of the wipe. Start pulling the Abominations 1 at a time to the middle of the room. When they die, the mage should aoe the green spawns down. If an extra abomination is patroling it, have the priest shackle. Down these one and a time as fast as possible.

Finish:
Once the abominations are gone, quickly mana up and fight the Abomination boss. The second he dies go ahead and have the tank aggro the skeletons and then let the mage AOE them down. Everyone should rebuff and mana up quickly now because the 6 skeletons take around 30 seconds to come out. Once they come out, AOE them down. Get in the Barons chamber and get ready to take him. The priest should be on the bone pile while the tank, tanks the baron away from the middle circle. Have the mage nearby for when the skeletons come so he can AOE them down. As long as you start the fight with the Baron before the timer is up, if you kill him, you complete the quest.

Practice, practice, practice.

/cry

thanks for the detailed response lorath

you know what also works?

1 warrior
3 mages
1 priest

mages aoe like theres no tomorrow and priest heals non stop,

works like a charm!

but the mages were 8/8 NW and warrior 8/8 wrath.....

Disc/Holy priest
Resto Druid
Retrib. Pally
Arcane/Frost Mage
Seal of Fate Rogue

Finished with a whole 1 minute to spare. /lol Basically, if you want loot from there, don't bother trying to do it in 45min. Need roll everything. Having 2 healers helps b/c no one healer has to sit down and drink and makes power pulling a lot faster. For that matter, you can't sit and drink for longer than 5 sec at a time. Pallies are great for undead. Quite honestly, this is probably one of the most difficult things I've done.

Note: My group had T1/T2 epics from head to toe and it was still close. God bless to all that try. IMO, blizz should up the timer to one hour and make it more reasonable.

you know what also works?

1 warrior
3 mages
1 priest

mages aoe like theres no tomorrow and priest heals non stop,

works like a charm!

but the mages were 8/8 NW and warrior 8/8 wrath.....

That wouldn't really help us druids get our gear upgrades now would it?

And to think the 45 min baron run is easy compared to what's to come after it :(

A druid I know completed this last night. Group was:
Druid - Feral/Bal
Mage - Arcane/Fire
Mage - Frost/Arcane
priest - Holy/Disc
Warrior - Fury

Druid healed the Warrior. Priest kept mages alive. Mages were AoE except on bosses. From gate to start of Baron fight was 38 minutes. They also used 17 major mana pots, around 20 dragonbreath, and 1 Shadow resist pot.

I'm trying to make some more attempts at this now, but I am having trouble getting my friends to go with me. My brother is a top flight healadin, and he is a definite, but what group make up would you guys recommend to compliment a moonkin and paladin?

warrior, mage, mage?

Is it better for the pally to dps undead so we need another healer? (or paladin)

You will want a priest. Shackle Undead is nice. Focus fire, kill things as fast as possible. Does your brother have any 'tanking' gear? Pallies are great tanks in Scholo / Strat. Your group will probably look like:

GWMoonkin
Pally tank
Holy / Disc Priest
Mage
DPS class (another mage, rogue, hunter)

He says he has lots of stuff for upping his dps against undead, but no "tanking gear", so it looks like he can heal or dps, but not hold aggro (or do other pallys simply do it with damage in these instances?).

hi.
all u need it`s here:
http://static.curse-gaming.com/nimage/145/gauntlet.jpg
My group was:
Priest - Yanus
Mage - Valmir (frost)
Warrior - Valkan (dps)
Worlock - Orray
Druid - Gruo (tank) -me.
all u need is pull another mob during previus have about 20% hp. i was taunt mob when he was 20% and go for another one rest party was finishing first one and i in this time was getting some agro on another.so i did not have problem with agro cause i always had time to maul mob 2 3 times before they started.
and pull pull pull all the time. without brake for bio :)

wish u luck

He says he has lots of stuff for upping his dps against undead, but no "tanking gear", so it looks like he can heal or dps, but not hold aggro (or do other pallys simply do it with damage in these instances?).

Pallies have spells or seals or attacks or w/e that cause high amount of threat against UD. As far as I know. He shouldnt have a problem holding aggro, as long as he knows to tag multiple targets and not just focus his fire on one target. Though he will want to use a shield and 1h weapon.

Usually tanking gear is stuff that adds +def and +dodge, and has high armor and stamina. Nothing that increases threat, just helps the tank take less damage. Tanks generate threat by aoe debuffs, sunder armors, cleave (swipe), aoe thunderclap, etc, and are definitley more suited for holding aggro than a pally, though a well played paladin can certainly do it. And I'm sure that you wouldn't mind OT'ing a few mobs alongside him GW :)

One the server that my Priest is on....I was in a guild with a great Pally (gasp....great pally?? LOL). He was mainly a healer for instances, but when some guildies needed a tank for a DS gear run and no one else was available...he would always offer to help. He was very capable of taking on either roll....so if he started healing and the tank needed help or had to leave group he would be right there tanking away....same went for healing.

I am a strong believer that the class is only as good as the people playing them. If you know your class well, inside and out, you can take on anything that your class is supposed to handle. That's why I love the Druid so much....we can pretty much take on anything!! LOL

Yes....its a shame we cant do them all in one form like a Shaman or Paladin.

Had a great 45 min baron run attempt last night, PuG cleared it in 48 minutes, and I got the Wildheart kilt from Baron, we're forming same group tonight and I am sure we'll make it.

Nice! Good luck! I've got to start doing that.....I've been more concerned about working on my professions to get them maxed than doing runs.....but that all changes tonight!

Gonna have a WoW weekend at my place with my boyfriend and one of our RL friends. It's gonna be a blast! Pizza, WoW, and BAWLS!

Pizza WoW and BAWLS?? O.o uhhhh.

Yea....we are ordering pizza....gonna play WoW all night....and the Bawls are to help us stay awake....LOL.

Had a great 45 min baron run attempt last night, PuG cleared it in 48 minutes, and I got the Wildheart kilt from Baron, we're forming same group tonight and I am sure we'll make it.

Well, tried to form same group next night and couldn't get everyone together (PuGs FTL), but one of them invited me into a MC raid and I got to see it for the first time, very cool, wiped on Luci twice.

Decursive is a must on LUCI. Mages / Pallies need to be on point in removing the curse that she puts on people. Strat goes like this:

2 Hunters pull Luci's adds all the way to the back of the cave. Everyone except Main Tank, Main Healers and whoever will be decuring the MT/MH stand in that little cave to the back of the room (to avoid Luci's curse). Two offtanks pick up each of Luci's adds and dps them down really quick. Main Tank, Main Healers will basically be tanking Luci in front of the cones on the right hand side. After the adds are down, balls out dps on Luci. Collect loots and move on :)

I attempted on 45 min Baron Run with my guild, and it was a real Pain in the Arse. Can't imagine doing it in a PuG.

Pizza WoW and BAWLS?? O.o uhhhh.

BAWLS is an energy drink.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/drinks/2818/

Where was your mind??!! :clap: =P

Decursive is a must on LUCI. Mages / Pallies need to be on point in removing the curse that she puts on people. Strat goes like this:

2 Hunters pull Luci's adds all the way to the back of the cave. Everyone except Main Tank, Main Healers and whoever will be decuring the MT/MH stand in that little cave to the back of the room (to avoid Luci's curse). Two offtanks pick up each of Luci's adds and dps them down really quick. Main Tank, Main Healers will basically be tanking Luci in front of the cones on the right hand side. After the adds are down, balls out dps on Luci. Collect loots and move on :)

I attempted on 45 min Baron Run with my guild, and it was a real Pain in the Arse. Can't imagine doing it in a PuG.

Luci isn't bad, just takes a bit of practice getting the pulls and decurses right.

Magdamar is a bit more of a challenge with the flipping fear -_-

Lol Niner, I have never seen BAWLS in the stores... Maybe i'm just a rockstar/monster fan. Hence my, uh, confusion.

Luci is pretty easy actually once you get the adds separated from Luci, and keep most of the raid separated from her curses.

Mag just sucks. We wiped on that boss more than any other during the learning process, but haven't wiped on him in the past 3 months. Your tanks REALLY need to master stance dance, to keep Mag facing the wall during the whole fight. This is one boss that Druids cannot tank. When CTRA announces fear incoming in 5 seconds, MT should jump stances back and forth to make him immune to fear.

Gotta make sure that everyone has CTRA to broadcast the fears, and hunters, mages and warlocks have talents to improve their range (can sit outside of fear range), and that the healers / melee classes run away when CTRA broadcast's fear incoming in 5 sec. Practice makes perfect.

Gonna go look for some BAWLS after work today - up way too late last night on WoW. Falling asleep at my keyboard today >.<:bonk: :sleep: :sleep: :sleep:

I attempted on 45 min Baron Run with my guild, and it was a real Pain in the Arse. Can't imagine doing it in a PuG.

Doing stuff with guildies means you know what the others in the group are capable of and what they can handle, which is very nice when it comes to chainpulling or deciding if you should pull some more mobs into the fray so the mage can aoe.

I did my 45 minute in a guild run, most people had about half of their tier 1, with a few tier 2 pieces (head or legs) amongst them. Except me since I was tanking. :-P It was a while ago, so I'm not completely sure about the group composition, but I think it was holy/disc priest, feral druid (me), holy pally, combat sword rogue, and frost/arcane mage. Due to good communications on ventrilo, a priest chainpuller (he was the only one not busy doing damage to the stuff we were already fighting) with a deathwish (he made me work hard, that's for sure), and some innervates to save on drinking time, we engaged the baron at 38-39 minutes. A lot faster than any of us expected. We did no suicide runs either -- just a constant battle. We had one death, me, when we got too many mobs, but the others managed to finish off the mobs and res/rebuff me fast.

Have all the casters use consumables like mageblood potions, nightfin soup/sagefish, mana oil, and anything else you can think of to regen mana. Trollsblood pots for the melee people are (sadly) not of much use, since they don't work in combat (and you will be in combat for the majority of the time), but stuff like mongoose pots, elixir of superior defense, elixir of giants, food that gives str or sta, and str juju if you've got it -- they all help a lot. Basically, we just buffed up like we would in a raid (no flasks, though). The pally put judgement of wisdom on anything that looked like it would survive more than a few seconds, so people could regen some mana while we killed it.

Here is a nice map for it all

www.faultymoose.com/gauntlet.jpg

I haven't done this yet myself, but I'm getting ready for it. Is it possible to start clearing the way, then half way through, go get the quest, which will start the timer then? It would make it TONS easier, and I'm sure if it works Blizz didn't want it to work that way.

I seriously doubt it, I don't even abandon and repick up the quest, it just resets itself on the next attempt. I have heard some stories of groups getting lucky with a bug that reset their quest timers when they renetered after a wipe. Try it out and let us know how it went.

Practice is all it takes. Tier 0.5 is really nice for druids, so its worth the effort. Casual players finally got a set of gear that you can quest for and not be forced to raid. Funny thing is though I see so many casual players complaining about the quest line being too hard. I guess they want their gear just given to them.

Some people certainly do whine and want everything handed to them, but there are also a large number of non-raiders who really appreciate the challenge and the mere existence of decent attainable gear.

I hope in the expansion they had dungeon sets that keep pace with the tier sets, although I don't know if anyone will still wear cenarion or stormrage once the level cap is raised.

I think I will wear full stormrage when my guild starts farming BWL. The bonuses on it are really nice and I doubt ill be in Naxx before the expansion.

Some people certainly do whine and want everything handed to them, but there are also a large number of non-raiders who really appreciate the challenge and the mere existence of decent attainable gear.

I hope in the expansion they had dungeon sets that keep pace with the tier sets, although I don't know if anyone will still wear cenarion or stormrage once the level cap is raised.A little birdie told me the dungeons will have difficulty levels. I can only assume it's to accomodate the little ones.

The ghouls in strath along with the eyes and some other mobs have HUGE see-stealth radiuses, stealth runs may still be possible, but it wont be simply skipping all the mobs, there will be killing involved.