Rhok'delar Quest: Guide to Stave of the Ancients
Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers is the best ranged weapon that you can get during phases 1 and 2 of WoW Classic. It is an iconic, exclusive Hunter weapon that is awarded upon completing the Hunter class quest Stave of the Ancients, which begins in Molten Core and also rewards players with Lok'delar, Stave of the Ancient Keepers and Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina.
Summary of the Rhok'delar Quest Chain
To start the quest chain, you must get the Ancient Petrified Leaf. The leaf drops from Majordomo in Molten Core, and has a 50% chance to drop from Majordomo's cache when you defeat him. While this item allows you to start the quest chain, you will also need Mature Black Dragon Sinew from Onyxia in Onyxia's Lair to craft the weapon. You cannot get the weapons until you have both items.
- Get Ancient Petrified Leaf from Majordomo in Molten Core.
- Accept the quest from the item, then travel to Felwood to talk with Vartrus the Ancient.
- Turn in your quest to Vartrus, and you will then have three available quests to get from the other three trees near him. These quest are Stave of the Ancients, A Proper String, and Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina (the latter awarding Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina). You only need to complete Stave of the Ancients and A Proper String to get the weapons.
Out of these quests, Stave of the Ancients will take the longest to complete. A Proper String requires you to have the Mature Black Dragon Sinew from Onyxia, while Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina requires you to get the Mature Blue Dragon Sinew. Mature Black Dragon Sinew drops from Onyxia at a 30% drop rate, so it is just a matter of killing her until it drops. For the Mature Blue Dragon Sinew, you have a couple of options. The Blue Sinew is BoE, meaning if you have the gold you can potentially just buy it from the AH on your server, but you should expect it to cost 300g or more, which is quite pricey. The other option is that you can farm it from the Cobalt Dragonkins in Winterspring. These are found at the cave just south of Everlook, and the sinew will drop from them at a 0.1% drop rate. This is much cheaper, but can be time consuming to farm. Again, getting the Blue Sinew is only to get the quiver Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina, and does not stop you from getting the bow and staff.
Stave of the Ancients
This quest requires you to kill four powerful demons scattered around Azeroth: Artorius the Doombringer, Klinfran the Crazed, Solenor the Slayer, and Simone the Seductress.
These demons are quite challenging, and you will need to know what you are doing going into each fight if you want to succeed. It is highly recommended that you look at videos of how people kill each of these, as the fights can be quite difficult, especially in early levels of gear. All of these demons will look like normal NPCs until you speak with them. For each of the demons, make sure to loot their heads when you slay them.
While you will need to solo all of these demons, it is highly recommended to have other people helping you. The people in your group will want to pull away any enemies that you come across, and protect you from players of the opposite faction on PvP servers. And to be clear, you need to solo these demons, which means you cannot even use your pet. If you use a pet, or if any other player helps at all, the demon will instantly despawn.
Artorius the Doombringer
Artorius the Doombringer can be found in North East Winterspring. He will appear as a Tauren named "Artorius the Amiable". You will want to make sure to have Mana consumables such as Major Mana Potion since this will be a long fight that requires lots of Mana. You will want to leave Aspect of the Cheetah on while kiting him south, preferably down the road. His main mechanic is that he will put a heavy-hitting DoT on you if you are ever within 30 yards of him, so you will want to kite at max range the entire time. Serpent Sting will deal bonus damage to him, so you can just run as it ticks down to kill him while kiting. Use Rank 1 of Arcane Shot to keep him leashed, and use Tranquilizing Shot to dispel his enrage effect whenever he gets it.
Klinfran the Crazed
Klinfran the Crazed can be found in West Burning Steppes. He will appear as a Human named "Franklin the Friendly". He is relatively easy to kill, you just need to keep Scorpid Sting up on him at all times. While the sting is active, he deals effectively no damage. Aside from keeping Scorpid Sting up on him, you can keep him slowed with Wing Clip and Concussive Shot to kite him and deal ranged damage, or you can just stay in melee and use Raptor Strike. As long as you keep up Scorpid Sting, you will be safe, and he will eventually die.
The hardest part about this fight is the timing. He enrages at relatively consistent intervals, and you never want to be in melee when he enrages since he will almost 1-shot you with an enraged melee hit. Your best bet is to start with Scorpid Sting, ranged auto shot when you can, then go into melee for a quick Wing Clip and Raptor Strike before running back into range once more. Keep him slowed more with Concussive Shot until he enrages, put Scorpid Sting back up, then just rinse and repeat until he is dead.
Solenor the Slayer
Solenor the Slayer can be found in South West Silithus. He will appear as a Gnome named "Nelson the Nice". The best way to defeat him is to get rid of his enrage before starting the real fight. He will only enrage once every 15 minutes, so if you pull him initially over a Frost Trap, it will remove his enrage, then you can Feign Death, reset, then pull him again. Without his enrage, Solenor will just run at you and try to attack. Your best bet is to kite him while using the terrain to your advantage. Use Aspect of the Cheetah, Concussive Shot, and Scatter Shot to keep him away from you at all times. Use Serpent Sting, Auto Shot, and Multi-Shot to deal the majority of your damage. If you ever get stuck, using Wing Clip will root him in place for 20 seconds, but causes him to occasionally cast a 4-second Fear that will also deal lots of damage. Additionally, you need to make sure to always stay away from the slow moving beetles that he spawns, as they will deal tons of damage if they can melee you.
Simone the Seductress
Simone the Seductress can be found in West Un'Goro Crater. She starts as a Troll named "Simone the Inconspicuous". She can be quite tricky to kill since she starts with a pet. The best option is to start with a Freezing Trap down, cast Concussive Shot on the pet to pull, and have her run into the trap. From there, kite the pet backwards, far out of range of Simone. You can kill the pet by kiting it, and she will eventually reset. Once the pet is dead, reset, and go back to kill her. You can do the same thing, kiting her backwards and killing her without needing to worry about her pet. The main thing to worry about with her is her lightning damage and curse that she can put up, but she will stay silenced and never cast as long as you keep Viper Sting active on her.
Final Part
Once you have completed Stave of the Ancients and have the Mature Black Dragon Sinew, return to Felwood. Talk with Vartrus the Ancient, and he will give you Ancient Rune Etched Stave, which allows you to craft Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers. Once you have crafted the bow, you can talk to him once more to get Lok'delar, Stave of the Ancient Keepers.
You do not need to get Ancient Sinew Wrapped Lamina to get the bow and staff, but it will be your best quiver for a long time, and is worth getting at some point.
Changelog
- 29 Sep. 2019: Made a few small improvements.
- 26 Sep. 2019: Guide added.
This guide has been written by Impakt, an Officer in BDGG, the #2 North American guild on retail. In addition to live WoW, he has also been a classic theorycrafter and enthusiast for many years. You can watch him stream on Twitch, or follow him on Twitter.
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