How To Firelands for BFA Druid

Classes Druid
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Firelands

The Firelands is a raid located in Mt. Hyjal. This was released in the days of cata and can be done “solo” currently in BFA greens or similar.

Normal vs Heroic

Read on to learn more about that Staff we are after, but know that it can be acquired via Normal or Heroic modes of the raid. The minimum item level to pull this off in Normal mode is 97 (prefer 100+). Even at low ilevel, everything will be quite easy except for the boss that roams around Shannox. At item level 97 (Normal) it took me several tries to get that one down. Again, recommend 100+ even on Normal.

As for level 120’s, everything gets one-shot, so there are no gear requirements, even for Heroic mode of this Raid. If you are a 120, you should do Heroic and get the 110 gear that drops (lots of BOE). When doing the Normal mode, the gear is item level 108 (sometimes 109). Again, the Staff we want functions from both modes so feel free to grind both settings (Normal and Heroic) in the same week if desired.

Tip: Remember this is a Raid so when changing modes, be sure to navigate to Raid Difficulty not Dungeon Difficulty when you right-click your portait.

Travel - Getting to Hyjal

Druids can get to Hyjal from Dreamgrove; Or use portals as noted below.

Alliance - Stormwind > “Eastern Earthshrine” portal area
Horde - Orgrimmar > “Western Earthshrine” portal area

Travel - Getting to the Raid

Once you make it to Hyjal, simply use a flying mount to travel to the raid icon on the zone map.

Instructions - “First 5 Bosses”

Kill all 5 bosses on the map in any order and clear as much trash as desired. When ready, use the Magma Orb (more on that later) near the top center of the map (located just behind the boss Baleroc, the Gatekeeper).

Instructions - “Unlocking Last 2 Bosses”

After killing the first 5 bosses, there are two more that are “hidden” (Majordomo Staghelm and Ragnaros).

Magma Orb

After you kill Baleroc, walk past his body and locate the Magma Orb on the right; Click it to open the pathway to the last two bosses. You will be greeted by a Cinematic and then continue to the last two “hidden” bosses (Majordomo and Ragnaros).

Kitty Fire Form

The boss Majordomo Staghelm is the Sixth boss in the Firelands raid, or the second to last “hidden” boss. Majordomo has an 11% chance to drop Fandral’s Flamescythe which is highly sought after by kittens to this day.

Using the Staff

In Shadowlands, you will be able to use the fire kitty appearance from this staff as a “transmog” at the barber. Currently (BFA), the staff must be equipped (but can be swapped). Once it is activated, you get a debuff Druid of the Flames.

Compared to Mage Tower (Transmog)

The Fandral’s staff appearance is quite different than the mage tower “fire kitty” transmog. I have both, but personally like the Firelands version better. IMO, neither fire form looks good when your toon has corruption on (unless red striping with very high corruption). However, engineering paint always looks good!

Note: You can also farm seeds (consumable, carry up to 5) and/or a seed toy (unlimited charges). Ideally, you want the staff so you can transmog in SL, but the toy would still be a nice drop (domo drops it). The seeds are tiny, and are located “near” domo.

Raid Reset

You can run this once per week like normal raids (i.e. resets on Tuesday).

Talents

To kill any enemy in this legacy instance, all you need is one shot of Moonfire or similar (kills trash and bosses). As such, it is worth speccing Moonfire, even as Feral.

Azerite

None required, but Breath of the Dying for convenience (to mix it up with Moonfire between targets).

Risks

If you get careless, you can fall into the lava which is almost a guaranteed death. You will spawn inside the instance back at the beginning, with no progress lost.

Turtles - Optional Trash

If you are clearing all trash (not required), there are some turtles that swim in lava pools you can also kill. They drop gear, tradeskill patterns, etc. like all trash there.

The tip for lava turtles is to use Bear Form (from any spec) to Growl at them from the edge. When they come to the side of the lava, just bear swipe (or similar). Remember, you cannot loot them if they die too far from the edge and they die in one hit.

Summary

There is a cool transmog (fire kitty) we can still get from Firelands. If you get it before Shadowlands drops, the transmog becomes available for use in Shadowlands barbershops; So get out there and get it!

//Updates

  • Added travel / portal locations
  • Added detail about Normal vs Heroic difficulty
10 Likes
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Thanks for the info. Can you run it in heroic and then in normal to double your chances of getting the Flame scythe? Or will it drop the same items again? I ran it in heroic and normal and got the same drop of him twice.

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Great question. I would think it only drops on heroic (my run was), but I will defer that to the experts here. Hopefully someone can answer.

Note: For those not sure of your setting, you can click your character portait and select the desired instance difficulty for content you will face (i.e. normal or heroic).

4

Thanks for the info, just ran it and got lucky on my 1st run.

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5

Great guide! So if I don’t get the staff until after shadowlands then I don’t get the transmog?

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I have the toy. I have both heroic and normal versions in my appearances, so obviously I’ve farmed it up. Expecting us to go farm it again so that we can equip the staff is going to be a big fail on Blizzard’s part.

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Thanks! That is an excellent question and could be proven by someone testing SL now who did not have the staff previously.

The toy should still work fine in SL (I think). It should function as a toy like it does now. However, in SL owning the staff makes the appearance available via “barbershop”. Of course, I could be wrong and anything here can change.

8

The requirement to possess the staff in order to use the barbershop for the appearance mog means every druid will have to farm up the staff again, regardless of how many druids you have in order to make use of that new “feature”. I consider that requirement to be outrageous.

But then, they knew nobody would have the staff in their possession, because the tooltip hasn’t said anything about that feature since I started farming the toy in wod.

9

If Druid A has the staff, there is no need to farm again. If Druid B and Druid C (your alts) want the appearance, then yes it must be farmed before SL. This is different than fire kitty in that mage tower appearances are account-wide (i.e. if you roll an alt-druid, it gets the skin immediately).

However, the Fandral’s staff was never expected to be account-wide. I think there are no surprises so far, and only good news for continuing to enjoy that appearance once SL arrives.

Remember too, that they can flat-out remove the equip effects like they did to Death Bringer’s Will. As cool as the toy replacement for that one is (Will of Northrend) it shows that something major like that can just go away. Farming that trinket in ICC was no joke back then and was a major boost for kitties who got it; then it just went away.

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Obviously I don’t have the staff, because we were never told we should keep it. I actually might have kept it if they hadn’t removed the proc tooltip showing that the proc still existed.

But I didn’t. I ran that raid hundreds of times on dozens of druids to get the toy. And you’re telling me it’s reasonable to expect me to run it hundreds more times so I can have it in the possession of every druid.

A level 100 can’t even run that raid anymore, so it’s only going to be for level 50 players come shadowlands?

They knew next to no one would have kept the staff, and designed the barbershop feature to require every druid to grind the raid again to re-acquire it.

That’s bad faith.

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Okay, I see. You at one time owned the staff and then disposed of it. Do not take my wording exactly, because I am not saying you must carry the staff into SL with you; Having owned it at one time may be good enough, but I have no way to know.

Perhaps you can have that item restored by Blizzard, if nothing else just to have it.

12

That’s definitely not how item restoration works.

And in any case, I have no way of knowing which of my many druids got the staff and which didn’t. Some who farmed for the toy are still at 100 or lower.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect every druid to have the staff in their possession, given that it has been several expansions since there was a tooltip indicating the staff could be used to activate the firekitty appearance.

MoP was before my time. It definitely wasn’t there in WoD.

13

Sucks to be you.
They implemented void storage for a reason. To keep all your cool stuff.

If you willingly sold or deleted your staff. That’s on you.

Why is this such an issue though?

You can walk into firelands completely naked only using moonfire and clear it with ease.

You were given ample notice.
Get farmin.

What?

14

First they removed armor pen and replaced it with crit. Making the trinket crap.

That was devastating!

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15

Such fond memories of ICC, I can picture it like yesterday.

16

Do we have confirmation if we need the “toy” or the “staff” or “all” of it to get the firecat barber shop unlock?

I have the toy . …should just be that and g2g, Y’all “I got the staff, give it to me” . . .sure if you keep old firecat and those with toy get a new updated version :stuck_out_tongue:

Just update it Blizz and let us that earned the staff and or toy just unlock it. It’s a cool form and with Mage tower gone, we gotta give new players something to have.

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I just got the staff a few weeks ago on live. A few minutes ago I verified on Beta a different Druid on the opposite faction they were able to transmog into fire kitty.

Edit I meant barbershop.

18

Blizz confirmed it weeks ago.
You only need the staff.

19

Thanks @Tical,

I haven’t got to keep up on all of the Druid news. So the Toy now is just collector item that probably gets removed from the loot table?

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It still functions the same way it does now.

You can choose a legion form, and use the toy as you wish.