[CC] 99 instances – The great barrows

 

 

You’ve visited Constable underhill and Tom Bombadil for your epic story. A scared hobbit looking for a prince and an unfortunate traveler you make you venture into the Barrow downs.  A walled of area littered with the tombs and evil spirits send there by the witch king of Angmar after taking the area from the Dunedain of Cardolan in the second age. To us, it’s a ruined area that’s home to the first 6-man instance you will encounter.

Launch
When the game launched it was first encountered as part of the Epic book in which you encounter the Witch-king on its way to the Shire. Disturbing the wights that remained dormant for years. After some help by a chubby dancing fellow, the wight-lord is defeated. Once you reach level 20 you could go back towards the entrance and start the instance with your party of 6.

Inside the instance
Once inside you will find Dourhands, barghests, hands and all sort of ancient warrior wights. You have the option to fight your way through the left passage towards A Maze of tunnels towards the two brothers Gaedring and Gaerthel. If you choose to head right you find find some grave-ception in Thadurs plaza of disturbed graves. After each of the two bosses is put back into the ground you can put together a way to open the door in the middle.

All dwarves straight ahead

Wights more dead, access granted. It’s time to face the evil that’s called Sambrog. Gaunt-callers and spirit arenas are between you and him. Sambrog is bigger then the previous bosses. If you disturbed his tomb you had to fight off more spirit that would heal him. You could either disrupt or kill them while fighting off multiple adds that kept spawning. Or if you had a higher level with you it didn’t matter and you could easily complete the challenge by going straight in for the kill. Sambrog was still only a level 24 mob.

 

History – Wings
As part of the patch for Volume 3 book 2 The great barrow and several other larger instances were split into seperate ones. These so-called wings are a separate instance resulting in a quicker instance with 1 clear goal. You didn’t have to backtrack or get lost anymore. Enter the instance and make your way towards the final boss.  What remains of the previous instance is the need to unlock the final boss by defeating Thadur and the brothers in the maze. Once the entire party has done this the leader can start the instance that’s still remembered and dreaded by a lot.

Sambrog runs
For a wight that doesn’t leave his tomb, he had gotten a lot of visitors over the years. Sambrog had one of the easiest challenge modes that could be overcome by pure dps. It was short, easy and provided one of the best currency vs time that was available and needed to gear up. Over time the amount of marks you could get from one run was reduced and people fanned out across other instances eventually giving weight towards another instance. Which was dropped by players with the release of Mordor.

Today
The great barrows remains a favorite of new players eager to find a party around level 20 for the grouping, atmosphere, and number of quests to be found in this place. An instance available to everyone on his way to 115 by the courtesy of it being free as part of the Bree-land area. But mostly ignored by the higher levels in favor a place less visited or more challenging. Sometimes, we still visit our old friend the lord of the Great barrows.