Farming - BRD

Ahhh, BRD.
Also known as Blackrock Depths.
Hell to some, heaven to others.

It's a fairly long instance, and it was nearly impossible to get a Pug or even guildies crazy enough to kill the emperor at the end of the instance. Usually people would do just 1 run to get MC attuned, and that was it. Though i've done a dozen and few runs to get the "Hand of Justice" back in the days, lovely trinket.

Pre-TBC it was the place i used to get Dark iron in large quantities. Something in the direction of 5 digits worth of ore, and suprisingly i never made it past neutral with the Thorium Brotherhood. So why did i do it? Money money money ofcourse!

This here article should give you some more details on the exact nodes. Ofcourse with the aggro change on mining, and those mobs now being about 14 levels below you, all of them are theoretically safe, you just have to kill more mobs to get the ore. But i was a miner then, which i am no longer. Optimally you'd want to be a miner + enchanter to get the most out of this place.

Now i'm just an enchanter, so when i go in there i do it for the bosses. A full run takes about 30-45 minutes as a rogue or druid. Probably a bit longer if you are another class.


Starting up

I'd recommend speccing to a Hemo Tri-spec of a sorts which is also quite good for raids. This way you can move around a good deal faster in stealth. Also put "Cat's swiftness" or such on your boots.

I'll assume you've gotten the Shadowforge Key, if not read this article on how to get it.

BRD is a fairly large instance, and hosts about 19 bosses, plus a rare.
For the sake of time and effort each boss takes, i don't generally kill all of them.
A few such examples are Bael'gar, the prison block, and the arena event, but other than that most of them die easily enough.

Bael'gar i skip because he's a pain, he doesn't hit too hard but summons adds, and his flamestrike when unresisted will eventually kill you. A druid will undoubtly have an easier task at him. Aside that, he drops junk so it's not worth using fire absorbtion either.
High interrogator gerstahn only drops crap which disenchants into small shards, if these sell at all they'd only go for about 1-2g on the AH. You'd be better off finishing the instance and resetting it for another run if you have the time.


The Start

So, here goes.
Once you enter head left and unlock the door.
Head right then left to get to the halls of law, where Lord Roccor and the houndmaster reside. Kill them, loot them, then head back to the start.
You should be able to ignore all the dogs in the hallway, they'll point your way and bark, but due to the level difference they should ignore you other than that.
Roccor can drop an enchanting pattern which might sell for a couple of gold, and a feral druid item which disenchants nicely. Other than that the houndmaster doesn't drop much but he's "right there", so why not eh?
The arena isn't too bad, and if you've done the quest The Challenge which is part of the Tier 0.5 chain, you'll have a shot at an extra shard as well.


Hall of Crafting

The next target is Lord Incendius.
Small chance to drop the Ace of Elementals which still sells for a decent penny.
When he's dead keep going and you'll find Fineous Darkvire staring right at you.
He's a lovely fella who can heal, stun, and hits quite decently. He also drops the "Master builder's shirt". It's a lovely dark shirt which goes well with all rogueish gear, be sure to get yours asap !
Continue your way up the ramp and straight into the left door to reach the vault.
Be sure to open the dark keeper's portrait so you can kill him later. (you're almost guaranteed to run into him later). The box his key opens contains a random greeny for extra cash.
Kill warden Stilgiss and his pet Verek.

If you've done these runs a number of times you'll notice you get something called a "dark coffer key". If you have 12 of these, use them here. Otherwise, save them up until you have 12.
Once you unlock the 12th vault the golems will activate, just evasion / blade flurry etc.
Make sure you loot "everything" (hopefully you planned ahead and have enough inventory space for this), all the gray crap will sell quite nicely and every little bit adds up. Especially the documents which sell for +- 50s ea, and the "fat sack of coins" which contain about 1g. Under no condition should you ever open the gem bags, they'll clutter your inventory.
As a special bonus you also get the small box in the middle with some random green / blue loot.


Pyromancer Loregrain

Out of the room then straight left, the dogs you "can" stealth past but you can also just kill them.
Go across the bridge and straight to Pyromancer loregrain.
He can drop a nice pattern which you should be able to sell for ~50g.
If you get the staff / wand as a blue, fizzwidget's disenchant predictor will tell you that it'll probably disenchant into a small shard and so it'll be smarter to just sell it to the vendor rather than disenchant it. (4-5g vendor, or 1-2g AH, easy math)
Head a little bit back, around the ring then down, unlock the trigger to open the bridge then head upstairs and across the bridge.


Barracks

Now you'll reach a somewhat larger room with 6 fire elementals in it. Down to the left is General Angerforge, use bladeflurry early, if you kill and loot fast you should be able to stealth away before the adds come.

Head up and straight down on the other side, at the end of this hall you'll find Golem Lord Argelmach.
His loot is worth a Large Brilliant shard, but you'd have to clear the entire room before him as well as his 2 golems to get it.
The technicians can drop 2 different engineering patterns, and there's another engineering pattern on the ground next to him, as well as a random blacksmithing pattern on 1 of the tables (though not always) so it might be worth it to you.
I tend to skip him and head right across the bridge and into the bar.


The Bar

The bar is an interesting place, with a whole bunch of things to kill and loot /evilgrin.
First, head left into the store room.
Open the 3 barrels, and 4 dwarfes should come running in.
One of them is Hurley Blackbreath, who will drop a nice shiney blue for you to disenchant or sell.
Next, just outside the room you are standing is a guy called Ribbly Screwspigot and some of his cronies. Talk to Ribbly (you might have had to do the quest before, not sure) and they'll aggro. If you run back to the storage room you should be fine, and if you're fast enough only his cronies will aggro.
Just single pull ribbly after. He tends to drop junk that you can't disenchant quite often sadly, but still, 70 silver isn't bad for a quick kill.

Now the fun bit, to get out of this room you have a number of options.
Personally i just look for Mistress Nagmara, and tell her to go someplace private with her lover. This will cause her to open the door.
Alternatively, you could pickpocket the bartender.
And as another alternative, you could feed Private Rocknot some mugs of ale to get him to start a funny little sequence. ( i recommend doing this at least once for comedy value )
Phalanx can't be attacked unless you start a riot, so that's what we'll do.

Be sure to talk to Lokthos Darkbargainer to sell some of your gray junk and free some inventory space. This will save you an early trip to the nearest mailbox.

Go to the bar.
Now, if you don't wish to fight the patrons next to the bar (blade flurry who cares?) you can lure them to Lokthos by tossing beer mugs on the floor and luring them away from the bar. This causes them to be stunned so they won't call for help.
Simply kill Plugger Spazzring and the whole bar will become "hostile".
Phalanx will also block the door and need to be killed.
Mind that plugger can drop the "Goblin Jumper Cables X" pattern which are still quite high in demand.
Proceed to Phalanx fast, as usually a patrol will come to block that door quite soon after.
Pull him trough the door and down the steps as the last thing you'll want to do is aggro a table with mixed elites and non elites to be zerged to a likely death.

Down and left you'll find a large room where Ambassador Flamelash awaits you.
Once dead head left again and if lucky you'll find Panzor.
If not you can skip trough this room to the chamber of the seven, or kill the mobs there as they have a chance to drop yet another engineering recipe. (nothing special though)


The Seven

Once in the room, Gloom'rel to your right is able to teach you how to smelt dark iron ore into dark iron bars.
He'll request you bring 20 Gold bars, 10 Truesilver bars, and 2 Star Rubies as payment.
Talk to Doom'rel to start the event. Kill them all, bandage if needed and loot the chest for 2 nice blues.
Trough this door and to the right you'll see a bridge with fire elementals (and usually some more dark iron). To the left is where you can smelt your dark iron, or across the bridge is where you can complete the Molten Core attunement or simply enter MC.
This here is your fastest point of exit, remember it well.


The Lyceum

Back and to the right you'll find the door to the lyceum.
It's a large room infested with hundreds of annoying dwarfes that like nothing than to respawn ridiculously fast and zerg your unsuspecting ass like the vile little... err, well, you get the idea.
Your task in this room is to find two Shadowforge Flame Keepers and bring their torches to the right side of the room in order to open the doors.
They have very low health so it's doable quite fast.
The torches have a 5 minute lifetime so i recommend using blade flurry to get the first one, and just vanish after you loot the second one.
Proceed to Magmus, easy fight just nuke it.


The Emperor

Now, the tedious part. If you aggro the emperor, every npc in the room will come along to help him.
So, to get his 2 shards you have to clear the room.
It's not so bad as they drop loads of gray junk that you can sell, decent cash, and above all keys for your next run.
Just go wild with blade flurry, pull as much as you think you can handle and have fun.

Once the room is clear you can pull the emperor.
If you're on a certain quest it asks you to keep the princess alive.
But... kill the ugly sow anyway because she's the princess of Ironforge.
Finally, take a seat in your throne as the new emperor of BRD.


Overview

Once you're all done, invite a friend or guildy while running back to the molten core entrance.
Convert your party to a raid, and enter, then exit.
This should put you back with the blood elf that gives the attunement quest.

Average spoils :
* 12-14x Large brilliant shard : 5-7g at AH : ~78g
* 15-25g from trash drops & sold blues.
* 3-4 Small Brilliant shards : 1-2g at AH : ~4g 50s
* 120-150 Dark Iron residue : 1s per
* 2-6 Black Diamond : 3g
* 50-70 Runecloth : 5-6g
* 30-50 Dark Iron Scraps : ~1g
* 4-6 Core of Elements : 12s
* 0 Dark iron ore : 0g (not included in this run, if you were a miner all the golems have a small chance to drop some as well)
* Patterns - None this run, but 4 yesterday, it's pretty random.
* Potential extra bonus : Pattern: black dragonscale breastplate from plugger's vendor option. costs 2g 20s, but should be possible to sell on the AH for 10g or more.

Repair cost : 1g 25s
Estimated value of this run : 115g
Estimated time per run : 40 Minutes

In the end the profits aren't "huge" by any means.
Farming some Primal Air will likely get you 200-250g an hour without much trouble.

Still, it's fun enough to do something else for a change ;)

Second run, Timetable :
* 14m : Reached bar
* 17m : Killed Ambassador Flamelash
* 20m : Reached lyceum
* 23m : Reached The Imperial Seat
* 31m : Emperor Dead
* 33m : Outside & Ready to go again.