Hallow’s End is one of the many holidays within World of Warcraft and corresponds to the real life Halloween. It begins October 18th and ends November 1st. Like most holidays you will only find the bulk of the content within the major cities and within some of the smaller towns. This means that you’re safe to fully ignore the holiday without it getting in your way.
This major event includes special decorations spread throughout the cities. Pumpkins, candles, and hanging ghosts give a spooky atmosphere to the cities while the inns across the land act as central hubs for “Trick or Treating”. Special quests are activated that allow you to follow the story of the Headless Horseman along with helping assist an orphan who can’t go trick or treating on his own.
Trick or Treating – The Inn Overhaul
During Hallow’s End the various innkeepers act as Trick or Treating hubs. You can visit the innkeeper who will have an option for “Trick or Treat” along with the ability to purchase items or set your home location with the inn. If you choose the option for trick or treat you’ll either be given a goodie bag or tricked.
The goodie bag will give you free candy, Hallowed Wands (which can turn you or a party member into a Bat, Leper Gnome, Pirate, Ninja, Skeleton, or a Wisp), and/or a Flimsy Mask. The Flimsy Mask a really funny mock mask of another race.
The trick will turn you into a bat, cat, frog, ghost, cat, the mini-Diablo like pet thing, ninja, or a snake for 30 seconds. It can also give you a costume for sixty minutes. You can cancel the effect.
You can bob for apples in every inn as well which give you a nifty Stamina and Spirit buff.
World Events
Black cats roam around the cities. If you kill one you’ll get the “Bad Luck” debuff that doesn’t really do anything.
Pumpkin Bags will drop along side Traveler’s Backpacks. There is no added utility but they do look cool.
The orphan quest is a real simple quest where you run around and deliver candy to the various orphans.
PvP quests open up in Southshore. The Power of Pine and Crashing the Wickerman Festival are given by Sergeant Hartman in Southshore. The Power of Pine is real easy, find the Stink Bombs and use the cleaner on them for a Pumpkin Treat. Crashing the Wickerman Festival just requires you to walk west of the Undercity and spot the giant wickerman.
The Horde has the quests Rotten Eggs and Stinking up Southshore. Rotten Eggs require you to place a batch of Rotten Eggs inside of the main brew keg in the Southshore inn. Stinking up Southshore requires you to use 3 Stink Bomb Clusters inside of the center of Southshore. Both quests also reward treats.
The Headless Horseman
The Headless Horseman is two parts. The first part is a low level part where you rush to defeat a level 11 Headless Horseman and put out the fires within the towns of Kharanos, Azure Watch, Goldshire, Razor Hill, Brill, and Falconwing Square. When you’ve defeated the Shade of Horseman in town an orphan will ask you to find the Headless Horseman’s shrine and a pumpkin will be in the center of the town which gives Hallow’s End treats to anyone who wants to smash it (everyone can get some).
If you’re level seventy you can just head on out to the Graveyard wing of the Scarlet Monastery. In the Forlorn Cloister there will be a Pumpkin Shrine. Click the shrine to receive Call of the Headless Horseman. Click the Loosely Turned Soil behind the shrine to turn the quest in. Click the candle to spawn the horseman.
This is a rather tough level seventy fight. He has the following abilities:
Normal Attack: Does about 1,500 to 1,800 damage.
Cleave: The generic cleave that does about 3,000 damage.
Whirlwind: Once his head is gone he will begin to do 1.4k damage a second AoE.
Conflagration: AoE DoT that can only be taken off by the PvP trinket. Lasts about 5 seconds and can do around 4,000 damage.
Pulsing Pumpkin: Plants Pumpkin Sprouts that have about 10,000 hp and last 15 seconds. Will debuff a player’s spirit if they hit a player.
Pumpkin Fiend: If a Pumpkin Sprout lives then a Pumpkin Fiend will spawn. Has about 10,000 health and does about 500-700 damage a hit.
There are three phases to this battle.
Phase One
A very simple phase. The horseman will attack whoever lit the candle so have your tank move in and draw aggro. Then just take it down watching out for Cleave. At 1% health he will throw down his head and wander around aimlessly. Target the head and start attacking it. The head will heal the horseman unless you do enough damage (about sixty percent) or until it reaches 100%. Either way after that point you’ll enter phase two.
Phase Two
Phase one except he now casts Conflagration. Do the same thing. This time the head will need about 30% damage to go into phase three (or the horseman to be healed to 100%).
Phase Three
The same as phase one and two except this time he’ll throw down the Pumpkin Sprouts. Near the end of this phase when he throws down his head you’ll need to completely destroy it before the horseman is healed or the third phase restarts and you’ll probably wipe. Outside of that nothing new.
Some helpful tips to consider:
- The head doesn’t attack back so you don’t have to worry about healing (except with fiends up).
- A Paladin tank can consecrate and take care of tanking the fiends.
- A macro with /target Head can work wonders in finding the head and taking it down as soon as possible.
- You can do the encounter as a 10 man raid.
- One person per day can start the encounter. This means that a group of five people can kill the horseman five times. However, it is considered a daily quest so you can only do it once a day (resets at 4AM).
Loot
Magic Brooms: There are four different brooms. The Magic Broom and Swift Magic Broom which can be used as horses (assuming you have enough skill level) and the Flying Broom and Swift Flying Broom which can be used as flying mounts in Outland (assuming you have enough skill level).
Ring of Ghoulish Delight: Finger Slot, 31 Stamina, 60 attack power, level 70
The Horseman’s Signet Ring: Finger Slot, 19 Stamina, 17 Intellect, damage and healing by 35, level 70
Witching Band: Finger Slot, 22 Stamina, 21 Intellect, healing by 46, 6 mana per 5 sec, level 70
The Horseman’s Helm: Plate Head Slot, 1129 Armor, 40 Strength, 46 Stamina, Red/Yellow/Blue Socket with a 4 strength socket bonus, 30 critical strike rating, level 70
Hallowed Helm: Puts a pumpkin on your head.
Sinister Squashling: Summons a pumpkin pet.
Tricky Treat: Increases movement speed by 20% for 4 seconds and by 4% for 30 seconds.
Weighted Jack-o’-Lantern: Lets you put a pumpkin head on your party members or yourself. |
