Draenor – Warlords of Draenor
Thanks to Ray D. Tear in the Alliance Garrison, Warlords of Draenor (WoD) only has 3 raids. WoD also introduces the removal of tier tokens, so be sure to research which tier sets you want to gather first and plan your farm character accordingly. The portals from your faction capital should take you to Ashran, which makes starting at Hellfire Citadel an easy flight away.
Hellfire Citadel
The first boss of Hellfire Citadel (HFC), Hellfire Assault, requires that you kill all trash to activate the boss. Hellfire Assault is also regarded as one of the worst boss fights in “modern” (post-MoP) WoW because, at the time, you could not beat it much faster with better gear. Pick up the Felfire Munitions dropped by the vehicles during the encounter and run them to the cannons in the corner, while defending them from adds. After Assault, the rest of the bosses are straightforward and Archimonde has an easy teleport to get out of the raid.
Blackrock Foundry
After farming all your desired difficulties in HFC, I like to fly up to Blackrock Foundry, which also happens to be one of my all-time favorite raids. It’s easy to get lost in the raid, so I recommend taking the second door on the right to Beastlord Darmac and Operator Thogar (aka train boss). After killing train boss, head back the way you came and then jump down the pit on your left to get to the Iron Maidens. You have to kill all the trash on the platform and in the water to activate Iron Maidens. To exit this area, take the path where the boat faces, running by mushrooms to increase your run speed.
At the elevator room, just turn left and clear the path that includes Hans & Franz, Flamebender Ka’graz, and Kromog. You should then be able to loop back around to the entrance to do the wing that includes Gruul, Oregorger, and Blast Furnace, located in the first door on the right from the entrance. The hallway down to Blast Furnace is before the T-shaped bridge. After Blast Furnace is dead, you can run back up and the middle path to Blackhand should be open.
Highmaul
After farming all your desired difficulties in HFC and BRF, all that is left is Highmaul. No tier tokens drop here, so feel free to bring your fastest class if it makes more sense to do so. If you are Horde and have completed the garrison intro quests to have your own garrison hearthstone, you can use it and then fly across the Zangar Sea as a shortcut. Otherwise, there’s not really a short way to get there. The raid is straightforward, and happily lets you mount in the main area to run between the 2nd through 4th bosses. Mar’gok’s intermission phases can sometimes be annoying, requiring you to wait for the timer to complete before moving on.
Broken Isles – Legion
Make sure you complete the Legion intro quests so that you can use your Dalaran hearthstone. Like Warlords of Draenor, Legion has class-restricted tier armor drops, so be sure to research which classes you want to unlock the appearances. Legion also does not have weapon drops, so despite having some of the coolest armor appearances in the game, the weapon appearances for nearly the entire expansion are locked behind your class hall and personal progression. Some of them aren’t even available to unlock anymore. I liked this guide on WoWHead to figure out which appearances I might want.
The Nighthold (TN) and Tomb of Sargeras (ToS) are basically the same distance apart from Dalaran, so choose which one you want to start with. If you have a longer farming session planned, start with ToS since TN is closer to Trial of Valor (ToV).
Tomb of Sargeras
After entering Tomb of Sargeras, you can just wait in the center of the room for Goroth to spawn. After killing him, go down the hole behind his body to kill Harjatan and Mistress Sassz’ine. Don’t forget to click the item next to Mistress’s dead body, otherwise you will have to make a walk of shame back to activate it. Keep going through the raid and after Sisters of the Moon are killed, exit their fight area to the left to get to Desolate Host. Don’t forget to click the item next to Host’s dead body, otherwise you will have to make a walk of shame back to activate it. After Host is dead, the door opposite Host’s fight area will take you through a hallway to get you back to the Sister’s fight area. You can then exit the Sister area to the right, which will then take you up a winding staircase.
There is a pylon you can click to the right of the final locked door, which gets you back to Goroth’s area. Behind the NPCs are a staircase to Demonic Inquisition. Don’t forget to click the item next to Inquisition’s dead bodies, otherwise you will have to make a walk of shame back to activate it. Head back to the NPCs and a trap door will open, and then the rest of the raid is pretty linear.
Kil’jaeden on Mythic difficulty can be challenging because if you do not kill him fast enough (even at 520 ilvl I couldn’t quite kill him fast enough), you have to do his two intermissions back to back. The intermissions are deadly because he has falling orbs in each corner that do a significant knockback. Make sure you position yourself so that you won’t be knocked off the platform and try to plan your speed boosts and movement abilities accordingly.
After killing Kil’jaeden, talk to the glowy NPC next to the skull to be teleported back to the entrance for repeat farming.
The Nighthold
The Nighthold is located in Suramar via a building entrance slightly southeast of the green raid swirly entrance on the map. Make sure you kill all the mobs up to the first and second boss. My experience has been that if you skip anything, the NPCs won’t trigger correctly to come unlock the door to the third boss.
After making your way up to the main courtyard, you will want to clear the left (Star Augur Etraeus and High Botanist Tel’arn) or right (Tichondrius) buildings first. Star Augur’s door is locked until you kill the named NPC in the room next to the door.
After killing the left and right buildings, and Spellblade Aluriel roaming the courtyard, head down to Krosus while remaining mounted around either side of the tall center building. After killing Krosus, use Khadgar to teleport back and enter the main building, clicking a teleport pad inside. Grand Magistrix Elisande will not start her roleplaying until you’ve killed all the trash. After killing her, click the teleporter on the outside of the room to go to the Nightspire to face Gul’dan. Gul’dan can still push you off the edge of the platform on Mythic difficulty, so be careful.
If you want to repeat the Nighthold on other difficulties, whip out your parasol and slow fall down to the ground pointed roughly northeast into the courtyard. At the bottom of the courtyard is the exit, which will take you back to the outdoor entrance.
Trial of Valor
From Nighthold, fly to Trial of Valor. Trial of Valor (ToV) does not have tier sets, but it does have unique armor appearances per armor type (cloth, leather, mail, plate). The Heroic color drops off Helya in Heroic or Mythic. The Normal color is a quest issued by Odyn after completing his raid encounter. The raid finder color has a chance to drop off of any boss at any difficulty. The raid finder ensemble will only drop when you are on the respective armor type, so you can theoretically farm for it 12 times a week (LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic x 3 bosses each). After you get all three ensembles for an armor type, make sure to switch to another armor type class. Shamans and warriors also have hidden artifact appearances, which would need to run it to unlock them.
Emerald Nightmare
Use your Dalaran hearthstone and then fly to Val’sharah to run Emerald Nightmare. Emerald Nightmare (EN) does not have tier, and drops supplementary colors to Nighthold. For some sets, you can actually pick up an alternative color scheme that will be wearable by the wrong class (ex: my shaman can wear the entire hunter Heroic set). Since there’s no tier sets, you can take any class to farm all the appearances. That said, taking a druid, hunter, monk, or priest is advisable to unlock the hidden artifact appearances.
There is a raid exit after killing Xavius, a big portal in one of the tree nooks.
Antorus, the Burning Throne
Antorus, the Burning Throne (ABT) is located in Argus. You may have to complete some of the Argus intro quests to unlock the flightpath to Antoran Wastes. The only tricky boss fight in this raid is Eonar the Life-Binder. You should really watch a video on YouTube, especially for the Mythic version of the fight, like this one.
Zandalar & Kul Tiras – Battle for Azeroth
I have only farmed this as Horde, and will likely not do it on Alliance because there are no class-restricted drops. It took me 5-6 weeks of farming to complete nearly every set since they are strictly armor type (cloth, leather, mail, plate). As Horde, I thought it was easiest to start with Battle of Dazar’alor since it is right outside the Horde capital city hub.
Battle of Dazar’alor
This raid is pretty linear. Jadefire Masters will require you to do its intermission phase by clicking the green orb and running it to the barrier. At 520+ ilvl, I was able to kill one barrier in time through the mitigated damage and be safe from instant death. For Opulence, you can just ignore the two gauntlet paths and run down the middle. It will activate the boss for you to fight. Make sure you interrupt Stormwall Blockade after clearing the two boats. You can just speak with an NPC after killing Jaina to teleport out so you can farm other difficulties.
Uldir
Uldir (ULD) is very straightforward, and even lets you mount between bosses, so definitely be sure to kill any trash that follows you to a boss. On G’huun, you have to run the Power Matrices on either side of the arena to activate the Reorigination Blast. Don’t worry about out-damaging the heal. G’huun will just come out and you can kill it easily. Unfortunately, ULD is not blessed with an easy exit (as far as my research has told me), so you have to teleport out and fly back every time.
The Eternal Palace
If you did not play the Nazjatar patch in Battle for Azeroth on the character that you’ve selected to farm it, you’ll need to do some quests to unlock the hub there. EP is also the first raid that challenged a sub-500 ilvl character for me, so be wary on who you bring. Sivara, Lady Ashvane, and Orgozoa all have pretty strict damage/healing requirements that might force you to consider a different character or spec to get past it. Otherwise, the raid is pretty straightforward and luckily there is a teleport after killing Queen Azshara.
Ny’alotha, the Waking City
The location of Ny’alotha (NYL) varies each week. Some weeks it’s in Uldum (included in my Kalimdor guide) and other weeks it’s in Vale of Eternal Blossoms in Pandaria. When it’s in Uldum, it shouldn’t require any questing to enter, but when it’s in Pandaria, there might be some questing required to get your phase correct. I have decided to just ignore the raid when it’s in Pandaria.
Otherwise, the raid is very straightforward and no longer requires the cloak to avoid getting mind controlled. The final boss, N’Zoth, does have a one-shot if you don’t click the Mindgate portal to the void (or whatever) to kill Psychus, and then click your body to return to the Normal world. Again, you can teleport out after killing N’Zoth for quick farming.
