This is a guest post by Gildor.

Utgarde Keep was my first Wrath dungeon on regular and heroic mode.  It is arguably one of the easiest heroics in merry old Northrend.  Violet Hold is easily the quickest, but if you like the feeling of being the 13th Warrior then this is right up your alley.

Prince Keleseth

Your first boss has two abilities, one of which is particularly dangerous if not handled properly.  Shadow Bolt will hit for 5950 to 8050 shadow damage, this could hurt, but you shouldn’t have any real problems.  The nasty trick up the Prince’s sleeve is his frost tomb.  At 400 damage over 20 seconds, it probably won’t kill you…but, it will prevent you from doing anything other than watching your buddies struggle.

Let your tank do most of the heavy lifting here.  The Prince will pull in 5 regular, non-elite, non-caffeinated, skeletons which will cast Decrepify.  Let the tank pull aggro on these also.  Your job is to hang back and pew pew his frost tombs.  I take it the Prince isn’t the smartest tool in the shed because he will let you know whom he’s entombing.  I like to send my pet in on Princy and go through my shot rotation until he locks a party member in an ice sculpture.  Explosive shot works great on the deep freeze.   If I happen to get frozen, I just send my pet in to attack me.  This fight is over pretty quick when all goes according to plan.

Sadly, after all that talk of skeletons and ice, the best drop a hunter could hope for is the Infantry Assault Blade.  Your other choices are: a hat, a stick or a belt.  See what I mean?  Nothing particularly “huntery.”

Dalronn the Controller and Skarvald the Constructor

Or as I like to call them, “shirts and skins.”  More commonly refered to as “Jack and Jill.”  It’s all the same, they both have to die around the same point in time.  In my experience, it doesn’t matter whom your tank grabs first, I’ve done it either way.  I will say that more people tend to start on Skarvald first, so we will too.

Skarvald is a meathead, he will get in your face and he will bully you.  Once the tank picks him up, launch death from afar.  Hit him with everything you have.  I tend to send my pet to assist the off-tank with Dalronn.  If the constructor starts getting the upper hand, pull your pet onto Skarvald.  Once he’s down to the 10-20% health range, the entire party needs to bury Dalronn.  Dalronn will hit you with shadow bolt and debilitate.  He’ll also summon a couple skeletons.  Once Dalronn loses control and dies, everyone deconstructs the constructor.  If your team gets overzealous and kills the constructor whilst Dalronn is still breathing…look out, Skarvald’s ghost will pretty much instawipe your little adventure.

These two don’t drop anything that is a must have for a hunter, it’s a shame since they require a lot of work to make dead.  The best an enterprising hunter could get is the Dagger of Betrayal.  The other options are a shirt, another hat or a fetching wristband.  Again, nothing to brag about.

Ingvar the Plunderer

Ah, the coup de grâce…finally some decent loot.  But first, the fight.  If you’ve managed to get this far without a wipe, it could all change with this fight.  This fella hits like a ton of bricks and if you kill him once, he will become a zombie and hit like two tons of bricks.  Even still, he can be killed…twice.

As a human (the first phase of the fight) he will use four forms of attack.  Your tank will want to get Ingy near a pillar and turn him away from the group.  This will help mitigate staggering roar. You’ll also want to stay apart from your other group members, otherwise cleave will sting a bit.  The combo of smash and enrage is the plunderers bread and butter.  If you keep your distance, the tank will be taking most of Ingvar’s crap.  If Ingvar gets a little too close for comfort during his screaming fit, duck behind a pillar.  I tend to send my pet in after tanky has established a lion’s share of the threat. As a survival hunter, I only cry on the inside if my loyal companion dies.  Once Ingvar’s human guise is defeated, I’ll cast my “please oh please don’t ever leave me again” spell and get myself mana’d up for the final onslaught.

Zombie Ingvar also has four abilities, two of which are remixes of his old favorites.  Staggering roar becomes dreadful roar and smash becomes dark smash.  His name is Ingvar the Plunderer, not Ingvar the creative, folks.  These two humdingers are accompanied by woe strike and shadow axe…all I can say is ouch.  Dreadful roar and dark smash work the same as before, but now they both include shadow damage.  Remain away, if you happen to see a spinning axe anywhere near you, run like hell…this will wipe your party so fast it’ll make your head spin…like an axe…like the axe that just took your head off.  The name of the game for this encounter is “keep your distance.”  If you get too close you will end up dead, no soup for you!

Ol’ Ingvar drops a few things, only two of which draw the attention of a hunter.  The Plunderer’s Helmet, has great agility, nice boost to your crits , nice attack power and a couple of sockets which when filled add +12 stamina.  In my opinion, his best hunter drop is the Drake-Mounted Crossbow.  I prefer bows to guns.  I get so distracted by the gun sound, I sometimes lose focus.  Sure my toon is rolling with the Nesingwary 4000 at the moment, but I don’t have to like it and I haven’t had the crossbow drop yet.  These two peashooters stack up pretty well with each other.  Both offer the same dps (129.6), both are epic, both look neato.  But, here’s where they differ:  the crossbow offers +29 agility and 5 more crit rating than the noisemaker.  However, the gun offers 78 attack power (just 55 attack power on the quieter counterpart) and a gem socket which when socketed adds +8 attack power.  So, yes, the gun is probably the best boomstick for a hunter…but I enjoy the quiet simplicity of a bow and arrow and I’m the one writing this, so neener-neener.

I hope you enjoyed reading my musings.  Although most people have done heroic UK plenty of times, maybe, just maybe I included something you haven’t tried yet.