When you first arrive at the new zone, the Isle of Quel'danas, in patch 2.4, you'll find a chaotic scene, even if there aren't hundreds of naked, level two Blood Elves running around getting slaughtered by level seventy creatures, as there are on the PTR. The Shattered Sun Offensive, the united group of Scryers and Aldor, have a small presence on the isle, consisting of a few tents and a boat, and they're combating a large group of demons and Blood Elves. As time goes on and more daily quests are completed, the new faction will gradually retake buildings on the isle, unlocking vendors, quest givers and a portal to Shattrath. Here's a quick run down of the quests and NPCs involved in the first phase of the offensive, which came to a close a couple of days ago on the US PvE PTR.

The first building that is retaken is the Sun's Reach Sanctum, pictured above. It's infested with Wretched, the undead-looking, lowest form of Blood Elves and it's security measures are non-functioning. This of course leads to our first daily quest, "The Sanctum Wards". In this quest, you must obtain four Mana Remnants from the Wretched and then use them on one of the large red crystals near the Sanctum to help recharge them. The crystals are wards that, when recharged, begin to zap nearby baddies with magic. Basically, you need to kill a few Wretched (the drop rate of the quest items is pretty high) and then click on the items in your bag while standing near a crystal. This quest was quick and easy to complete even with a lot of competition from other players.

The second quest, "Erratic Behavior", involves reactivating and reprogramming sentry golems to defend the Sanctum. You'll find the golems scattered about the isle, usually in the large grassy area along the western shore (where, coincidentally, you'll also find a nice collection of Wretched sleeping under trees). Typically, they're standing inert and broken down until you attack them. Their behavior seems a little odd, and they may be purposefully scripted to act erratically. Sometimes, they'd attack me as I drew close to them, other times they'd wait until I attacked first. In any case, you'll need to kill one of the golems and then use the Attuned Crystal Core, provided by the quest giver, on its corpse. It'll reawaken and start following you around, saying amusing phrases from time to time. The golems do not defend you in combat and once you kill one, its corpse is tagged as belonging to you. This means that you can't reawaken a sentry killed by another player, even if they didn't use it for the quest. In any case, bring three of the golems back to the Sanctum and your quest is complete. Again, an easy daily quest, even with all the competition on the crowded PTR.


You can click on the quest givers at any time to see the percentage of quests that have been completed for the first phase of the offensive. I'm not really sure how much each quest is worth, as I saw no immediate change in the percentage when I turned in my own dailies. It took about two days or so to complete the first phase on the PTR, so take that as you will. In any case, once the Sanctum is restored, the orbs on the roof start spinning, it's draped in Shattered Sun banners and filled with new NPCs. Check in tomorrow to find out what these new quest givers have to offer.