The pocket guide to Sunken Temple

The Sunken Temple, or the Temple of Atal'Hakkar, is located in the eastern side of the Swamp of Sorrows. Sunken Temple is suited for players in their low 50s. The nearest alliance gryphon point is at Nethergarde Keep in the Blasted Lands just south; second-best is Darkshire to the west. The nearest Horde gryphon point is at Stonard, right next door.

Loot from the Temple is much better than loot from Uldaman or Zul'Farrak. You'll probably want to run it a few times to farm for items to prepare yourself for Blackrock Depths.

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Quests

There is only one single-step sharable quest for this instance:

Jammal'an the prophet / Shadra Alor, The Hinterlands / The Atal'ai Exile

The exile is at the south end of Shadra Alor, the troll city in the center of the Hinterlands.

Quest chains

In search of the temple / Stormwind, Dwarf Quarter / Brohan Caskbelly
This chain sends you to the Hinterlands, to Feralas, back to the Hinterlands, back to Stormwind, and eventually to the Temple to collect items.

Muigin and Larion / Un'goro Crater / Muigin (horde has the same chain, but starts with Larion)
Starts in Un'goro, continues in Feralas, back to Ungoro, on to the temple. Do the Feralas stage at the same time you do the Caskbelly series Feralas step.

The prophecy of Mosh'aru / Steamwheedle Port / Yeh'kinya
You should have started this sequence when you did Zul'Farrak. If not, head back to Zul for tablet collection.

The Sunken Temple / Feathermoon Stronghold / Angelas Moonbreeze
This is a fairly short sequence. You might be able to skip the Feralas opener and just go directly to Marvon Rivetseeker in Tanaris due south of Gadgetzan. He sends you to Ratchet, then back to his camp, then on to the Temple.

Eventually you will:

• kill Hakkar and collect essence
• collect tablet fragments from objects
• collect haze from worms & oozes
• find the altar at the bottom of the temple
• activate statues to uncover a secret treasure

The most important quest chain is the one started by Yeh'kinya in Steamwheedle Port. Without that quest, you cannot summon Hakkar.

Walkthrough

The Temple is in the middle of the Pool of Tears, just east of Stonard in the swamp. Access is easy. You'll need to fight through lower-level elite trolls, worms, and oozes to reach the instance entrance.

The map is confusing. There are three levels. The level you enter is the middle level. It has all the dragons. The upper level is full of trolls, and has the six troll forcefield guardians. The bottom level has oozes, lurkers, worms, and the altar that Marvon wants you to find. You can do the bottom level separately from the top two if you don't have time for a full dragon run.

At the bottom, fight your way into the central area. Clear it out. Then frob the altar to activate it with the stone circle you got from Marvon Rivetseeker. Then you'll be encouraged to activate the serpent statues to reveal a secret. To do this, you must fight your way around the ring outside the central area to clear the way to each statue. Activate them in order to trigger a named mob in the central area. Fight him to get a Hakkari gift pack with 3 blue items.

If you want to just cheese through the statue activation: N S NE NW SE SW.

The dragon level is more complicated. On the middle level, clear out the dragonkin. All of them. Make sure you really have them all. You'll be sorry later if you don't. Then proceed to Hakkar's area on the west. Prepare for a long fight. Set loot to free-for-all. Note the locations of the four burning braziers at each corner of the room. One of you should use the egg to summon Hakkar. A stream of non-elite mobs will begin spawning. Clear them out as they spawn. Periodically a Hakkari Bloodkeeper will spawn. Take the Bloodkeeper down immediately. Someone (perhaps must be the person who summoned Hakkar?) must loot blood from the corpse and use the blood to douse the flames in one brazier. Repeat until all four are doused. Then the Avatar of Hakkar spawns. 3 2 1 Fight!

Next get to work on summoning Eranikus. To summon Eranikus, you must first kill the prophet Jammal'an. He's also a quest target. To reach the prophet, you must take down the force field shielding him. To take it down, you must kill the six named trolls on the top level who maintain the shield. Run up a level and work your way around the circle. Side passages lead first down to a small room with a few trolls, then up a short walk to the named trolls. Each troll is on a platform overlooking the circular dragonkin area. They're easy fights.

When the shield trolls are dead, you'll see a message announcing that the prophet is awake. Head down to the middle level, toward the southeast passage. The prophet is guarded by a lot of undead trolls. The pulls are twos and threes. The Deathwalkers turn into short-lived, slow-moving invulnerable spirits after you kill them. Just avoid them until they poof. The Deathwalkers also cast Fear. Do all your pulling from just around the corner from the main chamber, so that when you're feared you don't run all the way into the rest of the trolls. Remember that if you're moving when you're Feared, you're frozen in place until it fades. Being frozen is better than running off into who-knows-what.

Jammal'an has a minion. Put your tank on Jammal'an, then have your damage-dealers burn down the minion quickly. Then pile onto the prophet. He will sometimes mind-control one of you into Lurker form. When that happens, move away from the controlled player. It doesn't last long.

When you return from Jammal'an's corner, you'll find two named dragons flying in circles around the sacrifice pit area, Weaver & Dreamscythe. They are not linked, and can be pulled & killed separately. They sometimes drop good loot.

The approach to Eranikus's room is guarded by two linked dragons, Morphaz and Hazzaz. You can clear these dragons out early, while you're killing dragonkin, if you feel like it. If you didn't do them earlier, you must kill them now. Now is also a good time to make sure you really have all the dragonkin cleared. If you don't, Eranikus will call them to him during the next fight.

When Jammal'an is down, the Shade of Eranikus is finally attackable. He's in the chamber off the south passage. Head down and prep for the fight. He has an AOE attack that mostly affects people in front of him. He also has a knockback. Have your main tank turn him around, so the tank's back is to a wall. Everybody else should attack him from the sides. He will war-stomp for a brief stun, and put people into a non-dispellable deep slumber for a few seconds. Let your tank keep aggro and keep up the steady damage. He'll drop a couple of blue items; tasty! Also, the first time you kill him he'll drop an Essence of Eranikus for each party member. This item starts a short quest which you finish using the font in the NW corner of the room. The reward is a trinket that does AOE damage. Hang onto the trinket even if you don't plan to use it; rumor has it that the trinket starts a quest later on to rescue the real live Eranikus, who is secretly a good guy. Or something like that. The quest series starts nearby in the Swamp of Sorrows. Talk to Itharius in a cave in the southwest of the zone, who gives you the quest In Eranikus' Own Words.

Congratulations! You've finished the Sunken Temple. Head back to to turn in all your quests. When you turn in the filled Egg to Yeh'kinya, he gives you a scroll you can use to summon Hakkar again. The scroll is reusable. Return to farm the dragons all you like.