The Dungeons of Dol Guldur instance is an instance in Dol Guldur. The Dungeons instance is both a puzzle instance and a combat instance. The dungeon is divided into 3 wings (West, North and East). In each wing, there are prisoners to be rescued (West - 2, North - 3, East - 4). Your goal is to rescue prisoners from each wing. The more prisoners you rescue, the better your reward.

Two dynamics make this challenging. The first is the fact that once one prisoner exits the wing, the doors to that wing begin to close and after about 90 seconds, they slam shut, and you're locked out from that wing. The second is the pathing Olog-Hai that cannot be targeted or attacked. If you get too close to them, you will be 'captured' and thrown into a jail cell at the beginning of the instance. The door takes about a minute to open (long induction) and all of the Guldur Guards will respawn, so you want to avoid this (Note: if you are captured 3 times, the wing is sealed, no matter whether you rescue prisoners or not). The Olog-Hai can be put to sleep for a limited amount of time using Nightshade Barrels (from the book 9 version of this dungeon, if you've done that). If the Olog-Hai finds a prisoner, it will throw you in jail, and the prisoner will be sent to a new cell and must be searched for again.

The basic strategy is that you should move between empty prisoner cells to avoid the Olog-Hai. Rooms with elves that must be freed should be avoided until you're ready to free all at once. Nightshade Barrels can be used to put the Olog-Hai to sleep, and this is good in some cases, but bad in others (as it can mess up timing, making it harder to get all the Olog-Hai asleep at once).

When Prisoners escape, they will run only when one of your group is around, and will take the straightest path (always around the edge though, never through the middle, ie East Wing).

Rewards

0-2 Prisoners Rescued - 1 Medallion of Dul Guldur and one chest of runes/relics.

3-6 Prisoners Rescued - 6 Medallions of Dul Guldur and one chest of runes/relics.

7-9 Prisoners Rescued - 8 Medallions of Dul Guldur and one chest of runes/relics.

Note - I'm unsure what the lower bound on the normal mode and upper bound on the easy mode rewards are.

West Wing

Prisoners = 2 :: Olog-Hai = 1

The West wing is the easy wing. The one Olog-Hai moves in a clockwise square around the wing. He stops in the corners. Start on the two sides closest to the door, and work your way to the back. Avoid the Guldur guard pulls if you find the prisoners in early rooms (simply to save time).

North Wing

Prisoners = 3 :: Olog-Hai = 2

A straightforward wing. Two Olog-Hai make a cross and path back and forth. Once you've cleared the trash mobs, it's best to place a barrel in the center point, putting both to sleep, and therefore not requiring more than 1 barrel to have the whole area open to you. Remember to use the empty prisoner rooms as safe zones from the Olog-Hai. The rooms close to the center (if empty of prisoners) are perfect for placing barrels in the center and putting the Olog-Hai to sleep.

East Wing

Prisoners = 4 :: Olog-Hai = 3

NOTE: DO NOT USE NIGHTSHADE ANYWHERE BUT THE CENTER POINT!! Doing so will mess up the Olog-Hai's pathing times, and making putting all 3 to sleep a much much bigger hassle than it should be.

This is the difficult wing. There are 4 prisoners spread out in one of 19 rooms. There are around 15 Guldur Guards around this wing, and having them respawn will set you back on time in a major way. The only way to handle this wing is to clear the entire area of guards (opening rooms looking for elves along the way - make a map of locations for later: It Helps!).

Once you've got everything cleared, use your map to help determine where you need people to begin getting prisoners. You should always start on the east wall (as those take the longest, and you can get others on the way). If there is a prisoner in the center room on the east wall, it should be noted that he will run counterclockwise(or has for me twice).

Barrel Placement and Elf Rescue Explanation: I like to put my group members at the center points of the north and south wall so they can help me monitor the two Olog-Hai that make circles. I will stand at the entrance watching the Olog-Hai that goes down the center. When he is at the far wall, and the other two are just at the rooms on the far north and south (in the center), the barrel should be placed in the center. At this time your two other group members go get prisoners (starting on the eastern wall and working clockwise in the south, and counterclockwise in the north). If your timing is good, you can get all 4 within a few seconds of each other, no problem.

Boss: The Warden

Once you've freed a prisoner or more from each wing, and all the wings have been sealed, the warden will come down into the center room. During his fight, he will target the elven prisoners with an attack that will one shot them. The key to preventing their deaths is the new distributed damage system. Once they are targeted, you must have all the elves gather around the person being targeted. All the prisoners will share the damage of the attack, and you wont lose a prisoner (your healer will need to spend some time topping all the npcs off). Since some of the prisoners are ranged or healer types, it's best to use the layout of the room to help bring all of the elves in to one tight space to avoid the distributed damage hitting one of the archers that is far away and killing him. The pillars in the room work great for this. The rest of the fight is a dps race. The longer he stays up, the more distributed damage he does, the more prisoners you will lose. A great tip for the healers is that the green circle under the elves indicates their health, as it turns yellow/orange to red means they need heals.

Additional Strategy: An alternate strategy that seems to have good results is using the jail cell (near the entrance) to bring the boss and all the npcs into one tight area (thereby reducing the damage taken for his distributed damage attack). To do this, you must use the lever right as the fight starts, and pull him into the cell (he can walk through the door)), then have your dps spend the 1 minute induction opening the door a 2nd time to let in any straggling elves (although at least some elves can also walk through the door). Have your tank put the boss in the corner, and use the layout of the room to your advantage, having your healer LOS when he attempts to fear the players (allowing the healer to continue healing elves).