Horrific Vision of Stormwind Guide (BfA 8.3)

We currently recommend the following route for clearing the full Vision:

1. Clear the way to the cathedral and kill the 2 guards waiting outside. If you are not a stealth class, you will need to clear towards the Dwarven District; if you are, simply stealth through.
2. Head to the Dwarven District and clear the objectives there.
3. After you have completed it, move on to the Old Town next.
4. Clear the Old Town objectives and, once completed, use the portal to return to Cathedral Square. This is far more efficient than running into the Trade District, as you lose less Sanity per second.
5. Move to the Trade District and clear the objectives there.
6. Once complete, move to the Mage Quarter and clear the objectives there.
7. Use the portal to return to the cathedral and kill Alleria.

If you are planning on attempting a full clear of this Horrific Vision, we recommend reading through our supplementary pages that cover the use of potions, food, and the research path for the Archive. You can find all of them on our Horrific Visions Hub below.

Just as with the Horrific Vision of Horrific Vision of Orgrimmar, the Horrific Vision of Stormwind has 5 objectives players can complete in 5 areas of varying difficulty: 1 Tainted area, 2 Corrupted areas, and 2 Lost areas.

There is only 1 Tainted area in Stormwind, which is Cathedral Square. This is by far the easiest zone of the vision when you first start out doing runs. The Sanity drain is only 6 per second at the base level and there is no objective there beyond killing Alleria.

The following Madness effects can be present in Tier 1 areas:

• Madness: Bloodthirsty — deal damage to nearby targets (friendly and hostile) and heal yourself for 1% per target hit.
• Madness: Desynchronized — your casts will cause you to shift between time speeds periodically, making anything affected by time (movement, timers, attack speed) to move either 30% faster or slower.
• Madness: Promised Power — summons zones of power near you which, when you stand inside them, will increase your damage dealt by 25%. If you do not stand inside them, you will have your damage dealt decreased by 10%.

You can find out more about Madness effects in our dedicated guide below.

In order to approach Alleria, you will need to kill the Riftwalkers that are standing guard outside the cathedral itself. Do not engage them if you are low HP or Sanity (unless necessary), as their teleport and Rift Strike combo can deal huge amounts of damage if you do not dodge in time and get hit by both.

You should also make sure to kick their Shadow Shield to reduce their chance at surviving longer.

Despite the ease of this area when first starting out with Horrific Visions, Alleria becomes more and more challenging as you progress through. For each objective you complete, she gains 10% maximum health, as well as an additional ability that corresponds to the objectives completed.

Zone Completed	Ability Gained
Dwarven District	Explosive Ordnance
Mage Quarter	Tainted Polymorph
Old Town	Eye of Chaos add, which casts Dark Gaze
Trade District	Chains of Servitude

The strategy for defeating Alleria depends greatly on the abilities you have to face, but you will generally just have to rely on your positioning. You should prioritise the abilities in the following order of management:

1. Void Eruption
2. Chains of Servitude
3. Explosive Ordnance
4. Dark Gaze

The abilities listed above all cause considerable Sanity loss when hit by them, while Darkened Sky and Tainted Polymorph simply cause damage or a loss of character control.

While this can certainly be an issue, losing huge amounts of Sanity are more likely to cause you to fail the run, especially if Alleria has multiple HP buffs.

Void Eruption can be avoided by simply hiding behind an object and breaking line of sight with Alleria. The pillars around the room are great for this, as they have a small corner in their structure, which can also be used to avoid Chains of Servitude. The chain will still attach to you, but you can stand in the corner of the pillars and it will not drag you anywhere.

Explosive Ordnance is very easy to avoid, you just need to move out of the bombs and the fire they leave behind. If you get polymorphed into a set of bombs, use anything you can to break the polymorph and get out of the bombs ASAP.

Finally, for Dark Gaze, you will need to keep track of wherever the Eye of Chaos jumps to and ensure you face away from it. Getting hit by this once or twice is not the end of the world, as it only drains 20 Sanity per 2 seconds, but this can cause major issues if you just ignore it constantly.

There are 2 Corrupted areas in Stormwind, the Dwarven District and the Trade District. These are slightly more challenging than the Tier 1 area, with the base Sanity drain sitting at 8 per second.

The following Madness effects can be present in Tier 2 areas:

• Madness: Dark Delusions — occasionally summons a shadowy copy of you that will pursue you. If it reaches you, it will deal damage to you and stun you.
• Madness: Entomophobia — while you are in combat, your screen will show glowing bugs that are crawling on your character. You have to jump to remove them or you will lose control of your character as it runs forwards at 5 stacks.
• Madness: Scorched Feet — you will occasionally leap forward over "imaginary" fire pools, which will then stay on the ground and cause damage and Sanity drain when touched.
• Madness: Shortsighted — when in combat, your vision and combat radius will be restricted to 20 yards.

You can find out more about Madness effects in our dedicated guide below.

The Dwarven District is the easier of the 2 Corrupted areas, with very few dangerous enemies.

The objectives are as follows:

1. Defeat Brainwashed Gnomes — defeat Lilliam Sparkspindle, Sprite Jumpsprocket, and Billibub Cogspinner.
2. Place 8 explosives around the district — these bombsites are marked on your map and you simply have to interact with the placement sites.
3. Detonate the explosives — Kelsey is waiting for you near the Blacksmithing area with a detonator.
4. Defeat Therum — Therum Deepforge will appear in front of you. Defeat him to complete the area.

This zone is very easy to complete, as long as you are able to use line of sight mechanics and can properly avoid the attacks on the ground. If you want to clear it quickly, your best bet is to clear the first packs of trash as you enter the zone and then do a large pull of everything in the central Blacksmithing area.

Note that, if you are undergeared or do not trust yourself with a larger pull, do not pull everything. Take it slow and pull at your own speed, working your way up to larger pulls when you have more research talents or better gear.

It is also worth noting that there is a mini-boss in the Blacksmithing area, Forge-Guard Hurrul, who uses Entropic Leap, which can drain your Sanity if not avoided. He is still easy to kill, but players doing bigger pulls should make sure to be aware of him.

For Therum, he only has 2 mechanics and both are very easy to dodge. Firstly, his Empowered Forge Breath, which is a frontal cone attack that drains Sanity and deals damage. The second is Explosive Ordnance, which places bombs on the ground that need to be avoided, as well as the fire that they leave behind.

Just move out of both of these attacks and he will be extremely easy to kill.

The Trade District is the more challenging of the 2 Corrupted areas, but it is still not particularly difficult.

The objectives are as follows:

1. Defeat the Inquisitor — kill Inquisitor Darkspeak.
2. Defeat the Slavemaster — kill Slavemaster Ul'rok.
3. Rescue 8 captives — open the cells of the 8 marked captives on your map.

The main issue for players in this zone is the amount of Sanity drain that you will encounter from the bosses. You will need to burst the Inquisitor down as fast as possible, to avoid the Sanity drain from Agonizing Torment.

Kick the cast when possible or use immunities, such as Divine Shield or Cloak of Shadows.

If you are playing in a group, you will need to be wary of Convert, which will make you hostile to your allies. This means that, if they have any splash damage, it will deal damage to you. You also cannot be healed while it is active.

Slavemaster Ul'rok is much easier, with his main mechanic being very easy to deal with: Chains of Servitude. Simply run away from him as he casts it and make sure that you do not get dragged into him, otherwise you will lose a large amount of Sanity and be stunned.

Make sure to dodge his tentacle attacks that are marked with purple swirls and just DPS him down.

There are 2 Lost areas in Stormwind, the Old Town and the Mage Quarter. The base Sanity drain in these areas is much higher, at 12 per second, meaning you should avoid these zones unless you have a lot of time and Sanity to spare or your cloak is a higher rank.

The following Madness effects are present in Lost areas:

• Madness: Haunting Shadows — an image of you will spawn periodically and explode, fearing all players nearby.
• Madness: Leaden Foot — as you move your character, you will tire, losing movement speed until you are unable to move. You will need to stand still to regain energy to move.
• Madness: Split Personality — you will periodically be surrounded by images of yourself, with a gap for you to run through. If you touch one of the images of yourself, you will be disoriented for 4 seconds.
• Madness: Volatile Intent — when fighting, there is a chance that dealing damage will cause a percentage of the damage dealt to yourself.

You can find out more about Madness effects in our dedicated guide below.

The Mage Quarter is a challenging area, not only due to the base Sanity drain, but the large amount of the damage and Sanity drain that is put out by the mobs here.

The objectives are as follows:

1. Close 5 Void Portals — these are marked on your map and, in order to do so, you will need to defeat the NPCs guarding them.
2. Defeat Magister Umbric — kill Umbric, the final boss of this area.

The zone itself is fairly short, with few objectives in it, but they can be extremely punishing if you are not prepared.

As you clear through the zone, you will need to clear the 5 Void Portals and the mobs guarding them. You will need to ensure that you do not pull too much in this zone, especially if you are not heavily overgeared, otherwise you can very easily die.

Take extra caution when fighting the following mobs:

• Boundless Corruption — this is an elite mob that patrols near the Mage Tower ramp on the way to Umbric. It constantly creates void zones under the player that they will need to move out of, as well as having a frontal cone attack that drains Sanity for every hit. Move out of these attacks as soon as possible, even if it means killing it slightly slower as a caster.
• Crawling Corruption — kite these, especially if you are a cloth-wearer, as they buff their own melee damage by a huge amount, but also slow their own movement, meaning they are slow, but hit very hard.
• Greater Void Elemental — this mob casts Void Buffet, which you will need to interrupt, as it increases the Shadow damage that you take by 100%. This can very quickly lead to a death if you are fighting multiple mobs.

One of the portals will have a mini-boss guarding it, Zardeth of the Black Claw, who is simple to beat, but can quickly spiral out of control if you do not move properly. His Rain of Fire drains Sanity each time it hits you, so make sure to move out of it ASAP.

Once the portals are clear, you will face the most complicated boss outside of Alleria. Umbric's two main spells are fairly simple to deal with: Entropic Missiles and Tainted Polymorph can both be kicked, but depending on where you are with the fight and your current Sanity level, you can choose which one to kick. If you need to keep your Sanity up, kick Missiles. If you are near killing Umbric and want to burst him down, kick Polymorph.

Beyond these abilities, Umbric has a mechanic similar to that of the Imp Mother Mage Tower in Legion, where he teleports to one end of the room 3 times throughout the fight: at around 75%, 50%, and 25%, depending on if he is casting or not at the time.

Simply run towards him, making sure to dodge the attacks on the ground in the meantime, and attack him to stop his Frozen Storm. Note that you cannot attack him from far away, as your vision of him is obscured. Keep going between the ends of the room until you can finish him off.

The Old Town can at first seem somewhat daunting with the large amount of Sanity drain from the final boss, but as long as you keep track of the eye locations, it can become the easier of the two Tier 3 areas.

The objectives are as follows:

1. Rendezvous with Valeera — Valeera will come to you as soon as you zone into the area.
2. Obtain Terenson's Key — kill Armsmaster Terenson for her key.
3. Obtain Alx'kov's Key — kill Alx'kov the Infested for his key.
4. Bypass Shaw's Security — open the gate using the pillars with Valeera or your allies.
5. Kill Mathias Shaw — kill Master Mathias Shaw.

From the moment you enter the zone, you need to be extremely wary of what you pull. There are multiple stealthed trash mobs that can enter fights at the wrong time and end up killing you if not kept in check.

The most important trash mobs to be aware of, however, are not the stealthed ones, but the SI:7 Informants. These mobs can cast Touch of the Abyss, which must be interrupted immediately. It stuns you for 5 seconds and causes Shadow damage which, at the wrong time or during a big pull, can kill you.

After you meet up with Valeera, you will need to kill two mini-bosses: Armsmaster Terenson and Alx'kov the Infested.

Terenson is fairly easy to kill, as long as you move out of her Blade Flourish as soon as possible. You should also make sure to move out of the Roaring Blast.

Alx'kov is very simple to defeat, as you only need to move away from the tentacle attacks on the ground. Other than this, his DoT deals a fairly small amount of damage and should not cause much worry.

After you have both keys, you will need to "bypass the security" to reach Shaw. If you are alone, simply click on one of the two pillars when Valeera is in position. If you are with allies, you need to click them at the same time, otherwise it will not open.

Shaw himself can be a pretty tough encounter if you are not prepared for the Eyes. Eye of Chaos moves around and casts Dark Gaze, which causes Shadow damage and Sanity loss if you are facing the eye's current location. While at the start it is very easy to simply face away from one Eye, he will continue to spawn them over the course of the fight, so be prepared to adjust accordingly.

Shaw does very little other than stealthing and creating Shadow-AoE attacks on the ground. Step out of them, focus on the locations of the eyes, and you should kill him with no issues whatsoever.

In both of the Visions, there are buffs that players can obtain by performing certain activities, such as killing or mob or going through a gauntlet.

We highly recommend downloading the HandyNotes addon, as well as the Visions of N'Zoth plugin to easily obtain the locations of the possible buffs.

You can find download links for both the plugin and the main addon below:

• HandyNotes addon
• Visions of N'Zoth plugin