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Comment by rholliday

Killing the commander is nigh impossible from what I can tell. Unless perhaps you can group up, this mob is MUCH harder than the valiants, and has 5 times the health, and likely the damage. I can't calculate the damage too accurately as I was never able to keep up more than one layer of defend, despite keeping him in melee range.

Comment by akkon

I killed the commander on my secound try (failed the first couse i got to many scouts on me so i couldn't hold any shields up).

my tip is: approaching from where you got your mount go to the right (or west sean from the map) side, pull some skeletons before you try to kill the commander. when you can pull the commander start with using shield-break on him while you run away along the wall, there will be "ramps" up the wall, climb them, then jump down and charge him when gets off the ramp and climb it again, and jump down and charge, reapeat. allso use shield-break on any free time, and keep shields up.

the charge is your dps ability, i think it where something like 45k, but it gets fast useless when he has shields up.

Comment by Korash

I didn't find him any harder than any of battles at the tourney. The key is to get him alone, shield-break to pull and get him away from the crowd otherwise you'll aggro a lot as he runs about.

Comment by Jediomed

The key here is to pull him UP the stairs. Wait till the other people doing the quests train a hole in the middle and use it to run up the citadel steps. Wait for a Commander to come back and charge. Like anything else in the tourney, make your shield your top priority, even over damage and you will burn him down quickly. Just continue to fight on the steps and you will be fine. Do not be intimidated by the footmen, you can just run them over and they will die.

Comment by Puckish

Teamwork works here, even across-faction. I saw an Alliance having trouble with a Commander and helped by standing back and throwing Shield Breakers at it. After he died, the Alliance helped me against a Commander.

If you can keep his shields down like that he's cake.

Comment by brionl

Just because you CAN do a quest alone, doesn't mean you HAVE to. Grouping up helps with killing the Commanders, but it also helps with just completing the quest. If there are 5 separate people, they have to wait for a total of 25 lieutenants to spawn, and try to beat the other guys out on tagging them first. If they all form one group, you just need to kill 5 lieutenants, don't have to try to get in a "fast first shot" and can go around and pick off the scouts that are pestering everybody else.

Pro tip: grouping does not give you cooties.

Comment by Locas

Shield break the Commander, then run back to the camp (try and survive the shield being taken down by flying mobs). When you get there fight, charge, shield break and fight.

If he kills you, jump on a fresh horse (which should be near as your back at camp) and continue the fight, as he will still be in combat with you and not renwed his health.

Comment by Gunslinger

The Commandars are not that hard, provided you can avoid getting adds. You do not need to use anything other than your brain.

As a general rule, as long as you can keep him at two stacks or below, keep yourself at two stacks or above, and you don't allow him to Charge you, you will defeat him handily.

Open with Shield Breaker at max range, while backing up, followed immediately by a Charge, and another Shield Breaker after your Charge once you've overshot him and you are circling back toward him (you should still have range). This will remove three stacks of Defense, although he may end up with one stack after all is said and done (they are smart about recasting Defense!)
Thrust repeatedly, while using Defense every time it's up if you are below 3 stacks, until he tries to get range on you.
When turns to try to get range on you, do one of two things depending on how many stacks of Defense he has:

One stack: Shield Breaker as soon as you have range, and then chase after him, so that he cannot get range to Shield Breaker or Charge you, then go back to step 2 once he stops trying to run away. (This will remove one stack of Defense.)
Two or three stacks: Charge him before he charges you (a good time is as soon as he starts to turn towards you). You will overshoot; use Shield Breaker as you circle around to face him again. Go back to step 2. (This will remove two stacks of Defense.)

Comment by kabeen

While doing this quest, get the quest of any other faction as well (unless you are the champion of all cities). You can do two quests at once!
Same thing with and .

Comment by adashiel

For the record, this version of the quest is specifically for Alliance death knights. Unlike other characters, who receive their Champion dailies from the Argent Crusade, death knights work for the Knights of the Ebon Blade. The other versions of the quest, which all share the same name, are:

Aside from faction and specific quest NPCs, the different versions are identical. The division makes sense in game, but it means strategies and comments end up spread across the Wowhead database. If the advice for this particular version doesn't work for you, you may want to take a look at the others.

For still more information, there's also the related daily "At The Enemy's Gates", which is the equivalent for Valiants. It too is divided into different quests, one for each city:

Keep in mind that as of 3.2, there is no overlap in mobs between the Champion and Valiant quests. Champions kill the Boneguard Commander, while Valiants kill the Boneguard Footman, Boneguard Scout, and Boneguard Lieutenant. They're just in the same general area.

Comment by vicknasty

i'm so #$%^ed doing this quest right now i want to shoot myself. the respawn rate of everything else around is out of hand. please fix this.

Comment by vicknasty

this quest is so ridiculous im alliance and a horde helped me w/ it, true story.

Comment by vicknasty

i hope blizz realizes how bad this quest sucks (especially for a daily) and removes it.

Comment by Dave0422

Whoever says they can solo this, I call BS!

When fighting the commander, you *GET* adds. So much as a single add, you might as well run out of combat - you will NOT win.

My advice - unless you're grouped, skip this one.

Comment by Occivink

Note that you can use Thrust on scouts who don't fly too high if you jump at the right time. Makes the killing of scouts really quick since Thrust and Shield Breaker don't share the same cooldown.

Comment by Flitzy

Spending one hour to try and attempt one quest isn't worth it.

Seriously, skip this one, it's not worth it - there's more then enough quests to get champion's seals.

Comment by johnhoftb

It should be noted that the boneguard footmen surrounding the lieutenants and commanders can be easily squashed by moving your horse.

Comment by vergil77

It is already stated in the last paragraph of quest's description.

Comment by Avenara

Icecrown - 49.08 71.47

/way Icecrown 49.08 71.47 Battle Before The Citadel

Comment by Wilgrin

Uh, after patch 3.2.2 these guys are a LOT harder. What gives?

Comment by missmonnie

I'm not sure why this hasn't been noted yet, but to those of you who find that you're pulling unneeded mobs when you're doing this quest, or if you just want an easier way to do it, you can run straight ahead from where you get the quest and up the stairs that everyone is talking about fighting on. By the time you get all the way up the stairs, any mobs which were chasing you will back off. Directly in front of you there is one Commander, and there is one each to the left and right. There are Citadel Watchers and the other big elite guys, however you DO NOT TAKE ANY DAMAGE FROM THEM WHILE YOU ARE MOUNTED. You can pull them and still kill the Commander whilst only taking damage from the Commander. When you have killed all three, you can jump off the edge for fun as you don't take ANY fall damage at all while mounted.

Hope this helps.
Missmonie - Barthilas

Comment by Dragontail

Take some time to rest after completing. You'll need it... Phew.

Comment by Shigy

Just noticed a rather odd bug when accepting this. It pops up the warning "you are mounted" and throws you off your mount if your on one...what I want to know is whats it trying to do? Anyone else experienced this one?

Comment by apintandafight

The commanders are not terribly hard to solo assuming you don't pull extra adds, One thing I found that makes it alot easier is, after you charge on the way in, when you are passing through the commander you can get a free thrust every time. This also applies to the daily jousting quests at the argent tourney grounds.
It is an extra 15k damage every charge and it adds up.

Comment by fredd13

I've been struggling like crazy on this since the patch. Worst problem (apart from the fact that I'm one of the people getting sound problems, so most of the fight takes place in silence) is that Defend doesn't seem to cast reliably - I used to be able to click it and stack my shields back predictably, whereas now 2 times out of 3 nothing happens if I'm in combat. To say it's annoying and frustrating isn't the half of it. Anyone else seeing that? Or have any idea what's changed?

Comment by brionl

Post Cataclysm Update:
If you are still doing this at 80+ (for pets & mounts perhaps), this is eminently soloable, but there is probably not going to be anybody to group with. The best way I've found to solo it these days is to start from the camp and head towards the Icecrown Citadel stairs.
When you get to the first Commander in front of the main wad, kill the scouts around the edges and try to pull the group of footmen in front of the Commander and kill them w/o pulling the Commander. You can fight them all at the same time, but the footmen will eat your shields like crazy and make it a much tougher fight.
Then when you fight the Commander, try to stay on the main path, very few scouts spawn on top of the path itself, they are mostly around the edges. If the Commander runs off the path, throw a javelin, and run towards the other side of the path, and charge when he gets back on it.
Continue and kill the 2 Lieutenants on the 2nd row.
Pull the excess footmen and kill them.
Throw a Javelin at one of the Commanders in the next row, and pull it out to you. Fight it in the same manner as the 1st, then kill the 3rd one.
If you take too long, you may get some respawns of the Lieutenants and footmen, so watch out for those.

Comment by Lajis

What i did was take my time and just go for the one in front. Shieldbreak the commander, they'll all come run for you but simply ignore the adds; pull the commander away, to the empty field at the side of the camp. The adds will reset and you have an empty field to play around with the commander: thrust, when he runs shieldbreak as soon as he has the range, fimmediately ollow after his back until you're in range for a charge (which coincides with the cd), when you turn around shieldbreak again, thrust, repeat.
After that simply wait for the respawn.

Comment by Wondark

I would like to mention that although slow, this quest can be completed without the use of mounting. I was able to kill the boneguard commanders while not mounted. It may be quicker than being mounted but with him running away (as a melee) it seemed to be slower than the mounted option.

Just a heads up.

This comment was made during 5.1 and there is always a possibility of changes. Please uprate this comment if this was helpful to you.

Comment by Nifel

This being the DK version of the daily, the best method I've found is to Control Undead a Commander and using his charge/shield breaker on other Commanders while I dps afoot.

EDIT: Also, using a scout is viable but with the correct technique the Commander seems quicker.

Comment by Gershuun

If you're a Death Knight, use Control Undead on another Commander or Lieutenant and they will remove stacks of the shield while you DPS him down.

Comment by rzzr

I found that with current gear it's much quicker not to use the lance and just nuke them, Whilst you can't one shot the commanders it takes about a minute to kill all three.

Comment by tibbyjudy

If you are level 100 you should not be doing this on a horse, FYI. It is MUCH faster to simply nuke down a commander in 1-3 hits.

In the past I would stupidly mount, dismount out of frustration and start meleeing the commanders, only to realize I still had a lance equipped. This quest takes around 30 seconds to complete if you just keep your weapon equipped and fly to each commander.

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Battle Before The Citadel

Crok Scourgebane at the Argent Tournament Grounds wants you to kill 3 Boneguard Commanders.

	Boneguard Commander slain (3)

Description

As some crusaders prepare for the tournament, they have sent others to make an assault on the enemy's stronghold of Icecrown Citadel.

In the Court of Bones in southwestern Icecrown, a few brave crusaders have set up a forward camp on the southern side of Corp'rethar. Equip your lance and mount the stabled campaign charger at the camp, then destroy the Lich King's commanders.

Do not fear the masses of boneguard footmen, <name>, for they can easily be trampled under your horse's hooves.

Completion

Rewards

You will be able to choose one of these rewards:

	Champion's Writ			Champion's Purse

You will receive: 7 40

	Champion's Seal

Gains

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

10,410 experience
250 reputation with Knights of the Ebon Blade
250 reputation with The Silver Covenant

Battle Before The Citadel

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