Valiance
Family: Horse/Undead
Type: Secret
Zone: Naxxramas (old version)
Faction: Both
Recommended Level: Level 70
Skill Level: 2/10
The Valiance mount is a guaranteed drop from Instructor Razuvious in old Naxxramas after completing a long multipart secret. Getting the mount is the easiest part, it’s unlocking the ability to do so that will take the most effort.
The old versions of Scholomance and Naxxramas were added back into the game in patch 10.1.5 and you will need to unlock both of these first in order to get Valiance. You will then need to unlock a vendor inside old Naxxramas to be able to complete the steps for the mount. I will go over each and every step in this guide below.
Lastly, I would recommend doing this on a fast character such as a druid, shaman, demon hunter or monk if you are able to. There is a section where you have to run across Stratholme and kill bosses within a 5 minute timeframe and it’s much easier to do on a fast class!
Unlocking old Scholomance
How to begin
The first thing you must do is unlock old Scholomance. To begin, you will need someone in your group with the Krastinov’s Bag of Horrors toy. This toy is looted from the rare elite, Doctor Theolen Krastinov, that sometimes spawns after killing Rattlegore in the MOP version of HEROIC Scholomance. You do not need to have the toy yourself; bringing a friend that has it works just fine!
*IMPORTANT*: Before departing, you’ll want to purchase 3 Dark Rune and 5 Essence of Undeath from the auction house. These will be needed in the future!
You’ll then need to head to the Western Plaguelands, located on the Eastern Kingdoms continent. Horde and Alliance players will have different methods of getting there quickly, shown below.
If you’re a druid, you can simply use your Dreamwalk ability to take the Emerald Dreamway portal straight to the Hinterlands. From there, fly northwest.
Horde
The fastest way to get to the Western Plaguelands as a Horde player is to take the Undercity portal in Orgrimmar. It is located on the most eastern zeppelin tower.
Once you’re through the portal, fly east.
Alliance
For Alliance players, it’s a bit more of a trek. You’ll want to go through the Twilight Highlands portal. It can be found in a semi circle with other Cataclysm portals in Stormwind.
Fly northwest to your destination after you’re through the portal!
Running new Scholomance
Once you’ve made it to the Western Plaguelands, you’ll want to go into the MoP revamped Scholomance. You can then complete the dungeon and clear all bosses. After you’ve killed the last boss, Darkmaster Gandling, stay in his room. Go back up the stairs to the top level and head into the room in the center.
In the back left section of this room, you should see a pile of bones.
At this point, whoever has the Krastinov’s Bag of Horrors toy must use it on top of the bones. After this, you should see the ghost of Eva Sarkhoff. You should be able to speak to her and she will give you a Inert Spectral Essence. Make sure to click off the transformation buff the toy gave first, as Eva will be too afraid to speak to you otherwise.
You can repair the Essence you’re given with the 3 Dark Rune and 5 Essence of Undeath you purchased earlier. It will become Spectral Essence, which allows you to see and speak to ghosts. You may not need to repair this item if you are a longtime player that had it before when it was current.
Before leaving the instance, there’s two things left to do! Firstly, pick up Eva’s Femur off the ground near her pile of bones from the same room.
Next, backtrack through the dungeon until you’re in the Viewing Room, which is the room right before Darkmaster Gandling’s. On the bottom floor to the right of the entrance to the corridor back into Gandling’s room, you should see a glowing purple brazier and two bookcases. There should be a well hidden book on the left bookcase, on the right side of the middle level.
If you’re having a hard time finding it, you can squeeze in between the two bookshelves. While you’re in that spot, turn toward the chandelier in the middle of the room. The book should be visible on the right side of your screen from the back of the bookcase.
Once you’ve grabbed Eva’s Journal, you can leave the instance. I would suggest just walking out as you’ll need to continue more tasks in the Western and Eastern Plaguelands.
Finding the five candles
*IMPORTANT*: Make sure to equip your newly acquired Spectral Essence trinket. If you don’t equip it, you won’t be able to see the NPCs!
Outside of Scholomance, you can talk to Eva again and she will ask you to find five candles. Note that you can gather all the required items first and then complete all the trades in Caer Darrow in one trip if you don’t want to go back and forth all the time.
Candle One
The item you’re looking for is in the town hall of Andorhal, hanging on the wall to the right of where Rattlegore spawns.
Once you’ve picked up The Deed to Andorhal, you can trade it to the ghost Magistrate Marduke for the Authentic Andorhal Candle. The Magistrate is located to the right of a wagon near the entrance to Scholomance.
Candle Two
Pick up the Caer Darrow Fountain Water, which looks like a bucket on the edge of the fountain in Caer Darrow.
Take it to Joseph Dirte, who is located to the left near a wall on the second level of Caer Darrow. He will trade you the Stinky Candle.
Candle Three
For this one, you’ll need to head to the Eastern Plaguelands. You’re looking for a Tramped Doll near a meat wagon in Darrowshire.
Take the doll back to the ghost child, Sammy, near the water fountain in Caer Darrow and she will award you with Ghost-Warding Candle.
Candle Four
For this one, you’ll need to find a painting of trees on the wall of what used to be the inn of Corrin’s Crossing. The painting is on the first floor, on the wall beside the stairs leading to the second floor.
You can then trade The Road Ahead to Artist Renfray in a house near the docks of Caer Darrow for Imported Candle.
Candle Five
Lastly, you’ll need to go inside the dungeon Stratholme for this one. You’ll want to go to the “living” side for this, so you can simply enter the front gate where the dungeon entrance is shown on the map.
You’ll know you’re on the right side if you see the bosses Balnazzar and Timmy the Cruel on the map.
Once you’re inside the dungeon, take two lefts and you should see a fountain. Go behind it and look inside the cart for a package.
Deliver the Undelivered Shipment of Smokes to Rory who roams the docks outside Caer Darrow for Tobacco-Filled Candle.
Complete the ritual
Once you’ve gathered all 5 candles as well as Eva’s Journal and Eva’s Femur, you are ready to begin the ritual! Enter the building where the Scholomance instance is located. Instead of taking a left like you usually would to go inside the instance, take a right. Then, go straight ahead. You should see a grate on the floor with a lot of bones surrounding it.
Stand on the grate and right click use Eva’s Journal in your inventory. You should begin channeling with a purple summoning circle around you.
Upon completion, you should get the Memory of Scholomance achievement. This grants account wide access to old Scholomance!
Now that you’ve got old Scholomance unlocked, you can now move on to old Naxxramas.
Unlocking old Naxxramas
Before you begin, you’ll want to grab 1 Righteous Orb and 4 Truesilver Bar from the auction house for a future step!
Old Scholomance Steps
To begin, you’ll want to head into the place you just unlocked– old Scholomance! You can do so by clicking on the book in the middle of the summoning circle where you used Eva’s Journal.
You do not have to kill any bosses. Just have to simply get to Rattlegore’s room which is right under the Great Ossuary.
In the southwest corner of Rattlegore’s room, there is a tiny little item on top of a bone pile that you need to loot called Cracked Argent Dawn Commission.
If you got the materials suggested earlier (1 Righteous Orb & 4 Truesilver Bar), you can right click your new item to repair it.
*NOTE*: People who did Naxxramas content in vanilla WoW may not be able to see the Cracked Argent Dawn Commission in Rattlegore’s room. If this applies to you, talk to an Argent Dawn quartermaster in Chillwind Camp in the Western Plaguelands to get one!
Equip your new trinket and complete the rest of old Scholomance, ending with killing Darkmaster Gandling. If you had the trinket equipped, Gandling should drop Darkmaster’s Scourgestone, which starts a quest of the same name. This quest is turned in to Duke Nicholas Zverenhoff in Light’s Hope Chapel, which will grant you the ability to obtain Scourgestones.
Back to Stratholme
The next steps require you to head back to Stratholme and enter through the main gate as you did before. If you’re on the same character as before, make sure to reset the instance. Also, keep your new Commendation trinket equipped!
First, find a supply crates scattered around the instance and loot some Stratholme Holy Water from them. There should be some near where you entered. Make sure to get at least 3 in total. One for this step and two for a future step.
Then, wander the instance until you find an Eye of Naxxramas mob. They are invisible so it’ll be a bit difficult. Kill them until you get a Ward of Naxxramas.
When you have both the Ward of Naxxramas and Stratholme Holy Water, head to the Crusader’s Square area on the map. Don’t enter the cathedral but rather, turn to the left. You should see a vortex called Dread Ward of Naxxramas.
Once you find the Dread Ward, toss your Stratholme Holy Water into it. You should then see a zone-wide yell and get a debuff called Sleight of Hand.
Once you get this debuff, you have 5 minutes to run all the way to the undead side of Stratholme and complete a task. You can get there by following the route shown below through Festival Lane gate.
You need to kill Lord Aurius Rivendare, but you’ll have to kill some other bosses first before you can get to him.
You’ll need to kill the bosses Nerub’enkan, Baroness Anastari, and Maleki the Pallid. Go behind them into the pyramids they guard and kill all the Thuzadin Acolyte mobs too. Next, head to Slaughter Square and kill all the abominations and then Rammstein. To the left, there’s a gate where two waves of mini mobs will spawn. You have to kill them and then go back to where Rammstein spawned to kill the Black Guard Sentries. The door to kill Rivendare should then be opened and you can kill him. Make sure to loot Rivendare for a chance at the Rivendare’s Deathcharger mount.
After killing Rivendare, head back outside where you came from and head to the left, where you killed the mini mobs originally. If you did this all in less than 5 minutes, the Hand of Naxxramas NPC will be there and you must use your Argent Dawn Commission to burn it.
Last step before unlocking Naxx
Leave Stratholme and head to Tyr’s Hand in the southeastern part of the zone to speak to Archmage Angela Dosantos. If you do not see her at that location, she might be at Light’s Hope Chapel instead.
She will then give you a quest to unlock the old version of Naxxramas, where you may have to provide materials based on your reputation with the Argent Dawn faction. You will need to be Honored or higher with the Argent Dawn in order to complete the quest.
How to get reputation with the Argent Dawn
To get to revered fairly quickly, you can follow a questline in the Eastern Plaguelands. To start, you will need to pick up the quest Gidwin Goldbraids from Fiona. Fiona moves around with her Caravan and you should be able to see the icon on the map. Go there to pick up the quest.
Continue to do quests for Fiona and her caravan companions up to and including the quest Argent Call: The Trial of the Crypt with Lord Maxwell Tyrosus. After completing this quest, you should hit Revered with the Argent Dawn faction immediately!
At Honored, you will need to provide 6 Large Brilliant Shard, 5 Arcane Crystal, 1 Righteous Orb and 60 gold to finish the quest.
At Revered, you’ll need to give Angela 3 Large Brilliant Shard, 2 Arcane Crystal and 30 gold.
Finally, for people at Exalted reputation, it’s completely free! You can just complete the quest.
Once you complete that quest, you’ll get the achievement Wards of the Dread Citadel. This will unlock accountwide access to old Naxxramas. You can enter at any time via a portal crystal in eastern Plaguewood in the Eastern Plaguelands.
Unlocking the vendor inside old Naxxramas
To unlock the vendor, Zackett Skullsmash, you will first need to craft a grappling hook to get up to him.
Obtaining a grappling hook
To begin, enter old Naxxramas via the teleportation crystal in the previous section.
The grappling hook has three components–
- Faerlina’s Sewing Kit, which should be a guaranteed drop from the boss Grand Widow Faerlina in old Naxxramas. She is the second boss of the Arachnid Quarter.
- Construct’s Hook, which can be found in the second room of the Construct Quarter. It is hanging off a vat of slime on the right hand side.
- Abomination’s Chain, which can be fished up from any slime pool in old Naxxramas. The easiest to access is the slime pool directly in front of you as you enter the Arachnid Quarter. It is not a guaranteed drop so you may need to fish for a bit.
Once you’ve collected all three items, you can combine them in your inventory to create the Makeshift Grappling Hook. It will cause several grappling points to become accessible.
Reaching Zackett Skullsmash
Now that you’ve got your grappling hook, you can get up to the vendor you’re looking for. To begin, head to Thaddius’ room. He is the last boss of the Construct Quarter. Make sure to kill Stalagg and Feugen, and then finish off Thaddius. You should be able to see and use the grappling points after their deaths.
As for where to go, it’s a bit hard to explain with words. I would recommend watching the video below and following along with the movements to get up to Zackett. He is in the rafters high above Thaddius’ room and you’ll have to use several grapple points to get up there.
When you reach Zackett, throw some Stratholme Holy Water on him to wake him up. Once he’s up, he will give you the quest Inconvenience Fee.
This quest requires you to collect:
- 20 Invader’s Scourgestone, which can drop from all bosses in Scholomance. They also drop from all Scourge related bosses in Stratholme, however they will not drop from Scarlet Crusade related bosses whatsoever. This will take multiple runs.
- 5 Corruptor’s Scourgestone, which can drop from all bosses in Naxxramas. This may take multiple runs. Scourgestones are bind on account so you can run the instance on alts if you’re locked out on your main. Afterwards, just mail them to your main character.
- 3 Dark Rune, which can drop from mobs in Scholomance but can also just be purchased on the Auction House.
- 1 Black Coffee, which can be purchased from Kevin Browning who patrols around eastern Lower City in Shattrath City, or from the auction house if you’d prefer.
After you’ve collected all your required items, head back to Zackett Skullsmash the exact same way you did originally. You’ll need to wake him up with Stratholme Holy Water again to turn in the quest.
Once the quest is completed, Zackett will move to the main ring of Naxxramas, where he will start selling various items for Death’s Bargaining Chips. Trading in 1 Corruptor’s Scourgestone gives 1 Death’s Bargaining Chip, whereas 10 Invader’s Scourgestones only gets you 1 Death’s Bargaining Chip in return.
Obtaining Valiance
Now, we’re finally at the last section that ends with you getting your Valiance mount!
To start, you’ll need to purchase Rotten Delicious from Zackett Skullsmash for 30 Death’s Bargaining Chips. As mentioned above, the Chips are obtained by turning in either Corruptor’s Scourgestones or Invader’s Scourgestones to Zackett.
*IMPORTANT*: For the next step, it is crucial that you are on 10 man Naxxramas. You will not be able to do it on 25 man. Additionally, make sure the Instructor Razuvious boss is alive.
Assuming you’re on 10 man Naxx, you’ll want to go to Instructor Razuvious’ room. He is the first boss in the Military Quarter. Head to the stables part where you’ll see horsemen patrolling. In the very back in roughly the middle stall, you should see Valiance. Walk up to the horse and feed it the Rotten Delicious item. It may kick you back a few times before you can feed it.
After feeding Valiance, go to the area where you fight Instructor Razuvious. You should see two glowing purple Obedience Crystals near the stairs. Click on one of these to mind control a Death Knight Understudy.
While controlling the Understudy’s body, walk over to Valiance. The Understudy should be able to mount the horse. Ride Valiance back to Razuvious and break the mind control by clicking on the character portrait and selecting dismiss. You should be returned to your own body while the Understudy is still on top of Valiance. Kill Razuvious and both of the Understudy mobs. You should be able to loot the Reins of Valiance off of the corpses. Congratulations!