Quick Facts

Series

1.	March of the Giants
2.	The Lodestone
3.	Demolishing Megalith

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Comments

Comment by Kuzzle

The mobs are rootable, making this easy for a balance druid.

Comment by 3946

Giants run starts at 66, 23

Comment by fosticpopcorn

(This post was made during the WotLK Beta, Build 8905)

I soloed this quest rather effortlessly as a 70 Elemental shaman with T5/ZA/lvl 70 badge mixed gear. (4.5~k lightning bolt crits for those interested in trying the same).

The giants are level 70 elites, 26k~ hp, and they are snarable, which makes this quest easy for frost mages and the like.
They're located around the Iron Rune dwarves and their camps. Don't mistake them for the neutral yellow Stone Giants, which won't give you quest credit. Be careful not to accidentally aggro dwarves and such.
I recommend doing this quest alongside with The Book of Runes. The two questlines send you to the exact same places.

Comment by BigfootGolem

Prot warriors could do this with a little luck or high gear level, in sub-T4 gear with 13k hp, I was lucky enough to kill one of them. The DoT they put on you are spell reflect-able, and with timing/luck, you can reflect 2 stacks onto them as it doesn't consume SR.
When the giants are about to DoT you, they receive a 5 stack buff/debuff that indicates that their next hits also inflict the DoT, usually you would take the first one, put up spell reflect on the 2nd and (hopefully) the third, then use stuns or fear until SR cooldown is up then hit it again.

Comment by dracula

I was unable to use the pick on any giant I killed ("Invalid target"), until I got in a party. Not entirely sure if that was really the solution, but you might want to try to team up with someone else if you get the same problem.

Oh, and that stacking rune debuff really hurts a lot... keep him away from you or stunned so he cannot apply the debuff on you.

Comment by 244861

Also says in some places that they can be feared ... this resulted in multiple big fat IMMUNE messages and a quick 3 hit death. Not sure about other casters but this was a no-go for this Lock.

Chris

Comment by Leone

This is easy to solo for warlocks to.
Just start of at max distance with applying some dot or just a SB. Then just apply CoA and Corruption while running.
Shouldn't take more than 1-2 min to take it down. Let your pet get in on the action to for extra dmg.

Comment by 224951

Quite possibly the stupidest quest I have encountered so far.

Perhaps compounded by the fact that I am a feral druid.

So far I am about 25% successful trying to solo these. I wait for Innervate to be up, I am using spell damage food, and popping Major Dreamless Sleep potions.

When I get lucky and DON'T aggro pats and die, or run OOM and have to run away and waste consumables, I have to also hope that some idiot isn't around to run up and tap the mob with the pick before I do.

Very stupid quest. That's my vote.

Edit: the 4th giant I timed and it took me exactly 7:02 to kill it. Used only 1 Innervate (it was coming off CD in 3 seconds when he died)

Comment by Apostrophe

I have killed 5 of them solo, but out of those 5 only one I was able to use the pick once, this is very frustrating. Any hints as to what I may be doing wrong?

Comment by 142942

Just a note for Hunters that may try to get their pet (most likely Gorilla -- GO GO GORILLADINS) that they put a stacking debuff on whoever they're attacking in melee range called Dark Rune. This makes it incredibly hard to keep your pet up so I suggest just going with our natural ability to kite; lay down a frost trap and start going ;).

EDIT: I figured I would add the path I usually kited along. I usually caught one walking north around 73, 19. I would tag him while he walked between the two Iron Dwarf camps and pull him between the rock outcropping and trees at 72, 18. From here I would lay frost traps, concussive shots, etc and kite to about 70, 20 at which point they'd die. This kiting path is free of all enemies that may get in your way. Happy kiting :).

Comment by 64303

Who cares who can solo and with what gear.
As of this writing me and my party gave up after 4 unsuccessful attempts. Using the pick would register an "invalid target" error text. I am thinking that this quest is not working 100%

Comment by 31022

This is far better to do along with The Rune of Command rather than The Book of Runes, as you can easily have a pet stone giant to help you fight the Runed Stone Giants. It will stun and help DPS them.

In fact, keep the Rune of Command for further use through this quest chain -- don't turn in the quest!

Comment by 12634

I was able to kill 4-5 out of 8 solo as a smite specced priest in healing/spiritgear. I think it's pretty much luck with the debuffs wich makes the difference though. Maybe I could have killed all with healthpots. I got the bug where i couldn't use the pick on them though. All bugged until i got in a group but also one bugged while in group.

Ohh, I was lvl 71 btw.

Comment by 204878

WARNING: If you are a miner, you will be able to mine the corpse, it is not to do the investigation, you will mine them and their corpse will disappear.

Comment by Shinraz

As a lock, it's very good to kite the giants around the trees while applying CoA and Corruption.

Comment by kolb

root, nuke, repeat as necessary.

they have a wicked stacking DOT that -will- kill you if you spend more than two rounds in melee, but they're vunerable to all forms of slows/cc, so that shoudnt be a problem..

this quest, the next one, and megalith all easily solo'd as a moonkin...

Comment by tigress

So my party-mate and I figured out what makes them "Invalid Target"s when you try to pick them: stuns. The Runed Giants we didn't stun (we're two rogues) via a Cheap Shot or Kidney Shot - we could pick. The first 4 Runed Giants we did stun, we couldn't pick.

I'm not sure if this extends to other forms of CC, or just stuns.

Comment by Whizkers

I am getting this same problem, but I did not CC my kills at all. In fact, I used DoTs and kited/shielded until it was dead. Like people has said, terrible trying to kite as priest, but I did get many kills, none of which I could use the item on. Is this a glitch and something that will be fixed soon?

Comment by Hinahina

This was sad easy for an Affliction Lock, be warned I did have Boar's Speed and the Curse of Exhaustion so kiting was no problem. I could only not use the pick on ONE of my kills, when it was too far up the mountain, I'm not sure if being on the green has anything to do with it. Maybe it's an Area thing? Anywho, dotdotdot, trail, if he hits you, no good. Spellshatter won't work because that'll only get you down to 50% of threat when you already had 100%.

I found them mostly in the northern bits, very abundant, lots of room to kite and zero mobs to run into.

Comment by 17418

It should be noted that in order to pick up this quest one must first complete Making the horn (https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=11275)

Comment by fearyaks

Ahh.. as shadow I've been able to kite them very easily but if it is the 'stuns' that is preventing me from using the pick I guess I'll try smiting them to death (blackout).

Comment by 248273

Elemental shaman: Two lightning bolts and one frost shock. Run a bit and repeat. You do not want to get hit by these guys. Make sure you have a clear kiting path.

Comment by 129964

Soloed as a 72 feral druid gear with S2 gear. I only died on my first try, the price to pay in order to understand how to tackle these guys. Once you get the hang of it, it's not that hard.

Start in cat form. Pounce, mangle and shred, and hope for crits and/or an omen of clarity proc, then rip. Do not try to maim those giants. Although they can be stunned, they're immune to maim (incapacitate). As soon as you start getting hit, shift to bear form.

Once in bear form, watch out for the stackable dots. As soon as you have 2 or 3 and your hp is melting like snow in the sun, trigger nature's grasp. Once the giant is rooted, get the hell away from it, and cast entangling roots if nature's grasp breaks early. If you haven't waited too long and have only 2 or 3 dots on you, you can safely shift out of bear form, and cast one or two healing touch, plus some hots to get back into the fight. When you're at full health again, shift back to bear form, and start fighting again. This time, nature's grasp on cooldown, so when you have your 2-3 dots (careful, it goes fast), bash the giant and cast entangling roots. Wait for the dots to go away, all the while healing yourself. Normally, with gear similar to mine, the giant should die on your next bout. If you're unsure about it, don't hesitate to wait till nature's grasp is up again, by re-casting entangling roots if need be.

It's sort of scary to see how fast your health goes down, but if you time it right and get away from them to heal, it should be ok. They go down pretty fast after all.

Oh and try to find a somewhat clear spot to fight them. If you get an add, like one of the sentinels, you can deal with it while the giant is rooted. In such a case, try bash + entangling roots if bash isn't on cooldown yet. If you cast nature's grasp, you run the risk that it will proc on the sentinel.

Comment by 119272

As a holy priest I found that doing Rune of Command at the same time as this quest makes this quest easily soloable. Your companion Giant will stun the Runed Giant, allowing you to run and dot and get a few casts off before kiting him around until your Giant stuns him again.

Comment by 220522

While doing this, I realized that the mobs I couldn't use the pick on were the ones who didn't use the Rune Fist buff on themselves. I'm not sure how accurate this was, but stunning those who used the Rune Fist buff let me use the pick.

Comment by 153127

the most accurate conclusion I've reached about the invalid target thing indeed relies on the rune buff that the giants gain. If they gain the +physical damage buff, they will be invalid targets for the purposes of this quest. I assume this is because they actually count for all purposes as a regular non-runed stone giant.

Comment by 138498

If you are having trouble with "invalid target" messages try using the quest item before you loot the corpse. It worked for me.

Comment by 159475

Here is how I did this as a rogue (mutilate spec).

Deadly/Instant poison with talent that procs crippling poison.

Cheap shot, cold blood mutilate, kidney shot just before cheap shot ends. Get in one or two mutilates if you can, run out before kidney shot ends.

Giant should be snared, keep moving away while you wait for your kidneyshot to refresh. You should have 4-5 combos on the mob right now.

Once kidney is up, run to the mob and mash kidney shot. If it gets parried you will probably die. If you land the KS, go to town burning it down.

You may have to pop evasion or burn cloak of shadows to clear the dot.

Takes a lot of cooldowns, but still probably faster than finding a group.

Comment by triface

Warlocks can choose to kite the giants around with Curse of Exhaustion if they have it. I had an easy time with the quest as an Affliction warlock with Curse of Exhaustion but I'm not sure how the other specs will fare. What I did was apply all my dots and replace Curse of Agony with Curse of Exhaustion. I then ran around in circles, refreshing Coex when appropriate and being careful not to aggro the monsters. Some time later the giants fell.

Comment by 258226

I had a big problem with this quest as feral tanking druid . Put on your offspecc gear dosnt matter resto or boomkin and root em!

Comment by 146819

Soloed as a 71 Affliction/Demo Warlock. Started with an Unstable Affliction, followed by a Wand zap (DoTs can't tap mobs, so the Wand hit was just a safety measure), Curse of Agony, and Corruption (after some testing, found out that they're immune to Drain effects, so no Siphon Life >.<). Then I did what any sane Warlock would do: Run like hell. I renewed the DoTs when they were about to run out, and turned around for a quick Shadowbolt whenever Nightfall popped (they move slowly enough that you can stay out of range the entire time without resorting to speed increases or Curse of Exhaustion).
Took about a minute for each of the Giants. I recommend dragging them up to the northern end of Giant's Run (where the ground is covered in snow) so you don't have to worry about adds.

Comment by Thander

Pretty much impossible to solo without Rune of Command for holy pally.
The mobs hit for 850 on plate. The DoT is applied almost every hit. Each stack does about 500 for a total 2500 fully stacked. You don't have time to dispel them because you have to keep healing yourself.

Hand of Protection and Divine Shield cleared the DoT but you have to survive 2 minutes before being able to clear it again. Hammer of Justice is only 6 seconds, not enough time to Cleanse 5 times and heal yourself.

Get a group or do it with the later quest.

Comment by 260817

As a warlock, I kite dot soloed this around the rock at 71.5,18.0 without any swift running enchants. Just keep reapplying your dots so the monster doesn't evade/reset. In particular when kiting around that rock, try and go clockwise, and jump thru the little crack between the big rock and the outcropping on the west side. This will give you some extra room as the giant will go around instead of thry the crack.

Comment by Thyra

Some summary and tips:

- you find those giants at Giants Run, coords are 65, 25 - 73, 25.

- they have around 26k hp and hit for around 600-800 on plate (green/blue quest reward gear)

- if you hit them melee, there is a chance that you'll get a debuff which stacks very fast - max. damage is 2500 firedamage every 2 seconds

- dont pull them too far to the east - if you die, you will spawn at vengeance landing graveyard and you need to walk quite far, up the elevator and straight through the forest, this is annoying

- every caster class with snare effects can solo it. you just need to kite them, I suggest to kite them to the north, next to the mountains, the chance to add other mobs there is very low. I couldn't solo them with melee classes (rogue, retri), except death knight, just spam icy touch and chains of ice. It takes long but it works.

- dont loot them before you havent used the pick. I always got those "invalid target" message when i accidentially looted them.

- miners: pay some extra attention!

I hope this helps.

Comment by Wildhorn

Some basic information about this quest:

- Get to The Rune of Command quest. It will give you a pet which gonna help alot.
- Mobs you have to kill are Runed Stone Giant and not Stone Giant, which are yellow.
- You need to kill them AFTER they have stepped on the giant runes on the ground and get the Bind Stone Giant buff (it look likes the anti-magic shield effect, last 30 secs but you can kill them after it wears off).
- It is also this "binding" that give them their Rune Fist ability which can put on you the nasty Dark Rune debuff which stack up to 5, doing 3000 damage per 2 seconds.
- If you kill them before they get this "binding", you wont be able to examine them and will get the Invalid target error message.
- Best place to kill them to be sure they got the "binding" is around 72,16.

The Dark Rune is very deadly and going into melee with these mobs is very unhealty. Here is a guide for every class of how to solo them.

- Death Knight: Kite them with Chains of Ice > Icy Touch > Blood Boil > Blood Boil > Death Coil. Repeat.
- Druid: Root them and nuke them.
- Hunter: Kite them.
- Mage: Kite them and/or spell steal the Dark Fist buff and melee them for heavy damage :)
- Paladin: You can remove the DoT on yourself.
- Priest: You can remove the DoT on yourself and the buff on the giant.
- Rogue: Stun lock them. Cloak of Shadow if you get the DoT on you. Evasion to prevent to get hit.
- Shaman: Frost Shock kite them and/or purge the buff on the giant.
- Warlock: Felhunter out and eat the buff on the giant. You cant drain their hp and they are immune to fear.
- Warrior: Equip a shield and Shield Slam them to remove the buff. You can also spell reflect the DoT.

Comment by 161566

Affliction Warlocks: Kitable with Curse of Exhaustion. Remember CoEx has only 12 seconds, so you'll be recasting it a few times.

I did: Open with Haunt -> UA -> Corruption -> CoEx (as needed)... run and repeat. Haunt will refresh Corruption if you have the talent.

Don't bother with Drain Life or Siphon Life = IMMUNE.

Comment by 242255

75 demo lock, but I had alot of trouble solo-ing with the felhunter. My felhunter just got stomped 3 seconds into the fight. Ended up using a voidwalker, VW had enough aggro holding ability.

Also, I've tested out several scenarios mentioned here, and here's what applied to me:

1) If I loot the corpse before analyzing it, I occasionally get an invalid target message.
2) I was always able to analyze it if I do it before looting.
3) Whether or not the giant had that buff thing on it did not seem to affect whether or not I could analyze it.
4) Stunning also did not seem to affect the ability to analyze (contrary to some other players' experiences). My FG stunned it, he dies a few seconds later, I summon a VW and let him take over aggro.

In my case, the only variable that affected the outcome was analyzing before looting.

- 12/13/08

EDIT: Did further experiment - point #3 isn't very accurate. Giants have two types of buffs I've seen so far: The +physical damage and the one that burns you for 1k+ damage a second. I was only able to analyze the ones that have casted the burn buff (debuff on my VW). The ones that only cast +dmg weren't analyzable.

Comment by Khro

Soloable as a Prot Warrior. I was level 74 when I tried this though, but it shouldnt be different than if i was level 70

What I did was fight, but kept enough rage to spell reflect. The second he casts Rune Fist you hit spell reflect, it should reflect up to 3 stacks of the dot, during this time do not revenge or concussive blow, just wait out your spell reflect, once it ends, hit him with concussive blow, so you dont get any stacks. at the end of it, spell reflect should be up again, just hit it.

the giant practically solo's itself like this...

also. watch for what the giant casts.

if the giant casts stonefist, he will not be lootable for the quest, you will get invalid target when using the pick, if he casts runefist, then he will be lootable.

Comment by Entranze

soloed as a 71 lock, jsut kite em with CoA and Corruption (but need to spam corruption a bit), as they run in the same speed as running

Comment by 272742

I'm a 73 Hunter with a Core Hound and grouped with a 71 Hunter with a Leopard...easily doable if you send in pets first and just deal draining DPS like Volley or Serpent Sting. Just to make the kills run faster, use Bestial Wrath with Kill Command...the giants go down fast.

Comment by Beace

70 ret paladin here, well geared (heirloom axe, shoulders, etc).

I was able to brute force kill one of them, using every single cooldown, and barely making it alive. But just didn't feel viable or safe. What you can do as a ret paladin is kite them with judgement (assuming you got the increased running speed). Just run in a circle and judge every cooldown. He might get close enough for a few hits every now and then, but just get range and heal up with instant flash heals, or diving shield if it gets bad. Avoid adds. Might also try to throw in some divine storm when there's no rams in range.

Comment by GenghisKhan

Patch 3.0.3, soloing this as feral druid in bear form. I died 4 times. For other classes might be easier to solo. Way to go blizz... this quest is gay!

Comment by coredumperror

This quest is made significantly less annoying in every aspect (invalid target, adds, etc), by always picking up the Rune Stone Giants in a particular area.

If you start approximately between the "N" in "GIANT'S RUN" and the bottom of the little dotted path on the map (71, 21), and only pull the giants that are heading north (the southbound one's haven't been given a rune yet, meaning they're invalid targets), you'll be able to kite safely because there's no mobs at all to the north of the dwarfs. I did this quest today as a DK (using Wildhorn's strategy), and it was a total snap. I didn't get a single add, nor take a single point of damage from the giants.

Comment by Oathmaker

Obviously a reference to March of the Penguins.

Comment by 52637

soloed as a 70 frostmage... no prob

Comment by 267417

Soloed as a balance druid. Just make sure to clear the area with any mobs around it and to also root as once roots breaks. Otherwise, took me about 5min to do.

Comment by 302684

Thanks Wildhorn,your post helped alot.
For a Druid, I did actually try going melee. Don´t try it. Luckily I got secondary healing gear (greens) because 6k +- mana w/ feral gear just can´t do the job. With 10k mana it´s more than doable (lvl 71). Just spam roots and Moonfire + Wrath.

Comment by 317502

good post, altough one little thing in it: u speak of 3000 damage, yet the Dark Rune inflicts 300 damage.

Comment by SiccGoesWowhead

At 1 stack, yes, but it stacks up to 5 times. And at 5 stacks it does correctly 3000 dmg every 2 sec, just as the man said.

Thought I'd add this:

I noticed while questing on my 75 prot warr when I killed a Runed Giant, which roams all over eastern Grizzly Hills, that these work perfectly well for this quest as I tried to use the pick on the corpse. It's practically the same mob, does the annoying debuff and so on. Wasn't much more then a normal mob to solo though, won't explain why, since there are probably over 5 descriptions about that on this page already.
The only difference is that they have about 3k more hp, because of the lvl difference, they're 74-75.

Comment by Reversion

Just thought I'd mention that this is poor advice for a warlock. This quest is next to impossible for locks because it doesn't matter how many stacks of the debuff you eat with your Fel Hunter, he keeps putting them back on faster than you can devour them. And they run faster than you and you can't fear/death coil them for kiting purposes. I wouldn't suggest any warlocks try to solo this quest. Save yourself an ample amount of frustration and gear repair bill.

Comment by tobarstep

As others have mentioned, get the pet from The Rune of Command to help with this quest. Playing a Ret Paladin (level 70 in green gear), I was having a terrible time with this quest before I got the pet. Sure, you can cleanse the debuff, but it gets put back on as fast as you can cleanse it and you're spending every GCD on cleansing. Nothing left for dps...

So, with the pet (and 2 points in Pursuit of Justice) I was able to fairly easily solo this quest. You have to take the first hit to get the pet involved, but after that just run around in circles (first time I've ever been able to kite on a Paladin) and wait for the pet to stun it. Once it's stunned, run up and Judge Command on it to get a guaranteed crit (assuming you don't miss - how do you miss a stunned mob, anyway?). This will also proc Art of War giving you what is very likely a much needed instant heal. After you judge you may have enough time to also get off a Crusader Strike or Divine Storm (again with the healing - very nice). Move back to a safe range ASAP though, and start the kite again. Just keep running in circles and judging when stunned. It takes a minute or two, but very doable.

I was able to get down 2 of the giants before my pet despawned using this method. So, I had to summon a pet twice to finish the quest (pet actually despawned on the second giant with about 20% of his health to go, but I managed it). Not bad considering I'd already died 3 times before I tried the pet out. Also, don't forget to buff the pet. I put Might on mine.

Comment by 146819

I wouldn't suggest any warlocks try to solo this quest. Save yourself an ample amount of frustration and gear repair bill.

I've actually done it solo. Instead of Wildhorn's method, I used the "DoT-and-run" technique (put CoA and Corruption on, run like hell, renew dots as needed; turned around for an instant SB when Nightfall procced). Their run speed is slightly lower than 100%, so it's possible to avoid them just by running (but I did this a while ago; if they're not slow anymore, maybe CoEx would help).

Comment by Caewyn

Or do this quest with two people, I went with a 71 DK, I was a 69 priest, the DK killed, and I healed. Finished in 5 minutes, just have to be careful where you pull, as has been mentioned :)

Comment by Cthulhuftagn

One thing Wildhorn forgot to mention is that in "Rune of Command" Prospector Belvar is alliance only, they are standing in an alliance town and you will be dead before you even get anywhere near them from all the guards who want to say "Hi !"

Comment by Fugazi

As Ret Pala (or any other Pala with 15% run speed) just stun sucker, nuke it, then Judgement of Justice and kite it to death with it, Exorcism and HoW.

Comment by 385344

Confirmed, I was able to solo this quest as a level 69 Feral Druid in a full green quality Resto/Balance gear set with 9357 mana. I was spec'd into Omen of Clarity (OoC), which helps on this quest. If I was unlucky with OoC procs I had to rely on Innervate and/or a mana potion if I got too low. I would start the fight with Starfire followed by an immediate Moonfire, then root the giant with Entangling Roots. From here, I would spam Wrath if the giant was both rooted and had the Moonfire DoT on him. If I got an OoC proc., and the giant was still rooted, I would cast Starfire.

Comment by 188696

Real easy way I found to do this is to get up to the Rune of Command quest and get one of the Stone Giants as a pet. Like many people have said, he CANNOT solo a Rune Stone Giant, he does however provide a Bash ability which makes killing via kiting for any class a bit easier to do.

First, clear out around where ever you will be fighting the Runed Stone Giant. Then run in (or shoot if your ranged) and attack the mob just enough so your pet runs in and you have a little aggro. From there just kite him around. About every 10 seconds your pet will stun the mob giving you an opportunity to run in and beat on the mob, or apply a few dots. Try and get back out before the stun wears off because the fire debuff hurts.

Hope this helps :)

Comment by Squirrely

71 Affliction Warlock

They're immune to Fear and Life Drain.

The technique I used was send in voidwalker while I applied Haunt -> Curse of Elements ->Unstable Affliction -> Corruption. Then I shot a shadowbolt to pull aggro off my voidwalker before it died and just ran away while re-applying corruption to keep him aggroed and curse of agony for more dps.

Make sure you have a good path plotted out beforehand because any adds generally mean death when you're trying to strategically run away like this.

Edit: Walking along the cliff wall towards the east is generally clear of adds. After dying once because of fruitless fearing and life draining and once because of adds during the fight, I'd say this is the way to go if you can't go toe to toe with these things like other classes.

Comment by DeathByInertia

I got credit for this quest by inspecting a dead Runed Giant https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/npc=26417. This was during the quest Rallying The Troops https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/quest=12070 (Horde). Grizzly Hills Giants https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/npc=26261 help you kill the Runed Giants.

Comment by 426024

I soloed this quest with my level 70 green geared and unenchanted demonology warlock without any problems. First let your felguard tank the Runed Storm Giant while yourself go full dps (without taking aggro ofc). You should be able to get the mob down to like 50-60% health before your felguard dies. When the felguard dies you start to kite the mob up to and then around the snowcovered area just north of Giant's Run (the only mobs there is neutral level 71 Frosthorn Ram's). The Runed Storm Giants runs really slow, sometimes I came out of range and I don't use any speed increasing enchants or something like that. Just keep Curse of Agony and Corruption up at the Runed Storm Giant and he should be dead in about 1 min.

Good luck!

Comment by Keiser

On my druid these were immune to all nature spells, entangling roots, wrath, insect swarm. There's no way as a balance/resto druid you will heal through the damage they output so just moonfire kite them. You can occasionally go travel form to get max distance and fire up a starfire too if you like to speed it up.

Comment by HaraKiriWaka

One easy quest. You don't have to kill any Runed Stone Giants. Or use the quest The Rune of Command.
Just find Megalith. Very easy to solo, did it with a poorly geared level 70 paladin. I didn't use any heal/bubble/LoH
Just be careful of his knock-back. Once Megalith is dead, mine his corpse.
He take 30 seconds to one minute for respawn, it is done very quickly.

Comment by ellmo

This quest is outrageous. This is how you do it, or at least try:

I confirm that you should kill only the hostile, Runed Giants, that are wandering around, and only after they have walked into a rune ring. If a giant has walked into a rune, it'll get a buff that stays on them for the rest of their life, as they march somewhere further, but you can observe the buff icon and it's anti-shield-like visuals for a brief moment only (30 seconds, or something). So after those signs disappear, there's no way for you to tell if the giant is ripe for killing and analyzing or not (well I think you can only observe if a giant is marching out of the map, or heading to a rune, because they will not head for runes once they have been at a rune before).

It would be nice, if this was mentioned in the quest text.

One more, and the most important thing, do not forget about it:
After stepping onto a rune the giants become IMMUNE to nature magic. As an elemental shaman I find fighting immune elites to be completely retarded. If it wasn't for a feral druid, who tanked and dpsed for me all the time, I would have abandoned the quest.

Quite an intriguing and hard quest, which for some reason has turned almost impossible for some classes and builds.

Comment by 452664

I did one thing, saved this q for later, around lvl 73 I went to Grizzly hills and got Gavrock quest's, where in final I got Gavrock's runebreaker, and with it you can make rune giants non elite, till you hand in q at least. Its quest "Free at last". Released 4 giants for quest, and just made non elite next one, killed it and explored same corpse 4 times, "March of giants was completed". this might hep if someone cant do it alone before

Comment by Chronalis

As a 70 feral druid, i found i wasn't able to solo this, even using the giant. However, i found that picking up some cheap +spirit gear from the AH allowed me to moonfire the mob (to get credit), and heal up the giant which tanked for me. If it aggroed onto me, i simply kited it around while hotting up the giant (if it needed healing) until the giant got aggro again. Didn't need to change spec, just some gear.

If needs be, you can always kite it with moonfire, and stopping to starfire when needed. The mobs can swim, so don't worry about them evading.

Quite easy if you're prepared to change how you look at the quest itself and adapt a little.

Comment by 310884

i'm a 73 destro lock. easy soloable q
just start with a immolate on the runed stone giants then a fast conflagrate(aftermath will daze them for 4 seconds ) another immolate or chaos bolt then incinerate , shadowfury when he get's off of the daze then immo and incinerate . if u have voidwalker as pet put a sacrifice on u when he gets to u and if he deals enough damage death coil him .
easy!

Comment by Flitzy

You can also get credit by killing and inspecting Megalith. He's a bit easier to take down and doesn't have the nasty DoT effect the Runed Giants do.

The spawn time is only about 2-3 minutes, so you won't be waiting around for long and you can kill some of the other animals around for XP while you wait.

Comment by Poposhka

i won't say this was easy at 72 as a prot warrior. but it wasn't awful either.

the key is to make sure you are not afflicted by the dot that stacks on you. as suggested above

- get the rune of command "pet"
- use spell reflect as soon as you can
- open with shield block
- keep the darn thing stunned (shockwave, conc blow, revenge)
- if you get low on life, shockwave, run away a bit let the dot tick down and bandage. charge-stun in again.

good luck, it's a fun challenging fight solo.

Comment by 355455

If you're an arcane mage, don't even bother with the Rune of Command. This quest is unbelievably easy to solo for arcanists, maybe easier than any other class or spec. Because the giants can be snared, all you need to do is clear a space and kite them around. They walk at practically a crawl when Slowed, you won't hardly need to spam Arcane Barrage because it's so easy to open up space to safely nuke them.

Did this with zero trouble at level 69, in a mixture of Outland/Northrend quest greens and heirlooms. Was not even close to being hit even once.

Comment by 468278

As a lvl 70 BM hunter I was just a little bit shy of being able to solo everytime so I put the quest on hold for a bit, thought maybe I would get 71 first. I went on to finish the other quests around the area... not sure what qest chain it is from but at some point you will get one called "The Rune Of Command" this involves you using the rune to control a "Stone Giant" (the regular one) and you get to keep it until you finish the quest. I decided to see if it would attack anything I did or only the mob for that quest. And sure enough it will attack anything that hits you. SO in closing if you dont mind putting quest on hold for a while you can complete alot easier.

Comment by rslogic

Yes, they are immune to tangling roots. I luckily have a Resto spec/gear setup that I switch into for a "Moonfire + Kite" strategy that works wonders. Find a Giant all alone, the more towards snow the more alone they usually are. Then, simply Moonfire, Shapeshift into Travel Form, Moonfire when the last one wears off, and so on. Just run in a circle really. They can't catch you in Travel Form. If you're really bold you can run in in Cat form, throw a Rake on them and continue the moonfire strategy. I wouldn't, cause if you get dazed you're done for.

I've tried "taming" one of the "yellow named" giants with Rune of Command and keeping them alive, but the "red named" giant always turns on me, so i have to kite anyway, and my giant ends up dying usually cause I can't put them as my "focus" and they don't show up on Healbot.

I'm gonna try taming a giant AND Moonfire + Travel Form kiting...the extra damage from my tamed Giant should make it much quicker. I'll let you know :)

Edit: K, taming a giant and then Moonfire Kiting worked REALLY well. Whenever my giant stunned the other one I was able to get off a Starfire. The most tricky part is the beginning. Do NOT start with a high damage spell or anything that's more DPS than your tamed Giant can make up for. I would suggest running in with a weak melee strike so the giant can pick up the aggro right away.

As a druid, i believe I'll run in already in travel form, hit it once then attempt to run away. Only when I have some range will I start the Moonfire strategy.
Edit: That failed...hard. My giant just never started attacking the "red" giant. Gonna go in in Tree form for some survivability.

Edit: It's SUPER tricky trying to get your giant to start attacking cause you have to get hit first...just the fact that the big giant is chasing you isn't enough to get your giant to help out. I pretty much just kited the ol' fashioned way. But if you can get in there, get him to hit you and get out quickly, your giant's stuns help a LOT.

Comment by 423486

fairly easy to kite them as a hunter. they arent immune to concssive shot or scatter. Kill surrounding adds and kite in a big circle. If it catches up to you disengage and restablish your kite. Keep mana pots handy in case you go oom

Comment by Terindes

Barely soloable as Prot warrior 456 Def rating, 14k armor, 12k hp buffed (Sanctuary)
Dont do the same mistake i did and try to cast Exorcism because that hurts...

Used bubble once and LoH once when I pulled 2 adds,

U can use Hammer of Justice (stun) It works ^^ Also Avengers Shield does slow him,

also good reminder is The iron giants have an AoE attack that hits for around 1.3k

- Teríndes Ahn Qiraj EU

Comment by Sibling2

A word of advice for all the priests out there, this quest indeed is soloable. Some things to note:

The giants are not very fast runners.
They are fearable by Psychic Scream.

This is how I did it as a shadow priest at level 70:

Wait at the snow's border. The giants keep marching north, so you'll eventually encounter them here, and there are no hostile mobs around, so there's plenty of room to go around and kite.

Pre-shielded: Start by unloading Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Blast and one Mind Flay on them. As soon as they get into melee range, fear them and shoot a Mind Blast and one Mind Flay at them.

As soon as the fear breaks, throw in a SW:P, shield yourself and run for it. You should be a fair distance away from them so they won't catch you too soon while you kite them along the snow border (east-west). Remember to reapply SW:P every few seconds to keep them from running away!

Once they catch you or your Psychic Scream comes off cooldown, blast it. When the fear kicks in, unload all your dots and a Mind Blast and repeat the kiting process.

Note: You MAY need a mana potion!

Comment by Nipah

Just did this quest on my 72 Hunter, and it is incredibly easy as long as you're not completely terrible at kiting.

I found I got the best results by doing the following:

Use Aspect of the Cheetah (sort of a no brainer there).
Set pet to "passive", turn off Growl's autocast, and turn on Cower's autocast.
Make sure you've got full mana before you tag the giants.

By this point in your hunter's career, I would hope that you've learned how to do a jumping 180 degree Arcane / Concussive Shot. Pretty much do a jumping Arcane Shot whenever the cooldown is up, and a Concussive Shot when that cooldown is up, followed by 1-3 Steady Shots depending on how brave you're feeling.

You're basically going to just do laps around the outside of the entire Giants Run, stopping every 2 seconds or so to turn around and auto shoot him in between Arcane Shot / Concussive Shot cooldowns. I waited until they got to about 75% health before sending my pet crab to eat their butts, but you can send it in earlier if you're more confident of your DPS.

If for any reason you agro something else (it happens), simply send your pet after the add and continue kiting.

I had one point where I had 2 giants and one of those little stone golem fellows chasing me around the encampment... I must have been quite the sight for any other player who happened to run by.

And if everything goes south, feign death and let your poor pet eat one for the team.

edit:

After finishing the quest, I went back and finished the other parts of the two chains... Having tested out the rune for the other quest in Giant's Run, I accidentally aggro'd one of the giants, and decided to try my hand at killing them with the extra pet.

Long story short: If you wanna do it easily, wait until you're on the Rune of Command quest as well... it took almost no time to down him with both the giant companion and my feisty little crab. If you wanna have some fun and tempt fate, do like I did and kite them around the camp instead... its actually quite exhilarating to know that if it manages to catch up and resists a Feign Death you're probably going to die.

Comment by 156207

A tactic for elemental shamans...
I did this at level 70.
First off all the giants are immune to Lightning Bolt, Chain lightning and Thunderstorm
so even trying is wasted time.
I started off with frost shocking and then Flame shock and when both are on cooldown and both debuffs are on the mob i put up Searing Totem and try to kite the giant around it, make sure that frost shock debuff is up 24/7 and just stay out of melee range and your fine. Takes a while but its really doable!

Comment by 244707

For those who have trouble with this quest or seem to be a bit on the squishy side there is a very easy way to do this quest if you wait a bit and get the quest

The rune of command it gives you an option to get one of the stone giants as a minion now by the time you kill the person you have to for the quest you still have the stone giant as your minion and you bring him up to where the rune giants are and start your attack the minion will take the beating while you do your range attacks worked well on my 69 enhancment shammy but if you are doing it close range you do get some of the buff but not much it took me 2 min to down him and once i lost my stone giant minion i still had the stone i went back and summoned another and rinse and reapeat
Hope this helps

Comment by Horatio

My group killed only two giants. We both used pick at the same time, so we got two off of each. You might want to try that out to save time =)

Comment by 256633

I don't know how any cloth classes are able to solo this. They have a DoT that ticks hits for about 1000 damage every tick and can't be dispelled. I even tried it using the Rune of Command trick to have an enslaved Stone Giant tank and it lasted all of 45 seconds, even with me shielding him. If you ask me, it's pretty ridiculous that I can pretty easily solo the elite mob that's the final target of this quest chain (using the enslaved Stone Giant as a tank), but I can't even come close to soloing one of the mobs that starts it.

Comment by Gammosh

Yeah i just killed 2 of these rune giants at the same time on my pally (no bubble) and i go to pick the runes and yeah it says "invalid target" can anyone confirm wheather or not it is bugged? Downrate if u must...

Comment by Incomingheal

They have a DoT that ticks hits for about 1000 damage every tick and can't be dispelled

It can be dispelled, both off of you when it's a debuff and the buff on the giant itself.

Comment by 495352

Solo'd as Enhancement Shaman lvl 73.

first off, he's immune to nature damage as others have stated, so as a result he's immune to Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and, likewise, Earthbind totem. However, Frost Shock along with Improved Ghost Wolf (ImpGW not necessecary, but helpful) works wonders for kiting.

drop Searing Totem (Magma Totem might cause add problems if kiting near the Rams)
alternate Frost Shock/Flame Shock (with the occasional Fire Nova for additional flare!) popping in and out of Ghost Wolf on Shock cooldowns (that is, if you feel he's getting a bit too close. but with FS snare effect, you should just be able to hoof it) rinse and repeat till he's dead.

a couple of things i noticed:

-try and develop a rhythm in which he's chasing you in a circle (within range of Searing Totem). this in itself seems to work as a sort of snaring effect, because he's somewhat slow to begin with, and will end up to your side, essentially spinning at the center point of your circle, rather than chasing from directly behind you ... sorry if that doesn't make much sense, but it'll take care of it self, really, if you just keep running circles around him.

-try to keep Flame Shock dot up at all times. not sure exactly how the threat mechanic works in this situation, but there were a couple of tries where my Searing Totem stole aggro from me and once he downed the totem, he immediately reset.

good luck all.

Comment by Geneticide

People that complain it's too difficult to solo, I cant do this, I cant do that, etc are kind of forgetting the point of it being a GROUP quest. Sometimes you really have to use a group to accomplish the goal like they are intended for

Comment by sexyresults

Found this pretty easy a 70 Shadow Priest, PWS, dot up, MB, MF till close, fear, remove debuff, reapply PWS and MB/SWD and that was it

Comment by xanthax

Most ranged classes will be able to solo this. I was able to easily on my Affliction Warlock, Beast Hunter, and Frost Mage. On my warlock, each of these mobs give 6994 exp for the kill.

As a warlock, I started off with haunt, put up Curse of Exhaustion, then dotted him and kept refreshing everything. I don't believe I ever got hit once.

As a hunter, I used concussive shot and frost traps to kite them around.

Pretty straight forward for a frost mage.

Comment by wscott2420

As previously stated,you can use the minion you control in Rune of Command to do March of the Giants,but you can also use it again in the final quest in the chain against Megalith in the mountains.Theres enough range it wont run off and you can also use your pet/minion in addition to the Rune of Command minion.Works well,makes it easily soloable.

Comment by 178814

Fairly easily solo'd as a 71 Surv Hunter with a mix of OL blues and NR greens (and a Molten Core epic).

Be in cheetah aspect, and I had dismissed my pet, but not sure if you have to.
Start off with a Black Arrow and a explosive shot. (Immune to serpent sting)
Start running, jump-turning to explosive shot when you can. Refresh black arrow similarly when you can.
Lock and Load is a big help.
Kill shot at low levels.

The mobs are fairly spread out and I had no problem kiting in bewteen them except once, a mob spawned right in front of me. It's good kiting practice.

Comment by dreq

Solo'd this as a 70 Blood tank dk. While in Blood Presence i had 12k hp (with Well Fed buff, 30+ stamina) and Heirloom items + weapon with crusader.

I popped Mark of Blood on the Giant, then just kept my diseases and kept spamming death strike while i could, to get out as much healing as possible.

Wasnt really much more than that.

Comment by danilche

Soloed as a level-70 Unholy DK (DPS of course) in heirloom gear.

After many unsuccessful attempts, I followed the advice above -- kite him -- with one modification: Dark Command to keep him off the pet. Chains, Icy Touch, Dark Command, Boiling Blood, Boiling Blood, Death Coil; lather, rinse, repeat; Gargoyle as available.

Using this tactic, killing the runed giants was trivially easy.

Comment by 84713

I did this solo on my level 70 boomkin. I did it by hugging the large rock next to tablet you have to read for the next quest and using moonfire on the target. If I had enough time I also casted starfire. The golems are immune to nature damage as has been mentioned so insect swarm, wrath, and entangling roots DO NOT WORK. If your not balance spec this strategy will still work for resto and feral, it will only take longer (keep the innervate ready ferals).

Tips for this strategy:

Hug the largest boulder as much as you can

Be ready to pop barkskin and rejuv/lifeblooms on yourself if he get too close

Play it safe and only cast dps spells when you've got space

If you get too far ahead of him he will attempt to turn around and cut you off the other way, use it to cast a heal or a starfire then keep running.

And of course have pots on hand

If you need to you can go into travel to kite him around, it was easier for me to just hug the boulder very close and pop hots if he hit me, but travel may be easier on feral mana (just dont get hit). All in all its kind of a pain to do this solo on druid compared to other classes that can stun, dispel the debuff, or snare kite, but once you get it the hang of circling the big rock its not too bad.

Comment by Allakhazam

okay when you do the the rune of command quest you get stone giants to help you will guess what they kill things also i used mine to pick off the runed stones.

Comment by Allakhazam

I painstakingly solo these giants, and 70% of them are "invalid targets" for the quest. All RUNED STONE GIANTS.

Comment by Allakhazam

I am also getting the invalid target message while soloing this quest.

Comment by Allakhazam

Soloed as 73 Hunter (BM spec) using 73 Turtle. Between Arrows, Pet, and Mines was able to take them down. Each fight was very close. Giants have a large crit hits. Fight up in the snow with the rams.

Comment by Allakhazam

70.19
giant walking stone things with trees on them, use the ax on the corpse

Comment by Allakhazam

Wait for the Runed Stone Giants up north, by the snow. They seem to come in waves. All the giants that reach this area will be valid.

Kite them back and forth along the snow area. There's nothing but rams up there, and the Giants move at 95% run speed.

Comment by Allakhazam

Soloed these as a level 71 Paladin, shadow resistance aura is a HUGE help. I had to bubble heal during each one because they'd critical hit up to 2k. The shadow resist aura resisted about 210 average per hit taken.

Edited, Oct 17th 2009 4:15am by SFSeiRyu

Comment by LegalDanish

Soloed as Elemental Shaman in WotLK Classic. Drop mana spring totem, tag the giant with a frost shock. Drop a searing totem at some point and start kiting the giant around the searing totem, making sure to keep Frost Shock up on him at all times! Recommend the area with rams just north of Giants Run. Wait for a giant to start wandering up there.

If you have a lot of mana, you can throw in a Fire Nova when the giant is near your searing totem, but it's not needed to succeed, just faster.

Comment by TheHoober

I tried and died.

Links

March of the Giants

Sage Edan and Camp Winterhoof wants you to use the Runeseeking Pick on the corpses of 4 Runed Stone Giants.

	Runed Stone Giant Corpses Analyzed (4)
	Suggested players: 2 (1)

Provided item:

	Runeseeking Pick (1)

Description

To the east, at Giants' Run, rune-inscribed stone giants have started to migrate north toward Frostblade Peak. I know nothing of their goals, nor of their destination.

The glowing runes inscribed in the stone flesh of the giants guide them on their journey. Fell some of these giants.

Take this pick with you and use it on the corpses of the runed stone giants. It will deactivate the runes. Once you've tested enough giants, return to me with your findings.

Progress

Completion

Rewards

You will receive:

	Northrend Adventuring Supplies

Gains

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

250 reputation with The Taunka

See if you've already completed this by typing:

/run print(C_QuestLog.IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(11365))

March of the Giants

Description

Progress

Completion

Rewards

Gains

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