Eathcrawl Mines is a delve located on the Isle of Dorn, just west of Freywood Village. The delve will have you dealing with a Nerubian incursion, so if you are arachnophobic make sure to enable the new arachnophobia mode, which turns all the spiders into crabs.
There are 3 versions of this delve which we cover in this guide:
- Fiery Grounds
- Kidnapped Earthen
- Precious Gems
Earthcrawl Mines Delve Overview
This section will cover things that are relevant to all versions of the delve.
Delve Mechanic
Nerubian Webs is the Mechanic of the Earthcrawl Mines Delve.
These appear as spider webs on the ground, which if you step on them will slow you and spawn a small mob with very little health called Skittering Intruder. Although they are easy to kill, they can still overwhelm you, especially if you are dealing with other mobs. We recommend avoiding the webs as much as you can.
Delve Mobs
These are the mobs that we felt were worth highlighting in Earthcrawl Mines.
Nerubian Slasher is a melee mob who deals heavy physical damage, and who also applies a nasty stacking bleed. Make sure you kill these fast if you can.
Nerubian Threadmancer is a caster. They only cast Web Bolt, a heavy single target damage ability. They can be interrupted or line of sighted, so use this to your advantage if you need to.
Nerubian Captain is a large melee mob, who casts an absorb shield which can be interrupted. The Captain is always accompanied by some smaller Skittering Swarmers and Ankle Biters.
Nerubian Fearmonger is a melee mob who deals very little damage. However, they have a cast which will form a large circle on the ground, which If stood in when the cast finishes will fear you for several seconds.
Skittering Swarmer is a melee mob who deals light physical damage. It has a frontal charge that can be side-stepped.
Nerubian Darkcaster is a caster that also deals light physical melee damage. They cast Shadowbolt; a large single target damage hit, which can be interrupted or line of sighted.
Delve Boss
The boss for Earthcrawl Mines is Web General Ab’enar. He has several abilities and one major mechanic.
His three casts are:
- Web Bolt: an interruptible heavy single target hit.
- Curse of Agony: an interruptible heavy hitting DoT curse that can be dispelled.
- Runic Shackles: an interruptible fairly heavy single target hit with a slow debuff.
We would recommend you interrupt the Curse of Agony, unless you are able to dispel it, otherwise interrupt the Runic Shackles.
Ab’enar’s main mechanic is to throw a lot of webs out that cover the whole floor, and then grabs a minecart, and pulls it quickly across the room. Make sure you are not standing on the track in the way of the active cart that is about to be pulled, as that will knock you back and deal significant damage.
The cart that will be pulled will have a fiery glow and a web rope between the boss and the cart, you can see this highlighted in the image below. When the cart impacts with the wall on the opposite side of the room, there will be large group wide damage. This can be especially scary if you are currently affected by Curse of Agony.
Fiery Grounds
The Fiery Grounds version of Earthcrawl Mines will have you helping the Arathi Lamplighters. At the start of the delve you will meet Lamplighter Rathling. She is sitting next to a chest, and to start the delve you must speak to her and loot the chest, which will grant you an extra action button for a “Flamethrower Torch”.
The extra action button will cause you to do a frontal cone of heavy fire damage for 6 seconds. You can’t jump or cast anything else while you are channeling the torch. You will use the torch as you move through the delve to burn (and thus remove) the webbings on the floor.
While assisting the Lamplighters you will come across mobs called: Nerubian Webspinners.
These mobs are casters with two casts:
- Web Bolt: which deals heavy single target damage.
- Web Launch: which will spawn new patches of webs around them. The new webs created by the Webspinner can be removed with the Flamethrower Torch.
Kidnapped Earthen
The Kidnapped Earthen version of Earthcrawl Mines will have you rescuing some webbed Earthen miners. To start this delve you must talk to Foreman Pivk and collect the Webbed Hookshot.
The Webbed Hookshot works like a grappling hook, and you will find clickable anchor points throughout the instance which you can use to avoid webs on the ground. The anchor points are usable from very far away.
Precious Gems
The Precious Gems version of Earthcrawl Mines will have you collecting precious ore through the first half of the instance, and then feeding the ore to Earthen NPCs; who will clear a way through the webs.
A major change in this version is that mine carts will continuously spawn on the tracks, and deal heavy damage and knockdown anything in their way. Also, the webbings in the first half of the instance are replaced with eggs that will explode and deal damage to everything (including enemies), in a small radius. They will chain explode if they are close to each other.
The eggs are triggered by walking too close or dealing direct damage to them. They also leave behind an unremovable set of Nerubian webs, which means you in most cases want to avoid triggering them altogether.
