Whatever it Takes!

WotLK Classic Northrend Leveling Guide

Whatever it Takes!

Quest 1 of 2 in the Halls of Lightning Chain Dungeon Quest

Both Factions • Halls of Lightning • Level 80 • Dun Niffelem

Defeat Loken in the Halls of Lightning and return Loken's Tongue to King Jokkum.

Take Diametrically Opposed from Jokkum at the same time, since Volkhan is the second boss on the way. The instance sits in the Ulduar complex on the eastern side, up two flights of stairs from the exterior structure, and the second staircase is angled away from the first, which catches people out. Loken is the hardest five-man fight in the expansion, and the reason is that two of his abilities want opposite things. His passive aura hurts more the further away you stand, so the group stacks on him. Then he casts Lightning Nova, which kills everyone within twenty yards, so the group sprints out and comes straight back. Stack, run on the cast, restack. Kite down the stairs or between the pillars, whichever your healer can see through. Well-geared groups skip the dance entirely and heal through the Novas in melee range.

Vikstone's Classic Expedition

Jokkum wanted the tongue specifically, the lying one, and said he would tear Loken apart himself if nobody else got there first. Five of them did. Loken's last words were that his death heralded the end of the world, and behind him the map of Azeroth caught fire.

“One way or another, Loken shall fall. If I have to rip him limb from limb myself, he soon shall pay for his wretched deeds. Should you meet with him before I do, the honor and glory of his defeat shall be yours. Return to me with his lying tongue, and earn my blessing and gratitude.”

-King Jokkum

Objective

LEVEL

80

Requires level

77

Type

Dungeon

Start

King Jokkum

END

King Jokkum

King Jokkum in Dun Niffelem wants you to enter the Halls of Lightning and defeat Loken. You are then to return to King Jokkum with Loken’s Tongue.

Loken’s Tongue

Quest Giver: King Jokkum or Thorim (depending on your progression in the chain).
Objective: Assist Thorim in confronting Loken and putting an end to his reign of terror.
Location: Begins at The Terrace of the Makers and culminates at The Halls of Lightning in the Storm Peaks.
Travel to the Temple of Wisdom:
Start the questline by speaking with the respective NPC at the Terrace of the Makers.
Ensure you've completed The Reckoning, as this quest is a continuation.
Confront Loken:
Assist Thorim in his confrontation with his brother Loken.
Witness Loken's use of Yogg-Saron's power to turn the tides of the battle and ultimately escape. — **Quest Giver:** King Jokkum.
**Travel to the Temple of Wisdom:** Start the questline by speaking with the respective NPC at the Terrace of the Makers. Assist Thorim in his confrontation with his brother Loken.

The Storm Peaks Storyline

Reward

You will be able to choose one of these rewards:

Robes of Lightning

Hardened Tongue Tunic

Lightningbringer’s Hauberk

Breastplate of Jagged Stone

You will also receive:

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

12,190 experience

500 reputation with The Sons of Hodir

Walkthrough

Quest Giver: King Jokkum — Dun Niffelem, Storm Peaks [65.5, 60.2]

Objective: Enter the Halls of Lightning dungeon and defeat Loken. Return to King Jokkum with Loken’s Tongue.

Quick Facts

Type: Dungeon (5-player, level 79-80 Normal / 80 Heroic)
Chain Position: Final quest in the Sons of Hodir storyline. Follows The Reckoning. Can be done alongside Diametrically Opposed (also from Jokkum, kill Volkhan in the same dungeon).
Do Alongside: Diametrically Opposed (same dungeon, kill Volkhan). Grab both from King Jokkum before heading to HoL.

Walkthrough

Getting to the Halls of Lightning

The dungeon entrance is in the Ulduar complex in northern Storm Peaks, at approximately [45.4, 21.4]. Fly to the Ulduar flight point (not the raid entrance). From the base of the exterior structure, ascend two flights of stairs.

The second staircase is offset at an angle from the first, which confuses a lot of players the first time. The instance portal is at the top. Halls of Stone (the other Ulduar dungeon) is on the western side; Halls of Lightning is on the eastern side. Grab the flight path here if you haven’t already.

The Dungeon: Route to Loken

Loken is the fourth and final boss. You must clear through three bosses to reach him:

Boss	Key Mechanic	Quick Tip
General Bjarngrim	Patrols the first area with two Stormforged Lieutenants. Switches between Battle, Defensive, and Berserker stances. Lieutenants cast Renew Steel (heals the boss).	Kill the Lieutenants first. Wait until Bjarngrim’s Temporary Electrical Charge buff drops before pulling for an easier fight.
Volkhan	Forge boss. Spawns Molten Golems at his anvil. Golems shatter when they die.	Tank him near his anvil. Kill Molten Golems quickly. At 25% HP, move him away from the anvil to avoid shatter splash damage. Also the target of Diametrically Opposed if you grabbed it.
Ionar	Lightning elemental. Casts Static Overload on a random player (10-second delayed AoE explosion + knockback). At 50% HP, disperses into Sparks of Ionar that chase players.	Spread out to limit Static Overload damage. When he disperses, move away from the sparks.

The Loken Fight

Loken is widely considered the hardest 5-man boss in WotLK, responsible for more dungeon wipes than arguably any other encounter in the expansion. His mechanics are a positioning puzzle built around two abilities that directly contradict each other:

Ability	Effect	What It Forces You to Do
Pulsing Shockwave	Passive aura. Deals Nature damage every 2 seconds to all players. Damage increases the farther you are from Loken. Also applies a 25% increased Nature damage taken debuff.	Stay close to the boss at all times.
Lightning Nova	5-second cast. Deals massive Nature damage (~6-7k Normal, ~12-14k Heroic) to all players within 20 yards.	Run away from the boss when he casts this.
Arc Lightning	Shocks a random player for ~4k damage. After 3 seconds, leaps to another nearby player for 110% of the previous damage. Can chain.	Spread slightly so it doesn’t bounce between the entire group.

The fight is a rhythm: stack on the boss to minimize Pulsing Shockwave damage, then run out when Lightning Nova begins casting (you have about 5 seconds, watch for the emote and the lightning gathering in his hands), then restack immediately after the Nova fires.

The healer needs to keep everyone topped off between Novas because the Pulsing Shockwave is constant chip damage.

Best Positioning Strategies:

Stair kiting (most common): Tank pulls Loken to his initial position. On each Lightning Nova, the entire group runs south down the stairs to the platform, then back up for the next Nova. Alternate between the two positions. Drawback: line-of-sight issues for healers on the stairs.
Platform side-to-side: Stay on Loken’s platform and run from one set of pillars to the other on each Nova. Avoids line-of-sight issues but offers less distance.
Brute force (geared groups): With high enough HP (16k+ on all members on Normal, 19k+ on Heroic) and a strong AoE healer, the group can simply stack in melee range and heal through the Lightning Novas without moving. This became the preferred strategy in later phases as gear improved, especially with Shamans (Chain Heal + Nature Resistance Totem) or Paladins (Judgement of Light).

Heroic Achievement: Timely Death requires killing Loken on Heroic in under 2 minutes. Essentially demands the brute force strategy with high DPS and an AoE healer.

After Killing Loken: Loken’s Tongue drops automatically upon his death. Pick it up, hearth or fly back to Dun Niffelem, and return it to King Jokkum. His reaction: “That vile worm is dead? You have turned out to be a great boon to my people, little [race]. Please accept this gift in return for your loyal friendship.”

The frost giant who swore vengeance has it. The chain is complete.

Lore Context

Jokkum’s quest description captures his fury perfectly: “One way or another, Loken shall fall. If I have to rip him limb from limb myself, he soon shall pay for his wretched deeds.”

The fact that he asks specifically for Loken’s tongue is deliberate. Loken was the deceiver, the liar, the shapeshifter who destroyed through words rather than strength. Cutting out his tongue is symbolic: silencing the trickster who manipulated everyone, from Thorim to the frost giants to you.

Loken’s death in the Halls of Lightning triggers a titan failsafe: the Algalon the Observer signal. Algalon is summoned to evaluate whether Azeroth should be “re-originated” (all life destroyed and reset).

This directly leads to the Algalon encounter in Ulduar, one of the most iconic moments in WotLK raiding. Killing the villain has cosmic consequences nobody anticipated.

In Ulduar, players encounter both victims of The Reckoning: Thorim as a corrupted boss controlled through a false Sif illusion, and Razorscale (the former Veranus, now armored in iron plates by Ignis the Furnace Master). Killing Loken is revenge, but it doesn’t undo his damage.

Cross-Expansion Connections

Ulduar (WotLK Phase 2): Loken’s death activates the Algalon failsafe. The Reply Code Alpha that players deliver to Rhonin after defeating Algalon prevents the re-origination and is one of WotLK’s most memorable story moments. Thorim, Hodir, Freya, and Mimiron are all freed from Yogg-Saron’s corruption during the raid.
Halls of Lightning in Timewalking: The dungeon returns in the Timewalking rotation, letting later-expansion players experience the Loken fight at scaled difficulty.
Legion: Loken is referenced in the Odyn/Helya storylines. His original conspiracy with Helya to imprison Odyn in the Halls of Valor is explored through the Valarjar campaign.

Explore the Storm Peaks’ hidden easter eggs, lore mysteries, and connections across Warcraft history in Vikstone’s Storm Peaks Chronicles, along with the complete quest storyline.

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

6,100 experience

75 reputation with Argent Crusade

Vikstone's War Journal

“One way or another, Loken shall fall. If I have to rip him limb from limb myself, he soon shall pay for his wretched deeds,” Jokkum said. “Should you meet with him before I do, the honor and glory of his defeat shall be yours. Return to me with his lying tongue, and earn my blessing and gratitude.”

Vikstone Portrait Act 3 — Illustrated by Christian DiBari and Simon Gough.

Five of us went into the Halls of Lightning.

We cut through iron constructs and storm elementals to reach the throne room, and by the time we got there the healer was half out of mana and the mage’s robes had been through Ionar’s lightning.

Loken was on the throne, waiting. He has always known when people are coming.

“I have witnessed the rise and fall of empires. The birth and extinction of entire species. Over countless millennia the foolishness of mortals has remained the only constant.” He came up off the seat. “Your presence here confirms this.”

He did not know me.

“My master has shown me the future, and you have no place in it. Azeroth will be reborn in darkness. Yogg-Saron shall be released! The Pantheon shall fall!”

Yogg-Saron. I had never heard that name before and I have not managed to put it down since. I carried five pieces of ore out of a cave in these mountains and nobody I gave them to asked where the metal comes from.

Then he came at us.

The first thing that fight teaches is to stay close. Whatever comes off him worsens the further out a man stands, so you fight inside his reach and take everything he has at that range, because the alternative is cooking from twenty paces. Then his hands light and there are about two heartbeats to get twenty yards clear before the nova, and then the sprint back in before the aura finishes what the nova began. In and out, again and again, for as long as it takes.

“Come closer. I will make it quick.”

Arc lightning went through the four of us in a chain and put everyone it touched on one knee at the same moment.

Our paladin went down. “Only mortal,” Loken said, already turning away from him.

Our healer had him back on his feet inside four seconds. We kept working.

“Your flesh cannot hold out for long!”

He was right about that. My arms had gone, my breath tasted of ozone, and the burns the last nova put on my shield arm had not stopped. But Thorim is in a cell somewhere under this mountain and Veranus is in a cage, and both of those are mine.

This was the debt.

None of us landed the killing blow. All five of us did, at the same time, which is the only way a thing like that ever dies.

Loken staggered. For the first time, something like surprise crossed his face.

“My death…” He went down onto his knees. “…heralds the end of this world.”

Behind him the great map of Azeroth caught fire, and something went up off it toward the sky and did not stop climbing. None of us knew what it was. None of us stayed to find out.

I took the tongue myself, with my belt knife. Jokkum had asked for it, and I wanted it in my own hands.

King Jokkum wept when I placed it in his hands.

“That vile worm is dead?” The king turned it over once and closed his fist around it. “You have turned out to be a great boon to my people, little night elf. Please accept this gift in return for your loyal friendship.”

Loken is dead and it has settled nothing. I am beginning to understand that debts of this kind do not have a bottom to them.

Jokkum had his tongue and his vengeance, and there was one more thing burning in that dungeon worth putting out, because the forge master Volkhan was still arming Loken’s dead cause and needed to be Diametrically Opposed.