Kickin’ Nass and Takin’ Manes

Quest Giver: Stefan Vadu — Ebon Watch [14, 74]

Turn-in: Stefan Vadu — Ebon Watch [14, 74]

Objective: Use Stefan’s Steel Toed Boot to kick Nass toward dead Withered Trolls and collect 10 hair samples.

Quick Facts

• Level: 75
• Chain Position: 4 of 4 → In Search of Answers → Orders From Drakuru → The Ebon Watch → Kickin’ Nass and Takin’ Manes

Walkthrough

• On accepting the quest, Nass spawns as your guardian companion. He’s a ghoul who suffered a “toxic dose of blight” and is now deaf, blind, and mostly numb. He navigates by smell, making him uniquely suited for collecting blight-affected samples.
• Head north and east of Ebon Watch to find Withered Trolls around [19, 71].
• The process for each sample: kill a Withered Troll, then use Stefan’s Steel Toed Boot from your inventory while near the corpse. This kicks Nass toward the body, and he collects a hair sample. The boot has a 100% success rate when used correctly.
• Critical: Use the boot BEFORE looting the troll’s corpse. If you loot first, Nass may fail to collect the sample and just run in a circle looking confused. You can still loot after Nass has done his work.
• Nass will scalp any troll you’ve killed within roughly 42 yards, but you need to be within about 39 yards of the corpse yourself for the credit to register. Working one troll at a time is the safest approach.

Hazards

• Nass is extremely fragile. He has very low HP and will die to incidental AoE or stray mob hits. The Icetouched Earthragers just outside Ebon Watch are a common killer. If Nass dies, return to Stefan Vadu to resummon him.
• Thrym is a level 80 elite flesh titan who patrols through the Withered Troll area. He’s one of the tallest creatures in all of WoW, visible from enormous distances, and will one-shot most players in the 74-76 range. Watch for his patrol path and give him a wide berth.
• Stealth classes: Nass will aggro nearby mobs, breaking your stealth. Plan routes through cleared areas.

Class-Specific Tips

• Unholy Death Knights: Do NOT use Corpse Explosion on Withered Troll corpses. This destroys the body and prevents Nass from collecting the hair sample.
• All other class advice is the same: kill the troll, boot Nass before looting, move on.

Do Alongside

• While killing Withered Trolls, watch for the Writhing Choker drop. This item starts Darkness Calling (or An Invitation, of Sorts… if you haven’t completed the Drak’Tharon Keep chain from Grizzly Hills). This is the gateway quest to the entire Drakuru infiltration storyline at Voltarus.
• After completing this quest, check for Taking a Stand from a nearby NPC at Ebon Watch.

Lore Context

Stefan needs the hair samples to study the blight’s effect on the freshly scourged trolls. This research feeds directly into the Ebon Blade’s larger mission: understanding Drakuru’s operations well enough to infiltrate Voltarus from the inside.

Nass is implied to be a reformed ghoul, one of the death knights’ own undead who took too much blight damage and lost most of his senses. Stefan’s casual cruelty toward Nass (“give him a good kick”) and his dry completion text (“You remind me an awful lot of my Nass. Maybe it’s just the nose…”) showcase the dark humor characteristic of the Knights of the Ebon Blade.

These are former servants of the Lich King; they haven’t lost all of his influence on their personalities.

Easter Eggs

• The Who’s “Tommy” (1969): Stefan’s description of Nass, “He got a toxic dose of blight back in the day, and now he’s deaf, blind, and mostly numb,” is a direct reference to the rock opera Tommy by The Who, about a boy who becomes “deaf, dumb, and blind” after a traumatic event. The quest substitutes “mostly numb” for “dumb” to fit the blight context. Stefan also mentions Nass navigates by smell, paralleling Tommy’s ability to play pinball through sensory intuition. Confirmed by multiple player observations on community forums.
• “Kicking ass and taking names”: The quest title is a pun on the well-known American idiom, swapping in the ghoul’s name and the objective. This is a general pop culture reference, not specific to any single source.
• Kick Animation: Using Stefan’s Steel Toed Boot triggers the rogue “kick” combat animation on your character. Since this quest is class-agnostic, it’s one of the only ways to see the kick animation on races that couldn’t be rogues in WotLK, particularly Tauren and Draenei. A small visual treat for animation enthusiasts.

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