For-Everbloom

Everbloom is one of the new dungeons in Warlords of Draenor. It's an outpost where the Kirin Tor attempted to make a magical link between Azeroth and Draenor, which failed horribly because it was right in the middle of a sacred botani land. Because of that, it became overrun with plant monsters and vines that mind controlled the Kirin Tor and also a lot of other creatures, which we now kill for loot.

I think Everbloom is a pretty cool dungeon in concept. It tricks you because it's very pretty, while under the surface it's actually full of horrifying plant monsters that subjugate unwilling animals and people. The thing is, Everbloom is one dungeon where I never seem to get a group who knows anything about it. Think of this guide as a public service announcement...

UPDATE: With 6.1, the shortcuts in Everbloom have been patched to be unusable. I'm leaving the details on how these shortcuts were utilized in the post for posterity to retain the history of the instance for future generations to enjoy.

How to Run Everbloom

This is mostly issued to tanks. You guys lead the group, you make the pulls, and you are our only hope in taking the duration of this dungeon from infinite time to about 15 minutes.

First of all, the dreadpetals...

look at how freaking close I am to them.

You do not have to pull all of these. You barely have to pull any of them, actually. Some of the packs of dreadpetals will pull when you pull other mobs, that's true, but their aggro range is tiny and they are not necessary to pull. This is so impossibly frustrating, as I've seen tanks pull mobs that are practically miles away from dreadpetals, then go back and also pull the dreadpetals entirely on purpose.

This is possibly the most important thing about the whole place. Not only does it save time to not pull these, but not pulling them saves so much grief as they actually can cause a bit of devastation, especially for tanks who are gearing up, which is usually who is pulling all of them in the first place.

Second of all, there are two shortcuts.

UPDATE: With 6.1, the shortcuts in Everbloom have been patched to be unusable. I have chosen to keep the details of the shortcuts in this post for posterity. 

The first shortcut is incredibly simple and straight forward and I would recommend using it all of the time. The second one requires wall jumping and is a little complicated, easy to lose people during, and would not really recommend unless everyone in the group already knows about it. This first one is up a hill on the way to the first boss.

This shortcut allows you to skip the Verdant Mandragora - which, despite being asleep, will still aggro - and Gnarlroot, both of which have 1.42 million health and some annoying abilities.

You'll also skip two or three other regular mobs, and in the end it will save you noticeable time. It is also incredibly easy and requires no jumping or precision, you just run straight up the mountain, then take a short path through...

and end up on the side of the boss on the path you would normally leave through in order to head toward the rest of the instance.

ta-da!

Once you get to that first boss, do everyone a favor and please tank him against the far wall, away from the water.

This should be obvious - it means more room for the water drops to travel before they reach him. Of course, it creates more space for the water drops to accidentally go over any overgrowths, which spawns adds, so please also stand near the wall with the boss, away from any direct path from the water to the boss where water drops may pass. Edited to clarify: the purpose of this strategy is not to allow more time to kill water droplets, but to allow you to ignore the water droplets and dps the boss longer during his petrification phase, where he takes increased damage. Even with the average dps of a random pug, the dps should be enough to kill him in his first petrification phase if everyone focuses him.

As for the second shortcut, it requires wall climbing skill and trying to use it in a pug can result in pulling more mobs and wasting more time than if you just went the normal way. You save time on one mob plus any accidental dreadpetal pulls you would have made going the normal way.

For this shortcut, you head through this house instead of going down the regular path.

Once in the house, you leave through this window.

Then you head back around to the left toward this hill.

Then you have to go up this hill, which requires precision and perhaps a little jumping. People will fall off this hill trying to go up it if they aren't good at wall climbing or are unfamiliar with this route.

Once you're done with this shortcut, you end up behind the next boss on top of a hill. You'll jump down and start the fight near the back of the area. As always, avoid going into the dreadpetals that are nearby.

You have to kill four mobs to go this way, while the regular way has five mobs and skippable (but accidentally pullable) dreadpetals, therefore using this shortcut can easily lead to wasting a lot of time if the group you're with has trouble understanding what to do and where to go.

Personally I would not recommend this shortcut unless the group already knows about it. I wouldn't want to not include it, though, as if you run into a group that uses it, you will have now heard of it and be familiar with it.

Once you're done with all the shortcuts and avoiding dreadpetals, you still have two more bosses to kill, and I have a few more helpful tips to give you.

First of all, Archmage Sol will become attackable once you kill the three mobs who are channeling near her.

Which means that if you're fighting the mobs right next to her, she will proximity aggro and the encounter will start, even if you are still fighting other mobs, including spore images which spawn after killing other mobs. Please do your healer a favor and don't butt pull this boss, especially if you were already chainpulling everything.

Additionally, the mobs on the path to the last boss are entirely ignorable. Even if you aggro them while waiting for the NPC to burn the vines down, they won't go through the portal with you, so just ignore them and run through.

The last boss also, contrary to popular belief, doesn't start combat until most of the group is through the portal.

just chilling with Yalnu, you know, ain't no thang

The boss does, of course, start combat with the NPCs shortly after, so if you are trying to get [Weed Whacker], don't go through until your group is ready. Regardless, the achievement is pretty easy to get - I got it without even knowing about it the first time I went - so I wouldn't worry about it.

Hopefully we can take a few notes from this guide and make Everbloom a nicer place for everyone. The more we play correctly, the higher number of people will notice how to run this place quicker, easier, and facepalm-free.