Dungeons and Raids are special features available in certain zones, which allow your character to fight specific monsters in order to get better items and complete certain achievements.
Dungeons[]
Dungeons are special areas within certain zones which contain a certain number of named mobs, accessed by pressing the Dungeon mode button. The mobs in a dungeon are always encountered in a specific order, and are notably stronger than other than the mobs in the area they're in, making clearing a dungeon quite a challenge when attempting it a the lower end of the zone's difficulty level.
Clearing a dungeon for the first time rewards the player with an achievement, and since most of the achievements for clearing dungeons give a 5% experience bonus until the next dungeon's maximum level tier, it is profitable for a player to try and complete the dungeon as soon as possible. For example, since completing the Deadmines (a dungeon in a level 11-20 zone) gives a 5% bonus to experience until level 30, completing it at level 11 gives the player 19 levels of the bonus being active, instead of only 10 if the dungeon is cleared at level 20.
Mobs in a dungeon only drop weapons and armor, and so their drops are always Uncommon quality or above. The quality level of a dungeon's drops increases, so if a dungeon's first boss drops an Uncommon item, the last boss will drop a Superior or even Epic item.
The dungeons and their zones and level are as follows:
- Deadmines - Westfall - 11-20
- Blackfathom Depths - Ashenvale - 21-30
- Scarlet Monastary - Arathi Highlands - 31-40
- Zul'Farak - Tanaris - 41-50
- Scholomance - Western Plaguands - 51-60
- Hellfire Citadel - Hellfire Peninsula - 61-70
- Coilfang Reservoir - Zangamarsh - 61-70
- Utgarde Keep - Howling Fjord - 71-80
- Halls of Origination - Uldum - 81-85
- Heroic: Stonecore - Deepholme - 81-85
Raids[]
There is currently only one raid in Grindquest, in Naxxramas. The entire zone counts as a raid, and players need to clear a certain amount of mobs before they can try and defeat the bosses. Unlike other zones, the player is not assumed to be doing the raid "alone", and gets other "characters" to assign to various roles (Tank, DPS and Healer). Bosses in raids all have enrage timers, and if the enrage timer fills, the boss is assumed to have massacred the entire raid.
All bosses in the raid drop legendary quality items.