Mekgineer Thermaplugg

Mekgineer Sicco Thermaplugg is the final boss of Gnomeregan and the traitor who destroyed it. Once the closest friend and chief adviser of High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque, he talked the gnomes into flooding their own city with radioactive gas, then crowned himself king of what was left. He fights from inside a huge steam-powered battle suit, surrounded by machines that spit out walking bombs.

Background

Sicco Thermaplugg and Gelbin Mekkatorque were friends from their student days, and they worked side by side on many of the inventions that made Gelbin famous. When Gelbin was elected high tinker, Sicco seethed. He believed the post should have been his.

During the Third War, troggs invaded the lower parts of Gnomeregan. After years of siege they reached the engineering quarters, and Mekkatorque turned to his adviser. Thermaplugg proposed setting off a bomb of radioactive gas to kill the invaders, backed by false figures that claimed the gas would stay in the lower city. In truth, the later lore explains, he meant the gas to kill a share of the gnomes so he could blame Mekkatorque and take his place.

The gas filled the whole city. It killed nearly eighty percent of the gnomes, and the troggs mostly survived, wilder than before. Mekkatorque led the survivors to Ironforge, but the gnomes did not turn on him as Thermaplugg had hoped. Thermaplugg, twisted by the radiation into a leper gnome and driven mad, stayed behind, took command of the other leper gnomes and declared himself king of Gnomeregan.

He rules from the Tinkers' Court, where the high tinker's council once met, guarded by leper gnomes, troggs and Dark Iron dwarves. He keeps the blueprints for a new "super rig" in a safe in the same room.

Abilities

• Knock Away: a heavy blow that throws the tank back and reduces their threat.
• Bomb machines: during the fight Thermaplugg activates the machines around the edge of the room. Each active machine releases Walking Bombs that chase a random player and explode on them, hurting everyone nearby. "Explosions! MORE explosions! I've got to have more explosions!" he shouts as they start.

Strategy

The key is to stop the bombs at the source.

• Press the buttons. Each bomb machine has a button on its side that shuts it down. Assign one player to run from machine to machine, or split the machines among several players, and turn them off as soon as they light up.
• Kill stray bombs. Walking Bombs die to a small amount of damage before they reach their target.
• Hold threat. Knock Away lowers the tank's threat, so Thermaplugg may turn on whoever is next on his list. A warrior can taunt him back; other tanks should make sure an off-tank or sturdy damage dealer is second in threat, not the healer.
• Clear first. If the Dark Iron tunnels and the court are cleared, the only adds are the bombs.

The fight takes a while. With the machines under control, it is a long but steady tank-and-spank.

Loot

[Thermaplugg's Left Arm] is a rare two-handed axe with 18 Strength and 7 Stamina, a strong weapon for warriors and shamans in their thirties. The [Thermaplugg's Central Core] is a shield that can shock attackers, the [Electromagnetic Gigaflux Reactivator] a cloth helmet that can be used to blast enemies with lightning, and the [Charged Gear] a ring with Nature and Arcane resistance and a random enchantment. The three engineering schematics drop rarely.

Quests

• The Grand Betrayal (Alliance): High Tinker Mekkatorque in Ironforge asks for the traitor's death. "I trusted Thermaplugg," he says, calling him "the king of nothing." The rewards are a choice of [Civinad Robes], [Triprunner Dungarees] or [Dual Reinforced Leggings].
• Rig Wars (Horde): Nogg in Orgrimmar wants the blueprints for the new gnomish rig. They are in a safe beside Thermaplugg, and only he knows the combination, which he drops. The rewards are the same three items.
• Gyrodrillmatic Excavationators (Alliance): Thermaplugg sometimes drops the Robo-mechanical Guts that Shoni wants in Stormwind.

Trivia

• His lines when he kills a player include "...and stay dead!" and "You got served!"

Later history

Patch 2.3.0 lowered him from level 34 to 28. Mekkatorque later decided that the Thermaplugg adventurers had beaten was only a clever copy. In the Operation: Gnomeregan event before Cataclysm, the gnomes retook the city's surface, and the lore records that this push ultimately led to the real Thermaplugg's death. The original fight returned with World of Warcraft Classic.

Sources

• Sicco Thermaplugg, Warcraft Wiki
• Mekgineer Thermaplugg (tactics), Warcraft Wiki
• Tinkers' Court, Warcraft Wiki
• WoWDB loot and quest data for patch 1.12