This quest can be solo'd by any class. The trick is to keep the illusion on at all times. Even with it active, Issilen will be aggroable. Once Taelan engages, you can peg Issilen and kite him around on your mount until Tirion arrives (Taelan will eventually attack Issilen, taking him off you). A little easier for a hunter or rogue since they can drop aggro.

You now have to take off the disguise when he tells you to. If you keep it on, you fail the quest, as I found out when I tried to do it like everyones said to >.< Very frustrating.

That might not be right... I just did it again without the disguise and I failed it again. Maybe it's just bugging for me.

So if you kite Issilen than Tirion Fordring arives before his son Highlord Taelan Fordring dies? I soloed this way back as a 60, reading the early posts and just stayed in disguise, didn't engage.
I got my quest done, but thought it was the most depressing quest in the game. A redeemed palidan dies fighting and just a second after he dies, his estranged father arrives, a second too late to save his son. ]
Perhaps if I did this for real, in a group, the fight would last long enough for Tirion to arrive?

I killed Issilen (im a lvl 80 DK). When i started to run towards Tirion, i got too far away from the ""corpse"" of Taelan, so the quest failed. Just so you know how not to handle the situation.

I was just doing this quest on my priest alt. I died just before Taelan got owned, and before Tirion showed up. After a minute of swearing at my game I released and ran back to my corpse (was very very near by). I accepted rez and was preparing to abandon quest, run back to myranda for new costume, and repeat the process, when - lo and behold - Tirion shows up, kicks some butt, and I got quest credit. Not sure if it's because Taelan never really ""dies"" (his dead corpse still has full hp if you target it), or perhaps because the graveyard is so close I never got out of range of the event. At any rate - apparently death doesn't fail this particular escort! yay!

word of advice for the people who are of higher level
Isilien is killable and he will not do some magical thing and make himself immune until tirion arrives
i learned that the hard way because i only did this for the event which i didn't get to see

Don't let Taelan die. He can solo the elites that come on Heartglen but he can't solo Isilien and his guards. You can keep your disguise till you reach the tower, then help Tarlen kill them. I thought that he can manage them, I was wrong. He died and my quest failed. Went back to Heartglen to get the quest, WRONG! You need the disguise again or he will be unfriendly. So if You fail the quest, go first to Miranda, get the disquise then get back to Taelan..

This is rather buggy at the moment, I just tried to do it:

Attempt 1, got the disguise ok, started q, did not remove the costume as I've done it on several toons staying in costume till the end (pre Wrath), Taelen cleared his way out, got to the tower, I remove costume and assisted the final fight but died, Taelen was killed, I released and got quest failed, but then Tirion arrived and did his usual killing.

Attempt 2, started q, removed costume at hearthglen gates, assisted Taelen on all the trash kills, I killed all the guards and Isillien did his ""this ends now"" thing but Taelen didn't die. They then fought for a while and eventually Isillien killed him through normal means (mind blast / mind flay) and as soon as Taelen died, I got quest failed. The odd thing here was that one of the guards was fighting Tirion who was invisible (least the target of target showed this). After Taelen died, Isillien came after me and we fought a bit till I died.

Going to try again tomorrow and just let him die and not release, see if that helps.

Attempt 3, started q, got to hearthglen gates and Taelen died to the 4 man patrol that spawns, only healed himself once - never seen him die there before.

Attempt 4, removed disguise at the start. Killed all mobs, died to the Crimson Elites as did Taelen. Didn't release and Fordring came and killed Isillien and the Elites and did his chat and I got the completion.

Of course, Tirion is there running the show, adding another in a long list of places he is located simultaneously.I prefer to think he's just able to travel faster than we can. After all, you can't see him simultaneously in all these places... at least not from a single toon. Jaina teleports more freely than our mages -- maybe Tirion has some special way to jaunt around the worlds.

This doesn't explain the old hermit version of Tirion but maybe Chromie is secretly involved behind the scenes. *chortle* Anything to suspend disbelief, right? I agree this is a very special chain (only Pamela's chain to https://vanillawowdb.com/?quest=5721 the Battle of Darrowshire beats it, imo) and I hope Cataclysm doesn't eliminate either one.

I read over all the comments before attempting this quest and I thought I understood how to do it and what might happen. Just for the record and hoping it will help someone, here is how things went with me (Level 62 frost mage):

Attempt 1: removed disguise, helped Taelan fight mobs, all good, but when we got out on the road with the 4 elites I tried to help but aggroed a couple of them and got killed. Taelan survived the fight and rode off. Once he was out of sight I gave up on the quest; I released and quest failed. Dont know what would have happened if I had not released.

Attempt 2: kept disguise on and did not help Taelan at all, because I had read several comments that Taelan didnt need any help and would always heal himself. (You can't help Taelan while in your disguise because the mobs are friendly to you.) Met the 4 elites by the gate rather than further down the road. I still had my disguise on. Watched the fight, Taelan died! Never once did he use Lay On Hands, although he healed himself a little bit several times. Quest failed. Since I still had my disguise I thought I could abandon the quest and go back to the keep and find Taelan, but he was not there. So I went into the manor house and picked up the book for the Heroes of Darrowshire quest. Disguise dropped of course; I ran for my life and made it out of town alive.

Attempt 3: Back to the Gnome to get disguise. Dropped disguise and helped Taelan to speed things along. Got out of town and met the 4 elites on the road. Although I was standing somewhat back, they ALL aggroed on me. I ran towards Taelan and used Ice Block because I was nearly dead; they hit very hard on a clothie. At that point Taelan got aggro on all of them and when my ice broke, I was able to dps the elites and we both survived the fight. Got to the tower and tried to stay out of the fight but I was immediately killed by 3 or 4 elites who happened down the road. My Frost Nova didnt keep them off me for some reason. I didnt release and watched the fight because I assumed that once Taelan was killed Tirion would then come; but when Taelan was killed the quest failed so I released again.

Attempt 4: Brought a level 80 with me. When we got into the keep my companion (who did not have a disguise of course) killed a bunch of mobs. Without thinking, I stooped for some of the sparkly corpses to loot and immediately I was no longer disguised. Since we were there I just thought I would check to see if Taelan would talk to me without the disguise, but he wouldnt. Went back to get disguise.

Attempt 5: Got disguise, talked to Taelan, he started fighting and my friend the level 80 killed all the mobs. Taelan advised me to take off my disguise so I did. We followed Taelan and of course, with the help of my friend, all mobs were summarily defeated. At the scene in front of the tower, we watched (from the woods across the road) as Taelan was killed. The mobs who had arrived and not been killed started milling around. Isilien just stood there. Tirion did not come. I got no message that the quest had either failed or completed. So after a few minutes the level 80 killed Isilien and his guards, and then I noticed I had the quest complete message with instruction to return to Tirion Fordring in Western Plaguelands. So we mounted up and ran into Tirion just down the road, sitting on his horse with a ? over his head. I talked to him and he gave me my reward.

I like lore and I did this quest because I had done the Battle for Undercity questline involving Tirion in Northrend on my level 80 druid. I think this is worth doing for the experience and the rewards (at level) or just the lore (at higher level). Good luck!

How I did it on lvl 80 with my warrior. Got the disguise, started the escort, dropped the disguise and killed everything in his path to speed the slowpoke up. Then before the tower with Issilien I just hung back and didn't kill anything, let them kill Taelen. Then when Issilien retook his spot at the base of the tower I took on the loose elites without aggroing Issilien. Killed em and waited a few for Tirion to show up. Let him start fighting, then joined up and took down Issilien in a few seconds. Quest finished.

Taelan aggroed Isillien, i killed all other elites. Watched the fight, Taelan died. After a while I was able to attack Isillien, I killed him and waited around confused.

Corpses vanished, except for Taelan, all buffs stayed on him so he wasn't really ""dead.""

I noticed that the quest log asked me to go meet up with Tirion, map showed the marker a few clicks south. I went the and completed the quest.

Aww...this was a sad sad quest.
After all that, he looses his son.
I felt really bad for him.

I wanted to help!

I had a very strange experience with this quest.

I read the comments on this quest and kept my disguise on and didn't help him and as a result he was killed by the four elites at the front gate and I failed the quest. After that, I ran back and restarted it when Taelan had respawned and by the time we had gotten down to the tower, Tirion was there battling Issillien alone and was just about to kill him when Taelan and I arrived to help him.

After all the elites had died, Taelan hopped back onto his mount and I finished the quest with Taelan still alive next to his father.

My attempt bugged out. Somehow Taelan killed Isilien when I ran the quest. He then ran back to where he first pulled Isilien and collapsed. Tirion showed up after about a minute and yelled about what Isilien did to Taelan (apparently dying at his son's hands was a grievous offense) . Tirion then yelled for the now dead Isilien to show himself. I excepted Isilien to appear as an undead or something but after about another minute of nothing happening, I got a quest fail.

My advice - whatever you do, don't let Taelen kill Isilien.

In the scripted event of this quest there's a slight Godfather reference as Tirion says the same thing when seeing his dead son, as Don Vito Corleone says when seeing his son who was shot to smithereens.
Qoute in question ""Look what they did to my boy"".

This and The Battle of Darrowshire are the greatest questlines ever made in all of WoW, theres simple nothing like it, so full of lore and excitement, ill be doing these quests on every character i have and will make.

Just did this quest at level 80 for Loremaster. Took off disguise right at the beginning of the escort. Killed the pack of 4 right outside the main gates, no problem. I get to the tower, and Taelon says ""This is not your fight, stranger. Protect yourself from the attacks of the crimson elite. I shall battle the Grand Inquisitor."" So I think to myself... Okay, so I stand back in the trees and don't get aggro. Cool. Except 3 minutes later, Taelon dies to Grand Inquisitor Isillien, and text in my log says ""In Dreams Failed"". Tirion never showed up. The Grand Inquisitor is still hanging out in front of the tower. I don't get what I did wrong! Was I supposed to kill the crimson elites? He said to protect myself from them and that it was not my fight. =( On my way back to Myranda to get a new disguise. Bollocks.

This is a fun quest culminating a long chain (long in terms of running...:-p) that helps fill in the lore gaps post 2nd great war, the books, and the expansions of how the Order was reborn and when/why Tirion's exile was cancelled.

Little things like this is what redeems blizzard when they royally screw up.

Make sure when doing this quest, to not kill Isillien BEFORE Tirion gets there :/