I was trying to run to the portals first and just lay down a Death and Decay, but a couple times, including the moment when I lost control, the group of three dudes spawned before I could get to them. I threw down a Death and Decay to get a bit of aggro on two of them and then went chasing after the third one and used the “get over here” attack to pull him into the group, then dropped another aoe to try and hold everyone together. Worked okay the first time, not so much the second.
Is it just me, or are a couple of the Sons of Hodir dailies deliberate double-entendres? Specifically, “Polishing The Helm” (with said helm being perched on top of a rather phallic ice crystal), and “Blowing Hodir’s Horn”.
Maybe I just have a dirty mind 
No, it’s not just you…
No, some guy and I were talking about it one day. Both of us were bored while doing the dailies, I think. 
Pretty sure it was intentional, too. I mean, “Thrusting Hodir’s Spear”? That’s way too contrived to be anything but innuendo.
The Todd: “In-your-end-o!”
You know, I was coming in here to comment on how WoW has werewolves, mad scientists, zombies and skeletons, demons, and all manner of ghoulish creatures…but no vampires. But before I posted, I did a quick search on WowWiki, and it appears I was beaten to the punch.
Not just you. Also, have you ever noticed the abundance of poop-related quests? Sometimes I think they’ve just got a bunch of 13-year-old boys designing quests for them.
Guess you haven’t run UK or OK yet, huh? (Or Kara during Hallow’s End last year.)
Speaking of 13 year olds, Blizz had better tone those things down a bit before some parents unite against WoW (if they haven’t already).
Q
I’ve run UK (Utgarde Keep, right?), but it went pretty quickly. All I remember from that is vrykul, vrykul, and more vrykul.
Is the first boss supposed to be a vampire? There’s a boss in Old Kingdom who’s much more explicitly one.
Yeah, I try to tank everything at its portal whenever possible–just drop a Death and Decay in front of it and it’s easy to gather everything up as it comes out. But the one pull (top level, middle-left side as you’re facing the back) is hard to get to in time unless you’re very close to it, and the mobs immediately split off and run in two directions. I’ve found that dropping D&D on one side at the bottom of the ramp, then running over to do a Blood Boil on the other side gathers them up nicely, as long as nobody hits them first.
Prince Keleseth, one of the Darkfallen, is the first boss in Utgarde Keep.
The first boss is one of them. The guy who freezes you into ice blocks and summons undead Vrykul adds. But it’s the OK (Old Kingdom/Ahn’kahet) boss who’s more obviously vampirish, in the sense that one of his fight mechanics involves hopping onto a player and draining their life.
Prince Taldaram, another Darkfallen.
Oh, I remember him. And I’ve killed Valanar as both Horde and Alliance (solo both times flex). I just didn’t peg them as really vampiric before; they’ve just shown up in game and I’ve killed them, but I didn’t really know the lore around them.
He also turns into a mist and swirls about for a couple seconds before resolidifying so you can continue beating on him.
So do the portals all open in a defined order? I thought they were semi-random, but obviously as a DPS all I would do is follow the tank around :).
Nope, totally random. That’s part of the fun (or the frustration for the tank, if you’re not used to it). 
There is some order to the Violet Hold portals. Some portals only put out the single big dragonkin, and the others put out the groups, and at least some (maybe all?) of the waves are predestined to be either a group or a big guy, so you can eliminate some of the portal possibilities. The place is small enough that it doesn’t really matter though.
Yeah, I guess if you put it that way, maybe it is. You’re right that some portals bring one big guy and some bring a group, and those are always the same (that is, there are some portals that are always a big guy and some that are always a group). But I’m not sure whether that means there’s some set number of each in any given run. That’s an interesting question–I wonder if anybody’s bothered to figure it out. But even if you could figure it out (“okay, I’ve had three big guys in this segment, so the next two are going to be groups”) then that still only narrows it down to a smaller subset of portals. Although I’ve never seen two waves come from the same portal consecutively, I’m pretty sure I have seen more than one come from the same portal in a group of five waves (where the sixth is the boss).
Yes, each portal will either drop 1 single guardian (with 1 easy add shortly after), or will spawn a group of adds (of random class, Raiders, Sorceress, etc).
I’m not sure if it will help, but if you can mark one of the guys and have the group kill that first it could buy you time to gather aggro on the rest. It helps for lesser-geared groups. Nowadays people just grab them all and aoe them down it seems.
Also, as soon as the last of your targets die, try to run to a central location on the floor so you might get an extra second or two if the portal is on the far side.
The only annoying one is the group that splits up. Even if you miss them, it does take awhile for them to damage the doors enough.