New PVP Stuff - 2.4 And Beyond

[Valmorian]

All my leveling has stalled around 61-62 as the giant fucking wall hits me in the face.

The way I deal with this is to do the following:
1. Have an alt (or preferably multiple alts) that you are leveling to take a break from the 61-70 grind.
2. Cultivate some friends on the server so you can run instances at 61-70 (I've gained 4 levels SO rapidly this way).

[Cheddar]

All my leveling has stalled around 61-62 as the giant fucking wall hits me in the face.

The way I deal with this is to do the following:
1. Have an alt (or preferably multiple alts) that you are leveling to take a break from the 61-70 grind.
2. Cultivate some friends on the server so you can run instances at 61-70 (I've gained 4 levels SO rapidly this way).

Which instances would you recommend?  The f13 guild has a oodles of 60's now!

[Ralence]

Which instances would you recommend?  The f13 guild has a oodles of 60's now!

  I levelled solely in instances from 58-70, didn't complete any quests that didn't involve instances either.  The breakdown is something like ;

58-61 Hellfire Ramparts
61-63 Blood Furnace
63-65 Slave Pens
65-67 Underbog
67-68 Mana-Tombs
68-69 Sethekk Halls/Auch Crypts

 If not exact, that's pretty close to where I spent ALL of my time.  Throw in a few Durnholde runs in the mid-60's and you're all set!  It also lets you cap most of the outland factions from the dungeon rep before any quests, boosting you to revered+ in a really short amount of time.  The only instances we ever used any type of CC were Blood Furnace sap/sheep/enslave, and in Mana-Tombs we used MC, only because those two are extremely caster heavy, and a Paladin has some issues with that.

  The benefit to me was that I was able to level as Prot (Paladin), and completely gear up in all blues at 60, and upgrade right through 70, which put me right into heroics immediately.  The other important thing to note is that going back at 70 and completing all the quests over a few weeks netted me around 7000 gold, enough for my epic mount.  And I won't even mention how nice NEVER grinding for cash is, or grinding for rep, I think the only ones I ever "intentionally" worked up were Aldor, Sha'Tar, Netherwing and Sporeggar, the rest just came with playing.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm just questing/grinding to 70 since I hate to PUG and the instances I have done in Outland have been boring as hell.  With all the easy blue rep PVP gear coming out in 2.4, I'll be changing out a lot of my gear at 70 anyway.

[Koyasha]

Don't ignore the factions you need for that rep gear, though.  They're pretty easy, but some of them will still need dungeoning, unless you planned early and did all the right turnins and quests in the right order and such.  You need Honored with Sha'tar - not hard, takes doing the right quests and/or a few runs of Tempest Keep, Revered with Keepers of Time - that'll be the entire Caverns of Time quest series plus 1-4 additional runs of Black Morass, Lower City revered - perhaps one of the most annoying, get ready for a lot of Sethekk Halls or Shadow Labyrinth, unless you did tons of arakkoa feather turnins before you started the lower city quest lines, and Cenarion Expedition revered, which is gonna take either proper pre-planning with turning in Unidentified Plant Parts all the way to Honored before you touch CE quests, or anywhere from 5-15 or so runs of Steamvaults at 70, depending on how good your faction is when you get there.

The one piece you're basically guaranteed to have faction for is the gauntlets, which just requires honored with Thrallmar/Honor Hold, which everybody gets by the time they finish their Hellfire quests.  The other factions, while not hard, can't be taken for granted that you'll have.

[WindupAtheist]

Well all this stuff that's coming in the patch just says honored.  Am I missing something?

[Arrrgh]

Well all this stuff that's coming in the patch just says honored.  Am I missing something?

Some of them were revered. It looks like they're all just honored now. Good, glad they realized faction grinding sucks.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, other than Keepers of Time I'm already set.  Where the hell ARE the Keepers of Time, anyway?

[Rasix]

Yeah, other than Keepers of Time I'm already set.  Where the hell ARE the Keepers of Time, anyway?

Tanaris.  SE of Gadget. Honored should only take one run through each dungeon.  You have to do a small tour of the zone and Old Hillsbrad before you can do The Black Morass.

[Chimpy]

Yeah, other than Keepers of Time I'm already set.  Where the hell ARE the Keepers of Time, anyway?

Tanaris.  SE of Gadget. Honored should only take one run through each dungeon.  You have to do a mindnumbingly slow tour of the zone and Old Hillsbrad before you can do The Black Morass.

added proper emphasis.

[Fabricated]

Yeah, other than Keepers of Time I'm already set.  Where the hell ARE the Keepers of Time, anyway?

The Caverns of Time are inconveniently but necessarily located back on good old Azeroth. There's gonna be a portal and portal spell to the Caverns of Time I think next patch as well.

As mentioned you gotta do the quest series and complete Old Hillsbrad before you can touch Black Morass though. Both are really fun instances, with Black Morass being the slightly less fun of the two since you pretty much need to start the whole instance over on a good wipe.

[Dren]

Yeah, other than Keepers of Time I'm already set.  Where the hell ARE the Keepers of Time, anyway?

The Caverns of Time are inconveniently but necessarily located back on good old Azeroth. There's gonna be a portal and portal spell to the Caverns of Time I think next patch as well.

As mentioned you gotta do the quest series and complete Old Hillsbrad before you can touch Black Morass though. Both are really fun instances, with Black Morass being the slightly less fun of the two since you pretty much need to start the whole instance over on a good wipe.

BM can be tough if you are in with a new group, but if you are in with a vet group it is cake.  It takes a whole 45 minutes from the time you start getting rid of the alligators, panthers, and spiders to the last boss kill if you have a competent group.  We take new people through it for their Karazhan key and whip through it no problem.  Of course that's with fully Karazhan geared people.

[Arrrgh]

Old Hillsbrad is the best instance in the game. They should promote whoever did it.

[Chimpy]

Old Hillsbrad is the best instance in the game. They should promote whoever did it.

Was that supposed to be green?

[Zetor]

I'm still having nightmares about that one time my guild decided to try heroics (back when everyone was in blues), and the 2nd heroic we ever did was heroic Old Hillsbrad.  They're removing the lookouts next patch though, which should make it quite a bit less painful (except for Thrall being a distant relative of Leeroy Jenkins, apparently).


-- Z.

[Arrrgh]

Old Hillsbrad is the best instance in the game. They should promote whoever did it.

Was that supposed to be green?

No, I think it's a great instance. What don't you like about it?

[Chimpy]

No, I think it's a great instance. What don't you like about it?

All of the Caverns of Time instances (including Hyjal Summit) suffer from the "hey look we can make this really cool scripted event that is 3x more monontonous than it has to be"

Durnholde also suffers from the fact that it is possibly the easiest instance in the level range but in heroic mode it is the hardest of them all.

Of course, I also had to farm Durnholde for the ironshield potion recipe, which sucked quite a lot and could be coloring my judgement.

[Merusk]

I haven't done Durnhold on Heroic. I can't imagine anyone actually WANTING to suffer through that.  It's an easy enough instance on regular, but the damned thing goes on FOREVER.   Towards the end I just want someone to kill Thrall 3 times so I can say "ah well" and go do something else.

[Paelos]

Durnhole on heroic isn't that bad with a good class setup. I wouldn't ever want to do it without a mage and a lock/hunter and a druid OT. Getting enough CCs and tanking jobs gets things done with minimal problems. Once the lookouts are removed, it'll be a joke, but I never thought they were that hard if you paid attention and aggroed them at the right times.

[Arrrgh]

I never did any rep grinding there, and we usually go for the easy heroics so I've never tried it on heroic.

But if a 60 something friend wants to be ran through an instance Old Hills is by far my favorite. Doing it once a month or so for that reason hasn't burned me out on it.

[Arrrgh]

Poor crypts...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4191340970&sid=1

[Chimpy]

Poor crypts...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4191340970&sid=1

Crypts I like if only for the sheer hilarity of seeing half your party punted off the bridge and have to run back.

Doubly hilarious when the same person (who is the one who says "don't get knocked off") gets punted twice in a row.

[Miasma]

I didn't do many instance runs but all of Auchindoun except for Shadow Labyrinth sucked and crypts was the absolute worst.

[Rasix]

I loathe Sethekk, just because I can't stand those fucking bird people.  Stupid CC intensive, crappy, cramped instance.  Glad most of my time in there was doing stealth runs. Only did Crypts once a long time ago.  Don't remember much about it.

Surprised so many people like Mech.  Hallway of death is not fun times and neither is that second boss with her retard killing elementals (it's amazing how many people have trouble with "don't stand in the fucking fire" bosses). 

I'd have to list Black Morass as my favorite, despite it being a cake walk.  It's short and there's no need for crowd control.  I really despise all of the crowd control intensive crap.  As long as everyone does their job, it's a quick and easy win.  Quick is probably the most important part for a time starved person like myself.

[Paelos]

Black Morass is just a DPS fest. I'm not a huge fan of it because there's a very large risk/reward factor to somebody messing it up. I've never done it on heroic though.

[Chimpy]

I've never done it on heroic though.

Lemme sum up. No, lemme 'splain:

Things have about 2% more HP. Things hit slightly harder. Boss 1 ports everyone to him before doing a chain lightning.

Other than that, it is basically the same instance in heroic mode as regular. The beacons make the last 5 waves nap time. If it weren't so damn far away people would do it as much as mech.

[Zetor]

I'd say heroic Botanica is a lot easier, as it IS pretty much normal mode with slightly harder hitting trash.

Black Morass heroic was kind of rough when I last ran it [which was a long time ago I admit]; the adds were spawning like crazy, some of them [executioners?] had a metric asston of hp and hit almost as hard as the elites in nonheroic. And the 2nd boss put up some sort of spell reflect for half of the fight, preventing the hasten buff from getting dispelled [the dispel would get reflected].

I've ran every heroic at least once and I think Old Hillsbrad is the hardest by far, followed by Crypts if you have a paladin/shaman healer, and Mana Tombs [first boss requires 2 heal-capable characters or a ton of SR on the tank, last boss requires very high sustained damage].


-- Z.

[Chimpy]

Mana Tombs [first boss requires 2 heal-capable characters or a ton of SR on the tank, last boss requires very high sustained damage].

Doesn't require 2 healers, or SR. Just requires "stop all attacking" (this includes you mr tank) when he changes. The shadow pulses only happen when he is attacked. We 4 manned him several times trying to get some doofus his enhance trinket.

[SurfD]

Mana Tombs [first boss requires 2 heal-capable characters or a ton of SR on the tank, last boss requires very high sustained damage].

Doesn't require 2 healers, or SR. Just requires "stop all attacking" (this includes you mr tank) when he changes. The shadow pulses only happen when he is attacked. We 4 manned him several times trying to get some doofus his enhance trinket.

unless your tank has a butload of HP, shadow resist gear is nice however.  Since Pandemonius meles for complete shadow damage, armor gives you 0 mitigation against his attacks.  And his AoE shadow knockback attack does hit for a fair amount also.  It is true though, that stopping attacks as soon as he begins to cast the shield is key (I watched an enhance shaman pretty much insta gib himself cause he wasnt paying attention.

[Calantus]

Poor crypts...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4191340970&sid=1

I've never once done crypts. I don't even know what's in there beyond guessing some undead and priests.

[Fabricated]

Heroic Durnholde is fun and not too hard after you get the huts burned. Heroic Mana Tombs is nearly impossible at the end, I've never completed it on heroic on either of my mains.

Crypts fucking sucks. That's about all there is to it.

[Zetor]

Of course you avoid the dark shell backlash from Pandemonius. The SR is there so your tank doesn't get gibbed to crap while you heal everyone else up after a knockback. I've solo-healed it as a resto shaman once [with no shadow resistance buff from paladin/priest and zero SR on the tank], but it was dicey as hell, the dps needed to use healthstones / healthpots / bandages, the tank and two dps were clustered up 'just right' for chain heal, the entire group was overgeared, and we still came very very close to wiping.

When I had the tank stack SR or I had a backup healer (can be a sp / feral druid / ele shaman / retpally in healing gear, though in our guild runs we just had a hunter switch in her holy priest for that one fight) who could take care of healing the dps while I dropped the big heals on the tank, it went a lot smoother; it's chain spamming big heals on the tank or he dies. Maybe it's been nerfed since then, but eh. On the other hand, a shaman makes the last fight ezmode (the highly advanced tactic I've used: ignore the adds except for maybe aoe fears and occasional cc, blow heroism/bloodlust and burn the crap out of Shaffar... then kill the adds or wipe to them, return and kill them, collect loot)

Crypts is all about 'hay guys im a gimmick fight lulz ' repeated throughout the entire instance. And trash mobs that instasummon more trash mobs. And unkillable invisible mobs that can knock you off the bridge.
But what makes it really 'fun' is that the first boss is massively biased against casters due to the stacking 'cast speed increase' aura that cannot be outranged at all. If your healer is a priest or druid, you're good since you have instant heals up the yinyang. As a shaman it's only barely healable if the encounter is done perfectly, and otherwise a single mistake means a wipe (assuming the party isn't massively overgeared) and I imagine it isn't much better as a paladin. Needless to say, I wish a great many frostshocks upon whichever dev decided the 'Inhibit Magic' debuff was a good idea. :p


-- Z.

[Gobbeldygook]

Insert Quote
Of course you avoid the dark shell backlash from Pandemonius. The SR is there so your tank doesn't get gibbed to crap while you heal everyone else up after a knockback. I've solo-healed it as a resto shaman once [with no shadow resistance buff from paladin/priest and zero SR on the tank], but it was dicey as hell, the dps needed to use healthstones / healthpots / bandages, the tank and two dps were clustered up 'just right' for chain heal, the entire group was overgeared, and we still came very very close to wiping.

Just drop a grounding totem.  The void blasts are a volley-type effect, so they will all be absorbed by one totem.  As long as everyone stays in range of it and you drop them every cooldown, you're cool.  Even if some people get out of range, it's still way less damage than without grounding.  >WWS< from when I hit Heroic MT tonight with ele and enhance shaman, holy priest healing.

Crypts: The first boss is your basic stupid check.  Don't be an idiot and tank him on the stairs; position him in the middle of the platform he's on, and have everyone spread out around him.  He really doesn't hit that hard.  The real aggravation are the mind controlling mobs that MUST be killed instantly or you risk instawipe and the skeletons that randomly wipe their aggro tables.  For these reasons and others (like TWO BADGES?!), I never do Crypts.  It's simply a waste time - Even if it's the daily.

[Simond]

The only reason I seen anybody runs (normal) Crypts is because the Thrall/Nagrand questline makes you. Heroic Crypts was run as a joke by five people in my guild at the weekend (it was the daily heroic, iirc), and it took them well over two hours and more than one wipe...and this was made up of some of the "Just breaking into TK" raiding members of the guild, so full tier whatever epixxx+++ raid gear.

Heaven forbid that people try to run Heroic Crypts to try and gear themselves up.

[Fabricated]

Since we're talking about heroics, I really hope Blizzard understands the complaints about the uneven difficulty and the shitty reward-to-difficulty ratio of heroic instances.

Even really casual players can sneak into a Kara pug at this point, and a lot of rep/badge epics outshine the actual epics that DROP in the heroics. Like 90% of the heroic epics are just garbage. Off the top of my head the only decent heroic epic drops across all 11-something instances are the 3 reitemized druid pieces (that used to suck), the druid staff from Botanica, the rogue/feral belt from heroic durnholde I think, The Sun Eater from Mech, the Vanquisher's Legplates from Mech, Terrok's Shadowstaff from Sethekk Halls, the healer mace from Shadow Labs, and 2-3 easily replaced cloth pieces.

Only a couple of the items mentioned above aren't replacable within the first 3-4 bosses of Kara.

And this is ignoring that reward-to-difficulty ratio I mentioned. It's easier to pug Kara than run half of the heroics. Good fucking luck to you if you try Heroic Shattered Halls without a pally tank.