Patch 3.3

[WindupAtheist]

I like how I can't get anything good solo queueing for battlegrounds because "WoW is a social game that rewards organization and bla bla bla" but they've now made grouping as mechanical, anonymous, and anti-social as possible. I just finished heroic DTK with four random people like ten minutes ago, no one said more than a few words, and I don't remember any of their names.

[Sjofn]

Oh, I'm just sad 'cause I held off doing the heroic versions on patch day because the server was being so poopy, and missed my chance of an easy hilt drop. Ain't no big thing, I'm sure I'll be running the shit out of those instances.

[Merusk]

Well, we'll never know for certain on that one. You're locked out of the dungeon if you're in mixed blues & greens.  My Horde pally has all of 6 hours at level 80 so the dungeon system tells me "You need better gear" for both ToC and ICC instances.   Oh noes, gear scoring!

No you are not. You are just locked out of using the LFG tool to queue for those dungeons. You could still form a group and fly there.

I wasn't clear enough.. it was a direct reference to a slapped-together PUG in greens and blues running the place, overcoming Gear with Skill.  That ain't happening unless your guildies also want to take alts.

ICC 25
- Marrowgar downed after about 6 tries
- Lady Deathwhisper not downed after about 4 tries.

We were 4 to kill Marrow and 5 wipes (not to mention the entrance trash wipes... CC in a raid instance?! How novel!)  Tuesday night in 25.    I don't think they got her down last night, either.

[Paelos]

We tried Marrowgar about 5 times for an hour with a fill-in group just to check out the place. We got him to about 25% just screwing around, so I don't imagine it's a hard fight if your healers can handle it.

[pants]

Our 10-man raid has been working on Uld hard modes (getting stuck on Freya +3 and Mimiron Firefighter), can clear ToC in 30 minutes, but TotGC kicks our arses.

With that background, over 2 nights this week we managed to knock off the first 4 bosses.  Saurfang we got on something like the 6th attempt - so it looks like you get more than 5 attempts in a lockout period.  I'm not saying this to wave an e-peen, just that a reasonably competent raid that isn't super hardcore, can clear the first 4 bosses.  Now we work on farming them and badges for 4 weeks until the next wing opens.

[Fordel]

I want to say any guild clearing hardmodes is in the top 10% already to begin with.

[Rendakor]

Even hardmodes from an entire patch cycle ago?

[Jayce]

I'm finding tonight that I wouldn't throw out my questhelper yet.

I have a quest I three steps down the line from and it still shows the first quest.  Unless I'm just dumb, I can't make the tracking show properly, because it keeps doggedly showing the location of a quest I don't care about, no matter which one I click.  To add to that, when you zoom out it REALLY throws it off.  It's showing me the location of one quest with the name of a zone and indicating a different quest in the log.

[Fordel]

Even hardmodes from an entire patch cycle ago?

Even hardmodes from like 3 patch cycles ago. How many people have actually done Sarth 3d or whatever? I'm guessing that number is still very low.

[Selby]

How many people have actually done Sarth 3d or whatever? I'm guessing that number is still very low.

We did it when Ulduar was out and we thought we were cool.  I see quite a few "of the nightfall" around, but "Twilight Vanquisher" is very rare indeed and always seems to have been.

For the record, H HoR makes me stabby over how little room for error there is.  Finally got it down, but it was close, even with decent raid geared people (TotGC experienced).  I am sure it will be a joke one day, but it's at just the right level of tuning to be "overly difficult for most."  Closer to a higher end raid encounter than the standard heroics we have been used to running.  Not that making it difficult is bad or anything, it just gets frustrating when bad luck happens and it wipes the group with little that can be done.

[apocrypha]

Small (probably obvious) hint about the random dungeon finder - if you join a queue for a role make sure you're wearing the gear you have for that role.

I joined queue for a random heroic yesterday, flagged as DPS or healer. I was wearing my DPS gear while queuing because I was doing dailies, and my DPS gear is considerably better than my healing gear. Random dungeon finder looks at my 3k DPS gear and goes "Aha! You can cope with heroic HoR!" and drops me in there as healer.

 

Didn't go well. Lesson learned 

[Lantyssa]

Sadly it still doesn't seem to have a damn mailbox.

No one wants to be the penpal of a dragon. :(

They had to remove it because of everyone who wanted to be a penpal...

[Sjofn]

Small (probably obvious) hint about the random dungeon finder - if you join a queue for a role make sure you're wearing the gear you have for that role.

I joined queue for a random heroic yesterday, flagged as DPS or healer. I was wearing my DPS gear while queuing because I was doing dailies, and my DPS gear is considerably better than my healing gear. Random dungeon finder looks at my 3k DPS gear and goes "Aha! You can cope with heroic HoR!" and drops me in there as healer.

 

Didn't go well. Lesson learned 

Oh dear, that's really good for me to know!

[apocrypha]

Clarification.... it's nothing to do with gear score I don't think. It says that I can enter the ICC 5 mans as healer even when I log on with my crappy healing gear.

I'm guessing that the new 5-mans aren't calculating required gear properly? Either that or it's just very forgiving. I dunno, either way I shall *not* be flagging myself as a potential heroic healer until I either have much better healing gear (although I have happily healed every single heroic except TOC in what I have now) or they tweak the entry reqs for random HoR groups at least.

[Zetor]

I don't think there is any gear matching... my drood (mostly in i226 gear, linked earlier in the thread) was grouped with healers fully geared in toc25 hardmode stuff, and hunters who literally hit 80 2 hours before the run and still in leveling blues/greens. There's the "you must have ilevelxxx gear to get on this ride" block for toc and icecrown (and raids), but that's about it.


edit: I -was- pretty intimidated when they tossed me into pit of saron for the random heroic and actually had to pay attention to tanking instead of enrage-charge-swipeswipeswipeswipe. Then we moved on to halls of reflection and won, after a "few" wipes. 

[Drubear]

re: selectable difficulty. Is part of Blizz's design that if you use the LFD tool you get a helpful (? does it make a difference at all?) buff vs. you choosing to not use the tool and go without? And does it survive a wipe or is it a one shot thing?

So there's a buffer for the group for the wild (!) disparity in gearing that's possible with the LFD tool in addition to letting the user select normal vs. heroic and the whole "keep you from picking too high" which doesn't seem to be all >>that<< particular.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I want to say any guild clearing hardmodes is in the top 10% already to begin with.

I don't believe ulduar/naxx/sarth 25 hardmodes being relegated to 10% of the populous 'right now' has anything to do with barriers in gear or skill.  It's simply too hard to organize 25 people to do content, especially old content.  In fact I'd say organizing 25 people is the hardest part of any tier of raiding, there's just not enough people who can all block the same time slots and those that can are already in a guild that raids. 

[Gobbeldygook]

Clarification.... it's nothing to do with gear score I don't think. It says that I can enter the ICC 5 mans as healer even when I log on with my crappy healing gear.

It's just like the BG gear matching, it doesn't care at all what you're wearing.  It looks at all of the gear you own, including what's in your bags and the bank.

[Ingmar]

Small (probably obvious) hint about the random dungeon finder - if you join a queue for a role make sure you're wearing the gear you have for that role.

I joined queue for a random heroic yesterday, flagged as DPS or healer. I was wearing my DPS gear while queuing because I was doing dailies, and my DPS gear is considerably better than my healing gear. Random dungeon finder looks at my 3k DPS gear and goes "Aha! You can cope with heroic HoR!" and drops me in there as healer.

 

Didn't go well. Lesson learned  

Actually what it supposedly does is it looks at all the gear you *own* so even if that stuff was in your bank I suspect you'd have been dropped in HoR.

EDIT: Oh hey maybe read whole thread before responding, Ingmar.

[K9]

So I have decided that HoR is a LOT easier to heal as a priest than it is as a shaman. The success of the event section depends mostly on the tank, so having fade to dump aggro (which you will get) is a huge boon. Group heals are also win.

[Selby]

Group heals are also win.

Yes.  My shaman has such trouble in many instances compared to my priest or druid because of the group healing being slightly lacking compared to them.  I think my biggest complaint about shammy heals is *no HoT* and *everything requires a finite cast time of at least 1s* which the other healing classes don't always have.

[Ingmar]

Riptide! I love that spell. I'd say pallies have it just as bad in those situations, if not worse - beacon is pretty awesome, but chain heal is too, and I like riptide better than holy shock on paper. I've only healed from the shaman side of the argument though.

[Rasix]

As a warlock, I love riptide.  A shaman will always cast that on me between pulls for lifetapping.     On my shaman, uhh, I hate to heal.  I mainly keep a resto spec for holiday bosses.

[apocrypha]

Yes.  My shaman has such trouble in many instances compared to my priest or druid because of the group healing being slightly lacking compared to them.  I think my biggest complaint about shammy heals is *no HoT* and *everything requires a finite cast time of at least 1s* which the other healing classes don't always have.

Earth Shield, Riptide, Nature's Swiftness + whatever, Healing Stream Totem.

There ya go, HoT's and instas, no problems. I am loving healing as a Shaman. Combine the above with the enormous utility of the largest range & flexibility of buffs I can think of, ohshitohshitohshit buttons like BL and Earth Elemental, things like Mana Tide and Tidal Force and Reincarnation and you have an awesome (but somewhat complex compared to some other healing classes I will agree) healer and raid-saving machine!

I've been gearing up as an Enhance DPSer but building up a Resto off-spec set. Flagging as healer in the LFD tool means I get a group almost instantly, so I've been doing it more, and I totally love it. I'm only in rep gear and a couple of bits of badge loot but already I'm happy healing anything except maybe TOC5 heroic with a bad group or HoR and routinely chuck out 18-20k heals, almost never run out of mana and have great fun in the process.

I  my shaman 

[Lakov_Sanite]

10 to 1 most healers do NOT take their threat reduction talents and then complain about getting aggro.

[Paelos]

10 to 1 most healers do NOT take their threat reduction talents and then complain about getting aggro.

Healers get aggro? Your tank sucks.

[Sheepherder]

Tanks have a 2.0735x threat modifier (paladins are special, but balanced generally for the same amount).  Healing innately has a 0.5x threat modifier and doesn't count overheal, and you have to pass the tank by 110%/130% (melee/ranged).  Ergo, if you are stealing aggro after the pull your tank is a baddie.

[Gobbeldygook]

The only times a healer will get aggro are if A. An add shows up and the tank has no threat, so it wouldn't help. B. The healer is priest or shaman and aggressively DPSing on something the tank isn't focused on.

edit content: I healed HOR as a shaman with a pug paladin tank who still needed plenty of drops from the instance.  We used the corner strat and only had one touchy moment, but no wipes.

[Fordel]

Just healed Heroic Halls of Reflection, it was fine! Resto Druid in Naxx 10 gear. The only REAL issue, was the fact I only have like 15k HP in that gear, so any stray piece of damage was cutting me in half. Lots of Pre-Hotting on myself in anticipation.

We failed the last bit half a dozen times or so due to various issues before we got it.


First time 2 DPS got slaughtered by the LK due to proximity.

Second time the very last Mob we had to kill got stuck in a torch/lamp thing and no one could get LoS.

Third time I ran OOM between trying to help DPS and having to battle rez a stray rogue.

Fourth time we managed to clear all the mobs literally 2 seconds to late, and wiped due to LK.

We finally got it going on try number Five, unless I'm forgetting a wipe.


We didn't have the strongest DPS line up either, half of us were probably a bit under-geared all around. Our tank was fully geared so that helped undoubtedly.



/fake edit - I take my healing threat talent!

[Ingmar]

We found the running-from-LK section to be quite a bit harder than the Falric/Marwyn fight with our lineup at least.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, my DPS as a DK is kinda lacking. I hardly ever do it, so I'm always rusty, and I totally ignore upgrading my DPS suit most of the time. I think I'm gonna just have to tank it all the time, oh well!

[Azuredream]

Throwing in my 2c on HHoR - I've never wiped to the Lich King (usually have good dps for some reason) but those spirit waves always manage to gib a healer or the tank dies or something and we have to try it a few times to get it right. The one time I went with a warrior we had to abandon the run completely after 4 or 5 wipes, but every other time I've had a paladin who fared much better.

(I'm a rogue)

[Selby]

...but those spirit waves always manage to gib a healer or the tank dies or something and we have to try it a few times to get it right.

Exact same thing happened tonight.  Everything going well, 9th wave, the priest instantly opens up with a cower\fear on the healer and no priest in the party to dispel, meant 4s of no healing when the mobs are unleashing on the tank (druid bear) and then gibbing the rest of us.  The pally healer did fine provided she didn't get cc'd during a bad portion.  The most successful we were was when there was no priest or mercenary, just footmen, mages and hunters (I smiled on ph 9 when that happened).  It still took us 4 wipes to get the spirits down, but then we 1-shot the running from the LK gauntlet and even got the 6m achievement to boot.  I do like how the 2nd boss of the spirit wave is essentially a joke compared to the first one.

It's a neat instance, but it sure is tuned tightly to where bad luck and party makeup can really ruin things and I'm not sure if player skill would necessarily have made up for it.  It's definitely not a brute force instance or some place where you can overgear it easily (at this point in the game).

[Fordel]

We only had 1 wipe on the opening Waves/Bosses, and that was mostly due to trying to hide in one of the alcoves and no one being able to see shit.


Once we went back to the starting hallway, it was tight, but we managed fine. Would've been routine if not for my 15k HP or sub 2k Spellpower. People just need to dig out their Assist/Interrupt/CC buttons.

We had a Hunter Trapping a ranged mob, caster or rifleman. Our rogue would break off and lock down any extra caster mobs that were loose. Our DK was helping with 'trash collecting' and interrupting as well, DG being a factor in helping to rein in ranged mobs. Prot Warrior was tanking, so more gratuitous use of interrupts and stuns. The biggest issue was just constantly making sure nothing was attacking me (tree), again, mostly due to the fact I have all of 15k HP 


If I had better gear, I could probably just tank a ranged ghost or two, which would put more DPS on the train since the Dk and Rogue wouldn't have to babysit me so much.

[Merusk]

Interrupts are just a fact of life for me. CTRL-Q!  But I'm always surprised to find there's a lot of rogues who don't kick,  DPS DKs who don't mind freeze, DG or strangulate and DPS Warriors who don't pummel.  If you're pugging it, remind these guys of their interrupts beforehand.