Heh, I tanked several heroics with a level 76 blue shield I'd gotten from a quest reward. I'd say a bare minimum for a tank is 20.5k life unbuffed, 535 defense. I did it, so I know it can be done (with a competent healer).
Had one of my guildies (a terrible one) hit 80, and instantly ask for a heroic group. I said "You tanking?" and his response was "It's the only thing I know how to do." So I asked what his Def and HP were at, and he told me 480 Defense, 17.5k life. Needless to say I told him to respec and tanked it for him.
I never quite understood anybody requiring X defense for heroics. With the exception of the first boss in prenerf Durnholde (looool 8k MS?) I never felt like being uncrittable--or even having a big HP pool to soak huge hits with--was much of a priority. Overall avoidance and threat output were always much more important for five man stuff.
Of course, it's not like the duder in all level 71 greens had much avoidance, threat, or anything really.
480 defense and 17k life? 10/10 times that guy dies... not even close to where you should be. A crit from a boss in any heroic is bound to be upwards of 16k.
Heh, I tanked several heroics with a level 76 blue shield I'd gotten from a quest reward. I'd say a bare minimum for a tank is 20.5k life unbuffed, 535 defense. I did it, so I know it can be done (with a competent healer).
Had one of my guildies (a terrible one) hit 80, and instantly ask for a heroic group. I said "You tanking?" and his response was "It's the only thing I know how to do." So I asked what his Def and HP were at, and he told me 480 Defense, 17.5k life. Needless to say I told him to respec and tanked it for him.
I never quite understood anybody requiring X defense for heroics. With the exception of the first boss in prenerf Durnholde (looool 8k MS?) I never felt like being uncrittable--or even having a big HP pool to soak huge hits with--was much of a priority. Overall avoidance and threat output were always much more important for five man stuff.
Of course, it's not like the duder in all level 71 greens had much avoidance, threat, or anything really.
Heh...
Well, I can tell you from personal experience that being defense capped is VERY important for tanking heroics. My first day as Prot at 80, my tanking gear wasn't that bad, yet I was getting 1 and 2 shotted by bosses in Utgarde Pinnacle. Like, instant death. Turns out my defense was only at like 490 or something equally awesome.
Heh, I tanked several heroics with a level 76 blue shield I'd gotten from a quest reward. I'd say a bare minimum for a tank is 20.5k life unbuffed, 535 defense. I did it, so I know it can be done (with a competent healer).
Had one of my guildies (a terrible one) hit 80, and instantly ask for a heroic group. I said "You tanking?" and his response was "It's the only thing I know how to do." So I asked what his Def and HP were at, and he told me 480 Defense, 17.5k life. Needless to say I told him to respec and tanked it for him.
I never quite understood anybody requiring X defense for heroics. With the exception of the first boss in prenerf Durnholde (looool 8k MS?) I never felt like being uncrittable--or even having a big HP pool to soak huge hits with--was much of a priority. Overall avoidance and threat output were always much more important for five man stuff.
Of course, it's not like the duder in all level 71 greens had much avoidance, threat, or anything really.
480 defense and 17k life? 10/10 times that guy dies... not even close to where you should be. A crit from a boss in any heroic is bound to be upwards of 16k.
If you're getting crit for 16k, that means normal swings are going to be 8k a piece and you aren't dodging anything at all. So your problem isn't really being crit to death, your problem is that you lose 50% of your health in one swing, non-crit. Nothing is going to save you from 50% health normal hits on a 2.0 swing timer.
That also seems a bit like hyperbole, 8k normal swings on a tank that's presumably wearing plate, with a shield? I stopped playing right at the end of TBC, but with how easy everyone's saying heroics are, that seems like some awfully hardcore damage to me.
EDIT: My whole point being that, instead of wasting gemspace and focusing itemization on low-return defense specifically because you have your chance to be crit reduced, it should be a much bigger priority to focus itemization and gemming on more efficient stats instead. Let defense come with epics, raw stats are much more important at the low-end.
Happy: Two-drakes Sartharion10 down. Took us awhile, having no shaman made it messy... But the second to last attempt and kill went very nicely.
Hate: The fact that if I was a shaman or if the prot pally was a DK we wouldn't have had DPS problems. "No one brings unique buffs," my ass. "OMG we need bloodlust!"
well yeah but the fact that you still got it down means their philosophy is working :P
Eh we got it down because the DPS we did have were some of our best, and we banged our heads against it for hours. I'm very happy we finally got it and didn't give up and kill another drake for the week because people had to go to bed soon, but my point was that if we'd had a bloodlust and/or totems/DKstuffthatreplacestotems we would probably have done it in an hour instead of three or four. It's not like our group was six hunters, we had a fair spread of classes/specs, but bloodlust is still a unique buff that only a shaman can provide and it IS a huge advantage.
On that note, we somehow failed to have replenishment too. One hunter was like "oh god the healers are out of mana" when we finally got the drakes down and still had most of Sartharion to kill, but we were like "Haha never fear, silly hunter!" Shadowfiend, divine plea, the druid and I pausing to regen for a few seconds, and we were at like 80-90% mana again. As a former warlock, I get such a kick out of having good regen.
That also seems a bit like hyperbole, 8k normal swings on a tank that's presumably wearing plate, with a shield? I stopped playing right at the end of TBC, but with how easy everyone's saying heroics are, that seems like some awfully hardcore damage to me.
I heard that a lot too (about heroics being easy), but the only people who apparently are saying this are people who are in sunwell gear. I'll tell you what, from personal experience, heroics have some pretty stiff requirements that you need to meet for all classes involved, DPS has more leeway of course, but if you can't pull your weight in a Heroic things can go south real quick. It doesn't matter how much TPS you put out as a tank, if you aren't defense capped and a boss does get a swing in, you're pretty much fuckin' dead. And I know that because i've been on the receiving end of it.
Last night I ran as Ret in a Heroic Strat run with a group from a guild that is pretty far through Naxx, yet we still wiped a couple times due to bad luck. Heroics are far from 'free epix' in my opinion.
They're not as tough as they used to be, but heroics are still stopping a lot of groups.
The people with dedicated and skilled squads find it easy and stomp them to pieces, just like the raids, but the average player/guild does still struggle.
Oats on
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
edited December 2008
all sorts of happy here.
Happy: I was able to tell guild ret pally that he wasn't good enough for the harder parts of Naxx without any grief or drama. He actually seems like he's going to take our advice on learning to dps too.
Hope: he actually does improve. He's a friend of one of my better friends in game, and when I say "not good enough" I mean "behind both tanks on the damage meters". He barely beat our Protadin MT on Loatheb, even though he had the 50% crit buff and the tank did not.
Happier: Patchwerk's a dps check? We swapped out the terrible ret pally in anticipation of racing Patchy's enrage timer, only to have our rogue go retarded and hit Patchwerk before the OT was even on the threat table. One Hateful Strike later, we were down to 4 DPSers, and decided to use that first attempt as a learning experience and save the battle rez. Then the tank pointed out that we had him down 25% in the first minute... so we rezzed the rogue to keep him from feeling too left out (he'd been locked out of our first Maexxna kill by being stuck on the wrong side of the door to her room) and 1-shotted Patchwerk with over 2 minutes to spare.
Happiest: Essentially our second week into Naxx, and we've got Spider and Plague wings clear, DK wing (except for 4 Horseman), Patchwerk and Grobbulus down. Headed back for Gluth/Thaddius/whatever tonight.
I like the feeling that we'll actually be able to stay on the progression curve into Ulduar when it's released, and I couldn't be happier that it's just the 10-man versions. I know Naxx is easy compared to Kara, but we destroyed Patchwerk, and aside from learning to Heigan-dance haven't had serious trouble with any boss so far.
I feel like heroics are where they should be. They were extremely challenging when we first hit 80 and though myself and my tanks have a fair amount of 10/25-man raid gear now I still can't exactly tab out during a heroic except maybe on small trash pulls. They're balanced a lot better than BC heroics, in that they seem to be of similar difficulty across the board, as opposed to like Underbog being a pushover instance except for the giants and no one wanting to set foot in Durnholde.
riz on
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
That also seems a bit like hyperbole, 8k normal swings on a tank that's presumably wearing plate, with a shield? I stopped playing right at the end of TBC, but with how easy everyone's saying heroics are, that seems like some awfully hardcore damage to me.
I heard that a lot too (about heroics being easy), but the only people who apparently are saying this are people who are in sunwell gear. I'll tell you what, from personal experience, heroics have some pretty stiff requirements that you need to meet for all classes involved, DPS has more leeway of course, but if you can't pull your weight in a Heroic things can go south real quick. It doesn't matter how much TPS you put out as a tank, if you aren't defense capped and a boss does get a swing in, you're pretty much fuckin' dead. And I know that because i've been on the receiving end of it.
Last night I ran as Ret in a Heroic Strat run with a group from a guild that is pretty far through Naxx, yet we still wiped a couple times due to bad luck. Heroics are far from 'free epix' in my opinion.
They're not "free epix" but I wouldn't say it needs sunwell gear. My guild has been running a ton of heroics, and the only things that are still tripping us up are Eregos in heroic occulus (goddamn I hate that fight) and Loken (though I haven't tried him since my first week at 80). Some fights are pretty brutal, and unwinnable unless everyone is doing their job (Jedoga in Old Kingdom and Slad'ran in Gundrak stopped us in our tracks the first time through).
I feel like heroics are where they should be. They were extremely challenging when we first hit 80 and though myself and my tanks have a fair amount of 10/25-man raid gear now I still can't exactly tab out during a heroic except maybe on small trash pulls. They're balanced a lot better than BC heroics, in that they seem to be of similar difficulty across the board, as opposed to like Underbog being a pushover instance except for the giants and no one wanting to set foot in Durnholde.
I'd still say Occulus is head an shoulders above the others in terms of difficulty, if only because not only do you have to fight the last boss, but you also have to depend on four other people to find their ass with both hands and a dragon pointing the way.
Also movement fights are probably the leading cause of death in WoW, and all 3 on-foot bosses have decently brutal movement requirements.
Again, not an issue for an organized or skilled group (but not much is in WoW), but bloody lethal to PUGs everywhere.
Yeah true Oculus is the one heroic people actively try to avoid. Personally it's not even the last boss, which I think is fun, but the first (and only) time I healed heroic Oculus we just barely survived the earlier boss fights and it felt very hectic and I've been afraid of going back. Gonna have to at some point for achievements, of course. I have Amber Void but that's about it. x_x
riz on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Heh, I tanked several heroics with a level 76 blue shield I'd gotten from a quest reward. I'd say a bare minimum for a tank is 20.5k life unbuffed, 535 defense. I did it, so I know it can be done (with a competent healer).
Had one of my guildies (a terrible one) hit 80, and instantly ask for a heroic group. I said "You tanking?" and his response was "It's the only thing I know how to do." So I asked what his Def and HP were at, and he told me 480 Defense, 17.5k life. Needless to say I told him to respec and tanked it for him.
I never quite understood anybody requiring X defense for heroics. With the exception of the first boss in prenerf Durnholde (looool 8k MS?) I never felt like being uncrittable--or even having a big HP pool to soak huge hits with--was much of a priority. Overall avoidance and threat output were always much more important for five man stuff.
Of course, it's not like the duder in all level 71 greens had much avoidance, threat, or anything really.
480 defense and 17k life? 10/10 times that guy dies... not even close to where you should be. A crit from a boss in any heroic is bound to be upwards of 16k.
If you're getting crit for 16k, that means normal swings are going to be 8k a piece and you aren't dodging anything at all. So your problem isn't really being crit to death, your problem is that you lose 50% of your health in one swing, non-crit. Nothing is going to save you from 50% health normal hits on a 2.0 swing timer.
That also seems a bit like hyperbole, 8k normal swings on a tank that's presumably wearing plate, with a shield? I stopped playing right at the end of TBC, but with how easy everyone's saying heroics are, that seems like some awfully hardcore damage to me.
EDIT: My whole point being that, instead of wasting gemspace and focusing itemization on low-return defense specifically because you have your chance to be crit reduced, it should be a much bigger priority to focus itemization and gemming on more efficient stats instead. Let defense come with epics, raw stats are much more important at the low-end.
This is one of those situations in which knowing the mechanics changes are kind of a big deal. Dodge, parry and block are all on diminishing returns. So every tank as seen a fairly dramatic drop in pure avoidance. So stacking pure avoidance is bad. Defense gives fairly good return on value, again depending on how much dodge you have.
And bosses in heroics hit for 6kish and a little higher. Being critable in those circumstances is a very bad thing.
Yeah true Oculus is the one heroic people actively try to avoid. Personally it's not even the last boss, which I think is fun, but the first (and only) time I healed heroic Oculus we just barely survived the earlier boss fights and it felt very hectic and I've been afraid of going back. Gonna have to at some point for achievements, of course. I have Amber Void but that's about it. x_x
In an all ranged group, I put on my Frost Resist set and just tanked the 3rd boss where I stood. They were out of range of the icetraps and I could run to cover for his huge explosion.
Also, Amber Void is apparently the worst one to get.
Happy: I did the fishing daily since it was crocs in the city (only one I can do with my abysmal fishing level) and I had a few minutes to kill between heroics.
I got Snarly's bucket!
-SPI- on
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
Heh, I tanked several heroics with a level 76 blue shield I'd gotten from a quest reward. I'd say a bare minimum for a tank is 20.5k life unbuffed, 535 defense. I did it, so I know it can be done (with a competent healer).
Had one of my guildies (a terrible one) hit 80, and instantly ask for a heroic group. I said "You tanking?" and his response was "It's the only thing I know how to do." So I asked what his Def and HP were at, and he told me 480 Defense, 17.5k life. Needless to say I told him to respec and tanked it for him.
I never quite understood anybody requiring X defense for heroics. With the exception of the first boss in prenerf Durnholde (looool 8k MS?) I never felt like being uncrittable--or even having a big HP pool to soak huge hits with--was much of a priority. Overall avoidance and threat output were always much more important for five man stuff.
Of course, it's not like the duder in all level 71 greens had much avoidance, threat, or anything really.
480 defense and 17k life? 10/10 times that guy dies... not even close to where you should be. A crit from a boss in any heroic is bound to be upwards of 16k.
If you're getting crit for 16k, that means normal swings are going to be 8k a piece and you aren't dodging anything at all. So your problem isn't really being crit to death, your problem is that you lose 50% of your health in one swing, non-crit. Nothing is going to save you from 50% health normal hits on a 2.0 swing timer.
That also seems a bit like hyperbole, 8k normal swings on a tank that's presumably wearing plate, with a shield? I stopped playing right at the end of TBC, but with how easy everyone's saying heroics are, that seems like some awfully hardcore damage to me.
EDIT: My whole point being that, instead of wasting gemspace and focusing itemization on low-return defense specifically because you have your chance to be crit reduced, it should be a much bigger priority to focus itemization and gemming on more efficient stats instead. Let defense come with epics, raw stats are much more important at the low-end.
This is one of those situations in which knowing the mechanics changes are kind of a big deal. Dodge, parry and block are all on diminishing returns. So every tank as seen a fairly dramatic drop in pure avoidance. So stacking pure avoidance is bad. Defense gives fairly good return on value, again depending on how much dodge you have.
And bosses in heroics hit for 6kish and a little higher. Being critable in those circumstances is a very bad thing.
I was able to tank Utgarde Keep and Old Kingdom heroic on my still slightly crittable DK (~520 defense at the time). I had damn good healers in both cases though.
Heh, I tanked several heroics with a level 76 blue shield I'd gotten from a quest reward. I'd say a bare minimum for a tank is 20.5k life unbuffed, 535 defense. I did it, so I know it can be done (with a competent healer).
Had one of my guildies (a terrible one) hit 80, and instantly ask for a heroic group. I said "You tanking?" and his response was "It's the only thing I know how to do." So I asked what his Def and HP were at, and he told me 480 Defense, 17.5k life. Needless to say I told him to respec and tanked it for him.
I never quite understood anybody requiring X defense for heroics. With the exception of the first boss in prenerf Durnholde (looool 8k MS?) I never felt like being uncrittable--or even having a big HP pool to soak huge hits with--was much of a priority. Overall avoidance and threat output were always much more important for five man stuff.
Of course, it's not like the duder in all level 71 greens had much avoidance, threat, or anything really.
480 defense and 17k life? 10/10 times that guy dies... not even close to where you should be. A crit from a boss in any heroic is bound to be upwards of 16k.
If you're getting crit for 16k, that means normal swings are going to be 8k a piece and you aren't dodging anything at all. So your problem isn't really being crit to death, your problem is that you lose 50% of your health in one swing, non-crit. Nothing is going to save you from 50% health normal hits on a 2.0 swing timer.
That also seems a bit like hyperbole, 8k normal swings on a tank that's presumably wearing plate, with a shield? I stopped playing right at the end of TBC, but with how easy everyone's saying heroics are, that seems like some awfully hardcore damage to me.
EDIT: My whole point being that, instead of wasting gemspace and focusing itemization on low-return defense specifically because you have your chance to be crit reduced, it should be a much bigger priority to focus itemization and gemming on more efficient stats instead. Let defense come with epics, raw stats are much more important at the low-end.
This is one of those situations in which knowing the mechanics changes are kind of a big deal. Dodge, parry and block are all on diminishing returns. So every tank as seen a fairly dramatic drop in pure avoidance. So stacking pure avoidance is bad. Defense gives fairly good return on value, again depending on how much dodge you have.
And bosses in heroics hit for 6kish and a little higher. Being critable in those circumstances is a very bad thing.
I don't know if this holds true for druids and death knights, but for warriors and I would assume paladins defense is one of the best stats you can get and you should be stacking it at close to a 2:1 ratio when comparing it to dodge.
Dodge is better than defense until the 7-800 dodge rating range for DKs. Not a lot better, but even with diminishing returns, etc., you shouldn't be "stacking" defense.
Even for paladins and warriors, dodge is better avoidance. The fact that defense adds to block, however, makes these guys have to choose between avoidance and mitigation.
Happy: Engineering at 441 and I got my tanking goggles.
FFFFFFF: Tried tanking my first heroic. It was violet hold and I had no problems at all with the trash but the first boss was that etheral dude. I swear if we had gotten any other boss but him we couldve easily cleared that place but that dude is a bitch. Fuck him and his orbs.
MistaCreepy on
PS3: MistaCreepy::Steam: MistaCreepy::360: Dead and I don't feel like paying to fix it.
They're not as tough as they used to be, but heroics are still stopping a lot of groups.
The people with dedicated and skilled squads find it easy and stomp them to pieces, just like the raids, but the average player/guild does still struggle.
That's what I find amusing, most of the people who play WoW, aren't blowing through the heroics like they were wailing caverns, and smashing the raid zones, but because a few select guilds are, wow is EZmode. Same shit happened in EQ, one or two guilds who were too hardcore for their own good, destroyed all new content as soon as it came out, which didn't effect 90% of the population, yet, half the population bitched about how easy it was.. regardless of that fact that they never did, or would see it.
EWom on
Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.
Going to VH with me pretty much guarantees that Xevozz will be one of the bosses. Fuck that guy.
I still need two achievements from there too and the bosses I need never spawn. Well, the void did twice and the water guy did once. A paladin AOEed down the voids both times, and I don't even know what happened with the water guy, I'm just the healer.
He's definitely not the easiest boss in there, but if you're ranged people aren't retarded it's not much of problem. the strat that I've had work successfully every time he's come up is to start tanking him at the bottom of that dirt ramp thing, then keep him moving around up the ramp and around the ledge, making a big loop around the room. No wipes so far, fingers crossed.
Edit: water boss achievement is ezmode if you use the crystals to zap the adds when he explodes. One nuke kills all of them.
Mad Jazz on
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
While true, I'd definately rank him as one of the easiest, only slightly more difficult than the big eyeball demon boss. All you gotta do is constantly move away from the orbs and he's more or less harmless, even on heroic.
Well, Xevozz teleports everyone to the orbs unless you drag him out of LoS or have enough DPS to kill him before he can teleport... The first couple times I had to fight him he got orb buffs cos we didn't know what the fuck the idea was and tanks got one-shot. And wiping in VH is retarded. It should be like Hyjal, just start at your most recent set of waves, not start over from the beginning including a dummy boss if you wiped on the second.
riz on
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Well, Xevozz teleports everyone to the orbs unless you drag him out of LoS or have enough DPS to kill him before he can teleport... The first couple times I had to fight him he got orb buffs cos we didn't know what the fuck the idea was and tanks got one-shot. And wiping in VH is retarded. It should be like Hyjal, just start at your most recent set of waves, not start over from the beginning including a dummy boss if you wiped on the second.
Yeah, he does the teleport thing once, maybe twice before he snuffs it, but I've never seen anyone die to it.
yeah, first time I had the ethereal, he destroyed us all, mostly because we were just hanging around in the center area, only using a little bit of the space. But you've got an entire empty area to use, including the upstairs, kiting him all over there will really string the orbs out so you aren't taking nearly as much damage.
The port does suck, tho, if the orbs are cluster in the center of the room. If you've been kiting him all over, however, the orbs should be all over the room and you won't get insta-gibbed when you get ported into the middle.
People do die to it though. That's a silly statement to make. The key is just keep moving constantly but the teleport throws people off sometimes. He's definitely the hardest boss in the place I've found. The easiest is either the dude with the 2 adds or the Magmadar like boss.
Heh, the second time we fought him I was just like, "Oh, right, this is the 'spam CoH' boss..." Then stupid paladins were stupid and killed one little add.
Hey guys, are there any heroics that are considered "easy"? Id like to start procuring some badges while im gearing up for the more difficult ones and naxx.
MistaCreepy on
PS3: MistaCreepy::Steam: MistaCreepy::360: Dead and I don't feel like paying to fix it.
I wouldn't say any are easy, but stay clear of HoL for sure. Also a good way to gear up as a tank is to do Heroics as a DPS and grab the extra tank blues and epics. Red sword of courage seems to drop all the time.
They're not as tough as they used to be, but heroics are still stopping a lot of groups.
The people with dedicated and skilled squads find it easy and stomp them to pieces, just like the raids, but the average player/guild does still struggle.
That's what I find amusing, most of the people who play WoW, aren't blowing through the heroics like they were wailing caverns, and smashing the raid zones, but because a few select guilds are, wow is EZmode. Same shit happened in EQ, one or two guilds who were too hardcore for their own good, destroyed all new content as soon as it came out, which didn't effect 90% of the population, yet, half the population bitched about how easy it was.. regardless of that fact that they never did, or would see it.
That's what I love about this expansion. The thing is, we were never one of the hardcore/elite guilds... We were in Kara for ages, and were using PUG raiders to fill out Gruul/Mag/early SSC at the end of BC. Now we're progressing fairly quickly through the 10-man raid content and it really feels like the game I always wanted WoW to be, from back when we were among the first on our server to complete 45min Baron/Valthalak even though we hadn't set foot in MC/BWL.
Being able to see all the content with a close group of semi-hardcore friends, and no need to compromise to fill 25mans? Hell yes
Happy: Last night did the Horde Raid and did it without a problem even when I logged out for ThunderBluff but still got credit. Got my bear mount
Hope: To increase my DPS now specced FrostFire (till Arcane becomes the Raid build as I heard)Spec
Sad/Mad: Joined 25man Arch and got kicked due to low DPS even though half the group stood in the fog. This happened twice (was frost for these run) Gonna give a try with my new spec just to learning experience.
I am learning how to set myself up for raids but most tell me I need to do more instances/heroics.
Horus on
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited December 2008
Amusing: I was fighting a mob next to a quest item node when this guy comes running towards me, obviously wanting to get the quest item. I kill the mob and get the item right before he gets to me.
Posts
480 defense and 17k life? 10/10 times that guy dies... not even close to where you should be. A crit from a boss in any heroic is bound to be upwards of 16k.
Heh...
Well, I can tell you from personal experience that being defense capped is VERY important for tanking heroics. My first day as Prot at 80, my tanking gear wasn't that bad, yet I was getting 1 and 2 shotted by bosses in Utgarde Pinnacle. Like, instant death. Turns out my defense was only at like 490 or something equally awesome.
If you're getting crit for 16k, that means normal swings are going to be 8k a piece and you aren't dodging anything at all. So your problem isn't really being crit to death, your problem is that you lose 50% of your health in one swing, non-crit. Nothing is going to save you from 50% health normal hits on a 2.0 swing timer.
That also seems a bit like hyperbole, 8k normal swings on a tank that's presumably wearing plate, with a shield? I stopped playing right at the end of TBC, but with how easy everyone's saying heroics are, that seems like some awfully hardcore damage to me.
EDIT: My whole point being that, instead of wasting gemspace and focusing itemization on low-return defense specifically because you have your chance to be crit reduced, it should be a much bigger priority to focus itemization and gemming on more efficient stats instead. Let defense come with epics, raw stats are much more important at the low-end.
Eh we got it down because the DPS we did have were some of our best, and we banged our heads against it for hours. I'm very happy we finally got it and didn't give up and kill another drake for the week because people had to go to bed soon, but my point was that if we'd had a bloodlust and/or totems/DKstuffthatreplacestotems we would probably have done it in an hour instead of three or four. It's not like our group was six hunters, we had a fair spread of classes/specs, but bloodlust is still a unique buff that only a shaman can provide and it IS a huge advantage.
On that note, we somehow failed to have replenishment too. One hunter was like "oh god the healers are out of mana" when we finally got the drakes down and still had most of Sartharion to kill, but we were like "Haha never fear, silly hunter!" Shadowfiend, divine plea, the druid and I pausing to regen for a few seconds, and we were at like 80-90% mana again. As a former warlock, I get such a kick out of having good regen.
I heard that a lot too (about heroics being easy), but the only people who apparently are saying this are people who are in sunwell gear. I'll tell you what, from personal experience, heroics have some pretty stiff requirements that you need to meet for all classes involved, DPS has more leeway of course, but if you can't pull your weight in a Heroic things can go south real quick. It doesn't matter how much TPS you put out as a tank, if you aren't defense capped and a boss does get a swing in, you're pretty much fuckin' dead. And I know that because i've been on the receiving end of it.
Last night I ran as Ret in a Heroic Strat run with a group from a guild that is pretty far through Naxx, yet we still wiped a couple times due to bad luck. Heroics are far from 'free epix' in my opinion.
The people with dedicated and skilled squads find it easy and stomp them to pieces, just like the raids, but the average player/guild does still struggle.
Happy: I was able to tell guild ret pally that he wasn't good enough for the harder parts of Naxx without any grief or drama. He actually seems like he's going to take our advice on learning to dps too.
Hope: he actually does improve. He's a friend of one of my better friends in game, and when I say "not good enough" I mean "behind both tanks on the damage meters". He barely beat our Protadin MT on Loatheb, even though he had the 50% crit buff and the tank did not.
Happier: Patchwerk's a dps check? We swapped out the terrible ret pally in anticipation of racing Patchy's enrage timer, only to have our rogue go retarded and hit Patchwerk before the OT was even on the threat table. One Hateful Strike later, we were down to 4 DPSers, and decided to use that first attempt as a learning experience and save the battle rez. Then the tank pointed out that we had him down 25% in the first minute... so we rezzed the rogue to keep him from feeling too left out (he'd been locked out of our first Maexxna kill by being stuck on the wrong side of the door to her room) and 1-shotted Patchwerk with over 2 minutes to spare.
Happiest: Essentially our second week into Naxx, and we've got Spider and Plague wings clear, DK wing (except for 4 Horseman), Patchwerk and Grobbulus down. Headed back for Gluth/Thaddius/whatever tonight.
I like the feeling that we'll actually be able to stay on the progression curve into Ulduar when it's released, and I couldn't be happier that it's just the 10-man versions. I know Naxx is easy compared to Kara, but we destroyed Patchwerk, and aside from learning to Heigan-dance haven't had serious trouble with any boss so far.
They're not "free epix" but I wouldn't say it needs sunwell gear. My guild has been running a ton of heroics, and the only things that are still tripping us up are Eregos in heroic occulus (goddamn I hate that fight) and Loken (though I haven't tried him since my first week at 80). Some fights are pretty brutal, and unwinnable unless everyone is doing their job (Jedoga in Old Kingdom and Slad'ran in Gundrak stopped us in our tracks the first time through).
I'd still say Occulus is head an shoulders above the others in terms of difficulty, if only because not only do you have to fight the last boss, but you also have to depend on four other people to find their ass with both hands and a dragon pointing the way.
Also movement fights are probably the leading cause of death in WoW, and all 3 on-foot bosses have decently brutal movement requirements.
Again, not an issue for an organized or skilled group (but not much is in WoW), but bloody lethal to PUGs everywhere.
Never again.
That last boss fight is fucking stupid. Save your gimmick bullshit fights for something else blizz kkthx.
This is one of those situations in which knowing the mechanics changes are kind of a big deal. Dodge, parry and block are all on diminishing returns. So every tank as seen a fairly dramatic drop in pure avoidance. So stacking pure avoidance is bad. Defense gives fairly good return on value, again depending on how much dodge you have.
And bosses in heroics hit for 6kish and a little higher. Being critable in those circumstances is a very bad thing.
In an all ranged group, I put on my Frost Resist set and just tanked the 3rd boss where I stood. They were out of range of the icetraps and I could run to cover for his huge explosion.
Also, Amber Void is apparently the worst one to get.
I got Snarly's bucket!
I was able to tank Utgarde Keep and Old Kingdom heroic on my still slightly crittable DK (~520 defense at the time). I had damn good healers in both cases though.
I don't know if this holds true for druids and death knights, but for warriors and I would assume paladins defense is one of the best stats you can get and you should be stacking it at close to a 2:1 ratio when comparing it to dodge.
Tankspot Thread
edit: It also seems to apply to DKs since you can parry, but not druids unless that got added in at some point.
Even for paladins and warriors, dodge is better avoidance. The fact that defense adds to block, however, makes these guys have to choose between avoidance and mitigation.
FFFFFFF: Tried tanking my first heroic. It was violet hold and I had no problems at all with the trash but the first boss was that etheral dude. I swear if we had gotten any other boss but him we couldve easily cleared that place but that dude is a bitch. Fuck him and his orbs.
That's what I find amusing, most of the people who play WoW, aren't blowing through the heroics like they were wailing caverns, and smashing the raid zones, but because a few select guilds are, wow is EZmode. Same shit happened in EQ, one or two guilds who were too hardcore for their own good, destroyed all new content as soon as it came out, which didn't effect 90% of the population, yet, half the population bitched about how easy it was.. regardless of that fact that they never did, or would see it.
I still need two achievements from there too and the bosses I need never spawn. Well, the void did twice and the water guy did once. A paladin AOEed down the voids both times, and I don't even know what happened with the water guy, I'm just the healer.
Edit: water boss achievement is ezmode if you use the crystals to zap the adds when he explodes. One nuke kills all of them.
While true, I'd definately rank him as one of the easiest, only slightly more difficult than the big eyeball demon boss. All you gotta do is constantly move away from the orbs and he's more or less harmless, even on heroic.
Yeah, he does the teleport thing once, maybe twice before he snuffs it, but I've never seen anyone die to it.
The port does suck, tho, if the orbs are cluster in the center of the room. If you've been kiting him all over, however, the orbs should be all over the room and you won't get insta-gibbed when you get ported into the middle.
You want to check on the testicular fortitude of your healer, go do that one.
First Blood 85 Priest 80 Mage 85 Paladin 83 Druid 80 DK 85 Huntard 85 Shaman
"Tardo Wan" sounds like a Jedi that required 436 years to train and then killed himself by looking into his lightsaber while turning it on."
Edit: The void boss, I mean.
That's what I love about this expansion. The thing is, we were never one of the hardcore/elite guilds... We were in Kara for ages, and were using PUG raiders to fill out Gruul/Mag/early SSC at the end of BC. Now we're progressing fairly quickly through the 10-man raid content and it really feels like the game I always wanted WoW to be, from back when we were among the first on our server to complete 45min Baron/Valthalak even though we hadn't set foot in MC/BWL.
Being able to see all the content with a close group of semi-hardcore friends, and no need to compromise to fill 25mans? Hell yes
Hope: To increase my DPS now specced FrostFire (till Arcane becomes the Raid build as I heard)Spec
Sad/Mad: Joined 25man Arch and got kicked due to low DPS even though half the group stood in the fog. This happened twice (was frost for these run) Gonna give a try with my new spec just to learning experience.
I am learning how to set myself up for raids but most tell me I need to do more instances/heroics.
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
Then he calls me a cock.