Page 1 of 10
1
2
3
... LastLast
  1. #1

    Challenge Mode Gold Guides

    Challenge Modes are a great new addition to the game, I've spent a huge amount of time in them since MoP launched, but I've also noticed that a lot of people give up easily because the initial brick wall to figuring them out can be daunting. I want more people to enjoy and discuss these modes! They're a lot of fun

    To that end, I've put together walkthroughs for all of the current dungeons so that groups starting a dungeon can have a reference to start with and adapt the strategy to their group, reducing some of the frustration and initial hurdle of learning what you can and cannot skip, which trash is hard, etc.

    Some basic tips that hold true for all challenge modes before you start:

    Consumables! You need these. There are:
    18 second Invisibility Potions, that take 1 Ghost Mushroom and 1 Sungrass each.
    15 second Lesser Invisibility Potions that take 1 Wild Steelbloom and 1 Fadeleaf each.
    Flasks - Tanks should use DPS flasks
    Food
    DPS Potions

    Trash packs:
    These represent a lot of the tank damage you will take during Challenge Modes, because you can't afford to CC most of the time and you often have to pull multiple packs together. The way you best handle these are by coordinating large tank cooldowns, smaller tank cooldowns, large healer cooldowns, and soft CC (interrupts, stuns, disorients, etc). For example, with my group a pretty standard 'hard' trash pull would involve a shadowfury on the pull, while I start a remorseless winter, leading to an extended stun while the DPS is AEing hard, then if there are casters that need priority interrupts we will have one person on each (or multiple on one as the situation warrants) and interrupt them while AE'ing the trash. If not enough is dead when stuns wear out, the tank will pop a big cooldown like Icebound Fortitude, or a healer cooldown like Tree of Life. Every party has a different composition, this is going to be the most challenging part to figure out. Once you know what you can do to keep a group mostly controlled for 30 seconds at a time, you will be much more successful in Challenge Modes.

    Bosses:
    Typically bosses are not a huge hurdle in Challenge Modes, trash represents bursts of intense difficulty, while bosses test your ability to sustain high dps and mechanical aptitude for longer periods of time. Bosses are typically where you will want to use cooldowns like Doomguards and Bloodlust/Heroism, but in some instances trash packs are good places for these as well.

    Healers should be drinking before you pull any trash pack or a boss, mana is a huge issue and spending 2 seconds getting out of combat can save you from wiping when your healer goes OOM at the last 10% of a fight.

    Guides for individual dungeons, listed in my personal of easiest to hardest:
    Scarlet Halls
    Gate of the Setting Sun
    Scholomance
    Mogu'shan Palace
    Temple of the Jade Serpent
    Siege of Niuzao Temple
    Shado-Pan Monastery
    Stormstout Brewery
    Scarlet Monastery

    I won't make any claims that these are the most efficient routes, but I know there are a lot of random videos and it can be hard to sort through to find good information on a few of the zones, so these all are at least a great jumping off point on your quest for Gold times, and maybe you'll start to think of your own tricks and take world first

  2. #2

  3. #3
    TY for the guide.
    Is the use of Invis potions something Blizz was intending everyone to use or should it be considered cheating?

  4. #4
    Thanks very much! I've bookmarked the page for when I do start trying challenge modes.

  5. #5
    Intentional. I think you'd lose a bit of strategy (they come at a high price as they prevent DPS potions from being used for 10 minutes) if you removed them, but I also regret that there is such a high price to competing for the best times in terms of consumables.

    I think the most pressing issue with challenge modes are that they don't reset cooldowns like boss encounters or arenas do. This is so easy to get around but it's extremely inconvenient to join arena matches to clear CDs or to sit around waiting for 8 minutes because of doomguards and invis pots and such.

  6. #6
    Great job on the guides, Marza. Was glad to be apart of it, definitely some of the most fun I've had playing WoW in the time I've played.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by psiko74 View Post
    TY for the guide.
    Is the use of Invis potions something Blizz was intending everyone to use or should it be considered cheating?
    They could just as well have made all the mobs in Challenge Modes have stealth detection, but they didn't, so I'm assuming they consider it fine.
    Vereesa formerly of Paragon and Depraved
    WCL

  8. #8
    The Lightbringer
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Cork, Ireland
    Posts
    3,041
    Nice guides

    Quote Originally Posted by Vereesà View Post
    They could just as well have made all the mobs in Challenge Modes have stealth detection, but they didn't, so I'm assuming they consider it fine.
    They consider it fine the devs even used them vs Blood Legion on the pre-launch event

  9. #9
    Also, there is definitely some packs of mobs that they intended us to have to clear normally, as they *did* have stealth detection. The hardest trash pack in all of the challenge modes, in my opinion, is the one from Scarlet Monastery after the first boss. They had stealth detection.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by psiko74 View Post
    TY for the guide.
    Is the use of Invis potions something Blizz was intending everyone to use or should it be considered cheating?
    They actually used them too on the race vs Blood Legion
    Last edited by mmoc9d5efa7d44; 2012-10-13 at 02:52 PM.

  11. #11
    Does the invisibility potion still work on Scarlet Halls? Our group tried it last night using the invisibility potion, and ends up getting caught right when we use the potion and go in.

  12. #12
    Likely culprits would be a pet or something aggroing mobs. Pets seem to be nasty with it, guardian type mobs if they die before invis ends tend to be fine (for example, if a bloodworm or my ghoul are alive, I'll see +combat and then eventually -combat when they die). Also if you take any damage they break or use any ability - for instance you need to use Stampeding Roar PRIOR to using the potions, literally anything will break it. We always group up, count to 3, hit roar, and then pot.

  13. #13
    I even tried going in alone with the invisibility potion. When I use it, the enemies will disappear. But when I start going to them, they just pop up and see me. Is there a positioning requirement for the potion to work? Or does it only work on the 18 sec inv potion (I used the 15 sec potion one).

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by psiko74 View Post
    TY for the guide.
    Is the use of Invis potions something Blizz was intending everyone to use or should it be considered cheating?
    Blizz dev team used them when they stomped out blood legion in the time trial so I think they are ok to use.

  15. #15
    @ hplaner Works fine and we literally ran right through the mobs, using the 18 second potions. You can see my group using it in this run - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUj_YSxyVwg

    To the OP, thank you for the videos. I just have Brewery, Scholo and Scarlet Monastery left and I will be checking out your guides in detail. Challenge Modes are definitely the best thing to happen to the game in a long time. I'm having a blast (of course it comes with a lot of frustration too!) I'm just a bit surprised you listed Scholomance as one of the easier dungeons. Our group assumed it was the hardest and saved it for the last.

    As a healer, I'd like to add that it's extremely important to know all your mana saving tools in and out. I almost never drink during a run and I'm often in situations where I cannot use mana pots as I'd need to use an invis potion later. Healers should try to overheal as little as possible. Every cast counts.

    Edit: Another thing I'd like to point out is that Combat / Self Rezzes can be extremely useful in certain situations. We had our Warlock soulstone himself and pull the trash pack before Taran Zhu in Shado-pan, clearing a path for the rest to run in and engage the boss. He resurrected and joined the fight almost immediately after. Once the boss went down, he ran back into that same trash pack with some cooldown (I forget the name) and could purify the last defender alone. He died after the CD ran out of course, but it didn't matter at that point. It's probably a good practice to take inventory of all spells available to your group before you start. Many hurdles can be solved with a little creativity.
    Last edited by Ashrr; 2012-10-13 at 10:34 PM.
    Ashr

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Ashrr View Post
    @ hplaner Works fine and we literally ran right through the mobs, using the 18 second potions. You can see my group using it in this run - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUj_YSxyVwg

    To the OP, thank you for the videos. I just have Brewery, Scholo and Scarlet Monastery left and I will be checking out your guides in detail. Challenge Modes are definitely the best thing to happen to the game in a long time. I'm having a blast (of course it comes with a lot of frustration too!) I'm just a bit surprised you listed Scholomance as one of the easier dungeons. Our group assumed it was the hardest and saved it for the last.

    As a healer, I'd like to add that it's extremely important to know all your mana saving tools in and out. I almost never drink during a run and I'm often in situations where I cannot use mana pots as I'd need to use an invis potion later. Healers should try to overheal as little as possible. Every cast counts.

    Edit: Another thing I'd like to point out is that Combat / Self Rezzes can be extremely useful in certain situations. We had our Warlock soulstone himself and pull the trash pack before Taran Zhu in Shado-pan, clearing a path for the rest to run in and engage the boss. He resurrected and joined the fight almost immediately after. Once the boss went down, he ran back into that same trash pack with some cooldown (I forget the name) and could purify the last defender alone. He died after the CD ran out of course, but it didn't matter at that point. It's probably a good practice to take inventory of all spells available to your group before you start. Many hurdles can be solved with a little creativity.
    Very creative And yes, absolutely. I don't expect people to be able to watch our video and do every zone exactly the same - if you have the exact same comp maybe. But it should show which pulls are good which aren't, and get your own creative juices flowing and start thinking of ways to use your composition to your advantage rather than against you. We just did Scholomance with a melee only comp today and it was completely different which sections were hard and which weren't, it was a lot of fun to rethink all of our strats

  17. #17
    Thanks for the guides man, they've helped us out alot with clearing these.
    Cocöabutters-Mal'ganis
    Last edited by Cocobutters; 2012-10-13 at 11:39 PM.

  18. #18
    Thank you once again! We followed some of your tips and have Challenge Conqueror: Gold now

    I really appreciate the work you put into it.
    Ashr

  19. #19
    Great work mate, Now i just need to find another 4 peeps to put some effort in and get some done.

    Everyones too occupied with dailys

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Ashrr View Post
    Thank you once again! We followed some of your tips and have Challenge Conqueror: Gold now

    I really appreciate the work you put into it.
    Congrats! Thanks for all the well wishes and thanks everyone, I don't feel the guides are perfect but it's nice to know they help even a little bit

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •