Thread: Challenge Mode

  1. #1
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    Challenge Mode

    How hard is challenge mode? Im dying to get my hands on the challenge mode gear for paladin, though im a little bit unaware of how hard it actually is.

    Im currently running with an iLvL off 479, though ive been thinking, does it really matter that much, i mean above iLvL 463, which your gear is getting demoted down too?


    So if you done the full challenge mode achievement, please leave a reply, would be very helpful!

    Im talking GOLD medal btw, so the gear will be available

    Thank you!
    Last edited by mmocc1b9cad4cb; 2013-02-25 at 05:33 AM.

  2. #2
    Not really hard to do, pretty much 4 manned it several times.

  3. #3
    Everything gets downgraded to 463, set bonuses and Sha gems are disabled. Normal sockets work tough so you usually want to make a specific set of gear for them with as many sockets as possible + your best secondary stats. Some blues and PvP pieces are BIS for them for example.

    They're really hard for an uncoordinated group, like first trash pack will wipe you hard, but once you learn the ropes on how to rotate defensive cooldowns with both your tank and your healers, time AoE CCs (things like Remoreless Winter or Leg Sweep are king in CMs), its smooth. Its still a fairly good effort to make the times tough.

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-25 at 05:32 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Trape View Post
    Not really hard to do, pretty much 4 manned it several times.
    Sure when you ran them 50 times, i did the same, but try going blind with a group not used to them and see. Difficulty is relative.

  4. #4
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    You've 4 manned a gold medal? Hmm, doubt it

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-25 at 06:35 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Trape View Post
    Not really hard to do, pretty much 4 manned it several times.

    You 4 manned a GOLD medal? Hmm, doubt it mate.

  5. #5
    Stood in the Fire Praxis's Avatar
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    I don't have 9/9 gold yet. I'm working on it with my group. We just got our first tonight (which is pretty good for how little time we've actually spent).

    Realistically, once you get your items all to/past 463, it just becomes a question of optimization as far as gear goes. Set bonuses are restricted (these would obviously go against the philosophy around overgearing CMs), so you can't really do much aside from possibly changing trinkets, etc.

    Working through them with your group is the main thing. You can watch a ton of different videos but what works for some groups (or even for most) may not work for yours. The best thing you can do is just run through them a bunch of times so that you can learn where you can shave off time (where you may be able to pull multiple packs at once, etc.).
    One thing that's really important to consider is that you may have to shift your mindset -- most of the time in CMs, the trash is the real "boss." The bosses aren't generally harder than Heroic. They just have a ton more HP. So as long as your DPS+tank (yes, tank DPS is important too!) are all pulling their weight that's not a big deal. Figuring out how to best use the CC your group has as well as its AoE is the main challenge IMO. Stuns, silences etc. are all super valuable, but hard CC doesn't have as much of a place in most of the dungeons because of how quickly you generally need to go (note that I'm not saying "never use it;" again, your group may work better with it than others do!).

    Hopefully my super vague advice is even a little bit helpful.

    EDIT: Yep, like Zergal said, Remorseless Winter, Leg Sweep and the like are HUGE. If your group doesn't have at least one of that type of move, you are in for a bit of a headache. Luckily I play a DK.
    Last edited by Praxis; 2013-02-25 at 05:38 AM. Reason: Noted something stated in another post.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Nando1991 View Post
    You've 4 manned a gold medal? Hmm, doubt it
    Its doable, but with a very experienced group. I was selling carries for a bit until drama happened and sometime the guy that was getting carried could had been afk because of how terrible he was and we were still getting gold. We were extremely coordinated and used to play together tough with the tank (Monk) + me pushing 200k+ dps on trashes.

  7. #7
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    I wanna try them too. Not really sure how to start them since I just joined my guild a few days ago and they are busy with heroic sha most of the time. Every time I see them on open raid there's usually like 50/5 signups.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Nando1991 View Post

    You 4 manned a GOLD medal? Hmm, doubt it mate.
    I said I pretty much 4 manned it. Done a few carries where the buyer does <20k dps

  9. #9
    I'm 5/9 gold currently and I'll say this: if you put in the time to find a dedicated group to push 9/9 then you will have a blast doing them. Just recently knocked out Scholomance and Siege of Niuzao on Saturday and it takes practice to say the least. You need group coordination and people that are willing to wipe over and over in order to achieve gold.

    If youre a healer, get the amber food from the Klaxxi vendor too once you start doing them.

    Personally, as a holy paladin, its easily the most fun I've had playing this game.
    Last edited by Theholypally; 2013-02-25 at 07:13 AM.

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBmNLMo4vcI some old school CM fun
    "Your lights will go out. The darkness will envelop you. And you will fear the shadows that move within it."

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Nando1991 View Post
    You've 4 manned a gold medal? Hmm, doubt it

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-25 at 06:35 AM ----------




    You 4 manned a GOLD medal? Hmm, doubt it mate.
    People sell carries to complete shit buyers all the time.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Squirl View Post
    People sell carries to complete shit buyers all the time.
    We boost shit players every day through 9/9 gold. Its not really hard in most instances, however jade serpent, mogushan and brewery are the only ones there are hard to carry a clueless person who does 20k dps dying to every pack.

    Pro tip: Get gear with many gear sockets, DMF trinkets and the JP upgraded alchemy trinket is BiS and engineering speed + invis pots are really stronk if your entire group has engineering. Get classes with strong AoE preferably ranged. Melee will slow you down unless they are extremely skilled avoiding shit on the floor.

    IMO the best DPS classes for CM's are surv hunters, demo warlocks, frost mages, skilled fury warriors and elemental shamans.
    Last edited by a little Kappa; 2013-02-25 at 07:50 AM.

  12. #12
    First of all, I have to say that challenge modes have been the most challenging, fun and frustrating thing i've done in MoP and one of the best things Blizzard has ever come up with. You should definitely try them out.

    But before you do, make sure you understand one thing: Challenge modes are very much class/spec dependant. Their difficulty varies from rather easy to very hard depending on your comp. Survival hunters, elemental shamans, pretty much all mage specs and affli/demo locks are overpowered specs because of either very high aoe damage, single target damage or both. Most challenge modes also heavily favor ranged dps (bosses bladestorming, flying out of melees reach, rdps unaffected by ground aoe around bosses). Death knight and monk tanks deal the biggest dps and offer you the best utility for challenge modes. Best melee seem to be frost death knights and fury warriors, maybe rogues too if you can use mass stealth instead of pots to save time.

    For a group consisting of Blood dk, elemental shaman, survival hunter, frost mage and discipline priest, every challenge mode is relatively easy. They all do insane aoe dps and disc has potent dps too on bosses. DK has the best utility (AMS, Remorseless winter, good dps, selfheals, purgatory, control undead, chillblains aoe slowing) Most people calling challenge modes easy have played with comps like this or close to this. They also seem to play specs like survival hunter or ele shaman. These specs are good enough to boost a 5th bad player to gold. It really tells something.

    If you want an honest point of view from a different kind of comp:

    We do challenge modes with a group of good friends. Unfortunately that limited our comp choises. Our group consists of ret paladin (me), prot paladin, combat rogue, arms warrior and a resto druid. We are now 3/9 (gate of setting sun and both scarlet halls and monastery) gold. We are all good players and do not like rerolling to achieve things easier. What we have noticed is that with a full melee group playing without heroism and good aoe crowd control, challenge modes can be very brutal. We have had to push ourselves to create very original strategies for some pulls and do the maximum dps we can to win time on mechanics that are against us (For example do everything to kill the bladestorm boss in Scarlet Halls before he does the 2nd trip, without heroism and rdps was a make or break it to get a gold). Getting gold certainly has not been a walk in the park. I admit that with heroism, we would have things a lot easier and we wouldn't have had to spend 2-3 nights (around 5-7 hours) per instance to get the gold and could now shave a round 30-60 seconds off our times. But like I said, I greatly enjoy challenge modes and the feeling of doing something hard and executing it properly and finally earning the gold medal. It's the best satisfaction this game has to offer these days if you have been playing it for ages.

    So all in all, choose your group wisely because a lot depends on it. Gold times seem to achievable even with weaker comps but it's not gonna be as easy. If you enjoy a challenge, you should definitely go do them. Don't get demotivated if you wipe on trash packs because they are the hardest part in most challenge modes.
    Last edited by Johnmatrix; 2013-02-25 at 09:20 AM.

  13. #13
    The Lightbringer Seriss's Avatar
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    Challenge mode difficulty largely depends on your setup. You'll make them easier by miles if you take a DK tank, for example.

    If you waltz in with guardian druid, elemental shaman, boomkin, warrior and holy paladin, some pulls can be a nightmare. It's what my guild group did. The boomkin just scooped up whoever was online and interested and had tank/heal/dps specs and off we went. In some challenge modes, it took us hours to perfect our pulls and stuns etc. (Mo'gu Shan Palace was a nightmare with our setup.)

    Having a holy paladin heal was extremely nice though. I'd recommend it. Having a druid tank is extremely suboptimal, but we made it work anyway. Having a melee dps sucked big time; it's easier to play with a pure ranged setup. Elemental and boomkin were amazing for AoEing, and double solar beam was a life-saver.

  14. #14
    Challenge Modes can be quite brutal in some places, but overall are about control and knowledge of the dungeon. I've recently started running them, and we've done both Scarlet Halls & Monastery.

    Scarlet Halls we got Silver, and a few seconds and one pack shy of Gold, which would've been easy enough to do if we focused a little more. Scarlet Halls is one of the more easy ones, and you should be able to get silver there very easily by just clearing it like a Heroic, but at a fairly swift pace.

    Scarlet Monastery on the other hand is considered to be one of the hardest, and we were getting close to silver on our very few tries. A few things went wrong for us, and there are some nice mechanics you can use, such as Control Undead one of the Ghosts next to the first boss who do insane damage to the boss.

    It is all about reading up on Guides, knowing what to do, what to bring and when to do it. They're not hard, they're just a test of co-ordination and determination.

    One key difference to note, is that bosses sometimes have different mechanics, and trash is the hardest part of the dungeons. Trash will almost always destroy your tank, unless you use Stuns, Snares, Roots, Silences and Knockbacks properly. Bosses are about how quick you can do them, Trash is about how quick you can do it and survive.

    Mechanics on some of the trash that are trivial in Heroics will kill you instantly in Challenge Modes, like myself (DK Tank) being disarmed by some of the Scarlet Trash, meaning I can't parry nor Death Strike. Whenever I get disarmed we have to stun the entire pack to ensure I live. Simple things like that you, you'll need to know.
    Last edited by Hyve; 2013-02-25 at 09:55 AM.

  15. #15
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    I got really lucky and found an experienced group that needed a DPS. We one shot every gold and got some server best times. The key is big pulls and lots of AoE and AoE stuns. The bosses are a joke, just a DPS burn. The trash most can be skipped via Invisibility potions, the rest pull and nuke. Make sure your healer has the Klaxxi Restorative Amber, they can oom every trash pack and be back to full mana in seconds.

  16. #16
    So far I've done Scarlet Halls, Gate of the Setting Sun, and...well, we finished Scholo but not with the medal we wanted. Our comp is terrible for the last boss when people start getting ported. I expect we will get it down next time.

    CMs are very, very fun but I really want to do more of them. My group has very little time each week to run them; an issue compounded by our Mage who is always running late.

    I keep looking on OpenRaid and the official forums to try to get more experience in but it seems overly difficult to find a group for if you don't have a bunch of golds already.

    Currently playing Borderlands 1 remaster. Amped for Borderlands 3.
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  17. #17
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    They're pretty hard when your group is new and inexperienced but once start working together they're tons of fun, I suggest spending the time to get together a few friends that also want 9/9 and also watch all the Aftermath guides, they don't contain any of the massive cheese tactics for the serious world record times but they'll help you get gold.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by PuppetShowJustice View Post
    I keep looking on OpenRaid and the official forums to try to get more experience in but it seems overly difficult to find a group for if you don't have a bunch of golds already.
    This is so true, and one of the major walls with Challenge Modes. The last guild I was in they only took raiders, and raider alts. Some of the raider alts were terrible and never achieved more than Bronze, but they flat out refused to take social members.

  19. #19
    Our guild managed all golds in a couple days, they said it was harder than you expect, but decent planning makes things fairly simple.
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by quikbunny View Post
    This is so true, and one of the major walls with Challenge Modes. The last guild I was in they only took raiders, and raider alts. Some of the raider alts were terrible and never achieved more than Bronze, but they flat out refused to take social members.
    My server is beyond dead so I put together what I could manage but it isn't ideal at all. It's a small group of friends who decided to take a stab at it. Our best mid-combat mass CC is my Binding Shot; which is passable but the focus cost kind of irks me and slows me down. I'm legitimately jealous of groups running Remorseless Winter, Leg Sweep, or both.

    I think we can manage silver medals but it will take us an eternity at our current rate. I'm totally okay with that; but I'm always looking around on the net trying to find folks to crossrealm these things with. The experience alone would be a very valuable thing to take back to my friends.

    Currently playing Borderlands 1 remaster. Amped for Borderlands 3.
    Add me on the PSN for jolly-cooperation @ PuppetShoJustice

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