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    Protection Paladins guide to Proving Grounds - Endless 30 and beyond.

    This guide is extremely long. If you are only looking for 1 or 2 pieces of information hopefully you can find them by searching the section you need. There is a TLDR at the bottom.


    If you have any questions or any input, please share them. I wrote this late at night, so very likely to have made some errors. If anything feels off or wrong, please speak your mind.

    So to start off with, this guide expects you to be familiar with your class, as you should be if you are on endless, as such I will use abbreviations and expect you to know what I mean when I say GoAK or such. If you are unfamiliar with some of the terminology, refer to the protection sticky on this forum. I will also not touch anything about bronze, silver and gold as they were all fairly straight forward and simple, I did not get any time to actually practice them as they were quite frankly one-shots without putting any thought into them. If you have any questions about those, feel free to ask them anyways.

    I want to express how much I enjoy Proving Grounds, it is terrific content that I hope they expand. The only grief I have right now is that it takes so long. Be prepared for this when doing Proving Grounds, there will be a lot of tries where you steamroll through waves 1-20 for 20 minutes, only to stand in a stun and die or something similar. Right before writing this I grabbed Endless 54. The try was ended by standing in an easily avoidable stun from the Conqueror, which was frustrating to say the least, a death after 54 minutes, by something that stupid knowing you could continue a lot longer. Needless to say, that is the last proving ground of the day for me
    Important to not spend to much time in a row here, spending hours here will just get you frustrated, try to spread the tries around a bit.


    The design of this guide will be as following:

    • Monster Description
    • Talents, Glyphs, Gearing and consumables
    • General tips
    • My road to endless 30
    • Detailed wave description and how to deal with each wave with both basic and advanced tips
    • Final tips
    • TLDR
    • Last Words



    Monster Description


    Sikari the Mistweaver

    Your friend, keep alive at all costs. Will throw up a HoT ticking for 70k on you and herself. One mechanic that is good to understand is when Sikari uses which attack. If there are 3 or less monsters alive, Sikari will shoot single target, if there are 4 or more monsters alive, Sikari will shoot AE damage. The AE dps Sikari does is far higher than the single target, so sometimes keeping monsters alive to proc the 4 monster limit is benefitial.

    Endless wave buff

    For each wave completed in Endless, the monsters gain a stacking 1% damage buff, which means after 40 waves, monsters hit 40% harder.


    Large Illusionary Ripper, Small Illusionary Ripper

    These are the simplest mob, they do not have any spells, debuffs or similar, they simply hit you. They are by far the least dangerous mobs.
    Do not underestimate them however. I once wiped at endless 35 after I had killed off all the 'dangerous mobs', thinking I was in the green I relaxed a bit, only to be gibbed quickly by two of these. So even though they are very easy, treat them with respect. If anything, a death against these are so embarassing you will feel discouraged continue, so try to avoid that


    Small Illusionary Forager, Large Illusionary Forager

    Little hoplings. They are fairly easy, they apply a stacking debuff on you, which in great numbers can stack up high and be quite deadly. This debuff is however removable with BoP, DS and Stoneform. You really need to make sure to pick these guys up, as they will completely destroy Sikari.


    Large Illusionary Flamecaller, Small Illusionary Flamecaller

    Casters, whenever they spawn they will always start with casting Invoke Lava that spawns a lot of lava pools on the ground, this spell is interruptable. Standing in a lava pool will deal a non-trivial amount of fire damage on you in form of a dot, but also give you a debuff increasing your damage taken by 2% per stacks that stacks up quite rapidly. Quite easy to get a 10-20% damage taken increase by simply walking over a few pools, avoid this at all costs.

    The small one will cast fireball that hits for 80k that is interruptable. The large one casts pyroblast that hits for 150k. You have to remember that with the damage buffs, these numbers easily become 110k and 200k. Try to interrupt this as often as possible.


    Large Illusionary Wind-Guard, Small Illusionary Wind-Guard

    These mobs are quite annoying. They hit you, and Sikari in case you lose aggro, for a truckload. These are easily the hardest monsters you are going to face in here. The large ones are the most common, not even sure there are any small ones in Endless, never noticed.
    Other than this, they do a knockback that also resets your threat against that mob. Often it will come right back at you, but be ready to taunt it if it goes away to Sikari. The knockback has a cast, and it is possible to time a taunt for just when it hits to keep the mob on you.
    To reduce the damage of being knocked back, you can stand with your back towards one of the eight small barricades that are spread around the room. Sometimes they will knock you over them anyway, so this is not 100% reliable. Another way is to simply stand on one side of the room with your back turned towards a direction that will not knock you away from Sikaris range, for example standing North-West with your back face south, so that you will land South-West when you get knocked back. The issue with this comes when you get knocked back twice in a row, which will leave you out in the middle of nowhere. Neither methods are fool proof, I use both depending on circumstance.


    Small Illusionary Ambusher, Large Illusionary Ambusher

    These little monkeys throws out a banana fan of knives, that hits Sikari for a lot of damage, make sure to tank these away from Sikari. The fan of knives also applies a slow to you, that can be deadly combined with a Conqueror mob, which I will cover next. Other than that, these are fairly harmless, die quickly. When they are in great numbers, do not underestimate them. 3-5 of these mobs actually hurts a lot, especially at endless 30+, make you keep your SotR up as much as possible.


    Large Illusionary Conqueror, Small Illusionary Conqueror

    These mobs casts a frontal cone shockwave called Powerful Slam that stuns you for 4 seconds, this is a big nono and usually kills you, you really need to avoid it.
    I have sometimes survived these stuns, once I survived a stun at wave 50 when I failed brutally and was screaming "NONONONO". So getting stunned is not always a death, but should be avoided at all costs.
    They also enrage, making them immune all forms of CC and start hitting you for a ton of damage. Prepare for this, it always happen at the same time for all conquerors, so you will learn quickly how to deal with it.


    Talents and Glyphs


    T1 talent - Speed of Light Mandatory
    Really no reason to use anything else, it works great for any potential reason you might need a movement speed increase, moving out from a Powerful Slam, moving to a new set of mobs that spawned, kiting mobs, moving back to Sikari after being knocked back etc. It is really the obvious talent choice for this.


    T2 talent - FoJ Recommended for anyone going for endless 30
    Repentance Recommended for anyone going above endless 30
    I got my first endless 30 using FoJ, it is really a great tool. If you get overwhelmed by mobs and lose aggro on a few of them, stunning the mobs really realy helps you. The ability to stun 2 times per waves is invaluable on the harder waves. That said, repentance can completely negate a mob from a wave, making it rather trivial. I have however wiped more times due to repentance failing than it took me to get endless 30, so would not recommend it for anyone just going for the achieve unless you are extremely confident with what you do as a paladin, in which case, why do you need this guide?
    If you use repentance, be aware that if you use it instantly when a wave spawns, it will miss as the monsters evade for the first 2 seconds, this will likely cause a wipe for you. Also beware of placing consecration before a wave spawns since I had that break my repentance and wipe me multiple times.
    You should however know that while Sikaris single target breaks repentance, the AoE sikari does do not, so on the bigger pack, you can repentance a big add and it will get killed in the repentance by Sikaris AoE without breaking the repentance.


    T3 talent - Eternal Flame Recommended, Mandatory?
    Sacred Shield Possible?
    I used eternal flame, heard of people using Sacred Shield. Personally I like EF since it allowed me to heal Sikari if needed quite well. Eternal Flame requires a lot more micro management and planning to be used properly. I have no experience with SS here, so try out what works best for you.


    T4 talent - UBS Mandatory


    T5 talent - DP Highly recommeded
    SW Possible
    I have always used DP here, it works perfectly, sure sometimes it is a bit of rng, but that is sometimes what these runs boil down to. All in all I find DP to work great and reliable, it gives a good overall coverage and helps on every waves. I am sure that if I did not use DP I would have wiped a lot more on the 'easy' waves. That said, if you feel like opting for one of the big cooldowns, I would suggest SW due to the nature of PG. There are basically two waves when you want to use a big cooldown, and they are 3 minutes apart, which works perfectly for SW. Also how SW interracts with EF, SoI and Sikaris heals on you is awesome, as PG is a lot of pure throughput. Very rarely do you drop in 1 second, most of the times you just cant outheal the damage, making throughput great.


    T6 talent - LH Mandatory
    I tried HP by accident on a few attempts, but really, LH is just way to strong to pass up. Only thing you need to make sure is not to waste LH when you do not need it, plan your uses. I always use mine at the same places.


    Glyphs

    Glyph of Divine Protection - Mandatory
    Glyph of Blinding Light - Mandatory
    Glyph of Alabaster Shield - Recommended
    Glyph of Dazing Shield - Possible but discouraged
    Glyph of Burden of Light - Possible but discouraged


    Gearing

    I did not bother much with gearing, I did all my runs with an intellect shield which is terrible scaled to 463.
    Generaly I would say Hit 6 > Exp 6-12 > Haste > Mastery > Exp 12 > Stamina
    It is a lot about pure SotR and EF throughput, which makes Haste and Mastery great choices. The mobs are only level 92.
    I would say min-maxing is not worth it though, this is a tactical challenge, not a gear one.


    Consumables

    I use mantid elixir and elixir of the rapids aswell as the haste food the vendor sells inside the proving grounds. Potions are disabled.


    General tips

    You can use hand of salvation and hand of protection on Sikari, this is extremely helpful to know if you lose aggro on too many adds.
    You can also use Lay on Hands on Sikari which can be a life saver sometimes.

    Sikari can easily tank some mobs on some waves. As long as you know what you are doing, you can intentionaly let Sikari tank selected mobs to avoid damage on you.

    Try to always make sure to sit at 5 BoG stacks when a new way approaches. Sometimes you need to keep your wave alive longer to keep the stacks up.

    You can use hand of freedom to remove the slow from Ambushers, which can be helpful to dodge Conquerors Powerful Slam.

    You can bubble the stun from Conquerors Powerful Slam.

    When an conqueror casts Enrage, stun the OTHER mob that is with the conqueror to reduce damage in-take.

    Use Devotion Aura as a personal CD against the casters. The 'dangerous' casters come far apart so you got it for all of them.

    The ability to adapt will be your greatest friend, something goes wrong? Deal with it. Lay on Hands and Ardent Defender are great tools for that.



    My road to endless 30


    So this will be my personal experience of getting endless 30, maybe it can help you. I went into PGs completely blind, did not watch any guides, videos or played it on the PTR. Going in on endless, I went in with completely stupid glyphs and stuff. I did not even have blinding light glyphed when I got it. The first try I switched to Divine Prot glyph is when I killed it, wiped 3 times.
    I started by trying to learn the waves and mobs, what spawned when, where stuff spawned, what cds to use on each wave. Sometimes bruteforcing was just the best. It was all about learning how to deal with the 10 waves, I wiped once on wave 6, once on 13 once on 19 and then got 34 on the fourth try. I will not list the wave by wave tactics used here, since they were rather bad, so was my glyphs and talents. Either way it worked, and I learned from it, and now sharing that knowledge here. All in all, have a calm approach, learn from your mistakes, learn how to adapt your CDs to the waves, and it will be very easy to you.


    Detailed wave description and how to deal with each wave with both basic and advanced tips

    The first thing you need to know is that the waves repeat after 10, there are only 10 unique waves. Wave 21 is the same as wave 11 and 1, only difference is 1/11/21% damage buff the mobs have. Because of this, wave 1, 11, 21 etc are from now on referred to as wave x1, same goes for other waves. Each wave lasts 1 minute, after the 10th wave you get an extra 15 seconds. This is the basic layout of the room as beautifully drawn in paint, yes, I know my paint is awesome.



    As you can see the gate is to the south. You need to use it to orientate. Personally, I put up a world marker towards the gate (south) to use it to orientate myself during the fight when I got dizzy. I suggest you to do similar, set up a few world markers and use them to know where the waves are spawning. In future images, numbers refer to monster spawn points and letters to player positions.

    Wave x1 and x2



    Wave x1
    1 - One windguard and one ripper will spawn here at the beginning of wave x1

    Simply grab them up, nothing special here. Move them to A and tank towards the barricade so you dont get knocked away. I try to apply a 2-3 BoG stack EF here. After that my only goal is to build up 5 BoG stacs before the next wave. Feel free to use stun and Divine Protection on this wave. Really easy wave.

    Do not use LH or any big CDs on this wave.

    Wave x2

    Just before wave 2, move the last ripper/windguard from wave 1 to B. Whichever mob is left should die at the time of wave 2 +- 3 seconds. Right before wave to spawns, cast EF on yourself and drop LH beneath you. I use AW on this wave, especially when you get higher closer to wave 32,42,52 it is realy helpful. When wave x2 starts, 4 small and 4 big hoppers spawn at 2. Your LH + Consecration should be enough to pick them up, throw up a HotR when they spawn aswell. After this just stand your ground and zerg them down, you will get a lot of gc procs. Dont be afraid to use Divine Protection.

    After about 20 seconds an ambusher spawns at 2, 20 seconds after that another one spawns at 2. Simply pick this up. I usually keep them as my main target for nuking down. Somewhere between these two spawns your stacks from the hoppers will get quite high, so simply bubble it off somewhere between 25-40 seconds into the wave depending on your health.
    I also reapply EF as soon as I get 5 BoG on this pack.

    Blinding light is great at high levels (32,42,52+)

    Do not use any big CDs on this wave other than possibly SW.


    Wave x3 and x4



    Wave x3

    1 small flamecaller and 1 small ripper will spawn at both the locations marked with 3. What I used to do was stand on the west spawn point, AS the east flamecaller and rebuke the west one, then proceed to stack up all 4 mobs. Oh, the error of my ways. This is way to complicated for no benefit
    What you are instead going to do is stand at A, use AS on the west flamecaller, pick up the west ripper and taunt the east ripper that is probably running for Sikari. Ignore the east flamecaller, it will start shooting at Sikari but it does not matter. It does not deal enough damage to threaten Sikari, it will die quite rapidly without doing any harm, Sikari will heal up to full during wave 4 anyways.
    Your only job is the west flamecaller and the 2 rippers. Focus the west flamecaller down, interrupt all its casts, if you see you are gonna miss a cast, use devotion aura. The main goal here is to avoid the fire. It is also very important that the adds do not stand in the fire, especially the rippers as they also take damage + get a damage taken amplification. Now you might ask yourself, is that not good? No, it is not. You do not want the rippers to die. Your goal this way is to kill the flamecaller. Once that is done, simply keep the rippers alive. Do as little damage as possible. Your goal is to build up + maintain 5 BoG stacks and 5 HoPo, and 1 second before the last add dies, use a SotR to refresh BoG. This is because this wave is trivial, but going into the next wave, especially on 24/34/44+ it helps you a lot of have 5 BoG stacks and HoPo going into the 4th wave. Move close to 4 to prepare for wave x4.

    Do use Divine Protection and Devotion aura.
    Do not use any other big CDs here.

    Advanced strategy: This strategy is only advised for players aiming to go beyond endless 30. If you only want endless 30, do not bother. Repentance the east flamecaller once it spawns, pick up the rippers and allow the west flamecaller to spawn lava pools. The goal of the game here is to silence the west flame caller into a fire field then stun it or simply tank it there. If you decide to stun it, you need to do it quickly, as your stun got 60 sec CD with repentance talented and you need it early in the next wave. If you dont get the flamecaller into a pool within a few seconds, do not stun it, just keep it there than. The most important thing here is that at no point in time is the rippers to touch the magma pools. They need to be on as high life as possible. The goal of this is to kill the west flamecaller extremely quick. This leads to only 3 mobs being alive and Sakiri switches to single target lowering the dps. Sakiri will first make quick work of the east flamecaller before moving on to the rippers. This will extende the rippers life if done properly by another few seconds, which allows for an easier transition with 5 BoG + 5 HoPo to wave x4.

    Wave x4

    One small conqueror and one wind-guard spawns at 4. Check your BoG stack and try to refresh it asap the mobs spawn. Simply pick them both up and move to a proper position near B where you can stand safe for knockback. Build up 3 HoPo quickly, wait for a bit of vengeance and then apply EF. Dodge the stun. Wait for the enrage. When the conqueror starts casting enrage, stun the wind-guard. This allows you to survive the enrage easily. Apply Divine Protection for the enrage and simply use SotR, this is more than enough. Make sure to dodge the stun during the enrage, and all stuns after that for that matter. The Conquerors only enrage once. In the middle of the enrage, one ambusher will spawn from 4. Simply pick it up. Once the conqueror is down, move the ambusher and the wind-guard to B to prepare for the next wave. The wind-guard is likely still alive when the next wave arrives, that is not an issue. Try to build up to 5 BoG and apply an EF right before wave x5.

    Do use Divine Protection
    Do not use any other big CDs here.
    Do not use LH.


    Wave x5 and x6




    Wave x5

    1 second before the wave start, predrop lights hammer and consecration at 5. From there 2 rippers and one flamecaller will spawn. Interrupt the flamecaller and bring all the mobs to A. As before, focus on interrupting and killing the flamecaller. Do not waste stun on it. If you still have devotion aura from before, feel free to use it. Should not be needed though.
    After a while, periodically a bunch of Ambushers will start to spawn. I do not know the exact spawn location of the first few, never bothered checking. The later ones all spawn from 5, possibly all of them.Simply pick them up. Once only the ambusher are left, move towards 5 and be ready. The goal of the game is once again to max up BoG and HoPo. You really want to have 5 BoG stacks here. At 0:08 left, the last ambusher will spawn at 5, use it to refresh BoG stacks and get up HoPo again but quickly move to B to prepare for wave x6.


    Wave x6 - DEADLY

    One large wind-guard will spawn at each of the 6 marks. Your goal here is to pick them all up quickly. Move them back to a good position where you can stand safely with knockbacks. I usually go to B. Pop GoAK instantly. If you decided to use SW, pop it here aswell, I prefer DP still. You will want to use those 5 BoG from the earlier wave quickly here. Either pre EF and quickly build up 5 BoG again and reapply or wait a while before applying EF. As soon as your GoAK drops, stun one of the mobs. As soon as your stun is gone, use DP. Do not be afraid to use all your CDs you have available here, if you need it, use AD, LoH etc, everything is allowed on this pack. Your only goal is to survive it. It is okay to let Sikari tank one of the mobs from time to time. I often used this strategy while 3 was up to sometimes let Sikari tank some. Just watch out, it is very easy that Sikari dies, so do this wisely. Most of the time I just tanked all 3 when 'progressing'.
    Once the first one is dead, it is kinda smooth sailing. Once it feels safe, move towards B to prepare for the next wave. It is okay and likely to bring wind-guards into wave 7.

    Do use everything you have to survive this wave. GoAK, Stun and DP should be used preplanned. LoH, AD and Blinding Light works great for emergacies. If needed, let the boss tank.
    Adviseable to not use LH, but it is okay to use it.

    Advanced strategy: This strategy is only advised for players aiming to go beyond endless 30. If you only want endless 30, do not bother. Use repentances on the west wind-guard. Sikari will always shoot the middle one first and the east one second. By doing this you can only need to tank two mobs. The dangers with this is that if you cast repentance to fast, it misses causing you to be basically screwed due to having 60 sec cd on stun or if it is cast to late it becomes very problematic to pick up the other two adds. Also remember not to cleave, drop consecration or lights hammer near the repentanced target. You are gonna need to reapply repentance atleast once, maybe twice. The west wind-guard is gonna be on full health when wave 7 arrives and the east one is likely almost dead. At this point Sikari will start AoEing, which will almost passively kill the west wind-guard. This is extremely helpful at higher levels, but not really needed if you are going for only 30 waves, and will likely cause more wipes than it saves.

    Wave x7 and x8




    Wave x7

    Stand at A, be ready to pick up the incoming Small Conqueor + Hoppers from 7. LH does a great job at htis. The hoppers are not many enough to make the stack dangerous, in fact it often falls off by itself. You are likely having atleast on wind-guard left from the previous wave, if you used the advanced start, maybe even 2. The goal here is similar to wave 4. Dodge the stuns, wait for the enrage, stun the wind-guard during the enrage, pop divine protection for enrage, then continue dodging stuns and stuff. Once only one big mob remains, move to 8 to prepare for the next wave.

    Do not use and major CDs .
    Do use LH.


    Waxe x8

    One solo small flamecaller spawn from A. Here you want to finish off whatever add you had left from wave x7, and kill the flamercaller as soon as possible. Ambushers will periodically spawn from all places around the room, marked with 8 as I am do not remember all the locations in my memory. Just pick them up and kill them. Move to B when almost done with the wave. You really want to have 5 BoG stacks and as high HoPo as possible. The wave after this is brutal.

    Do not use LH
    Do not use any major CDs.
    5 BoG + HoPo after wave is crucial.

    Advanced strategy: This strategy is only advised for players aiming to go beyond endless 30. If you only want endless 30, do not bother. Let the flamecaller cast all his lava. Quickly finish off the wind-guard and the flamecallers in the flames. Then whenever an ambusher spawn, quickly kill it in the fire before a new one spawns. This allows you to enter wave x9 completely free to do the advanced strategy for wave x9
    Wave x9 and x0




    Wave x9 - DEADLY

    Start the wave around A. Two large wind-guards and a bunch of rippers will spawn from 9. This pack is rather brutal. Again, like pack 6. Blow all your CDs here. Stunning the large wind-guards as often as possible, blinding light is great. Other than that, rotate all your cds, and by all, I mean all. Anything you need, use it. Blinding light etc is once again extremely useful. Lights hammer is great for self healing. This pack is the one that I most commonly wipe on, especially on waves 29,39,49. Do not underestimate it.
    There is not much more I can say about this pack, it is just a brutal throughput pack, rotate all your cds and get a feel for it. It is okay to let Sikari tank mobs from time to time, I did this on my first endless 30. Once everything cools down a bit, start moving towards B and prepare for wave x0.

    Do use EVERYTHING

    Advanced strategy: This strategy is only advised for players aiming to go beyond endless 30. If you only want endless 30, do not bother. When the wave spawns quickly repentance one of the wind-guards. This can be extremely tricky. When they spawn you need to quickly find a wind-guard and repentance it. If you did not execute the wave x8 advanced strat, you likely had an ambusher left from wave x8. In that case you need to stun that ambusher 1 second before wave x9, so you can repentance without the cast being delayed. It is important that you do not have consecration or lights hammer up that breaks the repentance. Any fail on this strat is most likely a wipe uness you are level 9 or 19. If your repentance comes late and the wind-guard gets close to sikari, pop BoP HoSalv on Sikari for easy pickup on the other mobs.

    Wave x0

    This wave is fairly easy. One large flamecaller and one large conqueror spawns at Start the wave around 10.
    Extremely important to interrupt the flamecaller. When the conquereror enrages, pop divprot, make sure to have EF up and just dodge his stuns. It is extremely crucial to interrupt the flamecaller here, especially during the enrage of the conqueror. You should stun the flamecaller when the conqueror enrages. Use devotion aura if you cant interrupt everything. It is okay to BoP yourself for a while during the enrage to pingpong the conqueror between yourself and sikari. If you still have any CDs left you can use them when the conqueror enrages. On my first endless 30 I used GoAK for wave x0 instead of x9 for example. That was of course stupid, but if you are in that situation, maybe you got GoAK or AD left, just use it when it enrages.
    After a while in an ambusher spawns, just pick it up.

    So in short, dont stand in shit. Interrupt, pop whatever cd you get left when the conqueror enrages.

    Do use anything you got left. Nothing that needs to be saved.


    Advanced strategy: This strategy is only advised for players aiming to go beyond endless 30. If you only want endless 30, do not bother. Same old story as before. Let the flamecaller cast his lava, quickly get the flamecaller into the lava and nuke it down. If possible also get the conqueror into the lava. The flamecaller should be dead before the conqueror enrages and is easily interuptable before that. Once it is down, bring the conqueror into the lava and the ambusher when it spawns. If done all correctly you will get a 30 second grace period before the next x1 wave. A time when you can relax, refocus or even eat food buff as you do drop combat. This strategy is extremey risky though, if you get fire stacks yourself you are highly likely to die, so use this with caution. This wave is really easy, so using this tactic is really not needed, probably causes more wipes than it saves for a lot of people.

    Final Tips

    Again, can not stress this all enough. The core to doing this is learning the waves, what spawns, where it spawns. Prepare for the waves correctly and use CDs appropriately.

    Using the fire to your benefit can both be risky and rewarding. Use it at your own risk.

    Try to learn when you need to cast EF on certain waves.

    And most importantly, if you are going above endless 30, dont beat me


    TLDR

    Wave 1 - Wind-guard + Ripper
    Just kill them

    Wave 2 - Hoppers + spawning ambushers
    Pick them up, kill them, pick up ambushers when they spawn, bubble stacks

    Wave 3 - 2 flamecallers and 2 rippers
    Pick up 1 flamecaller and 2 rippers and ignore the second flamecaller. Interrupt the flamecaller that is on you.

    Wave 4 - Conqueror + Wind-Guard
    Dont get stunned, stun wind-guard when conqueror enrages.

    Wave 5 - Flamecaller + rippers + spawning ambushers
    Interrupt flamecaller, kill shit, pick shit up

    Wave 6 - Wind-guards
    Blow all your cooldowns, dudes hit hard. Dont die.

    Wave 7 - Conqueror + hoppers
    Kill them, dont get stunned, stun wind-guard when conqueror enrages if it still alive.

    Wave 8 - Caster + monkeys
    Kill stuff, interrupt caster, pick stuff up

    Wave 9 - 2 Windguards + rippers
    Blow all your cooldowns, dudes hit hard. Dont die.

    Wave 10 - Big flamecaller + conqueror.
    Dont get stunned, any small cds you got left when he enrages, interrupt the caster.


    Last Words

    Good luck and have fun doing PGs. Do not get too frustrated when you wipe, it is extremely time consuming. Me being the solo freak I am really enjoys this feature, and I hope you do to. I hope this guide helped you if you have any questions.

    If you have any questions or any input, please share them. I wrote this late at night, so very likely to have made some errors. If anything feels off or wrong, please speak your mind.
    Last edited by mmoc4d8e5d065a; 2013-09-13 at 08:01 PM.

  2. #2
    On wave 1 and 4 if you hit the flyer fast the npc will target that first instead of the other guy. For me flyers are the most annoying to keep alive so that helped somewhat.
    At least for me after some time spent inside instance started lagging, so might help to restart it from time to time to avoid the rage of getting a server lag spike in your best attempt.
    Last edited by abijax; 2013-09-13 at 07:53 AM.

  3. #3
    Firefly I love you, as a brother in arms ofc

    Going to definitely try your advice on this later today to see how I can do on Endless. I had gotten to Wave 6 beforehand and yes it was quite deadly
    Last edited by Nobleshield; 2013-09-13 at 01:47 PM.

  4. #4
    Thanks a ton for this...will be using.

    Glad to see I wasn't the only one who thought Wave 6 and 9 was deadly. Raged a little bit after I died on Wave 9.

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Nobleshield View Post
    Firefly I love you, as a brother in arms ofc

    Going to definitely try your advice on this later today to see how I can do on Endless. I had gotten to Wave 6 beforehand and yes it was quite deadly
    I wish you good luck, and if you have any questions dont hesitate to ask them here.


    Quote Originally Posted by paulleedot View Post
    Thanks a ton for this...will be using.

    Glad to see I wasn't the only one who thought Wave 6 and 9 was deadly. Raged a little bit after I died on Wave 9.
    Yeah, wave 6 and 9 are very annoying. Those are the only waves you can die on without doing a major fail. Any death on another wave is usually because you stood in shit or similar. Funny thing is when I started on endless, wave 9 was not a problem. I even got my endess 30 without using major cooldowns on wave 9, I used to save GoAK to wave 10 for some reason until I learned better. But after completeting endless 30, suddenly I started drop dead to wave 9, so I changed to using GoAK there then. Really no idea how I made it past wave 9,19,29 the first time I did endless 30 without popping GoAK and stuff, must have been really lucky. I remember I used some dodgy tactic with Sikari tanking a wind-guard.

  6. #6
    One and half hour in,and already reached wave #27 Thanks a lot for putting this together.To me,the problem seems to be Large Illusionary Wind-Guards.At some point they were immune to my taunt,as they were alive quite some time (wave 6 ==> 7).At this point i've lost my lovely panda quite a few times.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Yes, the large illusionary wind-guards are the most dangerous monsters in there for sure, and will cause you the most wipes. You should kinda expect having 1, maybe 2 alive going from 6=>7, basicall wave 7 becomes conqueror + wind-guard, which is the same as wave 4. So in a sense, wave 7=wave 4, since you get a wind-guard from wave 6.

  8. #8
    Hi Firefly,

    Great guild. I just completed wave 17, and wiped, because of a Light's Hammer miss drop to pick up some adds -_- very frustrating so late in the night/morning.

    Anyways, just wanted to post a view observations I had.
    1.) Getting knocked back by the wind lords is helpful for me, I find that when the three lords spawn, I will take advantage of the first knock back, and Speed of light to kite them around the room.
    2.) Sikari picks the target with lowest % health when picking a new single target. On most spawning waves, if you are ready to strike as soon as the wave spawns, you can get her to prefer one target over the other. I do this in wave 5 to make her attack the wind lord first instead of the conquer.
    3.) Conquer's can enrage twice. It's a good long time in between, but yeah, they can do it twice.

    I'm really glad we have some pro paladin's out there. I feel that this challenge is pretty tough for us, compared to some of the other tanking classes.

    Again, thanks for the write up!

    Cheers,
    Hat

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Got to wave 30 without much issue using LH and HA (try not to puke). The triple wind guard wave is definitely a nasty one but the EF buffs compliment the NPCs healing nicely.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Anyone give tip for Gold wave 10? >.<

    Double guard just seems to instagib me.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Animma View Post
    Got to wave 30 without much issue using LH and HA (try not to puke). The triple wind guard wave is definitely a nasty one but the EF buffs compliment the NPCs healing nicely.
    How did you feel on all the "easier" waves using HA? I never tried changing from DP to be honest with the fear that I would see deaths on the waves that I normally dont consider to be killers.

    Quote Originally Posted by hatman555 View Post
    Great guild. I just completed wave 17, and wiped, because of a Light's Hammer miss drop to pick up some adds -_- very frustrating so late in the night/morning.
    It is even more fun when the same thing happens on wave 27

    Do not think I have raged more than when the 3 windguards evaded, bugged out and resetted the entire proving grounds at wave 36. 36 minutes gone to waste due to a bug.


    Quote Originally Posted by hatman555 View Post
    3.) Conquer's can enrage twice. It's a good long time in between, but yeah, they can do it twice.
    How long did you have it alive? I have had conquerors alive for 2 rounds sometimes without seeing them enrage. I always make my NPC prio conqueror > Wind-guard though.

  12. #12
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Jeddy View Post
    Anyone give tip for Gold wave 10? >.<

    Double guard just seems to instagib me.
    Save GoAK for it, and it can help to use Hand Of Protection/Salvation on the NPC. That way you can ignore the new adds for the first few seconds, till you kill the Windguard. If you can't avoid a stun, then you can use Divine Shield to protect yourself.
    Basically "use everything"! And pray...

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Jeddy View Post
    Anyone give tip for Gold wave 10? >.<

    Double guard just seems to instagib me.
    Nvm, read endless 10, not gold 10. What wanko said.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wanko View Post
    Save GoAK for it, and it can help to use Hand Of Protection/Salvation on the NPC. That way you can ignore the new adds for the first few seconds, till you kill the Windguard. If you can't avoid a stun, then you can use Divine Shield to protect yourself.
    Basically "use everything"! And pray...
    Saveing GoAK for wave 10 feels a bit iffy though. Wave 9 is a killer wave for sure. The damage output from wave 9 is two to three times as high as the damage during wave 10. GoAK feels extremely overkill for wave 10, as wave 10 boils down to interrupting / letting sikari tank the flamecaller and not standig in the stun. As such, on wave 10 controlling the damage is not that complicated, whereas on wave 9, you are gonna take that truckload to the face.

    Feels like learning to deal with wave 10 without GoAK is a safer bet in the long run. It will probably avoid more deaths at wave 19 and 29 than it saves deaths from the 10 waves.
    Last edited by mmoc4d8e5d065a; 2013-09-14 at 12:59 PM.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Firefly33 View Post
    snip
    Not Endless, but Gold.
    On Gold wave 9 is irrelevant.
    You want to survive the 2x Conq when they enrage at the same time.

  15. #15
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Wanko View Post
    Not Endless, but Gold.
    On Gold wave 9 is irrelevant.
    You want to survive the 2x Conq when they enrage at the same time.
    Oh shit! Yeah, just woke my. My reading comprehension is terrible for the first hour. Sorry about that.

    Yeah, you are completely correct, for gold defo pop EVERYTHING at wave 10, the rest of the waves does not hurt much.

  16. #16
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Firefly33 View Post
    Oh shit! Yeah, just woke my. My reading comprehension is terrible for the first hour. Sorry about that.

    Yeah, you are completely correct, for gold defo pop EVERYTHING at wave 10, the rest of the waves does not hurt much.
    Nay, it was also kinda off-topic, since you guys are talking here about the Endless version.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Wanko View Post
    Nay, it was also kinda off-topic, since you guys are talking here about the Endless version.
    I did tell people to ask questions if they had them about gold though

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Firefly33 View Post
    How did you feel on all the "easier" waves using HA? I never tried changing from DP to be honest with the fear that I would see deaths on the waves that I normally dont consider to be killers.
    There are a few close calls if you lose BoG between waves, draenei racial and divine prot/AD were nice savers though. I just really liked the strength of HA in the low haste situation, especially on the triple windguard wave, and at a 2 minute cd it was up fairly often.

    - - - Updated - - -

    DP may be the better choice for 30+ though just because the "safe" waves become pretty deadly.

  19. #19
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Animma View Post
    There are a few close calls if you lose BoG between waves, draenei racial and divine prot/AD were nice savers though. I just really liked the strength of HA in the low haste situation, especially on the triple windguard wave, and at a 2 minute cd it was up fairly often.

    DP may be the better choice for 30+ though just because the "safe" waves become pretty deadly.
    Yeah, wave 2 is the perfect example here. Due to the vengeance changes, as the damage ramp ups, you do not really get any more vengeance on the hoppers as they are so many (yay for 1/n). At wave 52 the hoppers actually did quite substantial damage.

    I fully understand and support the use of a major cd when going for 30 though. The problem I have with HA here is though, there are two waves you need these CDs on, 6 and 9. On both waves you are gonna get both off. So basically you are comparing 2 HAs vs 2 SWs. Yes, you could get of another HA at wave 1/2/3/4 or 1/2 and 3/4 and you could get off another SW at wave 2/3. Arguably the only wave there that you want either one is wave 2 at higher levels (as I mentioned earlier due to how terrible wave 2 scales up your vengeance at higher waves). So in that case you are still comparing 3 HAs vs 3 SWs, but I really think the third one of either is kinda irrelevant.

    Due to the damage nature in Proving Grounds, it is rather non-spiky. It is more you getting overwhelmed by the throughput of the waves, I would argue that having SW up for wave 6 and 9 is a bigger benefit than having HA up, especially using EF. It does not really matter if HA maybe gets you one or two more SotR offs, the pure healing throughput gain from SWs healing taken amplification is far to high to outweigh this, you are gonna be rolling with a 70k hot from Sikari, your SoI aswell as EF, that is a lot of HPS going towards you, when the damage nature is such as that healing is not wasted (i.e. you dont go from 100% to dead in 1 second), having that healing amp is just insane. Also remember that the healing amp lasts 30 seconds, that is more than enough to kill the first wind-guard in wave 6.
    The other issue I have with HA is that both the dangerous waves got wind-guards in them. Getting knocked back during a HA can greatly diminish its results. SW is affected less by a knockback.

    If the waves was designed in a different matter so you could use HA every cooldown, sure it would be great. But as it stands now, only 2 waves are really dangerous, they are 3 minutes apart, both waves have knockbacks, the fact that you are using EF instead of SS and the HoT from Sikari, all those factors are enough for me to claim that in case you go for a cooldown, SW is just the better choice for PG.
    The only real reason I can see for using HA is really if you are extremely unused and uncomfortable using SW. For example, I do not play BM on my hunter even if BM is 5% better than surv on a fight, since I have always played Surv on my hunter since WotLK, I play surv well, but suck at BM. Even if BM theoretically does 5% more damage, me myself still deal more damage as Surv.

    That said I still prefer DP over both.

  20. #20
    I just wiped on Wave 29. I need to take a breather. /sigh

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