Challenge Mode. What is the easiest to hardest?

[Deleted]

So this weekend I will finally got the fire in my belly to get CM Gold done with guild members but I want to organise from going to the 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


Any experienced CM Gold runners know? Many Thanks.

Pampar

[Fenicks]

It really depends on your group. A lot of people have told me that Stormstout Brewery is one of the most difficult, but for my group it was a breeze and we one-shot it. That being said, here's how it went for me.

From hardest to easiest:

1. Scholomance
2. Scarlet Halls
3. Temple of the Jade Serpent
4. Mogu'shan Palace
5. Siege Of Niuzao Temple
6. Scarlet Monastery
7. Gate of the Setting Sun
8. Shado-Pan Monastery
9. Stormstout Brewery

Best of luck.

[Squirl]

Easiest to hardest:

1. Shado-Pan Monastery
2. Gate of the Setting Sun
3. Scholomance
4. Temple of the Jade Serpent
5. Mogu'shan Palace
6. Siege of Niuzao Temple
7. Scarlet Halls
8. Scarlet Monastery
9. Stormstout Brewery

A lot of this depends on comp, but that's how I would place them generally. The gap between each isn't very large either, so the exact order can be debated all day. None of them are actually "hard" as long as you take a little time to optimize beforehand; mainly pick up BiS trinkets (SoO ones are terrible for most classes). Check out some video guides too and pay attention to what they pull, how they pull, and when they use CDs.

For reference, I've cleared 9/9 Gold as a Rogue, Hunter, and Prot Pally as well as 200+ carry runs.

[Irian]

As someone who has done over 20 gold carry runs, my opinion of hardest to easiest:

1. Mogu'shan Palace.
The sheer amount of RNG, the length and the deadly pulls that are reliant on tank, dps and healers avoiding fire and performing adequately make this one a pain. Don't expect it to come easy. My group did it many times and still had to reset every now and then due to bad luck.

2. Stormstout Brewery.
The most dps and tank skill-intensive, but considerably easier on the healer. That being said, it's pretty consistent; once you do it once, you're unlikely to have any more problems ever again.

3. Temple of the Jade Serpent.
Relatively tight gold timer, long boss fights with obnoxious mechanics. Not anything too tough though.

4. Siege of Niuzao Temple.
It's just damn long, and there are a few places near the end that a novice group can screw up and make you have to do the whole thing over again. It's more like a marathon than a sprint.

5. Scarlet Monastery.
This place has a few crazy pulls but nothing that you haven't seen in other CMs. The timer is fairly lenient which allows you to plan out pulls.

6. Scholomance.
Lax timer, but a few of the bosses and trash pulls can be a little tough. It's mainly a check on your tank; it's easy for a tank to look stupid in Scholo. For everyone else it's a snoozefest.

7. Gate of the Setting Sun.
The first hall is the only hard part about the whole thing, but it can be a bitch if you're with an inexperienced group. Past first hall/first boss, the entire thing is a cakewalk. The timer can be a little tight though and you need decent DPS.

8. Scarlet Halls.
This one has tough pulls, but the timer is so lax that you can sit, talk about the pulls, plan a strategy and make an order for CCs and then wipe anyway and do it all over again, come back and you'll still have a minute left on gold. You just need a group that understands that you don't need to turn every gold CM run into a sprint.

9. Shado-Pan Monastery.
No real intense pulls compared to other CMs. The timer is so long that as long as all five of your members have a pulse, you can get gold.
Seriously, I wiped four times and still got gold with my friend's casual group.

[Deja Thoris]

The difference is minimal except for Stormstout which can be a complete ballache.

The 40 monkeys can easily gib you, the second boss can be quite tough if you can't do the hammers well and the timer is the tightest of all CM's by far. I have 9/9 gold on 3 chars as all different roles.

[Senen]

I find Aakarshan to be pretty spot on.
Note that there are several ways a dungeon can be hard. Shadopan Monastery is probably the one with the highest healing requirement on bosses and many tourist groups can't manage to get the third boss down ever. If you're with a group good enough to aim for gold though, this boss shouldn't be a problem. And if you don't wipe on bosses, this dungeon is suddenly the easiest of all because the timer is non-existant.

[Tirilka]

In my experience, this is the order from easiest to hardest:
1) Shadopan Monastery - the timer is non-existent, and there are no difficult places.
2) Gate of the Setting Sun - the first pull is the hardest part, though still relatively easy.
3) Scarlet Halls - a couple of packs before Harlan are mildly hard.
4) Scholomance - things get tough from here on. Chain-pulling becomes mandatory, wipes can happen more often and easily
5) Temple of the Jade Serpent - 3rd boss area is quite hard.
6) Mogushan Palace - timer is tight, also the first pull is brutal.
7) Stormstout Brewery - timer is a only bit tight, but there are a lot of places to screw up. Flawless execution is required.
8) Scarlet Halls - you have very little time. Also, packs will beat you to pulp without frequent interrupts and stuns.
9) Siege of Nuizao - it's very long. One mistake and you have to start all over again. The 3rd boss is especially dangerous with his packs nearby.

[Dristereau]

Easiest to Hardest:
1) Temple of the Jade Serpent - Nothing really to worrisome, feels like a warm up. Trash before first and third boss are annoying due to chain pulls/silences
2) Shado-Pan Monastery - Only part that really is annoying is the Sha boss, rest of it usually goes smoothly. Timer isn't that tight either.
3) Scholomance - Nothing too complicated for the most part. Rattlegore and trash are annoying, and Darkmaster Ganding is can easily wipe you due to Tank and Healer Teleports
4) Gate of the Setting Sun - The first pull/pack (Entrance to First Boss) can be brutal, and bad RNG with bombs may wipe you plenty here. After that it's fairly smooth.
5) Siege of Niuzao Temple - Long and annoying. Biggest trouble we had was third boss which involves killing all trash around him using bombs and the group can easily wipe here
6) Scarlet Monastery - Trash after the first boss hits hard. Interrupts have to happen on the final boss for MCs and Mass Ress
7) Scarlet Halls - Trash between Houndmaster and Armsmaster are brutal. Make sure you interrupt Holy Fire asap and be careful.
8) Stormstout Brewery - 40 Monkeys can murder you and last boss can make your timer go from Gold to Bronze if messing up on Final Boss. Final boss requires good positioning and DPS (Our Group usually have our Healer go DPS for him) otherwise he'll start healing up quickly.
9) Mogushan Palace - The first pull of this place is extremely brutal, and is possibly the hardest pull in CMs (All trash up to first boss). Also the Timer can be pretty harsh as well.

Cleared as Prot Paladin, Frost Mage, Prot Warrior and Blood DK and currently doing them on Elemental Shaman and Survivial Hunter. Heroism isn't required but it is extremely help, and definitely will make it easier. Experience and practice will help a lot, but most comp's should work.
My original comp with Gold was : Prot Paladin, Destro Warlock (x2), Assass Rogue and Resto Druid/MW Monk for Heals

[Barendon]

easiest to hardest for me:
1)Gate of the setting sun: Pretty easy to maintain if you know the trick for the first pull (stack in that corner behind stairs), boss fight are easy as hell, it took me 4 tries to get past bad RNG and glitches though. So be careful (3rd boss spawned right when we killed second boss, so getting to the brazier was impossible for our runner, things like that)
2)Scholomance: Plain easy, get the addon that finds the second boss in the mechanic, get a dk tank that can easily maintain the room between third boss to 4th boss, and just watch out for the 4th boss mechanics, they can be pretty deadly and you might have to use heroism to save yourself the time for last boss. If you kill lilian voss before second phase you're on the right track for an easy gold. Also note the packs right before the mini boss. It's all about maintaining and not overpulling
3)Scarlet halls: Gotta be one of the more fun CMs out there. If you know all the tacts for the bosses the only challenge you'll have is after the herod's fight trash pack (which is one of the hardest in all CMs) and not being greedy at the hallway to the last boss.
4) Jade serpent: if you get the first boss right and know how got a shaman to die to skip the trash before the sha boss you got it.
5)Shado-Pan monastery: A long run, easy to die if you're not focused on the small details. Just know what needs to be done, and you should get it in your first or second try.
6)Siege of Niuzao: my top fun CM and the real first serious one you should try before stepping up. Lots of dps buffs and fun mechanics, the only thing really hard here is to get to end in time. The time is pretty tight. Also the trash right before third boss? Deadly. Get your best def cds here.
7) Mogushan palace: My group had hard time on the first pull and the stealth running, get lots of def cds here and a 18 sec invisibility potion is a must. Also can be tight depending on how well you get the second boss.
FOR DPS:
8) scarlet monastery
9) Stormstout brewery
For tank:
8)Stormstout brewery
9)Scarlet monasyery

[britishbubba]

easiest to hardest imo

1)Scholomance: Easy dungeon with only 2 "dangerous" pulls (trash before jandice and trash after rattlegore). No RNG to the dungeon at all, timer on gold is very lenient.
2) Shado-Pan Monastery: Longest gold timer of them all, and due to bugs with the guardians between the 2nd to last and last boss, the time is stupidly easy as you only "have" to kill 2 of those trash packs if you time it right.
3) Siege of Niuzao Temple: Just an easy dungeon through and through. Timer is very forgiving since you can cheese the 3rd boss by pulling all the adds into him during the bomb phase and kill them all in 2 globals.
4) Stormstout Brewery: Only hard part of the dungeon is the DPS check on the final boss. Brawler monkeys kinda hurt.
5) Scarlet Halls: As long as people don't hump the dogs when they run down the first hallway it's a really easy dungeon. As is the cast with scarlet monastery, the caster adds hurt.
6) Gate of the Setting Sun: Hardest part is the trash leading to the first boss as the bombs will 2 shot you if you're not paying attention.
7) Temple of the Jade Serpent: Easy dungeon if your healer and casters know how to stay away from the adds that do an AoE silence... unless you have a paladin tank then good luck.
8) Scarlet Monastery: I hope you like holy fires hitting for 90% of your tanks healthbar.

And now for the only one I actually hate going to when I do sales.

9) Mogu'shan palace: The part that there's several trash packs that you end up having to wait for their pat or you have to pull extra shit makes this dungeon annoying. Add on top of that that every trash pack in this instance, save the ones leading up to gekk'an, is punishing on your tank... yeah, this dungeon can die in a fire.

Imo they're almost all equal, especially 1 -> 5. The DPS checks that were present at expac launch is made a lot less relevant just from the several thousand extra stats you have with sockets that is in gear now. If you have a Blood DK/Disc/Ele Shaman then each dungeon is REALLY easy.

[Senen]

I'm rather surprised to see so many people listing Scarlet Monastery very high, tbh, but I guess it's once again a matter of "what group are you running with".

As I said above, for complete beginner aiming for Bronze, Shado-Pan Monastery and Stormstout Brewery are probably the hardest one because of their bosses.
I realize now that Scarlet Monastery gave us a lot of trouble on my first runs, as there's a lot of potential mistakes.
But now that I'm boosting dungeon regularly it's probably become one of the easiest for my group and even when big mistakes happen (like pulling a pack of monks during the second boss or too many packs inside the last room) we usually manage to clean it without resetting.

That's why I really like CMs, depending on your group, your experience, your goal, your synergy, etc, the difficulty order can change quite a lot.
Also, having 0/1/2/3 melee dps can have a big impact on the perceived difficulty. If you run Mogu'shan Palace with 3 ranged dps, you'll probably not notice how hard this dungeon can be.

- - - Updated - - -

And now for the only one I actually hate going to when I do sales.

9) Mogu'shan palace: The part that there's several trash packs that you end up having to wait for their pat or you have to pull extra shit makes this dungeon annoying. Add on top of that that every trash pack in this instance, save the ones leading up to gekk'an, is punishing on your tank... yeah, this dungeon can die in a fire.

Just make sure you have 4 cc in your team (which is easy if you sale boost, as everyone can get an amber stick) and you can skip the patrols without waiting.
Big pull before first boss, no pull between second and third, no pull after the third boss until you reach the final room.

[Novx]

9) Mogu'shan palace: The part that there's several trash packs that you end up having to wait for their pat or you have to pull extra shit makes this dungeon annoying. Add on top of that that every trash pack in this instance, save the ones leading up to gekk'an, is punishing on your tank... yeah, this dungeon can die in a fire.

You know those reset if you keep running....right?

[britishbubba]

You know those reset if you keep running....right?

I was under the impression that nothing will reset in CMs without people dying, or hitting something like feign death.

[Squirl]

I was under the impression that nothing will reset in CMs without people dying, or hitting something like feign death.

Just run into the far corner of the final boss room and they'll reset ~80% of the time. You only have to kill the packs in the room itself (and you can even just hold those for Vengeance and blow the boss up).

[Novx]

I was under the impression that nothing will reset in CMs without people dying, or hitting something like feign death.

Nope, the pack that you are speaking of, assuming I am correct, is the one after the elevator. If you aggro said pack (priest/lock aoe fear helps because they won't be shooting people), cc the 2 big adds (don't aggro the 3-guardian patrol), and just run far into the next room they will reset and long as people aren't hitting them.

[britishbubba]

Nope, the pack that you are speaking of, assuming I am correct, is the one after the elevator. If you aggro said pack (priest/lock aoe fear helps because they won't be shooting people), cc the 2 big adds (don't aggro the 3-guardian patrol), and just run far into the next room they will reset and long as people aren't hitting them.

Huh, well that'll be nice to use in the future, thanks.

[Trubo]

Kind of surprised that everyone is mentioning SSB so high in difficulty mostly because that one was recommended to me as being one of the easier ones to do. Have to agree that it can be a bit more challenging but that's not so much the difficulty of the dungeon as a whole but because the last boss sucks to kill if your healer doesn't have a dps spec. Only boss I can think of where spec changing actually mattered.

[announced]

i actually 2-shot brewery having never done challenge modes before in my life. we spent around 2-3 hours figuring out scarlet halls (i was on a frost mage) then after we finally got gold on that, moved onto SSB. first time we made it to the boss but he ended up healing cause of an add, 2nd time we blew cds and killed it. got gold 2nd try. SSB is very easy imo, theres almost no room for error. we had a prot warrior, 2 frost mages, a spriest, and a pally healer though. maybe that combo was just killer good.

id vote scarlet monastery as a tough one. u need to be perfect on invis pots to avoid all the adds, and those adds are very nasty

[Deleted]

They were all not that bad but for me personally it scarlet halls was the #1 easiest and Monastery was the hardest. We spend a good 4-5 attempts getting destroyed at the very first hallway thing but as soon as we got passed that it was a gold.

[ryklin]

I've done a lot of carries (I'm not sure how many, but about once or twice a week since a bit after I started playing again at the end of tot, anyways, done em as every heal spec and a couple as dps)
haven't bothered with serer bests, but we occasionally come close, even with carries

1. niuzao, give your healer a few int pots and it's a breeze, bam 30 stacks and killing the 2nd boss, a lot of stacking damage multiplication effects too that can all be abused very easily, just remember to prioritize damage amp gimmicks and spacing out slime kills over pure dps, some say it's hard, but it really just focuses more on good heals and tanking where others rely on good dps, interrupts, and cc

2. scholo, really easy, really straightforward, really fun, just don't fuck up on the last boss, and if you think you might, bring a warlock so you can make a 2nd attempt

3. brewery, kinda boring, but easy, people tend to just blindly aoe though, and usually the best solution is to take advantage of gimmicks in it (barrels, hammers, and coordinate cc on the aoe healing add pull), also if you have a banners or horns, they're even more awesome here than they are elsewhere, I've been in groups incapable of doing it all (even on bronze) and others that will one-shot it on gold, and for the love of god, just stand still, don't run into the hopper (and bring aoe cc or void tendrils, and block beams on the last boss)

4. GoSS, the first part isn't actually that bad, it's almost easier if you pull it into the boss room or at least onto the stairs, most your group members won't be able to handle the area behind the statue and I wouldn't recommend it

5. shado-pan, the timer is massive, but there's a lot of easy ways to wipe, it's much lower down if you bring a battle rezz though, if people thinnk they won't make it through the ice archers, just have them sit still and wait behind

6. jade serpent- people dying to really stupid shit and getting greedy, unless you have good interrupts/mass dispel/ring of peace/revival, don't bother chain-pulling the last room

7. halls, the dogs are buggy as fuck, but the dps check is non-existant, also, you can seriously lose to pure RNG unless you flat-out chain cc those guys with the chains, honestly though, imo, just hex/poly/sap the purifiers and chain guys, the dps check will be tighter, but still do-able and you'll find it altogether, much easier

last 2 are significantly harder, because their dps check is significantly higher

8. SM- just a really high dps check not even many things to interrupt, also you can tremor totem the mc on the last boss, and whatever you do, don't pull those monks next to the 2nd boss unless your tank is very prepared or you plan to kite them, dks are op
edit: also, just interrupt the fire casters or drop a glyphed grounding totem or other spell reflect and watch them kill themselves

9. MSP- same stuff as the others, just can be very punishing and people tend to be REALLY overly greedy on the 2nd boss, as well as the pulls to the first and final bosses
(most your wipes will be to a banished healer, retards standing in whirlwind/lightning, nobody cc'ing the far caster on 2nd boss, and nobody interrupting the fire whirlwind)