Easiest to Hardest CM dungeons?

[The Kao]

MSP was my least favorite. The random patrol's were annoying as a dogs balls on christmas morning.

They aren't exactly random. Even if you can't see them they spawn at the same position the moment you enter the dungeon or reset it and begin walking in the exactly same pattern. To avoid the first pat for example I would reset the dungeons, count ten seconds, then start the 5 second CM countdown and go - that moment the pat will be moving to the center of the room from the right, your path will be clear. The rest of the dungeon works accordingly after that. Every mob or pat will be in the same spot at the exact same second if you always start the dungeon with the same timing.

Needless to say that this applies to all other dungeons as well.

[Dukenukem]

All are really easy when you know the strategy and a few glitches (like going through door in Niuzao)

than it really falls into "where you can make the stupid mistake and what time it will cost"
so the list would go from longest Gold to shortest with exception of ShandoPan monastery which has very generous timer for gold.

[Rivellana]

It really is going to vary based on your group makeup and experience.

I read a couple of different lists before going in for the first time, and my order ended up being much different than I expected in terms of difficulty. As a full first time group working on it (Protection warrior, holy paladin, frost dk, frost mage, ele shaman), we had bigger issues with some that were listed as "easy" than we did with some that were listed as difficult.

For instance, we had problems with Gate of the Setting Sun because of people getting blown up by the bombs before the first boss, and several issues in Shado-Pan Monastery, but Scarlet Monastery and Siege of Niuzao Temple were pretty much a breeze. I would still go with Stormstout Brewery being the "most difficult" but that's mostly because the timer is so tight that you pretty much can't make a single mistake or you won't beat the timer. Mogu'shan Palace timer was also very difficult, and the "invis and jump over the wall" tactic to the second boss can be an issue if you have characters that don't have passive movement speed boosts (the warrior and mage in this case) and don't have a group speed boost like stampeding roar. There's also the possibility that some people will have issues making the jump.

I started my second character this week with a completely different group makeup. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out. We started with Scarlet Halls because it was one of the easiest and had to do it three times where we could have easily gotten gold because we missed 3 kills and couldn't figure out where they were (in this case, the humans who walk with the dogs at the beginning of the instance hadn't been "tagged" before the meat buckets were thrown on them).

[Raiju]

I've done a handful of CM groups on a few characters, ranging from very poor composition to very good composition.

Best composition I'd done with was Blood dk, disc priest, rogue, ret pala, elemental shaman. I'd say mogu'shan proved the most difficult because of the patrols being annoying on a couple pulls (no we didn't get to the extent of timing, just went for it). Because of having an elemental and disc priest there were pretty much 0 dps issues in SSB or anywhere else (SSB had around 40 seconds spare iirc?). Scarlet monastery only had 7 seconds spare or so, but it was a very relaxed run just focused on getting it right as 3 of the group had never seen CM's before and the pala had never played that class before (not that it matters hugely)

Worst group (ability really more than comp) was bm hunter - enhancement shaman - resto shaman - rogue - prot warrior. Some of the tight dps checks took a couple tries although the healer went elemental for last boss SSB so that one proved easy. This was my first CM group and I believe we found gate of setting sun fairly hard because the hunter/resto shaman kept dying on the bombing run. I later found out about hiding in the corner (with the mobs facing it from the lane) caused nearly 0 bombs required to avoid and was a lot faster for killing them, too.

One notable middle group (blood dk - destro lock - rogue - resto druid - spriest) struggled the most with scholomance, partially due to the timer and how long the last boss took + mana issues from the druid at about 50% on this boss.

[Stoic]

9/9x10 150+golds POV

~Easy~
Temple of the Jade Serpent - Easy 2-3 mins left
Gate of the Setting Sun - Easy 2-3 mins left
Scarlet Halls - Easy 3-5 mins left
Scholomance - Medium 6-8 mins left
Shadopan Monestary - Medium 5-6 mins left
Siege of Niuzao Temple - Medium 2-3 mins left
Scarlet Monestary - Hard 1-2 mins left
Mogushan Palace - Hard 1-2 mins left
Stormstout Brewery - Hard 1-2 mins left
~Hard~
Those are the typical durations left upon completion for my usual 4 +guest group and what I'd consider the overall difficulty of the dungeon is. There are alot of ways to 'cheese' certain CMs with tricks and class abilities.
- DK control undead on ScarM
- DK control undead on Scholo
- Bugging 2nd boss charge on Niuzao (stays at 30 stacks of debuff all fight)
- Reseting archer adds on SH
- Purify trick for Shadopan
and many more.

[Deleted]

They're all fairly easy if you know what you're doing, but I'd have to say:

1. Scarlet Halls (buggy as hell, though)
2. Temple of the Jade Serpent (hero first pull, gg)
3. Gate of the Setting Sun (master the first pull and you're golden)
4. Shado-Pan Monastery (Sha is an annoying boss and the invis part is buggy)
5. Scholomance (If you have the DPS to skip P2 Lilian, it could be higher in the list)
6. Scarlet Monastery (Some annoying and dangerous pulls)
7. Siege of Niuzao Temple (use CDs on the blobs and the first section is complete faceroll, but the third boss takes some healer/tank coordination)
8. Mogu-shan Palace (pretty tight, with some dangerous pulls)
9. Stormstout Brewery (fuck those Vermen - this dungeon is theoretically the tightest on time)

Then again, I find them all easy as I've done gold multiple times and I used to sell boosts. So this is partially in the order of 'most difficult to boost' in.

[Gihelle]

Personal opinion as a former holder of realm best times:

1. Gate of the Setting Sun (first pull is the only hard part, no invis pots necessary)
2. Temple of the Jade Serpent (only realm hard part is the pulls between 3rd and 4th boss)
3. Scarlet Halls (would be the easiest of them all if not for the fact that the dungeon has been glitched since it's release and you'll likely lose tries because of bugs)
4. Scholomance (BarovHelper is the best addon ever. If you can't kill Lillian without skipping her shadow phase, your CM group isn't good enough)
5. Scarlet Monastery (only real hard pull is the one right after first boss, all the others are easily manageable with the right CCs)
6. Shado-Pan Monastery (long, has a lot of room for errors and requires big invis pots)
7. Siege of Niuzao Temple (not really hard but annoying with all the RP you go through)
8. Mogu'shan Palace (groups with rogues might differ on this, but if you don't have aoe stealth it can be pretty brutal)
9. Stormstout Brewery (no invis pot required but super tight gold time and unforgiving mechanics on 2nd boss. 3rd is really easy if your healer can heal on a DPS spec.)

DK control undead on Scholo.

Didn't they fix that a long time ago, or are you talking about another mob that's not the Undead Guard ones that can give you that 15% damage taken debuff?

[Deleted]

Didn't they fix that a long time ago, or are you talking about another mob that's not the Undead Guard ones that can give you that 15% damage taken debuff?

one of the mobs in 2nd boss room stacks a DoT effect and is mcable.


Dunno why everyone struggles with the ssb timer, specifically the 2nd boss, are you not killing the trigger mobs to activate the boss or? .

[Gihelle]

The issue is more on the 3rd boss, really. At least in my experience. The needless, unskippable RP between the trash waves before the actual boss.

[theostrichsays]

Personal opinion here but for me Scarlet Halls was always the easiest CM, the only part that was remotely hard was getting the buckets correctly and the hallways by the 2nd boss.
By far the one I had the absolute beyond a shadow of a doubt most difficulty with was Stormstout Brewery... EFF THAT PLACE!!!

[Relapses]

Scarlet Monastery can be difficult, unless you're a DK...

http://www.twitch.tv/olisaurus/c/5097503

SSB is the closest "enrage". Gate is probably the most annoying, and MSP has some of the hardest hitting trash in the game. To echo what's been said before, a lot of it has to do with team comp, strategy and experience. Gold isn't difficult if you're just going for gold.

[Stoic]

Didn't they fix that a long time ago, or are you talking about another mob that's not the Undead Guard ones that can give you that 15% damage taken debuff?

The Reanimated corpse in 2nd room. moves VERY slowly but applies Dark Plague to enemy target which ramps up in damage as long as it is attacking. It can ramp up to insane DPS I've seen 600k for a fight. You need to babysit this minion as it can die very quickly by telling it to stand in specific LOS places for your AoE pulls before and after Rattlegore. This add can beat the Lilian Voss phase and we've engaged last boss with 6-8 mins to spare without doing any speedkill pulls.

[Ratyrel]

Your experience will depend on your setup. Having a DK with army of the dead will make some trash pulls trivial, for example. This is based on my personal experience really; Scarlet Halls would be a lot lower down if it weren't for the dog trash.

1. Gate of the setting sun (The main reason this is easiest, is because the only hard part is the first trash gauntlet and you don't need to waste invis pots on learning it)
2. Shado-pan monastery (The bug on purifying the protectors means that you only have to do one of the final packs and saves you minutes of time. Invis pots skip the hardest trash.)
3. Temple of the Jade Serpent (The timer can be tight on this one, but nothing is particularly hard)
4. Siege of Niuzao (long and tedious, tricky pull on the third boss offers late opportunity for messing up, otherwise this one is not hard)
5. Scholomance (nasty trash pulls after Jandice and Rattlegore, long, bug on Jandice allows you to avoid her shadow phase)
6. Scarlet Halls (The dogs at the start offer plenty of opportunity for messing up, as does the trash before Harlan)
7. Scarlet Monastery (lots of things that can go wrong, lots of trash to pull by accident)
8. Mogu'shan palace (very tight timer, nasty first trash pull with hard hitting mobs and nasty jump over the balustrade which can cost you whole tries)
9. Stormstout brewery (this is just awful - nasty trash pull before first boss, bunnies, little trash adds before third boss, timer can be very tight and the last boss has a soft enrage and hence a high dps requirement)