Best way to get started with challenge modes?

[Krom2040]

Is there any particular best way to get a foot in the door with Challenge Modes? I really like the idea, but it seems like after only a few weeks of the expansion being out, a lot of the "premade group finder" groups are already expecting people to have cleared silver or better before they'll let you into their group.

I finally managed to get a group tonight and cleared UBRS, and my tanking was the least of the group's problems, so I have to assume that the expectations of extensive prior experience are overrated.

One friend of mine mentioned OpenRaid.US; is that a good avenue, or anything else like it?

[Seezer]

Don't go the route of "Most groups want". Because anyone can do them if they're willing to put some effort in. First thing, familiarize yourself with the encounters. Don't just watch a video and call it a day. Understand what is going on and what your role is going to be. As a tank you can have your pick. OpenRaid is great. And with the group finder thing in wow, groups are easier than ever to put together. Another bonus with CM's this time is you can do a daily and not have to worry about times. Which is great for taking pressure off and learning.

[Deleted]

The way my group and me did them in MoP was to head for silver times in all dungeons at first. Afterwards we went back in and did gold. Besides this might take more time than going straight for gold, one thing I noticed was how less tries we needed to complete the gold times, they were pretty easy since we already knew what happens when and how to react accordingly. And it might be quite a good idea to put a group of people from guild or friend list together and stick with them rather than looking for a pug group for every dungeon.

[NickCageFanatic]

I stepped into CMs in MoP as a tank bascially...just winging it. Hahahaha

I used an addon that displays achievements you haven't earned as "earned" so I got into a group that wanted a tank to be 9/9 gold cleared, and I helped them get gold on Siege. Whew did they get a little surprise when I got the gold achievement after I told them I already had it!!

Yeah so basically people ask for a bit much because they don't want to spend the time to be a teacher but with a little time on your end looking up the videos and even practicing in Heroic mode 5 mans and potentially with a little "persuasion" via Fake Achievements, you'll find your way into Challenge Modes in no time!!

Good Luck to you mate!

[Deleted]

Personally i prefer to enjoy the ride and do it yourself. Meaning fuck guides, you run once through testing everything yourself, come up with strategies and then go for a clean gold run. At the end of the day 100% self-earned and personally more fun. Requires of course people who like to do the same.

Hardest thing like always is finding the right people.

[Deleted]

In MoP I could never find a CM on openraid.eu as a. They wanted full xp 9/9 gold and b. The few times I was in the selection list I was replaced at the last minute before the start by a guildie or a friend of the organizer. So my experience with openraid.eu to find cm groups in particular and groups in general has been disappointing. In the end, /2 worked better for me, even if it was terrible as a dps.

If you are a tank you shouldn't have troubles finding a group.

Still, I recommend whenever possible, especially if not experienced, to go with guildies. You will wipe and you need people that won't ragequit after a few tries. Best second choice is a guilds group missing a tank.

If you want to prepare, go watch videos or streams to know which adds are to be cced, wich spells are to be interrupted and when to use your tank cds.

[Krom2040]

Good input, although some of it a little unorthodox

I remember seeing a post about a week ago where a dude narrated every single gold clear fairly comprehensively; does anybody know where those were? I should've bookmarked it, as now I'm having trouble finding it

[Deleted]

I have the exact same problem, all of the groups in openraid and trade require atleast bronze and in 90% of the groups silver. The groups that dont ask anything fail miserably and its waste of time to wipe for hours. Guild members dont help at all for some reason. I am starting to think that buying gold-boost is only viable route.

[TaurenNinja]

Get started slowly, start with Bronze or Silver, then Gold, then even better times. It's no shame to start with Bronze, even though one might get the impression that everyone and their dog gets Gold regularly. That's not the case, especially so early on into the expansion. The amount of Gold runs are still low because people have yet to get used to all the instances in CM.

CMs are about skill (because you can't outgear them, which is what I really like about them) but also experience (because you need to know the fastest routes, what to pull where, when there is critical damage incoming, when to coordinate CC or defensive cooldowns and so on). Experience pays off a lot, especially as the tank. Watch some videos or guides so that you get to know the fastest routes. There are also many tricks or shortcuts possible that aren't always obvious. Once you have at least Silver everywhere, which you can pull off with any decent group, you should form a good group with at least 3-4 players you regularly do CMs with. CM Gold and above is like Mythic raiding, you shouldn't do it with randoms, although it's sometimes possible but I recommend against it. And if you want even better times than Gold, you really need a solid group that has good synergy and teamplay, which comes from doing CMs regularly.
The monk tank from the (arguably) world #1 group has run ~2500 challenge mode dungeons so far. That's a ton of runs. It also means that practice is essential if you want to achieve insane times, as well as skill which also increases with practice.

Also, regularly communicate with your healer because of cooldowns and let them know when they have to spam heal you. I tell my healer every single time I use a defensive cooldown, and especially when all my cooldowns have run out and there's still big damage incoming. Having a WeakAura that shows your own cooldown durations as well as your healer cooldown durations also helps. In a CM, everything depends on 1 tank and 1 healer being alive, so you should make sure that both healer and tank are well synchronized and always know how much damage is coming in at any moment.
Coordinating with the DPS is also important, but usually just about who stuns/interrupts when and who stuns/interrupts next. Apart from that, DPS mostly does AoE bombing and needs to have very high AoE dps. As a tank, it's more stressful because you also have to do the maximum possible AoE damage while ensuring you don't die.

[Deleted]

Is there any particular best way to get a foot in the door with Challenge Modes? I really like the idea, but it seems like after only a few weeks of the expansion being out, a lot of the "premade group finder" groups are already expecting people to have cleared silver or better before they'll let you into their group.

I finally managed to get a group tonight and cleared UBRS, and my tanking was the least of the group's problems, so I have to assume that the expectations of extensive prior experience are overrated.

One friend of mine mentioned OpenRaid.US; is that a good avenue, or anything else like it?

The easiest solution to your worry about people asking you to have the achievements, is to make your own group and get them.

Your post says you're a tank, there should be no problem.

[Deja Thoris]

I have the exact same problem, all of the groups in openraid and trade require atleast bronze and in 90% of the groups silver. The groups that dont ask anything fail miserably and its waste of time to wipe for hours. Guild members dont help at all for some reason. I am starting to think that buying gold-boost is only viable route.

Find a group (or form a group) of like minded people who have the same aspirations as you. There are plenty out there.

[Deleted]

Find a group (or form a group) of like minded people who have the same aspirations as you. There are plenty out there.

Easier said than done, its nigh impossible. Probably I would have to endure hundreds of hours of wiping with retards to find competent group. Even getting CM dungeon done without any medal is already extremely hard.

[mag07]

Make your own event on open raid. That is how I've done my CMs in MoP. Requires a bit of patience, but in few runs, regardless of the actual outcome/medals, you will have met enough interested people that you care to continue with, without even going through open raid. That's how we got 2 pugs to fill the spots in a semi guild group in the last two weeks. It took few good hours of dealing with sometimes not the best/nicest players, but it was well worth it.

[Deja Thoris]

Easier said than done, its nigh impossible. Probably I would have to endure hundreds of hours of wiping with retards to find competent group. Even getting CM dungeon done without any medal is already extremely hard.

With that attitude I'm really shocked you struggle. You're right, just pay for it.

[aevitas]

With that attitude I'm really shocked you struggle. You're right, just pay for it.

I actually agree with him. I'm a warrior tank myself and have been doing CMs daily for about 2 weeks.


... Except that I never actually completed a CM. The furthest I got was the last boss in Bloodmaul Slagmines, then one DPS ragequit when daily quest reset. So much time wasted and nothing accomplished so far.

[TaurenNinja]

The tank has a huge impact on the success of a group in CM. I noticed this just yesterday. I had a bad troup (not in the sense that it's impossible, but still bad). Healer was bad, so I had to progress slower than usual. DPS was bad as well, so I had to use tons upon tons of CDs and stuns and everything because trash lived so long.
Then: the end boss (UBRS). Standing before the boss, we were just a few minutes under Silver, which was surprising for that group. But then: the fight itself. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that 2 out of the 3 DPS *as well as* the healer stood in fire constantly and we wiped like 5-6 times on that boss just because of standing in the fire. Wow. So yeah this was a truly terrible experience for me, I gave them all sorts of tips (we were in voice chat, thankfully) on how to concentrate better on the fire, and eventually we made it with just a few minutes remaining for Bronze. They all got the Bronze achievement. So yeah this was a truly bad group but as a decent tank you can still make it work. This is quite an important lesson. I know that if I had left the group, it would have taken longer than wiping 5-6 times. I just wanted to get through for the quest, so... I just tried to make it work, and it worked. It was an effort, but it's amazing how important the tank role is and how much you can accomplish if you do things "right".

[Deleted]

Guildies/friends are the best way in if you want gold especially this early in the expansion, you're gonna want a group that doesn't mind working on the same dungeon for a few hours and you kinda have to approach it with a Mythic raiding mindset more than anything else which means preparation, patience and time.

Now you can get lucky with pugs for CMs just like there are/were pugs for Mythic/old Heroic raiding but those are few and far between and will most often end in frustration and tears.

You could also try creating a LFG post in the Guild/group section of the official WoW forums, you might get lucky with a group of friends looking for a tank or something.

Aside from those there's not much else you can do, in the meantime while you search for a group I'd suggest joining Silver trade/premade groups just to get some medals and a better feel for the dungeons.

There are some indepth guides here http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...old-Guides-8-8 , however as a disclaimer they're a bit too focused on Blood DK / DK tactics (there are a bunch of pulls you can't really do without mass grip), also I'd say they're slightly out of date in that there are some more recent tricks/tips that are floating about which I remember not being in their videos, you'll have to shop around to find them though, there are more guides on youtube.

[Txiv]

1) find your bis list. I level is scaled so dungeon blues with perfect itemazation kick the crap out of raid mythic gear with lousy stats ( though raid trinkets might be good)

2) don't go for gold right away, shoot for silver clears to start.

3) have a consistant group. This is key, same people every time . This will help with group symmetry which is arguably the most important factor to getting golds.

[Deleted]

For a beginner I would advice starting a guild or friends run and only take people who you think are able to handle progressing on the dungeons without giving up. Depending on the skill level of your group and previous experience it will either be fairly straight forward or fairly hard.

The most important thing to remember is that it takes time and to not give up!