LOLAoE pulls still...

[Cernunnos]

If CC gets broken by abilities like Whirlwind and Divine Storm, the pull was bad. You're supposed to CC on pull and then pull the mobs away from the CC targets to prevent exactly this.

more often than not I would assume that is the case.

Have your CCers pull by using their abilites on a mob, back away, then have your tank use Thunderclap/swipe/concercrate/Death and Decay to pick them up.

[kerwyn]

If CC gets broken by abilities like Whirlwind and Divine Storm, the pull was bad. You're supposed to CC on pull and then pull the mobs away from the CC targets to prevent exactly this.

Exactly. Your DPS should be able to cleave. You just need to set things up properly.

Those abilities are terrible examples though, something more along the lines of howling blast or living bomb that you'd cast anyway are much more apt.

[Avandias]

As a healer, I've pretty much given up on PUG's for now. Way too many tanks thinking they can take every pull in the room at once still and way too many dumb ass DPS thinking they can pull since the healer is taking so damned long drinking to regain mana. I actually had a DPS yell for me to heal him because he had pulled a group while I was drinking... after I said clearly in group that I needed mana. I stood up... healed the group through the pull... then left.

[Deleted]

Yeah, ToT and BRC were complete AoE-fests. But I didn't expect anything else.
They are the entry dungeons of the X-pack. As mentioned earlier they weren't designed for your shiny ICC epics, but for blue questing gear.
I truly enjoy the new dungeons. I can't remember when I last had to MC a mob (Yes, I'm playing a Shadow Priest). Well, I don't have to MC, but I'm doing it because it is a lot of fun!

[Silarn]

For healer mana comments, you need to realize that the healing game has changed. You want to be using your efficient heal (the cheap one) as much as possible, only digging up your heavy/fast/aoe heals when absolutely needed. Heal DPS only when the tank/yourself are not in imminent danger. Most of the time, DPS damage is largely avoidable.

Heal efficiently, minimize overhealing, choose your targets. Use your expensive stuff only when it is needed. This is not Wrath where you spam your best heal ad infinitum to victory. That will make you go OOM, and you will wipe your group. And it will be your fault if they are avoiding as much damage as possible.

[frejborg]

Everytime these topics come up.. I can't help but think of TBC heroics... having to get to revered for several factions just to RUN heroics, and they were pretty hard. CC was crucial, or you wiped. End of story. If your CC broke for any reason and you weren't keen enough to re CC, quickly, it could be a wipe.

The pedigree of players was obviously better in those days, because they had to be to progress.

My hunter was my first main in those days and I ran heroic Hellfire Citadel instances as much as I could. The mobs there would 2 shot anyone except a tank back then, and holding threat wasn't easy, especially aoe threat, it was hardly even ATTEMPTED unless you were a well geared and skilled Prot Paladin.

Heroic Shattered Halls

THAT was the hardest instance I ever ran.

Groups were formed with the maximum amount of CC avilable, because you had pulls of 4-7 mobs that would 2-shot non tanks , could not be aoe tanked like wotlk, for threat reasons AND because the tank would simply die from that much damage. Also the gauntlet, where you had to keep teh group moving forward while mobs continuously spawned and ran at you, while simultaneously avoiding/dodging fire arrows that burned on the ground! hahahaha Epic instance, GREAT challenge. I wouldn't mind 5 mans like that again!

You had to have about 3-4 CCers in the party to even hope to make it through.

I ran it many times to get exalted and get the awesome epic bone bow for my hunter. =)

Anyways I'm getting pretty nostalgic here but I mean, just consider that, to give you perspective on WotLK and Cata.


Heroic Shadow Labs was also quite challenging. Many groups wouldn't even make it past the first room.

[Avandias]

For healer mana comments, you need to realize that the healing game has changed. You want to be using your efficient heal (the cheap one) as much as possible, only digging up your heavy/fast/aoe heals when absolutely needed. Heal DPS only when the tank/yourself are not in imminent danger. Most of the time, DPS damage is largely avoidable.

Heal efficiently, minimize overhealing, choose your targets. Use your expensive stuff only when it is needed. This is not Wrath where you spam your best heal ad infinitum to victory. That will make you go OOM, and you will wipe your group. And it will be your fault if they are avoiding as much damage as possible.

The only times I'M going out of mana are when I HAVE to spam flash of light on the tank to keep them up because our pulls went south. Or, when idiots are standing in fire.

Edit: Which, unfortunately, is happening an awful lot.

[Traejun]

Heroic Shadow Labs was also quite challenging. Many groups wouldn't even make it past the first room.

Shattered Halls was MUCH harder than Shadow Labs.

[Suggs]

/Facepalm

/Facepalm

/TRIPLE Facepalm

Honestly. People that encourage dump game play don't really know what they are talking about. Or are just brain dead. It's not fun to press the same button over and over again for ages. In general the WoW community agrees with this so if you don't like it, please quit already.

Sounds to me like You dont like what other people do so maybe you should fuck off and quit? Maybe its not fun for you but it is for others maybe the world doesn't evolve around you so maybe you should shut up and play while others play how they feel like....oh and by the way seems as everyone likes to turn mmo forums into a spelling check ..at least spell DUMB correctly bwahahah.

Just to add the first couple of 5 mans are a joke to do, yes its an aoe fest still which is ok seems as its actually harder to put your socks on in a morning than complete these places. Hopefully heroics will be more challenging
(p.s is it me or is hyjal questing zone a complete shambles, ok it has a bit of story there and what not but whats with the ; 'save this injured animal save that injured animal bla bla bla' quests for 5 year olds that feel like they made you rush through them once completed.)

[Nexxia]

Yes regs are easy, this has been known for a long time. When you get to heroic the difficulty level jumps 200%. GL and have fun.

[phyrix]

Everytime these topics come up.. I can't help but think of TBC heroics... having to get to revered for several factions just to RUN heroics, and they were pretty hard. CC was crucial, or you wiped. End of story. If your CC broke for any reason and you weren't keen enough to re CC, quickly, it could be a wipe.

The pedigree of players was obviously better in those days, because they had to be to progress.

There is still an 'attunement' of sorts, since you have to have a high enough itemlevel to enter certain instances. That doesn't stop the retards from ruining stuff for the rest of us.

[lokii]

I'm all for having to work a bit to clear a dungeon. The other AOE road just leads to LOLFEST. Putting a bit of challenge back into the game keeps it interesting.

[Nexxia]

My guildies are doing the heroics, Im about to ding 85. Moving a little slower because cleared all this on Beta and its not as much a rush. But they agree, they are like OSHT after hitting Stonecore Hoeroic etc. Humbled, I dont think they believed, of course they completed, but they were like, "That was hard, really hard". Thats from the top ppl in a top 3 server guild, who have completed HLK etc.

[Plasmon]

I've just been amazed by how rusty me, and my guildies are with CC. Do i sheep before, during, or after the pull, and yet, i still suck at timing :P

Rogues (sap) and *some* clever hunters (a smartly positioned shallow ice trap to start the cooldown counter) are the only ones who should be using CC before combat starts. Almost always sheep just a small moment after the tank body/range pulls, unless asked otherwise. If you're fast enough, the sheep should be almost exactly where the target was standing before aggro. That way the tank still has aggro on all the other targets and the sheep is still likely far back enough from where the tank will be fighting things that it won't get broken by cleaves or other AoEs. If you pull with sheep then you get aggro on everything and the tank has to struggle to get aggro on multiple targets before they get to you (who will probably iceblock) and the healer (because they will turn to kill the healer after you iceblock...) and the tank has to accomplish the rescue with little or no rage (warrior/bear) because they didn't get to properly engage.

Also, use some kind of counter to monitor your sheep so you know when you need to refresh it before it pops. Various addons do it automatically, other highly customizable addons can be set to do that (like PowerAuras), or you can do it with no mods at all by using the in-game stopwatch in a macro.

Something like this works well for the in-game timer, and when the timer runs out and dings you have to re-cast polymorph immediately. (if you want more buffer time set the timer a couple seconds less):

#showtooltip Polymorph
/stopcasting
/stopwatch 0:0:47
/stopwatch play
/cast Polymorph

You can also add various ways of using focus to make it easier to target for the re-sheep.

[kerwyn]

Rogues (sap) and *some* clever hunters (a smartly positioned shallow ice trap to start the cooldown counter) are the only ones who should be using CC before combat starts.

Not really. No.

Just did H SFK. Had a priest shackle pull every group, no fade necessary. Pally threw his shield right as the mobs got into range and everything was just fine.

[Restalan]

At frejborg:

I actually found Heroic Magisters Terrace to be the hardest 5-man I ever ran. As a prot pally, that one was a real pain, and it got worse as gear got better. OOM all the time, and dead if you switched tank gear out for spell power gear. On the other hand, Shattered Halls was just a minor pain because even in BC, people got used to the idea that paladin tanks = aoe fest and would mysteriously forget that breaking the sheep is a bad thing.

Oh, don't even mention heroic Shadow Labs. That place. I hated that place.

[Nexxia]

HSFK CCs arent an issue, that is one of the easier Heroics, other than the first boss with the interrupts. Makes me wonder why my guildies and I agree these are harder than BC heros. I think ppl who are saying lolnoproblem are full of it. They arent impossible but they are alot harder than BC, I cleared all of them on beta, been playing 5 years so dont bs me. lol

[kerwyn]

HSFK CCs arent an issue, that is one of the easier Heroics, other than the first boss with the interrupts. Makes me wonder why my guildies and I agree these are harder than BC heros. I think ppl who are saying lolnoproblem are full of it. They arent impossible but they are alot harder than BC, I cleared all of them on beta, been playing 5 years so dont bs me. lol

Third boss was a bitch till he respawned after a wipe with no adds. Got the achievement somehow, still not sure I fully understand that one.

[Hypnozis]

Divine storm and disease is part of their rotation, single target or AOE. They are both AOE abilities.

It's like how Warriors used to hit the beasts on saurfang, if they weren't caareful when they used whirlwind pre 4.0.1. Whirlwind was the hardest hitting ability most of the time, and it was an aoe ability that you were using for single target DPS. You gonna cleave by accident in a situation like that. Same applies to ret paladins and DKs.

That or their just idiots and are trying to mindlessly AOE like we did in wrath.

I played on my fury warrior many times doing saurfang and I was able to time my whirlwind at the right time in order to avoid pulling the beasts, but I also knew that it was beneficial for me to avoid the AOE and drops a couple points in dps vs causing the debuff to increase and getting a mark on a target. I really really really hope people learn that blizzard designed Cata not to be a dps race (goal be the top of the meters) on every boss but to actually pay attention the boss abilities and adapt.

[Plasmon]

Not really. No.

Just did H SFK. Had a priest shackle pull every group, no fade necessary. Pally threw his shield right as the mobs got into range and everything was just fine.

I'm familiar with both sides here, I play a mage, and yes I was around during the CC days of heroic Shattered Halls... and I also play a bear, aka rage-based tank. As a rage-tank I strongly recommend that CCers let the tank do the pulling. There's nothing more annoying than not having enough rage to grab 4 targets all at the same time who aren't even running beside each other because some of them are casters and don't move forward... just became some dummy mage decided to sheep before the tank range-pulls. Not every tank class has Avengers Shield and it's poor advice to advocate strategies that depend on it.