i'm confused by recent Blue Posts regarding Heroic dungeons

[Baygon]

after reading recent blue posts i'm very confused on exactly what blizzard is trying to convey across to everyone, they keep talking about the minimum ilvl requirement being just that, minimum, yet they go on to talk about how getting gear from other souces would improve chances of getting gear, even though there isn't anywhere else to get it. take my warrior for example, i'm at about 338 ilvl now got a few heroic pieces and vendor bought items, few rep things, and it's still ridiculously hard for me to tank most instances, i can't get more gear from Normals. and i can't really farm rep without doing heroics so....what exactly are they trying to explain? i'm just totally confused and they seem to be going around in circles without much sense...

i dunno if anyone can try and translate what they are saying so i could understand it but from what i'm reading , they want us to Try and get from 3 Dungeons without sufficient gear choices...to only fail in heroics?

[Artaius]

Depends on what you mean by hard to tank instances, you should be fine tanking instances with that ilvl, and I'm not trying to be mean/start anything, but it might be you...

[Kryesta]

It means that 329 lets you que thats all it does. It does not mean that you will have an easy time or that it will be a breeze it just means you can que and use the dungeon finder. What is so hard to understand about that?

With a 338 ilvl you should be fine in most heroics. If you are having issuse then it may be you or your healer or your dps.

[deneweth]

There are a lot of places to get gear outside of instances. Crafting, rep, JP and boes come to mind. Yes you need to run dungeons for JP if you didn't cap out at the end of LK and quest rep only gets you so far, but its still hugely beneficial to run non-heroics even if you have the gear to qualify for heroics.

The problem with ilvl is that a skilled player in optimized gear (reforged, enchanted, gemmed) vs a bad player in whatever gear they could get ahold of to qualify (off spec, pvp) is a huge gap. The ilvl requirement has to be low as to not punish good players that are ready for heroics earlier, but doing so allows people to exploit the system to technically qualify well before they are ready.

Just to clarify: you can get rep in 85 dungeons with a tabard.

As a tank you will want a CC heavy group and a strong healer when you first start out and you will want to know the dungeons and fights. People demand more from tanks and you will get booted if you aren't up to the inflated standards. If heroics are that hard in your ilvl then your ilvl is inflated or you're doing something wrong.

If trash is too hard then use more CC and interrupts. If bosses are too hard look at your gems, enchants and consumables, also look at your rotation and when you use tanking cooldowns. By inflated ilvl I mean your score is artificially high from off spec or pvp gear in your bags. Its also worth noting that heroic bosses have fight mechanics that require you to execute a strategy to overcome. Make sure you know the fight and your party is executing the strategy. Fights will seem more gear demanding if people mess up. Out gearing content covers from mistakes but the actual gear minimum required for zero mistake fights is very low, almost as low as the odds of having a zero mistake group.

[Zamiel]

after reading recent blue posts i'm very confused on exactly what blizzard is trying to convey across to everyone, they keep talking about the minimum ilvl requirement being just that, minimum, yet they go on to talk about how getting gear from other souces would improve chances of getting gear, even though there isn't anywhere else to get it. take my warrior for example, i'm at about 338 ilvl now got a few heroic pieces and vendor bought items, few rep things, and it's still ridiculously hard for me to tank most instances, i can't get more gear from Normals. and i can't really farm rep without doing heroics so....what exactly are they trying to explain? i'm just totally confused and they seem to be going around in circles without much sense...

i dunno if anyone can try and translate what they are saying so i could understand it but from what i'm reading , they want us to Try and get from 3 Dungeons without sufficient gear choices...to only fail in heroics?

Just as a point of reference you can grind rep without being in a heroic you just have to do a dungeon thats tagged as 85 these include HoO,GB,and I believe Lost city. HoO is a particularly good one you net like 1.1k rep just from bosses not including trash. Also like Artaius said with your gear you should be doing at least semi decently as a warrior. If your having alot of trouble I suggest setting up your dual spec just for trash tanking to make your life easier.

The correct rotation for aoe threat is Charge>Rend>Thunderclap>Shockwave>Cleave then you move back into your normal rotation hitting cleave when you have the excess rage and hitting thunderclap on CD. Glyphing cleave can be very helpful since most trash packs rarely push more then 4 mobs so hitting 3 of the 4 is awesome. If you could link me your armory I could help you out more.

[Deleted]

Get tabard and do normals. Can go that way up to ilvl 359 from factions I belive.

[kemanorel]

Heroic dungeons can be extremely smooth and easy, or literally impossible. Blizzard is apologizing for how frustrated people are but the basic sum is this.

a) ilevel is their tool. It is still up to you to have gear that is suitable or well suited to your role, class, and spec. Gems, Enchants, and Reforging where suitable will help each piece of gear help you perform to your potential.

b) Mechanics are meant to be responded to, not unnoticed or ignored. No longer can we afford to let that caster mob wait until last and heal other mobs with impunity. Hositle buffs and debuffs on players must be responded to as well. Make sure to pull intelligently, using Crowd Control where possible, interrupting the most dangerous casts, avoid avoidable damage, and follow a killl order to rapidly eliminate the most dangerous enemy first.

c) Bosses (and other npcs) do stuff. Some of the stuff hurts and should be avoided or prevented. Other stuff lets you hurt them more, and you should do alot of it. Be careful, some stuff that lets you hit harder hurts you too.

d) Communication is vital. The early days of cata heroics were only attempted by my guildies in full 5/5 group, and we used vent. Not everyone has that available, so don't be afraid to set (and explain) those funny symbols you can put on stuff, and use /yell, /party, /say, or even /whisper to make sure everyone is working together.

e) An unfortunate evil is an option called "Vote to Kick." If you are being held back by a player in the group being incapable of their role, or unwilling to adapt what they are doing to follow the above points, don't hesitate. Also, never be afraid to get "dungeon deserter" to save yourself time, frustration and repair money. Then, go back later and try again.

f) The more time or effort you put into your character and ideally grouping with people who have done the same, the smoother things can go.

Even raids, aside from the gear established damage mitigation, DPS, and healing thresholds required at minimum, can be done with minimum of fuss.

Remember, even at 30% buff with all 264s, there are people who still wiped on gunship. At the other end were the players that participated in the "undergeared" projects which i believe downed Lich King with just blue gear.

[Baygon]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...z/beeta/simple

that's my Armory there, i only picked up those 2 blue pieces the other day i'm still working out how to gem them best. Avezo, could you stand running 3 dungeons to grind exalted endlessly? 3...the worst 3 ever... Grim Batol and City of Tol'vir are Terrible. and all 3 of them seem to attract people who can't CC properly, which makes my job even harder

[Worshaka]

It means that 329 lets you que thats all it does. It does not mean that you will have an easy time or that it will be a breeze it just means you can que and use the dungeon finder. What is so hard to understand about that?

With a 338 ilvl you should be fine in most heroics. If you are having issuse then it may be you or your healer or your dps.

I agree, ilvl 338 is well beyond 329... you can reach 329 with quite a number of greens, i doubt thats the case with 338.

[xStevooo]

I had no problem clearing heroics with PuG's full of greens + some blues from normal. I haven't done any dungeons since the first week of Cata i'd imagine it would be pretty much faceroll by now when every1s geared. The only time i got a tank decked out in gear i barely had to throw a heal .. reminded me of wotlk.

[Deleted]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...z/beeta/simple

that's my Armory there, i only picked up those 2 blue pieces the other day i'm still working out how to gem them best. Avezo, could you stand running 3 dungeons to grind exalted endlessly? 3...the worst 3 ever... Grim Batol and City of Tol'vir are Terrible. and all 3 of them seem to attract people who can't CC properly, which makes my job even harder

It doesn't take that much time. Moreover, at 85 normals you barely have to cc anything (unless you get really bad group). Always can try some rep runs in normals and heroics at the same time if it ends up too boring. Either way - you have to spend time in randoms, be it normals or heroics.

[Zamiel]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...z/beeta/simple

that's my Armory there, i only picked up those 2 blue pieces the other day i'm still working out how to gem them best. Avezo, could you stand running 3 dungeons to grind exalted endlessly? 3...the worst 3 ever... Grim Batol and City of Tol'vir are Terrible. and all 3 of them seem to attract people who can't CC properly, which makes my job even harder

Your gear isn't terrible but your gemming is all over the place. Remove any gem you have that isn't Parry/stam or Mastery/stam I see alot of expertise in there and its honestly not worth it. Also pure stam gems aren't worth consdering until you can hit 102% combined avoidance with shield block up which is the goal for every warrior tank atm. Your spec looks decent it should work well enough for most heroics.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LGZhbZ...obbu:0oVcqakzo this is the spec I use (Glyphs included) For trash tanking. The points in incite aren't helping you on trash since you are spending that CD on cleave. Also vigilance isn't a great point to spend for heroics since in an ideal situation no one but you should be taking hits.

Now if you like having your fury spec then disregard that but I find the most efficient way to tank is to have a boss/single target build and a trash/aoe build.

[deneweth]

One thing I will say from looking at the armory is that you obviously have done heroics. You 6 heroic drops including one from the final boss of grim batol. The gear is not the issue, although enchanting would help. The issue is probably your groups (and this includes you).

You are more than geared for heroics and any difficulty you face is from player skill. This could mean the dps isn't killing things before the healer goes out of mana, it could mean everyones taking too much extra damage, it could mean people aren't interrupting. Try to communicate with your group and properly execute strategy. Its amazing how much easier heroics are when you approach them as a team rather than five individuals.

[Cleavesworth]

I'd say make sure you know the mechanics, find a good healer to run with (and maybe a good dps or 2), STOP gemming STAM if you are, and START gemming mastery.

Mechanics are harder than they were in WotLK, but for the most part the bosses don't hit any harder...if anything the majority of them don't even hit as hard. Make sure you're getting out of the way of things that even the tank shouldn't be eating. If it's trash you're having a problem with, CC every pull. If you want more utility and an emergency CC you can pick up the Intimidating Shout Glyph, definitely worth having imho.

As far as what to stack, the only time I gem STAM is to match a socket bonus (BLUE sockets get GREEN STAM+MAST gems and RED sockets get STAM+PARRY [Parry being esp good because of Tow the Line talent] or something like MAST+STR if you could use some threat [expertise is a great stat as well, not sure what they have for gems as I haven't had any real problems with threat]). I match ALL of them in Cata--gone are the days of ignoring them to maximize one stat. You can also get mastery enchant on (I believe) gloves and boots.

[Deleted]

ppl need to stop whining before they nerf these already easy heroics to the ground.