Challenge Mode. What is the easiest to hardest?

[Teebu]

Easiest to hardest in my experience.

Shado-Pan Monastery

So easy. Just use the bug where everyone except the tank cleanses the first set of purified defenders and if someone gets pulled away by the mobs you still have an extra pack to kill anyway. Pull the entire first room and bloodlust or chain defensive cds early and you'll be fine. Other than that, it's very very simple. Invis after the boss with the trainees to the bridge, you will pull the pack that is on the bridge without pack/roar.

Mogu'shan Palace

Not very hard at all. The only issue we had was that sometimes the patrolling mogu+dog would sometimes get pulled with the first 2 guards at the beginning. Dispel debuffs that are longer than 8sec, don't stand in the fire and stack up for the last pack of dogs. Invis after the elevator to run into the boss room.

Temple of the Jade Serpent

About as easy as Mogu'shan Palace. Make sure DPS and healers get to the other side of the water pools before the first boss and save bloodlust for the 3rd boss. Don't bother running up to the balcony on the last boss, since moving is a gigantic DPS loss and it won't save you those few seconds you might need. Could be worth doing if you know for sure you get a second banish phase beforehand though. Try not to. Invis the pack on and after the bridge before the 2 swamp beast boss. Healer MUST dispel on the 3rd boss. Don't get hit by the fire waves either.


Scarlet Halls

Handle the dogs at the start well and hopefully use rocket boosts/disengage to pull the next pack with the shields. Personally I had to use rocket boosts and wait until the shield was actually on my character or else I wouldn't get a shield. Invis the entire hallway before the whirlwind boss, but pull the last pack before going up the stairs. Ranged stay up on the whirlwind boss and jump down and run up the small stairs and wait for him to come down again, then jump down and you should be safe. Can pull the entire last room before the boss if you have AoE stuns/interrupts.


Scholomance

If you pull the first boss midair, everything except the patrolling big adds disappear. Bloodlust here and on the last boss was our best strat. Your healer CAN go DPS for the girl boss to push her before she shifts phase. DPS should save cooldowns until 50-60% since she starts the RP around then I think. You can invis the entire room with the Doctor and the students. Get a vial of things from him from normal mode before actually doing it since it gives a buff against all the mobs in the dungeon. Get the macro or addon for the boss who spins.


Gate of the Setting Sun

Make sure everyone knows their relative position towards the bombs before and during the first boss and everyone stay on the tank during the boss who starts strafing runs. No invis here. During the 3 mobs after you leave one tower (sorry, can't recall which, I think it's the one right before the elevator) you can CC 2 mobs and kill one off. 2 mobs is the exact amount you can skip. Make sure to reCC when you run back. On the last boss put any DPS with dots or huge burst with low CD up first. The safe spot has 7mill HP in CM I think.


Siege of Niuzao Temple

Pull the first pack, interrupt both the amber-shapers as they immediately start casting the stun. Pull the blobs, pull the next pack and then pop defensive cds when you kill the next set of blobs cause they will hurt like hell. Barrier and similar works well for that pull. Then pull the boss and pop lust. Wait for debuff to drop off and then pull the blobs after. I think you can invis here, but I don't remember if we did.

On the second boss you can toss the amber in one spot and have the tank make sure the adds are standing in it. One DPS should do the gong when it's up and another should kill the suicide bombers. Skip ALL mobs until the third boss, run around the 3 stationary packs. Recall all pets around 80% boss HP and wait for bombs to drop. Tank takes the 3 packs and runs into the boss and the DPS tosses bombs on the boss. The Engineers don't follow you around corners before the last boss.

Stormstout Brewery
Less hard than hyped up to be. Just some good healing alemental RNG on the last boss can do it.

Our only problem was the last boss and sometimes the rabbits. Have one DPS kill the small flying alementals in the beginning and then kill the bombs in the next room. Kill the 2 big monkeys who are almost dead then get 40 monkeys while slowing as much as possible and trying to take every barrel. Position the boss where you came from and he will take 2 barrels each time naturally in addition to the ones you are sending on him.

Mark one rabbit with a hammer and kill it. Pull all of them to the last room and DO NOT ROOT THEM. Then hammer away. Ignore the second set of adds on the boss as they despawn when he dies. Last boss, DPS/Healer are responsible for one corner each, stand infront of adds. You can interrupt them and make them move, but they might run on top of the boss and make it impossible to interrupt. Pets can stand between the adds and the boss to interrupt too. A lot easier as a Mage if you use the glyph to make it larger. Can be worth standing still and eating the stun if you have 2 adds slightly at an angle that makes it hard to regain the interrupt on their heals. No invis, use DPS pots on last boss. You can skip the 4 patrolling adds after the rabbit boss if you just follow behind them. Don't get hit by the ale spewing down from barrels, that pulls them.


Scarlet Monastery

Have a macro to target the pile of corpses and spam it then mark it with a skull, have the Scarlet Flamethrower facing away from the group. Focus both of those down then use the backpack bomb from the flamethrower to kill the undead. Don't pull anything after that pack.We found that killing one set of ghosts before the first boss was the way to go as the damage was just too high.
Pull the boss with the other pack of ghosts and bloodlust/DPS pot.

Kill the next 2 neutral mobs while someone marks the next pack. Focus interrupt your assigned targets and kill the purifiers. Move out of Flamestrike if it's ever cast. We used barrier for this.
Invis the entire outside up to the monk boss and have the healer stand away from the group and tank the boss with everyone else in melee range on one side of the waterfall. Move out of Blazing fists as a tank since it hurts like hell and move out of fire patches as DPS.
Only the healer moves from fire spin. Don't pull any adds.

Run perfectly between the two benches into the monastery and go left and single kill the 2 purifiers. Then LoS the pack on the other side and repeat. Stack up on the boss and have players assigned to interrupt the cast of mass ress AND someone else for the MC cast.

[Pandorox]

Here is a nice guide that I have been using lately. It's been spot on so far & I'm 7/9 Gold.

This guide has everything. Anything from Class specific tips, what type of mobs to expect, detailed boss fights & fast strategy runs.

http://www.wowhead.com/guide=1423/ch...in-depth-guide

[Pennoyer]

Was in the same boat as you, since I saved doing CMs until the expansion 'downtime' where there's nothing else to do but wait around. None of the CMs were that hard, though. We had 2 mains who were completely new and 3 alts who had done them before on their mains.. I imagine your group will be somewhat similar in that regard (alts+experienced, mains+inexperienced) if you're just getting to them.

Easiest to hardest:

1. Shado-pan Monastery: Took us 1 attempt.. timer is long and there's a bug where you can 'triple purify' the first trash pack after Sha of Violence to count toward the objectives. We invis'd past many of the Sha packs after the hadouken panda boss. I imagine those would have been a little hard. Sha of Violence was probably the only 'hard' part of the instance as a result.

2. Mogu'shan Palace: Nothing was dangerous, we were just a little slow on our first time around and got it our second. Have to try to start the RP for the first boss as early as possible. What made it easy for us was invis potting after the first boss and then using the rogue invis to skip the first pack when you go up the elevator. Otherwise the timer would have been a bit tighter. Just use 3 minute CDs on the first 1-2 trash packs, and they should be up for 2nd boss and his dudes.

3. Temple of the Jade Serpent: Nothing too hard, just have to be efficiently pulling stuff. Make sure to kill the scroll before the 2nd boss to start the RP. We used a trick where the pandas in the 3rd boss's room would stick around if you started the fight with one of the Sha mobs up, so they'd help you DPS her. Took us 2 attempts because we were just moving too slowly on our first and sped it up on our second.

4. Gate of the Setting Sun: Although we wiped on this a few times, it was all in the first room. Adds stunning you + bombs = gg. However, we pulled all of the first room into a corner and basically only had to dodge 1 bomb from there. I feel like we could have pulled the trash further into the first boss's room as well. After that it was cake, so with that in mind this is number 4 for me. It's actually probably even easier than the others if you do the first hallway correctly.

5. Scarlet Monastery: We wiped once due to high tank damage from the ghost adds around the first boss. After that, it wasn't that bad as long as you invis past as much as possible in the large area. We were a little tight on the timer due to aggro'ing extra stuff. Have to make sure you do interrupts on the Whitemane properly, and do the last room in a timely manner.

6. Scholomance: This isn't really that much harder than the ones before it. First boss can be pretty easy to die to due to limited space + cluster of aoe while the two skelly adds pat around. Lilian can be kind of annoying unless you can burn her before the phase switch, and the Rattlegore trash pull can be very deadly. Also have to do the last boss properly with the adds and getting through your trial fast enough (probably should get the acid potion buff from heroic before attempting).

7. Siege of Niuzao Temple: 3rd boss can be somewhat difficult on your tank if you plan on using the bombs to kill the trash around him. If you wipe on that, you have to start all over again and go through the 2nd boss's gauntlet. First few mantid packs need proper interrupting and dispelling so you don't waste time slowed or stunned. Timer felt a little tighter in here, although I'm sure you can use the slime puddles more efficiently than we did.

8. Stormstout Brewery: Have to make sure you stay away from Hopper explosions while also obtaining hammers and using them efficiently to kill off rabbits. That may take a little practice. Last boss can be kind of a pain unless you have high DPS to kill it before too many healing adds pop out. Otherwise you'll have to have people stand close in to absorb multiple beams, which in turn can lead to bloat knocking people back. Healer needs DPS heavily, maybe even switch to dps spec.

9. Scarlet Halls: Took us the most attempts. Throwing buckets too hard >:O

[ambermist]

It would be hard for me to rate them; there were several we one shot without a problem, and then others took us several wipes. Scarlet Halls & Stormstout Brewery were probably the worst for us. Scarlet Halls was the first CM we ever did, and it took many attempts to get into the swing of it. Stormstout Brewery was all about not making any mistakes, and that was hard for our group.

It didn't help that we had a non-ideal comp: paladin tank, paladin healer, mage, warlock, moonkin. I'm just glad we got it done.

[Radio]

Personal experience with a BRM/Ret/Boom/FrostM/RestoS group, easiest to hardest:

1. Scholo - lol
2. Halls - lol
3. Shado-Pan - long, with tough mechanics, but the timer is ridiculously lenient
4. Mogu'shan - opening ~can~ be tough, but felt fairly lenient
5. Gate - opening ~can~ be tough, tight timer
6. SSB - once you get the monkeys right it isn't too hard, but timer is pretty tight
7. Jade - fairly tight timer and annoying first boss/third trash
8. SM - rough trash with medium/tight timer
9. SoN - long with a late potential fuckup point, forcing you to go through with it again

[Cellion]

My experience with a shitty comp that still got all golds (WW, Destro, Disc, Prot War, Surv), easiest to hardest:

1. Scarlet Halls - Resetting Lindon trash makes it a joke
2. Scholo
3. Gate - Only "difficult" pull is the first walkway
4. Shado-Pan
5. Jade
6. Scarlet Monastery
7. Mogushan
8. SSB - was actually not that bad without lust
9. Siege of Niuzao - fuck that second-to-last boss

[Redpanda]

I think the scarlets are the onle "hard ones" the 6-8 mob pulls are usually the rough and it has its fair share

[Cellion]

I think the scarlets are the onle "hard ones" the 6-8 mob pulls are usually the rough and it has its fair share

They're only really hard if you don't use any CD's/CC

[Cheekun]

They are all pretty easy with just a mildly optimized run and a good understanding of aoe stuns and proper cool down usage. Sure, some of the tougher ones are pretty rough, but very easy once you figure them out (handful of wipes).

If you ever have any serious trouble its usually:

1. Your group comp is poorly designed for the particular cc you need in a particular instance or

2. Someone isn't carrying their weight.

[Redpanda]

They're only really hard if you don't use any CD's/CC

even with cc and cds they hit tanks fairly hard.

[Trubo]

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

So you had 1 melee and 4 ranged unless your Holy Paladin went Ret for the last boss while your Shadow Priest essentially healed via Vampiric Embrace until the first add spawned so that the tank wouldn't die.

[Gandrake]

They are all pretty easy, but the ones that gave me most trouble were

Stormstout Brewery
Mogu'shan Palace
Siege of Niuzao Temple

Scarlet Halls was also pretty bad, but we didn't have difficulty securing times. We had difficulty with being mauled to death by bugged out dogs at the entrance of the instance.

SPM I also feel is a contender for difficulty in some groups, but only because it's long and the longer a run is, the more opportunities there are to mess up.

[Raiju]

So you had 1 melee and 4 ranged unless your Holy Paladin went Ret for the last boss while your Shadow Priest essentially healed via Vampiric Embrace until the first add spawned so that the tank wouldn't die.

2 frost mages and they're wondering why they didn't feel the dps check.. :P

My latest group did SSB with boomkin/rogue and no BL. I feel for them (apparently the drums didn't work)

I always considered siege the second easiest, only above scarlet halls in difficulty. It helps that I am doing them with a DK tank now - but even without that they seemed the easiest.

[Senen]

So you had 1 melee and 4 ranged unless your Holy Paladin went Ret for the last boss while your Shadow Priest essentially healed via Vampiric Embrace until the first add spawned so that the tank wouldn't die.

Tanks don't need heal on this boss.
I used to do SSB with a rdrood that went moonkin before the 9 channeling adds and stayed moonkin until the end.
The following trash (the 4 adds) are far more dangerous than the boss.

(apparently the drums didn't work)

They don't work in CMs. Which is stupid, yes.
Edit: The BoK drums work, not the BL drums.

[Cellion]

even with cc and cds they hit tanks fairly hard.

The only spell that really hits hard is the Holy Fire thing, but again, if you're cc'ing/interrupting, it's pretty easy. Our healer was using a freshly-boosted priest and it was his first ever healer and he had almost no problems.

[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

Just think about how diffecult they are on HC, then add diffeculty and gear scaling

oh and a timer

[rulee]

What does CM runs cost if someone wanted to buy from you? Do you just take one at a time with 4 other guildies?

[Squirl]

What does CM runs cost if someone wanted to buy from you? Do you just take one at a time with 4 other guildies?

Most of the time they're 100k-150k, depending on the server.

Some groups do 4-man carries where the 5th can just AFK (and worse groups require the 5th to be DPS and help). Other groups do 3-man carries where the 4th and 5th have to be DPS and have to help.

[Senen]

Most of the time they're 100k-150k, depending on the server.

Some groups do 4-man carries where the 5th can just AFK (and worse groups require the 5th to be DPS and help). Other groups do 3-man carries where the 4th and 5th have to be DPS and have to help.

There are also groups that do 5-man carries where they ask you your log info to play on your account.
Yes, it's highly against the ToS and totally bannable. Still, even among the "top guild" groups, there have been some people proposing this service during the whole expansion. Even if it's cheaper, I highly recommend not to use those services.

(and worse groups require the 5th to be DPS and help)

We boost only the 5th person and even if I'm pretty sure we could clean with him being afk at the beginning at the instance, I feel that most people are happy to follow us and actually be a part of the run. Well, sometimes it does happen that we ask someone to say at one place and do nothing because otherwise he may die, but the rest of the time we ask/let them and actually play his char, that makes the run faster and is more enjoyable for them.
If someone actually asked us to stay afk, I'd consider it, but so far I haven't encountered someone who wanted that.

[Squirl]

We boost only the 5th person and even if I'm pretty sure we could clean with him being afk at the beginning at the instance, I feel that most people are happy to follow us and actually be a part of the run. Well, sometimes it does happen that we ask someone to say at one place and do nothing because otherwise he may die, but the rest of the time we ask/let them and actually play his char, that makes the run faster and is more enjoyable for them.
If someone actually asked us to stay afk, I'd consider it, but so far I haven't encountered someone who wanted that.

Like 80% of ours just AFK. We advertise that they can do so while other groups on my server state the carry has to help, so I feel like it's a big selling point for some people. It is nice when they help though. It shaves off 10-20m over 9/9, depending on how good they are.