Challenge Mode Gold Guides

[Senen]

About gear scaling, is it better to replace some of your raiding gear for 463 blues if they have for example mastery (and your raiding item has haste and mastery>haste ?)
(i know i should look at sockets too but lets not take that into concideration.)

Yes.
You want to equip the items with the best itemization for you. I also equip 463 weapons to have the +1% Expertise (dwarf racial).

[Deleted]

Thanks for taking the time to write up these guides always appreciate the time and effort put forward by players who go above and beyond just playing

[Deleted]

About gear scaling, is it better to replace some of your raiding gear for 463 blues if they have for example mastery (and your raiding item has haste and mastery>haste ?)

Since gems don't seem to scale down at all (only sha-gem is inactive), I assume gear with most sockets should be preferred where raid-gear is the clear winner.

[draykorinee]

Could you maybe add in a difficulty rating on them, im looking to start a few but not sure which one to hit first.

[Vereesa]

Since gems don't seem to scale down at all (only sha-gem is inactive), I assume gear with most sockets should be preferred where raid-gear is the clear winner.

Yes, always choose gear with sockets in it since they'll be fully active.

[theyanger]

Could you maybe add in a difficulty rating on them, im looking to start a few but not sure which one to hit first.

They're already ranked in difficulty as I saw it 4 months ago when I made these. I'd dump shadopan and scholo down with gate and scarlet halls, but otherwise I still think it's pretty accurate.

[Senen]

I'd say Gate of the Setting Sun is the easier by far.

It's hard to define "difficulty" since it depends on your comp. But GotSS necessit really few dps, there's only one difficult pull (two, if you count the pack after the gate) and it's barely a loss of time if somebody dies against the third boss - who is the hardest boss - since he rez directly at the right place while the others are heading towards there.

[Genjuro]

Stormstout brewery was by far the hardest CM for me personally (as a Blood DK) because of the initial pull, You have to pull the entire monkey room at the top as well as the first 7 elites, which cannot hit the tank or they will destroy you in a global which is no fun. If you have a better set up than what we had then maybe you will find it easier, but we wiped far too much on that. As to the rest of the place, it was easy really. The easiest place is probably Gate of the setting sun, we set the best realm time with a double DC and me dying at the end with no CR up so ye. After that they are all pretty much the same in difficulty, it's all about 1 or 2 hard pulls which can really destroy you.

We used a Blood DK, Lock of varying spec, Balance druid, Elem Shaman and holy pala. It has a lot of utility, lots of CR's and stuns with remorseless, shadowfury Vortex etc which help a lot! Also I'd recommend having a heroism/bloodlust/timewarp because it helps you so much.

[Deja Thoris]

The difficulty on the first page is about right.

As was said, most dungeons are defined by one or two pulls, thats why SM is rated difficult, because of a single pull after the first boss, the rest is pretty easy.

Two hardest are imo mogu palace (hard first pull and tricky invis section) and stormstout (tight timer and deadly run to the first boss)

[Genjuro]

Obviously each to their own, but I wouldn't say Scarlet monastery is that hard but group composition etc, plays a bit into that.

[Spiralphoenix]

Stormstout brewery was by far the hardest CM for me personally (as a Blood DK) because of the initial pull, You have to pull the entire monkey room at the top as well as the first 7 elites, which cannot hit the tank or they will destroy you in a global which is no fun.

We didn't have to do this. We killed the first 2 and the next 3 at a fairly relaxed pace (still basically chain pulling, but near dead already when moving on). So only the final two elites (the ones that are fighting each other) + most of the monkey room (you don't have to pull them all to get to the "40" counter, the rest aren't needed). Binding Arrow and Frost Trap (with SV entrapment, with WARNING to the group because roots = instagib anyone nearby) are amazing for locking down that massive pack, while running barrels into them and nuke AoE. I realize you didn't have a hunter just mentioning what we did. Also don't forget you can cast while rolling on a barrel so pretty much 4/5 of the group can do it.

The one who created the videos in the OP pulled all 7 as you mention (and his ranged DPS also shot down the spirits that buff them, if you aren't doing this you need to because it makes them ridiculous, follow the beam going up into the air and shoot that elemental down), but we didn't find that it was necessary.

[theyanger]

We didn't have to do this. We killed the first 2 and the next 3 at a fairly relaxed pace (still basically chain pulling, but near dead already when moving on). So only the final two elites (the ones that are fighting each other) + most of the monkey room (you don't have to pull them all to get to the "40" counter, the rest aren't needed). Binding Arrow and Frost Trap (with SV entrapment, with WARNING to the group because roots = instagib anyone nearby) are amazing for locking down that massive pack, while running barrels into them and nuke AoE. I realize you didn't have a hunter just mentioning what we did. Also don't forget you can cast while rolling on a barrel so pretty much 4/5 of the group can do it.

The one who created the videos in the OP pulled all 7 as you mention (and his ranged DPS also shot down the spirits that buff them, if you aren't doing this you need to because it makes them ridiculous, follow the beam going up into the air and shoot that elemental down), but we didn't find that it was necessary.

Entirely group comp dependent, as are most of the CMs. Both ways work, but either way the DPS requirement on stormstout goes above and beyond the other zones.

[Deleted]

In terms of gear, how do the ghost iron dragonling trinkets hold up? I know they're 450 and don't get upscaled but how do they compare if players don't have 2 epic trinks. We have a couple of players in our group using them due to drops and I'd like to know if by using them we're going to gimp our progress or not.

[Spiralphoenix]

Dragonling trinkets are very good, especially if on a class that values secondary stats over primary. Generally +600 of their best secondary stat, then +hit +expertise. It's easily more of a 463 trinket in value (maybe a little higher) even though it's just 450. It and the alchemy trinket are great CM trinkets. Just keep in mind the dragonling proc when you need to use an invis potion.

[draykorinee]

They're already ranked in difficulty as I saw it 4 months ago when I made these. I'd dump shadopan and scholo down with gate and scarlet halls, but otherwise I still think it's pretty accurate.

oops thanks misread the op.

[Theholypally]

Officially started Challenge Modes on Friday and did some more on Monday, so far we are 3/9 Gold Modes down (Gate of the Setting Sun, Scarlet Halls, and Temple of the Jade Serpent) and one Silver rating in Stormstout Brewery since we only did some practice runs in it. Its tough with a warrior tank instead of a DK tank, but we make it work. Stormstout is a tough one, as i imagine a few others will be such as Scholomance and Shado-Pan Monastery.

Comp is Prot Warr, Enh Shaman, Demo Lock, Surv Hunter, Holy Pally (me)

I'm itching to try Siege and use the strat that uses the bombs to take out all the trash lol.

I'm loving it, probably the most fun ive had healing in this game and ive been playing since vanilla. Just wish i could have started doing these sooner, its tough to find a like-minded group who really wants to put in the time to get Challenge Conqueror: Gold.

P.S. These guides have helped us a TON. Thank you.

---------- Post added 2013-02-12 at 03:31 PM ----------

You're supposed to be oom very often.
Go to Klaxxi'vess and buy A LOT of amber-regen thing.
There will be some times during each run when you'll be out of combat (in TJS it's usually after the first boss, before the second (?), after the second, before the third and after the third.) You have to use one of these amber-regen thing. In most case, you'll have one second after the trashs and before the pull of the boss, just spam it and say "Go" to your tank as soon as you managed to use it.
Between two utilisation of these amber-regen thing, it's perfectly fine to go oom.

To add onto this: Get. That. Amber.

Believe me its worth it.

I made a macro for it even:

#showtooltip Restorative Amber
/use Restorative Amber
/cancelaura Restorative Amber

For quick mana regen when combat ends.

[Spiralphoenix]

Why? It restores 150,000 mana / 10sec (15k/sec), standard 90 level mana-restore food (such as Cobo Cola) restores 300,000 mana over 20 sec (15k/sec). And the amber costs about... 20x as much? Plus to stop eating regular food you can just... move.

However it does restore health faster than standard food, so I suppose if that holds enough value to you, go for it.

Pretty sure the amber used to actually be superior to regular food with mana regen and that's why it was so often recommended (out of date). Then they either nerfed the amber or buffed standard mana regen food, can't remember which.

[Deja Thoris]

Officially started Challenge Modes on Friday and did some more on Monday, so far we are 3/9 Gold Modes down (Gate of the Setting Sun, Scarlet Halls, and Temple of the Jade Serpent) and one Silver rating in Stormstout Brewery since we only did some practice runs in it. Its tough with a warrior tank instead of a DK tank, but we make it work. Stormstout is a tough one, as i imagine a few others will be such as Scholomance and Shado-Pan Monastery.

Scholo and shado-pan are ok actually, just remember in shado-pan you can have 4 people purify the first defender to give you a total count of 4. Do this along with a cleanish run and you're pretty much there.

[Deleted]

Why? It restores 150,000 mana / 10sec (15k/sec), standard 90 level mana-restore food (such as Cobo Cola) restores 300,000 mana over 20 sec (15k/sec). And the amber costs about... 20x as much? Plus to stop eating regular food you can just... move.

the amber's tooltip is wrong ever since. It restores it's 300,000 mana over 10 secs making it superior over all other means to regenerate mana.
With a /cancleaura-macro it's not hard to break it prematurely.
And honestly... you talk about gold-costs? Really?

[Spiralphoenix]

the amber's tooltip is wrong ever since. It restores it's 300,000 mana over 10 secs making it superior over all other means to regenerate mana.
With a /cancleaura-macro it's not hard to break it prematurely.
And honestly... you talk about gold-costs? Really?

Yes, if two things restore your mana at the exact same rate and all you care about is the mana regen, buying the one that costs 20x more would be pretty pointless. I was under the impression they fixed them to be in line with normal food, but perhaps not.