1. #1

    Challenge modes help

    Hey guys

    I am hoping to get some CM group going at some point soon (yes, late, i know) and i wanted to have a look into tactics/suggestions etc.

    However doing my old way of googling yielded no help, since many guides say things completely differently (or often even completely contradict one another).

    So maybe one of you great people would be able to help?


    -Any good CM guides online (which are actually relevant)?
    -Is it at all realistic to tank in dps gear or spec (for extra speed)? I know this 100% works in heroics, but no idea how much harder CMs are
    -Any tips at all you can give to a frost dk dps who never did CMs before and wants to get a group running?

    Thanks in advance!
    We dream, we dream.

  2. #2
    Deleted
    1) http://wow-challenger.weebly.com/ ist the only decent site I know so far, tho every guide (youtube-video) that explains how to do it and manages a gold obv provides you with a suitable tactic. There is not "truly right or wrong way". E.g. some people prefer to kill the first trash in SH twice, others prefer to kill the last pack after the invis potions - both will get you gold. Others rely on group compositions such as requiring a Priest or DK.

    2) It is realistic, but totally not necessary if you just aim for gold. Stay in tank-gear and -spec and it's also fine to use stamina-flasks.

    3) Don't expect to get quick golds, aim for silver- or beginner-runs through OpenRaid or organize those runs on your own. You need to experience the existing tactics, pace, etc before actually aiming for gold. Hint: it's really nice if you do a group on your own, practice and "earn" them the hard way.

  3. #3
    DK or Monk tank.
    Disc priest healer.
    Lots of elemental shaman.
    Maybe a hunter.

    That's all you need for gold in all of them honestly.

    Screw the guides, the most useful thing they can tell you is where to pop your invis pots to save time. Challenge modes are mostly AOE fests. You just have to have a tank/healer combo that can survive the amount of pulling you have to do and a bunch of AOE heavy dps like... elemental shamans and hunters. Don't bring any melee. Blood lust helps too.

    It's possible to do them with probably any group comp imaginable, but dk/disc priest/shams is the way to go for easymode gold.

    Just assemble your team, do a kind of "Dry run" through it to see how bad the damage is at each part, about how long it takes to kill shit, practice your pots, etc. Dont worry about time. Once you've seen it, reset that shit, pop flasks, and profit.

    You don't want to try to tank that crap in DPS gear. They hurt. A lot. You can get away with doing that shit in heroics because they aren't tuned very difficult in the first place and you can overgear them like mad. But that is why you bring a monk, they are insane dps tanks. DK's are almost unkillable.

    If it was me, I wouldn't do it as a frost dk, melee are just too much of a hassle to deal with easily imo on some of them. I'd just go blood and beast mode it down. You only need 463+ gear so it won't be hard to assemble a full set of respectable tank gear. But that's just me.

    Also focus on gear with more gem slots, gems don't get scaled down. Weapons with gem slots are even more precious.
    Last edited by Dasani; 2014-01-29 at 07:57 AM.
    I like ponies and I really don't care what you have to say about that.

  4. #4
    Deleted
    Frost is equally viable due to most of the time of Challenge modes being taken up by trash. Howling blast gives him a ranged AoE which is nice for a "melee". On the wow challenger site above there is also Aftermath - ran from a blood DK PoV and Hamlet (EJ website) who have both done full sets of challenge mode video guides with commentary.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anakonda View Post
    -Is it at all realistic to tank in dps gear or spec (for extra speed)? I know this 100% works in heroics, but no idea how much harder CMs are
    Not if you're a death knight at least, I suspect it's not viable for Retribution paladins either. Not unless your group is prepared to try some truly weird ass shit. You're locked to 463 item level and the mobs hit quite hard. Challenge modes are substantial difficulty increase and you will get wasted if you're not careful even if you're a blood death knight with a disc priest. (Also: Take Purgatory)

    Quote Originally Posted by Anakonda View Post
    -Any tips at all you can give to a frost dk dps who never did CMs before and wants to get a group running?
    Melee DPS are inherently disadvantaged in challenge modes due to fires on the ground, the fact they only need 110% threat to aggro, and are limited to melee range to dps. Frost is a pretty decent spec for it though due to strong AoE as dual-wield - not that AoE packs will often be a good idea. You also have Army of the Dead, Control Undead, Death Grip, and your choice of Remorseless Winter or Gorefiend's Grasp. Make sure you use this utility, you'll need it. Be organised.
    If you really want to be frost, it's doable, but Blood is a great spec for CMs.

    Oh yeah and I suggest running sims or something to find out better stat weights for 463 item level, things were different back then, more recent balancing notwithstanding. I'm pretty sure gems don't scale down either so more gems is better. Pushing for better dps equals more time!
    Last edited by WarpKnight; 2014-01-29 at 08:08 AM.

  6. #6
    I'm part of what is currently the #5 US CM group so I suppose I am qualified to give advice.

    You can do CM golds with almost any comp. There are optimal comps for competitive times but if you just want 9/9 gold and don't care about competing for top realm/US times just about anything is fine. You can run triple melee mistweaver prot pally and do fine as long as all the players aren't morons. Melee are not "bad" for CMs, they are just suboptimal for highly competitive times due to their lack of party utility.

    You want the most sockets possible. This is (generally) throne of thunder gear, difficulty doesn't matter, it can be LFR gear. Your tier gloves / shoulders from SoO are also fine. This applies to everyone in the group. Use the item restoration service to get your vendored / disenchanted ToT gear back if necessary. Get gear that is itemized best for you with the most sockets. ToT weapons can have the additional socket (eye of the black prince) added and this socket does work in CMs so for DW frost that's an additional 640 free mastery. The old 500 stat gem does -not- work in CMs however.

    You will want to use full consumables such as flask, 300 (or 275 whatever) food, dps pots etc. These increase your damage much more largely in CMs because going up 1000 STR or INT is a good 10% increase at 463 ilevel compared to only 3-4% at say 570.

    For frost DK, you will spam stack mastery and play DW howling blast spam. Both AOE grip and remorseless are useful situationally. AOE grip is good for say monkey room of SSB, remorseless is good for shado-pan and jade serpent. Depends what other stuns the group has available. You don't have to tank if you don't want to. Blood is fine and is strong for some CMs, weaker in others. It is particularly good in shado-pan and scarlet monastary.

    If you tank there is no particular need to use DPS gear. For inexperienced groups survival is a better gearing strategy than DPS. You play aggressively, use DPS trinkets/gear and gear for maximum DK damage (riposte) only if your group is already experienced. There's no need to try emulate Method videos, video guides made back in 2012 such as Aftermath's will still apply to inexperienced groups learning the pulls today.

    Do them with guildies or friends if possible. You will wipe and it's much less unpleasant to wipe with people you're used to playing with than with strangers from openraid or whatever. Avoid trade chat, most people there are idiots.

    retired, another victim of warlords of draenor

  7. #7
    Go to youtube and search for "Aftermath challenge modes" they made fantastic guides.

    No other way to put it but you will get raped so hard trying to tank in dps gear or spec. Just go to Stormstout solo, set the difficulty to CM and pull those first 2 monkies in dps spec :P

    Tips? Consider your talents for each dungeon, sometimes mass grip is useful, other times diff talents etc. When you make a group set clear expectations, "yelling going 9/9 gold!!"! in chat when you've never even set foot in a CM is my pet peeve.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Deja Thoris View Post
    Go to youtube and search for "Aftermath challenge modes" they made fantastic guides.

    No other way to put it but you will get raped so hard trying to tank in dps gear or spec. Just go to Stormstout solo, set the difficulty to CM and pull those first 2 monkies in dps spec :P

    Tips? Consider your talents for each dungeon, sometimes mass grip is useful, other times diff talents etc. When you make a group set clear expectations, "yelling going 9/9 gold!!"! in chat when you've never even set foot in a CM is my pet peeve.
    Can only agree, my group followed the Aftermath guides with great sucess. I think we actually one shotted 4/9 gold with five people completely new to CM.

    Here's a link to the guides: http://www.youtube.com/user/theyanger/videos

  9. #9
    Good to see the guides still get used even today lol. They're outdated but they work. For just generic gold with a bunch of first timers, I agree with citrique: just play it safe and have your tank go defensively. Epic gear with gems is VASTLY stronger than blues people used before raids were out and it will make it pretty breezy to clear as long as your players are using appropriate gear (trinkets and stuff scale down significantly so you want overbudgeted items rather than 'new' items). A few of the uncomplicated ones first will probably get you used to generally what you have to do to succeed in terms of pulls. Other than random gimmicks out there, you can use the same basic strats for almost any trash pull (get as much as you can handle, pop as many CD's/stuns/etc as you need to get it dead. Ideally CDs before stuns so your tank gets vengeance).

  10. #10
    the guide on wowhead can be very useful
    http://www.wowhead.com/guide=1423/ch...in-depth-guide

    a lot of the strats are mediocre imo, but the information about each mobs' abilities will be very useful

    also as a general rule, if any mob is interruptable, interrupt them, this will basically get you gold

    imo, shammies aren't as great as people say they are in CMs outside of their plethora of buffs, and every class can do pretty well (arms warriors are batshit in CMs this patch)

    melee have a few fights in certain instances that they are bad at, but aren't as bad as people say they are

    if you're just going for gold, try getting some buffs and battle-rezzes in your group rather than truying to go for a stacked aoe group, a b-rezz can completely make an attempt

    also, know that your healer can and should be running as far ahead as they can and drinking the moment combat breaks and continue drinking into the next pull as most the time, someone else pulling will not break your drink

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by ryklin View Post
    imo, shammies aren't as great as people say they are in CMs outside of their plethora of buffs, and every class can do pretty well (arms warriors are batshit in CMs this patch)

    melee have a few fights in certain instances that they are bad at, but aren't as bad as people say they are
    1. people only say bring elemental shamans due to chain lightnings power, and to a lesser extend AG's power with chain lightning, in 5mans. The rest of their utility is very standard.

    2. Melee are fine in CM's but obviously have their usual natural disadvantages.

    @Deja Thoris doing CM's right now, going for "9/9 gold" and no idea what you're talking about. It seems a fairly reasonable expectation even with a 'sub optimal' group and people new to CM's. Timers are not a huge issue so far more than noone making a mistake for 10-20 minutes.
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    which is kind of like saying "of COURSE you can't see the unicorns, unicorns are invisible, silly."

  12. #12
    The reason ele shamans are OP for CMs is they bring

    mastery
    haste
    spellpower
    healing tide
    AG
    ankh for suicide / double lust
    ridiculous chain lightning spam

    all in one package that can go ghost wolf to run to the next trash faster.

    retired, another victim of warlords of draenor

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Anakonda View Post
    Hey guys

    I am hoping to get some CM group going at some point soon (yes, late, i know) and i wanted to have a look into tactics/suggestions etc.

    However doing my old way of googling yielded no help, since many guides say things completely differently (or often even completely contradict one another).

    So maybe one of you great people would be able to help?


    -Any good CM guides online (which are actually relevant)?
    -Is it at all realistic to tank in dps gear or spec (for extra speed)? I know this 100% works in heroics, but no idea how much harder CMs are
    -Any tips at all you can give to a frost dk dps who never did CMs before and wants to get a group running?

    Thanks in advance!
    For cmodes as everything else in this game the best approach is to bring the player and not the class. You will hear a lot about mages/ele/dks/monk/hunters/priest being OP or this or that. The fact is with the exception of a couple of specs most classes can do about the same performance in cmode if you adapt your strategies and the players know how to play their respective classes. Back when I did my first 9/9 on my main (a hunter) nobody wanted hunters, we did not bring lust (unless BM which sucked back then) we were in general a liability with pet being crazy pulling random stuff, most groups wanted a rogue (back then, since that time this has changed significantly) to use mass stealth and either invis 2x or save the invis potion to use dps potions instead). When I did my 2nd set of 9/9 nobody wanted a druid of any spec, most groups wanted to stay away of druids because the idea was HOTs were weak and tank needed big single target heals which HoTs could not cover. Today druids are thought as one of the strongest healers, and IMO they are actually the best if you dont count the dps that disc brings.
    Same thing with tanks, you'd see a lot of openraid groups looking for monks/dks specifically the first because they seen most top times with a monk and assume monks are OP in general, that is not the case however. All tanks are about the same atm, monks do have a very good kit to "abuse" some vengance by soaking avoidable damage but no tank is gonna do that on their first 9/9 or even do it at all unless they are going for top times. I found that warriors and druids are the ones that take the least spiky damage from all tanks I've played (I've played dk/monk/druid/warrior, amongst those 4 I've got well over 500 golds). I liked druid tanking a lot, for starters they have many more cooldowns than other tanks (skin bark on a 30sec cd is super good) and said CDs are good for any kind of damage (as oposed to dks for isntance where some cds are good for phy, others for mag).
    So in conclusion Skill>Strat>Spec/class. If possible try to cover most important buffs and have lust (for instance, if you are bringing a lock, try not to bring a disc/shadow priest, if you brining a monk tank try not to bring a resto druid, if you bringing a shaman and druid try not to bring a paladin so that you dont double up on buffs and miss others), outside that dont worry too much about which class you bringing. Never bring 3 melee dps, you will suffer. 1 its ok, they have much more shorter interrupts than most ranged so thats good.

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