Another week, another update
I had a lot of playtime, and so I have finally managed to run 3/4 level 80 instances. Yes, still dabbling with normal ones, though I think I am definitely totally ready for heroics on Kadomi. I finished the last piece of Titansteel gear for her, and she actually looks badass again. I managed to hit Revered with Argent Crusade and Wyrmrest Accord, and Honored with the Sons of Hodir. I am basically done with rep grinding aside from SoH, which is nice. Now I can just champion for fun-stuff like the red dragon.
Deep Wounds is working out great for me. I am usually around 1.1k DPS overall in instances, but I have been breaking 1.2k DPS as well. As I am usually running stuff with not very geared guild members, I still tend to come out on top DPS-wise, unless our resident paladin (currently ret) is in the group. That’s very cool and makes me feel incredibly powerful, but it’s also a bit frustrating when I am looking at starting raiding again soon. In any case, with Deep Wounds spec, get used to the constant splattering sound of bloody procs as mobs get hit by Damage Shield crits as they wail on you. Fun stuff. Highly recommend it.
The only Northrend instance I have not done yet is The Oculus. I am a bit hesitant about it, as I am not 100% sold on vehicle combat, at least not in a group scenario. But it might be fun! Speaking of fun, I enjoyed The Culling of Stratholme, a lot. I need to go back and just stroll through Stratholme. Brings back memories of the good ol’ days of wiping in the streets of undead Stratholme, which was a lot more punishing an instance than most others ever implemented in the game since then. Unlike Violet Hold which I find very lackluster and dull, Old Strat feels a lot like Black Morass to me, just in the streets of a familiar yet different city. Once the first two bosses are dead, the instance then feels like Old Hillsbrad, but Arthas is a lot easier to handle than our beloved Thrall. All in all, solid work.
Halls of Lightning felt like a clear continuation of Halls of Stone. I was a bit surprised to find out that Yogg-Saron is the mastermind here. Think he’ll be the raid end boss in Ulduar? I think that’s quite possible. His story is tied to just about every single zone in Northrend. The only zone that doesn’t seem to have a saronite quest is Borean Tundra, all other zones have at least one quest about the evils of saronite. Imagine if all plate wearers collectively lost their minds because they’re wearing this evil material all over? As for the encounters, they were fun to tank. Loken reminds me of Murmur, like a lot, and I have to practice running a bit more. Got hit by Lightning Nova twice, not a good record. As Volkhan didn’t drop his sword, and I am extremely tired of the slow axe from Zul’Drak, I’ll go again. I want to be suitably geared before I bash my head against the H UP wall, and I miss having a fast tanking weapon.
Speaking of UP, that’s the 3rd level 80 instance that I have done, though I did not tank. I healed the instance. Let me describe the many ways that the Skadi encounter sucked. Gauntlets are always stressful, but that was like uber-stress. We wiped twice. I got one battle rez, healed myself and voila, Skadi landed and immediately proceeded to one-shot me. Good times, good times. Gauntlets are annoying in general, but gauntlets with ranged mobs that are hard to pick up for the tank and really love healers? Extremely annoying. I will say that our DPS sucked very hard aside from one person, and I ran it again just yesterday, and it was easy as pie. DPS really can make or break a group.
Which reminds me, I didn’t mention the other big moment of the weekend: my shaman hit 80. She’s still fun, and healing is so out of my comfort zone that every instance is a challenge. Healing on Loken was pretty intense, let me say that. 
I have her pretty nicely geared already, but unlike Kadomi I am not sure she’s quite ready for heroic primetime yet. I might try H Nexus to see how that goes.
I have started preliminary planning to get the guild back into raiding in about a month. We’ll see how that goes! It’s exciting, but it’s also going to be work, mostly because we are unbelievably low on DPS still. That is utterly bizarre, isn’t it?
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When I ran regular HoS I was 80, a dps was 90 and then the others were 75. It was so easy we did HoL afterwards. Had the same scenario a couple days later. The 2 runs gave me both the sword and the trinket from Loken. These 2 items are well worth your time running regular HoL.
I had a very hard time running heroics at first. It turns out that the problem was crummy dps. If the tank is beating any of the dpsers then the dps is weak and the runs will be difficult.
Skadi on heroic can be your worst nightmare. Again, strong dps is the key. A healer with a knack for survival really helps too. I have had 4 groups that couldn’t get past Skadi no matter how many attempts. Other groups made the fight seem easy. 7 completed runs and I still dont have the Red Sword of Courage.
As for gearing your guild, have everyone do their homework on crafted gear. You have obviously done yours with your tanking gear. But there are many items from tailoring that will be a huge help to dps and heals. These items take Moonshroud or Ebonweave, which have a 3 day cool down to make. Since some items need 8 moonshroud or 8 ebonweave, it could take weeks to make all the gear so get started now.
Tankette´s last blog post..Naxx, gear, etc.
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Lol, first sentence should say ” a dps at 79″ not 90.
Tankette´s last blog post..Naxx, gear, etc.
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I have to say I am running into a lot of bad DPS. We did VH last night and the DPS was really weak. It made the whole run bad.
I do not like the gauntlet in UP. The first time we ran it we did fine but we had good DPS. The next time we wiped several times mostly due to weak DPS not getting adds down fast enough. I kept getting caught unable to tank the boss well due to left over adds from the gauntlet. What a real mess.
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I was having the same problem with bad dps. When we first started running heroics (I usually run with the guild) but sometimes no one wants to do heroics and you have to jump in to LFG. When I tank I’m very agressive and lately I’ve been pulling 2k-2.2k dps on boss fights (hero popped) I coudlnt really ask for a better group. Enhancment shaman, Fury Warrior, Ret pally and healing druid. But when you get into a pug where dps is a bit… Slow. Its hard to get things down with groups that you usually have good dps with.
I’ve run H. VH and didnt get passed the first 3 portals because people just couldn’t get the mobs down. But I ran it with DPS who were able to push the better dps and we got it down really easy.
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When I first dinged 80 with my guildmates, we ran regular 80 instances and crafted some gear until we each had at least 1 epic gear a piece, with our ret pally doing the highest dps at about 1500, and we jauntily went into Heroic Nexus.
Utter fail. That plant boss was fine, but that elemental boss creamed us.
I now pull about 1700-1800 dps in instances and our ret pally does about 2200 dps, and Heroic Nexus is a breeze but some, like Heroic Gundrak, are still tough.
Last night I went with a mage doing 1000 dps and a DK doing about 1100 dps, and Heroic Nexus was hard (we wiped a LOT – some fights are dps checks but some are just stupid-checks, like the optional boss in Heroic Nexus) but finally made it through. Our tank had 23k health unbuffed and 544 defense, and our healer is a tree dr00d with 600 mana regen.
I’d say aim for at least a 1500 dps average between your three dpsers, and you are good for Heroic UK, Heroic Nexus, and Heroic Drak’tharon Keep (surprisingly one of the easiest Heroics). If one dps is not pulling over 1300 or so, though, you’re probably effed in the a when it comes to the harder heroics (Old Kingdom on Heroic mode is insane).
I’d also recommend the good 540 defense for tanking Heroics — I don’t know much about tanking (I’m a shadow priest, heh) but that seems to be the magic number I hear being thrown around — tanks seem to die very fast on some of those harder-hitting bosses, especially the last boss in UK, which is unsurprisingly the easiest Heroic.
When I was specced holy and trying to heal Heroic Gundrak, I promptly got thrown out for my 450 mana regen and 1400 bonus spellpower — apparently, your healer needs to have a nice chunk of both to be efficient (I did keep running out of mana, admittedly I did not yet have a healing set and was wearing a lot of +hit gear .. doh!)
Sadly, one person can’t carry the group — I’m sure you are an excellent tank, but you’ll sadly need to demand certain things out of the rest of your group — save yourself the repair bills and don’t take dpsers that can’t crack 1200 dps on boss fights (especially hunters, mages, rogues and death knights, who are top of the dps classes at the moment). If you’re doing more dps than the dpsers in your group, something is seriously wrong with the dpsers.
(But obviously, with skilled players, you can get away with much less than 1500 dps in most of the heroics – lots of those fights are just idiot tests, and pugging will unsurprisingly net you a ton of idiots.)
D´s last blog post..Back to the darkness, and guild troubles.
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Ah, everyone here is so nice!
I have to say bluntly: if your dps can’t hit 1500 in quest greens/blues as fresh 80s, they’re not good. Period. Of course, that’s exactly the complaint many of you have.
That being said, as a previous respondent noted, you can help them with comments, theorycrafting, gear suggestions and the like.
“You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your friends’ nose.”
You CAN pick your friends, and you CAN pick your guildies. If your friends are your guildies are not good dps, you have a choice. You can choose to continue running instances with your friends, and that may be a good choice. But it won’t get you to the point of crushing instances. You CAN pick your guildies and who you instance with. The good news is you can do either and be happy if you acknowledge what you’re doing and why. Or, you could do a compromise and join a solid raiding guild and still maintain your friendships, occasionally running stuff with them.
It’s possible, but it’s also a challenge.
I say this because I am fortunate to run with a guild of almost exclusively solid players, many with individual realm firsts and we’re very competitive in progression, yet we only raid two days a week and maintain RL balance.
OTOH, we find it almost silly easy to four-man heroic Old Kingdom (and I have) and to maintain 3k dps in heroics (and between 4-5k dps for full Naxx clears). Fortunately for me, most of my friends are in the guild. But I have some friends who frankly, suck. I still run some instances with them and I enjoy hanging out with them. But I also have the luxury of enjoying demolishing mobs and instances with other very good players on a regular basis.
Good luck!
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