Tank like a girl

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?

The third leveling instance is in Dragonblight, with a level range of 72-74. Both Alliance and Horde have flight points right in the area (Star’s Rest/Agmar’s Hammer respectively). There are two quests, Death to the Traitor King and Don’t Forget the Eggs, both can be picked up right outside the instance, no pre-reqs necessary. The latter quest has a very solid plate tank reward, Expelling Gauntlets.

Azjol-Nerub is unique in that it has a surprising lack of trash mobs. Three bosses, little trash, and you’re in and out of the instance in 30 minutes. Azjol-Nerub, the fast food amongst instances! The normal version is not too challenging, but I hear it’s one of the rougher heroics, largely because of the first boss.

 
Trash:

As far as classic trash goes, there are exactly three trash pulls in the whole instance. A patrol of two nerubians at the instance entrance, a group of three before the first boss encounter, and a group of two before the final boss. Of the trash mobs, the Skirmishers are by far the most annoying ones and I would kill them first. They have an Enrage that makes them focus on a random target in the party for 10 seconds, which can be lethal if it’s a cloth-wearer. While they’re enraged, they’re immune to taunt and any form of CC. Only thing that’ll help are stuns and Tranq Shot. As prot warrior, keep your Concussion Blow ready for the enrage. All other trash isn’t very exciting and shouldn’t be a problem. If you want to use CC, all mobs are undead, so Shackle is the best form of CC here.

Krik’thir the Gatewatcher:

The first boss has three groups of mobs waiting before him. Every group has a Watcher plus two friends. As soon as you pull the first group, you start the event. Once you have a group down, the next group will engage shortly afterwards. Be careful, you can pull an extra group if you’re too close to it, been there, done that. All three groups have Skirmishers, so kill them first, or CC them before they are an issue. Once all three watchers are down, the big guy himself will come running. Tank him in the center of the room. His Mind Flay can be interrupted with Shield Bash, I actually haven’t tested if you can reflect it. Periodically, annoying little swarmers will pop from the walls which need to be DPSd down, you can add a couple Thunderclaps to the mix.

As far as drops go, nothing to see here for prot warriors.

Hadronox:

Once you move down into the spider-webbed area, you can already see Hadronox at the bottom of the spider-web, chewing his way through masses of Nerubians. You on the other hand will see three Nerubians not far below you, at the bottom of a set of doorways. Pull them up to you while still keeping the endless stream of non-elites that come fleeing out of the doorways under control, and do the same for the other elite groups that will come out of the doors. Eventually, Hadronox will have moved up to the doors where he will kill the rest of the Nerubians, web the doors closed, and then it’s time to deal with that huge, disgusting spider (I am arachnophobiac, so I hated this part) once all the Nerubians are dead.

Hadronox himself isn’t that challenging. Ideally, you have someone in the group who can dispel poison. If not, the poison damage will have to be healed through. Don’t stand in the acid clouds. Other than that, tank and spank.

Again, absolutely no loot any prot warrior could use.

Anub’arak:

Once you’ve run down the web, done the huge jump down (best part of the instance!) and killed the lone trash group before Anub’arak, it’s time to face this bug that some might remember as really cool hero unit from Frozen Throne. It’s important that everyone moves onto his platform as you engage him, as it will be webbed closed behind you. You don’t want anyone locked out.

Make sure to position Anub’arak so that his back is to the rest of the group, because of his Pound ability. This will only affect people standing in front of him. Pound has a cast time and it is possible to run through him while he casts, but not entirely necessary. It’s just important that no one else is in front of him. At 66%, 33% and 15%, Anub’arak burrows. At this point, you should be ready to pick up the elite adds that come in from the spot you entered as well. The rest of the group can DPS down the non-elites, but you should tank the elite adds. At the same time, make sure to move when you notice the ground shake beneath you when Anub’arak tries to Impale you, to avoid extra damage. Rinse and repeat, until the Crypt Lord is dead.

He drops Signet of Arachnathid Command, which is a pretty nice tanking ring and due to proper itemization for WotLK tanks might even beat the Exalted rep ring from The Violet Eye.

And that’s it for the shorter Nerubian instance, Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom will be next.

Happy Turkey-Day, American readers, and happy Thursday to everyone else.

The Nexus is the second Northrend instance, located in the Coldarra in Borean Tundra. To get there, get the dragon flight point at Amber Ledge. This instance is supposed to be for the range 71-73, and offers four very fun boss fights, good rewards, and is definitely a step up from Utgarde Keep. I highly recommend doing all quest chains in the Coldarra to receive all quests, because the whole story behind the final encounter is superb, if tragic.

Quest rewards for tanks:

• Tundra Pauldrons are the reward for Have they no shame? and that’s what I want to say about those shoulders too. Have they no shame to make me replace my awesome Pauldrons of Stone Resolve so early in the expansion?
• Postponing the Inevitable has one pre-req quest and rewards you with Gauntlets of the Disturbed Giant, which are also very nice.
• If you’re looking for nice boots and never got anything better than the Boots of Elusion, make sure to pick up the quest Quickening after you did the pre-req quest, as the reward is Boots of the Unbowed Protector.

Trash:

Each boss has some trash associated with them, so you will fight various mobs. You can go see the bosses in any order. I have usually started with the right hallway, but you can also go left first. In the hallways you will find one lone dragonkin pat, either a female caster or a male melee dragonkin. Nothing to worry about whatsoever.

Ormorok-trash: The halls leading to Ormorok are filled with lots of annoying little flowers. Round them up, burn them down, and then make sure that your healer in particular doesn’t hang around where the flowers died. They leave a pod behind that will pop after one minute and then the flower will be back, to harass your healer and ranged DPS. The rest of the trash are either pathing groups of Crystalline Tenders and their tree buddies, or static Crystalline Protectors. When fighting the pat, make sure to interrupt the Tranquility the tenders cast and take them out first. CC shouldn’t be necessary, but if it makes you feel safer, you can use a warlock’s Banish or a hunter’s trap here. Try to keep moving, to avoid the flower repops.

Ormorok the Tree-Shaper: Standing on a pedestal surrounded by pods is Ormorok. The moment he’s dead, the flowers finally stop respawning, which should be enough to make anyone happy at this point. However, the pods on the pedestal are false alarm, there are no flower adds up there. Ormorok is the most tank-and-spank fight in the Nexus that you’ll find, but be on your toes. Much like Lord Ahune from mid-summer, he will cast spikes that will throw you in the air and cause extra fall damage if you don’t avoid them. Strafe away if they start popping in your area, watch the ground. It’s pretty easy to avoid them. He enrages, so save your survival abilities like Shield Wall for it.

As loot, he drops Chiseled Stalagmite Pauldrons, which are pretty nice DPS shoulders.

Anomalus-trash: Take a turn in the middle of the hallway leading to Ormorok, which will lead you to dragonkin trying to fight Mana Wraiths coming from Chaotic rifts. The dragonkin groups are usually two melee, one caster. Make sure to interrupt the heals of the casters. When you attack a rift, make sure that the DPS is all on the rift and not wasting time on wraiths. Those will spawn endlessly as long as the rift is open. Tank the wraiths, and interrupt their casts as you can. Once you’re getting closer to Anomalus, there will be voidwalker-type mobs. Again, try to interrupt them when they try to mana-burn a mana-class in your party.

Anomalus: Anorexic voidwalkers make their comeback in this very pale version. This fight is a DPS race. Frequently, Anomalus will open a chaos rift, and until the rift is done for, he’s immune to all damage. As tank this means that as soon as he goes immune, you start picking up mana wraiths instead, until your DPS has closed the rift, then you go back to Anomalus. Rinse and repeat. If your DPS is quick with switching targets, this shouldn’t take too long. Again, it’s important that no one wastes time on wraiths when they should be attacking the rifts. I have seen the case that several rifts were open at the same time, not sure what’s up with that.

He drops nothing of interest to any prot warrior. Or any other tanking class, at that.

Grand Magus Telestra trash: Once you’ve cleared up the ramp and dealt with some more dragonkin/rift trash, you end up in Grand Magus Telestra’s area of the instance. There are several mage hunter pats here, so you might end up getting adds. One pat comes right to the end of Anomalus’ area, the other pat patrols up to where you go to Telestra’s room. The mage hunters come with doggies that silence. All other trash is humanoid, so if you want to use CC, you know your options. Mage Hunter Ascendants have a huge array of annoying mage skills. Spell reflect and interrupts are your friend here. The Initiates use Renew, but Shield Slam should take care of that. As long as you can keep the pull bunched up to use AoE tanking on them, you shouldn’t have a problem. I recommend killing Ascendants first.

Grand Magus Telestra: In this fun fight you get to deal with one annoying mage, and three copies. Good times! When you go in, make sure that all ranged DPS and the healer stay away, as she will use a spell called Firebomb that will damage all in her vicinity. She will also cast a spell called Gravity Lapse that picks everyone up with like tentacles and flings them about. Once everyone is dumped on the ground, charge back to her and hopefully all ranged people are back at range as soon as they can. At 50% Telestra disappears, as she splits into three copies: arcane, frost and fire mage. Neat trick. All three copies can be tanked and have normal aggro tables. The kill order largely depends on your group make-up. If you have a mage, sheep the frost mage, kill arcane and fire, then frost. No mage, but someone who can dispel magic? Kill the frost mage, then arcane, then fire. No dispeller? Arcane, frost, fire. Once the copies are down, Telestra comes back, and you finish her off.

Again, no tank loot here.

The Alliance/Horde Hallway: As you head back to the instance entrance for Keristrasza’s chamber, you will find a hallway with 2-3 frozen mobs in groups. If you’re horde, they will be alliance, if you’re alliance, they will be horde mobs. The abilities and unit names are all the same. Rangers are hunters and they will always try to get away from you to shoot at you. The berserkers probably pose the highest risk, as they have a knockback attack that can throw you into the next frozen group. Make sure you’re never standing with your back towards the next group. The commanders are your average whirlwinding warrior. Kill the clerics first, then the berserkers, and either commanders or rangers next. If you didn’t kill one of the the mage hunter pats as mentioned earlier, it might add here as it paths through this hallway.

Keristrasza: As you approach her chamber, make sure that all dragonkin pats in the area are dead. She is surrounded by three orbs, one for each boss you downed. Position yourself facing her, while everyone else lines up by her side, but never behind her. Have someone else use the three orbs and voila, welcome to the fight where mobility is everything. Keristrasza applies a debuff called Intense Cold. It stacks, is a DoT effect and slows down. If people don’t respond to it by moving, they’re dead faster than they can say ‘Huh, what?’ The debuff is removed by moving. Either strafing or jumping in place. This is of course tricky for all casters. Whatever your DPS and healer are doing, make sure they don’t move in front of her or behind her, to avoid both her breath attack and the tail-swipe. The tricky part here really is the moving. As tank, you got it easy, so do it like I did, giggle while you jump like a maniac.

Again, nothing for tanks as drop, but that’s alright.

I highly recommend running the Nexus at least once, I thought the instance was beautiful and full of fun encounters.

For more instance guides (though I will continue writing my own as well), check out not coding’s blog.

As I am leveling, I will write short guides about all the leveling instances in Northrend, with particular focus on tanking tips for trash and bosses alike. At the moment this is all about normal instances, but once I hit 80, I will update to include changes for heroic mode. These guides are not intended for experienced people, but for those who maybe just started tanking and are looking for some advice.

Utgarde Keep

Utgarde Keep is a level 70-72 instance located in Howling Fjord. It’s low in difficulty, very linear, and easy to clear. Inside you will find three boss encounters, with three quests for the Horde and two quests for Alliance players.

Quest rewards for tanks:

Alliance: Woven Steel Necklace from the quest Disarmament, you obtain this quest in Wyrmskull Village
Horde: Tiled-Stone Pendant from the quest Disarmament, you obtain this quest inside the instance

None of the other two quests offer tank rewards, though the plate bracers from the Horde quest ‘A Score to Settle‘ are good for DPS sets.

Trash pulls:

Most pulls are groups of 3 Vrykuls, mostly 2 melee, one caster. Near the exit to the outer area you will have a couple four-pulls. If you want to use CC, try having the Runecasters, Spiritualists or Heartsplitters CC’d. Note that the Runecasters can be pulled without using LoS. Some Vrykul have worg companions which die very easily.

The second pull in the instance can get messy due to a pathing mob between the groups on the sides, and runners. I had no real trouble tanking two groups here at all, but if you’re not pimped out in TBC epics, be careful with pulling here.

You will encounter a few proto-drakes, those need to be tanked not facing the group because of their flamebreath, and don’t have your back to the next group as they do a knockback. Unless you like knockback pulling, which could be fun. The proto-drakes are the highest exp mob in the instance, so I would advise killing all of them.

Inbetween the first and second boss encounters you have a section where undead are digging a tunnel. Usually an elite Overseer will be with them. Have people stand close by to avoid their Charge and remind people to hold the AoE until you’ve gotten a solid Shockwave/Consecrate/Swipe in first.

Bosses:

Prince Keleseth:
Once you have engaged him, build solid threat on him. His spells cannot be interrupted nor reflected (that I noticed), which is sadmaking. Keep an eye on the doorway, not long after the fight starts, four skeletons will come running in, going straight for your healer. Pick them up, have DPS burn them in place and go back to tanking Keleseth. If people are on the ball and kill skeletons and Ice Tombs quickly, it’s an easy tank and spank fight.

Dalronn & Skarvald:
Skarvald is a melee mob, whereas Dalronn is a caster. Dalronn will randomly drop aggro and cast shadow bolts at party members, which makes this a very heal-intense fight. Skarvald has a charge, so people should stand as close to the tank as they can to avoid that. You have three options here.

1. Bring one of the bosses to 10%, then kill the other and burn the other one quickly.
2. Kill Dalron first, switch to Skarvald, have the healer heal through the damage the ghost of Dalronn causes until Skarvald is dead.
3. Kill Skarvald first, switch to Dalronn, pick the ghost of Skarvald up via taunt and keep him on you.

My recommendation would be either 1 or 3.

Ingvar the Plunderer:
Ingvar is the end-boss and stands on a platform chatting with a couple drake-riders. Don’t worry, they’re just there for flavor (which is a great touch), you only fight Ingvar by himself.

This is a two phase fight, in which he has roughly the same abilities, but they’re just a bit nastier in phase 2. All ranged DPS needs to be at max range to avoid the silence effect of his Roar. When he starts casting Smash, strafe to the left or right as tank to avoid the damage spike, then afterwards run back to him. Once you have killed him, he will be resurrected as undead servant of the Lich King. Same rules apply, but it will be incredibly useful to have a mage or druid for decursing the Woe Strike, so your healer won’t take shadow damage. As tank, it’s your job to run out of the Dark Smash, which is even worse burst damage than the Smash from phase 1. As always, minimize damage as much as you can, reapply Demoralizing Shout and Thunderclap whenever they have run out, and this fight is probably the only good time for using Shield Wall in UK.

Loot:

No specific tank drops in there. If you want to mess around as Arms or Fury warrior, Ingvar’s Monolithic Cleaver certainly deserves the name, and has lots of strength and hit.

Next up: The Nexus!

A while back I posted about my pre-expansion goals. Now, with mere days until the expansion, I am perfectly satisfied with having completed most of those goals.

• finish leveling my shaman to 70. Done!
• power-level alchemy on my shaman as my warlock won’t be leveled for a while. Fizzled out at alchemy 355, but the last 20 points aren’t far away. As second profession I power-leveled Inscription on her, sitting at 336.
• grind out the last 17 points of engineering on my rogue. Almost. She’s at 373, two repairbots away from the final destination, but it’ll be easier to just do new WotLK schematics to continue.
• build the roflcopter, because I wantssss it. Done!
• grab my bestest girls and tank H OHB and H M-T to complete my heroic experience. Done and done and did Crypts as well, completing my Outland Heroic Dungeonmaster achievement. Crypts was annoying, but scored me the possibly most disgusting weapon ever, Claw of the Watcher. It twitches, blinks and drools!
• lead another Gruul/Mags raid and this time won’t pass the T4 shoulder token to another warrior. Done! Though technically I didn’t pass the shoulders, I actually lost the roll, mwah.
• clear ZA. Done! 1.5 hour clears, all chests, the nerfed ZA is a pushover.

 
On Friday, we had our monthly PvP day in the guild, but BGs were so unfun and wackily out of balance for us casual girls in non-PvP gear that a bunch of us decided to go back to what we’re decent at, PvE. In a strange turn of events, we decided we wanted to feel like we did when we first hit 70, were undergeared and struggled through 3.5 hours Shadow Labs runs. We ran it almost naked! The rule was to just keep your pants/skirt on and wear your normal weapons/shield. So there I went, down to under 10k health, 10k armor, just like back in the day.

 
The run itself was tons of fun, but even almost naked we were so OP. Even with pulling carefully we blazed through. Blackheart didn’t have much time for fun, Vorpil didn’t port at all and Murmur did one Sonic Boom before he disintegrated. Still, it was really cool to do this with really low health and casters drinking every pull, just like back in the day.

I’ve been running tons of heroics. Possibly the greatest fun in post-patch world until Thursday. Very fast-paced, full of prot warrior awesomeness. Our holy paladin went retribution because I asked her, she wanted the chest off Kael’thas in H MgT, so we got that for her. From running all those heroics, I went from having 10 badges to 103 badges in like no time. As my final shopping tour for badges I got me the Sunguard Legplates after all. They have a lot more def than my previous pants, so I was finally able to ditch the Adamantine Figurine as defense trinket. Or so I thought.

On Saturday we did a ZA clear, and the shield of my dreams again never showed up, but Zul’jin decided to drop Cleaver of the Unforgiving. I wouldn’t be an orc if that axe didn’t make me drool. Recipe for success: enchant the weapon you’ve had forever with an expensive enchant like Executioner, and for sure an upgrade will drop within days. Good for me that all those heroics already saw me with more shards in the bank to have the axe enchanted as well. Also, the price for shards in general has gone rock-bottom on Bronzebeard, which is very nice.

Bye bye King’s Defender, you served me well! The axe should carry me to whatever upgrade I will get for it in WotLK. I had to gem for defense so that I was able to be capped for our Sunday ZA clear without going back to using a def trinket, but it worked out. The Sunday ZA was strange because most of the bosses dropped exactly the same items they had dropped on Saturday, including the axe. Again, no shield, but that’s alright. I am a blacksmith, so at blacksmithing 390, I am going to make myself a Saronite Defender. Not too shabby!

My worries that I would get a late start to WotLK seem unfounded. I had to order my US version at Okaysoft who specialize on imports and they informed that the shipping date for US WotLK is Nov 11. I should have my copy early, go figure! I can sit in front of my computer, hugging the box, waiting for the servers to become ready. I will be there, live, for any Northrend world server crash, huzzah.

I am sort of anal-retentive when it comes to WoW, so I’ve contemplated all last week which starting zone I will level in. I think I’ll be going with Howling Fjord, just so I can hop into Utgarde Keep as quickly as possible. I am so ready for WotLK.

After that somewhat disheartening AQ40 visit, I had a much more successful Sunday, when we blazed through ZA in record-time, scoring all chests for a change. The third chest got us one of the strangest rings I ever expected to see in a raid, Signet of Eternal Life. Lots of stamina, but resilience? Our paladin took it for arena, but still, buh?

I actually did not tank this time, as I was still sick and felt like facerolling again. Besides, I wanted to see how well my moonkin does now. In a fit of sickness, I actually didn’t wear any hit gear, or I would have done better, but I broke 1k DPS on Nalorakk, which is very nice.

That was the first guild raid where I wasn’t main-tanking. I feel like I am maybe hogging the spotlight too much. The tanks did just fine without me. The only real difference that I saw was the other warrior not being anywhere near my damage output. She was at the bottom of the charts, where I usually end up being 3rd in ZA. This inspired me to another post about prot warrior DPS, sometime later this week.

Loot-wise everyone but the druid tank scored something. The warrior tank got Ancient Aqir Artifact, which is pretty neat but not high on my priority list. The only thing I really still want from there is the shield off Dragonhawk. Which he’s never dropped for us. We got Arrow-fail Chestguard for the third ID in a row. One more chance for me to get the shield, then I think we’re done with TBC raiding.

After Zul’Aman, I had the tank itch that DPSing can never fulfil, and as H OHB was the daily, I grabbed a guild group and off we went. Besides, I needed to give my new Executioner enchant a spin. Zomg, it’s so bright, it burns! Looks very cool though. Only two of us had ever been to H OHB, the pockethealer and I, and I never managed to complete it. It went very well, though we had one wipe. The last wave of dragonkin hit me with 2 mortal strikes for 4k each, and then I was done with fairly quickly. The second time I used Intimidating Shout and all was well. Best part about the heroic? I was number one DPS and did 31% of the damage, haha. Glyph of Revenge, how I love thee.

I need to mention that at the beginning we killed Don Carlos, and I won Don Carlos’ Famous Hat. So fashionable that I need to add a screenshot. Oh Model Viewer, why dost thou forsake me still!

Two heroics left to go that I have never done, Crypts and Mana-Tombs. Shouldn’t be any problem whatsoever. I will definitely get my heroic dungeon achievement done before the expansion. I know that a lot of you are raid tanks by passion and do little else, but for me, the heart of the game is 5-mans still. Everything I know about tanking and pulling and responding when the going gets tough I have learned from 5-mans.

And now for the tough cookies, the instances that will make you break a nervous sweat, and where you’ll have to be in top shape. Don’t attempt unless you’re very comfortable tanking multiple mobs, and ideally you have top notch DPS and a great healer having your back.

As for the exact order, a lot of it depends on your group makeup. If you run with a bunch of people you are used to, who are skilled, provide big heals or big DPS, then those hard ones will probably all seem equally challenging. If you run with a PUG, a scale of 5 might not be enough.

My order:

11. Shadow Labyrinth
12. Shattered Halls
13. Magisters’ Terrace
14. Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde

Not rated: Mana-Tombs and Auchenai Crypts.

11. Shadow Labyrinth (4/5): When I first ran this, I was surprised that the trash didn’t really feel that much harder than on normal. But when you think about it, it is one of the tougher instances for young 70s, and the heroic version has the same risks than the normal instance does. For CC, you will want to bring a mage for polymorph, a capable hunter for trapping, a rogue for sap, a shadow priest for MC or a warlock for seduction/fear, as almost all of the mobs in there are humanoids.

Most difficult pull: No doubt the three six mob pulls in Blackheart’s room. You will need some form of CC here. Your kill priority should be to kill the shadow priests first, because their Mind Flay is eeeeevil. Seriously, it hurts a lot. If you happen to have a shadow priest in your own party, Mind Control totally kicks ass here, for the immense damage these guys can then supply to your group. As second mob you might want to kill the Acolytes or leave them CCd through the end. Have someone with high burst damage take out the minion of the warlocks on their own, they need to go down quickly as well. These are tough pulls, but not much harder than they were on normal. You just need to be prepared to tank three of those guys and pick up the rest as quickly as possible.

Other notable pulls: The Cabal Spellbinders at the end cast a channeled Mind Control called Brainwash. Shield Bash it as quickly as you can, and you’ll be fine. None of the other trash is really remarkable or notably different from the normal version of the instance.

Bosses: Ambassador Hellmaw is basically a free badge of justice, if you’re decently geared. Only danger is that you take massive damage while the healer is feared, but that’s really rare. However, he has a 3 minute Enrage timer, so make sure that your DPS hits him hard. Blackheart the Inciter continues to be as random on heroic as he is on normal. His mass Mind Control tends to be a bit more dangerous on heroic, because everyone is a lot better geared than when you first engaged him in normal mode. He hits harder, and is still as annoying. As tank, be ready to Intervene, if need be Intercept to get his aggro back after every Mind Control. There is no different strategy for him on heroic. Grandmaster Vorpil is one of the harder bosses in there, but his basic mechanic is the same as on normal. Summons voidwalkers, etc. As extra twist, he will banish a random party member, which can include the tank. I still find the good ol’ tried kiting method best here. Walk him southwards, after the first port take him down the other hallway, and if he still isn’t dead by then, you go back down south again. Finally, we have Murmur, and you get to say ‘Muahahaha’ to the rest of the group, as you won’t be the only one who has to run out of the Sonic Boom. As Murmur has an ability called Thundering Storm that hits everyone outside of his ring, everyone will want to be in there, but has to run out for the Sonic Boom. However, as soon as no one is in his melee range, he will start casting Resonance. Check with your healer if you can afford staying inside during the boom to avoid Resonance, but make sure everyone else runs.

12. Shattered Halls (4/5): Multi-tanking galore! Bring an array of humanoid CC as your DPS, and prepare for some adrenaline-rushing moments of huge mob groups on you.

Most difficult pull: The gauntlet of fire after the first boss can be a terrible experience. The wittle non elite guys rushing at you hit like trucks, as I recently had to find out the hard way on my rogue. What has always worked best for me in there is to move ahead as the tank, but slowly. Tank a group of runners, pull the static group, move forward. Focus-fire them down, avoid AoE, as that will kill your party members and will make you chase for aggro. Move into the last room as soon as you can to stop the trash spawns. Your healer will be hard-pressed for mana. Like most gauntlets, slow and steady is the way to go.

Other notable pulls: I have to admit that I end up struggling with the two large pulls in the Gladiator hallway after the gauntlet. I don’t know if it’s me, if it’s a bug in the instance, or whatever, but I often get one side as adds while doing those pulls. To this day I do not know why. My superstition makes me only pull the Legionnaire now when he’s smack in the middle of the hallway. I always pull both large groups back into the room, around the corner, for breaking caster LoS.

Bosses: Grand Warlock Nethekurse knows no new tricks at all. Make sure to not stand in the void zones and inspire your DPS to burn him hard once he’s under 20% health. Bloodguard Porung is only around on heroic, and is the named guy at the end of the gauntlet, where on normal there’s just another archer. He has no special tricks at all, so I guess his badge is the reward for making it through the gauntlet. Warbringer O’mrogg has two heads and two separate aggro tables. A strategy that works very well is that once he switches aggro tables, everyone but the tank stops DPS. That way you quickly get aggro back. The faster you get aggro back, the less likely it is for one of the party members to die. Last but not least, we have Kargath Bladefist himself. He is rough on heroic, very much so, for me the hardest part of the instance. His adds have a high health pool, and as we have tried, it’s not feasible for most cloth DPS to try handling the adds, as they will eat casters for breakfast. Tanking Kargath by the steps and picking up adds for tanking will be more successful. Try to tank additional adds, and use CC like Polymorph or Fear for others. Your healer will have a hard time topping everyone off, the Blade Dance really hurts.

13. Magisters’ Terrace (5/5) The most recent 5-man to be added to the game is special. In normal mode, it’s at least as difficult as the easier heroics. In heroic mode, it can get overwhelming very quickly. The more humanoid CC you bring, the better off you’ll be. An ideal DPS composition would be mage, warlock and rogue or hunter. Mage for polymorph, warlock for enslaving and seducing, and one other form of CC. Which bugs me about this instance, because you become so dependant on crowd control. Sorry, shamans and other non-humanoid CCers, I feel your pain in finding groups for this.

As general rule of thumb, learn to take the most advantage of LoS that you can, and as always warn your group when you pull like that. Aside from the first pulls up to the first boss, you can use line of sight everywhere. There’s always a niche to duck in to, a corner to run around, to bring all the casters to you. Also, use spell reflect as long as you still have casters up in the pulls. This will minimize a lot of damage you’ll take, and help with threat. Use it every cooldown.

Most difficult pull: Right before you meet Kael’thas, there’s a huge pull of five nasty trash mobs. If you wipe here, they’ll all be back, good times. My tank trick is once again to use line of sight here to your advantage. Pull, run back down the steps around the corner and tank them there. Your CCers can apply CC while the mobs are on their way. One of the most annoying mobs to tank is the Ethereal, as they blink around and spam Arcane Explosion. Keep healers CCd if you can. As with all the pulls, if you have a warlock and there’s a succubus in the pull, have her enslaved. She does loooots of damage and can take some tanking burden off you.

Other notable pulls: The first group pull requires you pull back very far, or you are in danger of getting adds. No one wants adds in MgT, ever. All trash pulls after Vexallus are pretty tough, I can only repeat my general rules for tanking here.

Bosses: Selin Fireheart is the easiest boss in here, and pretty much is like the end-boss in Steamvault. I’ve used different strategies here, either destroying the crystals or just burning him down quickly. Depends on your DPS. Shouldn’t be much of a problem. Vexallus on the other hand is a big headache. I haven’t been back to MgT since the 2.4 nerf, I can only hope he’s easier now. The only strategy that worked for us in the past is to actually stop DPS to have the debuff wear off, once the classes that can remove the debuff (mages, rogues) have dealt with the adds. As tank, be prepared to take one or two of the adds as well, and quickly, don’t let them get into the group. Thunderclap won’t work, so either tab-target to them or Cleave when they are spawned. At 20% everyone needs to go all out and burn him. Next up is Priestess Delrissa who holds two of the absolutely best tanking trinkets in her possession: Shard of Contempt and Commendation of Kael’thas. Both are fantastic. The shard is wonderful for threat, and the Commendation has saved my butt on hard-hitter bosses many times. I feel very lucky that I have gotten both trinkets in my first two runs. However, the boss herself is a tanking nightmare. Slap on your DPS or PvP gear if you have any, and do your worst. Personally, I usually focus on interrupting Delrissa’s heals and hamstring every single uncontrolled mob for those extra precious moments of time, use Intimidating Shout as well. I have virtually no PvP experience as warrior, so it’s kinda rough. As you initiate the pull, make 100% sure to pull all the way back to where you cleared the trash. You will want to use fear and at least one of her companions can fear. You don’t want any adds whatsoever to survive here.

We finally come to Kael’thas himself, and he gets his own paragraph from me. As protection warrior I am used to running in to a boss and starting a fight with Shield Slam, but not on Kael’thas, nuh-uh. You’ll be taking a lot of damage from his fireballs and you can minimize the impact by starting off with a well-placed Shield Bash to interrupt his first fireball. Once he starts casting again, you probably have enough rage for a Spell Reflect, and from there on you can alternate between Shield Bash and Spell Reflect. Your healer will be extremely grateful. Also, make sure to move out of the Flamestrike. If your group gets close to 50% and you haven’t had a phoenix for a while, slow the DPS down, as you really don’t want gravity lapse + phoenix for insta-wipe. On heroic. Kael will shield himself after 60 seconds. The shield needs to be hit with 10k damage so that you can interrupt the Pyroblast in time. If the Pyroblast is not interrupted, you take 40k fire damage to the face. Been there, done that. At that point it doesn’t matter anyway, because by that time it’s almost Gravity Lapse time, and you’re absolutely unneeded for that phase of the fight. To sum it up, use your unique warrior goodness to minimize spell damage, interrupt the Pyroblast or you bite the dust, and don’t stand in the fire. The universal truth of almost all fights in TBC, don’t stand in the fire.

14. Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde (5/5): Take this review with a caveat. This instance is last on my list because I have never been able to successfully run it. My first try was so discouraging I never went back. I have heard it’s been seriously nerfed since then, so I will have to go back and give it a proper review. All I can suggest at the moment is that you bring lots of CC you can use on the move (hunter, mage, warlock), and try to avoid melee DPS. As I only ever made it to the second boss in there, I won’t go into details. I promise a more in-depth review once I have finished the instance. However, as I really felt it was excruciatingly difficult, it remains last on my list.

Unrated heroics: Mana-Tombs and Auchenai Crypts. I have yet to set foot in there on heroic. I can see myself running Mana-Tombs, but I always felt Crypts was disgusting in normal mode, I have no desire to do it on heroic. However, I think I might sacrifice myself and run both, so that this will be a complete guide. I will update the guides accordingly once I am done there.

As always, I welcome feedback, criticism, suggested changes, and I hope you enjoyed this overview of TBC heroics.

See also:

• Heroics order, part I
• Heroics order, part II

I’ll continue just where I left off last time, presenting you the medium to tough heroics. I am listing the ones that are a pleasant challenge to those who already have a few pieces of badge or Karazhan gear and are confident of their skills at tanking.

Update: Thanks to ARA’s suggestion, I have added Black Morass, it was an oversight not to include it.

My order:

5. Botanica
6. The Steamvault
7. Caverns of Time: The Dark Portal
8. Blood Furnace
9. Sethekk Halls
10. The Arcatraz

5. The Botanica (3/5 for most, even if it will feel 1/5 for the really geared ones): Nowhere else will you get as much bang for your buck as in Heroic Bot, my heroic of choice. If it’s the daily, you’ll walk out with seven badges of justice, for about 90 minutes of work, not a bad deal whatsoever. And even when it’s not the daily, five badges is a top-deal. Trash mobs are almost all humanoids, but there are a bunch of AoE pulls plus satyrs. Bring a hunter or a warlock for the satyr pulls, or as alternative have an off-tank, because the two four satyr pulls can be tricky. For the third boss, less melee is more here. Note that everything I describe makes the instance sound really easy, but you need a top healer, and your DPS really must be on top of their game. Lacking in one department, and Heroic Botanica turns out to be excruciating.

Most difficult pull: There are several contenders. The highest death quota I usually find on all the pulls involving Bloodwarder Stewards. They do a whirlwind that’s called Arcane Flurry and hits random party members for much ouch. Your best bet here is a rogue’s kidney shot or your very own Concussion Blow if you’re a protection warrior. Stuns are the only way to interrupt the Flurry. There are about four pulls with Stewards in them. Strong contender for most difficult pull are the four satyrs by Thorngrim the Tender.

Other notable pulls: Ah, so many tricky ones here. Be careful with Greenkeepers, try to CC one of them. They use a spell that’s like druid Wrath on crack. Low cast-time, it’s like a green machine gun to the face. Spell-reflecting is a pleasure and a must here. Make sure not to lose aggro on them if multi-tanking, they kill healers for breakfast. For the dragonhawk pulls, CC the falconer, use Intimidating Shout for the birds, and focus fire them down, kill the falconer last. The Sunseeker Chemists use poison vials, move out immediately and tell everyone to move out, because that’s a lot of poison damage to absorb. The Sunseeker Channelers use an ability called Soul Channel, Shield Bash it, because it’s ouch for whoever is targetted by it. Last but not least, make sure to never stand in the Death&Decay of the Sunseeker Gene-Splicers. Last Bot run I did, it killed three party members who were careless, but not me, hee.

Bosses: Commander Sarannis is as unremarkable on heroic as she is on normal. If you burn her in under 60 seconds, she doesn’t even summon adds. And even if she does, no sweat, just kill the healer. High Botanist Freywin is equally trivial. He has no added perks whatsoever. Just be careful, as he’s a pansy, I end up completely rage-starved on him, and you must save up some rage for Thunderclap when he changes to tree-form. Thorngrim the Tender is by far the hardest boss in there. Same strategy as on normal, but he hits a lot harder, his fire burns more, his sacrifice is annoying. Big super-important trick to make this fight a lot easier and less frustrating for everyone: the moment you see him switch targets for his Sacrifice, use Taunt/Growl/Paladin taunt right then. It lasts six seconds, so by the time he’s done Sacrificing, you’ll be number one on his aggro list after the threat reset and can then build more threat. Rinse and repeat. This only fails when he sacrifices while you’re running back to him from a Hellfire. If you have problems with losing him at the threat reset, ask your healer to please heal you through hellfires. Laj, Warp Splinter, both are the same as on normal, tank and spank. If you have any decent DPS, this should not prove to be a problem.

6. The Steamvault (4/5 until the first boss, 2.5/5 after the first boss): I am very torn on this one. Like all Coilfang heroics, I want to love it, but the difficulty of the trash and the first boss make me not run it much. You will definitely want at least one warlock for the first boss, and some other solid form of CCing casters. The sirens and their fear cause quite a few wipes.

Most difficult pull: Anything with a siren in it, so basically the whole part to the first boss can be a wipe on every pull if you’re really unlucky. I normally always suggest the shortcut through the bushes, with the two Bog Lords, but not on heroic. On heroic it is safer if a lot more slow to take the long way around. Pull far back, keep casters CCd or kill them first, and pray that no one will be feared in an elemental pat or into a Bog Lord. Or the next group standing over there. Stunning the casters is very helpful.

Other notable pulls: Nada. Once you have survived the area of doom after the first boss, trash pulls are significantly easier. They’re not as tightly packed anymore, so the danger of adds is minimal.

Bosses: Hydromancer Thespia is a wicked witch and significantly more difficult on heroic. You really want to have one elemental banished here. Warn all your group members that there will be many storm clouds and make sure to always move out the moment you get the first tick from one above you. Mekgineer Steamrigger has no real perks, other than his continuous stream of leper gnomes trying to repair him. This is a veeeeeery long fight, dependant on your DPS, the faster the gnomes go down, the more DPS can actually be dedicated to the boss himself. Warlord Kalithresh is just the same as on normal, but his fish tanks have a lot more health. Burst them down, if he manages to enrage, you get to try again. It’s just a DPS race. Nothing special to look out for as tank.

7. Caverns of Time: The Dark Portal (3/5 to 4/5) More commonly known as Black Morass, this heroic can either be fairly easy on the group, or really hard. It all depends on a) the quality of your healer and b) more importantly on the quality of your DPS. The faster the Rift Lords go down, the less adds you will have to deal with. The better the DPS of the person who takes care of the adds, the easier that will go. As for who does adds, I have seen the best results from frost mages, destruction warlocks and BM hunters, but also fury warriors. In fact, I have specifically respecd to fury just to handle adds. The adds pack a punch on heroic, especially the executioners that will start coming out of the rifts after Chrono-Lord Deja is down.

As far as tanking goes, this is really easy. Single-mob tanking, nice and easy. If any of the caster rift lords want to cast at you, simply spell-reflect, as they are immune to interrupts. Save a Thunderclap for the annoying whelplings, whoever is doing adds will appreciate help with them. However, if you do try to bind adds on you, make sure you keep threat on them up until the adds-person takes care of them. If you just do one Thunderclap, you can rest assured that the adds will wander off towards the healer and will bite their face off.

The bosses have no special tricks either, everything just hits harder, and Temporus is just as dangerous as he is in the normal version. Really, as tank you have the easiest job here, tanking in BM is really pretty easy. Your healer and the DPS might scream in terror. Where you really place BM in terms of difficulty stands and falls with your group. If everything goes well, you will walk out with three badges in about 30 minutes.

8. Blood Furnace (3.5-4/5): One of the three Hellfire instances, this one is a step up in difficulty for two reasons. The trash in there hits incredibly hard. Remember Slave Pens when you thought Defenders were all evil? All the trash in there hits like that. Magtheridon’s blood is potent stuff, yo. Bring CC for humanoids, and you really do want a warlock along to make the last part of the instance a lot easier.

Most difficult pull: The felguards in the last part of the instance are extremely annoying and hit like trucks. They also pretty randomly charget at people, reset aggro, so if you have a rogue along, stunlock the crap out of them. Here’s where having a warlock along will really help you, because tanking two of those is painful.

Other notable pulls:: watch for stealthed rogues. There’s always two in the area with the stairs, one either on the left or the right hand side in the hall leading to Broggok, two in the room right after Broggok. Nothing is more fun than corpse-runs and then the ‘Oh shit, rogue, dead again’ effect after that really long corpse run. In the pulls with technicians watch for mines, make people aware of it that if you move the mob away, there’s mine danger, and to be careful. In the long hallway of doom towards Broggok, it is very easy to get adds. Line of sight is your friend here to pull the casters, I pull them into The Maker’s room a lot, or the niches in the hall. As always, warn your group that this is going to be a line of sight pull, so that people play along.

Bosses: The Maker is as simple as he’s on normal, though he does have a habit of MCing the tank, which usually means someone dies. Broggok however represents the nastiest, most unforgiving part of the instance that makes Blood Furnace fairly difficult. The prison cell event. You pull that lever and you get waves of mobs rushing at you. Everyone has to pull out all the stops here. CC is a great help, so is a rogue that knows how to stun and blind. Fear is awesome, but beware, some of those mobs are immune. This is one part where CC will really shine in making this encounter more trivial. Solid multi-tanking skills are a must. If you survive the four waves, you’re all set for Broggok who is really easy compared to the waves. Lead him around in a nice circle, don’t stand in the poison and only loot him once the poison is gone. Last but least we have Keli’dan the Breaker, and when he yells ‘Closer, come closer!’ you really want to run. As he does an Aran-like magnetic pull, this means everyone, and no backing up. I have had fights where the healer and I were the only ones up and it took forever to kill him. If you make it past Broggok and then later the felguards, you won’t have any problems though.

9. Sethekk Halls (3.5/5): If Botanica offers you the biggest bang for your buck, Sethekk Halls offers the lowest, with a piddly two badges to earn, unless you know a druid who can summon Anzu. It’s also filled with some of the most annoying trash, so it’s not one of the more popular heroics for me. CC you want to bring is someone for humanoids (I count off-tanks as CC), ideally a priest for shackles, and if you bring a druid for Anzu, Hibernate for the birdies are awesome.

Most difficult pull: The Ravenguards bring us back to the Defender pulls you might remember from Slave Pens. Two mobs that cannot be CCd at all and that hit very hard. To top it off, once you kill the first one, the other one enrages and hits even harder. Good times. Be on top of your game building threat on two mobs, if healer aggro peels one off, you have a problem. Stunlocking helps a lot, also make sure to use stuff like Concussion Blow and Disarm, they really help in minimizing damage.

Other notable pulls: Time-Lost Controllers will put down MC totems, kill that totem as quickly as possible. When tanking Sethekk Oracles, always have them with their back to the rest of the group so they will not be hit by the silence effect. Gnash your teeth once you reach the second floor of the instance, here’s where the pain begins. Sethekk Prophets are incredibly annoying. Always pull very far back, if you can get Fear Ward or Tremor Totem that’d be perfect, and run away from that annoying ghost that’s spawned when the prophets die that takes me right back in time to that annoying Prophet boss in Sunken Temple. Pulling far back until you end up with Ikiss is the key to success.

Bosses: Darkweaver Syth comes with elemental adds. TC and hold them as long as you can before your DPS burns them. Ignore the last wave. Win. It really helps if you can get initial aggro on the elementals to make life easier for everyone. Spell reflect all chain lightning. I am assuming you have no druid along. Anzu is crazy and annoying, but also sorta fun, especially if killing him means epic birdy for some happy druid. Tank him, in phase 2 try your best to bind the birds before you give up in frustration, pick up aggro when Anzu comes back, rinse and repeat. Long, crazy fight. Talon-King Ikiss is still much the same from normal, however, to make his Arcane Explosion even more fun, he puts a slow on everyone when he blinks. Stay close to the pillar, remind people to let you pick up Ikiss after every Explosion, and hope for the best. He drops fantastic tank shoulders, really good stuff, yet so fugly: Spaulders of Dementia

10. The Arcatraz (3.5/5): The jump in difficulty between normal and heroic Arcatraz is not huge. It’s one of the heroics you think is really extremely hardcore, but it’s actually not bad. If it wasn’t for the really aggravating first boss, I would have placed it at Botanica level. As tank, you get to tank a lot of single mobs, so it’s really quite easy to tank, and you need next to no CC. There are three pulls where CC helps (the three blood elves at the entrance plus the two Ethereal pulls at the end). The boss event at the end is challenging and requires people to be on their a-game, but I find it easier than the Blood Furnace Broggok event. H Arc is one of the trials of the Naaru, and pretty much the easiest one of the three.

Most difficult pull: If you don’t have a warlock along for Detect Invisibility, entering the room with bosses 2 and 3 can be tricky. There are stealthed succubi that have nasty abilities, if you pull more than one mob, it’s often a wipe. The felguard lookalikes silence and disarm. While you’re disarmed, Shield Slam and Thunderclap to continue building some threat, and block to minimize damage. The two different kinds of succubi have tricks up their sleave too. Gouge, Mind Control and a lovely debuff called Spiteful Fury that increases threat by 500%. Too bad they never put it on the tank.

Other notable trash: The Abyssals just before the end I thought would be more frustrating than they really are. If everyone stands on top of each other, right behind the tank (outside of fireshield range), then your healer should be fine healing through that. Other than the above-mentioned, none of the trash is any more difficult than on normal, they just hit harder.

Bosses: Zereketh the Unbound is nasty, frustrating, and most healers I know burst into tears when talking about him. He’s not particularly hard to tank, you just die a lot, because your healer will be overwhelmed by the massive damage everyone in the group is tanking. Prayer of Shadow Protection or Shadow Protection Aura are a must, and it actually helps if you have an offhealer for this fight who takes care of the group while the main healer keeps you up. Really unpleasant boss. Dalliah the Doomsayer is just about the same as on normal, with one very important difference: the cast time of her heal after the whirlwind is significantly shorter. Prepare to run back to her early enough so that you can interrupt her. Having additional interrupts along helps. Wrath-Scryer Soccothrates does more fire damage, but that’s the only difference from normal. As long as the group stays spread out and mobile, to avoid the flamewake, things will be fine. Last but not least, we have Harbinger Skyriss. He is not much harder than on normal, it’s the three mobs before him that can be rough. Watch out for the curse that you can get from the elemental, you want to be decursed when the drakonids show up.

This concludes part II of this guide, watch out for the terrifying heroics in the next part.

See also:

• Heroics order, part I
• Heroics order, part III

Yesterday, as I was leveling my shaman, I listed to one of Veneretio’s podcasts, and one of the questions he received was which instances make good starter heroics. Which took me right back in time. There I was, with every possible blue out of a normal instance, looking for a new challenge. With me I had my trusty sidekicks, a warlock and a priest, with the same predicament. We so got our asses handed to us, repeatedly. Wipe after wipe after wipe. That was back when you needed to be Revered with factions to run heroics, and when you actually were able to PUG because people had run instances a lot. At the time my most burning question was what instance to tackle first. There are various different opinions out there. By now I have run almost all heroics, with two exceptions so I’ll just add my opinion to the masses.

Before I start listing heroics, here’s my warning. If you’ve never been to Karazhan and you just want to start heroics, and your fellow group members have the same gear level, be prepared that heroics are hard. They are! Sure, ask in any forum and people will be ‘roflmao, noob, l2p, heroics r caek’. When you’re all clad in purples, they are significantly less challenging. But when you start out, prepare to wipe until you can wipe no more. As comparison, our first full heroic Slave Pens run had about six wipes. Basically, after second boss, we wiped from pull to pull. 3 hours after heading in, we finally killed Quagmirran. Yesterday, I ran heroic Slave Pens again (though I was on my rogue) and we completed with zero wipes, in about 55 minutes.

Enough rambling, here’s the meat! I will be using a scale of 1-5 to delineate difficulty as I see it, with tanking hints. A general hint before I start: trash is much harder than bosses in heroics, that’s why you skip as much trash as you can, unless you like your rep grinding masochist style. For your first attempts, I would generally advise at least two CCers. Once your gear is a bit better, you can start bringing the poor suckers who get left out, like enh shaman, boomkins or fury warriors.

Heroic instances in order of difficulty:

1. Slave Pens
2. Underbog
3. The Mechanar
4. Hellfire Ramparts

1. Slave Pens (1/5): The ultimate beginner instance for heroics. If you’re a beginner, bring tons of CC. It’s all humanoids, so mages, rogues, warlocks, hunters, shadow priests, they can all CC for you here.

Most difficult trash pull: Defenders. Come in pairs, cannot be CCd at all, spell-reflect, hit like trucks. In blue gear, expect 3-4k per hit. I found it impossible to tank both of them back then, as your healer will produce great amounts of aggro trying to keep you up. If you struggle, hunter kiting or frost mage kiting one of them works, just most of the time results in a death of them. Another helpful trick is to have a rogue stunlock the DPS target. Also, don’t be shy with Concussion Blow and Disarm, which both greatly minimize the damage you take. Once you start having more armor, the pulls become easily tankable.

Other notable pulls: Careful, after the second boss, there are three pulls that just spell ‘wipe-alert’. Especially the pull in the tunnel to Quagmirran has killed us many a time. Pull way down in the tunnel to avoid being feared in stuff you didn’t clear. In Quagmirran’s room, stand right by the tunnel when someone lets Bite out of the cage and fight the 3 mobs right there. Bite won’t aggro that way, and you can get your OP buff for Quagmirran.

Bosses: Mennu is cake, as long as someone takes out his totems quickly. Spell Reflecting the Lightning Bolt is awesome. Rokmar just needs to be burned quickly before the bleed effect kills you. Quagmirran needs to be turned away from the group because of his Cleave, and once he starts using Acid Spray on someone from the group, you taunt him after a second or two, so that you will get the majority of the damage. The Mark of Bite will greatly help here.

2. Underbog (1/5 with a lock, 2/5 without one): The next step up would be that other Coilfang Reservoir instance. Based on your group make-up it’s just about as easy as Slave Pens, but if you don’t have a warlock for banishing, the way to the first boss is somewhat painful. CC options: warlocks for banishing elementals and fearing wasps; mages for polymorphing bats and the humanoids between boss number one and 2; rogues for the humanoids; spriests for the humanoids; hunters for everything. It is a bit on the longish side, early runs will probably take 2 hours or so, nowadays we usually complete it in 90 minutes.

Most difficult pull: similar to the Defenders in SP, you have a two pull without any CC option, right before Hungarfen. They hit hard, they grow, and they like running away to smash a healer to pulp. Use similar tactics as described for the SP Defenders.

Other notable pulls: The two Underbog Lords just before the end of the instance are scaaaaary. They really hit harder than anything. Huge aggro range too, so be careful. Never turn your back on any of the bats, they can backstab for 5k+ on plate. For all pulls towards Swamplord Muse’lek, use line of sight to pull all wasps to you. There’s a corner you can run around that will force them to fly around it. You can bash or reflect the poison spit.

Bosses: Hungarfen means constant movement, hit V to see spawning mushrooms right away. Ghaz’an is kinda boring, as long as your healer can keep you up. Swamplord Muse’lek himself is a PITA. Get the damn bear to 20% first, his charge is like the most aggravating feature ever. Have everyone stand in the bear’s butt to avoid chasing him forever. Black Stalker needs to be burned fast, ignoring the adds works great.

3. Mechanar, Home of the Sun Eater (2/5): If you’re a warrior or paladin tank, this is likely the one heroic you will run over and over and over and then some more. Until you cry. Then The Sun Eater drops and you never set foot in the instance again. True story, for me. Still, it’s the avoidance sword, you’d be strange not to want it, as tank. CC options: mages, rogues, spriests for the humanoids. Warlocks make the demon pulls trivial. Ideally, those little annoying ones are enslaved and then just spam their Arcane Explosion thingy. Fun times. Hunters for trapping everything. For the end-boss, two classes that can fear are ideal.

Most difficult pull: Tempest-Forge Destroyers. Single pulls, hit really hard, but their worst part is their ability to use Charged Fist. Here you can really shine as warrior tank, because you have the unique ability to actually spell-reflect that. Reflecting roughly 4k damage is awesome cake! So be aware when you tank them to have spell reflect ready and be thankful that it’s off the global cooldown. As beginning heroics tank, you should always have rage for Spell Reflect, at my gear level I actually have to save the rage to be able to use it, at times.

Other notable pulls: My advice is to leave Nethermancer Serpetrea for last, because she can be very demoralizing. She’s harder than anything else in there. Instead, head towards Pathaleon the Calculator. The gauntlet is tricky and might require some dirty tricks. If you manage to survive the first wave of four, the Destroyer and the wave of three should be manageable. Be ready to Intervene on the Destroyers, they have a habit of heading straight for the healer. For the second part of the gauntlet, I strongly advise to use the elevator method for the last wave of four mobs. By elevator method I mean running out, using the elevator to go back down, wait til you’re out of combat. Once you go back up, the four mobs will be waiting for you and you can CC at your leisure. It sounds cowardly, but it’s better than wiping on the damn bridge. Pay attention to the Netherbinders, once they start summoning their Arcane Servants, you’re in trouble.

Bosses: the gatekeepers aren’t really worth mentioning, just run out of the Jackhammer. The first boss is significantly easier than on normal, go figure. You just have to tank your butt off, because DPS with matching buffs will lay down serious threat. Pathaleon is best done with a fear rotation, try to hold the adds on you as long as you can. Nethermancer Serpetrea aka ‘That fire bitch’ is the hardest nut to crack. Kite her around, Intervene/Feral Charge whenever the Dragon’s Breath wears off, and curse. She sucks that much, and it usually takes us a wipe or two before we get her down.

4. Hellfire Ramparts (2.5/5): This is a very short instance, but surprisingly I haven’t tanked it a lot, despite some interesting drops in there. CC options: mostly humanoids, so the usual options. Druids can hibernate the dogs.

Most difficult pull: there are several contenders here, but the pull with the Beastmaster in the first part of the instance is noteworthy as wipe-central. Don’t pull until the pat has left, pull faaaaar back and don’t be surprised by the dog-pack the Beastmaster summons. If the pat adds, you’re screwed, in most cases.

Notable trash pulls: Raveners hit extremely hard. Be prepared for that. In the pulls with the caster and the one guy in the center, kill the lone guy first, CC as many casters as you can, and generously use spell-reflect.

Bosses: On Omorr, try to tank the felpuppies as long as you can, because they like to eat casters for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On Nazan, don’t forget to move him around the platform, fire resistance of any form is a great help here, as is tremor totem or fear ward. I didn’t mention the first boss, because there’s no real change from when you first killed him at level 60.

This concludes the first part of my heroics blabbering. Part II will describe all medium-level heroics, basically the ones I would run anytime, and part III will cover the ones that you have to really talk myself into running.

See also:

• Heroics order, part II
• Heroics order, part III

News at 10, something incredible is happening, I am snatching up an idea from a posting of Mike Schramm, as opposed to him milking wow_ladies! Rar.

Today’s WoW Insider Breakfast Topic asks the question, which instance you have missed out on at the correct level. It fills me with a little bit of pride to say that I haven’t missed a single 5-man instance. There are people in my guild who used to tease me about my obsession to run instances in order. But I did. In vanilla WoW, I ran every single instance, in order, at the right level, with my warlock. We ran an instance every Sunday, always picked in order. Our instance group was so much fun. We spent like three consecutive Sundays in BRD, and never managed to make it through the Lycaeum, but not for lack of trying. We ran LBRS so many times, when the damn spider seemed like a real obstacle. I fondly remember discovering Maraudon for the first time and it’s colorful beauty. Of the 60s instances, Dire Maul was my favorite, I loved all of its wings. The tribute runs were genius.

In TBC I changed mains to Kadomi and from then on tanked my way through all instances, in order, at the right level range. We didn’t set foot into 70s instances until we were all 70. Didn’t skip a single one.

Discovering 5-mans, when they’re all fresh and new, that’s the best part. I can’t wait for the new 5-mans in WotLK. Wiping and overcoming obstacles with people you like to spend time with, that’s simply the best part of WoW for me.