1741

ROFL. You and everyone else who did that fight just “fine” pre naxx10/25 gear as they leveled/geared up almost 2 years ago. Oculus while tough is no where near as bad as H FOS. An overgeared healer and 1 dps can carry a low gear tank/dps group, at least until the very last boss where everyone flies a dragon.

H FOS, has major damage spikes that need to be healed. The last boss causes two problems for 30k hp tanks and everyone else. His spell damage attack and the dps noobs who dont stop attacking during his mirror spell. Odds are if you have a 30k hp tank in there, you have a noob healer as well. Even a skilled player is going to have trouble keeping up 30k hp tanks due to healing output not meeting damage. If you think otherwise, you’ve been carried every time. I’ve tanked it and healed it across 3 healers and 4 tanks. Warriors have it easy because of spell reflect. I saved several fights due to that mechanic. DK’s (blood spec anyway) because of interrupts and self heals. Druids maybe via sheer health and pallies only via bubble wall.

No doubt. The first two or three pulls in that instance make or break a group’s viability to complete it.

1742

Oculus wasn’t ever hard; it was just annoying.

1743

H FOS, has major damage spikes that need to be healed. The last boss causes two problems for 30k hp tanks and everyone else. His spell damage attack and the dps noobs who dont stop attacking during his mirror spell. Odds are if you have a 30k hp tank in there, you have a noob healer as well. Even a skilled player is going to have trouble keeping up 30k hp tanks due to healing output not meeting damage. If you think otherwise, you’ve been carried every time. I’ve tanked it and healed it across 3 healers and 4 tanks. Warriors have it easy because of spell reflect. I saved several fights due to that mechanic. DK’s (blood spec anyway) because of interrupts and self heals. Druids maybe via sheer health and pallies only via bubble wall.

I can keep myself up with just seal and judgement on my pally, that fight is a joke, I also solo the krick and ick boss fight in HPoS on my pally as well.

Pally tank > pretty much everything.

1744

I’m pretty annoyed with this expansion the more I read about it. So in 2 years and their infinite wisdom instead of releasing the same amount of 5 man dungeons on release we’re losing another 2 compared to the previous expansion, going from 12 to 10, and 2 of them are just rehashed zones, heroic only, from vanilla wow.

5 mans are run the most out of anything. It’s something you continually do on a daily basis and reducing that content from xpac to xpac simply kills your ability to do different things daily. I really haven’t read much on the raid content yet, but remember that we had 16 raid bosses on release of WoTLK and all of that was cleared within the first week of the xpac coming out.

I really wonder what they do in 2 years to push out content because it’s already obvious they’re not even ready to release Cata and it’s being rushed at this point. I understand time is needed to make games, however managing their time is something they don’t seem to do well.

1745

That’s one way to view it.

Another way is: since there are only 5 levels instead of 10, there will be more content available closer at the level cap. Those 2 revamped heroics provide a cool twist on lower level dungeons, one that many people will enjoy seeing. Keep in mind that most of those raid bosses available at the start of WotLK were “rehashed” as well, in Naxx.

Related to the other discussion, there is more of a stepping stone in gear for the first part of Cataclysm. You are expected to run through the normal versions of the level 84-85 dungeons, and/or get blue quality crafted gear or reputation rewards, to get decent enough gear to do the heroics. Indeed, the gear requirements in the LFD UI require it. Then you’re expected to do the heroics to get decent enough gear to do the normal raids, and those normal raids provide the epic gear needed for the heroic raids.

There is no starting raid in Cataclysm comparable to Naxx, where a character freshly at level cap could go in and get a ton of epics with very little effort. The designers have stated it was a mistake to allow Naxx to be so easy, and therefor trivialize all the heroic dungeons and reputation rewards; that won’t be happening this time around.

Once people are geared up for raiding, there are 3 different starting raids with a total of 11 bosses, IIRC – 12 in heroic mode. Combine that with the extra “fun” goodies like Archaeology, guild achievements, and a plethora of PVP battleground and world PVP options, and it’s unlikely that there will feel like there’s less to do than there was at the start of WotLK. (And that’s not even getting into the whole rerolling option, with all the newly revamped zones and new races, and race/class combos.)

1746

It’s not really possible to powerlevel inscription like other professions. Minor glyphs and a lot of Northrend glyphs have to be researched on a 20-hour cooldown. Other high end glyphs have to be learned from randomly-dropped books of glyph mastery. Unless someone’s been hoarding them, it would be difficult to get them at reasonable AH prices before 12/7.

It’s a fiddly, grindy profession that I would not bother with again.

1747

I didn’t really have a problem on my priest healing a PUG DK tank with about 26k health in there. I thought it would be rough, but I just spammed heal unless I got the mark. As long as the tank is def capped, I don’t complain too much.

1748

The problem with Devourer of Souls is when the Phantom Blast is not interrupted, since that’s almost 2/3rds of a Tank with 30k HP’s life. A DK would be pretty good with anti-magic shell and 2 interrupts and all their crazy cooldowns.

I call BS on Idrisz soloing it with a Paladin tank just using seals and judge, come on. Plus, his tank probably is in full 264 gear at least which is a little fucking different from a tank with 30k. If you think that fight is a joke, you’ve never been in there at the expected gear level, or you’ve been completely carried.

1749

I did it with my Paladin tank as soon as it let me in - around 4500 GS IIRC - and it’s one of the easier bosses I’ve faced. The only problem with Devourer is when people don’t stop the DPS when they’re supposed to.

1750

I totally believe idrisz, as long as he has someone interrupting the casts (Paladins only have HoJ, though they do have a ton of damage-reduction cooldowns).

1751

Oh snap, if only we’d been arguing this on the official forums, you’d have had us all. Too bad it’s not. Maybe you want to check our armories too ?

1752

Heroic Forge isn’t that bad, although some of the trash is brutal. The bosses are actually pretty easy except on Devourer when your healer (thats me when I play) gets mirrored and the DPS are too dumb to stop DPSing. On Heroic Pit, the tank’s gear really matters when going through the ice tunnel; apart from that its not too bad.

Its really Halls thats the brutal one. Halls requires a well geared tank and a well geared healer who know wtf they are doing, and it requires DPS who can burn down waves at a decent clip so you can have small breaks between some of the fights.

1753

People always try to run through & end up getting themselves killed. Skip to about 2:10 in this video to see the foolproof way to get through the tunnel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU7vizgszUs

1754

Without watching that (on my phone,) but is it going to the halfway spot, killing the elemental, and then going the rest of the way? Cos that’s what every group I’ve ever done it with does.

1755

Yeah, that’s how it’s done. run to halfway where there’s no ice, clear, then run the rest of the way and clear at the tunnel mouth. As a bear tank spamming swipe is plenty good to get everything to stack on you until you burn it down. I tend to find garfrost the hardest boss in there. Not as a tank, mind you, but for dps that can’t seem to hide behind rocks, and rocks causing LOS issues for healers. I also find it funny when I do ick and krick and someone doesn’t run away during pursuit, and then mouths off about how much the tank sucks and ragequits.

Unfortunately as a bear tank I tend to find halls of reflection a bit tricker than some because I don’t have as many cool ranged tools to pick up ranged stragglers, but as long as everyone is competent it’s generally not an issue. That’s the key though. I don’t see many people get carried through there. DK’s are awesome there with death grip, both as tanks and to help the tank pick up those ranged stragglers.

Side question: any other good boots for a bear tank besides the marrowgar/25 ones? I have never seen them drop, and I’m still using relentless gladiator boots there. (coqauvin - blade’s edge)

1756

There’s a stacking armor debuff that goes up to 50% from one of the types of mobs in the tunnel, which effectively acts as a cap on how many you can tank at once. You can get away with pulling the whole tunnel on normal, though.

1757

HoR is actually really easy if you use (gasp) crowd control! Having a priest or hunter in the party to cc at least one add makes that place a whole lot more trivial.

1758

That’s what most groups I’ve been in do too (except the cocky tanks who are really well geared).

I’m talking about the tanks who can’t even make it halfway, or they arrive at the circle with 20% health and promptly get one shotted by the revenant.

Most groups I’ve been in use the LOS method, which is “easier” because it just means the tank does all the work and the DPS don’t have to do the minimal thinking required to use CC properly.

I even glyphed Scourge Imprisonment for that dungeon and never got to use it once.

1759

I’d love to use CC, but it seems like every tank in the game (or DPS DK) regards a trapped mob as something that needs to be hit asap.

1760

Its really Halls thats the brutal one. Halls requires a well geared tank and a well geared healer who know wtf they are doing, and it requires DPS who can burn down waves at a decent clip so you can have small breaks between some of the fights.

Heroic Halls is trivially easy. You don’t need an uber geared tank or an uber geared healer. You need people that know how to CC. Lock down even one of the adds, and focus fire the rest down one at a time, and the place becomes a cakewalk. If you’re lucky enough to get three dpsers that know how to CC, your healer can sleep through most of the instance.

Side question: any other good boots for a bear tank besides the marrowgar/25 ones? I have never seen them drop, and I’m still using relentless gladiator boots there.

There are some crafted 264 leather boots that are apparently pretty spiffy. Although, if you wait 2 months, it wont really matter all that much :P.