Heroic Slave Pens Twice in One Day

[Mercurio]

Well, I just finished Heroic Slave Pens the second time today. Of course, you can only run heroics once per day, but I did it with two teams.

Team 1: Prot Warrior, Resto Shaman, Ele Shamanx2, Fire Mage

Team 2: Prot Pally, Holy Priest, Demon/Destro Lockx2, Ele Shaman

The tanks are Kara geared, the healers both have about +1600 healing, and the DPSers vary between 600 - 950 spell damage.

That's the first time I'd run my guys in those groups and I must say, Prot Pally + 4xShaman is much easier than either of these setups. Selecting which keys make which abilities function on each class and coordinating them all is hard work.

Some observations:

Tank: Overall, it seems like the Prot Pally is much easier to tank with (no surprise there), the Prot Warrior's battles were much more chaotic with trying to get devestate up on as many mobs as possible while using Improved Thunder Clap as often as it came up and still DPSing and healing.

Heals: Seemed like the Resto Shaman was easier to heal with than the priest, because when he pulled aggro he'd survive a bit longer. Also helped to have him in a group with a couple other shammies that could chain heal him if a mob was beating on him and my warrior was overwhelmed.

DPS: I was surprised to see my +800 spell damage mage losing out on overall damage to my +650 spell damage ele shaman. Was using a rotation of Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fire Blast vs Lightning Bolt spam. My +950 spell damage lock slaughtered everyone else on overall damage with shadow bolt spam.

I would like to be able to take both these teams on the heroic daily with some consistency, but don't know if they'll be able to handle some of the other Heroics. With my Pally + 4 Shammies (easy mode) I had SP, SV, UB, and Ramps on farm.

A couple of questions:

1. That was the first time I successfully ran a heroic on my warrior - any other warriors have tactics to share for generating enough aggro on 4 targets so heals won't pull one of them off in the first 4 seconds after engagement?
2. Anyone else have comparisons between priests and shammies as healers for this kind of team? Haven't played my priest nearly as much so I'm probably missing something there as well.
3. Anyone else seeing mages underperform and locks overperform in DPS vs ele shammies?

Thanks, and I'm looking forward to learning from all the discussions in this cool new thread on instance strategies.

[kraemder]

It might be the gear. My warrior, Rottenkraem, has mostly badge gear and he does fine in heroic sp with multi targets. With his gear I can tab devastate/heroic strike each mob once before he needs a heal at all and I just periodically tab and hit the non dps mobs with a devastate/heroic strike and no problems. No cc either - although maybe with a mage you could try it.



I 2 box the warrior with my holy priest and pug dps. I guess I was too lazy to level up more toons to 5 box and also I like having an audience to see my boxing skills which you don't get when you play every toon in the group. I haven't tried tanking with a pally/druid before. Gearing up another tank would probably drive me nuts.

[Mercurio]

Hmm... I hadn't tried Heroic Strike as an aggro builder - I figured devastatex2 was better than 1 devastate and 1 heroic strike. Perhaps I ought to not be using a cooldown on thunder clap - it may just not generate enough aggro (even though it is hitting all four mobs at once) in place of one more devastate.

The other thing that is tough in my setup is that my DPS is assisting my tank for targets, so the more I tab around to generate aggro on multiple mobs the longer it will take for anything to die, which means the more healing my tank will need, which means the better the chances that my healer will pull aggro from at least one mob before the end of the fight. With my pally tanking I can just concentrate all my DPS on one mob initially, bringing one down quick and simplifying the fight.

[pipakin]

I thought Scorch x5 (with Improved Scorch) then Firebal x7, Scorch x1, Fireball x7, etc. was the optimal fire mage dps rotation. That may be why your mage wasn't keeping up as far as damage goes.

[Enshredder]

Hmm... I hadn't tried Heroic Strike as an aggro builder - I figured devastatex2 was better than 1 devastate and 1 heroic strike. Perhaps I ought to not be using a cooldown on thunder clap - it may just not generate enough aggro (even though it is hitting all four mobs at once) in place of one more devastate.

The other thing that is tough in my setup is that my DPS is assisting my tank for targets, so the more I tab around to generate aggro on multiple mobs the longer it will take for anything to die, which means the more healing my tank will need, which means the better the chances that my healer will pull aggro from at least one mob before the end of the fight. With my pally tanking I can just concentrate all my DPS on one mob initially, bringing one down quick and simplifying the fight.

Heroic strike is an on next auto-attack swing ability, whereas devastate is an instant attack. They are 2 seperate cooldowns. Furthermore, cleave has an innate built in hate bonus that is almost equal to that of heroic strike's built in hate bonus. Improved cleave gives even more damage which increases hate even more. On top of that, cleave will hit 2 mobs at one time.

Improved thunderclap in defensive stance will generate aggro equivalent to 1 devastate per each mob that it hits. If you hit 4 mobs with thunderclap, each one of those mobs will now have a devastate worth of aggro on it.

Tab devastating is a painful and awful way to go with tanking multiple mobs with a warrior. Create a mouseover devastate/sunder macro and things become much better. I firmly believe any pulls that have 4 mobs or less - the warrior is a much better tank than a paladin. A warrior can very efficiently and easily handle up to 4 mobs at one time without much of a problem with aggro. Within the first 5 seconds of the initial pull, you should with ease be able to land 2 thunderclaps, 3 cleaves, and 3 devastates. At this point you shouldnt lose aggro to heals or damage.

I would disagree with you and say that a warrior is a better multi-box tank than a paladin, but there is a lot of anti-warrior bias around here. Thunderclap reduces a mob's attack speed by 20%, and improved demo shout decreases a mob's attack power by around 400. You just plain need a lot less healing as a warrior when these abilities are active. I've cleared almost every heroic in the game with no issues using a warrior tank in my multi-box setup.

[Mercurio]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Pipakin, I'm sure that mage rotation is best on bosses, but I'm mainly clearing trash in a heroic. I added a scorch or two to my mage castsequence, but with +200 more spell damage, he is still lagging the ele shammies pretty significantly.

Enshredder, that's exactly the kind of info I was looking for - I looked over your post for a while and spent about an hour recreating macros on my warrior and his team and headed back into Slave Pens excited about the possibilities. Unfortunately, I wiped more in this instance than in the last three combined. Seems I just don't have the skill to tank a heroic on a warrior very well. I'd be really interested to hear how you set yours up - for a pally tanking is simple - spam or casually hit the Consecrate and Holy Shield buttons... done. For a warrior, I can't use my abilities at all unless I have first used Bloodrage, Thunder Clap is fine but doesn't hold aggro on all the mobs by itself, trying to mouseover target sounded great, but in practice four Bostroks always stand right on top of each other and I have no chance to hit more than one or maybe two while frantically moving my mouse, all the while watching another head for my squishies. Devastate works pretty well but cleave? Can't spam cleave or it will turn on and off. I'd love to be able to mitigate incoming damage with a Demoralizing Shout, Shield Block, or even Spell Reflection but I'm already overwhelmed just trying to get devastate on more than two mobs.

So in summary:

Pally tank:

Avenger's Shield (ranged pull that generates aggro on multiple mobs)
Holy Shield & Consecrate (hit as much or as little as you want as long as you have mana, don't have to target anything, don't have to swing your weapon)

Warrior tank:

Bloodlust (necessary precusor to engaging, generages no aggro by itself)
Devastate (must have mob targeted, must have rage)
Cleave (must have mob targeted, must have rage, is a toggle so can't spam it)
Thunder Clap (hit as much or as little as you want, must have rage, don't have to target anything)
Shield Bash (must have mob targeted, must have rage)
Shield Block (must have rage, defensive)
Demoralizing Shout (must have rage, can't spam or will use up rage with no benefit)

Every different ability is a different key or macro that my DPS/healers will be executing as well or will leave a hole in the number of abilities I can have at my disposal.

Bosses are absolutely no problem on either type of tank, but the trash is way too irritating with my current skill level & setup on the warrior. (BTW, he has 12.5K hitpoints, 497 defense, 16.5K armor, 17% dodge, 16% parry, and 27% block unbuffed, and has MTed Kara numerous times, so blame it on my abilities, not his gear)

Any other suggestions would be appreciated. I'd hate to have to self my warrior.