Razman
09-18-2008, 07:19 AM
Blood Furnace Normal Mode
The guide here is for a Pally tank and 4 shaman (1 restoration) set up. Gear wise I had nothing better than Zanga Marsh quest rewards and 3 drops from Ramparts and no enchants and was 63. The important thing here is to have a tank. Without a dedicated tank those engineers are going to hurt you bad.
BF in difficulty comes straight after Ramparts. As some of the mobs in Ramparts go green at 63 it’s nice to swap over to BF. The mobs in BF are around 61-62 so being lvl 64 should be ideal but it’s fine to go at 63 or even 62. However, I personally like going to instances 1 or 2 levels above the mobs.
Remember this isn’t the only way to do BF or even the best it’s just how I do it. If you have better ways of doing something just post it in.
Assassins
Throughout the instance in stealth mode are assassins. They are nothing more than just plain annoying. The time where they become dangerous is if they appear when you’re in mid fight with something else.
The best way around this is to learn where they appear as they pop up in the same places every time. They are in the same positions in heroic as they are in normal. They have low health and don’t hit too hard but if they jump one of your alts and you don’t notice it can be nasty.
Their main damage dealing effect is a poison which ticks like crazy this poison also stacks if there’s more than one of them. I just use the pally cleanse on this.
Bottom line is they are annoying and you should deal with them before pulling anything.
Summoners
Summoners are a massive danger to your group set up. They will summon succubus and fel hounds. They will seduce your guys, silence and drain mana. If you see a summoner in a group it is your main priority. Take it down first. A summoner has the ability to wipe you so kill it fast. Then I like to prioritise anything it has summoned as they’re easy to kill but cause mayhem while they’re alive.
Imps
Imps in a group should also be prioritised. They are extremely weak health wise but their fireballs take chunks out of you. Blast them first then deal with anything else. You can one shot or two shot the imps. The beauty of a pally tank is he/she doesn’t have to be targeting a mob in order to tank it. If you’re not working with focuses but targettarget just target the imp blast it then consecrate the melee as they attack your group. Activate your holy shield by the time this is done the imp is dead. Re target onto the melees, judge then blast with your guys.
So in an imp group the priority is imp, cloth then melee.
Melee
The standard melee mobs in BF don’t do anything really special some have a knock back which is annoying but if they’re not coupled with engineers they’re nothing to worry about.
Engineers
Engineers are probably the main cause of wipes in BF for pugs in my experience. However this is because some groups go in melee heavy and the healer gets overwhelmed.
Here’s my tactic for them and it works. I will use the same tactic in heroics.
Move forward with the entire group until you’re just in range of your pull. Slap down fire resist totems, Heal stream and anything else you like your tank to have. Then move your shamans back. Your pally will be alone in a bunch of totems at max range from the engineers. Your shamans will be at range from your pally. This set up is designed so only your pally will ever get damaged by the engineers. Once this is sorted everything’s fine.
Now the thing is with engineers they have been designed to cause maximum mayhem to a warrior charge and melee. Pull the group with your pally and you will see they immediately drop a bunch of mines. Thank god you’re not a warrior lol. They will start throwing grenades at you, resist the temptation to heal too quickly remember a resto shaman can whack a quick 2.5k - 3k heal on you at this point so you can lose a fair bit and have it all back likety split. If you start healing like crazy you may heal aggro the engineers onto your shaman group which would suck big time.
On your pally start aggroing them. At this point begin some big spam heals on your pally and start to dps. The pally is excellent for allowing early dps so don’t be nervous about early nuking. This is the pallys main strength over a warrior in 5 mans. Pallys don’t have as much health but that’s because groups are allowed to dps mobs down a lot quicker than they are with a warrior. When a mine drops just manoeuvre away from it, you don’t have to go very far just a little bit away from it.
Engineers dead, pally scorched, shamans untouched. The engineers are no harder than that. If I had a 5 shaman set up here I would probably wipe quite a lot.
The First Boss
The first boss in BF is a melee type and isn’t too tough. Tank n spank. Spam heals and nuke. You really shouldn’t have a problem with it. IMOP the first boss in Ramparts is tougher. The only nasty move this boss will do is MC one of your guys.
If you are having a problem it will be because you’re leaving too much time between the start of the fight and dpsing or you are being too conservative with the heals. There is absolutely nothing wrong in most situations to spam heal with your resto. This isn’t raiding so bosses and Mobs go down quick so mana isn’t an issue. Spam healing is good in this fight as well in case your healer gets MCed so the tank isn’t left needed major healing when your resto is out of action. Pallys gain so much threat that heal aggro really isn’t an issue so don’t worry it.
The Tunnel
The tunnel before the second boss with machines in can be a pain if you set up in a traditional manner. That is with the pally up front and your shamans behind you. This is not a good set up because the melee do a knock back. They will knock your tank back into the shaman group then the engineers will follow the tank in and kill your group so fast with mines you will wonder what the hell happened.
The best set up here for when there’s engineers in a tunnel group is to position all your shammys sideways in the tunnel and put your pally next to them.
If your shammy team is represented as an I and your pally as an X the positioning would be:
X I
The reason for this is the nasty knock back. Positioning in this way will allow your shamans to stay out of the aoe grenades and mines and do their stuff uninterrupted whacking the mobs from the sides.
The first pull is best to pull out of the tunnel and into the big room though as there’s a pat and also an assassin to the left hand side.
Whenever you’re pulling a group with engineers in this tunnel use the XI formation. If there’s no engineers a traditional positioning is fine. Again summoners are in here so kill them quick.
Work your way down the tunnel. If there’s a melee and cloth group mix tank the melee with the pally using consecrate and block while dpsing the cloth who are usually summoners. The cloth are the danger here.
Ok you’re at the end of the tunnel you’ve cleared it but wait there’s an assassin close to the wall. Aggro it and kill it, this assassin will join in an attack from your first pull and can be bad.
2nd Boss Room First Pull
The first pull from the main room into the corridor is probably the most dangerous pull you have done so far. This first pull wipes pugs like nothing else. This pull is the static group straight ahead in the room. I leave the pats until after this group is down.
The reason for it being so bad is on the pull the summoner doesn’t follow the tank into the corridor even if you do an LOS pull. The summoner will move into the small alcove leading into the corridor and summon some nasties. These will attack your group silencing your healer and from there it gets worse as the engineers will be wreaking havoc. Most tanks even good ones will attempt the LOS pull and be waiting at the side, he will get attacked by the engineers but the summoners pets will be attacking your group silencing your casters and its wipe time.
Position your shaman group with their backs to the wall facing the room with the pally at range ahead of your shaman group in a bunch of totems. The trick here is not to be clever but play to your strength. That strength is a wall of dps. Tank the engineer’s aoe style and spam heal your pally. DPS the Summoner ASAP and kill off any summons then move onto the engineers. There will be no knock back here as there’s no melee. If you wanted to be clever you could use a silence shock on a round robin for the summoners but I haven’t tried that yet.
The guide here is for a Pally tank and 4 shaman (1 restoration) set up. Gear wise I had nothing better than Zanga Marsh quest rewards and 3 drops from Ramparts and no enchants and was 63. The important thing here is to have a tank. Without a dedicated tank those engineers are going to hurt you bad.
BF in difficulty comes straight after Ramparts. As some of the mobs in Ramparts go green at 63 it’s nice to swap over to BF. The mobs in BF are around 61-62 so being lvl 64 should be ideal but it’s fine to go at 63 or even 62. However, I personally like going to instances 1 or 2 levels above the mobs.
Remember this isn’t the only way to do BF or even the best it’s just how I do it. If you have better ways of doing something just post it in.
Assassins
Throughout the instance in stealth mode are assassins. They are nothing more than just plain annoying. The time where they become dangerous is if they appear when you’re in mid fight with something else.
The best way around this is to learn where they appear as they pop up in the same places every time. They are in the same positions in heroic as they are in normal. They have low health and don’t hit too hard but if they jump one of your alts and you don’t notice it can be nasty.
Their main damage dealing effect is a poison which ticks like crazy this poison also stacks if there’s more than one of them. I just use the pally cleanse on this.
Bottom line is they are annoying and you should deal with them before pulling anything.
Summoners
Summoners are a massive danger to your group set up. They will summon succubus and fel hounds. They will seduce your guys, silence and drain mana. If you see a summoner in a group it is your main priority. Take it down first. A summoner has the ability to wipe you so kill it fast. Then I like to prioritise anything it has summoned as they’re easy to kill but cause mayhem while they’re alive.
Imps
Imps in a group should also be prioritised. They are extremely weak health wise but their fireballs take chunks out of you. Blast them first then deal with anything else. You can one shot or two shot the imps. The beauty of a pally tank is he/she doesn’t have to be targeting a mob in order to tank it. If you’re not working with focuses but targettarget just target the imp blast it then consecrate the melee as they attack your group. Activate your holy shield by the time this is done the imp is dead. Re target onto the melees, judge then blast with your guys.
So in an imp group the priority is imp, cloth then melee.
Melee
The standard melee mobs in BF don’t do anything really special some have a knock back which is annoying but if they’re not coupled with engineers they’re nothing to worry about.
Engineers
Engineers are probably the main cause of wipes in BF for pugs in my experience. However this is because some groups go in melee heavy and the healer gets overwhelmed.
Here’s my tactic for them and it works. I will use the same tactic in heroics.
Move forward with the entire group until you’re just in range of your pull. Slap down fire resist totems, Heal stream and anything else you like your tank to have. Then move your shamans back. Your pally will be alone in a bunch of totems at max range from the engineers. Your shamans will be at range from your pally. This set up is designed so only your pally will ever get damaged by the engineers. Once this is sorted everything’s fine.
Now the thing is with engineers they have been designed to cause maximum mayhem to a warrior charge and melee. Pull the group with your pally and you will see they immediately drop a bunch of mines. Thank god you’re not a warrior lol. They will start throwing grenades at you, resist the temptation to heal too quickly remember a resto shaman can whack a quick 2.5k - 3k heal on you at this point so you can lose a fair bit and have it all back likety split. If you start healing like crazy you may heal aggro the engineers onto your shaman group which would suck big time.
On your pally start aggroing them. At this point begin some big spam heals on your pally and start to dps. The pally is excellent for allowing early dps so don’t be nervous about early nuking. This is the pallys main strength over a warrior in 5 mans. Pallys don’t have as much health but that’s because groups are allowed to dps mobs down a lot quicker than they are with a warrior. When a mine drops just manoeuvre away from it, you don’t have to go very far just a little bit away from it.
Engineers dead, pally scorched, shamans untouched. The engineers are no harder than that. If I had a 5 shaman set up here I would probably wipe quite a lot.
The First Boss
The first boss in BF is a melee type and isn’t too tough. Tank n spank. Spam heals and nuke. You really shouldn’t have a problem with it. IMOP the first boss in Ramparts is tougher. The only nasty move this boss will do is MC one of your guys.
If you are having a problem it will be because you’re leaving too much time between the start of the fight and dpsing or you are being too conservative with the heals. There is absolutely nothing wrong in most situations to spam heal with your resto. This isn’t raiding so bosses and Mobs go down quick so mana isn’t an issue. Spam healing is good in this fight as well in case your healer gets MCed so the tank isn’t left needed major healing when your resto is out of action. Pallys gain so much threat that heal aggro really isn’t an issue so don’t worry it.
The Tunnel
The tunnel before the second boss with machines in can be a pain if you set up in a traditional manner. That is with the pally up front and your shamans behind you. This is not a good set up because the melee do a knock back. They will knock your tank back into the shaman group then the engineers will follow the tank in and kill your group so fast with mines you will wonder what the hell happened.
The best set up here for when there’s engineers in a tunnel group is to position all your shammys sideways in the tunnel and put your pally next to them.
If your shammy team is represented as an I and your pally as an X the positioning would be:
X I
The reason for this is the nasty knock back. Positioning in this way will allow your shamans to stay out of the aoe grenades and mines and do their stuff uninterrupted whacking the mobs from the sides.
The first pull is best to pull out of the tunnel and into the big room though as there’s a pat and also an assassin to the left hand side.
Whenever you’re pulling a group with engineers in this tunnel use the XI formation. If there’s no engineers a traditional positioning is fine. Again summoners are in here so kill them quick.
Work your way down the tunnel. If there’s a melee and cloth group mix tank the melee with the pally using consecrate and block while dpsing the cloth who are usually summoners. The cloth are the danger here.
Ok you’re at the end of the tunnel you’ve cleared it but wait there’s an assassin close to the wall. Aggro it and kill it, this assassin will join in an attack from your first pull and can be bad.
2nd Boss Room First Pull
The first pull from the main room into the corridor is probably the most dangerous pull you have done so far. This first pull wipes pugs like nothing else. This pull is the static group straight ahead in the room. I leave the pats until after this group is down.
The reason for it being so bad is on the pull the summoner doesn’t follow the tank into the corridor even if you do an LOS pull. The summoner will move into the small alcove leading into the corridor and summon some nasties. These will attack your group silencing your healer and from there it gets worse as the engineers will be wreaking havoc. Most tanks even good ones will attempt the LOS pull and be waiting at the side, he will get attacked by the engineers but the summoners pets will be attacking your group silencing your casters and its wipe time.
Position your shaman group with their backs to the wall facing the room with the pally at range ahead of your shaman group in a bunch of totems. The trick here is not to be clever but play to your strength. That strength is a wall of dps. Tank the engineer’s aoe style and spam heal your pally. DPS the Summoner ASAP and kill off any summons then move onto the engineers. There will be no knock back here as there’s no melee. If you wanted to be clever you could use a silence shock on a round robin for the summoners but I haven’t tried that yet.