For those of us 5 boxing shamans who just have quest gear...

[knopstr]

When can I realistically expect to run the 1st couple of instances in Northrend?

I missed the time to be able to run Kara and heroics as I just dinged 69 with my group.

I see people in threads talking about running some of the 1st 1-3 instances, but those folks are probably decently geared. I should hit 70 this weekend and will take the plunge over, but am afraid I will only still have my Outland greens and blues.

Can people please comment...thank you.

[elsegundo]

UK and Nexus can be done in northrend greens or outland blues. If you have the undead slaying set, its cake.
really, these instances are designed for those who just leveled to 70 or 71 and have quest reward items. just do the first zone to replace some of your gear. its not as massive of a boost when you jumped into outland, but its still a boost.

[Bovidae]

imo, UK was designed to be accessible to those leveling from scratch. Even with crap gear at 70, you should be fine.

Nexus is not that much harder.

[Catamer]

I didn't find any of the bosses of UK or Nexis dropping anything of interesting to my well semi-well geared shaman.
I thought the quest rewards for having done something in the instances to be much more interesting.

you can clear all of the trash in the Nexus and never have to kill any boss. they are all optional.
there is really only one boss that needs to be killed in the Nexus to get the quest reward and that is Anomalus.
Quest: Postponing the Inevitable ('http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?wquest=11905&source=live&locale=enUS')
I'm not 100% sure you have to kill Anomalus to finish this quest, but I stood in the spot behind where he stands to finish the quest.
for some reason I found Anomalus hard to do although my follow mboxer in my guild found him quite easy. ( no pictures so I'm not sure I believe him )

the boss that needs to be killed in UK is Ingvar the Plunderer and I hated him.
I had mana issues in UK tring to get the quest reward there, I had no problem killing the Plunderer the first time but it usually took 65% of my mana so when he rezed I would wipe every time. I'm going back with some mana pots to try that again.

[Kilh]

Quest: Postponing the Inevitable ('http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?wquest=11905&source=live&locale=enUS')
I'm not 100% sure you have to kill Anomalus to finish this quest, but I stood in the spot behind where he stands to finish the quest.You can just walk around him and complete (@70)

[Tsunami]

if you do a search of lvl 80 players you will find that most of them are keeping a lot of their BT/MT gear. WOTLK is not the gear boost that outlands was.

[accretion]

I took my 4 Hunter/1 Priest team (lvl 70) to UK last night and did...ok. I took out the first boss after a couple of wipes, mainly due to poor pulling technique, but had no trouble clearing up to that point. I then cleared up to boss #2 (&3) but was trounced and decided to return at 71-72. I'm mainly wearing BC blues with the scourge event purples and get a tooltip dps of ~400 on each hunter. I'm also using cunning pets instead of tenacity, so I may try to get bona fide tanks next time. I also ducked into The Nexus and cleared out one wing (no deaths) but was thrashed by the caster lady when I failed to look up her specific strategy =)

I think a 5-person team with "average" BC gear could handle UK right out of the gate, but there's a much smaller margin of error for boxers, due to the increased mob dps (much like BC). I'm guessing I could clear the whole thing by 72, assuming I put some minimal effort in to getting some new enchants, etc.

[TheBigBB]

I didn't find any of the bosses of UK or Nexis dropping anything of interesting to my well semi-well geared shaman.
I thought the quest rewards for having done something in the instances to be much more interesting.

you can clear all of the trash in the Nexus and never have to kill any boss. they are all optional.
there is really only one boss that needs to be killed in the Nexus to get the quest reward and that is Anomalus.
Quest: Postponing the Inevitable ('http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?wquest=11905&source=live&locale=enUS')
I'm not 100% sure you have to kill Anomalus to finish this quest, but I stood in the spot behind where he stands to finish the quest.
for some reason I found Anomalus hard to do although my follow mboxer in my guild found him quite easy. ( no pictures so I'm not sure I believe him )

the boss that needs to be killed in UK is Ingvar the Plunderer and I hated him.
I had mana issues in UK tring to get the quest reward there, I had no problem killing the Plunderer the first time but it usually took 65% of my mana so when he rezed I would wipe every time. I'm going back with some mana pots to try that again.

If you do the quests around the Nexus, you get a quest to kill the dragon, too. At least, you do on the alliance side.

Still, in UK and Nexus, you get a lot of quests that can be done just clearing some trash.

I think you could possibly kill some bosses other than the final bosses if you do an all-out burn, I just doubt you'd survive the final boss in UK without a tank if you're in questing gear. Same with Nexus.