First Bronze Drake! Timed Culling of Strat complete!

[Kalros]

Woohoo!!! After several months of doing heroics and many attempts at the timed run in Culling of Strat, I finally got my first Bronze Drake!!!! The big differences for me were dropping grounding totems more often and healing more often. All of my previous attempts I would have to pause because I lost a shaman, or even worse, the tank. I healed alot earlier, and more often, than I normally do. And wouldnt you know it, no deaths! Killed the Infinite Corrupter with 1 minute remaining!

[img=http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/9385/cosf.th.jpg] ('http://img38.imageshack.us/i/cosf.jpg/')

[Dorffo]

congrats!

[Gares]

I did all mine before the mana totem fix/nerf, so I wonder how it would be now? Probably still doable just either need to drink a little (cause I never had to before) and still have time left over. BTW I did it with DK, 3 Elemental and 1 Resto Shammy.

[mmcookies]

why do those guys in your screenie look like humans?

[Kalros]

I did all mine before the mana totem fix/nerf, so I wonder how it would
be now? Probably still doable just either need to drink a little (cause
I never had to before) and still have time left over. BTW I did it with
DK, 3 Elemental and 1 Resto Shammy. Yeah, I had to stop about 3 or 4 times to eat/drink (Thanks to my Mage wife for the pre-instance Table!!!!), for about 5-10 seconds each time. Not terrible, but does take some time, especially since you have to be out of combat to eat.


why do those guys in your screenie look like humans?
When you do Culling of Strat, it puts everyone into a Human illusion. I guess so you dont stand out during the time travel. They'd probably think it was pretty weird seeing 5 Draenei running around helping out.

[mmcookies]

lol, i totally forgot about the disguise

it's too damn hot here

[Gares]

haha yeah my brain isn't working either because of the heat.

[Lyonheart]

I live in Hell..err Phoenix..its damn hot atm!

The last 3 days I keep getting to the gauntlet with about 5 minutes left ( plenty of time ) but I always lose one of my team ( healer normally ) and its always something i could have avoided. The last time i made it all the way to the corrupter just as he was going back in the portal 8( Ill get it soon!

[Taliesin]

Grats Kalros!

As tempting as it may be, if any of you are struggling with completing the timed run, do absolutely everything to cut any time out of the run.

At least until I got into a rhythm and started ending up with tons of time at the end, I would avoid all looting (except bosses where you had time to), avoid time spent eating/drinking unless you really need to, try to get ahead of the game when able to (such as not waiting for Arthas inside the inn before running ahead and preparing for the next fight), as soon as the 3rd boss drops inside the inn talk to Arthas immediately to at least start him walking towards the bookshelf. One habit I picked up too is after the first boss, I wait in the tunnel on the east side so that I can run either north or south very quickly as soon as the next wave is announced to keep my running to a minimum.

You should try to be a little cautious on the gauntlet, since the elites and trios of mages are not stationary and may jump you while still in the middle of a fight. Keep an eye out for them coming at you and at least try to pull agg with the tank first before a stray chain lightning or heal makes them choose a target you don't want.

[Dorffo]

The last 3 days I keep getting to the gauntlet with about 5 minutes left ( plenty of time ) but I always lose one of my team ( healer normally ) and its always something i could have avoided. The last time i made it all the way to the corrupter just as he was going back in the portal 8( Ill get it soon! If you reach the gauntlet with 4-5 mins left on the timer, take a deep breath and just work your way through slowly - don't worry too much about Arthas. don't be hesitate to leave your sham stationary in the totem farm and pull stuff back to them for the first little bit, then move up and repeat. That was my biggest fail point as well - can't tell you the number of times I'd get to the gauntlet with 4-5 mins up and then lose a toon to something silly and wasn't able to recover in time.

Also - the first few times through when I was at instance-level gear, I went ahead and did 4x flask of the frostwyrm and feasts to make sure I had that little extra "umph".

[Dawnstrider]

I have an up and comming 4 box pally team. How do you think they would preform in a times run? All are Ret at the moment and blowing through instances that are their level. I may have to change one to Prot tho when I get to 80. Only lvl 64 now.

[Lyonheart]

I wanted to update to say I now have all 5 mounts! Yesterday I took my guildie through ( he was healing ) To show him how I do it. A few times I got him with a minute left and the timer ran out just as I landed the killing blows lol. One time, last week, he had less than 1% health left and took the portal 8(. But i have my mounts. Ill add a screenshot when servers go back up 8)

[heyaz2]

Nice man. I did heroic CoS for the first time tonight. I didn't realize I was even being timed, but I ran out of time about 2 minutes before Mal'Ganis engaged.

Around what times should I be shooting for? How much time should I have left before I meet arthas for the gauntlet?

[Raskaz]

I managed my first timed run today as well. Shame that apart from my tank none of my team has the appropriate riding skill *cough*

What made all the difference for me is the totem bar and the increased block value since the patch.

@heyaz2: I entered the gauntlet when I had almost 7min left.

[Kalros]

Just an update here: I did it again yesterday! I actually had not attempted CoS since I got my first Bronze Drake because none of my other toons have Epic flying. However, CoS was the Heroic Daily yesterday (Emblems of Triumph FTW!), so I figured I'd go for the timed run again.

With the new totem bar and instant casting of Totems, the timed run is now even easier!!! The first part had me run completely across the courtyard, from one end to the complete opposite end, a total of like 4 times! I was pissed!

However after that, everything was cake, and I killed the corrupter with 2 minutes remaining!

So more than likely, I'm going to end up with 4 bronze drakes that I cant scribe :P Guess I'll offer to run some guildmates through.

[Kalros]

Got my 3rd Drake two nights ago with 5 minutes remaining.