My first heroic clear

[Tyval]

Well, I finally got my last of my 5 to 80 and so had to get ready for my first heroic.

My tank was in blues, a couple starter crafter epics, and bought one other epic(shoulders BoE). Had to juggle a bit with gems/enchants to get to 535 Def.

Hitpoints unbuffed were just shy of 21-22k , Def 537.

Healer was in i200 epics.

2x shaman and mage blues with 2 crafter starter epics each.

had an enchanter so enchanted most pieces with the cheap enchants.


First thing I noticed was I had to heal a lot more :). was a bit harder to keep my rotation/spams as haven't been use to having to really heal.

First named went down easy as expected.

Novos, wiped first time, ran out of mana on healer, and somehow my mage got turned around so he strafed opposite direction of group in blizzard... so he went down shortly there after.

Next time, made sure to have mana pots ready as well as my mana gain pet. Fight went without a hitch.

King Dred: somehow I forgot he called adds in heroic. Wiped about 3-4 times figuring things out, finally made it through!

Last Name: was stupid after the form switch and healed my priest up, which got him agro and splatted before I could get it off. Second time went fine.

Was quite fun and challenging!

I'm assuming (and please correct me if I'm wrong) given that i made it through Drak..
That I should be able to do

UK (think that is probably easier than Drak).
Gundrak (seems this should be doable or close to).
First couple named in Halls of lightning.
Nexus( not sure on this, maybe a couple of named, the lady that splits seems iffy though)

Any other ones I should put in my rotation while I earn some badges?

Big big thanks to all those patiently answering all my questions and making this a great forum to visit and learn about MB!

Tyval

[alcattle]

Maybe throw VH in there, some random luck on bosses but it has easy from me solo

[Tyval]

I'll try that one.

I did UK tonight, thought it would be easier but struggled a bit on the second boss/pair. (wiped 2-3x) Got smoother when I got my group closer and he stopped charging but did have to do lay of hands at one point. Didn't remember adds on that fight either hehe.


Final fight also wiped a few times, never really paid attention to anything other than the roar you don't want to cast during. But killed my healer when the "something of woe" was up, after about 3 wipes got it down.

So not a horrible outing for my first time in, and I guess it will only get easier.

Oh, what about CoT? that one seemed like it might be a good starter heroic one.

Tyval

[zenga]

ToC normal for some epics if you can be arsed to learn the jousting.
Forge of souls: first boss is very easy, the trash to get there is actually harder. He might drop some stuff you want (tank weap!).
Utgarde pinnacle : first boss was nerfed recently. Second boss is very doable as well (the beasts can be hexed if you run in trouble).
And stratholme should be possible too.

Even if you kill just4 bosses in a few harder instances per day extra, they'll actually give you the gloves of the course of a week. Definitely worth it.

[Slimjim19]

Gundrak should be doable. Just remember on Colossus to use nature resist totems. That will save you a ton of shifting out of puddles (wasted dps time) early on, you may need a group heal or two during elemental phase. Everything else in there is pretty easy. On the last guy, I fight in the alcove to the right so my guys cant be knocked all over the place. if they start getting thrown, hit IWT to bring them all back in together, then have the tank pull him back a little if he goes back into troll form to keep whirlwind from killing the team.

On nexus, Commander can be annoying with his fear. Just be sure to kill him first. id pop cooldowns on him. Telestra isnt bad. Just make sure you have a key that will rotate your party towards her. mine has Interact with target , then once i see them turn I follow with a down arrow to them all. Burn the ice clone down first since it AoEs. Anomolous is a joke now with only 1 rift. The last boss isnt hard. The key is making sure everyone is right under him. That way the spikes wont hit you.

I skipped Stratholme till the team was better geared. It was such a long run back if you wiped, and the little zombies make it hard to recover otherwise.

I also found VH a little hard burning stuff down fast enough when I first started. Plus if you get a boss down, then wipe, you have to fight all over including that boss.

Other then that, First boss in HoL, first 2 in UP

[Asuka]

King Dred: somehow I forgot he called adds in heroic. Wiped about 3-4 times figuring things out, finally made it through! For this fight, I like to set up the casters on the stairs and pull him to the bottom of the stairs. That way none of the adds should be able to get by your tank without running over consecrate. Drop your two tremor totems and they shouldn't run around too much and I hit my follow macro then tap my back key to get them facing the boss. Interact with target works too.


Last Name: was stupid after the form switch and healed my priest up, which got him agro and splatted before I could get it off. Second time went fine. For this fight I like to use all my elementals/pets because they don't stop dpsing when you're switching forms. I spam 4 and click 2 on my tank while keeping an eye on the caster and making sure they're not camping in the green stuff.


I did UK tonight, thought it would be easier but struggled a bit on the second boss/pair. (wiped 2-3x) Got smoother when I got my group closer and he stopped charging but did have to do lay of hands at one point. Didn't remember adds on that fight either hehe.For the second bosses, I like to keep everyone in melee range unless I have a hunter in my group. I also use my fire elementals on this fight because they will deal with adds until you are ready for them. Melee range keeps the boss from charging your casters. The caster boss has no real aggro table, however the "dead" boss doesn't one either. Melee boss running around while you're dealing with the caster boss can be a pain, so I down the caster first before taking out the other.



Final fight also wiped a few times, never really paid attention to anything other than the roar you don't want to cast during. But killed my healer when the "something of woe" was up, after about 3 wipes got it down. I have my casters spread out in the middle of the platform and tank the boss where he is. When I was in 200 gear, I used to run through him everytime he casted smash or dark smash. Everyone jumps when he's casting roar. Do a group heal and continue dpsing with the shamans.

CoS might me a hit of miss. When I was running with ilvl 200 gear, I could go through the whole instance and never have a problem or wipe alot. I remember my worse being about 8 wipes even before seeing Meathook. Just slow down, not everyone can box the timed run on their first attempt. The Necromancer and purple spiders are casters, I usually deal with them first. I run throught the melee mobs and cast holy wrath so I can position myself at the caster or avenger shield the caster so they'll run to me. Hope that helps and grats. :D

[crowdx]

gratz on the clear.
I was keep DTK in your list, just do the first and alst boss, VERY easy, when you feel a little more confident drop in the Dino boss and last I would do the 2nd boss (can be iffy when you are undergeared).
I also would stay clear of VH, it is just too much of a gamble on what bosses you get.
Lastly, do the chain quest in Forge of Souls to open up Pit of Saron. Once you can get to Forgemaster Garfrost he drops a nice staff which works pretty well for heals and dps (the staff in FoS is better for heals I would think because of the spirit on it).
You can farm FoS and PoS on normal and get some reasonable epics and the staffs and mallets get 27g a pop, so also makes some gold :)
I would also do HoL.
One last point, with my latest team and did Random LFG on the tank and withing days was epiced out. This makes a HUGE difference to running the team with a tank that can take a lot of damage and also hold aggro better.

[serz]

Oh very good run!

[Tyval]

Thanks for the all the tips.

I was tempted to run my tank as dps to gear up a bit, but then thought this would be a great chance to really see what my weaknesses are boxing. (I had taken about a year away from WoW, so also had to re-read on many of the fights). I was use to blowing through them , so didn't remember the little things that can cause havoc with a group not in good gear.

I also thought it would be good practice for the next expansion, when I will be running things with non uber equipment.

I thought of queing as a tank, but thought my gear might get me booted.

I will look into the newer instances, I haven't been in CoT or ICC instances, was thinking I might take a dps through via LFG just to see how they work.

Couple things that my run through exposed.

Healing, I've been relying on controlling all my heals via hotkeys, found it gets a bit crazy when trying to dps and spam heal. Found I sometimes lose time healing when I try for penance and it isn't up yet :/ Moving to ISBoxer should make the healing easier.

Also will make sure to have emergency all hands heal button, where my shamans can help out to get the tank up fast. SIlly not to have that already.

CC: I have a mage but have never needed to sheep something so no keybinding/macro for it. Will fix that, will make the bad pulls or big pulls much more manageable with one sheeped (or hexed),

Funny thing, A friend of mine was just confused as I why I would MB, he said with LFG there is no need. I told him I haven't had this much fun in a long time. Yes I could gear up a toon in a week, and will probably do that with one of my chars, but really where is the fun in that hehe.

Tyval

[crowdx]

Running as a tank in th LFG gives instant dungeons, dps takes a lot longer to get a grp. I had mostly blues with 4 epic, chest, bracers, shoulders and belt. Being a druid made him crit immune and in general once you have a decent healer in the group you would have no issues. VERY unlikely you would get booted.

[KAC]

If you can gear your tank up first. Establishing aggro and holding it is the key to any heroic. Most of the best boe epics for tanks are pretty cheap now for the starter ones. Titansteel shields are 130g on my server now where they used to run in the thousands as an example. Buy your tank the best stuff you can right off the bat. As far as random heroics you will get groups but when they see your toon with 22khp they will laugh and leave. Buying yourself all the best stuff you can get right away will make it so much easier on you. My team is over 25k gearscore combined and sports all lvl 219-through lvl264 gear and if I screw up on a pull and lose aggro such as the dam 5 packs in heroic PoS on the hill to tyrannus the dam mobs can and still do wipe me sometimes. If you outfit your tank the ilvl200 dungeons are a joke you should be able to do them all with practice. I am suggesting that you do this based on what I did and was thankful I did gear my tank up before I took my 4 other toons into the heroics. This saved me a lot of wasted gold on repairs and a lot of cursing at the screen! Once you get the tank going concentrate on your healer next and lastly the dps. The older herics have been nerfed a bit too so you should find success fairly quickly.

[Tyval]

Took a day to install IS/ISBoxer and get use to it,

Went back to heroics today, makes it much easier for healing, and my dps went up as I can keep dps easier while healing.


today I

Cleared UK again was easier
Drak : also easier (wiped once on t-rex)

New zones
Gundrak cleared: (well except for the one fellow I didnt' know existed until reading up on zone after hehe). the spitter guy.
CoT cleared: Chrono guy was very close, everyone but one shaman dead by end heh.

First 2 in UP.

Got my 50 emblems and got my first big upgrade for my tank! (had about 20 from doing the normal mode daily while leveling up).

was quite fun.

[crowdx]

Gratz, always nice to get your first epic badge item :)

[Tyval]

So, for this weekend, plan to run the heroics I can clear, get them faster and cleaner (and hopefully another piece of gear).

SO that is
UK
Drak
Gundrak
CoT (love the changes where skip the intro and if I wipe can get port to strath).
first two bosses in UP.

What do folks think I should try next in terms of next on my list?
Am I ready for the first normal mode ICC dungeon , Forge of souls.

Ya I know I could just go try it :), but curious what folks thoughts are.

Sadly my coin is getting low, with buying gems and from my original crafted gear purchase so will have to start spending some time on dailies. From what I read doing the Argent tournament dailies are the way to go so will head up that way as well.

Tyval

[kate]

Out of curiosity, were you doing normal instance runs with your full team before you jumped up to heroics, or were you just questing to level or...?

I ask because I'm planning on LFGing my entire team to 80 (long freaking slog) but I imagine that I'll be geared up enough by then to handle heroics just from normal mode drops?

[Tyval]

I did a combo of questing LFG dungeon finder.

I had a priest at 80 in heroic gear (some naxx). The other ones Pali, 2x shaman mage were new.

I would do quests with the 4 new ones, then would break things up add in the priest and run each dungeon a couple times at each lvl.

70,71 So did Borean Tundra quests/ Nexus. (got all the quests for inside)
71,72 UK, Borean
72,73 Fjord UK, AN

The higher up I got, the more I leveled in dungeons as I found exp /hr with rest exp was actually higher. I would also do the random dungeon each day I could and had 20+ badges when I hit 80.

I did most all the quests in Boren and Howling, 80% in dragon blight, 75% in grizzly then did a bunch in Ice crown towards the end.

At lvl 80 I was mostly in instance blues (lvl 75-80 req) though I never got around to doing all of UP and HoL.

I then got 2-3 pieces of pieces of epic crafted for each char(I could craft mail, cloth) Tank stuff I had crafted, and bought any lvl 80 blues that were upgrades from AH.

I then had to enchant , gem , tweak my tank to get crit immune and started in on heroics. and put any cheap enchants on my others. Tank was just under 22k HP 536 DEF when I started. Thank god for priest stamina buff hehe.

At this point I entered heroics and while I had to work at things, I was able to clear a few. (priest helped save me some I'm sure).

Switching to ISBoxer and Healbot was huge probably should have done that before I started heroics but I got all excited and couldn't wait hehe. Really helped on fights with aoe dmg.

As my posts indicate I'm pretty noobish at things and I'm far from optimal (Next up for me to add are click macros).

At the very least I would make sure to do the random dungeon everyday to get 2 emblems and an extra 30k exp. If it wasn't for coin I would have probably done even more lvling in the dungeons, but I needed coin for cold weather flying and to buy mats/epics at lvl 80.

Hope this helps,

[Tyval]

Got my first clear of Heroic VH last night, had been putting it off as a few named scared me from a boxing standpoint.

I almost started banging my head against my desk at one point.

Run 1: Things going fine, first name is Xevoz? (the guy with the two wonder orbs) I think , crap, but I dps, start pulling it across and such, not very pretty in terms of keeping dps up but he goes down, next named is Fire dog, yay! he goes down, on 3rd to last trash and all the sudden i notice I'm not healing correctly via healbot, I click on tank and heal goes to mage etc. Crap! this is mid fight I tab to the priest and see the name ordering has changed. WTF ? don't have time to open up heal bot but try to keep healing and such with all the names swapped. I wipe on last trash before dragon.

I go back and reorder names, I think I had the repeater region too low and maybe brought up options on the healer for heal bot during one of the fights... had to eventually reload the UI to get it to fix itself.

Next run, named aren't there which i don't complain about but I was stupid on one of the trash and lost the mage, never really recovered and bagged it by dragon.

3rd run, named back up, got confused on a fire breath and move my team back into the fire, then in moving them out again Iended up getting them split up, while trying to regroup more fire and lost healer.

4th run: Finally made it :). Not a very good use of my time, but by good I wasn't going to be beaten by that zone. Well I was beaten , but ultimately emerged victorious hehe.

Right now I find VH pretty intense, just not much time. I basically have to run after every fight and if lucky can grab a quick drink when I set up for the next portal. not much time after named either. Sure will get easier as my dps rises.

Tyval

[crowdx]

I have done VH a few times and in general I camp my team on the steps and pull the mobs to them, only on the boss fights do I move them. With the guy and the orbs I actuall put dps and healer at max range and drag him round in a circle keeping everyone clear, once he pulls you in I ran fast away from him to clear the dps from the orbs.
The water guy is the biggest pain IMHO, but once your dps gets high enough you can nuke him fast enough to avoid a mess lol.
grats on the clear.

[Tyval]

Had one of my best days multi-boxing yesterday. Was quite fun and wanted to share as means of thanks to all those who have helped and to encourage the new folks.

I decided to use the random dungeon finder and give it my best try to make it through what they gave me. I had gotten in the habbit of doing the easy dungeons each time.

First up, got UP first 2 named downed easily had a bit of trouble on the 3rd with moving/positioning so decided to bag it.

Reformed team with new leader and tried again.

Got VH, Best I've ever done in there. Had Xevoz and the fire dog, all went down with out a hitch and dragon down easily as well. Best it has ever gone in there.

Azjol-Nerub : uh oh I thought, have killed the second with lots o deaths, but going to try.

1st named was chaos, not sure why, named came when still working on the initial adds, maybe I targeted it not sure. But scraped by.

2nd named, positioned correctly and actually moved team out of green cloud, went down with no deaths, a first!

final named: Set up, fight going well at first, but then my strafing of team started splitting them apart so was having to auto follow to group them up, then back them off to position. Would have made a hysterical video, "Watch the spaz MultiBox), but I kept at it , kept healing, kept trying to regroup and at some point I think Anub'rak just lost it laughing at me so I killed him while he was helpless :). Totally unexpected success!

Next up was HoL: Never tried that on heroic past first two (in fact never did it in normal mode).

Ionar: wiped first time, agro issues because my seal had ran out (ooopsies , I wish I can say that was the first time that has happened hehe). Next time was fine. I set up my team in the terrace all spread out, and then just healed through the sparks.

Boss: Didn't joust but not set up great, lost 2 but made it through !

Gundrak: fastest I have made it through (35min)

Drak: Record speed through there as well.

Think it was a combo of a bit better skill and of course better gear (have mostly i200 epic now with each team member having a couple pieces of badge gear and a few 219 from normal ICC dungeons.

Even got a few heroic achievements!

Tyval