Mixed Group Random Troubles

[Malgor]

A couple weeks ago I finally got my druid (healer) and priest (shadow) to 80 to join my 80 Paladin, Mage and Hunter.

My paladin, mage and hunter all have about 5k-5.1k gear scores.

My druid and priest are at about 2500 gs now.

I am having trouble with most of the instances so far - just trying to complete them because my druid (healer) is a bit low to keep me alive all the time and especially if things go south.

The randoms it keeps giving me are always Oculus, Halls of Stone, or one of the two spider dungeons. I can down some bosses in each, but at other times I'm having trouble.

Should I just start doing heroic Drak/Gundrak/Nexus until my two get above 4k GS? I've been reading all the strats and am successful on some of the bosses, but usually not the last boss or some random boss in the middle. Or should I revert back to normal dungeons until their gear is better?

Thanks for any advice!

Mal

[Ualaa]

Could do dailies with the team.
And use the proceeds to purchase BoE's.

The tank is the key, and to a lesser extent the healer.
The DPS can generally lag behind a fair ways.

Depending on your gold reserves, you could look into a G-DKP run.
Most runs look to take 3-5 toons with horrendous gear, but gold to purchase several items.

[Malgor]

Thanks Ualaa - I thought I was being a bit too encouraged by how easy most of the regular ones were. It must take into consideration my three high geared toons when thinking I can do all randoms, except ToC, POS, HoR, FoS.

Money-wise I'm okay with about 25k in gold right now. I try hard to keep it over 20k to purchase something if I really need it. Will spend some of that.

[Coltimar]

I would investigate some things like macro, healing system etc. I did several heroics the day my toons hit 80. When I added my druid healer he had about a 2500 GS and the rest of the team was 3700-4200 GS and I'm not very good (check my siggy).

[Malgor]

Thanks, Coltimar, I do have a healing system with the druid am using ISBoxer zones and Healbot - which seems to work good. My biggest problem I think is doing movement based things so far. I just did heroic UK and only died on Ingvar when he did his final AE. Got a purple ring out of it for my druid healer which made it worth it.

Then I went to the AH and bought as much cheap purple upgrades as I could without wasting a ton of cash, which brought the druid and priest up to 2900 GS now. I'll keep experimenting.

In the mean time I've started boosting 4 shaman and 4 warlocks to get more of the cookie-cutter team for this, since mixed teams are a bit harder, or so I have read.

[jinkobi]

Gotta admit this thread title is great, lol.

Mal even with my 5200-5600gs team there's some heroics that just aren't worth doing because they are too time consuming. The instances you mentioned outside of Utgarde Keep take some learning/good gear/etc... For Ingvar that final AOE if it's the flying axe just hit you slaves movement keys all the way left or right.

Also if your druid is healing bind wild growth to where when you hit your tanking keys your druid is constantly casting WG. Helps a TON and doesn't take hardly any mana.

Do I keep queue random heroics until I get one I like- every day! :D I've conquered them all a few times- just like I mentioned earlier some just are a pain like HOS tribunal event- so I wait for the ones that take me 15 mins.

[Malgor]

Thanks, jinkobi - I'll keep at it! I need to rebind some keys for my team so they strafe right and left, right now I only have them bound to the down arrow to back up to stop them from quickly following me.

[Greythan]

I haven't played my team in a while, but I had switched from a Holy Priest to a Resto Druid for healing and the druid is truly ezmode. I would second the suggestion to bind Wild Growth to your dps key. Having a party-wide HoT almost always up with next to no impact on your healer's mana pool is priceless.

[Malgor]

Thanks Greythan. I plan to try that tonight after work.

[defster]

Remember that the three Icecrown instances give you ilvl 219 items even on normal mode. And you can repeat them over and over :) Very nice way to gear up new characters and collect Triumph marks at the same time.

[Gankstah]

yeppers

[emps]

in my experience so far with my mixed team (only at lvl 75 - war/lock/hunt/boom/tree) they could be complicated in terms of what you're trying to accomplish (aoe,cc,heal). generally however, that's not the case. isboxer dumbed down my heal and aoe management. i never really cc. anyway, i feel more comfortable with my mixed team than my dk/pally + sham team. there are just some nice abilities/buffs and procs complimentary to the other classes allowing for bigger booms and higher dps sustenance and survivability. whether that'll change later on when theyr'e 80, who knows. my goal anyway is to ultimately create mixed teams.

[Malgor]

Thanks defster - I did just that with my druid. I'm not yet up to par 5 boxing it myself. Got him a couple nice upgrades.

[jimbobobb]

Healing with druids is easy mode.

DO NOT bother with repeater region micro managed healing with druids - that's for people with bad boxing healers. Make one macro. Make that macro keep hots on your tank and cast wild growth on cooldown. Play with the macro a bit to get the timing down or adjust for mana issues/healing amount issues. Make a few extra macros or use your repeater region stuff for Oh shit moments for your other characters. Bind this all to your dps/tank macro button. Smash that button like a monkey while main playing your tank and paying zero attention to anything else. Congratulations. You can now do every single heroic and 10 man in Wrath.

[Seldum]

Healing with druids is easy mode.

DO NOT bother with repeater region micro managed healing with druids - that's for people with bad boxing healers. Make one macro. Make that macro keep hots on your tank and cast wild growth on cooldown. Play with the macro a bit to get the timing down or adjust for mana issues/healing amount issues. Make a few extra macros or use your repeater region stuff for Oh shit moments for your other characters. Bind this all to your dps/tank macro button. Smash that button like a monkey while main playing your tank and paying zero attention to anything else. Congratulations. You can now do every single heroic and 10 man in Wrath.

/I do this.

I have bound a castsequence going something like (@t work atm) to the main spam button (dps/tanking macro):

/castsequence [Target=TANKNAME] reset=5/combat rejuvenation,,,, regrowth,,,,lifebloom, lifebloom, lifebloom,,,,,,,,nourish,,,,,rejuvenation,,,,lifeb loom, lifebloom, lifebloom,,,,,,,nourish, regrowth, rejuv etc.

Then I use vuhdo with a similar macro without the ",,,," for more focused healing of an individuel toon. Here I use [target=Vuhdo] reset=3/target

I have also a button for casting regrowth on the healer.

In the perfect world I guess I would make some sort of healing click macro which heals the tank and when the CD of regrowth if off it casts this on the healer. But i'm too lazy atm. I have bound regrowth on one of my mouse buttons and it works like a charm.

[jinkobi]

Guess everybody has their own way of doing it. I tried the above mention methods of just hooking in lifebloom/nourish into my wild growth rotations. The end result was my healer would waste so much mana I was actually starting to get low mana issues. With just wild growth+healbot/vuhdo my druids mana barely budges.

Really it's just overkill... You'll get to a point where just wild growth will cover most of the healing when your gear gets better. When I do heroics I tend to pull entire rooms so my healbot is essential because of my playstyle.

Everyone has their own style and there's nothing wrong with that. You have to do what works out best for yourself and your playstyle.

[crowdx]

On the healing front, Disc Priest vs Druid are very differen styles, I love the Disc priest in a lot of cases due to the damage prevention that is provided, the key in my opinion with Disc is to keep shields up on all characters.
If you gear your tank over a few days in Random Dungeons you will barely need a healer :)

[Malgor]

I may need to ask some more questions. I took my druid only through the ICC 5 man instances in normal and got a few upgrades as well as TOC 5 regular then heroic and got another upgrade. In those few sessions my druid went from a 2800gs to close to 4k. Now to get my priest up some and I'm sure I'll do better. I may have to post all my button set up to see what I'm doing that might need tweaking, but right now with 3 pretty well geared toons (Paladin/Tank, Mage/Arcane, Hunter/Survival) at all about or above 5k gs, I just need survivability against some bosses.

[Malgor]

Currently while healing I have bound Wild Growth on my tanking button so it's always up. This has made a huge difference on how little I have to heal anything else. Then I have HealBot set up in a repeater region for left click rejuvenation and right click nourish. Those are the only spells I've been using.

Perhaps I need to explore more use of other spells and the general macro you two are talking about, but I'm leary of using them while I'm still learning how to survive in these dungeons. I've only completed two so far, and need to practice the others.

For example I can do UK and Drak'tharon and finish them. I don't die at all in Drak, but I always kill most everyone but my paladin on the last boss in UK when he does his axe throw thingy. I got it as my random tonight so I got easy frost badges, but once again my tank was the only one standing at the end. I guess when I do this in a group I've never noticed how much damage that does.

I'll keep working on things though and REALLY appreciate everyone giving me helpful tips and advice.

[ghonosyph]

With the amount of gold you have you can easily gather the raw materials to make chest and bracers for your druid and priest the 245 item level ones, and even the 226 boots and belt from ulduar!the mats to make these epics are easy to farm/cheaper to buy on the ah and get crafterd together than it would be to buy the epics out right. Ie you could farm frostweave cloth since you're attemptin heroics anyway you can simply farm the cloths u need there, then also if you have an enchanter in group save all your infinite dust from greens you shard to go towards making the cloth into imbued frostweave bolts(tailors can do this for you). From there its just a matter of spending cash on orbs and a few eternal fires which could easily be farmed if you want to save money :)

You can get the orbs you need via the ah or you can spam trade to get your price lower or buy cheap frozen orbs (if the cost of 4 or 6 is lower than the price of the higher orbs). I do this and using shodokans guide to using heroics for gold gains I geared my entire pally team with 245 gear crafted and belt / boots 226 gear and a bunch of other boe stuff!
After makin those things you can concentrate on farming badges for the cheapest easy upgrade off the badge vendors.
Ie the cheapest biggest upgrade will probably be your neck piece at 19 badges, followed by 2 pc T9 at 30 badges per and then your 245 ring at 35. If you follow that gearing path you should be simply able to reach 4500 gs in a matter of a couple days worth :) then all you need to do is learn the fights and how you can improve your playstyle to match!

Hope some of my tips help good luck!

[jinkobi]

It's funny you mention the axe in UK- which is one of my favorites btw. Took me a while to figure out wtf was killing my team after he died rofl. Had my graphics too low on my main at the time making it very hard to see.

Tank facing your team so you can see what's going on with them. You'll see the axe flying around- gotta bind those strafe left/right keys for your slaves- then just move them when you see it coming. It's easy once you see what's going on.

Also when Ingvar turns undead your non tanks need to be out of melee range or they can get 1 shotted by his smash. Also in UK you can avoid like 4 packs of mobs by just hugging the wall making the run quicker.

All down hill from here bro only gets easier as your gear gets better.

[Multibocks]

Guess everybody has their own way of doing it. I tried the above mention methods of just hooking in lifebloom/nourish into my wild growth rotations. The end result was my healer would waste so much mana I was actually starting to get low mana issues. With just wild growth+healbot/vuhdo my druids mana barely budges.

Really it's just overkill... You'll get to a point where just wild growth will cover most of the healing when your gear gets better. When I do heroics I tend to pull entire rooms so my healbot is essential because of my playstyle.

Everyone has their own style and there's nothing wrong with that. You have to do what works out best for yourself and your playstyle.

You need to space your heals out more and then have a seperate key for ohshitlotsoftankdmg. I spam WG every cooldown and have one rejuv and LB rolling on tank at all times. Not much can kill me anymore, except the healer dying... And that only happens in HHoR. Facking ice trap slows my computer to a crawl.

[jimbobobb]

Currently while healing I have bound Wild Growth on my tanking button so it's always up. This has made a huge difference on how little I have to heal anything else. Then I have HealBot set up in a repeater region for left click rejuvenation and right click nourish. Those are the only spells I've been using.

Perhaps I need to explore more use of other spells and the general macro you two are talking about, but I'm leary of using them while I'm still learning how to survive in these dungeons. I've only completed two so far, and need to practice the others.




This statement confuses me - "I'm still learning so I want to limit myself by not using all my druids abilities"


Anyway, copy pasted from another thread - put this on your tank macro and also WG on every cooldown:

/castsequence [target=focus,nochanneling] reset=combat Rejuvenation,,,Swiftmend,,,,Lifebloom,,,,Rejuvenat ion,,,Lifebloom,,,,,,Lifebloom,,,,

The above just keeps rejuvenation on constantly, makes sure the blooms bloom, and uses swiftmend as the stopgap to make sure it happens. This macro is very mana efficent, however if this is not spammed, it can get stuck w/out a rejuvenation for the mend, especially if you use the glyph of rapid rejuv (which I honestly recommend against unless you really understand how it works/what it does, and when it is good)


Play with the macro, throw in Nourishes, etc. if you need more healing. You're simply wasting too much of your concentration by doing your heals with clicks as a druid. When you no longer pay any attention at all to your healing, and aren't having to move your mouse to throw heals and stuff, and your focus is only on your positiong/tanking, silly things like dieing to avoidable aoes (like that axe) stop happening.

Right now you are playing on hard mode. Put it on easy bro. Nobody will think less of you.

[Malgor]

Thanks again everyone. I will try this on Sat when I am off work next.

I probably need to read up on more strats as well as change my healing style.

[Malgor]

This statement confuses me - "I'm still learning so I want to limit myself by not using all my druids abilities"

I meant that I was still trying to practice other stuff. Healing for me hasn't really been the problem, but the rest of what you said makes sense. If I don't really have to think about healing at all (with mouse clicks) then I can concentrate more on movement and positioning of the other toons.

[Malgor]

With the amount of gold you have you can easily gather the raw materials to make chest and bracers for your druid and priest the 245 item level ones, and even the 226 boots and belt from ulduar!the mats to make these epics are easy to farm/cheaper to buy on the ah and get crafterd together than it would be to buy the epics out right. Ie you could farm frostweave cloth since you're attemptin heroics anyway you can simply farm the cloths u need there, then also if you have an enchanter in group save all your infinite dust from greens you shard to go towards making the cloth into imbued frostweave bolts(tailors can do this for you). From there its just a matter of spending cash on orbs and a few eternal fires which could easily be farmed if you want to save money :)

You can get the orbs you need via the ah or you can spam trade to get your price lower or buy cheap frozen orbs (if the cost of 4 or 6 is lower than the price of the higher orbs). I do this and using shodokans guide to using heroics for gold gains I geared my entire pally team with 245 gear crafted and belt / boots 226 gear and a bunch of other boe stuff!
After makin those things you can concentrate on farming badges for the cheapest easy upgrade off the badge vendors.
Ie the cheapest biggest upgrade will probably be your neck piece at 19 badges, followed by 2 pc T9 at 30 badges per and then your 245 ring at 35. If you follow that gearing path you should be simply able to reach 4500 gs in a matter of a couple days worth :) then all you need to do is learn the fights and how you can improve your playstyle to match!

Hope some of my tips help good luck!

Thanks - I'll spend some of my gold and get a few upgrades in the process. My mage is an enchanter/tailor so that helps some!