[WoW] Underbog (normal)

[thinus]

Group: Paladin, Priest, Mage, Warlock, Hunter
Level 64

Overview:
The trash hits reasonably hard. When tanking 3+ mobs the heals need to come quick. The trash is much easier than Slave Pens though, no real fear/dominate problems.

Bosses:


Hungarfen ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Hungarfen')
Pain in the ass. I ghetto boxed again. Fight is similiar to Nazan in Ramps but instead of watching for fireballs you need to watch for mushrooms. I spread my group out in front of him. During the fight I kept an eye on my alts (v to show enemy health bars shows the mushrooms easily) and then I just quickly moused to the character near a mushroom and manually moved them.

He hits pretty hard but I didn't have too much trouble healing and moving. I wiped a few times just getting used to the fight but once I got the hang of it it was easy. When he does the root thing I just kept burning him with ranged dps and moved the tank away. He went down quickly after the root thing.

Ghaz'an ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Ghaz%27an')
Ok, first 2 attempts were a royal screw up due to healer being 2nd on aggro and dying due to his poison spit. Final attempt I had the boar pet eating the spits and he went down really easily. Tank takes a lot of damage.

Swamplord Musel'ek ('http://www.wowwiki.com/Swamplord_Musel%27ek')
Another pain in the ass boss. The bear does a 75% armor debuff and my pally found it impossible to tank both and stay up. Also, when the boss does the AoE freeze the pally gets knocked out of it by damage from the bear but the priest is still frozen, hence no heals. I ended up having the boar on the bear and the pally on the boss and managed to kill the boss before wiping with the bear still up. It was ugly but the boss is down.

The Black Stalker ('http://www.wowwiki.com/The_Black_Stalker')
And yet another pain in the ass. Tried to spread the group out as much as possible before engaging and just went nuts on dps. Luckily the priest could still heal even when traveling. I got him on the 3rd attempt I think. Lost 2 of my group but a kill is a kill.


Conclusion: Bosses are a pain in the ass. I need better strats.

[thinus]

Omfg....hunter can fear it? Ok, will try it next time. Will probably do another SP and UB run in the next few days.

[thinus]

Omfg....hunter can fear it? Ok, will try it next time. Will probably do another SP and UB run in the next few days.

Just a FYI:

Scare Beast - IMMUNE
Freezing Trap - IMMUNE

Luckily the bear hits like a little girl and I could just put the boar on the bear and heal the boar once or twice through the entire fight. The fight is also much easier since I figured out PUT THE TANK'S BACK AGAINST A WALL!!! He does a knockback/shot combo that does a lot of damage. Once I had my back to a wall it was much easier living through it.

[elo]

See, this kind of thing has made me think about driving the holy tree after finishing out the prot tree. Specifically to get
Spritual Focus 5/5 - 70% chance of not losing cast time while taking damage
Healing Light 3/3 - 12% increase in the amount healed by Holy Light and Flash of Light
Illumination 5/5 - 100% on crit heal to regain 60% of base mana cost of that spell

A rank 7 FoL delivers minimum of 448 (no armor adjustment) + 12% is 500. Your surely to get even prot gear that can drive this number up some. I'm not suggesting you could do anything other than delay the inevitable but would it be worth the sacrifice of other talents for the few seconds it could buy in a no healer situation? My this thought was this would be a non starter because you'd burn mana you should otherwise be using to generate threat but oh yeah, healing generates great threat.

Anyway, something to think about.

[elo]

Really? Thats a load of crap.

Druids can sleep it, but hunters can't fear it?

Yeah, the situational game mechanics like that have driven me crazy from the start. We're given all of these great abilities and right when we really need them? Null and Void.

Now, real frustration? Fighting the Princess in Maraudon with 4 Shamans... she's immune to nature damage!!!! That sucked.

[thinus]

Really? Thats a load of crap.

Druids can sleep it, but hunters can't fear it?

Yeah, the situational game mechanics like that have driven me crazy from the start. We're given all of these great abilities and right when we really need them? Null and Void.


Rogues, here is a nice dagger ability for you that is decent in PvP and PvE, but wait, the target has to be poisoned for it to be viable. Oh wait, all elementals and lots of bosses are immune to poisons.

SAP - immune (at least they seem to be changing this in 2.4 making sap a different condition to incapacitate)
BLIND - immune
GOUGE - immune

Immune, oh how I hate thee.

Warlocks:
ENSLAVE DEMON - immune, WTF???? Why give warlocks an enslave demon ability only to make any demon worth enslaving immune?

[thinus]

A rank 7 FoL delivers minimum of 448 (no armor adjustment) + 12% is 500. Your surely to get even prot gear that can drive this number up some. I'm not suggesting you could do anything other than delay the inevitable but would it be worth the sacrifice of other talents for the few seconds it could buy in a no healer situation? My this thought was this would be a non starter because you'd burn mana you should otherwise be using to generate threat but oh yeah, healing generates great threat.

I've seen my brother pull this off. "taunt mob" - "heal self while buying group time". Its the self healing tank strategy, and it actually works. :)

You can pop Divine Shield and Taunt which will put you top of the aggro list again and then self heal while the bubble lasts or a Lay on Hands if you really need it. Problem is that a prot tank doesn't have the mana to heal for very long.

[Vyndree]

See, this kind of thing has made me think about driving the holy tree after finishing out the prot tree. Specifically to get
Spritual Focus 5/5 - 70% chance of not losing cast time while taking damage
Healing Light 3/3 - 12% increase in the amount healed by Holy Light and Flash of Light
Illumination 5/5 - 100% on crit heal to regain 60% of base mana cost of that spell

A rank 7 FoL delivers minimum of 448 (no armor adjustment) + 12% is 500. Your surely to get even prot gear that can drive this number up some. I'm not suggesting you could do anything other than delay the inevitable but would it be worth the sacrifice of other talents for the few seconds it could buy in a no healer situation? My this thought was this would be a non starter because you'd burn mana you should otherwise be using to generate threat but oh yeah, healing generates great threat.

Anyway, something to think about.

You can't block while casting.

So you waste 1 GCD to go conc aura (losing devo, or instead of devo), then start casting a gimpy heal in your prot gear... you're going to end up taking more damage than you would have mitigated by spamming holy shield. You're better of using LoH in emergency situations.

Healing also generates .5 the threat of dps. I believe it's even less in the case of pallies.... But anyway, even with Righteous fury multiplier of 90% that's .95 the threat of dps for healing, which is still less than straight DPS. So it's not a threat boost either.

[elo]

You can't block while casting.

So you waste 1 GCD to go conc aura (losing devo, or instead of devo), then start casting a gimpy heal in your prot gear... you're going to end up taking more damage than you would have mitigated by spamming holy shield. You're better of using LoH in emergency situations.

Healing also generates .5 the threat of dps. I believe it's even less in the case of pallies.... But anyway, even with Righteous fury multiplier of 90% that's .95 the threat of dps for healing, which is still less than straight DPS. So it's not a threat boost either.

Well if I knew I was going to do this I'd swap in a couple pieces of gear that would help with healing, would also start off in Concentration Aura (hadn't even considered that earlier). Also with 4x Totem of Wrath you've got an extra 12% to crit on those heals.

True healing doesn't generate the same threat as dmg, but threat is a relative thing and in this particular instance my other 4 are frozen in ice so their threat building is flatlined. :)

When time comes I think I'm gonna try it. All I'm risking is some repair bills (PUG's and clueless guilds have cost me far more) and a talent respec if it doesn't work out.

[Sanctume]

Use Blessing of Sanctuary instead of Kings, Devo Aura, Rank 1 Holy Shield, Rank 1 Consecrate, Keep SoL Judged, then switch SoR/SoL/SoW as needed.

Be comfortable with Argent Defender working.

[Vyndree]

True healing doesn't generate the same threat as dmg, but threat is a relative thing and in this particular instance my other 4 are frozen in ice so their threat building is flatlined. :)

When time comes I think I'm gonna try it. All I'm risking is some repair bills (PUG's and clueless guilds have cost me far more) and a talent respec if it doesn't work out.

So... you're having problems with your pally dying while your characters are covered in ice? I think that's more of a problem of not topping off your tank. That boss was an easy one for me -- it was the other 3 that messed me up.

You still have LoH for emergencies and one-time situations like a boss fight, you know... ;)

I still think you're going to end up taking more damage -- particularly if you're now considering trading mitigation gear for +healing gear AND putting yourself in a situation where you're unable to block. It's not like prot pallies have alot of mana to begin with -- you don't get mana from healing yourself.

Anyway, try it and let us know how it goes.