Seeking Suggestion and support for instance grinding

[pegasus00000]

Hello all,

I'm not sure how you guys did it SM from 29-40, maybe it's my character setups (Pally, Priest, Mage, Lockx2) I always wipe even I'm several levels above the recommanded instance level (I did the SM Cath, when I'm Level 42, finally manage to clear it)

when I was mid 30s I tried sheep and charm method, don't last that long and mobs go stright to casters after recover, I tried the tank method, 4-5 mobs beats my pally to human beef patty within seconds, I tried AOE with AOE heal, not very powerful.

Any suggestion on what I should do or how to do it? Thank you.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Oh, ho! Sure, are we? :P Not all of us did. I think I was in there for about 2 levels total, mainly cathedral to get the shields, and I gave up and went back to questing after getting 3 of 'em it got so boring.

Regarding you wiping regularly, I'm a bit surprised at that, considering you have the holy trinity. Is your tank specced ret and your priest specced disc or something? If you have fraps or gamecam or something, you might post a vid of you wiping like this so we can analyze your tictacz. ;)

[Velassra]

Interested to see a vid as well, I started a pally, priest w/ a 3 lock team just so I could do instances. I'd like to see what you did too and maybe not repeat the same mistakes you did.

[Darcla]

Spec definetly plays a big part. Your first tactic sounded like the best bet. Just have your priest focus on nothing but healing and wait a few strikes until your dps kicks in. I'm not at the house or I would post one of my videos from SFK (I ran the instance at 18 and was able to aoe farm by 22). Basically my tactic when I first go into a new instance and am undergeared/level is :

set my priest macros to nothing but healing, no dps. I use a sheep macro rotation to try and do only single targets. I let my paladin get a couple of hits in for aggro and then go all out on dps. With your priest doing nothing but healing you should have no problem staying alive, even if you have to spam heal/renew.

Once you have cleared the instance a few times and your level/gear increases, switch your priest macros to dps and healing. What I usually do is have a smite macro tied to my mage's fireball. So when i'm spamming fireball, my priest is also supporting with smite. I say to wait on this because if you are getting hit hard you do not want your priest in the middle of a cast and have to stop it and wait for the GC before you can get a heal off.

On boss fights I usually start the fight with the dps doing their longer casts. I rush in with my paladin start generating aggro and instantly start casting pyroblast and holy firex2 (soulfire for your warlocks). Because the cast timers are longer this allows me to get aggro and takes a big chunk out of the boss right away.

[Drizzit]

Darcla what is your priest spec... what will it be at 70 should i say. Still having trouble with mine. Thank god for power lvling because my priest has only lvl 10 spells and no points in her spec.

[zarocks]

A couple suggestions if you haven't done this already:

-Your paladin should be specced as Protection and be using a shield. Any deviation is going to seriously hinder your tankability.
-Make sure, if possible your Paladin is facing your mobs. You cannot dodge/parry/block anything that your back is turned to
-I believe SM includes mostly 2 and 3-mob groups, with the exception of the armory which has a couple 4-pulls. So perhaps you may need some help with your pulling tactics (I know without a ranged attack it is more difficult), but use terrain to your advantage.
-SM's levels are a little messed up, as the graveyard is 29-32, and library is 33-35. Which means it's a HUGE jump if you plan on running GY concurrently with Lib, or don't plan on grinding GY at least a dozen times first (of course you can quest as an alternative). But you mentioned you are 42 now, so that probably doesn't make any difference.
-I would try to master the use of Counterspell/Silence (if you are specced Arcane) before using Sheep. I found that sheeps were a pain because of the agro until I got Avenger's Shield on my Pally at 50.

[Sarduci]

I'd pull with engineering gear with my pally, then go through the normal prot talents for aggro, then pound on my dps button. No healing needed. That's how I've done every instance.

My true question for you is why are you 4 and 5 pulling? Everything in SM is a 2 or 3 pull if you time it right to avoid pats. The only 4 pull that's required is the Hound Master guy.

[Drizzit]

Been doing sm cath for so long now i do the pulls in my sleep (makes me mad losing sleep cause i think i am playing). Everything is a 1 or 2 pull there are like 3 3 pulls. Just watch out for the pats and pull them back so if they run they don't agro.

[Darcla]

Darcla what is your priest spec... what will it be at 70 should i say. Still having trouble with mine. Thank god for power lvling because my priest has only lvl 10 spells and no points in her spec.



At 70 it will be full holy for circle of healing and the rest in disc. Leveling up I am doing full holy with holy nova (5 aoes is heaven). I am going to try 2 other specs (28/33) for improved spirit buff, or do a hybrid 31/30 for Power Infusion.

If you are going to level your teams primarly through questing, then you can spec the priest full shadow and rely on VE to heal the group.

My goal for the team is full PvE. If I was to do PvP with this team I would probably spec the priest Power Infusion and the rest in holy.

[pegasus00000]

just to add in more detail, My pally is proct spec with shield and one hand weapon, mage is fire, locks are destruction and priest is completely holy.

i'm thinking I have trouble with pulling, because I ram my pally into the group first and by the time I can dps, my pally is on the floor and mobs are going for my casters and priest.

I tried AOE with 5 members, Pally for Conscreting, Mage Arcane Explosion, Mage with Holy Nova, and Locks with Hell Fire, first by running pally into load of mobs and came back to my caster, in the beginning it was oky, until they all focus on my mage and locks, man I have never seen life bar drop so fast.

As I said about my sheep/charm method, I'm think my macro is a bit off so I have hard time to sheep/charm them again when they break free.

sheep/charm macro
/cast [target=target] sheep/charm

I'm using focus and target=focustarget for all my nuke spells, please let me know if I should change to /assist style.

Thank you.

[Darcla]

sounds like your healing macros might actually need work. Try this approach:

1) Bubble your Paly (focus)


/cast [target=focus] Power Word:Shield

2) Run your paly into the fray and immediatly do aoe for aggro (make sure you are also using ret aura). Depending on how fast you are damaging you might want to go ahead and instantly put a renew and heal on your main. My healing macro looks like:


/cast [target=focustargettarget, help] Heal

3) If you feel that you need to sheep you can use a similar code:


/cast [target=focustargettarget, harm] Sheep

Just watch out for breaking CC, there are far easier and safer macros for sheeping that use focus.

4) After you are in a stable state , start unloading with the dps:


/cast [target=focustarget,nodead] Fireball

and whatever macro you use for your lock dots.



I think your biggest issue is either your pally is very undergeared, or more work needs to be done with healing.