PvE Progress

Yes another one of my silly threads :P
(Sticky Please)

More and more threads of people looking into what works for PvE and what doesn't, so share your experiences and I will condense the information into a comprehensive list.

So the inform I'm asking for is every Instance you were able to do on your own 5+ man instance.

1) What Instance - Example: Deadmine @ level 20 Chars, Shadow Fang Keep @ Level 28 Chars etc (Level At What You Did It Helps)
2) What Combo? - Example: 4x Warlocks 1x Holy Priest

Reserved Reply.

Another reserved reply

Well this post will be short* as I have only completed one instance, which I did this week.

Instance: Deadmines
Characters: 5 x Draenei Shaman
Level: 21/22 (dinged shortly after starting)
Spec: All are elemental X/0/0
Gear: Quest and mob drops only

Comments: I'm still learning my way and Deadmines was a nice way to ease into instance running. There are mostly scattered non-elites with no large groups of elites- at level 21/22 there are almost no problems with aggro range so pulls were kept to 1-3 mobs most of the time. I did have two occasions where I pulled 4-5 elites along with 1-2 non-elites but managed to burn them all down without any deaths.

I wanted to wait for level 20 to get the healing stream totem, which is why I ended up entering at level 21 and dinging 22 shortly after. The healing stream totem was an enormous edge, +30 healing every 2 seconds meant that I spent very little time healing.

I one-shot every boss with the exception of Van Cleef. I wiped on him the first attempt, then killed him on the second attempt before dying to his last two adds. But I was able to zone in and clear to the corpse before it poofed, so I was happy enough with that. I still need to work on my macros and my responsiveness during fights, but overall I was pretty happy with the attempt.

*sorry, I lied, it wasn't short. >.<

Majestic, if the intention of this thread is to be a permanent one, let me suggest the following format (our server uses this format for raid progression).

The format is like this, with as much abbreviation as possible to limit the size:
(Name) (Team) - Instances completed.

Gallo - 2ma,1pr,1lock,1war - Deadmines(18-22), Stockades(22-28).
Tonuss - 5sha - Deadmines.

This way we can have people post their progress, and then whoever started the thread can update this progress on the very first post for everyone to see. If you dont want to update this constantly, tell us, and I'll start a new thread :)

thanks for reply.
What level were your chars when you did the instances?

I'm trying to get a leveling guide going so people roughly know when on average to start grinding a specific instance

Im making a list from the data i receive like I've done here:

http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums2/v...hp?p=9088#9088

Feral Druid, 3x Elemental Shaman, Frost Mage

Stockades @ lvl 25 (full clear)
Gnomeregan @ lvl 32 (full clear)
Uldaman @ 44 (partial clear)

All toons' gear is just quest/mob drops. Not twinked at all.

Server - Dragonblight - US - PvE
Aluvriel - Alzuriel - Aquiriel - Alkestriel - Aluzriel

Woot! Just finished like 5 minutes ago... Ragefire chasm@14, Pa/Pr/Wl/M/M

It was quite a bit more difficult than I anticipated (quad pulls? Gah!) but after a partial clear at 13, I full-cleared at 14. Had to rewrite all my macros like 3x. Paladin tanking pre-righteous fury and consecration is quite a bitch.



So I've been leveling pretty much exclusively inside of instances. Here's the progress:

RFC: 13-17

*Updated*

WC: 17-21
SFK: 21-23
BFD: 23-26
RFK: 26-30
Gnomeragan, one time, at 29

SM Graveyard: 29-32

*Updated again!*

SM Library: 32-34
SM Armory:34-36
RFd: 35-37
SM Cathedral: 37-40
Uldaman: 39-41

*more!*

41-43: Mauradon Purple / Outside instance Quests / Tanaris
43-45: ZF
45-46: Mauradon Orange / All bosses except princess
46-48: Hinterlands (this place is awesome)
48: Mauradon full clear
48-50: Sunken Temple

1) What Instance - Example: Deadmine @ level 20 Chars, Shadow Fang Keep @ Level 28 Chars etc (Level At What You Did It Helps)
2) What Combo? - Example: 4x Warlocks 1x Holy Priest[/quote]

1 shadow priest 4 Aff locks (all undead)

1. Sm Lvl 36 clear
2. Zul furk LvL 45 clear
3. Sunken temple lvl 52 clear
4. Scholo Lvl 58 clear
5. DM Lvl 60 Clear

Outland

1. Ramparts LVL 63 all but last boss lvl 66 clear and on farm
2. Blood funance LVL 64 clear
3. underbog up to first boss lvl 63 first boss lvl 65 (still working on clr at 66)

Holy/disc priest + 4 demonology locks (all undead)
Look up Dondiego/Donbartolo on Magtheridon on wowarmory for specifics.

Full clears/kills at the following levels:
RageFire Chasm = 16
SFK = 26
BFD = 27
Razorfen Kraul = 29
SM Library = 34-36
SM Armory = 36-38
SM Cathedral = 38-40
Razorfen Downs = 40-42
Uldaman = 45
Zul'farrak = 47-48
Maraudon = 49
Scholomance = 60
Arazzius the Cruel = 60 (lost 3 of 4 felguards)
Natural Remedies = 60 (lost two felguards when two raging behemoths added towards the end)
Stratholme = 61 (live side cleared; doing dead side tonight)

Updates:
--> Hellfire Ramparts at 61 = wipe on Nazan. Rest of the instance was ezmode. [update2] Finally went back and did it at 68. Trivial.
--> Blood Furnace at 68 was fine. The technicians in there AoE the pets down quick with the bombs though. Fear-kite FTW.
--> Underbog at 68 = easy/hard. The first time is difficult. Wiped on Hungarfen twice, then killed him with only one pet down. Next two bosses were pretty easy. Black Stalker wiped me the first time because of bad positioning triggered early aggro before I was spread out. 2nd run lost one lock but otherwise was easy mode.

========================
New group: 37 prot pally + 4 fire mages (will be PoM/Pyro spec at 41)

RFC = 18, took about 25 minutes. AoE = Win. No deaths.
WC = 20. Took about 90 minutes. No deaths.
BFD = 26. Took about 80 minutes. No deaths.
SFK = 27. Took about an hour. No deaths.
RFK = 30. Took about 80 minutes (mostly for the damn tubers quest). No deaths.
Starting SM tonight at 37. Will update when done with that.

I'm not sure if you only are after levling instances, those I cant remember :P

Anyway I have done following with my prot paladin and 4 holynuke priests:

Botanica - full clear in about 40 minutes
SL - cleared with a holy-pally friend instead of one of my priests. For this my priests was shadow, and all the feares is not fun :P
Mechanaar heroic - allmost cleared with a resto druid friend instead of one of my priests. We skipped the boss that spawns fire elementals.

Ramparts - just gotta move toons fast when the fire bombs land
Furnace - hmm
Pens - hmm
Underbog - hmm
Tombs - last boss quite challenging
Crypts - eye boss v. difficult, best to use follow and play priest, heroic- can't wait!
Sethlek Halls - done 4/5 @ 70, key is hiding behind pillar quickly
Hillsbrad @ 70 - easy once you know how it goes
Mech (except optional) - need fire resist on the optional or just madness
Black Morass (1st boss) - seems difficult, need better gear, good regen, etc.
Botanica - demon boss quite hard, all out DPS worked best - same strat for Warp Splinter, ignored add's.
Steamvault - rain clouds annoying, but doable, last boss easy once organised, planted healer and tanked right on each tank.
Shattered Halls - last boss, dps standing on the 3rd step, lock on add's, full DPS mode, doable with reasonable gear.
Shadowlabs - first boss one shot, Murmur 2%
Black Morass now clear.
Murmur down (found it best to leave the tank in than try run out)
Arcatraz Clear - first boss best with tank against a wall, ranged 35-40ft away, gonna be hard in heroic mode, not too many difficulties, skyriss one shot :D

Now onto heroics:
Mech 1st + last bosses down (2nd I have not defeated on normal even)
Sethek halls 1st boss down (last boss will require some arcane resistance)
Ramparts heroic down with 0FR... not that it was easy :P
Blood furnace is clear, last boss accomplished once I setup to move every character forwards immediately.
Slave Pens I've killed the first 2 bosses but the druid keeps eating poison preventing attempts on the final.
Old Hillsbrad, first boss down, and have made it up to the 2nd boss (although it is fucking hard chasing mages and wardens around sheeping them whilst Thrall hits the warden first (dumb shit he has dispel, get the mages first, thx bliz!)
Slave pens clear
Sethekk clear - hugging a pillar rather than try tank in the middle for the last boss kinda helps a lot
Underbog clear - got the last boss in one shot on an accidental pull
Shattered halls - Now the trash is the most fun I've had gaming for a while, and I killed the first boss.

tbc........[/img]

Just did my first Heroic. Downed the first boss in Sethekk Halls.

I'll keep this post alive and keep updating the info as it comes.
Haven't started to do instances yet, but will soon. :)

just cleared RFC first time as a 5x14 shaman.

Did RFC yesterday with 14 war/pal/3x Hunter, and WC at 17 (hit 18 during the instance with all of them) with the same group.

The same strategy worked for both instances - have all the hunters/pets target one mob, and grab aggro on the rest with the war while straight healing the warrior with the paladin. Hunters and pets will drop mobs at about 5-8 secs/mob, rinse and repeat. So far, no major problems.

Cleared Wailing Caverns

All Level 20-22
1x Paladin (Tank)
1x Shaman (Healer)
3x Mages (DPS)

First Run (level 20-21)
Clear 3 bosses
Wiped 3 times (could've been avoided... was careless)
Probably could've finished without wipes but it was my first time here and got lost in the tunnels. This was also my first instances multi-boxing.

2nd Run (level 21-22)
Cleared completely (including Mutanus the Devourer)
Wiped 3 times (could've avoided... need to get my sheep macros working properly for those adds)

Overall, if you know this instance (and know the path in the tunnels), this is pretty straight forward and easy enough for this group.

Watch out for the Deviate Guardian and their call for help. I found it's better to pull them, go further back where you came from and kill him there. That way, it doesn't matter who they call.

War/Pal/3x Hunter

WC: 17 (hit 18), full clear including the Treant and Murloc bosses

BFD: 22 (hit 23), full clear - wipe on serra'kis after agroing half the friggin instance while swimming around.

Paladins are really impressing me with single target healing, and the hunters/hunter pets are turning out to be fantastic. Some small things I've noticed that helps a lot - put pets on aggressive, use warriors aoe agro abilities non-stop, and have the hunters burn down one target at a time.

Using a formation (I have one hunter strafe left/right and one back up, the paladin moving forward with the key "H") works well too. Even if a mob agroes a hunter, the others will still be able to hit it. I haven't had to use any sort of traps, as my hunters and paladin almost never get agro.

Update from me:

RFC: 13-17
WC: 17-21
SFK: 21-23
BFD: 23-25

It's been pretty much straight instance grinding for me. Right as I get bored of an instance, it's time for me to move on. I really can't complain. The 2.3 leveling changes are great.

My group is Pal/Warlock/Priest/Mage/Mage:

My notes so far:

RFC was the hardest, by far. There's a whole bunch of reasons. Paladins are kinda crappy tanks until 20+ (need to get deeper into prot tree and get consecration), under leveled, and my first instance (had to rewrite macros 5x, etc)

WC wasn't bad at all.. if you know the instance. Need to be mindful of patrols, as always, and need to especially careful deeper against the fearing guys.

SFK has two major difficulties... the pbaoe silence guys... gotta make sure you hold agro and keep them away from your pack of casters.... not too bad, though. Up until the final boss, this instance was a breeze... the boss though (arugula? whatever his name is)... dude is a total nightmare. Blinking and mind-controlling... ugh...

BFD has been great to me, so far. It's an underrated instance. You got the annoying jump at the start... and the clams.. oh the clams.. other then that, it's a good instance for me. Probably the easiest instance so far. Lots of good caster loot.

Probably gonna run BFD one more time and then head to RFK.

Paladin is full protection spec. Once my paladin goes some good prot talents, some blue tanking gear and consecration, things have been moving along nicely. Been improving as a tank every level, by alot. In RFC, three elites beating on me was total death... I recently did an 8-elite pull (that was only -1 or -2 levels) and only lost a single mage.

Priest is full disc. spec. Going for crazy spirit upgrade.

Mages are arcane up to clearcasting then fire. Warlock is imp-corruption and imp-stam-buff and then destruction spec.

Have had 0 mana problems so far because of blessing of wisdom.

Kalih - good to hear about your success!

I just cleared RFK at 25-26 (dinged on all chars in the middle of the instance), complete clear including the boss and escort quest.

Again, war/pal/3x Hunter.

RFK - Same problems as you Kalih, had to re-write a ton of macro's, but once I got them down it was okay.

WC - not a problem at all.

SFK - I didn't have the same problems on the boss as you, I just positioned all the DPS and had only the warrior moving around. I DPS'ed him down before he blinked at all I think.

BFD - This felt really slow to me, though I only wiped during one bad incident swimming around near serra'kis and ending up agroing about 16 mobs, half of which turned out to evade my fights.

RFK - This was super easy compared to what I remember, cleared it at 25/26, all the loot I got off bosses was not equipable yet.

War is arms/fury so far (though eventually I'll move into prot), paladin is purely there for heals and aura's/blessings, and the hunters are all BM.

The first two times I beat the SFK boss, it went off without a hitch... the last two times through though, he caused me all sorts of headaches. If he mind-controlled my paladin, for example, especially early in the fight, bad things tended to happen.

One thing I have noticed is all the item drops are overleveled now. I guess blizz retuned all these instances and in many cases made them lower level.. they also upgraded alot of the loot.. but it seems they forgot to lower the quest levels and the item levels.

So like the BFD quests are level 28 but easily completable at level 24.. and alot of the drops are level 25/26/etc min level.

Level 25
1x Paladin (Tank)
3x Mages (Frost)
1x Shaman (Healer)

Deadmines - Lame. Went there for the Paladin quest, cleared it too easily. AOE everything. The only time I wiped was when I agroed too many mobs (20+ mobs) and I couldn't AOE fast enough. After that wipe, I would only agro a couple of mobs and plowed through it.

Shadowfang Keep - Very straight forward. Had to use Fireball instead of Frostbolt because Frostbolt did none to little damage.

Wiped once with the silence room (Wailing Guardmen). 2nd time around, kept the casters at the hallway, moved my Paladin into the room and worked them down.

Final boss (Arugal), was a pain with the mind-controlling of my Paladin 2-3 times. Eventually downed him with 1 mage and the shaman dead.

I'll run through Shadowfang Keep again, need to macro in Counterspell for my mages to help with the final boss.

Also probably going to respec the mages from Frost to Fire or Arcane/Fire.

Frostbolt was also a problem in Wailing Caverns with the Evolving Ectoplasm. Wanding did more damage then Frostbolt.

My toons' level range is definitely a little higher then the instances, guessing that it'll eventually even out due to the fact that I'm barely getting XP each run. It's fun seeing new content though. :D

I went through SM Graveyard a few times at 27 today. Really awesome drops, especially that Chest piece with 17 sta off the rare spawn Ironspine (or something). Didn't have any major problems, the Interrogater dots did some hefty damage at that level =)

wow 27. I just dinged 29 last night.

I was gonna wait until 30 (because that's the lowest level you get all the RFK quests) and then finish RFK and move to SM.

I'll probably give it a try later.

Updated my post on page 1 with some more data from Outlands instances.

I just finished SM Library with the team at 30. I don't recommend doing it that low, it just takes too long. But it was a good challenge!

RFK will be very low level for you at 30, mostly greens. The boss's there are now 27 (despite the quest still being min level 29).

Deadmines

Killed Rhahk'Zor, Sneed's Shredder and Sneed with 15/16 priest + 4 15/16 warlocks. 1 warlock was at 16 prior to Rhahk'Zor; the rest of the characters levelled between Rhahk'Zor and Sneed. Nearly wiped on Sneed; the priest was at 1% health and had agro when the Shredder died. Luckily we cleared out of range before Sneed attacked, so we could heal up. Bad pull shortly after Sneed and had to run out of the instance.

I have a team of druid(feral tank), Priest(holy). and 3 locks (affliction) all 70, in outlands i have done no heroics because im sure id lack the CC for it.
but have done in normal mode, Hellfire ramparts, Blood Furnace, the steamvolt, underbog, slave pens, durnholde, shadowlabs, auchenai crypt, sethekk halls, mana tombs, the botanica, the mechanar(all except the second boss, was a real pain in the ass with the fire elementals you cant kill so i skipped), and half of arcatraz.
Have yet to go the shattered halls, rest of arcatraz and the black morass..
Does anyone see a way to do heroics unless you have a totally decked out tank or CC? like 2 mages, i cant see locks succy lasting too long in heroics

I updated my first page entry with all my instances up to 40. I've leveled exclusively in instances since hitting 13 and going to RFC. That's probably gonna end here in the early 40s as I grind instances and fill with quests until I get 55 or so, which point will be all instances to 70.

Did my first Outland instance last night ... Ramparts. Was easy until the 3rd boss, then I couldn't kill the dragon, no matter what I tried. =(

Lvl 65
Feral Druid
3x Ele Shaman
Frost Mage

3rd boss in Ramparts is still giving me problems. My team is 3x Mage, 2x Paladin (Healer/Tank). Except for Ramparts i've full cleared all the main alliance instances at the average recommended level.

When I hit 58 I went to outlands so I skipped Scholo/Strat

DM - lvl 19
Stockades - lvl 27 (-ish, kind of vague on when I was in here since this is a gimmick instance anyway :P)
Gnomeregan - lvl 28
SM (Library) - lvl 31
SM (Armory) - lvl 32
Uldaman - (Vague on this one, it's been a while, was after the 2.3 patch that tightened level ranges, I THINK 34 or 35)
SM (Cath) - lvl 36 or 37
ZF - lvl 45 (Pyramid event was pretty easy with a pally cons tank and plenty of AoE)
Maraudon - lvl 48 (Noxxion lvl 49 or 50 since I did the rear part of the instance until the nature resist plate legs dropped)
BRD - lvl 49-54 (Most of my play sessions were too short during this time frame due to raids, etc. with my guild and this instance is still the largest in the game outside of AQ20/AQ40)

Quested from 55-58

Ramparts: Omor/Garg down at 60. Nazan still giving me issues at 62 and I refuse to twink my guys with gear they haven't acquired themselves (FR gear would be nice since it seems to be what's killing my tank. Moving out of the fire bursts isn't too big of a deal)
Blood Furnace: Full cleared at 61
Slave Pens: 1st boss down at 62, 2nd boss still eats my tank alive (On top of his mcspam water bolts :P)

Well i dont normally post on this part as its pretty trivial for lower level instances, but ive finally cleared SM GY so im posting it here.

its not been an easy instance theres a pretty big window between the levels of mobs in RFK to the levels of SM GY, its gotten alot harder since 2.3

SM GY 2.3 trashed my 1 priest 4 lock team at 30, devistated my 1 shaman 4 priest team at 30-32, but im very happy to say that my 1 shamn 2 lock 2 priest team is now clearing SM GY so happy as its been the worst learning curve ive had so far with multiboxing.

At 17, my priest/4locks group downed Rhahk'Zor, Sneed and his Shredder, Glinid, and Smite. The priest and 1 lock died on Smite, and by that time the beginning of the instance had respawned (I was AFK for a while), so I hearthed out.

Tonight's update: cleared Deadmines up to Van Cleef, but wiped on him and his adds. My 18 priest drew aggro, and the voidwalkers were not able to yank it back. Once the priest went down, the voidies and level 18 warlocks were toast.

I'm very close to 19, and all of the characters should level on the way through the instance tomorrow.

Has anyone here taken out Van Cleef with a 1 priest/4 warlock group? If so, what tactics should I be using?

Lvl 32-33
Scarlet Monastery: Graveyard
Too easy. Cleared then went across to Library

Lvl 33-34
Scarlet Monastery: Library

1st run was alright. Complete wiped at the last group of mobs before the final boss. Had to reclear everything so called it a night

2nd run. Went better. 3x Sheeps helped a lot. At the final boss, kept all toons as far out of range as possible while my Paladin tanked him. Went down pretty easy.

(Last update 4/10/08 )

Levels per instance (if I am remembering correctly):

DM: 18 or so
BFD & SK: 24 or so
RFK some where in the late 20s
SM: 35-38
RFD some where in the late 30s
Ulda: 44 but not last boss Pre 2.3
Ulda: Speed run at 47 (last boss nerfed big time) Post 2.3
ZF: 47 or so
Maur: 50
ST: 53
BRD: 55
LBRS: 59 (first 3)
DireM East: 60
Stratholme Dead: 60
AQ20: 60, part of pug raid cleared first 2 bosses just for fun
Scholo and Strat on farm at 61-62
Ramparts cleared at 63
Blood Furnace clear at 64
Slave Pens clear at 65
Underbog clear at 65
Mana Tombs clear at 67
Ring of blood and Dum Dum the Hungerer complete at 67
UBRS clear at 69 (my team only), instance was simple but Drakk was a pain, Tank got flamed, hint max DPS on Drakk off the bat and clean up the other two.
At 70 I did a number of things of note. Cleared in ZG, got Ony to 75%, did a bunch of party chains then respec'd the all but the tank.

In Feb 08 I got bored with the game, again, and have stopped playing until Wrath comes. When it does I may come back if Conan and Warhammer turn out to be a waste. If I do come back I will go for a speed run to 80 just for fun (take time off and such). Looking back the group makeup I chose turned out to be excellent for parts of the game and not so hot for other parts. I see that the 4 shammys and a pally tank build makes a lot of sense for PvE. I think the new multi hunter builds look fun, however this was only feasible after the dead zone removal of 2.3. I wonder what other changes Blizzard is going to make will alter the multi-box community play style.


Resting team spec- Prot Warrior, Arcane/Frost Mages, Ele Shaman, Holy/Disc Priest. Profs are fairly high if not maxed on most, should be dirt cheap to level profs up when the expansion hits.

Deadmines,

Up to last boss without whipes:
1x lvl 20 Prot pally
3x lvl 19 Hunter
1x lvl 22 priest

Stockades,

Up to last boss without whipes:
1x lvl 22 Prot pally
3x lvl 21 Hunter
1x lvl 24 priest

Cleared the Deadmines today after improving my macros to allow me to better use my voidwalkers. Killed all of the bosses, including (finally!) Van Cleef.

Characters: 1 holy priest, 4 affliction warlocks
Level: 18 at start, 19 at finish

Cleared WC tonight - all bosses including Mutanus. It was a cakewalk; the only difficulty was with a patrolling druid that evaded, despawned, and then respawned in a wall or something and attacked me while being invulnerable. Luckily I was able to run out of range, and it actually dropped aggro.

I probably should have done this instance before Deadmines, but Deadmines was more convenient as an Alliance character.

Characters: 1 holy priest, 4 affliction warlocks
Level: 21 at start, 22 at finish

Cleared SFK today. It had been ages (2 years?) since I ran the instance, and accidentally pulled an entire room at one point, causing a wipe. Thank goodness for soulstones. Aside from this error in judgement, it was at least as easy as WC. I probably should have done this one before Deadmines as well.

Characters: 1 holy priest, 4 affliction warlocks
Level: 22 at start, 23 at finish