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@bart yeah, it's your tactics. Leave your shaman on the steps. Make sure you have Nature Resistance totem down. If you don't use healbot on your tank for cleansing you should use something. You can drop the poison cleansing totems but it's much easier to have the pally do it. When the adds come to your dps Thunderstorm them back 2 or 3 times, then bring out your earth elementals. By this time you should have the boss almost down.
My thoughts come from a mixed team perspective; however they are relevant to any fresh 80 team. ToC is a god send to boxers looking to gear up for heroics; although its an 80-normal instance, it drops lvl 200 epics.
My team came fresh out of AV leveling each wearing green/blue mixture with 2-each 213 level PvP. I followed the recommendations given in these forums regarding positioning near the wooden doors; then smashing the 1, 2 & 4 keys till my fingers bleed.
When your team is fresh 80, the composition of the 3-champions is very critical to your success; any time I saw the rogue I ran out and reset. The dot he puts on the tank along with the poison clouds makes it too difficult with crappy gear. My mixed team found the Warrior, Mage, & Hunter to be the easiest; the Shaman, Hunter, Rogue to be the hardest. My suggestion; unless you are flush with gold would be to farm this instance until you have all the drops; run dailies to augment your gear with BoE/Crafted items that do not drop, gem & enchant your purples.
Just my 2 coppers…
((Finally dropped Black Knight normal 9/27/09; Paladin was sole survivor))
For me the easiest instances for badge farming were (in this order):
HGrundrak
HDTK
HHoL
HUK
so I just ran those over and over, there some good gear in there for shammies, the pants/wrists in HDTK are just as good/better as the rep ones or anything you get on the ah at level 200.
When I had the cash I kitted out the team in Revenent Chest/Boots/Titansteel Guardians/Deathchill cloaks and enchanted. I always do HGrundrak - 30mins for 5 badges is too good to knock back. For me it's a time thing, my instance max is 45mins and all the above can be done in that time. If you just farm those its around 16 badges of conquest per day, although I'd probably drop HUK as the cost benefit is a bit low.
Also HUP is good for 2 quick badges before Skadi. Plus of course there's great gear to be had in WG
standard totem set - I swap1 healing for a cleanse in Grundrak
all my shammies are specced to use totem of wrath, they all throw it down for the buff and then throw down this set
withthose
f:totem of wrath
a:grounding
w:healing
e:strength of earth
younot
f:searing
a:wrath of air
w:healing
e:tremor
shoez
f:searing
a:nature resist
w:healing
e:tremor
gettinin
f:searing
a:grounding
w:healing
e:stoneskin
I don't worry about mana at all, they all seem to finish encounters at 90% mana as they have a blessing of wisdom on them, a few +mp5 and I added thunderstorm to their rotation (thx Ooga!) Be interesting to see how they hold up in long boss fights.