Just starting out with heroics? Go to H-CoS

[Svpernova09]

h-CoS was the daily yesterday, and I decided to give it a go. I've successfully cleared h-UK, h-Gundrak, h-DTK, First 2 bosses of h-AN. I've cleared reg CoS without any issues for a while now, but had never tried heroic, I just always had this assumption that the trash for the first 2 bosses would be too overwhelming.

I was wrong.

I easily cleared the place in about 35-40 minutes, easiest badges I've ever received. I was only 4-5 minutes off the timer, so I think I can easily start farming for drakes. What made the run really easy, was dropping 2 magma totems and keeping them down. The magma totems pretty much took care of all the random skeleton adds. I took it pretty slow, I sat and drank when I was under 60% mana. Looking back, if I had kept moving and used thunderstorm every time it was up, I could have easily had the timer.

The only time I had any trouble was on Mal'Ganis where I lost my DK. I just tank and spanked everything in there. The first boss was pretty easy no need for any cooldowns. I used Heroism on the 2nd boss just to move things along. For the 3rd boss, I used 3x earth elementals and army of the death so I could go cat on the druid for more DPS. I downed the boss with all 3 earth elementals alive and my druid never got touched. Mal'ganis was kind of healing intensive, my DK was 2 shoted before I could even get a heal off. but the tank damage was minimal.

So if you've cleared UK, head to CoS, it's not as hard as you may think. I would say CoS is easier than UK and it has better loot. I was able to use www.wowhead.com/?item=Plague-Infected Bracers, as well as www.wowhead.com/?item=Cracked Epoch Grasps

[Zzyzxx71]

You're preaching to the choir brother - unfortunately if you're experience is anything like mine those last 4-6 minutes will cause you to go bald with stress.

I've been seriously considering recording one of my timed COS runs to highlight the tricks I've learned.

A few from the hip suggestions (this is assuming you're running a shammy team, but typically I'm wrong when I assume..)

1. Thunderstorm whenever it's up. ALWAYS recall your totems when you move.
2. Thunderstorm whenever it's up. ALWAYS recall your totems when you move. (posted twice on purpose)
3. Always use buff food right before you talk to Arthas.
4. Only drink either before a boss if you're below 75% mana (and only to get yourself to 75%... the clock is ticking)
5. ALWAYS drink after the bosses, bind the same key for drinking to EATING on your tank.
6. After Salramm loot FAST and GO GO GO GO GO. If I have to go the WHOLE distance, I normally drop about 3 sets of totems along the way so it kills the zombies en route.
7. Do NOT talk to Arthas at the town hall until all the zombies are dead. The action of Arthas going into the town hall while you're under attack has been known to bug the event.
8. Once the town hall portion has been started, run to the BACK by the stairs, setup, and drink.
9. You can drink before all 4 packs of mobs and Chronolord Epoch.
10. Once Epoch is down, IMMEDIATELY talk to Arthas, loot while he's walking to the door.
11. Don't run down the stairs after Epoch, jump off the balcony.
12. The Gauntlet - good luck. Thunderstorm as much as possible, setup totems whenever you can (make sure there's a mana totem in there..). At the intermission, drink to 75%, do NOT wait on Arthas.

Kill Infinite Corruptor,

Profit.

Edit:

Drink points:
Before Meathook
After Meathook
Before Salramm
After Salramm
Before all 4 packs before Chronolord Epoch and the boss himself
Gauntlet intermission (only if needed)
Pre-Infinite Corruptor (if needed)

I use bloodlust and fire elementals on Salramm only. I do not worry about his adds if he summons them, the elementals take care of it.
I down Meathook with nothing special - just T+S.
Bloodlust will be back up for Infinite Corruptor - USE IT. There's nothing suckier than getting to him the first time and having him just walk through the portal because you ran out of time. Once you engage him if the timer runs out he WILL walk through the portal with you beating on his ass.

Now I really need to make a movie. :/

[Svpernova09]

You're preaching to the choir brother - unfortunately if you're experience is anything like mine those last 4-6 minutes will cause you to go bald with stress.

I've been seriously considering recording one of my timed COS runs to highlight the tricks I've learned.

A few from the hip suggestions (this is assuming you're running a shammy team, but typically I'm wrong when I assume..)

1. Thunderstorm whenever it's up. ALWAYS recall your totems when you move.
2. Thunderstorm whenever it's up. ALWAYS recall your totems when you move. (posted twice on purpose)
3. Always use buff food right before you talk to Arthas.
4. Only drink either before a boss if you're below 75% mana (and only to get yourself to 75%... the clock is ticking)
5. ALWAYS drink after the bosses, bind the same key for drinking to EATING on your tank.
6. After Salramm loot FAST and GO GO GO GO GO. If I have to go the WHOLE distance, I normally drop about 3 sets of totems along the way so it kills the zombies en route.
7. Do NOT talk to Arthas at the town hall until all the zombies are dead. The action of Arthas going into the town hall while you're under attack has been known to bug the event.
8. Once the town hall portion has been started, run to the BACK by the stairs, setup, and drink.
9. You can drink before all 4 packs of mobs and Chronolord Epoch.
10. Once Epoch is down, IMMEDIATELY talk to Arthas, loot while he's walking to the door.
11. Don't run down the stairs after Epoch, jump off the balcony.
12. The Gauntlet - good luck. Thunderstorm as much as possible, setup totems whenever you can (make sure there's a mana totem in there..). At the intermission, drink to 75%, do NOT wait on Arthas.

Kill Infinite Corruptor,

Profit.

Thanks for this, I was digging through some videos to try to pick up some hints to where i can shave off 4-5 minutes. I spent a LOT of time drinking to full, I was just too unsure of how much mana I would be using on each trash pack. I can easily see I can run around 50-75% without issues until the boss. I need to thunderstorm more, maybe I'll add that to my dps macro just to have it burning it more often. I was also slow getting to some of the trash mobs. So hopefully a few more days of practice and I'll be farming drakes for my alts.

[Zzyzxx71]

Another thing I have done is bound Thunderstorm button to the same button as my Bloodrage/Commanding Shout button on my warrior - Whenever everyones at 17k health, it means I've let 2 minutes go by since thunderstorm.

Bad warrior, bad.

[KvdM]

There's nothing suckier than getting to him the first time and having him just walk through the portal because you ran out of time. Once you engage him if the timer runs out he WILL walk through the portal with you beating on his ass.

If I remember correctly, you can still hurt him while he is walking towards the portal. So pull him away from his portal at the start of the fight to buy some extra time.

[wowphreak]

Dont loot anything but bosses :P
Dont drink takes to much time look into getting www.wowhead.com/?item=Glyph of Water Mastery and/or www.wowhead.com/?item=Glyph of Thunder if yer shammy gets low on mana

Put lightning shield into yer dps rotation since they will get hit fairly often in cos.

Mana pots?

Maybe look into gear with regen on it.

I wouldnt bother with the magma totems just move in all yer range closer to the dk and use DnD.

[Stealthy]

One tip I'd like to add - don't bother looting mobs at the gauntlet - you can come back and loot them after you kill the Infinite Corrupter and they shouldn't have despawned.

Cheers,
S.

[Svpernova09]

Went back last night, my 2nd time in on heroic. Got the timed boss down with 2 minutes left. Great info for anyone trying to get a drake. Thanks for all the tips from people. My main already had a drake, so I gave the one last night to my DK, so 3 more and my main team will all have one!