2500 Gear Score Tank Downs ICC Lower Spire

[Mercurio]

So I dinged 80 on a new team on Friday and thought about the long grind that was ahead of me to get them geared up.

Lots of heroics to gather enough emblems of triumph to be able to...
do normal ICC 5-mans to collect some ilvl 219 gear to...
do heroics faster and build up enough gear and rep for head enchants to be able to...
do heroic ICC 5-mans for a few weeks to get some ilvl 232 gear to be able to...
get into groups every week for VoA10 and VoA25 and maybe start into ICC10

Made me tired just thinking about it. So instead, I just threw them into a couple of my solo ICC10 teams that I run each week to see what would happen.

I didn't buy or craft anything for the two mages, who did a pitiful 2100 DPS and had hit ratings of about 100. Of course, that was before they died, which happened very quickly when faced with any kind of AOE damage. If they survived more than 2 minutes it didn't matter b/c they were OOM. But who cares? They are just DPS - my other DPS toons made up for them and I was successful.

My two healers were a bit more critical, but I figured I'd throw two of them at everything by 3-healing instead of 2-healing on another team. They were able to survive AOE damage a bit better as the sources of AOE healing.

But my poor 2500 gear score tank! I did actually make her an ilvl 200 shield to get her to such a lofty gear score (LOL), and she entered ICC with a bit less than 21000 hit points. I was shocked that I was able to one-shot Marrowgar and Lady. I wiped about four times on Gunship before getting it down, then one-shotted Saurfang. It was quite humorous to see her health pinging from 10% to 100% over and over, but I got through it.

I really wouldn't have thought it possible, but with a 25% buff in ICC, even a so-so player with a tank wearing one purple, 3 blues, and the rest greens can succeed.

It is funny how the raiding progression ladder Blizzard created for WotLK has gotten compressed towards the end of the expansion (of course, help from eight "friends" to carry newbie toons through ICC doesn't hurt either).

[Toned]

behold the power of the 25% buff

[Nejcha]

I'd say behold the power of the first four bosses being over glorified trash fights. The buff just makes it crazysause.

Again skill > gearscore.

[Toned]

Lol true :P

[roflstomp]

man im going there next week 5 toons 5k gs then 5 toons well 4k tank in pvp gear and 4.2k huntard then 3k healer and dps lol should be a roit

[Mercurio]

I'd say behold the power of the first four bosses being over glorified trash fights. The buff just makes it crazysause.

Again skill > gearscore.

In regards to the first four being a complete cakewalk, for 10 actual players I would totally agree. I can't imagine how any pug could wipe against them.

But before we give folks the wrong impression here, I guarantee that if you gave almost any WoW player (even most boxers) ten 6K gear score toons and told them to do Gunship, it would be a total wipefest for hours upon hours. They would probably eventually figure it out, but it would be a long, painful process. I'd hate for roflstomp (or others reading this thread) to get frustrated if they don't waltz in and one-shot everything.

So your last statement is right on the mark. It still takes some skill, strategy, and patience to 10-box even the first four. Just makes it more fun with a few sub-3K GS toons in the mix

[Dramoth]

Undergeared on EU-Arathor

Slowly working their way to the LK wearing nothing but iLvl200 blues with epic crafted buffs to gear.

None of them have a gearscore of over 3300.

[Owltoid]

What Mercurio is doing is far more impressive than the Undergeared project.

[Fat Tire]

What Mercurio is doing is far more impressive than the Undergeared project.

mines bigger

[zenga]

Well question is did you MT with that toon? Or did you use it together with a properly geared tank? Because it's my experience that besides 1 MT it only requires one plate class to be around. I've solo tanked marrowgar with the 10% buff in 10m normal mode, with a dps dk standing next to me.

My point being that a very poor geared tank (quest greens/blues) has probably more avoidance and an equal amount of health than a very well geared plate dps class. So in the end that doesn't seem to matter a lot as long as your MT has decent gear.

Of course this is still a very nice & fun achievement.