Failed hard at Heroic Arcatraz.

[samoa]

I always run with a druid healer in all my heroics, love the HOT almost 1000 health per sec for life bloom x 3, And then rejuve another 1200 every 3 sec, love that! breeze through heroics with ease. So it might be healer issue!!

[Frickit]

I always skip the first boss even though I think I could do the fight if everyone is on the ball.
The rest can be a pain but its not that bad. Just learn the pulling and be careful.

[Gimorth]

I've done the instance on my mage, and I think that most of the issues that occur in Heroic Arc are due to the fact that it is one of the only heroics where DPS actually needs to be even somewhat well-geared. This is particularly true for the first boss.

A mage in a mix of quest blues and "of the sorcerer" greens can generally sneak into SP, et al and go unnoticed. It doesn't take special gear to throw a sheep. It doesn't take extra HP to toss a counter-spell. However, once you step into heroic arcatraz, the expectations are little different. Your group DPS has to be high enough to kill the death watchers. Everyone's HP has to be high enough to survive the shadow nova and at least the first tick of the black hole the first boss opens.

It's not surprising that it's like pulling teeth to get people to run this instance on heroic. The terribad drops from the first 3 bosses aren't incentive enough for people who are looking for the fastest way to upgrade.

I would say that it's not so much your gear that caused you issues here. It's the fact that Arc sets expectations that are generally not found in other heroics. Most PUGs are not prepared for those expectations.

[Tyaera]

Fist boss = Shadow Resistance, enough said

This.

My housemate is my pocket priest. She's got a little over 2000 +healing and close to 200mp5 while casting. She can basically solo heal me through aoe pulls in karazhan. She can solo heal me on prince and nightbane.

With my 0 shadow resist, she couldn't keep me up on that boss. We tried him 3 times before saying fuggit and skipping him.

um...Shadow Resist Aura?

Prayer of Shadow Protection?

Those two should be more than enough.

[GothicPL]

Fist boss = Shadow Resistance, enough said

This.

My housemate is my pocket priest. She's got a little over 2000 +healing and close to 200mp5 while casting. She can basically solo heal me through aoe pulls in karazhan. She can solo heal me on prince and nightbane.

With my 0 shadow resist, she couldn't keep me up on that boss. We tried him 3 times before saying fuggit and skipping him.

um...Shadow Resist Aura?

Prayer of Shadow Protection?

Those two should be more than enough.

Priest and Paladin SR buffs don't stack. I agree, I can't see doing that boss in heroic without at least a couple of shadow resist greens. I started monitoring AH for them, and the boss has gotten progressively easier with every SR green I obtain. It felt really wrong to swap epics for greens, but I got over it.

[Catriona]

Fist boss = Shadow Resistance, enough said

This.

My housemate is my pocket priest. She's got a little over 2000 +healing and close to 200mp5 while casting. She can basically solo heal me through aoe pulls in karazhan. She can solo heal me on prince and nightbane.

With my 0 shadow resist, she couldn't keep me up on that boss. We tried him 3 times before saying fuggit and skipping him.

um...Shadow Resist Aura?

Prayer of Shadow Protection?

Those two should be more than enough.

Priest and Paladin SR buffs don't stack. I agree, I can't see doing that boss in heroic without at least a couple of shadow resist greens. I started monitoring AH for them, and the boss has gotten progressively easier with every SR green I obtain. It felt really wrong to swap epics for greens, but I got over it.

Plus it's great to have a couple green pieces for Shaz when you get there. I hated having to comb the AH for a couple weeks and be sat out for the fight because I couldn't make cap.

[Exabit]

Although the place is painfully long (I hate long instances), the first boss isnt as bad as you guys are making him sound. As long as you dont try and pug the place, go with people who know their classes its not that bad. Done it on heroic 4 times now, 1 of which was a pug (we cleared it but took twice as long as guild runs). The first boss is a pain, but prayer of SP or SR aura and you should be fine, just get out the shadow fountains and have you and your healer stand against a wall due to the knockbacks.

[Gray]

I've done it heroic once. Never again. I got my Trials of the Naaru done, not going back. Oh, and we skipped the first boss after wiping once. I just had the 70 SR from the aura. I was the last one standing, dps got killed by the blast, healer by a black hole.

It's a stupid easy instance. That's all I have to say. Run with people who actually have brain cells that function, and you should have no problems.

Seconded. Didnt even notice it to be any different from normal. Took little over 45min to complete.

[Memnoch]

As far as the first boss goes, ALL of his dmg is shadow, so unless you stack SR, it can't be mitigated.

I've read that for the fight it's recommended to stack SR (duh), Even (here's where it's at) if it means you throw on +SR cloth gear.

Since there's no melee dmg from him, stacking AH greens of shadow resistance and stacking huge amounts of it will make it a breeze.


Or just get a healer who can pwnface.

I don't often have problems with him, and only occasionally on other trash.
Hero Arc is one of the dungeons i have on nearly daily farm.

Mech/Arc/SV/SP almost every day anymore.

I work second shift so i can't raid much, so i'm farming badges for 2.4 badge gear

[Kinrain]

I pugged Heroic Arc last night too and had a very similar experience, except the first boss.

I built up a SR set for Heroic Pandemonius (Mana Tombs) and have 203 SR unbuffed and only lose about 800hps from my normal tanking gear (Most SR greens have high STA and SR), turned Shadow Damage fights into basically a BoJ ATM.

The rest of the instance was basically horrible.

[sucellus]

I found that in my normal gear with shadow res aura or prayer of shadow protection I was not really getting hit too hard for my healer to cope, the main problem is always the black spots killing the healer/DPS.

[Arcand]

This vessel is...empty.

I love that line.

For about 40g you should be able to run your shadow resistance up to the 200 neighborhood and man will you notice the difference. If I go full-on SR, including my Lawbringer Spaulders with a resistance enchant, I can break 300 and then the biggest concern becomes having enough mana.

The Seeds he casts don't seem to be cleansable, so don't try.

And reassure everyone that you can take his damage easily, so they don't have to go DPS-at-all-costs. Emphasize that getting away from Seeded people and getting away from void pits is priority one.

[Brickhouse]

As must be clear, heroic Arkatraz is one of the more "challenging" heroic instances. I did normal Arkatraz 10-15x to exhalted, then heroic another 5-6x for the bracers. The differences between heroic and normal are not that big. I think Arkatraz is "hard" as far as a normal instances goes - compared to others, but once you understand what happens in the normal mode, you will have a leg up on the heroic mode. Here are my tips and pointers:

1. Take a well geared Priest healer. Not only do you get priest buffs, but also get very nice healing, AoE, Dots, etc..which is what you need. None of the fights are terribly long, but there is a lot of collateral damage, if you know what i mean. Druid can work as well. I would stay away from a paladin or shaman healer - unless they are full epic geared players - with skills. The problem with the paladin is obvious, no AoE heal. The problem with the Shaman is that for their wonderful AoE heal to work, everyone needs to stand close together, which won't always be the case. I have successfully done it with all healers, but I find even a well geared Priest as sufficient, where as the other classes will either need an offhealer, or really well geared/skilled.

2. Skip first boss (unless of course, you have the required Shadow resistance). I did him with 365 shadow resistance, and basically he does very little damage to me, so the healer can just focus on healing the rest of the people - and they also have to move out of the shadow voids, but it is quite easy then. I tried him with little to no shadow resistance - and while people have done it (i am not one making this claim) - I would recommend just skip him.

The rest of the instance is fairly easy, basically just like normal mode - maybe a notch harder, but not too rough. The 2nd and 3rd bosses are just slightly harder, but still relatively easy if you have someone to interrupt (so make sure to bring someone that can interrupt delialah's heals), and aoe heal boss 3.

The last event, I admit, can be very hard. I saw someone posted going with 2 elemental shamans - so I am sure they had the good fortune of NOT getting the elemental from one of the cages. That happened to me once, and basically nerfed our dps, and we could not kill him fast enough (and took a lot of damage in the process) before the fourth dragonkin boss showed up. For that reason, I made sure never to put all my eggs in the elem shaman basket again.

I cannot give too many tips here...but from cage 1, pretty easy, either the imp (he does aoe fireballs) or the phasing lizard. Both are pretty easy. The next summoned bosses: elemental or the firelord dude, can be tough. both require Aoe healing as well, as they hit a lot of people - and make sure to move out of the rain of fire. Personally, these two are a major pain. both are caster mobs so it is more challenging to hold aggro on them, and they need to be nuked down fast - which ever you get. By this point, everyone is out of mana =9 and with bad luck the last summoned boss will show up - and he will finish off the group. Usually, just a tank and spank, but there is one that does an AoE fireblast, not to bad, but make sure to tank him against a wall.

The main boss is the same as in normal mode, and if you make it to him, then you probably will succeed - it is kind of anticlimatic by that point. He is hard, but easier than defeating this minibosses if you kill his clones first.

[Khayne]

You can also remember that if you dont have shadow resist gear, you can simply equip as much ha and pure avoidance as you get.

you can still dodge/parry/be missed by elemental physical attack.

Can´t block anyway and armor does nothing so what i did was equip as much dodge and defense as possible without sacrificing hp much.