Easiest heroic? Easiest badges?

[ignaro]

So here's the thing.

I like Warcraft, really I do. It plays with your mind, getting you all attached to a character and making five hours a "little while." The problem here is that my job is 12-16 hrs/day and sometimes on the weekends leaving little time for failed PUGs filled with NE Hunters in the vain hope that I might get a *slight* upgrade to my gear.

My guild is running Kara. They seem to be doing pretty well and have requested Yours Truly as at the very least on off-tank or the MT while our usual warrior plays his 'lock. 102.4% is this wiley and elusive beast. I've dropped my health down to 10,097, just above the minimum in my efforts to get uncrushable. I'm wearing a green necklace with +21agi +21dodge because it's the highest avoidance I can find. While there are a few more non-instance items I'm quickly grabbing, it's become apparent that I need the Libram of Cant-Reach-Uncrushable-Without-It.

Point of the story:
With only an hour or two to play per night, what's the best way for an under-geared tankadin to work up the 15 badges? My guild said that Heroic Ramps was the easiest heroic but I was getting my ass kicked against the trash mobs with a epic-geared pally healer. That PUG said Ramps was one of the toughest. Obviously doing the heroic daily for the extra two badges would be great but if I can't finish that day's heroic, that's no help. Optimally, I'd like to find one heroic that might drop fewer badges per run but which I can reliably do once a night and get my badges in a week or two.

Thanks so much for your help, glad to see the site back up!-- The Eanin's Failsafe Uncrushability Guide is a godsent. BTW-- any of you know of a similar guide for a rogue? The wife's jealous of my very nice list.

~NBCNitlyNews on Anvilmar

[Ciandin]

Heroic slave pens and underbog aren't that bad. Heroic mech is easy, take a warlock.

If your only offtanking kara, don't worry about uncrushable. Once you get an upgrade or 2 and collecting badges, you'll be staring at Prince's junk in no time.

Check out the EJ forums and shadowpanther.net for all your rogue desires

[Hearthy]

Give heroic Mech a shot. It's four badges and arguably one of the easiest heroics. Nothing hits very hard as long as you bring someone to interrupt the Destroyers' Charged Fist ability. The gauntlet leading up to Pathaleon can be problematic, but you can reset it with the elevator if you're having too much trouble.

Also, heroic Slave Pens isn't too bad. I'd recommend doing it instead when it's the daily.

[ulushnar]

If you're offtanking Kara, you don't need uncrushable. It's worth getting, but only Nightbane and Prince hit hard enough to really require it.

[Refute]

Heroic UB is also pretty easy. Keep in mind that you can also get Badges outside of instances now (such as some dailies I think?) - I'm not sure of the entire list, but I would look some of those up.

[kalbear]

Slave Pens, Mechanar or Underbog. Mechanar is probably the easiest if you have a lock.

But really, if you're not MT for Kara you don't need to worry about being crushed. Kara clear is 22 badges; do a partial Kara or two and you'll be set.

[Dorvan]

Moving to 5 man forums, since that's the main point of this thread

[Arcand]

My guild said that Heroic Ramps was the easiest heroic but I was getting my ass kicked against the trash mobs with a epic-geared pally healer.

The facts about heroic Ramparts are as follows:

1. Because Ramparts is the lowest-level normal dungeon, people might unconsciously assume that heroic Ramparts is the easiest heroic.

2. Because there is very little area damage except the fairly-inoffensive Rains of Fire, DPS can run heroic Ramparts and have little idea how hard the healer is working to keep up with the damage.

3. The healer is probably working pretty hard, because there are many mobs which Mortal Strike in there and also some which stun. Your damage intake roughly doubles while you're stunned due to loss of avoidance.

4. The pulls in Ramparts are relatively uniform in size and composition, so you can dominate it hard if your group has strong crowd control. (I've never run it with three magi, but I've done it with two and even that felt like cheating.)

Until you get geared up, I recommend you try the following heroics:

Slave Pens with a mage, shadow priest or both
Mechanar with (mage, warlock or both) and (rogue, warrior or shaman)
Blood Furnace with any number of group permutations as long as you have some CC and the players are skilled

PS: Until you get geared some more, put heroic Underbog in the same category as heroic Ramparts: "heroics which people think of as easy but which put some pretty heavy pain on the tank".

Edit: Nonsensical sentence structure in point 2.

[Mizak]

Ramps is nowhere near the bottom of the list. I'd put it somewhere in the middle.

Imo, the easiest badges come from H Slave Pens. That's how I got my first 15 badges....running it 5 times. Now it takes about an 45 min to an hour to run it, there are a lot of groups of mobs you can skip. The first 2 bosses are super easy, and the last boss is easy with Bite's nature resist buff, even easier if you have a hunter with you.

H Underbog is another good choice, but you need a good healer, especially if you are undergeared and there is that double Bog Lord pull. Once you get it though, it's 4 easy badges, although it will take longer than H SP. If you are only going to run 1 heroic a night though, that's an extra badge compared to SP.

H Mech...I like it a lot. Warlock defintely helps, but isn't necessary. Actually what I feel is even more important than a lock is either a rogue, warrior, or shaman to interrupt the Charged Fists. It's 4 badges, but realistically it's only 3 badges, as most groups end up leaving/quitting on Sepethrea. You have a chance at getting a Sun Eater here as well.

[Brickhouse]

Yeah, I agree with what has been said. =)

I personally don't like Ramparts too much...mostly from my earlier failures there. The hardest thing there is pulling, I think. Sometimes you will pull way too many. This heroic is about careful pulling and CC, since many mobs are clustered together oddly. Once you get full epic gear, you don't need CC, but that isn't the original question.

Heroic Slave Pens is Cake - not only because it is rather easy, but also because 99% of the Wow population knows this instance, so you likely won't wipe too many times because people do dumb stuff.

Also in this class is Mechanar heroic. It is not too difficult, particularly if you have a warlock, but what makes it rather easy is that EVERY one knows this instance, so you can just run it for free tokens.


Avoid less common heroics, e. g. Keeper of Time heroics, ManaTombs, Crypts, and I wouldn't recommend the new Magisters Terrace if you want easy tokens. It is challenging for even good groups. The problem with less common heroics is people generally don't know the tactics, and unless someone explains them clearly and slowly, there will be wipes and wipes lead to people quitting the group in the middle, which leads to wasted time.

No one has mentioned it, but I will =)

Heroic Shattered Halls, while you will wipe a few times (mostly getting the timing down in the Gauntlet), it is EASY 5 tokens in less than 1h with a good paladin tank. Good, meaning, you have learned this place. The more epics the better, but I think you should be able to AoE tank this place with moderate use of CC, fearing, freezing traps, sheeps, etc..Most of the mobs are melee, so that is to our favor. Just mark the kill oder, CC whatever, and shield pull, consecrate, drink repeat. It pisses me off if I forget to pick up the quest, when SH is the daily hero, that makes it 7 tokens in 1h, and that is the best return in the game =)

Also, really, if you can make time for it once per week, karazhan is an easy 20+ tokens in 3-4 hours depending on the group.

[ignaro]

Keep in mind that you can also get Badges outside of instances now (such as some dailies I think?) - I'm not sure of the entire list, but I would look some of those up.

First, what a response!-- I should've asked earlier, thanks so much guys!

I looked up Badges of Justice and I can't find what you're talking about... seems instances are the only way to get 'em.

I didn't realize how many badges dropped in Kara-- seems like whenever I can, I should jump in as an OT with my guild and if they're not going/don't have a spot for me, Heroic Mech is probably the way to go. What do you guys think?

Any other advice on getting uncrushable? Playing the AH has made me rather rich so I've been able to buy up a lot of my stuff-- Nethercleft on Felsteel Legs FTW-- so any BoE's you can recommend that I may have missed would be much appreciated!

Armory link:
~NBCNitlyNews on Anvilmar

[Everlight]

Ow. Felsteel Legs are pretty bad

Go read this - http://zentanking.blogspot.com/2007/03/ ... unity.html

[Shamora]

I found heroic Bot to be pretty easy and that's 5 badges. Granted I had DPS that knew how to play and a great healer (who is my pocket priest ). As for BoE pieces now that Nethers and Vortexs are no longer BoP you can get all of these made pretty easy:

[item=30034]Belt of the Guardian[/item]
[item=23538]Bracers of the Green Fortress[/item]
[item=23535]Helm of the Stalwart Defender[/item]
[item=23536]Oathkeeper's Helm[/item]
[item=30033]Boots of the Protector[/item] (if you are a BS)

[sweeney]

If you have money to spare I'd go ahead and get your healing set in shape for Kara, as well. If you're running it with people who know the place and they're short a healer, you can definately pull your weight as prot just as a Flash of Light bot. (And as people have said, if you're in there offtanking, go for stamina/block value rather than uncrushability.)

I'd recommend doing normal Black Morass (always takes the same amount of time, so definately fits into an hour, honestly with practice 2 fit in an hour easily) until you hit Revered -- the Continuum Blade, Timewarden's Leggings, and tanking head glyph are all yours for a fairly short grind (I forget but I think it's 5-6 runs or so).

[corvilto]

I was a your place a few weeks ago. Watching my health go down each time i got more avoidance is not cool:/
I also asked about the same questions as you on this forum and my tip is OT as fast as you can, unless your group is very bad there is no problem with beeing crushable/ generally undergeared as OT in kara. Just dont be crittable and you are fine

On what heroic to chose tho, id say go bot if you can, its easy and you get5 badges. Ramps is also pretty easy but you need to know the place and have 1 cc, thing with ramps is the dude with the dogs you need to stun him and use all your trinkets on him or he will get you down in no time(everytime i got a paladin healer with me i ask even him to stun him giving us 8sec to nuke him down:).There is also some big group pulls there but as soon as you know who does what its not that hard.
Sp is also easy but the defenders there will need to be stunned alot since its 2 of em and they hit for 2.5k each(bring a rogue if you do this instance:)

Imo the biggest difference on heroic and nomal mode is that on normal mode you need to know how to do the boss, while on heroic you need to know how to do each mob + the boss. So practice, practice, practice and when you know how to do each pull with taking minimum dmg, then suddenly heroic's isnt that hard anymore.