Heroics in General

[Hokahey]

While it is already getting much simpler than before, I like how many of the current encounters in heroics still have instant death mechanics in them. I really feel that Blizzard did an excellent job in regard to making gear less the issue in heroics than proper execution. You could do pretty much all Cataclysm heroics in greens and blues and be successful if you had the skill, but even in full purples, you still can't ignore everything, a tremendous step up from Wrath.

Ground Slam is still instant death if you get hit. Invocation of Flame is still pretty much a wipe if people get nailed. Failing at Erudax adds is still a pretty much guaranteed wipe. These are just a few examples.

Gear is part of the issue with how much easier the heroics seem, but familiarity is the main culprit, in my opinion. These days, you can be fairly certain that at least 3 of the people in a party know how the pulls go, and know what they're supposed to do on a given boss. That makes things go so much faster and smoother.

*IF* Blizzard continues to add new 5 mans with each tier, and separate their "random" queues, we may not see what happened with Wrath heroics. Better geared players will probably opt for the 5 mans that drop better loot. If anything, come 4.2, you'll probably only see people in the "first tier" 5 mans who can't achieve the minimum gearscore for the new 5 mans (346, I think, for the Troll 5s). You will no longer have people in fantastic gear propping up the group to finish a 1st tier heroic in the random queue, or at least it will be relatively rare.

[Leuthas]

I've been seeing a certain thing a lot lately, both in the subject matter of blue posts and in the conversations of friends and guildmates - this thing is the preference of the 'harder' Cata heroics in place of the 'faceroll' Wrath heroics. Until this point I've kept to myself with my own opinion on it, which seems to be unique so far as I can determine.

On the traditional meter of "difficulty" I wouldn't go so far as to rate the Cata heroics too high - even measured during the first weeks of Cata. After the first time you realize WTF Ozruk is all about, it's straight forward, and can generally be accomplished without any need to set up each pull as if it were an arena match. Admittedly however, the Cata heroics are far higher on this traditional "difficulty" meter of mine. Handy isn't it?

During Wrath, heroics were essentially mindless, at least, as most would describe. The trouble is, my opinion seems to differ from all others in that - I enjoyed the swiftness of Wrath heroics. No, not because they were easy, and not because I thought them to be hard. For whatever reason, I enjoy tanking heroics as if they were one long, chaotic fight of endless adds and the occasional evil-fat dude that has more HP than the rest and throws red stuff all over the floor. Once the queue system was released, I'd often queue 10-15 times a day just for the sake of doing heroics. I'd challenge myself - how fast can I go? How much can I pull at once? Can I hold those mobs that the DPS are killing while running to the next room and grabbing the next two packs and the boss?

I enjoy the super-fast paced heroic dungeons; not necessarily heroics that can be cleared in under 10 minutes, just fast-paced along the way. Why? I don't know.

On the other side, in regard to raids - I like the content as hard as a rock, and long enough to make a 20% wipe a 15 minute disaster. I liked Yogg0 and LK - long fights.

I must admit, though, my favorite 5man boss has to be Karsh Steelbender; giving the tank some unique fight mechanics for once is nice.

I'm weird.

[Flex]

The fact that you don't get one shot on the spinning lightning rods of doom during the gauntlet bit in heroic Deadmines is another nuisance. Everyone in my groups just runs straight through them now!

As far as I know they never one shot you, they've hit for like 40K damage every second or so.

I took this as a takeaway for the next heroics I healed in a pug. On my shaman, I won't dip below 80-90% mana. So yeah. That's Wrath style to me. I have no fear of ever going oom or even panicking that I might not have enough mana anymore. It's gotten to the point where I don't even carry water on her.

Does that mean you're outhealing incoming damage though? I can sit at 70%+ mana on my holy paladin but the DPS is sitting at sub 100% health the entire time. So I maintain mana by not healing until I have to.

[Hrobertgar]

Cata seems to be very sensitive to gear.

A fresh 85 in ~ 300ish gear pulls about as much as an 80 in icc25 gear, jsut has a lot more health. Whereas an 85 in ~355 gear can pull 2x. I think this scaling, as well as encoutner knowledge contributes to steamrolling heroics already. But there are some fights that cause pugs ehadaches. I queued my tank alst night for kicks and got GB, they were skipping 3rd boss and had apparently wiped on Erudax at least once before the prior tank left/kicked?. The adds were still a tad shaky from dps and we wiped once. For the second go, I put on some ret pieces, and topped the charts at 12k, lol; but we did beat him for my quick valaor points. I don't think they realized that he takes double dmg during the swirly phase.

Tanks also scale well, an 85 tank in fresh gear was like 115K unbuffed (even less that first week or two), but more like 150K in raid gear.

On my holy pally I think I had 68k mana and 2k combat regen right at 85, but now I have 98k in a 5man, and 106k 10m bufs with over 3k regen, and I gem for socket bonuses not pure intellect. So in heroics to keep them from getting bored I go into my PvP spec and spam exorcism on the side as much as I can.

Solodin for the win!

[djlar]

Healer outhealing incoming damage and remaining at full mana? Not even close in my experience.

I took this as a takeaway for the next heroics I healed in a pug. On my shaman, I won't dip below 80-90% mana. So yeah. That's Wrath style to me. I have no fear of ever going oom or even panicking that I might not have enough mana anymore. It's gotten to the point where I don't even carry water on her.

I got a nicely geared resto shammy, and I know my toon, I get thru most heroics in a breeze, never stopping for mana, with some bad tanks and dps, we have lived thru double or triple pulls with no deaths and no mana issues, of course I hit over 10K HPS but it's no sweat.

Yeah there's the seldom baddie group, the usual "first time tanking this, or never been in this dungeon before" that makes me leave group ASAP

[Chasey]

there are still a few spots that are rough, but overall if the healer has mana the run goes prtty fast. Still Cata's 5 mans are easier than TBC's were, but not the joke that Wraths were. I can't wait til ZA and ZG come out.

[econ21]

Yeah there's the seldom baddie group, the usual "first time tanking this, or never been in this dungeon before" that makes me leave group ASAP

You never tanked a boss for the first time? Impressive...

I don't know why there is a tank shortage in LFD. It's a mystery to me.

[yappo]

Yeah there's the seldom baddie group, the usual "first time tanking this, or never been in this dungeon before" that makes me leave group ASAP

You never tanked a boss for the first time? Impressive...

I don't know why there is a tank shortage in LFD. It's a mystery to me.

/salute econ21

[djlar]

Yeah there's the seldom baddie group, the usual "first time tanking this, or never been in this dungeon before" that makes me leave group ASAP

You never tanked a boss for the first time? Impressive...

I don't know why there is a tank shortage in LFD. It's a mystery to me.

I mean they never did regular dungeons, there are normal versions of these, but these pseudo tanks don't even know how to tank, they won't generate threat, won't taunt, won't mark, won't move out of fire, etc.