Heroic Advice.

Hi all,

Attempted my first heroic this weekend, Slave Pens, and it all went very wrong. So I just wanted to check and get feedback from you all so I can address any issues and make a better go of it next time.

My stats were,

12.4k health [buffed]
13.9k armour [buffed]
80% avoidance [inc miss]
491 defence
+300 Spell Damage

The party consisted of myself, 2 rogues, a hunter and a resto druid. This was far from ideal but I wanted to try a heroic to test the water for myself and see if I could handle it in my normal group, this wasn't a PuG but a few friends from another guild who needed a tank.

So we go in, and I get told I am not to use the avengers shield because the rogues need to CC with sap. I explain this may lead to threat issues [the other 4 people are in kara gear and I am not even in heroic gear yet] but they say thats how it has to be, CC is everything in heroics. I decide to give it a go and pull using judged SoR. Sure enough the first few pulls are fine. 1st big pull, hunter over aggros and we wipe. Then we wipe again, druid over aggro's. Eventually, through a few more wipes, we reach the first boss and he goes straight down. Things are looking up I think and we start to get through the mobs, but health is getting low and I am using a lot of potions. Hmmmm.

I start to see little things not making sense, but keep them at the back of my mind. We get to the second boss and he absolutely smashes me into next week. Now things as looking suspect to me and I enquire in a friendly way about the druids +healing, which turns out to be above +1400. I am then told in a superior way that the druid can heal me for 3k every 3 seconds and that its far better to have a resto druid healer over a paladin or priest [which I think is rubbish, simply from a ress issue, without the buffs that the others give and the other benefits].

Now alarm bells are ringing, from reading up previously on heroics [yeah I know its sad but I believe in knowing as much as possible before doing an instance] ,the second boss I know hits for about 2.5k every 2 seconds as a standard attack and has a few other special attacks as well. We try again and wipe, and again, and again and again. Best attempt was getting him to 20% and the druid them went OOM.

Now I know, or think I know, with my stats, I should be ok in a heroic. But now the others are saying that they think my gear isn't upto it. So now I start to question that. I offer to be replaced, but there is no-one to take my place. Its late and I explain that I think I should call it a night, something everyone agrees with and we all log off.

Next day I find out that my gear is being discussed and that they all think I need to gear up. Is this the case? I thought my stats were ok for a Heroic, was I wrong? [The only gear I don't have is the Devilshark Cape, the figurine from SH and the Furies deck which I haven't traded in for my vengence card yet]. They also throw the obligatory 'we have healed warriors through there and been fine'. Yeah, 'Warriors with 15k health, bags of Kara Epics and lots of avoidance I reply'. I get annoyed with this and log.

Any thoughts? All comments are welcomed because I believe I can do this instance, but not with a group like that. Is it my gear? Or is it me? I am a solid if unremarkable Tank but obviously I want to know what the problem is/was.

Barathorn.

Your stats look a little weak imo for a heroic, but not undoable.
Firstly 80% avoidance, i think you mean mitigation, as no one has 80% avoidance lol Avoidance = Dodge+parry+miss, so approx 50% on me.

Secondly your HP is low if that is buffed, unfortunately you didnt have a priest or warlock as that hads about 1.5-2k HP, i assume you had kings on. Did you use potions, major fortitude and mastery are handy for heroics.

However the 2nd boss having slightly less hp would benefit the healer to remove the debuff from you, but it seems that you were taking too much damage in general for him to keep up.
I cant look at your amoury at work sadly, so someone else might be abel to suggest changes. My thoughts would be to go back with a priest and warlock for the added HP which is very valuble. Also look to have +stmaina enchants and gems.

Well done for trying though it is tough, the first heroic i did was ramparts and i remember getting shredded by those ripper ppl before they were nerfed lol, thankfully my girlfriend is a very good priest

You could try ramparts but slave pens is as good a place to start as any i guess.

Edit: or the druid healer is dodgey, did he say 3k per 3 secs lol, thats the wrong type of healing required me thinks. If he is doing that than he needs to learn tbc healing mechanics. Try a different healer next time and see how things go.

Edit: And depend on the grp and type of cc you should use your shield pull, with rogues its more of a no go, but sheeping than do it beforethey sheep And cc isnt everything in heroics.
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Thanks for the prompt reply Cragus, I have ok gear I think, I have +12 gems in all but my felsteel helm and gloves which have +9 stam. I have the right enchants on bracers, sword, head and shoulders. I just thought I was getting beat down too quick and that I should be getting healed more.
By avoidance I mean 80% with miss/block/parry/dodge [with HS active] if that makes more sense. I have geared myself to having high health as much as possible. But it seems this wasn't enough. Potion wise I was using either mastery or defence, dependant on what I had left in my herb bag.

My normal healers are really good, this was just me trying to help some people out late at night that I knew while seeing how far I had progressed. I had never been in a 60+ instance with a druid before, and without sounding critical, I wasn't impressed compared to my normal healers. If your getting hit for 2.5k every 2 seconds and getting healed for 3k every 3 seconds then its not rocket science to work out you are screwed. Anyone else found this problem?

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Barathorn

What you term as avoidance is known as mitigation, some people might get confused if u use avoidance and say 80%^^

Don't know if you saw my edidt but a druid has one of the biggest heals in the game, so that druid jsut seems a bit lazy perhaps, or is using pre tbc healing ways, ie spam flash heal low ranks, get him to use his (insert name) 6-10k heals.
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The druid was in tree form, and was using 3k heals every 3 seconds as well as swiftmend? and she couldn't keep me alive. I checked my combat log after each wipe and it was constant 3k heals every 3 seconds, but never any more than 3k?

Cheers for the heads up on the terminology as well, I often get those 2 confused but know what they do/mean.

Barathorn.

3k heals every 3 secs is not going to cut it in TBC on stuff like that.
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Ya but the warriors are better geared you say, therefore should require less healing on heroics, i dont know where they are in terms of raiding but i tell you that on the tank (doesnt matter the class) 3k heals won't cut it further down the line.

The healer should see that you have less epics and adjust healing strat, obviously that isnt the case.
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Thanks Cragus, much appreciated and puts my mind to rest a little. Now to get back in there and tank them down.

Barathorn.

So 61 points in restoration wouldn't help me from becoming a sticky mess on the floor then? I did mention that 3k heals wouldn't work when I started to see a trend arise, but was told that is how warriors are healed through Heroic SP, why would I be any different. I too was riding the AD train, only mine frequently got derailed.

Hmmm, although my gear wasn't 100% optimal, I am starting to feel less to blame here.

Thanks for the input Voldiir.

Barathorn.

Yeah it sounds like an issue with the healer. My preferred Healer is a druid and he didn't go treeform at all during our last heroic run. I've got a bit more health fully buffed but he was still hitting me with some pretty big heals at times.
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can you link your armory page?
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Ocin

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ravencrest&n=Ocin