Random Oculus now has chance of drake mount drop
ScratchMonkey
> Zarhym's announced that those who happen to get Heroic Oculus with the
> random dungeon finder and stick it out to the end will find their own
> personal loot bag in Eregos' cache. The bags will contain two extra
> Emblems of Triumph, rare gems, and a chance at the Reins of the Blue
> Drake, formerly the rare mount drop from 10-man Malygos. To make up
> for the switch, the Reins of the Azure Drake will have a chance to
> drop from both 10-man and 25-man Malygos.
I've only done Oculus a couple of times, and only in regular mode, but I
liked it both times. Is it just that most players aren't big fans of the
flying vehicle system? I've always preferred games where vehicle warfare
mixed with infantry was an important component, and hated servers that
disabled the vehicle maps.
BLMX
> flying vehicle system? I've always preferred games where vehicle warfare
I don't really like Oculus and a number of the "vehicles" in wow feel
clunky to me.
Adam Leinss
news:Xns9CF74EF284F...@188.40.43.245:
> I've only done Oculus a couple of times, and only in regular mode, but I
> liked it both times. Is it just that most players aren't big fans of the
> flying vehicle system? I've always preferred games where vehicle warfare
> mixed with infantry was an important component, and hated servers that
> disabled the vehicle maps.
Still won't make me run it:
It's horrible in a pug if no one knows what to do and in guild runs it's
just bareable tolerable.
Screws up my UI (no casting bars sometimes, have to run /console reloadui
to get them back), resets my tank focus every time I mount/dismount drakes
Random dragons can be easily aggroed and if they aggro while you are off a
drake: major PITA...they attack you from the air....you can't mount a drake
in combat and if you are melee: good luck attacking them.
Pretty much just throw everything you ever learned about your class and
hope on a drake and hit some random buttons. Anytime I tried EoE always
failed at the last dragon too...same mechanics.
Shiflet
"ScratchMonkey" <ScratchMonk...@sewingwitch.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9CF74EF284F...@188.40.43.245...
> I've only done Oculus a couple of times, and only in regular mode, but I
> liked it both times. Is it just that most players aren't big fans of the
> flying vehicle system? I've always preferred games where vehicle warfare
> mixed with infantry was an important component, and hated servers that
> disabled the vehicle maps.
I wouldn't mind vehicular combat either, if it wasn't implemented in the
completely, utterly, and an absolutely craptastical way Blizzard implemented
it.
Da 4 Horsemen.
> "ScratchMonkey" <ScratchMonkey.blackl...@sewingwitch.com> wrote in message
On my server everyone hates Oculus. Funny story a few months ago 3
people in the same week got the Nothrend Dungeon Master achievement,
and all of them got it doing Heroic Oculus. I personally don't like
vehicle fighting for the most part, especially in dungeons.
Pier Paolo Bertelli
> On my server everyone hates Oculus. Funny story a few months ago 3
> people in the same week got the Nothrend Dungeon Master achievement,
> and all of them got it doing Heroic Oculus. I personally don't like
> vehicle fighting for the most part, especially in dungeons.
my two cents: dragged into oculus by cross server random dungeon finder,
first time: all left at the entrance without a line of text; second
time, all left writing LOL or NO WAY.
guess IT IS unpopular
--
PPB
Mark (newsgroups)
I got it as the random heroic again last night. Again I was the healer
but I chose a dps drake (announced to the group when we started).
Noone else did either, but we completed the instance with no issues,
got the achiement for doing it without an emerald drake too.
It must have been mightily nerfed because so far I don't see what the
big deal is.
Insane Ranter
wrote:
It is maybe due to the fact of everyones gear being way over leveled
and the drakes scale with gear.... I can almost solo normal on my
warrior....
Pier Paolo Bertelli
> > I got it as the random heroic again last night. Again I was the healer
> > but I chose a dps drake (announced to the group when we started).
> > Noone else did either, but we completed the instance with no issues,
> > got the achiement for doing it without an emerald drake too.
> > It must have been mightily nerfed because so far I don't see what the
> > big deal is.
> It is maybe due to the fact of everyones gear being way over leveled
> and the drakes scale with gear.... I can almost solo normal on my
> warrior....
no no, it was actually nerfed cause everybody was hating it. it was in
the patch notes.
--
PPB
BombayMix
Yep it's been nerfed hard but people don't know and leave the second
they zone in.
Mark (newsgroups)
Probably a combination of both, I never knew the drakes scaled with
your gear.
Pier Paolo Bertelli
> Yep it's been nerfed hard but people don't know and leave the second
> they zone in.
vehicles keep on being an epic fail, in dungeons and in quests
--
PPB
DarkRose
I finally got Heroic Occulus done last night on my hunter, my 4th
level 80, and the first to get Heroic Occ, after my 5th group, the
others all fell apart quickly... usually with no warning or
explanation as soon as everyone zoned in...
Urbin
> http://www.wow.com/2010/01/05/blizzard-run-oculus-win-fabulous-prizes/
>
> > Zarhym's announced that those who happen to get Heroic Oculus with the
> > random dungeon finder and stick it out to the end will find their own
> > personal loot bag in Eregos' cache. The bags will contain two extra
> > Emblems of Triumph, rare gems, and a chance at the Reins of the Blue
> > Drake, formerly the rare mount drop from 10-man Malygos. To make up
> > for the switch, the Reins of the Azure Drake will have a chance to
> > drop from both 10-man and 25-man Malygos.
>
> I've only done Oculus a couple of times, and only in regular mode, but I
> liked it both times. Is it just that most players aren't big fans of the
> flying vehicle system?
I like the instance for its look and story and I especially like the fight
against the mage on the middle ring.
I just seem totally worthless at fighting in 3D. I look at a target, sure it
must be in front of me but when I press a button it tells me I need to face
the target, so I turn 180 degrees et voila it works.
By now I no longer get lost but I was permanently loosing my way, pulling
groups of drakes etc.
Maybe I need to change my view to first person instead of looking over my
chars shoulders to bypass those perspective problems.
This was what made Oculus a nightmare for me (plus the fact that all my
guildies hate it with a vengeance which forced me to do it in PUGs :)
Cheers
Urbin
--
Dun Morogh-EU (PvE)
Urbin (80), Dwarven Hunter | Surana (70), Draenei Mage
Mymule (80), Gnomish Warlock | Kordosch (65), Human Death Knight
Sunh (80), Nightelven Priest | Juran (33), Nightelven Druid
Urbin
After posting my earlier reply I logged into wow and registerd for the
random heroic. After about 10 minutes I get in, click Enter and see the
Oculus loading screen. Ah well, I'll go for the red drake this time. When I
zoned in it took all of 10 seconds for the four others to leave and leave me
standing there on my own.
I teleport out, sign up for another random heroic and after another 10
minutes I land in Oculus again, the tank leaves on arrival, we re-sign up
and get a tank in a few minutes. We proceed to the first boss, down him and
the tank leaves. Everybody lols and while the new group leader signs us up
for another tank, one of the damage dealers leaves, then the healer and it's
the DK and me, before I can ask him whether he wants to try to reform the
group he leaves as well.
I never like the insance enough to run it voluntarily but when placed there
through the random heroic function, I've so far always completed it easily.
This is the first night of not being able to complete the random dungeon
when signing up for it...
Ashen Shugar
like...
The only thing I don't like about it is how long it takes to get on
and off the drakes and how often you have to do it.
Then again, my main was a shadow priest back in the day when mind
control actually got used as something more than a lark.
Ashen Shugar
--
The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule!
Michael C
news:Xns9CF74EF284F...@188.40.43.245...
Mounted combat is woefully done in WoW, with the only exception being the
vehicles in Wintergrasp and the first Ulduar boss.
Shiflet
"Mark (newsgroups)" <marknew...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:36bca13b-3df2-43f5...@e37g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
> It must have been mightily nerfed because so far I don't see what the
> big deal is.
The difficulty has never really been the issue to begin with. It's that most
people, myself included, find the vast majority of Blizzard's vehicular
combat to be clunky, boring, and totally NOT fun. And since much of Occ,
including the last boss fight, involves drake riding, a lot of people flat
won't do it. I'll do it if I get it, but I absolutely hate it, and it's not
cause of how hard it is or isn't, it's cause vehicle combat in this game is
like an in game definition of FAIL.
Steve Kaye
I remember really enjoying the first one or two but they get a bit
boring after a while and there are a lot of them.
I was especially frustrated by the giant-riding one in Zul'Drak as it
seemed that the clunkyness of the controls were the cause of my failure
more often than not.
steve.kaye
Matt
> Probably a combination of both, I never knew the drakes scaled with
> your gear.
They did not at the start, it was changed a few patches ago.
--
Regards
Matt
Insane Ranter
> I think it was p...@mac.com (Pier Paolo Bertelli) that wrote something
> like...
>
>
>
> >Insane Ranter <log...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > I got it as the random heroic again last night. Again I was the healer
> >> > but I chose a dps drake (announced to the group when we started).
> >> > Noone else did either, but we completed the instance with no issues,
> >> > got the achiement for doing it without an emerald drake too.
>
> >> > It must have been mightily nerfed because so far I don't see what the
> >> > big deal is.
>
> >> It is maybe due to the fact of everyones gear being way over leveled
> >> and the drakes scale with gear.... I can almost solo normal on my
> >> warrior....
>
> >no no, it was actually nerfed cause everybody was hating it. it was in
> >the patch notes.
>
> The only thing I don't like about it is how long it takes to get on
> and off the drakes and how often you have to do it.
> Then again, my main was a shadow priest back in the day when mind
> control actually got used as something more than a lark.
>
The funny thing is you used to have to use CC in 5mans or well you
went splat. Players complain that certain spec'd classes need to have
a CC so they'll get taken in 5mans... They get them aka druids can
root, shammies hex, etc.. and well no more need to CC anything!!! Even
raids.
ScratchMonkey
news:slrnhk6pij...@stinky-local.trash.net:
> I just seem totally worthless at fighting in 3D. I look at a target,
> sure it must be in front of me but when I press a button it tells me I
> need to face the target, so I turn 180 degrees et voila it works.
I used to have this problem in underwater fights in old world, but
eventually got used to it. (A big issue was the short time one could hold
one's breath back in the early days. Now one has the lungs of Shelly
Winters in the original Poseidon Adventure.)
BombayMix
> Shiflet wrote:
> > "Mark (newsgroups)" <marknewsgro...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
They have overdone it in WotLK. Some work but some are really bad.
Mark (newsgroups)
> Mark (newsgroups) <marknewsgro...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Probably a combination of both, I never knew the drakes scaled with
> > your gear.
>
> that's the reason because in wintergrasp it's better for a dps to take a
> catapult or demo, not siege engine ;)
Could you explain that a bit more please?
John Gordon
> siege engine are most likely a "tank" in a group, so the siege scales
> with player's def stats (armor, def, mitigation, etc.), while catapult
> and demo scales with player's "dps stats"
Is that really how it works? I thought vehicles just scaled according to
the driver's average itemlevel, so it wouldn't matter if you were a tank
or healer or dps, as long as you had high-level gear.
--
John Gordon A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs
gor...@panix.com B is for Basil, assaulted by bears
-- Edward Gorey, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"
Ashen Shugar
like...
I thought the Shartuul's event in Blades Edge mountains was great fun.
: )
Shiflet
"EvanMac" <evan...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1jbwtos.hed1j1haw8z2N%evan...@gmail.com...
> if I'm dps, it would be better to pick up a catapult and go to clear
> some workshop in the south, than use a siege engine to destroy a
> building,
Uhh, no. Seriously. Siege engines scale with DPS gear too bro, and they do
it a hell of a lot better than cats do.
> --
> Here's to you Nicola and Bart
> Rest forever here in our hearts
> The last and final moment is yours
> That agony is your triumph!
Shiflet
>> Uhh, no. Seriously. Siege engines scale with DPS gear too bro, and they
>> do
>> it a hell of a lot better than cats do.
>
> ok, I'll take a siege next time :D
Well, to get the most out of the siege you still need a gunner. Otherwise,
get a demo. Getting a catapult is never the ideal choice for killing towers
though, cause a demo or siege driven by someone with all ilvl 200 gear will
STILL be doing more structural damage than a cat driven by a dps'er geared
out in 251+ level gear.
Shiflet
> in my experience catapults are great to clear workshop from enemies
Yeah, they're fine against people, but specifically TO kill the tower(or
breach walls), you do NOT want a catapult, no matter how good your gear is.
neithskye
<ScratchMonkey.blackl...@sewingwitch.com> wrote:
> I've only done Oculus a couple of times, and only in regular mode, but I
> liked it both times. Is it just that most players aren't big fans of the
> flying vehicle system?
I got the Oculus several times as the daily in the LFG tool over the
holidays. Every single time at least one person left immediately,
citing wife aggro, or simply, "LoL".
It's not that bad, really. My only complaints are the time it takes to
call/mount/dismount the drakes and the fact that mounting a drake
turns my camera around 180 degrees.
The other thing that makes this dungeon not fun are people who don't
give you time to study your drake's action bars. Before the LFG tool,
I had done this place once, to get the CotFW title and other
achievements, and since I was tanking, I knew what the red drake did.
Well, in the random dungeon I was healing, so got the green drake. I
was trying to read the description of the action buttons, but the tank
was like, "Go! Go! Go!", and of course you don't get the final skill
almost until the last boss, so I was busy trying to figure out what to
do - as I explained to the party - when combat against the last boss
started. Of course we wiped because I didn't know what my skills did.
Apparently giving someone a few seconds to figure out what to do on a
never-before-used drake is a no-no.
--
Jill
Thomas Jespersen
> I've only done Oculus a couple of times, and only in regular mode, but I
> liked it both times. Is it just that most players aren't big fans of the
At the beginning of WotLk I hated in since I was in a guild group that
wiped repeatedly on last boss (before we knew the tactics well).
Yesterday I found a good heroics farming group on my mage and we ended
up in Oculus and it wasn't that bad when all knew tactics. My mage even
got the achievement for doing it fast (think its 20 minutes to meet last
boss).
James Of Tucson
wrote:
> I got the Oculus several times as the daily in the LFG tool over the
> holidays. Every single time at least one person left immediately,
> citing wife aggro, or simply, "LoL".
This is exactly *why* it comes up in LFG random so often. People
routinely quit it... but do not connect that decision to the
phenomenon.
I wish that after quitting a random instance, the next time you queue
for a random no matter how long you wait, you will get that instance.
That would fix the problem, because people would not farm the 15-
minute debuff, and those who don't want to do the random instance (as
opposed to picking a set of instances they'd like to do), won't use
the dungeon finder.
James Of Tucson
> > I was especially frustrated by the giant-riding one in Zul'Drak as it
> > seemed that the clunkyness of the controls were the cause of my failure
> > more often than not.
>
> They have overdone it in WotLK. Some work but some are really bad.
My suspicion would be that someone who had a role in the development
of WoW's vehicle system, has shareholder input or is in a strong
position with decision making authority.
Catriona R
Agreed in principle, *except* that there's problems with wildly
differing gear/skill levels of players who get dumped into instances
compared with being capable of said instances. I haven't checked since
the various hotfixes but a few days ago my priest was certainly able
to queue for heroic HoR, and probably even now would still be eligible
to get dumped in it on the random heroic option. Yet from all I've
heard about it, I would have massive difficulty healing it, and may
well be unable to do so unless with an overgeared tank. Wouldn't be
very fair on either me or my groups to keep dropping me in it over and
over when I'd be leaving purely to give the group a chance of getting
a healer who's actually geared/skilled enough to be able to heal it!
Now, if you could select a top-end difficulty level that you don't
want to be put in on random choice, *then* I'd be in total agreement
with your suggestion, but there needs to be an "I don't think I'm good
enough for this" option built-in first to avoid wasting people's time.
I've healed FoS ok on heroic (figured I may as well give it a shot
when I got dumped in it), and think PoS is probably doable, but I
don't want to do HoR until I'm better geared and more in practice
(having done very few instances at all in the past 9-10 months)
As for my druid, he's even worse off due to being a tank that's tanked
nothing whatsoever since March-ish... unfortunately I kept picking up
crafted BoE epics so am geared enough for the newer heroics according
to the tool, despite feeling totally inadequate so far as skills go
(yes I know I can avoid doing the quests but that still leaves FoS and
TotC open to me on the random choice, neither of which I'm remotely
confident of succeeding at atm). If/when I try some random heroics on
him, I *will* drop from any of the newer ones until I've got more in
practice, simply because it's not fair on anybody to subject them to a
very rusty tank in a place that requires the tank to actually have
some skill. And no I'm not going back to normals to get back in
practice, since I outgear them so much that I'd learn nothing.
I do agree with your basic idea though, I hate how people will drop
out of instances before they even start. In my opinion there should be
a longer deserter debuff on them - don't trigger it if most the group
already left, but if there were still 4+ people in the instance then 1
hour deserter minimum.
--
EU-Draenor:
Sagart (80 Undead Priest)
Tairbh (80 Tauren Druid)
Buinne (78 Troll Shaman)
Balgair (73 Human Rogue)
Eilnich (70 Blood Elf Warlock)
Ruire (70 Blood Elf Paladin)
ThomasH
> Agreed in principle, *except* that there's problems with wildly
> differing gear/skill levels of players who get dumped into instances
> compared with being capable of said instances. I haven't checked since
> the various hotfixes but a few days ago my priest was certainly able
> to queue for heroic HoR, and probably even now would still be eligible
> to get dumped in it on the random heroic option. Yet from all I've
> heard about it, I would have massive difficulty healing it, and may
> well be unable to do so unless with an overgeared tank.
Catriona, you can do HoR, gearwise at least.
Your priest's gear score is 2453 on wow-heroes, and it values you
eligable for ICC-10. My lowbie paladin, with a gearscore of 1985, healed
the first Icecrown Heroic (FoS?) twice without real issues (and with
even lower gear)...
--
Greets, Thomas.
Bulgaroth (Hunter), Latigo (DK), Darkhulk (Druid), and Smallwall
(Paladin) on Argent Dawn EU.
Ashen Shugar
wrote something like...
>Catriona R wrote:
>> Agreed in principle, *except* that there's problems with wildly
>> differing gear/skill levels of players who get dumped into instances
>> compared with being capable of said instances. I haven't checked since
>> the various hotfixes but a few days ago my priest was certainly able
>> to queue for heroic HoR, and probably even now would still be eligible
>> to get dumped in it on the random heroic option. Yet from all I've
>> heard about it, I would have massive difficulty healing it, and may
>> well be unable to do so unless with an overgeared tank.
>
>Catriona, you can do HoR, gearwise at least.
>Your priest's gear score is 2453 on wow-heroes, and it values you
>eligable for ICC-10. My lowbie paladin, with a gearscore of 1985, healed
>the first Icecrown Heroic (FoS?) twice without real issues (and with
>even lower gear)...
HoR is a bit different, as the initial fights you've got something
like 3 to 5 mobs spawning in basically the corners of the rooms, 1 or
2 (maybe even 3) of them are going to be ranged, with one being a
hunter type, so you can't silence them to get them to run closer. So
they tend to be a real pain for the tank to pick them all up and keep
them, what with the dps nuking them as soon as they've spent more than
1 second looking at the tank. So damage is likely to be flying
everything (and then there's the mob casting flame strike) and pulling
healing agro isn't that hard to do if people aren't careful.
Then the last event is a bit of a gauntlet, so you're moving from spot
to spot, the add's aren't coming in one easy clump for the tank to
pick up, there's often multiple casters and even if you have dps
classes that could silence them to get them to move into melee range
of the tank, most of the time in PuG's you're going to find them too
busy working on their damage meter stats to do anything that useful.
Oh, and the casters like to cast a shadow volley I believe it is, so
again, there's damage all over the place to heal. I think the
abomination looking mobs there also do a cone attack.
I think a priest is probably a good class for healing their, but from
what I hear, it's not exactly a picnic. Though admitidly, I haven't
tried healing heroic HoR.
Still, I think Catriona mentioned being a bit out of practice on her
priest, which I think would be the real killer in there more so than
her actual gear level.
Pier Paolo Bertelli
> This is exactly *why* it comes up in LFG random so often. People
> routinely quit it... but do not connect that decision to the
> phenomenon.
because of this thread, and the chance to get the mount, yesterday not
only i didn't skip it, but i tanked it. the dpser were so high that i
didn't even have to kite the mage boss.
and the blue drage dropped, it was inside a purple sack of gems inside
the crate, but it didn't show up until i opened it.
what's its drop rate?
--
PPB
Catriona R
Yep, I died on normal in there so... given all I've heard about it I'm
not confident of being able to cope on heroic. If I get an overgeared
tank, sure, but it's a bit reliant on luck! And I'm way out of
practice anyway.
>Then the last event is a bit of a gauntlet, so you're moving from spot
>to spot, the add's aren't coming in one easy clump for the tank to
>pick up, there's often multiple casters and even if you have dps
>classes that could silence them to get them to move into melee range
>of the tank, most of the time in PuG's you're going to find them too
>busy working on their damage meter stats to do anything that useful.
>Oh, and the casters like to cast a shadow volley I believe it is, so
>again, there's damage all over the place to heal. I think the
>abomination looking mobs there also do a cone attack.
>
>I think a priest is probably a good class for healing their, but from
>what I hear, it's not exactly a picnic. Though admitidly, I haven't
>tried healing heroic HoR.
From the sounds of it my aoe heals will come in handy, yep, but
there's also mana conservation as an issue, which priests don't excel
in so much! I haven't even tried TotC heroic yet, since I didn't find
it too easy on normal, so HoR I really think is beyond me at this
point in time.
>Still, I think Catriona mentioned being a bit out of practice on her
>priest, which I think would be the real killer in there more so than
>her actual gear level.
Yep. I've done I think 4 heroics since about last springtime, all in
the last 3-4 weeks, ok, but mostly being ones that the group massively
outgeared so I just put renew up and smited. I'd want practice in
totC, FoS and PoS before trying HoR, because I'm really not confident
that I'm into the groove enough to be capable of the difficulty level
at this point in time.
Mark (newsgroups)
> On Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:34:11 GMT, deathsab...@yahoo.com.au (Ashen
> Shugar) wrote:
> >I think it was ThomasH <T123H456removenumbers...@techemail.com> that
TotC surprised me. I was quite nervous about healing it too, but it
turned out to be just a moderate step up from other heroics provided
you have a good group. My gear isn't top notch, still some low pieces
and a blue Mp5 trinket. Resto druid btw, 1890 sp (+200 with idol
proc), and 550ish ooc mp5. I've done TotC 5 man heroic plenty times
now and the only time I had a big issue was when I was grouped with a
DK tank with 28k HP. I had to have full hots and spam nourish just to
keep him up. DPS died though because they took damage that I just
couldn't heal due to spamming the tank. That run ended quickly.
So I know how it is, it all depends on if you get the right group, but
if you do, it won't be a problem.
> >Still, I think Catriona mentioned being a bit out of practice on her
> >priest, which I think would be the real killer in there more so than
> >her actual gear level.
>
> Yep. I've done I think 4 heroics since about last springtime, all in
> the last 3-4 weeks, ok, but mostly being ones that the group massively
> outgeared so I just put renew up and smited. I'd want practice in
> totC, FoS and PoS before trying HoR, because I'm really not confident
> that I'm into the groove enough to be capable of the difficulty level
> at this point in time.
I mentioned that I got booted from a heroic FoS group a while ago for
not knowing the tactics. Well, last night I queued for the daily
random, and got put in FoS. Damn, I didn't want to be there again
because I'm not confident enough. I also noticed the tank had only 28k
HP which set me panicking. Turns out I'd queued for the normal random
by mistake. So we go through it without much problems. The only thing
is, I turned in the quest so now I'm eligible for PoS and HoR.
Then I wanted to do the random daily heroic so queued again (dps and
healer as usual), and guess where I end up? FoS again! I told them I
wasn't too comfortable healing it, but no-one paid any notice and the
tank just started chain pulling, no breaks for mana. I had to drink a
few ticks between fights and then rush after to keep him up each time.
This applied to the bosses pulls too. Anyway, I died once on the first
boss this time, but she went down and the shaman ressurected me. We
got the last boss down too but it was extremely hairy. I have moved my
grid unit frames nearer to the center of the screen too so I avoided
the purple spots this time. Others didn't react so quickly though and
keeping the group up was very tough.
I am going to keep queuing for the random daily heroic because I
believe you don't get the two emblems of frost if you just queue for
selected dungeons? But if I end up in PoS or FoR I will definitely be
advising the group to get another healer. I want to try them on normal
first.
Catriona R
>On Jan 8, 12:07 pm, Catriona R <catrionarNOS...@totalise.co.uk> wrote:
>> From the sounds of it my aoe heals will come in handy, yep, but
>> there's also mana conservation as an issue, which priests don't excel
>> in so much! I haven't even tried TotC heroic yet, since I didn't find
>> it too easy on normal, so HoR I really think is beyond me at this
>> point in time.
>
>TotC surprised me. I was quite nervous about healing it too, but it
>turned out to be just a moderate step up from other heroics provided
>you have a good group. My gear isn't top notch, still some low pieces
>and a blue Mp5 trinket. Resto druid btw, 1890 sp (+200 with idol
>proc), and 550ish ooc mp5. I've done TotC 5 man heroic plenty times
>now and the only time I had a big issue was when I was grouped with a
>DK tank with 28k HP. I had to have full hots and spam nourish just to
>keep him up. DPS died though because they took damage that I just
>couldn't heal due to spamming the tank. That run ended quickly.
>
>So I know how it is, it all depends on if you get the right group, but
>if you do, it won't be a problem.
That's good to hear, admittedly my difficulty in TotC normal might've
been down to the newly-dinged tank - he was a very competent tank,
held aggro great, but he did only have 24k unbuffed (although he said
he was uncrittable and I believed him from the damage he took), and
probably took rather more damage than a better geared tank would have.
All that aoe damage on the melee is horrible though, it's kinda hard
to both spam heal the tank *and* spam aoe heals at the same time :-/
I'll try it again on normal soon and see if a different group makeup
makes it easier for me, if it is then I'll see what heroic is like,
perhaps I'm thinking it'll be harder than it really is! :-)
>> >Still, I think Catriona mentioned being a bit out of practice on her
>> >priest, which I think would be the real killer in there more so than
>> >her actual gear level.
>>
>> Yep. I've done I think 4 heroics since about last springtime, all in
>> the last 3-4 weeks, ok, but mostly being ones that the group massively
>> outgeared so I just put renew up and smited. I'd want practice in
>> totC, FoS and PoS before trying HoR, because I'm really not confident
>> that I'm into the groove enough to be capable of the difficulty level
>> at this point in time.
>
>I mentioned that I got booted from a heroic FoS group a while ago for
>not knowing the tactics. Well, last night I queued for the daily
>random, and got put in FoS. Damn, I didn't want to be there again
>because I'm not confident enough. I also noticed the tank had only 28k
>HP which set me panicking. Turns out I'd queued for the normal random
>by mistake. So we go through it without much problems. The only thing
>is, I turned in the quest so now I'm eligible for PoS and HoR.
Only PoS as I understand it, you'll have to do the quest inside PoS to
open up HoR, I think. I'm carefully going to *not* ever do the HoR
opening quest on my druid, argh.
>Then I wanted to do the random daily heroic so queued again (dps and
>healer as usual), and guess where I end up? FoS again! I told them I
>wasn't too comfortable healing it, but no-one paid any notice and the
>tank just started chain pulling, no breaks for mana. I had to drink a
>few ticks between fights and then rush after to keep him up each time.
>This applied to the bosses pulls too. Anyway, I died once on the first
>boss this time, but she went down and the shaman ressurected me. We
>got the last boss down too but it was extremely hairy. I have moved my
>grid unit frames nearer to the center of the screen too so I avoided
>the purple spots this time. Others didn't react so quickly though and
>keeping the group up was very tough.
Have to say I had no idea there even were any purple spots in FoS and
I have run it on heroic... maybe just none were under me since I do
have a clear field of vision in my party healing mode - raid heling I
end up with Grid almost on top of my character but party is nice and
clear screen. I'll have to take a read over the tactics again,
although it went ok when I healed it - didn't have much idea what I
was doing, just followed blindly and trusted DBM alerts to tell me
when to move ;-)
>I am going to keep queuing for the random daily heroic because I
>believe you don't get the two emblems of frost if you just queue for
>selected dungeons? But if I end up in PoS or FoR I will definitely be
>advising the group to get another healer. I want to try them on normal
>first.
Correct, you need to do randoms to get the 2 extra emblems. I'd
personally queue up for PoS on normal but don't hand the quest in when
you go through it, and have a try of that - leave opening HoR until
you're fully confident with FoS and PoS on heroic... I'm strongly
regretting not doing that myself but the group I was with ran through
all three instances on normal so it made sense to stay with them and
see them all. Not realising that HoR is so much harder than the others
on heroic and I really don't want to go there, oh well!
neithskye
> HoR is a bit different, as the initial fights you've got something
> like 3 to 5 mobs spawning in basically the corners of the rooms, 1 or
> 2 (maybe even 3) of them are going to be ranged, with one being a
> hunter type, so you can't silence them to get them to run closer. So
> they tend to be a real pain for the tank to pick them all up and keep
> them, what with the dps nuking them as soon as they've spent more than
> 1 second looking at the tank. So damage is likely to be flying
> everything (and then there's the mob casting flame strike) and pulling
> healing agro isn't that hard to do if people aren't careful.
I've healed H HoR several times on my Paladin - believe me, there
should be a medal awarded for single-target healers healing this
place. :P Anyway, I'm wondering how useful Shackle Undead would be
here. As a Paladin, when I heal this place (not so much when I tank
it), I use Turn Evil and Holy Wrath every chance I get - even the
damage of one less mob to heal helps.
> Then the last event is a bit of a gauntlet, so you're moving from spot
> to spot, the add's aren't coming in one easy clump for the tank to
> pick up, there's often multiple casters and even if you have dps
> classes that could silence them to get them to move into melee range
> of the tank, most of the time in PuG's you're going to find them too
> busy working on their damage meter stats to do anything that useful.
> Oh, and the casters like to cast a shadow volley I believe it is, so
> again, there's damage all over the place to heal. I think the
> abomination looking mobs there also do a cone attack.
I use Fire Resist Aura for the first part of this place for the
Flamestrikes, and Shadow Resist for the gauntlet. Those Shadow Bolt
volleys are no joke - as a single-target healer, I've no sooner
finished healing my party of one Bolt, than another happens. A
Priest's Shadow Protection would also be very helpful here.
Anyway, has anyone noticed that these mobs, I dunno, seem kinda
bugged? It's like sometimes A) They are immune to taunts; and B) They
run right over my Consecration. I always have Consecration down, and
several times I have seen newly-spawned Abominations run right over it
and head to the wall or a DPS.
I have Target of Target activated, and another time, I was the target
of an Abomination with 100% threat . . .and the thing kept walking
away from me, heading toward the wall. I had 100% threat on it . . .
and had to chase it down. I dunno, it's like these mobs are programmed
to head toward the wall or Sylvanas and ignore any kind of AoE or
taunt . . . not really explaining it very well, but I have seen some
truly bizarre things here.
--
Jill
Urbin
I got dropped in it yesterday, we finished it easily, the loot windows
popped up, I rolled greed/disenchant on everything and clicked "leave group"
only to see "XYZ picked up [Epic Bag of Loot]" or some such in chat. I
realised I hadn't tried to loot the chest myself but just responeded to the
loot windows that popped up when somebody else looted. Of course by then I
was out of the group and the instance so I couldn't go back for the loot...
Or could I have entered it again (being saved to the instance) by flying
there to loot that bag?
Cheers
Urbin
--
Dun Morogh-EU (PvE)
Urbin (80), Dwarven Hunter | Surana (70), Draenei Mage
Mymule (80), Gnomish Warlock | Kordosch (65), Human Death Knight
Sunh (80), Nightelven Priest | Juran (33), Nightelven Druid
Pier Paolo Bertelli
> Or could I have entered it again (being saved to the instance) by flying
> there to loot that bag?
i don't know. i got the impression that you have to open the chest and
that nobody did; group disbanded, and before i clicked teleport out of
dungeon i opened and looted the sack.
still no idea how it works, cause in COS it's almost 100% and you can
need/greed it
--
PPB
Ashen Shugar
something like...
>>TotC surprised me. I was quite nervous about healing it too, but it
>>turned out to be just a moderate step up from other heroics provided
>>you have a good group. My gear isn't top notch, still some low pieces
>>and a blue Mp5 trinket. Resto druid btw, 1890 sp (+200 with idol
>>proc), and 550ish ooc mp5. I've done TotC 5 man heroic plenty times
>>now and the only time I had a big issue was when I was grouped with a
>>DK tank with 28k HP. I had to have full hots and spam nourish just to
>>keep him up. DPS died though because they took damage that I just
>>couldn't heal due to spamming the tank. That run ended quickly.
>>
>>So I know how it is, it all depends on if you get the right group, but
>>if you do, it won't be a problem.
>
>That's good to hear, admittedly my difficulty in TotC normal might've
>been down to the newly-dinged tank - he was a very competent tank,
>held aggro great, but he did only have 24k unbuffed (although he said
>he was uncrittable and I believed him from the damage he took), and
>probably took rather more damage than a better geared tank would have.
>All that aoe damage on the melee is horrible though, it's kinda hard
>to both spam heal the tank *and* spam aoe heals at the same time :-/
>
>I'll try it again on normal soon and see if a different group makeup
>makes it easier for me, if it is then I'll see what heroic is like,
>perhaps I'm thinking it'll be harder than it really is! :-)
There isn't actually all that big a step from normal ToC to heroic
ToC.
How the run's in there is more to do with the tank and dps than the
healer I'd say.
The first "boss" there's the random mobs that can make things easier
or harder. If the tank doesn't manage to keep the ranged mobs on him,
despite them moving away from him, things can go bad. If the tank/dps
let the healer get heals off, things can drag on for too long. And
they've got to be moving out of poison spots quickly.
If the 2nd boss is the pally, it's a snooze unless the tank makes a
mistake turning away from the blinding light thing. When the tank
gets blinded, they lose agro.
The Priestess can be bad, though the thing that makes it real nasty is
her renew not getting removed asap. Mages should be spell stealing
it, shammy's purging it, priests dispelling it. A warrior tank is
wonderful there for the regular shield slams that also get rid of it.
After that, the healer does need to keep all the party topped up with
life, as fear is also a Dot effect. But friendly dps and tanks should
be doing what they can to break that effect themselves.
The Black Knights first phase isn't much trouble. Only potential
issue is the healer getting knocked back and out of range of the tank
at a bad time. 2nd phase tends to be the killer. Unless the dps can
nuke the boss down quickly enough, or kill the summoned ghoul's
quickly enough, there's not much the healer can do to carry the rest
of the group through that phase. The ghouls can't be tanked for more
than a few seconds at a time so they have to be dealt with either by
killing them or making the Black Knight move to the next phase and
blow them all up. 3rd phase isn't too bad for a priest to heal,
though again, if the dps are too weak, nothing much can save you.
Something like casting PoM on the tank, then binding heal of the other
4 party members, then repeating will likely be all you need to do if
the dps is decent.
Ashen Shugar
like...
>James Of Tucson <james0...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This is exactly *why* it comes up in LFG random so often. People
>> routinely quit it... but do not connect that decision to the
>> phenomenon.
>
>because of this thread, and the chance to get the mount, yesterday not
>only i didn't skip it, but i tanked it. the dpser were so high that i
>didn't even have to kite the mage boss.
Kiting the mage boss these days is just making it harder than it needs
to be. With the average group dps up from Emblem of Triumph gear and
the bosses life down from nerfs (I think it might have gotten reduced
at least) it's easiest to have the tank tank the boss right where he
starts and have the healer and ranged stand behind one of the rock
things in case the boss lasts long enough to cast his nova. Throw in
a pally's cold resistance or a Shammy's cold res totem and it's too
easy.
Pier Paolo Bertelli
> Kiting the mage boss these days is just making it harder than it needs
> to be. With the average group dps up from Emblem of Triumph gear and
> the bosses life down from nerfs (I think it might have gotten reduced
> at least) it's easiest to have the tank tank the boss right where he
> starts and have the healer and ranged stand behind one of the rock
> things in case the boss lasts long enough to cast his nova. Throw in
> a pally's cold resistance or a Shammy's cold res totem and it's too
> easy.
true. and i understood how the drake drop works; you always get a purple
sack, you open it and you can have gems or the drake in it. still don't
know the drop percentage but as i had it at first try must be high or me
very lucky.
--
PPB
Catriona R
I think that's the one that I had to use divine hymn on pretty much
every time to keep everyone up, I know it was one of the earlier ones
anyway, since I never had it off cooldown for the Black Knight :-/
Seems massive damage on everybody on this one, perhaps down to those
poison clouds then - it was a group of all melee except me.
>If the 2nd boss is the pally, it's a snooze unless the tank makes a
>mistake turning away from the blinding light thing. When the tank
>gets blinded, they lose agro.
Would help if there was some way to know ingame that turning away
prevents it - it got me every single time since I didn't know about it
until after I looked the fights up on wowhead later on, just thought
it was unavoidable. Not much obvious way to realise that turning
around prevents it!
>The Black Knights first phase isn't much trouble. Only potential
>issue is the healer getting knocked back and out of range of the tank
>at a bad time. 2nd phase tends to be the killer. Unless the dps can
>nuke the boss down quickly enough, or kill the summoned ghoul's
>quickly enough, there's not much the healer can do to carry the rest
>of the group through that phase. The ghouls can't be tanked for more
>than a few seconds at a time so they have to be dealt with either by
>killing them or making the Black Knight move to the next phase and
>blow them all up. 3rd phase isn't too bad for a priest to heal,
>though again, if the dps are too weak, nothing much can save you.
>Something like casting PoM on the tank, then binding heal of the other
>4 party members, then repeating will likely be all you need to do if
>the dps is decent.
Seemed to be tons of aoe in this one, I spent most my time casting aoe
heals and still really struggling to keep everybody up. Not at all
wanting to try on heroic :-/
Ashen Shugar
Yeah, if you had the rogue and the warrior to fight and all melee dps
in your party, you had about the hardest possible combination. Throw
in possibly the healer and you'd need the entire group to be good (and
not just well geared). The rogue is throwing poison around everywhere
for people to walk in and the warrior can a pretty damn nasty
whirlwind attack. And with everyone in close to him, that's going to
make your life suck.
>>If the 2nd boss is the pally, it's a snooze unless the tank makes a
>>mistake turning away from the blinding light thing. When the tank
>>gets blinded, they lose agro.
>
>Would help if there was some way to know ingame that turning away
>prevents it - it got me every single time since I didn't know about it
>until after I looked the fights up on wowhead later on, just thought
>it was unavoidable. Not much obvious way to realise that turning
>around prevents it!
I think I heard about it in this newsgroup before I even ran it once.
Or maybe someone on my first run mentioned it. Not sure.
>>The Black Knights first phase isn't much trouble. Only potential
>>issue is the healer getting knocked back and out of range of the tank
>>at a bad time. 2nd phase tends to be the killer. Unless the dps can
>>nuke the boss down quickly enough, or kill the summoned ghoul's
>>quickly enough, there's not much the healer can do to carry the rest
>>of the group through that phase. The ghouls can't be tanked for more
>>than a few seconds at a time so they have to be dealt with either by
>>killing them or making the Black Knight move to the next phase and
>>blow them all up. 3rd phase isn't too bad for a priest to heal,
>>though again, if the dps are too weak, nothing much can save you.
>>Something like casting PoM on the tank, then binding heal of the other
>>4 party members, then repeating will likely be all you need to do if
>>the dps is decent.
>
>Seemed to be tons of aoe in this one, I spent most my time casting aoe
>heals and still really struggling to keep everybody up. Not at all
>wanting to try on heroic :-/
3rd Phase Black Knight everyone's debuffed to increase the damage they
take, and that debuff keeps getting stacked higher. If it becomes too
hard to keep everyone alive, it's because the dps are too weak. It
really isn't the healer's fault. There is one person with an extra
debuff that makes them take even more damage that the healer needs to
concentrate a bit more on, but apart from them, it's a dps race, and
if the party loses the race, it's the dps's fault, not the healers.
Anyway, as I said, heroic is hardly a step up in difficulty from
regular at all. If you managed regular it's almost a given you can
handle heroic. From a healing point of view at least. Moving up into
heroic it's really the dps that need to step up their game.
Catriona R
On Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:08:58 GMT, death...@yahoo.com.au (Ashen
Shugar) wrote:
Ahh that makes sense, guess I need to read up a bit about the adds on
that boss then, really don't remember it much except the huge damage
everybody was taking - I was the only one not in melee range in that
run so anything aoe-like was pretty hard on me to heal!
>>>The Black Knights first phase isn't much trouble. Only potential
>>>issue is the healer getting knocked back and out of range of the tank
>>>at a bad time. 2nd phase tends to be the killer. Unless the dps can
>>>nuke the boss down quickly enough, or kill the summoned ghoul's
>>>quickly enough, there's not much the healer can do to carry the rest
>>>of the group through that phase. The ghouls can't be tanked for more
>>>than a few seconds at a time so they have to be dealt with either by
>>>killing them or making the Black Knight move to the next phase and
>>>blow them all up. 3rd phase isn't too bad for a priest to heal,
>>>though again, if the dps are too weak, nothing much can save you.
>>>Something like casting PoM on the tank, then binding heal of the other
>>>4 party members, then repeating will likely be all you need to do if
>>>the dps is decent.
>>
>>Seemed to be tons of aoe in this one, I spent most my time casting aoe
>>heals and still really struggling to keep everybody up. Not at all
>>wanting to try on heroic :-/
>
>3rd Phase Black Knight everyone's debuffed to increase the damage they
>take, and that debuff keeps getting stacked higher. If it becomes too
>hard to keep everyone alive, it's because the dps are too weak. It
>really isn't the healer's fault. There is one person with an extra
>debuff that makes them take even more damage that the healer needs to
>concentrate a bit more on, but apart from them, it's a dps race, and
>if the party loses the race, it's the dps's fault, not the healers.
Ahhh I see! makes sense there.
>Anyway, as I said, heroic is hardly a step up in difficulty from
>regular at all. If you managed regular it's almost a given you can
>handle heroic. From a healing point of view at least. Moving up into
>heroic it's really the dps that need to step up their game.
That's good to know, guess I won't panic too much if I get it on the
random heroic then, thanks for all the info! Given me a bit more
confidence; regular was challenging but certainly doable, so if heroic
isn't much harder for healing then I'll be alright, improved my gear a
bit since then as well.
Cradok
> I do agree with your basic idea though, I hate how people will drop
> out of instances before they even start. In my opinion there should be
> a longer deserter debuff on them - don't trigger it if most the group
> already left, but if there were still 4+ people in the instance then 1
> hour deserter minimum.
I don't necessarily mind people dropping before the start in ToTC and
up; I'd much rather wait another five minutes for a tank than wipe three
times because an undergeared tank feels obliged to carry on. This is one
instance where the debuff is a disadvantage.
What I would like to see is a debuff for someone leaving a raid after
one wipe... The number of times I've wasted a raid save because of that...
Cradok
> I got dropped in it yesterday, we finished it easily, the loot windows
> popped up, I rolled greed/disenchant on everything and clicked "leave group"
> only to see "XYZ picked up [Epic Bag of Loot]" or some such in chat. I
> realised I hadn't tried to loot the chest myself but just responeded to the
> loot windows that popped up when somebody else looted. Of course by then I
> was out of the group and the instance so I couldn't go back for the loot...
>
> Or could I have entered it again (being saved to the instance) by flying
> there to loot that bag?
Hadn't thought about doing that. I *did* petition a GM about it, who
said that the records showed that I picked Oculus, which I hadn't. I
pointed out to him that I *had* received bonus emblems, so I had to have
been in a random, but he still didn't give a bag.