I set a myself a challenge to start at least 3 heroics, which I have done:
- 2 tanked & finished Vortex Pinacle, with the second run being much easier. Tip for 2nd boss : Dodging (or not) whirlwinds means success (or failure). Getting upwind means you succeed (or fail) more quickly.
- 1 tanked Deadmines run - called due to instance server restart after wiping on the first boat boss. There were other wipes while learning both trash and boss mechanics.
- 1 healed Stonecore run (first time healing a heroic). Called on Slabhide (second boss) due to time of night & struggling on boss.
We called Slabhide because of dying to avoidable damage, plus inefficient heals. As a disc priest I spent an aweful lot of time binding heal because I took to much damage. (Some players think they can play both tank & healer. Very different mindsets, and some players change gears very slowly. E.g. me)
For my next Slabhide healing run:
- Dogde boulders. I should have learned this on normal.
- Puddles have a dust cloud immediately before they appear. Move.
- A single pillar is not always enough to hide behind. There were times I was sure I was being hit from both sides of a pillar. I think the boss when this happened, but I am not sure.
- More AOE heals. I didn't use prayer of healing at all. I only used divine hymn once in multiple wipes. More renew.
Disc priest smites are a nice cheap heal replacement, and set you up for bigger heals when you need them.
Don't expect 'progression' instances to be gogogo, 15 minute runs. These are new and hard for people to do. The expectation that Farm Heroic = quick run is something to be left behind when we left Northrend. You will be able to quickly farm them again when your party has both Cata Dungeon Hero and raid gear. On that point, I am no longer joining heroic groups when thinking about heading to bed soon. Sunday - Wednesday nights I will not start a heroic after 9pm. Thursday nights I won't run heroics at all.
You don't need 3 Damage dealers. More than 1 tank is useful. More than 1 healer is useful. People are dying due to lack of knowledge, lack of CC and incorrect movement. Offtanking is a form of CC, whether it is done by a pet or player. Classes that dont have CC may still have interupts & stuns. High DPS is nice, and will make life easier, but does not make the difference between a Heroic completion and failure. Dodging fire does.
(PS. Glyphs became very interesting. Read Breevok's post. I have drafted 3 different posts, all trashed hours later. I have not gone away, just temporarily quiet)
Posts
On slabhide watch where you stand. You may just be too close.
ReplyDeleteA single pillar is more than enough to hide behind, just make sure the pillar isn't in his hit radius or it won't count. Just pick one further away.
ReplyDeleteFor someone who ranks among the leaders of the pack in goldmaking, your heroics problems are amusing :) .
ReplyDeleteYou will get hit by Slabhide's crystal barrage if you are within his hitbox, no matter whether you are behind a pillar or not. Known bug.
Check out Cataclysm tanking cheat sheets from the Sword and Board blog. They are not perfect for all roles and all encounters, but they help. We put them up on our guild's web site and by updatinging they are now ideal (but not publicly available).
To elaborate on the first two Slabhide comments. One pillar is entirely fine, but that pillar needs to be OUTSIDE of his normal hitbox. You can be LOS'ing just fine, but if that pillar is still inside his hitbox you're going to get hit as though you were messing it up. Having tanked and healed this fight, the easiest way for me to keep track of it all is to put a mark on both the tank and the healer so that you can constantly see positioning througout the fight. If it's someone in your guild, or even a pug, set an expectation like "We both have marks to make sure we don't LOS each other. Do what you can to get yourself in position after he lands." Beyond that, don't be afraid to run away as the tank to get behind a pillar. He stands still during crystal barrage, so if you need to put some distance between you and him to find a suitable LOS hideyhole, so be it. Hope any of that helps.
ReplyDeleteThe only place I've heard people even consider taking more than 1 tank or healer to 5man dungeons is from gold making websites!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how having more than one tank helps. The only boss encounter I could even think of where more than 1 tank would be useful is the crocadile one in Lost City (and in some cases detrimental even not considering the DPS loss - e.g. Ozruk or Godfrey), so I assume you're talking about trash here. You say that tanking is a "form of CC" - but unlike sheep/fear/banish/hex/trap/sap/repent/etc, it is a form of CC that puts added pressure on the healer since there is still damage coming in.
Lowering your DPS by bringing 2, means that you put added pressure on your tanks/healers. Even if the fight doesn't have some form of an enrage timer, you're still requiring tanks/healers to take and heal MORE damage, increasing the risk or something going wrong/OOMing.