TBC Level 70 Instances

[penn]

Originally Posted by Tirinal

I really hate to play this card, because it seems like a copout. It makes it seem like I'm saying I'm just a better player than you, which isn't my intent. But all those things... it's just really not hard if you know what you're doing. Sometimes it takes gimmicky things like pvp trinkets and sometimes you need to spend three minutes before a fight actualy outlining the abilities of X mob, but I never felt that the margin for error was all that small. My motley groups didn't have issues burst dpsing the voids or the arcane guardians, we didn't have endurance problems in the black morass, and since absolutely everybody seems to have various cc now we were able to cobble our way through shattered halls pulls without mages/warlocks. There is still a clusterfuck of bad design, but you can overcome it since it's not taken to such retarded extremes as in heroics. I just don't know what to say.

Everything Xeq said about heroics is 100% true however. Seriously. Apply a couple filters to heroic wowhead item lists for your class, superimpose it on top of random blues, and compare the two mentally while taking into account that 90% of your group contribution hinges on class and not how you play your class. Its not worth it.

Edit: I refuse to believe that anyone at Blizzard ran heroic Mechanaar as a rogue/enh shammy/fury war. This isn't hyperbole, this isn't egoist bitching (I'm a rest druid), this isn't an op-ed piece. It's just simply not possible that someone ran it with one of those classes and signed off on it for release.

I agree. I've ran just about every non-heroic 70 in the game in pugs and had only ran into a group of droolers once, but I now understand how people die/screw up/etc. I think a lot of the problem is either a players lack of knowledge about mob abilities/class abilities combined with bad group makeup.

[Sinzar]

It makes it seem like I'm saying I'm just a better player than you, which isn't my intent. But all those things... it's just really not hard if you know what you're doing.

Same here, I play a rogue, and while I also don't want to be as if I'm bragging or anything, I do have to say you must group with some horrible rogues. When I see you post things like Murmur is hard as a rogue, my jaw just drops... I never take a point of damage on Murmur except for his random target Shockwave nuke (which hits anyone regardless of range).

Anyway, in virtually every example you give, all it takes is an ounce of sense (and well timed uses of Cloak of Shadows) as a rogue and you are just as well as any class (as well as doing more DPS in most cases). The only encounter I'll give you that a rogue is detrimental is the Fire Eredar guy in Arcatraz -- Rogue's are definitely a burden there.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by ex-genj

wow I couldn't disagree more with almost all of your points. I've done all L70 instances with war (me) priest lock rogue and x for last class, usually not a mage. And all of them are very easy once you learn the mechanics of the trash and bosses. And the rogue is.. top dps every run, every boss, every trash mob with a few exceptions, just like he was pre tbc. I guess I just don't get what you're saying here, I especially don't get the love for shadow labs, the place we've done the most (and are basically forced to due to the lack of lower city rep turn ins), I dislike it much more than any other instance basically as the trash bores me or annoys me like the felguards.

Shattered halls is challenging and fun with chaotic pulls that require a good tank and good coordination. However of course I simply don't see an average pug ever doing well there.

Botanica has 5 boss mobs with few trash pulls leading to quick loots and lots of scryer drops. Also you can MC trash for a 30 minute +300 spell damage buff = whee.

Mechanar sucks admittedly but is a fast run and is obviously designed to be difficult due to the no-wipe last boss fight, if you can't deal with it don't go.

Steam vaults is another quick run if you are smart and skip half the trash mobs.

Arcatraz is clearly designed to be the "uber 5 man" and is reflected by the "difficulty" of the trash, none of which is particularly hard at all once you learn what they do, the only really hard pull is the 2 zap-bot guys at once, but you can you know stun them as they explode and get away without being hurt.

Black morass is very very easy, I don't understand the crying about this zone. I did it today with war rogue warlock holy pally resto shaman who just hit 70. Hardly the ideal group but it went very fast with no danger of being overwhelmed.

Maybe I'm being a dick but I just don't see the problems you're complaining about. I like almost all the instances and am looking forward to doing them on heroic with my regular group (and yes I am aware we will almost certainly need a mage).

Once again, let me restate the fact that my crew has done all of the level 70 instances just fine, and we have beaten them all before respawns, even if we wipe one or two times. I am arguing for the general populace and for the average 5 man group.



I don't want to turn this into an insult topic with people fighting at eachother and people calling eachother liars. But your rogue was not the top DPS on all Arcatraz bosses, it's just not possible.

Once again, let me restate the fact that my crew has done all of the level 70 instances decently fine, and we have beaten them all before respawns, even if we wipe one or two times. I am arguing for the general populace and for the average 5 man group.

There's nothing really to learn about the trash mobs in Arcatraz. You move shit around, you avoid corpses and you realize that little worms spawn on people that are incubated, if you are a rogue, you can CoS out of it and they don't spawn. None of this is rocket science. But like I said, when those arcane guardians keep doing their chain 1.5k damage in small narrow path ways, it gets quite idiotic.

Black Morass maybe is a personal thing, but I don't find this piece of shit fun in the slightest.

Our group likes to do everything, we don't really mind trash, why should we have to skip half of it in steamvaults to avoid pointless random shit that bypasses skill and is just badly designed?

I'm really mostly talking about the Tempest Keep's, Botanica, Mech and Arc. Which are of course, supposed to be the hardest, but as said above, many of the things that make it hard are not well done and are hard for the simple fact that they "made it that way." You can make a level 2 moss snake hit for 10,000 damage and have 30,000 HP. It'd be "hard," but it wouldn't make sense and would not be appropriate.

My main problem with these instances is the tight group requierments that they require. WoW was supposed to be the game (I don't know if any of you remember years ago), where developers said that you can do fine with just about any combination of classes. Obviously this was an exageration on the developers part, but groups shouldn't be forced to have certain classes beyond the obvious, healer and tank. While mage is required for many, and TK's, mainly Arc, focus on warlocks and hunters, and others on different classes. Instead of being diverse and having each class shine in a different way that a group could pick.

I kind of feel like most of these level 70 instances are just like original Strath. Yes, it was doable, but it required a perfect group combination and if you had a certain class in their that didn't shine, you could pretty much forget about it.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by Sinzar

Same here, I play a rogue, and while I also don't want to be as if I'm bragging or anything, I do have to say you must group with some horrible rogues. When I see you post things like Murmur is hard as a rogue, my jaw just drops... I never take a point of damage on Murmur except for his random target Shockwave nuke (which hits anyone regardless of range).

Anyway, in virtually every example you give, all it takes is an ounce of sense (and well timed uses of Cloak of Shadows) as a rogue and you are just as well as any class (as well as doing more DPS in most cases). The only encounter I'll give you that a rogue is detrimental is the Fire Eredar guy in Arcatraz -- Rogue's are definitely a burden there.

Sinzar I didn't say Murmur was hard as a rogue. I said I loved the Murmur encounter. You run away as he's taking in air, then you run back as soon as it's over, if you get cursed, you get away from everyone and CoS out of it, not very hard. Where are you reading I said he was hard as a rog. I praised Murmur encounter..

And Sinzar, I also know how good of a rogue you are, and you actually know how good of a player I am as well, and I think I play quite alot like you. Considering I played with you for quite some time, and we duo'd many things in early WoW that we were NOT supposed to be duoing, but we were both very good and managed. Can you think of who I am ? How's Lunaris donig?

[Sinzar]

Originally Posted by Goliath

Where are you reading I said he was hard as a rog. I praised Murmur encounter..

Shadow Labs has Murmur, another boss that gets exponentially harder the more slots you're wasting on melee classes.

Murmur has a large hitbox. Let's say you have 1 tank, 3 rogues, and 1 healer in your group. Tank stands in front, 1 rogue in back, 1 rogue on left, 1 rogue on right, healer at range. As I said, rogues take no damage except 1-2 random target shockwaves during the fight, so staying in range of the healer doesn't matter. Easy mode, so I don't know how he gets "exponetially harder".

Black Morass? Impossible without a Mage. Flat out impossible

Bringing a rogue to Morass makes it trivial. I solo all of the small spawns from the portal, and dps the miniboss between pops. The entire rest of the group focuses 100% on the miniboss. In fact, Feral Druid, Rogue x3, Paladin is probably the fastest, most efficient Morass group you could make.

Mechanar is almost as bad. Trash with 500 DPS immolation aura. First boss? Drops exploding bombs that are trivially easy to dodge from range, almost impossible to do so in melee. Second boss? Slow elementals with random aggro that you must kite around to avoid dying if you're targeted. Ranged DPS can still damage boss. Melee, can't.

You mean immolation aura on the Astromages that die in about 9 seconds....? Hardly that lethal. Tank the first boss on the edge of the stairs, and no one has to dodge bombs. Have your entire team of 5 keep the 2nd boss in constant motion around the room, and regardless of who the elementals are agroed to they will always be out of range. Last boss of Mech is again easier with rogues, because a rogue that gets mind controlled 4/5 times the AI automatically uses Cloak of Shadows, immeditely breaking the mind control.

Anyway I didn't mean to derail this into a rogue debate, but I get frustrated seeing stuff like the highest DPS class is useless in 5 mans. Unless you mean heroic modes, which is a whole new topic.

EDIT: You're right, woops, Xequecal was the poster who I was quoting. Oh well, my arguments still stand, I guess they were just directed at a different poster! Ps. Hi Caspien.

[Goliath]

Sinzar, either you are getting me mixed up with somebody else. Or you misquoted something as me, or I assumed you were talking to me, as I didn't say any of those things that you misquoted me for above.

[benbadman]

Originally Posted by Goliath

Note: I do think these instances can be very fun, Arcatraz final boss fight is pretty cool. BUT IT NEEDS TO BE APPROPRIATELY TUNED. This is not a "gear up" thing, we ARE geared up as far as we can to that point. And then you have those void walkers that do +2500 damage that is immune to all forms of stun and with a very high end mage with super spell dmg, a good rog and a enhancement shaman beating on it, can't out dmg it's melee heal. And you just want to shoot yourself. That is NOT fun.

Anyways, discuss?

How good, bad, shitty is your team's gear? I'm not sure which class you are playing your 5 man dream team of war/pri/shm/rog/mag, but I hope that your healers, if not both at least one, are DPS spec (shadow or elemental). Really the lv70s only need 1.5 healers to keep a party alive. I don't understand how you think Arcatraz is hard? It is quite easy. Very little CC is required. The pulls are just 1-2 mobs, you just have to have the dps, which if the summoned mana elementals are owning your party, you guys are lacking burst dps, no offense.

[ex-genj]

Originally Posted by Goliath

I don't want to turn this into an insult topic with people fighting at eachother and people calling eachother liars. But your rogue was not the top DPS on any of the Arcatraz bosses. It is actually impossible.

I'm not insulting you, I just don't think your crew is very experienced or very geared or very skilled or a combination of those. From your posts here its pretty clear you haven't done these instances much. Arc 1st boss (voidspawn), rogue is in melee range entire time minus punts, easy #1. Shiva boss - with a lot of healing rogue doesn't have to run out during whirlwind, #1 again. Fire trail boss - he shouts and targets the person who he is going to charge at, but doesn't actually charge at them, just charges where they were when he shouts = rogue can stay in melee range entire time if he anticipates the charge. Last boss, rogue never has to leave melee range, can blade flurry the splits, #1 again. And yes I have damage meters and clear them before bosses if I feel like it.

There's nothing really to learn about the trash mobs in Arcatraz. You move shit around, you avoid corpses and you realize that little worms spawn on people that are incubated, if you are a rogue, you can CoS out of it and they don't spawn. None of this is rocket science. But like I said, when those arcane guardians keep doing their chain 1.5k damage in small narrow path ways, it gets quite idiotic.

You can poly the corpses and kill them to prevent worms spawning. You can stun arcane guardians.

Black Morass maybe is a personal thing, but I don't find this piece of shit fun in the slightest.

I don't find it fun or challenging either but thats because its so repeatative and you need to wait for the script to let you kill things instead of moving at your own pace. I don't find it difficult at all with any group.

Our group likes to do everything, we don't really mind trash, why should we have to skip half of it in steamvaults to avoid pointless random shit that bypasses skill and is just badly designed?

uh you don't have to skip anything you don't want. I guess I don't get this statement, trash is a part of wow, why would you complain about being able to "skillfully" avoid much of it an instance?

I'm really mostly talking about the Tempest Keep's, Botanica, Mech and Arc. Which are of course, supposed to be the hardest, but as said above, many of the things that make it hard are not well done and are hard for the simple fact that they "made it that way." You can make a level 2 moss snake hit for 10,000 damage and have 30,000 HP. It'd be "hard," but it wouldn't make sense and would not be appropriate.

I think for the designated "hard" instances the TK dungeons are in general designed well. I like arcatraz and enjoy the fact that the trash there is generally "hard" single pulls instead of the normal 4-6 pulls. Botanica is fun too. Mechanar again sucks but is a short instance. About the only thing I agree with you is that the first mech boss is pretty unbalanced for melee, and I definitely see a problem killing him in heroic with a rogue.

My main problem with these instances is the tight group requierments that they require. WoW was supposed to be the game (I don't know if any of you remember years ago), where developers said that you can do fine with just about any combination of classes. Obviously this was an exageration on the developers part, but groups shouldn't be forced to have certain classes beyond the obvious, healer and tank. While mage is required for many, and TK's, mainly Arc, focus on warlocks and hunters. While the others on different classes. Instead of being diverse and having each class shine in a different
way that a group could pick.

OK well how do make a 5 man instance hard without requiring a solid class balance? The way wow is designed I don't see that happening to be honest. Fortunately (again), these instances are actually not hard at all if you are geared, experienced, can play well, and have a tank and healer.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by benbadman

How good, bad, shitty is your team's gear? I'm not sure which class you are playing your 5 man dream team of war/pri/shm/rog/mag, but I hope that your healers, if not both at least one, are DPS spec (shadow or elemental). Really the lv70s only need 1.5 healers to keep a party alive. I don't understand how you think Arcatraz is hard? It is quite easy. Very little CC is required. The pulls are just 1-2 mobs, you just have to have the dps, which if the summoned mana elementals are owning your party, you guys are lacking burst dps, no offense.

If you would read all of the post, you would see that I said out gear is very good. Mage has over 900 spell damage, same with priest for healing, I have over 10000 hp buffed as a rog with 1500 ap. Our shaman is enhancement spec'd and pulls off very good dps. And priest is full holy, so we have 1.5 healers. The pulls are not all 1-2 mobs, either all you did was the very first entrance, or you are generalizing and exaggerating very much. And I have no idea what the fuck a summoned mana elemental is and I've done Arcatraz three times.

[Goliath]

[quote=ex-genj;660896]I'm not insulting you, I just don't think your crew is very experienced or very geared or very skilled or a combination of those. From your posts here its pretty clear you haven't done these instances much. Arc 1st boss (voidspawn), rogue is in melee range entire time minus punts, easy #1. Shiva boss - with a lot of healing rogue doesn't have to run out during whirlwind, #1 again. Fire trail boss - he shouts and targets the person who he is going to charge at, but doesn't actually charge at them, just charges where they were when he shouts = rogue can stay in melee range entire time if he anticipates the charge. Last boss, rogue never has to leave melee range, can blade flurry the splits, #1 again. And yes I have damage meters and clear them before bosses if I feel like it.



This is what I meant by getting in trouble for defending what I think is right, even if it doesn't apply to me. Please read all of my post. We have done Arcatraz fine three times, even the first time being there without reading on the net (cept the last encounter) what the bosses did we still beat it before anything respawned, but pointless wipes do to things like the Death debuff, and bugged abilities is stupid. Not very many 5 man's are not going to ever able to touch this shit. And everyone else doesn't even really want to. And that doesn't make sense.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by ex-genj

You can poly the corpses and kill them to prevent worms spawning. You can stun arcane guardians.

The corpses are the least of anyone's worries, big deal two worms. And yes I stealth/shadowstep to them and cheap shot kill before the worms even spawn anyways.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by ex-genj

OK well how do make a 5 man instance hard without requiring a solid class balance? The way wow is designed I don't see that happening to be honest. Fortunately (again), these instances are actually not hard at all if you are geared, experienced, can play well, and have a tank and healer.

Very easy, don't make 90% of the dungeon all demons. Throw in a beast here and there so a druid can hibernate or so a rogue can actually use his openers, since 90% of them are immune to cheap shot/garrote. Diversify, that is all, diversify. It can still be hard and the top instance and have more flexible group requirements.

Here's an example: make an npc cast a poison when it dies that if not cured within 10 seconds by class X, then a DoT appears on the entire group that does huge damage. That's ok, don't have class X to cure the poison before it blows up? Then class Y can cure the new type of disease that just popped up on everybody before it damages them down. Don't have class Y? That's ok, you have multiple of class Z that can heal people fast before they die. By the way, make sure to kill this mob last in the group so you don't have to deal with this problem while fighting other mobs. Oh but shit, this mob is immune to polymorph so you can't really kill it last becuase it does huge melee damage and you need to poly the others and kill IT first. Oh well that's ok, we have class W and it is not immune to the type of CC that it has. This encounter can still be hard, all of this can happen very quickly and require people to be very attentitive and know what is going on and know the abilities of the mobs and know that THEY have an important role to play for that encounter.

Seriously, all it takes is a little creativity to get out of this stupid class binding.

[Xequecal]

Murmur has a large hitbox. Let's say you have 1 tank, 3 rogues, and 1 healer in your group. Tank stands in front, 1 rogue in back, 1 rogue on left, 1 rogue on right, healer at range. As I said, rogues take no damage except 1-2 random target shockwaves during the fight, so staying in range of the healer doesn't matter. Easy mode, so I don't know how he gets "exponetially harder".

More opportunities to screw up. The Rogues actually have to notice sonic blast and get out every time. They actually have to plan that positioning and stick to in between runs in and out. Three Rogues means now you have three people who have the opportunity to screw up and cost you 1 DPS class. If you had three Mages, they simply don't have to care. They can semi-AFK and push one button for their nuke and still win the fight. They can't even pull aggro. That said, it's not like it's impossible or hugely difficult, especially on normal. It's just harder. Why make it harder when you don't have to?

And yes, I'm talking about Heroic mode. I've beaten normal-mode Arcatraz/Mechanar/Botanica with a Rogue. On Normal, you can actually heal through the boss crap and the various AEs. On Heroic, a Rogue simply can't melee the first boss, second boss, and Vael clone spawn on the final boss in Arcatraz. You will die in seconds.

[Shodai]

Originally Posted by Goliath

So, I was under the impression that 5 mans were made for a group of 5 people. That a group of decently intelligent people, that made sure to find a healer, and a tank and some balance, could handle these instances. Maybe with a wipe or too if they didn't read up on the instance, but as long as they had the intelligence average of a 10th grader, that they'd be ok.

Here's the problem, while most of the WoW population is 10th graders, I don't group with them. I group with skilled people who know how to play their class and I have a good balance. And these instances are just absolutely retarded. I'm not pissed that we can't beat them, because we can, I've beaten them all, I'm pissed that we wipe so many times to needless bullshit that has nothing to do with our skill, that is just retarded shit we can't stop that if happens we are fucked. I'm tired of when my usual crew (rog, shm, priest, mag, war, the perfect group imo) isn't on, that I don't have the option to form a group of pugers that I know are intelligent and know how to play their class. Because nobody wants to go to these pieces of shit. Shadow Labyrinth is about the only well designed level 70 TBC instance out of all 7-8 of them. And if I can find th ese people, these people that I know well and have done fine with before TBC and I know are good, we still get fucked because I'm not with my usual crew which is near the best.

I also have a problem against stupidity and what I feel is wrong. I will always stick up for it 9 out of 10 times, even if it gets me in trouble. Like I said, I can run these instances, but what the fuck are normal pugs going to do? I'm not talking about the idiots that don't repair beforehand, don't buy reagants, and that are just plain anti group. But good people, good people that want to enjoy some 5 man content, they can't because these instances are just so out of wack. This is lame, and it's insane that this shit is still going on after all that beta. And no offense to all of you that did get to beta, but the only people they even gave TBC beta too was high end guilds, and now everyone else gets fucked in the 5 mans. My guild is #2 on the server, we fair fine, but like I said, pointless wipes to nothing we could have done in a perfectly balanced group (shm, mage, war, rog, priest) once again. And the fact that normal pugs are totally screwed is insane.

It's really late, and I've had a few beers in me from the superbowl, so sorry for grammar, punctuation, general bad writing. But I'm sure you still get the point. AND for fucksake you stupid pieces of shit Blizzard, your LFG tool is absolute shit, you are IDIOTS, you know IT'S SHIT, people keep telling you IT's SHIT, and why is it still here? Are you that full of pride? Seriously, fine keep the piece of shit in, but put the channel back. In fact, the LFG tool is not even a piece of shit, it is literally worthless, and by worthless I mean the literal definition of worthless.

Note: I do think these instances can be very fun, Arcatraz final boss fight is pretty cool. BUT IT NEEDS TO BE APPROPRIATELY TUNED. This is not a "gear up" thing, we ARE geared up as far as we can to that point. And then you have those void walkers that do +2500 damage that is immune to all forms of stun and with a very high end mage with super spell dmg, a good rog and a enhancement shaman beating on it, can't out dmg it's melee heal. And you just want to shoot yourself. That is NOT fun.

Anyways, discuss?

I have a couple problems with your post, both of which I will address.

1. Your "holy trinity" group is not the perfect group make-up in TBC..not even close. While you should be able to do any level 70 non-heroic with it with zero excuses, get yourself a druid and hunter if you want efficiency. Try thinking out the box and getting some additional friends.

2. The typical "10th grader" rant you started out with was pretty miserable, and to be honest you sound like one. If your going to complain about wiping in these NON HEROIC instances then you better explain the game breaking bugs and or imbalances before you rant. I am not sure how to say this without sounding disrespectful, but you guys must not be as stellar as you think if your having such major difficulties. And your spat on the voidwalkers??

The fact of the matter is, 5 man TBC instances are balanced and cater to people who can think on their feet...and for this I am glad. Even with that said, they're not that hard..I'm baffled. I guess if people can't cut the mustard then too bad, so sorry.

As a quick aside...I really hope Blizzard doesn't tinker with the difficulty of the starter 5 man's, as it creates a nice "Planes of Power-esque" divide that separates the quick thinkers from the knuckle draggers...which is the way the game was envisioned.

Edit: This post brought me out of my several year lurk mode because, and I say this with due respect to the OP and several of the replies, I miss some of the elitest attitudes that kept this forum free of inexperienced players and their WoW General Forum-esque rants. Does the world really need another WoW General Chat forum?

[kasey]

i guess this game needs a big phat sign infront of every single instance with a step by step guide how to solve the zone otherwise you cant have detailed/half complicated mob abilities+ be mainstream :P