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[lofblad]

What is the best play flow before you start with heroics? Gear-wise I mean, level 80 is presumed.

Do you start with the normal instances, using RDF? Then TotC normal? Next up ICC normal? Then heroics?

What would you say is a necessary and/or optimal sequence to get ready for heroics?

[Ualaa]

I would probably ensure the tank is defense capped (535 defense for heroics, 540 for raids), although if your tank is a Druid then Survival of the Fittest 3/3 will make you defense capped.

Once you have that, which is basically some auction house blues or possibly Titansteel gear... Jump into heroics, starting with the easier ones.

The easiest heroics are probably...

- Drak'Tharon Keep.
- Utgarde Keep.
- Gundrak (at least the first boss on each side).
- Violet Hold (depends on the bosses you get).
- CoT: Stratholme.

Do what you can, if you get say four bosses on farm initially... that is four badges per day, which means upgrades in a week or two.
With each upgrade, things get a whole lot easier.

One thing a lot of people have done.
Take your tank, on a weekend, and one-box queue as a tank.
Your queue times will be virtually instant.
And you can get a massive amount of badges over a Sat/Sun.

You cannot be booted by the party for the first 15 minutes.
Which means, even if you are booted, you can requeue immediately.
Given the scarcity of tanks, the group will be unlikely to boot you anyway.
Just explain you are a new tank and need to learn the fight and gear up some.

With a bunch of gear on your tanking toon, heroics with your team become much easier.

You can also buy Runescroll's of Fortitude, Drums of Kings and Drums of the Wild on the auction house. The buffs aren't quite as good as a level 80 casting their spell (Kings is 8% not 10%), but they do help out initially... adding 2200 health over not having those buffs at all. I went with Blessing of Wisdom on the Warlock/Shaman's and Sanctuary on the Pally, then added the three item buffs, and went with 3x Healing Stream totems, which is decent passive healing.

In BC you needed to run a lot of upper 60's or level 70 normals, to be geared enough to run any heroics. In Wrath, aside from the 3.3 patch dungeons, heroics are pretty much a joke. In fresh to 80th questing green/blues, you are easily geared enough for the heroics which were in the game at release as well as Naxx 10.

[EaTCarbS]

Get your tank and your healer geared, and then they can carry your DPS through a lot of content.

[lofblad]

Thanks for a lot of good advice on buyable gear and buffs and so on, very helpful!

Originally Posted by Ualaa

... In fresh to 80th questing green/blues, you are easily geared enough for the heroics which were in the game at release as well as Naxx 10.

Really? Or did you mean just the easiest heroics? Because I've heard from many other boxers that they can be really hard?

[lofblad]

Originally Posted by EaTCarbS

Get your tank and your healer geared, and then they can carry your DPS through a lot of content.

Yes, but the question is what is the best way to get them geared? Do you also mean, like Ualaa, that 'geared for heroics' means quest green/blues?

[Ualaa]

All of the pre 3.3 heroics, and Naxx 10..

It will be a bit harder, playing all five. So you might want a bit more gear then 1600 gear score equivalent. But back when item level 200 crafted was very expensive, and most were not in full heroic gear, back without any Valor or better gear... maybe 1600-1800 gear score, all of the heroics were doable with a competent group as was Naxx 10. Wrath heroics are a joke, compared to say Burning Crusade heroics.

I'd say do the easier ones. After 15 minutes in a dungeon, you lose the debuff and can try another... so the random dungeon option is decent, even if you get one which you cannot possibly clear. You'll still have 15 minutes to get to and take out one boss.

Also, you can run a random normal dungeon, for 2 badges the first time you do it. Normals are a good option if you don't know what the bosses do for the instance. If you're just starting on a server, don't have a lot of gold etc... and maybe can only do 4 or 5 bosses and not even a full heroic... the random normal dungeon then adds 2 badges per day to your initial haul.

If possible, you don't really want greens. But, mixed greens and blues, were the gear everyone was in, when Wrath was new and heroics/Naxx was first started. Actually Naxx 25 was cleared by 21 players (a mix of two guilds) who were raiders (and had run in, back when it was first released) about 4 days into the expansion (which includes the leveling up time)... You can run dailies, possibly avoiding the 5-man group versions if you're really undergeared, and still make 800-1000g in a day to purchase some AH stuff.

[ebony]

Originally Posted by EaTCarbS

Get your tank and your healer geared, and then they can carry your DPS through a lot of content.

or just your tank a really good tank and carry anythink. though + get a few bits your AH a few cheep BOE blues and u do great

then go for UK/DTK/Nuxes

or maybe even pug a Naxx raid with the tank

[Tim]

I think that if you get your tank geared first, everything will be a piece of cake. Maybe spend a few days running your tank solo to get him geared, it is going to be a huge help.

When multiboxing heroics to start, I'd say 90% importance is on your tank, 9% on your healer, and 1% on your DPS.

[trowabartan]

Originally Posted by lofblad

Thanks for a lot of good advice on buyable gear and buffs and so on, very helpful!



Really? Or did you mean just the easiest heroics? Because I've heard from many other boxers that they can be really hard?

With mostly ILVL 175-185 blues(group quest and rep items) it's pretty rough. At least it was for me with having mostly never done any but a couple of the 5-mans before. Starting out in some cases I was able to kill up to the last boss but couldn't down the last boss(or at least didn't feel like banging away on it). Not really a problem, take your badges and lfd to the next heroic.

I had to make adjustments in actually using cooldowns and stuff. After you get a couple good upgrades for all your guys then go back to stuff that was just a little too much before.

I think the suggestion of solo queuing LFDing with your tank/healer is a good suggestion. I was really tempted the first night I tried heroics but I was too stubborn I guess

[Ualaa]

In my case, when I started..

I could do the first boss on each side of Gundrak, but only really did the Snake guy.
The snake was pretty easy, with a Cleansing Totem, Nature Resist and Fire Elementals down; prior to that tactic, it was not happening.

Drak'Tharon Keep, the hardest part was/is the initial trash with the circles of black death on the ground. Using Shadow Resist Aura on the pally, and setting up independent slave movement keys (as a group, the non-active toons) really helped here... moved them forward or strafed to either side, backwards was too slow. Also DPS'd the casters who make the puddles of death, ignored (let pally AoE hold) the melee. The bosses here were pretty easy, tank + spank 1st boss on the stairs... can bypass the stair event (2nd boss) if you go counter-clockwise around the boss but Frost Resist Aura, Healing Stream Totems and Fire Elementals help.... Dinosaur is easy if you kill four small dino's first and also stagger Tremor Totems. The one up top is the easiest boss by far.

Utgarde Keep was pretty easy too. Did the trash in smaller increments, and used Fire Resist Aura vs the Vyrkul who have a Melt Armor fire damage thing. First boss wiped me a bunch of times, until I included "/target Frost Tomb" in my Master Click macro and positioned the DPS with two on either side facing at an angle towards where I pull the boss... so each pair can hit both the boss and the other pair. Second boss is the pair -- melee and caster -- dps either to almost dead, burn the other and finish the first... also tank them close together and close to the party, so the melee guy doesn't charge your dps/healer much. Last guy is pretty easy, kill him once and just run through him to his back when he is going to pummel or roar.... then (after he rez's) drop Fire Elementals, Heroism/Bloodlust and burn him... if you're fast there's no spinning axe, until your dps is there, use a spread out macro and have all heals go to whoever the axe is on.... had to rez that toon quite often when I started.

That's pretty much what I was running for quite a while.