<Grinders Inc> Multiboxing Normal Blackrock Caverns

[Janus]

So I decided to see how far my Wrath-equipped, level 80 team could make it in Blackrock Caverns. I had started leveling in Mount Hyjal and ran across the NPC that grants entrance to the instance. I hopped into the teleporter and found myself in Blackrock Caverns.

It was the first dungeon I ran since I put together my new rig, and so I was really excited to see how it performed

Here is the link YouTube - GrindersInc's Channel

Below is a general breakdown of the encounters and my team composition. It is not the cleanest execution, as I was shooting this "as is", with no to little preparation, and all these encounters were completely new to me

Team composition:
- Janus : protection pally
- Adonis: elemental shammy
- Bellenus: moonkin
- Aurora: Arcane mage
- Cymara: Holy priest

Team level: 80 (dinged 81 after completing this dungeon ! YAY! )
Gear: Full Wrath heroic dungeon gear
MBoxing software: PWNboxer

Strategy:
1- First Boss:
Make sure as you're preparing to do the encounter, to clear all the mobs close to the boss, as once pulled, he "shouts out" to the closest adds and pulls them to the fight (as I discovered the hard way, like you can see in the movie)
It's a simple tank and spank otherwise with a few twists:
- He does a quake, that erupts under your party's feet, when you see the ground moving, it's your queue to move your team out of harm's way, otherwise big damage to everyone
- He pulls all the toons into chains of woe. When that happens, focus fire on the chains, then get out of his way, as he does some sort of cleave that deals major damage
- Rinse and repeat

2- Second Boss:
This is the most technically challenging in this dungeon, in my opinion. She has two adds, that once she is engaged, are targeted by "evolution beams". Your job is to break the beam by moving your toons into its path, but there is a timer (around 20 sec), after which your toon will evolve into a dragonkin and wreak havoc to the party. This requires some micromanaging as you will need to grab a beam with your tank, and then one after the other, put your slaves into the path of the other. This way, only one dragonkin can evolve at a time and you can bring him down, then let the other one evolve and bring him down next. After both are down, focus fire on the boss and GG

3- Third Boss:
Interesting mechanic. You need to "heat him up" in the middle beam, otherwise he is invincible and does not take damage! As he does (he changes his color) he starts doing major AOE damage to the team. Mass heal and then get him out of the beam. I did 4-5 stacks and my healer was managing fine. Once the debuff expire, reposition him back into the beam and repeat. Make sure to stand inside as when the debuff expires lava surges from the mesh on the ground (see movie)

4- Fourth boss:
Tank and spank. It punts random team members. I had no clue it did that (LOL! as you can see 2 of my toons died in this fight, and my IWT was broken, forgot to rebind it ).
Two interesting things: first you don't need to kill this boss to complete the dungeon in random LFD (power leveling FTW with 100k xp and justice points). Second if you kill the baby that is behind it, it turns REALLY mad and one-shoots your tank. So don't kill her fourth baby !

5- Fifth boss:
Tank and spank. Reminds me of the arcane boss in the Nexus, as he "transfers his powers to one of his shadows" just switch targets and beware of the aggro wipe (also discovered this the hard way, as you can see)

That's it !

Much more to come...

[Nghtmr9999]

Hmm, pretty good videos. Subbed.

[Tim]

This is one helluva video, great quality too. Fantastic job man.

Frontpage'd on the site, too!


http://multiboxing.com

[Janus]

Thanks for the support!

I can safely say that I am now leveling at full swing. Ran into overheating problems with my i7 CPU, apparently the stock intel heatsink sucks. So I got me a corsair H50 and my temps dropped by 30 degrees. I mean I was hitting 90 celsius when I was encoding movies. Not good. Now my temp monitors is idling at 45 and rendering at 60

[Tim]

Yea the stock heatsinks of all intel CPUs suck... well except the extreme 980, that heatsink is a beast!

[Nghtmr9999]

Originally Posted by Tim

Yea the stock heatsinks of all intel CPUs suck... well except the extreme 980, that heatsink is a beast!

Hmm, I'm getting a pretty good case. We shall see if I still need a heatsink. My budget is tight enough as it is.

[Ualaa]

The 920/930 heat sink got good reviews.

Basically, go with something better if you're overclocking, but stock is probably okay for stock speeds.

[Nghtmr9999]

Originally Posted by Ualaa

The 920/930 heat sink got good reviews.

Basically, go with something better if you're overclocking, but stock is probably okay for stock speeds.

Yeah, I don't plan on OCing at all really. How is the 950 heat sink?

[Janus]

It sucks! And I don't OC either

I have the HAFX 932 case from coolermaster. MOBO temp on monitoring under stress is 30 stable all the time and IOH ICH temp are 50 celsius at best, which means the HAF X fans are doing the job.

With stock CPU heatsink, idle was mid 50's, went up to mid 70's with 5 wow and video capture and whopping 90 with encoding at highest render quality. All celsius I mean.

Since I got the corsair H50, idle is mid 30 and at highest stress never above 65. There are a variety of good heatsinks out there, both water and air based. I would say, test your temps and if you find yourself consistently in the 70-80, get a heatsink. Also, keep in mind, that with new cpu's there is a built-in mechanism that will auto-downclock the cpu if it heats up too much. I noticed a DRAMATIC improvement in performance at lower temps, we're talking 20%, so keep that in mind too

[Nghtmr9999]

Hmm I see. I'll see how good the airflow is in my case (Antec 902) and decide whether or not I need to buy a heatsink. Thanks for the heads up.