So as we transition into TBC, dungeons are going to be getting a whole lot more difficult, requiring lots of CC, one shot mechanics, and basically requiring your tank to be defense capped before even stepping into heroics. In my opinion, I would say that The Arcatraz, Mana Tombs, Shadow Labrynth, Blood Furnace, Shattered Halls, and Magisters Terrace (later on) are going to be causing the most trouble for unexperienced groups. What were some of your favorite/least favorite heroic dungeons to run in TBC?
Here’s a tier list I made:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpVw_kxyIMg
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They will be a lot easier this time around since every tank will be a paladin and people now know how to interrupt spells, something that rarely happened in TBC.
But the numbers will still make them challenging at low gear levels.
In terms of difficulty I would rank them somewhere around the challenge of doing a mythic + 8 in shadowlands. Basically challenging enough that bosses will wipe you if you don’t know their mechanics, and trash will wipe you if ignore their mechanics or overpull.
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I pretty much agree with this. It will be harder for the healers than anyone else. at least until the pallies get the gear for uncrushable which can be done in prebis. It’s a little harder for them to do. going in with a good hunter for misdirect will help the bear/war with aoe threat.
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IIRC you only needed 1 or 2 CCs for heroic dungeons. They were hard at first because of the lack of gear but give it a month after hitting 70 and people will be blasting through them quite easily.
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Depends on the type of gear, and people you play with.
They were never super easy, even later on when you carried alts through for attunement, certain pulls can just be a pain. Like no matter how much gear we have, the trash before hakkar is still annoying fi that comparison makes sense?
Just dont let nostalgia let you think they are harder then they actually are.
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General Issues:
- Trash is almost always more dangerous than any boss, and the trash is dangerous because of a lack of control due to groups being unaware of them coming (Durnholde, stealth adds) or not knowing what they do (cleave, AoE pulse, aggro drops, etc)
- The few dangerous bosses that exist were largely due to how quickly they could kill people (Murmur’s explosion for example) which again was due to lack of knowledge or expectation of it happening
Specific Points:
- Mana Tombs is actually a fantastic dungeon to do as all the packs are very straight forward. What people really hate about this place are the wyrms (they explode on death), the Stalkers that gouge (turn your butt to them), and the caster mobs going completely uncontrolled. Combined with its unpopularity since you didn’t need to do it on Heroic for any quests, that’s the only reason why people balked about this one.
- I don’t get why people insisted on so much skipping in Slave Pens when many of them require you to wait so long to get the patrol to go by that you might as well just kill it. Just kill it. It isn’t like you get to rerun the place and if you’re badge farming, you’re having to head elsewhere anyway once you’re done so do it smooth and it’ll be fast.
- What’s funny about Black Morass is that you don’t actually spend a ton of time in there, you just sit around waiting rather than moving from mob pack to mob pack.
- Shattered Halls’ final boss is probably the worst part of the place since his RNG charging can really rip melee stacked teams up.
- Blood Furnace has two bad spots, the engineers and their stupid mines, and those fel guards right before the end. Everything else is pretty standard stuff but people remember the wipes, not the cleared stuff.
- Magister’s Terrace is really not that hard, it is the most polished, but it isn’t that hard. Folks are more likely to wipe on the PvP-lite boss than Kael.
- Arcatraz is definitely the hardest to learn since every pull is unique (or every room is a new set of trash) and is very healer intensive.
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Basically every heroic has its own wipe causing Hazzard.
Example, mana tombs wipe hazard is mana itself on many of the trash pulls. A lot of mobs burn mana there and can oom your healer fast, it also has a good amount of damage so CC is needed unless you outwear it. Interrupts are important on the mana burning, don’t aoe down the mana wyvern or they will delete who they are next to if multiple die at the same time (unless you kill them with a kite strategy so noone is near them on death, example frost nova when they are low get everyone away and kill them, or hunter frost trap and have melee run out as ranged finish them, exc)
A strong group for heroics would be a tank (bear warrior or paladin, all work) mage/lock, rogue/warrior, hunter, and healer (lots of options). I personally prefer the bear tanks with a mage and rogue. The extra CC helps a lot early on instead of trying to power through it, bear inervate can recover healer mana nicely, and hunter (when played properly) is able to adapt to any conditions, even taking trash packs that have heavy hitting immune to CC mobs and kiting it away as a form of CC while pet still deals decent dps on the kill target. Then FD MD it back to the tank, or even saving intimidation to stun it (even if immune it generates the aggro) and kiting it with pet this time if more time is needed, then pet dies resetting aggro back to healer and hunter pulls it off the healer as it’s running back to kite it a 3rd time and having FD off CD again. And many other tricks a hunter can do.
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I have a very biased memory of TBC heroics, since I was going in on my fresh 70 reroll belf holy paladin (arguably the worst healer for heroic dungeons), whose gear was awful because of having to start at 1 when everyone else started at 60.
I’m sure they will be a lot easier this time around, even if I decide to go holy paladin.
Not being able to kill the Resto Druid Blood Elf boss in Heroic Botanica because (A) unorganized and (B) ur gear sucks lol is pretty LOL.
Heroic Nethermancer Sepethrea is <3
Were they as hard as Throne of Tides Heroic in 4.0?
Cata Heroics were a fair bit harder overall than TBC Heroics.
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They kind of vary in difficulty. I remember Heroic Shadow Labs, Heroic Shattered Halls, Heroic Black Morass, and all of the Tempest Keep Heroics being pretty tough if you didn’t have a cohesive group.
First, you have no idea if or when we are transitioning to TBC. Second, nothing will be difficult because people already know exactly how it is all done. It is OLD content that people have had years to learn.
We’re transitioning to TBC.
/giggle
Difficulty is a relative measure here, and TBC Heroics are a fair bit more difficult than most raiding content is presently. Oh and 99% of us haven’t been playing theft servers endlessly to master all of this content. Nevertheless, nothing in WoW is particularly hard once you’re aware of the expected requirements. Stand in the right place, maintain your rotation, manage any unique mechanics as needed, these sum up 99% of what everyone does at all tiers of content. All that remains is a cohesive plan or strategy to make it work together, and those are no longer a mystery.
We’re no better or worse off than some guild coming into Mythics 4-5 months after the World First kills have happened but still before the next content update, all the addons have been updated, all the kill strategies and videos posted, etc. Unless you’re the first up, you’re following someone else’s script as best as you can.
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Having knowledge and using knowledge aren’t always the same thing. Plenty of people will find content difficult for numerous reasons. There is a reason not every single lvl 60 is 15/15 in naxx right now.
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Can you show me where Blizzard has confirmed any such thing? No, right? You are assuming.
I played TBC, the heroics were somewhat difficult at first back then because players were far worse in those days. Most people understand the concept of interrupting and such now. Back then 2/3rds of the game barely understood what a rotation was.
Retail is vastly harder than TBC ever will be. Retail raids are vastly more difficult and retail dungeons CAN be vastly more difficult because you can choose to do higher and higher level keys.
The most difficult thing in a re-released TBC will be arena - and that is also people because already know the best spec’s and comps. Welcome to endless resto druids, SL/SL warlocks and every arms warrior and their brother with a stunherald.
It has ALL been done before. People already know what to do.
Petulant skepticism isn’t a becoming trait.
That’s nice, so did a vast number of other players, but it doesn’t change the relative difficulty change from Vanilla to TBC, or the requirements. It will still be harder than any 5man in Vanilla, and harder than most raiding in Vanilla as well.
…and? None of this refutes anything I said. Whether you’re doing a Challenge Mode Dungeon or a Mythic+ Dungeon or a Mythic Raid or anything else… it comes down to the very same thing in every single case: practice and memorization of PvE steps you take to succeed. Every role can be parred down to a handful of lines of requirements and duties.
…so like when TBC was live? Okay.
Right.
I’ve already said as much. You’re doing what is known unless you’re a World First.
This is going to be new content for tons of players. I’m sure it will be challenging and fun for most.
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I remember Heroics in the earlier days breaking most PUGs, but not so much in good guild groups or people used to playing together properly (& knowing how to use crowd control in one form or another). My personal guild groups navigated most heroics pretty smoothly back then by one of us (usually me) being a versatile dps/heal capable character that could switch roles/gear as needed, as the pull/encounter warranted. Most PUGs had the strict 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps mindset & it made certain pulls/encounters extra difficult by not having any flexibility. I also remember some creative Hunter kiting & Priest Mind-Control on certain trash pulls making them a lot easier to manage, especially when you weren’t over-geared for the dungeon. But, as gear levels improved to the point of being better geared than what actually drops in the Heroic, it removed the need to be as tactical & flexible. On the flip side, going into Heroics back in those days while under-geared was usually a recipe for a one/two-shot dead tank & such.
Heroic dungeon difficulty is quite subjective based on what sort of tank you have and your ideal comp varies. From my PoV as a pally tank this is my take on it.
Hardest dungeons.
Arcatraz- Everything hits so damn hard, those felguards are absolute monsters and the succubi are no joke either.
Slave pens- This one is purely gear dependant. If you can survive the pull outside the first bosses room then its cake.
Slabs- Again stuff hits damn hard and the second boss can be a cakewalk or a disaster. Murmur can be problematic with the wrong sort of healer or a meelee heavy group.
Durnholde- This is just a dungeon I dislike more than I find actually hard. It’s annoying as hell to deal with Thrall being in a wheelchair most of the time.
Medium tier.
Most of the TBC heroics fall into this category.
Cakewalks.
Mechanaar,Slave pens,Ramps,Sethekk halls.
These are the dungeons you could hit up first for your heroic badges until you can get enough gear to deal with the others.
All heroic dungeons require players to have a basic understanding of their class and a modicum of gear. This can be bypassed alot of the time with Crowd control but isn’t 100% essential. Whats needed more is people knowing what they need to do IE NOT dispelling on the packs that gouge in mana tombs or stunning every lightning first cast from the big robots in mechanaar.
If I had to compare them to mythic + i’d say the cakewalks are around a 2-4, Medium dungeons are about a 4-8 and the harder dungeons are 8-12 when undergeared. Comms + better knowledge of the game will either prove me wrong or it will prove me right.