Silly question incoming.
What’s the best way to get started with running the new dungeons?
I wasn’t playing at the launch of Shadowlands. I was playing other games, so I didn’t get that first wave of “Nobody knows how to run this, lets just wing it and figure it out as we go” experience that every new expansion brings.
The experience where you can get into a group and if you wipe nobody really cares because you’re still learning the dungeon, and nobody knows what’s going on.
A month an a half in though, I think people would be back into their old toxic WoW community ways of “Get good” and “crappy player is crappy, get out!”
I have a L60 now, and I want to do the new dungeons, but I don’t really know how to just jump in without being slammed for not having done that dungeon yet.
Should I just go into a normal as a dps and keep quiet and learn as things go?
Should I tell people that I haven’t been there before and hope they don’t kick me immediately?
Should I go in as a tank, which is the spec I actually want to use, and hope that people are cool with a tank that doesn’t know where he’s going?
Thoughts? Ideas?
Edit: I don’t know that I’m a huge fan of watching 30 minute Youtube videos just to learn a few boss fights, for every single dungeon in the expansion before doing them.
Watch dungeon guides from HazelNuttyGames, it takes like 40 minutes once and you’ll be doing these dungeons for two years
Get slammed for mistakes and don’t care, they’re just randos on the internet
Do small keys in completion groups to practice and don’t invite geared people who will kill bosses so fast you won’t get to see their mechanics
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Tank Heroics and M0’s.
You won’t know what you’re doing at first, but that level of content is forgiving enough that it won’t really matter.
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If you are dps, then go as dps. Just queue up. You may get a bad group, but overall you will get the experience and learn the fights and can progress.
My first time running Necrotic Wake, we had about 15 -20 hooks get thrown before we figured out the boss mechanic. It’s just normal, it’s rather forgiving.
After you get used to normal and get the gear, then go to heroic, then mythic 0, etc…
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The thing is, I know how to play my character. I’m a pretty decent tank, and know how to tank. I just don’t know the mechanics of the fights, or even the direction to walk to get to the next fight. lol. (Getting Waycrest Manor flashbacks)
Then tank. Not knowing the fights won’t hurt too bad in normal/heroics.
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Plus you’ll get a fast queue.
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We all learned by playing.
Hop in as tank into Heroics. Do a few. Then do M0’s
It is okay to say you are “newer”.
In Heroics, read fights in the UI. Get DBM/Small Wings addons. It basically tells you want to do.
Ask for some directions and you will learn pretty quick.
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Never head of “HazelNuttyGames”. I just looked her up. Looks like really short videos for each dungeon.
That’s great. Thanks.
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Queue for normals until you get the idea of what is going on and then as you gear up go heroic and then apply to mythics. At this point regular dungeons leave plenty of room for learning. When your high enough to join LFR your high enough to join regular mythics.
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Either one of these will be fine. The expansion is new enough where, if you Q up in a normal dungeon, not much will be expected of you. If you Q up as tank, as long as you can hold aggro, you’ll be fine. But, don’t be surprised or frustrated if people who have ran the dungeons 50 times start rushing through. It’s just how it goes. If you run normal, you will likely get paired up with people who are leveling their 2nd, 3rd, 4th alt. Not saying it’s right, just giving you a heads up to prepare you.
While you are running to each boss, open up the dungeon journal and read the summary page (if you can multi task). It’ll give you a very brief description of what your most important job is in your role for the boss. It’s usually like 2-3 bullet points.
Once you do each dungeon once or twice, you’ll have it down. Just hop in and get going, imo.
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It’s Normal. Just don’t stand in bad stuff. Target skull. No problems.
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Sips Back in my day we used throw the unversed players into the wolf den and let them figure out themselves. sips Yeah brother I’ll tell you what. We actually had to complete mini-dungeons before starting the real thing. And it took us like a two hours or so, to get there! sips Now I don’t know about these methicc ploses, but son sometimes you gotta sprint before you can walk.
If you’ve already got the baseline knowledge of how to tank, then learning SL dungeons won’t be anything new.
They haven’t fundamentally changed how dungeons work and I know that people like to think pugs are the boogeyman, but in my experience a simple “first time tanking this dungeon, anything I should watch out for?” usually doesn’t raise too many eyebrows.
Routes are even easier. If a dungeon isn’t completely linear, then you’re going to end up at the same destination in roughly the same direction. The only thing that comes close to Waycrest is the MotS maze, and that’s just a matching game.
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Start a group and call it learning group. Please be patient and have fun.
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Thanks guys, you’ve all been a big help.
I guess I was just mostly concerned with the toxicity that this game’s community is so well known for.
Gender change and tell them you’re a girl
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TBH the communities “toxicity” is completely overblown. Most people are fine, but people just like to remember the one jerk they get every 10 dungeons or so because they stick out.
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My experience in the last two expansions has been that people either don’t talk at all. Even if you ask them questions. Or they’re yelling at you and telling you that you suck. lol.
People don’t expect anything from DPS. So if you wanna squeak your way into a few dungeons to get a lay of the land that is probably a good call.
Tanking is tough in this xpac, at least when you don’t have any gear… but if you wanna learn the content there is no better way to do it… cause you can bet your DPS isn’t gonna know what to interrupt and your healer probably won’t know what to dispel. It’s gonna be on you to learn that stuff so you can survive the trash mobs. Lots of tank buster mechanics in Shadowlands.
I’d just say DPS a couple normals then swap to Tank and zerg out a whole bunch in LFG till you kinda have an idea what is going on, then work your way to heroics, and then start finding a guild for mythic 0s so you can talk in discord and go over strats/laugh/have good times.
You’ll end up in some groups where its a huge struggle bus cause nobody does any damage and it takes forever for mobs to die, which makes it way harder to stay alive through some trash pulls. Sometimes you’ll end up with a random 210 player doing like 10k dps on trash and you’re gonna struggle to hold aggro off them. Sometimes you’ll end up in a group with a healer who spams some super inefficient heal that only heals you for like 1.5k until they run out of mana and you all die horribly over and over again… but you’ll be a better tank for having experienced it haha.
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