Random Daily Heroic: Deadmines - 4/22/11

Today my random daily heroic was Deadmines on Wranngar. This dungeon can be kind of tricky if you have a bad group or a group with too many people that aren't familiar with it.  

We had a decent group though so we didn't have many problems. We got through the trash ok then had one person die on the first boss. You have to watch out for the wall of fire, it really hurts. This fight can be tough on melee fighters because you have to be so close to him when the wall of fire is centered on him. We got him down anyway without any problem.

We cleared some more trash and made our way to the next boss in the workshop. We had no problems in there, we cleared the two trash mobs, killed the boss' lackey, then killed the boss.

We cleared the trash from there to the foundry. The foundry is where things can, and usually do, go bad. We "converted" the mobs down below then engaged the boss. As usual we fought him on the ramp. As a melee this can be a tough fight because of the AoE's he does. I made sure to run away every time I saw him casting one of them. The tank died at one point but I battle rezz'd him with 100% health and got him back into the fight. We got that boss down without any more deaths.

We cleared some more trash and made our way onto the boat. Ripsnarl is the first boss you have to fight on the boat and possibly the hardest too. We didn't have any problem with him this time though and got him down. Some people like to tank him inside the cabin there but I don't think that is a good idea. If you tank him inside you have to get out very fast when he dies or Cookie will spawn on top of you and you have to go from one boss fight into another. That is kind of stressful on the healer as the Cookie fight can be heals heavy. I have seen it happen more than once.

We got Cookie out of the way after that and then it was time for Vanessa. We did the nightmares part and lost 3 people in the beams. That can be tricky but it has been a long time since I have died on that part. We got the dead rezz'd and headed in to save the family. It was rezzing the dead that did us in, we wiped on the last mob before Vanessa when the time ran out. When we got back we took down Vanessa without any problem and completed the dungeon.

I got my 70 Valor Points and also won the Chaos Orb which was pretty nice. I did a couple more randoms after that and won one more orb.

Originally posted on A World of Warcraft Blog on 4/23/11

Random daily Heroic - Shadowfang Keep 4/18/11

I had a little trouble getting my random daily heroic done on Wranngar today, they kept restarting the server half way through. I started a Deadmines run only to have it reset half way through Ripsnarl. I started a Stonecore only to have it reset before the first boss. Finally I got into a Shadowfang keep that I was able to finish.

My dps started off slow in SFK, it usually does when I first enter an instance. Once I got rolling it was ok though. By the time we got to the first boss I was in my groove. We got the first boss down without any trouble. This boss can be kind of scary. I can't imagine what people must think when they are in there for the very first time on heroic, especially the healer. The boss does this thing called strangulation which incapacitates everyone and brings their health down to about 1 HP. I remember the first time I did it, I figured we were going to wipe.

We did all the bosses on this run and I got an achievement out of it. On the next to the last boss, Lord Walden, my dps passed 15k which is a personal best for me on Wranngar. I was a little surprised it happened on that boss as you have to run around when he does certain attacks and that usually reduces your dps.

As I was the only one able to decurse, I had to decurse on the last boss. The last boss has a curse he puts on you called Cursed Bullets. This curse will do a lot of damage if not removed. The last five ticks of this curse will hit for 10k, 20k, 30k, 40k and 50k, hitting you for 150k damage in five ticks. I know I don't have 150k HP to spare or 150k HP for that matter. We got the last boss down without a problem to complete my daily random.

I won the Chaos Orb along with collecting my 70 Valor Points. That enabled me to get my new 359 cloak, Viewless Wings. That cost me 1250 Valor Points. The next item I will be getting is a relic for 700 Valor Points. That will take me 10 days of randoms to get.

Random Daily Heroic - Shadowfang Keep 4/15/11

Today my daily random heroic on Wranngar was Shadowfang Keep.

I ran it today with two other guild members so all we had to pug was the healer and one dps. After a couple close calls on the trash before the first boss the healer told us that this was his first time healing a Cata heroic. With that in mind we headed over to the first boss. Healing SFK can be pretty demanding, especially on the first boss. We made it by the first boss without any deaths though and the healer did pretty well. We cleared the trash in the courtyard and made our way to the next boss without any problems. When you are clearing the trash in the courtyard you will want to pull the large mobs back up inside and fight them there as they fear and you don't want them fearing anyone out into the courtyard where they might aggro other mobs. We got the next boss down, skipped the third boss, and finished up without any major problems.

I won the Chaos Orb from that run and got my 70 Valor Points, only 3 more days until I can get my new cloak with my Valor points.

I went on to run 5 more heroics after that, some with guildies and some that I pugged through the random dungeon finder. I ran one Deadmines, two Blackrock Caverns, one Halls of Origination and one Stonecore. I was lagging in my next to last dungeon which was Blackrock Caverns, and I was lagging so bad in my last one, Stonecore, that I could not get away from the third boss fast enough to get away from his shatter move. In Stonecore we had 4 guild members and one pug. The tank from our guild was really new to tanking and it took him a few tries to get the third boss down, but that is a learning experience, that boss is pretty tough. On the plus side he had the routine down by the time we finally got the boss down. The way I dealt with my lag was I just ran away from him after one of his moves when I knew the shatter was coming in a few seconds.


I had a lot of fun running these with guildies and with the pugs too. I used to think the heroics were really hard but now that I have run them all quite a few times they are pretty easy. Grim Batol can be rough if you don't have a really good group but that is the hardest heroic in my opinion.

Random Daily Heroic - Deadmines 4/12/11

Today Wranngar's random daily heroic was Deadmines.

As soon as I zoned in the screen came up to queue for a random dungeon. I guess someone didn't want to do Deadmines which is the second hardest heroic in my opinion. Needless to say we couldn't queue for another random because we were all on the 15 minute cooldown. They decided to go ahead and see how far they could get and then requeue when the cooldown was up.

We had no problem and ended up finishing Deadmines. It went pretty smooth. We had no wipes and took all the bosses down first shot. I averaged over 10.5k dps for the entire run and only got beat by the Mage in the group who averaged 12k. We had one person leave before we finished but that was ok as he was only pulling 8k dps. He was replaced by someone who was only pulling 7k though but we still made it without any major problems.

We got past Ripsnarl with ease which was the boss I ended up bailing on last time I was in there after five wipes. We took down cookie with ease and Vanessa with no problem to complete my daily random.

I won the Chaos Orb from that run which was fine by me and also collected my 70 valor points for my random daily heroic. I now have 9 Chaos Orbs in stock for when I need them. I am waiting for a friend to get back online so I can make them some 359 gear.

Random Daily Heroic - Halls of Origination 4/11/11

Today the random daily heroic I completed on Wranngar was Halls of Origination. As you might have noticed I said completed. The first one I was in for my random daily was Deadmines. Deadmines is a tricky one and I would say the second hardest heroic after Grim Batol.

I got in to Deadmines right after the group I joined finished downing the third boss, Foe Reaper 5000. I figured it would be a pretty easy 70 valor points, boy was I wrong. I noticed in the very first fight that the tank, a Deathknight, was looking kind of squishy. The Healer had 103k mana using a flask so I figured we would be ok anyway. Wrong again. We made it through the trash between Foe Reaper and the boat without too much difficulty, but when we got to Ripsnarl, the next boss, things went downhill fast. The Healer was running out of mana about a quarter of the way through the fight, which tells me he had very low Spirit/Regen, I ended up innervating him a few times but it was not enough. To make a long story short we wiped on Ripsnarl 5 times before I finally bailed. I was doing 12k dps which was double what the next highest person was doing, we just didn't have the dps to get him down. Funny thing is we came the closest to getting him down on the first attempt.

After I bailed out of Deadmines I requeued and got Halls of Origination. Once again I didn't get in at the start, I got in right after the first boss. I figured that was from someone either getting what they were after off the first boss and leaving or not getting what they were after off the first boss and leaving. This group turned out to be pretty decent and we only took down the bosses we needed to so it was pretty quick too. I didn't get any gear, any upgrades I get from here on out will be coming from raid mobs/bosses, but I did get the Chaos Orb at the end so I was happy. I also got my 70 valor points for the day.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I strongly believe that a 329 item level is too low for a Tank or Healer to be entering heroics. It is too low for a lot of the dps too in my opinion. The bosses in heroics, as well as the trash mobs, have a lot of health and hit hard. Low dps makes the Healer run out of mana because the fights take too long. An under geared Healer is going to run out of mana anyway because they didn't have enough to begin with and an under geared Tank is not going to be able to stand up to the beating required to tank a heroic. If you get a 5 man group of people in a heroic who all have a 329 item level it's just not going to happen.

Buying gear with justice points combined with 333 item level drops from normal dungeons and rep gear can get you an item level of at least 340, why not wait?

Bracers of Some Consequence

After running heroic Stonecore and heroic Deadmines every day for 5 days in a row my bracers finally dropped.

The pair I finally got, Bracers of Some Consequence, dropped off Vanessa VanCleef. The other pair, Elementium Scale Bracers, drops off Ozruk in heroic Stonecore.

They replaced my item level 333 bracers, I got from a quest in Grim Batol, bringing my overall item level up to 348. That also makes 346 my minimum equipped item level piece again.

Now it is time to start raiding for more 359 gear.

Cataclysm Dungeon Hero

I got the Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achievement on my Hunter Brieanna yesterday after completing heroic Stonecore. You earn this achievement for completing all the Cataclysm dungeons at the heroic level.

Recently I replaced my item level 352 PvP bracers with a pair of item level 333 PvE bracers because PvP gear is just no good in dungeons. In doing that I lost a point off my item level but my dungeon score on WoW Heroes went up. Now I am running heroic Deadmines and heroic Stonecore every day, as well as my random daily heroic, to try and get the 346 bracers that drop in there. That will bring my minimum item level back up to 346.

I ran each one yesterday but had no luck, I will try again today when I get on later. I have around a 30 minute queue time with my DPS toons compared to a up to 2 minute wait on my healer. That gives me time to get my Tol Barad daily's done on my DPS toons while I am waiting for the queue to pop.

More Heroic Cata Dungeons

I have been doing heroic dungeon runs with my guild. If you have at least 3 people from your guild in the same run you get guild experience. So far I have healed all but two of the heroic Cata dungeons on my Priest Brieonna. Some are pretty rough and some are not too bad.

It seems we end up in heroic Deadmines a lot more than I would like to. At first it was brutally hard but it does seem to get easier each time. We usually don't have a problem until we are on the boat. Ripsnarl can be pretty tough when the fog rolls in. Cookie I thought was tough at first but the secret there is to eat the food he throws at you to keep your area clear of poison. Then you have the nightmare with Vanessa Van Cleef. The secret to that is to start moving as soon as you find yourself back in the smelting area. Some people have a hard time getting past the laser beams. They say having good Mario skills helps out there but I never played Mario so I just stay to the right hand side and keep my eyes open. One thing you want to remember about Vanessa is she is going to light off a keg of gun powder right as she dies, get away from her, it will kill you.

So far I have healed Blackrock Caverns, The Stonecore, Lost City of the Tol'vir, Shadowfang Keep, Throne of Tides, Halls of Origination and Deadmines on heroic. The two I haven't healed on heroic yet are Grim Batol and Vortex Pinnacle. I am not worried about Vortex Pinnacle but Grim Batol is brutal, I have done that one on my hunter Brieanna.

I guess I will keep plugging along and doing randoms and sooner or later the 2 I haven't done yet will come into the rotation. I run a lot of normal dungeons for loot I can sell to make gold and make quite a bit doing that.

Heroic Cataclysm Dungeons

I recently switched guilds on my Hunter, Brieanna, and Priest, Brieonna. The reason was my old guild just wasn't doing anything. I liked the people but there were only a couple of us that were actually active and I wanted more from a guild. I wanted a guild that runs dungeons, heroics and raids together.

Within 20 minutes of joining my new guild I was healing heroic Lost City of the Tol'vir on Brieonna in a guild run. I went on to heal The Throne of the Tides that night as well.

Lost City of the Tol'vir went really well considering it was only the second Cata heroic I ever healed. I didn't lose anyone until the last boss, Siamat, and I ended up dying and losing a couple others. We did finish it though and it wasn't a wipe. I got the achievement for that one.

Right after that we ran The Throne of the Tides because one of the guild tanks was after a trinket off the second boss. That one wasn't as smooth but wasn't horrible, we wiped a couple times but it was a learning experience for me who had only done it once before on normal on my Hunter. We did finish that one too, and I got the achievement.

Last night they wanted to run another heroic and I agreed to heal. I didn't realize it was a random heroic and we ended up in Deadmines, the last place I wanted to be. This is another dungeon I had only done once on heroic and then it was on my Hunter. Unbelievably it went really well until we got to the nightmare, things went down hill from there. We wiped a couple times but got through it and I got the achievement.

So far that is 4 of the heroic Cata dungeons I have healed and completed including Stonecore. I still need to get my base mana, 77,202, up a little higher. I would like to get it over 80k base. On some of the longer boss fights I do OoM but not always. I have really been working on not over healing to conserve mana and it seems to be paying off.