Not so much when the /trade crowd spends hours riffing on “mount me, bro” jokes. When the novelty wears off, I expect it will mingle with the “anal (item link here)” and/or Chuck Norris/Murlock crap.
Harry Potter and the Mount Me Bro
Tranquility is awesome, both as a resto and as a balance. It doesn’t really cause as much aggro as DPSing – only problem would be if adds spawn right when you are casting it, so don’t worry about that. If you see more than 3 people below 50% health at any time and are in a spot where you don’t have to move away from in the next 7-8 seconds, please use it. It can easily save the day.
As for 85 heroic dps, I just ran a normal Halls of Origination in my ilevel 329 healer gear and did between 5k and 8k on various bosses. So if Balance is your main spec, I’d say that’s the bare minimium you should be able to do. It’s my secondary spec, my gear is filled with fairly useless spirit and that was the first time I’ve done a dungeon as Balance dps in 1.5 years, so a “real” DPSer should be able to do better. Though, my gear is at least enchanted to gills since I’m an enchanter myself, that helps a bit.
I think that there will be a bunch of numbers that go into deciding who’s a good DPS:
1.) Damage done versus DPS (12k the entire five-minute fight is better than 18k for 30 seconds).
2.) Damage taken.
3.) Survivability (how often you die compared to other players).
Absolutely. I certainly wouldn’t drop it at the start of a pull, but once a tank has aggro, if the whole group is down on health, go for it!
81 numbers in Wrath gear isn’t going to tell you much. The way your ratings convert to actual numbers (Hit, Crit, etc.) as you progress from 80 to 85 takes *massive *leaps. I think I’ve actually seen very good, experienced DPS doing less damage at 85 than they were at 80, just because their gear isn’t raid-ready yet (e.g., off caps because it’s not worth Reforging/chanting something you’re going to replace in a day and there are no gem slots).
I would say that this absolutely matches my experience. The regulars are pretty easy to faceroll through, even when people aren’t paying attention. The Heriocs are unforgiving if your tank, healer, or DPS are undergeared or don’t respect the mechanics of the fights. Both of the failed Heroics I was in were with people who were “friends and family” rank, extra-guild friends, or cross-realm PUGs; the very successful and smooth H-BRC clear was all-guild and all-raiders.
A lot of the problem right now is that people are trying to run Heroics as fresh 80s. I know I was eligible to queue the second I dinged, with a couple of Wrath epics and a few Cata greens still mixed into my gear. If you give people a bit more time to get the best Rare quest rewards, rep items, and JP items and BoEs to fill the gaps, and they’ll be performing a lot better.
God, I hope they’re not running as fresh 80s.
You know, I made that mistake at least five times and corrected it. Guess I missed at least one. :smack: I blame having been awake for over 24 hours.
Stupid question: I got my priest to level 84, and during that leveling time, saw a few dungeons like Blackrock Caverns pop up on the specific dungeons list of the Dungeon Finder. I saw them become unlocked as I found them. Now at level 84, they’re gone, and new dungeons are listed. I haven’t run any Cata dungeons yet - where did those old dungeons go, and can I still random into them with the completely random option?
That’s one of the things that is causing the healer OOM problem, I think. Healers have been drilled into thinking that any time the tank (or even DPS) isn’t topped off they are failing. That just isn’t the way it works anymore - the healer just has to keep you at a level where you won’t die (which obviously varies from fight to fight and even within a fight). I think it’s a much better model than the “TOP OFF OR DIE” model, but it will take some getting used to.
I know I’m loving finishing a heroic fight and seeing every damn person at like 30-50% health - it actually feels like we fought and won.
Yeah, I could queue within about an hour of dinging - I had to go buy like two rep items from factions I already had the rep with. One hole in the system is that items in your bag count, so my rep tank gear is actually what got me in the door.
There is pretty big difference between ~329 ilvl (minimum required) and having full 333/346/359. When I ran with more geared guild members everything was very smooth, if still not trivial.
It is my understanding that you will not be queued into normal BRC or ToT at 85 (and you cannot queue for them specifically either). They are still included as heroics, obviously (and apparently ToTs is the easiest heroic - haven’t run it because I never found it…). All of the others can be run as normal modes at 85, although I have heard rumors of them dropping as your gear level goes up.
Side note: Oh my god, the new Ring of Blood (Crucible of Carnage?) is insane on a PvP server. You think it’s crazy trying to get things done when all you have to worry about is talking to the questgiver through a sea of other PCs and then making sure you tag the spawn… How about when people are Typhooning you off the ledge and attacking you on the playing field? 
When we first stopped by, we despaired of even trying, because it was swarming with Horde. A few hours later, though, the tables had turned, and we were able to get our party pushed through.
Yeah, I really wish they’d come up with some kind of algorithm so that you could designate a set of gear for each role you want to queue as, and then judge based on that gear set.
I’ve only run normal versions of BRC and ToT so far. ToT seems like it’s a lot harder–more gimmicky “mechanics” to deal with–I really hate those. I have no clue how we killed the final boss. I spent most of the fight in a bubble getting yanked around.
BRC isn’t that complicated, at least from a DPS point of view. Not much in the way of “mechanics”–did I mention how much I really, really hate those? Screw gimmicks, vehicles, everybody hop on one foot with a finger in their ass while singing tutti-fruiti crap. Wanna make a mob tougher? Give it more hp and make it hit harder.
. . .oh, crap, seriously? That explains why I couldn’t queue for Halls of Observance, I think; I still had a large amount of my Wrath gear in my bag. Shiny.
Different strokes for different folks i suppose, but i couldn’t disagree more.
What you’re talking about makes every boss fight like patchwerk, which for me would mean that i have participated in my last raid. (mostly because tanking would be boring as hell)
As far as DPS goes for heroics, with entry level gear, I think lower than 6-8k average per dps would be in danger of having the healer run out of mana. I think this is a realistic target and easily reachable by quest gear alone.
Healer mana and tank survivability scales quite fast with gear, in my experience. For my own experiences as a healer, the first heroics were done very slowly with carefully marked CCs, taking 1 mob at a time whenever possible. After doing a ton of heroics and a few raids my mana and throughput is much better, the tank takes less damage, and the dps are higher so fights don’t last as long, and we could usually chain pull with just one or 2 random CCs per pack.
I agree with you regarding vehicles, in general, but I guess it depends on what you mean by “gimmicks”. If all it is is “tank and spank” then that gets very boring very quickly.
For example, in BRC (at least on heroic), I thought the “stand in the beam, but only till it stacks up to 80 or so” mechanic was pretty interesting. Not that hard, once you figure it out, but at least presents a puzzle at first, and makes you pay attention to something other than your rotation.
Or the last boss in there, I ended up kiting all the adds around while the other folks killed the boss. Necessary? I have no idea. But it was something fun to do, and it worked, so why not? 
Adds, buffs, debuffs, I like them all. I love a good “interrupt this or you’ll die” mechanic - makes sure folks are actually watching the damn boss and not TV. Anything to make the fights more distinct and varies is fun, IMO.
I might be misunderstanding you. As far as I can tell it basically just takes the highest iLvl you have in your bag for each slot. So having low-level gear in your bag won’t hurt you, but having high-level gear you don’t actually use can help.
I do know one person that had the required average level, DE’ed some drops he didn’t need (weapons he couldn’t use, etc) and suddenly he didn’t have the required level anymore. 
Part of me wants to agree with Oak, but then again, it’s a huge rush and a big hit of fun the first time you get a fight strategy right and you win. Tank-and-spank has a place; amongst heavier events, I like to think of it a little rest break with loot and other rewards, or maybe like cleansing the palate.
I guess I can get behind heroics being lightweight raids with less learning curve (because of fewer encounters). The strat for any given boss can be as complex as a raid’s, as long as it’s learnable and not dependent on a class mix you aren’t guaranteed in a random 5-man.
I haven’t gotten my main up to 85, let alone Heroic-land, so we’ll see how it goes.
Archeology question/bug:
Anyone getting flashing green scopes that point you to go outside of the digging zone where you can’t plant the next scope because you’re outside of said digging zone? I tried about 10 times at Dire Maul to get the last item to appear, but I couldn’t get the damn sparkly pot to come up no matter how many times I plant a scope as close as possible to the edge of the zone. This happened twice to me at two different sites. Pretty frustrating.
Does the location of the item reset from day to day so I might be able to finish that particular dig site, or is it doomed forever to be out of my reach like the Holy Grail…“Indiana…let it go.”
On Cairne, there is 2 stacks of 20 Obsidium Bars being auctioned for 300g each (from a toon named “Peco”):
- Buy them! Great deal! Use them! Resell them for higher price!
- Buy them! I will pay you 350g for one stack of 20 or 700g for both stacks of 20! I need those, but I am at work!
I love ToT, although it takes forever–so gorgeous! So many unique bosses!
On the last guy, you want to kill the adds to keep them away from the guy in the middle, and then when you get blown up all big in the last phase, turn and hit the squiddy guy who’s attacking you–and here’s the tricky part–who stays outside the bubble. There will be a spot on the wall where you can target him and hit him.
Chalk me up as another person who strongly disagrees with you. More HP and harder attacks is the #1 way to make a boring fight. There’s no skill involved in getting through that–just picking up gear and mashing your buttons harder. Being able to deal with complicated fight mechanics is the entire point of raiding, especially endgame raiding. And if that’s not what you’re interested in, well, then does it really matter if they’re putting interesting mechanics in dungeons, too? It’s not like you’ll need the gear for anything, since you can quest fine in quest rewards and BoEs, and you’d want PvP gear for PvP.
They reduce healing on the person they’re targeting. Get all of them on you and you’ll get approximately zero heals. So, deadly if they’re on the tank for more than a couple of seconds, especially on Heroic. You done good.
Aha! Is that how it works?
Not I, but I’ve barely made it to 30 or so points so far. Have you tried jiggling back and forth across the very edge of the region? Otherwise, opening a ticket?