I am really pumped that they lowered the rep for heroics to Honored it will really help us casuals out a bit.

I’m a little put off by the Rep requirements lowering for heroics. It takes a little less time (marginal) to find someone to run a heroic, but more often than not I’ve seen someone not geared enough to run a heroic get added to the party. And then boss fights get painful. Even for a well geared tank or healer. The worst situation is when you get a tank and or healer that doesn’t cut the mustard.

Uncrittable tank is a must, and the healer needs +1200 healing bare minimum (if the tank is fairly well geared, and willing to burn his badge of Tenacity, Lucky pocketwatch, or Charm of Alacrity cool down often).

Who ‘knew’ it’s ‘new’.

Lol, whoops. Forgot to edit before submitting. Good eye GrammarNazi!

I can totally see what you mean Coloquialist. Heroics are almost impossible with undergeared level 70s. My biggest fear is finding tons of level 67-69s in LFM looking for heroic runs because they’re honored…

Me too, I agree with Coloquialist. Even for some of the hard non-heroics under geared l70s are still not good enough, and will result in wipes. That is why I give up the raids and only do PVP or AH runs.

How do you make a tank Uncrittable? Any pointers?

A tank is uncrittable when they’ve reached 490 defense. This is because raid bosses and some elite raid mobs are level 73 and in order for a mob to have the minimum chance to crit a tank (which is 5%), the tank needs to have a defense equal to that of the mob’s level (which turns out to be 365 defense). Now that the tank has an equal level of defense as the mob does crit chance, the tank needs to get rid of that 5% chance all together. Every 25 defense reduces the chance to hit and crit and increases the chance to dodge, parry or block by 1%. So, in order to add 5% to your dodge, parry or block, you need 125 additional defense. This puts the tank at 490 defense (365 + 125 = 490). So, 490 defense makes you uncrittable by level 73 mobs.

Hope this helps wowpanda.

I’m a casual, newly minted 70, and I’ve noticed it’s harder to get into normal 70 dungeons because everyone is trying to run heroics. Most of the groups I join eventually just convince the PL to make the run heroic and we never get further than the first or second boss.

I still need my key frag from Shattered Halls DAMMIT!

Key frag from Shattered Halls? You mean Steam Vaults??? That’s where the 2nd key frag for the Karazhan Master Key quest is. It’s in the water just before the first boss, not hard at all to get. Then again, if everyone’s doing heroics… maybe it is.

I will agree with the under undergeared portion thats why if I feel I am undergeared I will tell people. Now I have never run a heroic but I know I am undergeared, so don’t expect to see me in heroics anytime soon.

A note on uncrittable for druid tanks:

Feral Druids have a talent that reduces the percent chance of being hit, or critically hit by 3 %, meaning they don’t need as high of a defense. Defense rating for Druid Tank to be uncrittable is 420.

Defense rating also adds to total mitigation as well. (not sure on the numbers however). So don’t stop at 490 (or 420) and assume your ok. a tank with defense rating over uncrittable dodges more attacks.

Mitigation > Soaking damage any day of the week.

Thanks for that comment Coloquialist. Totally forgot to mention my fellow druids. That’s a common misunderstanding that, as a guild leader, I get all of the time. I’ve had warriors claim that they have better gear and stats than feral druids just because the numbers are higher. They don’t realize that the two classes are different and need to be calculated differently.

“I have 480 defense and the OT druid tank only has 465.” Drives me nuts. Our MT (who is a warrior) has over 510 defense (had more at one point, upwards of 560 but it was a bit unnecessary, so we had him take a lot of him gems and throw them into stamina. He’s sitting at 17K with only a few buffs) and all I ever see as a healer is “dodge, dodge, dodge, parry, dodge, block, block, parry, dodge…).

Ever since this new patch, running a heroic instance as a more than casual player is nothing short of a nightmare.

I won’t even bother grouping with someone I do not know now. I have run several instances in hopes of getting the pvp cloak and a few other things since 2.3, and ill tell you its a nightmare. I swear 80% of the people i end up with must either be 5 years old or so incompetent they should go back to pac-man.

Before 2.3, the ratio of good to bad players was much better. Now it’s just awful, and completing a heroic instance with people you don’t know is a waste of time, and money on repairs. Yeah, blizzard has made the game better for casual players, but for the hardcore ones its a disaster lately, between this and all the non raidable loot that is nearly equal to that of those who spent all the time figuring out the high end raids.

You do have a valid point P

I guess I feel into this page at a bad time too. I have been trying to grind badges since 2.3 whereas before I didn’t feel any need to. In the last week I have had nothing but bad experiences putting groups together unless I can get all players that I know. Countless wipes due to really stupid things, slow paces and bad dps to name a few — it’s just that I have been playing for a long time and been with some high end guilds, and I expect things to run smoothly wherever I go.

Before 2.3, I got away from pickup groups for some time after I geared myself out. I must have forgotten that it always will be the same generally speaking. It just kills me when It takes 2 hours to complete heroic mech and 35g in repairs (I wear all epics).

It’s not that I think the ratio of good to bad has shifted, I just think you have more bad players coming out of the woodwork and getting into instances they are undergeared and unprepared for.

Yeah Athodor, I atempted a heroic HFR and it was horrible. We had an undergeared tank and rogue. The mage and lock I was with were all in epics (as am I) but it was bad. We downed the 1st boss but wiped horribly on the pulls to come. I’m not sure what this new drop in rep requirement holds for us in the future, but atm it’s not helping at all, just wasting time.

PUGs. Ugh. Just typing that acronym gives me the jitters. I’m one of those casual players that this patch was designed for. The problem is, my guild is largely a raiding guild that has Kara pretty much on farm status. I’ve been there a couple times now and gotten my T4 head piece. The rest of my gear is bought from the various faction quartermasters. I have quite a few epics and pretty decent stats, especially when fully buffed. The problem is, my guild never does heroics. Never. If it ain’t Kara or Gruul’s (or ZA, which seems to be the flavor of the month), it doesn’t interest them. So I have to PUG. And I refuse to lower my intellect to such a level that I have to explain tanking duties when I’ve never played a warrior before for someone wearing gear from Deadmines. It’s sad, really.

The changes were meant to be good. And, by and large, I think they are. But without the proper support from some knowledgable players, it’s a slippery slope to nowhere.

Sorry to hear that Arren. If I were you, you may want to consider finding yourself a spot on a Kara team. Now that the badges drop there it’s the best place to get a lot in one session. I got 6 badges last night from just 3 bosses. Easy way to pick them up. Good luck to you.

Our did a full Kara clear on saturday in 3.5 hours! 22 Badges FTW!

We’re going again tomorrow!!

Can’t Wait!!

I’ve had good and bad experiances with PuG’s personally!

Just the other day a RL friend of mine wanted to get his kara key and had only done the first 2 quests from outside kara, so we found a group for Shadow Labs, cleared it quite nicely with only 1 wipe on 2nd boss, then we asked if the other 3 wanted to do Underbog, Arcatraz, and Black Morass and they were up for it!! It was a real pleasure! All 4 instances cleared in about 4/5 hours! It was brilliant!

Its a rare find to get a PuG that works, but when it does…best feeling in the world!

People who say stuff like “PuG’s give me the shivvers…” Do you do any BG’s? They’re all PuG’s!!!

Wow.. you sir, are lucky. That’s quite impressive about your guild clearing kara in 3.5 hours. It’s obviously possible but there aren’t a lot of guilds that can say they have done it. And for your dang PuGs… I don’t know if I should be happy for you or loath you, lol. That’s insanely lucky. I’ve never, ever heard a PuG story like that. Gratz to you.

Oh dont get me wrong i have been in some truely appauling PuG’s before now!!!

As for kara, we’re 50% through SSC, so most of the guild have full t4, and then some….so kara’s a walk in the park now!

Yeah, I hear you. Must have just been a good night

And I can see now why Kara was such a breeze. Good luck to your guild on finishing SSC! Then again, how many pieces of the Badge gear will actually help your raid? If most of you are in T4 I’m sure there can’t be a lot.

I have had a lot of good and even more bad PUGs, the best I can say is grit your teeth and get on with it, add the good players to your friends list and make a note of the poor and annoying players. Since I have been levelling up and mostly playing a healer I can usually shape the mould of a group, most of the time I can even say ‘kick so and so’ and it will be done. Once you can pull together a group of good players things go much more smoothly.

OMG, I ran a Heroic Mech the other day and it wasn’t until we got inside that I noticed the moonkin druid, and the rogue were in all greens… It’s official, I think this honored rule needs to go. We had to boot them and find new people. Was horrible though cause we wiped 5 times before we found someone 2 more members and cleared.