Guide to WOTLK Heroics - which to do, which to pass for now

[Arcdelad]

I want to preface the following by saying EVERYONE experiences things differently - what may be EASY or HARD to me, may be the opposite to someone else. This guide is meant as my opinion and not as absolute fact.

A lot of people are hitting 80 now and jumping into heroics - which is the RIGHT thing to do...heroics in WOTLK are really the level 80 dungeons, and there is no need to run things like Halls of Lightning or Oculus ad naseum BEFORE going into heroics like you had to do with shadow labs and such in BC.

The following are my ranking of heroic instance difficulty - this is my guide to new 80's on which ones you can jump right into and have success VS which ones are going to frustrate the hell out of you until you are better geared. Again, experiences may vary - this is my opinion, and you may think "WOW...he thought that was hard/easy?!?"...so be it =)

Any heroic should be done with a strong tank and a strong healer - I can't stress that enough.

EASY HEROICS

• CoT Stratholme - if you arent going for the bronze drake and have to run it super fast, this is a very easy heroic
• Utgarde Keep - no huge differences from the non-heroic, they just hit harder. Unless you get a bad smash from the last boss, this heroic is cake.
• Gun'Drak - right now you can exploit the first boss by sitting in the water, and the others are fairly easy.

MEDIUM HEROICS

• Nexus - fairly easy, and great for rep, with the exception of the heroic only boss that can one shot charge clothies and whirlwind all melee to death, AND the final boss which enrages and hits the tank pretty hard at the end. The final boss is also class dependant - druids and pallies can get out of the freeze really easy for example, while locks and such cant.
• Violet Hold - depending on which bosses you get, it can be super easy or super hard. Once you learn each of them, though, this place is fairly simple.
• Drak'theron Keep - some unique boss kinks, but overall a mild instance.
• Halls of Stone - the trash and bosses are easy - except the event with the dwarf can be super challenging depending on your group makeup (or if you dont heal him...hehehe.....), and the last boss is also very challenging, but not quite as hard as Loken in HOL

HARD HEROICS

• Halls of Lightning - this isnt HARD per se, but the last boss Loken is tough until you have a group that figures out movement very well. The first boss can be challenging as well.
• Utgarde Pinnacle - the hard part of this heroic lies entirely with the Skadi boss, which is a pug killer for sure, but is also challenging for even the best groups.
• Azjol-Nerub - it starts rough with the first boss and its unrelenting waves, then ends with a boss that isnt hard, but takes a LOT of paying attention to.
• Ahn'Kahet - IMO the hardest heroic dungeon - the bosses are harsh, there is a ton of trash, and the last boss is frustratingly challenging, especially with a good healer (for a trick, equip some crappy weapons when he casts his nightmare, then re-equip your good weapons when you are fighting the clones)

Special Mention

Occulus - I dont like this place....some people say its way easy, others its way hard...the bosses themselves are challenging, and the final boss requires some kind of gimmicky siege weapon mechanics to beat and has nothing to do with how well you worked on your charachter...

[Trismus]

Occulus - I dont like this place....some people say its way easy, others its way hard...the bosses themselves are challenging, and the final boss requires some kind of gimmicky siege weapon mechanics to beat and has nothing to do with how well you worked on your charachter...

My thoughts exactly. One trick is to go for the [Amber Void] achievement. Using three green drakes and two red drakes was pretty easy, you just need to make sure you alternate which red is tanking well i.e. when red_01 gets low red_02 uses his damage absorption ability, and visa versa.


This will take a while, but the red breath destroys the adds in short order, then you just need to be on the ball for phase 2 when the balls spawn.



-Tris

[Docsamson]

Violet Hold - depending on which bosses you get, it can be super easy or super hard. Once you learn each of them, though, this place is fairly simple.[/li][/list]

Last night I ran this with Khader, Panz, Nasanna, and Haderach.  We got the Arcane mini-boss, Xevozz.  He is a giant, giant, GIANT pain.  We actually gave up on him after a few tries, because seriously, we were burning bosses down in ~30 seconds in UtKeep, and Xevozz just hosed us.  We learned a few very useful things though, and any other hints that our other heroic runners have would be appreciated.

• The Orbs that the boss summons must be kept LoS.  If they're in LoS of the group when they cast their summon, you get dragged to them.
• You cannot touch the orbs.  Touching the orbs stacks Arcane Buffet, increasing arcane damage taken.
• You cannot be summoned by the orbs.  Getting summoned means an instant hit with Arcane Buffet, and as you're moving away they do a 1500/sec AoE.
• (Theory!)You can't let the boss touch the orbs.  When he touches the orbs, he gains a 150% damage increase.  Since this is all Arcane damage, unless your tank is stacking Arcane Resist, you're pretty much done for when his Arcane Blast and Volleys hit.
• You can't LoS/outrange the boss.  The Arcane Barrage Volley (the one that hits every group member) fires 1 bolt for each member, whether they're in range/LoS or not.  If your group is either, someone takes multiples.  So, even if you gimmicked the boss around a corner so the boss is LoS from everyone but the tank can still be healed, he'll end up taking all 5 bolts for ~4k damage each if he's at 0 stacks of Arcane Buffet
• The Activation Crystals (little red things on the wall) can be used to a decent effect on him.  They hit for 13k damage, though, so be smart about it.  While you're kiting him around and dodging LoS on the orbs/him during the summoning phase, might as well hit one if it's on your path and you wouldn't be DPSing anyway.  However, if you're breaking 1k DPS (which you should be!) it's not worth taking the time to run to them and activate them.
• The orbs can be slowed by Grounding Totems and Thunderclap (presumably).  Other slow effects probably work, but most of them would require you to be in range of the orbs, which seems to be 8 yards or so.  Freezing Traps can freeze them, presumably Frost Nova can as well.  Your best bet for them is a Shaman or a Hunter for the traps/totems.  The totem can be dropped when you first engage him to nab the orbs, same as a trap.  Repeated applications can be done as you kite him.  For a hunter, you could try your luck with Freezing Arrow and immobilize one, or you could use your Frost Trap and nab both.
• It appeared that he summoned progressively more orbs as the fight went on, but we never really got far enough to prove it.  The first spawn is 2 orbs, the second one looked like 3.  I'm assuming the third is 4 and so on until he dies or you wipe.

If anyone has any corrections or additions, please post!  I'd like to not feel like an idiot the next time I run into this guy.

[Arcdelad]

I pugged the instance once with a really good group, and one of the guys there showed me how to do this well - since then ive one shotted him every time and I dont fear him at all.

Start by letting the tank garb him with initial aggro and pull him up the stairs to the left of his entry spot to that landing...sit there and wail on him until the orbs spawn, which spawn towards the middle of the room and towards that ramp. ALL group members need to be behind the tank the entire fight - they need to stay ahead of him as he kites this guy.

The tank needs to wait for the orbs to start towards him and up the ramp before kiting, or else the orbs may not go up the ramp you want and will take a different path to get to you. Once you ensure that the orbs are going up that left ramp, just kite him backwards accross the top platform, again with the raid staying ahead of the tank. Somwhere near the other side hell teleport everyone and you just do it all over again. A good group will kill him before the port, or almost immediately after the port.

Now the water guy.........yeesh....

[Vengeance]

I just finished quite a few heroics all meant for the achievements inside them. Hardest amongst them was the Chaos Theory, in which you had to kill Anomalus (big arcane-looking guy) without killing the rifts. Someone asked me to post this specific one...It took us 3 tries to find this strat out, and was done without a mage's Dampen Magic, much as it would have helped. The trick is to kite him back. By the time we were nearly at the bottom of the 2nd platform leading to his own, we killed him, with dps in naxx gear and me tanking. We avoided many, many of the adds, and the fight became infinitely easier. The tank must be the last one to go down the ramp-that way the portal's bolts will only hit you, not the rest of your party.

A similar achievement is the Elder H-something guy in Old kingdom-kill him without killing the guardians. The rest of the party showed me the trick...pull him back to the 2nd platform from the entrance. For some reason, over there, the guardians will not come which makes the fight easy as hell!