After 4 days, 21 hours /played at level 70, I finally reached 350 on my base defense. Damn that took a long time.

Now I just need to get my Earthwarden. I've had a tough time getting groups to run CE instances (hUB, hSP and/or regular SV). I wonder if I get a small group (say 3, tank, healer, dps) we could just clear trash in the front half of SV over and over. There's quite a bit before the first boss. Plus a few Coilfang armaments.

Just a thought...

What I did is run dailys and buy Coilfang armaments. Its an option...

What I did is run dailys and buy Coilfang armaments. Its an option...I've been thinking about that. I need ~129 armaments to get to exalted. Last night there were 2 in the AH. Might take a while...

Combine AH purchases with an occasional hUB, hSP or SV run and I just might get there before the next expansion is released.

My very, very casual guild seems to be so Heroic-phobic (except for a few) and since no one really "needs" SV any more, it has been difficult. About the only folks that need SV anymore are hunters trying to get to revered (though if you do it right you can get there with just quests) for their fancy arrows.

BTW, which one is easier? Heroic SP or Heroic UB?

Both can be difficult depending on your group make up ... UB can be a bit easier but is longer ...

I wouldn't either unless I had some CC. Like a good hunter (don't laugh they do exist) rogue and/or mage. Though, now that I think about it, a rogue and mage won't help too much as I don't recall too many humanoids.

Heroic Underbog is fairly easy.

Heroic Slave Pens is the easiest instance in the game imho.


-Annikk

I ran hUB over the weekend. We did well. A couple of wipes, but they were due to bad pulls (or fears) more than anything else. However, I was very lucky in that...

We had an excellent (gear and skill) healer (priest)
2 hunters that both knew how to chain trap. Which meant I rarely had to tank more than 1-2 mobs.
A shammy that was geared well enough to off-tank caster type mobs in a moment of crisis (though sometimes he'd have a multi-crit fury at the beginning of the encounter that would get him killed.:grin:)

I'll try hSP sometime. I had heard hUB was easier (the bosses were certainly easy enough [at least with the group I had]) so that's what I did. I'll give hSP a try this week. Plus hSP drops Coilfang Armaments (according to wowhead), but hUB does not.

The few times I had to tank 3 mobs (the netherrays seemed to be immune to the traps), I was able to hold them for 10-15s before one would breakfree. But the primary target was just about dead at that point, so I'd just chase it down.

One question about breaking CC. Say, you've killed all non-CC'd mobs. So, you run over to a CC'd mob and smack it with Mangle/Maul. Sometimes they'd still (due to a miss or too much threat generated by the healer??) take off for someone else. So, I started opening with Mangle/growl. But later I wondered if I could have use growl before I hit Mangle. This happened most often to the last mob (who had been in at least 2 ice traps, if not 3), so I expect the healer was well at the top of his list. Any thoughts?

It's sometimes a good idea to use growl before breaking a trap. The reason for this is that Hunters typically distract a mob into the trap, and the mob retains that aggro on the hunter. A well-intentioned paw in the face to wake them up often isn't enough to make them forget about the arrows they were just swallowing.

The mechanic of growl means that by taunting first, you then put yourself at the exact same aggro level as the trapping hunter. Then you can use mangle, maul, lacerate, etc, to build upon it from there.


-Annikk

That's what I thought. I was concerned that growl would not affect a mob under CC, which means I'd have to do some attack and then growl. So, if growl does affect CC'd mobs, then growl followed by some attack is definately the ideal way to break CC.

i must have been lucky as i never had a problem finding people to run normal SV for my CE rep and Earthwarden.

ran it and ran it over a period of about 3 weeks to get exalted.

for heroics we've started running heroic SP a lot and dont find it to difficult - we're a small grp of 4 of us who play together a lot and just need to add 1 'other' into the mix - usually from a person we know rather than a total stranger.

now i never really ran SP normal so cant totally comment on differences but none of the bosses seem difficult at all in heroics ?

its more about getting your CC right on the 4/5 mob pulls and being able to cope if CC breaks.

we've been running it with a druid tank, mage, holy priest, lock and then one other - hunter if we can get one.

and yeah the coilfangs drop in heroic SP and either help out with someones rep or sell nicely on the AH :)

Good luck getting Earthwarden.

i must have been lucky as i never had a problem finding people to run normal SV for my CE rep and Earthwarden.It is a timing thing. Finding folks to play some of the older instances can be difficult (no one really needs the gear that drops). No one needs SV for the fragment anymore, only a couple of classes need CE rep. And most only need to get to revered (which you can do from questing alone).

That's why I've been pushing for hUB and hSP. At least you get badges out of the run while you help someone get CE rep.

Regarding hUB vs. hSP, from what I've read (and from the above posts), it seems like hUB might be easier than hSP. There are only 4 pulls in hUB and most of those have 2 casters (easy kills). The bosses are quite easy. Plus you get 4 badges rather than 3.

hSP has those defenders which sound like they hit really hard that come in pairs. Though I guess a good hunter could take one of them out. And 5 pulls.

The hardest part of hUB is the double pull before the first boss. Those guys hit kind of hard and can't be CC'd. But using misdirect and/or allowing the tank to get some agro before DPS'ing (and healing) does the trick.

Only 7K 'till exalted. I'm hoping it happens within the next month or so. In the meantime, I'm buying every coilfang I can get my hands on.

So, if growl does affect CC'd mobs, then growl followed by some attack is definately the ideal way to break CC.

It certainly appears to affect CC'd mobs. I think as long as you hit them while the growl debuff is on them, it should be ok :>


-Annikk

hmm might need to try hUB then soon.

we tried hSV last night and had trouble although it was probably not a good pug with 2 hunters, 1 who wanted the other to trap as he was not very good at it ? !

so when the priest went for dinner and a hunter got d/c and never came back we decided to call it quits.

we seem to have hSP down quite well now although it can get interesting with the 5 pulls.

7k does not sound like too many runs at all at exalted tlbj ?

7k does not sound like too many runs at all at exalted tlbj ?It is not. But I'm lucky to get 1-2 CE rep runs a week, so it will take some time. Almost had a hUB run last night, but couldn't find a healer. Plus I've been buying Coilfang Armaments off the AH like crazy. I'm sure the AH folks are going to start noticing that I'm paying 150%-200% market value for them soon. Which means, I'll start to get really ripped off. But I have well over 1K gold and nothing else to do with it (already have epic flight form). I figure the 4-6 dailies I typically do will pay for my AH addiction. :D

yeah the daily's are very good for getting some money to allow you to indulge in some AH purchasing of overpriced goods.

i got sooo fed up grinding primal lifes / waters to make my Hood of Primal Life that i ended up buying a few. the waters on my server are 25-35g each and the lifes seem to be going that way to :(

i usually manage 10-16 daily's so nice cash bonus.

7k is probably 4 runs max at heroic level so a couple of weeks of pushing people and you should be there :)

Got exalted Saturday night! Had a group that was willing to run SV twice. Gave my armaments to another Druid and bought my Earthwarden. Had the +35agi enchanted added Sunday.

It provides a bigger boost to my stats than I would have thought. +200AP and now my exp is at 10 (-2.5 dodge and parry). Both of those ought to make a huge difference in my threat generation on trash pulls.

lol tlbj - so it did not take you 'some time' only like a week :p

Gratz.

lol tlbj - so it did not take you 'some time' only like a weekOnce I focused just on obtaining CE rep and was willing to go PuG it wasn't as bad as I thought. If I would have stayed in-guild it would have taken much, much longer.

yeah my runs were all myself, a guildie and then 3 'others'.

not a bad place to run on normal though.

now i keep looking at that 150 badge staff reward and wondering if its worth saving for !