Beta Day 2: Exploring, waggling, Hyjal, and Throne of the Tides
I never got back online on Saturday after the 30 minutes I spent setting Rhidach, and had to wait until Sunday morning to do some real exploration of the changed world. Once I got back on that morning, I hopped on my Hippogryph and started touring Azeroth, checking out the more lore-heavy places that were important to my Paladin.
(Sidenote: this entire post might as well be one huge Cataclysm spoiler. If you don’t want to see anything from the screenshots I took, I’d recommend skipping the post. If enough people are trying to stay pristine I’ll start hiding this stuff behind a cut. Though, I didn’t really grab screens of anything particularly important.)
I immediately hopped on a zap to Undercity to check out Lordaeron and the Plaguelands, before ending at the training dummies in Silvermoon.
Flying over Undercity was a sight to see. I was always curious what was behind those massive locked doors in the courtyard (other than the transport orb to Silvermoon) and it’s just amazing to see the sprawling, ruined courtyards and gardens behind and around the citadel.
I then darted off eastward to pay a visit to my bud Tirion in Hearthglen. Looks like the guy has set himself up pretty well since we broke him out of that ice cube. Hell, looks like he took just about all the credit for the toppling of the Lich King and erected a monument to that effect.
If you don’t think that’s vainglorious enough, there’s a matching statue in Light’s Hope Chapel. Tirion, you bastard, we did all the heavy lifting, all you did was a backflip!
After spending a huge chunk of time attempting to work out a rotation (more on that in my next post), I logged off for a bit. While I was gone I had a revelation: just about everyone I know from Twitter was Alliance and therefore Horde-side was going to be awfully lonely in the beta. To increase my chances of maybe doing a few beta raids eventually, I bit the bullet and created a premade Alliance Paladin.
A female Draenei one.
So I did the set up dance with her. She is named Rhydach. Her hips do something funny when she walks. I don’t get it.
Yes, I feel dirty too. But it’s not my fault, Draenei was the only option for Alliance Paladin premades!
On the bright side, since I’m playing Cataclysm on Alliance side, it’ll feel a little fresher once the expansion pack comes out. Rather than if I spent the entire time on Horde side in the beta. In any case, after the set up I spent most of the rest of the day questing in Hyjal. Only took me about three and a half quest hubs to get to 81. Though, I’m guessing 81 to 82 will take a lot more experience.
Soloing as a tankadin was pretty straightforward. We still have a wide raft of abilities, and you’ll generally find yourself using them all except for Consecrate, unless you’re surrounded by a large group of mobs. Health was usually not an issue–I don’t recall dropping under 90% except for a few AOE situations (not being blockcapped/having the old block is a pain) and mana was definitely not an issue. I could Judge every 20 seconds and just about always have a full blue rage bar. It was pretty awesome, but also pretty mindless with regards to our primary resource.
As for our seconday resource, without a specific UI for it, or any addons, Holy Power is a pain to keep track of. I often found myself forgetting how many stacks I had and then having to squint at all my buffs until I remembered which icon was for Holy Power. Annoying, but obviously fleeting. Also, hitting Crusader Strike every third attack is not as huge of a pain as I expected it to be, and I generally had enough HP to keep up Holy Shield if I wanted to.
Of course, Holy Shield is weirdly bugged right now on beta. Sometimes I would hit it and get 45% block, sometimes I’d get 180%, and sometimes I’d get 1.5%. There was no consistency to the buff. I usually just used HP to pop Word of Glory after every mob and top myself off.
(Another sidenote: this is how I was specced at 81. I retrospect, I wish I diverted the point from PoJ and the two from E4E and put them in Divinity. I’ll explain why shortly.)
The Throne of Pain!
So the good news is dungeons require a lot more thought in Cata than they do in Wrath. The bad news is a normal dungeon was about as difficult as a TBC heroic. At least for now, I’m guessing it might be a bit overtuned (just going on a limb here).
I was in there for 90 minutes, and we only got the third boss. And I died 13 times. Sometimes instantly. That place is like a sopping wet meat grinder.
Every instinct in my body was telling me to attempt to tanking all the mobs, and yet as soon as I had two of one kind of mob on my, I would die. Or a wave of murlocs would rush past me, intent on eating the healer (they were tiny and dangerous, like Rot Worms on steroids) and so I’d pop Holy Wrath to aggro them all, and then break CC. Which would then release the mobs that would pulverize me into a fine paste.
Once we worked through the gauntlet hallway we eventually made our way to the first boss who at times felt almost like a raid boss. She has a channeled lightning attack that will do some serious damage to the tank (like around 18000) if not interrupted. She also had two “down” phases where she’d retreat into this whirlwind and three adds would come in the room. The casters would immediately need to be CC’d and the melee add picked up and burnt down. Then one at a time kill the casters before the boss re-aggros. Once we got the hang of it, it was an easy kill.
Huge change of the pace from the tank and spanks of Wrath!
We then ran back to the previous central room where a new boss suddenly appeared. We just ran in and pulled him, and I was promptly one shot (45k damage) by a channeled attack he did. Note to self: run out of it. That must have been a fun surprise for the healer.
The second go we dropped this guy, though it was getting a bit hairy towards the end as he kept giving me a move speed debuff curse, which then almost led to me getting caught by the one-shot attack. To be fair, I think the healer didn’t know I needed a decurse, and I definitely didn’t have the dexterity to type out “HALP” while running out of a Dark Fissure.
About at the 90 minute mark we cleared up to the third boss and got an attempt in, but by that point one of the dps had to go and the group fell apart.
Overall it was a pretty intense dungeon, though I’m sure it’ll be easier once Cataclysm comes out. There’s not way they’ll leave an entry dungeon that overtuned. That said, I really like the design that I encountered in there: I have the threat to tank all the mobs, but if I try, I’ll go splat. I like having to use some CC and think about pull execution. Though this makes me mourn for the kinds of pugs that would bang their heads against such a design on live.
Just to speak a little about threat–I didn’t find I was having much of any trouble with it. I know this is level 81 and an entry-level dungeon, but single-target threat was easy mode. I don’t think I ever dropped on under 100% threat on a mob I was intentionally tanking, at least according to the stock UI. After that run I think I have a much, better handle on the new “rotation” which doesn’t seem as counter-intuitive. But, like I said, I’ll talk about that in my next post.
Survivability on the other hand was tenuous at times. I don’t know if it was the healers or if I was doing something wrong, but it felt like a raid at times where I was three hits away from death. If I was ever tanking more than two mobs I’d chain cooldowns and ride a stream of invectives to victory. It was seat of your pants in there.
Lastly, I have a log of the dungeon run if anyone is interested. There was a hunter, mage, fury warrior, and resto druid in the group as well.
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@hazmacewillraid
2 August 2010 at 10:04 am #
“And I died 13 times. Sometimes instantly. That place is like a sopping wet meat grinder.”
God, I cannot WAIT for these dungeons! Seriously, PvE has been touted as the “easy mode” of the game, with scripted encounters and boss mechanics. It’s about time Blizzard stepped it up and provided a challenge to their more dedicated players.
@hazmacewillraid
2 August 2010 at 10:05 am #
And by that, I mean OTHER than all the hard-modes in raids. Yeah, I definitely thought that comment all the way through…
Antigen’s last blog ..Change Can Be a Good Thing
Isn’t throne of tides the second dungeon?
Wouldn’t that make it 81-83, while BRC is 80-81. So is it possible you were just undergeared/underleveled?
@Rhidach
2 August 2010 at 10:38 am #
All the mobs were either 79 or 80 elites, and the bosses 81. I think I was appropriately leveled for it.
But you’re right, BRC is more “entry”, I think that’s 78-80.
Either way, I blame the random dungeon finder.
SO since you now betrayed us Horde, I am waiting for you to say “Pop Hero” in a riad so we can bust on you like we do Ana.
Whew, I hope the dungeons gets scaled down a bit – if this is normal mode, they would be really brutal on Heroic. I don’t relish the thought of spending 2 hours in H:MagT again.
And welcome to the Alliance. :P
saif’s last blog ..A bit of a break
Given the twitch I’ve developed hearing my little belf snap “NOT ENOUGH MANA!” at me… it’s going to take me a long damn time to get bored.
LabRat’s last blog ..Classical Metal
@Rhidach
2 August 2010 at 1:19 pm #
If I recall correctly, the only time I was close to oom was after a rez. They’re probably going to have to tone down regen a bit.
hey, GZ on beta.
was wandering how does holy shock functions now? any use for it as prot?
ty
@Rhidach
2 August 2010 at 1:18 pm #
We don’t have it as prot anymore, you get it for speccing holy with the other bonuses.
@Orthien
2 August 2010 at 4:34 pm #
Welcome to the blue side Rhid.
By the sounds of it I better start working on breaking my habbit of running face first into two or three packs now.
Orthien’s last blog ..Build of Block and Shields
When I first tanked that instance, I died a few times too. I also died to the first trash pull. It includes two healers (you’d have noticed) who has to be CC’d/stunned, or you can’t kill them.
I also had very low health, quite a few times. I had no single-target threat problems, but also had AOE tanking issues.
(I have put up youtube videos of me DK tanking this and Stonecore fyi, look for pwnwear channel).
Again, good to have you in there testing it!
gravity’s last blog ..Tanking changes for Paladins- I’d like similar for DKs
@Rhidach
3 August 2010 at 8:08 am #
Yeah it didn’t help that the dps kept trying to focus down the melee rather than the healers.
Totally going to check out your vids right now, thanks!
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/26262867468/discusion-on-holy-power-holy-shield/
Some interesting discussion cropped up today, about Holy Shield and SHoR. Worth a look. =)
@Rhidach
3 August 2010 at 8:05 am #
This stuff always comes up when I’m gone for the day!
Remember, one of the goals for Cata is for the healers to NOT be able to fully heal everyone. They expect tanks to be at less than full health for some time during parts of fights. Which doesn’t mean you are not correct about this being overtuned, but it is something to keep in mind.
@Rilgon
15 August 2010 at 10:35 am #
I didn’t find I was having much of any trouble with it. I know this is level 81 and an entry-level dungeon, but single-target threat was easy mode.
You must be doing something that no other tank in Beta is doing then, because I can’t NOT pull threat for the life of me.
Rilgon Arcsinh’s last blog ..Once More- With Whistles