Our First Heroic. Do Mages Just Suck?
Heroic Slave Pens. Why? Because it’s there and for Badges of Justice. We looked at the BoJ Gear and saw one or two pieces that are kinda nice. Ring and a cape, if we remember correctly. Although we’d rather run Kara than Heroics.
BM hunter, protection warrior, some kind of rogue, holy priest, and a Aggro-Grabbin’ Fire Mage. Yeah, you know the kind. Whatever that spell is they cast that crits and grabs aggro on the first hit, this guy wouldn’t stop. We took down two bosses and called it a night due to the heavy repair bills we suffered because we wiped so many times. It wasn’t our tactics that were bad. That silly mage got himself killed every other pack and, when his sheep broke, it murdered the priest immediately and that was it.
Over and over again. Sheesh. But anyway.
Can Hobbes off-tank in Heroic Slave Pens? Yes. Can a BM hunter trap in a heroic? Yes. Do the trash mobs hit a lot harder? You’re d@mn skippy they do. We were never one-shotted, but we did take a beating.
As you may have noticed, the posting has been a little slow. This is, of course, due to our WoW Insider column being run today. We wanted to make it offensive, but not offensive; a delicate touch was required. If we recall correctly, we called everybody a, “…bunch of tree-climbing, bed-wetting communists.”
Also, we’ve been chatting with another blogger and having a total blast.
We’ve had stacks of emails at the BRK Center for Malfeasance and Inappropriate Corporate Behavior. We think we’ve send a reply to them all, but if we missed you, “Hello!”. The email questions shall soon become some nice - we hope - blog posts. Now’s the time for ‘em as our next column is a whole seven days away.
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23 Responses to “Our First Heroic. Do Mages Just Suck?”
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I’ve had the same experiences with some fire mages. I had to ask one to stop using pyroblast in Underbog, because he’d use it on his sheep when we were finally ready to kill it. Needless to say, a pyroblast before the tank grabs the mob makes things pretty sticky. I just hit revered with my first faction (KoT), and I haven’t run any heroics yet. If it’s like I hear, though, being mindful of agro and providing adequate crowd control is the key to a smooth run.
Last night, I met up with some people to do those Ogri’la quests. We didn’t have a tank or real healer (only a balance druid), but we had 3 hunter pets and a lock pet. We actually managed to take down grulloc, though. After the pets died, I made a point of pulling agro, popping deterrance, “tanking”, popping readiness, popping deterrance, more “tanking”, and finally feigning death after the second deterrance expired. I actually took very little damage during it, and it gave the other hunter and lock a chance to res their pets and bandage up.
I’m not condoning melee hunters or real hunter tanking, but it was interesting to exercise some of the versatility of the class. I basically bought our group 20-25 seconds of free dps, pet res, and cooldowns. On that fight, it was all we needed to finish the job.
Oh! Also found a Jewelcrafter making Necklace of the Deep. Apparently this is a new recipe with the patch, and JCers can get it from the trainer. It goes for 40-50g on my server, and is great for hunters if you like having sockets to customize your stats:
Necklace of the Deep
+21 Agility
+20 Stamina
Red Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +3 Hit Rating
I think SM is the birthplace of many a bad aggro manager. I was tanking SM Armory last night on my resto druid, so I was already gimped for aggro as it is. We had a shammy and pally both trying to pull and maintain all the aggro on themselves. On the rare occasion the mage was able to sheep before the pull, the pally would Consecrate everything in sight and the shammy would chain lightning pull, regardless of the priests’ mana level (and nevermind that idiotic whirlwind axe - there’s something about that axe that makes pallies think they’re invincible).
While we got through without any deaths (mostly because I was overleveled for the instance and the priest was great), it was painful to think about how these morons would consider their skills superior because they made it through safely, and how they would mostly likely carry these same tactics on to higher level instances, where they’ll be the cause of many a wipe.
you ever get to the point were you ask your self if its worth $15 a month for wow + 30 a month for high speed inter net just to log on and spend an hour looking for a run just to log off and go play fable….
Adrus
“…chatting with another blogger…”???
WTF??!!??
Has Amanna been replaced so quickly and apparently with so little remorse?
Could it be that Damh got jealous of all the attention (and sporeling snacks) being poured onto Hobbes? Naievely, I thought Mrs. Damh took care of that department, but I’ll send some Deviant Delights home with Hobbes the next time he stops over.
Wait a flippin’ minute. Hobbes hasn’t BEEN over in a while… I be they think they’re too good to hang around with druids now. “I got my WI Column and my Cafepress bling-bling, what do I need to hang around with a stinking Night Elf Druid for anyways??!!??”
Well, just in case, I’ll leave the mushroom light on outside the treehouse for you…
Amanna
I myself ran heroic slave pens the other night. My party was a feral druid tank, a fire mage, me (MM hunter) another MM hunter and a holy priest. Let me tell you now, if you don’t understand how to trap well as a hunter, you are missing out on a HUGE part of the class. We had sheep, two freeze traps and for the five man pulls towards the end, we had the druid cast hybernate on those nasty ray things as a method of pulling.
We tried the final boss 3 times but eventually had to call it because of respawns
Our first attempt on him saw him down to 3% before he critted the druid and spewed slime before the priest could save him. You know how some of those really big bosses can be kited around? Yeah… not this guy. After our first loss to him, the druid that you rescue at the end died. So the next two attempts weren’t as close as the first due to the insane nature damage. Other than him, we did not wipe on a boss 
We did however have 4 wipes through the whole instance not counting boss 3. Ironically, we made it to the final boss in 2hrs 15 min. Not a bad run at all.
Some advice to those of you who have not run a heroic. There are a few crucial things to do. First of all, you have to have a kill order. Every single person (minus the healer) should be focused on the same mob at the same time ALWAYS. In SP the only exception to this may be the guards that come in twos which cannot be ccd in any way. I believe there were only two sets of them. They hit so hard that our tank could not hold both at the same time. So what do you do with a mob that cannot be ccd or held by the tank… well you leave it to a hunter. While freeze trap doesn’t work, frost trap does. Take aggro, frost trap, run far at range, frost trap, run past towards group and feign beside tank. By that time first is dead and tank grabs aggro. A thing of beauty. Along the same lines, I am constantly amazed at how many people are unaware of how to assist a friendly player. LEARN THIS. Click on your tank’s portrait, push the F key and fire away once 3 sunders have appeared. If everyone does this, no one grabs aggro on extra mobs. Very easy, very reliable. Just don’t attack TOO quick in case your tank is cycling targets atm. Make sure you’re attacking his primary target. Second thing for heroics is that CC is indeed king. If you don’t have enough of it, you’re in for a rough ride. In places like SH I love warlocks who are good with fear. In many battles, the excess of elites makes fear a valuable tool if used properly. Also, the aoe pulls in SH makes warlocks high on my list of classes for that instance. Third for heroics is that yes, many of you will be one shotted. So don’t draw aggro. And to expand on that… I’m not calling you to question Dahm… well yes I am. My pet has 12.5k armor and 7.5k hps buffed. My pet cannot off tank in heroics except as a sacrifice to make sure the priest doesn’t get hit. Certain mobs in heroic SP hit the TANK for 1200-2000 and he had 19k armor and 14k hps. How long is your pet really lasting? I think to any of you readers it’s an injustice for you to believe your pet will be able to offtank in a heroic. Not to mention, when your pet dies, and he will, that’s some nice random aggro for a clothie to receive. Pet should only be on dps duty on the primary target in a heroic, nothing else. Be ready to turn on growl in a pinch and send him dashing to save the priest until he can hit that fade, but that’s all.
All in all, herioc wasn’t bad with the proper organization.
I know this post is getting long… but hopefuly you guys are still reading it. As to the mage issue. Yes they draw aggro. But the first question is this. Is your mage waiting for sunders? If not, tell them to. If they don’t listen, kick them. Simple. Now if they are waiting for sunders and still drawing aggro? One of two things can be done. Either wait for a full 5 sunders, or don’t use your most powerful spells until the mob is at half life. The tank builds aggro throughout the fight just like any class. I’ve hit 40k aggro in kara with my warrior. But we can’t do it in quick bursts at the beginning. So all you have to do as dps, is not take aggro in the beginning. The longer the fight goes, the easier to NOT draw aggro onto yourselves. 5k criticals don’t mean crap if all you hit is one before you die and then the group is without your dps for the next four mobs.
Heroics are fun. It’s good to have a challenge again.
don’t know how to edit my post >_<
On the part where i mention warlocks being good for fear in SH. That’s true, but the point of that statement was that fear is NOT good in heroic modes. Because one errant mob that comes un-feared can one shot someone in your party.
We fully expected a “/sniff” at the end of Amanna’s pout.
Amanna, as we all know, has turned her site into a veritable commune with writers and backup writers and AAA farm-writing teams. Hobbes may visit on occasion, but no longer gets the individualized attention of which he believes he is entitled. It’s not wrong, it just is.
But, in an effort to keep the Good Vibes flowing, we at BRK will soon promote a “Have a Druid for Dinner Day”! How’s that grab ya?
…
I think to any of you readers it’s an injustice for you to believe your pet will be able to offtank in a heroic.
Allow us to be more specific, then.
There are certain mobs that our pet was able to successfully off-tank. Level 70 casters were what we off-tanked and Hobbes received heals.
Could our pet off-tank a melee mob solo? Absolutly not. Could our pet off-tank a melee mob for more than 10 seconds even with heals? Probably not, but we didn’t try.
We don’t wish to lead anybody astray, here. Thank you for expressing a valid and concerned opinion.
Awesome, it says a lot that you responded that quickly to this. I agree that you probably could indeed hold a caster for a little bit if recieving pet heals though I still don’t recommend making it a practice. Generally, I will mark a caster as a primary target because of how quickly they go down. I was just concerned that our fellow hunters would go try to count on offtanking… Cobra reflexes is a nice thing to have for offtanking casters also. Claw plus CR is devastating in pvp and is useful in pve. Also… have any of you NOT taken avoidance? If you don’t have avoidance on your pet… please… slap yourself hard, then go respec your pet. And I mean that with a whole lot of love
Just about every L70 mage that belongs to Kargath’s Death & Taxes is pure Fire. Given the guild’s success, its mages must be do something right? What could that be?
The mages in Death & Taxes most likely have…
patience.
I have been truly amazed by the damage that a mage can put it. That said, we all know that such damage must be used judiciously. As zemulos said, knowing when to pour it on is critical. I’m pretty sure Damh, when asking “Do Mages Just Suck?”, was referring to the players and not the class itself.
Do mages suck more than hunters? I’d say probably so when it comes to agro management. Hunters learn early about the benefits of letting their pet keep agro (or at least they should). Hunters ALWAYS run with a tank. I’d say the chances of mages getting to 70 with no concept of agro control are much higher than a hunter managing it. Sure, we see melee hunters, but most of us pick up on the fact that you kill faster and with less down time if you let your pet keep the guy at a distance.
/snort
/shifty eyes
/slink away
Mage just throwing in his two cents here.
Until heroics, I never really had an opportunity to party with many other mages. I agree that some mages can’t control aggro, and we really don’t have the aggro/threat reducing abilities of say, hunters or rogues. (Invis is fun, when it works. But it’s really more of a preventative ability than an “O Sh**” button.) However, I’d be hesitant to say that mages don’t learn about aggro management as well as hunters.. I’m sure a lot of that comes down to individual play style though (solo v. group).
That being said, there are those of us that take pride in our CC/Vending Machine abilities the same as BRK. If I’m alive, I can almost guarantee my sheep will still be baa’ing until he’s ready to be tackled. Likewise, I’m more than happy to throw some Warp Burgers or Sporeling Snacks at a decent hunter (yup, I take my food and drink vending seriously, and I even DPS sometimes too).
The Heroic SP group I usually go with typically has a Prot War, Shadow Priest, Resto Shammy, MM Hunter, and me, the Arc Mage. Our runs go smoothly, and surprisingly enough, the job of handling the Defenders (those non CCable mobs) falls on me, not the hunter. However, we’ve yet to keep Naturalist Bite alive. He likes to take a mad dash for my sheep after the first mob is down.
-Siv
Congrats on getting in to your first heroic Damh
From what I had read on the interweb here and there I had thought that heroics were going to be really tough, but having run my first couple over the weekend I have to say that I didn’t think they were really stunningly difficult. Let me give that comment context: if you run with a crappy group you will do badly whether in normal or heroic mode. In heroic you just die more often and more quickly. If you have a good group though with people who know how to play then it’s fine. Mind you I say this and I’m yet to run a heroic S-Labs or Shatt Halls or BM.. ::shudders::
I do have a ‘hunter victory’ story to tell though. The first heroic I ran was Mech. I joined a PuG composed of people I had never run with before at all. Initially the group had wanted a Lock as the final party member but ended up taking me about which several party members where somewhat hesitant. Long story short I chain-trapped, tank pet assisted, squishie protected my butt off and by the end of the instance I had changed everyones minds about taking a hunter instead of a Lock
The rest of the group was DPS shammy, healadin, warrior tank, and a mage. 
A mage who knew how to manage his aggro
I play with my partner who is a Lock and I often dig him in the rib s about his aggro management (ie when he draws aggro on runs) - but as a team we are the CC mofo-ing masters
Mages don’t suck. It is the players themselves. A fire mage is just as effective as a frost mage or even *gasp* a BM hunter. If a fire mage is running heroic instances and still doesn’t understand that lobbing giant fireballs for the first hit will pull aggro, he probably shouldn’t be there in the first place.
Having leveled a fire mage alt to 26 I can shed a bit of insight on the pyroblast thing. Pyroblast is FUN, and in solo PvE it’s how mages open. It’s a 4s cast so the only time mages can use it solo is to open on a mob, and then perhaps a second time after they’ve Frost Nova’d the mob and run to distance. In my experience at that level, Pyro knocks about 1/2 the health off any equal-level nonelite mob, and you finish with a fireball and a fireblast.
When mages who solo grind/quest get into groups it’s hard to forgo that initial Pyroblast that is both so habitual and fun. Good mages will of course control themselves and throttle their dps accordingo their threat meter, but it sounds like you grouped with one a little less than good.
Currently I’m only a 42 Hunter on my main, but I do also have some experience with mages over-aggroing. One of my friends in real life is a fire mage, and he likes the big PyroBlast opener. He also doesn’t wait for others to be ready to get the next pull done.
However, I will be getting him a threat meter in the near future so that he can actually see what he’s doing to the aggro.
While I don’t party much on my Hunter, I do expect to be doing a lot more on my Healadin alt (who’s Level 13 at the moment) and I think I’m going to be making it mandatory that all people who do instance runs with me have KLH Threat Meter.
I’ve found this nifty little addon very handy even just leveling up, as I can keep an eye on whether or not my pet can keep the target.
Anyway, gratz on your first Heroic and on the column. Been reading for a while, and I like your style!
First comment…
I second the comments made about fire mages. My main is a Priest and I’m constantly nagging them - fire mages- about their agro management. Good players (of all classes) learn to manage their agro or they find they don’t get invited and fire mages are no different.
My alt is a 36 Hunter and I quested with a 42 fire mage the other day and whilst I talked strategy - we were fighting 38-41 elites- he just blasted away. Kitty saved his bacon more than a few times.
Pssst… just a heads-up: heroic Slave Pens is where you can pick up the quest to start your Serpentshrine Cavern attunement. Just an fyi.
If I’m not mistaken, the quest giver is either right before, or right after, the first boss.
Oh and also… there’s a trinket you can buy with badges that’s pretty nice as well. As for the hunter-friendly necklace from the same vendor… a quick Attumen clear will get you something comparable.
Yeah, we got that quest now that we think of it. Woot!
I’ve been a reader for a long time, but it’s my first post here, so I’d just like to say it’s a great blog. The information here helped me no end when I was levelling my hunter alt to 70 and I continue to read for the pure entertainment of the writing style.
My main is a 10/48/3 raid specced fire mage. It’s not the class, or the fire spec that sucks… It’s purely the players. A sensible fire mage will open with a few ‘Scorch’ against elites. It’s our least damaging fire spell and it also stacks a fire vulnerability debuff. Even then, a scorch crit can pull agro if there isn’t at least one sunder on the target. Threatmeter is our friend and invisibility is our saviour.
I’ve got 8k health (raid buffed), which is respectable for a pve mage, but I get “one-shotted” by most of the elites in Kara. Extremely careful agro management is a must.
The ‘Lol-Pyro zomg XXXXk crit, kekeke mages’ aren’t a fair representation of all of our class. Just like melee hunters with fiery weapon enchants do nothing for the image of hunters.
People who do the pyro-opener thing are usually under the deluded impression that other classes will be in awe of their supreme power. Something that most of us get over after a couple of SM runs. Just kick them out of the group if they do it.