Rate the Heroics!

[Bolty]

The heroic dungeons just aren't balanced. Patch 2.1 might change this, and it might not. If you're looking to farm badges fast, there are certain heroics you attack first. This might be why Blizzard implemented short lockout timers on the heroic dungeons to prevent repeated farming.

If you had to rate the heroic-difficulty dungeons from easiest to hardest, what would be your order? First, I'll list them in alphabetical order, bolding the ones I've run by now:

Auchenai Crypts
Blood Furnace
Caverns of Time: Black Morass
Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde
Hellfire Ramparts
Mana Tombs
Sethekk Halls
Shadow Labrynth
Shattered Halls
Slave Pens
Steamvault
Tempest Keep: Alcatraz
Tempest Keep: Botanica
Tempest Keep: Mechanar
Underbog

If I had to rate the difficulty of the ones I've been on, I'd list them as so (easiest to hardest):

Slave Pens
Tempest Keep: Mechanar
Steamvault
Sethekk Halls
Hellfire Ramparts
Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde
Caverns of Time: Black Morass
Blood Furnace
Mana Tombs
Shattered Halls

My view of Mana Tombs may be a bit skewed since it was the first heroic I ever played all the way through, so there was a serious "wow" factor at how hard the mobs hit. On the other hand, I ran it with some of the very best-geared players on my server and there wasn't enough DPS to keep the end-boss' adds from overwhelming us at the end. Pandemonius will tear a tank to shreds if they don't pack a ton of shadow resistance.

Hellfire Ramparts is up there a bit simply because the end-boss has too many insta-gib moves.

The bog lords in Steamvault are more scary than the bosses. It's as if Blizzard just decided to put in a damage multiplier straight-up for all heroic trash, not taking into account how that creates imbalance for some of the really hard-hitters. A trash mob hitting your tank for 10k followed by an aoe damage doing 2-3k a tick to all melee? Uh, yeah.

I think most are in agreement that Shattered Halls is the nastiest of the nasty; especially the ogre boss. I solo healed that with a CC-heavy ranged-heavy group (me the priest, hunter, mage, warlock, warrior), which definitely makes it a ton easier. It's still evil, especially if you're shooting for completing the Trial of the Naaru (think 45-minute Baron run on steroids). Like most heroic instances, getting sneezed on kills me (thanks for the priest armor nerfs, Blizzard), so the aggro is touch-and-go. I challenge anyone to complete that Trial on their very first attempt. If just one of the five characters isn't a fantastic, well-geared player, you have no chance. Finding out there was a boss at the end of the archer hallway was a nasty little surprise. "Uh, that's a boss? I'm oom..."

Black Morass is a heck of a DPS check, as predicted just from observing it on normal mode. Your DPS'ers will need to use heavy consumables unless they're really decked out in raiding gear.

Blood Furnace is another "trash is harder than the bosses" instance, with those fel guards that hit plate for 8-9k. Sure it's healable, but not without the healer pulling aggro and getting insta-gibbed for 21,000+ damage. Kite, kite, kite.

Input? Anyone run the heroics I haven't listed? I hear Skyriss at the end of Arcatraz will shoot beams doing 8k damage instead of 4k, but it seems to me having 2 healers makes it fairly doable without much stress. You're screwed with just one healer, though. Underbog's final boss is a nasty one, from what I've read, and the bog lord trash pulls before it can 2-shot any tank in less than a second (knockback + crushing). Finally, I've heard that in Shadow Labrynth, the felguards can hit plate for 12k, and Vorpil has to die before the second teleport or else he starts summoning voidwalkers in ultra-speed mode. Sounds like fun. :)

I haven't heard jack about the Crypts. Does anyone even bother in that place?

So for those new to heroic instances or thinking of getting their feet wet, I'd recommend the Slave Pens or Mechanar. In the case of the Slave Pens, the bosses there work almost exactly the same as they do in normal mode, and you just need to take it slow and careful on the trash. For Mechanar, the free tokens you get from the 2 mini-bosses will get you started on your heroic token collection, and you'll learn some new tricks along the way when fighting the bosses.

-Bolty

[Delc]

The only one I have attempted and failed to clear was Arcatraz. We got the first boss to 78% before giving up. Its pretty much a straight SR check, and we failed. Can't speak for the rest of the instance, but I imagine its more of the same (double sentry pull should be fun).

[Lissa]

Personally I would flip OH and BM. BM is easier than OH imo as you have the tokens there to help you if you start getting into trouble on the rift lords. OH is a different story as Thrall doesn't really give you a chance to catch your breath much as we saw last night and the fights up to the final boss from letting Thrall out can be very intense (especially the last wave of dragonkin before the final boss), especially if Thrall doesn't heal fully between fights. Also, prior to letting Thrall out, the lookouts make a lot of the fights for the building brutal as well as you have to down the four guards of each building without having a lookout trip things up and wipe the group.

In short, BM is a bigger DPS check in heroic than normal, but OH is a DPS check, a control check, and endurance check that makes normal look like child's play.

[Tuftears]

Of the ones I've tried:

Tempest Keep: Mechanar - definitely the easiest
Underbog - only doable if you have someone who can CC the swamp elementals, warlock or hunter
Slave Pens - humanoid CC a must
Blood Furnace - real problems are the waves before the second boss and the felguards at the end, but could be easy with a warlock
Hellfire Ramparts - the end fight with Nazan is just insane for healing and the demon boss isn't fun for melee, plus only two badges make Tufty a sad kitty

[Lissa]

Blood Furnace - real problems are the waves before the second boss and the felguards at the end, but could be easy with a warlock

Even with a Warlock the Felguards are a major pita. They one shot anything but plate or people that have huge staminas (like people that PvP Arena a lot which have on the order of 12k+ health). They hit Cloth between 10k and 12k damage.

[Arethor]

The thing with the Mana-Tombs run was that we didn't really have a lot of burst DPS. My DoTs just don't do damage quick enough :D We'll have to go again and own it sometime.

[NuurAbSaal]

My only foray into heroic instances has been a duo attempt on the center protector in Mechanar, which me and a resto shaman got to about 50% before he was oom and we decided to flee, and an ill-fated attempt on Botanica, which stopped after about 20 minutes. We were not prepared. It was my first instance run on heroic and I was baffled at the amount of damage I was taking from the Arcane Protector thingies. I got twoshotted about 4 times, 7.9k + 7k arcane damage in two seconds took me down, Malchezaar tank that I am.

I'm definately going for more heroics, apart from being a gear check you really need to know how to play, I like that. As much as it may challenge the view I have of my own abilities, just raid tanking is simply too boring to do, and we are frightfully overpowered for normal difficulty instances.

I'm going to start with Slave Pens or Mechanar (still need the Shat'ar shield anyway), thanks for the list Bolty:)

take care
Tarabulus

[Lissa]

The thing with the Mana-Tombs run was that we didn't really have a lot of burst DPS. My DoTs just don't do damage quick enough :D We'll have to go again and own it sometime.

So that's why your Succubus is unhappy...you can't burst when you need to and are slow and steady otherwise... :whistling:

[Skandranon]

Arcatraz is honestly not a big deal, pretty easy so long as you skip the first boss. Skyriss does flay for 8k, but if you have two healers that's not a major issue, and Millhouse is also buffed to heroic level and consequently is a much better help in the fight. The double sentry pull on the bridge is reduced to a single sentry on Heroic (mostly because two would probably be impossible). Just don't fight the first boss, clear to the right and go up the ramp. Zereketh at present is just too random with the way he can Seed someone then Nova and hand them 11k+ shadow damage with no opportunity to stop it.

Botanica is tough, Arcane Protectors hit for a ton of Arcane damage. Thorngrin is just impossible right now, clear to the left and skip him.

Underbog is nothing special. Hungarfen plants a mushroom every second, just keep on your toes, no other boss is really challenging. Black Stalker summons adds, but with enough dps you can just burn the stalker down before they become an issue. The only real threat is the bog lords at the end right after Musel'ek; they can combo about 12-15k damage on a tank with knockaway plus crushing if you don't get demoralizing shout up on them right away (and that's not easy to do). Everything else is easy.

Shadow Labyrinth isn't hard, it's just long and stupid, ridiculously trashy. Cabal Shadow Priests mind flay for 2k/tick, so CC them (or better yet mind control). Blackheart and Hellmaw are the same fights, Vorpil has a brief Banish that can wreak havoc if he hits the MT (but he shouldn't). Anyway the summary is that there's just way too much must-be-cleared trash, and that makes this an unfun place to go. Murmur is kind of fun though, but you're generally not in the mood to have fun after killing 120 mobs to get to him.

I haven't been in Crypts either but I gather that it's pretty easy. I should go one of these days.

I kind of find it difficult to rate easiest to hardest because most of the time heroics are pretty easy with one or two really hard things in the middle, and I'm not sure how to properly rate the difficulty of Underbog Bog Lords vs. Blood Furnace Felguard Annihilators; both are things that can even wipe properly prepared groups, and in both cases the rest of the instance you can basically do in your sleep.

That isn't to say there isn't a division between easy and hard heroics. Easy heroics you can do with basically any reasonably balanced group and you can sleepwalk through except for maybe a hard trash pull or single hard boss encounter. Hard ones you have to pay attention basically through the whole instance, or for more than one boss.

Easy:
Slave Pens
Mechanar
Underbog
Steamvault
Ramparts
Blood Furnace
Crypts (from what I hear)
Sethekk Halls

Hard:
Arcatraz
Old Hillsbrad
Black Morass
Botanica
Mana-Tombs
Shadow Labyrinth
Shattered Halls

The only thing I was iffy about here was Arcatraz. I honestly think that so long as you skip the first boss, it belongs in the Easy category, but people keep telling me Heroic Arcatraz horror stories. The list basically corresponds to what I see in terms of casual heroic runs being formed. People aren't hesitant to say, hey, let's run an "Easy" heroic for badges and gear, whereas people tend to schedule and bring pots to runs of "Hard" heroics.

[Artega]

Honestly, I'd rate Steam Vaults as easier than Slave Pens. The bog lords can be problematic, but everything else is a glorified lootbag.