Tier 0.5

[Zarathustra]

It took one abort at baroness (my warrior got MC'd and it took them way too long to wear my warrior down)[right][snapback]109052[/snapback][/right]

I'd say the Baroness is the #1 roadblock. Who she possesses makes all the difference in the world. If she grabs the warrior, it can take long enough to bring him down that she's ready for another possession almost immediately upon his release.

I like to do the spider first, then the Baroness. I'll burn the 30-min cooldown on my warrior at that first boss so it's not at the Baroness' disposal when we fight her. Warrior MC + Shield Wall meant almost two minutes to burn down that walking hulk of metal. No thanks.

[Concillian]

I'd say the Baroness is the #1 roadblock.  Who she possesses makes all the difference in the world.  If she grabs the warrior, it can take long enough to bring him down that she's ready for another possession almost immediately upon his release.

I like to do the spider first, then the Baroness.  I'll burn the 30-min cooldown on my warrior at that first boss so it's not at the Baroness' disposal when we fight her.  Warrior MC + Shield Wall meant almost two minutes to burn down that walking hulk of metal.  No thanks.
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In the last runs I was on (before I went on vacation), I had adopted a special gearset just for the baroness, specifically targeting low HP (for making me easier to turn back) and high damage (for trying to take her down in 2 MCs)

I blow my 30 minute cooldown ON the baroness by starting with bloodrage + intercept + recklessness. This not only keeps her from using it, it gets a good bit of damage on her too. I'm always sure to have potion, tuber and AB trinket shield cooled down and ready if necessary since berserker + recklessness can surprise the healer sometimes.

Frost nova is the key to a successful warrior mind control on the baroness. Warrior is helpless when frost nova'd and low HP allows the party to turn me back easier.

[Klaus]

In the last runs I was on (before I went on vacation), I had adopted a special gearset just for the baroness, specifically targeting low HP (for making me easier to turn back) and high damage (for trying to take her down in 2 MCs)

I blow my 30 minute cooldown ON the baroness by starting with bloodrage + intercept + recklessness.  This not only keeps her from using it, it gets a good bit of damage on her too.  I'm always sure to have potion, tuber and AB trinket shield cooled down and ready if necessary since berserker + recklessness can surprise the healer sometimes.

Frost nova is the key to a successful warrior mind control on the baroness.  Warrior is helpless when frost nova'd and low HP allows the party to turn me back easier.
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Last night we killed the baroness with Mogo, Marn, Keshoga, Doomstar and Xarhud. We burned her hard on the original pull, and when she MC'd, she grabbed Keshoga. We burned him down quick and finished her off when she came back - no 2nd MC. I'm not sure what it was about this group or what we did that got her down so fast.

Oh, and Keshoga hurts when under enemy control - about 1k damage to Mogo and myself before I could even see the red name bar.

[Concillian]

Last night we killed the baroness with Mogo, Marn, Keshoga, Doomstar and Xarhud.  We burned her hard on the original pull, and when she MC'd, she grabbed Keshoga.  We burned him down quick and finished her off when she came back - no 2nd MC.  I'm not sure what it was about this group or what we did that got her down so fast.
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Had you cleared the area around her? In the 45 minute runs we pull her away, which doesn't allow for as much time for damage before the 1st MC. If you have time to clear the mobs away and fight her at the zigg, you can get significantly more damage on her before the 1st MC.

[Mavfin]

Had you cleared the area around her?  In the 45 minute runs we pull her away, which doesn't allow for as much time for damage before the 1st MC.  If you have time to clear the mobs away and fight her at the zigg, you can get significantly more damage on her before the 1st MC.
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I do know that if I do the baroness with Keshi anymore, I make sure I'm dual-wield in DPS gear, not all turtled up. At least I can take some melee damage that way.

And, she's a pure-DPS fight. No amount of tanking will help on her. The faster you burn her down, the less trouble she causes.

A note about Keshoga and damage:

1) she's got the extra-crit and extra-damage-crit shock and lightning talents. If she crits on a shock, that's 1000-1200. Normal shocksghtning are about 5-600. Debuff when possessed increases damage.

2) with the randomness of WF, that big, slow, 3.6 sec 2h *really* hurts when it procs.

[Treesh]

Had you cleared the area around her?  In the 45 minute runs we pull her away, which doesn't allow for as much time for damage before the 1st MC.  If you have time to clear the mobs away and fight her at the zigg, you can get significantly more damage on her before the 1st MC.
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We didn't fight her at the zig, but we didn't pull her back as far as the 45 minute runs do. However, that little combo of ours can really dish out damage since Xarhud was in shadowform, Keshoga was using his mana for damage (mostly), Mogo was healing while beating the hell out of things with her two-hander and we had a pissed off wolf and Marn. I don't remember how much damage Doomstar does either.

[Kevin]

We didn't fight her at the zig, but we didn't pull her back as far as the 45 minute runs do.  However, that little combo of ours can really dish out damage since Xarhud was in shadowform, Keshoga was using his mana for damage (mostly), Mogo was healing while beating the hell out of things with her two-hander and we had a pissed off wolf and Marn.  I don't remember how much damage Doomstar does either.
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Yeah Marn can crit aimed shots for 2400 on a fully sundered mobs if I have Mark of the Wild on me. I crit an aimed shot on Keshoga for 1800 when he was possed.

I'm not sure if we fought her all the way back or not. I'm not sure how far back you guys pull her, but I was standing behind the gate when we were fighting her, so we puller her a ways, she was behind the 3 ghoul pack that we left on the right hand side. I puller her with my DoT and cheetah'd back to the group. I thought about pulling her with aimed, then DoT'ing her on the run and using FD to make sure aggro transfered to the warrior but didn't.

I do believe that our lowest DPS was Qantaqa who was pushing around 90 DPS. But Mogo has the big old hammer and Keshoga has a big hammer now too, so really it probably has to do more with gear. Marn is using the Perfect Poison Quest reward X-Bow which turns out to be a little bit better DPS (and the +hit helps that too) than his old Ancient Bone Bow, I've gotten that axe of mine the +25 agi enchant since last time in there for more AP and crit chance. We just have some better gear from doing the ZG and AQ 20 runs. Heck I was looking and really the rest of the T0.5 upgrades are likely not worth it for me now anymore. Only the pants and chest are a clear upgrade over what I'm wearing now.


Oh and the boots still didn't drop. I'm like 0-20 now on seeing them drop. :)

[Concillian]

Heck I was looking and really the rest of the T0.5 upgrades are likely not worth it for me now anymore.  Only the pants and chest are a clear upgrade over what I'm wearing now. 
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We pull her about to the cart, sounds like you pulled her further. Must have been the Hunter DPS :P

T0.5 are not extraordinary until considering the 6/8 set bonus. Most sets have a pretty significant DPS booster on the 6/8 bonus that makes it worthwhile to use 6/8 T0.5 and 2/8 random other pieces. For the sets I've looked at extensively (warrior DPS set and warlock) there are no better blues for the optimum 6/8 config and it takes multiple pieces of (attainable) purple gear replacing T0.5 stuff before you get overall improvement. But, of course, it takes the whole 8 pieces before you can get the optimum 6/8.

[Kevin]

We pull her about to the cart, sounds like you pulled her further.  Must have been the Hunter DPS :P

T0.5 are not extraordinary until considering the 6/8 set bonus.  Most sets have a pretty significant DPS booster on the 6/8 bonus that makes it worthwhile to use 6/8 T0.5 and 2/8 random other pieces.  For the sets I've looked at extensively (warrior DPS set and warlock) there are no better blues for the optimum 6/8 config and it takes multiple pieces of (attainable) purple gear replacing T0.5 stuff before you get overall improvement.  But, of course, it takes the whole 8 pieces before you can get the optimum 6/8.
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Right I think (I have not looked really closely) if I could use the gloves, chest, legs, bracers, hat, and belt with the gear I have now it would be better, but that would require the entire upgrade chain and 4 of the pieces woud then be purples. The bracers compared to my curent gear and the boots would individual piece downgrades, only better because of the set bonus. I'm currently using the gloves, bracers and belt. Bracers only because they have an enchant and the others I got don't and I don't have any GEE's sitting around to get it enchanted.

Heck I acutally took off two pieces of beastmaster today after getting the new boots I had enchanted. That lost me the 4 piece bonuse (which is the 6 piece bonus for the upgrade) of 40 AP. But the net result was only -22 AP, -157 HP, +1.17% crit and +15 mana. Since I had upgraded my boots and right now I'm using 1050 RAP with Aspect of the Hawk up as my baseline to work my health and mana around when looking at balancing the gear and my health was still over 3400 unbuffed I think I've upped my damage. That was what really got me thinking that the other upgrades might not be worth the time. When a couple of the pieces are stat downgrades over what I have (bracers and boots for example) the initial thought was that the gold outlay for some of the stuff I might have to purchase start to make me wonder.

I admit as a hunter it's hard to judge the value of the 2% crit on the pet, 3% more damage for the pet, 10% armor for the pet and 3% more damage for the pet that I would get. These stats in some fights are completely wasted though as the pet just won't be able to even add a little damage. I know all of those would help me solo grind the elite dragons better and the times when I have to use my pet to MT an instance (much rarer these days) it will help too. And while I can control my pet well enough to make it actually be helpful in the ZG and AQ raids without taking mana from the healers, which can be witnessed by me+pet leading the last 3 Keepers raids in total damage done over AoE mages, and the marks hunters + pet who have better gear than I do as well. Pet damage is a fixed quantity since with the expection of those 4 beast master pieces it doesn't scale with gear. The hunters damage does scale with gear more and since my damage is greater than the pets right now it helps more to up my damage even more, in most case. This is why you see very very few beastmaster raid hunters. Last ZG run me+pet was 210 DPS. I was 145 of that, pet was 65. I've already got the gloves that give the 2% more crit, so I can get it 3% more damage so I could kick the pet up to 67 DPS or so with that. I guess the 10% more armor (500-700 more raid buffed) amd the 3% life (100-150) might allow me to keep the pet in combat a few seconds longer so that the damage would go up a little bit more. But really my pet is less and less useful the bigger the instance gets. In ZG I tank the spider spawns on Mar'li. I cna keep a raptor or bat from damaging an AoE mage, I can keep a zerker from moving around after the knockback (since the wrathed pet won't move and if I leave growl on will usually be 2nd or 3rd on the aggro list) and I can add a little bit of DPS on the focus fire targets and on some of the bosses (including Mandokir even with his whirlwinds). I know in MC the pets will be even less useful for even damage additions. So the stats on the beastmaster set that buff the pet become wasted stats in the later stages of the game even for a hunter who uses his pet a lot.

[Concillian]

I'm currently using the gloves, bracers and belt.  Bracers only because they have an enchant and the others I got don't and I don't have any GEE's sitting around to get it enchanted.  [right][snapback]109946[/snapback][/right]

I still have 22 2/3 GEEs after 2 characters through the beginning upgrade quests + I have the enchanted leather (6 2/3 GEEs worth of LEEs) for 1 character ready for the next part after the 45 minute baron. Plus I gave some GEEs out to others doing the upgrade quests.

Let me know how many you need =)

Conc -- Tank / Bank

[Arnulf]

We pull her about to the cart, sounds like you pulled her further.  Must have been the Hunter DPS :P
[..]
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You cannot pull the Baroness too far. We once pulled her almost to the grate and she resetted and returned to the ziggurat.

[vor_lord]

This guide is very nice and detailed. However, I believe that the drop rates for the Ogre Warbeads are much better than listed there.

Last night it took about 2 1/2 tribute runs for both Conc and I to get all of our warbeads. I'd estiimate the drop rate for warbeads on ogres in DM North to be closer to 1:4 than 1:10.

[Arnulf]

Last night it took about 2 1/2 tribute runs for both Conc and I to get all of our warbeads. I'd estiimate the drop rate for warbeads on ogres in DM North to be closer to 1:4 than 1:10.

Make it a point to kill every ogre in Dire Maul North and you'll get all your beads in one run. At least it did for me.:)

(Ogre bosses don't drop beads.)