Heroic Durnholde

The Thrall escort, the time warping dragons, the exploding buildings, the mounted race from Durnholde to Tarren Mill, the old nostalgic Hillsbrad look and feel are all wonderful tributes to a glorious past.  This dungeon has it all.  On heroic mode, it has plenty more.  I like the “outdoor” dungeons mostly because all players can use their spells at some point during the adventure (i.e. root CC for Druids), and it just doesn’t feel confined in a cramped space like Sethekk Halls or Sunken Temple.

By far, this dungeon is my favorite. Or rather, the normal version is my favorite, the heroic one is tough.  CC is king here and moving and pulls are just done in a certain way to keep you from getting too many patrol re-spawns on you as well as having a back up healer (like a shaman with a +1500 healing set) for the mortal striking 7k hitting 1st boss to the Epoch dragon nonsense at the end.

Party:

• Prot Warrior
• Holy Paladin
• Feral Druid
• Mage
• Shaman

Our mage was serious on DPS, so I used Wrath of Air totem, Mana Spring, Strength of Earth totems for the majority of combat.  Whenever there was an enemy caster, I would Earth Shock the heals from the enemy and also placed a Tremor Totem to keep the incoming Psychic Screams from fearing us too much.

The dog/patrolman duo calls adds (the worst part of getting past the 1st half of this dungeon) and they are on a 15 minute re-spawn rate, so keep moving for Pete’s sake or else patrols will come down on you like a ton of bricks.  Yes, the patrolman cannot be CC w/Polymorph.  Woes to us.  We just sheep the dog and try to burn Patrolman fast, but the adds spawn (4 of them) so just be ready on your crowd control.  Earth Elemental works pretty well to buy you some time, and Frost Shock Rank 1can kite an enemy really, really well.    I used a Frost Shock kiting strategy the other night in Underbog and it worked well too.  The little elementals in there just don’t move very fast to begin with so it’s easy to kite them with Frost Shock Rank 1.

 

I’m so glad I didn’t roll a human female shaman. Look below…. *nice bangs, you use a Tupperware bowl to cut that?*

Some good heroic durnholde notes here and here.

Heroic Mech

Pugged a group for heroic Mechanar last night.  Quick badge run for me, I would like to get 50 Badges of Justice to have when I upgrade, but it looks like some of my current gear doesn’t really need much in terms of Badge upgrading.  I need to get Nether Vortex*5 from the SSC/TK, then I can upgrade my hammer to Dragonstrike.

Pretty fast run, even after the Mech badge running nerf.  I still like the quick kills and how the Destroyers are not nearly as bad w/o Charged Fist.   Basically, whenever I saw Charged Fist on the ole enemy castbar for Destroyers, Earth Shock to remove it!  Let’s see, party was :

• Warrior
• Hunter
• Shadow Priest
• Holy Paladin
• Shaman

So I gave Grace of Air, Mana Spring, Strength of Earth totems for the group. 

We finished all bosses even the 2nd boss with the fast fire elementals.  Everyone except the tank and I died before my Windfury crit smacked her for 1587 damage.