Start with Heroic or Normal

[Skeletonfish 0]

Hey Guys,

Figured I'd post here since I trust the opinion of the members here the most.

 

Our first raid night will be this Thursday and I'm planning out wether we gear up in normals a bit or jump straight through to heroics.

 

Our skill level would be around 8 out of 10 (cleared through all of Normal and first 5 or 6 bosses of heroic in MoP) and our current ilevel is average around 633 or so.  We have no ambitions of doing world first and will likely not be doing mythics (more from the time commitment / forced into 20 people then our potential) down the road.

 

I remember Blizz saying that heroic dungeon 630 is perfectly capable of clearing heroic content, but from the chats I've had with some of my friends in other raiding guilds (mythic pre wod) they're suggesting we start with normals for a few weeks to get our feet wet and gear up a bit, that the current Heroic is more directed at 645 level.

 

Just curious about picking your brains if anyone has an opinion on the matter.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Baifer 0]

Hey Skeletonfish,

 

When you say 5 or 6 heroic bosses in MoP does that mean 6/14 heroic(mythic) Siege? If so i'd recommend gearing up in normal, actually I would recommend any new guild start clearing normal for the absurd amount of gear from personal loot + any additional BoE. 

 

Normal gives you the opportunity to see the fights with a majority of mechanics and gives you a chance to see how your spec performs or at least gives you the idea of how you can optimize movements. 

 

Cheers!

[Skeletonfish 0]

Hey Skeletonfish,

 

When you say 5 or 6 heroic bosses in MoP does that mean 6/14 heroic(mythic) Siege?

 

Yes exactly!

Edited December 3, 2014 by Skeletonfish

[Baifer 0]

Definitely start with normals because on heroic you have very tight gear checks. 

 

Heroics:

 

Kargath: You would probably one shot him, very easy 

Butcher: is an incredibly high dps check where you need a majority pulling 20k+ dps.  (this is where you will get stuck 90% of the time)

Tectus: Even on Normal this guy can overwhelm your group, heroic just makes it harder and faster

Brackenspore: Went in on normal and one shot, however it seems like our strat had zero structure

Twins: Alot going on high damage and tanks get slapped around

Koragh: Guy on normal has so many mechanics 

 

 

[Soulzar 42]

Do a Normal clear first.

 

1)  Normal drops 655, which should still be a big upgrade for all your raiders over CM/Heroic lewts.

 

2)  The fights are the same.  You are not wasting time in Normals because you are still learning the fight.  Those learning curves will cross over to Heroic.

 

3)  The later bosses get harder.  Imperator as example is no joke.  We were a 14M/14M SoO guild and we had to drop our raid from 24 down to 20 to scale him back a bit.  There is a LOT of dmg in this fight, your healers can use the gear.

 

Now, what I would suggest is that if you hit a wall in Normal, you may wish to go back to the first bosses in Heroic.  Kargath by example is easier on Heroic than Imperator on Normal.

 

So far I have only Cleared Normal and Kargath/Butcher in Heroic.  The Heroic DPS checks are tighter and the Dmg is more real.

[Storm 417]

Definitely do normal first. if your raid plans on doing heroic then Normal shouldn't be too tough, but it's still not exactly 'free loot', don't be surprised if some of the fights still take 4-5 wipes to get down even for a good group. Especially the last boss, the healing on that fight is intense even in normal. it's a good intro to the fights on somewhat easy mode though, you'll get you some gear, and then you can jump into heroic after.

[Skeletonfish 0]

Thanks very much!  We'll be starting with Normal per your advice.

 

For the stands team, I'll be going up and would like to take another two people with me, assume same ilevel, ability.

 

Ret pally

Balance Druid

Arms Warr

Unholy DK

 

I'm thinking on-demand burst aoe will be the most valued resource for the stands team.  If you'd take just two of the above which would you lean towards?

[Soulzar 42]

Probably cant go wrong with any of them.  In all honestly, the lock is likely the weaker link.  Our group used Melee and let the casters Turret.

 

I've seen vids of DKs going up and spreading dots to everything.  AoE grip would be nice.

 

Druid Starfall should pull like.. everything.. to the group.. may be a good asset.  The 40yr range, the druid could pull LOTS with LoS

 

Brostorm is about the best Burst AoE, but not sure if taking it is standard for a primarily ST fight for Warrior

 

Edit:  This linked in another thread.... Would seem to imply that Druids are in fact a great choice.  The only way I could see them getting that high on DPS would be Starfall padding on the upper deck adds, and looking at the top Druid, 30% starfall dmg.

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/6#difficulty=4&metric=dps&boss=1721

Edited December 4, 2014 by Soulzar

[Strife 6]

We're finishing Heroic first, got 6/7 last night, although we did kill some normal bosses tuesday because by the time we got into server we only had 1.5 hours left of raid...

 

Reason is we can funnel heroic gear to the people who are performing better (we use loot council) and then use normal to get people gear who didn't get any in heroic. 

 

Our gear so far has been fine for Heroic from just doing CMs/Buying BoEs/Crafted stuff, haven't tried Mar'gok yet though. Think our average ilvl going into raids was around low 640s, so depends if you're raid has farmed enough pre-raid.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Strife