Halls of Reflection = blind bearFollow

Is he really that bad? He was good at tanking for me at level 30! (lulz, I know.)

I love tanking HoR. I never use the corner unless we completely lack cc. It's like a flashback to TBC 5-man tanking, when skill and coordination rather than just swipe spam were required. Basically, as long as you have one dk/retadin/spriest (healer priest is too busy to shackle)/hunter/mage w improved cs/lock w puppy it's fine.

I don't get how it'd be difficult to heal it as a tree. My shaman has no problem. The passive poison dispel helps but abolish poison ftw too. I feel for holy pallies, must be a nightmare.

I love healing this place.

Give me a pally tank and decent DPS and we're golden.

I have an easier time healing it on my Shaman than my Druid.

Cleansing Totem = win. You don't have to waste GCD on Abolish Poison and can focus on healing instead (at the loss of some 100 mp5, though).

Direct healing = win. You can spam Chain Heal all day long (or at least I can) and keep everyone happy. If the tank starts taking spike damage (from being stunned), you can pop out that 1.2-second 20k Healing Wave crit. As a Druid, you're relying a lot on damage taken being taken slowly enough for the HoTs to work. If someone is taking more damage than the HoTs can heal, they're effectively wasted as you'd need to throw Nourishes in his face to keep him on his legs. Your only "big" heal is Healing Touch, which, unless you put points into it, is gimped as hell.

As mentioned, once I throw a Chain Heal or Riptide, my Healing Wave (Healing Touch equivalent) turns into a 1.2-second cast and can crit for 20k. And I get two of those for each Chain Heal or Riptide I throw. Speaking of which, Riptide is like a Regrowth, but an instant cast one. The cooldown is almost meaningless. And I'd trade Wild Growth for Chain Heal any day after having tried both. Not to mention Shaman get this nifty little talent which causes the person with the lowest health to be healed for 30% of your crits. Toss a 20k Healing Wave crit on the tank and some guy taking damage will be healed for 6,000. Nothing to scoff at and it makes AOE healing just as easy as on a Druid, except most of the healing is direct healing. Direct healing is king in Halls of Reflection.

I've seen tanks in T10, with Regrowth, Rejuvenation and Wild Growth running, drop like rocks in there. The damage output is through the roof and it's like healing your own little 5-man raid. Really good practice, but stressful as hell.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2010 7:12am by Mazra

We can't always blame the dps....much as I'd like to. Today I got HoR as my heroic random on my mage. We had a pally tank. Did the hide in corner thing. We kill wave 6. I go back in corner and drink. Pally consecrates. Wave 7 spawns. And a footman attacks me through the wall and kills me.

Note, I didn't cast any spell, didnt evocate or anything. I was just drinking. And the mob ran through consecrate (and the wall). I've had similar things happen on my bear -- I'll swipe, all the mobs will be in range and tagged and yet a clothie gets one-shotted and he claims he didnt do anything. I used to be skeptical but now I think theres a bug.

Don't you have to average like 2k DPS or so to beat it? I'm trying to remember what was the lowest DPS we ever finished with, I know there's been a couple of close calls... :S

I think on the final phase in that fight, coordination among the DPS is more important than how much DPS you're doing (within reason). Especially on the final barrier, you need to be focus-firing mobs to get them down ASAP, or it quickly gets unmanageable when the second half of the wave shows up. You could each be doing 4k+, and still wipe because all the mobs are almost-but-not-quite dead.

Re: the Kirin Tor ring - eeeh, that's a LOT of gold to spend on what's probably a minor upgrade (can't see your Kitty gear on the armory at the moment). Depending on your server, you may be getting into Battered Hilt territory, so if you really have the cash going spare, that could be worth thinking about? If you're currently carrying a really crappy ring, maybe pick up a Titanium Impact Band? I'm not sure how good ArP is for kitties, but it's probably about 1/10th the price of even the basic Band of the Kirin Tor.

I'm ambivalent about this. My rawr values put the H.PoS ring, Triumph ring, KT ring, and ICC ring (in that order) 50-100 DPS higher than the cheap alternatives, and the two 251s are the most reliable way to plan your gear for 10-man raiding. On the other hand, the dungeon finder has stripped away most of the utility of the Dalaran hearthstone - unless you are a gatherer, explorer, or quest completist (or still doing dailies). At this stage, I basically consider it equivalent to the engineering "Dalaran AH", nice to have but probably not worth the gold cost - especially when you can spend it on a Hilt, which is not only a nice 10-man weapon but a fun and unique quest chain you can only unlock with the Hilt, or BoE ilvl-264 drops (which are close to 10k on my server, about the same as the KT rep ring).

Common misconception. Abominations spew slime which hurts - a lot. The tank wants to focus on the abominations because a) he knows he can't position them right and a dual-spew in the wrong direction will wipe the group or b) he's afraid he'll die. As a healer and tank, I suggest focusing on the witch doctors first. They do AOE shadow bolt volleys and I've been told they also heal at times (?). Unless the DPS fails badly and stands in front of the abominations, killing the witch doctors first will be easier on the healer as he or she can focus on healing the tank instead of the entire group. Also, the witch doctors casts curses on random people, applying Curse of Doom which only Mages, Shaman (healers) and Druids can dispel. Unless either is in the group (and able to dispel), you'll see more overall damage taken if you don't focus on the witch doctors.

That is why I sold the one I got. Hoping to get a new weapon off Rotface shortly. He better drop it for me or I'll be pissed.

edit: We killed him a few ago, WoW just **** out so I have a sec.

I hate you Roatface. GIVE ME MY DAMN WEAPON.

Edited, Mar 18th 2010 3:45am by Horsemouth

I'm a quest hound, so I would love to do the hilt quest line. I'll check prices to see if they've fallen any, as I don't want to blow all my gold on buying the hilt.

Good to know about the aboms and witch doctors. If I get in there as dps again I will definitely focus on them. Our guild group tried regular HoR last night for the first time and it didn't go well at all. Two attempts and we couldn't get past the initial waves of trash. We tried to fight in the entry hall, but it's just hard to hide in there and we had enemy casters running amok and damage flying all over the place. It wasn't as hard to heal as I originally thought it would be given that our tank has 32k health buffed, but there sure is a lot of damage being thrown around. We need to spend more time in PoS gearing up with drops/emblems before we make any serious attempt at HoR it seems.

Having tanked HoR twice now, I seriously wish I had DnD or Concecrate... makes picking up mobs so much easier.

Nah, I'm just whining about not having a lolAoE threat tool on my druid.