Comments on: Trial of the Champion: Yikes!

By: PaidObserver

PaidObserver — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:28:31 +0000

Love the blog Bear, keep up the great work!

To the poster who lamented his gear, and ease of healing the instance … one thing to keep in mind … the group makes the healer, the healer does not make the group. Get some more experience and you’ll know exactly what that means.

By: Lily

Lily — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:38:38 +0000

ToC is a very fun fight. If your tank is new to the fight or unsure about the pull, run out after you are dismounted for sure. If your tank wants to use the other strat, though mind you this is considerably harder if your tank is a warrior, it works out well if everyone runs to the middle, imo.

Also, don’t die on your mounts! There’s a lot of action so your health can drop very suddenly, however if you are getting low just get another mount. You do not need to wait until you are dismounted to do that.

I have done this fight for each role now.. I even managed to survive tanking with my kitty spec still enabled. :”) That was mildly entertaining. But healing was for sure the most challenging. Any other heroic and healing is usually snooze mode unless I’m healing a new tank.. or one of a few friends that isn’t new but likes to pull 3 groups at once. Fun stuff but I certainly can’t do that as a tank yet. Well, maybe 2 groups..

I tried the new 10 man as well, tanking. Man they do hurt! 41k health goes by so fast.. hopefully with the new emblem gear it will go better next time. Though it definitely requires a combination of practice, luck, and talent too there.

By: Shatamall

Shatamall — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:38:07 +0000

I’ve been blowing my tranq during p3 of the Black Knight as well. Really makes the end of the fight a lot easier. The rest of the time, rolling rejuv / regrowth / WG across the party worked for most of the fights… unless one of the mobs in the first fight ate my face during the mounted / on-foot transition. Then I was trying to get back in the instance before whatever finished off the tank. :D

By: Chaninn

Chaninn — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:00:45 +0000

I think the instance is gonna be a winner and a regular trip for me and mine. I say I think because we had issues. My first venture in was with a PUG and we died…alot. Finally figured out that the hunter of our PUG hadn’t allocated any of her talent points (did anyone else notice that hunters were refunded all talent points with the new patch?) After that we scraped by.
The instance is well tuned and looks to be fun. Next time I go in tho, I’m gonna inspect before the fight! =)

By: Zalgosh

Zalgosh — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:29:42 +0000

The groups that I’ve run this with have used an interesting strategy on the black knight. Since if all the explosions at once can cause some serious hurt to melee, they have me kite 2-5 of the adds. The only problem is I’m the healer. During this part of the fight I just keep dropping my earthbind and stoneclaw totems, throw up riptides, and throw in some chain heals when the adds aren’t on me. Also, on the first encounter, after the jousting I’m usually in charge of kiting one or more of the guys to the tank.

Seriously, when did tanks forget how to keep things off the healer?

By: Reaper

Reaper — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:48:39 +0000

The transition from jousting to on foot combat is definitely the hardest part of the instance.
The thing that made the biggest difference for our groups was remembering that this is, in essence, a PVP encounter, so you can (and should) stun, blind, gouge, sheep, disarm etc. to your hearts content.
My main is a rogue, and just like in PVP my control abilities make a huge difference here (though my group is mostly in Ulduar HM equip, so it will probably be alot harder for others).
We usually went rogue->hunter->mage->shaman->warrior, making sure to interrupt the mage/shaman if present (a rogue can do this without help from the tank, the damage you take should be minimal) and blinding/stunning the warrior whenever he started whirlwinding.
The hunter is seriously annoying, but again, can be focused and controlled without actually being tanked, the only opponent that we really needed a tank on was the warrior.

By: Ruune

Ruune — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:50:28 +0000

Well we had a run at normal this weekend – still haven’t tried heroic, but it seems like it would be an absolute bear (see wot I did thar) to heal. A big part of that is learning the new instance and all the “who did you say was the one that was fearing?” and “oh, look, Van Cleef!” that was going on. Still pretty amazing loot for a 5 man on normal – if I do it too many more times, that long winding introduction is going to get mighty annoying.

By: Rhabella

Rhabella — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:17:28 +0000

I really don't like it. The jousting is a sad mechanic Blizz is forcing down our throats, and after the drop the pickup can be miserable if the group doesn't clump the bodies. After you make it through the jousting, the fights are all kill skull, x, star, and it just seems they could have made the encounter more engaging like mini-hard modes where one brings a nice buff to the other 2 and killing him then causes the others to do something they wouldn't normally. with the random makeup of the champions, it could make the encounters more engaging for a longer period of time, but now its always kill the tauren, first, then the rogue, then the ms warrior, then all the others. .-= Rhabella´s last blog ..Nice Pick-Up! =-.

By: Krol

Krol — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:45:59 +0000

Just a tip for all druid healers in this place, if your tank is decently geared (read: doesn’t take constant attention to keep alive) the fights against the Black Knight and the Confessor can be made easier on you if you can roll rejuvenation and regrowth off the entire party, instead of reacting to the random damage spikes. The third phase of fighting the Black Knight is also definitely a place worth blowing tranquility on after 2-3 waves of shadowbolts, it makes it nearly impossible for someone to die.

By: Ratshag

Ratshag — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:23:17 +0000

We had an issue where one dps died in Phase 3, released, but couldn't get back before we did fer the Black Nugget. So no sparklies on the corpse fer her. Howevers, thanks ta the new looting system, I were able ta loots the dps cloak and then immediately trade it ta her. Win all around, that. .-= Ratshag´s last blog ..For John =-.