At last! 5x Paladins hit the "big" time!

[kate]

I finally hit 80 on my 5 paladins and immediately turned around and started trying to run Heroic Utgarde Keep. There were a couple of deaths along the way to Ingvar, but all were due to me being lazy with pulling. Each of the bosses went down on the first try, except for Ingvar - I was experiencing some kind of positional lag or something, as about half the time when he would do his smash thing it would look like he was facing away but he was still facing me. On one try I managed to get his phase 2 aspect to 5k health, but I had to stop trying after 3-4 wipes.

Anyway, at least now I can get at least 2 badges per run, which at my current rate probably means 4 badges an hour, but at least now I can start getting geared up.

I think I'm going to save up 80 badges on each, buy some heirlooms and get my shaman group kitted out so that I can boost them and then have some options for heroics that require ranged.

tl;dr version: I can finally do heroics by myself! Woo!

[Boylston]

Tip for Ingvar... Make sure your rets are well behind him, and be careful with threat. I let my tank run in first, swing for a second or two, then use IWT or attack on the Rets to bring them into his hitbox range behind him.

When he morphs/respawns, BACK THEM UP and repeat the process. If at any point it looks like you have rets in front or under him, pull the boss away and reposition everyone.

When you get the positioning down so that only the tank is hit by smashes, it's cake. Don't rush, and make sure you heal your team up to full if needed.




I had an epic fight when I was first gearing up where one of my rets pulled aggro in phase 2 with him at about 5% health. He cast flipped around and dark smashed all 4 rets, leaving only my DK alive. The DK finished off the boss, but then I had all rezzers dead. Fun times!

[Seldum]

Gratz on the 80!

You should link your toons so we can keep up on your progression.

[kate]

My problem in most boss fights is that I'm a spaz and I just hit every key I have like a crazed monkey This technique worked wonders for normal dungeons, but I guess I'll have to refine it for heroics!

There are a few things working against me right now:

1) I'm literally just barely geared to do heroics with my tank. Maybe slightly better than just barely, but not much - I've no epics, still one green item, and the "daunting" or "tempered" saronite stuff that's craftable. I've got my blacksmith up to 450, so I can make anything the trainers teach me - not sure if it's worth investing in the titansteel stuff just yet since I'll always get the relevant drops.

2) My retadin dps seems to be hovering around 1000-1500 DPS, according to recount, so they aren't very geared either. They're also doing double duty - healing the tank and themselves while also doing DPS, so I guess that's not too bad, actually. When I whack on a dummy to try them as pure dps with no healing that does go up a bit, but that's just not gonna be happening, so I don't worry about it.

3) My talent specs are wacky - once I get home and can make sure I have all the proper names I'll link them, but basically my tank is the only one who's used all talent points, each Ret I couldn't figure out what to put the last 7-10 points in. My glyphing is also a bit off, I think, but not too miserable. I know I could probably be a bit more survivable on my tank with a better set-up - right now I am mostly protection, and specced a bit into ret to get the seal of command to do more multi-target damage & recover mana since I was running low due to being overgeared for many normal dungeons and too lazy to use divine plea...

4) My rotations are completely wacky - I need to set up 969 macros for my tank, at the least. With ret it's pretty much "use anything that's on cooldown" so they're pretty much good to go, I think.

[Myc]

Grats!,
I got the same team just got first piece of tier gear yesterday, out gearing dungeons seems to be a big key with ret team. [DPS race] Though I am having troubles with the first boss in TOC.. =l the rogue owns the group no matter what without a healer but I cant stop to not dps... but if u have luck in TOC good starting gear on normal and triumphs
also If you are ready you should give Normal Forge of Souls a try, I got 1st boss down no problem. (2nd can only get to like 100k =l) but anyways u can get a triumph from there and epic loot.

[Myc]

3) My talent specs are wacky - once I get home and can make sure I have all the proper names I'll link them, but basically my tank is the only one who's used all talent points, each Ret I couldn't figure out what to put the last 7-10 points in. My glyphing is also a bit off, I think, but not too miserable. I know I could probably be a bit more survivable on my tank with a better set-up - right now I am mostly protection, and specced a bit into ret to get the seal of command to do more multi-target damage & recover mana since I was running low due to being overgeared for many normal dungeons and too lazy to use divine plea...

DOH! haha, I forgot to add my last glyph and fix up specs a little.
v v [If you care..] v v
I recommend using this as basic spec for all. with the 4 points spare.. (mainly pve)
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sVZEZVf0xbIuhdIfsu
then 1 pally can have some points in Vindication
other could have aura mastery (but u will loose good stats )
maybe even have one get improved blessing of wisdom
or divine purpose (seems specs not that flexible now that Seal Of Corruption is good)

[Acerak]

Melee teams are hugely fun..gratz! I totally know what you mean about smashing buttons like a monkey...I still do that sometimes. I run prot pally/ret pally/enhance sham/feral druid/resto shaman

If you stick with it, you'll find that there will come a point where you will relax. There will also be times when you want to throw your monitor our the window...heh. You can't make too many mistakes as a boxer with a fresh 80 team, as one or two mistakes means you wipe..it's a rough road at first. Gear eventually provides a nice buffer.

One nice thing is that the standard heroic dungeons were designed pre-badgeflation, so once you get even a few of triumph badge gear pieces they will become much easier. My team is at about 4800gs, which is about where I planned to stop as upgrades come much more slowly. At that gearlevel, almost all the heroics are a joke they are so easy.

My advice:

I farmed the gold and made the titansteel stuff for my entire team, including weapons. I don't regret doing this one bit---one piece of ilvl200 gear is substantially better than green or even blue quest rewards or normal dungeon drops. The titansteel boots and helm for rets are both particularly awesome at their ilvl, and you won't replace the titansteel shield on your tank for quite awhile as there are only a few upgrades available - I think it wasn't until I was able to beat Halls of Reflection that I replaced it.

Normal ToC is tough at first, particularly if you get unlucky and get the rogue and/or the bladestorming warrior. Once you get a bit more gear, ToC/Forge of Souls/Pit of Saron runs are definitely where it's at for gearing up fast (in roughly that order). HoR is tough at first even on normal, but once you get it on farm you've made it to easy street.

Keep in mind that the three ICC dungeons drop Triumph badges even on normal mode.

Also, stamina is HUGE for a melee box group, and the pre-dungeon stuff just doesn't have enough...I recommend tossing the heavy borean stam kits on any non-enchanted spots as it is super cheap to do so and the overall effect on your team is substantial.

Give Gundrak a try for starters as well..I found that to be the easiest heroic. You can skip/bypass most of the bosses if you are having trouble with one of them (end boss requires killing the rest, though). Most of Utgarde Keep and Utgarde Pinnacle are a faceroll as well, although the Skadi gauntlet takes some thought.

Exciting to hear others enjoying a melee team

[Catamer]

for Ingvar I have my pallys stand in the center of the circle facing away from him, they way you entered the room. and I have the prot pally pull him in front of the team. the ret pallys are all behind him and my prot pally is in front of him. I guess that assumes your prot pally can handle a full hit from him because your ret pallys sure can't.

[kate]

for Ingvar I have my pallys stand in the center of the circle facing away from him, they way you entered the room. and I have the prot pally pull him in front of the team. the ret pallys are all behind him and my prot pally is in front of him. I guess that assumes your prot pally can handle a full hit from him because your ret pallys sure can't.

I normally have my rets behind him, prot in front, and when he begins to cast smash I run through him - he doesn't turn around (at least on normal) while casting, so I don't get hit.

But, if it turns out that he can turn on heroic, well, then I guess I'll just have to suck up the hit. Right now, my prot pally has 20.2k HP, while the ret all have about 18k, which means the ret gets one-shotted.

Maybe I'll just try to time the flash of light spam to go off right after he does his smash so my tank doesn't die.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions, all - I have, it turns out, gotten the titansteel shield on my paladin and put titanium plating on it since I don't need more defense just yet. I'll bite the bullet and craft the titansteel stuff for the rets - I was just hoping I could ride out the early runs and gear up without spending an arm and a leg, but I think I won't be able to.

I'll post the armory links later.

[ghonosyph]

given how cheap the mats are, if you have a miner you should be able to do this:

Buy a TON of saronite ore and smelt it into bars, then have an alchemist thats transumte spec make titanium bars out of it for you.

After this, SELL THE BARS, you'll average around 8 to 10 gold per bar for every bar you sell if your server is anything like mine. Once you've got a good buffer of gold(like 1 to 2 k) start buying and selling frozen orbs. lol i did this playing the market a little bit, and eventually spent 4 k gold total to gear up ALL 5 paladins with titansteel bar gear. the 245 chest and bracers, the 226 belts and boots, and the titansteel destroyer /shield for my prot.

Titansteel bars in and of themselves are VERY cheap to make if you gather and can smelt yourself. My tactic worked wonders, first you buy a couple stacks of cheap eternal earth and shadows, then a TON of saronite ore*(given that its cheap enough ie 8 to 10 gold a stack) check the price on saronite bars if you can buy two stacks of ore for cheaper than 1 stack of bars buy it, smelt it, resell it. Get some cash under your belt and make all bunch of titanium bars and frozen orbs and make some titansteel out of it lol

so far i've been able to do a bunch of heroics and even a few heroic achievements and have gathered up 2 or 3 pc's of t9 already too. Its been a fun process and it keeps getting better lol!

I'm anxious to get my battered hilt farming done as well, i've been buying and selling and doing dailies and i've gotten two battered hilts so far need to get a couple more for my other two rets and i'll be set ! 8)