Hardest 5-man instance

[Piemaster]

Something somebody said in another thread prompted me to wonder what the hardest 5-man instance is. Please vote in poll and, if you fancy it, give a reply justifying your choice.

Some smart Alec will probably say 'define hardest'. By hardest I mean the one that you are least likely to complete (kill final boss) with a random PUG. Yes, that does mean that length might be considered an attribute of hardness in some circumstances.

[Hettar]

You should have added Uldaman, that end fight surely is tough ;)

[Gealach]

I'd say Blackrock Depths. Not only does the instance take forever, but the Lyceum pretty much finishes off the majority of PUGs I've seen. Dire Maul West comes a close second tho.

[KalziEast]

Scholomance, SM Cath sometimes, Uldaman, Maraudon, RFC at an early level, Strath, both parts, UBRS is kind of tough.

[Metatron]

Wow. So DM West is in the lead at the moment... I'm a 60 lock and never, ever had a problem with that place. Heck I've done the whole thing with 3 locks and 2 Shadow Priests bouncing aggro off each other. That place for me is so easy it's actaully fun to put together oddball groups and go beat the hell out of everything in there just for fun. Yes we killed the doggy too! With exactly the same tactic of Go nuts! Then again, Detect Lesser Invisibilty and Banish probably make life a lot easier for me / group when I'm there.

Now LBRS is the bane of my life. It took no less than 54 runs before I Skyshroud Leggins drop from Omokk. During that time I managed to complete Warlords' Command, get the Seal Of Acension, kill Omokk Doomhowl for that insanely hard quest where a dozen orgres spawn before he does. (thank you tier 2 lock & priest!) collect 2 pieces of Ironweave Set, get a pet worg and a pet spider and the Spirit of Summer, win 2 copies of Pattern of The Archmage (mage epic tailoring pattern. Not too sure I got that right), win a drop of Staff of The Elements on a greed roll, collect 3 Rings of The Magus, and too many of those Breastplate of The Shaman things to remember. Omokk was my sworn enemy for months. Finally got the trousers on guild run with a random outsider who won the Epic Mage staff when I saw it drop for the second time in LBRS. So I have some 'fair' experience of this instance. And it's by far the hardest.

Now I don't know about you but I can start LFG/M LBRS for upto 3-4 hours before I have a full party ready to go. And it's usually me taking a load of people fresh to the instance through their Warlord's Command quest. So first the group argue about whether to run through the first group of enemies and jump down or stay and fight. Due to miscommuncation a huntard will pull as everyone else is running as fast as they can to get to that ledge. Said Huntard spams HAEL!!11 in party chat as we standing on the ledge wondering where he is. I mean the guy already forgot to dimiss pet on the first jump down and pulled a load then and we weren't too impressed by that... Priest screads FD!! FD!! in party chat. Next thing we see is REZ PLX! Ummm.. no... we can't get to you. You have to run... Hence 10 minutes of jumping around on the ledge as the rogue stealths ahead.

As hunter manages to get back to us and the and priest and mage has finished buffing him up, rogue slips of the edge of the ledge and pulls 5 of those damn firemen orcs. Seeing the carnage below, tank jumps in to save rogue as priest and mage both say /oom in party chat. Seeing that tank and rogue are going for it I jump down and get stuck in. Priest and mage jump down and priest desperately tries to heal tank. Rogue has already munched his stone from me and is gonna start chugging a pot any second. Priest can't believe random rogues mistake and couldn't heal if she wanted to. Everything is going into the tank. 2 down. 3 left. Damn there's a runner! CoR fast! 2 left. Rogue down. Priest now totallty oom and popped me a low rank renew before she got her wand out. Tank bites the dust. Fireman orc goes for for priest and mage. Too squishy to live. 2 left coming for me. Both at 1/2 health. Die you scum. 3% left.. damn.. dead....First wipe.

SS and priest begins ressing. All standing around buffing up as pat comes. No choice to go for it and ss has 7 minutes left on it. Please don't wipe again... Rogue down again quick. Overagrroing and now yelling at tank in party chat for not taking aggro. Tank doing fantasic job. Just rogue attacking wrong target. Down both same time as noone was on same target. Try explaining the concept of assist as rogue is complaining is gear is all red and this party sucks so his off. Rez at gy, HS, Leave party.

So... This is crunch time. Does the party that I spent the better part of 3 hours putting together quit or do we find random to replace rogue? It's 50/50 here in how the balance will swing. Hate groups that disband here but use to it. So for arguements sake we'll bring in another rogue and continue on the road of 'what more can a pug do to screw up in LBRS'.

So. After much struggling we pass the fireman orcs and get to spider. I always tell parties that hardest part of LBRS is the fireman orcs and I really think it is. Not much room to move around and with out some good quality CC'ing the pulls can get thick and heavy. So. Spider. Some guy is always on the spider quest to open the eggs and has to ignore the priests cries off oom as he opens, just one more egg. Oh great. Now I haven't got the strongest aoe with Rain of Fire but no ends of times have I ended up killing myself with hellfire to keep the group alive here. Hey. I've done everything but got my trousers from this place. I don't care if I die. I repair before I come and if my death saves the party from disbanding it's always gonna be worth. Hard to screw up here but them people opening eggs unannounced and running back towards 3 mana users drinking with 13 spiders in tow tends to either make me smile to myself or cry....

Orgres. Easy. Don't you just love Ogres! Some fool wants to try Omokk Doomhowl. Inwardly I wince but say hell yeah. Go for it. SS is up. Seeing as party can't grasp the concept of assist on tank we wipe fairly quickly and can move on with relatively minimum downtime. There's Omokk. *sigh* Be a while yet before I see you... Wyrm first..

As we finish aoe and start heading up the hallway I warn party that there are 2 pats. One that... Oh.. too late. Get stuck in! Done? Good. Now there is a second pat that comes down that.. Ah.. Hunter pulled. Get stuck in. Oh and look! There's that second pat come down the from the right! Perfect timing! Oh.. Is that another dead rogue. hehe!

Dog. Easy as pie. Only hard thing is explaining to people they have to open they worg pup carrier IN combat otherwise they get no puppy. Road to Wyrm. Relatively simple. Hardest bit is that room right after the dog. Only wiped once here and that was on a guild run where we were feeling a little overenthusistic :grin:

Wyrm is easy. Cowardly. But easy. Go nuts on Wyrm. Leave the adds to me and mage. Kill mages add first as mine is dot'ed to the eyeballs. Some groups always have just the one member who loves to attack cc'd targets and lower either mine or the mages dps by making us re-fear/sheep and Wyrm is hitting tank hard as Priests mana pool is depleting rapidly. Few wipes have been known to happen here. Few abandons here too. Sadly enough.

Arguements over who gets the gem follow his death and the documents weren't hear either. Sorry guys. Gotta stick it out some more! As they arguing about the gem I'm already bouncing merrily on my way to Omokk as I've found a pug group that made it this far. When the group turns up I jump down straight away and get stuck in right away cause orges be pansies!

Omokk dies quickly and dissappointment again as another Belt of The Shaman King drops into my bags. (What is it about Lbrs and lbrs alone that gives you sooo much junk to carry!) Road to Voone. Simple. Though I did make a very very very embarassing mistake here once.... Over entusiastic group that had done fantastic (at Voone in liitle over 90 minutes) over pulled at the door to Voones little hideout and wiped. As we ressing, I spied what I thought was a chair which was odd as I had never seen a chair there before. Right clicked to sit on it and it turned out that what I thought was a chair was a troll. So as I am stabbing this chair that wasn't a chair at all but a troll cleverly disguised as a chair, party members are screaming what the hell are you doing?!

Needless to say we wiped again and I got ressed last second time around....

Voone. Easy. Just parties who can't work out assist in the first room can cause wipes as we whaling on 4 trolls individually.And at this point we are 3-4 hours in and people are wondering if we are ever gonna be done and I'm explaining as the priest resses us from the 4th wipe of the evening (a lot less enthusiastically as Omokk refused to give me my trousers once again) that this is the last room then it's Voone, Documents, Home time. Bish bash bosh. All done. Another set of blue throwing daggers that can't be disenchanted in my bag and I'm hs'ing, spending my 7-8gold on repair costs and logging off after another wasted 4 hours in lbrs...

Yeah. Lbrs sucks. Give me a DM West run with locks and Shadow Priests any day of the week! Easy as pie!

Sorry for the over enthusiastic reply. Trying to display my hatred for LBRS fully! :shocked:

[Dynatos]

LBRS and Scholo are, in my opinion, the hardest endgame 5-mans to PUG. Quite a bit of damage flying around, large groups of enemies, and mobs that run all add to the difficulty for a PUG.

For a guild group, though, they're all easy as pie. :thumbsup:

[Wasabee]

Dude you forgot UBRS.

I have seen Drakk more times then I care too. Killing him even less. (PUGs - FTL!)

Chain Fear/Tank left...Kite Drak...DPS the right...

1. Kite gets conflaged...dies and Drak makes an early return.
2. The right guy, knows what's coming (Premonition or Deja Vu?) and takes off with Drakk. ("Someone forgot to tag him").
3. The guy on the left goes with Drakk or he isn't CC'ed and he chases the healer down and stomps them into dust...I'm usually the healer. (Yeah Fade works well, except if you are the only one on his hate list...)
4. Dps not effective, suggestions of using a Spork soon follow.
5. Room before Drakk...the Group wiper of wipers..."Crowd Control...what's that?"
6. Beast...Yes the tossed salad move is an aggro wipe...so go sunder him...
7. The room after Drakks's room at the top of the stairs...yes there is a LOS issue, Ninja Assain guy, Firetongue Dragon, Dragon PAT, and a Patridge in a pair tree.
8. Arena...yeah tab select is nice...specially to shoot the guys on the balcony...Oh, you didn't know that? Try it. (Hope your a hunter and your FD is up.)
9. Blackhand hall..."Yes, you will get punted into the Eggs if you stand...you Noob I was trying to tell you where...nvm...I guess I 'm down here with you too. Let's run back to the raid, they can take the whelps!"
10. Firetongues..."these guys look like those hatcher guys...save them for last. The farting is funny..."
11. Rookery, "Hey guys what's the little cog over these things...Oh wow that's cool...Oh crap! Not my fault! I din't even touch it! It was the Hunters Pet!"
12. Rook Hatchers..."Silly Dragons in Red hats..how cute, let's kill them last so I can watch them open all the eggs!"
13. <After the door Opens> "Hey these rooms have a bunch of guys in them...so does this next one...Oh look portals...Sorry guys got hit into the next room...There's guys in here too! Lets get the warrior guys first. What's a summoner?"
14. "Okay we are just waiting on...Umm okay lets get these guys...and those...and here is the PAT...WTF why is the mage...Oh he's afk...well Priests can tank right?"
15. 4.Lookingforgroup: LF1M Healer...UBRS - Full on Rogues and Hunters
16. 4.Lookingforgroup: LF UBRS Key...Will pay 5G...Puhlease!

Yeah you forgot UBRS.

[Metatron]

Hardest 5 man... Ubrs on 5 man would be silly hard.....

[Dynatos]

I've done UBRS 6-man through The Beast. Drakk was ... impossible.

[Wasabee]

Hardest 5 man... Ubrs on 5 man would be silly hard.....

Well then there's the problem!

Sorry misread the Post.

Love your post...

...so I guess I'd say LBRS. No one "Finishes BRD" It's just a place for self serving people to go to pretend to "help". You know that yu can only get parts done. Accept it!

Noob: Can we talk to General what's his face real quick?
Leader: This is an Emp run...
Noob: Geez I just need to talk to him...I'm gunna leave
Leader: ARG...fine...what quest?
Noob: Jailbreak, why?
<Noob leaves party> kicked by Leader
Afkguy: Ok I'm back...what group is this? BRD right?
Leader: Yeah, Emp Run
Afkguy: Cool, I need Ironfel...for a quest
Leader: ...
Imarogue: We can just do them both after we get Blashazar (Fire Dude at the end of the Highway).
Leader: ...Emp run as in the Emperor
Hunterdame: Hey guys lets get this going, I just need to get to the bar...I'm honored with the Thorium Brotherhood and just have enough time to pickup a pattern.
Leader: How much time you have?
Hunterdame: 15 minutes...why?
<Leader leaves party>
Afkguy: Can we finish the Attunement to the Core quest too?
Imarogue:sure
Hunterdame: How long will this take?

[Dynatos]

Well then there's the problem!

Sorry misread the Post.

Love your post...

...so I guess I'd say LBRS. No one "Finishes BRD" It's just a place for self serving people to go to pretend to "help". You know that yu can only get parts done. Accept it!

Noob: Can we talk to General what's his face real quick?
Leader: This is an Emp run...
Noob: Geez I just need to talk to him...I'm gunna leave
Leader: ARG...fine...what quest?
Noob: Jailbreak, why?
<Noob leaves party> kicked by Leader
Afkguy: Ok I'm back...what group is this? BRD right?
Leader: Yeah, Emp Run
Afkguy: Cool, I need Ironfel...for a quest
Leader: ...
Imarogue: We can just do them both after we get Blashazar (Fire Dude at the end of the Highway).
Leader: ...Emp run as in the Emperor
Hunterdame: Hey guys lets get this going, I just need to get to the bar...I'm honored with the Thorium Brotherhood and just have enough time to pickup a pattern.
Leader: How much time you have?
Hunterdame: 15 minutes...why?
<Leader leaves party>
Afkguy: Can we finish the Attunement to the Core quest too?
Imarogue:sure
Hunterdame: How long will this take?

QFH

(Quoted For Humor)

[oramac]

well, BRD wasnt a choice else i'd have picked it. but i picke dScholo from the list. its pretty tough for the average pug IMO.

[Seluhir]

LBRS for sure. I have NO problems finding a scholo or strat group... but lbrs 5-man nobody EVER wants to do because its long and people always only want one thing and leave after the boss that drops it dies... usually thats either one of the two troll bosses or the ogre...

[kcma]

gnomer is amazingly hard for the right lvl untwinked group doing it the first time.

[Loriel]

I put my vote in for DM West, in particular because of how hard the last two bosses can be. Clearing the pylons is not a cakewalk either, especially in a PUG. Doing DM West without a Warlock to Banish those pesky elementals is very tricky, but I know from personal experience that it can be done.

DM North (non Tribute) is no walk in the park either. King Gordok isn't really that hard, but his captain hits like a freight train..

I will agree that Scholo is a wipe-zone for PUGs, though, but mainly the first section with the Summoners. Once you get beyond this point it gets a little easier imho, and Gandling is a big fat sissy compared to Immol'thar and the Prince :)

I didn't find LBRS all that hard, tbh - certainly not on the level of Dire Maul. It's usually more of a discipline and leadership issue, as people keep leaving the group to do ... something else, who knows. Then again I haven't done that many 5 man runs, and I still haven't assembled my UBRS key - partially due to bad /roll's and also some ninja'ing..

BRD is a very annoying place, although I wouldn't consider it hard. It's just that there are so many quests and the layout of the place is so confusing that you end up spending hours in there, with people wanting to go in different directions all the time. Sigh.. The latter parts of BRD are not trivial, though, and the Lyceum does require some tight coordination and fine tuned AoE discipline. Most PUGs are stopped dead in their tracks by the Lyceum.

As for UBRS, who knows when we'll be able to 5-man that place. Lvl 64-65, maybe? I'm sure some people in T3 could 5-man it now if they wanted to. UBRS is probably my favorite instance of them all, especially as a Mage :)

So yeah, at the end of the day I think DM West is the top of the 5-man ladder atm - soon to be superceded by a bunch of new 5-man instances :)

[kcma]

UBRS has been 3mened... so... 5men is certainly possible...

[Shellar]

RFC for Alliance, Stockades for Horde.

[Morollan]

Of the choices given, I have to say that Strat and Scholo really don't come into it. The only thing that's going to stop you completing these instances in a reasonable time is incompetence on the part of one or more group members. With a decent group, both instances are very easy.

DM West is slightly trickier and group composition plays a much bigger role. If you don't have a warlock you will find it much tougher.

LBRS I have rarely been to so can't really comment. There's something about the place I just don't like though.

[Krollin]

I have been to all the instances in the poll more times than I care to remember and for my money Stratholme has the most challenges in it, especially for the unprepared.
- Stealth is of marginal use
- Patrols respawn fast
- Traps
- Eyes can cause wipes faster than a Kleenex tissue even for non PuGs
- Undead ambushes in Strat Scarlet Side
- Wiping can often mean starting again

Scholo comes second but has been horribly nerfed again and again.

I have 5 manned UBRS, 4 manned Scholo with ease, I have 3 manned LBRS and DM West, 2 manned an Emperor Run (although it took longer than I would have liked). No, I am not in a guild that has cleared AQ40 either, we have only just started.

I would consider taking less than 5 people on a full Stratholme clear a challenge even now.
I would never even contemplate joining a Stratholme PuG anymore, the other instances I still do.

[kcma]

in conclusion, after having done them more times than you care to remember, you're still doing them <3 ouch... i feel your pain.

[Laserbream]

I'd have to say Stratholme Live. The respawns are disconcertingly fast, someone always pulls ghosts and those postbox events are frigging horrible. Also, the Scarlet stronghold is very tight and adds are almost guaranteed unless everyone is on their toes. And no one ever wants to do the Cannonmaster so I feel like a **** for forcing everyone to do it :(

[WingedNazgul]

Wow. So DM West is in the lead at the moment... I'm a 60 lock and never, ever had a problem with that place. Heck I've done the whole thing with 3 locks and 2 Shadow Priests bouncing aggro off each other.

Doesn't surprise me. Warlock + Priest = DM West easy mode.

[swaldman]

LBRS got my vote for "least likely to complete" simply because with a PuG it takes ages.

Otherwise, I'd personally say that Strat has the hardest end bosses (both sides), and that scholo is the hardest for general trash. DM West without a warlock is a very close second to scholo.

LBRS is relatively easy if you have time for it (and/or a good group that can clear it quickly).

[Herald of Doom]

Strat scarlet. I've cleared every other 5man, but I've wiped three times on those bloody paladin type mobs in the last bit of Live :(

HoD

[swaldman]

Strat scarlet. I've cleared every other 5man, but I've wiped three times on those bloody paladin type mobs in the last bit of Live :(

HoD

Actually, some of the pulls in Scarlet with 2 or 3 healers would probably be very very difficult without some form of crowd control... so if you're very unlucky with your PuG composition then I guess that would be a winner ;-)

[Morollan]

Strat Scarlet is no different to BRD when it comes to the Scarlet Crusade mobs. Okay they're a couple of levels higher but the exact same tactics that get you to Bael'Gar in BRD will get you to Balnazzar in Strat SS, ie, keep an eye out for patrols, kill/cc the healers and stop the runners.

[Oatmealsmurf]

As far as finishing my vote is for Strat Dead and BRD. As noted the Lyceum has stopped every PuG I've been in dead in their tracks. In Strat Dead the elite Skeletons after Ramstein have stopped countless PuGs in their tracks and you have to run because if you pop SS or ankh they just come running after you. Also PuGs have a bad habit it seems of letting the Baron get his Dark Pact off and if you don't have a mage in a pug to deal with the skeletons good luck.

As far as trash though I'd probably go with Scholo... but it's been ages since I've been unable to complete a Scholo Run.

[wesje]

Strat dying on the bigger crowded areas. THeres not 1 player that hasnt ever wiped there. 1 Bad pull with a screecher garg = death

[sasja]

Gnomeregan - people that level hasn't got a clue (unless they're alts, of course), and that place is just huge so even though it's completely doable it'll take so long chances are they'll have to log out at some point.

[Metatron]

Doesn't surprise me. Warlock + Priest = DM West easy mode.

So take 3 locks and 2 shadow priests and you laughing all the way to the end!

[kcma]

Gnomeregan - people that level hasn't got a clue (unless they're alts, of course), and that place is just huge so even though it's completely doable it'll take so long chances are they'll have to log out at some point.

yeh, i feel that way too. and the dark iron dorfs and mines are killer.... not to mention the alarm and pats :p

[Herald of Doom]

Strat Scarlet is no different to BRD when it comes to the Scarlet Crusade mobs. Okay they're a couple of levels higher but the exact same tactics that get you to Bael'Gar in BRD will get you to Balnazzar in Strat SS, ie, keep an eye out for patrols, kill/cc the healers and stop the runners.
I don't think any mob in brd bubbles before running into the next mobpack :thumbsup: And I am CC, being a mage,so I'll go blame myself :cry:

HoD

[rgirty]

I've done live strat a lot, never had any trouble there really even with cannonmaster.

Typically we use MC on a battlemage to AOE the other mobs in a group down, then poly 1 and or seduce 1 when the mc breaks or the mc'd battlemage dies.

Or CC the healer mobs and do them last.

Getting into the bastion is harder than the bastion IMO

[ChaosSaber]

The hardest part of DM West is just getting a group together to actually DO it. I spent 3 hours just getting a group willing to go to the end for my Warlock Epic Mount quest. In the end my guildies bit the bullet and helped me out.

I'm on Medivh (US). Anyone else had this problem?

[swaldman]

The hardest part of DM West is just getting a group together to actually DO it. I spent 3 hours just getting a group willing to go to the end for my Warlock Epic Mount quest. In the end my guildies bit the bullet and helped me out.

I'm on Medivh (US). Anyone else had this problem?

It's certainly harder to find groups for DiM than BRS/Strat/Scholo on most servers. There's another whole thread entitled "Dire Maul" somewhere on these forums discussing the reasons for this.

[liquidicem]

The hardest part of DM West is just getting a group together to actually DO it. I spent 3 hours just getting a group willing to go to the end for my Warlock Epic Mount quest. In the end my guildies bit the bullet and helped me out.

I'm on Medivh (US). Anyone else had this problem?
I actually had a lock pay me 50g to come along on his epic mount quest on my priest. Groups for DM West are tough to get together that is for sure. I would have even gone for free if he ask but I'm broke and he offered. :grin:

[Wasabee]

I think this answer is based on what class you play. Becuase from your point of view your the only that knows what they are doing. (Ecept for maybe 1 or 2 others.)

I got another look at Drakk last night...that's all I will say...

As a Priest...I'm kind stuck at the hardest 5 man instance is a PUG group. No matter what you'll get..."Why didn't you heal...X person?" or the ever so wonderfull "HEALME!"

I'm the guy driving the fire engine...well the other driver...the one that drives the back wheels...

[Aerath]

Despite numerous other options, I'm voting scholomance.

There's just too many spots where there's a disaster waiting to happen. Barov himself is a huge pain unless you bring a priest, and runners can bring back a load of friends...

[kcma]

scholo has been nerfed over the years tho... i remember when it first came out... and it's always a 5+ hour ordeal...

[rgirty]

I do scholo in 2.

[kcma]

well, scholo is easy now if the group knows what they're doing. it's pretty smooth... it used to be a LONG tedius grind >.<

[rgirty]

Its quick if you skip the bat and jandice (most groups do) or at least skip jandice.

[ruinz]

Scholo and Strat are pretty piss-easy, I have to say, it takes some effort to screw them up. A surprising amount of players seem willing to take that effort and give us all a nice expensive wipe though, particularly, sad to say, Hunters. I've seen the classic "pull one pack, send pet into another pack" a lot of times from hunters in Live Strat, and so many people in Live Strat interpret "Hold pull, patrol inc!" or "DON'T PULL" as "Go and run into the next room and see how many groups you can aggro at once and make sure you aggro the patrol too!". So I can see why Live Strat would be on the list.

As for getting into Live Strat being hard, I've done that with two people (my Pally and my wife's Priest, neither of us covered in "leet" gear), so I dunno what the hell you're talking about there, really. It takes an effort to make that hard, or for people to just totally ignore the patrol, ignore the idea of pulling mobs to a specific place, ignore not AEing the neutral ghosts (and then fail to shoot them with the beamgun). That said, we even killed Fras Siabi, and I've seen him wipe level 60 five-mans before, so maybe we were having a particularly good day, I suspect it was just good coordination and planning, though. Those three people from the postboxes were extremely upsetting with two people, I admit (still, we killed them).

We also duo'd most of Scholo (not the bosses!), that's time consuming but doable, so it's sad when a full group wipes in there.

Similarly, I've done all, and I do mean all, of DM West with either three or four people, but that definately was hard. I'd voted for DM West as the hardest as there's a lot of stuff that will really pwn a group in a unsurvivable way if they're not on their toes, particularly some of the ghosts and the those glowing blue mana-elemental bastards.

[kcma]

if you don't MC the summoners, they summon, group wipe. or better, you charge to the summoner, he aggros the whole room. and you also wipe. it's beyond easy to wipe in scholo.

[rgirty]

if you don't MC the summoners, they summon, group wipe. or better, you charge to the summoner, he aggros the whole room. and you also wipe. it's beyond easy to wipe in scholo.

Nawe, didn't you read where he duo's most of it? I didn't know that was possible. Tonight, when I log on i'm going to use lfg and type /LFG 1M scholo. When i get someone and they ask "where is the rest of the party?" I'm going to say its just you and me we are going to duo the place (except for the bosses). :D

[AeroJonesy]

I have a video somewhere of the bosses getting duo'd. It was a druid/rogue combo and it was quite crazy.

[rgirty]

I don't have a druid or rouge so i'm out on that duo i guess.

[kcma]

well if one of the 2 duo is a priest the summoner would be do-able <3

[ruinz]

if you don't MC the summoners, they summon, group wipe. or better, you charge to the summoner, he aggros the whole room. and you also wipe. it's beyond easy to wipe in scholo.

Only if your group is AE-less or consists of morons.

The summoned skeles are ALL destroyed by a SINGLE infinite-target AE of any kind (i.e. Arcane Explosion, Holy Nova, Consecrate, Hellfire), so if you have any of that in your group and you're dying on the wimpo summoners, you have only yourselves to blame. We found ourselves MCing the shadowbolt casters in preference to the summoners, because they could do a lot of damage before we released them and I did Swing (w/SoC up) > HoJ if still alive > HoW if still alive. The summoners really are a joke. I'm dunno how much HP the summoned mobs have, but it isn't much.

I'm sad we didn't FRAPS it, but it makes me kind of happy that people don't believe it :D

There is a good video somewhere of a Mage and Pally duo'ing Scholo, I imagine that was similar, only Sheep would be even better than MC in many ways (though you'd have no Shackle and Fear, which we used plenty)

Plus, Scholo contains the wimpiest elite patrol mobs in the entire game, those Anubisath dudes. My Pally solo'd one w/o using anything but autoattack swings and retribution aura, just to see if I could. What was REALLY sad was I barely needed healing afterwards. Those poor mobs need to l2dodamage.

Rgirty - If you have a Mage and a Pally, or a Pally and a Priest w/Holy Nova, I guarantee you can, with practice, communication, and thought, kill almost ever non-boss mob in Scholomance. I'm willing to bet a Warrior and a Priest w/Holy Nova, or maybe even a Rogue with a Priest with Holy Nova, or maybe a Druid and a Mage could do it (the last would be tough because the Druid would have to both heal and tank and doesn't have quite good anti-interrupt ability as a Pally, although he could have Nature's Swiftness and Barkskin so he might be fine). The key is to ensure as many mobs are safely CC'd as possible, and of course to watch out for patrols and runners (as with any group, though).

BRD is actually harder to duo, though still most of the non-boss stuff and some bosses doable w/Pally + Priest (Roccor, obviously, he soloable, Houndmaster Gebmar or whatever he's called, all the arena bosses, the bats that can come before them can be tough though, remember your ST poison cloud trinket!, Pyromaster Loregrain or whatever that guy is called, the portrait guys (even the one which comes with 4 adds), and some others).

[rgirty]

Rgirty - If you have a Mage and a Pally, or a Pally and a Priest w/Holy Nova, I guarantee you can, with practice, communication, and thought, kill almost ever non-boss mob in Scholomance. I'm willing to bet a Warrior and a Priest w/Holy Nova, or maybe even a Rogue with a Priest with Holy Nova, or maybe a Druid and a Mage could do it (the last would be tough because the Druid would have to both heal and tank and doesn't have quite good anti-interrupt ability as a Pally, although he could have Nature's Swiftness and Barkskin so he might be fine). The key is to ensure as many mobs are safely CC'd as possible, and of course to watch out for patrols and runners (as with any group, though).

I have a couple of good pally friends, Since I am a priest w/holy nova why not try a trio first.

Thanks for the tips.

[ruinz]

I have a couple of good pally friends, Since I am a priest w/holy nova why not try a trio first.

Thanks for the tips.

A trio would certainly be a lot quicker, and I imagine you might be able to manage some of the bosses (almost certainly the bat, at the very least).

[rgirty]

I was thinking the bat and maybe even rattlegore with all the healing power, might be a long fight but with a consumable or three i think it could be done.

[kcma]

ruiz: it depends on your gear. since if you dont MC the summoner you have to kill him before he can aggro another group. which he does often because then you have to find him in the big room. scholo is definitely not easy for newly 60s.

sure, my priest buddy and my warrior duo-ed the entired SM @ lvl 39 and priest @ 36. but we are uber twinked and we know every single pull in SM. /shrug.

but SM really isnt as easy as ppl think. it's easy to aggro the whole room in Lib and everyone has wiped in Cath at some point.

[Piemaster]

I voted for Scholo. It seems to test the average group a lot more, because it has a lot more variety than the other level 60 instances. Plus the two Barov's can be a pain in the ass for an inexperienced group.

[rgirty]

The boss *forget his name* with the dark aura and two 61 elite adds always gives my groups trouble. I have the best results with shakling one of them, pally fear the other then hunter kite it when it breaks. Your mage MUST however decurse the tank if he gets that nasty nasty anti-heal curse.

That fight is harder than the baron IMO.

[ruinz]

Kcma - Our gear is pretty shoddy, to be honest. I have some epics, but they're the lowest ivalue items (belt, bracers, gloves), I'm using a blue weapon and most of my stuff could be acquired from easy quests and/or the AH. The most "exciting" thing I own is the ZHC, and don't remember even using it in Scholo hehe. My wife's priest is better-geared, but her "good" gear, her epics, are all +healing which is pretty worthless in a duo most of the time, so she generally wears +damage blues.

As for mobs running and aggroing more mobs, well, that's really down to sloppy play. That certainly didn't happen to us in our duo, I used Judgement of Justice and Hammer of Justice on would-be runners (the latter on actual runners). With other group setups you have things like Crippling Poison (Rogues who don't use it in instances on at least one of their weapons need to l2p in my opinion), Hamstring, Execute, Frost Nova, Frost Bolt (preferably fired at them when they are on low health and BEFORE they start to run), Mindflay and a zillion other ways to stop mobs getting very far. Combine that with good use of the symbols and good assisting and nothing should be running into anything.

The boss *forget his name* with the dark aura and two 61 elite adds always gives my groups trouble. I have the best results with shakling one of them, pally fear the other then hunter kite it when it breaks. Your mage MUST however decurse the tank if he gets that nasty nasty anti-heal curse.

That fight is harder than the baron IMO.

In a group doing scholo which was have huge trouble with him (mostly because it was 4am and at least two of the group members were tired to the point of extreme confusion), I found a good way to do that encounter.

It relied on the fact that I, at that time, had Persuit (sp?) of Justice, which gives you 8% runspeed. However, I've since learnt that you can get the same runspeed (+8%) from the "Minor Speed" boot enchant and the Arathi Basin boots, so those would work too.

All I did was hit the boss itself with Exorcism, and run like hell back up the stairs with him, doing my best to cause him to take pathing routes which would leave him behind me. I left the group to deal with the two skeles, they have about 8k hp each, hit moderately hard, but should be easy for any remotely competant group to kill. Of course, as my group was tired and confused they managed to let our only other healer, a resto Druid, get killed by the skellies, so we all died again. But we tried it again and I stressed to the group that they MUST NOT let the Druid die, and I kited the boss with ease (using my DS when I had to run past him to get back down, I waited until he melee'd me twice before I hit DS as I knew I'd have a long way to run possibly in his melee range), they killed the skellies, and when I arrived back the we tanked and spanked the boss.

It is a harder fight than the Baron, though, all the Baron needs is a group smart enough to ALL STAND BY THE BARON, a tank smart enough to hold the Baron facing AWAY from the group, and some mild AE to deal with the skellies he summons, whereas this requires more coordination and competence, not just knowing basically what to do, esp. due to the horrible "healing nerf" aura that boss also puts out.

Of course, a Hunter can kite him a lot easier than a Pally, and it's better to kite HIM than the skellies. However, kiting is an art, and you need to be either:

A) A natural at it, some players just are.

B) Practiced in it. I'm very practiced in it from being a Shaman in Dark Age of Camelot RvR.

It's better to have the "wrong" class kite if the person in that class is a natural kiter and they have ANY way at all to get ahead of the mob.

Many hunters are kind of dim at kiting. For example, our one shot the mob with concussive shot but engaged Aspect of the Cheetah before he cleared it's AE, dazing himself and eventually getting killed as he was never able to fully escape the AE damage aura.

Mages can kite that boss well too, what with Frostbolt and blink. Takes some balls though, he hits hard on plate, and like a Freight Train on cloth.

[kcma]

i'm not questioning if you did or not ruinz <3 it's jsut surprising because summoner has a nasty habbit of jumping around, and he's not exactly a 5 second kill (esp if you're wearing freshly 60ed gear) :)

[ruinz]

i'm not questioning if you did or not ruinz <3 it's jsut surprising because summoner has a nasty habbit of jumping around, and he's not exactly a 5 second kill (esp if you're wearing freshly 60ed gear) :)

Fair enough lol, they do run around a bit, which is why snares and stuns are you best friends on them.

[Ashoran]

Anyone notice the change in Scholo with 1.12.1 yet? Ive only tried it once, but the room with the door in that requires the key from Rattlegore has TONNES more mobs in. Before it was 4 seperate pulls of 1-2 Ghouls and a couple of nonelites skirting the edge of the room, now there are like 12 ghouls and loads of nonelites in there all closely packed together. Not to mention the Spider pats.

[Xaero]

My priest started learning how to Shackle pull in Scholo at 57. Now I'm revered with AD from scholo runs almost exclusively and can't stand the place. I know every pull, but there is always someone that does something stupid. Standing in poison clouds, tanking the Butcher with a 2-handed weapon (hes hard enough to tank anyway). The summoner room with the gargoyle boss is by far the hardest, then the first room with all the casters, and the boss that has the Aura..can't remember his name. I've been lucky enough to not see anyone aggro Rattlegore due to the bat room. I voted for Scholo simply because of the learning curve it can have.. (I've never had to shackle pull before going in there), All the places simple noobish mistakes can wipe you, and the sheer length of the instance. I would have hated running it before the many nerfs.

[kcma]

it was such a long instance... ppl avoided scholo for a long time because of that... and yeh, there are alot more tricky pulls in there than most other places. if you've been there alot u know the pulls but ppl learning it on their own the curve is huge.

[satarina]

Scholo and Strat are pretty piss-easy, I have to say, it takes some effort to screw them up. A surprising amount of players seem willing to take that effort and give us all a nice expensive wipe though, particularly, sad to say, Hunters. I've seen the classic "pull one pack, send pet into another pack" a lot of times from hunters in Live Strat, and so many people in Live Strat interpret "Hold pull, patrol inc!" or "DON'T PULL" as "Go and run into the next room and see how many groups you can aggro at once and make sure you aggro the patrol too!". So I can see why Live Strat would be on the list.

As for getting into Live Strat being hard, I've done that with two people (my Pally and my wife's Priest, neither of us covered in "leet" gear), so I dunno what the hell you're talking about there, really. It takes an effort to make that hard, or for people to just totally ignore the patrol, ignore the idea of pulling mobs to a specific place, ignore not AEing the neutral ghosts (and then fail to shoot them with the beamgun). That said, we even killed Fras Siabi, and I've seen him wipe level 60 five-mans before, so maybe we were having a particularly good day, I suspect it was just good coordination and planning, though. Those three people from the postboxes were extremely upsetting with two people, I admit (still, we killed them).

We also duo'd most of Scholo (not the bosses!), that's time consuming but doable, so it's sad when a full group wipes in there.



first of all, as a hunter who knows how to play the class, i apologize for the ones that don't. i know there are many of them out there.

second, i don't see why duo'ing these dungeons wouldn't be possible for you and your wife, since you're likely playing in the same room. my husband and i both play, and it makes grouping so much easier when you can just tell the other what you're about to do (TS isn't the same at all, trust me).

my vote for the hardest instance with a pug, though, has to go to strat. in fact, strat is the reason i refuse to join pugs. honestly, how hard is it to stay away from the one group of mobs off in the corner that we're trying to pass up? why does someone have to get close enough to aggro them right when we're fighting the next group?

and now my guild wonders why i insist on clearing everything in every room every time, in every instance.

[kcma]

because it's safer and usually faster <3