Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsCC: How to run instances without a net
by Adam Holisky 
Mar 16th 2008 at 7:00PM
Running 5 man instances is the bread and butter of gearing up any PvE character. There are some short instances, and some longer ones. There are some bosses that are ready for fun, and others that like to die fast. Many people consider it a universal truth that all you need to do these instances is solid crowd control. When you're faced with a pack of six or seven level 70 elite mobs, the last thing you want is one or two of them running loose.But what can you do if you don't have any CC available? Are you just out of luck? Nope! There are a few tricks to running instances without CC, and if you pay close attention, you won't miss the lack of sheeps at all.
In fact, you might just start preferring to run without crowd control entirely.
Off the bat, we're going to mainly focus on doing a no-cc run with a Warrior or Druid. Paladins have a natural AoE tanking ability and it's not very challenging to tank or run five mans with a paladin and no-CC. Consecration FTW.
So first, you want to always allow your tank a few extra seconds for agro. Give them a few seconds to hit each mob, and then start the DPS. This is particularly important in saving the lives of your healers. No matter what your healer does, they are going to be building healing agro with all the mobs that are being engaged - not just the focused target. There for, the tank's threat must be above the healer's threat at all times, unless you want your healer taking a dirt nap.
This brings us to the second tip – heal lightly and heal often. It's not a good idea to spam big heals – those are going to generate more healing aggro and easily pull off a mob on the peripheral of the tanks threat generation rotation off to the healers. If that happens and the tank is under some movement impairing effect, expect a wipe to follow. Save the big heals for only when absolutely necessary. There are some healers I run with that never use them, and things go just fine.
On the opposite side to healing aggro is the DPS aggro, and our third tip: keep it low. DPS aggro is much easier to control. You should be running Omen, don't bother with anything else. Omen makes staying below the tank at all times an easy task. How can you do this when multiple mobs are being controlled by the tank? Single target everything down. Don't let that pretty Arcane Explosion graphic tempt you – because the tank won't be able to taunt the mob off you fast enough.
The best way to stay on the tanks target is for the tank to have setup a predefined charm as their current focus. If the tank binds the charm to a key, they can just bounce the charm around as each mob dies. This is a very easy and effective way to quickly dispatch a large number of mobs.
If you don't use a bouncing charm, or some sort of charm order, you can setup hotkeys to assist the main tank. A quick way to do this is to select the tank and press the "F" key. F will automatically assist the current target, which means in the case of a tank, you'll get the mob he is currently focused on. The only downside to this is that if you do it as the tank is switching targets to generate more threat on a non-focused mob, you have a good possibility of pulling the mob off and causing problems that can only be resolved through a taunt, aggro dump, or your death.
Finally, when dealing with a multimob tanking situation, the tank wants to be sure to apply threat to each and every mob. The best way to do this is to group them all up in front of you – faced away from the DPS, and tab target through everything. On my warrior, I do this by initially getting all the mobs attention with a Thunder Clap, and then applying at least one Sunder Armor on each mob before returning to the focus target mob. About twenty to thirty seconds later, I repeat the cycle. On the interim, of course, I am still building threat on the focus target mob.
As you can probably tell, the primary thing to concern yourself with when doing five mans without crowd control is threat management. A mob isn't going to hurt you if it doesn't hate you the most out of everyone – so don't give it a reason to. You won't pull aggro if you have just 1 threat less than the tank, and in the end that's all that matters.
What are some tips that you have for those groups without CC?
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Tricks, How-tos, Instances, Guides
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Vvildcard Mar 17th 2008 3:30AM
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the value of using certain healing spells to help the tank. Specifically, Lifebloom's 'bloom', Prayer of Mending and Earthshield procs all are counted threat-wise for the tank.
As a priest, I *always* have PoM on my tank before a pull, then hit him again immediately upon cooldown. The healing provided gives him that much more of a threat cushion AND heals him, giving more time before I have to land heals that give me threat.
For Druids, make SURE your tank is topped off, then drop a Lifebloom on him as soon as you see him raise his gun/bow to pull. Remember, overheal doesn't cause threat so you won't pull aggro on the pull. If all goes well, he'll take some damage before the bloom and then get the threat from the bloom when it goes off and heals that damage. You can let a few Lifeblooms go off and let Rejuv and Regrowth do the first bit of healing at the start, before building your Lifeblooms to 3 stacks.
Shaman have it easy with Earthshield (no timing required) and there's no healing spells that Paladins have to give this effect. Pallys get 20% less healing threat and can BoSalvation themselves if needed so they really should never have healing threat problems anyways.
jrodman Mar 17th 2008 2:57PM
Research shows that lifebloom's bloom is actually without any threat. I believed this as well, but lots of experimenting shows it not to be true.
Relying heavily on lifebloom's bloom while party-healing is still a good thing, because it means about half the party healing will not produce healing threat on the resto druid. Relying on the bloom significantly on the tank is only viable when the dungeon is SUPER easy, because the throughput and efficiency of a 3-stacked lifebloom is so much better than letting it bloom.
I agree with you 100% about Prayer of Mending, however, and have no experience with earth shield.
Daniel Mar 17th 2008 4:12AM
I've had my fair share of experience with dungeon runs where some of the "required" roles are missing. First thing I had to learn is that every dungeon can be completed, as long as you have one class that can act as tank and one that can act as a healer. If this is the case, it does not matter which classes to take with you.
Just an example: Shattered Halls is said to be a dungeon where crowd control is of immense meaning. Well, I can tell you, it's not. You can do the full run without any kind of crowd control. Take a paladin with protection spec, a holy priest, a shadow priest, a warlock and a rogue, and then do not use mind control, seduce, or stuns. It works. All you need to do: define a kill order when you start, and stick to it. Doing it this way, we even survived two groups of seven mobs, and none of the group members yet had been into heroics or raids for gear.
It all comes down to three things: communication, having a general plan for the dungeon, and knowing your classes limits.
Kanuris Mar 17th 2008 5:24AM
My main is a Protadin. I run instances with my mate who is a Feral Druid.
Crowd Control, as my Dwarf would say, "is fer sissies"
Deaf Mar 17th 2008 5:51AM
I usually do a lot of non cc runs with guildies and usually I just use the TC spam to keep aggro on larger pulls and then have fun with spamming shield slams, cleaves and devastate also using spell reflect to tank ranged caster mobs is a really good thing to remember.
If there's a pull with more than one squishy caster mob, the dps normally can handle one mob on their own.
Normally on a large pack I go TC for aggro, demo shout (to take less damage, needing fewer heals), spam devastate/revenge/shield slam/TC, whichever is ready at the time.
jack Mar 17th 2008 6:16AM
Worth noting that most of the time (with a decent healer who can whack-a-mole properly) any melee class can offtank caster mobs.
Enhancement shaman can interrupt every 6 seconds and drop grounding in between, warriors can pummel every 10, same with rogues and kick, not to mention the stuns.
So long as they catch the occasional heal to top them off (they'll be taking some melee hits), it's pretty easy for melee to "tank" casters, even in heroics.
Usu Mar 17th 2008 7:35AM
For feral tanks: hurricane pull! Just be careful to position it so the mobs have to run through it so they get more than just one tick, et voila, threat on every mob.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Mar 17th 2008 7:42AM
Surprised to see you mention Omen here.
It's a fantastic addon for boss fights right now, and it'll be very useful for multi-mob pulls after 2.4, but right now it gets confused if there's more than one mob with the same name in a fight, making it less than useful in normal 5-man situations.
Pamplemoose Mar 17th 2008 8:51AM
I was in a fantastic run through Heroic SH yesterday, admitedly we had the guilds two best geared tanks (myself and one other) and a good healer but it made it an absoloute breeze. We simply both used a mix of DPS and tanking gear and brought a warlock and a mage to help nuke things.
It was the smoothest run I've ever been in.
Milktub Mar 17th 2008 9:16AM
I tell warriors to run an instance without CC to find out if they're ready for it on heroic. I've gotten to the point now that I can blow through H Mech without CC, and trudged through H SLabs with only a rogue for CC.
I do it simple. Tell the healer to not panic, tell everyone else to chill for a second before they slam in on the primary, then pass devastates around to the crew.
shadowwolf007 Mar 17th 2008 11:36AM
It's not the 8000 Gheal with 4000 overheal that pulls aggro. It's 800 health Rejuvination or Renew that ticks the first second you get hit before you can thunderclap followed by the 2200 Flash Heal/Regrowth.
By queing up a big heal to hit approximately 4 seconds after the tank has their targets, you reduce your chances of pulling aggro to virtually nil. You can even have a PoM/PoM sequence at the start or a Lifebloom's bloom go off just after the start of a pull.
Small heals are incredibly inefficient meaning you go oom faster and use more mana during the pull. They also generate more threat (not less) as it takes additional heals to produce the same health throughput.
The biggest tradeoff that you get is that your tank can be taken down by a series of very small hits. Small heals won't counteract burst damage unless your HPS is sufficient to overcome the additional incoming damage, which in most cases it will not. A larger heal will produce less substantial threat, give more time for the tank to build aggro, and also counteract the likely large amount of bursty damage at the start of a fight more effectively.
A tank could also consider using a shield spike for some pulls with lots of mobs to generate extra threat. Keep in mind that damage shields (retribution aura, thorns) require that you take damage to perform their ability. Dodges, parries, misses, and fully blocked attacks don't proc them for example.
Val Mar 17th 2008 12:03PM
I am currently level 68 tanking non-heroics (naturally) with a Fury/Prot build (5/42/14 when completed). For multi-mobs pulls w/out cc my lead in goes:
1.) Start in Zerker Stance
2.) Ranged pull (los if casters involved)
3.) Berserker rage
4.) Bloodrage
5.) As mobs come in - Sweeping Strikes
6.) Whirlwind
7.) Defensive Stance
8.) Thunderclap
9.) Dem Shout
They are stuck like glue at that point. So long as the healer waits to the end of the rotation to cast a heal, I don't get healer aggro being an issue either.
Naturally, your only problems occur when that pesky mage or hunter cant wait to begin casting/firing shots @ mobs prior to your rotation being complete.
Patience from your dps is usually the difference.
Cheers
MommaBear Mar 17th 2008 4:09PM
I ran heroic ramparts with a couple of non-cc ers the other day. Elemental shammie and ret pally I think. What we decided on -- after a few wipes -- was to have at least one burn target. I'd concentrate on a couple of hard hitting targets. They would burn a caster or the dogs. By the time they were concentrating on my mobs, they were locked down, and the healer was always safe. With pvp gear so available now, lots of different classes have a lot of hp -- my shadow priest often dps tanks a caster-type. Casting a lot of renews or similar heals across the party seems to help rather than 5 straight big heals on the tank.
Alkahn Mar 17th 2008 4:24PM
I pretty much never tab-sunder either. Thunderclap has a 4 second cooldown? Every 3rd global cooldown should be used for that ability. I generally pick (or mark) a secondary target and give it a revenge, devastate, or shield slam and if you're not undergeared you really shouldn't need to do more secondary threat than that tclap every time it's on cooldown.
The other abilities I'm using on the global cooldown are concussion blow, demo shout, and disarm. Don't underestimate concussion blow and disarm for mitigating damage, and therefore reducing healer aggro. All told, this doesn't leave much in the way of GCDs to devote to "tab sundering", which is less TPS than practically any other use of a GCD, and those that aren't dedicated to threat are dedicated to mitigating.
Also, assisting the tank is terrible for the reason you've stated. If you're not using symbols or a main assist, honestly there's no reason to settle for assisting the tank. It's one keybinding to make it clear what DPS should be doing. Do it the right way, don't /assist a tank who has to switch targets. Ever.
Also healers if you have "negative threat" heals (Shammies and priests, I'm looking at you) - use 'em. I pretty much have to be asleep to let a priest pull aggro when I'm tanking on my warrior. ProM before the pull, ProM as soon as it bounces, and if you need to heal early, fade. Seriously there is NO excuse for a priest to pull healer aggro if they have half a braincell.
Last note: warriors NEVER run w/out CC. In all the places you're apt to see pulls of that size, drag intimidating shout out of your spellbook and use it. You generally don't have back-to-back pulls of 6 elites, so pick your spots, pull far back (use bloodrage AFTER the pull for aggro), LOS them to a cozy corner, hit a tclap, whirlwind, tclap, and FEAR. Feared mobs are 100% mitigation and pre-loading the threat means they're going to come back to you when they're back to their senses. It's an awesome AOE fear because the primary DPS target stays put to get pounded on.
Happy tanking.
Zangief Mar 18th 2008 6:16PM
"A quick way to do this is to select the tank and press the "F" key. F will automatically assist the current target, which means in the case of a tank, you'll get the mob he is currently focused on."
I have been hotkeying this macro to F for a while and it works great.
/assist *main tanks's name*
Can be a bit of a pain if you Pug a lot having to change the name each run but it is worth it. Simple but effective.
Bulloney Mar 18th 2008 11:54AM
My motto is "Death: the ultimate CC" If you can break that one you are good my friend!
Hoki Mar 24th 2008 2:14AM
My preference is to alway los pull - keeps mobs nicely grouped which is essential, and means I know pretty much where the PuG is compared to the mobs. I usually turn the mobs around so I am looking at the PuG.
Approach:
1.) Start in Zerker Stance
2.) Ranged pull to LoS position.
3.) Berserker rage
4.) Bloodrage
5.) Defensive Stance
6.) Thunderclap
7.) Dem Shout
8.) Cleave
8.) Mouse-Over Sunder
9.) Thunderclap
Most tanks don't have SS, so Val's approach seems to be unrealistic.
And tab-sunder is BAD - set up a mouseover macro for Sunder/Devastate (target is devastate and mouse-over target is sunder) Zero chance of breaking stuns or other short timer CC.
Also, with patch 2.4 Cleave is now a viable tank skill even when CC is in action.
A good warrior tank (which I consider myself to be) can tank 5-6 mobs. No, we can't tank like a pally, but then, a pally can't tank like we can on bosses either.
One thing about PuGs - if the tank say "stay here" - do it. It means he is off to drag mobs out of patrol zones or where too much movement could aggro other mobs. I have wiped too many times because the rogue or huntard decided to follow me.