Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsBreakfast Topic: The new 5-mans
by Allison Robert 
Nov 24th 2008 at 8:00AM
5-mans are still my favorite part of the game. Guild runs, PuG-runs, something in between...doesn't matter. And I've had a fabulous time in Northrend 5-mans so far. Yes, Herald Volazj is pretty much the clear winner of the early 5-man bosses (gotta love that Insanity debuff), but Azjol Nerub's been very popular, and the questline leading to the cutscene at the end of Drak'tharon Keep is getting a lot of good press. Not enough people are in the late '70's or at 80 to have had a good crack at Halls of Stone, Halls of Lightning, Utgarde Pinnacle, or Culling of Stratholme, so I'm not sure how those are going to go over, but I think players in general have really enjoyed the new dungeons.That there's markedly less emphasis on soul-crushing trash (I'm looking at you, Shattered Halls) and more emphasis on cool boss mechanics and gorgeous scenery is also pretty awesome. And then there's that giant drop in Azjol Nerub taking you past several levels of the ancient city that never fails to kill someone. I shouldn't find it funny, but I do, even when it's me.
How far along are you on the new Northrend 5-mans? Have you picked a favorite yet? And how many people have you seen die on the Azjol Nerub drop?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Instances, Features, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Hinalover Nov 24th 2008 9:19AM
Considering I've only ran Utgarde Keep and Gun'drak while leveling, my only experience with 5-mans have been Heroics. Of all of the instances, Nexus is my favorite. Just the sheer scenery is gorgeous. As for difficulty, the two hardest that I've encountered (I've ran 2/3rds of the instances so far), I have to give them to Halls of Lightning, and Utgarde Pinnicle. UP just because of the third boss is a pain to get a pug to work together for. Lightning because of the shear damage output that both trash and bosses pump out. Getting one-shot on a mage by a trash mob is not fun (10k hit >_
Shadiix Nov 24th 2008 9:19AM
I've been 80 since monday, done every dungeon, some on heroic, and I have to say that the oculus is just plain amazing and fun. Since a lot of people haven't done it, I won't ruin it, but I will say that even if there is absolutely nothing in the instance you want you should do it atleast once... it's amazing.
Izzy Nov 24th 2008 9:28AM
Just dinged 73. Dunno what I'm doing wrong in The Nexus. 2 pugs and 1 guild run later, I'm not any closer to finishing it. UK was cleared in 1 pug.
Less trash is great though.
Asuna Nov 24th 2008 9:30AM
So far our guild has been doing Utgard Keep, Utgard Pinnacle and Halls of Lightning. Of which I would say Pinnacle was the most 'interesting.' The mass mobs/dragon boss took a while to figure out.
xenothaulus Nov 24th 2008 9:31AM
Still don't have Wrath. :< Someone get me an early xmas present!
Naix Nov 24th 2008 9:37AM
Not only is there a tank shortage now there is also a healer shortage. All the tanks have gone DPS spec to fly threw questing. Healers have also switched to DPS mode for easier questing. Every time I jump on my Druid to heal, because the Mage who plays with us does not want to bring his healing Shaman, I get a ton of tells. I get about 50 tells asking to heal soon as I login. So I have decided to level to 80 doing instances on my healer.
Redem Nov 24th 2008 9:53AM
Ran everything except Violet Hold, and so far I think my fav is the Hall of Stone.
Alderkin Nov 24th 2008 9:45AM
"And then there's that giant drop in Azjol Nerub taking you past several levels of the ancient city that never fails to kill someone."
Yeah, nothing says "I hate this PUG" better than a well timed water walking on the DPSer who keeps grabbing aggro off the tank. :)
Dabuul Nov 24th 2008 9:47AM
I did UK, The Nexus and AN whilst leveling up and found them all to be reasonably easy.
I hit 80 yesterday and did UK, Nexus and Violet Hold heroics. I noticed my health getting very low a lot of the time as the mobs hit quite hard, I'm a feral tank in a mix of t5/badge gear (and some upgrades from said heroics) with around 28k HP buffed and my healer was similarily geared.
I'd have to say that heroics are slightly challenging, although nothing compared to heroics in BC as you'd at least have to farm a few normal end level dungeons before jumping into heroics, whereas I started in WotLK literally as soon as I'd dinged 80 and respecced.
Looking forward to more heroics tonight, might even try a 10 man Naxx pug as I'm sure it's doable.
below Nov 24th 2008 9:51AM
Halls of Lighting is probably my favorite looking dungeon in the whole game. Really cool stuff in there.
Ahoni Nov 24th 2008 10:09AM
I have completed all of the regular dungeons.
Utgarde Keep: Nice, quick. Nothing complicated.
Nexus: Beautiful. Gorgeous. Stunning place. Couple nice boss fights. I like that you can choose the order.
Azjol-Nerub: Leap of faith, lol. Spiders, lots of them. Last boss is really fun. A little more challenging than the first two. Completely unique instance.
Old Kingdom: Another beautiful place. Last two bosses are great. Love those fights, both of them. The final boss is my favorite so far.
Gundrak: another place you can chose the order of.
Drak'Tharon Keep: Nice, quick, short. Nothing too difficult, not a lot of trash. Do the questline in Grizzly hills to see some Arthas.
Culling of Strathome: annoying. great lore stuff here, neat to see this, especially if you never played Warcraft before WoW. But annoying in that it takes 10 minutes to start, and the waves may be way over there and you have to go get it.
Violet Hold: Very nice. Quick, updated version of BM. Better than BM. No trash to clear, just get started. My first upgrades came from here.
Utgarde Pinnacle: One great completely original boss fight. Fun place, and another beautiful instance.
Halls of Lightning: Stunning. This place is great. Last boss do a group hug and run out during AoE.
Halls of Stone: Fun event with lots of backstory with Bronzebeard.
Occulus: Completely original place. Terrific. Fun. Fabulous. One boss is a dance, one a chase and one a dragon fight. Can't beat that. Great fun, really like this place. Another very well done instance.
Overall, Blizzard gets a 10/10 on instances. A few recycled encounters. Impressive graphically. These places are, for the most part, absolutely stunning. Lots of great new boss fights, some completely incredibly fun (Occulus, Old Kingdom, Nexus)
Loving the instances, great job Blizz. Favorites so far are Old Kingdom and the Occulus. Can't wait to do them again.
Mirajj Nov 24th 2008 11:29AM
I was so distracted walking around the Hall of Lightening (back half) for the first time I nearly missed several fights. It's just beautiful in there.
HalcyonGT Nov 24th 2008 10:19AM
Unfortunately, I'm not enjoying one damn 5-man at this point. I'm a Tankadin that is in a dead guild so I have to PuG to do any kind of run.
The sheer amount of idiots who don't know how to watch their DPS is astounding. And yet upon death apologize profusely but then proceed to do it again....and/or blame the tank or healer for the moronic decisions they've exhibited. I've had people show up for runs with less than marginal durability on their gear and then need to hearth out mid way through to repair.
WTF?
How is it that this game has been out for 4 years and people can't exhibit the common decency to respect the rest of the party and come prepared to finish a run?!
Don't show up for a run if you haven't taken out the dog yet...or your mom is on your ass about the dishes...or your girlfriend/wife/etc has been running high on aggro all weekend. Stop FUCKING up dungeon runs for FUCKS sake!
Its getting to the point that WoW is a single player experience for the sheer fact that anyone can stumble through the levels and not know what the fuck to do.
I seriously wish classes had to pass a competency quest to lvl up. This is getting ridiculous. How the hell does melee DPS not know to get behind proto drakes in UK when they spray flames? HOW?!?!
I'm a GODDAMN lvl 72 Tankadin that has run UK 12 times and has never finished. NEVER. In making this game accessible to all...its seems now to be a fucktards paradise.
I'll slog it out to 80 though. I'll keep hope alive...that maybe...just maybe...4 to 9 other players will be thinking ahead before they instance in....and throughout the entire run. Otherwise, this could be a very painful expansion for me.
Choryujin 72 BElf Paladin [Ursin]
futurebiblehero Nov 24th 2008 11:19AM
Generally, the players that don't have the sense to check Omen also don't have the sense to dish out respectable DPS (My two mains are a tankadin and a raid-spec Rogue, so I have experience on both sides of this).
Unless you have trouble talking people into giving you a second or two before they go nuts, the problem may be in the threat-building.
Molebomb Nov 24th 2008 10:22AM
We achieved the Northrend Dungeon Master just yesterday. I found the halls of lightning to be a slight challenge. The oculus is probably the most revolutionary dungeon in the game as it requires you to do more than just run though and kill things. My favorite still sides with Old kingdom, overall everything has been more fun.
On a side note, there are only 4 "lvl 80" dungeons, which leads me to believe that the normal to heroic dunegon difficulty is a little bit smaller of a gap to bridge this time around.
Mark Nov 24th 2008 11:16AM
I am loving the Halls dungeons (stone and lightning). They are by far to me the coolest of all the instances I have run
tylinna Nov 24th 2008 10:33AM
I have done every instance got my dungeon achievement and I am short Oculus and Old City for Heroic achievement and I must say both Utgarde instances are great, however the gauntlet in heroic Pinnacle can piss you off trying to pick up the boss after you shoot down the dragon, he has wonky aggro and if you have a HoT healer he will beeline for them. As for the Nexus being futuristic I don't see it as overly futuristic, it is more like an odd ice cavern. The most futuristic instance I saw is also one of my favorites Violet Hold, because it is like BM without the stupid 15 minutes of non elite cat/ spider/ gator clearing.
Daggly Nov 24th 2008 10:35AM
I got my lvl 80 achievement and immediately cleared every heroic in the game with the following comp:
Pally tank
Arcane Mage
Shadow Priest
Destro Lock
Resto Druid (myself)
I really feel like Blizzard has done a good job of making the encounters require good players, not just certain classes (we will see if this continues with the raids).
There were a few instances where I thought I would really hate to run to try and run with a pug (Occulus comes to mind), but I think the heroics should be fairly accessible to most of the player base.
I didn't run most dungeons on regular, so I can't speak to their enhanced difficulty, but I can say that Heroic Ahn'Kahet is much harder than its normal counter part, but the extra boss is really cool and original. The fact the insanity adds have 12k hp and hit a bit harder makes the last boss very intense.
holyground Nov 24th 2008 11:45AM
I just dinged 79 last night, and we tried Halls of stone because no one had been there yet. My god, it was fun.
No one knew the instance at all and we did it in less than a half hour just running randomly.
The bronzebeard thing was fun, too. The room you go to is very epic... in an almost lolore kind of way, it reminded me of Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. We had no idea what was going on and then there was a chest there.
"Um, did we just do a boss or something?" my GL says in vent. We just run around, the place looks nice, and I love me a good Maiden.
Of all the instances I've run, I probably like nexus myself, because even though it's bigger, if you're efficient, it's fast. I also like the look of it: magic running lose.
Rivana Nov 24th 2008 10:54AM
So far, just three guild runs, UK and Nexus (x2). Looking forward to more.
The run came off with no problems. Great graphics. Impressive scripted boss fights. Limited trash. Grats to Blizzard on a job well done!
Fun was had by all, especially the group that had a couple of toons who had recently dinged 70 and could actually use the drops & instance quest rewards. (I also swapped in several Wrath items because they seemed to be itemized better for 3.0.2 mana regen.)
So far, nothing that a decent group with Kara-geared tank & healer can't do easily and quickly. CC was optional with a pally tank. As a priest healer I had the tools for all the fights (thinking especially of the Nexus bosses that are made easier by instant heals and HOTs).