Ironmanning(or undermanning) 5-Man Dungeons

Tinkerfizzle · 10/08/07, 10:16 PM

I've been trying out some of the 5-man dungeons for the past couple months with a druid healer friend of mine - we started out doing Mana Tombs and Old Hillsbrad, but we managed to clear Shattered Halls a few weeks back with plenty of wipes along the way.

We've improved a lot since then, and we've been trying out some of the more difficult instances: Botanica, Arcatraz, Steamvaults, and so on. Getting new PvE gear as we go along has made a positive difference for us, and it's certainly added some freshness and fun to the game that's otherwise been a bit lacking in things to do when it isn't raidtime -- certain mob abilities become many times more deadly with two people in the instance, so it really demands a unique level of focus from the group(7k Meteor on Arcatraz final boss's trash, for example!).

Has anyone else had any interest or success with undermanning this kind of content - maybe even 2 or 3-manning heroic dungeons, if the gear level is there?

Edit - Changed the thread title, don't blame me - I just work here!

Dollar · 10/08/07, 10:22 PM

I know there is a video flying around of a warlock that solod heroic slave pens using terrain tricks. Basically the same way people used to solo Ebonroc except he had to find these places throughout the entire instance.

Prinsesa · 10/09/07, 1:37 AM

From the context of your post, I assume iron-manning means doing the instance with as few people as possible? The most I've ever done was intentionally two-man Warbinger Om'rogg on Heroic, with myself as a tank and another Paladin healing.

Whenever he'd switch to the healer, he'd just bubble (or get BOP by myself) while I got aggro back. It took like 10+ minutes, but we got him down eventually.

Metrosexuelf · 10/09/07, 2:18 AM

There are tons of clips on YouTube of a hunter solo'ing various bosses on heroic. Just search 'Hunter versus the world' or something like that.

Tinkerfizzle · 10/09/07, 2:44 AM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

From the context of your post, I assume iron-manning means doing the instance with as few people as possible?.

Well, anything goes, really. Absurd speed runs, undermanning the instance, etc. At 60 my friends and I had a lot of fun trying to do as fast a Baron run in Stratholme as we possibly could -- hopefully there's room for some very fast runs like this with the Zul'Aman timed run component!

Timewasted · 10/09/07, 3:45 AM

Originally Posted by Dollar

I know there is a video flying around of a warlock that solod heroic slave pens using terrain tricks.

Sadly, the terrain was redesigned in a fairly recent patch to prevent such tricks. It's a shame, because it's the most fun I've had in that instance.

PitiChatMignon · 10/09/07, 3:58 AM

Last week I wanted to up the last 2K reputation with thrallmar for new enchants.
As no one wanted to do this instance anymore I went there to farm some trashs solo, and finally a shadow priest join me.

First boss was a joke, but the jelly trashs before him were really fun.

O'mrogg is quite hard with a cloth wearer, but with slow dps it was OK, and Kargath died something like 1s before my last stand ended.

As all in all it was quite easy, and we were willing to test heroics.

As I got shadow resist equipment we went to heroic mana tombs.
Trash were much more harder, specially the ones summoning arcane elementals.
We managed to kill Pandemonius in around 4 or 5 pulls and stopped there.

Third trip was to heroic Ramparts.
First boss was very easy again and we one shoot him.
The road to the bird is quite difficult with some large pulls. Fears and playing with LOS help a lot.
The best we did was killing Vazruden and had the mount around 30% when we gave up and invited a shaman.
The mount fire attacks when he lands are very very powerfull, and my fire resist was only around 150, I think we could do it with 300, maybe next time

Omor was still difficult with 3 people because of all these mana burns,

Dustwhisper · 10/09/07, 5:04 AM

I soloed SP as a mage, most timeconsuming crap ever. Warlocks have it so much easier with their dots ticking

PsiVen · 10/09/07, 6:17 AM

I've soloed Hellfire Ramparts, Blood Furnace (except 2nd boss, didn't quite manage the 4th wave), and Shattered Halls (except all bosses). I've also soloed significant portions of Slave Pens and Underbog, but didn't have the time to try and clear them (double Shambler packs in UB take about 15 minutes to kill).

SM Cathedral is the highest instance I can successfully pull all at once. ST/BRD/ZF are too nonlinear with healers, else I could probably manage something higher level.

I tried solo kiting a Fel Reaver to Shattrath recently as well. Went great until the guards in Zangarmarsh raped him. Going the other way with the next Fel Reaver, I got within about 15 yards of A'dal before the Shattrath Peacekeepers killed him.

Rasputin · 10/09/07, 9:29 AM

At one point(at level 60) some friends and I decided to ironman EVERY instance. Which to us meant starting naked and running every instance in order of level, using only what we found. I think we only got to SM, but it was a damn good time until then.

Pachwa · 10/09/07, 10:36 AM

I got really bored one day and solo'd Underbog in my pure PvE tanking gear, but that is about it. The only thing that sucked was having to eat a lot. It was pretty fun to solo the bosses though. I am pretty sure I could do any normal instance with a paladin of my choice behind me.

Nezralix · 10/09/07, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by Pachwa

I got really bored one day and solo'd Underbog in my pure PvE tanking gear, but that is about it. The only thing that sucked was having to eat a lot. It was pretty fun to solo the bosses though. I am pretty sure I could do any normal instance with a paladin of my choice behind me.

Steamvaults, Botanica, Shattered Halls and Black Morass all have bosses with DPS checks or add control issues. Did you really think this through or are you just assuming that because you don't take much damage everything would be trivial?

Opioid · 10/09/07, 11:02 AM

Isn't ironmanning when you do something without leaving for repairs? I think not leaving the instance until it is done and doing it with only what you came in with is how 3/4 of instances are done now anyway.

Pachwa · 10/09/07, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by Nezralix

Steamvaults, Botanica, Shattered Halls and Black Morass all have bosses with DPS checks or add control issues. Did you really think this through or are you just assuming that because you don't take much damage everything would be trivial?

Well Black Morass obviously wouldn't be possible, but yeah I am sure there are some bosses that aren't possible due to a mass of adds healing it (Robot dude in Steamvault). If there are adds and they don't heal though (Naga in Steamvaults) I am very confident I could do it.

Tinkerfizzle · 10/09/07, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by Pachwa

Well Black Morass obviously wouldn't be possible, but yeah I am sure there are some bosses that aren't possible due to a mass of adds healing it (Robot dude in Steamvault). If there are adds and they don't heal though (Naga in Steamvaults) I am very confident I could do it.

I think if you're able to achieve a very high level of gear(maybe not even gear currently obtainable for the purpose of having enough dps for some of these bosses, this may be more realistic when Sunwell is released), at least from a Rogue's perspective, it's possible to do add-spawning fights with just two. We probably would handle the Robot boss in Steamvaults the same way as we did the final Shattered Halls boss: Nuke add, dps boss for a few seconds, repeat. It would be a serious act of attrition on your healer's part, but I think if the gear's there, it's doable.

As for Black Morass... I haven't given it a try yet, but I imagine the only way it'd be doable is by killing the Rift Lord in a very short duration while snaring the mobs he spawns, and hoping you can clear the adds by the time the next portal spawns.

JamesVZ · 10/09/07, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by Tinkerfizzle

Well, anything goes, really. Absurd speed runs, undermanning the instance, etc. At 60 my friends and I had a lot of fun trying to do as fast a Baron run in Stratholme as we possibly could -- hopefully there's room for some very fast runs like this with the Zul'Aman timed run component!

Hmm, I haven't really tried for speed runs. I typically PUG 5 mans, heroic or otherwise, but most of them are fairly simple once you reach a certain level of gear. Duo Shadow Lab shouldn't be hard, nor would duo Shattered Halls I guess. Duo Steamvaults would be a bit difficult, maybe even impossible on some of the trash and the Mekgineer or whatever the hell his name is. I've unintentionally duo'd the last boss in heroic Sethekk, when 3 puggies dropped out from the first arcane explosion. Pre-BC I actually trio'd Shazzrah from 55% with myself, a resto shaman, and a holy priest. Wasn't exactly difficult, but it did take a few minutes.

As for speed runs, typical full clear pugs on any normal instance runs about 30-45 minutes for me. I can see halving that for some of the instances, quite easily. No AE and less than awesome group makeups sometimes put a damper on killing as quickly as I would like, but for the most part I roll with a healer that knows what they're doing and that's about half the battle. I dunno, might get together with some friends and see if they would be interested in doing a speed run video, see what we can crank out.

BeeLz · 10/09/07, 1:05 PM

The only thing I've done was a botanica speedrun without a tank.
We cleared it in about 25 mins with a shaman, 2 rogues, mage and me as a holy priest. This was somewhere in march without extraordinary gear ( kara + crafted + blues ) .
It was really fun and challenging to heal and the dps was insane.

Stormshot · 10/09/07, 1:05 PM

What about solo farming some of the BoP recipes that only drop in instances? For example there's an enchanting recipe (+12 AGI to boots) that drops only off of elete skeletons in Auchnei Crypts, that are a few pulls past the first boss. I can use Feign Death to get to the pull without issue, but I just can't take on 3 eletes and 2 non eletes without getting killed. Any ideas?

Sealclubber · 10/09/07, 1:10 PM

2 manned Steamvaults with a priest as a PVP build. We cleared everything except for the last boss since we didn't think it would be reasonable/worth the effort to kill the tanks fast enough.

Originally Posted by Pachwa

some bosses that aren't possible due to a mass of adds healing it (Robot dude in Steamvault).

Only 3 waves of those adds spawn on normal mode, once the 3 waves spawn they no longer come out. The thing I find most interesting about low-manning instances is all the extra details about spells and abilities you notice when you're not zerging everything down.

AmmoBoy · 10/09/07, 1:29 PM

Originally Posted by JamesVZ

....I've unintentionally duo'd the last boss in heroic Sethekk, when 3 puggies dropped out from the first arcane explosion.....

I find Heroic Ikiss to be EASIER with fewer people. Back when you could stealth to him, we used to do him with two feral druids and a rogue. Both druids needed to be feral to consistently stealth past some of the mobs in the instance, but one would just heal on Ikiss. The rogue spent much of the fight as a sheep and therefore required little healing.

His arcane volley hitting all the party members is what drains a healer's mana and time.

Pachwa · 10/09/07, 1:33 PM

Originally Posted by Sealclubber

Only 3 waves of those adds spawn on normal mode

In that case, I guess it would be pretty easy, didn't even know that feature existed!

Cromfel · 10/09/07, 1:41 PM

Havent really 2manned in TBC, but pre TBC we did Dire Maul North with 2 Paladins. That sure was loads of fun considering the lvl 60 gameplay

Warlocks seem to be pretty effective along prot Paladins in TBC when it comes to soloing.

Trazhenko · 10/09/07, 1:48 PM

Originally Posted by Stormshot

What about solo farming some of the BoP recipes that only drop in instances? For example there's an enchanting recipe (+12 AGI to boots) that drops only off of elete skeletons in Auchnei Crypts, that are a few pulls past the first boss. I can use Feign Death to get to the pull without issue, but I just can't take on 3 eletes and 2 non eletes without getting killed. Any ideas?

I solo farmed crypts a while for the felsteel gloves pattern on my (prot) paladin. There is one monk that patrols and can be single pulled. After a while a couple people joined me and it went faster, and we killed more packs, but the single mob was doable alone.

Lately I've been stealthing into mechanar on my rogue to try for the Major Fire Protection recipe. I can kill the two astromages at the elevator pretty reliably now, but I do have to vanish after I kill the first one and heal up before I pull the second.

Agathon · 10/09/07, 1:52 PM

I have 3-manned regular Steamvaults (on my Resto Shaman) with a Feral Druid and an Enchancement Shaman, all three with roughly T4-level gear. It was slow, but not especially hard.

The major challenge is the DPS check on the tanks for the final boss, but we used Earth Elemental Totems to tank him so as to have maximum DPS available for the tanks and managed to pull it off.

I wouldn't say it's something I'd do regularly, but it was an interesting experience and required some thought about how to manage certain encounters and pulls.

Sorrowheart · 10/09/07, 2:01 PM

Originally Posted by AmmoBoy

I find Heroic Ikiss to be EASIER with fewer people. Back when you could stealth to him, we used to do him with two feral druids and a rogue. Both druids needed to be feral to consistently stealth past some of the mobs in the instance, but one would just heal on Ikiss. The rogue spent much of the fight as a sheep and therefore required little healing.

I used to do this consistently - it was a great way to get shards and get rogues their shoulders. I've done it with as few as two (myself plus another druid) although that was a little bit too close for comfort, we barely beat him, after using both combat rezzes during the fight.