by Allison Robert

1. You can queue for dungeons as anything, but the process is a lot faster if you do so as a tank or healer.

If you’re geared to do whatever you like and simply want to enjoy LFG for its own sake, you’ll be fine queuing as anything. However, if your priority is amassing a huge pile of badges to get yourself equipped in full Tier 9 for your preferred spec/s, the most expedient means of doing this is to go as a tank or healer.

Of these, the barrier to entry for a tank is considerably higher, and the group much more likely to be a punishing experience if your fellow players outgear you. Of the two “I can’t even finish swigging my Pepsi before the queue pops” roles, it’s easiest to start off healing, not least because you don’t have any loot competition for a Need roll on leather +spellpower gear unless there’s another druid in the group.

Admittedly, the barrier to entry for a DPS player is lower than that of a healer, but on my battlegroup I see 3-second waits as a tank (no joke), 5 to 7-second waits as a healer (score!), and 4 to 17-minute waits as a DPS (consolation; you can finish your Pepsi).

2. Only queue as a tank or healer if you can tank or heal.

People have already noticed a rash of hybrid players popping into groups through the tank or healer option while not actually being specced or geared to do either. Don’t lie about your toon’s actual capabilities — despite the queue times, only go as DPS if that’s what you’re comfortable doing. Otherwise, you get situations like the one I had last night after wiping on a Drak’tharon Keep trash pull and then finally inspecting the tank:

Me: Um, I’m sorry to ask, but are you Prot full-time?
Paladin “tank”: No.
Me (eyeing his Mark of the War Prisoner and unenchanted, ungemmed “tanking gear”): I don’t think you’re defense-capped in your current gear.
Paladin: (silence)
Me: I’m pretty sure you need 535 +defense to tank this place.
Paladin: F**k no I don’t.
Me: (discovers she is out of schnapps)
Paladin: Hey, can we do Better Off Dred?

3. When you queue can have a big impact on the group you get.

If you’re still gearing up and worried about running into players who massively outgear you, try to use LFG during typical raid times. Most raids span a period from roughly 7:30 pm to midnight, and that’s a decent chunk of time to avoid the majority of raiders if you’re apprehensive about being in a group with them.

Now, it has to be said that most people are perfectly friendly and this may seem like it’s overly paranoid, but if you’re queuing as a tank or healer, you are much more vulnerable to the problems that result from getting matched to a group with significantly better gear than yours. An outgeared tank will go prematurely gray trying to keep aggro against people in 245+ gear. An outgeared healer may not have the healing throughput or mana regen for a group that’s chain-pulling dungeons. While most reasonable players will adjust to a tank who’s doing as much threat as their gear allows, and will wait for a healer to drink between pulls when necessary, some won’t.

Queuing during your own server’s raid times isn’t foolproof — not all of the servers on your battlegroup are on the same timezone — but you are much less likely to run into players with high-end raid gear between, say, 9:00 and 11:00 pm server time. Conversely, if you want the now-archetypal silent-but-deadly group that mows through pulls with brutal efficiency, you are more likely to find overgeared players outside of raid times.

4. Doing Halls of Reflection? Remove Curse and Abolish Poison are your friend.

Icecrown’s three new 5-mans have some nasty damage in store, and Halls of Reflection trash has all of its keys mapped to Cursed Arrow, Deadly Poison, or Level 5 Death to Tank. On heroic, the failure to dispel these can result in a wipe due to the sheer amount of damage that can build, particularly if your healer gets CC’d in the interim.

Moonkin: A well-played moonkin can singlehandedly drop the difficulty of HoR trash. If your healer is a priest and struggling keep up, help them out by dispelling poisons (particularly if on the tank). If your healer is a paladin or priest, remove curses. On all 4 healing classes, keep an eye out for the healer Cowering (a magic debuff from the Ghostly Priest mobs that we can’t do anything about), getting Kidney Shot by the Shadowy Mercenary, or being ice-trapped by the Tortured Riflemen (which we can’t shift out of). In all three cases, that’s 2-4 seconds where your healer is effectively out of the game.

As a tank and sometimes healer, I normally despise Typhoon and other knockback effects in dungeons (bonus points to the players Typhooning or Thunderstorming mobs into the next pull in Pit of Saron!), but here it can be a godsend. Use it to interrupt the Ghostly Priest’s heals and/ or force some of the ranged mobs into a better position for the group. If your group needs the CC, Root the Spectral Footman or Shadowy Mercenary before they can reach the group (the Footman is probably a better target because the Mercenary is likely to shadowstep to the group anyway). Or, you can Root any of the mobs if the group has effectively LOS’d the entire pull (which they should be doing anyway).

Cats: Feral cats will point out that popping out of form all the time to dispel is a crippling DPS loss that may wind up impacting the group more negatively than if you’d just let the debuffs stay up, and that’s entirely correct. However, that still leaves you with the problem of multiple enraged mobs doing a ton of damage, and one of them (the Priest) attempting to heal. If your healer or tank is in desperate need of some breathing room, consider using Maim as a finisher on one mob and burning Predator’s Swiftness for an insta-Cyclone on another. The ability to shut down the damage output of two mobs should not be underestimated, particularly near the start of a pull. Don’t forget to Innervate the healer on cooldown; there is very little time to drink between trash waves.

Bears: All 3 of the new Icecrown 5-mans contain pulls full of caster mobs that, in Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron, can’t be LOS’d effectively or otherwise forced to move without assistance from your party (seriously, what’s up with Wrath 5-mans and the lack of LOS nooks? OK, Oculus, Pit, and Forge seem like they’re tailor-made to drive bear tanks up a wall). Warn the group that you will not necessarily have amazing aggro on each mob because you’re going to be moving between them fairly frequently. On the plus side, this does tend to give you range for a Feral Charge on any caster you’re not currently hitting, and that’ll come in handy stopping a certain amount of the damage.

If you outgear the group, marking probably won’t be necessary from a threat standpoint, but can still be desirable because splitting DPS on 5 casters mobs who are just continually unloading on you is not a great idea. In the Pit of Saron, mark and kill the Ymirjar Flamebearers first.

In Halls of Reflection, we are mercifully able to LOS most mobs by using the small alcoves located beside Falric and Marwyn. In general, I like to start off in Marwyn’s alcove (the one on the right) because you fight Falric first, and it takes him a few seconds to get over to Marwyn’s side of the room after he does his introductory bit and aggros the group. This buys your healer and DPS several valuable seconds to eat/drink after finishing the fourth trash wave. Immediately after you get Falric down, have the group switch to his alcove across the room so that Marwyn will have to cross over after the ninth trash wave. If the group has high DPS and regen, switching alcoves won’t be necessary by any means, but with a pug group don’t bank on people having the gear to make this easier.

There is a tremendous amount of incoming damage on these trash waves. Pop Barkskin and trinkets when you can, Bash mobs on cooldown, enlist a DPS’ helps in interrupting the Ghostly Priest’s heals, and — one small trick that’s usually helpful — pop Tranquility between trash waves. Not only will this give your healer a few seconds to drink while the group is healed up, but you’ll also have a fairish amount of threat on the next wave as it aggros. Due to Tranquility’s cooldown, this is obviously only good once, but don’t get caught outside of bear when the mobs finally reach you.

With pug groups, you should be somewhat strict about what you are willing to tolerate. Constantly pulling aggro on the trash waves (assuming, of course, that you’re putting out as much TPS as your gear allows) is not acceptable. Consistently failing to interrupt mob heals is not acceptable. Refusing to stop a rotation to pop a defensive cooldown for themselves or another player in the event it’s needed is not acceptable. The dungeon is oriented towards more intelligent play than the “AoE everything” mindset that dominates other Wrath 5-mans, and the group will probably fail if it takes that approach.

Trees: In healing all of the new content, one of the things I’ve noticed is that groups tend to come in two varieties:

1. Those who interrupt and CC the mobs, and:
2. Those who don’t.

#1, as you might expect, is considerably easier to heal. There is a great deal of tank damage in the new ICC 5-mans and HoR more particularly, which is made more dangerous by the fact that many of your GCD’s will be devoted to decursing and dispelling poisons. Under the circumstances, it’s especially maddening to see an oblivious group attempting to AoE down HoR trash packs while the Ghostly Priest heals without interruption and the mage Flamestrikes your group. You will have a much easier time asking specific DPS to keep an eye on particular mob attacks.

In decent gear and with a well-geared tank, it’s more than possible to brute-force your way through the trash packs with massive healing throughput, but you are much more prone to a player gib in the event that you get CC’d for a few seconds. Because trash packs aggro within a few seconds after the last mob from the preceding pack dies, it’s usually not possible to get a Revive off on a fallen party member; your only opportunity for a regular resurrection is going to be directly after defeating Falric. Consequently, DPS need to be very careful with their threat, because once you burn Rebirth, it’s not going to be up again before your group finishes the trash/bosses.

5. Make sure your reagents are well-stocked.

While groups are still learning and gearing in the new 5-mans, you will be battle-rezzing a lot (incidentally, it’s usually the only resurrection spell that has a prayer of going off between trash waves in HoR), and you may also be in the position of having to rebuff Mark/Gift of the Wild constantly. If you run a lot of 5-mans, a Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth can save you a lot of gold in the long run. If you’re constantly rebuffing Gift and burning through a lot of expensive Wild Spineleaf, you can cheap out by simply buffing Mark, especially because most competent groups will burn through an average dungeon in less than half an hour anyway. Use a mod like SmartBuff or HealBot Continued to make sure your group is buffed at all times (and Thorns is on the tank).

6. If you are the leader, freaking lead.

Do not assume that everyone in the group has done the dungeon previously, and you should ratchet that paranoia by a factor of 4,000 if you’ve landed one of the new Icecrown 5-mans or Oculus. Without exaggeration, almost every single Oculus run I’ve pugged through LFG has had at least one player who was completely new to the instance and wanted to leave it before the group convinced them to stay. These dungeons are straightforward if someone takes 20 seconds to explain what a new player can expect.

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