How to Open Heroic Mode Dungeons in World of Warcraft

Instructions:

Step 1:
Choose a Dungeon you want to run on Heroic mode. Your choice of dungeons affects what you need to do to make it heroic.

Step 2:
Grind reputation with your Dungeon’s faction until you hit Revered. If you choose a Hellfire dungeon, you need to be Revered with either Honor Hold or Thrallmar. If you choose a Coilfang Resevoir dungeon, grind rep with Cenarion Expedition. Auchindown requires Lower City (of Shattrath) reputation, Tempest Keep requires Sha’tar reputation and the Cavers of Time requires Keepers of time reputation.

Step 3:
Find your faction quartermaster once you hit Revered.

Step 4:
Purchase the Key. All keys will be marked with something to the effect of “opens Heroic mode for (location X)”.

Step 5:
Make sure everyone in your intended dungeon group is keyed for Heroic mode. If any one of your party members is NOT keyed, they will not be able to zone into the Heroic instance!

Step 6:
Right-click on your portrait once you are in the instance of your choice. Find the Difficulty tab, and chance the setting from Normal to Heroic. Note that this can only be done by the Party Leader and only if ALL the party members are keyed for the Heroic dungeon being attempted.

Step 7:
Enjoy your Heroic dungeon!

*** *** ***

WoW *** WoW *** WoW ***

Heroic Mode Dungeons in World of Warcraft

As players reach level 70 and begin to work on their Karazhan attunement, run Dungeon 3 instances and begin to gather the gear set that will carry them through Tier 4 and Tier 5, they will begin to consider playing the five man instances of the Burning Crusade on Heroic mode. Much like in games of yore when we beat our favorite game and then proceeded to replay it on god mode for extra bragging rights, Blizzard has introduced a game mechanic that makes dungeon re playability sensible and valuable for the average player.

Heroic mode dungeons require reputation based keys from each of the five Dungeon 3 factions. Revered with Honor Hold is required for the Hellfire Citadel key, Cenarion Expedition for the Coilfang Reservoir key, Lower City for the Auchindoun key, Shattar for the Tempest Keep key and finally Keepers of Time for the Caverns of Time key.

Once you reach Revered with a given faction, you can purchase the Heroic key from the faction Quartermaster, and the group leader may then select dungeon difficulty in the group options tab on his picture tool tip. So why run Slave Pens on hard mode, you ask? Well, the answer is gear, fun, and relevant quests.

Thus far I have seen the vast majority of epic loot available in Karazhan and from the first boss Maulgar in Gruul’s Lair, and I can attest that many Heroic rare and epic grade items are superior to the raid sets available currently. Blizzard has stated that they will be looking at these sets to provide a much needed buff, but until that time, the smart player is learning Heroics and gathering the best loot possible.

Difficulty is scaled dramatically. Five decently geared level 70 players entering non-Heroic Slave Pens would have very little trouble plowing through the instance, however Heroic Slave Pens requires precise actions, focus and a well skilled and reactive team. Balance, crowd control and constant vigilance is essential as every mob can one shot a healer or DPS and healing the tank is a constant strain on mana and timing efficiency.

The concept introduced by Blizzard is truly exceptional. They have created an avenue that normal players can find raid quality gear with just their local group of friends. Raid guilds can continue to improve their players and gear during off-nights or when all available content has been cleared, and feel as though their time is put to good use. Dungeon re playability has long been an issue for MMOs and this has made huge strides towards rectifying those problems.

I look forward to the day when I can attempt a Heroic Black Morass.

How Difficult is Heroic Mode - Dungeon Guide

A lot of people want to know about heroic mode and very little information exists on the internet about what it really is and the difficulty level of it. All you really see is misinformation on random websites that claim to know what they are talking about, but they really don’t know that much at all.

I tested this out yesterday (I mean a few wipes at worst right?).
Here is what I found out about heroic mode instances:

These instances are doable, but difficult - not impossible however. In fact they were made to be doable for decent to well geared level 70s. With the right group setup these can be done.

What group setup you will need:
1) Well geared tank
2) Well geared main healer. A holy paladin can be one of the best.
3) TWO DPS/CC classes - *Crowd control is a MUST*
4) Spot healer/DPS (elemental shammies work great). If you can’t find a hybrid then bring a 3rd dedicated DPS.

NOTE: Only carry one melee DPS class with you (other than tank), lots of mobs cleave and it’s too hard to heal more than 2 people being cleaved for 3k each. Also please note that at some heroic bosses its stupid to have any melee besides the tank with you because the new skills severely hurt your chances to win. Two healers also gimp your chances of winning because you will lack the DPS to kill bosses in a quick manner.

What is the difference between Heroic/Normal?

First of all, the trash mob levels increase to 71-72. All bosses are now 72 elites. Some of the mobs gain new abilities. Most of the bosses have one new ability that is significant.

TRASH MOBS: Trash hits hard. Very hard. Can crit a clothy for 10k. Watching aggro and Crowd Control is vital. Use KTM.
The bright side? The trash is just as easy to kill as it would be in normal mode (scaled to lvl 71-72 of course). So basically in CR: Steamvaults, you kill them just as fast… however - they hit a lot harder.
Take agro - and you are usually dead before you know it. Blessing of salvation really helps on the DPS.

BOSSES: The bosses will work the exact same way they did in normal mode, except they will now be lvl 72 elites. They will hit harder (depending on which boss of course). However the real trick is that each boss gets 1 new ability. Or an old ability buffed.
Example: First boss of CR: Steamvault - Hydromancer Thespia.
In Heroic mode she does the exact same thing as she would do in normal
EXCEPT:
1) her adds now hit for 1.3k on me (they used to hit for 250).
2) The thunder cloud she summons hits people for 3-4k each tic. Stay outta the cloud.

Yes, it is tougher. But it is doable. Gear wise it was made to be done for lvl 70s in blue gear picked up off lvl 70 instance bosses (Shadow Labs, Arcatraz, Steamvaults, Mechanar, Botanica, Shattered Halls).

NOTE: Do not think that Heroic mode “CR: Slave Pens” is easier than “CR: Steamvault” - although Slave pens is originally a 64 instance and steamvault is 70, you must remember that all heroic mode instances went up to 72, they didn’t go up +10 lvls or something. Slave Pens and Steamvault are the same difficulty at heroic (same lvl mobs, etc.).

So things to make sure before you try heroic mode instances:
Checklist:
1) Good group setup, the group i went with seemed to work pretty well and we had all our bases covered (crowd control, etc.):
Paladin - main healer
Mage - DPS and Crowd Control
Warlock - DPS and Crowd Control
Shaman - Elemental - Very nice DPS and can kite very well.
Druid - Tank. nice because he can cast “sleep” before bear forming to tank - further CC. Also, it’s nice to have “swipe” because there are 5 elite pulls that this AoE threat causer helps with.
NOTE: You must have at least 2 people capable of CCing. Sheep/fear/banish work fine.

2) Is everyone able to get in? You need to be revered to be able to buy the heroic mode keys (EVERYONE MUST HAVE A KEY IN GROUP). You can get these keys from that factions quartermaster at REVERED. See below.

Table of factions:
Faction (@Revered) - Instance Area (Instances)

Sha’tar - Tempest Keep (Botanica, Mechanar, Arcatraz)
Lower City - Auchindon (Shadow Labs, Auchenair Crypts, Mana Tombs, Setthek Halls)
Thrallmar - Hellfire Citadel (Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Shattered Halls)
Cenarion Expedition - Coilfang Reservoir (Slave Pens, Underbog, Steamvaults)
Keepers of Time - Caverns of Time (Escape from Durnholde Keep, Black Morass)

3) Gear check - don’t bring in that one friend of yours with all greens… this is not the place to do that, it will only cause endless frustration. Lvl 70 blues work great. Bring +hit gear because these mobs are higher lvl than you.

4) Spec check. Shadow priests healing = YES YES! <3

5) Vent check - You can do it without vent, however i suggest you get into a voice server ASAP, as most of the time its a very good idea.

6) MAKE A PLAN. Every single pull needs a plan. You may wipe once on a pull because a mob had an unexpected new ability (cleave or something)… learn from it. Use raid symbols.

7) To enter an instance on heroic mode the group leader must right click his portrait and set “Diffculty: Heroic.”

PHAT LEWTS:

Now for the part you’ve all been waiting for.

1) Every single boss drops a [item]Badge of Justice[/item] - there are 5 on each boss but each member can only loot 1 (yay!). You can use these to buy those awesome epics that one purple Naaru sells in Shattrath (next to A’dal in the center)

2) [item]Primal Nether[/item]’s drop off every end boss (so far as i’ve seen or we were just lucky… did 3 so far).

3) Epic drops off end bosses (jewels, bows, etc.).

4) All the bosses drop some new nice blue items.

5) All bosses drop some of the same blue stuff you can get on normal mode.

The end bosses usually drop 5-6 things (including the Badges of Justice)

Now go get your groups together and dominate!! HAVE FUN!!!