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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Random Heroic: The Pit of Saron


A couple of nights ago (sorry for the delay) I finished Pit of Saron, one of the new 5-mans introduced in patch 3.3. In case you didn't know that (solo players may apply, because I didn't know that from the very beginning either), you need to complete Forge of Souls before you can get into Pit of Saron.

Pit of Saron is, as far as I could tell, a step above Forge of Souls in difficulty. Yet, I finished it only on the second try. The first attempt was about a week ago and the group wasn't too good. Moreover, no one bothered to explain any strategy for the fights, so we wiped on the first boss. Truth be told, it might have been partly my fault because I didn't get the chance to research this dungeon before I was thrust into it by the random engine, and I assumed I could just follow the others and get it done. After that first wipe I realized that we weren't going anywhere and I excused myself.

On the more recent attempt, the group was very good. In the meantime I had also read a bit about the three boss fights and I was better prepared. So here are a few observations regarding said bosses.

Forgemaster Garfrost - From my perspective as DPS, there are a couple of things to watch out for, otherwise the fight is relatively simple. First, he throws huge saronite boulders at a random person. If you get hit by that, it's massive damage. Luckily you can see where the boulder is gonna land by the dark shadow it casts. Simply move out of the way. Second, once the boulder has landed, it persists until the end of the fight. Throughout the battle the giant will do some massive AoE damage and the only way to counteract this (as a ranged class) is to move behind the boulder. Since it was a safe location, I spent the rest of the fight firing from its cover. I'm not positive that's the correct strategy but the others were doing the same.

Ick & Krick - Now here's an interesting mechanic. One of these dudes piggybacks on the other, while shooting from his back at people. My understanding of this fight was fairly limited but it helped to stay out of any patch of poison that these dudes were spamming and to generally avoid any patches of "stuff" that could damage me. That's what worked for me. There's obviously more to this fight but if you need official strategies, please follow the Wowhead links. The only difficulty in this fight (which is very mobile, BTW) was that at one point I inadvertently pulled an elite from nearby while running around from these bosses but then I just ran toward the tank who picked it up.

Scourgelord Tyrannus - Big-ass boss. Starts off riding a dragon but then jumps down and fights from the ground. Meanwhile, the dragon is in the air, obeying commands from its master. The boss will occasionally point to a player and the dragon with bomb that player with frost damage. You can tell where the "bomb" will fall by the shadow it makes. Just move out of the way. However that didn't prevent people from being impaled on a spike of ice, which however didn't seem to do any significant damage but instead disabled you for a couple of seconds. This was another mobile fight where all I tried to do was avoid the various patches of nasty stuff on the ground. Fortunately the group was competent enough that I didn't have to experience any of the uglier mechanics, including death.

After finishing this heroic I got the usual couple of achievements, nothing fancy.

The Pit of Saron
Heroic: The Pit of Saron


6 comments:

Bowcephus said...

As a hunter who does not raid - like me - you're going to want to keep running Pit of Saron as much as you can. I got very lucky and the Felglacier Bolter (ilvl 232 Crossbow, 187dps) dropped for me on my first run. It's the best ranged PvE weapon you can get outside of raids, and is a massive step up from the Nesingwary 4000 you're using today (if I guessed that right). You may wish to consider specifically queueing for that instance (after you've done your random and gotten your Emblems of Frost of course) to increase your chances.

Looking forward to your Halls of Reflection post. Know how Pit of Saron is a significant step up from Forge of Souls? It's a steeper step to HoR. Consider for a moment that the gear that drops in HoR is the same ilvl as what drops in Ulduar 10 and you'll get a glimmer of an idea of the complexity of the encounter.

Keep up the great work, this blog is one of the first sites I look at each morning.

Darth Solo said...

@Bowcephus hey thanks for your nice words.
I do use the Nesingwary but dang it! I've been looking for a better gun for ages but I can't find any outside raids, except for the ilvl 219 one in whatever heroic (I forget). I swore a long time ago that as a dwarf I will never shoot anything but guns, yet now I'm forced to shoot a crossbow... Oh well, if there's any consolation, a crossbow can be viewed as a cross between a gun and a bow since it has lots of moving/mechanical parts. And that, my friend, is just about the only role-play I do in this game.

Anonymous said...

You can get gun ilvl 219 from ToC HC dungeon.

Darth Solo said...

Yeah, I think I saw that drop once... Or did I? I know there's a gun there somewhere...

Anonymous said...

Queue the heroics you want to be sure you do each day before you do any random heroics, as the random heroic dungeon system can place you in that same heroic multiple times. The frostwing hall 5 mans are popular so it's likely you'll do some twice a day.

Darth Solo said...

@Anonymous good idea but only if you're looking to do a specific dungeon. I run heroics strictly for emblems so I would lose 2 of them each time I was doing this.