The State of the Alt Union
When I last posted on challenge modes, I had just started doing them on my Holy Paladin and I was really enjoying them. I’m still having a total blast doing them when I get the chance. Since up until now, I’ve mostly PUGed challenge modes through OQueue, I’ve gone with whatever was available and I have been able to get Gold times on:
1. My Holy Paladin – now 8/9 with only the Temple of the Jade Serpent left
2. My Disc Priest – now 2/9 with only Siege and Scarlet Monastery done
And I have silvers on my Monk and Warrior in Mogu’shan Palace and Scholomance as a DPS and a tank respectively.
The (crazy) plan
I’ve had so much fun doing Challenge Modes that I’m going to try and get 9/9 Golds on all my 90s. At present, these are:
1. BrM / WW Monk
2. MW / WW Monk
3. Prot / Arms Warrior
4. Discipline Priest (not going to even try Shadow, Disc was way too much fun!)
5. Holy Paladin (not going to try Prot, I enjoy Holy far too much)
6. Ele / Resto Shaman (most likely Ele, I like the playstyle)
7. BrM / MW Monk (Alliance)
By the time Warlord’s launches, I expect to have a Mage and possibly a hunter at 90 as well, so they might end up on this list too.
At first glance this list seems daunting, but it really isn’t. A lot in Challenge Modes comes down to knowing what to do. Once you’ve done it on one character, its a lot less difficult to make the jump to another one.
Leading the Charge
Yesterday, I found a group on OQueue that needed a healer. I was on my Mistweaver, thoroughly annoyed by how ineffective my healing in LFR seems to feel even with decent (i524) gear and my best efforts. I decided I was going to jump into the deep end of the pool and queued for that group. A few minutes later, I got an invite and we were off to Scarlet Halls. My MW had never cleared the place on heroic, so we set the difficulty to heroic and cleared it very quickly to get me the heroic achievement – you need to have done an instance on heroic before you can do the Challenge Mode for it.
It turned out that it was the first time doing this CM for everyone in there except me and the tank and I was the only one there who had a gold time on an alt there. So I was asked to lead the run and it went quite well, up until the point where you invis through the barracks and someone or the other kept having trouble with it. We had people using invis too soon, doing something during invis or running too far in before using invis so they ended up pulling a patrol.
I had to leave to do some things IRL after that, so I never did finish the run but the few pulls that we did do, MW felt more than capable. With Renewing Mists on everyone (easy to do in a 5man) and 4 Chi in hand, you can heal a LOT of group damage very fast by doing Uplift twice and then using Chi Brew twice and then doing another two Uplifts. There were more than a few ideas that came to mind. I am going to do a separate set of posts on tanking, healing and DPSing CMs where I’ll go into more detail.
Later last night I asked some friends who were on and had been talking about trying CMs for the first time if they wanted to give it a shot, and they said yes. I asked on Battletags if anyone wanted in, got no bites (half the time Battle.net seems down anyway, I think the OQueue traffic is clobbering it) so I pugged two people through OQueue. I advertised it as a new group looking for silvers and almost immediately had people wanting in. We had a lot of fun, we were well on track to a Gold time in Scarlet Monastery when the servers went down last night and half our group, including me, couldn’t log back in. It was my first time tanking a CM as a Brewmaster and I have to say, its very different from when I’ve tanked on my warrior. I can’t stand there and eat the hits like I can on my warrior, but with dizzying haze, roll, clash, AoE stuns and phenomenal damage it is a total blast. I am really looking forward to going back in there on my Monk to tank more Challenge Modes.
It’s contagious!
After that run everyone wanted to do CMs on multiple alts. Bear in mind, I’m a filthy casual that sees Flex as his “content” and these guys/gals are heroic raiders. Other friends of mine only do Arena and RBGs with the only PvE they do being Challenge Modes. And we had a lot of fun. So yes, I think CMs have something to offer everyone.
Through pugging, I’ve made a group of friends of about 5 – 7 people who love doing CMs and I’m always looking for more people to run with. I don’t have any Alliance 90s yet, though my Alliance Monk is rapidly getting up there.
If you have an interest in doing Challenge Modes, give me a shout. Golds take a fairly high level of play but silvers (the mount) ought to be doable by most groups and bronze (title) are actually quite easy.
