Heroic Difficulty Ratings

My personal opinion on heroics using an Easy, Medium, and Hard scale. There are also some that I've never attempted.

Hellfire Ramparts - Easy
The Blood Furnance - Easy
Slave Pens - Easy
The Underbog - Easy
Mana Tombs - Never Attempted
Auchenai Crypts - Medium
Old Hillsbrad Foothills - Never Attempted
Sethekk Halls - Medium
The Steamvault - Medium
Mechanar - Easy
Shattered Halls - Medium
Black Morass - Hard
Botanica - Medium
Shadow Labyrinth - Hard
Arcatraz - Never Attempted

Easy - For these instances I was able to complete them at the lowest gear level I felt possible. Each one still has a few pulls than can be tricky and a few mobs that hit like trucks, but with the proper knowledge and group composition can be completed with the least headaches.

Medium - I feel like these instances can all be done with the lower gear levels too, but gave them the Medium tag for other reasons. Some have tough mobs or pulls, like packs that fear, MC, hard hitting giants, etc. Others might have tougher bosses, like Hydromancer Thespia, the first boss in Crypts, O'mrogg in Shattered Halls, etc. But for the most part I don't like these because they take too long or take too long for the badges involved. Shattered Halls is special because it's an overall pretty easy instance but you must bring a good healer, which isn't always guaranteed in a PuG setting.

Hard - These are hard because I refuse to fully PuG them. BM is my least favorite to have any PuGs in because each spot needs to be spot on to make this work. Everything has some AoE effects now it seems and the casters that come out of the Portal absolutely own with their 5k Pyroblasts. SLabs isn't too bad but the 2nd boss is a royal pain and people get retarded on Murmur since he sucks the group together and running away seems too hard to comprehend to puggers. The ones I've never done are probably because they are hard or I've never seen them as the daily and have had no reason to do them.

These are just my opinions, this isn't a debate seeing as how others could have had better luck with certain instances. Or some people run with the same crowd all the time. This is my view as a tank for puggers on Thunderlord (US).
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http://thunderlord-us.warcrafter.net/blowhole

Need a simple answer from a 12/12 pov not from a 15/15 pov...

It is quite obvious that someone in T5+ gear can run blindly through a Heroic with a Rogue using Bandages on him. What is important to a newly geared non-epic Tankadin who is a 12,000 HP / 12,000 Armor guy is thinking whether or not they can stand up to a hard hitting mob.

As far as capability of tanking a heroic without cc, all of them can be done. I never use cc in slave pens, even on the big pulls, nor in shadow labs, and in botanica definetely not. Never have in shattered halls either. That's me though, I detest cc if I can avoid it, lol.

And no, the healer doesn't cry and no I don't lose aggro on mobs that fear/MC/whatever. There are ways around them.

As far as rankings go though when you are first trying to do them...

Mech - 2
Slave Pens 1
Underbog 1
Shattered Halls 5
Botanica 7 (when first doing it there is some heavy spike damage in there)
Arcatraz 7
Blood Furnace 8
Ramparts 4 (mortal strike sucks when first trying to aoe this place)
Shadow Labs 8 (long with mind flays ticking like mad, and second boss...)
Setthek Halls 3 (just cc the fear mobs when first doing it)
Steam Vaults 5 (pulls to and including first boss suck, after that ezmode)
Crypts and Mana tombs have yet to tank on heroic

Just my 2 cp.
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Mech - 2 (I hate wasting money, and I had to drink mana pot on the gauntlet to the last boss).
Slave Pens 1 (I pug this often)
Underbog 1 (I pug this often. The dual Bog Lord used to be a challenge. Now that they've nerfed them and seperate them, it's easy).
Shattered Halls 3 (more or less a challenge on the healer. If they can heal me through the gauntlet, it's a easy run).
Botanica 2 (just bring decent dps, and it's a breeze).
Arcatraz N (never attempted in heroic. I hated the place back when I was a healer, and I still hate tanking the place in normal mode).
Blood Furnace 7 (this place is surprisingly hard for me, harder than Shattered Halls. Lots of casters).
Ramparts 2 (pretty short of an instance).
Shadow Labs N (Never bother trying this place in heroic. The mace is not enticing enough for me to go there).
Setthek Halls 3 (Went there to do the druid epic flight form for 2 guid druids, the trash was annoying).
Steam Vaults 3 (Other than the annoying fear and MC mob, nothing to it)
Crypts N (never bother trying the place. Too many caster in the open without LoS pull).
Mana Tombs 8 (Too many caster, too many mob that stuns. too few badges for the amount of trouble it is, even though I have the key to unlock the prison boss).

Just my 2 cp.[/quote]
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SP isnt too bad, one CC and u can do it so easily, i was at 12k health, 500 def 13k armor.

Tried MGT, and its not really that bad, the trash is annoying, but with CC, you dont need epics to tank it. My groups kinda disbanded at the 3rd boss, but since theres minimal trash between boss 3-4 (one pull from memory), and the last two bosses cant really be tanked (well, the first half of Kael is easy as), i should have been able to finish the instance pretty easily

The ones I'd recommend for starting off in heroics and sticking to until you're comfortable with heroics are:

Slave Pens
Underbog
Mechanar
Botanica
Steamvaults
Ramparts

Cut your teeth in those for a while, get some easy badges relative to the other heroics. SP, UB and Ramparts are all pretty quick even for starting off.

Personally when starting the heroic scene I found the instances in Auchidown & Caverns of Time to be the hardest.
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I tried heroic Old Hillsbrad yesterday, for the first time since the patch. The patrollers have been completely toned down, to the point where its indistinguishable from normal mode (other than the mobs doing more damage) ... i'd definitely place it in the 'easier heroic' range now.
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CoT
OH - 2 ----> AOE, no CC
BM - 5 ----> ----> AOE whatever comes out of the portals

Hellfire
Ramps - 1 ----> AOE, no CC
BF - not sure if I tanked this in HC.
SH - 0,5 ----> AOE, no CC (my nr1 favvo HC)

Coilfangs
SP - 1 ----> AOE, no CC
SV - 1 ----> AOE, no CC
UB - 2 ----> AOE, no CC

Auch
Crypts - 4 ----> ----> AOE, no CC
Sethic - 3 ----> AOE, no CC
MT - 3 ----> AOE, no CC
Slabs - 4 ----> AOE, no CC

Tempest
Mech - 4 ----> AOE, very little CC
Bot - 0,5 ----> AOE, no CC (my nr2 favvo HC)
Arc - 4 ----> ----> AOE, no CC (if you lack dps, you wont be able to kill some of the bosses befor everyone in your group dies)

MgT - 2/7 ----> AOE, N/A CC. Unless you have a very solid group, 3rd boss CAN be hard. you cant pick just 3 random dps. if you do, you will neve rmake it. except 3rd boss, AOE everything. its easy with good healer/tank.




If the tank is raidgeared (minimum kara) and with a decent healer, you can AOE every single Heroic. Most of the will be easily AOEd, others a little more tricky. Some (like botanica, shattered halls, coilfangs) you can pull 2-3 groups and AOE them all. (sometimes as much as 15 elites)
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You all keep forgetting about MgT.

I finally was able to find a group that would stick it out all the way through.

I'd give it a 6. The bosses themselves aren't hard, but the trash pulls can be really tricky.