Vague Cata Dungeon Tips

Things you should know, but that are not readily apparent. Now bear in mind I have NOT played on the live servers, this is what I remember from approximately a month ago during Beta, but I don't think they could change the encounters too drastically. Instances in Cata require you to actually visit the entrance to be able to queue for them; the Stonecore is in Deepholme, in the same spire as the temple you start out in. Go outside of it and fly up, eventually you'll see the portal and meeting stone, if you circle enough. The Vortex Pinnacle is south of Uldum; yes, south of the area, it's floating very high above the water below the coast. The Halls of Origination are in Uldum as well, near the northeastern part of the zone, a big set of ruins. Grim Batol is exactly where it was pre-Cata, though it's accessible now, in the southwestern corner of the Twilight Highlands.  I don't believe Hyjal has any zones attached to it, but there is a breadcrumb quest near the beginning that gives you a one way teleport to the new Blackrock Caverns section of Blackrock Mountain, along with a starter quest for it. There's at least one five man in Vashj'ir, but I was never able to get a group for it - you get it by going through the whirlpool at the end of the zone's quest chain. You can swim to the Abyssal Depths beforehand and go down, of course, but I recommend the quests. I don't remember the name of that instance.

Stonecore:

There are a few things that are not readily apparent. In all cases though, standing in the fire is bad. When Corborus submerges, don't stand on the shaking bit of ground. When he throws the earth spikes out, standing in them is bad as well. The dragon boss is the second, Slabhide; he does a gauntlet event similar to the end of PoS if I recall properly, but fighting him is actually kinda fun, I found. Do not stand on the lava pools, and when the ceiling starts to come down, cluster everyone together near the boss. A dynamic, randomized maze of stone pillars fall to change the room layout, and they block line of sight; if your healer gets trapped by them, you might die. The third boss is a Giant, rather similar to the one from Nexus that I don't recall the name of. It doesn't do much, however, it has an incredibly painful reflective shield that it gives a warning for. Melee must stop attacking it while this shield is up, including the tank, or they will die far too quickly for the healer to even remotely have a chance of healing through. There are some smaller trash giants - when they are casting the Quake ability, wait until near the end and then jump to avoid a large amount of damage. You need to be in the air to dodge it. The last boss is a nuisance, and most pugs wiped miserably on her. She summons a lot of void zones, which are an important part of her fight, as she summons a whole lot of nonelite minions too, which you need to kite over the zones. Occasionally she'll port back to the little platform she spawns on and throw things at people, avoid those. Careful when kiting the minions over the void zones though, they can quickly overwhelm melee, as they require a few seconds in the zone to actually die. Someone with a movement ability to pull them multiple times over the zones is useful, there's far too many to kill with the now weakened aoe spells.

Vortex Pinnacle:

There isn't much here, but what there is comes with innovation and remarkably creative ways to get players killed. Step one: near the beginning you'll find these air elementals feigning death. Something with Stalker in the name I believe. They cannot move, and have the standard threat drop range of about 40 yards. When they're feigning death, they regenerate 10% hp every second, so don't even bother trying to kill them. What makes them feign you ask? Looking at them. So long as a single party member is directly facing them, they will hide. If you back away, you can force them to stay down until you're out of range, at which point they drop threat and ignore you again. If nobody is looking directly at them, though, they'll throw lightning bolts at random. They're encountered in chains, such that you need to be careful, something made even worse by the fact that regular trash packs are scattered throughout the line of stalkers. I found it easiest to do as a healer, since you can heal without facing a target, meaning I could always have my back to the group as we progressed. Tank fought the regular trash on the next one in sequence, so the DPS were facing it while I backed up. Worked great, except explaining how their feign mechanic works is really suck. Had a lock once who kept throwing dots on them, causing them to throw lightning at us from halfway across the zone. Later on you'll encounter these really tall, annoyingly long spires you have to run around - you'll notice small cyclones. Walk through those, they speed you up a ton. The first boss does something similar to Loken, a vortex ring around him. You need to collapse to stay out of the ring, as the band of cyclones does damage - lots of it. Occasionally he`ll collapse the shield though, so you all need to run out of it, or hope the healer has the gear to heal through it. Tip: Most don`t. Second boss is a dragon, I think there`s one in every bloody instance. This one is interesting though, you`re either Upwind or Downwind of it, indicated by a sheet of wind moving on his platform. One of the two speeds your attack and cast speed significantly, the other reduces it. These fluctuate randomly, generally emoted as the winds shift. It`s a dynamic setup too; you need to be upwind, relative to the boss and the wind direction; position him in the same direction, relative to you, as the winds go, and you`ll get the Upwind boost, do it wrong and you get the Downwind negative. The last boss, and the trash packs leading up to him, do something most reminiscent of Phase 2 Malygos. A polygonal shape will be slowly drawn in lightning, which acts as a reflect shield for trash, and a damage shield for the boss. You need to pull enemies out of the shield for trash (and preferably get your ranged into it to give immunity to said trash), and for the boss you need to all get in the shield to avoid the nasty stuff he throws around it.

I`ll write more later.