Your first instance run

What this article is about

This article is intended for people who are new to World of Warcraft (WoW) and are at an appropriate level to go on their first instance run. I’m writing it because I’ve found many new players who are competent at playing their new character, however, when the dynamics of an instance come into play most people feel a little lost on their first run through. Hopefully after reading this people will understand what instances involve and know what etiquette is expected.

What’s an instance?

An instance is a certain location in the game the entrance to which is a swirling portal. Once you enter this area you’ll see a loading screen as you’re entered into the zone. This is because instances are unique to each group that enters them, to a point. This doesn’t mean they’re randomly generated for those who are familiar with the Diablo games. There are a handful of “not-so-random” random elements in certain instances which I’ll go into later, but for the most part they’re the same on each occasion. What makes them unique is that only you and people who are in your group will be able to enter your instance so you can concentrate on killing the enemies and overcoming the challenges within without the worry of invading player controlled characters.

Instances are generally themed dungeons in which certain quests can be completed. The enemies in instances are a lot tougher than those generally found in the outside world and are known as elites. The way you can tell if an enemy is an elite or not is by clicking on them. If there is a golden dragon around their character portrait they’re elite and a lot tougher than a normal enemy of their level. A grey dragon means they’re rare named enemies, usually not too much tougher than a usual enemy around their level but you get the benefit of better loot dropping once they’re killed.

Also in instances you’ll usually find a handful of “boss characters” who are much tougher than usual enemies and will take an organised team to take down.

I guess the most important thing to note in this section is you’ll need a group to complete an instance if you’re not way above the required level range for the instance.

One of the main reasons people do instances is for the loot. Loot in instances is generally far better than that found in the outside world.

Ok, sounds great so what do I need to do?

First you need to make sure you’re the right level for an instance and go to the right place to form a group. I’ll split off for a moment as there are differences depending on your chosen faction.

Horde

The first Horde instance is Ragefire Chasm (RFC), located in the Cleft of the Shadow in Orgrimmar.

You’ll ideally be between level 14 and 18. Level 16 is an ideal level to run this instance.

Also, the best place to look for a RFC group is inside Orgrimmar.

Alliance

The first Alliance instance is The Deadmines (DM or sometimes referred to as VC. Not to be confused with Dire Maul which is also abbreviated to DM). It’s located in Moonbrook, Westfall. The entrance is slightly hidden, you’ll need to enter Moonbrook and locate a barn with a small shed attached in the South West. You enter through the shed door and it leads down into a mine shaft, be careful though the mineshaft is inhabited by enemies.

The recommended level range for this instance is 17-24. Ideally you should be 18-20.

The best place to look for a DM group is in Westfall, Stormwind can also be a good place to look.

Gathering instance quests

Now I’ll let you in on a little secret. There’s a website which is a wealth of WoW knowledge called Thottbot (www.thottbot.com). If you type in your relevant instance into it’s search bar and search you’ll hopefully come across a result called under a header called “Zone”.

Click the result and you’ll find a huge load of information on that instance, click “In category <instance>” under the Quests category at the top of the page and you’ll see a list of all the available quests for than instance, before looking for a group you should make sure you have as many of these quests as you can get. Some may be part of a quest chain though requiring you to complete quests in order to get to the part of the quest chain which requires you to enter said instance.

Once you have some relevant quests they’ll appear in your quest log under a section headed with the name of the instance you need to run and usually have (dungeon) following the quest title.

I have my quests! I’m all ready!

Woah there, not quite. First you’ll need to find or make a group to run the instance. Go to the area I suggested earlier to look for or make a group.

If you want someone else to organise a group for you, which is recommended for your first run, the following is the usual method of finding a group.

Type /4 in order to type a message in the “Looking for group” channel for your particular area. And type the message LFG DM (for Alliance deadmines) or LFG RFC (for Horde Ragefire Chasm). LFG stands for “Looking for Group” but I’m sure you guessed that.

Hopefully someone will either whisper you asking you to join them or invite you into a group.

If you want to make your own group replace LFG with LFM and invite characters to your group who whisper you. You’ll need to make sure they’re the right level requirement for the instance and you’ll need to make sure you form a balanced group, class-wise which I’ll go into shortly.

Hint: To invite people you can either right-click their name in the chat log and click invite, right-click their character portrait and click invite or type in /inv <character’s name>.

You can check their level and class by shift-clicking their name in the chat log or by typing /who <character’s name>

You can chat to your party by typing /p and typing a message to join the party channel. Pressing enter before typing messages will place subsquent messages in the party channel.

The All-Important Class Balanced Group

This section is very important, a balanced group will find instances far easier to complete than one which is incomplete or unbalanced. Each class in WoW has a different role in groups and you’ll want a good range of classes in your group to ensure all roles are filled. Low level instances require a full party of 5 in order to complete them easily.

Tanks

First of, you’ll need a tank. A tank is just how it sounds, a heavily armoured character capable of dishing out a fair bit of damage, but more imporantly is the ability to soak up damage dealt by enemies and hold their attention (aggro). This is so they don’t go off beating on those fragile cloth wearing characters in your group and so your healer can focus their heals making everyone’s life much easier.

In low level instances you have a few choices of tanks, Warriors are ideal as these are designed to play the role of the tank and you should really look for a warrior to fill this role. However, there might not always be a warrior available to fill this role so what then?

Druids are the next in line, as long as they have the ability to shapeshift into bear form. In this form their armour value is increased greatly and they have a couple of abilities available to them to hold the attention of attacking enemies.

Paladins are your last resort for a tank, and they are usually only acceptable as tanks in the first couple of instances as they don’t have great aggro holding capabilities. They’re a much better support class, dealing damage, grabbing the attention of any enemies who break free from a warrior’s grasp and emergency healing.

Healers

Next you’ll need a healer. Someone to tend to the wounds of those injured during your run of an instance. They’ll also have the capability to resurrect any players who have the misfortune of dying. The group should protect their healer at all costs because dead players can be resurrected by a healer, most of the time in low-level instance runs healers cannot resurrect themselves and if you only have one in your group that means a long corpse run for your healer.

You also have a few choices for a healer, a Priest is your priority though as they have a wide range of healing spells, can shield targets in a group making them immune to damage and can also resurrect dead party members.

If you don’t have access to a Priest you might want to try a Druid, they also have a fairly wide range of healing spells and can resurrect dead party members.

Lastly Paladins and Shaman can also be used if you’re desperate, they can both heal and resurrect but not as effectively. It can be useful to bring along a Shaman or a Paladin in addition to a Priest/Druid to support the healer as they are great support classes, I’ll go into those in more detail next.

Support Class

Support classes are Paladins (Alliance), Shaman (Horde) and to some extent Druids.

These classes can all heal, deal damage, resurrect dead players and buff party members and are useful for filling gaps in groups when the need arises.

A note on buffing

Buffing is when a player casts a spell which boosts certain stats and/or abilities of party members.

Paladins can use blessings, such as the Blessing of Wisdom which is good for mana users of the group as it grants them extra mana every few seconds.

Shaman can drop totems which benefit all members of the group, at low levels they only have access to a handful of totem spells though. Such as the Stoneskin totem which reduces damage given to all party members in range of the totem by a small amount.

Druids can use Gift of the Wild which increases the armour and stats of the character it is cast upon by a small amount.

Mages can use arcane intellect on mana users which gives them a boost in their Intellect stat. This gives them more mana to play with and increases the critcal hit chance of spells by a small amount.

Priests can use Power Word: Fortitude which gives a boost to the stamina stat. This gives players more health points, always a bonus.

Warlocks can call upon their imp which can learn the blood pact ability, this is also a stamina boost much like the priests. It doesn’t need casting and is active as long as the imp is out and in range of party members.

Damage Dealer Class (DPS)

A DPS class is there to deal out damage to enemies in order to kill them as soon as possible. They are just as important as the tanks, healers and support classes.

Classes such as Rogues, Mages, Hunters and Warlocks make excellent DPS classes and for low level instances you can fill the spaces not filled by your tank and healer with any combination of these and you should be fine. Having no members of your party who share a class has it’s advantages though which I shall detail in the next section.

Rogues can stun enemies giving your party a quick break and they deal a lot of damage, they also wear leather armour which will make life a bit easier on your healer should the rogue take a lot of damage.

Mages deal great additions to groups as they can conjure up water for mana users, use frost nova to root enemies in place which is useful for protecting party members from attacks briefly while your tank gains their attention and they can buff your mana users with arcane intellect. Also, mages can polymorph certain enemies turning them into sheep and making them harmless for a short period of time. Mages can also attack enemies from a distance which can be useful to pull out a single (or as few as possible) enemy from a group making life easier from the group. This is known as pulling and will be explained in more depth later.

Hunters can call upon the abilities of a pet which adds to the damage they can deal and these pets can also tank stray enemies for a short while if the need arises. They can also pull enemies from a distance much like the mage and arguably more effectively.

Warlocks can call upon a variety of demonic entities which each serve a specific purpose. Imp are much like mini-mages, dealing damage. Voidwalkers are like mini-warriors and are able to tank much like a hunter’s pet for a short time and later on they can call upon the Succubus which can charm stray humanoid enemies making them incapacitated and Felhunters which are the bane of magic casters. However, for your first instance they’ll probably only have access to their imp and voidwalker. They also get an ability called a soulstone which can store the soul of a party member enabling them to ressurect themselves. Which is a particuarly useful in the event of a wipe (when the whole party dies). It’s recommended they soulstone a character who can resurrect the rest of the party.

If you’re desperate for people to fill the DPS roles you can call upon any class to do so, Warriors are good as are Druids and Priests who use offensive spells and abilities.

Summary of a balanced group

So after you’ve got a group of five party members you should have the following.

Tank
Healer
Support Class
2 x DPS

If you’re pushed for people you can replace DPS classes with support classes and vice-versa. As long as you have a main tank, a main healer and three other party members you should be ok. It becomes far more important to have a balanced group later on but it’s not essential in your first few instances it just makes life much easier and gives people a better chance to receive loot ideal for their class as there’s less competition.

Know your role

A group in which players know their role will be far more effective than one where players do not know what their role is. If you think certain players in your group don’t know their role, give them a constructive reminder, no-one likes a character who is invasive and barks orders at all and sundry though. A good group leader who gives the group direction is welcome, a group dictator, however, is usually not.

A quick overview of running the instance

So now you’re all ready and set to go, once all of your party are through that swirling blue portal and inside the instance you’re set to go. On your first run it’s recommended you kill almost everything inside the instance make sure all of your party members are fine with a complete instance run before you enter though.

Usually you’ll go through the instance in your group, your tank holding the attention of attacking enemies while your DPS and support classes deal damage. You’ll occasionally need a break from fighting in order for mana users to drink up to replenish their mana and for healers to top up the health of party members after a fight. If you are a mana user a request for a mana break after a fight will let party members know they’ll need to stop for a moment in order for you to drink up and regain mana.

Hopefully you’ll come across some good loot which will be either green, blue, purple or orange (referring to the text colour of the item’s title). I’ll go into this a bit later as it’s a vital part of being in a group and probably one of the most frustrating parts of partying with people if they don’t know what to do when this loot drops. Or, the occasions where they try to decieve the group in order to gain as much good loot as possible with no regard for other party members, this is known as ninja looting, or ninjaing.

General Instance Tactics

Pulling

If you come across a group of enemies with a few straggling on the edge of a group. Or, a patrolling enemy who patrols a set path try to get a ranged class to hit it with a bullet/arrow/spell which doesn’t do too much damage and then once the enemy/enemies are in a safe range get your tank to grab their attention.

This method prevents the warrior having to charge into the group and thus eliminates much of the risk of having too many enemies attacking at once.

Crowd Control

Crowd control (CC) is used to describe various methods of taking enemies out of action for a short period of time so the party can focus on killing as few enemies at a time as possible.
Crowd control methods can range from the mage’s frost nova which roots enemies in place and polymorph which turns an enemy into a sheep, to the rogue’s sap which incapacitates a target for about 30 seconds.

Here are examples of a few of the crowd control available around the level ranges of your first instance runs.

Mage
Frost Nova – Roots multiple enemies in place for a short period of time, damage against frost nova’d enemies has a high chance of breaking the effect.

Polymorph – Turns one enemy into a sheep, effectively taking them out of combat for approximately 30 seconds. The effect will heal the enemy so it’s advised you only polymorph enemies which haven’t been attacked much and any damage dealt to the polymorphed target will break the effect. To my knowledge most boss characters cannot be polymorphed.

Rogue
Sap – Incapacitates one humanoid target for approximately 30 seconds. Any damage dealt breaks the effect and most boss characters cannot be sapped.

Druid
Roots – Only works outside so usless in most instances, roots a target in place dealing a small amount of damage over time (DoT). Any damage dealt may break the effect.

Hunter
Frost Trap – The hunter lays a trap which will freeze an enemy in place once they run over the trap. Requires a bit of coordination to pull off but well worth it. Any damage dealt to the enemy will break the effect.

As you can see it’s important to organise who is going to use crowd control on specific targets so that the rest of the party know not to attack the enemy once they’ve been controlled so they don’t break the effect.

Tanking and Aggro

Now your main tank’s purpose is to hold the attention of enemies soaking up their damage with their higher armour and health values. Other party members should give the tank a brief moment at the beginning of each skirmish in order to gain the attention of enemies with their damage dealing capabilities and aggro holding skills. Warriors and Druids can use taunting abilities making enemies focus their attention on them.

Damage dealt to enemies will cause them to become aggravated with the player who deals that damage against the enemy.

This is an important thing to realise because if you have a player in your group who is fragile, such as a mage who deals a lot of damage, this can cause the target to lose focus on your tank and go after the other player instead.

I’ll continue using the mage in my example.

If the mage gets aggro (pulls the attention of the enemy away from the tank and makes the enemy focus their attention upon the other player, in this case the mage) he will put himself at risk and therefore putting strain on the healer(s) of the group. Most of the time this can be easily remedied. It is encouraged that the mage either stays in one place of runs towards the tank in order for the tank to regain aggro of that particular enemy. The tank can do this causing damage to the enemy and using their taunting abilites and the mage needs to realise they should stop attacking the enemy in question, or at least reduce their damage output until the tank regains aggro. Crowd control abilities can be used such as frost nova in order to put some range between the attacker and the mage (works ideally if the enemy is a melee based character). It can be very frustrating for the tank if the mage runs away from them with the attacking enemy and usually doesn’t end too well.

It is well worth noting that healing effects also cause a lot of aggro. Excessively healing players will quickly gain the attention of nearby enemies so your healers need to heal accordingly.

Healing

This is quite a tough subject as healing can be a fairly complex task. Now ideally your main healer will be a priest who has a variety of healing spells, usually consisting of a quick low-powered heal, a slow powerful heal and a heal over time (HoT) spell.

There are lots of different methods for successfully healing in groups. I tend to use the following though, although feel free to experiment as I am in no way a great healer.

Your main priority will be the group’s main tank because if you let them die aggro will quickly spread onto other players causing group-wide panic and requiring you to spread your heals quickly over a larger number of players.

Priests have the shield ability which should be used as soon as you think your tank has gained the attention of the enemy/enemies adequately, usually after a few seconds of initiating combat with the enemy. Then you can focus your heals on anyone else in your group who has the misfortune of taking damage until the shield fails. Then you can focus healing upon the tank until you can re-shield them.

If you’re being overstretched with your heals you can often shield someone who is in danger of dying, place a heal over time spell on them and then focus your healing on other party members until you feel they’re safe enough for you to heal the dangered party member adequately.

Once the skirmish is over if anyone had the misfortune of dying you’ll need to resurrect them before continuing. It is encouraged you advise dead players not to release their spirit if you have a chance of resurrecting them as it’s much easier to target characters who haven’t released their spirit. Otherwise, you’ll need to click the resurrection spell and then click on their corpse. You can usually otherwise click their character portrait and then click on the resurrection spell eliminating the requirement of scouting out their corpse. This is especially useful if characters die underwater.

Supporting

Those characters with buff spells should use the appropriate ones for the fight in hand. For example, if there is an enemy who uses fire spells a shaman could use a fire resist totem to lower the damage received from such enemies. Note: You probably won’t encounter shaman with fire resist totems during early instances. Once you’ve done your supporting role, feel free to join in the fight. It’s advised you keep some mana spare though if your class has the ability to heal so you can heal in case of emergency.

If you’re not sure what buff or support spell to use in each situation feel free to ask around, I highly doubt anyone will mind offering you some advice.

Phat Lewts

The main reason for running an instance, the awesome loot which will more than likely drop on each run.

Loot is broken down into a few categories.

Grey text items are known generally as vendor trash which can be safely sold to a vendor. If you have a lot of bag space don’t overlook vendor trash because if you accumulate a fair bit it’ll earn you a nice chunk of cash once sold.

White text items are used for something usually a certain profession unless it’s armour or a weapon in which case it’ll usually be slightly better than grey text items but without bonus stats. If white text items are of no use to you they may sell on the auction house or can alternatively be sold to vendors.

Green items are known as uncommon and are quite valuable. If your loot setting are at default (I’ll go into these shortly) green items will need to be rolled for which I shall explain in detail after this section. Green items are usually fairly good stat-wise and offer bonuses to your characters stats such as an addition to your characters stamina.

Blue items are rare items and you’ll come across a handful in your first instance runs hopefully. These are generally considered extremely good and are coveted by most players. Rolling will almost always take place on these items.

Purple items are epic items and it’s doubtful you’ll see any of these until you near level 60.

Orange items are legendary and are only really seen after you hit level 60 and are running end game instances. They are currently (usually) the best of the best items in WoW.

Rolling, Needing and Greeding

The leader of the group is able to set what items need to be rolled for when dropped from enemies. The most common and default setup is known as group loot with rolling for uncommon (green) items and above.

It is advised you stick to the default loot settings at least until you’re runinng level 60 instances with a guild or unless you trust the group leader wholly.

Under the default loot settings enemies killed will only be lootable by one person in the group and rotates between all group members enemy after enemy. Once the person has looted the corpse anything left will be able to be looted by anyone in the group. If looted rated at uncommon (green) or better a dialogue box will appear with the item on the left, a timer at the bottom and a dice and coins on the right.

This is where players decide whether to need, greed or pass on the item and it is important you follow certain etiquette.

If you decide the loot dropped is better than the loot your character already has equipped and you are certain you will use it click the dice. This will “need” the item. Also, make sure your character can use the item by checking you can, for example wear that certain armour type or use that certain weapon and that you meet the item’s minimum level requirement.

If you really need the item and you don’t meet the level requirement it’s general practice you ask your group if it’s ok to need roll on the item before you click.

Also, if you have another character who could really use the item it’s strongly advised you ask the group if you can need it for another character you own. There’s a small chance no-one will mind and you can need roll the item, otherwise you should click greed (dice).

If you don’t need the item but would like the chance of winning it in order to sell it (either to a vendor or on the auction house) or you want to disenchant the item for your enchanting profession. Click the coins, this will “greed” the item.

If you really don’t want the item for whatever reason click the X. This will pass up the chance to win the item increasing other people’s chances of winning it.

Now what happens is the people who clicked need get priority rolls. They all generate a random number between 1 and 100, the person who gets the highest number will win the item and most of the time it will automatically be placed in the player’s inventory.

If no-one need rolls the item, all those who clicked greed will do the above practice, they generate a random number between 1 and 100. The highest wins.

Now, if two people roll the same highest number I’m not sure how the game works it out but I’m assuming it randomly assigns the loot to one of the highest rollers. They receive the item, it happens very rarely but it can happen.

If you come across a chest it is standard practice all players roll to see who wins the contents. Once the area around the chest is clear of enemies it’s advised you request players to roll for the chest before anyone tries to loot it.

There are multiple ways of manually rolling, the easiest is by typing /roll which will randomly generate a number between 1 and 100.

The player who gets the highest number gets to loot whatever is inside the chest, regardless of what is inside.

If you find you really need something that was looted you could ask for the item but it’s up to their discretion whether they’ll let you have it or not and is generally considered bad etiquette to argue with their decision, whether they can use the item or not!

The same practice applies to mineral veins, herbs etc in instances if multiple players share the profession which requires them. Make sure you let your party members know if you wish to get these materials before anyone loots them in order to avoid confusion on the issue.

BoPs and BoEs? What?

Loot which is equippable usually either binds on pickup (BoP) or more commonly binds on equipping (BoE). This means that once a BoE item is equipped it becomes soulbound and can no longer be traded with other characters it has to be either sold to a vendor or destroyed if you no longer need it. A BoP item becomes souldbound once picked up and usually only applies to the best loot of the instance this is to stop high level characters going in and getting the best loot for lower level characters without them having to work for it. When you roll for BoP items you will be given a warning which reminds you that once it is picked up it will become soulbound. Be 110% you need something before you need roll a BoP item as it can’t be traded to other party members after it is won.

Thar be ninjas ahead!

Now, unfortunately there are a few players who ruin the system for the rest of us. These players have no regard for other players in parties and will need roll for items they don’t really need. They may also loot chests before everyone has rolled for them and mine veins, take herbs etc before anyone has a chance to roll for them.

These are known as ninja looters or just ninjas. If you have the misfortune of one in your group don’t let them get away with it. Ask them to give the item to a character who really needs it. If they ignore you threaten to kick them from the group. If they are the group leader it’s strongly advised you leave the group and join another for the instance. If you are the group leader don’t put up with it, kick them from the group and try and find someone to replace them. It is also advised you take note of their names and avoid grouping with them in future.

What now?

Once you’ve cleared the instance, completed your quests and everyone’s done what they need to do be sure to add the people you enjoyed questing with to your friends list. You never know when you might need to call upon the services of someone.

You can either hearthstone out of the instance to the place where your hearthstone is set (make sure everyone’s done before you do this) or you can backtrack through the instance to leave it. Some instances have “back doors” which are exits you can leave by without having to backtrack, The Deadmines is an example of this.

Then you’re free to leave the party, go show off your new equipment, repair your items, sell stuff you don’t need and hand in completed quests.

Abbreviation Chart

AoE – Area of effect. Refers to spells that cause damage (or heal) everything inside a certain radius.

BoE – Binds on equip. A BoE item becomes soulbound once equipped.

BoP – Binds on pickup. A BoP item becomes soulbound once picked up.

CC – Crowd control. Taking certain enemies out of action for short peroids of time in order to help party members focus on fewer enemies at once.

DoT – Damage over time.

HoT – Heal over time.

LFG – Looking for group.

LFM – Looking for members (to join an existing group).

Res – Resurrection.

Wipe – When your entire party dies.

WoW – World of Warcraft