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Greywolf2375

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I transferred my 80 priest to my Alliance realm today. He was a male troll. I hate rep grinding, so much as I kind of want a dwarf I couldn't pass up the 10% increased rep gains human racial. The male human models are absolutely heinous. This combination has virtually ensured that every Alliance character I create will be a human female.

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I've dipped into Cata raiding waters with pugs. Baradin Hold is cake as long as you're geared. I did about 12k on Argaloth. Not great but got the job done. Also went to BOT to clear trash and had a few attempts at Halfus. Got to two drakes down before wiping. Just not enough interrupting on Shadow Nova. Finally had a session with Magmaw. I got the responsibility of taking care of all the adds. When I actually found out what that entails I nearly shit myself. I thought it would be one or two adds but 15 adds at 115k each was a bit of a shock. We actually got Magmaw down to 50% percent before I just couldn't keep all the adds away from the melee and healers. Also there was bad luck with pillars going off under the melee group which was just too much for me to handle.

Tonight we are going to kill the Whale Shark and finish the Ulduar run from last week. Next week I'm going to get my guild into some Cata raiding. Start with BOT trash and see if we can tackle the conclave. Baradin Hold if it is open is the easiest but hard to get a group for that really fast.

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I've dipped into Cata raiding waters with pugs. Baradin Hold is cake as long as you're geared. I did about 12k on Argaloth. Not great but got the job done. Also went to BOT to clear trash and had a few attempts at Halfus. Got to two drakes down before wiping. Just not enough interrupting on Shadow Nova. Finally had a session with Magmaw. I got the responsibility of taking care of all the adds. When I actually found out what that entails I nearly shit myself. I thought it would be one or two adds but 15 adds at 115k each was a bit of a shock. We actually got Magmaw down to 50% percent before I just couldn't keep all the adds away from the melee and healers. Also there was bad luck with pillars going off under the melee group which was just too much for me to handle.

Tonight we are going to kill the Whale Shark and finish the Ulduar run from last week. Next week I'm going to get my guild into some Cata raiding. Start with BOT trash and see if we can tackle the conclave. Baradin Hold if it is open is the easiest but hard to get a group for that really fast.

you shouldn't be killing them yourself, just kiting them. The ranged in your raid should be switching from Magmaw to the adds to burn them down. We had a hunter as our main kiter and then had ele shamans, boomkins, etc use knockbacks to keep them at ranged to burn down.

The only times a pillar would show up in melee is if the stacking group spreads out, if you as the kiter are not more than 15 yards away or apparently if the target more than 15 yards away isn't stationary long enough. As long as you're keeping distance and your raid is truly stacking on top of each other, that shoulnd't happen.

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I always confuses me to see these threads on the WoW forums where people complain about DPS dungeon queues and ask Blizzard to fix it. How exactly can Blizzard fix it? They can't magically create tanks out of thin air.

Also, BG queues these days, Blizz needs to do something to get the Alliance to queue more. From what I can tell, the reason Horde queues for BGs are so long, is the fact that, even though Horde-Alliance have near parity these days, Alliance players don't queue for BGs in as large numbers. I wonder why this is.

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I always confuses me to see these threads on the WoW forums where people complain about DPS dungeon queues and ask Blizzard to fix it. How exactly can Blizzard fix it? They can't magically create tanks out of thin air.

Also, BG queues these days, Blizz needs to do something to get the Alliance to queue more. From what I can tell, the reason Horde queues for BGs are so long, is the fact that, even though Horde-Alliance have near parity these days, Alliance players don't queue for BGs in as large numbers. I wonder why this is.

Because Alliance regularly sucks ass at doing BG's. ;)

Granted, I've had more luck with not getting totally lolpwned by Horde nowadays than back during early LK, but still Alliance just can't regularly do BG's it seems to me.

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I haven't queued up for a BG in a while I know that. I used to really enjoy them but I got too frustrated with twinks and ragequit. Maybe I should go back and try again. I'm not a very good PvPer but BGs can be fun. I've heard the bots are really bad now, though.

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I always confuses me to see these threads on the WoW forums where people complain about DPS dungeon queues and ask Blizzard to fix it. How exactly can Blizzard fix it? They can't magically create tanks out of thin air.

I dunno, they could give mainspec tanks, like, bonus xp or rep or something to induce more people to try it out. I'm convinced there are plenty of people who'd be solid tanks if only they, like, tried it. Once. Just once.

Then again, if instant dungeon queues aren't enough motivation, maybe nothing would be.

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Because Alliance regularly sucks ass at doing BG's. ;)

Granted, I've had more luck with not getting totally lolpwned by Horde nowadays than back during early LK, but still Alliance just can't regularly do BG's it seems to me.

I've had my share of moron Horde vs. Alliance premade. It really varies.

I dunno, they could give mainspec tanks, like, bonus xp or rep or something to induce more people to try it out. I'm convinced there are plenty of people who'd be solid tanks if only they, like, tried it. Once. Just once.

Then again, if instant dungeon queues aren't enough motivation, maybe nothing would be.

Will you actually get tanks then? Or will you get frost DKs who queued as tanks?

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I've had my share of moron Horde vs. Alliance premade. It really varies.

It was a running joke on Suramar back in the days before people from different realms could queue in the same BG. Alliance never won anything except AV, which they would just Zerg to death.

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Well, I don't think we want to induce more people to play tanks. Because, as it is, there are lots of crap tanks out there. If you're crap DPS, you're less likely to kill the entire group. But if you're a crap tank, then the whole thing is doomed. As I queue as heal on my shaman, I'd say a good 30% of tanks I get are not ready to tank. They have no situation awareness, no idea on what cc does or how not to break them, cannot generate threat, or they're over-confident and pull whole rooms at a time. There are bad DPS, too, for sure, but if 1 out of 3 dps is crap, you can still muscle your way through.

So, no, I would not want to see more tanks as a result of extra rewards for tanks. I'd rather see a training program for all players, so that they cannot queue for public games until they can master the basics. I'm not talking about gear. I'm talking about things like basic tank, dps, and healing skills. If you're DPS, can you follow the marked order of attack? If your class offer cc, do you know how to use it? etc.

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I think the whole "ally sucks in BGs", "horde has longer queues in BGs" is a myth. Sure, every battlegroup has its disparities, on mine ally gets instant BG queues and does not suck by far. I win over 50% of my BGs. Horde players wait ~15mins and don't win much more than me. So ye, if you need to be on the suck team to wait less, I'd join any day ;).

As for tanking and stuff, this is a good time to revoke my statement from a month ago, where I said that healing is the easiest thing to do, now as well as before. I've come to realize tanking is probably easier by far, both heroic and raid tanking, save for a very few encounters. I largely tank with 4-5 buttons and most of the time I mash them all at once (no kidding) and the result is great. Any group with 3-4 or more mobs that yields over 14k dps.

Compare this to a dps class. When I play my demo lock I actually have to use both hands most of the time, I have to aoe, I have to move much more, watch aggro and use soulshatter accordingly, watch the duration of 3-4 debuffs on bosses and recast them ...

Given all that, and assuming you are actually a skilled player who uses everything his class has to offer, dps is the hardest role in both heroics in raids. APM-wise. Healers have to watch a few more targets, but they press way fewer buttons and often need to move less too.

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As for tanking and stuff, this is a good time to revoke my statement from a month ago, where I said that healing is the easiest thing to do, now as well as before. I've come to realize tanking is probably easier by far, both heroic and raid tanking, save for a very few encounters. I largely tank with 4-5 buttons and most of the time I mash them all at once (no kidding) and the result is great. Any group with 3-4 or more mobs that yields over 14k dps.

Compare this to a dps class. When I play my demo lock I actually have to use both hands most of the time, I have to aoe, I have to move much more, watch aggro and use soulshatter accordingly, watch the duration of 3-4 debuffs on bosses and recast them ...

Given all that, and assuming you are actually a skilled player who uses everything his class has to offer, dps is the hardest role in both heroics in raids. APM-wise. Healers have to watch a few more targets, but they press way fewer buttons and often need to move less too.

I have been thinking about this as well, and I... sort of agree with you. Sort of.

I would agree that playing 100% optimally, in an ideal situation where everyone else is also playing 100% optimally, is hardest for DPS. However, I would suggest to you that that almost never happens, and that it's irrelevant as well.

I agree that tanking is easy... as long as things go well. This includes being well-geared for the content you're doing, so there's a point of failure there -- my paladin is able to tank heroics, and I do, but I am poorly geared and I spend a lot of my holy power on Word of Glory instead of Shield of the Righteous. I have to make a judgment call on the fly every few GCDs on whether my holy power is better spent on threat or survivability, and that choice can cause issues if I don't pay proper attention and that monster DPS goes splat when they pull threat off me (I've gotten lightning-fast at taunting back). I also monitor the health of the rest of my party to see how easily the healer can keep up, and sometimes I use my holy power to heal another instead if they made a mistake and stood in a fire or were the target of a gimmick or just if the healer is subpar (or even if the healer is good and just has to focus more on me because my gear is bad). There are other execution errors I have to account for as well -- if someone accidentally pulls an extra group, I have to see it in time, execute properly to pick them all up, and do everything I can to try to survive (pop CDs, stun or interrupt if needed, reposition properly) and keep threat on the existing group. On my paladin -- I tank on three classes -- I'm also monitoring for things like "good places to use Divine Guardian." I also react to extra damage or gimmicks with cooldowns normally. The consequences to doing any of these things poorly can be severe, as losing threat can be a serious problem, as can not paying attention to save myself or my party members in time.

Healing is similar. I have to react to not only my own stuff but also to what other people are doing. Guy standing in fire? Maybe I can save him, should I try? Depends on how everyone else is doing and what's killing him. If the tank is doing well, that's a good sign that I can consider fixing the DPS' error, if I can spare the mana. Sometimes people stand in enough gimmicks that my throughout and mana aren't enough to safely fix their mistakes while also healing the people who are doing it right properly. I have to know the damage pattern of the fight -- if a guy has 10% health and is fucking up, and a second guy has 30% health but is executing right, and I know he won't take damage for the next 30 seconds, I can probably take some time to fix the 10% health guy. Sometimes the tank is under geared, or slips up and gives the mobs his back, that's going to require a lot of throughput, mana and attention to try and save. My mana is a precious resource at times, and I am the only role in the game where the demands on my resource pool aren't solely managed by me -- I essentially have veto power, but when someone makes a mistake and stands in a void zone, they're demanding one of my time, attention, mana and throughput. My failure to manage any of these properly means death, possibly for everyone.

As DPS, being a perfect player is really hard. But being a pretty good player isn't nearly as difficult, and the consequences for being suboptimal are usually much less severe, and except for some gimmicks I only really have to worry about myself. (I've been in exactly one dungeon where a ret paladin has BoP'd me. I was suitably impressed.) If I do fuck up, it's probably possible to fix, and it probably doesn't cause a wipe (particular fights, like Lich King, are obvious exceptions, and if we are tight on DPS it can be a problem, but in most dungeons one DPS dying isn't the end of the world. Actually, quite a bit of raiding these days seems to have gimmicks where fucking up means a wipe, now that I think about it, but in general in my experience it's the exception, not the rule.

EDIT: Also, when pugging, if anyone dies, and you are tanking or healing? They blame you. Not the frontal cone the fury warrior was standing in, you. Everything is your fault. Plus, everyone feels entitled not only to perfect play from others while not demonstrating it themselves, but also to perfectly outfitted, raid geared tanks (and healers, but mostly tanks). So god help you if you zone into a pug 5-man and someone inspects you and doesn't like what they see, because they WILL tell you all about it.

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All true. I just like my PoV more :). My basic viewpoint is that it is DPS who bring anything down. If there is no dps, or low dps, or (in raids) sub-optimal dps, the boss doesn't die, the group wipes due to enrage, oom or other reasons, end of story. This is especially true with progress content.

Another thing I deem important is that DPS can always push their limits further. Tanks - as long as you hold aggro and use your survival CDs properly your job is done. Healers - as long as everyone is alive you're fine. Sometimes you don't even need everyone alive, Chimaeron allows for deaths in p2 :P.

As a dps you can always strive for more. Nearly every fight has some moving, target switching and so on. Thats where you begin. You can try timing your dmg booster cooldowns to match certain phases. You can even help healers and tanks if you're pro enough - HoP, LoH, taunts (chimaeron p2), immunities, kiting, efficient aoe. There is so much more you can do and so much more you can improve on. People frown on dmg meters, but they are the best thing that ever happened to this game - no role's efficiency can be measured so accurately.

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That is true and it is nice to have limits to push. I'm raiding mostly as a warlock right now so please don't get the impression that I look down on DPS as a role.

Damage meters are good and bad, it is great to have an accurate idea of how you're doing. But I think they also lead people to focus on the wrong thing sometimes. Sometimes it's more important to the group to have some utility like interrupting than to have an extra 500 DPS -- they have made some attempts to help on this score by introducing talents that reward you with a DPS gain for a successful interrupt, but this is kind of a crude tool. Right now my highest DPS minion is the Succubus, but I've brought out the Felhunter before because we needed an extra reliable interrupt. Sometimes something is a personal DPS loss but a raid DPS gain or is otherwise beneficial -- if I'm an enhancement shaman, Windfury totem is obviously beneficial to me, but if the raid is mostly casters, or if the healers are having trouble and spell haste isn't already a covered buff, maybe I should be using that totem instead even though it makes me "worse" on the meters. I can chain fear something, and I should if we don't have better CC options, but Fear doesn't last very long so if I have to constantly refresh it -- say, purple trogg on General Umbriss -- my DPS will suffer. But that doesn't mean I'm a bad player, quite the opposite.

I agree that it is beneficial to be able to "help out" with other tasks while in a DPS role -- that one time a ret paladin BoP'd me while I was healing was a HUGE help and probably saved a wipe at least once, and I was super impressed by his awareness. But you can do that stuff in the other roles too. While tanking, if I am okay but DPS is not and I can live without the threat, I routinely blow my HP on Word of Glory on then, or on the healer. If I don't need to heal and I'm not worried about the mana, I can contribute to DPS. Atonement Disc priests (yes, they still exist) contribute nontrivial DPS as a matter of course. I have often pitched in on healing while balance DPS or ele shaman if it looks to me like the healer is overwhelmed. Last night in heroic GB the tank bit it on a trash pull and Max shifted from cat to bear to tank the rest of the pull. There are times that the "real" healer has died and I've picked it up, or I've died while healing and had an offspec DPS save a wipe while healing. Plenty of other examples.

Basically I agree with you but this is not exclusively the domain of DPS, is my point.

My favorite "DPS saves the day" story is a shaman back when ICC was a thing. One of the tanks died on Precious or Stinky -- I forget why -- and there was no one in a a good position to trade stacks with the remaining tank. The shaman thought fast and brought out his Earth Elemental to tank the remainder of the fight. I salute you, Chaeyla. :)

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