World of Warcraft

[saint777]

Downed Magmaw in a pug group. Was really fun and intense. My first Cata boss downed. We tried a few attempts at Omnitron but kept wiping. Got him down to about 24M. At least I got to see the whole fight.

[Inigima]

Ended up 9-manning Valiona and Theralion. Pulled in someone's friend for Ascendant's Council, but still no luck getting it down. First real attempts on it though.

[Inigima]

I just checked the progress of the guild founded by the officers from my old guild who ninja transferred. They just hit guild level 3 and haven't set foot in a raid. Meanwhile I'm raiding regularly with better players, and my guilds (not me personally) are 12/12 normal mode and have no drama. It's hard not to feel a little smug.

[Weak With The Dawn]

Woohoo Shamans get blue hands today! :P

Aside from new casting animations I'm wondering how healing is going to go with the buffs to healing wave and nerf to Mana tide. I'd really like to see Resto Sham get a bit closer to other heals but I'm doubtful that this patch will do it.

[Kalbear]

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

You're wrong and myopic. The difference is that DPS can always get marginal gains on a fight that are measurable by slightly more pixels on a damage meter.

Healers and tanks get marginal gains on a fight and the result is that you're actually able to beat the encounter.

[Solmyr]

You're wrong and myopic. The difference is that DPS can always get marginal gains on a fight that are measurable by slightly more pixels on a damage meter.

Healers and tanks get marginal gains on a fight and the result is that you're actually able to beat the encounter.

Good to know you disagree with me. Had it not been so, I'd've been worried.

[Kalbear]

Just didn't want to give anyone the impression that you were actually right about anything. That would have been horrible.

To be a bit less flippant, here's the measurables that tanks can use as they learn a fight:

-how quickly they pick up adds and establish good threat on them

-how efficiently they use their CDs

-how quickly they can pick the boss up during phase changes

-how much damage they take that's avoidable

-how much damage they can do (yes, tanks also optimize this)

-how much healing they need to take, and how much overhealing they need to take

-avoiding things they can avoid

-figuring out taunt rotations and timing it so that the taunts work properly

-positioning the boss for maximal damage

-positioning the boss and adds for maximal damage

Here's measurables that the healers can use:

-number of avoidable deaths

-cooldown use on tanks

-cooldown use on the raid

-maximizing burst healing on certain parts

-maximizing healing on a specific group

-maximizing burst healing on a specific raid mark

-avoiding damage

-decursing

-dispelling

-damage (talk to disc about that, they're nuts right now)

-overhealing (this is a lot more important than it has been)

-reducing external mana dependencies

-heal rotations

-heal selections

-healing per second

Basically, everything that the DPS can do to improve a tank or a healer can too. Then they also have to worry about a whole bunch of shit that's often outside their control that they still have to mitigate. To paraphrase, everything that a DPS does a healer does backwards and in high heels.

[Arataniello]

Woohoo Shamans get blue hands today! :P

Aside from new casting animations I'm wondering how healing is going to go with the buffs to healing wave and nerf to Mana tide. I'd really like to see Resto Sham get a bit closer to other heals but I'm doubtful that this patch will do it.

Resto druids have also got new casting animations in tree form (the evil broccoli one, not the good one) and a dance animation. However, the from is still as terrible as ever, so I will be keeping my glyphed old form.

[Solmyr]

Just didn't want to give anyone the impression that you were actually right about anything. That would have been horrible.

To be a bit less flippant, here's the measurables that tanks can use as they learn a fight:

-how quickly they pick up adds and establish good threat on them

-how efficiently they use their CDs

-how quickly they can pick the boss up during phase changes

-how much damage they take that's avoidable

-how much damage they can do (yes, tanks also optimize this)

-how much healing they need to take, and how much overhealing they need to take

-avoiding things they can avoid

-figuring out taunt rotations and timing it so that the taunts work properly

-positioning the boss for maximal damage

-positioning the boss and adds for maximal damage

Here's measurables that the healers can use:

-number of avoidable deaths

-cooldown use on tanks

-cooldown use on the raid

-maximizing burst healing on certain parts

-maximizing healing on a specific group

-maximizing burst healing on a specific raid mark

-avoiding damage

-decursing

-dispelling

-damage (talk to disc about that, they're nuts right now)

-overhealing (this is a lot more important than it has been)

-reducing external mana dependencies

-heal rotations

-heal selections

-healing per second

Basically, everything that the DPS can do to improve a tank or a healer can too. Then they also have to worry about a whole bunch of shit that's often outside their control that they still have to mitigate. To paraphrase, everything that a DPS does a healer does backwards and in high heels.

Is this presentation supposed to impress me? You used ~20 lines to say things that can be said in 1-2. It takes a special kind of skill to overextend a list so grossly to prove your point, but anyone who actually reads it will notice things like 'dispelling' and 'decursing' one after the other and wonder "hey, aren't those the same thing? why did we need 2 lines then ... ooh ye, to make the list bigger." Next time make an effort, and put them at the beginning and the end, to make it less obvious. Also, add 'curing poisons' and 'abolishing diseases'. List. Must. Be. Long.

On the other hand, thank you for explaining in such detail what tanks and healers do in raids. It would be very useful for anyone who hasn't raided, or hasn't ever played these roles before. I could easily conjure twice that long a list, glorifying the DPS class into an epiphany, but I'd rather make a nice cup of tea and play some of the game we're so fervently discussing.

[TerraPrime]

I could easily conjure twice that long a list, glorifying the DPS class into an epiphany, but I'd rather make a nice cup of tea and play some of the game we're so fervently discussing.

Well, I concede that you do have the upper hand here in terms of having established your credibility on the issue of analyzing roles, concerning you just started this mini-topic by admitting that you were originally wrong.

[Kalbear]

Wow, that's dumb.

Dispelling isn't the same as decursing. Mass dispel is a very different skill than abolish poison and used in different ways.

The important thing here is that these things are measurable. You had this notion that only dps incrementally improve, and that's true only if you use recount as your measuring stick. Good players use a lot more.

And yes, I made a big list because I surmised from your posts that you were completely ignorant in everything other than pressing the 2 key harder. You've demonstrated a complete inability to understand the skills of others; I assumed that it was because of a lack of education and not simple idiocy. Forgive the assumption; I may have bee wrong.

[Arakasi]

While I do agree with some of your points Kal, I think there is a point that DPS rotations are much more complex and require more attention then tanking rotations. As a tank it is pretty easy in all cases to do your abilities optimally. Everything but the last 2 (well 3 I guess but DPS often get put on interrupt rotations which are basically the same thing) you put in the Tank list a DPS has to do too. And those last two come to something that is annoying for dps, especially melee. Tanks control where the mobs go which in ways make things easier for them. They know what is going to happen with the mob. The DPS just doesn't. When I take a break from tanking and do DPS, it's annoying how many times a Tank tries to get me kill by dragging the mob through something stupid making me make the choice between doing no dps and getting killed. Sure you can say a skilled tank doesn't do that to his fellow players. But a skilled DPS knows how to react to those changes and still maintain high dps. Tougher task imo.

Also when talking about raiding many of those tanking choices get taken away. I've only done 4 raid fights so far (TB and first three in BWD) but in 2 of the cases the tank barely has to do anything. I have the easiest job in the raid on Magmaw. Maloriak the offtank has a tough fight, but the main tank similarly has little to do. Omnotron the tank's do get more responsibility and I do enjoy that, but as a tank I also get the benefit of being ineligible for targeting of some of the more annoying effects in the fight. As well it goes back to my control point. I know where my boss is going. That helps me avoid damage more than DPS'ers who have to react to what I'm doing to the boss.

Not really have any opinion on Healing, but really for tanking I do think the DPS has a tougher job. Especially melee dps.

[Kalbear]

Sure, the DPS rotations are harder. That 2 key wonn't just hit itself!

Seriously, yes, DPS rotations are in general harder than tanking threat rotations. That's made up for by having to use cooldowns correctly, taunts correctly, communicate to the raid what's going on, pick up mobs and judge threat correctly on them, plan for high DPS at certain times and deal with threat, and mostly deal with making it easier to do the DPS job.

If the tank is dragging the mob around and getting DPS killed, they're doing a bad job. That's the point; part of the way you can measure a tank's quality is by measuring how much time melee DPS have on target. And sure, as a melee dps you can go into heroic skill level, pop your survival CDs and eek out a bit more damage - but that's making up for a bad tank.

A good tank plans that ahead of time and figures out a way to not get the melee killed completely. The good tank plans their movement so that you have more time on DPS. And that's one of the things you can measure.

You said it yourself - the DPS has no control over these things. When you don't have control, you don't have a hard time. You have two options: stand in the fire and die or don't dps. The tank has many options, and all of them are under their control. Furthermore, all of them directly affect the rest of the raid. If you don't dps, so what? The raid dps goes down slightly and you have a bad night. If the tank doesn't control the mob correctly? Everyone's DPS goes down and you call a wipe because you can't hit enrages, or everyone dies because the tank put the mob in fire, or everyone does less DPS because the tank put the mob in a way so that you can only get in front of it.

If you're doing really high-end content most of the time you know exactly where the mob should be going, and more importantly you have to plan on it. Yes, you may have to react to the tank screwing up - but again, that's the tank being bad. That's why it's so hard; it has a far bigger effect on the raid, and there are no buttons to press that say 'mob stands here'.

I played a feral. Melee dps on a feral is apparently one of the hardest rotations in the game. melee is considered far harder than ranged. And I'm telling you that I did dps to relax. It was much less demanding on me to dps than it was to tank.

Sure, on a stand still and DPS this mob the DPS has a harder time. This is much like saying that on easier content 10 mans are harder than 25s because one person screwing up on 10 has a bigger effect than it does on 25. And that's true - but who cares about Patchwerk fights? The measure of a good DPS isn't being able to do shithot damage when they're standing still and don't have to avoid anything. It's how well they do with multiple phases, target switching, avoiding crap, dealing with timers and issues. Similarly, the measure of a good tank is not how well they stand in one spot and occasionally taunt. There really aren't that many fights that are 'stand here and look pretty' as a tank.

Another way to put it is this: a skilled DPS does have a hard time reacting to an unskilled tank and still do good DPS. A skilled tank has no issue dealing with a bad DPS because the bad dps just doesn't matter. It's a harder individual job for the DPS because they don't have nearly as much responsibility or affect on a fight's outcome - so if they fuck up it's on them. If the tank fucks up it's on everyone.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

I played a feral. Melee dps on a feral is apparently one of the hardest rotations in the game. melee is considered far harder than ranged. And I'm telling you that I did dps to relax. It was much less demanding on me to dps than it was to tank.

Yep. My dps is middling to terrible, and it doesn't matter. Every competent group I've played with has had zero difficulties carrying my ass. OTOH, when my bear ass went splat early and often in Grim Batol, well, that was a wipe.

[Mack Kilimaro]

Am I really hearing someone arguing that DPSing is harder than tanking? I mean, wow. You must have been blessed with amazing tanks your entire WOW career, because I don't see how anyone could be advancing this argument otherwise. The gap between the best, the above average and the mediocre is astounding.

Here's one Kal forgot to mention for tank measurables:

-Continue to maintain threat while gimping your rotation in order to save your GCD for interrupts of stuff your DPS are too focused on Recount to interrupt

I do think that Cata asks a lot more of DPS, as it asks a lot more of healers. But come on, switch an adequate tank for the excellent tank you're used to and tell me you don't notice the difference. I would have a hard time believing it.

EDIT: That said, Magmaw is really, really easy on tanks. I'll give you that one.

[Solmyr]

I think there is a point that DPS rotations are much more complex and require more attention then tanking rotations. As a tank it is pretty easy in all cases to do your abilities optimally. Everything but the last 2 (well 3 I guess but DPS often get put on interrupt rotations which are basically the same thing) you put in the Tank list a DPS has to do too. And those last two come to something that is annoying for dps, especially melee. Tanks control where the mobs go which in ways make things easier for them. They know what is going to happen with the mob. The DPS just doesn't. When I take a break from tanking and do DPS, it's annoying how many times a Tank tries to get me kill by dragging the mob through something stupid making me make the choice between doing no dps and getting killed. Sure you can say a skilled tank doesn't do that to his fellow players. But a skilled DPS knows how to react to those changes and still maintain high dps. Tougher task imo.

That and tanking is simply easy. Yday I had a BWD raid, with a pug mind you, no voice chat, I was main tanking. On chim I wasn't even moving, people stacked on me for feud, I believe because they share the view tanking is hard ... in the meantime I had my eyes fixed at the debuffs of Chim, waiting for double attack to come and go so I have to press T. That's the only encounter-based ability I was using ... and it required no more thought that removing my hand from my gas cooker when it starts to hurt. For aggro, yes that precious, scarce resource called threat, I mashed 1-4 all at the same time.

By the time we reached Atrademes I was already falling asleep. The 'challenging' fight with the blindy did not improve my condition ... apart from the pull, where I purposefully made it as exciting as possible, by heroic throwing, heroic leaping away, then charging back for some rage and then positioning him at the other end of the room, the rest of the fight was a dull observation of the design of walls and ceiling of the boss room. I kept mashing 1-4, but there was no need for taunting, no OT, no nothing. Every now and then I pressed A to stafe left 10 yards, then D to strafe back right another 10. That kept me away from the rings. And when the air phase comes, you can basically put yourself on follow on someone and go for a cup of tea. Might try that for real next time, as it was I kept jumping left and right stopping to wait a bomb which occasionally targeted me to fall, then continuing.

Tanking is hard, thats why you should roll easy classes like affliction warlocks and feral dps druids and leave the hard stuff to the pros ... seriously, the only explanation why there are so few tanks is that the majorityl died from boredom at some point.

[Weak With The Dawn]

Start tanking heroic raid encounters. Or keep tanking farther into the expansion when threat become more of an issue as DPS catches up to the it.

Tank threat gen is always crazy high at the start of an expac and gets tougher to maintain as it goes on. You're using anecdotal advice up against long time tanks and expecting anyone to recognize your short term experience as a strong argument.

DPS has to adapt to the raid encounter. Tank and heals need to keep all this in mind, maintain their own jobs and are expected to make up, or lessen the blow from, mistakes made by the rest of the raid. Tank itemization is more important and understanding every effect of your spells is more important then for a dps who could spam the wrong move and still maintain some sort of respectable number on recount without largely disrupting the encounter.

[Kalbear]

Using Chimaeron as an example of how hard tanking is? Hah.

Okay, now, ask the healers how hard Chim is. assuming any will speak to you.

No, tanking is pretty easy when you don't move and you barely interact with the boss. Shockingly, who cares? At that level EVERYTHING is easy. If you're finding you ahve more fun DPSing when doing simple stuff, okay - but that doesn't mean that at the higher levels it's harder or more challenging. Yes, once you get past the point where you've got things like the movement, cooldowns, ability usage, announcing, and coordination down things tend to be easier.

So what?

Seriously, Solmyr, you're like the virgin who keeps braggin about how great breasts are and how sex couldn't remotely be as good as breasts.

[Solmyr]

Start tanking heroic raid encounters. Or keep tanking farther into the expansion when threat become more of an issue as DPS catches up to the it.

I live in the here and now and as it is, very few non-hardcore guilds have even used the heroic raid setting, let alone killed anything. Also, what you're basically saying is "DPS needs to improve first, for tanks to have any work to do at all". That sounds awfully like what I've been preaching in my last few posts.

Kal, as you may have noticed I usually refrain from even commenting on your posts, although you've never returned the favour in kind. But it feels I should mention that any offense, deliberate or accidental, you aim at me, will be a complete waste of forum ink, as I have not only seen the game from more angles than you can conceive, but furthermore, I have ceased giving much of a damn about it due to the latter. Your last metaphor did make me laugh tho, for reasons completely unrelated to the game ;).

[Arataniello]

[mod] as a pre-emptive move, let's try to keep the discussion to the topic, namely WoW. Do not allow this thread to deteriorate into inane mud-slinging-fest [/mod]