Hardest role in new Heroics?

We hear it all the time.  Heroics are hard.  Then of course we hear people say the opposite, Heroics are easy you just need to learn how to play.  I've said it before and will say it again.  It is a learning curve.  For some people it clicks fast and for others it takes a while.

Example:  Yesterday I was in Heroic Shadowfang Keep and we are on the last boss.  Just our luck as it would be we have no one that can cure curses.  So the tank says lets just try the fast burn and the healer will have to try their best to keep up.  Two wipes later someone says "Can the curse be interupted?" and another person says "Yes, but it has a 1 second cast time so you need perfect timing".

I'm MM, which is against the grain right now as it is the lowest DPS spec at the moment but I know that gives me silencing shot.  I proclaim "Don't worry about it then, if it can be interrupted he will never get a cast off, leave it to me."

We start the fight and low and behold the person was right, it can be interrupted.  He never got a cast off.  My DPS was a bit off being I had to make sure I was not in the middle of a steady when it was time to interrupt but I managed to pull 11.5K DPS and interrupt every single cast.  The boss went down quickly and no one but the tank took any damage.

See, learning curve.  We where dying horrible deaths in pools of cursed blood the first two tries.  Once it clicked for us and the learning curve caught up the fight went from difficult to laughable.  Personally, I wonder how that boss even qualifies as a heroic boss now.  If you interrupt that cast he is basically a tank and spank boss, no more, no less.

But we are not talking hard in that sense.  Anything is hard when first learning it and anything is easy once you get good at it.  So hard, in that sense, is your personal learning curve.

I am also currently saying that healing is hard because of the mana issues and such.  I say it at least 10 times a day it seems.  But that is not the type of hard I am talking about either.  As healers work on their own learning curve they will handle the healing issues.  Just like a tank has to learn how to be move the mobs and a damage dealer has to learn their rotation and that can be different from fight to fight, a healer needs to learn their new way of healing.  So that hard (even if blizzard has said they screwed up on priest mana regen and will fix it) is something that also fits into the learning curve.

I am talking about hard by the perspective of those around you.

Hard, based on that, is more of an exact science.  Hard otherwise is all about the learning curve as I mentioned and that is different for everyone so saying something is hard that way really does not fit as a blanket statement.

What do you look for in a tank?

Do they hold threat?
Yes... then they are a good tank.
No... then they are a bad tank.

Do they have good avoidance making it easy on the healer?
Yes... then they are a good tank.
No... then they are a bad tank.

Do they have high hit points? (yes people still look at this as a sign of a good tank for some reason)
Yes... then they are a good tank.
No... then they are a bad tank.

So see, basically, looking at it that way, it comes down to, if the tank can hold stuff and take a beating they are a good tank.

What do you look for in a healer?

Does everyone live?
Yes... then it is a good healer.
No... then it is a bad healer.

There you go, when looking at healers that is all anyone cares about.  With the known issues of healers as it is there is even some understanding when people die and you could have 1 or 2 people die almost every pull and the healer would still be called a good.

Funny part is that if a healer ends with everyone alive on 0 mana they are now called an amazing healer instead of a good healer.  Weird how doing bad mana management makes you better at what you do?  But I can understand it.  Spells are just way to costly and most healers have not adjusted from over healing everything.  I know that for a fact because I am one of them sadly, only difference is I admit it.

What do you expect from a damage dealer?

Do they do high DPS?
Yes... then they are a good damage dealer.
No... then they are a bad damage dealer.

Do they know how to focus target?
Yes... then they are a good damage dealer.
No... then they are a bad damage dealer.

Do they know how to use (and not break) CC?
Yes... then they are a good damage dealer.
No... then they are a bad damage dealer.

Those are the basics.  If you notice there is more involved with doing DPS then with tanking or healer.  A tank needs to tank a healer needs to heal and a DPS needs to do everything else, including winning the fight.  Seems like more pressure is on them.

Lets take some examples:

Failed attempt on a boss fight (with no adds)

Tank says... Wow, that boss hits hard.
Healer says... I went oom trying to heal through it.
DPS says... I burned all my cool downs and it looked like his life was barely going down.

Verdict:  DPS kicked, we need more DPS.

Failed attempt on a boss fight (with adds)

Tank says... the adds became to much for me.
Healer says... it became impossible to heal through that.
DPS says... that big add has a crap load of life.

Verdict: DPS kicked, we need more DPS.


Failed attempt on a boss fight with no adds but heavy mechanics.

Tank says... Aggro is harder to hold while moving, DPS need to watch threat.
Healer says... It is harder to heal on the move.
DPS says... Mobile fights always lower DPS for me.

Verdict: DPS kicked, we need more DPS

Failed attempt on a boss fight with adds and heavy mechanics.

Tank says... You have to burn adds faster.
Healer says... You have to avoid add damage, I can't heal you through it.
DPS says... We could burn them down faster and without damage if the tank picked them up to buy us a few seconds of uninterrupted DPS.

Verdict:  DPS kicked, we need more DPS.

Failed attempt on a heavy AoE fight.

Tank says... I'll hold everything, you just burn.
Healer says... You need to burn him faster I can't kept up with this healing long.
DPS says... I'm doing 15K in blues and greens what more do you want from me.

Verditc:  DPS kicked, we need more DPS.

I've noticed one trend in heroics lately.  The answer for everything is "we need more DPS".  I am not kidding either.  Even if we down a boss nice and fast someone is bound to say, that would be super easy if we had more DPS. 

Like in H SFK the yesterday after we down the last boss someone said, if we had more DPS we could have just ignored the curse.  Excuse me?  It was easy as sin as soon as I started interrupting.  It would have been easy the first time if we had someone to cure the curses.  It was an easy fight.  Why the hell do we need more DPS for it?

It just seems that DPS have the hardest time in heroics because they have the most expected from them.  A tank just need to hold packs and a healer just needs to heal people.  If stuff does not go down, for whatever reason, it is the DPS fault.  Tank lost threat... DPS fault.  Healer when oom... DPS fault.  You name it... DPS fault.

If we flash forward 30 days, maybe even 15 days.  Once all DPS have all heroics gear, some points gear and some raid gear and go back into all those instances with the same tank and same healer all in their same gear all those instances become laughable.

Remember that it is a tanks job to get beat on and it is a healers job to heal them and everyone else as needed and it is the job of the damage dealers to kill things.  The faster the damage dealers kill things the less a tank gets beat on and the less a healer has to heal. 

So who has the hardest role in new heroics, even more so while first gearing up?  DPS.  Hands down DPS.  Not even an argument DPS. 

They have the most expected from them and being there are millions of them and they are easily replaced they have to not only be good but they have to be great all the time every step of the way.  They not only have the hardest role in the dungeon at the moment but they also have the understanding that even one little mistake or not doing enough DPS they can be replaced in a split seconds.  Now that... is hard.

The greatest kick to DPS is that a tank in blues and greens comes into a heroic and people say he is here because he needs to gear up.  A healer comes into a instance in all blues and greens and people say they are there because they need to gear up.  A DPS comes into an instance with blues and greens and they get kicked instantly because "we need more DPS".  Wow, just wow.  Hardest role in the game right now... DPS.

At least is it getting closer to the point where people can do random heroics again.  With kids off school for the winter vacation I expect them to gear up which will mean many more casuals and even more importantly kids.  While I hate playing with kids at least there is one thing you can count on them for.  They are less likely to kick a DPS that is trying to gear up because the other DPS that are kids as well will look at it as someone that can easily beat and you know, it is all about being #1 on the DPS charts right?

It is taking longer then I expected for the masses to catch up to the heroics but at least they have started to now.  No more first boss wipes, thank god.  Still seems all runs are 2+ hours in pugs however.  At least I was not in my friends pug on Saturday.   4 1/2 hours to do deadmines.  I would rater have dental surgery then endure that.