Wednesday, November 30, 2011

LFR & New Dungeons: Not a Bad Start

Played on the new patch last night and was able to knock out all three new dungeons and half of the new raid in a total of 4 hours.

Yeap, you read that one right.

Of course, there is a valid reason for the first day going so well and I do not expect to see it continue like that.

I did the dungeons with all guild.  Sure, we get no luck of the draw buff but we get to talk to each other on vent and we can work strategy out and change approaches on the fly like that.  Anything is easier when people can work together like that.

Our guild tank however DCed in the first dungeon so we replaced them.  We ended up with a tank that was okay but not great.  They got us through the first one but I think the only reason they made it was that we where killing things so quick. 

The guild healer was having a hell of a time keeping the tank up, they where kind of squishy.  She even said a few times she did not think she could heal it.  We told her to stick it out and she did and we managed.

We moved directly to the second one, so no valor points from it being it was not a random, but there will always be time for valor later, I wanted to get them all done.  When the tank realized that this was not the same dungeon they dropped group. 

I guess they wanted valor now and where not up just for seeing the new dungeons at the moment.  No big deal really.  Well, almost no big deal, they left mid pull when they noticed, so we wiped.  They could have at least waited until the mobs where down.  Like 20 extra seconds would have really killed them?

The replacement tank was nothing special either.  On one of the trash pulls up to the second boss they died, the healer died and one DPS died leaving me and the mage.  We had one mob almost dead and three more up when it was just us two left but leave it to a mage and a hunter to make that into a "no big deal" situation.  We both have CC and we both know how to play our classes.  We CCed, I turned on my pets growl, and used my glyphed misdirect over and over on my pet and we killed them all.  Now that is what I call fun.

We wiped on the boss.  The tank could not really control the mages.  This is also one of those reasons I love having silencing shot.  I was able to take care of Azshara interrupts and not have to count on someone else to do it.  Sure, I sacrifice some DPS but in the end it really does help sometimes.

We wiped a second time on Azshara and the tank rage quit.  The healer once again started to doubt herself and we told her not to worry, we could do it and she could do it.  We pick up another pug tank and go at it again.

Goes to show you that tanking can sometimes be more then just a meat shield.  The tank held the mobs and never worried about Azshara being I said I got that covered and we downed it nice and easy.  What a difference a tank can make when they do not let mobs go attacking everyone all willy nilly.

That tank stayed with us through that one and the next one and we had no further problems.

Arrow of time dropped, me and the other hunter in the group rolled need on it but neither of us got it.  We where the only people to roll need on it.  Okay, looks like a bug, or looks like we might have moved to the new instance too quickly.  Either way, it is not like I won't be seeing it again hundreds of times.  I'll get it later.

One bug that did annoy me is that I won three BoEs from the new heroics.  All three of them I won with a greed roll, all three are now soulbound.  Excuse me?  Since when are BoEs soulbound even when you win them with a greed roll.  What is the use of a BoE if it is not BoE?  If winning it just makes it soulbound then it is BoP, in my opinion at least.  I am guessing this is just another bug but I do hope they fix it and adjust my already won items so they are no longer soulbound.

After I was done with the three I decided that I would join the raid finder for shits and giggles.  There was one thing I did not count on however.  The minimum item level requirement is 372.  No, I had no problem with that.  I think I was 372 five months ago.  But being I neglected to notice that I also neglected to realize that the only people that would be 372 right now are people that where raiders.  Non raiders would not have a 372 item level or it is unlikely they did unless they spent a butt load of cash on BoEs.

This meant that everyone in the raid was a raider, knew basic raid movements, knew basic raid mechanics seemed to have already learned all the fights the way a real raider would before stepping into a raid.

This meant bosses down and bosses down fast.  I finished my first raid (first four) faster then I finished my first ZA or my first ZG.  Actually, in all honesty, I think the raid in the raid finder was easier then ZA and ZG are even now after we severely over gear them. That might be because of the quality of player that was there.

We did wipe two times but two times in a raid and a raid filled with random people and a raid with no voice communication and a raid where no one explained, they just pulled, is pretty darn awesome.

Goes to show you that if you get 25 actual raiders together and put them in a watered down raid they do not need voice chat and it could be easy.

I do not believe that this will be the results of the raid finder for long.  Right now as I write this there are many really bad player spamming the new heroics getting 378 gear and building up justice points getting more 378 gear and they will have a 372 item level by the time I get home from work.

This means the chances of me getting into groups that do not know what they are doing will go up a lot now.  The only reason the new raid was faceroll was because it was filled with people that "should" be there.  Please, do not take that "should" as being elitist.  The "should" just means people that actually looked at the fights before walking into them and people that did not expect to walk in and get carried to gear.

I still stand by what I always said.  If you need to be told to kill the skull, you do not deserve to be in a raid.  The raid leader skulled the slime he wanted killed, everyone switched instantly without ever even being told.  Raiders do that.  People that "should" be there do that.  After today, and people that just grinded their way up to 372, a whole slew of people that "should not" be there will be there and they will not be switching to the skull.  I am willing to bet you on that.

Maybe I should not be making any bets however.  I've been a little off lately.  When I signed up for the LFR and saw average wait time listed as 30 seconds I laughed and said to people on vent, who wants to bet it takes longer then 30 seconds.  Everyone said they are not taking that bet because there is no way it will only be 30 seconds.  I was wrong, we all where wrong, DPS wait time was indeed 30 seconds.

If I can get raid groups like that and 30 second wait times then I love the new raid finder.  I do not expect it to stay that way for long however.  It sure was nice yesterday, really nice.

Something feels wrong about downing the first four bosses of a raid with no effort on release day.  I could even finished the whole raid in less then 3 hours had it not been getting late and me having to work the next day. 

I know all about seeing content and letting everyone see content and I support that 100%, always have, but this is taking things way to far.  Raid content is supposed to last.  Raid content should not be cleared the first day it comes out in any form, even an easy form, unless you are a hard core raid team.  Raid content, even more so current raid content, should not take less time to complete then the heroics did when cataclysm first came out. 

I know people, many people, that spent more time in deadmines their first time there then it took me to complete half the new raid content and 3 new dungeons.  I could have completeled all the raid content and 3 new dungeons in less them then it took many people to complete deadmines on release day if I did not have work the next day.

As far as patch days go this would have to rank as one of the better patch days I remember.  No server lag, up on time, very few bugs, new content being fluid and not hell or broken.  A lot better then not being able to log on on a Tuesday.

Cataclysm might have been a crappy expansion in my opinion but there is one thing they have greatly improved on this expansion and that is patch day.  Each patch day seems loads better then I remember them being.  I guess something good came out of cataclysm after all.  They finally learned how to release a patch right.

If you had to ask me now I would give the new dungeons and the new raid finder an A+.  Ask me again later when there are people in the raid finder and dungeons that really are not ready to be in them and you will surely see a different answer.

I'll just be happy with last night.  The first time doing dungeons since I quit doing them some months back.  I might actually have to start gearing up some of my alts now.  If things are going to be fun again and if the raid finder is really going to be easy enough that it won't stress me out then I very well might have found something to do to waste 2 hours on instead of sitting around bitching that I have nothing to do in game.

The return of actual content that you could do for fun.  Who would have ever expected that.

7 comments:

  1. That's very weird about the BoEs, did you open a ticket? I saw one drop while playing around with the new dungeons yesterday, and the person who won it through greeding (my guildie) definitely was able to sell it on the AH after. Strange!

    And I've heard overall, pretty positive things about the raid finder. Sometimes it's chaos, sometimes there's people in there with PVP gear or who just aren't that good, but the difficulty is low enough that it's still okay. My guildie was in one such group yesterday and they wiped a few times on various bosses, but he was just more amused by the anarchy than irritated. I've yet to try it myself, but I expect it will be interesting!

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  2. It is just ridiculous how easy the raid is. Even in normal mode we could just ignore encounter elements like the black cloud at the first boss and survive it without any healing at all!
    If we weren't running for the Raidachievements, we probably would have oneshotted every single boss. And we didn't even had PTR experience or read any guide or something...

    And then came the LFR. If a random group, where no one knows each other, without any organization at all and where most of them don't even know the raid, was able to kill almost every freaking boss in the first try (that shaman took two), there is something wrong. Horribly wrong.

    Hope they lose another shitloads of subs for that and maybe some day they would realize something...

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  3. @Anon

    Have not tried it on normal yet. We raid on Thursdays so will most likely give it a shot tonight.

    The raid finder version was super easy when done with actual raiders. Once the people doing 3K DPS, like the warrior in one of my heroic runs yesterday, are in the raid finder version I assure you that the raid finder version will actually be harder then heroic mode.

    I've always said it. Raiding is not hard. It is only a matter of learning the fight. Once you know it, any fight is easy. It is the people that make it hard. You can only account for yourself you can not account for what the people around you do.

    This means the LFR will be extremely hard once the non-raiders get up to 372 item level.

    The first day was a bit of a joke because only raiders where doing it and for raiders there really was no challenge there. Even bad raiders that was easy for. But we have to remember, it was not made for raiders. That is why it was super easy for us.

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  4. Had a try at the LFR system last night. Even with only 1 or two people out of the 25 having done it before it was mostly a one shot on 1st four chaps, 2 silly wipes the whole run. Now i'm not convinced on either argument yet - is raid finder too easy or is it easy because only people with the gear can get in...it's probably a bit of both. Our dps across the board was decent, top chaps over 20k, 1 at 30 and our MT was really rather good so that helped.

    You know what though? I liked it. I had fun in a raid for the first time since WotLK. I wish it had been just a little harder, the adds on bosses seemed to drop quite quickly and didnt hurt that much for example. Perhaps this is only this difficulty for phase 1 though, for DW himself I imagine it to be much harder. Let the casuals chain run LFR stage 1 to thier hearts content and call themselves raiders, good on them and good luck. If it makes people happy and keep playing its a good thing.

    Like his Grumpness, I do slightly fear when every idiot gets 372 gear though.

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  5. The BOE turned soulbound on greed is a bug. Blizzard is aware of that bug. BOEs are only supposed to be soulbound when someone rolls Need on it.

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  6. @anon consider this - wotlk was faceroll easy, and wow set record numbers of subs. Cata came out, blizz listened to the vocal minority and made it harder. Subs lost. Za/zg come out, very long and difficult. More subs lost. Now we have 3 short, easier, fun dungeons. I see subs increasing. I've tanked these 3 over and over the past few days and the response had been overwhelmingly positive from the others in my pugs. There are the occasional "blizz sucks these too easy" members, but they are few and far between. Again proving that these people are thee MINORITY. I plan on doing the raid finder tonight, so I cannot comment on that aspect of the patch yet.

    The one negative that I do have is it seems the reg raid seems to easy... This content is fun, but how is it going to stay fun for months when so many guilds have already cleared it on reg? I'm all for an easy lfr raid, but I believe in having to farm the first bosses of an instance to get thee gear to be able to clear it.

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  7. I honestly doubt they will lose any more subscriptions for making raiding easier than they would for keeping it hard. In fact, now that everyone can actually see every aspect of the game without having to be in a hardcore raiding guild and shoving their real lives in a closet, they may even gain a few. The only reason the "Easy" raiding bothers anyone is because the "anyone" it bothers had to do everything the "hard" way before this. No one likes to see anyone else get something for free that they had to work for, even if they too can get it just as easily from now on. It's a classic human condition. Ridiculous, but classic.

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