4.3 Week 2 - This Ain't Week 1

The second week of 4.3 started yesterday and just as expected things seem a little different after the masses have had a week to play catch up.

I jumped into a LFR group to finish off the DS raid in the LFR system.  I knew the second four would not be as faceroll as the first four where but I figured it would still be nice and easy and relaxing with a few wipes mixed in but a few wipes are really no big deal.

Well, hoped might be a better word.  I didn't actually figure it would be easy, somewhere inside of me I knew it wouldn't be.  I hoped it would be easy.

It seems all the bad players have gotten to a 372 item level and are now infecting the LFR system.  While the LFR system is tuned to be easier, is still not tuned to be that easy.

First of the second four bosses I knew would be a little interesting.  The button does not show for some people and I came prepared for that with a macro that posts a macro on how to make a macro so you can click the button if it does not show for you.

Seems no one that needs to read raid reads raid.  Perhaps it is because of all the jerks insulting everyone for not clicking the button.  Instead of trying to be helpful, like me, and telling people how to get the button to show all they did was insult people for not clicking it.

Two other people in the raid apparently noticed me posting and copied me and posted what I said a few times as well so it could get seen between all the jerks that where insulting people.

I can understand the rage from people.  As far as mechanics go for a damage dealer this is the easiest fight in the game this expansion.  Stand in one space, never move, click a button once in a while.

For tanks they need to rotate who goes in and out. I can see this needing the two to work together.  For healers they need to grab the crystal spawns for the healing buff that works best for them, I can see them needing a time or two to figure out what works for them.  But for DPS, it is as simple as simple gets for a fight.

We got a mess of people that either where incapable of learning, unwilling to learn or just flat out stupid.  Damage dealers dying all the time from not clicking the button.  Healers never taking the healing buff causing sub 50% wipe after wipe because they could not keep up.  Tanks not working together, either not clicking out at all, or both at the same time causing a wipe.

After about a dozen attempts, when the tanks finally figured out that only one of them can be out at a time and the healer figured out that those crystals gave them buffs and the damage dealers learned how to click a new button once in a while it started to go a little better.

We wipe about a dozen more times, people coming and going after each wipe, a few restarts to train the new tanks and new healers.  We have to be pushing 30 wipes already on this fight at this point.

Why was I still even there, I mean really, this is a looking for raid version, this is supposed to be easy.  I can't remember the last time I wiped this much on a boss in progression and my guild is not a super guild and we still do not wipe this much because of stupid stuff.

I wish people would, at the very least, read about the fight or watch a video before coming in.  Sure, you still might not understand the fight after watching it or reading it but at least you might have some clue what someone is talking about if you had some form of reference to fall back on.  Like having watched the video or read a strategy guide.

We finally started pushing it to the end, sub 20%, and we where getting closer, we could taste it.  A few wipes like that had me really take a look at the DPS numbers and I noticed a few things.  First, why the hell was my DPS less in a 25 man than a 10 man?  I was doing between 19K-23K on the attempts I looked at.  In a stand still fight like that I could usually pull at least 24K, sometimes with some luck maybe even 28K or 29K.  Nope, my DPS has not budged yet from the last patch because I have nothing new yet.  I am still in the same gear.  I burst at the start at up to 60K but it settles down of course.  It was just settling too much if you ask me.

But this is not about me and my perceived low damage, for a looking for raid over 20K is more then acceptable.  What stood out is that I was always number four.  Of course number one, two and three where usually two warriors and a rogue.  All 28K or better.  From there on however, things looked bleak.  Had a few other hunters all around 18K but after the four hunters the two warriors and the one rogue everyone else was low.

Some where just low, not horribly low but low none the less and others where ouch, how the hell did you get in here low.  Had a warlock that was bragging on his realm first heroic rag kill posing the achievement to show everyone just how awesome he was and yet he never managed to pull over 14K on any of the attempts.  How the hell did you get heroic rag, 14K was bad in firelands.  I would say he paid someone to carry him, but no one would carry someone that bad to a realm first.

There was a retribution paladin that I think was just auto attacking.  I can't see any other reason for someone with a 372 item level pulling 6K.  Heck, I see no reason for anyone with a 329 item level pulling only 6K.  Yes, I checked, he was ret and not a healer.  There where a few others like him.  How do people do under 10K in all 372 gear.  Even a brand spanking new player to the game that is just starting to learn their class would pull at the worst 12K in all 372 gear.

These people where not even heroic ready.  They have no business being in a raid.

People say that the new raids are easy and I agree, they are easy, but not when you are stuck with people that do not even deserve to be in there.  What it came down to was the top 7 DPS, 4 hunters, 2 warriors and a rogue, would have to do all the DPS here because the other 10 could not fight their way out of a paper bag. 

I do not care if their gear said they could be there, they need to take a step back to T11 and work their way up from there.  Heck, they should take a step back to T10 and do some 80 content first.  People where doing more then that at 80.

Even when we started pushing sub 20% the tanks where going down left and right.  The healers just could not keep up.  I think that is a fault of design.  They need to actually assign tank healing duties to people because some times it seems like everyone was in the "I'm on raid" mentality and no one was healing the tanks.

One of the tanks dropped, now we have had about 8 different ones when another came in.  The tank that left was having button issues, so this might be a plus.  The new tank knew the fight.

The healers where also finally getting a grasp of the healing buff crystal thing because for the first time I was seeing them all run out to get them instead of just a couple of them.  I could tell this was getting better.  We had the tanks getting a clue, the healers getting a clue, now we needed the DPS getting a clue.

The clueless DPS doing less damage then a critter could, the clueless boomkin stealing the healers haste buff to up his awesome DPS to 12K.  The clueless DPS that still could not handle hitting one simple button, but at least that was down to two of them.

After hours and countless wipes, we downed the darn thing.  Of course I won nothing but it was still satisfying that we downed it.

We moved to the next fight and instantly I could see no one had a clue about this one yet.  Okay, I have not done the 6th boss yet myself either but I know it.  There is no excuse for not knowing raid content before you go into it.  None.  This would be my first attempt in any difficultly, but at least I knew the fight before walking into it.  How hard would it be for others to do the same?

We, the few who actually knew the fight or took the time to look at it ahead of time, explained it.  Another easy mechanic fight.  They could not even get the stand in swirls correctly.

Yes, I know the load screen told you to not stand in bad stuff but you need to stand in this bad stuff.  In groups too, please, just do it, I am not trolling you.

I sort of think that might be what some people where worried about.  They probably thought we where telling them to stand in the bad stuff so we could laugh at them for dying.  With the average mentality of the WoW population it seems like that is something people would do.  How often have you see someone ask in trade what gem was best for a frost DK and someone say intellect and then another four or five people agree with them.  This community is not very user friendly.

The difference is that with the raiding community we do not do things like that.  Even the ones that would do something like that in trade would never do something like that in a raid.  The idea of raiding is to succeed.  Raiders would not set up for failure on purpose by telling people to stand in the bad stuff.  At least I never would.  I do not find wiping with random people fun but one shotting bosses with random people can be fun, lots of fun.

I gave up.  I could not do it any more.  I could have been valor capped from running heroics in the time it has taken me to down one boss here. 

Don't get me wrong, the looking for raid is easy.  It is just not easy when there are people in it that do not have their hands held every step of the way.

Take that very fight that I wiped on for hours, Ultraxion, and add a little hand holding.  Instead of doing the standard warning and leaving it up to people to press the button, as we have seen most people can not do that, put a warning on each persons screen saying press this button now with a giant flashing hand pointing at it and make it light up and flash and get bigger.  For the tanks you can label them tank 1 and tank 2 and have the warning say, tank 1 press the button now.  For the healers you can tell them, blue crystal up, this is best for holy paladins, get your crystal now.

Things like that.

The looking for raid is surely easy enough but it is still not doing what it was intended to do.  Teach.  No matter how much you lighten up a mechanic, no matter how much you lower the DPS required, healing required and everything else, if people do not understand something it will still kill them.

Add some warnings because it is not my job to teach these people.  It is not like I could teach them even if I wanted to because no one wants to listen.  Everyone thinks they know everything, everyone thinks they are the best player ever.

When done correctly with actual raiders, and people that actively are trying to learn to raid and know what is going on, the looking for raid is a great deal of fun.  It is a way to go kill some internet dragons to pass the time and earn some valor while waiting for the real raid to start.

When done incorrectly it turns out like it did last night for me.

As I predicted would happen, as soon as the masses got to a 372 item level the looking for raid would be worth shit.  There is the proof.

There is still a matter of luck involved.  One guild mate went into one and got to the last fight in less then 2 hours.   Not horrible.  Another downed the fifth and sixth with little to no effort and then spent 5 hours wiping on the seventh.

I do not have that patience.  I enter for some quick fun to get some easy valor and pass the time.  Over 2 hours on one boss is neither fun, or easy.   I thought the intention of the looking for raid was to make something fun and easy.

4.3 is still a lot better so far then 4.2, 4.1 or 4.0 was.  It is without a doubt better then anything so far this expansion.  But this sure is not week one.

The bad players have once again turned something that was easy and fun into hard and frustrating.

There really has to be a way to keep these people from entering the queue.

Perhaps the least blizzard can do is create some sort of standard of performance where if people fall under that they can be reported and be banned from using the system for a week.  Perhaps in that week they can find the time to read a few strategy guides on the fights before stepping into it.  Trust me, it would help.

Either way, to all those people saying that the LFR is too easy I have one thing to say.  You have not raided hard mode until you have raided with 24 random people that don't have a clue.  Now that... is hard mode.

Welcome to the new LFR... this ain't week 1.