Sunday, May 20, 2012

DPS: Queue for Original Random Heroics

It is not often people even need to run dungeons any more for valor.  Most people will clear DS and do the BH boss and be close enough to capping.  Others just don't care because there is nothing they need from valor any more.

However, the role of a damage dealer is something special, because now when it comes to randoms, good damage dealers are needed.  There are so many people gearing up and so many people trying new classes that the dungeons where they are starting at, those original heroics are, in a word, horrible.

While gearing up one of my newer 85 hunters and my lock recently I had occasion to queue up for original heroics, not HoTs, because I needed to on those, they did not have the gear yet.  It was there I discovered a nightmare.  A real send shivers down your spine and make sure you can not sleep for the night type of nightmare.  A nightmare that could make someone want to quit the game.

The original heroics are harder than the HoTs and lets not even mention the Zuls.  Killing bosses in DS is like killing quest mobs compared to the Zuls.

What it seems to be is that the tanks can handle it, even when just gearing up for the first time and some healers can handle it, even when just gearing up for the first time but the DPS is bad.  I mean so bad that it makes the job of the tanks or healers nearly impossible.

There are some valid reasons for the DPS being bad so do not always blame the players 100%.  People are not gemming and enchanting low level gear anymore which means the guy you used to see in your heroics when you were first doing them back in December 2010 doing 10K or 12K could very well be the same guy doing 6K or 8K.  This is part of the reason the DPS has been lower in original heroics.

The original heroics need some damage dealers.  Some good damage dealers.  It would make everyone's life easier.  Even if they are just 15K or 18K they can make a world of difference.  So today I decided to do some randoms on my hunter being I did not run DS this week and wanted to cap just for achievement sake, yes, there is an achievement for getting valor.

I could have queued up for an HoT but I decided that I wanted to do my good deed for the day and queued for a any heroic.  It gets me the same 150 valor and if I got an original I am sure my DPS would be a welcome addition to a group that is most likely used to seeing 6K or 7K as the top DPS.. 

I got into some horrible groups that suddenly were not so horrible once I joined them.  You see, the biggest problem with the lower heroics is that there is not enough damage being put out so one good damage dealer can make a huge difference.

Without enough damage the job on the tank gets harder, because they are more likely to run out of cooldowns.  Without enough damage the job of the healer gets harder, because the longer the fights go the more healing that needs to be done.  Gearing up a healer can be a daunting task because mana is at such a premium at low gear levels.  This is the reason there were no healers when the expansion started, their job was just way to hard.  Until they geared up, or the DPS picked up the pace at least.

The first random I had the pleasure of getting into was a stonecore run.  There where dead bodies just about everywhere and people where low on health.  I could tell I was coming in after a few wipes.  They where at a loss, frustrated beyond belief, and all in all their day has been a heaping pile of dung.  They felt just the way any of us would after being stuck in a wipe fest with random people.

Enter the over geared DPS to the picture and seeing and hearing their story we moved on, with a little hope, to the 3rd boss, the rock guy.  44K DPS later and he was deader than a doornail and even through the internet I could hear a collective sigh of relief from these four random people I was with.  Their nightmare had ended all thanks to some very high numbers when considering the content involved.  The other two damage dealers did 6K each respectively and it makes me wonder what the one that left was doing if he were kicked.  Or maybe he left because he was tops at 12K or 13K and felt like no one else was doing well enough and got frustrated himself.  They did not say, the bones where all I saw.

In yet another run I saw a tank with aggro problems. With such high DPS it became less of an issue because things died so fast it did not matter really.  In another run there was a healer that needed to drink after every pull, I heard them talking about this when I came in.  Yet for some reason once some high numbers came in the healer never needed to drink again for the whole run.  I am sure that healer thanked god for bringing me to that dungeon because from the conversation going on I could almost hear the healer crying because they where blaming her.

On yet another, a fresh run, I helped a group of people get some achievements and the added DPS was surely helpful to a great extent.

See, the thing is, us people, the damage dealers that are over geared now, can make a huge difference in the lives of other people by helping them out.  It makes it easier on tanks gearing up.  It makes it easier on healers gearing up.  And believe it or not, it is very profitable.  You will get heavenly shards, something you never see any more in HoTs.  You will get much more cloth than you do with the nearly trashless HoTs, not to mention all the other goodies trash drops.  All in all, the original heroics are just flat out more profitable to run.

A geared tank could help the lesser geared people running these, just could.  A geared healer can help the lesser geared people running there, just could.  A geared damage dealer will help less geared people running these.  Yes, will.

The best thing of those runs was seeing people actually need items in them.  When a boss goes down and something drops that they need and they get excited because it is an upgrade from a 318 I share in that joy with them.  I remember that feeling.  I might have nothing to get from a heroic any more.  I might have nothing to get from the looking for raid any more.  But I'll be damned, I was happy to see someone roll need and actually need it.

Damage dealers can make a difference in the lives of other players.  Those original heroics on my lock when I was doing a horrible 7K and was top DPS were nightmares.  They where the things that make people hate the game, they were what is dragging down the community and making people hate and insult others.  But damage dealers can make a difference.

No one cared that the other two DPS where doing 6K in the one run because I was doing enough for all three of us.  No one cared that there was a ret paladin doing 4K in one run because everything went down smoothly.  No one cared because there were no wipes.  No one cared because the tank did not feel like he had to do everything.  No one cared because the healer was not scraping the bottom of the barrel for that last drop of mana because thing where just not going down fast enough.

No one cared because things went smoothly.  People only care when there are problems and they look to fix those problems.  You, yes you mr or mrs DS geared DPS, you can make everybody's life easier.

So if you have a geared damage dealer that doesn't need something from the looking for raid or the HoTs why don't you queue up for an original heroic.

Believe it or not, you will make a huge difference and not just in that one run but in the community as a whole.  Remember, people only complain when things go bad.  Your damage could make sure that does not happen.  You will be helping people with smoother runs which makes people happy and the community needs less hate in these dungeons and a little more happiness.

The damage dealer can help save the community.  Who would have ever thought it?

Next time you need some valor.  Help the people out that can actually use gear and are just starting up.  Its worth it for you and for them.

5 comments:

  1. People complain about 6-8k? That's what people were doing in heroics when I first got into those shortly after the expansion dropped. The only normal heroic you can't do with 3 dps at 6k is Grim Batol. Course, if you have all the dps doing that then you need to do the fights properly, the healer needs to not heal the dps at all if the healer isn't overgeared (no standing in fire or eating cleaves), you need to cc, you need to have a kill order, you need to discuss who is doing what on bosses with multiple things for the dps to do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 8K was minimum when they first came out. Not 6K. Never was 6K. Never will be 6K unless you went with a guild group that all knew what they where doing.

      Basic fact is anyone that can only do 6K is the same person that stands in the fire and ignores mechanics because they do not know how to play.

      If the start of the expansion proved anything it was that people do not want to communicate, people do not want to mark, people do not want a kill order.

      People want to roll through them and one good DPS is all they need for that.

      Help out the new players. Help them get it done and get some gear. Make their life easier and less stressful.

      Trust me. From the ones I was in that had 6K DPS they where on wipe 13 or 14, to their own admission. 6K can not do the dungeons.

      Would it kill you and others to help them? I think not.

      Delete
  2. I was running Heroics on my mage (who sadly still desperately needs gear from those) and a rogue came in with the Fangs of the Father and a spectacular gear set to match. He was doing about 40k sustained throughout the dungeon, and stuff was falling all around us.

    I asked him why he was doing the regular heroics when his gear was so nice. He said he had nothing else that needed to be done, and helping random people get through regular heroics is his way of passing the time and doing something nice.

    People like that make me give WoW more chances.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad to see I am not the only one that likes to help others out.

      You are living proof to what I just suggested. One good DPS can make a huge difference in the runs and the lives of the people who play this game.

      Delete
  3. As it turns out, I’ve recently been doing this myself and making a point of getting at least a “hello” out of the people in the run. That said, I’ve been tanking because I reckon the tank is the role that can really shore up an otherwise bad group.

    But I’ll see how playing as DPS goes. You’ve raised some valid points here, and it could be that my mega pew-pew is what gets people through in a hopefully positive environment.

    ReplyDelete