Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Avoiding the Avoidable

Yesterday when I got online I grabbed two guild mates and went on my standard journey to valor cap.  We ended up with Battle of the High Seas.  Neither of the two people I was with had ever done it before.  I explained quickly what we would be doing and more importantly, that we would be getting bombed the whole time.  Try to avoid them, they can really hurt you. Then I said, if none of us get hit during the entire scenario we get an achievement.  10 minutes later the achievement Keep those Bomb Away! from me... popped up.

On a side note, valor capped in 2 hours, I love heroic scenarios.

Honestly this is an easy achievement for any raider at any level of skill.  The first thing we are taught is not to stand in the bad and quite honestly, if you can not handle that, you have no business being in a raid in my opinion.

This isn't so much about me getting that achievement as it is about avoiding the avoidable and a few posts I have seen around lately concerning that from ghostcrawler.  The idea is bouncing around that, at least in LFR difficulty, they would stop making all stand in fire effects healer issues and start passing the penalty to the person it should be passed to.  As in make the damage dealer suffer for being bad, not the healers because they have bad damage dealers.

As someone that has always stressed mechanics I support this idea.  I am that type of person, I am sure the type of person some of you hate.  I believe that even in the LFR you should follow mechanics most of the time.  If something says move, you should move.  Yes, I run from the acid rain on Megarea even in the LFR.  Why?  It is good practice to not get into the habit of standing in things that are avoidable.  Can it be healed through?  Yes.  But that is not the point.  You should never take a point blank hit from it, so I don't.

The idea being thrown around is that when someone stands in the bad instead of them taking increased damage and making the healer have to cover for this inability to play, the person standing in the bad would be the one penalized.  Perhaps spell lock them for 10 seconds, or disarm them for 10 seconds, or something else that would reduce their DPS.  Because in the end the only thing that matters to damage dealers is how much damage they put out.  If you want to teach them to move from crap causing damage to them is not motivation.  They will keep standing in it and attacking and if they die it is the healers fault.  Their DPS is what matters most.

If their DPS goes down, as in something like haste reduced to 0 until they move, or the global cooldown is increased to 5 seconds until you move, or anything that would hurt their DPS really, then they will learn to move.  It would teach them to be better players by making their own selfish motivation for high numbers causing them to move.

Yes, there will still be people that stand in it and do less damage.  There will always be those that do not care.  But people see numbers, they react to numbers.  If they see billygnome is doing 12K they will be more likely to kick him then if billygnome dies and says, I didn't get any heals.  It would become him calling the healers bad and the healers calling him bad.  Nothing would be solved, and nothing would be proved.  But 12K would stand out like a sore thumb.  And that might motivate billygnome to shuffle his tiny little feet out of that toasty warm fire next time.

When I started raiding one of the first rules I learned, after let the tank get aggro, was that a dead damage dealer means 0 DPS.  The new generation of raiders, the ones learning in the LFR, don't seem to get the idea that stuff on the ground is bad.  Hurting them with it only puts more pressure on the healers and that is unfair to them.  They need to learn a different way.  While the LFR can be really horrible for teaching new players, it can be tweaked to work a little toward that endeavor.  By hurting the only thing a damage dealer cares about, their DPS.

Floor damage will remain the same for normal and heroic of course, but they did say they are looking into the idea of having more stand in bad moments hurt the person that is standing in it and not the healers that have to heal them.  I like that idea a lot.

There are many things that help you tell the good players from the bad ones but nothing is more telling than the avoidable damage area.  I've seen damage dealers pull numbers I only wish I could only to look at the damage taken and from where that damage was taken and sigh because how could anyone doing that good really be that bad.  Is doing 20K more really worth giving the healers that much work?  No.  It is not.

There is no reasons for anyone to ever have more damage taken than a tank unless there is a mechanic that makes it unavoidable.  I've seen it happen more often in the LFR where there are two or three or even four damage dealers taking more damage than one of the tanks and all from easily avoidable sources.

People will just say, it is only the LFR but that argument has never worked for me.  In my opinion, if you can not do the easy version correctly, what is there to make me believe you can do the real one.  Face it, if you fail at the LFR, you will fail even harder on the real raid and don't even think about heroic modes.  The "its only the LFR" argument holds no water with me.  It is like a weight lifter that can't lift 200 pounds (LFR) there is no way he can lift 400 pounds (normal).

No matter what level of content you play, the most important thing you can teach someone is to avoid the avoidable. Perhaps it is time we go back to old school and teach these people rule #2 for damage dealers.

The First Three Rules of the Damage Dealer: (as I learned them)

1) Let the tank get (and keep) aggro.
2) Dead damage dealers do no DPS.
3) If you have an assignment, do it.

#1 and #3 are something I don't think you can really ever teach better in the LFR environment where new players learn.  Aggro is not quite the issue it used to be but there are some funny moments I do recall with a rogue in one of my early raid teams.

Rogue: It is not my fault I got aggro and died.
Raid Leader:  Do you have Omen?
Rogue:  No.
Raid Leader:  Then it is your fault.

That still holds true.  If you grab aggro and die, it is your fault.  Damage dealers need to work within the frame we are given.  Just because you can do more DPS doesn't always mean you should because it can lead to rule #2 if you do.

#3 is the same.  Rarely do we see fights where someone is given another task that will greatly reduce their DPS and never do we see that in the LFR where people are learning now.  Kiting zombie chow was a DPS killer, but when done correctly, it did make that fight super easy.  Like I said, we do not see stuff like that often and we never see it in the LFR.  So you can not teach rule #3 there.

But rule #2, oh yes, rule #2, that can be taught in the LFR and the best way to teach it is to hurt the player, not the healers.  I would love to see a change to how "don't stand in the fire" mechanics work for the LFR.

My suggestion for a change would be to still have it do damage, minimal, so the healers still learn there is something to do there, even if less, but to give the damage dealer a debuff that lasts for 10 seconds.  Each second you stand in avoidable damage the buff gains a stack and refreshes its duration.  10% less damage done.  So if someone stands in the fire for 10 seconds they will do zero damage for 10 seconds.  If they keep standing in it, the debuff keeps refreshing, and they are basically at no damage forever until they move and wait for it to go away or until it disappears on its own and they wait for the debuff to go away.

Want to teach people to avoid the avoidable?  Hit them where it hurts, in their epeen.  In their DPS and damage done.  Maybe, just maybe, that might teach some of them.

I swear, if I hear "but it doesn't hurt that bad in the LFR" from someone we try to bring to our 25 one more time I am going to just kick them and not even waste my time explaining why I did.  Really, they need to teach these people to avoid the avoidable.  How do you know how much it hurts in the LFR?  You should never be getting hit by anything that is avoidable no matter what level of content it is so you shouldn't know it doesn't hurt much in the LFR.  End of story.

43 comments:

  1. excuse me for being ignorant here, but when did the silly notion come about that healers are punished for something others (another player) did wrong, such as stand in fire or goo? I mean that is the stupidest idea ever to have been implemented, even for blizzard.

    stay frosty...
    -roo

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    1. I've actually been saying that for years. It is about time blizzard noticed it.

      I feel bad for the healers in bad groups. They make their job harder. However, with that said, sometimes when learning to play a healer, that is exactly what you need. Sometimes being pushed is a good thing. But they should not have to cover up for the mistakes of others.

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    2. oh, so they really arent punished by the game mechanics, just by being all over the place with their healing due to (Bob said it, I didn't) dickheads who are causing the healers to work double and triple overtime and sometimes not healing quick enough? Is that what you mean by healers being punished?

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    3. Yeap, that is healers being punished. Because they have to do more thanks to the dickheads not moving.

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  2. How about implementing the EPEEN for people who stand in the bad. The EPEEN meter would rise the longer they stopped in the bad. After the fights it would be easy to spot the dickheads.

    Embarrassment is the worst punishment in a social game

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    1. I like that one. It grows in the bad so we can see the dickheads. Awesome.

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    2. How about a graded color change that lasts the length of the instance/raid? If there's one thing worse than not putting out big numbers, it's not looking good while doing it. It wouldn't be hard to implement. A shade of purple for every tick in the bad? Perhaps they could drop your max possible loot roll by an amount for every tick in the bad? Lowering the DPS of the player for their mistakes penalises the whole group, and seems an inelegant and inappropriate solution.

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    3. Or how about a puff of dirt that follows him around like pig pen in the charlie brown cartoons.

      I think I would mess up on purpose for that one just because it would be funny. Once at least.

      I got the best way to fit it.

      DING DING DING: The fix for people standing in bad.

      Have that epeen numbers follow them around, continually added from each thing they do.

      When you queue for anything, the higher your number, the longer you wait. People with lower numbers get first priority.

      If you have a 300 stand in crap epeen number and the LFR needs a DPS and there is someone that has a 6, because they don't stand in crap, they will get the spot, even if you have been in queue for 3 hours and them 3 minutes.

      That will teach them.

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  3. I'm really torn on this one... right now, when people take avoidable damage, the only ones hurt are the healers if they don't die. If you cripple that person's dps, that hurts the whole group (fight takes longer, might cause a wipe if 15 toons get nailed).

    The only two ways I can think of to hurt the player without hurting anyone else are either through gold or loot but both would be very contentious if implemented.

    Gold: Have avoidable mechanics that aren't avoided cause an immediate 1% durability loss, leading to higher repair bills. Alternatively, have their failbag gold amounts decreased. I prefer the durability loss, though, since it penalizes well-geared (and likely more experienced) players more than noobs.

    Loot: Have avoidable mechanics that aren't avoided cause a 1% (or 5%, or 10%) decrease in the chance of loot from from that boss. Also have it act as a counter-weight to the new bad streak protection for bonus rolls...

    They'd have to have some sort of UI element to show this while or after it's happening but I've wanted some sort of post-fight summary screen (like you get after a PvP BG) for a while anyway, that penalty info could be integrated.

    All of this leans toward forcing LFR to be a learning tool, though, which I'm not sure it's really meant to be. My LFR runs these days tend not be bad at all... had a group one-shot the last quarter of ToT last night with only 3 dead on Lei Shen (one of them a very high dps pally, well geared, who stood in the dead zone for the 2nd transition... I'm going to assume he just wasn't paying attention in that case rather than intentionally ignoring a mechanic).

    I do hate the "it's only LFR" excuses for standing in crap, my typical response to that is "yeah, and we have LFR healers... get out of the crap so they can focus on the people who need to be healed".

    In terms of the ePeen suggestion from Bob, I'm afraid some players would compete to have the largest ePeen meter. "I had 912 ePeen and was STILL #3 dps." Some people just can't be helped.

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    1. You are right. I thought about the lack of DPS hurting the group as well if that happened. But doing something else, like making their repair bill higher or less likely to win loot is not pronounced enough for them to notice. They would just chalk it up to bad luck, not bad play.

      Something needs to tell them, in big bold letters so they can't miss it, that they did wrong.

      That is what I say too. It might only be LFR but we have LFR skilled healers, so it might still be hard for them if you stand in shit.

      Your last line really sums it up. Some people just can't be helped.

      The problem is, with the LFR, we are forced to play with those people if we want to use that tool.

      How about just making the LFR like heroics scenarios. Offer 10 and 25 versions of it, and you must assemble the groups yourself.

      It would keep the people that aren't raiders, don't want to be raiders, or are not capable of being raiders out of it. And being it is nice and easy, pugs would be going all the time for it. IN theory anyway. I am aware that would never work on small servers sadly.

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    2. exactly my thoughts on the ePeen meter. There would be too many folks who would wear that was a badge of honor!

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    3. Trolls would love it. It would give them something they can show off.

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    4. Problem is that there are already 3 raiding tiers... they just need to make the difficulty of normals appropriate for more casual pre-made groups.

      If you add a "manual" 10-man LFR type, that's yet another raid they'll need to balance and probably have yet another iLvl of loot for... and you do already have "manual" 25-man LFR... just run LFR with a 25-man group. :)

      The lack of feedback is why I said I want a PvP-style summary screen after each boss fight... among other things (I'd include damage/healing numbers plus position in the group, loot results (I'd love to see actual internal roll numbers)) it would specifically mention "Your repair bill increased by 27g due to standing in avoidable ground effects, you can reduce this penalty by being more situationally aware. It may help to install an add-on like Deadly Boss Mods or GTFO."

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    5. That is exactly is. Normals need to be made more for the normal player base that wants to raid. Leave any "difficulty" to heroics.

      A pop up like that would be awesome and I would love to see the data it could collect. I am a math geek, I love reading numbers. I have so many I would love to see collected.

      Like how many times the healer casts a heal on someone that did not need it because they were over 95% health while there was someone else below 50% of their life.

      Or how long did the person spend on bats when it was their job to be on turtles.

      Okay, I admit I am asking too much for super easy content. But I would really love to see people get some sort of comprehensive report of how they did, and how everyone in the group did, after the fight was over.

      Knowing that the entire group would be a report that included you having 10 screw ups might make you not screw up as much. I know it would really help me.

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    6. Hm. Why isn't there an add-on like that already? The more I think about it, that's just pulling straight out of combat logs which add-ons already do...

      Maybe there is one. I'll have to take a look tonight...

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    7. I am sure it would be an awesome thing to review for trying to get your players to be better.

      Delete
  4. I'm a huge fan of "how it is supposed to be done" or simply "how it was designed."

    My peeve goes along similar lines but a little deeper and that is: Raid Icons. How many LFR's have I seen where the tanks don't mark themselves and then bitch with the 25 man LFR is all over the place after the Tortos kill.

    Since Cata, we are single target heroes; a simple skull on a mob is way way way too much to ask for. A group of six mobs and one is called Regenerating Sha needs a skull. Same with a mob called Battlemender.

    Lack of this actually slows us down, it's not faster to nuke the mobs. Kill orders are great and ... it is how the game is designed.

    I could go on and on. I leveled a tank and began putting a skull before each pull, it was quick and easy. I actually got called arrogant once.

    Lazy ass tanks could be marking Animas but I never see it.

    /rantoff

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    1. You're right, about half the time... I find about half the tanks in LFR immediately mark themselves or will after a quick "please mark yourselves, tanks" if they haven't.

      I'm also about 50/50 on whether a Large will get a skull, without prompting... no point skulling the little ones, they shouldn't be tanked anyway except to save AoE dps from their own meter-padding.

      My current peeve is the trash before the first boss in Terrace... almost without exception, if you pull both mobs together, you get 2 sets of spawned adds, plus less frequent interrupts/dispels on the fears... if you only pull one at a time, you only get 1 set and fears will generally be removed more quickly. It's actually FASTER, by a noticeable amount, to kill one mob at a time but if the tanks don't pull the second one, someone else usually will... very annoying.

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    2. Kill order is a lost art form. It is funny that so many want to just blow through things thinking it will be faster that way when if you use a kill order is some times actually makes things faster, not slower.

      Same with CC. Don't CC and wipe and you just took way the hell longer than if you had CCed and killed everything without wiping. Look how that worked, they had to change the cata heroics because people could not grasp that.

      Marks do make the difference. Even something as simple as who the tank is. I've seen some groups almost wipe because they were all attacking a mob that was on a DPS that pulled aggro and not the tank and then they all went down. A simple marker could have fixed that. People would, in theory at least, not go after one that the tank is not tanking.

      @Anon 2

      I know exactly what you mean. Last week I was in a group like that and it seemed to take forever for them to go down. I thought it was just my imagination but perhaps it wasn't.

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  5. You've written some great blogs lately. Not that all of them in the past weren't good, but this one and the alt blog were excellent. I've raged on the heroic geared idiot in LFR who ignored mechanics to try to set dps records. I love informing them that they have no shot in hell at setting records unless they are with their guild and everyone is doing crazy dps. The longer an encounter goes, the lower your dps will be, no matter how geared you are. I've gotten a few to drop, only to have the LFR group 1 shot the boss after they left. Sweeeeet Justice!!!

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    1. Getting ranked for an LFR fight is easy since very few get recorded/uploaded... hell, if I'd been recording the fights I'd have gotten #7 or so for my spec on Sha of Fear last night (136K, WW monk). I did move in front of the boss and held off on abilities with cooldowns while up there but adds were being killed so I didn't bother switching to them. Also didn't get cackled.

      You're mostly right on the need for a friendly group to set records, generally, although in the case of a few fights, that isn't necessarily true... first boss in ToT, for example, last time in we killed him just before the 3rd pool came up... if we'd had another 20 seconds on him, my dps would have been ~20K higher overall from having more puddle time. Need to figure out how to kill off our #2 dps early in that fight to buy me some extra puddle time. ;)

      Yeah, I do love the "alright, we got rid of that asshole, let's one-shot this dude now" runs when it works out that way...

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    2. @Jartt

      Glad you like them.

      I love that too. It is like the guy on the maze boss that always talks shit about how many will die and says he never dies and then dies the second it starts. I love that. Happened again one time this week. Awesome.

      Last night my LFR group had 6 people doing over 200K in it. Admittedly 5 of the 6 were guild people, but it made for a super fast run and things going down blazing fast. All because everyones DPS went up thanks to that.

      @Anon

      I still like to look at my numbers, for myself, not to post logs. I use it to see what I can do better. Or use it to see what the people in my guild are doing. Just because it is the LFR does not mean you can not get better by doing it or learn a lot while doing it. I like to work on timing there mostly.

      While I would not say trying to top meters in the LFR means anything to others I would say it does mean something to yourself, if you use that data correctly.

      I always keep those logs private but I do compare to what I see there. I would have been #1 on a few of them and I am not even all that good. Doesn't seem like many log them and surely not many share them.

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    3. I didn't even realize they could be made private (also haven't figured out how to delete them)... need to do some digging. I'd leave my normal raid ones up so the others in the group can look themselves up but the LFR ones are just for my own amusement or post-game analyis.

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    4. In the same place you can make them public of private is where I believe you delete them.

      Yeah. I always leave mine private. Just a habit I guess. I use them for my reasons and always feel if someone else looks at them they might be seen out of context.

      If I want to try MM I don't want someone seeing how horrible I do with it. ;)

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    5. If they saw how crappy you were at MM they'd never ask you to switch to it. Win/win, no? :)

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  6. I definitely like the idea of punishing the DPS instead of the healers, I think this will be a good feature. I don't know if they should make it progressive, the more subtle it is, the less likely the DPS will notice or fix the situation. I think a nice big *STUN* will probably get their attention the quickest - I also think it should go away as soon as they move, rather than make it linger, reward prompt action.

    I like the addition of the visible effect, like them catching on fire for a long time or covered in green goo. The combination of being unable to act plus a big obvious 'i messed up' visibility could be quite powerful.

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    1. A huge flash of letters, like in the old batman TV show that says "BAM" over the whole screen and a loud noise that can not be missed with a 10 second stun.

      Yeah, that could work, would also scare the ever living shit out of someone the first time it happens. I am laughing just thinking about it.

      It would be a great way to call them out without calling them out, so to speak.

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  7. Lei Shen has that one mechanic where if you don't stack or out-range it, you get stunned. There should be more things like that.

    I like the durability loss as well, but make it very dramatic. Like they have to repair after each fight if they stood in avoidable shit most of the time.

    All DPS should pride themselves on being at the top of "Damage Done" and the bottom of "Damage Taken". If only there was a meter for "Performed Role"... I hate the people who don't do their assigned role in order to pad their numbers. Ranged killing bats instead of turtles on Tortos is a prime example.

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    1. I have been in many LFR groups where the bats never die. Then we just keep getting more and more bats and the tanks die. I focus on turtles as a ranged unless no one is dpsing the bats at all.

      Even then I still focus turtles and just help with the bats when I can, but I've seen tanks go down time and time again because they don't die. I don't want to pad my numbers...I want the tanks to live.

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    2. That's fine.

      I'm talking about the ranged doing 250k+ by doing constant AoE to the bats while we struggle to get the turtles down.

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    3. @Jaeger

      I've been saying that for the longest time. I strive to be #1 damage done and dead last damage taken. If I can do that, I did my job as a hunter. :)

      Had a run like that on my monk the other day. There were what seemed like 100 turtles up because no one wanted to kill them, they just wanted to AoE bats to pad the meters.

      @ Anon

      That is an odd one. I don't think I have ever been in a group without at least three people, which is enough, that wanted to pad the meters and down the bats. Maybe I just got lucky.

      I find it more common for people to ignore turtles and do bats because turtle duty gives you less DPS.

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  8. Last week, I ran the first wing of ToT LFR with another hunter whose dps stomped mine on the first boss. I checked out his gear, and that toon had obviously been in normal ToT. He topped meters on the next two bosses, too. Not on trash - he literally pranced about on a mount during the trash between Horridon and Council - but on the bosses, yep, his name was tops. 240k or so on Horridon - crazy!

    But, man, I tell you what! I wanted to kick him. He stood in Jinrok's pool and ate lightning bolts. He tunneled Horridon and didn't bother with adds. He ignored instructions on Council and tunneled on Sul. The most irritating thing about it was that he should know better. It's frustrating enough when people who don't know that avoidable damage should be avoided stand in poop, but it's much worse when somebody who does know takes advantage of the rest of the raid to make his output prettier. At that point, he failed. All the "bads" in there carried his butt through.

    I would love to see Blizzard do something to encourage better play and perhaps punish bad playing. Healers shouldn't have to heal up avoidable damage. What might be a problem with massive durability loss would be ability to repair. You can't always count on there being a place to yank out a mammoth or on an engineer putting up Jeeves. It might work if Blizz scattered repair vendors throughout the raid.

    What about something like a cash flow debuff? The player takes a small amount of damage, and in addition to the debuff marker, some obnoxious warning flashes on their screen. It says, "You are taking avoidable damage. Perhaps you should move before you gain stacks of Death and Taxes. If you gain 5 stacks of Death and Taxes, you will be fined 300 gold. If you decline to pay 300 gold, you will lose your chance at loot on this mob." Something like this could even be placed as an accept button when queueing for group content.

    If we wanted more to encourage than punish, Blizz could try adding some slightly more serious Ready for Raiding achievements and give its completion a big enough carrot that people might actually care. It could be something like:

    Lei Shen
    * caught five bouncing bolts
    * grouped for five static shocks
    * took less than 100k damage from Thunderbolt
    * was never stunned by whatever the stun is
    * had 5% damage on lightning balls
    * blah, blah, blah

    Congrats! You have won a new car!

    (player rushed to mailbox and finds...
    ...a Darkmoon tonk)

    They could make such achieves part of the legendary line.

    They could make the achieve give out a piece of gear, something like a ring maybe. Instead of being awarded an Ashen Verdict rep ring that you could afk reach if you could talk a group into killing things for you, you could get a ring that actually required some effort and made you practice the mechanics.

    It's an interesting puzzle, that's for sure.

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    1. That hunter sounds like a rogue I saw in one group back in cata. He was too good to fight trash, it was beneath him. He actually said that too us. He was not a good player either, just like your hunter.

      I don't care if you already did normal, heck, I don't care if you have already finished heroics. If you can not follow simple mechanics in the simplest form you are a bad player. 240K DPS or not. You are a bad player.

      If someone is that player and they won't fight trash because they think they are too good for it they are not only a bad player, but an obnoxious self centered person.

      The game would really be better severed as a whole if they would just quit and take their "I'm too good to follow mechanics" mentality to go infect another game.

      I like the achievement idea, but that only encourages them to do the right thing once. Once they get the achievement they can go back to standing in the thunder or tunneling the dino, basically go back to being the bad players they really are.

      As you said, I can accept people that do not know any better. Like all the people in LFR that get static shock and run from others. I hate running after them but you know what, at least they are TRYING. That is all I ask. They know the rule that when something is on you to get away and they are trying to do that. So unless someone informs them otherwise, running when they have it is the right thing to do. I do not mind people like that. They will learn and they are trying.

      That hunter you mentioned is the one that can be fixed by debuffs for doing the wrong thing.

      He is there for one reason and one reason only. To pour out as much DPS as possible so he could seem like the big man, most would say he is compensating for something, but I will leave that for another post. ;)

      If getting hit by lightning, tunneling a mob they should be be attacking, having a low uptime on trash, all effected his over all boss DPS you would see how quick he would help with trash, avoid the avoidable and follow mechanics.

      If he wants to see his name at the top of the list, he would need to do the right thing. For many people, more so people like him that think just because they do the real raid they are somehow exempt from doing the LFR the right way, it would make a difference to penalize them for doing the wrong thing where it hurts, their DPS.

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    2. I see far too few people in LFR actually trying to do their best dps... maybe 1 every 3 or 4 runs. The population of people who ignore mechanics for their own personal benefit is just too small to worry about as a demographic, IMO.

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  9. One question to you. How do you do Dark Animus on LFR? Sometimes, it is 'it's just LFR', meaning - ignoring mechanics is how it's meant to be done because it's easier to comprehend.

    Sure, you have in mind people who should know better. But what of those who don't. Or never will. You don't play a game to get punished.

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    1. Ideally? Single target the small guys, immediately switch to every Large as soon as they come up with the overall goal for the early part being to minimize the number of Larges up at once. If they all come up together, with LFR-level tanks and healers you're probably looking at a wipe or at least a couple of minutes of no fun at all for anyone who dislikes chaos.

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  10. I didn't read the all the comments, so if it was mentioned I apologize.

    Reducing gold/increasing repair bills isn't a viable option. The majority of players have enough gold to render this ineffectual.

    As for reducing the dps of the fail player(s) affecting the raid overall. This will cause some wipes for sure, but as a learning curve, how does this differ any from any LFR in its initial release?

    As a dps, i have had several runs with 10 stacks of maze failing on the eyeball.

    At the same time, have only run LFR mode ToT, only recently has someone (guild healer) recently explained to me that the acid from maegara is completely avoidable(even DBM said nothing).

    Does that reflect poorly on my skills, possibly.
    This mechanic will go as follows;
    1. I stand in bad
    2. UI tells me and raid I fail
    3. raid boots me
    4. I queue for lfr again
    5. wait for 30 min to 1 hr
    6. get into LFR on final boss
    7. queue again for first 2 bosses
    8. wait another hour
    9. go back to step one, until i stay out of bad
    10. lesson learned

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    1. The gold itself wouldn't be the incentive to improve for some, it would be the improvement bar indicating whether you are or not. Say you get a 40g increased bill after Dorumu one week and get a 30g bill the next week. You've improved. Without that sort of indicator, survival is the only goal but that also puts more of a load on the healers, which was Grumy's original point. The penalty should be to the player, not the healer.

      The gold would be an issue for some, too... not all, but some. I still get a twinge when I get a 200g repair bill (that's paid with GUILD funds no less... personal guild, but still), it hurts a bit to push that repair button and I'm pretty much rolling in gold at this point. It might be a small number in comparison to my gold stockpile but it's still a small number that could/should be SMALLER!

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