Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Gearing, Raiding and More.

There are a few questions rattling in my mind right now.  Perhaps they are all deserving of their own post but I've decided to make one post with a bunch of them in it, all at once.  The reason being is that I think all the questions really follow one train of thought even if they seem to bounce around a little bit.  It is all about my monk entering the LFR this week for the first time.

Are Heroics Even Needed Anymore?

I crafted the 496 hands and chest for my monk.  That along with my archeology polearm, all the quest rewards from the wastes including the end klaxxi line 489 ring, and both of the soulbound trinkets you can find in the wastes being found and I am at a 460 item level.

This is the second week in a row and the second character in those two weeks that I have had a new 90 hit the 460 item level doing nothing much besides questing and a few craftables.  My warlock didn't even use the 496 crafted gear to get there, they used a few 458 PvP pieces.  But he did have the alchemy trinket, the 471 archeology trinket and 471 archaeology offhand to offset those I guess.

For someone that knows better, has the resources, and is willing to at least close out the klaxxi quest line, which with the double reputation it is really easy to do, getting to 460 does not seem like much of an issue.

In a way, I sort of miss the 5 man heroics now that I do not need to do them.  Sure, they can get me 463 items, lots of them that both characters need in many slots, but when I can step into the LFR and get 476 gear where is the attraction of those 463s?

With time being so much of an issue with this expansion it really does not make sense to ever work on getting something lower to move up.  I do not have the time for that.  My time is at a premium this expansion and I will take advantage of every short cut I can which means that heroics are out of the equation for me completely.

And What About That Old Valor Gear?

Around that same line of thought, why would you waste valor on a 489 or a 496 gear when the LFR will be dropping 502s once you get there.  It is not like the 496 is selling set pieces which might be worth considering until you get the 502 set.  They offer nothing worth while.  Their only real use is that if you do not have the reputation for the 522s yet you can bleed off some excess valor until you do, but it still really feels as if you are wasting valor doing that.  And being it is a limited commodity I really hate wasting any of it.

Is there a real reason for the out dated gear still costing valor that I am missing maybe?  Not only do you need to get reputation with one faction or another to buy it but you need valor.  If I am going to spend my valor don't you think it would be better spent gearing up with 522 items than it would gearing up with 489 items I will replace in the LFR?

I am sure I have to be missing some train of thought here from the developers but I just can't help but think that if they sold for justice instead of valor I would now have a reason to run those heroics, so I can get them.  While I do not think running heroics for 463s is worth my time investment I do think running heroics for justice that will buy me 489s and 496s is a reasonable time investment before I get to the level I can start getting 502s and reputation for 522s.

It would also mean those 489s and 496s would now be something that is moving me forward and not something that is holding me back.  Buying a 489 or 496 with valor you are holding yourself back.  You could have purchased a 522 and instead went for something less than random content now gives.  I just do not see the logic in that.  I really think that old valor gear should be justice gear now.  In my opinion it is the only way to justify buying them and the only real reason I would ever do heroics, or at least more than one a day if at all.

Is the LFR my New Home?

It sometimes feels as if once you do manage to hit that 460 level, if you are serious in gearing up, the rest of your life in game and every free moment you have, will be spent running the LFR.  At least until you get lucky enough to have that one week where everything seems to drop.

You have to run the 460s to get to the 470s to get to the 480s to get some 502s to drop and some reputation that will allow you to buy those 522s.  Just seems like a task if you happen to be unlucky with drops.  My DK could tell you a thing or two about that.

For an expansion that seems to be all about choice there really does not seem to be a great deal of choice for alts except to queue up for the LFR and hope that you are one of the lucky ones with getting okay groups and actually getting a drop.

My monk will attempt to do them all this week.  Just hope I get lucky with the first six bosses so I can push my way into the others.  I have 16 coins, thanks to the treasure room on the isle, how I love that place for gearing up alts.  Get all the coins you need, and a lot of gold to boot.

It does seem a little daunting however to have to think of the run.  28 bosses, if I could do them all, in one week.  For an alt, that is a lot of time spent on one single part of the game.  Even with all good groups.  It is like I am living in the LFR and right now on many of my alts, whom I only play from time to time and all that they ever seem to have time to do is an LFR or two, that is my life and I live there and I hate it.

28 bosses to a raider might not seem like a lot, raiding what seems like all the time might not seem like a lot to a raider either but the majority of the player base are not raiders and even this raider here would not want to be doing them in the LFR.  Real raid, cool, I would love to do that but LFR, not cool.  I would really like to know how they feel about 28 fights and more importantly remembering 28 different fights with 28 sets of mechanics and many more little things they need to look out for, like even on trash.

Does Warcraft Require to Much From Your Memory Muscle?

For someone that has been raiding for 2, 4, 8 or more tiers raiding in the LFR is not really a challenge.  For anyone that might actually be a raider, even a part time or retired one, the LFR is nothing special.  For everyone else it can be a huge hurdle.  And for the sake of numbers, over 90% of the player base is "everyone else".  For the non raider, for the new player, for the part timers, and of course for the bad players, trolls and the I don't give a crap people it can and will be a challenge.

If you are a raider the stack up, spread out, move from this, share the other, and all that jazz is old hat.  Sometimes something new might be added and we need to learn it.  Like the dance on will or the maze on the beholder, we, as raiders, might fail at it the first time we see it, even the first few times we see it, but also as raiders we understand how mechanics work and it does not seem like "OMG this is impossible".  It is more like, okay, let me figure how this works.  And we do it, and we move on.  All because most everything else is been there and done that to us.

To the player that does not raid, all of this is a lot to take in.  They need to learn and understand 100s of different mechanics all at once.  That is a lot for someone to remember, that is a lot for someone to understand.  What makes it even worse is the fact that the raiders learned this stuff by doing it over and over.  We wiped 100s of times, perhaps even 1000s of times while doing fights where we were learning these mechanics one at a time.  We learned them slowly a few here and there, we learned them during progression, we learned them wiping on them and getting better at them.

The new players have to learn them, and many other mechanics quickly.  There will be no wiping 100s of times so they can get used to that mechanic.  There will be no seeing one or maybe two new bosses a week and only needing to learn a few mechanics off that one or two bosses.  They will need to learn many mechanics off many bosses all at the same time and in many cases they need to learn those mechanics in only one attempt.  Which means they need to learn faster than we had the luxury of.  Who would have every thought someone would say we had the luxury of wiping a hundred times?  Not I.

Not only do they have so much more to learn all at once, they do not get a do over.  If they fail at a mechanic and they die they usually will not get a second chance at it until the next week.  Even if you wipe and they get a second chance, they will not get too many chances.  I might have died on a fight 50 times to learn how to handle something they need to learn how to handle it in a few, or one.  Even in the worst of worst LFRs you will rarely wipe more than five times at most.  So they have to learn everything in less than five tries.

Did anyone ever consider that for those people that never raided that it is really hard for them to learn and remember 100s of different mechanics all at the same time, which is basically what they are being asked to do.

While running the first ToT LFR with a guild mate last night, a non raider, the ball came at her on the first boss.  I saw it and told her to move from the pool.  She did, but she asked, what happened.  I said, when the ball comes at you, you can't let it hit you in the pool.  She said she did not know that and I asked, haven't you done this before.  She said, yes, at least 5 or 6 times, but the ball never came at me before.  I wasn't sure what to do.

That is the luxury of wiping.  Sooner or later if you wipe on a boss the ball comes to everyone.  Even the melee know the ball mechanic because they had been there for the wipes even if it never targeted them.  In the LFR I have heard so many ranged apologize because they didn't know because they only ever tanked it before or meleed it before. They did not even know that mechanic was there.

For people that do not raid there is a lot coming down the pipe for them to learn and remember from week to week and being they might only see it once a week, or in the case of the girl that ran with me, once every 5 or 6 weeks, it takes longer to learn it and it is a lot harder to remember everything when it is not being beat in your head from wiping because of it.

So does the LFR society that the game has become actually require its players to be better?  Does it require them to have a much stronger memory muscle?

Speaking of Better?

I've often said I try to use the LFR to get better at my class.  It is a great place to learn the dance on will without being a liability to your raid.  I still fail miserably at it when I melee, good thing I tank, heal and range and do not raid melee.  As such, I have never had the chance to do it as melee in normal.  So I use the LFR to learn, should I ever get the occasion to.  I still attempt to learn it and get better at it each time I am there.  But the problem is, there is usually only one attempt.  One attempt per week does not really help all that much, but it does help.

How many others out there take their personal performance seriously enough to use the LFR to get better at doing it?

I plan to do that with my monk.  Just hit 90, just got up to the item level to start them, and never played in group content with it before.  So it will be about me trying to get to know how to play it well.  How to move with a tank with ants in his pants while not losing too much DPS in the process.  How to use my personal cooldowns at the right times to help the healers.  Get a feel for which abilities I am using most to get up my binds better for that character.  To find out what secondary abilities are even worth binding because I use them often even if I had not considered I would.

Entering group content to learn.  That is what I will be using the LFR for.  To learn how to play it better.  I know the mechanics so no need for me to work my memory muscle, that knowledge is already there.  It is time to learn something else.  How to maximize what I am capable of doing in there.

It does make me wonder however, for as horrible as the LFR is, if many of these non raiders, the ones that really do not want to be there, the ones that are learning and trying to absorb all this information about mechanics, cooldowns, etc all at once, I wonder is that going to make them better players in the long run?

Can you really learn to raid in the LFR?  I think a raider can learn to raid better from doing the LFR but I am not convinced that someone that does not raid can become a raider thanks to the LFR.  Convince me.

If Only the Community Were Better.

There is good and bad in the LFR.  Some mechanics are just too much when grouped with people that really do not get it.  Be it they are new, take longer to learn or are just flat out horrible players, there are some things in the LFR that can be brutal to the ones that do not know it.  Sadly, some of those brutal things are the people.  These people do not help anyone.  If anything, these are the ones that start to create the toxic community that we have all been talking about lately.

Just a few examples because they have been on my mind and I want to share the stories.

Beholder, maze, dead raid mostly, wipe.  Someone comes after the wipe and says, this has been out for weeks, how the hell does any retard not know how to do this.  Enter toxic community. 

That comment is uncalled for completely.  Ask, what went wrong and go from there or don't ask anything and just explain.  There could be people there that have never been there before.  There could be people there that had been there before but never got the chance to learn.  They downed it and they never got another attempt in.  They could have computer issues like someone in my guild who seems to DC every time the maze pops up.  They could have visual issues like I do with it where I need to change my setting on that one fight to see it.  There are a million and one reasons why someone could have messed it up.  To just assume that everyone is a retard because this has been out for weeks is wrong.   Does that person not understand that 6 months from now someone will be stepping in there for the first time ever and dying to it.  Are you going to say, this has been out for 9 months, you should know it.  Well, if you do you are the retard, not them.

It took me three tries before I learned it.  I am sure some it took less and some it takes more.  On the first attempt if everyone dies explain it.  If I were going to start getting upset with the group it wouldn't be until after a few tries.  And even at that, I would ask them whats your problem with it, not say you are a retard.

End note, I started a vote kick for him and he went bye bye.  Someone explained the maze. They put markers on me and two others that had survived it last time, and we downed it on the second attempt without that guy.

Another little toxic community one I recently ran into was when someone in the group started talking about how they carried the whole group and everyone there was horrible.  I was on my rogue, mostly 483 gear, 2 502s and 2 522s and they were in all 522 gear, one 502 piece and one 535 piece.  They did 101K on the boss fight.  I did 89K.  Not great on my part, but when comparing my gear to his gear and then looking how close those numbers where, I decided to thank him for carrying me.

I rarely speak in raid unless it is needed.  Even more so to exchange verbal sparing moments with another but when the #3 DPS says thanks for carrying me to the #1 DPS his performance is brought into light for what it really was.

Oh, did I mention how I said it?  I forgot that part didn't I?

Thanks for carrying me, I hope when I pick up 30+ items levels I can do as good as you in full 522 gear.  Too bad I am in mostly 483 LFR gear and I could only come within 12K of you.

I then let the masses have fun with him and never said another word.  Sometimes you can let the toxic community work for you too.  There is no reason for someone to be such a jerk about anything in the LFR.  And really, if you are going to talk about how great you are and how you are carrying the entire group, the very least you should be is, well, good. 100K in all 522 gear is not exactly what I would call good enough to brag about.  It might be respectable for the content at hand, LFR, but nothing to brag about.

I think I take more offense to someone thinking they are gods gift to the world than anything else in the LFR.  People who yell at others for failing.  People who think they are the best player and people should bow to them.  I am sorry as I know most people do not agree with this motto but I have to say it, "just shut up and play".

The LFR would be a much better place if the community were better.  The one guy could tell the "retards" how to avoid it next time in the same amount of time he spent insulting them and it would have had a positive effect on the group instead of a negative one.  The 522 item level damage dealer that could only manage 100K might have gotten the praise he was fishing for if he said, hey, nice DPS there rogue or great heals.  I, or they, might have replied, thanks, nice work on top damage.  After all, that is all he was looking for when he bought it up, he wanted people to complement him.  If he played it another way, he would have got the complement he wanted and it would have had a much better group feel to it too than him bragging say how great he was and if it weren't for him we would have never got the boss down.  In the end, one got kicked and the other got knocked down more than a few pegs when people started making fun of his numbers instead of complementing him on them.

Toxic comments leave the entire raid feeling bad and rarely if ever turn out with the desired results, unless the desire is to destroy the community which would be they are working wonderfully..  However, sometimes, if done correctly, it can help.  Like one tank in a run that was rather squishy and some of the healers said something, nicely.  Are you using all your cooldowns?  Perhaps saving them for this point, etc.  On our 4th attempt, the tank did just fine because people did not call him out as a horrible tank, they helped him out by asking questions and offering assistance.  Sadly, that does not always work either.  Some people think of questions or assistance as insults too.

So the Monk Will Start to Gear up.

If the community were better than the LFRs would not feel like they do right now.  Horrible.  My monk will be going through them all this week, if he can, and while I look forward to the gearing up process because I can't wait to get better with it and see what I can do with gear, I do wonder, if going through this is worth it. 

Seemingly bad drop rates, bad groups, toxic community, and being placed with new people I basically end up forced to wipe with because they are just learning when I have passed that learning phase already all makes me wonder if it is worth it.

It makes me wonder if the LFR system really is a reasonable way to gear up.  It also makes me wonder, why was everything changed to what it is now.  Shouldn't there be other choices in the expansion that was all about choices?

I'll let you know how it goes.

16 comments:

  1. 489 gear is "better" than 522 when you are trying to get into the raids to be able to actually purchase some of the 522 in the first place. If you are in all quest gear (ie 437) then being able to buy 2 489's boosts your ilvl more than 1 522 for the same price. You can't get anything other than neck at that point anyways, so if neck is already one of your higher ilvl pieces than it's an even worse trade. You look at it as a waste of valor, but it's just a way to speed up catching up. If you already have access to the 502 lfr's then yes it is a waste unless you are going to go over 3000 valor and can't buy another 522.

    You may have been lucky enough to get 460, and then get enough drops in one run to hit 470, and then run those for 480, but it generally takes quite a few weeks at each of those levels at least. From the time you hit 90 till the time you hit 480 chances are you'll earn back a lot of that valor you spent anyways. If you can spend some valor to shorten the time it takes to hit 480 then it can be worth it.

    To turn the question back around: Why did you spend so much gold on the crafted 496 pieces if they'll just be replaced by 522's?

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    1. If it is the last piece I need to get me over the hump to get into that 480 raid I would agree a 489 is better than a 522. Otherwise, it is not better.

      I would rather craft a cheap 458 PvP piece than waste valuable valor on a sub par piece. But that is only my opinion. I would only do it if I am in danger of capping and it would go to waste anyway.

      My hope is to get lucky with a few drops and then, if needed, to use some 458 crafted to push me.

      My other characters have been universally unlucky with drops in the LFRs, even the older ones with the increased drop rates and with coins. So I am crossing my fingers and hoping I can do from 460-480 in one week. I think I am due for a nice little burst of luck.

      Gold?

      I have blood spirits from baggies and other things I have disenchanted. I have the patterns and the materials sitting around doing nothing. Might as well put them to good use. It costs me nothing, unless you want to think of what I could have sold it at as a cost, but I do not. I think of it as I put to use some of the junk I got out of my fail bags.

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  2. Not to sound in any way creepy but do you have an email for the site or any other way to get in contact with you Grumpy?

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    1. Never thought of adding a way for people to contact me. I should set up something however.

      I'll get something up there.

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  3. One small nitpick, I wouldn't judge people by DPS, instead look at the tab for damage done. For instance both my boyfriend and I play DPS I might do 110k on a boss and he might also do 110k on the boss but because he's a lock he has more uptime, say during movement phases or phases that are unfavorable to me but I may have big burst phases that helps me show a better DPS at the end of the fight. Honestly DPS is not the greatest measurement. If you look at the damage done tab and they have done anywhere over 25% of the damage on the fight I think it’s safe to say they carried the raid. If they haven’t and the top 5 are all about the same damage done that’s where I would roll my eyes. As a raid leader what I use DPS measurements for is to see if we are hitting the requirements for an enrage timer roughly. I use damage done and uptime info way more when evaluating someone.
    I wanted to touch on your topic about learning to raid in LFR. I know that a large % of my raiders use LFR to practice or to test new specs or new builds or what not before bringing it into the raid. I think it would be safe to say a lot of people use it for that. I think it would be say that a fair amount of players probably use it for the same so it should be safe to assume others do as well.

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    1. I do use damage done when judging things. Never use DPS. Just type "DPS" as a term, an expression. Damage done is what matters most.

      When posting here however, saying I did 40K on my monk would be more telling than saying I did 4.8M damage. Saying I did 4.8M doesn't convey anything to how I am doing whereas 40K does, even if it is not the best way to say it. So for posting that is why I usually go with DPS. Hope that explains it.

      I also love to look at damage taken. It really can tell you a lot about who are the good players and who are the bad ones. Sure, some things are not avoidable but others, it can be really telling on.

      As a player I take the greatest pride in trying to be the top in damage done and bottom in damage taken. If I can do that, I did a good job.

      You can usually tell who those people are, the ones using it to get better. Sadly it is rare to get more than one or two in a group.

      IIRC that person bragging they carried the group and the other top 4 were all within 2% of each other top to bottom for damage done. That included me. He most definitely did not carry anyone. He did a good job and he should have been happy with that.

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    2. You could say I did 18% of the damage to the boss and he did 19% that’s actually even more telling IMO YMMV.
      As far as standing in and taking damage. Blizzard gave me a stupid talent that rewards me for standing in the bad by giving me 30% burst damage by god I'm going to use it! Lol. LFR is perfect for abusing this. Sorry healers! On a plus side I have just as many hp's as the scrub tanks I see.

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    3. Yeah, that is kind of one of those talents that make you scratch your head.

      I still think it is easier to say a blanket number as people are used to seeing it. I would also hope that if I said something like I did 150K people that read here would know I was doing it the entire fights and didn't do 150 for the first 30 seconds and die. Perhaps I could use eDPS, which is even more telling than 19% would be.

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  4. One thing I'd like to comment on is: Yes, LFR can teach someone to be a raider. However, that has to be the person's objective.

    I really learned to raid by doing the DS LFRs. Prior to that, I had only killed Shannox in Firelands and I had joined a pug at the end of ICC after all the buffs but I'd say that I was carried in both cases.

    For DS, I decided I wanted to try raiding and LFR was more comfortable for me than punishing people in a pug. I looked up the fights on icy-veins. I watched Fat Boss videos. I got the best gear I could from HoTs, quests, rep, valor, etc. And I went into LFR. I paid attention to the mechanics and learned from my mistakes. LFR wasn't as punishing as normal would have been and no one yelled at me when I wasn't "perfect". It was like learning to ride a bike with training wheels.

    I then graduated to a couple of 25m alt runs. Filled in on a 10m team that was starting heroics for a couple weeks. Then got a permanent spot on that team and we got all the way through Heroic DS. It took us a while so we only had it on farm for the last month or so before Mists.

    (I went and found the heroic kill picture from September 1st last year. :D Found the pictures where we all got the meta achiev a couple weeks later as well.)

    Anyway, it's possible to learn to raid in LFR, but LFR itself is not going to create raiders. The players have to want to learn to get the most value out of it.

    On the other topics, I don't have much to add to what you already talked about. Just thought I'd add some anecdotal evidence of a raider born in LFR.

    (Wish I could be raiding actively this expansion, but too much going on outside of Azeroth.)

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    1. The key is that you wanted to learn. I still think it would not teach someone itself if they had not made the effort to learn on their own. At least not outwardly.

      Your story is the same as mine. One difference, I found a guild that needed someone and waited to fill in as a back up. I looked up all the fights online, I made sure I got all the best gear I was capable of getting on my own, even to the point of assembling groups to run the dungeons that had items I needed and as there was no dungeon finder it was a lot more work and effort involved of course. Then when someone did not show I got the spot and did decently. I filled in another day in an older raid they were running. Then the next week they started to help me gear, as it seemed I was worth the effort and shortly after I was part of their raid team and have been raiding ever since.

      You case and my case are the same, we both wanted to raid, we both made the efforts to raid, we were both rewarded with a raid spot for our efforts.

      It is much easier for someone with that desire to do it now thanks to the LFR. But that ability to catch up and learn was always there. It just required a fair deal more effort back then.

      In a strange way I am starting to think that was a good thing. People who did go through all that effort really wanted to raid so they were usually more into it and better at it. Being anyone can catch up now and use the LFR, anyone can think they are a raider and that is just not true.

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  5. The thing I miss from 5 mans is even seeing gear. In 5 mans a piece of gear drops from every boss and you see it, even if it's not for your spec/class. In LFR you can have some bad luck and not even see gear for weeks - it makes it feel like the drops are broken or something. The flip side is when you get the same gear over and over and it's wasted. I've had 6 legs drop for my main in LFR and not much else until this week and he's a rogue so there is not even offspec use.

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    1. That is very true. If you get nothing and you see nothing you start to think nothing drops even if you know it does. It is a matter of appearances.

      I'll play devils advocate for a moment however and support blizzard on this one. Not showing gear does take a fair deal of the drama out of it. People saying, how come the baddie gets something and I don't. That guy does not need it why did he get it. etc.

      There really is no reason for that so removing the chances someone will say that is actually a good step. Not to mention, it removes the people who want to play gear god and roll on gear they do not need so they can decide who deserves it, if anyone. This was common place in the DS LFR.

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  6. I could post pages in response but I'll try (and fail) to keep it brief for a change.

    As original Anon mentioned, the reason why cheaper i489/i496 pieces are useful is if you're trying to gear for something NOW, rather than for long-term. If you have a month to gear up a fresh 90 toon for regular raiding, hold VPs for the i522 gear. If you need to gear up quickly just to get to a higher tier of LFR, the i489/i496 gear will help get you in there more quickly (either by wearing it or, um, renting).

    One of the reasons I like running LFR on my monk is that I can generally set the tone for the run early. Being top dps in most groups by a significant amount means that I can very easily shut down a moron along the lines of how you've mentioned that you have done. In my case I just assume they're 10 years old and respond accordingly, using small words and more than a hint of condescension. Works like a charm most of the time. Bit harder to do from someone mid-pack performance-wise but it can be done, too, with a bit of finesse. I haven't had an actually toxic group in ages, you'll get individuals occasionally but usually enough people will back someone calling them out that it won't go anywhere.

    I absolutely use LFR to tweak my own play... trying out new techniques, trying different talents, getting baseline dps numbers that I can try to beat in my normal group... I think anyone who's serious about their own performance, ever, would/should play LFR like it means something. Worst case, performing better yourself will make the run faster and should decrease your repair bill. Best case, you'll actually improve.

    My current focus in LFR is on defensive CDs... I've always used ToK regularly but I've recently talented to one of the active damage mitigation talents and I'm figuring out timing with ToK regarding whether I can use them both back-to-back and have them back up in time for the next blast or whether I have to alternate for mechanics. Timing seems to be consistent between normal and LFR so that can help.

    For non-raiders, I don't think LFR makes them better performers but only because they don't care about it and there isn't much incentive for them to succeed. Those doing 30K aren't going to suddenly start doing a more appropriate 70K by running LFR. Nor, I think, is LFR supposed to serve that purpose. Non-raiders and slackers won't get benefit but there isn't any way to force it. Anyone who WANTS to use LFR for personal improvement CAN.

    I'll occasionally end up in a run where one or two other people are close to me dps-wise... I'll generally whisper one or multiple, comment on the similar dps &/or gear and offer a friendly dps challenge for the bosses to keep things interesting... More often then not I'll get a "Heh, sure" in response and a mutual salute at the end. I enjoy those runs quite a bit, distracts me from most of the negativity (no matter how well your run goes, you'll still deal with the "ffs gold again" or "like I needed this for the 9th time" people after bosses die... I really need a chat add-on that filters those out).

    I find 5-mans useful for multi-queuing... whatever toon I'm capping on first in a week I'll generally multi-queue for one heroic a day while queuing for LFR, the heroic queues tend to be at least 15m shorter for me these days so it's basically a "free" 80 VP time-wise. While queuing for subsequent LFRs that day I'll do Island dailies to fill the time. I DON'T find 5-mans to be useful for gearing up a fresh 90 but they still have a use, it's relaxing, generally easy content to run for some VP.

    Looking forward to your monk stories, I'm anticipating some good ones. :)

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    1. You are so right. Being near the top of the pack you can try to adjust the attitudes of those that are toxic, but if you are middle of the pack or lower, it is best to keep your mouth shut or it will be another 30+ minutes in queue for you.

      I too have had few toxic groups, usually a few players here and there that ruin it for everyone but I can honestly not remember the last time I had a group where everyone, or most, was like that.

      I do the multi queue as well to start the week so I can cap my main ASAP. Really hate doing anything on an alt and getting less valor than I could have.

      I had heard a rumor that we would be able to queue for multiple raids at the same time. That would be nice and I am sure would, or could help with some of those longer queues.

      I might run them for some rep at some point, if the mood strikes me, but 5 mans don't seem all that interesting. If anything, when I start to tank or heal on my monk I will go into a 5 man instead as there is a huge net to catch me should I fail there. Even more so if I go with guild.

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    2. I read this on another blog a while back, but have found it does help some of the time. As soon as you get in to an LFR set the tone for the raid by being positive and helpful. It also helps if you can be the group leader. People seem to see the positive and be more positive. If the first thing said in the LFR is negative it tends to feed negativity.

      I wish they would let you queue for different roles for different queues. I prefer tanking five mans to dps'ing, but I don't like tanking LFR. I'd love to be able to queue for 5 mans as tank while I wait on a long LFR queue.

      Another feature I wish for along the lines of today's post of "me" being the main is that I could queue as dps on one toon, and be able to do other things on another toon until the queue popped and then it would just let me switch toons to enter. There are toons I only want to do LFR on not anything else yet I end up sitting around waiting for a queue even though there are other toons I would like to be playing on during that time.

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    3. I agree, the negativity breed more negativity. But from my personal experience and observations, one negative person can defeat even three of four positive ones. Sadly positive vibes do not spread as freely or easily as negative ones.

      That would be another nice change, to allow you to queue as different things as different roles. I do see that one being a bit harder to add, but not so much so it would be something they could not do. I feel your pain with tanking the LFR. I oft times think I would rather get poked in the eye with a needle than solo tank the LFR.

      That queue on one toon while switching to another would be awesome. Beyond awesome. I would love it. That would be even harder for them I am sure but I am willing to wait for it.

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