Monday, July 29, 2013

Monday Random Thoughts

- I did a little bit of everything this weekend.

- Some play on regular 90s, some play on alt server 90s, some leveling of the low levels.

- I had the full array of things.

- Even went back and did some old content for fun on my monk.

- Being there were no tanks on I offered to tank on my monk, still getting some practice with it.

- I solo tanked heroic firelands and heroic dragon soul.

- They seemed a lot easier than I remember, I wonder why.

- Had a damage dealer break 500K on Majordomo.

- I guess things like that are why.

- That is one person doing more than our entire group did our first time doing it.

- Nearly all the fights were a joke with current gear.

- Funny part is, even with todays gear, T11 heroics are harder than T12 or T13.

- But I have not done them recently so I could be wrong there.

- I ran my mage through all the ToT LFRs again and won nothing.

- Now is that time where it starts getting frustrating in the gearing process.

- Nothing left to buy with valor, only two pieces I can get from the LFR, and I do not normally raid with it.

- I also do not think I have anything I would like to spend valor on to upgrade because nearly everything is something I would like to replace and spending valor on something you want to replace seems like a waste to me.

- But I guess upgrading something is better than just letting the valor go to waste.

- I joined a group on my rogue last night just for the hell of it.

- Had not played it in what seems like months.

- Won a trinket off the first boss to replace a 483, so that is good, but we only downed the first boss.

- Amazing that horridon can still destroy a group.

- In a 12 boss raid the first 3 boss, at the absolute least, should be push overs so even a pug can do them.

- Hard to believe that a pug can still not get past the second boss on my server.

- I had the lowest item level of the whole group and was doing roughly the same as everyone else.

- Even with my 502 and 483 weapons I was neck and neck damage done with people that had 525 item levels and their nice shiny 522 weapons.

- But I still suck at horridon on my rogue, just can not manage any good AoE for doors.

- I guess it is a learn to play issue.

- Nothing wrong with admitting you need to get better at something and I need to get better at my rogue.

- It is just too hectic for someone like myself that is not used to playing a melee and even more so a rogue at that.

- Still managed decent numbers, at least to the point where if we actually ever made it to horridon I would at least finish with 250K thanks to the damage buff.

- I guess when you have someone like me that is not so great on adds but really golden on single target it would have been best to just stick me to the big boy and let me go to work.

- But the other damage dealers needed me on the adds, so that was out of the question.

- Hey, I got an upgrade, got to raid on a character I do not raid on, and had some fun even if we wiped.

- So it wasn't all that bad.

- Only three more bosses to go for ToT.

- Was going to extend last week but decided not to because we needed two fill ins.

- So only made it to dark again, but at least we downed it this time.

- At the rate we are going, getting things down faster and faster in the limited amount of time we play we might actually be able to get all the way to the end in our 2 hour frame.

- The 25 gets down the first 3, we do a 10 man 2 hour continuation from there.

- We can do 4-9 in those 2 hours.

- So if we ever do extend, we are done with this thing, finally.

- I do have issues with "ahead of the curve".

- When we finish it we will get that achievement, and we would not deserve it.

- If you down it in the first month you are "ahead of the curve".

- Downing it now when everyone is 517 or better item level seems sad if you ask me.

- I am sure if we did not get caught up on horridon for 5 weeks and tortos for 3 weeks we would have been done already even in our limited play time.

- No boss has taken us more than 1 week when we met it.

- First time downing 3rd boss, 2 shot, 5th boss, 2 shot, 6th boss, about 15 attempts to get it, 7th boss about the same, 8th boss was a one shot, and 9th boss went down the first time we actually got some real attempts on it after 4 tries.

- But those two bosses, the 2nd and 4th, destroyed our will to live.

- It destroyed our desire to raid.

- It almost ripped apart our raid team.

- It did rip apart many raid teams on out server.

- They need to not make fights like that any more, or at least not make them at the start of a raid.

- We are not a great group, but there is no reason any boss should ever take us more than one week of working on it.

- At least not on normal mode.

- For a casual guild one new boss a week seems like a respectable pace.

- The alt leveling is going well, in a way.

- I got my guild to level 5.

- Made a whole 6 silver in collections so far.

- I'm gonna be rich, woohoo.

- Hit a few bumps in the road for a few of the characters I was leveling.

- My hunter had to spend an hour plus just killing and skinning in an effort to try and catch up his leather working.

- Over an hour of non stop killing and skinning and I got enough leather to gain 5 skill points.

- I really wish they would fix professions to level along with the new speed of leveling.

- At this rate I am going to need to spend another 5 or 6 hours skinning to catch up my leather working.

- My enchanter is now in northrend, but I have to stop leveling it.

- Why you ask?

- Because my bags and bank is completely filled with stuff I can not disenchant.

- This means I need to catch up with my blacksmiths, my leather workers, and my tailor, so I can craft gear and send it so they can disenchant it and get the materials to level enchanting so they can disenchant the crap in their bags.

- Yeah, they really need to redesign professions big time.

- When it took a year and a day to level you would kill 12 billion creatures, so you had enough leather.

- Don't work that way now, you level too fast.

- But it is partly my fault.

- I try to only level on rested experience.

- So I am speeding it up on my own too I guess.

- But rested is gone super fast.

- Got 1 level on my priest before rested was gone.  2 on my monk and shaman.  None on my warlock.

- How do you even manage to not get a level while burning through rested.

- The only thing I could think of he was not fully rested before hand.

- I did end up playing my lock a bit more after his rested ran out.  Even got him 2 levels.

- I was just having so much fun with it.

- Amazing how different things are from max level.

- Some say they love locks at max level, but I find them, blah.

- Low levels, at least where it is now, it is fun.

- My minion holds aggro like a champ, something my minion could not do at 90 even if I wanted 10 seconds before attacking.

- I am attempting to level a shaman as elemental, something I have never done.

- I have multiple shaman and they have all been enhancement while leveling.

- I am leveling my druid as feral, something I have never done.

- I always level as guardian, but at least before I could be both at the same time, now I am locked into cat.

- Should be a learning experience.

- I am trying some things differently to shake stuff up.

- There really is no right and no wrong to leveling however.

- Except being a mage while leveling.

- No matter what spec you are, you are doing it wrong.

- I know mages were always glass cannons, but they seem worse than I remember.

- Even switching from fire to frost has not helped.

- I recall frost being so much more leveling friendly.

- I leveled my first mage to 60 as frost and never had problems, and leveling was not three shots and it is dead even without heirlooms easy like it is now.

- I would say over all the survivability of all classes is much better than it used to be, with the exception of mages who took a step back.

- Quest design and creature placement has really helped with player survival as well.

- Did some of those murloc quests, you know the ones where you pull one and suddenly there are 16 or 17 of them on you.

- Never happened once.

- There are not as many mobs, they are not as quick to run, they are not packed as tight as they used to be, and they die faster to begin with.

- Makes leveling easier, that is for sure.

- But there is something to say about losing that sense of danger, even dread, when you had a murloc quest to do.

- I swear that is where I leaned to pull, from pulling murlocs.

- It is where I learned placement, as in where I wanted to fight them, to better make sure not to get extras.

- And it taught me to use those rarely used secondary abilities that slowed or stunned them when they started to run.

- People say that players never learned anything from leveling.

- I disagree.

- Bad players never learned anything and that is why they are called bad players.

- Good players, ones that wanted to learn, did learn.

- So removing that stuff just meant the bad players had less to complain about when they died to things like that instead of actually learning how to do it.

- But worse than that is the poor players that wanted to get better, wanted to learn, with the removal of quests like that, they never had the chance to learn.

- I am kind of torn on my opinion of this.

- I like that the murlocs are not as bad as they used to be and I can just blow through them.

- But I liked the idea that I learned from them the first time through.

- I wonder if they could create two leveling experiences.

- One for new people that have never done it, which will be longer and teach people, and one for people that have been there and done that and just want another 90.

- And no, heirlooms are not what I am talking about.

- Heirlooms have nothing to do with mob health, mob clusters, mobs running, etc.

- Those where the good things that taught you.

- Well, taught me at least.

- I hit 470 item level on one of my alts and went into the dread approach.

- 4th damage done, 3rd damage done, and 2nd damage done respectively.

- I have no gems, no enchants, not reforged which means I am way below hit and expertise capped, and I still managed to stay near the top.

- But a large margin.

- The 3rd fight I was 2.8% higher than number 3 in damage done.

- So that means it is our favorite time once again, time to beat the dead horse.

- The LFR is way to hard for the people it is aimed at.

- Two of the three fights only 8 people were over 30K.

- Seriously.

- At just 470, with no gems, enchants or reforging done, I expected to be 14th or 15th maybe and that would have been reasonable.

- To finish where I did speaks volumes about the people that play this game.

- I am not a great player but I am decent.

- So if someone that is not even great and not even trying, can still stomp all over everyone else, there is a real problem.

- Not sure what upsets me more.

- The fact I was hoping to let other people do the heavy lifting for once and I still needed to fill that role or the fact that there are people better than me at just trying to take the relaxing easy route for once.

- I need to work on my slacking skills.

- But I can only go so far.

- I can slack with no gems and enchants while gearing up, seems a waste to add them when I know I will be replacing gear soon hopefully.

- But that is about as much of a slacker as I could be.

- Even with crap gear that is not set up well I still will try to do the best I can do.

- Why don't others?

- I mean, how hard is it to hit some buttons.

- Someone asked me the other day how to heal on a disc priest.

- In said, hit some buttons.

- Was joking around when I said it like that of course.

- But seriously, that is the simplified version of everything you do in game.

- Damage dealer, healer, tank.  Doesn't make a difference.

- Just hit some buttons and you will do just fine.

- Of course taking 5 minutes out of your day to read what the buttons do and when is the best time to hit them does make a world of difference.

- But the fact still remains, why can't everyone do that?

- I am not saying that everyone needs to be good.

- But I am saying that everyone should not be bad.

- Doing bad and being bad at two different things.

- I always say I do bad on my rogue, but I am not a bad player, just playing badly.

- I know there is a lot of improvement to be made.

- And I try to improve, that is the key.

- When someone gives me advice, I take it.

- When I read something that can help, I try it.

- That is why I say I am doing bad, not being bad.

- Doing bad is someone that is trying to do better, being bad is just not trying at all.

- I think some people, most even, are afraid to admit they can do better.

- I admit when I can do better, I even say I can do better on the character I do best on, my hunter.

- No matter how good you are, you can be better.

- End of story, there is no arguing that.

- Someone asked me for advice on horridon the other day, as I am always willing to help other guilds and that is well known.

- Yes, horridon, still less than 30% of the guilds on my server that actually raid have downed him.

- No, I am not kidding.

- He said he had a paladin tank so I gave him the easy mode horridon strategy of just having the paladin solo tank horridon on the opposite side of the room with a healer while the team learns the doors so they do not have to worry about charges or positioning for him while learning.

- He said, but I need to put 2 healers on the tank to keep him up, that won't work.

- I asked, how well are the healers geared.

- He said shaman 523 and a paladin 526 are both on the tank.

- I said, excuse me?

- One healer on the boss tank is all you need, he does not hit so hard that someone at that gear level should not be able to heal it.

- He said he tried it but neither could do it.

- I said, sorry, can not help you then, if you can not solo heal the horridon tank at that gear level there is nothing I can say that will help you.  The strategy I gave you is the easy mode version.

- Basically, I told him that his healers need to get better, plain and simple.

- I think I offended him, but seriously, when your item level is higher than the gear a raid drops, you should be able to heal it.  If you can't it is a learn to play issue.

- As I said, most people will never admit they need to learn to play better.

- If someone told me I needed to get better to do heroic, I would say, okay, I will get better.

- What is bad with telling someone there is room for improvement?

- Oddly enough it works on both ends of the spectrum.

- Someone mentioned to me that we should require everyone in the 25 man to bring their own 300 food.

- They said, they use it so everyone should, and look at them, they rank on every single fight.

- I said, 275 food is fine.  25 of a stat is not going to make as much of a difference as just getting better would.

- You are a good player, that is why you rank, it is not because you use 300 food.

- They went into a tizzy about it.

- Seriously, 25 of a stat does not make much of a difference to a casual guild only doing normal mode.

- A few minutes on the dummy will mean more than 25 stats will, that is for sure.

- Heck, even if you are playing at the top of your game I do not think 25 of a stat is going to make such a huge difference that is should be required when doing normal modes.

- Just my opinion of course.

- But good or bad, when you tell people, get better, it really seems to offend them.

- However, I must say that going to that line on the forums over and over is annoying.

- When I see someone post and give a description of their problem and log and people reply, get better, I can't help but wish someone would slap them in the back of the head.

- Everyone knows that they need to get better, or at least they should.

- If someone went through the effort to post, it is their way of trying to get better.

- So instead of telling them to get better, how about giving them some advice on how to get better.

- Your tank seems to be taking a full hit from "whatever" tell him to use a cooldown.

- Your healer seems to be using a lot of AoE healing when it is not needed, tell them to do more direct healing when it is needed.

- You could hit time warp at a better time, and use your potions then.

- Your hunter let his serpent sting fall off in the first minute of the fight and never reapplied it.

- Things like that help people get better.

- Saying get better means nothing when they do not know how to get better.

- When someone posts on the forums they are looking for advice on how to get better, so saying get better and leaving it at that just makes you look like a world class asshole.

- But hey, who am I to judge, some people enjoy being an asshole.

- And I told that paladin healer that he needs to get better because he said he could not solo heal the horridon tank while over geared for the content.

- So maybe I am the asshole too.

- But even if I am I am also right, he needs to get better.

- Have a great day.

32 comments:

  1. About the guild using two healers on one tank, it might not be a healer problem. Could be a tank issue as well. I went from playing main tanks while dabbling in healing through BC to healing while dabbling in tanking for Wrath. Being a healer amazed me at how badly some tanks played. I could keep up a mage better than a prot-paladin at times. Some tanks are really horrible. The newer active mitigation model makes this stand out even more.

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    1. You are very right. It could also be a tank error and in most cases I would agree. But I have seen that paladins numbers having run a few times with him.

      While it is true that the tank could be making it unnecessarily difficult on him from my past experience it was at least party the healers fault as well.

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  2. Sounds like that Horridon tank also needs to get better. They are a paladin, they can use what amounts to a cd for other classes on every single Triple Puncture. They shouldn't let a dedicated tank healer, let alone two. AoE healing and occasional topups should be all that is needed.

    Mind you Horridon has stumped a lot of guilds. I was talking with this mage who has helped us out a few times. They missed coming to the raid where we killed Lei Shen as they had a guild raid. I asked how they were doing and their guild is still stuck on Horridon, they spent wednesday wiping on it. Now this mage bugs me as their PC/internet connection apparently can't handle vent, not having everyone on vent drives me mental. However, they are reasonably competent, if they'd been available on wednesday and we'd had a spot I would have taken them to kill Lei Shen. Somehow though, their guild is stuck on Horridon. I didn't ask why.

    I also want to refute your "I am not a great player but I am decent" as compared to all but the elite you are a great player. Maybe you'll be less frustrated if you accept that you are pretty damn good, which makes it hard for people to measure up to you.

    I certainly sometimes feel uncomfortable reading about the standards you have. Well guilty I guess, as I don't measure up dpswise, perhaps that's why I'm a tank at heart, I can't take the pressure of the dps meter. I averaged 80k dps on last nights wipes on heroic Spirit Kings, that is with a 530 ilevel weapon. Which is appalling I know. I haven't played ret in months but that's no excuse. I know the rotation, I used my cds, but the muscle memory just isn't there. I'm doing what the guides say but I'm obviously not doing it right or the numbers would be better. So maybe a few people at least are trying, and they have read up, but they are just crap like I am. I'm not sure what the fix is for just being rubbish.

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    1. As the previous poster mentioned, it could also be the tank, that is true. I guess I should have mentioned I've run with the healer before and know that they are not doing the best they can.

      I've heard countless people that have finished the raid say that horridon is the hardest fight in there. One friend who is in a guild that can full clear no problems said the only time they ever wipe is on horridon. When there is this much bad feedback on the 2nd boss, you know they did something wrong with their raid design here.

      I am good for what I do. Normals. I don't believe that I do anything that any person wouldn't be able to do. But that just makes me a decent player. In my opinion at least.

      They are not "my standards" they are the basic standards. I ask for 80K at least because I know with some doing more we will be able to reach most timers with no issue. When you take a look at icy veins you will see the required DPS for all fights. None, I repeat, none are under 80K. So asking for 80K is not exactly me having high standards, it is me having low standards. If I had high standards it would be me wanting everyone over the minimum not just close to it.

      For example, we are on Iron Qon now, we use 3 healers so that means the 5 damage dealers would need to be doing at least 116K. Should not be a problem with my group, but if we need a fill in for one of the damage dealers I want someone that can do at least 110K. Is it really too much to ask that you can do the damage that is required to down the boss? I don't think so.

      Reading guides will only get you half way as you well know. I know the rogue rotation, the monk rotation, but I just have issues with melee and with movement in melee, so not matter how perfect I remember the rotation I will always under perform on them until I get better at it. Practice is part two. Knowing what to do is only half the battle, doing it is the second half.

      So 80K for a tank in their offspec that they rarely play is actually quite good. I know I can not pull 80K on my bear if I went cat. My one button macro can only get me to around 70K in my current gear. I need a better macro. :P

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    2. No really your standards are really pretty high for the general wow population. were talking top 10% to 20%. In fact in this post you say you are not ahead of the curve but then you illustrate that you are ahead of the curve by telling us that only 30% of the guild on your server can clear horridon.

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    3. I am on a really bad server tiggi. Most servers have gotten past that horridon hump for the larger percentage.

      In the end that boss comes down to who gave up and who kept pushing. It took my guild 5 weeks to down it. I don't know about you, but that is surely not "ahead of the curve". Not even in the slightest. If we were actually skilled players we would have downed it the second week at the worst.

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    4. actully there are only 10,000 maybe 11,000 guilds that have killed Lei Shen. lets say there are 2 million players in America ( I don't know exact #) that's ahead of the curve. what you are not is cutting edge. also you have to take your server into account when figuring out how you stand IMO I'd say on a shitty server like that you should actually have gotten the cutting edge achivie lol. I know its crazy but people that finish a raid during its normal progression are not a large portion of the population. See LFR or see Flex raiding.

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    5. I agree. In the end I believe the numbers are usually less than 3% of the player base finishes a raid tier, on normal, last I heard.

      But that number seems a little skewed looking at it on its base. If 11,000 guilds have finished it on normal there are probably only 15,000 that are even capable of finishing it.

      As I have not finished it yet, I am behind the curve, and if I do finish it soon, say around 12,000, that still puts be firmly in the bottom part of the guilds that have finished it, again, not actually ahead of the curve.

      Now I do admit I could be really off on that. I am basing it completely on my opinions only. But in my opinion, most guilds that actively try, even if on a casual setting of 1 day of 10 man like mine normally does, will get it cleared. We will, but we will also have to extend to do so, something we have not done before.

      I agree with what you say that on average, compared to the compete player base I (and my raid team) might be considered ahead of the curve, but compared to other raiders, my group is about as average as you can get.

      We usually sit at or near the 50% mark in most raid tiers on normal. If 30,000 guilds cleared a tier, we will be the 15,000th guild to do it. And that is why I basically say we are average, and surely not ahead of any curve.

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    6. Well the achievement isn't called "ahead of the curve of most raiders" is it? The achievement is available to all players thus its ahead of the entire player base.

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    7. @GE - Yeah, your point does have some mathematical value (if you count "serious" guilds as those who have downed at least Horridon, at this point 53% have killed Lei Shi, meaning anyone who hasn't is slightly below average) but realistically, you can only do as well as you can do. I (and last I heard, you) still consider killing the end boss in the current tier &/or before the first round of nerfs to be the curve... and that's still in play.

      I killed LK during the 10% nerf period and was incredibly happy about it, though, so I can admit that the curve is a moving target. I'm still ahead of it in my mind, you might not be in yours, we're both right and both just as wrong.

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    8. @Tiggi. Point taken I guess.

      I just would not consider counting the entire player base because if someone has not intention of doing it, they can you really be "ahead" of them. It is impossible to beat a running when the runner isn't even in the race.

      @Anon

      I do think we will have it in the next week or two, if I extend. So it is within our grasp. I think if it were not for a total of 8 weeks wasted (horridon 5 and tortos 3) we would have been done with it already. Every other boss went down the week we first saw it or the week after. Just those two were a bit stubborn.

      It is all a matter of how you look at it. The stats you said, 53%, if we kill it now, would actually support what I have been trying to say. My group is just average.

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    9. well you know “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” just stop selling yourself short remember there's a ton of people out there that would probably love a chance to do end game raids but can't for some reason or another RL or playtime issues and there are a ton of people that will go back and do this content when its no longer the main raid tier for the first time. that's the curve they are talking about

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    10. True. I look at it as I know I can do better, hence the reason I don't think much of it.

      Heck, for raiding that showing up thing is probably he hardest part of it. Finding the same 10 people willing to work together week after week is a feat in and of itself. lol

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    11. First, do it. Then you can complain if it feels deserved or not, k?

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    12. Sounds like a plan. Just hope that 5.4 is not soon, because for the next 3 weeks it seems we will have people on vacation because of summer. I am not sure if I will continue lockouts because I am not sure if I have people capable of subbing.

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  3. Tainted view. I play some mmo every now and then. I don't have addons. I push buttons. Stuff dies. I'm having fun. Why should i even consider how good i am compared to others? Who's to say i'm bad or doing bad?

    We tend to forget it's a game.

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    1. If you play solo I agree with this 100%. I play Swtor, I hit buttons, stuff dies. I don't run any form of recount (if there is one?) and I have no idea what my dps is. However, I play alone, so my performance isn't impacting on anyone else.

      If you play in a group then it does matter. I'm a big believer in being fair. If I am rubbish then I am making it harder on other people in a group. So therefore I need to do my best or I'm wasting their time. I'm not just affecting me then, I'm affecting others. So if I ever decide to group up for anything in Swtor, run one of the flashpoints or something, then I'll need to investigate some sort of performance monitor, and I'll need to make sure I'm performing reasonably. Anything else would be unfair on my groupmates and very selfish of me.

      So it might just be a game and it should always be fun. Otherwise we have to question why we're doing it. I have a blast in Swtor but it's solo there. I take Warcraft a lot more seriously as I play with other people.

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    2. That is actually why some people do bad James. They go into the LFR, they push buttons, things die, they think they are doing fine.

      Most of the time it really is that simple. My horde hunter I do not raid on. It is really slow to gear, it takes me longer to down things. I still want to gear it up because playing effectively is more fun in my opinion and gear helps with that, but even if I am taking my sweet time I am still having fun with it. So all is well right? I agree with that.

      There is a line there however between having fun and ruining the fun of others.

      Lets use you and I as an example. I raid normal, you raid heroic. I can get away with a lot of crap you can't. I could be slow to move from something, make a right when I should make a left, do 120K instead of 130K even if 130K is my potential.

      Now, lets say you need a fill in and I offer to come and do all those same thing.

      Be a little slow moving from something, moving right when I should have moved left, and am doing less DPS than I am capable of doing which is making it harder to meet the enrage timers. Is it fair to your raid that I am having fun doing a heroic raid when they are wiping because of me? No.

      There is a time for fun but when your fun ruins the time of 9 or 24 others, you need to put their fun above yours and excuse yourself.

      So in the case of that person, allowing the group to wipe over and over because they can not heal the amount they should be healing should not be view of as, maybe he is having fun, it should be viewed as, he needs to get better and stop ruining the fun of 9 other people because he refuses to do better.

      As always, in my opinion. Fun is fine as long as it does not ruin the fun of others.

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    3. In a group with a raid leader, yes. In a random anything? No. We know about addons because we've been playing for so long. Don't tell me you didn't step into any dungeon before having recount or skada. What seems natural to us may not even cross someone else's mind. And probably doesn't.

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    4. I stepped into my first dungeon without even having a group because I did not know it was meant for 5 people. lol

      I would say I looked things up on my own when I started to get into the game. My second character, which was also my second hunter, around level 30 or so. So yes, by the time I was max level I had every addon I should have and I had a basic idea how to play my class.

      I do agree however that not everyone is like me. I looked for guides because I wanted to do my best. I've always done that with any game I played. But most don't.

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    5. I didn't say max level for a reason. Our experience was totally different from what it is today. And we keep forgetting that, it seems.

      We looked at dungeons and entered them and tried to solo them because there was nothing pointing otherwise. We did groups when we could and we gathered the people ourselves. Which fro the start implies we took some responsibility.

      Yes. People who wanted to do dungeons. Any level. Had to have guts. Had to perform decently. Because there was server rep involved. There was the chance to make friends and do them again. And dungeons were hard. You could wipe in many different ways.

      So when we wanted to do a dungeon, we knew what we were getting into. And if we felt unsecure we looked it up, read about it beforehand, made sure we had gear, made sure we knew what to do.

      There is nothing now to put any kind of responsibility on anyone. You don't like it, drop. The dps doesn't matter. Actual content does start max, not like it started for us at level 15+. It's there where they may or may not discover that they are bad. LFR is smae crap as LFD, why should anything be any different?

      We are different because we played in different times. We wanted to do dungeons and raids so we had to be decent and get info.

      This is why you think LFR spoiled people and they think they are raiders with crap dps, crap gear, no effort. They don't understand. There was no need to be otherwise. There was nothing they wanted to do that required them to invest effort. Raiding was the first and they came to you and you thought: oh, god. And you're the first to tell them they need to do more, they need better gear, they need to learn to play.

      I don't think we're that special. It's that we wanted to do something so we had to learn.

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    6. Excellent reply, it could be a great post in its own if I C&Ped it and let everyone read it.

      It is so true that we started in a different time, a time where we had to be better because the content demanded it, a time were we were forced to look things up because we did not want to be caught unprepared and get a bad reputation.

      I think I have written about that more than a dozen times in some way or another, how the game has stopped developing new "raiders" and now just makes new "players". And that is where the problem is, I think. The player base has changed, it is not made up of people like you and I that looked things up and wanted to get better, an entire new type of player is playing the game. What happens is, they are still making the raids for us, normals for me, heroics for you, and everyone else is completely left out. Only a very few actually become raiders because they want to try. Most just want to kill stuff nice and easy for fun. Sadly, I have to agree with them, that is how it should be. The game is not the game I started to play 5 years ago or the game others started to play 8 years ago. We can not change that, we only need to adapt ourselves as well. And so does blizzard design team. Can't give people the easy pass throughout the entire game and then brick wall them at the first chance they ever see real content. Lets face it, even normal mods are too hard for 95% of the player base.

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    7. My experience was different, I basically played BC as a single-player game, getting 2 toons to max level. I *did* learn the "those areas with the swirly doors? Not for me..." lesson pretty early but that didn't lead to grouping, or reading about it. I just kept happily playing the game as a single-player game, exploring and questing and killing stuff.

      In Wrath I actually hooked up with a guild (randomly, knew guilds existed but had no interest, but got chatting with someone questing in my area and one thing led to another) which had me pretty quickly (month or two later) tanking Naxx on my druid (the toon that had been leveling when I met the future guildie). I basically tanked some of Naxx, best I can recall, before having run an instance or even being aware that there were out-of-game resources ("Do you have a tank toon?" "Uh, I have a druid but it's a cat." "That'll do, push the bear button instead and c'mon in."). They talked me through enough for that particular run (they were just starting out, wasn't a clear or anything) and introduced me to Thotbott (sp?) as my first out-of-game resource and things kind of took off from there. That got me interested in grouping which led to 5-mans and raiding. By ToC (so, the next raid tier) that same druid was tanking a server-first >45 attempts remaining heroic clear. I still wasn't very good (and the other tank was stellar) but apparently I was good enough. It's not impossible to learn how to raid at max level. LFR might be a roadblock to that learning process but it can't be fixed by changing the leveling experience.

      Note, too, that it wasn't MY reaction to go out-of-game to read resources, it never would have occured to me (it's not like I went out of game for whatever other single-player RPGs I was playing at the time)... they had to tell me about it. My first instinct was to figure it out in-game and I don't think that's such a bad thing. The first time anyone without a support structure encounters an instance portal (and probably dying quickly to the trash just inside the door, &/or running away screaming), I suspect they do the same thing that I did... "whatever the hell THAT was, I'm not ready for it"... and they move on. The first instinct probably isn't to go research it.

      I don't think someone immediately going out and researching when they encounter something unknown is healthy. You're turning a game into work at that point. For progression end-game content, sure, but we're talking utter noobs here. I wouldn't even expect someone in a guild or with friends in the game to have a similar experience to mine but I'm glad I "grew up" the way I did... there are times to read about the game but there are times where you should just play it and learn your lessons that way.

      I don't think training a first-time player to be a raider as they level is a good idea. I think they should focus on providing enough enjoyable content to get them to max level and THEN send then an in-game note like "So, you've hit max level, congrats! You may have heard about this thing called raiding, if that sounds interesting check out Proving Grounds and once you've learned the skills well enough to reach Silver or Gold level you should be ready to start learning to raid!"

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    8. But in the end it did teach you. ;) Some would team up, some would just avoid them. Others like myself would try to do them alone and then look them up. To each their own in that case really.

      Awesome, have to love the "we are going to make you a tank" people. I've done that to a few people in my life too. Oh, a warrior, well I have this nice BoE shield, I'll give it to you if you tank for me. lol

      You got lucky with people that were willing to teach. I too was lucky that I got into a group that was willing to teach me as well. After doing so well in 5 mans, even if it took forever to make groups, I thought I was good enough to raid. To my surprise I was dead last on the raid team, but they took me along anyway and taught me. I had the tools because I found things like throtbot on my own before hand and had read about addons and such. But if it were not for the people willing to teach me I would have never become a raider.

      I think the opposite, I think looking up information to explain something you don't understand is a healthy thing to do. It is what I believe any rational person would do. If they do not know how to do something, they look to learn.

      I agree with you that I do not believe that teaching a first time player to become a raider is a good idea. But that is what blizzard wants to do pushing everyone into the LFR for gear. Even if you do not want to raid you most likely do want to get stronger. If the LFR is the only option to getting stronger, it is forcing people to raid. Then those people think they are now raiders. And while you can argue they are, in the LFR sense, they are just not ready for normal mode.

      I think I could get behind your idea of closing the door, so to speak, to raiding until they get the proving grounds done. That would keep people from hitting 90 and thinking, okay, this is the end of the game, I am going straight into it. Which really is what it seems like blizzard is trying to tell them. They are not giving them the chance to learn. They are saying, welcome to 90, now get raiding.

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    9. @Anon
      It's same world, but different sides. A lot of people didn't do group content. Because they didn't want to or didn't know about them. Or didn't care to get involved. Or whatever. It's how it was.
      You wanted to tank some heroic, people asked you for your defense rating and whatnot. You had to know.
      A lot of people didn't do max level heroics. People were fine with that. Fine with them being outside of their reach. Fine with raids being outside of their reach. Those who wanted to them, learned. From others or by themselves.

      You happened to find some group that decided they want you to do something for them. Otherwise you would've remained clueless and if you had ever wanted to get there on your own you would've had to learn.

      You were an offtank. Tagging along, learning from others. Exactly because eyou weren't all that interested.

      What I said was - if you wanted to do things, you learned. You didn't want to group so you didn't. You didn't want to MT a raid, so you didn't. Others wanted you and they taught you.

      There is no question that you can learn at 90. But before, if you wanted to do dungeons and raid you had to learn. You eventually had to learn as well. Now, this learning thing seems odd to people because they had no need of it. And still don't.
      ---
      TL,DR:
      If you see my original post: the point was that people just play and for what they do it's ok. That we shouldn't expect them to be any better because there's nothing asking them to get better.

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    10. That is what it comes down to. When the time comes that you want to do more, you have to learn. Either by someone teaching you, you teaching yourself, or learning in game.

      Someone teaching you in game is always possible. I was taught and I've taught many. There are decent people out there that will work with you. Teaching yourself is always possible too as there are a million and one resources out there to choose from. The one thing I do see is teaching in game. There does not seem to be a viable option for you to learn without some sort of help. The game does not teach on its own.

      As james said however, if you are playing everything solo, who cares. As long as you are happy, there is no reason to get better.

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  4. Oops, wrote up a full reply and then just lost it. Ah well. Summary below, enjoy the TL;DR (sorta). :)

    Re: Horridon - probably a tank issue, eating the cone or not resetting stacks.

    Re: Horridon doors - You know the fight, that's worth 20-30K on a fresh toon even if you "suck" at melee on that fight. I don't know why it makes that much difference but it pretty much does. Also, 250K is crazy high without a lot of gear unless you're avoiding door trash... that would rank for most classes, I believe.

    Re: Achievement... take pride if you get that achievement, it means you killed the end boss while it was still current. Why would you try to down-talk that being meaningful? I got mine being carried on an alt, I'll reserve the right to ignore MY achievement that I got and I'll celebrate a legitimate one like it's the first one I've gotten.

    Re: 300 stat food is a crock. 25 stats is, best case, a 0.1% dps increase and is probably going to be less. Tell your buddy in-game to focus on things that will actually make a difference. If you're constantly wiping due to missing enrages by 0.5 (or 0.3) seconds then go ahead, otherwise skip it and invest that money into flasks for all, those actually have some benefit (and I'd be hard-pressed to notice that my flask has dropped off in terms of chart performance and that's 1000 vs 25). Pre-potting and in-fight potting comes way before 300 food in the value to raid calculation. Gah, this discussion just pisses me off and I've already been through that cycle from a Matticus post from a while back.

    http://www.worldofmatticus.com/the-300-stat-food-question/

    Moving on.

    Re: LW catch-up, it sucks if you can't (or won't) buy the leather on the AH. I found even at stupid prices it was better to just buy the leather unless I could get XP from farming the skinnable mobs. Ench is even more annoying unless you're leveling 2 crafting professions at roughly the same time (even 1 won't sustain Ench) and you do end up with a lot of DE gear stuck in the mail between toons.

    Re: L90 Warlock, my Void Lord (whatever the Supremacy version is called) holds threat just fine for my Destro 'lock on the Island rares and lesser mobs as well, not sure why you'd be having issues with that.

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    1. The 250K number was meant on him only, not really over all. I can do 125, he takes double damage, so 250 would be my guess.

      I am going to take a look at that post as soon as I am done with replies. I already said that to them. I basically said, if I do 100K what is the difference if I do 100,200. If anything I can make that 200 up by just doing better. The food with not make or break me.

      I will catch up on enchanting because I have 2 leatherworkers, 2 blacksmiths and 1 tailor also coming up on that server. So it is just a matter of time. I guess I could buy the leather, but I always think of it as a waste of gold to spend money on something that I can easily get myself.

      I've always had issues with pet aggro as a lock. I changed to the talent you mentioned on the suggestion of a guild mate but have not touched it, besides making my daily cloth, since I have. So maybe I will have better results with it should I start playing it again.

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  6. Katzbalger-Arthas (US)July 30, 2013 at 6:15 AM

    As a rogue on Horridon, aoe dps really isn't what you should try for, you don't mention spec but unless you're assassination it's going to be pretty awful and even as assass it's pretty low compared to other classes, especially if it's lowish hp adds that die fast, since you have ramp up time spamming FOK to get poisons up and combo points to use on crimson tempest, then they're doing dot damage so it takes a while for those to amount to much. Best thing you can do for your group imo is single target dps on the important adds, so Dinomancer each door, Wastewalkers 1st door, Priests 2nd (plus get those kicks off!), Warlords 3rd, Beast Shaman 4th. The other adds really aren't that much of a problem, if you help burn down the major adds each door the more aoe focused classes should be able to deal with the others.
    As a hunter main, I know how it feels, you think 'it's a bunch of adds, now I aoe them all down!' right? Different for melee, a few cleaves are good but mainly you're better off focusing on single targetting them down 1 by 1 imo, throw out a little aoe only if it doesn't reduce your single target much, like if you're zerging down a venom priest it's low and you have 5 combo points pop crimson tempest on the other adds, but then go back to single target on your next priority.
    It may not seem like you're doing as much, but honestly 1 of the adds 100% dead is better than 3 adds 40% dead, it's 1/3 of the sand traps, venom volleys, frozen orbs or lightning totems gone and that'll be a significant effect on the raid's damage taken.
    This is how my guild finally got it down first. We had everybody as soon as the first of the 3 'big' adds came out on a door switch and burn it hard, then aoe a bit, add tank would mark one of the 2 big adds that came out together and we'd burn that, then usually dinomancer would spawn and we'd burn him to 50%, shut the door, last big add, then finish the dinomancer and finally aoe the small adds down.

    Leveling leatherworking....I have every profession maxed and leatherworking was the absolute worst by far! I'd honestly just stick to keeping your skinning current, store whatever you skin as you level, then every now and then when you're a good few levels above the mobs you need leather from, go back and be able to aoe big bunches down fast. Plus pick out your 'problem spots', those places in the leveling where it's a stupid amount of mats or difficult to get ones, and use the Darkmoon Faire +5 profession quest at that point. Also try and grab the Blingtron daily on that char, there's a reasonably decent drop rate on Fire Spirit, which gives you +3-5 to primary professions. I'm 99.9% certain these don't drop if your professions are maxed, which is why if you look at Wowhead it says 2% drop rate. On my lowbie alts and those leveling professions, I seem to get them every day or 2.

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    1. Yeah, assassination.

      I put myself on dinomancer duty. I was always the first one on him and kept him interrupted. When he was not up I did like you suggested, mostly focused on the big adds and threw in a fan and tempest here and there.

      I think, as you said, it is the hunter mentality. Mow 'em down. But I even stress to people then, big adds first. That really is the key to the doors. Little adds go down so easy anyway so just mixing in a little AoE takes care of them.

      I can't wait for darkmoon for that 5. I am in the thick leather phase on that character now and I am getting rugged, so that means I need to buy some or go back. I really hate that feeling. Just wish they would update it some.

      Never thought of bling. I never get them on my main characters but my mains are all maxed so that might be why. Nice idea, thanks.

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