- I decided to try the LFR on some other characters this week.
- As always, it was a mistake.
- When will blizzard understand that any level of difficulty in random content just does not work?
- When will I be smart enough to realize that blizzard will never learn and just quit?
- As runs go I've had worse, even if doing it this time around was not exactly fun.
- Blizzard has to do something to the LFR to try and make it fun.
- After all, we play a game to have fun don't we?
- Well, I do at least.
- I figured I would give it a try on my healers because the one hour seven minute wait for a damage dealer did not seem all that attractive and I will not tank them.
- Even if blizzard offered to send me a check in the mail for 50 bucks every time I tanked one I still would not tank one.
- The time thing is another issue all in its own.
- I think I could deal with the crap a little better if I did not have to spend so much time submerged in it.
- They keep saying LFR is something people can do on their lunch hour.
- Where are all these jobs that have 5 hour lunch hours?
- Really, I want to know, I could definitely use getting a new job where I have a 5 hour lunch hour.
- Heck, even the best of the best runs when entering the queue as a damage dealer it will take a hour sometimes, plus 20 minutes wait time.
- That is best case scenario most of the time, an hour + including the wait.
- That would mean I would need to have at least a 3 hour lunch break to do it.
- 30 minutes to get home from work, 20 minutes wait, an hour to do it, and 30 minutes back to work.
- Okay, so I would need a 2 hour 20 minutes lunch break, at least.
- So where are all these jobs blizzard talks about where you can do this on your lunch break?
- I really want to know because I must have the worlds shittiest job because my lunch hour is actually 30 minutes.
- Even if I could get home fast, by the time my queue popped I would need to be back at work.
- I think blizzard really needs to touch base with reality.
- LFR is not something that you can do on your lunch hour.
- LFR is hard core raiding without hard core skills.
- It is raiding for massive amounts of time, something reserved for those hard core raiders.
- I spent more time in one LFR than I did in the actual raid this week.
- And I raided 2 nights this week and still spent more time in one LFR.
- Yes, LFR needs to be adjusted big time.
- It needs to be made quicker, easier, and into something that might be considered fun.
- If people want challenge they can do grouped content, not random content.
- Didn't they learn from cataclysm that challenge and random do not go well together?
- Another thing they really need to change with the LFR is if you have never done it before, always give you a fresh run.
- Seriously, it is annoying doing it for the first time and needing to do it 4 freaking times before you can move to the second part.
- I joined in on my priest healer, hey, it had the baggie and I was willing to give it a shot, might as well heal right.
- I have not healed in quite some time and was still sitting on a low item level, 506 I think, but I should be more than capable of doing it.
- The required item level is only 496 after all, and I will touch on that mistake later.
- I also filled in to heal for a boss or two in ToT so if I can do that I should be fine here.
- I joined in on the last boss.
- With 5 stacks of determination.
- Well, that sure made me feel like one hell of a great healer after not having done it in so long.
- We wiped, 2 times, and then we finally finished it.
- So my "instant" healer baggie queue took 12 minutes actually, and another 50 minutes in there.
- So one hour for one boss.
- All for a baggie with nothing worthwhile in it and a repair bill that the random gold and the baggie gold did not even cover.
- That is another change they need to make to the LFR.
- It is bad enough they group you with a bunch of people that have no clue what they are doing and are unwilling to listen to people that are trying to teach them, but they make us pay for the right to be there with repair bills.
- F you blizzard, seriously.
- Remove durability losses from LFR.
- So I queue again, this time no baggie.
- Not sure why there was even a baggie last time being it took 12 minutes to get it anyway.
- But this time with no baggie I get in instantly.
- Okay, make me wait 12 minutes, give me a baggie and let me in instantly because I am really needed and I get no baggie?
- Working as intended blizzard?
- I get in on the second boss, 3 stacks of determination.
- Holy crap, not only do I still not get in on the first boss, but they give me another horrible group.
- Blizzard hates me, they really hate me.
- Even if doing the last boss I felt like a god healing, did 140K with the stacks and even finished 11th in DPS, this time around I could not help but think, I am just way too out of practice and maybe I should not queue again.
- People start dropping off the pull.
- I am doing everything I can to keep people up, rolling through every tool in my toolbox trying my best.
- We get to the rook transition and nearly half the raid is dead now and I am OOM.
- Yes, OOM that fast, when I can normally go the entire fight with no mana issues.
- People are dropping like crazy and I am feeling completely useless, I can't keep anyone up.
- Any healer knows that feeling I am talking about, the feeling of complete helplessness.
- We revive a few people and continue to push on only to see rook go into transition again but if that was not bad enough, a few seconds later, the few smart people that had switched to He transition him.
- They had 3 stacks, are you telling me they still have not figured out how to stop tunneling rook?
- We wipe.
- I run back, feeling completely useless as a healer, and consider staying for a moment, consider helping this group out, and decide for my sanity it is not worth it.
- I drop group and log off the game, feeling as if I just wasted my time and the time of 24 others, because I just could not do it.
- I feel as if the entire wipe was all my fault, like I should have done something to save them, and I couldn't.
- I log back on later that day and figure I will try again.
- Yes, I know, I am an idiot and a glutton for punishment.
- I enter queue and get in on the third boss.
- Oh come the F on.
- All I want to do is finish the damn raid, give me a fresh run.
- Again, Blizzard, if someone does not have the achievement for the wing always give them a fresh run.
- I start running toward the boss and get to where you need to run through all the sha.
- I am looking around at all the trash they did not clear and wondering, how the hell did they make it through here.
- I say, screw it, and drop group.
- Oddly enough I did not get the 15 minute deserter.
- Perhaps the game realizes I never do that, so why penalize me for it.
- Perhaps the game realized if they made me wait 15 minutes I might not try again and they would lose the pleasure of torturing me some more.
- I enter the queue again, attempt # 4 for a fresh run.
- I get a fresh run.
- We one shot the first boss, we one shot the second boss, this is more like it.
- I start to feel like this is the run I should always get, this is what all runs should be like, this is what should be considered the worst run ever, I should not be referring to it as a great run, this should be the worst any runs ever gets.
- If the worst any run ever gets is the bosses going down in one shot, with some mistakes and some deaths, but still a kill, the LFR would be fine.
- My joy of the first two bosses would not last long however, I still needed to kill the third to get my achievement and that might still end up being an issue.
- My healing numbers are getting better as I am getting more used to doing it again.
- Having a group that does not go out of their way to stress you out goes a long way in making a healer feel better.
- It was enough to make me realize that my last attempt on the protectors with that other group was not because I was out of practice but it was really just that bad of a group.
- No matter how good I was, even if I had the best of the best in gear and skill, I probably would have still not been able to heal that group.
- Made me feel a little better, but when people die and you are the healer you can not help but think it was your fault.
- I am sure other healers know exactly what I am talking about.
- Third boss becomes a brick wall however as we wipe 5 times.
- I got to go into the test for the first time as a healer however.
- I got there and was like, what the hell do I do?
- I did not prepared as a healer and did not read up on it.
- I know, that is not like me.
- Oh well, I will just heal the people in there.
- Greater heal, max health, greater heal, max health, greater heal, max health, oh, have to dispel, done, out.
- Really? Was that all there is to the healer challenge?
- Compared to the tank and the damage dealer one that one seems pretty unfair.
- You just need to go in there and basically do nothing.
- The tank one you can die in if you mess up, the damage dealer one you can die in if you mess up, the healer one can not be messed up, at least not in the LFR version.
- I have seen healers die in there, how is that even possible?
- Each stack of determination my numbers went up.
- I feel super powerful now.
- So powerful I think I might have even been able to heal that one group with this buff.
- Or maybe not.
- Woohoo, and as a disc priest, damage the boss, heal the people, this is going to rock.
- Too bad it seems like everyone else that went into the test failed at it.
- Is this the good group that one shot the first two bosses or did I turn my head and everyone left and was replaced by exact replicas?
- Jesus I have a raid, I need to leave, can we just do this.
- I started almost three hours before raid time and even if we one shot the first two bosses we ended up being stuck here and boss three and raid time is in a few minutes.
- Again, is this something you can squeeze in during a lunch break?
- I want to work at blizzard if they think lunch breaks are 5 hours long, it must rock to work there.
- We finally down it, and I am still late for my own freaking raid.
- The LFR needs a lot of fixing.
- Speaking of one fix, there is no reason my (now) 512 priest should have more life than a warrior tank.
- Okay, I did not have more life than him, but he only had 27K more life than me.
- Not right, really not right.
- He had all island 496 and 535 gear and a 437 weapon and a 442 shield and one 437 ring and one 450 trinket.
- He was not LFR ready, he should be in heroic dungeons or MV LFR.
- But no, he was our tank for one attempt.
- The group chases him, and rightfully so.
- You can not go and give out 496 gear like candy and then make the item level to get into the new LFR 496.
- It just does not work, case and point the runs I was in.
- Damage dealers doing less than 40K DPS because they had low weapons and all 496 gear and 535 island gear.
- Healers in all badly itemized 496 and 535 gear.
- Tanks like the one I mentioned.
- 40K DPS was bad, but acceptable, for MV LFR, you should not be allowed to queue for SoO if that is all you can do regardless of item level.
- They need to add some sort of minimum standards to LFR.
- Not sure how they would manage it, but something needs to be done.
- It would be really hard to create a level of acceptable performance.
- Even more so for healers, the better the group is, the less healing they need, so how would that work?
- Low heals could then be a function of being in a great group, or being a bad healer.
- I did the third part of ToT, to try and get the pet from the saurok guy, being the one that drops in LFR is unique to LFR, so I either gear it there or I never get it.
- Being you can get it with a coin as well as a drop I figured I will do that a few times each week trying to get it.
- Seems like a lot are doing it, the groups were not really all that bad and there were some decent players in it.
- But there were also some that had me scratching my head.
- I'll call it a tale of two healers, being I was healing so I noticed the other healers.
- First boss, one healer at 12K and another at 9K.
- I did not check their gear, not a lot of healing needs to be done on that first boss, maybe they were just a little slow and me and another healer that did well ate up all the healing.
- It is quite possible you know, so I do not fault them, but I noticed it.
- Second boss, more of the same, 17K and 12K this time.
- Okay, while waiting in front of the door to the third boss, no my pet did not drop, I decided to inspect them.
- The higher of the two bad healers was really lucky in LFR. They had five 528 pieces, two 540 pieces upgraded to 548, and the rest were either 526 or 530, meaning all their other stuff was upgraded once or twice. They had one bad ring, a 496.
- The lesser of the two bad healers was in mostly 450 gear, I am guessing they got in on the strength of their DPS gear and didn't exactly have decent healing gear. They had a 496 or 2, but that was about it.
- The first healer I immediately labeled a bad healer. There is no way in hell that someone that out gears me by at least 25 item levels can be doing an eighth of what I am when I am out of practice.
- Even if they were not trying they should have been able to run circles around my numbers.
- The other healer, even if they were dead last on the healing meters, earns my respect.
- They could have entered the queue as a healer and just DPSed. But no, they are actually trying to heal.
- With all those people around them that really out gear them, and possibly out skill them, of course their healing numbers were going to be low.
- They were actually trying to learn how to heal and being everyone lived and it was not even close to a problem I would never in a million years complain about someone trying to learn.
- As a matter of fact I would praise someone that is trying to learn, more so trying to learn in that most hostile of settings known and the dreaded LFR.
- Now if we were in dire need because we were having issues I might have said, we do not have the room for someone to learn, but between myself and the number two healer, anything anyone else could do was just gravy.
- Stuff like this would mess up my minimum performance idea.
- How can you really judge healers?
- Damage dealers and tanks, maybe, but healers, it is hard to judge them by numbers.
- While I might support the guy in 528 gear being shown the door the guy in the 450 gear really was doing about as good as his gear would allow him and you could tell he was just learning.
- So in theory, while saying it make sense, there is no way to make a minimum required, at least for healers.
- For damage dealers it is another story.
- I've seen more wipes to enrage timers than I have ever seen before.
- I've seen more wipes to simple mechanics than I have ever seen before.
- As I always say, the role of the damage dealer is the most important role and it has never been more apparent than in the LFRs.
- While there is a lot more to it if I simplify it damage dealers have two jobs.
- Follow mechanics and do damage.
- Both are equally important, like that one group that turned rook twice before the other two to show mechanics matter or the group that did the mechanics right on the third boss, but still did not have enough DPS to get it done until we were at 5 stacks.
- That could be judged a little easier.
- On one of the protector fights someone got the circle and despite being told before the pull to stack when you have it, and the consistent raid warnings the raid leader spammed when they were running way from everyone, they still kept running.
- It was funny seeing the entire raid chase this person and them continuing to run.
- Where is the common sense, even if they missed the prepull explanation or the big red in the middle of your screen raid warnings letters over and over, the fact that there are a dozen people chasing you should make a light bulb go over your head and say, if this many people are running to me, maybe that means I am supposed to be with them.
- I gave up and the second person I saw doing the same thing I let run away, and then used leap of faith to get them into the group at the right time.
- If they will not come to us, I will bring them too us.
- One of the few awesome uses I have found for leap of faith so far.
- On the 4th fight, the sha fight, with about 6 or 7 stacks or so when we finally downed it, we still had 5 damage dealers under 50K.
- That is a minimum performance that you can find a way to institute.
- While you can not have people heal more than people need to be healed, you can have something that says, if you are still not pulling 100K with a 35% buff and AoE phases, you should not be allowed to enter the LFR system at all, ever, until you learn how to play your class better.
- You could throw a land shark you got from blingtron and pull over 100K most likely during the add phase.
- So yeah, it seems like an entire monday random thoughts about the LFR again.
- Just be glad I do not give you the run through I did on my shaman as a healer as well.
- But I will say, I can surely feel those buffs.
- 510 item level, even without stacks of determination, pulling over 125K on all bosses, yeah, I can feel the buffs they got, big time.
- I did not even have a healing addon set up for it.
- Yes, it has been that long since I healed on my shaman because my guild has so many of them to start off with.
- Good thing every ability I have I have a mouse over macro for.
- Makes it so easy to heal if your addon crashes, or you make a stupid mistake like I did and forget you did not have a healing addon set up.
- Instead of going into details on my shamans run I will just leave it with a simple summation.
- 4 hours, and I never finished.
- Something you can do during your lunch break, as blizzard says.
- Working as intended.
- Have a great day.
Stars Reach My Destination
1 hour ago
Ah LFR. My friend ran some this morning, he is a really nice guy. He'll moan like a normal person but he's not prone to flying off the handle. We were on timeless isle getting the last mob for the Killing Time achievement. The aggro there doesn't work right. Person A is minding their own business killing one mob with no aoe at all. Person B pulls a nearby mob and dies/goes out of range, person B's mob comes and beats on person A. We died and I grouched about the stupid unfair aggro. My friend "ffs, people are so f-ing stupid. they should be banned" I was taken aback as this was so out of character. He doesn't swear normally, he's also quite laid back, and yeah it was odd. His response "I did LFR this morning." and it had put him in a foul mood.
ReplyDeleteI made a decision in 5.4 that I wasn't going to run LFR. I have my legendary cloak so don't need drops. The gear is 528, I won't waste VP upgrading LFR gear so my 530 upgrades from Throne are fine. There is no reason to go on my main. As for alts, well if I won't subject myself for my main why would I for a character that doesn't matter? I'm getting sets of timeless gear for them, and then begging for hc scenario groups hoping for 516's. If I find an alt I like then when I can pass Proving Grounds Silver - minimum - and I have as best gear I can without LFR then I might see if I can get in a flex run.
Blizz really have got LFR all wrong. In all honesty I don't have time to run LFR these days. The reward isn't worth the investment. The queue time alone makes it questionable. Then with how awful the runs can be and yeah it takes much too long. They've really said something you can do in your lunch break? Are they crazy? Or are they just selectively advertising it? You know how some companies say "for as low price as x" and you can just get it for x but it's without everything that makes it worth getting.
I get that raids are supposed to be the endgame or whatever. I do wish they'd added more 5 mans. They are good for alts you just feel like playing. The current 5 mans just don't work. I wanted some healing practice, queued for 15 mins and got a tank and dps that were slumming it, for valor I guess, and I didn't have to use one heal the whole dungeon. It also means when you get a bit of gear they are complete faceroll and that's no fun, sure make them a bit easy but not I don't have to do anything easy. I have soloed a lot of the hc dungeons myself getting achievements for the meta that I missed. My guild healer was rather surprised I managed The Obvious Solution but I one shot it, gear inflation is ridiculous.
Oh and that baggy thing. I think maybe more people queue when it's the baggy and so it sort of leads to the opposite, which I guess is working as intended. Everytime I've queued for a bag on my tank I've had to wait, without it I'm often in instantly, except when I'm not.
The island aggro thing is really crazy, they must have broke something there because I know exactly what you mean. My pet is almost useless there as a tank, but I have figured out some ways around it. ;)
DeleteI want to do LFR on alts because it is better gear than what they have, but I hate the system as is. They really need to fix it. It is a complete mess and a total failure for its intended purpose.
I am not kidding about that lunch break thing. It has been said by multiple people at various points. I know it was meant figuratively, not to actually mean that short, but still, when it takes 3 or 4 or 5 hours to do one wing of the LFR and I do not do the actual raid that often, there is something wrong with it.
Gear inflation has been a joke this expansion and that is why everything gets so trivial when you gear up, it is also why catching up is near impossible. You need gear to catch up, but you can not get into stuff to catch up without the gear. It is a catch 22.
I think the system is not updating on need fast enough. Like when it needs healers it adds to bag and hour later. So then it gets a ton of healers and they wait. But then they are not needed to an hour later the bag is taken away. Now you queue and are in instantly because they actually are needed but they didn't update it to show they are needed again. I think it is more that than anything else. Just a very slow system in catching up and offering the baggie.
The first month or so of a new tier are always horrible in LFR. Have you already forgotten the early Durumu and Lei Shen fights specifically? Double-digit determination buffs were NORMAL. I have yet to see a SoO determination buff over 2 personally and the highest I've heard of from anyone I know is 5.
ReplyDeleteAfter a while in ToT, once most folks knew the fights, they were one- or two-shots for the most part. SoO will get there too. So yes, working as intended, LFR will need to provide interest for SOME players for most or all of a tier... not you, not me, but SOME players. That's why there's some challenge, this is their progression content. If you don't find value right now then don't run it, simple as that.
Plus, LFR *IS* pretty damned easy even compared to Flex... the problem is the tanks who are actually dps but wanted a shorter queue. Healers who don't actually push any buttons. DPS who, as you point out, can't break 50K no matter what kind of buff they get. The problem, as is usually the case with LFR, is the players a lot more than the content. If you have 12 competent players in the group, including 1 tank, 2 healers and a handful of dps, you'll probably get the kill.
I'm only running LFR right now with players I know. Doesn't have to be a lot, just some, and always including a tank. And if nobody gives a very quick strategy outline before each pull (with clarifications after wipes with brief and simple instructions on how to improve), someone from my group does it. The runs haven't exactly been clean but they've been successful. And I'm not talking a group of 15, there are usually only 3-6 of us in the group. It doesn't take a big core to have some success.
The partial runs first time in do suck but I suspect this early, with all of the people dropping group, 90% of the available spots are for in-process runs... your 1hr queue as a dps would be 5+hr if you forced a fresh run only, which would just mean not queuing. When everyone else makes that same decision then no in-process runs would ever get fill-ins and they'd fall apart as soon as someone drops. You think that'd be a better design? Yes, I'd love fresh runs my first time in as well but there are solid reasons why that doesn't often (or even usually) happen, especially this early in a tier.
Regarding the bags, I've noticed that switching away and to whatever you want to run can trigger the bonus bag to show up, it's happened enough for me to probably be more than a random thing. So, if you want LFR, flip to Dungeon, then back to LFR... I don't think the notification auto-updates all that often, switching tabs seems to force an update.
As for Island aggro, I agree completely... I'm getting really tired of being one-shot by things that shouldn't even notice me, especially from things like charges that I don't even have a chance to avoid. With the long leashes on a lot of mobs (I mean, elder turtles being pulled into the Celestials arena? Really?) there's a ridiculous amount of griefing possible. I wouldn't say half my deaths at this point were caused by other players but I think it's rapidly getting to that point. The first week was almost all on me but since then most of my deaths have been from mobs I wasn't even in combat with at the time.
No, I have not forgotten at all. If anything that supports what I have been saying. They need to remove all that crap from LFR, when will they learn. We go through this all the time every time a new raid is released, stop releasing it with crap like that in it.
DeleteLike who is the genius that allowed the defensive stance thing to even be in LFR? Really, I would like to kick him in his nether regions.
At not point, ever, should anything be put into LFR that one person, either not listening, or trolling, could use to wipe the entire raid. Seriously, who at blizzard thought this was a good idea?
And FYI, people still can not do durumu. When I did it the other day 21 people died to the maze. Not kidding. Me, 1 tank and 2 DPS were the only ones that survived. Attempt 2, 18 died, attempt 3 12 died, but we downed it anyway.
If that is not a reason why it should have never been added, I do not know what is. That is not meant for the LFR community. LFR should be tuned the way 5 man dungeons are. Go in, kill things, collect loot, leave.
Flex is WAY easier than LFR. Because in flex I make my team and I am not stuck with others. Heck, heroic raiding is easier than LFR using that analogy. Seriously.
A better design is to "flex" LFR. Make it like scenarios designed for whoever is there, so if people drop, it gets easier, if there are no healers, there is an NPC that drops healing rings, etc. They have the tech, use it.
I've had some of the yungol follow me all the way to the celestial bosses, even killed three of them in the arena. They have some long leashes.
And now, have you noticed, they dismount and daze you all the time. Before you could run past, even take a hit or two, now they look at you and breath and you are dismounted and stunned. They have to fix that crap. If I am riding past them that means I do not want to fight them. If anything, let them get their shot in and let me go. Or at worst, if they want to dismount me, dismount me, do not daze me. Again, who comes up with these stupid ideas?
I wonder about blizzard and if they are not a bunch of trolls themselves.
Developer 1: "Hey, lets make these guys charge anyone within a 5 mile radius even if they are not on their aggro list and listen to the cries on the forums"
Developer 2: "I can beat that one, lets make it daze them and dismount them and fire off a one shot ground effect the instant they charge so they can't get out of it because they were dazed."
Developer 1: "Fucking awesome dude, lets do it. lol"
I'm also feeling the OOM pinch on my Disc priest, I've gotten five upgrades in 5.4, and only one of them gave me more spirit, one had more, but it lacked gem slots so a spirit gem made the old piece with more, and three had none.
ReplyDeleteTwo of those 0 Spirit pieces were Timeless Pieces I used a Burden on, despite being in a heal spec, it gave me items better suited to DPS. I don't know, should I go Holy and then see if I get more Spirit?
Blizzard still thinks that mana management is fun.
They gave healers the shaft with those pieces because it treats spirit as a secondary stat (which it is in all fairness) and you only have a chance of if being on gear.
DeleteI think if you are in healing spec you should get spirit on it no matter what. I feel your pain getting a piece, or two, without spirit after using a burden on it.
A prot paladin in my guild has used 3 burdens on gear. He is prot main spec, ret off spec, with prot as his specialization, can you guess what he has gotten each time? All 3 were intellect pieces. And the coin he used in flex, gave him an intellect piece.
Since when is intellect a prot stat?
I think there are some serious issues with the loot engine since the patch.
Did a heroic scenario on my hunter and fianlly got the weapon (now that I have a 548 one of course). It had strength on it. Not kidding.
I've complained about mana management not being fun since the beginning of cataclysm when nearly every healer in my guild quit. Heck, all of them did and I have not heard from most of them again. The only one I still see is now a DPS, they refuse to heal.
Blizzard needs to let spell selection matter, not mana management. Just like a tank has to rotate the best abilities for maximum survivability and threat generation and a damage dealer need to use the correct rotation or priority while trying to get the most out of their class, a healer should have a rotation and not be restricted by mana. I agree with you, lets petition blizzard. :)
Got another Burden and tried to replace the Spiritless bracers, and it gave me Spirit this time.
DeleteOne of the other problem pieces is the belt, so I'm going to wait until my tailor gets the White Cloud Belt recipe (out of around 6,000 PvP recipes) and make one of those. It has more Spirit and more gem slots to play with.
Congrats on finally getting the piece they should have given you in the first place.
DeleteMy two tailors learned the DPS ones, of course not the healing ones. It is like the game knows what you are looking for.
My leatherworker knows the leather healing ones, the mail healing ones, but does it learn my hunter ones? Nope, because I might actually want them.
The game likes to mess with us, just to keep us playing. ;)
Oh LFR, how do I hate you? Let me count the ways, er, toons:
ReplyDelete1. Hunter - running through 4 wings for Runestones (ToT 3-4, SoO 1-2) It's currently at 9/12 which means I'm 3 weeks away even if I've got 3 per week for the last 3 weeks. Long queues if I'm not going with a healer/tank friend but lowish stress and it's nice to be the DPS carry occasionally.
2. Disc Priest - running through 6 wings for Secrets (ToT 1-4, SoO 1-2) Currently 10/20 so I'm not going anywhere soon. Partial runs seem more prevalent as a healer, it took 10+ queues to finish those 6 instances. Healer queues are faster, little more stress than DPS, but I always feel like I'm under performing. I only break 80k hps when I spam group heals, normally I'm around 40-60k smite healing and tossing out PWS/Penance. I might just need to enable logs and get more practice with spirit shell, the totals in recount don't really help me see what's happening and where I could improve.
3. Protadin - Finally dusted this guy off and after decking him out in 496 timeless (and 450 scenario weapon with zero desire to grind honor for a pvp one) I sent him into ToT LFR to get his head bashed in a few times. And it got bashed in. Thankfully most (~70%) of the other tanks were willing to help me with the finer points I might not have noticed as a dps/healer, mostly taunt swaps. My favorite interaction with the raid as a whole though was just before Lei Shen. I queued for Pinnacle for the first time and got put into a group that had just killed the twins. I whispered the other tank to ask for advice, he replied that I should watch youtube guides before que'ing (didn't ask if I'd watched, just assumed I was a noob) and then 3 minutes after any responses to me he says in raid chat that he was "busy explaining things to the noob tank because he hasn't done this before." The first response from the raid was "BS he's gemmed and enchanted!" That was the high point of my weekend. He's now at 501 ilvl with ToT 2p set bonus so I might have to venture into SoO with him next weekend.
I am no disc expert because I have not been playing it much this expansion but I've almost abandoned spirit shell since the changes.
DeleteIf there is a huge predictable incoming burst of damage I will set it up, otherwise I do not use it like I used to, which was almost always.
Just a personal decision, not saying it is the right thing, but it does not feel worth it in man cases.
I have tried the pure smite thing and I have read and heard many who say they have huge success with it but being I only do LFR with my priest and I always tend to not trust those other healers like I would in a real raid, I always end up having to straight heal. I see the same as you however. 40-60 smite healing with the POM and shield on the main tank and from 80-120 when I go straight heals, but that usually drains me pretty quick when I am stuck doing it for any extended period.
You can get a 476 shield and 476 weapon from the timeless island for 10K coins each. You can get a 463 weapon from archeology or klaxxi exalted. Might be better than the scenario 450 weapon.
You experienced why I do not tank LFR. You will get usually 1 of three types of tanks. 1) The know everything better than you type. 2) The know nothing and don't want to know type. 3) The silent treatment.
Usually it ends up with me dying because the other tank will not taunt when they are supposed to or them not letting me have the boss when I am supposed to.
Then, no matter what, you are the bad tank. The fact you tanked 12/12 ToT means nothing, you are the bad tank because you "let" yourself get to many stacks. Like it is my fault the other tank won't taunt when it us his turn.
Blizzard could offer me real cash, as in a check in my mailbox every single week for 50-100 bucks per LFR I tanked and I still would not tank. It is not worth the stress.
Make a DPS offspec, set your specificity to prot, and DPS in your tank gear. You will still do more DPS than 1/2 the people in there and have a hell of a lot less stress. As long as you stay between 7-11 in the standings no one will notice you are DPSing in tank gear.
Quick disc comment that might be useful for comparison purposes (whip out the tape measure, we're measuring discs!), my i511ish disc priest built specifically for full-time Atonement (only as much spirit as needed to cover the primary rotation of PW:Solace > Penance > Cascade (cast on self every time) > Smite (only if nothing is coming off CD within the cast time), crit>haste>mastery otherwise, Archangel more or less on CD unless I know a big hit is coming up) is doing pretty fantastic hps (and dps) in SoO LFR so far despite generally using few or no Disc signature spells (PW:S, Barrier, Shell). 98% of the time I'm attacking a mob. I love Atonement, especially in LFR when there are almost always folks who can use a heal... 50-60K dps, 70K+ hps (I'll hit over 80K if there aren't any high calibre healers in the group... most have at least one, though, so 70K is more typical). I also find it to be just as relaxing as dpsing... the better I "dps", the better I heal, there's zero whack-a-mole required as with traditional healing roles. If I was better at target switching (that's a flaw of mine, even as a dps) or used mouse-over macros I'd probably carry a bit more spirit and pop PW:S and PoM on the active tank but with my current setup it would cost me too much time and it would decrease my HPS. "Always be casting" and for me with my limitations, that's best served by full Atonement.
DeleteI use mouse overs. Everything is a mouse over. I am addicted to them and can not play without them.
DeleteHeck, I even have mouse over macros for my hunter, black arrow more so, so I can throw it on a mob I know will live, like the boss, even if I am focusing another mobs.
Mouse over macros are awesome. You should give it a shot. I can't live without them now.
As for the topic at hand. I've asked this of many people and heard what I am sure will be the same thing you will say, but I just can't do it.
How do you manage to do atonement only and not have the urge to heal? I try, I really do, but I have to start healing. Just can not bring myself to trust the others will get the job done.
Thanks for the input!
DeleteRe: Disc - I'll try that setup for a bit R. Right now I'm using mindbender for the extra dps+mana but I have thought about switching to PWSolace, your input is enough to make me switch for a bit. @GE I'll have to experiment with some mouseOver macros. So far I'm quick enough with my grid+naga but for lots of things (CDs mostly) I'm still a clicker.
Re: Atonement - It's not so much faith in the other healers, it's faith that the smart healing will work well. There's nothing wrong with tossing out some extra heals/shields but 90% of the time atonement (and dealing with big damage spots) is more than enough for the (LF)raid.
Re: Protadin - I really enjoy tanking but don't have time (ambition) to get into a regular group, so I'll suffer through some LFRs to get my fix. If it helps others get through the instances it's just an added bonus. I went the mogu runes route with my timeless coins, and replaced all of my <496 gear in that single sweep through ToT, with the exception of shield for which I converted JP -> honor (was only 200 honor short, I think the original 1100 was gained during Cata). I'll see how far into proving grounds I can get before shipping off to the shores of eternal sorrows.
Everyone says that Tess but I just have little faith in it. I guess I have to take the leap one day and do it and if we die, we die.
DeleteI've read so many say it will be fine. I am just not that trusting of a person I guess. lol
To answer the question about how I avoid going "healer"... it's very easy, when I'm on that toon, I consider myself a dps. I limit myself to the Atonement-friendly buttons, of course, but otherwise it's about maximizing my dps to maximize my hps. I also take the glyph to allow Penance on the move at the cost of a bit of mana... that's highly recommended. I'm about 80% functional while mobile. Most dps classes can't say that (hunters aside). So yeah, just think like a dps when you're doing Atonement and you'll maximize your performance. Simple as that. :)
DeleteShort answer for the mouse-over thing - I basically can't do conditional buttons, including mouse-over macros... I mean, I could technically have a single-button macro that did one thing when I'm not hovering over something and another if I am but my mouse is typically heading for whatever the next mob is that I'm going to be attacking so that type of button would go very wrong in a hurry the way I play.
Here's how I look at Atonement mentally, if it helps.
Penance is your AoE heal (literally)... each burst will go, instantly, to whatever target is at the lowest health at that moment. It's a raid-wide smart AoE heal on a short cooldown and costs very little mana - it also doesn't really have a cast time, it's more or less an instant for the first person who needs healing.
PW:Solace is your HoT... aside from giving you a bit of mana back (and costing none), it hits for a decent, instant amount of healing that also goes to whoever needs it most at that time and the DoT component works as a HoT component where it'll give a small heal to whoever needs it after that.
Cascade I use only on myself to ensure it's used for healing, not damage (you don't get any Atonement from that one) and again, goes to those who need it most. I've considered Halo for this but for whatever reason I like Cascade. Might just be the visual, I may be that shallow.
Smite is only used as a filler, it has a cast time (like Heal, or Greater Heal) so it won't instantly save anyone's ass but, again, it'll go to whoever's at lowest health.
That's an UNBELIEVABLE toolkit considering it's also mana-light... if you do need to switch to actual healing for a specific reason (say, during a period of heavy damage where there aren't any mobs to Atonement off of), you can spare some mana to do that.
And I don't know about you but an instant smart heal that'll heal the lowest health person in the raid is absolutely, 100% of the time, going to be faster than I am at casting an instant on someone who I have to actually select/mouse-over/etc. Every time. I don't see how that couldn't be the case. And doing it manually, you can do it WRONG. Wrong spell, wrong target, etc. Atonement is as efficient as it could be, my overheal in LFR is ridiculously low.
What Atonement CAN'T do is push 150K+ hps for periods of heavy burst damage to the tanks... it's more of a support role, although an LFR with 6 Atonement priests would be the smoothest run you've ever had. If it's a fight on normal or heroic where that type of burst is needed from every healer, yeah, you switch to direct heals for that and then switch back afterward. Nothing stopping you from doing that. But otherwise, Atonement is healing exactly who should be healed at that moment. Yeah, if someone standing in fire happens to have the lowest health then that person will be healed but in most circumstances, that isn't a bad thing. Does make it hard to let someone die as a healer (intentionally) but not having that temptation isn't a bad thing, either. ;)
TL;DR: Trust Atonement. It's smarter and faster than we are. And when you're doing more healing than any other healer in LFR while being top 12 in dps, you'll realize that you aren't relying on others to do the healing... you're actually the one carrying them. It's a nice feeling. :)
I guess if I go into it as a damage dealer and think of it only from the point of a damage dealer I might have a lot more success with it.
DeleteLike I said, my problem is I watch health bars, even on my hunter. If I am on my priest I just feel compelled to heal. I know it sounds odd, but I guess it is some sort of healer mentality I am stuck on from years ago.
-Spent 4+ hours in an LFR on Sunday... Only did 3 bosses since I had done Nazgrim on Saturday. Half of that time was waiting for tanks actually.
ReplyDelete-We got a couple of heroic raiders in with us for a few pulls on Shamans. Hunter that was 9/14H and a DK. The hunter was doing 380K dps or something insane like that. I was already doing about 180k which was almost double the 3rd dps, so his dps was just insane.
-I have no idea where Blizz gets the "do LFR during lunch" idea. Like you said, you'd need at least 2hrs even everything went smoothly.
-Regarding iLvL, was having a similar discussion with people in LFR while waiting for tanks. We (the 3 or 4 os us who were actually talking) agreed that the iLvL should have at least been 502, maybe 510 even. No reason that an LFR player shouldn't have 510 iLvL. 502s from LFR plus a couple of valor pieces, easily should have had 510 before 5.4 came out.
-Saw a lot of enrage timers as well during my runs. Not surprising when most people are doing less than 70k dps.
-I wish there weren't any upgrades for me from LFR but there are still a few since I haven't found a flex group to run with yet. Not having any luck off the world bosses either though...
-Regarding baggies, it should just always give baggies to healers and tanks. And I'd like a baggie for doing decent DPS as well! Incentivize the players to do decent DPS. Not abusing the charts DPS, just decent.
- As R said, I know it's always horrible the first few weeks, and yet we all complain about it every damn time. Echoing Grumpy, Blizzard needs to get the hint and fix it. It gets easier the later weeks because the few of us who carry the groups get better gear so we can carry more afkers. I doesn't actually get easier because people learn to play...
- LFR is very easy if you have two tanks, a couple dps, and a couple healers who are knowledgeable and coordinating. However, it's intended for random groups so that's not the target audience.
- Oh, I hate the damn yuangols that charge you while you're mounted... stupid ass design. And the charge will one shot you if you're not decently geared. I mean come on Blizzard, wtf?
- BTW, Method just downed H Garrosh.
4 hours for 3 bosses.
Delete"working as intended, something you can do on your lunch break"
I agree, 510 item level should be the minimum for LFR. Like you said, with the 522 valor gear, 502 LFR gear and now the, at least 1, 535 piece and with world bosses, a 510 item level would be a joke to get.
Baggies for decent DPS might be a good idea, but it would sadly be impossible to manage. People would cheese the meters just to get their baggie but hitting the wrong mobs. Mechanics matter, even in LFR, as all the wipes when people do not know them prove. All you need are a few jerks that do not want to target switch because "it will hurt my DPS and I won't get the baggie" and it destroys the reward concept.
All you need are a few people that have a clue and you will be fine.
Last night I did a run, on sha (we wiped to enrage 6 times, yes the DPS was that bad) there was me and one other person getting people out of the prisons. Only us, we were the only ones that moved.
One time I was in the prison, can you guess what happened? Yes, I died. Because me and that one other person were the only 2 getting people out, which means there was no one to get me out.
However, that goes to show you, all you need for some bosses is a few of the people, not all, to have a clue.
If you have 2 tanks and say 2 healers and a few damage dealers, you can turn any LFR into a cake walk.
It is bad when flex mode is 10 times easier than LFR. They really need to do something about LFR, it is insanely difficult for the people it is intended for. Just as that prison thing proves. You had 2 people that knew it and everyone else didn't. It should not even be in there. There is no reason anything should be in LFR that you would need to read to understand, or watch a video to understand, or have DBMs to understand.
Everything should be simple, tank and spank simple.
On a funny note, protectors, people with the circle running away. Half the raid running after them, they do not get the clue.
I noticed that LFR has a new way to handle this. No one runs after them any longer. If they do not know how to come to the group, people let them die.
Took me a while to get a hang of that, it is not in me to ignore mechanics like that. But after spending half of the first 2 wipes on that chasing people, I gave up too. When someone walks to the pack with it, I step in it, if someone runs away, I let them die.
"As R said, I know it's always horrible the first few weeks, and yet we all complain about it every damn time. Echoing Grumpy, Blizzard needs to get the hint and fix it. It gets easier the later weeks because the few of us who carry the groups get better gear so we can carry more afkers. I doesn't actually get easier because people learn to play..."
DeleteWant a do-over on that one? You normally have a better point to make than that. :)
C'mon... how many times have you done a fight on LFR where on the first attempt, 15 people die early and you wipe... on the second attempt, 10 people die early and you come close... third attempt, 6 people die and you succeed? That isn't due to gear, that's due to learning. People do actually learn in LFR, constantly. And yeah, your next time in you re-experience that process but this time, maybe 13 or 14 die the first time and 7 die the second time and you succeed. Each time in, every week that passes, fewer fail and more succeed, until the point that only those who can't or don't want to learn are failing. They can't be helped but learning absolutely can and does happen from attempt to attempt and from run to run. Just takes time, effort and repetition. Which, hm, is just like normal raiding. Crazy, that. ;)
The issue is people should not be "learning" in the LFR. They should be learning to raid in a raid and not in random content.
DeleteIf me and you and jaeger can take a minute out of our day to at least have a tiny basic idea what to expect before going in shouldn't everyone?
That is actually more blizzards fault than the players however. Blizzard does absolutely nothing to try to teach them and then expects us to do it. It is not my job or your job or jaegers job to teach someone.
I'm discussing the game as it is, as did Jaeger. You're discussing a game that doesn't exist. I just objected to his comment that players don't learn, I pointed out that, based on actual results, that they do.
DeleteAnd yeah, in an MMO, a social multi-player game, it is up to us to learn together. Leaders step up in LFR. RLs step up in flex. GLs and officers step up in guilds. All voluntary positions, but all pretty damned important for the game to function.
I put in a GM ticket a few days ago because I didn't get loot off Ship. Heard back last night, apparently the rares like that, the ones that drop a ton of coins, are daily. I had no idea, I have so many toons I guess I'd never killed any more than once. I felt like a moron, not that I didn't know, but because I put in a ticket rather than asking my FRIENDS. Turns out they all knew... that's not Blizzard's failure, it's mine, I assumed I knew everything and never thought to ask the social. Live and learn, even in LFR.
I guess it is because I am not a social person that I see things differently. I choose to be in my guild, so I make the effort there, I teach there, I learn there, I share there, I want to be there. I don't want to be in the LFR, I am there because it is a funnel for loot, so I approach it differently.
DeleteWhile I have been known to teach people in the LFR quite often, I do not like that I have to do it. I shouldn't. If I can take a moment from my busy day to know what the game I play does before I play it, they can too. Simple as that.
I believe your GM was both right, and wrong.
I've killed the boat 8 times in one day and got loot all 8 times. I've killed the whale multiple times in a day, because it is always up and it is a coin landfall, and get loot every single time. All the big ones I get loot on multiple times each day.
So he was wrong, you can loot them more than once a day.
But where he is right is they are intended to only be looted once a day, it is just bugged. So sometimes you get loot, others you do not.
I notice the flame guy that is summoned works the best as how it is intended to work. Very often I can not loot him a second time but there is still a 50/50 rate on getting loot from him the second time.
Over all I would say, you can loot them more than once a day, if you are lucky. Only the flame guy seems to suck at putting out multiple times. However, you can still get quest items from him if you are collecting epoch stones even if you have already looted him that day.
your luck with groups must be as good as your luck with drops. Actually with 5.4 I started to LFR as tank... and it was not real problem, even going up against bosses I had absolutely no idea about.
ReplyDeleteDowned the shamans after 8 wipes, killed general after 6 wipes. consistent group, not many people dropped and no one complained (I told at the beginning it was my first time in here). All in all it was fun - I rather enjoyed the difficulty.
Rauxis, chosen of CAT
I actually had a few good weeks with drops and the first week of LFR I had a perfect run, no wipes.
DeleteJust not so lucky since then. It is more so when I run the LFR with alts. I run it later in the week and I swear the worst of the worst come out at that time.
You got in a lucky group that was willing to work together to learn. I've had a few of those and I do not mind wiping with them either. They stay together, talk about what was done wrong, work together to get it right next time.
That is the "vision" I am sure that blizzard had for the LFR. Sadly that is not how it works normally. That is a very rare occurrence. Blizzard needs to ditch the idea of making LFR progression raiding for non raiders. It should be like heroic dungeons, like the one I did yesterday, start to finish, 6 minutes. Now that how it should be.