Monday, December 9, 2013

Monday Random Thoughts

- I had a busy weekend this weekend in the game in terms of the LFR.

- I'll start with some of the standard grumpy stuff, but if you want feel good stuff, feel free to skip to the end when I mention my rogues journey this weekend.

- Why do I keep going back there being I hate it so much?

- Necessary evil, at least if I want to get the legendary quest line done on alts.

- Necessary evil, if I want to get some gear to play fill in on my alts.

- And mildly rewarding, even with all the annoyances when you finally do finish that legendary quest line on an alt.

- Even more so when you complete that legendary quest line on two alts in the same weekend.

- Yes, I have two alts with cloaks now after this weekend.

- My priest and rogue have joined the dedicated few with the legendary cloaks.

- Both ended up unlucky enough that they needed to kill lei shen to get that last runestone so they needed to kill him a second time.

- I've done ToT 4 so often these past few weeks it seems like I spend my entire week there sometimes.

- Well, there and ToT 3, because I still run multiple characters through there with coins trying to get the pet.

- Not like that is ever going to happen.

- I am just not lucky most of the time.

- My new hunter shares my main hunters luck when it comes to weapons.

- I did all weapon bosses in LFR again this week.

- No weapons.

- Did SoO flex, in part, for some weapon chances, nothing.

- Joined a ToT normal for a chance at a bow, none dropped and no coin love either.

- Dragged him on a SoO normal run, but only killed the 2nd boss for the weapon as I did not think it was fair to ask a group to carry a hunter doing 90K into any of the other ones.

- Weapon did not drop, 3rd coin did not get it.

- Speaking of doing a horrible 90K on it with my super awesome 471 archeology weapon upgraded I have to think back to those LFR runs.

- One run after wiping 5 times on sha of pride, someone said, it is a matter of DPS.

- I thought, no shit Sherlock, when the 5th DPS is only doing 88K with 4 stacks and 68K is the highest after him, DPS is an issue.

- It was not the only issue however.

- People not stacking and dragging adds all over the place meant less DPS on them as they could not be AoEed.

- More time spent on adds means less time on boss.

- Oh, and there is that little fact that no one spreads for swelling pride.

- They just stand there, drop their crap on the ground, and expect the healers to heal them thought that.

- How many times does it have to be said, you can not heal stupid.

- That lack of doing mechanics might also have a little to do with it.

- If I am doing "horrible" at 90K with a 471 item level weapon on my hunter single target and did 136K on sha, with no stacks, then there is no reason, not in a million years, no matter what, for anyone to be doing under 100K on that fight with 4 stacks, ever.

- So thank you captain obvious for pointing out that it was a DPS issue.

- Why did you not point out the other obvious thing, that it was also about people not following mechanics.

- It can be done with less DPS, IF you follow mechanics.

- Speaking of mechanics my rogue had a doozy of a SoO part 1 run at the fallen protectors.

- It had the be the single worst group I have ever seen do that boss ever and I have seen a few bad ones.

- But before I tell that horror I feel I need to give props to some jerk for being the most ballsy person in the game and managing to not get himself kicked after the first wipe.

- I don't mean that in a good way either, I am amazed he managed to not get himself kicked.

- After the first wipe eight people leave in a group with bad damage dealers 4 of the top 6 left.

- Leaving only me and a mage from the top 6 there.

- Both tanks drop, the top 2 healers which also were the only two with any dispels, even if they both had very few, on their record left as well.

- So we lost almost all our damage dealers, two tanks and the only two healers that even bothered to dispel once in a while.

- Someone in raid say "please stop leaving, why are people leaving".

- Another person says "because they are pro and don't think you should wipe in LFR"

- I kept it to myself but my answer to that was "you shouldn't wipe in LFR"

- Then mr balls comes out and says "I'm pro and I am not leaving."

- So you know that means I have to inspect him.

- 450 weapon, 450 neck, 450 trinket, two burden 535 pieces, one celestial piece and the rest 476 or 496 one stat timeless island pieces.

- How the hell is he even in here?

- No gems, no enchants, which I can understand, I would not bother with that crap for gear either.

- Then I pop over to look at what he is doing, with that gear if he is pulling 50K or so being he can multi target a bit on this fight, he is pro, just on an alt.

- Because 50K in that gear would be kind of good I think.

- He was doing 29K.

- Okay, I'll give him something because a 450 weapon does hurt your numbers a lot but do not talk about being a pro when you can not even beat out a disc priest in gear somewhat equal to your own.

- A priest in that group did 35K with mostly timeless island gear.

- He stayed chatty the whole run about how pro he was.

- Makes me wonder if I am the only person that inspects someone when they open their mouth about how great they are.

- But back to the most amazing wipe on protectors ever.

- How many things can a group do wrong in that fight?

- Let us count what this group did wrong.

- Tank one facing rook into everyone, even when melee move behind him, he turns him to face the melee again, as if he is trying to get them killed.

- Tank two never turns for gouge from he and then never taunts him back.

- When the orange circle comes people run from everyone.

- When someone gets the sha seer on them they run too people.

- They manage to do something I did not think was possible and transition all three at the same time.

- Not exactly the same time, might be a buffer for only two being transitioned at a time, but as the killing blow was being put on the rook add the sun bubble spawned.

- So basically all three at the same time.

- Anguish was still up as well of course.

- Speaking of anguish, apparently no one in the raid knew how to use an extra action button.

- Did I mention none of the healers were dispeling?

- Well two where trying too, but they were also trying to keep the raid up doing a combined 88% of all healing between the two of them.

- They had 7 and 6 dispels, which is exactly 7 and 6 more than the other 4 healers did.

- Holy crap this group was bad.

- They did other things wrong too, I am just forgetting them, I am sure of it.

- If something could be done wrong I have faith this group could do it wrong.

- And then the only good ones dropped after the wipe.

- Made me want to cry.

- Usually I cut tanks some slack because it is a hard job in LFR, but I was so glad those tanks left and was happy to wait for their replacement.

- They both had no clue.

- Wouldn't have been so bad if they did not know and asked so we could explain, but when you just run in a pull you should know what you are doing.

- We got some decent replacements and we did manage to kill it, but it was extremely sloppy, and we had a double transition both times again.

- I really think blizzard could make life easier and make two immune to damage at a time, would make the fight so much easier.

- But lets forget about LFR failures, lets take about LFR success.

- The success that two of my characters, unless I want gear, are effectively done with LFR.

- First up, the priest.

- I knew the legendary part for a disc priest would be a joke because it was a joke at the appropriate level from what I remembered people saying.

- Needless to say, that is exactly what it was, a joke.

- At a 547 item level my priest had little to no trouble with it.

- I did make a few mistakes, but thanks to item level I could quickly and easily recover from them.

- Hey, I never saw it before, so mistakes happen, like letting the prince get splattered by missles a few times, good thing I could heal him up fast.

- Now my rogue, that would be a problem.

- My rogue had less gear than my hunter did when he did his.

- And my hunter still took about 6 times to get it right, if I remember correctly.

- And my hunter I am much better at, because I really suck at being a rogue.

- And my hunter had a better weapon.

- My rogue is still sitting on 2 502 daggers.

- So a 520 item level, 2 502 daggers, for a skilled rogue this should not pose much of problem.

- I am not a skilled rogue.

- Not by a long shot at all.

- I was all set for a long night, a very long night.

- I also went in completely under the assumption that I would not be doing it.

- I just wanted to see it and get a little practice with it so when I came back after I got some gear and weapons I could get it done.

- As with the ranged one and with the healer one I really did not do any research, I just jumped in and tried to do it on my own before looking for tips and tricks.

- I got him down to 60% on my first try.

- Quite impressive.

- Second, third and forth try did not go as well as the adds spawned almost instantly and took me by surprise.

- Apparently there is no pattern to this, the adds can spawn after the first cone effect or after five cone effects or anywhere in between.

- I'll just deal with whatever I get, I am practicing.

- Got him to 50% on the 5th try.

- Try 6 through maybe try 10, started to lose count, I got him past 50% again.

- I'll call it try 11 when I came to the conclusion that if the adds spawn early I am not going to be able to do this, so if they spawn after the first or second cone I will run out and reset.

- It seemed like I was getting 1 actually attempt to every 3 or 4 I would run out because adds spawned quickly.

- I would say it was around attempt 15, as an actual attempt not counting the ones I reset it on, it clicked.

- 3% wipe when the mirror images spawned.

- Next attempt 1.2% wipe when the mirror images spawned.

- Next attempt 0.6% wipe when the mirror images spawned.

- I need to keep these mirror images from spawning.  I could not believe I was getting that close.

- Probably around attempt 20 I figured out how to get the mirror images not to spawn.

- Blind him when he jumps to the center.

- How blinding a blindfolded two year old dragon helps I have no clue, but it does.

- It worked, so I will not question it.

- I stepped to him, hit him with blind, finished off slimes, wiped again at sub 1%.

- Okay, now to put it all together.

- I made myself the drums of rage now, as I am a leather worker, as it is time to start using them and figured that should be more than enough to make up for that 1% I have now wiped at a few times.

- Attempt one with drums.

- Damn, slimes spawned early, I'll still go for it, died at around 30%.

- In case anyone is wondering, the slimes come back to life faster and stronger, the later they spawn, the fewer times you have to fight them with their speed and strength increasing each time.

- Second time with drums, as the saying goes, I love it when a plan comes together.

- He does the cone 5 times in a row to start, I have him under 50% before he even spawns the adds.

- I switch to adds and take them out fast then move back to him and bring him to about 10% when adds respawn.

- I hit evasion and go hog wild on the slimes when he jumps to the middle for mirror image, I step, blind, go back and finish the slimes.

- Three percent and the slimes comes back again.

- Burn baby burn, I give it all I got running like a mofo, so he will jump to me, far away, and I can get some shots in while the slimes are playing catch up.

- 2% he jumps, I hit, slimes almost catch up, I sprint.

- 1% he jumps, I hit, slimes close on me I go for it and hope I survive them hitting on me as I take that last 1% out.

- He jumps, I step, I put a 5 point finisher on him, it's over.

- I jump out of my char and scream yes, actually truly excited I was able to do this on a character I suck on with level appropriate gear, or even under geared for appropriate gear.

- For you people out there that are good at melee and know how to play a rogue you might not think this is anything special, for me, it was the most challenging thing I have ever done in the game.

- I am more proud of getting the cloak on my rogue than I am on my hunter.

- It was a given on my hunter, that is my main.

- It would have not felt this good if I had over geared it.

- As much as I hate that I can not win daggers for my rogue at this moment I am extremely happy I never did.

- If I over geared it, the way I did with my priest, it would have just been another quest.

- Doing it at an appropriate gear level was exciting, for me.

- And I am finally over a 520 item level.

- It is extremely rare I ever jump up in excitement and yell like that.

- It felt good.

- That is what I play the game for.

- So the hell of those LFRs, as much as I hate them, for my rogue and the payoff I got at the end, the hell was worth it.

- Well worth it.

- I can just smile and say, I did it.

- Have a great day.

12 comments:

  1. That protectors lfr story is interesting, because we've been pushing all three transitions at the same time in 25m heroic. I doubt it, but I have to wonder if someone read that strategy and thought they were supposed to do that for lfr...

    Gratz on the rogue cloak. I love those moments. It's an interesting line between frustrating/annoying/demoralizing and too easy.

    ~Delirium

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    1. I doubt it too. In LFR you can no do all three at once, usually even 2 at once can be a wipe. Have to do the pattern that works for the group.

      Also, there is no communication, so no one could have said "lets try what they do in heroic". It was just a bunch of people all doing whatever they wanted to do. IE: bad players.

      I think I felt those feelings as well. But when I started really pushing I started to think to myself, I really think I can do this. I was so amazed I did it. It felt awesome to be able to get something done I did not believe I could do.

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  2. I think the issue with protectors is that you end up with split dps focus, I've *never* (not once) wiped on that fight in LFR or even had difficulties if someone placed a mark on a kill target. Such a small thing with a such a huge determination of success. I'd support making the other two immune during a transition, though, that strikes me as an appropriate LFR mechanif nerf.

    I had a lot of trouble on the legendary fight on my first monk... ended up having to, huh, cheese it to kill the adds, I couldn't figure out how to kill them as a melee without taking huge damage in the process and usually by the time I did kill them another set was coming, I almost had no time on the boss. On a rogue without a similar way to cheese it (not going to say what I did but I will if asked) how did you manage to even kill the adds while surviving?

    My second monk did it with a lot more gear and I didn't bother to cheese it, I just burned and killed, as I recall. It certainly wasn't a challenge and was a one-shot. I'm also a better on a monk at this point, too, which helps.

    I think I'm done with the legendary with those two, considering doing it on my healing priest as well but... it's been months since that toon ran anything, probably not worth the hassle.

    I'll inspect folks during lulls in runs, usually those doing better than I am or competing with me (especially when it seems like they might have less gear and are competing, doesn't happen often but every now and then it does), I check out in order their cloak status, weapon, trinkets and how many pieces of tier they have... the other slots don't have much impact so I ignore those. If I ever had anyone claim to be pro while doing 29K I'd definitely take a peek... hasn't happened, though. One of the keys of being actually pro is to not be too vocal about that fact, IMO. :)

    I've been mostly doing the RAF leveling thing lately, no raiding to speak of... have done a few random heroics (felt like it) and a HS or two (ditto) but not much group content in general. Looking forward to 5.4.2 hitting tomorrow and some of my better geared Str toons getting to play with my Flex BoA weapon from another server. ;) Hell, my rogue will be able to play with my 1H Agi axe, too... hm, get to find out whether I just all of a sudden suck on a rogue or whether weapons ARE just that critical for them. Maybe I shouldn't in case it's me. :)

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    1. I saved shadow blades and energy for when I knew they woujld spawn and went AoE crazy and kited. It was enough to kill them even in my crappy gear. I can see any melee having a MUCH easier time. Rogues just have the worst AoE in the game of the melee classes.

      I had considered going the poison route and kiting them but I figured there are less mistakes to be made with a dead mob than there are with a kited one. So I just killed them.

      How did you manage it? As I said, I basically just kept resetting the bad starts where the adds came out fast.

      Go disc, laugh your way through it. Disc does damage and heals. Meaning wrathilon stays healed and you make the fight so much shorter by DPSing it. I can't see any reason not to do it on a disc priest. On other healers I might see it being an issue if you are not well practiced but a disc priest, I honestly believe anyone can do it with a few tries. It would also be the easiest one to over gear because you are becoming better at 2 things at once while getting gear for it.

      I like to look at the people doing better than I am, it helps me learn. When I was in with my monk the other week (don't DPS much) I noticed a monk destroying me. I looked at his damage dealers and number of casts, adjusted my rotation, I beat him the next two fights.

      I never say anything in raid, unless it is needed really. So surely I do not brag about my DPS. But I have noticed a trend. The most vocal players are usually the worst players there. Even when they are number one. Remember, being a bad player isn't just about playing it, you could be awesome, but if you are a jerk, you are a bad player. End result is, the people that talk the most are the worst players usually.

      Weapons matter... a lot.

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    2. I ... may have used SEF on that fight first time in... I'd attack Wrathion when it was only him, when adds came up I'd immediately put a SEF clone on him, roll away, put another SEF clone on the adds, roll a safe distance away again and just Spinning Crane Kick off on my own... I personally wasn't attacking anything but my clones were doing 45% of my damage each so combined it was enough damage to eventually get a kill. If a clone died I'd refresh it, once the adds were dead I'd go back to Wrathion myself for a few seconds until adds came back up then went back to it again. The problem I had is that I didn't have enough burst, a *proper* monk AoE rotation at the time, which was FANTASTIC if you could line everything up, was to have 5 Chi, 10+ brew stacks and have a fully refreshed Tiger Palm from within the last few seconds. Pop brew, Rising Sun Kick one of the AoE mobs to put out the debuff and then Spinning Crane Kick to victory. Problem is, I didn't have enough time to stack brew high enough and if I let the oozes in close enough to put RSK on them then I was going to be dead so I was ONLY able to SCK while being at max distance from them which also meant not killing all of them evenly... it was messy and wasn't working. In general, I just don't know why they'd design a melee fight to include adds that have to be kited and killed when they can't be in melee range of you. I guess it's possible on all classes at some point or with some strategy but...when was the last time a melee had to kite and kill a bunch of adds on a fight worth talking about? DKs on Magmaw, MAYBE, but even then the focus was on the kiting, I doubt most groups made the DK do all the killing, too.

      We'll see. All of my "lesser" geared toons are in the i520 range these days but they have lagging weapons... usually original LFR (so 476 or 483, maybe upgraded). Some of my toons do 100K+ with that combo, my rogue does about 70K (my pally, who has never been a dps main, unlike my rogue, does closer to 85K with the exact same combo). So yeah, weapons matter a lot but I'm hoping they matter a LOT to rogues, 70K at i520 is embarassing.

      I'm not sure my priest has even done the PvP quest yet so it's not like I'm debating doing the last part or not... there'd be a significant time and effort investment even now. I have no doubt I'd be able to do that fight (I got gold PG on that toon in half a dozen attempts without any prep to speak of with my normal raid atonement "rotation") but the question is whether I want to bother getting there or not. So many other things that are higher on my priority list these days...

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    3. You might have been able to save up for it, usually when I am doing something like that and I know it will be coming I will pool for it. I know I would be doing less now, but I would then be able to make the "hard' part trivial by doing the pooling and in the end that makes the entire fight easier, even if you do less DPS because you are pooling.

      520 range is fine. My hunter was only 524 when I did it and that was time appropriate. So 520s is perfect for a reasonable challenge, anyhting more will make it eaiser of course.

      Weapons mean a ton to rogues. I think they mean more to them than any other class, at leas that I have noticed.

      I only stepped into proving grounds once on my priest, did bronze, found it boring and zoned out. If you can get gold you can do the legendary one super easy. That is not even scaled so you can over gear it.

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    4. And that's really odd, you'd think since so much rogue dps comes from poisons, which I don't think (but could be wrong) scale with weapon damage, probably AP instead, that they wouldn't scale terribly well with weapons. I didn't have a chance to test it out last night but I'll get to it at some point.

      Yeah, it's more about doing PvP and collecting tokens in LFR for 6 weeks first... that's the part I can't see getting past. :) Only upside is that by this point I've started to put together actual PvP gear on some of my toons from Celstials, I think my priest has 3 already... not that 3 pieces of actual PvP gear will turn a 1600-100 loss into a win but at least I'd feel a bit less useless in the loss.

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    5. I hate the PvP part, it really serves no purpose other than to tell a story, he wanted our factions to fight. But he could have told that story without us needing to do PvP. I think that is the part more people complain about.

      I had a few characters that sat there for months. Many months. Just because I did not want to do PvP with them.

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  3. Gz on legendary for the rogue, I know what you are talking about, it really feels like great when you do something like that on a class you don't play much.

    On LFR, here's my list of the most frequent wipes:

    * Galakras (not going to towers),
    * Nazgrim (ignoring adds),
    * Thok (mostly just low DPS),

    and the top one:

    * trash after Paragons and before Garrosh (lol, the most stupid wipe of them all AND happens pretty much every time).

    It would be interesting to know if that matches your experience.

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    1. Thanks. I am actually amazed I made it through the legendary line as fast as I did on my rogue being I barely ever play it. It just had decent luck with quest drops whereas all my other characters don't.

      Those three are really bad for wipes, and the mechanics should have been adjusted to LFR groups. I can not believe that people that work for blizzard could not see stuff like the nazgrim issue in LFR before they released it. He should just become immune in defensive or have damage reduced to 10%. Funny part is, people would still focus him.

      The trash between those two are a nightmare because people refuse to CC. CC and it is stupid easy, don't and it is wipe city.

      So yeah, that matches my experiences.

      A few other things I dislike, not wipe related but wasting time related.

      Galakras - wasting time making groups for towers.
      Spoils- wasting time making groups for sides.

      Both those I have actually been in groups that spent a good 20-30 minutes talking about it before pulling a boss.

      There should NEVER be anything in LFR that requires that level of communication. The entire run shouldn't take 30 minutes, never the less taking about it before you pull for 30 minutes.

      I swear, the people who design this game can really be morons sometimes adding crap like that to the game. Spoils should have been the one group of all 25 working through all 4 chambers together. There problem sloved. But apparently that was way to hard for blizzard to figure out.

      It has gotten to the point I would rather "wipe" on nazgrim 3 times than "wait" on spoils once.

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  4. I think the Blessing of the Celestials challenges are some of the best content from this expansion. I wish they'd allow us to replay them on different specs. The ranged one seemed the easiest of the three I've done, but I think hunters are particularly suited to it. I'm trying to work on my priest to do the healing one as that's the only one I haven't seen. We'll see how long it takes me to get through the quests to get to that point. Did the tank challenge on my warrior who is normally dps when it first came out and it was so much fun. Very challenging especially undergeared, but very thrilling to complete. The melee one seems to be the hardest if you don't have ranged attacks or the gear to just burn.

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    1. I agree, that solo part, at item level, was amazingly fun and mildly challenging even on a character you are decent at. On a character that you are not good on, like me with my rogue, it can be downright hard and exciting.

      The only one I have not done yet is the tank one, but I will get there in time. Taking so long because I refuse to run the LFR on my tanks and haven't been needed to tank all that often lately.

      In my opinion, based on all I have heard, the tank one is the easiest. Many people on the forums were suggesting to people having issues with the melee one to go tank spec in their DPS gear and just get the cloak. And most posted "thanks for the advice it was easy" and they had never tanked and did not have tank gear. So based on that alone and speaking to the ones in guild that did it, the tank one is the easiest.

      As for the other three the healer one is the second easiest. Sure I over geared it by a good 20 item level when I just did it, but I do not think I would have had any trouble to begin with. Heal someone, take the hits so he does not have to when he is hiding, heal someone again, blah blah, blah, kind of easy.

      Now melee or ranged. Both done at item level. I am good at my hunter so I blew through it no problem really. Had a few missteps along the way but I think it took me six tries. As you said, I think hunters are suited for it, for other ranged I think it would have been MUCH harder, they can not shoot on the run like a hunter.

      Now compare that to my rogue, who I suck at, in less gear than my hunter had and he did it in roughly 20 real attempts if you do not count the ones I ran or wiped on purpose due to early slime spawns.

      If a character I am not good at in less gear and do it in only 3 times the attempts I did it on my hunter I would have to draw the conclusion the melee one is easier. Range, in my opinion, is the hardest. Even if you are a hunter which is the easiest of the ranged to do it with.

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