Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Adds, Adds and More Adds, Even My Adds have Adds

In raiding there are many mechanics that get used over and over.  It is why the longer you play the easier it seems to do new content.  It is not that you are a better player, it is just that you already know what to do so there is not much of a learning curve involved. 

Once you have learned to deal with the stand and stack, or the run out with the debuff, or the share the pain ability, it is just a matter of saying, oh this boss is like so and so.  As long as everyone in your group has done so and so, the fight is easy, otherwise, you have to teach them and along comes some wiping.  But that is part for the course with new players, no biggie, they will know for next time right? 

For those that have been playing however there is nothing new to learn with those abilities,  they are standard raid stuff we learn to expect and once you mastered the moving out of the group move it is not like you ever need to learn it again.  Mechanics are simple, once you learn them and as long as you can say and understand, oh this is like that was, got it.

Sometimes however it seems like blizzard gets into a rut with design and they rely too heavily on one type of mechanic.  This raid tier seems to be filled with over used mechanics like the run out and drop a debuff that stays there forever mechanic.  While it isn't on every fight, it sure as hell seems like it is over used this tier.  But no mechanic is more over used this tier than adds as a mechanic.  But not just adds as a mechanic, but in some cases it feels as if there are adds just for the sake of adds and not for the sake of mechanics.

No fight is worse for that than the first boss of the raid.  When HFC came out I did a quick explanation of the fight, very few had actually did any research on their own, as I have learned to accept more and more as this expansion goes on, but as we were fighting many people kept asking, when does the boss come.

There was a funny exchange that I want to share that happened with one of my warriors when he came in late after I explained the fight.  We had just finished clearing the trash and invited and summoned him before pulling the boss.  After the fight this exchange happened.

Him: "So did I miss any bosses, sorry I was late."
Me: "That was the first boss."
Him: "No, that was the trash, did I miss the boss."
Me: "No, the trash was the boss."
Him: "You're messing with me because I was late right."

When the fight ended some people asked, is that it?  Remember, we did this on normal with mostly heroic and partial mythic gear from the previous tier.  I really did not even need to go over mechanics being the first boss is so easy.  So it really just felt like a series of adds pouring out at us, no boss what so ever and in truth, even if we did not way over gear it, that is all it was.  No boss what so ever.

This fight set the pace for what HFC would be.  Adds, adds and more adds, with the occasional target switching.  Target switching could be considered adds as well in many cases.  Like target switching for tyrants ancients or kormroks hands, they are not really adds in the general sense of the word as we use it normally but when all the bosses seem to have are adds, even these target switching mechanics feel like just more adds.

Don't get me wrong, I do not mind adds.  If I am running an AoE based spec it is sometimes fun to pad the meters thanks to adds and even as a single target spec, like marksman right now, it is fun being the priority killer while I let others deal with the clean up of other adds.  Also, when I tank I have always loved add fights, call me weird.  My favorite fight as a tank in cataclysm was being the add tank on my warrior for maloriak.  I bet that is something you never heard any tank say ever.  Hey, I am weird, and I loved tanking the adds on that fight.  It was great fun, at least for me.

So it is not that I dislike adds in fights, I actually do like them.  As I said, they can be fun to tank, they can help you pad the meters if you are into that stuff, and they can make you the sniper super star being the class that is perfect for priority target killing.  So adds do not made a fight bad.

But when every single fight I describe to my raid team starts with the same line "adds are your top priority" it starts to feel like the "add factor" as a mechanic is being over used.

It reminds me of that meme, and maybe there is one out there already, but I can see one made about raiding this tier that goes something like "I heard you like adds, so I gave your adds some adds so they can have adds too."

It seems like add over kill and I am suffering from add burnout already.  Some fights have adds throughout, some fights have adds on phases, some fights have adds in phased areas, some fights have adds that move from one phase to another, some fights have adds that are more dangerous than boss, some fights have adds that are just target switches, some fights have adds spawn from portals, some fights have adds that need to be kited, and some fights have adds that just sit there but you still need to kill them.

Adds, adds and more adds.  The raid seems like a broken record.  I like add fights, I do, but anything used too much just loses its luster and guess what, adds have lost their luster for me this tier.

There are some mechanics we got to see again after a long absence, which is usually welcome, and some mechanics that are used rarely, which makes them more enjoyable, in my opinion, there are also some new mechanics that I liked to see, but some mechanics are over used this tier,  and using adds as a mechanic is more over used than all the others combined.

Do you think blizzard dipped into the add well too often this tier?

What standard mechanics would you have liked to see more?

28 comments:

  1. I haven't cleared HfC yet, only 9 bosses so far, but I completely agree with the excessive abuse of "adds".

    I wish there were more non-standard tank fights... Fights where specific classes are asked to "tank" something. I don't see why Blizz doesn't do more of this... there are plenty of classes and specs out there that are just pure dps to choose from. Seems like an underused (and often fun) mechanic.

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    1. It would be interesting to see another fight where someone else needed to tank. I think the last time my hunter had to tank was ICC for blood princes, not since then.

      A lock tank or mage tank would work too, as they have in the past. The reason I don't think they will do that is because it would then require you bring that class and they are trying (poorly) to change things to bring the player and not the class. But I still think it would be an interesting change.

      Not sure if you tank but there are a few fights that require the tank to have active mitigation up or they get a debuff on them. So they are adding more tank stuff to pay attention to this time around it seems. Not sure if I like it of course, but it is something I guess.

      There are also no hunter gimmicks this tier which I find odd. Being a hunter I always had to do the "special" duty and at least as I have noticed there is none for me this time around yet. But like you I have not finished it yet either. The only kiting I know of is on the last boss and I am not sure if you can pick who does the kiting there.

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    2. One of the great historic moments on my old raid team was for Stone Guard in Mogu'shan Vaults. Our unreliable off tank was a no show, so I pulled out my turtle pet and successfully off tanked it. We one-shotted that boss, and never let our OT forget he could be replaced by a turtle!

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    3. That is awesome.

      "You can be replaced by a turtle, remember that."

      I am sure there are a lot of tanks our there cursing you right now. But sadly that is also why they nerfed the hell out of pets for raid tanking. They could actually do it.

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  2. I haven't done HFC in any LFR (is it even available yet?) but I do know the mechanic you are talking about.

    I actually prefer add fights to one giant, endless fight on one boss. Where I feel like all I've done for 5 minutes is my rotation and some movement. The add fights at least let me feel like I'm doing something.

    However, I fully agree about how that can feel overused.

    The ones that I notice a lot are the one where you are the untauntable focus of boss/add/whatever and you just basically have to run or instant death and the damaging-debuff-that-also-damages near by players (I can't remember the correct names).

    I think those may stick out to me because they have caused numerous raid wipes (Thok the Bloodthirsty is the most memorable currently) or just general confusion.

    In some ways, I liked them because they were different, but, as you've said before, one person could really destroy a raid, so I hated them in that sense.

    I think my favorite mechanics, raid or otherwise, are times when I can use my awesome, but more situational powers. Spellsteal on my mage. Soothe with a druid. I really miss disarm on warriors. I know those weren't typically useful against a boss in a raid, but getting to use those utility spells made me feel like my class was more than just DPS.

    I think that's what I like in mechanics: something that makes use of the ancillary stuff in my class and makes me feel like I'm more than just (poor) DPS.

    Maybe that's why I like that. Because I do tend to do poor DPS, having something I am good at (utility buffs/debuffs) helps me feel like I've contributed to a group.

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    1. I think the first 2 parts are out in LFR so far. Next part should be next week I think.

      There are a couple of fixate type mechanics in the raid. One on council from a boss and one from adds on gorefiend, if I remember correctly.

      Thoks fixate was the death of many a raid. I hated bringing new people into that one because you always knew they were going to screw it up once or twice.

      Spell steal was so OP on some fights, it is nice to be able to use those rarely used abilities on fights. I could see it being fun if there were more of those around.

      As a hunter I am usually "doing more" with tranq and such and doing any special duty things, so I know what you mean. While I do like those, sometimes they too can get annoying. More so if they are over used. But here and there is nice to mix it up some.

      Believe it or not, at least when doing normal and heroic, I often would bring someone along that might be doing a little less if I knew they were snap on with interrupts or something else I needed done. It makes it so that DPS is not the only thing that matters. Allows people to earn their raid spots by doing more than topping the charts.

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    2. I'll have to look into the HFC stuff soon. My primary focus has been Pathfinder and getting my ring quests moved along.

      Fixate, that's it, thanks, it was bugging me :)

      Yes, I loved debuffing with a hunter partially because people seem to forget they had it. So I could take care of something dangerous not just by damage but by debuffing it. And with ice trap and Wyvern Sting, I could lockdown two different issues.

      Hmm, I'm starting to remember how much fun my hunters were. I need to finish Pathfinder and get back to them.

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    3. I hate when you have a word on the tip of your tongue and just can not remember it. Happens to me all to often.

      Hunters are great fun because they have such a huge toolbox. There is even a rare in tanaan that requires a hunter to use a lot of their toolbox, assuming you do not have others helping. It is not part of the rare achievements and is not a silver dragon, so most would not notice it. It was put in game specifically for hunters as a challenge. You need masters call, interrupt, tranq, flare, basically your entire toolbox if you want to beat it solo. A very fun challenge and it reminds me why I love being a hunter.

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    4. @Grumpy: That rare is meant for hunters to learn the ability to tame fel wolves as pets. If I'm not mistaken, non-hunters will get 1-shotted by her.

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    5. I know it is for hunters only, did not know it would one shot others. That is kind of cool.

      Reminds me of the epic hunter quest when the cleaner would come out and kill everyone if anybody helped the hunter. Awesome.

      Now I want to go try it on one of my other characters.

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  3. One mechanic I enjoyed was the conveyor belt. I loved doing that duty as a hunter for Siegecrafter Blackfuse, and I was kind of happy to see the basic mechanic return for a couple of fights in BRF. Hunters with movement could really shine in those fights.

    But I think Blizz got a lot of negative feedback when they made the mechanic a general one, not an extra duty, especially after they took away almost all movement for most classes in 6.0. And I suspect I would not have nearly as much fun with it now, since I have gone to shoes-nailed-to-the-floor MM.

    Still, when it came out, I thought it was a nice innovation.

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    1. Funny as it sounds, H & F was always one of my worst fights, yet on average, in all other fights it was when lots of movement was involved that I always pulled well above and away from everyone else, even other hunters, by a mile. Funny how I never did well on that fight. Some of my worst logs of the entire expansion were on that fight.

      The belt was fun, at first, but I got tired of doing it week in and week out. I so much wanted to stay on the ground and pew pew once, just once. Never got the chance, at least not that I could remember.

      So things like that "can" be fun, but often get bored as time goes on. Even more so if it was something that could wipe the raid, which was the case of the belts early on before you were over gearing it.

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  4. I do agree that HFC overly uses adds - sooooo many adds - and when there are adds on every damn fight... I just immediately think they rushed this raid. Like Blizzard Devs were talking to themselves when designing the raid and said, "Hey, we need more mechanics for these fights and we got no time... NO TIME!! Meh... I'll toss in a few adds here and there and... OH!... some here... yeah! That'll do nicely."

    Anyways... as Fiannor stated above, I actually liked belt duty on Blackfuse. At first I was annoyed that this was pretty much a Hunter only duty and I couldn't DPS the boss much (yes, you could get anyone, but Hunters just did it best). The reason I actually liked belt duty was because we could easily do every belt by just 180 Disengaging to the belt. Getting every belt was not something that other classes could easily do - so it was cool being "that guy" that knows his shit. :)

    As for other mechanics that I would like to see in the future, I loved the Operator Thogar fight! Yes, there are adds (and adds that have priority over the other adds), but... it was the train that I really enjoyed! Just the flow of it and the movement of that fight was fun IMO. As for HFC mechanics (that aren't adds), I really like the Mannoroth fight. Specifically the Force Push (thinking Star Wars here) ability they call "Shadowforce" and "Empowered Shadowforce". Mechanics where you have to plan your positioning well, and in advance, are fun to me.

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    1. I see. By using adds as filler, they can easily modify the difficulty of the fight, without having to create new abilities. Someone can easily go from LFR -> Mythic without having to learn a new mechanic.. DPS = Go Kill Adds.

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    2. Adds do seem like a cheap and easy way to add difficulty tot he fight. Taking away boss time, dealing with the multiple mechanics of adds, etc. Instead of making an interesting fight, they just added more adds.

      You would think after all these years blizzard would know people hate add fights. Who loved spoils? No one. The boat in DS that was just one giant add fight up to the boss which in his own was just an over powered add, did anyone say that was their favorite fight? No. Blizzard needs to limit things people do not enjoy doing. I am not sure there are many people that like adds. Heck, even the fight I said I like adds on, I liked it because they were "special" adds that needed to be rounded up and kited and then burst DPS down at specific moment. It wasn't just add, add, add as priority.

      Many people liked operator, even with the adds. The fight had something else to it that was new and interesting so the adds did not feel like they were the whole fight, like some of the fights do in HFC. I think that is why those adds go over better.

      @Elkgorasa

      Well there are added mechanics as you move upwards in difficulty, but in theory, yeah, you are right, every fight is kill adds with learning for something new not to stand in, so to speak.

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  5. I've only done LFR so far, but I don't really think I like this raid so far. Maybe it would be better if I wanted to play MM, but I've played BM since Wrath, so...

    Hellfire Assualt - as Grumpy highlighted, not a boss... just a bunch of trash

    Iron Reaver - I don't like this fight. My pet spends half it's time chasing after the boss and I can't really manage him well since I'm always busy trying to move out of shit... It's definitely a fight that screams MM+LW.

    Kormrok - This fight is actually OK. I kind of like it.

    Council - I hardly remember it, but it seemed ok.

    Kilrogg - I hate this fight. It is way too complicated for random people in LFR... Priority adds + More priority adds + Get out of group debuff + Adds in special phase + Move out of shit + Lots of unavoidable damage if people screw up... oh, and a boss... It feels like everyone has a job to do and if they don't do that job, the fight is a major p.i.t.a... and that's in LFR...

    Gorefiend - Seems OK, but lots of adds plus another one of those "adds in special phase". It also suffered from the lingering bad taste from Kilrogg...

    I haven't done the other encounters yet.

    I need to do LFR again this week. I queued last night, but got bored after waiting for 90 minutes... I'll have to try again tonight I guess...

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    1. Well, I tried waiting for LFR queue to pop... but gave up after 70 minutes. Half of that time was spent wasting time waiting for the queue... sucks.

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    2. You can do just fine with BM over all, even more so when AoE is required. If your group is weak on the AoE side of things you might actually be better being BM instead of MM. But Iron Reaver, yeah, that is MM all the way. Even if there are bombs to shoot when he is in the air you seem to lose a lot to your pet running all hog wild all over the place. Even micro managing the pet can get annoying on that fight.

      Kilrogg is one of those fights I think they added adds just for the sake of adding adds. That and the next one, gorefiend, you seem to spend more time DPSing adds than the boss and that just is not fun, at least not for me.

      They really need to do something about those queue times. For a great many people LFR is all they have, do to time, skill or desire to raid reasons, and if queue times are going to be that long, they now have nothing.

      In this raid or die type of game when people can not even get into the "quick and easy' raid quick and easily, there are problems.

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  6. Our Normal HFC guild raid team is still firmly stuck on Kilrogg. We lost two of our best dps after last Monday's wipe-fest to another guild, and last night we got the first four bosses down okay again (love the Council fight) but got stuck on Kilrogg again. This is our Durumu, I think.

    Our downfall is the combination of adds and mechanics, specifically a mechanic (standing in the wrong place) causing an add to spawn near the boss, and causing an instant wipe.

    I queued for just under 2 hours on Sunday to do LFR to drop Tomes off bosses we hadn't downed on Normal, and Kilrogg was the only boss our LFR group wiped on. (It didn't help when the tank moved the boss near the wall so the visions platform couldn't be seen.......)

    The Kilrogg fight has (finally) forced us to start using raid logs to analyze our Normal runs, and even a quick glance in the raid post-mortem showed who was listening to instructions and who was in full LFR blinkered mode. Yes, despite everyone knowing that it's an add fight, there were 3 dps who were targeting the boss, not the adds. Head, meet desk.

    If the rest of the fights are also about add management (I know Gorefiend is from Fat Boss vids and one LFR run) then we really need to get our collective shit together.

    I partly blame this obsession with Recount / Skada et al. There is a mentality that if you're in the top 3 dps you did a good job, if you're behind the tanks you should be kicked. Despite the RL imploring everyone to focus on the adds and forget their dps, there are still ranged dps who just do their standard rotation on the boss and then whine about the others "holding them back".

    Our casual raid team can't afford to be casual anymore because of the mechanics and adds. I'm not complaining about that, but I know it'll be hard on the RL and officers if we need to start leaving folks out. Blizz have made HFC a proper challenge for groups like ours (none of us have played for more than 3 years so nothing is routine yet) and we simply need to adapt if we want to progress.

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    1. Not sure how you are doing it, but I have done it with my guild and taught 2 other guilds to do it thus far.

      I am going to guess you are watching the videos and using the placement of boss in middle, people on both side, debuff with blob in the middle right?

      Wrong. While yes it works that way I have found that doing it differently works wonders. Three teams that wiped on it, when I changed how we stood, killed it within the next 5 pulls.

      The heart seeker stays down the center lane.

      The ranged and healers make on the left lane. Melee and tanks on the right lane.

      Put markers like in the middle of the larger part of those little side areas.

      Melee will stand behind the boss, so they do not get hit on the side by the heartseeker. Add tank stands between the platform and boss and brings adds there for cleaving. Boss tank faces the boss toward range when tanking.

      Have two teams to go in, one melee (in first slot) one healer (in second slot) and one ranged (in third slot).

      Make the DPS your second best damage dealers for group one, and your best for group two. Rotate the groups.

      When adds come the ones that come down on the left side and middle, range can get, the ones that come down the right side will have to run through melee, the boss and the add, so have melee get them.

      Now all lanes are completely blocked, when people are running from the swirls none should drift to the middle, and all the puddles the blobs leave behind should be in the back so no one accidentally steps in one adds stress to the healers.

      This, while different from the videos, is how I changed it after a few tries our first time there and we have had no problem since.

      Of course, all groups are different, but maybe this is worth a shot. Also note, we are ranged heavy, which is one reason this works so well for us.

      Also, whenever someone comes out with the buff, have them kill adds ASAP. With the buff adds melt, like nearly instantly. It can be make or break cleaning up adds when they come out.

      Okay, I will stop rambling.

      I've always used logs and then approached people quietly, with suggests, and also demands, such as "switch to adds". Tunnel vision is a real issue and many many many players suffer from it, even good players.

      I am right there with you. Our group is casual, we always worked our way through heroic (old normal) nice and easy, usually a new boss down each week. Now we are having trouble with normal, which is supposed to be like LFR to a group like us, and it sucks. I am starting to see I need to be more serious, which is sad for normal, normal is supposed to be friends and family, and I a finding new normal to be harder than old normal ever was. So you are not alone feeling that.

      Most of my raiders now are newer too. We have our core of 6 that have all been playing many years, but the rest are all new, and it seems like there is no learning curve for new people. They need to catch up to where we 6 are. It seems like they tried to add more so us 6 could feel we are still moving forward, but forgot, everyone else still need some place to learn so those things become second nature to them too.

      People keep saying the game has gotten easier. I disagree. If you are just starting today, sure leveling is way easier, but raiding is much harder now because there is no entry level raiding now for people to learn.

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    2. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply in such detail.

      Our arrangement is very much as you describe, but our group composition is more melee-heavy than yours, roughly 50-50 split. Maybe that's why they're tripping over each other and triggering extra blobs? I need to review the logs for player positioning to see exactly what's happening.

      I *think* it's when a dps or healer runs to get to the Visions platform, they cross the path of the Heartseeker? Perhaps our tank can try to position the runes more consistently and "safely".

      My MM is always in group 1 for Visions, and I lob my trinket attack on the boss plus my Stampede, then set about nuking adds. I love the responsibility of this role.

      The frustrating thing about this fight is that one person not paying attention causes a wipe. If they died, no problem, we'd probably still do it (like when people screw up with the Runes in the Kormrok fight).

      A bit more awareness and discipline and we'll get there. :-)

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    3. The way we do Kilrogg is exactly the way Grumpy stated - for both Normal and Heroic. It does work very well. I'm not the GM of our guild, but I am the SiC Officer (Second in Command - haha!). Our GM call out people all the time for tunneling or, as he coined the phase, "Meter-Maids". Back in Wrath working on Heroic ICC, Meter-Maids were such an issue for several people that he demanded everyone close their Recount (we use Skada now). We literally took time to make sure that ALL meters were closed with the threat that failing at mechanics and not priority target switching would result in being removed from raid and one of the 6+ people waiting outside the instance would be brought in to replace them. It did work too! Subsequent attempts after that were MUCH smoother and we did eventually down Heroic Sindragosa that night.

      I guess the moral of that story was sometimes you have to make demands and hold people accountable. You noted you lost your 2 top DPS'ers, and while DPS is easier to replace than healers or tanks, that's still a big hit to the raid group (as you know) because those guys (or gals) were likely the ones that were actually following the mechanics and priority switching when they should. Our guild has experienced that issue before (most recent was Heroic Highmaul) and believe you me... it was quickly and decisively dealt with.

      Now, for my one word or advice regarding Kilrogg. We raid with 20+ people for Normal and Heroic HFC. Depending on your raid size (of course) those 2 DPS (4 total) that you send in during the Eye Phase, when they get out, they (alone) should be the ONLY ones that tunnel and focus solely on the boss until that damage increasing debuff expires and/or they have to go back into the Eye Phase. All other DPS should be focusing the adds and burning them down when they spawn. Kilrogg melts like a stick of butter in Death Valley if you do it that way. :D

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    4. @Grumsta

      With a lot of melee it is key to stress that no one ever be on the side of the boss that people run with the seeker. If it hits a melee it will all go downhill from there. Puddle on the group which makes it harder to move and a blob that will most likely hit him for sure.

      If you are that melee heavy I might suggest sending more melee in, maybe 2 melee and 1 healer each group. Not sure if this will definitely help but it could. It would help remove the melee clutter there around the boss and limit the chances of someone getting caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

      Warn people that moving from that arrow, so it only hits the one person it is aiming for, is their top positional requirement. If that is where your problem was, stressing that should make a kill possible.

      Setting it up the way I described, no healer or ranged should ever pass the heartseeker while getting to a vision. The vision line should be, if the tank is facing the boss at the ranged, from the melee area to the ranged area where as the heartseeker should be toward the back of the room, thus they would not need to cross its path.

      I'd say the heart seeker is the most annoying part of that fight and probably the one thing all new players we invite mess up on. Heck, even on our kills we usually end up spawning one or two more than we should have, and those are our best attempts. So even on kills most groups could still use some cleaning up on that mechanic.

      Beat it into their heads, when the arrow is aiming at someone, the most important thing in the entire fight is that no one stand in it.

      I agree, I think the "one person can wipe the group" part of this is a little too much for normal mode which is intended for friends and family, but it seems blizzard really does not want to let new people ease into raiding, they want to throw them right into the fire, so we will have to learn to be better teacher, because even in normal, there is little room for error.

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    5. @Chris

      Meter maids, I like that one. We did heroic last night, figured might as well try hellfire assault and reaver, which with our team should be super easy and we wiped because people were too worried about the meters and kept AoEing when I kept telling them to stop.

      I told the hunters in the group, if I see barrage as your number one damage dealer again you will be removed from the group.

      The fight is a joke when you do priority and make one terror at a time, but when you AoE and pop three terrors at once, we can't do it. After a few wipes I had a very heated conversation with a few people that just would not listen.

      Sad part is, it came down to kick them and try to do it with less people, which makes it 10 times harder, or keep going until they learn.

      Have I mentioned lately I hate flex sometimes? I swear doing a fight with 10 people as opposed to doing it with twenty seems like doing it on mythic (10) and heroic (20). It should not feel that much harder on smaller groups. Blizzard and maths... they need to get someone there that knows it.

      Actually, DPS are the hardest to replace in my experience this expansion. I need a new tank, I have 20 people knocking down my door that want to tank, I need a new healer, 30 of those knocking down my door wanting to give it a try. But need a new damage dealer, there might be 200 of those, but not a single one of them that is capable of pulling over 50% of their potential even on a targey dummy and most of them not capable of move from fire even if their feet were on fire in real life.

      I can not find one decent DPS for the life of me. There might be a lot our there, but rarely even one that is half way decent. I get lots of people wanting to join, I give them a test run, and at item levels from 690-705 they never break 25K, even on the simpler fights. So no, for me at least, DPS is the hardest role to fill.

      Either that or maybe I just got spoiled from doing 10 man. Our DPS in our 10 man where always awesome, we never had a weak spot, every single one of them was capable of ranking on world of logs and usually did. Now with flex, we have to take lesser and I no longer get spoiled by that elite screw of death dealers and life takers.

      Did I mentioned that something I hate flex? lol

      I actually clean up adds after coming out. An aimed shot can usually one shot adds, or bring it to kill shot range, depending on group sizes, so while going straight to the boss makes sense, to ease my mind, I clear the room first. My melee partner and I that go in can kill all adds up withing 5 seconds of coming out.

      One kill was great, it was me, my melee partner and a healer going in. We went in and the entire raid died, except the two tanks. We get out with a 20 stack, he takes adds, I go all kill shot and aimed shot spam on him, and we kill him with just us 5 up. That buff is OP.

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    6. @Grumpy and Chris

      Thanks guys, really appreciate the suggestions.

      Sending in just melee and healers looks like a great idea: it'll cut down on congestion, put the damage on the add that needs interrupting and the boss, and leave all our limited ranged out to deal with the blobs.

      @Grumpy

      I'm one of the dps who doesn't do the dps he should, I don't know why but I struggle with learning rotations. When it clicks I'm fine, but I don't find it intuitive. Part of the issue I'm sure is how easy it is to level with a Hunter. I don't think I ever used more than 2-3 shots to kill anything until I started hitting dungeons and raids in WoD. So I'm learning the raid and my rotation at the same time, not a good idea for me.

      I keep seeing the golden ratio 2/4/9 being mentioned as the best mix for raid groups. The problem is the mechanics don't scale along with the boss health and damage.

      Mechanics that are easy to handle with 14-16 in the team are a nightmare if you do it with 10. And we know how mechanic and add-heavy the fights are in WoD raids......

      The idea of Flex is great, but unless *everything* scales it creates social issues without addressing the mechanics that require a fixed number and therefore larger percentage of your smaller raid team.

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    7. Yeap, that is how we do it, even ranged heavy, let range handle adds, melee handle boss and interrupting. Good luck.

      Hunters are the easiest class in the game to play, but very hard to master. As simple as it sounds and because people can do decent without a lot of effort, even more so in BM, they think the class is simple, but it is on par with all the other classes. Actually harder then many.

      When you are on new fights your DPS will always be lower. I usually sit in the 70% range when learning a fight. After I know it and mastered the mechanics I start doing good numbers, but while first doing it, my numbers are always lower.

      I think that is natural. Even more so if you are doing things right. That means you are learning the mechanics and not concentrating on DPS only. Once you get a couple of kills under your belt and don't even think about mechanics any more, your DPS will go up, trust me.

      Mechanics first, numbers second.

      All fights are a nightmare with 10. Blizzard made 10 normal more like mythic 10 man. Okay, just kidding, but compared to doing it with more, 10 man is very very hard. It is like blizzard is forcing our hand to bring more people.

      First time on gorefiend, we only had 10 people. I knew the fight would be much harder with 10, but we tried it anyway. After two wipes with everyone alive, but in the belly, I called it a night. Sorry, we can not do this with only 10 until I can figure out a better way to handle things. He sucks people in too often for a 10 man team. We were not dying to mechanics, were not not dying to adds, we were not dying to tank failure or healer failure or DPS issues. We were dying to the 10 man boss. Blizzard needs to tune that.

      I did fix it later on by just telling people to come right back out the second they went in. But that should not have been required. Blizzard did a piss poor job this tier with scaling.

      The week HFC came out I read a post on the forms from some guy asking for help with his guild on the first boss. He was in a 9/10 mythic BRF group and they could not get the first boss on heroic down. They were doing it with 10 people, all following priority, all doing over 60K, and nothing. So they decided to pug some and ended up filling to a full 30.

      His story says that they downed in on the second try with 30, with more than half the raid doing less than 20K. Yes, more than half the raid doing less than 20K. Most of the pugs not targeting priority targets either.

      The fight was super easy with 30 and impossible with 10 for them. If that does not show there are issues with scaling, I do not know what will.

      I do understand blizzard can not make scaling perfect, but it should be a lot closer than it is. It is like 10 man is mythic, and 30 man is normal, when doing bosses on heroic. Too hard one way, too easy the other, and that is just wrong.

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    8. @Grumpy and Chris

      Thank you guys: we got Kilrogg down last night. It took four attempts, but once I convinced my fellow hunters to stop firing at the boss at all after the opening salvo, we cracked it.

      We put 2 melee in each Visions group and with that and the adjustment to positioning the Heartseeker problems fixed themselves.

      Phew.

      And now we're on to the next add-fest that is Gorefiend. Joy ;-)

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    9. Congrats. I knew you could do it.

      Key is adds, you get people that do not want to switch they will hurt you more than help you.

      Have fun on gorefiend, and get ready to yell "adds" over and over again on that fight, even more so during phase 2 when people forget the last remaining adds up and switch to the boss for extra DPS. That will be the key. They have to finish the adds first.

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