Monday, October 12, 2015

Monday Random Thoughts

- I finished my second ring this past week.

- Still do not think I will ever come close to the number of capes I had on alts last expansion.

- The only reason I have a second ring finished is I have been tanking a lot again lately.

- So my tank has had the chance to get more kills in.

- But LFR sucks worse than it ever has so I really do not like bringing my alts through there.

- So that means no legendary for them.

- It was a great part of last expansion, even if LFR did have bad moments when it was new.

- Remember the maze boss in ToT when it first came out?

- Heck, remember the maze boss even after it had been out for well over a year?

- More than half the raid still always died.

- But over all, it was doable.

- This expansion, not so much.

- Or at least not worth the effort.

- The reward, namely the ring, is so horrible and lackluster, that I do not have the desire to get it on alts.

- Now if the cooldown was a personal one and not a group one, so I can use it when I wanted to for my own uses, I might be more inclined to get more of them.

- Hey, I am the one that did the work for it, the least that should happen is I get the benefit from it and can use it at my discretion.

- What brain dead employee came up with this idea of having other people be able to use my ring?

- And what dim wit gave the green light to add it to the game?

- I really wonder who the hell the people making the game now are.

- They sure as hell are not gamers.

- But back to the ring.

- I tanked a direct run to the end through the portal with a mano and archie kill only this week, but with only 5 tomes left I figured I would try to give LFR a shot to finish it.

- Heck, if I end up tanking even more kills as time goes by, might as well get a ring on that character so I can upgrade it right?

- Been tanking more lately, but usually only a few bosses a week.

- And, as odd as this sounds, the drop rate for tomes seems to be at least double in LFR, so I figured I would knock it out this week.

- I did, and for parts of it there were no problems.

- First one I got into was a slow ass run, but no wipes.

- Half the raid was doing DPS you would expect from someone in 610 gear doing their first dungeons.

- And being that is the standard level of game play I see from most players, even ones that consider themselves raiders, and blizzard did not design LFR for the standard average player, the fights took too long and were a lot harder than they needed to be.

- I swear healing iron reaver in LFR has to be the most challenging healing I have ever done in my life.

- And while I am by no means a great healer, I have healed some very challenging content before, and compared to that, iron reaver in LFR takes the cake.

- But we did not wipe.

- So I can not complain really.

- Nor would I, a run with no asshats and no wipes is a dream come true in the LFR, even if it does take a lot longer to down bosses than it should.

- I got 3 tomes from the 3 bosses.

- Second one I got in on, the first boss was down already and the last boss was mano which I already killed so I was not going to stay for it, as I was only there for tomes and the second boss was the only one I could get one from.

- And I got one.

- Zhul took 4 wipes and 4 stacks of determination to get the kill.

- Did not make a difference that people in the know kept saying kill adds from before the first pull happened and all throughout the fight.

- No one listened.

- It was not the four stacks that helped kill the boss, it was the fact that we lost a bunch that dropped out.

- Oddly, the ones that rage quit were the ones that were doing it wrong.

- It is like "you idiots can not get it down even if it is my own fault so I am going to leave to find another group to carry me instead of actually learning the fight."

- So between half the damage dealers that did not switch to adds leaving, and some people kicking out others that had no add damage, we ended up getting replacements that did switch to adds.

- It was night and day.

- Sure you can say the 4 stacks helped, how could it not, but the fact most of the new people switched to adds, the fight went down fast, smooth and easy.

- And more importantly, I got a tome.

- 4 for 4 in tomes so far.

- Told you LFR has a higher drop rate than the real raid.

- I did 12 bosses and 13 bosses the previous weeks and got a total of 3 tomes.

- 3 tomes in 25 kills.

- I just got 4 in 4 kills.

- Yeah, LFR has a higher drop rate.

- Call it anecdotal evidence if you must, but I am convinced by my own experiences and the reports of dozens of others that have experienced the same thing.

- The drop rate for tomes is MUCH better in LFR.

- Next run I got into "the wind" boss where they are already fighting, and wiping, on the trash.

- This does not bode well.

- I thought the DPS was bad in the first group I had?

- Oh I was wrong.

- This group makes that first group look like gods walking on azeroth.

- Lets not even talk about throwing the orb.

- No one picked it up at the start, so when the wind came I grabbed it in threw it to someone.

- Do I really need to say the next line because you surely already know it.

- That person held it the entire fight.

- We wiped to the enrage timer.

- Not to some orb throwing error.

- The orb throwing is not really important in LFR, but I wish people would do it, you know, to learn, so when they get there later I do not have to teach them.

- Yeah, the DPS was that bad.

- Worse than the group I said was filled with half the group doing DPS you would expect from 610 item level player.

- We wiped a couple more times to the enrage boss before we got it down.

- When we did get it down, with a 15% buff I believe, we barely missed enrage again.

- Worse than a poor group was the fact I got no tome.

- I really wanted this done already.

- But really I can't complain, 4 out of 5 is still pretty darn good.

- I started to think to myself, why did I decide to rush it?

- The rest of this raid is going to be a nightmare if the first boss is any example of what they are capable of doing.

- Even if I only downed a few bosses each week on my druid I would get it sooner or later between normal and heroic clears.

- And if I get into a full clear again next week 1 more would have to drop right?

- Maybe?

- Hell, I will just stay and see what happens.

- We get to the next boss and one of the tanks (I got brought in as a healer not as a tank) says with the DPS we had on the last fight we will never be able to do this fight.

- I agreed, did not say anything in chat but he was 100% right.

- The boss gets pulled, with time warp on the pull, the top 5 of the DPS charts looked something like this.

- One hunter doing 48K, a warrior doing 23K, and then 3 classes I do not recall doing 18K, 16K and 15K.

- The remainder are much lower.

- My wrath spam on the pull had me at 7th for a short bit.

- And I am a healer... with wrath.

- That is the top five, on the pull, with all their burst, trinkets procing and time warp.

- I sure as hell hope the tank knows what to do because that is the only prayer we have right now.

- When we knock the boss out of the machine one tank jumps in.

- The other tank tanks him where he lands in the middle of nowhere.

- The add comes out that need to be tanked and interrupted and neither of those two things happen.

- The one "good" damage dealer that switched to him immediately became the tank for the add.

- And proved even hunters doing good DPS for an LFR can still be huntards, he did not last very long as a tank.

- I was pouring heals into him and could see at least one other healer was too.

- Did he feign death?  No.

- Did he deterrence? No.

- He just face tanked it and died and then the add went on to kill me and the other healer, because we had healing aggro.

- Gee thanks.

- It then went on to kill others that were foolish enough to attack it.

- Where were the tanks during this?

- The active tank was tanking the boss of course, as adds ripped apart the raid, he noticed nothing.

- The tank that got into the machine was beating on the boss with everything he had.

- Did it matter the boss had a shield on?  Of course not, he kept beating on it.

- Because that "immune" message must not mean anything important right?

- I swear I think I have discovered the worst two tanks to ever tank the LFR.

- Sad part is, one of those very tanks was the same person that was smart enough to realize that we did not have the DPS for this.

- Guess that doesn't change the fact he can still be a bad tank, because he was.

- When he went back into the robot a total of 3% was off of the boss.

- And entire transition phase and 3% was taken off the boss.

- /cry

- Do I really want to finish the ring this badly?

- I am already here, I want to see what happens.

- Round two goes the same, mostly.

- The tank moves the boss to the add this time and actually tanks it.

- Too bad the big bad machine tank was of no help what so ever, again.

- The horrid DPS in this group was out DPSing him because he kept attacking an immune boss.

- This guy must have taken his stupid pills this morning, doubled dipped in them even.

- People said between pulls that the boss does not take damage when the add is out.

- People in the attempt kept yelling to stop attacking the boss.

- But nope, none of that sunk in.

- We kick machine tank and oddly enough a bunch of the lower than low DPS leave again.

- They have their "You guys suck, I will find a better group to carry my sorry ass" jive going.

- I offer to switch to tank figuring being I have done it on normal and heroic LFR should be no problem and the fact I never tanked it in LFR meant nothing.

- The healers revolt and tell me I am not allowed to.

- I was only 3rd in healing partly due to lack of practice and two very well geared healers ahead of me.

- So when those very well geared healers said they needed me, I listened.

- They were way better than I, and they are in a better place to judge what is needed, so that idea got scratched.

- Did not take long to get a new tank however, 5 or 6 minutes actually, which is really good.

- Next attempt some DPS jumps in the machine, has no clue what he is doing, it was accidentally.

- No biggie, it happens, someone types out instructions on the fly, the DPS does a fair job with it.

- We still wipe.

- I thought third time was a charm, maybe it is forth.

- A few more poor DPS drop and we get lucky enough to replace them with better numbers.

- Once again for the day my group downs a boss so super easy that it makes you think it was not the 15% buff, it was the people in the group.

- And really, it was the people in the group and not the 15%.

- Sure the 15% helps, but we had a tank that knew the machine and actually got in it, the other tank moved the boss and tanked the mob he was supposed to tank instead of letting it kill people, and we had numbers, numbers that were higher because of better people, not because of 15% alone.

- There was an 80K, a few 60K and a bunch over 40K.

- Not to mention the tank doing over 80K myself in the machine.

- We seemed to have weeded out nearly all the slackers, woohoo.

- Next fight would be a breeze with this group.

- But I did mano already this week, so no reason to stay.

- And more importantly, I got my tome.

- Woo f'n hoo.

- So more reason not to stay.

- I got out of their like a bad out of hell.

- Or is that a crow out of darnassus?

- "Bat out of hell", that sounds like an awesome name for a blog about a troll druid that does a lot of LFRing.

- Either way my druid now has a completely useless legendary ring too.

- Versatility?  Really blizzard?

- How about reduce damage taken for the entire raid by 50% for 6 seconds, kind of like the DS tanking sets had.

- That would have been awesome.

- How about increase bonus armor by 50%.

- That would be a survival and DPS boost at the same time, you choose when you use it and for what purpose, burn or survival.

- Oh wait, that would not work, I have no control over my own ring.

- Boo!

- As horrible as it all was, it was awesome just the same.

- I have not had a Hell-FR horror story to tell in a while.

- And it also means I logged in this week to do something other than just raid.

- Even if it was... to raid... sort of.

- I look back on it with both horror and humor.

- It is funny seeing what we put ourselves through sometimes.

- But it is scary that this is one of the reasons I am not playing much this expansion.

- There is no fun, simple and easy thing for me to do with my alts that gets a decent reward worth the effort.

- Always loved the dungeons for valor gear situation.

- If that was still in game I would be playing the hell out of the game.

- But no dungeons worth doing, no valor gear, and blizzards OCD nature of trying to force everyone into raiding, which means LFR for the vast majority, ruined it for me.

- Sorry, but after that experience, I truly believe that LFR should drop better than mythic gear.

- Because that is the only thing that would make doing it on a regular basis worth it.

- And funny part is, even if LFR dropped item level 800 gear, I probably still would not do it on most of my alts.

- It is not fun.

- Reward needs to equal effort.

- Sorry, but wiping with strangers needs a much greater reward.

- I've said it before and I will say it again.

- I do not mind wiping 100 times with guild to down a boss, I still find that fun, but wiping even once with strangers that can not be taught and refuse to learn is not fun.

- So blizzard needs to do what they can, in my opinion, to make it so random groups don't wipe, or it is not fun.

- And when we play for fun, shouldn't the desire of the game makers to be to offer fun?

- Find me one person that "likes" wiping with strangers and finds it fun and I will show you someone on some really powerful drugs.

- Or in need of mental help.

- Blizzard needs to work on adding fun back into the game.

- Each persons fun is different but for me spamming dungeons for valor and buying valor gear for alts was fun.

- It was also easy more often than not, which is partly what made it fun.

- Things like that are important to the game, things people can do that are fun.

- Fun needs to be added or their subs will just keep declining.

- And flying?

- Sorry, added it way to late to be a saving grace.

- BTW, am I the only one that still uses ground mounts around my garrison if I am just going to the basic buildings sometimes?

- My gnome really loves his pink tailstrider.

- I had intended to log on and do some archaeology on my main this week.

- I wanted to get back into playing a little more.

- But in the end, I could not bring myself to do it.

- I do not feel motivated to play.

- And the sad part is that I am open and receptive to playing.

- I want to play.

- I just can't find anything worth playing for.

- That is a big problem as I see it.

- When someone wants to play, they are looking to play, and they still can not find a reason to do so.

- Seems I am not alone either.

- Friday night was always a busy night in my guild, which still has a fair deal of active players many nights.

- But this friday, I was alone online.

- During the after work/school times I was alone.

- During the dinner time push there was one person that cycled through their characters.

- And at the prime time, when we used to always have over 30 on at most times and at least 15 at bad times, I was alone.

- Well not completely alone, there was one person on remote chat.

- They just were not saying anything.

- The game seems to be in a really bad place right now.

- I hope it gets better.

- I've taken a long break and I want to start playing more again.

- I am just having my trouble finding my motivation.

- Can't figure out what to do, and with no one else on line, no one to talk to either for inspiration.

- Sad times indeed.

- But try not to let it get to you, I am trying too.

- Have a great day.

14 comments:

  1. See, the trick to lfr is to only queue as dps, go wash the dishes/walk the dog/play mgs5 and come back, and then press one button so it looks likes you are doing something while you watch TV. That way, if you fail, it is partially your fault but if you win, you got something for doing almost nothing! Do this once a day since this takes maybe 2 hours, and you finish by Friday!

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    1. You need to ask yourself this question, the same one I pose to all my raiders.

      "If everyone were performing at the same level of skill you are, would you down the boss?"

      If the answer is no, you have no right being there.

      What you mention is not the solution, that is the problem. If you do that, sorry to say it, but you have absolutely no right to be there.

      It is people doing that which made my runs so hard. It is those same people that ended up dropping group to wait for another group that was capable of carrying them. They are a blight on the community.

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  2. I have found myself almost enjoying LFR lately, but only because I am using it as a great big Proving Grounds to practice on my mistweaver. For some reason, I have a much more tolerant attitude towards the really bad groups than I do if I am on a DPS alt -- maybe because the queue time investment is so much less for a healer, and I know I can drop group and quickly get another if I want to.

    But I usually don't drop. Even in very toxic groups, I just put my head down and happily work on my mistweaver skills, sometimes even trying fistweaving for an entire fight if we have a disc priest and a really good druid who will basically heal the whole raid anyway. (This expansion, even very good mistweavers can't usually compete favorably with druids and disc priests.)

    I don't do anything that would be seriously detrimental to the group, but I do go into the raid with a very selfish goal of practicing my heals and trying out various talent and technique combos. It has actually been very liberating, and has made me see LFR in a new light of possibilities. Plus I should get my healer ring, for what it's worth, this week.

    (But I still rant about it, as you say there is just no excuse for asshat behavior and for people who stubbornly refuse to learn the most basic mechanics.)

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    1. If I am there on a player I am not very good at it is a lot easier to accept. Probably because I am not doing so well so I understand others being the same. Maybe they are on alts they too are not very well versed on.

      But when I go in on an alt that I play poorly on, like my rogue, and still destroy everyone else, it just infuriates me more. How can I come in and play poorly and still be doing better than everyone else. It is not possible for this many people to be that bad, is it?

      I usually stick it out myself. Unless it is raid time or log out time, I'll stay in most groups even when they are bad.

      I find, more often than not, that healing LFR is the easiest role. Not easy in terms of difficulty, because everyone stands in everything making it quite challenging sometimes, but easier as I can just do my think, whatever it may be, and be doing my job. No add switching, no tanking in the right place, no taunt switching, no interrupts, nothing, just heal. So in that sense, healing LFR is the best of all worlds as I see it.

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  3. I haven't done LFR in weeks. I quit as soon as I finished the legendary quest on my hunter and never went back. There is no incentive to go in there after getting the ring. I think that's why it's even worse than usual since the "decent" players have no reason to do it...

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    1. I agree. I think because most of the decent players have no reason to do them they are left with a few decent players that do not raid and a bunch of non raiders who are either really poor players or trying to leech off of the work of others which means a lot of bad groups.

      They need to add incentive to get people like you and me and other people who are decent players to do it and help the others. Need I said it again, this incentive is called valor.

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  4. Damn it, I have 11 rings now on all of my alts - and it was all acquired through LFR. I can't recall THIS many problems and sorrows in any LFR I got into.

    Of course when people saw the raid boss for the first time when HFC just opened there were many, many wipes. But now, when HFC has been online for 3 months, people just carry out the wings without a word, at least everything until Xhul. I don't remember any LFR wiping at the birdie. I also came to kill Archimonde for the final Khadgar's quest, and for 2 of my alts it was one-shot, no wipes at trash or boss himself.

    Yes, raging people and those who have their virtual penises, showing everyone they are here "for tomes only" are the worst players. Groups feel much more effective without them, no matter of their gear and/or dps.

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    1. I wish I had your luck. I did not have one "good" group in the three I did. Only the first one was acceptable, but I would not call it good.

      I can't stand people that do not follow simple instructions like "adds first". That is what causes wipes more than anything else I noticed. Tunnel vision.

      I don't think I will get that many rings this expansion, even if you paid me to do it. It is just not fun.

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    2. I wouldn't call this luck. For my main, I did 24 wing runs through Hellfire to acquire the ring and then kill Archimonde with it (8 first wing, 6 second wing, 5 third wing, 3 fourth and 2 arch kill). It was like this for 10 other alts. So what I'm describing is not luck, it's pattern.

      It was not exactly very fun - this many re-runs, but it was the only progress thing to do in the expansion. Now, when it ended, I feel... vacuum?

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    3. Yeah, having no reason to go any more does kind of kill it if that was your fun.

      I still say it is luck. We have a druid in my guild that was like that. Me, and many others, would complain about our LFR runs and he would say, I don't know what you guys are talking about, I've never had a bad run.

      Then he got a new job, could not longer run during day time hours and started running the same time me and the others did, after work hours, and he started to hate LFR, saying it was a nightmare, he could not longer stand it, asking how we have put up with it for so long.

      It was a time of day thing. He played at a time of day when there were better groups. I play with the after school crowd, which is usually the worst of the worst. So maybe it is not "luck" unless you want to call it being "lucky" that you can play at a different time than I.

      BTW, once that druid had to deal with the crap I have been dealing with for years, he quit. He hasn't been on in 3 months.

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  5. I would much prefer having my 715 ring back, but with the stats boosted up. In a decent raid group, I don't get to use the ring, and it just passively increases my damage. Not interesting. Even when I'm soloing, using the ring is just weird. As a ranged DPS, I have to move into melee range before using the ring in order to get the extra damage from the explosion at the end of the effect. Moving into melee range is the exact opposite of the way I'm supposed to play as a ranged DPS, so this makes no sense. I don't even have a hotkey for the ring, but I do have it on a bar that I can click if I need to. At least with the 715 ring, I didn't have someone else using my ring, and I didn't have to alter my playstyle by moving into melee in order to maximize the benefit from the ring. Sad that there's apparently no one in the dev team that asks, "Are players going to enjoy this?" when designing legendary items.

    I haven't stepped foot in LFR since finishing my ring. Mostly I'm logging in and doing the pet tamers to level up battle pets and trying to get the rest of the pets off the Tanaan legendary pets.

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    1. The ring design was very lacking in immigration, that is for sure. There have been a lot of poor on use items added to the game, but for one in the spotlight like this, I believe it to be the worst on use ever as you are not only using it for you, but everyone else that has it. That is what makes what could have been a great ring into a dreadful one.

      I hate using it solo as a ranged, like you, seems kind of stupid to go against the class type and me in melee for it to be useful. Another mistake from a design perspective.

      I am sure there are people that thought "are players going to enjoy this" but they did not ask the question because they already knew the answer was "no, they will not" and they did not want to piss off their boss, who had come up with the idea.

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  6. Gotta say that is one of the worse LFR experiences I have read. And certainly worse than I've experienced, although I avoid it hard.

    I just can't justify doing it when it is not fun, baleful catchup gear is 'adequate' and falls into your possession, and you do LFR HFC to prepare for normal HFC to prepare for heroic? There's no variety.

    I used to love getting on my undergeared alts, doing dungeons, crafting, doing small raids like WG/TB, piecing together enough gear to maybe do some alt raids. It was harder, but rewarding. Now, well, there are many better things happening in online gaming drawing people away, and guilds are becoming ghost towns outside of main raids.

    And I guess there's something especially demotivating about failing on easy content, than failing on hard. LFR difficulty if everyone knew the fight, knew how to play their class, and actually participated, would be a joke. But you never see it. The closest I've seen are <30 second Kazzak kills compared to the usual 2mins+.

    I will say that I don't agree with the legendary ring hate (dps perspective). Sure the stats are terrible, but it's still BiS. As a spec without a %dmg cooldown, it is awesome for solo purposes, and for groups mistiming use, it's no worse than bloodlust - and everyone loves bloodlust. As for the range, melee are tasked with using it, and for solo purposes, mobs generally come to you. Maybe not as a hunter with a tanking pet, but hunters are mobile and can easily get within 20 yards.

    It may just be a passive damage increase if you ignore it, but you shouldn't ignore it, you should plan your cooldowns around it. And about not being able to use it? Most legendarys do not have an on use effect, including MoP's metagem and cape.

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    1. I've had worse. The ToT LFR with durumu was a constant 10 stack fight on a regular basis. Even at the end of the expansion going in with a SoO mythic geared character it became a case of, can we down it before the maze phase or it is a wipe. I can not tell you the number of time it was me and maybe 3 people alive after the main phase, and a few times it was just me. Yeah, that was worse than anything LFR related ever and gear did not fix it, unless you killed it before that phase.

      I used to love gearing alts like you said. Doing dungeons, saving up for valor gear, maybe bringing it in on an alt run once I had enough higher pieces, and that was good design. LFR was not needed as part of the gearing process. Sucks that for many non-raiders or new comers it is. Or for anyone trying to play catch up on the legendary.

      I would have rathered a ring where I controlled it. After all I did the work to get it, it should be under my control. That is my issue with it. I do not care about the stats or what not, I care that I can not use it when I want to use it.

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