Thursday, October 10, 2013

About Raiding Awareness and Listening

Doing a lot of flex lately has had me running with some people I had not ran with before.  Some new people that were not even in our 25 man, some people that never raided, some people that used to raid but had not in a while, some really good people we are testing out for fill in positions or to start the 25 up.  Lots of different people of varied skill levels.

This is a good thing because it is an inclusive style of game play which can really be fun at times.  There is something about being able to say, sure you can come, even if the person is only going to do 60K because you know it won't hurt the team and it might get that person some experience and gear so maybe they will catch up if they wanted to or get the raiding bug if they never had it.

I've noticed that the two things I am looking for most out of the people I bring into flex are their level of common sense, otherwise known as raid awareness and their ability to listen.  These are two things I don't believe can be taught.  You either have the ability to listen or you don't.  You either have common sense or you don't.  Mechanics can be learned, rotations can be learned, movement can be learned, anything can be learned.  Everything except the ability to listen and common sense can be learned.

Listening:

I'll start off with a story of two warlocks as the basis of this post. 

One pulls nice numbers, is a dedicated raider as in they always show up to raid, they are always ready to run at start time, they make the extra effort to gear themselves up and not just wait for raid night to get gear, they cap every week so they can upgrade items every week, and they pull very respectable numbers for the content we are doing, namely flex in this case. 

The other warlock is the exact opposite.  They only show for raid night and you never see them on otherwise.  They only show up once in a while even when they do, they usually do not stay for the whole raid and they absolutely do not go out of their way to be the best they can be as you can tell from their 60K DPS with a 520 item level.

Which one is the better raider on paper from what I said?

Mr. Big Numbers seems like the ideal raider while Mrs. Small DPS seems like the tag along.  Heck, I know where I am going with this and I would still see it that way from what I said above, but it is not all about that.  It is about listening.  It is about raid awareness.

Using the General as an example, we wiped 3 times doing it on flex, all three times I said before the fight, all ranged on adds at all times with the shaman as the priority and never attack boss in defensive.  Two simple things and even if I did not give prompts in game, which I did, like calling "adds" each time adds came out and "off boss" or "on boss" as defensive happened and ended, it should still be easy enough to follow.  But with me saying all those things it should be a no brainer.  Just do what I said right?

Mr. Big Numbers was pulling 190K which is very good in flex and Mrs. Small DPS was sitting at a quite dreadful 60K and that would be dreadful even by LFR standards.

The one huge difference I noticed was not just with their numbers but where their numbers were going.  Mr Big Numbers was sitting at 89%, 88% and 84% on the boss in all three attempts.  And no, it was not just because he was playing with multi dotting and havoc on the boss, I checked, he was focusing the boss at all times. 

Even during defensive he was hitting the boss until I called him out not once, not twice, but three times.  Mrs. Small DPS has surprisingly different numbers.  The shaman was the mob that received that largest percentage of her damage.  She was multi dotting the boss from the looks of it, but she just isn't really all that good at it yet.  However, she did exactly as I asked.   She prioritized adds, she made sure the shaman was the main focus of those adds, and she never attacked during defensive.

This was not the first week of Mr. Big Numbers working his way on to my shit list but it is really getting tiring having to say the same thing before each and every pull and being ignored.  It is annoying having to spend more time watching what others are doing because I can not trust them to do what they are told.  Mr. Big Numbers might soon find his way out of even the flex runs.  And just to think this is someone that keeps bugging me because he wants to join one of the 10 running through normals while we are waiting on the 25 man to start up.  Sorry, no not going to happen if you can not follow simple instructions

Numbers be damned, if you can not listen to your raid leader, you are not a good player.  Simple as that.  Mrs. Small DPS is a better player, even if less skilled.  See, there is a difference between being a good player and a skilled player.  A skilled player can still be a bad player and Mr. Big Numbers proved that.

The single most important thing in any raid is doing what you are supposed to do and that usually means doing what you are told to do.  If you can not do that, you are a bad player.  Like when doing spoils and I asked Mr. Big Numbers to revive someone on his side.  I had to say it 4 times before he even answered and then it took him 20 seconds to do it. 

I said his name, what to do, and to who.  It was not like I was being cryptic about it.  There is no reason I should ever need to say "bob revive john" more than once.  If I say that I expect the person to be up in around 5 seconds.  Not me having to say it 4 times and it taking almost a full minute from the time I first said it to the time it happened.  You can not go wasting time like that in a raid, even more so a timed event.

Listening in a raid is a huge factor in the success or failure of the fight.  Sure, listening to your raider leader can also lead to a wipe.  I've had it happen before when I did not call for a revive because I wanted to save it for a tank and we wiped at 1%.  If I had called for the rez we would have downed the fight. But that does not change the fact that people listened to me.  That is what they are supposed to do.  The wipe is on my shoulders, but that is exactly where it should be.

Another one, and I notice this mostly with locks, is when it comes to reviving people.  Never revive people unless I said so.  That include yourself.  We had a lock testing with us last tier and he always put his soulstone on himself.  I explained to him that it could be used as a battle rez, in case he did not know, and to save it until it was needed.  Occasionally he would forget and put it on himself.  No big deal, we have enough people that can rez in group anyway, I will just cross him off my list of people I can call out to revive.

Then he dies during a fight and pops up.  Time to have another talk with Mr Dyingalock.  Never pop up as a warlock because it consumes one of the three battle revivals we are allowed and if you are dying that often it is safe to say you are not someone I would ever call to be brought up.  Yes, I actually did say that to him.

So he did it again the next week and I gave him the final warning.  If I see you even put that stone on yourself again in a raid I will kick you.  I ended up kicking him the next fight.

Speaking of popping up, shaman that automatically take it upon themselves to pop up, stop doing that.  Don't ever pop until I tell you too.  Never, ever.  If I see a wipe coming I will not have you waste it when we can use that later.  If I think we can do it without you, I might not want you to use it yet.  If I know there is a huge damage moment coming I might wait to tell you to pop until after it.  If I happen to notice there is some ground effect under your dead body that you might not notice, I will not want you to pop.  It might be a personal cooldown, but it is one that should only be used when it best helps the entire raid.  Like hero/lust.  You would only use that as instructed right?  So only pop up as instructed.

Oh, and if you ever pop after a wipe to avoid the run back you might find yourself on the bench next week.  Do not ever waste a raid cooldown out of combat.  You would not blow hero/lust while on a five minute break so why would you pop during a 2 minute run back?

Seriously, people need to just learn to listen.  Running the flex and seeing many different people I have seen more and more how people just do not listen.  They are all in their own little world.  Hey, I am the anti-social person here and if I can deal with being stuck with all of you, the least you can do is listen to what you are being told if you get stuck with me as your raid leader.

Raid Awareness aka Common Sense:

Malkorok is my type of fight as a raid leader.  It is probably the easiest fight to explain and really all you need is a little raid awareness and the fight is super easy. 

Here is how easy it is to explain to people that have never done it.  He will do three arcing smashes, they look like a shock wave, avoid them and remember were they are.  He will put circles on the ground, one person need to stand in each or it is a wipe.  After the 3rd smash wait for circles, stand in them, once we take care of them stack in the area he did not smash.  Rinse and repeat.  Healers keep people topped off with bubbles, catch up on healing needed during the second stack phase.  Tanks, swap, I know, hard right?  When we stack everyone must stack on tanks, move out if you have the debuff during the stack phase.  Collect loot.

I love, repeating because it is worth repeating, love this fight.  I wish all fights were really this simple.

This is also the ultimate raid awareness check because everything in it needs raid awareness.  If you see someone in a circle, do not join them, it is taken care of.  Never assume someone else will move to it, always move to it, whoever makes it in first stays there.  Look at where the smashes are and you now know where the safe spot is.  I know the room is a circle, but if you can not remember where three smashes were in reference to where you are standing for that short period of time you are not a raider.  Make sure you are stacked with the tank in front of the boss, notice if you have the debuff to move out if you do.

As a raid leader I should be completely silent on this fight.  There is nothing really to say.  Everything is up to the player to handle themselves, all common sense stuff.  Hence the reason I love this fight as a raid leader.  I actually get to play the game instead of micro manage.  In theory anyway.

Also this fight is one of the reasons I sometimes hate some of the people I play with when doing flex, and lets not even talk about the people in LFR to which raid awareness and common sense are four letter words.

Mr. Big Numbers runs from the circles every time he sees them.  I keep having people complain to me that they have to run to it even when he is 2 steps from it.  People don't notice they have the debuff on them so they do not run out.  Excuse me, but doesn't your screen change colors and yell at you when you have it?  I think I got it once and that is what happened, either that or I must have taken some drugs and don't remember taking them.  But how exactly can you not notice your entire screen changing?

I find myself having to remind people to stand in circles each time they spawn.  Having to mark the safe area because people never know where it is.  Having to call out who needs to move from the stack.

What the hell is wrong with all you people that you can not even grasp some of the easiest mechanics of any fight in there?  Every single one is about common sense raid awareness.  With the exception of me calling for when people should use personals or for a rez for someone, there really should be nothing a raid leader needs to say.  There are only a few mechanics, the are all individual responsibility ones and none of them are actually any harder than moving to the right place.  Move to the circle, move out of smash, move to the safe spot, move to the stack up, move out if you have debuff.  See, simple fight.

I understand we all have brain farts and mess up on common sense things.  I notice it happens to me a lot more when it is older stuff we have been doing a while.  One of those, oops, I forgot about that.  But guess what, next time I remember it because it just happened.  So I can never fault people for making mistakes.  We all make mistakes.

I also have no issues with new people seeing something for the first time making mistakes.  When things are new they all seem to happen at what seems like a bang bang done pace and you could easily be caught off guard by them.  These are not world class players here, neither am I, so I understand there will be a learning process to wipes.  I am not saying everyone should be perfect from attempt one, that is not going to happen.

Little things like when DBMs yells at you with the little red riding hood line from kara of run away little girl, run away, that you, well, run away like a little girl.

I've actually had people tell me that they didn't think they had to move to certain abilities.  Excuse me?  It was doing damage to you, DBMs was yelling at you, I said to move on vent, what more did you need, a F'N written invitation?

That is what I am talking about with concerns to common sense.  Little things.  If you are the only person near a circle, stand in it.  Common sense.

I was in one run where the person said, but I am low, if I stand in it I might die.  It boggles the mind.  So you would rather not stand in it and everyone dies, or stand in it and you might die but the rest of the right moves along and kills the boss.

Where is the common sense here?  When it is better to wipe the whole raid than to take one for the team and die so everyone else can live?  No really, when is wiping everyone a better option than killing the boss?  Common sense is not so common.

End Note:

I believe that in the end Mrs. Small DPS is a better player than Mr. Big Numbers.  If I spend some time with Mrs. Small DPS and work with her on some key binds, some macros like a mouse over for havoc, some positional advice, some rotation time on the dummies, and some more actual raiding time she too can be pulling 190K like Mr. Big Numbers.  But I don't think that I could ever get Mr. Big Numbers to pick up his raid awareness or become a better listener.  Some things can be learned and some things can't.  Sometimes it isn't all about the numbers, it is about the other things you see.  One more reason I love flex.  Mrs. Small DPS would never get the chance to get noticed because she would never have been in a raid.  Now I see someone that can, if they are willing to put in the time and effort, be a very good player some day.

We all make a lot out of numbers.  They matter a lot, lets face it, there is no denying that.  But in the end, big numbers does not equal good player.  Mr Big Numbers proves that.  Raiding awareness (common sense) and listening (doing what needs to be done) are the beginning steps of what makes someone a good player.  At least in my opinion.

12 comments:

  1. Oh malkorok... I don't know if this is just an issue with the overcrowding of 25m, but people running into the imploding energy when I'm already in them just annoys me to no end. Oddly enough, if there's another one for me to run into, I don't really mind, I can do a little jump spin disengage (which is always fun anyway) and find another that needs to have a person in it; the annoying part to me is when someone runs into mine, and they could have just stayed put. You didn't have to move at all!

    We also had to resort to assigning on of our mages to throwing up a marker every time he used arcing smash, so people would know where they could or couldn't stand. Poor mage.

    So what do you think? are we making people lazier and less raid aware by throwing up the markers? Should we just wipe until they get it?

    I recall reading some articles about how Blizz was attempting to make normal player learn "raid awareness" or at least learn to follow mechanics by having regular quest mobs in Pandaland use things like "get out of the circle on the ground", or "get out of the cone on the ground".

    ~Delirium

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    1. I had one spawn exactly on me twice the last time I did it. Isn't it awesome not needing to move? I would watch people make a move toward it, see me, go back to their spot. I love seeing that. Excellent raid awareness. I only had to tell one person to get out, I got this, but it was their first time there.

      There are not many more in 25, not like you would think. Oddly, unless you get them clumped, it is easier in 25 because there are more people to cover every area. Ever get one in that one spot that just happened to be far away from everyone in 10s? Yeap, happens ever freaking time.

      Raid marks are great when teaching new people. It helps them learn to understand what you are saying about the "smash" areas. But once someone has seen it a few times, markers should not be needed.

      Heck, the only person that really need to even pay any attention to it is the tank. As long as the tank is in the right place when the time comes to stack, stack on the tank. No need to even pay attention to where the smashes are if you have observant players and a tank you trust to me in the right place.

      They sure has hell are teaching people out in the world how to have a little more raid awareness. However, people just avoid those mobs. They are not using them to learn. Can't blame blizzard for that however.

      I love those top level yungols for learning. I've got my tank moves down to a science on them now but as melee otherwise, they are still a nightmare. Those elementals, even as a tank, I sit back and say, let me know when you are done. They are just no fun. But they could teach people. If people actually tried. They go in, die a few times, give up.

      I saw the priest, saw how it destroyed my pet, was immune to most kiting abilities and said, I know I can do it, and proceeded to beat the crap out of it until I was able to solo it. Now I can solo a priest with my eyes closed basically. But really, how many people are freaks like me that would do that? 1 in a million?

      Blizzard is in a hard place. Those mobs can teach but they are too hard for most to want to learn from them. If they made them easier, people would not learn. Catch 22.

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    2. The imploding energies require 30% of your people in 10 man, 28% in 25man (3/10 vs 7/25), but yeah, just with numbers have seven people not have to soak them is definitely a lot less than having 18 people not have to soak them (each time they're cast).

      I do like the priests up on ordos hill. I've been having lots of fun on my druid (on which I'm attempting to learn boomkin) with the kilnmasters. My goal is to get casting planned well enough that I don't have to interrupt any of my casts to move out of something. On a hunter seems there's no challenge doing the kilnmasters, chanters, firelord, or urdur. So for hunters those guys are too easy to learn from, I suppose. Still some learning, don't stand directly behind your tank/pet?

      One thing I've appreciated about the youngols up there is you can really see the differences between good and average tanks. Just out of laziness, I've done a lot of grouping as resto druid. Most of the time it's still a challenge to stay out of range, or dodge the fire. But I got this one group with a warrior tank who not only never got himself hit by the ground effects, but also never let them drop where they would hit the dps or healer. didn't matter if it was two or three of the kilnmasters, or a priest when he was kiting golems as well. Watching him do his thing was great, like watching a great ballerina or something (a dwarven warrior ballerina?). I don't have any tanking toons (aside from my hunter...), so I don't actually know if that's something all good tanks do, but after doing a lot of pugs on the island, I really loved watching that warrior work, even if it made my job as a healer pointless...

      ~Delirium

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    3. Actually there is a lot more to them as a hunter. The chanters will one shot your pet, so you have to actually kite, not let your pet tank. If you want to let your pet tank you have to turn off thunderstorm so it does not accidentally pick it up and you have to be on time, as in instantly, in picking up the add with a multi shot. Even one second late and your pet is dead.

      The kilnmaster are a different issue. Unless you are well geared the charge will kill your pet. At my main hunters gear level, no big deal, he charges, I heal, I kill, but on one of my baby hunters I have to make sure he never charges or my pet is instantly killed. And a rare one is a no go for one of my baby hunters, they just rip a pet apart like nobodies business.

      So how do you address that? Don't have your pet tank. Kite them. Kiting kilnmasters is a joke on all classes that have instant abilities, as in hunters and melee, as casters that could be a problem.

      I am not sure how you would do any of them as a boomkin unless you were super well geared and could destroy them in seconds. But then again, I am not well versed at using them. Either way, I suggest you run up on the kilnmasters. Never even give them a chance to charge you.

      One thing warriors have always been good at is movement. Even if the class is up shits creek so to speak this entire expansion when it comes to prot they still seem to have the moment down. I do much better there on my warrior that my other tanks.

      I've died a few times on my warrior but that had more to do with the item level and no real substantial self healing like all other tanks have. I think I only died once to a ground effect. It is more the hits that start to get to me.

      As you can tell, I usually do this stuff solo. Which bring me to my favorite part of thsoe yungol up there. There is never anyone up there because, at least on my server, there are not many people and even fewer decent people. Even most 5 man groups can not handle them. That means whenever I want to rep grind I usually have the entire area to myself. I love that.

      It is also one of the reasons I am not looking forward to the realm merge coming. On one of my other servers, only medium pop as it is, there is never a yungol alive. People camp them because they are never up. I do not even want to think how horrible the game is going to be to play when all servers are high pop.

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    4. Let's see, the charge, if I'm being lazy, I just get out my turtle and pop shell shield before I pull, then pull two or three (if there are that many around, like in the main area), and shell shield takes care of the damage from the charge. In fact I always get out my turtle for flintlord, because his charge hurts a lot more, and then I can get him to move where I want him, instead of having to send my pet to where he is and risk pulling others nearby. If I'm using a spirit beast (which I often do) against kilnmasters, then the charge will kill it if it crits (i'm just assuming it's a crit, generally doesn't kill it, once in a while it will), so I've just taken to pulling with the pet. It's sort of fun in the main room, to slowly re-position little steps at a time so the kilnmasters don't get far enough away that they charge.

      As for the Chanters, I'm actually not quite sure what i do. At this point if I have any CDs ready, or if either trinket procs, they generally go down before the golem comes up. If not, generally I stand back at almost max range, and I think when he starts casting for the Golem (which is a fast cast) I just hit passive on my pet. If it comes back 20 yards before I hit kill command again generally that's far enough to "kite" the golem. Even if it kills my pet, the chanter doesn't hit hard enough that you can't just take a few pounds to the face while you finish him off. If there's a chanter and kilnmaster together (then it's back to taking skill), and I don't want the kilnmaster to come closer to me, I'd use barrage while the chanter is casting, this is only sometimes successful for me, and sometimes I end up pulling even more mobs to myself, getting stunned, charged and dead before I can blink. I've never tried using multishot to pull a golem. I have a bit of lag to deal with so it'd be hard for me to time it right. Also, just because of bad habits, I have to be really conscious of not hitting MD right before I hit multishot, which my fingers just sort of do out of habit.

      Urdur takes longer to kill. I haven't found a good way to pet tank him, so he just gets kited in small circles. If I were better I imagine I'd use a distraction shot mouseover macro. Though I haven't even tested if that would work on the golems.

      And yes, I pretend to be a melee boomkin against the kilnmasters: run up (I've got prowl if needed), keep all my instants going, and the moment he starts to cast his fire ground effect start casting wrath/starfire. I'm still pretty new to the spec, so I'm just learning if that's the best way to do it. It gets really hard to time when he puts down his kiln and things speed up.

      I've gone up once or twice when there was a group up there and had them all down. I think we're considered a Medium realm. Generally not many people bother going up there. I might be the only weirdo who has the heavenly mount from shaohao but still goes up there for funsies (and to get gear for alts).

      There seems to be almost always one or two people spamming /1 on the isle looking for a rep grinding group. I'll usually take as many as want to run with me if I'm going up there to farm on my hunter. As long as I can hold aggro it doesn't matter if they're decent or not. I've even taxied a few non-caped crusaders across the bridge to grind with me. It's been a fun way to make friends with some of the non-raiders on my server.

      heh, sorry this was so long. I'm glad you didn't give up on wow, and kept your blog going! gives me great things to think about. Especially with the WHU being pretty lackluster these days.

      ~Delirium

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    5. The only one I "need" the shield shell for is the rare. Without it there is a chance he can die. Seems like a 50/50 proposition with a straight hit and no shell.

      I always run around with the turtle because a DPS pet is not really needed. When you are fully buffed in good gear they never last long to begin with. I also do not pull multiples because why make something more difficult than it needs to be. One at a time and blow them up. Usually I will finish the entire outside area all the way around and to the chest spawn point before they start to respawn, so I never play it risky with more than one.

      I can see it being hard on any caster really. My lock, in much less gear than my hunter, has no problems. Heck, I think they are easier to solo on my lock than on my hunter. How sad is that? A lock with a better tank pet than a hunter. They really need to fix that.

      I do not envy you doing it on a boomie. I would not even attempt to solo it on a mage, boomie or shadow priest.

      My server is classified as medium as well, but it is low, extremely low. I have other characters on medium and most defiantly my server is not medium. I don't really trust their labels. It is like any server with 100 level 90s to 10000 level 90s is medium.

      I am glad you like it. I try to keep things interesting, even if odd sometimes. ;)

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  2. As a RL I agree with most of what you said.

    The only point I disagree is about remembering where the arcing slashes are.

    Not everyone have the same spacial representation skills, with the amount of movement in the fight, you can easily loose track of where the slashes where relative to your current position.

    Low graphic resolution may also make it hard to see the slash if it's oposite to you in the room.


    I did this fight as a healer aswell, and I was really glad others where marking the slashes so I can concentrat on my healing, this is one of the hardest fight to heal in SoO for me (with juggernauth and thok, all others are piss easy).

    As a side note, for the raid as a whole, knowing that you can tunnel the boss without having to worry about remembering where the slashes are may end up in higher overall DPS and easier kill (that does not mean I will accept any excuses for not soaking void zones)

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    1. I guess I can how some people just can not get it. They just might not understand it which would of course make it harder for them. Some things are easier for some people than others.

      I think the graphics issue would be a larger issue however. I know many people that have to set their graphics so low in larger groups that they would just not see it. Wish there was something blizzard could do that would still show it obviously while not requiring a lot of graphic card power.

      I remember after doing Durumu one day (which I had to put graphics to low to see the maze thanks to me being color blind) I forgot to turn my graphics back up and went to do other things and was getting destroyed by things that never hit me before because I just did not see them. So yeah, graphics are an issue. A huge one.

      I agree, I would still not accept that tunneling as an excuse for not soaking.

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  3. The mechanics that I find most annoying in the game (other than one-shot melee mechanics that give you 0.2 seconds to respond to before it's too late) are like the pool soaking ones you mention for Mal (I haven't done the fight so I'm just going on your description). When random people have to, silently and quickly, designate one person to stand in them and the others need to either say out or find another one to stand in. That type of mechanic is hard enough to do right in a consistent premade group, add in pugs and swaps and they become even harder. I really don't like them. I'm all for personal responsibility but that particular type of mechanic I just don't like.

    In terms of your game basically screaming at you that you have a debuff, that could be some combination of add-ons doing that (or just DBM). I don't think the default UI does much if anything to alert you about those but it's been so long I ran the stock UI, I can't say for sure. I *am* pretty sure that folks not running DBM (which is likely more than you think, especially in flex) aren't getting the obvious indicators that you and I get. And yes, that should mean making DBM mandatory for flex (and LFR) runs but that might be tough to enforce.

    That high dps warlock of yours isn't someone I could stand raiding with. I'm all for freelancing/experimenting but only when a boss is on farm and the RL is aware of it. Going contrary to instruction while WIPING isn't something I'd take calmly.

    As for remembering slashes, there's definitely a scale of how well people handle that type of thing... they'll improve over time but some will always struggle. Think back to the colour mechanic on Durumu, there was a flash of colour where the mobs were before the beams came out. Some people caught them all, first time in. Some caught some, occasionally, no matter how many times they did it (I'm in this category, the "it's easy" people who got it the first time drove me nuts). Some had no idea what we were talking about after our 100th attempt and 15th kill, they'd never noticed them. Some mechanics are simply harder for some than others, you just have to try to blend the negatives in your group so you aren't too heavy with any one type.

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    1. I know what you mean about those soak mechanics. It always takes a while for people to get those down. Two people can be in them, at least in lower difficulties, do not know about heroics, but one is ideal.

      Having a set team and knowing how each person moves and reacts helps a bunch but for random groups mechanics like that are a nightmare and a half.

      You know what one I hate that is something like that? The circle thing on protectors. With a real raid team you have no issues, people stack or people say they are soloing it. But in randoms people either don't know what to do, or have no way to communicate.

      So someone running out eventually dies, because they do not know to stack, or someone stacks that has the sha seer on them, or someone runs away to solo soak, as they are used to doing in normal and everyone yells out at them.

      Mechanics like that should never be in unorganized content, namely LFR.

      We run a /DBM ver check at the start of flex, anyone that does not have it installed has 5 minutes to install it or they are removed from the group. I am not sure if others do that, but I surely do.

      Yeah, I used to see all the flashes (odd being I am color blind huh?) before anyone even noticed them. I had people telling me I was crazy. But I would try to set markers where they would be so people could get to the right ones. Some, even after killing it tons, still never saw them.

      The maze was the same for some people. One of our healers just never was able to get it.

      For me, because of my color blindness I have had many very unique issue that most people might take for granted. I had to set my graphics to low to even see the path. I heard many other that were not color blind say they had the same issue too.

      I've had to adjust settings, find little ways to avoid or cheat it, or just let other people handle stuff I should have been able to handle myself. Like the tornadoes on the second boss in HoF, everyone could see them spawning when they got to the end, I couldn't. I somehow made due, basically by holding off and slowing down as I got close to wait for one to spawn and then going behind it knowing two never spawn in the exact same spot back to back.

      I think sometimes blizzard forgets that not everyone can see the same things, or react to the same thing or has the same computer set up. It would be nice if they did chill out a little on the "color" based stuff or the "graphic card intensive' stuff.

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  4. ^_^ totally agree about the listening business. You should have seen the bum-fight that broke out in one LFR horridon fight -- some idiot wanted to kick the low DPS and I pointed out the high ones had been tunneling horrible the whole time. Pffft!

    I thought they had patched the shaman self rez sometime around dragonsoul so it stopped counting towards the raid rez cooldowns?

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    1. The shaman rez does not count toward the raid one, but I do not want someone popping when we are wiping anyway. So that way if the next attempt we are close I can tell them to pop and down the boss. Wasting a pop on something you know is going to be a wipe could, in effect, cause the next attempt to be a wipe too.

      People just do not understand that for the most part mechanics are more important than DPS. Everyone is all about numbers.

      I like to play a game with myself when I do LFR animus. I never attack the golems. I wait for the large and single target the large and move from them to the boss when it is time. I'll see people dart to 600K or higher sometimes on the pull and yet at the end of the fight oddly enough I am still #1. Not always, because it is a hard climb up from that early AoE, but it is a fun challenge. It is fun to be dead last and watch yourself climb past all those people that wanted to just pad the meters.

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