I finished off my weekly valor runs on my Hunter with mostly no incidents. No bad groups and very few jerk players. You know the type I am talking about, the ones that insult others for no reason. I still think that should be a reportable offense that carries a 3 day in game ban. That is not what this is about however.
After I was done with my hunter runs I decided to do a couple of quick runs on my Shaman. While I've been lucky enough to do some really fast Zul's the last two days and healing them is not hard for the most part I wanted super simple. Something where I can watch TV while I heal sort of thing so I entered the normal heroic queue.
Oh dead god I was wrong. Nothing simple about this at all. Even more so when it seems that you are running with people that either never did any of this before and are afraid to admit it or are just bad players over all. I'm going to lean on the side of bad players because even when they where told what to do they still did not do it. That is not a case of I didn't know, that is a case of I am too damn stupid to do it.
I get into a GB run that already has two bosses down, cool, quick run I think to myself. We start clearing the trash from the point I joined to the third boss. Every single trash mob is there, most with near full life. Did you guys even try doing the dragon run? I mean, come on, how can you do a dragon run and kill nothing. Not even kill nothing but injure almost nothing.
Either way, it should be easy. Wrong again. Tank calls for no CC, grabs three mobs and lets the others do whatever the hell they feel like doing. Everything takes forever to go down. I go oom on trash in a normal heroic for the first time since the gearing up phase. Next pack, I go oom again, next pack, oom again, next pack one of the DPS face pulls when the tank is not ready and I am not even full on mana yet and it turns into a serious effort to keep everyone alive but we manage. Next pack, guess what, another of the DPS face pulls and again I am still not ready because I have not had the chance to get mana.
Finally after that I am able to sit and drink and get mana. Tank pulls that last pack before the boss. Quite honestly I do not think I have ever had to kill those guys, they have always been dead every time I've been in there, even the first time ever in there when we were all new and knew nothing that pack never seems to live. I am starting to think that at least three of the original group had to think the dragons where a ride for fun and never bombed anything because no one could be that bad.
After that pack I am at about 70% mana and sit to drink and tank pulls. Dude, check the healer before pulling I think but don't say anything and I go to work.
First flame guy pops up, no one switches to it, the person it targets just stands there and lets it hit them and dies. I say you need to switch to adds and run if it is targeting you.
Next one pops up, no one switches to it. Screw it, I start DPSing it, frost shock to slow and then whatever I can get on it. Apparently it clicks with the hunter and he starts to help me. Just in time. Third one, same thing, just little old healing me DPSing it until the hunter notices that there is the giant flame thing is running across the room and thinks to himself, let me shoot it a few times.
Forth one, targets me. Oh well, can't really do much, frost shock, throw a heal, switch to wolf and run, throw another heal or two, frost shock, switch to wolf and run. Throw some huge heals on the stupid rogue standing in the white stuff because he is too stupid to move or maybe it is because I am too stupid to just let him die.
Back to wolf, frost, heal, wolf, frost, heal, wolf, frost, heal, wolf, I am starting to think because the hunter does not see me standing there DPSing so it means he doesn't have to either. Would someone F'N kill this thing, is what I would have typed if I could ever stop moving and casting. There is not a spare second to do anything. I wanted to kick back, light a smoke and drink my coffee with a relaxing heroic and I get this? False advertising if you ask me, heroics are supposed to be super easy for over geared healers now. The boss dies, thank god, I can stop running.
I raise the dead, sit to drink and the tank pulls the next packs the moment I sit down. WTF is wrong with him. I wait, wait and wait some more. Timing it to get as much mana as I can without letting him die. I pop up and throw a riptide and two greaters on him to get him back into shape, thank god for 84K crits now. Then I need to go do what I can to save the rogue who somehow seems to take as much damage as the tank. How is it possible to take that much damage without ever stealing aggro from the tank?
Of course, the pat starts walking over and instead of moving back to avoid him so I can get mana he moves toward him to grab him with two mobs from the previous pack still up. We all survive, thanks to me of course. It is not like anyone else was of any help. The mage and hunter, while not taking huge damage are doing DPS on par with a level 70 and the rogue doing level 65 style DPS while taking more damage then the tank.
Don't even get me started on the tank. I wanted to get all medieval on his ass like Jules from Pulp Fiction.
"Cooldowns motherfucker!, do you use them?"
There is no reason to eat all the damage all the time. You have cooldowns to reduce the incoming damage for a few seconds, all tank classes do, use them. That gives me time to save the stupid rogue. Next time I should just let you both die.
The two packs leading to the boss are always trouble because they can not be hit but we have been doing everything with nearly nothing being hit so that should not be a huge problem.
I take things into my own hands and mark one for the hunter to trap and I bind elemental on the other. It makes things a lot more bearable. The rogue, of course, still made every effort he could to try and die, like he does on every pull it seems. So far I have ruined his death wish.
Next pack the hunter CCs one of them and it is all hell breaking loses on the other three for a while. Enough to oom me of course, we down them and the frozen one and I sit to drink. You know what the tank does of course. Pulls one of the mobs. No biggie really.
Before the second mob someone asks for sides. The tank said he and the hunter would be on one and the mage and the rogue would be on the other. It should be okay being the DPS just might be enough, close, but might. I point out that everyone must get in the eye of the storm or they will die. I made sure to say that because I know someone in this winner of a group was going to screw it up if I did not say anything.
We kill the other mob and pull the boss. All goes well from the start, everyone even gets into the eye of the storm and moves to the adds. Wow, all done as if these people had a clue. Miracles can happen.
Second time around, not so lucky. Rogue doesn't get in the eye, doesn't even attempt to get in the eye. I tried to heal him but for some reason as soon as I started to heal him he ran away. Yes, not to the eye, away from it, until he was out of range, and dead. Guess he thought I meant you only need to get into the eye once. Maybe next time I should say each time.
Adds pop up and I go with the mage on his side. We down it, woohoo, go go healer DPS. Third one, same thing, forth one, same thing, fifth one, did you even know you could go that far, same thing.
Good thing as far as healing goes if no whelps are released that fight requires nearly no healing. I was able to use most of my mana for DPSing and while my DPS sucked it was enough to bridge the gap. Sure, our add made it to the eggs each time but never released. That is the most important thing really.
The dungeon was done, so much for a nice and easy run however. How is it that there are still so many people that bad this late in the expansion. Sure, I know people are entering heroics new to them now, people that are just getting there and new players and the such but what are the odds of getting a group with four really horrible players like that?
I hate to say things like this but I feel it deserves it. I carried that group. Now I understand why they needed to replace the previous healer, the healer was not kicked or DCed, they quit. Most healers would have quit on them. I should have quit on them. I guess I was not smart enough to do that. Maybe somewhere inside of me I liked the challenge.
With that disaster done I figured I would try again. Getting two bad groups in a row where no one knows anything is really rare. Usually it is just one or two bad players at most.
I get into a fresh HoO run and see four guild mates. This could be one of two things. One being it is a killer group that just did not have a healer and they are nice people or they all suck and will blame me for anything that goes wrong.
Well, I can tell you one thing for sure, I was worried from the get go. When I have over 10K more health then the tank does there are going to be issues.
At least the tank knew their limits. The first pack, sap one, poly one, hex one, and take mobs one at a time. Okay, I can deal with this. Geez, how the hell am I losing the warrior, the rogue and the bear tank all at the same time. Pounding the biggest heals I can I manage to keep them up. They move to another mob and it is more of the same, all people in melee range think they are tanking and taking more damage then the tank is. Hex breaks and starts beating the crap out of me. Does the tank pick it up? Nope, he is working on his one mob at a time. Apparently that is all he can handle. I rehex the mob and we continue.
After all is said and done I am oom. Yes, doing one mob at a time and I am still oom. Perhaps it had something to do with the mage doing a whole 3K DPS, the warrior doing a whole 6K DPS and the rogue doing an outstanding 7K DPS, all that added to the tanks 4K. The tank is the only one I do not mind looking at these number but what the hell makes these people think they should be in a heroic when their numbers are barely even decent for a normal?
This is going to be a long dungeon. I can feel it, lets just hope they do not want to do all 7 bosses, I don't have three hours to spend with these people.
We have to do the same one at a time thing on the other packs like that and each one involves me healing the rogue and warrior more then the bear. Each one has a moment when I am getting beat on and no one is helping me. Each one has me going oom.
I watched the warrior and the rogue closely. I wanted to see where all this damage was coming from. No ground effects. Attacking from behind. How the hell are they taking so much damage? I swear they had to be doing it to themselves because nothing was hitting them, ever, and they where going down so fast.
First boss, three of the people jump, mage does not. I go with them. They jump down one side, run to the other and then run back up. Excuse me, is anyone going to click any switches down here? I did it myself. At least they took all the snakes with them. I run my little wolf tail off to get back to the top just in time to save everyone from certain death. We jump down again, but I learned they are all too stupid to click on something so I do it myself from the get go and it is not so bad being I am not so far behind them so there really is no chance for death.
Going through the elementals was fun. I knew at the bubble guy we where going to be in trouble if I got bubbled. The tank got bubbled, no one switched, I started DPSing it, the warrior then threw a shot in and it was enough to break it. The mage got it next. I knew I was alone on this one. I do some DPS while healing and almost have the mage out when I get bubbled. Me and the mage are nearing death when the elemental goes down so the bubble breaks. No one even attempted to free us, ever.
The fire elemental was another event I saw coming before hand. The warrior, rogue and tank all stayed in for the hellfire thing. I could not keep all three up so I had to choose between the rogue and the warrior, the rogue had more DPS so the warrior lost the coin toss. I healed the two through each one because they refused to move from it. After the fight I start to rez the warrior and the bear decides to go corral up every single throgg he can find. To the point he almost died. Like a fool, once again, I saved him. I should have let him die, might have taught him a lesson.
The boss, well, needless to say, it took forever. The DPS here sucked big time but I am over geared so I was not going to run out of mana if the fight when on longer. Over all it is not very damage intense. They make me work for my valor however by always waiting to move from the purple stuff. I hit hero when the boss starts his alpha thing for some added DPS, don't help, his life looked like it didn't budge. We did it, everyone lived, I DPSed the whole fight again because I had to.
On to the last boss, so glad they skipped the other stuff. When the little fire guys exploded, all melee died. As expected, they where all too stupid to take one step back, or left, or right, or anything. I revive them, we go after the boss, it stomps the mage for a one shot kill. Bears do have interrupts, maybe someone should point that out to this bear. Looks like I am on interrupt duty as well as healing duty and CC duty and DPS duty. A day in the life sometimes I tell you. We finish it, I rez the mage and wish them a good day and leave.
It amazes me sometimes that people can actively be that bad. Once again, as much as I hate to say it, I carried that group. Most other healers would have left on that first pull going oom fighting one mob and seeing a mage do 3K DPS. I am not most healers. I am not most people. I like to give everyone a chance but sometimes you just want to hit cruise control and have fun the quick and easy way. I had wanted that but what I got was a challenge. Twice. But I can gladly say I lived up to the challenge and did my job about as good as it could be done.
While healing can be really boring when you are with a good group or an over geared group there is one thing that will always remain true. Healing with a bad group will always be exciting, even if not actually fun. They kept me on my toes. That is for sure.
I guess back to Zul runs for me. Wanted to do normal heroics because they should be easier. I had more trouble healing each one of those two normal heroics then I did healing 7 Zuls last week combined.
Really, just really, how is it possible to do 3K DPS as a mage? At least they knew where the poly was so I could out DPS them as a healer. Not kidding, a few pulls I did. Sad, right? That is why I said, holy horrible players batman.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Miss Medicina's healing questionnaire revisited
Excerpt stolen from Shintar over at Priest With A Cause:
Now to me filling it out.
1) What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
- I don't share names, but she is a restoration shaman.
2) What is your primary group healing environment?
- As an alt she gets more use in healing 5 mans to help DPS with queue time but is a raid healer in 10 man when we need one.
3) What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
- Riptide. It is a nice little heal itself but the haste buff to the next two heals are nice and quick after it. It is more then just itself. I like spells like that.
4) What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
- The spirit link totem. Quite honestly I have yet to see a need to use it. So much so, I changed my spec back to not have it so I can use that point someplace else where it could be of more use to me. It does seem like it will be very useful when you are pushing raid progression for server firsts and everyone does not have perfect gear yet but my guild does not move that fast. We are usually over geared for each boss by the time we pass it.
5) What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
- Raid healing in a 25 man or any group up fight. BH, Chim, etc. Shaman healers are great when everyone is close together.
6) What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
- No instant heals with zero cooldown. We are really up shits creek when there is a heavy movement fight and a few people need some patchwork done. Natures Swiftness and Spiritwalkers Grace are both fine cooldowns but with a 2 minute cooldown each they are not exactly something you can use often or even depend on being available when you need it and neither one solves the problem of having no instant heal without a cooldown.
7) In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
- Raid healing, no doubt. There will always be people grouped up enough for healing rain and chain heal to go from a decent spell to a very good spell.
8) What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
- Druids. They bandage the wounds and I do the stitches.
9) What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
- Hard to say. Class means nothing. The skill of the player behind the class is what makes the class easy or hard to heal with. Also the time you play with them makes it easy or hard. I always have a hard time healing with someone I've never healed with before and had an easy time healing with someone I healed with before. It is about knowing the person. What class they play really means nothing.
10) What is your worst habit as a healer?
- I sometimes forget about healing myself. I think that happens to us all.
11) What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
- You want one? Sorry, can't do that. Maybe I can if I sum it up into one big ball and call it bad players. Tanks still stacking stamina. Melee DPS that will still attack from behind even if there is fire there. Ranged DPS that see things flying at them and don't move. People that do not use cooldowns when it will save them thinking instead that I will always save them. I can go on, but I do not think I need to. Bad players sums it up.
12) Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
- Absolutely. While I do wish I had an instant with no cooldown even if it was a crappy heal I have to say that over all Shaman healers are in a decent place. I've been able to do things on my shaman I can not do on my priest and I have a lot more experience on my priest.
13) What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
- If you are looking for numbers go talk to a the damage dealers. I do not care if I do 7K HPS or 70K HPS. I do not care if I did 2% over healing or 90% over healing. When the fight is over I ask myself a few questions. Is the boss dead? Is everyone alive? Do I still have mana left? If the answer to all these is yes then I did a good job. You can look at numbers to improve your effectiveness and that is fine but no matter how much you improve your effectiveness you can not end a fight in a better position then having a dead boss, all players alive and still having mana left.
14) What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
- I think most people think of shaman as a weak healing class but they can hold their own.
15) What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
- Spell selection. Could also be called mana management. When starting you will over heal a lot because of fear of people dying. This will run you out of mana quickly and mean when you need the big heal for real you will not be able to cast it. Choosing the right spell for the job is the hardest thing to learn.
16) If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
- Over healing for sure. Healing stream totem starts over healing the second I put it down and usually will continue to do so the entire fight. Ticks from healing rain once someone is max will also ring up those over healing numbers. They might also see a low healing output because the more I use the character the better I am becoming at healing when healing is needed and choosing the lesser spell most of the time if I know that no additional damage is coming later. This will lead to a lower HPS but it saves my mana for when I need it so I do not mind.
17) Haste or Crit and why?
- I have a love affair with haste. I've played with the same group with different levels of haste doing the same content. Having a cast time .2 faster seems to make a huge difference. .2 seconds can turn a hard fight into an easy one sometimes. Critical however is starting to peak its head out because everyone likes big numbers and seeing 75K-80K heals now is pretty darn fun.
18) What healing class do you feel you understand least?
- Paladin. My healing experience as a paladin leaves something to be desired.
19) What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
- I use healbot but not for all clicks like many do. It is just there for some simple stuff, my dispel, riptide, and my small heal for example. All my spells are in mouse over macros. I could just as easily use the in game raid frames and never miss a beat. You would not even notice I do not have a healing addon if I did that. I can not live without my mouse over macros.
20) Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
- I stack to meet certain haste plateaus based on theory crafting but if I feel a tiny bit more haste makes me more comfortable I will still add it. Being comfortable with your healing means you heal better. So if I go for 1% more haste then recommended it is not because I do not know what I am doing, it is because that is what makes me feel comfortable. In the end, you will notice the difference if you run with me and I am not comfortable with the speed my heals are going off at.
Remember Miss Medicina's healing questionnaire from about two years ago? No? Well, either way, Saunder from Non-Squishy Heals would like to revive it, and he asked me to fill it in as well. Why not, I thought, the game has changed quite a bit since then and it should be interesting to see whether my answers to the questions have changed as well compared to last time. So, without further ado:
Now to me filling it out.
1) What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
- I don't share names, but she is a restoration shaman.
2) What is your primary group healing environment?
- As an alt she gets more use in healing 5 mans to help DPS with queue time but is a raid healer in 10 man when we need one.
3) What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
- Riptide. It is a nice little heal itself but the haste buff to the next two heals are nice and quick after it. It is more then just itself. I like spells like that.
4) What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
- The spirit link totem. Quite honestly I have yet to see a need to use it. So much so, I changed my spec back to not have it so I can use that point someplace else where it could be of more use to me. It does seem like it will be very useful when you are pushing raid progression for server firsts and everyone does not have perfect gear yet but my guild does not move that fast. We are usually over geared for each boss by the time we pass it.
5) What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
- Raid healing in a 25 man or any group up fight. BH, Chim, etc. Shaman healers are great when everyone is close together.
6) What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
- No instant heals with zero cooldown. We are really up shits creek when there is a heavy movement fight and a few people need some patchwork done. Natures Swiftness and Spiritwalkers Grace are both fine cooldowns but with a 2 minute cooldown each they are not exactly something you can use often or even depend on being available when you need it and neither one solves the problem of having no instant heal without a cooldown.
7) In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
- Raid healing, no doubt. There will always be people grouped up enough for healing rain and chain heal to go from a decent spell to a very good spell.
8) What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
- Druids. They bandage the wounds and I do the stitches.
9) What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
- Hard to say. Class means nothing. The skill of the player behind the class is what makes the class easy or hard to heal with. Also the time you play with them makes it easy or hard. I always have a hard time healing with someone I've never healed with before and had an easy time healing with someone I healed with before. It is about knowing the person. What class they play really means nothing.
10) What is your worst habit as a healer?
- I sometimes forget about healing myself. I think that happens to us all.
11) What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
- You want one? Sorry, can't do that. Maybe I can if I sum it up into one big ball and call it bad players. Tanks still stacking stamina. Melee DPS that will still attack from behind even if there is fire there. Ranged DPS that see things flying at them and don't move. People that do not use cooldowns when it will save them thinking instead that I will always save them. I can go on, but I do not think I need to. Bad players sums it up.
12) Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
- Absolutely. While I do wish I had an instant with no cooldown even if it was a crappy heal I have to say that over all Shaman healers are in a decent place. I've been able to do things on my shaman I can not do on my priest and I have a lot more experience on my priest.
13) What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
- If you are looking for numbers go talk to a the damage dealers. I do not care if I do 7K HPS or 70K HPS. I do not care if I did 2% over healing or 90% over healing. When the fight is over I ask myself a few questions. Is the boss dead? Is everyone alive? Do I still have mana left? If the answer to all these is yes then I did a good job. You can look at numbers to improve your effectiveness and that is fine but no matter how much you improve your effectiveness you can not end a fight in a better position then having a dead boss, all players alive and still having mana left.
14) What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
- I think most people think of shaman as a weak healing class but they can hold their own.
15) What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
- Spell selection. Could also be called mana management. When starting you will over heal a lot because of fear of people dying. This will run you out of mana quickly and mean when you need the big heal for real you will not be able to cast it. Choosing the right spell for the job is the hardest thing to learn.
16) If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
- Over healing for sure. Healing stream totem starts over healing the second I put it down and usually will continue to do so the entire fight. Ticks from healing rain once someone is max will also ring up those over healing numbers. They might also see a low healing output because the more I use the character the better I am becoming at healing when healing is needed and choosing the lesser spell most of the time if I know that no additional damage is coming later. This will lead to a lower HPS but it saves my mana for when I need it so I do not mind.
17) Haste or Crit and why?
- I have a love affair with haste. I've played with the same group with different levels of haste doing the same content. Having a cast time .2 faster seems to make a huge difference. .2 seconds can turn a hard fight into an easy one sometimes. Critical however is starting to peak its head out because everyone likes big numbers and seeing 75K-80K heals now is pretty darn fun.
18) What healing class do you feel you understand least?
- Paladin. My healing experience as a paladin leaves something to be desired.
19) What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
- I use healbot but not for all clicks like many do. It is just there for some simple stuff, my dispel, riptide, and my small heal for example. All my spells are in mouse over macros. I could just as easily use the in game raid frames and never miss a beat. You would not even notice I do not have a healing addon if I did that. I can not live without my mouse over macros.
20) Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
- I stack to meet certain haste plateaus based on theory crafting but if I feel a tiny bit more haste makes me more comfortable I will still add it. Being comfortable with your healing means you heal better. So if I go for 1% more haste then recommended it is not because I do not know what I am doing, it is because that is what makes me feel comfortable. In the end, you will notice the difference if you run with me and I am not comfortable with the speed my heals are going off at.
The Waiting Game
Many people disliked the idea of giving baggies to tanks, and healers to a much lesser extent, because they felt as if they were being slighted. These people where DPS of course. There was a lot of uproar about it but most seemed to miss the real problem. This was not going to solve anything.
I wrote something about how queue times where back to normal in less then a week. I had said it would not solve anything. I was right then and still right now. Some said that we should give it time and see if it starts to click. I knew it would not click. Anyone with enough brain power to tie their shoes knew it would not work. Of course, we now know that no one at blizzard can tie their shoes. They must wear loafers.
I decided to do some randoms on my hunter last night and I spent more time in queue (33-41 minutes from the few I did) then I did in the dungeons (not one was over 30 minutes).
The waiting time does not bother me so much. I would like it to be lower, absolutely, but I can find things to do. Gather, grind, dailies, read, real life stuff, etc. It is not horrible but it is still a general annoyance.
What makes it more annoying is the fact that you wait 41 minutes in queue to get into a dungeon that you are done with in 18 minutes. That is what my first run resulted in. ZG, 41 minutes waiting, did a ton of dailies while waiting, and 18 minutes from start to end.
Is there something wrong with this picture? I sure think so. In the perfect world the time you wait should never be more then 20% the length of the dungeon itself. This means that for an 18 minute run I should never have to wait in queue for more then 3 minutes and 48 seconds roughly.
I am a realist. I know that can not happen. There would need to be a complete redesign of how dungeons work if anything like that would be capable of happening and even if I have read some decent ideas on how that can be done I don't see it ever happening.
The regular heroics are starting to get more reasonable in terms of wait time but that has absolutely nothing to do with the baggies either. If blizzard ever tries to spin it that way, do not believe them. Think back to wrath when there were no baggies and the wait times where like nothing. Sometimes even 10 minutes or less for DPS. The reason for that was over gearing.
As we get more gear we can compensate, or over compensate for bad players. This plays well for the tank and healer population. The more things get over geared (read: easy) people will be more willing to role in the healing or tanking off spec just for the faster queue as they know the content is a joke to begin with.
See, that is the one true solution to queue time. Ease. The easier the content is the more likely someone will be willing to play the role that is needed. I do not tank randoms because of stupid DPS. If I did not even need the DPS and I could basically clear it with me and a healer alone then I would be more likely to queue up because if I get stupid DPS it will not really be as much of a problem. No risk.
Each tier that comes out will make the queue time get shorter as people gear up more and more.
There is a new twist to the dungeon finder system however with the fact you can get all your runs in for the week in one day if you wanted to.
Tip for the wise.
If you want to blow through your heroics do them on Tuesday. You will have all the best players in the game wanting to get their heroic runs out of the way as fast as possible.
Doing Zuls on Tuesday you will get a whole slew of 20K+ DPS meaning super fast runs. Doing Zuls on Sunday, good luck getting even one person that can come close to 12K. Good thing is you can do them with less if the players are at least smart enough to follow mechanic. Good luck getting three non retarded DPS in one run late in the week.
The world has changed when it comes to randoms. You need to do all your randoms on Tuesday. Sad part for me is that I do not have that type of time. 7 Zuls with an average wait time over 30 minutes and an average run time of about 30 minutes means it will take at the very least 7 hours to knock out all my weekly Zuls on my hunter. I don't know about you, but I don't have 7 hours to play on a Tuesday.
So I will spread it out over two or three days and watch as the DPS goes down, the tanking ability goes down, and the healing capabilities go down and hope and pray I can finish my week without a wipe fest because of bad players.
Blizzard can fix the waiting game now. They do not need to wait for us to over gear the content. Seriously. Just nerf it to all hell. You will see tanks and healing flowing in so fast being it will be so easy. The waiting game will be over.
Do I care if heroics become stupid easy? Nope. They are just heroics, they are just part of my weekly grind. The faster I can get them over with the better. I would be happy if heroic dungeons for valor points where a one boss thing where you could do it with everyone pulling 1K DPS. It would make me very very happy. Go in, shoot once, collect points, move on.
Doing my dungeon for my 70 valor should be on the same level as doing those new quests to click on a pile of dirt 5 times to get a mark of the world. As simple as it comes. I would be happy with that. Hell, I would be happy with anything that doesn't keep me waiting in queue 40 minutes to do something that only needs 20 to do.
I am not a fan of the waiting game but there is one good thing about it. It gives me time to do my dailies while waiting. So it is not all bad. Most of the time at least.
My only qualm is the wait time is longer then it takes to do the dungeon. That just really annoys me.
I wrote something about how queue times where back to normal in less then a week. I had said it would not solve anything. I was right then and still right now. Some said that we should give it time and see if it starts to click. I knew it would not click. Anyone with enough brain power to tie their shoes knew it would not work. Of course, we now know that no one at blizzard can tie their shoes. They must wear loafers.
I decided to do some randoms on my hunter last night and I spent more time in queue (33-41 minutes from the few I did) then I did in the dungeons (not one was over 30 minutes).
The waiting time does not bother me so much. I would like it to be lower, absolutely, but I can find things to do. Gather, grind, dailies, read, real life stuff, etc. It is not horrible but it is still a general annoyance.
What makes it more annoying is the fact that you wait 41 minutes in queue to get into a dungeon that you are done with in 18 minutes. That is what my first run resulted in. ZG, 41 minutes waiting, did a ton of dailies while waiting, and 18 minutes from start to end.
Is there something wrong with this picture? I sure think so. In the perfect world the time you wait should never be more then 20% the length of the dungeon itself. This means that for an 18 minute run I should never have to wait in queue for more then 3 minutes and 48 seconds roughly.
I am a realist. I know that can not happen. There would need to be a complete redesign of how dungeons work if anything like that would be capable of happening and even if I have read some decent ideas on how that can be done I don't see it ever happening.
The regular heroics are starting to get more reasonable in terms of wait time but that has absolutely nothing to do with the baggies either. If blizzard ever tries to spin it that way, do not believe them. Think back to wrath when there were no baggies and the wait times where like nothing. Sometimes even 10 minutes or less for DPS. The reason for that was over gearing.
As we get more gear we can compensate, or over compensate for bad players. This plays well for the tank and healer population. The more things get over geared (read: easy) people will be more willing to role in the healing or tanking off spec just for the faster queue as they know the content is a joke to begin with.
See, that is the one true solution to queue time. Ease. The easier the content is the more likely someone will be willing to play the role that is needed. I do not tank randoms because of stupid DPS. If I did not even need the DPS and I could basically clear it with me and a healer alone then I would be more likely to queue up because if I get stupid DPS it will not really be as much of a problem. No risk.
Each tier that comes out will make the queue time get shorter as people gear up more and more.
There is a new twist to the dungeon finder system however with the fact you can get all your runs in for the week in one day if you wanted to.
Tip for the wise.
If you want to blow through your heroics do them on Tuesday. You will have all the best players in the game wanting to get their heroic runs out of the way as fast as possible.
Doing Zuls on Tuesday you will get a whole slew of 20K+ DPS meaning super fast runs. Doing Zuls on Sunday, good luck getting even one person that can come close to 12K. Good thing is you can do them with less if the players are at least smart enough to follow mechanic. Good luck getting three non retarded DPS in one run late in the week.
The world has changed when it comes to randoms. You need to do all your randoms on Tuesday. Sad part for me is that I do not have that type of time. 7 Zuls with an average wait time over 30 minutes and an average run time of about 30 minutes means it will take at the very least 7 hours to knock out all my weekly Zuls on my hunter. I don't know about you, but I don't have 7 hours to play on a Tuesday.
So I will spread it out over two or three days and watch as the DPS goes down, the tanking ability goes down, and the healing capabilities go down and hope and pray I can finish my week without a wipe fest because of bad players.
Blizzard can fix the waiting game now. They do not need to wait for us to over gear the content. Seriously. Just nerf it to all hell. You will see tanks and healing flowing in so fast being it will be so easy. The waiting game will be over.
Do I care if heroics become stupid easy? Nope. They are just heroics, they are just part of my weekly grind. The faster I can get them over with the better. I would be happy if heroic dungeons for valor points where a one boss thing where you could do it with everyone pulling 1K DPS. It would make me very very happy. Go in, shoot once, collect points, move on.
Doing my dungeon for my 70 valor should be on the same level as doing those new quests to click on a pile of dirt 5 times to get a mark of the world. As simple as it comes. I would be happy with that. Hell, I would be happy with anything that doesn't keep me waiting in queue 40 minutes to do something that only needs 20 to do.
I am not a fan of the waiting game but there is one good thing about it. It gives me time to do my dailies while waiting. So it is not all bad. Most of the time at least.
My only qualm is the wait time is longer then it takes to do the dungeon. That just really annoys me.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Does Role Effect Your Feelings?
The question is rather simple, does the role you are playing change your feelings?
With a study group of one, me, I can say that what role I am playing does make me view myself differently as well as others differently.
As a DPS (except Hunter) -
Note: I exclude hunter because that is the one I have the most experience at and I play it better then all other damage dealing classes.
I always have a feeling of inadequacy. I could have did more DPS, I could have interrupted faster, I could have CCed that one mob on the fly, I could have moved a split second faster out of avoidable damage.
I always feel like no matter what I do I can do it better. There is never a time when I feel like I did everything perfect and even those moments when it comes close to perfect I can always pick a few spots where I could have done something better.
As a damage dealer I always feel like all the pressure in the world in on my shoulders. If my DPS is not high enough the mob lives to long. If the mob lives to long the healer might go oom or the tank might run out of cooldowns or someone might finally make a mistake and get hit by something that they avoided the first six times but the seventh time it gets them. The longer a mob lives, the more chances there are for things to go wrong. The longer the mob lives, my own feelings of inadequacy increases.
If the healer goes oom, it was my fault for not downing the mob fast enough. If I grab aggro, it is my fault for not DPSing within the tanks ability. If I am on the wrong target and take aggro, it is my fault for tabbing to the wrong target and not noticing it fast enough. Anything I do, it my fault because good DPS, very good DPS, can compensate for average or below average tanks and healers.
All the pressure is on me and no matter what I do I know I could always do better. It is a hard role to play because there is no such thing as being great when you are DPS because you can always get better. I love the challenge of always getting better, but I always feel like everything that goes wrong is my fault even if it wasn't.
This is why I hate pugging on my other DPS, I always feel like I can do better and even if I can do over 10K on one of them in low gear I do not feel I know them well enough to have the weight of the world on their shoulders yet and that is what happens to a DPS in a pug. Even more so when you are the only DPS doing 10K.
As a DPS - Hunter -
This one is slightly difference because I am very confident in my skill set as a hunter but that does not change the fact that I still suffer from everything mentioned above. I still feel like I can always get better, I could move quicker, I could do more DPS, I could be faster with a trap on the fly, I could be faster with a tranq shot, I could help by hitting a runner with a concussive, the list goes on and on and on. Hunters have such a huge toolkit and I feel that if I am not using every one of those tools to their fullest potential then I am doing something wrong. At least with my hunter I feel as if the pressure of carrying the world on my shoulders is not so bad.
There is one little difference however with my hunter. Where I easily fall into the we can not do this attitude on all my other DPS characters I always feel that when I am on my hunter we can do anything. As long as the rest of the group is as least awake at the keyboard and not tripping over their own feet when they walk I always believe everything can be done. On my hunter, I have hope.
Last boss of ZA the day ZA came out. Eagle pops up, everyone dies, everyone but your friendly neighborhood hunter. I turn my pets growl on, start spamming shots with MD on to it, switch to fox and never stop moving. I know what you will say, you do not need to keep moving. Well, when you are alone and you do not have a heal, you can never stop moving, trust me. I downed the boss myself. No one else needed. On my hunter, anything is possible.
Second boss of stonecore one week after cataclysm was released, everyone died nearly instantly. I soloed him all by my lonesome. Even my pet was dead. On my hunter, anything is possible.
Same boss everyone but me and one melee DPS died. I told him, burn it, I will kite it. We downed it.
Second to last boss of SFK. Everyone dead. Pet growling again, me moving in circles in fox, dead boss. As a hunter, anything is possible and I always believe there is a chance even when it seems like there is none.
So while I still suffer from the feelings of inadequacy with my hunter that I do with my other DPS classes I always feel that there is hope. On my other characters when I think, I could do better, I feel it is a need to learn to be better. On my hunter when I think I could do better, I know I can and it is just a matter of doing it. I have hope when I am on my hunter. Hope that anything can be done no matter the group I am in.
This is why I do not mind pugging alone with my hunter. I believe everything will be fine, even if there are a few wipes, anything can be done. I have faith.
As a Tank -
I feel so dependent on everyone around me. If the healer is not good at mana management or does not have the skill or gear. I die. If the DPS does not hit the targets I mark. I die or they die. If the DPS does not CC the right target I mark (had this hunter that kept CCing the skull even after being told square three times) then the pull can become harder and in some cases near impossible to pull off cleanly.
A pug tank I had on my healer the other day said it perfectly. Could you DPS wait at least three seconds before you all choose different targets.
The sarcasm dripped off of that like molasses, it was fantastic. I wanted to tell the tank, I love you man.
As a tank you are at the whim of those around you. No matter how good you are, you could be fantastic. You could be an 85 tank running lowbies through a low dungeon, if the people around you are idiots then there will be problems. You are really dependent on those around you to do everything for you correctly.
This might be one of the reasons we see so few tanks pugging. Because they are at the whim of everyone around them and if you go alone and pick up four people the law of averages are you will have one good player, one horrible player, and two players that at least have mastered the skill to chew gum and walk at the same time. This means they could be good or they could be bad but at least they are not complete morons.
If you add to the fact that the tank is supposed to be the leader of the pack so to speak it puts pressure on them to know how to do everything when in the end they have very little control over if it is actually done correctly. So you need to lead and pray. I'm not exactly comfortable with that.
I tanked some random heroics yesterday with only 2 guild mates on my warrior. Which means I picked up pug people. It makes you shudder doesn't it? To show you how little I pug with random people guess what achievement I got yesterday. Looking for more. Yeap, I just got the achievement for pugging with 10 random people. We are talking a raid geared tank that has been running dungeons since he hit 85 and I only just got to 10 random people.
I do not pug randoms with my tank because I hate feeling so dependent on people and then add to that I need to lead these people that I have to put my life in their hands? No thank you. It will be a long time before I get the 50 random people achievement. I only did it because it was two guild mates, a healer that I know is skilled and a DPS I knew would do the right thing and could do 18K in a breeze. This meant, even if the other two DPS sucked, as long as they did not do anything to wipe use, we basically did not need them.
As a Healer -
I suffer from a god complex. The same thing doctors get. Everyone lives and dies at my whim. With the wave of a hand I can heal and I heal based on my opinion of who needs it and even more importantly, who deserves it.
You stand in fire, I let you die. It was your fault, not mine. If the tank is taking too much incoming damage and I can not keep up, it is the tanks fault for not using CC to limit the incoming damage or not using a cooldown when they could have. It was your fault, not mine. If a DPS keeps pulling aggro I will only try to keep them up for so long, but if it is a choice between healing you or the tank getting that life saving heal you just drew the short straw, you are the weakest link, good bye. It was your fault, not mine.
Everyone says things about all the healer hate that gets thrown around and they are not lying. Any time any one dies they always try to blame me. Difference is, when I am on my healer, I am god. God don't play that.
I put them in their place instantly. If the time does occur that it was my fault I will be the first to admit it and it does happen, I am not perfect, but don't ever try to pass your failing on to me because you will lose.
I have no issue taking control of a group as a healer. I'll mark, I'll explain, I'll teach, I'll help, I'll do everything I can for anyone. I don't do that as DPS because I am rather indifferent. I don't do that on my tank because my life is in their hands and if you speak up they can easily let you die or make your life hell. As a healer, I control all, at all times. Want to try and make my life hell? I'll just let you die and now you are no longer a problem.
The other day a tank yelled at me that he went from 100 to 0 instantly, was I even healing him. I replied, you can not dodge, block or parry from behind, perhaps facing the mobs while tanking them will help. Tank 0 God 1.
A Rogue died on the dragonhawk boss two attempts in a row really early on and blamed me both times. I said, just because attacking from behind is best for your DPS doesn't mean you still attack from behind when there is fire behind him. Stop standing in the fire to DPS and you will stop dying. Rogue 0 God 2.
One pull in ZA the trapped mob broke out and came straight for me and a shadow priest beating the ever loving crap out of us before the tank picked it up and the priest went down and said, wtf, why didn't you save me. I said, It was either save me or save you and I choose me. If I saved you, we wipe, if I saved me, I can rez you after we don't wipe.. Priest 0 - God 3.
Another dragonhawk story, three failed attempts in and one DPS says that the healer can not keep us up. I say, I have no problem keeping them up if they stop taking avoidable damage. I tell the tank, do this my way. Kill all hatchers. Let all hawks comes out at the same time. Pick them up, mow them down. Two of the DPS said that is impossible. One said that sounds cool. The tank said can you heal that? I said, use some cooldowns at that point and it will be no problem and hope the DPS was wrong saying I can't heal.
We had horrible DPS that run. 7K, 11K and 14K over all for the run. I've done this with groups all over 15K but never one this low. Next attempt, we kill all hatchers, we let all come out at once, we burn them all down. No one dies, everyone ends the fight at over 90% health, I end the fight still with half mana. The tank said, how the hell did you heal through all that? The hunter said, that was amazing. I said to the DPS, you where right, that wipe was all my fault. Oh wait, we didn't wipe. Bad DPS 0 God 4.
Warrior on the last boss of ZG could not find the bubble with a road map starts complaining why I did not heal him through it. He said, I only missed it once and you could not heal me, what is your problem. I said, you missed it every single time. The tank and other DPS said the same thing, you missed it each time. The warrior raged saying it was a game error because he was definitely in it being blaming me failed so horribly. Warrior 0 God 5.
If you ever want an ego boost, play a healer. Being god is fun sometimes. Just make sure you have some humility. If you make a mistake, own up to it. If they make a mistake, do not insult them, just explain the mistake, like quoting lame lines like you can not dodge, block or parry from behind. Trust me, it works better then saying, ur a fail tank noob.
I do not mind pugging on my healer because I know my limits. I know what I can heal and what I can't and I have no problem speaking up about it. If I need something CCed, I tell them, I need that CCed. If they ignore me and we wipe, they sure as hell listen to everything I say for the rest of the run. The gospel of the healer god. There is no stronger power in game.
So over all I have noticed that how I feel about the role I play differs on what the class does as well as my personal skill level of that character. Also, how I treat those around me changes depending on what class I am currently playing.
I am a very quiet DPS and tank but vocal as a healer.
I have zero patience as a tank but am willing to work with people on my DPS and healer characters.
I feel inadequate most of the time as DPS no matter how well I do.
I feel so defenseless as a tank if I do not have a good group behind me.
I feel so relaxed as a healer usually no matter what the group make up is.
Even in a playing around sort of way the class I play changes how I play.
When I am on my mage I am always being silly, making jokes, being talkative, which is so unlike me, running in circles, being the class clown so to speak.
When I am on my rogue I play the flirt, whistling and flirting with all female toons I run across, even if I know the user is a male, just because it is fun to do with that character.
So it is not only my feelings about the character role that change from class to class but my feelings about the characters change from class to class.
Basically I feel like I am a different person behind the computer depending on who I am playing on the computer. Perhaps they are all little bits of me and they each bring out a part in their own way but they do definitely effect my feelings when playing them.
With a study group of one, me, I can say that what role I am playing does make me view myself differently as well as others differently.
As a DPS (except Hunter) -
Note: I exclude hunter because that is the one I have the most experience at and I play it better then all other damage dealing classes.
I always have a feeling of inadequacy. I could have did more DPS, I could have interrupted faster, I could have CCed that one mob on the fly, I could have moved a split second faster out of avoidable damage.
I always feel like no matter what I do I can do it better. There is never a time when I feel like I did everything perfect and even those moments when it comes close to perfect I can always pick a few spots where I could have done something better.
As a damage dealer I always feel like all the pressure in the world in on my shoulders. If my DPS is not high enough the mob lives to long. If the mob lives to long the healer might go oom or the tank might run out of cooldowns or someone might finally make a mistake and get hit by something that they avoided the first six times but the seventh time it gets them. The longer a mob lives, the more chances there are for things to go wrong. The longer the mob lives, my own feelings of inadequacy increases.
If the healer goes oom, it was my fault for not downing the mob fast enough. If I grab aggro, it is my fault for not DPSing within the tanks ability. If I am on the wrong target and take aggro, it is my fault for tabbing to the wrong target and not noticing it fast enough. Anything I do, it my fault because good DPS, very good DPS, can compensate for average or below average tanks and healers.
All the pressure is on me and no matter what I do I know I could always do better. It is a hard role to play because there is no such thing as being great when you are DPS because you can always get better. I love the challenge of always getting better, but I always feel like everything that goes wrong is my fault even if it wasn't.
This is why I hate pugging on my other DPS, I always feel like I can do better and even if I can do over 10K on one of them in low gear I do not feel I know them well enough to have the weight of the world on their shoulders yet and that is what happens to a DPS in a pug. Even more so when you are the only DPS doing 10K.
As a DPS - Hunter -
This one is slightly difference because I am very confident in my skill set as a hunter but that does not change the fact that I still suffer from everything mentioned above. I still feel like I can always get better, I could move quicker, I could do more DPS, I could be faster with a trap on the fly, I could be faster with a tranq shot, I could help by hitting a runner with a concussive, the list goes on and on and on. Hunters have such a huge toolkit and I feel that if I am not using every one of those tools to their fullest potential then I am doing something wrong. At least with my hunter I feel as if the pressure of carrying the world on my shoulders is not so bad.
There is one little difference however with my hunter. Where I easily fall into the we can not do this attitude on all my other DPS characters I always feel that when I am on my hunter we can do anything. As long as the rest of the group is as least awake at the keyboard and not tripping over their own feet when they walk I always believe everything can be done. On my hunter, I have hope.
Last boss of ZA the day ZA came out. Eagle pops up, everyone dies, everyone but your friendly neighborhood hunter. I turn my pets growl on, start spamming shots with MD on to it, switch to fox and never stop moving. I know what you will say, you do not need to keep moving. Well, when you are alone and you do not have a heal, you can never stop moving, trust me. I downed the boss myself. No one else needed. On my hunter, anything is possible.
Second boss of stonecore one week after cataclysm was released, everyone died nearly instantly. I soloed him all by my lonesome. Even my pet was dead. On my hunter, anything is possible.
Same boss everyone but me and one melee DPS died. I told him, burn it, I will kite it. We downed it.
Second to last boss of SFK. Everyone dead. Pet growling again, me moving in circles in fox, dead boss. As a hunter, anything is possible and I always believe there is a chance even when it seems like there is none.
So while I still suffer from the feelings of inadequacy with my hunter that I do with my other DPS classes I always feel that there is hope. On my other characters when I think, I could do better, I feel it is a need to learn to be better. On my hunter when I think I could do better, I know I can and it is just a matter of doing it. I have hope when I am on my hunter. Hope that anything can be done no matter the group I am in.
This is why I do not mind pugging alone with my hunter. I believe everything will be fine, even if there are a few wipes, anything can be done. I have faith.
As a Tank -
I feel so dependent on everyone around me. If the healer is not good at mana management or does not have the skill or gear. I die. If the DPS does not hit the targets I mark. I die or they die. If the DPS does not CC the right target I mark (had this hunter that kept CCing the skull even after being told square three times) then the pull can become harder and in some cases near impossible to pull off cleanly.
A pug tank I had on my healer the other day said it perfectly. Could you DPS wait at least three seconds before you all choose different targets.
The sarcasm dripped off of that like molasses, it was fantastic. I wanted to tell the tank, I love you man.
As a tank you are at the whim of those around you. No matter how good you are, you could be fantastic. You could be an 85 tank running lowbies through a low dungeon, if the people around you are idiots then there will be problems. You are really dependent on those around you to do everything for you correctly.
This might be one of the reasons we see so few tanks pugging. Because they are at the whim of everyone around them and if you go alone and pick up four people the law of averages are you will have one good player, one horrible player, and two players that at least have mastered the skill to chew gum and walk at the same time. This means they could be good or they could be bad but at least they are not complete morons.
If you add to the fact that the tank is supposed to be the leader of the pack so to speak it puts pressure on them to know how to do everything when in the end they have very little control over if it is actually done correctly. So you need to lead and pray. I'm not exactly comfortable with that.
I tanked some random heroics yesterday with only 2 guild mates on my warrior. Which means I picked up pug people. It makes you shudder doesn't it? To show you how little I pug with random people guess what achievement I got yesterday. Looking for more. Yeap, I just got the achievement for pugging with 10 random people. We are talking a raid geared tank that has been running dungeons since he hit 85 and I only just got to 10 random people.
I do not pug randoms with my tank because I hate feeling so dependent on people and then add to that I need to lead these people that I have to put my life in their hands? No thank you. It will be a long time before I get the 50 random people achievement. I only did it because it was two guild mates, a healer that I know is skilled and a DPS I knew would do the right thing and could do 18K in a breeze. This meant, even if the other two DPS sucked, as long as they did not do anything to wipe use, we basically did not need them.
As a Healer -
I suffer from a god complex. The same thing doctors get. Everyone lives and dies at my whim. With the wave of a hand I can heal and I heal based on my opinion of who needs it and even more importantly, who deserves it.
You stand in fire, I let you die. It was your fault, not mine. If the tank is taking too much incoming damage and I can not keep up, it is the tanks fault for not using CC to limit the incoming damage or not using a cooldown when they could have. It was your fault, not mine. If a DPS keeps pulling aggro I will only try to keep them up for so long, but if it is a choice between healing you or the tank getting that life saving heal you just drew the short straw, you are the weakest link, good bye. It was your fault, not mine.
Everyone says things about all the healer hate that gets thrown around and they are not lying. Any time any one dies they always try to blame me. Difference is, when I am on my healer, I am god. God don't play that.
I put them in their place instantly. If the time does occur that it was my fault I will be the first to admit it and it does happen, I am not perfect, but don't ever try to pass your failing on to me because you will lose.
I have no issue taking control of a group as a healer. I'll mark, I'll explain, I'll teach, I'll help, I'll do everything I can for anyone. I don't do that as DPS because I am rather indifferent. I don't do that on my tank because my life is in their hands and if you speak up they can easily let you die or make your life hell. As a healer, I control all, at all times. Want to try and make my life hell? I'll just let you die and now you are no longer a problem.
The other day a tank yelled at me that he went from 100 to 0 instantly, was I even healing him. I replied, you can not dodge, block or parry from behind, perhaps facing the mobs while tanking them will help. Tank 0 God 1.
A Rogue died on the dragonhawk boss two attempts in a row really early on and blamed me both times. I said, just because attacking from behind is best for your DPS doesn't mean you still attack from behind when there is fire behind him. Stop standing in the fire to DPS and you will stop dying. Rogue 0 God 2.
One pull in ZA the trapped mob broke out and came straight for me and a shadow priest beating the ever loving crap out of us before the tank picked it up and the priest went down and said, wtf, why didn't you save me. I said, It was either save me or save you and I choose me. If I saved you, we wipe, if I saved me, I can rez you after we don't wipe.. Priest 0 - God 3.
Another dragonhawk story, three failed attempts in and one DPS says that the healer can not keep us up. I say, I have no problem keeping them up if they stop taking avoidable damage. I tell the tank, do this my way. Kill all hatchers. Let all hawks comes out at the same time. Pick them up, mow them down. Two of the DPS said that is impossible. One said that sounds cool. The tank said can you heal that? I said, use some cooldowns at that point and it will be no problem and hope the DPS was wrong saying I can't heal.
We had horrible DPS that run. 7K, 11K and 14K over all for the run. I've done this with groups all over 15K but never one this low. Next attempt, we kill all hatchers, we let all come out at once, we burn them all down. No one dies, everyone ends the fight at over 90% health, I end the fight still with half mana. The tank said, how the hell did you heal through all that? The hunter said, that was amazing. I said to the DPS, you where right, that wipe was all my fault. Oh wait, we didn't wipe. Bad DPS 0 God 4.
Warrior on the last boss of ZG could not find the bubble with a road map starts complaining why I did not heal him through it. He said, I only missed it once and you could not heal me, what is your problem. I said, you missed it every single time. The tank and other DPS said the same thing, you missed it each time. The warrior raged saying it was a game error because he was definitely in it being blaming me failed so horribly. Warrior 0 God 5.
If you ever want an ego boost, play a healer. Being god is fun sometimes. Just make sure you have some humility. If you make a mistake, own up to it. If they make a mistake, do not insult them, just explain the mistake, like quoting lame lines like you can not dodge, block or parry from behind. Trust me, it works better then saying, ur a fail tank noob.
I do not mind pugging on my healer because I know my limits. I know what I can heal and what I can't and I have no problem speaking up about it. If I need something CCed, I tell them, I need that CCed. If they ignore me and we wipe, they sure as hell listen to everything I say for the rest of the run. The gospel of the healer god. There is no stronger power in game.
So over all I have noticed that how I feel about the role I play differs on what the class does as well as my personal skill level of that character. Also, how I treat those around me changes depending on what class I am currently playing.
I am a very quiet DPS and tank but vocal as a healer.
I have zero patience as a tank but am willing to work with people on my DPS and healer characters.
I feel inadequate most of the time as DPS no matter how well I do.
I feel so defenseless as a tank if I do not have a good group behind me.
I feel so relaxed as a healer usually no matter what the group make up is.
Even in a playing around sort of way the class I play changes how I play.
When I am on my mage I am always being silly, making jokes, being talkative, which is so unlike me, running in circles, being the class clown so to speak.
When I am on my rogue I play the flirt, whistling and flirting with all female toons I run across, even if I know the user is a male, just because it is fun to do with that character.
So it is not only my feelings about the character role that change from class to class but my feelings about the characters change from class to class.
Basically I feel like I am a different person behind the computer depending on who I am playing on the computer. Perhaps they are all little bits of me and they each bring out a part in their own way but they do definitely effect my feelings when playing them.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Pugging Firelands Trash
I just want to let out a big sigh about pugging firelands trash. Not because it is hard, hell no, I love the trash. It is easy as sin, more so then heroics trash in my opinion. It is just that my main is a pure DPS which means no trash runs for me.
I can pug on my tank all day long. I can pug on my healer all day long. I can sit in trade all day log looking for a spot as a DPS and get nothing. It is annoying, hell, beyond annoying. All I want to do is play the character I enjoy playing the most and I can't.
Sure, there have been a few chances I could have went on. One was someone asking for DPS saying that they needed 15K minimum DPS or no loot. First off, I can do 15K no problem so that is not the issue. The thing that bugged me is that he had the balls to demand raid DPS for trash. If they where going for bosses it is fine to ask for 15K DPS but if you are just doing trash you are being rude asking for it. So while I could do it, I refused to run with someone to obnoxious as to ask for it. Remember, this trash is easy, you could do it with 10K DPS from everyone and have no problems. I am sure you could do it with 8K too. Why do you need almost double that for trash?
I am getting to the point of extreme annoyance. My alts have better gear, more rep, and more play time then my main. I can pug anything all day long on my alts but I can not even get into a trash run on my main. Something needs to be done about this on blizzards end.
Sure, I could have sucked it up and just went with the jerk asking for 15K DPS even if I objected to his asking for it but why should I lower my standards and play with a person that is a jerk. I shouldn't.
The only thing that can be done really is have blizzard lose pure DPS classes. Find a way to allow the pures to tank or DPS. So that way people who have mains that are pures now can still enjoy the game to its fullest without having to roll an alt.
Sure, my warrior and shaman will have all nice loot and rep and play time but my main, the one I enjoy actually playing with won't. So their argument that you can always roll an alt is bull shit if you will pardon the language.
Same for the stupid baggie thing when they added it and pures complained. They said, we will make it BoA and you can roll an alt.
That is a piss poor way to solve a problem. Rolling an alt means not playing your main. Pures where not as upset that they could not get the bag as they where they could not play their main.
It is not like the game lays it out for new players at the beginning of the game and lets them know that if you roll a hunter, mage, warlock or rogue you will never get fast queue times, you will sit in trade for hours looking for a group, you will have to fight with dozens of other people for one raid spot and you will be pigeon holed into doing one thing and one thing only and that is the one thing everyone can do, tanks and healers as well. So if makes you basically worthless.
I can start my own pugs with my main, but I dislike talking to people, even more so the low standard of people I usually run into in pugs. I do not start pugs because I can't stand people. I do not want to talk to them, I do not want to be friends with them, I do not want to take the chance that they even know how to play. I am not a people person. Never have been and I never will be. So starting pugs is out of the question for me.
All I want is to be able to join a pug on my main, get my rep, maybe get lucky with a piece or two of gear and have some fun playing the game.
Is that to much to ask?
Sure is, if you subscribe to blizzards way of thinking.
Well, off to tank or heal another freaking pug while the one character I actually want to play sits and collects dust.
I can pug on my tank all day long. I can pug on my healer all day long. I can sit in trade all day log looking for a spot as a DPS and get nothing. It is annoying, hell, beyond annoying. All I want to do is play the character I enjoy playing the most and I can't.
Sure, there have been a few chances I could have went on. One was someone asking for DPS saying that they needed 15K minimum DPS or no loot. First off, I can do 15K no problem so that is not the issue. The thing that bugged me is that he had the balls to demand raid DPS for trash. If they where going for bosses it is fine to ask for 15K DPS but if you are just doing trash you are being rude asking for it. So while I could do it, I refused to run with someone to obnoxious as to ask for it. Remember, this trash is easy, you could do it with 10K DPS from everyone and have no problems. I am sure you could do it with 8K too. Why do you need almost double that for trash?
I am getting to the point of extreme annoyance. My alts have better gear, more rep, and more play time then my main. I can pug anything all day long on my alts but I can not even get into a trash run on my main. Something needs to be done about this on blizzards end.
Sure, I could have sucked it up and just went with the jerk asking for 15K DPS even if I objected to his asking for it but why should I lower my standards and play with a person that is a jerk. I shouldn't.
The only thing that can be done really is have blizzard lose pure DPS classes. Find a way to allow the pures to tank or DPS. So that way people who have mains that are pures now can still enjoy the game to its fullest without having to roll an alt.
Sure, my warrior and shaman will have all nice loot and rep and play time but my main, the one I enjoy actually playing with won't. So their argument that you can always roll an alt is bull shit if you will pardon the language.
Same for the stupid baggie thing when they added it and pures complained. They said, we will make it BoA and you can roll an alt.
That is a piss poor way to solve a problem. Rolling an alt means not playing your main. Pures where not as upset that they could not get the bag as they where they could not play their main.
It is not like the game lays it out for new players at the beginning of the game and lets them know that if you roll a hunter, mage, warlock or rogue you will never get fast queue times, you will sit in trade for hours looking for a group, you will have to fight with dozens of other people for one raid spot and you will be pigeon holed into doing one thing and one thing only and that is the one thing everyone can do, tanks and healers as well. So if makes you basically worthless.
I can start my own pugs with my main, but I dislike talking to people, even more so the low standard of people I usually run into in pugs. I do not start pugs because I can't stand people. I do not want to talk to them, I do not want to be friends with them, I do not want to take the chance that they even know how to play. I am not a people person. Never have been and I never will be. So starting pugs is out of the question for me.
All I want is to be able to join a pug on my main, get my rep, maybe get lucky with a piece or two of gear and have some fun playing the game.
Is that to much to ask?
Sure is, if you subscribe to blizzards way of thinking.
Well, off to tank or heal another freaking pug while the one character I actually want to play sits and collects dust.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Achievement Points - Are They a Crutch?
After having a conversation about the recent lack of tanks in the guild and the few people that had tanks that where geared enough I've come to a conclusion about achievement points.
Achievement points mean nothing. They can be used for nothing. Yet somehow they serve as a crutch.
A few members of my guild and myself are all over 9000 achievement points. We can all tank on alts but we want to play our mains. The simple reason is because all our mains have most of our achievements.
Our mains achievement points are what is keeping us tied to those characters. While on their own achievement points can't buy anything and do not mean anything we collect them like we do anything else. Pets, mounts, vanity items, archeology junk, you name it.
We do not want to play other characters because we have invested so much time in our mains and have the achievement points linked to them and do not want to be getting achievements on other characters that we do not have on our mains.
Somewhere along the line achievement points have become a crutch. Some people call religion a crutch because people feel the need to believe in something it to get through the day. Some say that people who are addicted to drugs use them as a crutch, they can't do anything with them. In game, achievement points are our crutch. We can't play another character (or just don't want to) because we need to keep getting the achievement points on our mains.
Just like the people that need their drugs to get through the day we need to be on our mains to get those achievements.
I've known a few people that have switched their mains and they all said the same thing, leaving their achievements behind was the hardest part. If it were not for them they would switch all the time, they just like to play.
Somewhere along the line I have not reached the point they have, the point where I can abandon my crutch. I still want to be on my main, I still want to get the achievements on my main, I can not switch, all because of my achievements.
Of the people in my guild who are in the same situation as me we all stand in the same place. One difference is I have made the sacrifice for the guild. I am off my main tanking or healing as needed instead. My main sits back seeing others get the achievements and it pains me some because of some useless thing such as achievement points.
Can I learn to lose the crutch and embrace another character?
Should I become selfish like so many others in my guild that refuse to do anything to help until their mains get all the achievements?
More importantly, why do so many people (myself included) feel so tied to their characters with achievements?
If it were never for achievements or if achievements where account tied and not character tied, I would never have any issues tanking or healing. If my hunter gets the achievement for firelands in a month or two do you really think I would care if I was on my warrior when I did it? Nope, as long as my hunter gets the achievement I will be happy.
My hunter needs those points, they are his addiction, they are his crutch.
Achievement points mean nothing. They can be used for nothing. Yet somehow they serve as a crutch.
A few members of my guild and myself are all over 9000 achievement points. We can all tank on alts but we want to play our mains. The simple reason is because all our mains have most of our achievements.
Our mains achievement points are what is keeping us tied to those characters. While on their own achievement points can't buy anything and do not mean anything we collect them like we do anything else. Pets, mounts, vanity items, archeology junk, you name it.
We do not want to play other characters because we have invested so much time in our mains and have the achievement points linked to them and do not want to be getting achievements on other characters that we do not have on our mains.
Somewhere along the line achievement points have become a crutch. Some people call religion a crutch because people feel the need to believe in something it to get through the day. Some say that people who are addicted to drugs use them as a crutch, they can't do anything with them. In game, achievement points are our crutch. We can't play another character (or just don't want to) because we need to keep getting the achievement points on our mains.
Just like the people that need their drugs to get through the day we need to be on our mains to get those achievements.
I've known a few people that have switched their mains and they all said the same thing, leaving their achievements behind was the hardest part. If it were not for them they would switch all the time, they just like to play.
Somewhere along the line I have not reached the point they have, the point where I can abandon my crutch. I still want to be on my main, I still want to get the achievements on my main, I can not switch, all because of my achievements.
Of the people in my guild who are in the same situation as me we all stand in the same place. One difference is I have made the sacrifice for the guild. I am off my main tanking or healing as needed instead. My main sits back seeing others get the achievements and it pains me some because of some useless thing such as achievement points.
Can I learn to lose the crutch and embrace another character?
Should I become selfish like so many others in my guild that refuse to do anything to help until their mains get all the achievements?
More importantly, why do so many people (myself included) feel so tied to their characters with achievements?
If it were never for achievements or if achievements where account tied and not character tied, I would never have any issues tanking or healing. If my hunter gets the achievement for firelands in a month or two do you really think I would care if I was on my warrior when I did it? Nope, as long as my hunter gets the achievement I will be happy.
My hunter needs those points, they are his addiction, they are his crutch.
When is an Alt not an Alt?
After reading a post over at Raging Monkeys about alts it made me thinking about my own alt-a-holicism. While he touched on points that I agree with they are things I did not often think of.
I have been thinking that I need to gear up three alts as quick as possible to get raid ready should my guild need it. The sad fact is my main, my Hunter, will most likely never see the inside of Firelands unless we can do some serious recruiting. I will most likely gear up my Warrior for tanking and my Shaman for healing. However, my main comes first. I will gear up my Hunter first and foremost.
The good thing is that the Firelands raid is suggested 355 item level that all characters already pass, so gearing up really is not an issue. Sure, getting to 365 might make it a little easier but being even 355 is fine. It does not mean I don't want to do the best I can do.
Maybe it is just my attitude of game play. Don't play unless you plan to put your best foot forward. If I can get an easy upgrade just by doing some trash runs in firelands or doing a quest line in hyjal then I would be remiss if I did not do it.
So once you look at it that way, even for an alt, if I am going to use them in a raid and it is not an all alt raid I will feel I need to do everything within my power to make that character as good as it can be gear wise.
So when is an alt not an alt? When you actually care about what you are doing with it.
Somewhere along the line my alts went from being there for professions and so I could better learn all classes which I believe makes me a better player and surely a better raid leader turned itself into a new job.
Now that I feel the need to gear up more then just my main I feel like there is a pressure on me to do so. Alts seem to lose their fun when they become work instead of something you do to pass the time when you are bored on your main.
Presently two of my alts are like mains and somehow that is a bad thing right now. Some might have the time to handle three mains. I don't. Sure I spent a good deal of time playing but not that much time.
I wish I could go back to the days where my hunter was my main, I did everything I did with him and then when I needed something else to do I went and played on an alt. I did not make sure my alt was geared, because I did not care. It was just an alt.
I guess that is no ones fault by my own. Basically I did it to myself. I don't have to gear up a tank or a healer to help my guild while we are waiting for people to return from summer vacation or until we recruit another. Perhaps I should just be selfish and not care. Eh, not my style.
I have the alts, they are geared, might as well use them. Just wish I didn't have to because once you have to run an alt, it is no longer an alt, it is a second main. I don't want a second main. I want to play my damn hunter.
My poor Hunter has stepped into one raid in the last 3+ months and we only got one boss down in that raid. He is not having much fun, which means I am not having much fun. Downing bosses on my Shaman and Warrior is all fine and dandy, but they are not my Hunter which in the end means I don't care. All this because I let myself gear up my alts. Maybe I should stop doing that when I am bored because it turned them into mains of their own. So much easier if I could just say, sorry, have to come on my Hunter because I have nothing else geared for the content. Now that is an idea.
Alts can be fun... Alts can also ruin your fun sometimes.
My alts have started to become a problem for me.
I have been thinking that I need to gear up three alts as quick as possible to get raid ready should my guild need it. The sad fact is my main, my Hunter, will most likely never see the inside of Firelands unless we can do some serious recruiting. I will most likely gear up my Warrior for tanking and my Shaman for healing. However, my main comes first. I will gear up my Hunter first and foremost.
The good thing is that the Firelands raid is suggested 355 item level that all characters already pass, so gearing up really is not an issue. Sure, getting to 365 might make it a little easier but being even 355 is fine. It does not mean I don't want to do the best I can do.
Maybe it is just my attitude of game play. Don't play unless you plan to put your best foot forward. If I can get an easy upgrade just by doing some trash runs in firelands or doing a quest line in hyjal then I would be remiss if I did not do it.
So once you look at it that way, even for an alt, if I am going to use them in a raid and it is not an all alt raid I will feel I need to do everything within my power to make that character as good as it can be gear wise.
So when is an alt not an alt? When you actually care about what you are doing with it.
Somewhere along the line my alts went from being there for professions and so I could better learn all classes which I believe makes me a better player and surely a better raid leader turned itself into a new job.
Now that I feel the need to gear up more then just my main I feel like there is a pressure on me to do so. Alts seem to lose their fun when they become work instead of something you do to pass the time when you are bored on your main.
Presently two of my alts are like mains and somehow that is a bad thing right now. Some might have the time to handle three mains. I don't. Sure I spent a good deal of time playing but not that much time.
I wish I could go back to the days where my hunter was my main, I did everything I did with him and then when I needed something else to do I went and played on an alt. I did not make sure my alt was geared, because I did not care. It was just an alt.
I guess that is no ones fault by my own. Basically I did it to myself. I don't have to gear up a tank or a healer to help my guild while we are waiting for people to return from summer vacation or until we recruit another. Perhaps I should just be selfish and not care. Eh, not my style.
I have the alts, they are geared, might as well use them. Just wish I didn't have to because once you have to run an alt, it is no longer an alt, it is a second main. I don't want a second main. I want to play my damn hunter.
My poor Hunter has stepped into one raid in the last 3+ months and we only got one boss down in that raid. He is not having much fun, which means I am not having much fun. Downing bosses on my Shaman and Warrior is all fine and dandy, but they are not my Hunter which in the end means I don't care. All this because I let myself gear up my alts. Maybe I should stop doing that when I am bored because it turned them into mains of their own. So much easier if I could just say, sorry, have to come on my Hunter because I have nothing else geared for the content. Now that is an idea.
Alts can be fun... Alts can also ruin your fun sometimes.
My alts have started to become a problem for me.
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