They are all acronyms we are well versed in and sometimes they are completely over used. They can be useful at times but they can also hurt the over all sometimes. I look to address some of the common things I hear. Usually they come from people tooting their own horn. Sad part is that the people that do that apparently do not know the whole story.
"Woot! I had over 14K DPS on that fight."
- This is something you usually hear from a Mage I have noticed from my experience. They seem to open up with some huge numbers and then settle down. The one with the 14K DPS is very quick to say how awesome he was doing... before he died. Something they always seem to neglect to point out when they point out their awesome DPS.
"Man, I toasted you on DPS."
- I hear this one all the time because I am top DPS or at worst top three. Some times people seem to think is that because they racked up 16K DPS on the trash before Marrowgar means they are killing me on DPS. Sure, I might only have 12K DPS on that trash but I am single targeting the mobs that are supposed to die first before going AoE crazy. Add to that the fact that once we go on, me sitting at 8th with my 12K DPS will look a lot different. I might only have 12K there but after 6 bosses in I am still sitting at an over all of 11K and they are now sitting at 9K over all. To me that means you are getting all your big numbers on the useless kills and the important kills you are slacking at.
"Well, it was enough to get the boss down."
- All things being equal that might be true. But lets say you have two warlocks in your group. Warlock A just did 9K on the boss and warlock B just did 5K on the fight. It was enough to get the boss down but really is that all that matter? If they are in the same gear they should be doing near the same damage (in most cases, some fights someone can get unlucky and it lowers DPS). Just because 5K was enough to get the boss down does not mean that 5K was good.
"My threat generation is awesome, no one can pull off me."
- Yeah sure, nice threat generation mr hit me him me center of monster attention. It should be. Do you really think that because you are on top of the threat meter means you are actually doing good? Maybe yes, maybe no. I can not tell you the number of runs I opened with a MD, had to FD shortly after, went back to fighting and had to MD again almost instantly and then within a few seconds was getting up on aggro again before my FD was off cooldown so I used my readiness and MDed again only to have to FD a few seconds later. Mr hit me hit me might brag about his treat generation but he did not realize that I was the one generating it for him. He sucked. Just because no one pulls threat off you does not means your TPS is so awesome. That just means you have DPS behind you doing their job right. It is not a joke when I say I can pull of any tank in less then 10 second no matter how good he is. It is a fact. No tank can hold threat from a Hunter, a Mage or a Warlock, at least not a good one. Keep working on threat generation please. It helps me DPS more and worry less about saving your ass because I have to waste one of my biggest cooldowns because you can not hold aggro without me MDing you a 5th time 1 minute into a fight.
"Your HPS suck." or "Your HPS rule."
- You do not hear this as often in the open unless you are a healer. Healers seem to, in public at least, not worry as much about number and they worry more about if everyone survived. Sometimes however you see something like this when something went completely wrong. Usually the target of your HPS suck is a disc priest because most people in the game have no clue how Disc works and do not realize that absorbs are not counted by recount.
-The HPS rule line usually comes after someone did huge numbers. However, they always seem to forget to look at the over healing done. This is about equal to the DPS saying he did 14K DPS for one minute in a 5 minute fight. Doing 8K HPS when 5K HPS was over heals as really useless. Sure, in this day and age of ICC when you never run out of mana it is no big deal but you need to look deeper into that. What happens in a mana intense fight later on? Just because you have endless mana does not mean you use it like endless mana. Someone with high over heals is not a good healer. I would rather have someone with 4K HPS and 1K over heal then someone with 8K HPS and 5K over heal. When the time comes to heal when it is needed to conserve mana the one that does not over heal is the better healer. Even on fights that mana does not matter the one that does not over heal is the one that is better.
Over all this is about doing your job right.
A healer should never over heal even if he can.
A DPS should never die from avoidable damage even if he is pulling uber DPS.
A tank should never stop building on his threat lead just because no one is close to him.
Meters seem to make people forget those little things. It makes people want to top meters for whatever they are doing even if topping does not mean they are actually doing the right thing.
I wish more people would forget about the meters and start looking at how well they did their job. Just because the boss died does not mean you did a good job. The boss can easily die with 5 people in a 25 man doing a horrible job. Even if the boss did die why should you ever have 5 people around that are doing a horrible job.
The last thing I ever want to see is someone doing 9K DPS and not worrying about trying to get 9.5K DPS. A healer that is over healing at a 60% clip and not trying to over heal less. A tank that figures, I have others to MD so I do not need to stress about threat.
Being good is not about doing good. It is about doing the best you can do. Everyone one of us has room to get better. Forget about the meters and worry about doing your job more effectively.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
My take on the "Magical Skill"
The Goblin released his third part of the "Magical Skill" series and it is a good read. It also should all be taken with a grain of salt as my previous mention of it notes. Assembling a group of people that already know what to do and asking them to do it is nothing magical. It is practical if anything.
I want to delve into what I thought he meant when he used the words "Magical Skill".
He has a No voice chat rule. That is a telling factor of that I call the "Magical Skill". Voice chat makes it easier for people that have no skill to cover up the fact that they have no clue what it going on. They wait for verbal clues and not just when they first try a boss, but try after try after try. Everyone can be helped with a verbal cue when they first start to learn it. Makes life easier for sure but if you need it all the time, you do not have the "Magical Skill".
Let me give you a small example or two of what I consider the "Magical Skill".
Toravon the Ice Watcher is a super simple fight that shows exactly who might have the magical skill and who might not.
This is one that vent should never be needed for. You tell everyone one simple thing. All ranged on orbs, no melee. That's it. If you need to tell the group anything more then that then they are not a group of people with magical skills.
You see the swirl before the orbs come out. The tank can see them too, the tank should move away from it if it is coming under his feet. If the tank has the "Magical Skill" he will do so, if not it will spawn under his feet. Melee that have the "Magical Skill" will see that spawning and make sure not to do any AoE so it is easier for ranged to get them out of there. Ranged that switch instantly have the "Magical Skill" and the ones that take forever to notice they spawned do not. Healers that notice that there is a raid wide damage once in a while and prepare for it have that "Magical Skill" the ones that get tunnel vision do not.
Really, the fight is super simple and I have still seen my fair share of fights where it was a wipe. I can not tell you the number of times I was the only ranged on the orbs or I heard a healer say "but I am healing the tank" as the reason why they let everyone die from the AoE blast or a tank say they can not move the boss or a melee say "but that AoE is part of my rotation".
The "Magical Skill", as I see it, is being able to figure things out by simple common sense and not having to be told everything. People with the magical skill do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not because they are told to.
Another good example:
Gas Spores on Festergut in 25 man. We tell people skull in, x out and square ranged. If the square pops up in and the skull pops up out you can see who has the "Magical Skill". If two people with the "Magical Skill" have it then they do not move even if they should have based on what they were told. The know, as if by magic, that someone is already in ranged and someone is already in melee so there is no need to move. People without the "Magical Skill" start running to change spots which hurts DPS, causes unnecessary movement and could quite possibly cause a wipe. Sadly I have seen that all to often from idiots that do not realize to stay where you are even if we told you to move if you had a certain mark on you. Look around jerkward, there is already someone there so there is no need to move. That person does not have the "Magical Skill".
Another good one are the ice blocks on Sindragosa. Tell people to make sure to stay 10 yards away from the people getting blocked and tell them where you want them, say on the steps. People with the "Magical Skill" run to the stairs, see the people around them and position themselves perfectly. People without it stand on top of each other, run around like a chicken with their head cut off not knowing where to go and basically just never notice where others are to adjust. The "Magical Skill" means no need to tell people something that is simple enough to look with your own eyes and do it.
That, to me, is what the "Magical Skill" is. You can try to teach someone awareness. You can try to teach someone common sense. You can also repeatedly smash yourself in the head with a hammer. It is usually all the same result. A screaming headache and maybe some blood with the hammer one.
To use a Goblin analogy for my concept of "Magical Skill" being awareness and common sense. It is like language. You pick up your language from birth. You are not taught it, you just pick it up over time and later on it is refined but the basic seeds of your speech come as if magically. Common sense and awareness are the same. You either picked it up magically or you have to try and learn it.
And just like with language, some people, no matter how hard they try and how much they study they will never learn that language, it is just not in them to learn. There are some people that no matter how much they try, no matter how serious their desire is, they will never have awareness and common sense.
That folks is your "Magical Skill"... common sense and awareness.
There are different levels of "Magical Skill" as well. Some people are so magically skilled that they can enter a fight knowing nothing about it, not even a tid bit here and there, and they do super. Those people pick up from those around them and can adapt at the speed of light it seems.
"Magical Skill" is not building a group of elitists that can clear content in their sleep and then saying it was magically how it happened. That is not magical, that is intelligently planned.
I want to delve into what I thought he meant when he used the words "Magical Skill".
He has a No voice chat rule. That is a telling factor of that I call the "Magical Skill". Voice chat makes it easier for people that have no skill to cover up the fact that they have no clue what it going on. They wait for verbal clues and not just when they first try a boss, but try after try after try. Everyone can be helped with a verbal cue when they first start to learn it. Makes life easier for sure but if you need it all the time, you do not have the "Magical Skill".
Let me give you a small example or two of what I consider the "Magical Skill".
Toravon the Ice Watcher is a super simple fight that shows exactly who might have the magical skill and who might not.
This is one that vent should never be needed for. You tell everyone one simple thing. All ranged on orbs, no melee. That's it. If you need to tell the group anything more then that then they are not a group of people with magical skills.
You see the swirl before the orbs come out. The tank can see them too, the tank should move away from it if it is coming under his feet. If the tank has the "Magical Skill" he will do so, if not it will spawn under his feet. Melee that have the "Magical Skill" will see that spawning and make sure not to do any AoE so it is easier for ranged to get them out of there. Ranged that switch instantly have the "Magical Skill" and the ones that take forever to notice they spawned do not. Healers that notice that there is a raid wide damage once in a while and prepare for it have that "Magical Skill" the ones that get tunnel vision do not.
Really, the fight is super simple and I have still seen my fair share of fights where it was a wipe. I can not tell you the number of times I was the only ranged on the orbs or I heard a healer say "but I am healing the tank" as the reason why they let everyone die from the AoE blast or a tank say they can not move the boss or a melee say "but that AoE is part of my rotation".
The "Magical Skill", as I see it, is being able to figure things out by simple common sense and not having to be told everything. People with the magical skill do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not because they are told to.
Another good example:
Gas Spores on Festergut in 25 man. We tell people skull in, x out and square ranged. If the square pops up in and the skull pops up out you can see who has the "Magical Skill". If two people with the "Magical Skill" have it then they do not move even if they should have based on what they were told. The know, as if by magic, that someone is already in ranged and someone is already in melee so there is no need to move. People without the "Magical Skill" start running to change spots which hurts DPS, causes unnecessary movement and could quite possibly cause a wipe. Sadly I have seen that all to often from idiots that do not realize to stay where you are even if we told you to move if you had a certain mark on you. Look around jerkward, there is already someone there so there is no need to move. That person does not have the "Magical Skill".
Another good one are the ice blocks on Sindragosa. Tell people to make sure to stay 10 yards away from the people getting blocked and tell them where you want them, say on the steps. People with the "Magical Skill" run to the stairs, see the people around them and position themselves perfectly. People without it stand on top of each other, run around like a chicken with their head cut off not knowing where to go and basically just never notice where others are to adjust. The "Magical Skill" means no need to tell people something that is simple enough to look with your own eyes and do it.
That, to me, is what the "Magical Skill" is. You can try to teach someone awareness. You can try to teach someone common sense. You can also repeatedly smash yourself in the head with a hammer. It is usually all the same result. A screaming headache and maybe some blood with the hammer one.
To use a Goblin analogy for my concept of "Magical Skill" being awareness and common sense. It is like language. You pick up your language from birth. You are not taught it, you just pick it up over time and later on it is refined but the basic seeds of your speech come as if magically. Common sense and awareness are the same. You either picked it up magically or you have to try and learn it.
And just like with language, some people, no matter how hard they try and how much they study they will never learn that language, it is just not in them to learn. There are some people that no matter how much they try, no matter how serious their desire is, they will never have awareness and common sense.
That folks is your "Magical Skill"... common sense and awareness.
There are different levels of "Magical Skill" as well. Some people are so magically skilled that they can enter a fight knowing nothing about it, not even a tid bit here and there, and they do super. Those people pick up from those around them and can adapt at the speed of light it seems.
"Magical Skill" is not building a group of elitists that can clear content in their sleep and then saying it was magically how it happened. That is not magical, that is intelligently planned.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Tips and Tricks: Managing Your Treat
I put this under a hunter header but it really fits anywhere. Each class has a way to manage threat and you need to use it every chance you get.
I still do a lot of dungeons even if I have not needed frost badges in forever and I see a large variety of tanks come in and out. All of them have their own style and own personal ability. Not to mention the in game abilities and classes. There are many different combination so there is not single way to manage your threat. You have to adjust to your surroundings.
I often tell a new tank not to worry about me. If I pull threat from you it is because I want it. I know how to handle my threat and I do pretty damn well at it. If I am pulling threat when I do not want to then we have an issue with a tank. If the tank is doing what he is supposed to be doing I will never pull threat.
How do I manage this?
You, as DPS, control your very own DPS. You are in more control of what you do then everyone else. A healer will heal when needed. No need for them to control what they do. A tank has to deal with outside aggro from everyone, even healing aggro can pull and add the tank has not tagged yet. Either one can not stop doing what they do to help. If a healer stops healing people die. If a tank stops tanking you are going to get better your teeth fed to you because he is not distracting big mr bad guy.
A DPS can stop doing DPS and nothing bad will happen. If you stop DPS the tank is still tanking. If you stop DPS the healer is still healing. You stopping hurts no one. It can help however.
I am happy you can pull 8K on a single target with no buffs in a heroic. It is fun to do, I laugh every time I break 8K with no buffs in a heroic. The thing is, who gives a flying fuck if you can do 8K if by doing it you are pulling the mob off the tank.
There are many ways you can gauge the tanks abilities which in turn will let you know how much DPS you can safely put out. Remember, it is not about how much DPS you can do it is about how much DPS you can safely do.
1) Misdirection
- You have it, use it. I never, repeat, never go into a pull without it if I can help it. I do not care of the tank has 60K health in all ICC 25 HM gear. It is there for a reason. Use it. You are a hunter, if you are even 1/2 way decent you can pull off a tank in 3 seconds flat if you happen to get crits on your opening shots. If you have over 70% crit like I do that will happen quite often.
2) Feign Death
- You have it, use it. Do not wait until the pack is coming for you either. The second you get close to pulling the pack use it. If you let it start coming for you and then use it you might create a very bad situation. If the tank is not on the ball and you let it get to close to you, it might move to the healer instead of back to the tank and then the wipe is your fault.
3) Pulling the Mob
- If a mob is in Kill Shot range or will shortly be in Kill Shot range and I see myself coming close I pull the mob anyway knowing it will be dead WAY before it gets to me. That is why I tell tanks that if I pull aggro do not worry about it. This is not something you should do when you are still learning however and surely not if you are not hit capped yet. Nice to say, no worries, I'll hit it with a KS if you end up missing because you are not hit capped.
4) Your Healer > Your DPS
- If you are constantly high on threat and coming close to pulling that means your healer will have to start paying a lot of attention to you. If the healer is paying attention to you that is not needed mistakes can happen. Your threat, even if you do control it, can cause problems for others if you keep getting close. Never get close.
5) Omen
- We all know we pull threat at 130%. That does not mean that you should start worrying about it when you get to 110%. Never even get to 100%. I set my meter to warn me at 80%. That gives me the time I need to settle a big shot I want that might be coming off cooldown and then FD or MD. I've seen myself go from 80% to 120% in just one Chimera shot that happened to crit with the auto shot attached and maybe a wild quiver shot as well at the same time all critting. Crit is a wild card. Give yourself lots of threat room to work with.
6) Going All Out
- Pay attention to how things are going in the early pulls. You should be MDing, but even at that you will climb steady up the threat meter. If you are never getting close to pulling after the initial MD then feel free to unleash all you have on a boss fight. If you see that you are close to grabbing aggro just before trash dies you know that you can not go all out on the boss.
7) Learn How To Tank
- I am not saying to go out and level a tank. I am saying at least take a few minutes to know how things work. If you look around you will see all thanks have a way to deal with AoE pulls. All of them are visual and you can see it easily from the back where we shoot. If you do not see the tank do their AoE do not attack with AoE. Sounds simple right? Trust me, as a tank too I can tell you 90% of DPS do not do that. If you have MD off cooldown, feel free to MD and Volley. That helps the tank.
Remember, as hunters we are in the position where we can control all aspects of agrro with even a half way decent tank. So use those abilities and use your head. Don't worry about your DPS if you have to slow up some because I am sure in the end they would rather you do 6K DPS the entire fight then 8K DPS for a few seconds and need to keep reviving you. Dead people have 0 DPS.
I still do a lot of dungeons even if I have not needed frost badges in forever and I see a large variety of tanks come in and out. All of them have their own style and own personal ability. Not to mention the in game abilities and classes. There are many different combination so there is not single way to manage your threat. You have to adjust to your surroundings.
I often tell a new tank not to worry about me. If I pull threat from you it is because I want it. I know how to handle my threat and I do pretty damn well at it. If I am pulling threat when I do not want to then we have an issue with a tank. If the tank is doing what he is supposed to be doing I will never pull threat.
How do I manage this?
You, as DPS, control your very own DPS. You are in more control of what you do then everyone else. A healer will heal when needed. No need for them to control what they do. A tank has to deal with outside aggro from everyone, even healing aggro can pull and add the tank has not tagged yet. Either one can not stop doing what they do to help. If a healer stops healing people die. If a tank stops tanking you are going to get better your teeth fed to you because he is not distracting big mr bad guy.
A DPS can stop doing DPS and nothing bad will happen. If you stop DPS the tank is still tanking. If you stop DPS the healer is still healing. You stopping hurts no one. It can help however.
I am happy you can pull 8K on a single target with no buffs in a heroic. It is fun to do, I laugh every time I break 8K with no buffs in a heroic. The thing is, who gives a flying fuck if you can do 8K if by doing it you are pulling the mob off the tank.
There are many ways you can gauge the tanks abilities which in turn will let you know how much DPS you can safely put out. Remember, it is not about how much DPS you can do it is about how much DPS you can safely do.
1) Misdirection
- You have it, use it. I never, repeat, never go into a pull without it if I can help it. I do not care of the tank has 60K health in all ICC 25 HM gear. It is there for a reason. Use it. You are a hunter, if you are even 1/2 way decent you can pull off a tank in 3 seconds flat if you happen to get crits on your opening shots. If you have over 70% crit like I do that will happen quite often.
2) Feign Death
- You have it, use it. Do not wait until the pack is coming for you either. The second you get close to pulling the pack use it. If you let it start coming for you and then use it you might create a very bad situation. If the tank is not on the ball and you let it get to close to you, it might move to the healer instead of back to the tank and then the wipe is your fault.
3) Pulling the Mob
- If a mob is in Kill Shot range or will shortly be in Kill Shot range and I see myself coming close I pull the mob anyway knowing it will be dead WAY before it gets to me. That is why I tell tanks that if I pull aggro do not worry about it. This is not something you should do when you are still learning however and surely not if you are not hit capped yet. Nice to say, no worries, I'll hit it with a KS if you end up missing because you are not hit capped.
4) Your Healer > Your DPS
- If you are constantly high on threat and coming close to pulling that means your healer will have to start paying a lot of attention to you. If the healer is paying attention to you that is not needed mistakes can happen. Your threat, even if you do control it, can cause problems for others if you keep getting close. Never get close.
5) Omen
- We all know we pull threat at 130%. That does not mean that you should start worrying about it when you get to 110%. Never even get to 100%. I set my meter to warn me at 80%. That gives me the time I need to settle a big shot I want that might be coming off cooldown and then FD or MD. I've seen myself go from 80% to 120% in just one Chimera shot that happened to crit with the auto shot attached and maybe a wild quiver shot as well at the same time all critting. Crit is a wild card. Give yourself lots of threat room to work with.
6) Going All Out
- Pay attention to how things are going in the early pulls. You should be MDing, but even at that you will climb steady up the threat meter. If you are never getting close to pulling after the initial MD then feel free to unleash all you have on a boss fight. If you see that you are close to grabbing aggro just before trash dies you know that you can not go all out on the boss.
7) Learn How To Tank
- I am not saying to go out and level a tank. I am saying at least take a few minutes to know how things work. If you look around you will see all thanks have a way to deal with AoE pulls. All of them are visual and you can see it easily from the back where we shoot. If you do not see the tank do their AoE do not attack with AoE. Sounds simple right? Trust me, as a tank too I can tell you 90% of DPS do not do that. If you have MD off cooldown, feel free to MD and Volley. That helps the tank.
Remember, as hunters we are in the position where we can control all aspects of agrro with even a half way decent tank. So use those abilities and use your head. Don't worry about your DPS if you have to slow up some because I am sure in the end they would rather you do 6K DPS the entire fight then 8K DPS for a few seconds and need to keep reviving you. Dead people have 0 DPS.
I think the Goblin has lost his mind.
Part two of the Goblins "Magical Skill" articles has come out and it seems I was dead on with what I was thinking it might be about. I was also completely wrong.
How could I be right and be wrong at the same time? I was right because it was about people doing what needed to be done in a raid situation. I was wrong because he seems to be claiming that some BS set of rules are the reason for that success.
While there might be some truth to the argument that having group of people that just want to get it done and are not "friends" but coworkers in their effort will succeed. That does make perfect sense. I am ranged DPS, I need other DPS around me, I need healers and tanks around me as well. I need them to be competent to do the job and I need them to not make the same stupid mistakes over and over. If you are "friends" with a person you will allow them to get away with things and hope they can adjust and catch up. To me, that is where the "Magical Skill" comes in. If they have that skill, they will adjust and catch up. If they don't they won't but as a "friend" you will let them keep running with you.
So he does have a point there. He made his group without anything but a common goal to connect these people. Each one of these people is using the others around them to help them to get to their ultimate goal. It is not as cold as it sounds. It works. It has worked in the past and it will work in the future. It is not because of his rules and it is not because of his PuG.
He went into some tangent that this PuG group, when following his rules, got to 11/12 on ICC just because of his rules for them joining. This is where I think he has fallen off of his rocker. He has lost it. Sometimes very smart people over look very small things. He overlooked his blog, the one I read, the one posting this stuff, the one many people read on a daily basis.
Being The PuG was started from his blog it was started from his readers. The same readers that know he is prone to rip apart bad players, stupid people and generally anyone that does not meet his own standards. Because of that those people, even if they are good, are not going to join The PuG because they know he is going to write about it.
Everything that happens in The PuG is happening so well because only people that are very good at what they do to begin with joined it. They are the people that had the "Magical Skill" long before The PuG was a dream that came to the Goblin one night.
So his idea, while nice, would never work in a real gaming setting. If I where to start a new guild with the same rules as his I am absolutely sure I would not have the success he has had. The reason being is that it would not be done in the public eye. There would not be any people reading about it. There would not be the draw for the great players to be part of something and the fear for the bad players to stay the hell away.
Do to his many great articles and events, like the undergeared group, he is well know and he draws the best of the best out to join him. I know in his undergeared group I would suck horribly. There is no way in hell I can ever see myself pulling 5K DPS in 187 gear. Sure, I might be able to with lots of luck but I don't think I would even try. Things like that bring out the people that can do that well to join him and join The PuG.
He would never have had the same results with his little test if no one had known about it. If it were just some random get together that some nobody put together it would crash and burn the same way I see guilds crash and burn left and right on any of the servers I play. They all have the same attitude as him. We are assembling for a single goal.
They all die off well before they achieve that goal because there are never enough good players or even average players to get it done. Those good players or average players go to hard core guilds or serious guilds or even friendly guilds. You get the left overs in a group like that. Maybe you will get some good players that are just flighty and that is why they never stuck with another guild.
I have been a part of PuGs that one shotted entire raids and I have been part of PuGs that wipe in Naxx when everyone had a GS over 5000.
I personally would love being in a guild like the one he described. Would be nice to do different types of raids. Would be nice to do old content for achievements. Would be nice to have that many competent people around that I could do it with at any given time. But the only reason it works is because of his net fame and that is what drew all those competent people to him.
Look at it this way. I am in a guild that is only 8/12 on ICC. We have the players to be finished with all hard modes. We have the gear, the skill and the desire. We have more then enough people to fill 3 10 mans. We just do not do it because most of the people are missing the "Magical Skill" the way I said it. Not the way he did. The only reason I am still there is because I like it there and having fun playing is more important to me then being the first on my server to down something. I'll down it sooner or later. I like working for something instead of just rolling over content to get it. There is no sense of accomplishment in that. Just like there should be no sense of accomplishment in what the Goblin has done.
How could I be right and be wrong at the same time? I was right because it was about people doing what needed to be done in a raid situation. I was wrong because he seems to be claiming that some BS set of rules are the reason for that success.
While there might be some truth to the argument that having group of people that just want to get it done and are not "friends" but coworkers in their effort will succeed. That does make perfect sense. I am ranged DPS, I need other DPS around me, I need healers and tanks around me as well. I need them to be competent to do the job and I need them to not make the same stupid mistakes over and over. If you are "friends" with a person you will allow them to get away with things and hope they can adjust and catch up. To me, that is where the "Magical Skill" comes in. If they have that skill, they will adjust and catch up. If they don't they won't but as a "friend" you will let them keep running with you.
So he does have a point there. He made his group without anything but a common goal to connect these people. Each one of these people is using the others around them to help them to get to their ultimate goal. It is not as cold as it sounds. It works. It has worked in the past and it will work in the future. It is not because of his rules and it is not because of his PuG.
He went into some tangent that this PuG group, when following his rules, got to 11/12 on ICC just because of his rules for them joining. This is where I think he has fallen off of his rocker. He has lost it. Sometimes very smart people over look very small things. He overlooked his blog, the one I read, the one posting this stuff, the one many people read on a daily basis.
Being The PuG was started from his blog it was started from his readers. The same readers that know he is prone to rip apart bad players, stupid people and generally anyone that does not meet his own standards. Because of that those people, even if they are good, are not going to join The PuG because they know he is going to write about it.
Everything that happens in The PuG is happening so well because only people that are very good at what they do to begin with joined it. They are the people that had the "Magical Skill" long before The PuG was a dream that came to the Goblin one night.
So his idea, while nice, would never work in a real gaming setting. If I where to start a new guild with the same rules as his I am absolutely sure I would not have the success he has had. The reason being is that it would not be done in the public eye. There would not be any people reading about it. There would not be the draw for the great players to be part of something and the fear for the bad players to stay the hell away.
Do to his many great articles and events, like the undergeared group, he is well know and he draws the best of the best out to join him. I know in his undergeared group I would suck horribly. There is no way in hell I can ever see myself pulling 5K DPS in 187 gear. Sure, I might be able to with lots of luck but I don't think I would even try. Things like that bring out the people that can do that well to join him and join The PuG.
He would never have had the same results with his little test if no one had known about it. If it were just some random get together that some nobody put together it would crash and burn the same way I see guilds crash and burn left and right on any of the servers I play. They all have the same attitude as him. We are assembling for a single goal.
They all die off well before they achieve that goal because there are never enough good players or even average players to get it done. Those good players or average players go to hard core guilds or serious guilds or even friendly guilds. You get the left overs in a group like that. Maybe you will get some good players that are just flighty and that is why they never stuck with another guild.
I have been a part of PuGs that one shotted entire raids and I have been part of PuGs that wipe in Naxx when everyone had a GS over 5000.
I personally would love being in a guild like the one he described. Would be nice to do different types of raids. Would be nice to do old content for achievements. Would be nice to have that many competent people around that I could do it with at any given time. But the only reason it works is because of his net fame and that is what drew all those competent people to him.
Look at it this way. I am in a guild that is only 8/12 on ICC. We have the players to be finished with all hard modes. We have the gear, the skill and the desire. We have more then enough people to fill 3 10 mans. We just do not do it because most of the people are missing the "Magical Skill" the way I said it. Not the way he did. The only reason I am still there is because I like it there and having fun playing is more important to me then being the first on my server to down something. I'll down it sooner or later. I like working for something instead of just rolling over content to get it. There is no sense of accomplishment in that. Just like there should be no sense of accomplishment in what the Goblin has done.
New Hunter Talent Calculator
I am sure there will be a lot of playing around with this one. I already figure out that I would be using a 3/31/7 or 2/31/8 set up to start with if I had to make my own decisions. Thing is, I am sure the theory crafters will do all the hard work for me and tell me what will work best.
Take a look at the calculator and see what you think.
Seems like 8 in survival is almost mandatory 5 in improved tracking and 3 in Hunter Vs. Wild. Increasing attack power based on stamina is just way to juicy to pass up, even more so when you realize that they are giving away stamina like candy come cataclysm. Green quest pieces have 500 stamina on it. That means getting a new piece with 500 stamina is a 150 attack power increase instantly for you and your pet. The more stamina you have the more attack power you have and in this brave new world it seems like stamina is what it is all about.
The one difference in my two specs is if I fill out One With Nature on the BM tree or fill out Hunter Vs. Wild on the Survival tree. If focus becomes an issue I might lean to BM, otherwise, the extra 10% AP is worth losing the little focus gain from One With Nature.
The MM tree seems basically unchanged. In a way I actually had a problem getting to 31 for it. Seems to have way to many PvP and trash mob skills there. All the dazing and more damage on daze stuff is completely useless for boss fights being bosses can not be dazed. That means that their value is near 0 for anyone concerned with end game stuff. Outside of that, the MM set up feels very much like ti always was. I did not need a theory crafter to tell me to put the points in things that help with damage. There weren't even 31 things that cause damage so it was not exactly rocket science. It really came down to I needed to waste one point and which one talent that was nearly useless would I put that one point in.
If anything, it is that lackluster selection of skills to put points into that would be my only issue with it so far. I hope it is tweaked some. Otherwise I might as well try BM or SV. I hate having to put points in useless talents just to get further into the tree. I might go BM if anything, it really looks like that will be the best spec to start out with. Nice to see some BM love. I always liked being BM and kind of miss it. Maybe I miss it because it was always so damn easy compared to MM and all those procs and timers I had to pay attention to. BM seemed more proactive. You do things. MM seemed more reactive, you do what you can while waiting for something to happen so you can do something else. MM seems more like work. BM seems more like play. I like to play.
Take a look at the calculator and see what you think.
Seems like 8 in survival is almost mandatory 5 in improved tracking and 3 in Hunter Vs. Wild. Increasing attack power based on stamina is just way to juicy to pass up, even more so when you realize that they are giving away stamina like candy come cataclysm. Green quest pieces have 500 stamina on it. That means getting a new piece with 500 stamina is a 150 attack power increase instantly for you and your pet. The more stamina you have the more attack power you have and in this brave new world it seems like stamina is what it is all about.
The one difference in my two specs is if I fill out One With Nature on the BM tree or fill out Hunter Vs. Wild on the Survival tree. If focus becomes an issue I might lean to BM, otherwise, the extra 10% AP is worth losing the little focus gain from One With Nature.
The MM tree seems basically unchanged. In a way I actually had a problem getting to 31 for it. Seems to have way to many PvP and trash mob skills there. All the dazing and more damage on daze stuff is completely useless for boss fights being bosses can not be dazed. That means that their value is near 0 for anyone concerned with end game stuff. Outside of that, the MM set up feels very much like ti always was. I did not need a theory crafter to tell me to put the points in things that help with damage. There weren't even 31 things that cause damage so it was not exactly rocket science. It really came down to I needed to waste one point and which one talent that was nearly useless would I put that one point in.
If anything, it is that lackluster selection of skills to put points into that would be my only issue with it so far. I hope it is tweaked some. Otherwise I might as well try BM or SV. I hate having to put points in useless talents just to get further into the tree. I might go BM if anything, it really looks like that will be the best spec to start out with. Nice to see some BM love. I always liked being BM and kind of miss it. Maybe I miss it because it was always so damn easy compared to MM and all those procs and timers I had to pay attention to. BM seemed more proactive. You do things. MM seemed more reactive, you do what you can while waiting for something to happen so you can do something else. MM seems more like work. BM seems more like play. I like to play.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The Goblin's Magical Skill
The Greedy Goblin has a new post about "Magical Skill" on his blog and it made me think about something someone said the other day after a pretty bad 25 man ICC run that saw us wipe in places we had not wiped in months.
Now I will not pretend to say I know what "Magical Skill" he is going to talk about, but as soon as I read it I thought about the wipes the other night on Lady Deathwhisper. We had a group with three Mages, which is huge, usually we have one if any at all and whenever someone was mind controlled no one was sheeping. When LDW was about to throw her frostbolt no one was interrupting either. All that combined to mean a wipe. We almost pulled it off, got her to 2% and just did not finish when the last tank dropped.
That should not happen for a group that normal would down LDW in our sleep. And this is where I think the Goblin is going to lead us with his "Magical Skill" segment he is planning. The raid leader gave the group crap, rightfully so, for not controlling the mind controlled people and for not interrupting the frostbolts. The thing is, he should not have needed to.
This was not new content for any of us where we were still learning it. It was not old content either where we might have forgotten things. It was something we run every week and have been running every week.
For me, as I see the Goblins "Magical Skill", will be about the people that do what needs to be done without thinking. It is just something people picked up and they do it. Naturally. While it can be taught, to those people that do not have the skill it needs to be drilled into them and they need to be reminded. They learned tHE skill to do it but they do not have it happen naturally. Magically if you will.
I do not know when it happened, I did not plan it happening, but I throw a freezing arrow at the mind controlled person the second they get controlled. Sure, I miss sometimes or they run from it as it is in the air, but I do it. It is something I do not even think about. I've done it enough to not even think about it any more. I think that is what the Goblin might be getting at. Like he said children just magically pick up language I just magically picked up doing the freezing arrow. Either way I look forward to seeing what he has coming with the articles.
Now I will not pretend to say I know what "Magical Skill" he is going to talk about, but as soon as I read it I thought about the wipes the other night on Lady Deathwhisper. We had a group with three Mages, which is huge, usually we have one if any at all and whenever someone was mind controlled no one was sheeping. When LDW was about to throw her frostbolt no one was interrupting either. All that combined to mean a wipe. We almost pulled it off, got her to 2% and just did not finish when the last tank dropped.
That should not happen for a group that normal would down LDW in our sleep. And this is where I think the Goblin is going to lead us with his "Magical Skill" segment he is planning. The raid leader gave the group crap, rightfully so, for not controlling the mind controlled people and for not interrupting the frostbolts. The thing is, he should not have needed to.
This was not new content for any of us where we were still learning it. It was not old content either where we might have forgotten things. It was something we run every week and have been running every week.
For me, as I see the Goblins "Magical Skill", will be about the people that do what needs to be done without thinking. It is just something people picked up and they do it. Naturally. While it can be taught, to those people that do not have the skill it needs to be drilled into them and they need to be reminded. They learned tHE skill to do it but they do not have it happen naturally. Magically if you will.
I do not know when it happened, I did not plan it happening, but I throw a freezing arrow at the mind controlled person the second they get controlled. Sure, I miss sometimes or they run from it as it is in the air, but I do it. It is something I do not even think about. I've done it enough to not even think about it any more. I think that is what the Goblin might be getting at. Like he said children just magically pick up language I just magically picked up doing the freezing arrow. Either way I look forward to seeing what he has coming with the articles.
Leveling as Disc
I have a friend who leveled his Priest naked. I always thought that was about as cool as it gets and a true testimony to skill. I still think that having been working on my Priest but now I understand how it is capable a lot more then previous.
Not knowing a great deal about the priest skills I was not aware how one could level naked and even have a chance. Now seeing what I can do with gear as I level I can see how it is possible to do it. I can see battles taking a lot longer for sure and you need to really pay attention to where you are because if you get some adds it could mean instant death.
A Priest has an amazing array of skills that seem to be ideal for leveling like this and in reality it has made my leveling with gear on a lot easier. I use the approach that my friend told me, the basic idea to try not to take any damage at all, and being I wear gear and he did not it makes it easier for me.
With all that being said it makes rethink everything I know about the game some. The first character I made, my beloved Hunter, it took me forever to level it. Took me a while to learn how to pick and choose my battles, how to pull small packs or one at a time, things like that. So of course it took a while to level. As I leveled and learned and knew how to do things better from leveling that character it helped me level others. I knew the concept of how to do things, now I just needed to learn how to do them with different skills.
That is part of growing with the game. Some things still seem to be eye opening for me. Such as leveling a Priest now. Sure, when I was doing it in PvP only it was different, that is a whole different world and nothing like leveling with questing. Sure, I tried some of the looking for dungeon as well when they took out the PvP daily quest for lower levels and that was just spamming healing everywhere it was needed. That is what I think of when I think of a healer. Nothing more. They are healers, they heal.
Getting into questing now I learned that everything I knew about healers, or at least a Discipline Priest, goes out the window when leveling. I figured that being I was leveling as a healer I would basically fall back on the idea that I heal myself whenever I need it, I would drop DoTs all over and run for the hills so to speak. In concept, that made sense, in application it doesn't really work that way.
I take less damage as a Disc Priest then I ever have in any other class I have played so far. Those shields are so OP that if I really wanted to you can be a melee Priest and kill everything and still never take any damage.
I had thought, originally, that having healing would be nice, but being I was a healer and not just a class with a healing spell, that I could not really do a bunch of damage. I figured it would go something like, offensive spell, shield, offensive spell, heal, shield, HoT, offensive spell, and so on. I figured it would be a back and forth with me healing myself often. Thing is, I never take any damage at all. I think I can go 5 or 6 levels without ever needing to heal myself once. On the very rare occasion that I do take any damage it is healed either by itself over time or from the next shield I throw on myself.
Basically for questing I do not even need any healing spells at all for the standard stuff. My typical battle now goes something like this.
1) Cast Holy Fire from Max distance.
2) Cast Shadow Word: Pain as they are coming.
3) Cast Devouring Plague as they are getting to me.
4) Cast Power Word: Shield. If they did happen to hit me PW:S healed me.
5) Either Melee or Wand the mob until Holy Fire is off cooldown. Usually about 2-3 seconds max.
6) Cast Holy Fire.
7) Melee or Wand until dead.
8) On the rare occasion it is needed Cast Shadow Word: Death to finish it off if all the DoTs are done and there is a little left.
That is all.
You might ask why I have those 2 Melee or Wand parts in there and I can answer that.
One, I am not taking any damage anyway so there is no rush to kill the creature.
Two, the DoT's I have rolling are going to kill it anyway so all I am doing now is wasting some time waiting for it to die.
Three, I could save 2 seconds and cast another spell to kill it faster but this way is much more mana efficient. I need to drink every 10 battles instead of every 5 or 6 this way. The having to drink twice as often would eat up more time then the extra 2 seconds each mob lives from doing a little melee on it.
Now if you look at that you will notice how my original idea of healing myself is never even required. Yeap, I am a healer killing mobs that never needs to cast a heal. Call me surprised. I would have never expected it to be this easy.
There are some times where healing myself is needed. While I surprisingly enough can do some group pulls with little problem I occasionally need to throw a Renew on myself before I can shield again. Also when soloing elites I seem to need to do some more healing. Even at that I was amazed how easily I was able to solo some mobs I had problems with on other characters. I chalk that up to knowing more about how things work from all perspectives now. Having leveled up a Ranged, a Melee, a Tank and now I Healer through some of the same quests I have a different outlook on how to do things.
One of my intentions when I started leveling other characters was to get a feel for how things where on the other side and that seems to have paid off. Each character I level becomes increasingly easier because I have more of a pool of experience to draw from. None of that prepared me for being a healer that never needs to heal however. I find that so amusing. I love being a Disc Priest right now. Almost as much as being a Hunter.
Not knowing a great deal about the priest skills I was not aware how one could level naked and even have a chance. Now seeing what I can do with gear as I level I can see how it is possible to do it. I can see battles taking a lot longer for sure and you need to really pay attention to where you are because if you get some adds it could mean instant death.
A Priest has an amazing array of skills that seem to be ideal for leveling like this and in reality it has made my leveling with gear on a lot easier. I use the approach that my friend told me, the basic idea to try not to take any damage at all, and being I wear gear and he did not it makes it easier for me.
With all that being said it makes rethink everything I know about the game some. The first character I made, my beloved Hunter, it took me forever to level it. Took me a while to learn how to pick and choose my battles, how to pull small packs or one at a time, things like that. So of course it took a while to level. As I leveled and learned and knew how to do things better from leveling that character it helped me level others. I knew the concept of how to do things, now I just needed to learn how to do them with different skills.
That is part of growing with the game. Some things still seem to be eye opening for me. Such as leveling a Priest now. Sure, when I was doing it in PvP only it was different, that is a whole different world and nothing like leveling with questing. Sure, I tried some of the looking for dungeon as well when they took out the PvP daily quest for lower levels and that was just spamming healing everywhere it was needed. That is what I think of when I think of a healer. Nothing more. They are healers, they heal.
Getting into questing now I learned that everything I knew about healers, or at least a Discipline Priest, goes out the window when leveling. I figured that being I was leveling as a healer I would basically fall back on the idea that I heal myself whenever I need it, I would drop DoTs all over and run for the hills so to speak. In concept, that made sense, in application it doesn't really work that way.
I take less damage as a Disc Priest then I ever have in any other class I have played so far. Those shields are so OP that if I really wanted to you can be a melee Priest and kill everything and still never take any damage.
I had thought, originally, that having healing would be nice, but being I was a healer and not just a class with a healing spell, that I could not really do a bunch of damage. I figured it would go something like, offensive spell, shield, offensive spell, heal, shield, HoT, offensive spell, and so on. I figured it would be a back and forth with me healing myself often. Thing is, I never take any damage at all. I think I can go 5 or 6 levels without ever needing to heal myself once. On the very rare occasion that I do take any damage it is healed either by itself over time or from the next shield I throw on myself.
Basically for questing I do not even need any healing spells at all for the standard stuff. My typical battle now goes something like this.
1) Cast Holy Fire from Max distance.
2) Cast Shadow Word: Pain as they are coming.
3) Cast Devouring Plague as they are getting to me.
4) Cast Power Word: Shield. If they did happen to hit me PW:S healed me.
5) Either Melee or Wand the mob until Holy Fire is off cooldown. Usually about 2-3 seconds max.
6) Cast Holy Fire.
7) Melee or Wand until dead.
8) On the rare occasion it is needed Cast Shadow Word: Death to finish it off if all the DoTs are done and there is a little left.
That is all.
You might ask why I have those 2 Melee or Wand parts in there and I can answer that.
One, I am not taking any damage anyway so there is no rush to kill the creature.
Two, the DoT's I have rolling are going to kill it anyway so all I am doing now is wasting some time waiting for it to die.
Three, I could save 2 seconds and cast another spell to kill it faster but this way is much more mana efficient. I need to drink every 10 battles instead of every 5 or 6 this way. The having to drink twice as often would eat up more time then the extra 2 seconds each mob lives from doing a little melee on it.
Now if you look at that you will notice how my original idea of healing myself is never even required. Yeap, I am a healer killing mobs that never needs to cast a heal. Call me surprised. I would have never expected it to be this easy.
There are some times where healing myself is needed. While I surprisingly enough can do some group pulls with little problem I occasionally need to throw a Renew on myself before I can shield again. Also when soloing elites I seem to need to do some more healing. Even at that I was amazed how easily I was able to solo some mobs I had problems with on other characters. I chalk that up to knowing more about how things work from all perspectives now. Having leveled up a Ranged, a Melee, a Tank and now I Healer through some of the same quests I have a different outlook on how to do things.
One of my intentions when I started leveling other characters was to get a feel for how things where on the other side and that seems to have paid off. Each character I level becomes increasingly easier because I have more of a pool of experience to draw from. None of that prepared me for being a healer that never needs to heal however. I find that so amusing. I love being a Disc Priest right now. Almost as much as being a Hunter.
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