I was reading Larisa on the PPI about her Saronite Slave when I went, WOW! That is a good idea!
I mean I have 3 80s, Guthammer, the instant queuing, i245 or so tanking warrior, Freydina the paladin (ret/holy--not that I have any clue how to pally heal) and Eirena the priest (holy/shadow atm, but I keep on hearing how fun Disc is from She Who Speaks Horde). Frey probably has enough Emblems of Frost to get a Primal Saronite right now. Eire--I am not entirely sure, but this weeks raid weekly (or maybe weakly, considering the target) is Noth which will certainly help.
Now I am quite dedicated to running one a day as a tank on Guthammer--but that is rarely more than 15 minutes. Then I usually run around doing the tournament dailies while queuing as DPS--that nets me a good 400G a day. But considering that I was just saying I have fallen really behind on with my knowledge as a raid lead, grinding a heroic or 2 on my 2 healers, while upgrading them from the finest of Naxx gear, while getting more Frost Emblem gear for my main is a solution made of win.
Now if only I had thought of it.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Leftovers
I am a raid leader in what is likely the largest raid alliance in WoW--Silver Hand's (NA) Leftovers. Though really, we aren't a raid alliance because we don't require any guild membership--if you are 80 and on SH you can raid with us, Horde or Alliance. If we could get you into raid instances before 80, that would be our minimum.
Now, as a raid lead I lead a teaching charter--something to get people geared up and used to raiding. Yes, I do have a bit of a conumdrum with the new LFD tool and what role the Naxx raids play. Additionally we have a slow progress 25 man raid, which just got ToC 25 on farm.
Lastly, I have just spun up an ICC10 raid--where I have flying solo as a lead. This as been a rude awakening. Between She Who Speaks Horde's knowledge of class mechanics as she was observing, and our inability to down Marrowgar with most of a group that got its first Sourfang kill last week I realize I have been slacking.
I still haven't done a good analysis on what was going wrong (DK OT, 44k HP, 3 healers, he would still fall down go boom)--but I am sorely lacking on current class mechanics knowledge and way rusty on log analysis. (Further, it seems that WWS hasn't been updated for ICC--and any recomendations for a log parcer would be appriciated.)
That said I don't think I need to know /everything/ about all the classes--but more about my leadership style in my next post.
Now, as a raid lead I lead a teaching charter--something to get people geared up and used to raiding. Yes, I do have a bit of a conumdrum with the new LFD tool and what role the Naxx raids play. Additionally we have a slow progress 25 man raid, which just got ToC 25 on farm.
Lastly, I have just spun up an ICC10 raid--where I have flying solo as a lead. This as been a rude awakening. Between She Who Speaks Horde's knowledge of class mechanics as she was observing, and our inability to down Marrowgar with most of a group that got its first Sourfang kill last week I realize I have been slacking.
I still haven't done a good analysis on what was going wrong (DK OT, 44k HP, 3 healers, he would still fall down go boom)--but I am sorely lacking on current class mechanics knowledge and way rusty on log analysis. (Further, it seems that WWS hasn't been updated for ICC--and any recomendations for a log parcer would be appriciated.)
That said I don't think I need to know /everything/ about all the classes--but more about my leadership style in my next post.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
She Speaks Horde
There I am, busily tanking Marrowgar, trying to figure out why the OT keeps on falling over in the dramatic Draenei way, dancing around the ice-ground-thingie, making sure the DPS are staying bunched up when, at the start of one of the whirlwind phases my friend, watching over my shoulder, asks "Have you used Bloodlust?"
Whirl-wind is about over, I and my OT are getting into position, I am racking my brain to remember this Bloodlust buff she's asking about. I dance around more ground-ice-stuffs, calling left or right to make sure the Draenai and I break the same way, and wrack my brain for this "Bloodlust" thing--and am drawing a complete blank...
Back to the whirlwind, finding enough time to ask "Bloodlust? I don't know it..."
"You know, shaman buff."
"Oh! You mean Heroism!"
Whirl-wind is about over, I and my OT are getting into position, I am racking my brain to remember this Bloodlust buff she's asking about. I dance around more ground-ice-stuffs, calling left or right to make sure the Draenai and I break the same way, and wrack my brain for this "Bloodlust" thing--and am drawing a complete blank...
Back to the whirlwind, finding enough time to ask "Bloodlust? I don't know it..."
"You know, shaman buff."
"Oh! You mean Heroism!"
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Catastrophically Overgeared
The simple fact is WoW breaks with the gearing level many players can bring into a 5 man. While everyone posts that these new 5 mans are a great way to teach how to group I am not so sure I believe that. Brute force and ignorance is the tactic for the day. (AE damage and utter ignorance about what the mobs being AEed down actually are.)
If you're a DPSer or healer who's learning the ropes in i200 dungeons with i245 tanks, there really isn't a lot to learn. And if you're a healer there might not even be a lot to keep you awake. With Guthammer's ok tanking gear (mostly i245) you're probably getting a tank you can't out agro on your DPS rotations, a pool of hit pints that is nearly double what the original intended tanks had, and a combination of instance knowledge and chain pulling that isn't a "normal" part of the game. And as I understand it, while not quite equally over geared, running the leveling instances you get groups who out level the place in blue gear that was unimaginable at the time the game came out.
I have also been doing instances as DPS, in 232ish gear and I have found I can still catastrophically over gear an instance. Even in DPS gear I have oodles of HP--close to 30k*--more than enough to tank some hits even in berserker stance. If the tank that overgears the instance, I implement the ignorance part of the DPS rotation, not really caring about agro because its not really a problem. Or I get a tank who's undergeared and unable to hold against the AE--at which point my tanking instincts kick in and I find myself soloing the mob that was just beating on the healer.
Lastly there is very little way to continue communicating with a player you might want to take the time to show tanking tricks, DPS rotations or healing strategies. Without cross server communications in the game while having cross server groups Blizzard is promoting the mind set of 5 people soloing together rather than a real 5 person team. If someone drops group at the end of an instance before I get a chance to finish typing...they are gone.
Looking at the typical 5 man PUG, at leas this late in the game of Wrath, the dungoen finder is of limited use in teaching the right stuff for challenging 5 mans. And I wonder just what the RDF will be like with 85s running instances in a combination of questing/leveling gear, old T10 and some T11. It can't be this comfortable, face rolling, brute force steamrolling of instances that we have now--and Blizzard is now teaching its customers is the normal way to do things.
*Consider that tanking the first tier of dungeons probably requires around 23-24k HP, 1 or even 2 mobs aren't going to be a huge problem with a healer who's paying attention.
PS: WTF with Old Kindom? As a speed run its 2 bosses. As a full clear its about 25 minutes. And I have had party members chain drop it. There is nothing wrong with this instance and Blizzard shouldn't nerf the place. I would be happy to see the deserter debuff go up to 30 minutes though.
If you're a DPSer or healer who's learning the ropes in i200 dungeons with i245 tanks, there really isn't a lot to learn. And if you're a healer there might not even be a lot to keep you awake. With Guthammer's ok tanking gear (mostly i245) you're probably getting a tank you can't out agro on your DPS rotations, a pool of hit pints that is nearly double what the original intended tanks had, and a combination of instance knowledge and chain pulling that isn't a "normal" part of the game. And as I understand it, while not quite equally over geared, running the leveling instances you get groups who out level the place in blue gear that was unimaginable at the time the game came out.
I have also been doing instances as DPS, in 232ish gear and I have found I can still catastrophically over gear an instance. Even in DPS gear I have oodles of HP--close to 30k*--more than enough to tank some hits even in berserker stance. If the tank that overgears the instance, I implement the ignorance part of the DPS rotation, not really caring about agro because its not really a problem. Or I get a tank who's undergeared and unable to hold against the AE--at which point my tanking instincts kick in and I find myself soloing the mob that was just beating on the healer.
Lastly there is very little way to continue communicating with a player you might want to take the time to show tanking tricks, DPS rotations or healing strategies. Without cross server communications in the game while having cross server groups Blizzard is promoting the mind set of 5 people soloing together rather than a real 5 person team. If someone drops group at the end of an instance before I get a chance to finish typing...they are gone.
Looking at the typical 5 man PUG, at leas this late in the game of Wrath, the dungoen finder is of limited use in teaching the right stuff for challenging 5 mans. And I wonder just what the RDF will be like with 85s running instances in a combination of questing/leveling gear, old T10 and some T11. It can't be this comfortable, face rolling, brute force steamrolling of instances that we have now--and Blizzard is now teaching its customers is the normal way to do things.
*Consider that tanking the first tier of dungeons probably requires around 23-24k HP, 1 or even 2 mobs aren't going to be a huge problem with a healer who's paying attention.
PS: WTF with Old Kindom? As a speed run its 2 bosses. As a full clear its about 25 minutes. And I have had party members chain drop it. There is nothing wrong with this instance and Blizzard shouldn't nerf the place. I would be happy to see the deserter debuff go up to 30 minutes though.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Great Tanking Shortage: A Solution
The basic problem with tanking isn't that its hard to do, but that it is hard to learn. Not only go you get to fall flat on your face but you get to do it with an audience participation too--including them falling flat on their faces too.
Learning to tank in front of 4 people is hard. Doing it in front of 24 other people takes real determination. I had that kind of moment on the Iron Council. I knew I had to be looking out for blue-stuff and drag the boss out of it, but there were a series of 3 quick wipes that were 100% my fault. The first one was "Oh that is what it looks like!" the second was "Oh! That is how fast I have to react!" and the third was "Oh! That is how far I have to move him!" Even on a ten man you are burning man hours for each trick the tank has to learn by wiping.
The easiest thing Blizzard, or any MMO maker, can do is give tanks an agro generating NPC healer, in a solo instance and mandatory quest. Making it scalable and repeatable would be very good too.
Learning to keep one NPC healer alive is a wonderful, low pressure way to learn to tank--how to get agro, how to collect ranged mobs, maybe even LOS pulling and the like. But the biggest, biggest must is that you do it with an NPC. I bet you it is that simple.
Learning to tank in front of 4 people is hard. Doing it in front of 24 other people takes real determination. I had that kind of moment on the Iron Council. I knew I had to be looking out for blue-stuff and drag the boss out of it, but there were a series of 3 quick wipes that were 100% my fault. The first one was "Oh that is what it looks like!" the second was "Oh! That is how fast I have to react!" and the third was "Oh! That is how far I have to move him!" Even on a ten man you are burning man hours for each trick the tank has to learn by wiping.
The easiest thing Blizzard, or any MMO maker, can do is give tanks an agro generating NPC healer, in a solo instance and mandatory quest. Making it scalable and repeatable would be very good too.
Learning to keep one NPC healer alive is a wonderful, low pressure way to learn to tank--how to get agro, how to collect ranged mobs, maybe even LOS pulling and the like. But the biggest, biggest must is that you do it with an NPC. I bet you it is that simple.
Breaking Gelvon
Gelvon over the Greedy Goblin has a despicable post on how break the social contract of WoW and act like a parasite, leaching time from other players.
He thinks the move is unbeatable by "government regulation" too--but even simple logic gives you a way to eliminate most false positives: the common traits for all queue jumpers is tank leaves before the first boss while having party members from the same server. Odds are low that any random group will have that happening.
Then there are the actions the players themselves can do. If you see someone in your group and has their same server tank leave instantly, vote kick them in 15 minutes (this particularly appeals to me as you get to work them for a while before banishing them before the last boss, and locking them out to that instance out of the RDF) and ignore them.
If you as the tank walking into the group notice that you are replacing a tank before the first boss, see if you can figure out who you bad actor is. Adding them to your ignore list is probably 3 or 4 times more powerful than having any single DPSer do that.
And the last thing you can do against the solo-parasite queuer--which unfortunately also effects the rest of the group--is never queue alone. Grab one other player and go. You will never fall into the hole being left for you by the solo queue jumper.
And never, as the tank, do you have to pull and enable them to get their badges--you can stop until they vote kick you or the drop.
He thinks the move is unbeatable by "government regulation" too--but even simple logic gives you a way to eliminate most false positives: the common traits for all queue jumpers is tank leaves before the first boss while having party members from the same server. Odds are low that any random group will have that happening.
Then there are the actions the players themselves can do. If you see someone in your group and has their same server tank leave instantly, vote kick them in 15 minutes (this particularly appeals to me as you get to work them for a while before banishing them before the last boss, and locking them out to that instance out of the RDF) and ignore them.
If you as the tank walking into the group notice that you are replacing a tank before the first boss, see if you can figure out who you bad actor is. Adding them to your ignore list is probably 3 or 4 times more powerful than having any single DPSer do that.
And the last thing you can do against the solo-parasite queuer--which unfortunately also effects the rest of the group--is never queue alone. Grab one other player and go. You will never fall into the hole being left for you by the solo queue jumper.
And never, as the tank, do you have to pull and enable them to get their badges--you can stop until they vote kick you or the drop.
In Praise of Specilization
Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Holy Trinity
Often people will decry the MMO paradigm of the Holy Trinity of Tank, Healer, DPS--but to me they seem to be the most evolved and flexible set of assignments that allow people to succeed in MMOGs and play more interesting classes. Tactics--like genes--evolve.
There are two primary factors that tactics are evaluated on--the first is success, the second is time. Time, of course, only kicks in after you group has passed the pass/fail check of looting the boss. As a raid group gets better at an encounter you will see the number of healers used go down (and maybe even tanks) and the number of DPS go up.
Everything in the group (or raid) is focused on beating the encounter. Encounters are beaten with DPS. If a boss was a brick wall that you had to knock over by doing X million points of damage, you wouldn't bring any tanks or healers. Tanking only exists when mobs do damage to the group in some sort of controllable way--the party can get the mobs damage onto some sort of specialist who sacrifices DPS for survivability. Healing only exists if the damage encounter's damage is large enough to kill DPS during the encounter.
As an example, we know, that caster mobs don't need to be tanked in instances if one of the over geared DPS decides go one on one with them (I am looking at you Facestab of Kargath--back in LBRS). This is an expression of the evolutionary pressures of encounter length--as soon as part of or all an encounter does away with the need for a specialist role, it will be done away with--shortening or simplifying the encounter. You see this all the time with raid groups--the number of healers and maybe even tanks will go down, the number of DPS will go up. If you can swap out a non-DPS specialist for a DPS specialist you do.
WoW, with its 10 classes and 30 specs, is more than rich enough to support player groups different than the holy trinity. I will also bet you, as a player, you were twitchy at first, doing whatever odd configuration you were, and then decided that the encounter was too easy because it didn't force you into your specialist roles. Ever been in a run healed by a shadow priest, in shadow form? That isn't a holy trinity group--no healing specialist. I know it made the players I was grouped with twitchy the first couple of pulls doing it myself. And in walking into SM (Library IIRC) I knew I was over geared and under challenged.
Often people will decry the MMO paradigm of the Holy Trinity of Tank, Healer, DPS--but to me they seem to be the most evolved and flexible set of assignments that allow people to succeed in MMOGs and play more interesting classes. Tactics--like genes--evolve.
There are two primary factors that tactics are evaluated on--the first is success, the second is time. Time, of course, only kicks in after you group has passed the pass/fail check of looting the boss. As a raid group gets better at an encounter you will see the number of healers used go down (and maybe even tanks) and the number of DPS go up.
Everything in the group (or raid) is focused on beating the encounter. Encounters are beaten with DPS. If a boss was a brick wall that you had to knock over by doing X million points of damage, you wouldn't bring any tanks or healers. Tanking only exists when mobs do damage to the group in some sort of controllable way--the party can get the mobs damage onto some sort of specialist who sacrifices DPS for survivability. Healing only exists if the damage encounter's damage is large enough to kill DPS during the encounter.
As an example, we know, that caster mobs don't need to be tanked in instances if one of the over geared DPS decides go one on one with them (I am looking at you Facestab of Kargath--back in LBRS). This is an expression of the evolutionary pressures of encounter length--as soon as part of or all an encounter does away with the need for a specialist role, it will be done away with--shortening or simplifying the encounter. You see this all the time with raid groups--the number of healers and maybe even tanks will go down, the number of DPS will go up. If you can swap out a non-DPS specialist for a DPS specialist you do.
WoW, with its 10 classes and 30 specs, is more than rich enough to support player groups different than the holy trinity. I will also bet you, as a player, you were twitchy at first, doing whatever odd configuration you were, and then decided that the encounter was too easy because it didn't force you into your specialist roles. Ever been in a run healed by a shadow priest, in shadow form? That isn't a holy trinity group--no healing specialist. I know it made the players I was grouped with twitchy the first couple of pulls doing it myself. And in walking into SM (Library IIRC) I knew I was over geared and under challenged.
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