AFKing for epics in raids

[Numtini]

We've looked at specs to politely suggest that maybe someone's poor DPS is due to spec, but it's mostly noticing the poor DPS and then going through and trying to figure out what is going wrong.

[kildorn]

Our SWS is entirely for "what went wrong" and a few of the more powergamey types going all *math* on it and being on an epeen arms race with themselves. It's all about the style of guild you get involved with as to how hardcore they're going to be about set specs, dps minimums and whatnot.

Speaking of which, I should see if our stats from last night are up yet and who I get to make fun of.

[Rasix]

I've rarely ever even look at someone's spec unless there's due cause. There's a DK in my guild that mentioned he went 32/39 but was wielding a 2hander.  He had altered it to work with a 2h spec.  Guy could have put out 800 more DPS with 2 cheap one handers  and a minor talent swap given the overall quality of his gear.  Still was beating my output (and I applaud him for not dual wielding  ) so I didn't say anything.  There's a few people in my guild though that need a talking to.  When you don't break 1k DPS, you're doing something wrong.  Like a hunter in my guild that's still wearing 2 pieces of Kara level gear.  His talent spec looks like it's best suited for farming meat.  Ohh god, our bad fury warrior is 0/71/0.  I never looked. 

I know I'm just an overpowered DK, but I shouldn't be thrashing everyone's DPS in a 10 man Naxx with exactly zero looted epics on fights I've never done before.  You just want to ask them, "what the hell are you doing?".  It's very hard not to shout at the druid who's DPSing in bear form when not off tanking.

The best thing was in TBC when I did a Shadow Labs instance with a prot paladin that couldn't seem to hold aggro worth crap.  0/61/0 with exactly 0 spell power on any of his gear. 

[Merusk]

The best thing was in TBC when I did a Shadow Labs instance with a prot paladin that couldn't seem to hold aggro worth crap.  0/61/0 with exactly 0 spell power on any of his gear. 

Oh god.. I tried running a heroic Mechnaar with a guy like that once.  He was bragging about all his avoidance and stamina while we were assembling.  Then, after the 2nd wipe of everyone but me (hunter) on the first 3 pulls my buddy (whose main is a pally) and I checked his gear and spec, then dropped group.  Sure, he had over 1200 stamina or something ridiculous, but he had 51 spellpower and the mobs kept eating the healer. 

I have no problem with people not min/maxing specs.  Play how you want, but at least be fucking EFFECTIVE (not necessarily ubermax)  in that role if you're going to group with other people. 

[Sjofn]

Nobody I play with will kick someone out due to having a talent that makes the game fun for them (unless it's Improved Earth Elemental: Reduces cooldown by 18 minutes)

FUCK that motherfucking elemental RARGH

[Vash]

Being able to inspect gear and now talent specs are great terrible group avoidance tools, which are nice to have if you do a lot of PuGing and want to keep your sanity.

Inspecting talents is also great for other reasons as well.  Now instead of people asking about your spec or you asking about other people's spec you can just inspect each other and be done with it.  That is a nice time saver in lots and lots of situations and not only that it can be used as a learning tool if someone cares to take the time.  If you see someone really excelling at their class/role you can check their talents and see if there are any significant differences in their talents compared to someone else of the same class and role.

[Soulflame]

I had a rogue in an HVH PUG last night that was putting out 850ish dps.  I dropped the group after the second wipe on the first boss (consortium guy, tank could not understand "YOU MUST KITE ORBS OR WE ALL DIE.")  The other two DPS were not much better, clocking in around 1500ish for one, and 1200ish for the other.

I don't care if you do something stupid with your build, so long as you don't take so long to kill stuff that we're having mobs spawn out of portals before you kill the ones on the portal we're currently in front of.  Do that a few times, and you'll go mad with just how stupid this is.

It's even more frightfully insanely painful for me because I could respec back into ret, and outdps probably 90% of the server.  Yet, I'm stuck healing if I want to actually do heroics, because we have no active tanks left in the guild, and finding PUG tanks+ healers is like winning the fucking lottery.

I love the game.  There's plenty for me to do, and most days I'm happy just running around mining, doing some dailies, and fishing.  Even so, I'd like to fucking WIN AV every once in a while, or run enough heroics so I can buy an emblem mount on my fruitless effort towards getting 100 mounts collected.

[kildorn]

Nobody I play with will kick someone out due to having a talent that makes the game fun for them (unless it's Improved Earth Elemental: Reduces cooldown by 18 minutes)

FUCK that motherfucking elemental RARGH

He's the guild mascot.

[Hindenburg]

(consortium guy, tank could not understand "YOU MUST KITE ORBS OR WE ALL DIE.") 

Fuck you, some healers dont position themselves properly and get out of range of me, thus tank dies, and all die.   

Wha, next you'll bitch that running laps around kerikornflakes in nexus  like crazy is bad tanking?

[Soulflame]

... yes.  If I had a tank that ran around the last boss in Nexus, I would blacklist them.  Particularly since jumping removes the debuff just as effectively.

Your first comment is almost as stupid.  I'm not talking about a bad kiting job, I'm talking about tanking the boss in the center of the room and standing there while the orbs blow up everyone.  The second time we tried the boss, he did a really bad job of kiting it, was getting everyone killed again, and then, to my amazement, we all got summoned by... something, at which point the orbs blew us all up.  I never had seen that happen before, which again, I attribute to BAD TANKING.

[kildorn]

You have a LOT of play to kite things in any shape you want without ranging the healers, honestly. Just don't make me fucking chase you <3

[Hindenburg]

It was quite awesome when someone pointed the jump thing out to me after the first wipe 

Your first comment is almost as stupid. 

Sarchasm. It is cruel.

The boss pulls the whole group to him at a point in the fight. Did that every time we killed him.

[Nebu]

I'm not looking for you to be PERFECT. I am looking for people to not waste my time and be indistinguishable from an empty group slot. Likewise, I won't attend raids I can't pull my weight in: I won't be the jackass wasting everyone else's time.

What I'm saying is that the game should force you to judge me by my ability.  Sadly, WoW metrics judge players by 1) gear, 2) spec, and 3) ability.  It's a common diku flaw.

[Hindenburg]

What I'm saying is that the game should force you to judge me by my ability.

And what we're saying is that the game should give me the option to judge you by your rad skillz.

[Soulflame]

It was quite awesome when someone pointed the jump thing out to me after the first wipe 

Your first comment is almost as stupid. 

Sarchasm. It is cruel.

The boss pulls the whole group to him at a point in the fight. Did that every time we killed him.

Feh, sorry.  I hate WoW PUGs, they reduce my will to live, while raising my hatred of humanity.

I've never seen the boss summon the entire group, I suspect mostly because I've been DPS most of the time.  But yes, tank kiting too slowly, group nearly dead, then being summoned into the middle of all the orbs = me leaving group.   

[Rasix]

I'm not looking for you to be PERFECT. I am looking for people to not waste my time and be indistinguishable from an empty group slot. Likewise, I won't attend raids I can't pull my weight in: I won't be the jackass wasting everyone else's time.

What I'm saying is that the game should force you to judge me by my ability.  Sadly, WoW metrics judge players by 1) gear, 2) spec, and 3) ability.  It's a common diku flaw.

Part of the ability in these games is picking a decent spec and knowing how to upgrade/gem/enchant your gear.  Pretty much standard RPG skillset.  Then there's knowing how to play your class and standard twitch skills.   

Yes, gear can be a big hurdle.  Speccing is not.  It's part of the game and part of knowing how to play your class for the chosen activity.  Speccing is not going away.  I'm not sure what your aim is here, but you might be able to accomplish the same thing by yelling at a brick wall. 

Judging your ability is easy in WoW.  Did you spec like a retard? Ok, you might suck at this game.  Do you continually die to standing in fire or standing in front of dragons/other-giant nasties? You might stuck at this game.   Sure there are tiers where you're going to ineffective with your quest greens, but there's also tiers where you will do just fine. And people that are good at this game will sometimes be able to our perform their current tiers.   

Not saying I love the DIKU framework.  But it is what it is and it's not like that hasn't been railed on here before for its shortcomings.  /cue Talking Heads.

[kildorn]

That boss summons, but last time I did it the summoning broke if you kited him around on the ledges.

[Rasix]

90% of the time when I leave a pug I leave before it even starts.  You can tell if the failboat has set sail usually well in advance. "My hearth is on cool down, and I'm in Org. I'll need a summon."  *silence for 5 minutes*. 

[Soulflame]

90% of the time when I leave a pug I leave before it even starts.  You can tell if the failboat has set sail usually well in advance. "My hearth is on cool down, and I'm in Org. I'll need a summon."  *silence for 5 minutes*. 

Funny you should say that, this is exactly how it began last night.   

[Selby]

My guild is checking everyone's gear and giving feedback on how to improve.  I'm in the "not quite ready for primetime" group.  1100DPS which is fine with me, but no purple gear or heroic drops.  And then everyone says "why don't you get better gear?" to which I respond with "because you bastards won't run heroics with me."  Then I get websites I am supposed to go check out to find out exactly which boss in which instance drops my upgrade and go work on it.  Umm... I hated that back in pre-TBC WoW when we had to run Scholo and Strat over and over and over and over and over again, only for Paladin and Hunter gear to continuously drop (on Horde side).

I still did just fine in taking out mobs and bosses in the groups we go with, I just don't look good on paper and people raz me about it.

[Soulflame]

Pretty much any heroic can be done with decent tank/healer, and one (1) good dps. There's little excuse for not dragging along a guildy who's in scrubby gear just because they can't break 1600 DPS, whether it's Naxx or a heroic.  Now, if you drag them along, they hoover up "teh epix", and still don't improve?  That's a different story altogether... depending on the temperment of your guild, of course.

Without seeing your armory, at a guess you are lacking hit rating.

[Selby]

Without seeing your armory, at a guess you are lacking hit rating.

That is exactly it.  Crafted blue gear (Eviscerator's set) and blue quest rewards.  When I hit it's great, when I miss it's not so.  Better gear would help, but that's like effort and stuff.

[skolor]

It's even more fightfully insanely painful for me because I could respec back into ret, and outdps probably 90% of the server.  Yet, I'm stuck healing if I want to actually do heroics, because we have no active tanks left in the guild, and finding PUG tanks+ healers is like winning the fucking lottery.

Go prot and find a friend who can heal decently well. Takes about 300g in Crafted BoEs to hit 535 defense for tanking. You won't have much health unless you're willing to drop an extra 1000g+ on some of the tempered titansteel stuff, but you'll have good enough gear to do some of the easier heroics (Nexus, Gundrak once you learn the snake boss, VH as long as you don't get the void guy, UK isn't bad). Sure, you might not be getting the gear you wanted, but I found the game quite a bit more enjoyable when I could stop worrying about tank/healer performance in heroics.

[Fabricated]

I'm not looking for you to be PERFECT. I am looking for people to not waste my time and be indistinguishable from an empty group slot. Likewise, I won't attend raids I can't pull my weight in: I won't be the jackass wasting everyone else's time.

What I'm saying is that the game should force you to judge me by my ability.  Sadly, WoW metrics judge players by 1) gear, 2) spec, and 3) ability.  It's a common diku flaw.

I think as DPS WoW tends to judge you more by ability first than equipment. At least to me. Yeah, that Phat DPSSSSS makes the fight shorter and is needed for tight enrage timers (not that there are any really tight timers currently) but if you're specced right (picking an effective spec and using it right is ability IMO) and know what you're doing you aren't a liability even if you're rocking all quest-greens in a heroic. If you're not standing in the bad things/eating cleaves, and DPSing the right targets you're helping a lot and lessening the "work" of the tank and healer.

Pugs base 99% of their invites on gear because you're banking that even if the person is a complete retard they might be able to mash their face on the keyboard and put out acceptable DPS or healing if they got dem' purps'. Yeah, that dude in the quest blues/greens/crafted blues may be a really good player who hasn't gotten to do much yet, but you don't KNOW that he's good or not since...well, you're pugging people.

[Xanthippe]

It allows easy elitism.

That is a good thing.

Easier for you to get away from elitists. Easier for elitists to get away from people they think will suck. Everybody wins.

Are you sure we're playing the same game?

[Hindenburg]

Most certainly not. 

[Lantyssa]

Are you sure we're playing the same game?

We're definately not.  In the game he's playing, Hunters are are a melee class.

[Hindenburg]

Are you sure we're playing the same game?

We're definately not.  In the game he's playing, Hunters are are a melee class.

Hybrid.

Gotta also remember that, in the game you're playing, their pets are ranged. 

[Lantyssa]

That's not what I said, but you're messing up my teasing here.

[Hindenburg]

That's not what I said

Goes for both of us.

I shall make you rue the day. Rue.

[Khaldun]

I keep trying to figure out when leaving a pug because the people in it are people I just don't want to listen to on Vent is ok. I was in a Naxx-25 pug the other day where everyone was geared, playing pretty well if a bit loose, but after a while, I was feeling a Big Meh about the whole experience. Half the people on vent were drunk, loud, sharing every obnoxious opinion they had about politics, talking about their pathetic sex lives, talking about their genitalia. Nothing that was so awful that I just said, "see ya", but it basically gave me a headache after a while. There were also two unbelievable loot whores, though thankfully the raid leader kept telling them to cool it, plus some guy who felt obligated to post Recount after every fight (even though he was about tenth or eleventh in DPS).

[Paelos]

What's wrong with taking an ability because it makes the game more fun?  I don't have to be the most dps efficient or heal efficient to have fun.  There's more to fun than min-maxxing a toon and waiting for hours to gather widgets from the slot machine. 

Other players shouldn't be able to easily see your spec and gear.  It allows easy elitism.  If they want to see my gear or spec, it should require my permission.  Then people would be forced to judge other players based on ability (and how annoying they are in ventrilo).

The only reason I would check a person's gear is to see if they have a lot of it and aren't putting out relatively similar dps. For example, if a rogue is putting out 1500 dps with 3/5 Valor and full epics, I'm going to probably pull him aside and see WTF he's doing. That's not "elitism" that's simply trying to figure out the best gauge of ability. If he had blues and greens, I wouldn't even approach him about it. I'd just assume it's a gear issue and see if he improves as he gears.

[Sjofn]

Pretty much any heroic can be done with decent tank/healer, and one (1) good dps. There's little excuse for not dragging along a guildy who's in scrubby gear just because they can't break 1600 DPS, whether it's Naxx or a heroic.  Now, if you drag them along, they hoover up "teh epix", and still don't improve?  That's a different story altogether... depending on the temperment of your guild, of course.

Without seeing your armory, at a guess you are lacking hit rating.

We have at least one of those in our little raid alliance. Although he doesn't, like, actively hoover epix or anything like that. But his DPS is ... well, once back in Karazhan, I was smiting on my priest and was beating his rogue ass until we finally got to a hard boss (our tank was overgeared and Kild always snipes my heals). He ... he has not really improved since those days.

[Nebu]

The only reason I would check a person's gear is to see if they have a lot of it and aren't putting out relatively similar dps. For example, if a rogue is putting out 1500 dps with 3/5 Valor and full epics, I'm going to probably pull him aside and see WTF he's doing. That's not "elitism" that's simply trying to figure out the best gauge of ability. If he had blues and greens, I wouldn't even approach him about it. I'd just assume it's a gear issue and see if he improves as he gears.

If they wanted your opinion, they could easily give you permission to check their gear in the system I'm suggesting.  I think that allowing anyone and everyone to review your character just opens the door to elitist behavior. 

I'm not saying that you (or anyone else) is a gaming elitist, but most that are are in denial about it. 

[Sheepherder]

I'm not saying that you (or anyone else) is a gaming elitist, but most that are are in denial about it.

Elitist denotes people who have access others don't.

Wowwiki, the Blizzard forums, and ironically, Elitist Jerks, shits all over this notion.