Bad Groups

[Vash]

Blizzard really really wants enhance shamans to use slow weapons with WF (for whatever reason) and that 3 sec internal cd was a bandaid fix they added in a patch shortly after the launch of TBC.

That's not correct at all.  The 3 second cooldown was there since patch...1.11 I believe, but shaman never noticed it because they all used weapons with 3+ second swing times.

Edit: Thanks kildorn for reminding me.  They added the 3 sec cooldown when they made windfury weapon stop proccing on itself.  You were getting x4 procs because of a bug involving wf rank 5/wf rank 4; each rank had a different cooldown.

That kind of boggles me because I know for sure enhance shamans were going crazy with dual daggers and WF shenanigans right after the launch of TBC (using Prince's dagger and the emerald ripper iirc) and it wasn't until later that a patch or hotfix nixed that practice.  If the 3 sec internal cd was in place in the content patch prior to TBC then using daggers would never have taken off I assume (as it would be dps decrease instead of increase).

I could be confusing TBC Beta shenanigans with TBC launch shenanigans since it's been a while I guess but I don't think I followed the Beta that closely.

[Gobbeldygook]

That kind of boggles me because I know for sure enhance shamans were going crazy with dual daggers and WF shenanigans right after the launch of TBC (using Prince's dagger and the emerald ripper iirc) and it wasn't until later that a patch or hotfix nixed that practice.  If the 3 sec internal cd was in place in the content patch prior to TBC then using daggers would never have taken off I assume (as it would be dps decrease instead of increase).

The 3 sec windfury cooldown was in place since vanilla, but it was bugged until patch 2.1.  Patch 2.1 is when they finally fixed the bugs with windfury rank 5/rank 4 (which were noticed and widely publicized during beta).  If you had rank 5 on your main hand and rank 4 on your off-hand, each one had an unlinked 3-sec cooldown.

[Shrike]

Daggers were a dps decrease in TBC. I really have no clue what you're talking about, aside from the downranking bug. Even with that, dual wielding daggers was pure lose, in the idiom of the genre. WF hasn't been able to proc from itself for a very long time--well before TBC.

Slow weapons were desirable for shaman for two reasons (three now): 1) increased SS damage (it's not normalized, and this also applies to LL), 2) less time under the 3 sec cooldown, and, 3) higher chance of gaining MW charges per swing (WotLK).

The only reason FT is an issue right now if because of MQ and the fact it scales very well with faster attack speeds (too well, really). Also, it flies in the face of what's good for LL, so it throws the shaman community into some degree of confusion about offhand weapon selection, especially if you're running FT on the offhand (and you should if you have EF--which you should since it's a large increase in potential dps).

[Khaldun]

We have an alliance with another small-to-medium size guild that has a lot of people in it we really like and get on with very well--both guilds are all mature, fairly well-balanced adults, we like to raid but nobody's obsessive. However, they have this one young "I r srs RAIDUR" guy in their guild. We're not sure why they're so loyal to him: he's basically kind of manic-depressive both on Vent and in raidchat. For whatever reason, they always have him go over the strats before each fight. What he does is basically read straight off of WoWWiki's strats, acting as if these are "his" strats that he's come up with himself, sprinkled liberally with tons of insults about how everyone else is on the failboat. If something goes wrong in the subsequent fight, rather than join in a conversation where people try to figure out what happened and adapt, he'll just screech at everyone about how they didn't follow "his" strat, and force us all to listen to him read WoWWiki aloud again.

Just to give one example, we've noticed that when we have a very melee heavy raid in Naxx-25, there are some subtle adaptations that need to be made on some fights. Grobbulus, for example. If there are a lot of melees, the odds that one of them is going to get injected go up. When Grob turns to inject, he then does his slime spray. If he's doing it constantly to melees following behind him, you get a lot of slimes. So the first time this happened to our group, we wiped because the slime OT got overwhelmed. In previous weeks, we hadn't had the issue because we'd had a more typical mixture of ranged and melee classes along. So a few of us saw what was happening and we trying to talk about it after the wipe, and this guy gets on Vent and starts telling everyone to shut up, don't talk over his strat review, and then he does all the "u r nubs, follow my strat", which is again WoWWiki. "Melees stop getting in front of Grob, I told you not to do that". This is not what was happening, everyone but him knew it. He's a healer so I don't think he's even watching the fight, just player bars. Everyone there has done Grob ten or fifteen times before. So the melees just break into a private conversation and what we come up with is for everyone to stay not just behind Grob but as far off to his left side as we can manage. This way when he sprays after injecting a melee, he's already turning back to face the tank and the arc of the spray is off to his right-rear. This works like a charm, problem solved, good players adapting to slight changed circumstances.

Anyway, we really like all the other players in this guild, it's a good situation for the two medium-sized guilds, but this guy is starting to get on my (and my other guildies) nerves just a little too much. I wish they could explain to us why they let him be their voice in these contexts, considering that the rest of them are way more articulate and funny and relaxed, but instead they just get all tense and vaguely butthurt when we try to raise the issue--even though they're clearly annoyed with him too.

[Samprimary]

Just noting that yes, indeed, they ended the era of windfuries proccing windfuries way, way long ago. Chain windfury was one of those things that could be put into WOW's history of I Win buttons.

[bhodi]

Anyway, we really like all the other players in this guild, it's a good situation for the two medium-sized guilds, but this guy is starting to get on my (and my other guildies) nerves just a little too much. I wish they could explain to us why they let him be their voice in these contexts, considering that the rest of them are way more articulate and funny and relaxed, but instead they just get all tense and vaguely butthurt when we try to raise the issue--even though they're clearly annoyed with him too.

Call the guy out in vent. If you do it nicely enough and in a suitably comedic fashion, that will generally get the message across without everyone getting butthurt about it.

I honestly will not deal with someone who reads strats off a webpage. Seriously. This is roughly the Grobulus intro for our new guys:

"The tank will kite him along the grate. Stick with it and kill him. If you get injected, DBM will scream at you, then you have 10 seconds to run somewhere away from the raid before you emit an expanding green cloud. Run somewhere behind him, where he's already been, but not into any of the other green clouds. If raid leader shouts to kill slimes, kill slimes, otherwise just stay on the boss. Don't dispel the injection."

15 seconds. Boom, done. Most fights can be summed up in a few sentences. Some people want to talk about all the different casts the boss can do (if you're reading off of wowwiki or something) but that's completely irrelevant and a waste of everyone's time.

[kildorn]

Our Grob callout is "he will inject people, you run to a wall and don't dispel it. Unless you're kild, then you'll just completely suck at this for the entire fight"

God, that was annoying. A bunch of mods interfered with each other and caused me to never know I had it. :(

[Khaldun]

Folks have poked fun at the strat-reader, but he either doesn't get it or he does and he gets all pissed off and then the other guild's people start sending us /tells asking not to provoke him. He has /raidquit in a huff if he thinks people aren't paying attention to him, or criticizing him. Which is fine by me, but again, the other guild really seems to feel very strongly about having him around. I suspect sometimes that he's related to someone, or an old friend, or that they have some reason beyond "he's a healer and does a good job healing" to be so solicitious of him.

[Merusk]

I'm going with; he's the guildleader's son, nephew or an officer who likes the /gkick option.  Either way they need to stop being doormats.

[Rasix]

Teenagers are a mixed bag.  Some I've guilded with have been incredibly mature (beyond what I would have been capable of at that age) and competent and others are just destabilizing in nature.   

In guilds where the average age hovers near 30, teenagers don't seem to last long before they quit in a huff or are asked to leave.  In raiding guilds, the little morons tend to get away with a lot more.  You tend to get a lot of college freshman (there are much better things you can be doing, kid. Trust me.), military, and non-college bound in raid guilds and as long as they can show up on time, perform adequately, and read the cliff notes version of EJ: their personality defects are large tollerated (or even celebrated).

I don't think I'd be able to stand it your situation, Khald. I'd fake food poisoning if I had to listen to some idiot kid attempt to raid lead.  Of course, I've put up with worse and probably would if it meant a steady weekly raiding opportunity.

[Sheepherder]

I've seen a 12 year old tank most of Naxx-25.

[Paelos]

15 seconds. Boom, done. Most fights can be summed up in a few sentences. Some people want to talk about all the different casts the boss can do (if you're reading off of wowwiki or something) but that's completely irrelevant and a waste of everyone's time.

The one exception to that in Naxx for me was Kel'Thuzad 25. You do have to read off most of his abilities, because they effect everyone. People have to know where he's being tanked, where to stand, what to do during ice blocks, how to deal with the group setups when you're melee heavy, interrupt rotations on the melee groups, tanking assignments on the adds, and CC assignments on the MCs.

That's probably the only fight in the place that isn't a 1-2 trick pony. Probably the next most complicated to explain is Heigan.

[bhodi]

The one exception to that in Naxx for me was Kel'Thuzad 25. You do have to read off most of his abilities, because they effect everyone. People have to know where he's being tanked, where to stand, what to do during ice blocks, how to deal with the group setups when you're melee heavy, interrupt rotations on the melee groups, tanking assignments on the adds, and CC assignments on the MCs.

That's probably the only fight in the place that isn't a 1-2 trick pony. Probably the next most complicated to explain is Heigan.

You can break it down by class to speed things up, assuming you don't have a ton of new people. It's pretty simple if you just tell someone what THEY need to be doing. Melee DPS is the most complicated, but it's still just

"For phase 1, just stand in circle, kill shit as it comes to you. When Kel comes out, if you're melee DPS, you stack with the other melee at one of 3 points of the triangle. If you're new, just stand on the tank. Stay at max melee range at all times. His frostbolts can be interrupted. Adds come out in phase 3, which the OT will get, but be ready to dump aggro if you're targeted initially."

For Heigan, we just assume they'll die the first time.

"Go on the platform if you're ranged, eventually he'll teleport and then fire will come up in 4 quadrants in a pattern - just stay with the group. You'll probably die but that's OK as long as you pay attention and see the pattern and roughly where to stand for next time. Keep in mind, due to lag 'staying with the group' means actually walking ahead of them a bit - if you stay with the group on screen you will get hit by the fire."

Heigan isn't a DPS fight so even with half your group down you can still kill him.

[Phred]

Folks have poked fun at the strat-reader, but he either doesn't get it or he does and he gets all pissed off and then the other guild's people start sending us /tells asking not to provoke him. He has /raidquit in a huff if he thinks people aren't paying attention to him, or criticizing him. Which is fine by me, but again, the other guild really seems to feel very strongly about having him around. I suspect sometimes that he's related to someone, or an old friend, or that they have some reason beyond "he's a healer and does a good job healing" to be so solicitious of him.

We have a similar kid in our guild, except he doesn't read out strats in vent. He's too lazy and confines his vent chat to blatent attempts at trolling. He's the son of a long time member and is basically teased, tolerated or muted and ignored by various members of the guild depending on their mood.

[Khaldun]

He is a very good healer, I should add. Which is not chopped liver. And when his manic/depressive pendulum is somewhere in between, he can be quite funny. But most of the adults in our guild are getting just too restive and annoyed at having to sit through it week in and week out--it's just not what we're there for, we're not srs raidurs who will endure anything to get through the content.

[Lantyssa]

So tell the other guild that they keep him in line or you, and thus they, don't raid?

[Merusk]

Ah.. he's a healer.

The bullshit people will put up with from healers annoys me to no end.  It's my only hate against the current DIKU iterations; you need healing, but healing sucks in general so you tolerate whoever will do it.

[Hindenburg]

Same happens to tanks, really. I've exploited my position as both quite a few times.

[Gobbeldygook]

There's a huge difference between the healer problem and tank problem.

Common ground: They're way more stressful than DPS because you have to pay more attention and much more is riding on you.

Healer Problem: There are number of healers and they are actively competing against a static goal (incoming damage), so it's hard for good healers to stand out.  The job is widely regarded as boring, thankless, and PVP (BG and otherwise) is often unjoyable.  There is an actual shortage of healers.  The shortage could be solved by making healing more fun and engaging, like doing damage comparable to a tank while healing, a more interactive rotation for some classes (PALADINS), etc.

The Tank Problem: There is no real shortage of tanks.  The four most popular classes (a combined 48% of the playerbase) can all tank.  What there is is a huge difference in tank quality.  Going from a good main tank to a bad one is a huge quality of life loss for the entire raid.  There aren't many solutions to the Tank Problem that don't involve just dumbing it down (e.g. removing heal threat, making area of aoe threat builders much larger and stronger, etc).

[kildorn]

Healer Problem: There are number of healers and they are actively competing against a static goal (incoming damage), so it's hard for good healers to stand out.  The job is widely regarded as boring, thankless, and PVP (BG and otherwise) is often unjoyable.  There is an actual shortage of healers.  The shortage could be solved by making healing more fun and engaging, like doing damage comparable to a tank while healing, a more interactive rotation for some classes (PALADINS), etc.

There should not be a shortage of healers more than a shortage of tanks. There are enough classes that can do it, some of which are Booooooring (paladin players are just too stupid to handle another heal, apparently)

If you're actively competing with other healers against incoming damage, you're playing the meters, or just having fun with friends (we healsnipe each other mercilessly, personally). Healing assignments and libheal make life a lot easier as long as someone isn't spamming fast or instant heals all over the place. Good healers stand out because they allow the raid to comfortably bring fewer healers and clear content faster. Your tanks can usually tell you who the good healers are, the ones who make them feel confident and less jumpy about panic buttons.

[avaia]

(we healsnipe each other mercilessly, personally)

Bastard.

[kildorn]

You have enough instant heals that you could totally beat me at it, but noooo.

[Hindenburg]

Healer Problem:   The job is widely regarded as boring, thankless, and PVP (BG and otherwise) is often unjoyable.  There is an actual shortage of healers.  The shortage could be solved by making healing more fun and engaging, like doing damage comparable to a tank while healing, a more interactive rotation for some classes (PALADINS), etc.

Boring and thankless? Blackmail the fuckers for anything you want. Whoever doesn't agree starts dying. If you get pissed at the group, just let them aggro some mobs and hearth away. I absolutely adored grouping and leveling with my priest.

[K9]

The bullshit people will put up with from healers annoys me to no end.  It's my only hate against the current DIKU iterations; you need healing, but healing sucks in general so you tolerate whoever will do it.

It's no worse than the bullshit healers have to put up with from DPS

As far as fight strategies go, explaining Malygos to someone who's never done it before is hassle...

[Merusk]

The bullshit people will put up with from healers annoys me to no end.  It's my only hate against the current DIKU iterations; you need healing, but healing sucks in general so you tolerate whoever will do it.

It's no worse than the bullshit healers have to put up with from DPS

As far as fight strategies go, explaining Malygos to someone who's never done it before is hassle...

Funny, I've never had a group disintegrate or a raid end because DPS had a hissy fit they weren't awarded the shiny they wanted.  I haven't had a guild fall apart because a DPS freaked out and left.  I haven't had a DPS keep other people out of raids because they didn't like that other person.  I have had all that happen because of a healer.  It's far, far easier to replace a DPS than a healer, because short of enrage mechanics you can typically stick any crappy dps in a slot and still come out fine.

  Fuck I've abused it myself a few times on my priest by dropping shitty groups and nearly instantly finding another.  Never been able to do that as a DPS.  Tanks are somewhere in the middle, usually depending on what the healer 'deigns' to heal.  Ah, the days I've been denied a tanking spot as a DK or previously as a Paladin because the healer felt the class wasn't good enough.

[FatuousTwat]

I don't really get why people don't like playing healer. It's just as fun to me as any other class.

[Triforcer]

Er, the F16 UI that is required? 

[Hindenburg]

Funny, I've never had a group disintegrate or a raid end because DPS had a hissy fit they weren't awarded the shiny they wanted.  I haven't had a guild fall apart because a DPS freaked out and left.  I haven't had a DPS keep other people out of raids because they didn't like that other person.

I have. Also seen all of that happening frequently due to tanks.
You just didn't pug enough.

[kildorn]

A group is 5 people. 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps. Two of those slots are important, the others have built in redundancy. That's why you see groups go "ohgod the ___ left"

In the old days, Mages could quite easily pull the same shit in CC instances.

If your guild falls apart because a healer or tank left, your guild has issues. If your healer or tank quits because they didn't get some epic, your recruiting has issues.

[March]

Well, we're a long way from Bad Group theory... but on the topic of the Healer/Tank nexus I'll add that the new Dual Spec feature is going to add a delicious new element to the hissy fit.

On the plus side, healers like me get a personal spec (Boomkin) for farming and soloing, and a group spec for shepherding asstard DPS folks through instances.

On the negative side, no more hiding behind spec choices for certain classes.  If you are a paladin no matter how hard-core ret spec you are... at least one of your off-specs can be group support.

I'll also predict a new forum sport of cross-spec gear bitching.  For example, my Boomkin and Tree Druid can perform both roles with one set of gear; no so for a Feral/Tree druid.

Second new forum sport: Off-spec diversity whinging.  It goes like this, How come a Paladin can be a Tank/DPS or Tank/Healer or DPS/Healer while my Mage can only be DPS/DPS?

What flavor of orange would you pure classes like to be?

Don't get me wrong, I'm counting the days until it goes live... after almost 10-years of crushing group dependency I'll be free, Free, FREE.

:sidenote: Let's be honest, the currency of MMO's is death, which hugely favors Solo DPS... as a healer for many years, I had to buy each and every mob death at a horrible exchange rate compared to DPS.  Or group.  Is it any wonder then why I saw all you DPS folks as my minions?  My MOB farming pets?

Although, on the Bad Group thing... I can already taste the tears of failed groups when Billy-Bob jumps in to a new role for which he is a) not geared for and b) unfamiliar with.

Oh yes, Aloysius, in April we will feast. muahahah.

[WindupAtheist]

One of my old UO buddies somehow managed to become leader of a raiding guild 3 days after dinging 80. I've been invited to Naxx runs, but... blah. Diku PVE is crap, and I'm not spending a couple hours doing it just to lose a dice roll and walk out emptyhanded. The life of a battleground whore is the life for me. The gear isn't as good as those arena jerks get, but I don't need to rely on anyone, and I make progress every time out.

[Merusk]

Second new forum sport: Off-spec diversity whinging.  It goes like this, How come a Paladin can be a Tank/DPS or Tank/Healer or DPS/Healer while my Mage can only be DPS/DPS?

It's not new.  It has been used by hare-brained DPS as a 'legitimate' reason to not have dual specs at all since the idea was first floated.

  "But it's not FAIIIIR that those guys can have a Utility AND DPS spec and we can't! What're we stupposed to do?!"
 

Yet another reason to not play one character and only one character, imo.

Funny, I've never had a group disintegrate or a raid end because DPS had a hissy fit they weren't awarded the shiny they wanted.  I haven't had a guild fall apart because a DPS freaked out and left.  I haven't had a DPS keep other people out of raids because they didn't like that other person.

I have. Also seen all of that happening frequently due to tanks.
You just didn't pug enough.

Almost everything I do is in a PUG.  I just happen to know a lot of tanks.  The inclusion of yet another tanking class in WOTLK means it's even easier to find one than it used to be.

Yes, any guild that falls apart because a healer quits had issues.  I don't think I denied that.  But then a LOT of guilds in the 40 man and BC days had lots and lots of issues.  Not being able to raid for a week or two due to a lack of healing = dead guild PDQ.

[Rasix]

lots of lonely sentences

Hybrid DPS can always spec  dps/pvp or dps/strawberry dps (different DPS specs bring different buffs, may be necessary dependent on group composition).  Still easy to duck tanking or healing if you really want to and it may be preferrible for those that can't wrap their heads around the different roles.  Personally my DK will be tank/dps, although I can see having an unholy dps/frost or blood dps split could be particularly useful and keep people from being exposed to me trying to main tank anything.  My shaman will be resto/elem with the elem mainly just to keep me sane for questing/farming/dailies.

I don't really think that PUGs will get that much worse.  It may get a bit dicier for desperate OS groups, but VOA should stay the same where the tanking is always pretty goddamn terrible.  I've offtanked it in a DPS spec before and I'm amazed at how bad people are at it.  Heroics will be interesting, but not many of them are any difficult at all.  I'm not looking forward to those 1K dps ceiling dpsers trying out something new.  Still, it'll be better than 3 dpsers sitting around for half an hour looking for a tank and healer.

Sets of gear will be a pain unless you really just spec dps/dps.  Tanks/dps will have massive gear differences (druids are weird, I don't know what druids do).  Heal/ranged DPS will have sizable gear differences (herro hit rating/mana regen needs/crit weighting).   Hell, even different dps specs can need gear swaps depending on stat weights. 

[Lantyssa]

I don't really get why people don't like playing healer. It's just as fun to me as any other class.

I have enough trouble paying attention to my own health.  You really wouldn't want me watching yours, too.

[Vash]

I don't really get why people don't like playing healer. It's just as fun to me as any other class.

I have enough trouble paying attention to my own health.  You really wouldn't want me watching yours, too.

That's pretty much why healing becomes soooo boring, you spend a majority of your time staring at everyone's health bars.  To a certain degree for healers the game basically devolves from a 3D MMORPG into a really crappy interactive graphing simulator.

If it wasn't such an essential and highly valued role I'm not sure anyone would volunteer for it, unless you have a graphing fetish.