Bad Groups

[ezrast]

Last time I pugged BRC I had to requeue for two tanks and I think 5 dps just on the second boss. This one rogue kept insisting that it didn't matter if we got feared out of the beams, just as long as we jumped out at 70 stacks. Result: no interrupts on the boss.

[Selby]

Oh boy.  Pulled Grim Batol with my friend healing.  First tank goes right up to the very first patrol leaving, marks everything, then AFKs and facepulls, leading to a wipe.  Second tank comes and says they've never tanked this before.  That's fine by me, they've done normal.  Spends about 5 minutes per pull marking everything, then the shaman CC is always afk or not paying attention, leading to mob problems.  After the dragons, 5 pulls in and the shaman AFKs when a patrol walks up to him.  Wipe #2 (I avoided by going invisible).  Next set of mobs the same thing happens and the tank says "I think we need more CC" to which I am a little skeptical of that even working.  My healer friend bails as we've spent 40 minutes to kill 6 sets of mobs and wiped 3 times doing so.  Yeah, it's not happening when I'm doing 7k DPS and the tank is #2 with 5k...

I know people want these to be challenging, and with a good group they are.  But with a bad group it's just an exercise in frustration and "wow I wasted 45m-60m of my life for nothing just there."  And that's not fun or challenging.

[SurfD]

The problem is, they actually aren't really that challenging, provided you are appropriately geared, and are not a paint chewing tard.   However, having even one or two paint chewers in your group can take a heroic from "well balanced challenge" directly to "ball crushing frustration" with almost no shade inbetween.

My first bunch of heroics were hours long frustration filled slogs.   Now that i have almost all 333 gear with 346 pieces from rep and other heroics with the odd epic from rep here and there, and have seen each heroic fight at least once, my personal performance in heroics has gone up dramatically.  I expect that given another 2 weeks, when your average pug now has almost complete 346 gear and has seen every heroic fight multiple times, they will probably be almost back to WoLK style snoose fests.  Oh, you wont be mass pulling + aoeing shit, but you wont be treating every trash pull like a raid boss either.

[AutomaticZen]

It's mostly reminding me of the days of Magister's Terrace.  That was shit hard in the beginning.

[Soulflame]

I remember for a while my guild wouldn't take me through Magister's because they wanted a shaman healer instead of a paladin.

 

[Sjofn]

That barely makes sense to me, as I remember our shaman healers hated MgT as much as the not-me paladin healers because of all the movement. I can't think of why you'd want a shaman over a paladin in there.

[Zetor]

Yeah, my shaman healer was pretty meh in MGT (this was before riptide, remember), especially for the arcane elemental boss. Heroism was nice for Delrissa, interrupts were nice on trash... that was bout it. I could also solo kael in the air phase (with no phoenix), but I think any healer could do that. 

[K9]

At a guess I'd say tremor totem and heroism for delrissa. Since Enhance and Elemental were persona non grata to a lot of the mouthbreathing population a resto shaman was the best option to fill that role.

[Shrike]

At a guess I'd say tremor totem and heroism for delrissa. Since Enhance and Elemental were persona non grata to a lot of the mouthbreathing population a resto shaman was the best option to fill that role.

I still harbor a grudge over this. I never competed MgT (either one) until Wrath, since you couldn't get a group as enhance with a search warrant. I did two heroics in two years during TBC. If it hadn't been for Karazhan and an early quasi-PuG raid, I'd have quit permanently at that point (and came damned close to it as it was). This present crap in heroics reminds me too much of those days, though, ironically enough, enhance is now swimming in good CC options--which most groups don't seem to realize or bother to ask.

Which brings us to the point of suckass groups. I saw the incoming nerfs thread over on the O-fficial forums, and delighted in the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the hardcore catass crowd. Just for the record: eat it--I'm enjoying the angst immensely. At IL350, I no longer get anything worthwhile out of heroics other than the 70VP, but that I need desperately. I have about three hours a night, and having a group fail in an heroic means that 70VP is on the line. There's a good 33% of my not getting anything out of three hours of play due to the way this expansion has been concieved. I don't like that. Not at all. Anti-fun all the way. I could care less what most of my fellow travellers are doing. I don't worry about who has what all that much. I worry about me, and so far this expansion has been a massive cockstab in gearing up. No sir, I don't like it. The nerfs will be an improvement.

[K9]

Incidentally they are also buffing a bunch of fights; such as Asaad, who is frankly a joke by any standard in his current incarnation.

[Paelos]

It's mostly reminding me of the days of Magister's Terrace.  That was shit hard in the beginning.

Tanks also refused to keep doing it after they got their trinkets. I remember because I was one of them. 

[Sjofn]

I tanked MgT cheerfully as long as I had the group I wanted, which was basically "as long as our morphined up enhance shaman isn't in the group." And it wasn't because he was an enhance shaman, it was because of the morphine. 

[Ingmar]

I never got my trinket. 

[AutomaticZen]

It's mostly reminding me of the days of Magister's Terrace.  That was shit hard in the beginning.

Tanks also refused to keep doing it after they got their trinkets. I remember because I was one of them. 

Ditto.  That was an awesome trinket, but it wasn't worth some of those pulls or the Delrissa fight.

[Selby]

At IL350, I no longer get anything worthwhile out of heroics other than the 70VP, but that I need desperately. I have about three hours a night, and having a group fail in an heroic means that 70VP is on the line. There's a good 33% of my not getting anything out of three hours of play due to the way this expansion has been concieved. I don't like that. Not at all. Anti-fun all the way. I could care less what most of my fellow travellers are doing. I don't worry about who has what all that much. I worry about me, and so far this expansion has been a massive cockstab in gearing up. No sir, I don't like it. The nerfs will be an improvement.

This is exactly how I feel.  I complete maybe 1-2 heroics a week because of utter failure PUG people.  I just don't have the time or patience to spend 40m in the queue and then another 35-45m finding out if the group can even hack the first boss much less trash.  If that happens, as it happened last night (even with a friend healing) my time for the evening was over an hours worth of waste.  I might have gotten some rep out of it.  Then I load up and do it again and then bam, evening's over and it's bed time for me and all I got was 600 rep and some vendor trash greys to sell.  Not even close to fun.  I don't expect heroics to be 15-20m zergfests, but when I routinely fail over and over again because of shitty people, the fun goes away and my desire to log in regularly goes with it.  Even leveling an alt or 9 isn't that exciting of a thought since they'll be in the same position of being unable to do anything besides some dailies or go grind out archaeology.

[Khaldun]

I think this is the key thing. If you're in a guild group, and somebody's having some trouble getting it, well, get on vent, you talk it over, it's your buddies, you'll get there after working it over twice or so. If you're in a PUG, you have no idea: is the guy not getting it a 10-year old? Mentally defective? Something else? In a Wrath pug, you could carry someone--a lot of heroics if people were appropriately geared could be done with one good dps, one hea for at least 80% of the fight.

[Ingmar]

Remember, also, the cross realm dungeon finder wasn't even introduced until what, 3.3 with the ICC heroics? We had been blowing away heroics for 3 raid tiers by then. It didn't exist right at the start of LK when we were in gear that those dungeons were tuned for, so when we were doing those dungeons back then we were already self-selecting our groups to minimize the failure a bit. So when we compare the LFG now with what we remember from LK we're not making anything like an apples to apples comparison.

[Shrike]

Remember, also, the cross realm dungeon finder wasn't even introduced until what, 3.3 with the ICC heroics? We had been blowing away heroics for 3 raid tiers by then. It didn't exist right at the start of LK when we were in gear that those dungeons were tuned for, so when we were doing those dungeons back then we were already self-selecting our groups to minimize the failure a bit. So when we compare the LFG now with what we remember from LK we're not making anything like an apples to apples comparison.

A good point, and I remember those first heroics weren't all that easy, either. We actually did CC and stuff...briefly.

However, now we do have LFG and the results in this expansion pretty much blow syphylitic goats. As I type this, I"m getting ready (after fourth meal and a second glass of wine) to log in to WoW to try the roulette wheel of suck to get my daily 70VP. I"m not really looking forward to it Hell, it's a game, I should be looking forward to some fun. Instead, I'm apprehensive of what sort of asshattery I'll see this night. I might need that second glass of vino just to make it tolerable.

[Ashamanchill]

I kind of think they have the system a little backwards. At the start of an expansion is when people just want their gear so they can get into raids and see the content. Then when we've got all our purples and whatnot, and we are feeling a little more confident in what we can do, then BAM!, difficulty up to 11.

[ezrast]

This is why raids need to be repeatable.

[SurfD]

This is why raids need to be repeatable.

Except that if raids were repeatable, the hardcore would grind them non stop for the first month, have full best in slot, then quit untill the next tier content is released, while the wannabe hardcore would do the same, except they would more likely end up completely burnt out after hitting a wall at some difficult boss instead of being in full best in slot and then they too would quit untill the next tier was released.

Maybe what they need to do is add an option to let you repeat an instance, but only after you have manage to clear it once in a lockout period.  So you could not farm the first boss, reset and repeat, but after you have the place down, you can farm it to your hearts content?  Or put a cap on the number of times you can reset it per week?

[K9]

I do think the entry level raids are overtuned for where they need to be.

[SurfD]

I don't agree.  Granted, i have not seen all the fights yet, but my guild just put together it's first real raiding 10 man of the expantion, and over the course of 3 days last week, and 2 days this week, we downed the first fight in Throne of the Winds, Halfus (with Slate, Storm and Time) In bastion of Twilight, and Both Magmaw and Omnitron Defense System in Blackrock.  And I wouldnt classify us as anything approaching a high end raid guild.  Sure, we spent hours wipeing on a bunch of those fights (especially halfus and Djinn Council) till we got the rhythim of stuff down, and figured out which strat works best with that drake setup on halfus, but that is sort of expected when you are new to the fights.

[ezrast]

Maybe what they need to do is add an option to let you repeat an instance, but only after you have manage to clear it once in a lockout period.  So you could not farm the first boss, reset and repeat, but after you have the place down, you can farm it to your hearts content?  Or put a cap on the number of times you can reset it per week?

Entering traveled ground here, but I would just make it so you are only eligible to loot a boss once per week, but can kill it for VP once per day, and can just kill it because you feel like it (or to fill out your guild run) as many times as you want.

[Rendakor]

I like that idea personally ezrast, but when it's been suggested in the past, people note that it'd lead to significantly more tank/healer burnout because those classes would be "obligated" by their guilds to repeat runs while DPS would only get a spot in a single run.

[K9]

Just had a tank for heroic GB who was still wearing ICC epics in about half his gear slots. When I asked him he claimed that there was no tanking gear from quest rewards.

\quit

[Paelos]

Just had a tank for heroic GB who was still wearing ICC epics in about half his gear slots. When I asked him he claimed that there was no tanking gear from quest rewards.

\quit

He needs that set bonus! 

[K9]

Hah

I fucking hate people who are too proud or stupid to give up their epics.

[Zetor]

Yeah, I saw a shadowmourne / heroic-icc-gear warrior in grim batol; he was barely clearing 5k. I bet he could've gotten much more with quest greens / blues...

[to be fair, he was doing pretty good on running out of fires, interrupting stuff, not breaking cc and whatnot]

[Paelos]

Hah

I fucking hate people who are too proud or stupid to give up their epics.

To be fair, we actually had to talk one of our priests out of her set bonus when she hit 83. I was like, the greens are better. No, don't look at the stats, just start using them. We're not crazy.

[Minvaren]

It was a leap of faith like that to break the set bonus on my tank as well (at around 82-83).  HP and DPS did go up, in any case.   

[K9]

Yeah, I saw a shadowmourne / heroic-icc-gear warrior in grim batol; he was barely clearing 5k. I bet he could've gotten much more with quest greens / blues...

[to be fair, he was doing pretty good on running out of fires, interrupting stuff, not breaking cc and whatnot]

Shadowmourne should last until 85, just. I can forgive people the odd piece (I kept my T10 chest until level 84 just because I really didn't find any good upgrades, although everything else was gone by then) since not every slot has a great set of upgrades for every class and spec, but if you're trying to get by on barely 100K HP as a tank, with terrible combat ratings, I have no time for you.

[Merusk]

Gripes for today:

1) Tanks who can't move up the ramp on foe reaper, and blame you for their near death experiences. There's no reason you should be out of LOS OR only halfway up the goddamn ramp by the time he does overdrive, much less the first fucking harvest.

2) Tanks who pack on stam gems, ignoring avoidance so when you see 145k you think "Oh this won't be a problem" not realizing their GS is only 341 (in their dps set) and their tank set is horrible and they're going to eat spike damage all night long then blame you for not using flash heal all the time.  Funny, when I use chakra, renew, heal and Gheal along with chakra heal on DECENT TANKS it keeps them alive just fine, asshole.

3) Hunters who act like elitist pricks and 1) drop foe reaper targets right behind the goddamn healer when the healer is trying to keep the stupid ass tank (from your guild) alive.

4) Stupid ass hunters who act like elitist pricks but can only barely squeeze out 9k dps on packs and 7k on bosses with a gear score of 341.

Yes, I'm looking at you Synthpop and Covqt from Arthas.

/vent

[Ingmar]

I've only done reaper once and I don't think I moved him anywhere? Other than moving out of his whirlwindy crap and not standing in the harvest circle anyway. What's the advantage of the ramp?

[Merusk]

Well, for starters it's just the way folks on my BG do it, apparently.  I learned it that way as a DPS with guild groups, and the 3 pugs I've had did it the same way.  When I tanked it on my DK, I did notice a few advantages, though.  

1) Taking him upstairs means your golem doesn't have to watch out for the mark or overdrive.   No need to heal the golem.

2) If you position him right, so that the tank is on the flat and he's on the ramp, when he overdrives he'll usually path downstairs for at least half of it.  Meaning no running around going "oh shit" as a clothie.

3) If your group members are smart or educated, they can run to the wall and hug it within a few yards of the mob and drop their marks.  This means no ranged dps scurrying about and they can continue to dps.   Melee and the tank can just step over to the railing or down the lip onto the ramp and never have to worry about getting eaten.  

4) As the tank, if you're the one marked you can just run down the ramp a few steps and run back, not having to worry about idiots who can't move out of the way.