Cataclysm Raiding

[Paelos]

Simple question:

Exactly how punative is bringing melee dps to encounters from what you have seen? Overall, is ranged preferred on any fights where not on others? What is your raids ranged to melee split and the class divisions?

[Rendakor]

My raids generally run 3 melee (Rogue, Enh Sham, DK) and 2 ranged (Spriest, Mage/Hunter) and we haven't had any major issues because of it. Atramedes is the only one I've seen* that you would be better served having all ranged. Most fights generally reward a balanced comp.


*Everything but the final boss of each instance.

[Hutch]

Current raid dps:
Melee: DK, Rogue, plus our druid tank switches to Cat form on fights like Omnotron
Ranged: Hunter (me), Mage, Warlock

We've got Magmaw, Halfus, and Omnotron "on farm", and I put that in quotes because we're occasionally still lackadaisical enough to wipe/flee on the trash.
We recently got the twin dragons learnt well enough to get it down after only a couple of wipes. Last week's big learning experience was the elementium monstrosity. (An encounter that I'm hoping we'll get knocked out this week.)

Why am I telling you this? Because I think our progression has been more a matter of getting everyone into the dungeons, seeing the encounters a few times, and then learning them well enough so that at least a few of us are alive when the boss dies. We're not being "punished" by the fact that some of our dps comes from melee toons.

It might be "punative" in a cutting-edge progression guild, but that doesn't really describe my guild. These encounters can be beaten by a group that's got some gear and sufficient situational awareness.

[Ironwood]

Yum.

[Paelos]

Follow up question then, in regards to Magmaw do you do anything different with your setup of melee/ranged. What is your ranged doing in that fight, and what's the minimum amount of dps they can do on the adds to be effective?

I want to get a benchmark for our own group to see where we're ranking.

[Hutch]

I've described my group's general Magmaw tactic earlier in this thread, i.e. hunters (me and sometimes one other guy) stand at range, everyone else stacks up in melee range.

For the "minimum dps" question, the minimum dps is to have all ranged attack the adds until they're gone, then go back to the boss. I sometimes think to look at recount after a Magmaw fight, and I'm usually at/near the top, and the biggest piece of my personal (non-pet) damage is vs adds. Like in the neighborhood of 40 to 45 percent. My second-highest damage target is the exposed head of magmaw, also in the 40% range.

My dps (pet included) on the fight is usually in the mid teens, i.e. 13 to 16 k. We usually have 3-4 dps toons in that neighborhood.

Your dps on this fight is influenced by how much time you spend attacking the adds, I think. Being SV and having Serpent Spread is the reason that so much of my damage applied is on the adds, and why I get so high on the meter.

[Ironwood]

Oh God, yum.

Stop posting.  It's so wonderfully distracting.

[Paelos]

Oh God, yum.

Stop posting.  It's so wonderfully distracting.

What are you talking about?

EDIT: Oh the avatar.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Oh God, yum.

Stop posting.  It's so wonderfully distracting.

What are you talking about?

EDIT: Oh the avatar.

Yum.

 

[Merusk]

It looks like Miranda w/ Blonde hair.

[Rasix]

It looks like Miranda w/ Blonde hair.

[Hutch]

We've trekked out into the hinterlands of the internet Scotland with a glamor headshot of Yvonne Strahovski, to observe the male Ironwood in his natural habitat.

We've secretly replaced the contents of this post in the raid thread, with meaningless expository drivel.

Let's see if he notices.

[Merusk]

It looks like Miranda w/ Blonde hair.

image

Ooooh. 

See, I don't watch Chuck. I had no idea.

[Ironwood]

I literally have a whole folder dedicated to that woman and that's the finest head shot (no jokes please) I've seen yet.

God, she's pretty.

I'll stop.  Carry on.

[Evildrider]

Why does Katy Perry get her own thread but Yvonne Strahotski is ignored?   

[Lantyssa]

See, I don't watch Chuck. I had no idea.

I didn't know either, Merusk.  I thought she'd looked familiar but I didn't think 'Miranda' until today either.  I guess it comes from not watching any TV.

[Rendakor]

Follow up question then, in regards to Magmaw do you do anything different with your setup of melee/ranged. What is your ranged doing in that fight, and what's the minimum amount of dps they can do on the adds to be effective?

I want to get a benchmark for our own group to see where we're ranking.

Our ranged sit in melee, our OT handles the adds with occasional assistance AOEing them down.

[Evildrider]

I play a rogue as my main raiding toon... so far there isn't anything too bad about being a melee.  I'm still top dps most of the time over the ranged.

[Ingmar]

I want to say the crying about melee 'punishment' was all from guilds doing heroic modes.

[Paelos]

I want to say the crying about melee 'punishment' was all from guilds doing heroic modes.

Probably, I just wondered what people's translations to the regular 10 man game were. From what I gather, the dps in my group are simply not doing enough. I think they put out like 10k when they need to be doing 12, and one hunter is doing like 9.

[Rendakor]

Most of our DPS are in the 12-13k range, with one or two usually doing 15k+.

[Paelos]

Most of our DPS are in the 12-13k range, with one or two usually doing 15k+.

Reinforcing the idea that yes, my team in fact "doesn't get it" 

Oh well.

[Koyasha]

Is it really being significant?  I mean, are you running into enrage timers or something?  Cause otherwise, as long as people don't screw up by standing in fire or other encounter screwups, it seems ok to let DPS be a little low.  Now if they're standing in fires and pulling that low DPS, then they have some real problems.

[Ingmar]

If DPS is too crappy, healers go OOM.

[Merusk]

Yep. One or two low dps is ok so long as you've got a few superior DPS to carry their weight, making the average what it needs to be.  When everyone's 2-3k below that's a half million hit points per minute you're behind.  When bosses have 32.6 million hitpoints, that's an additional 2 mins at least. 2 mins is a LOT of mana.

[Rokal]

I think when we started raids, the average dps in our guild was around 10k. As people have gotten more gear and more familiar with their class in cataclysm, that number is more like 13k on average now. Point is: if your group hasn't been downing raid bosses for weeks, your group-mates might be where they need to be for dps

[Paelos]

My main problem is we have a hunter, a mage, and an elemental shaman, and we're still not getting the worms down on Magmaw. Something is wrong.

[Rendakor]

Are you having someone tank the worms, or are your DPS just running around like idiots trying to kite them?

[caladein]

(Please note, I've only ever done this fight on normal.)  Ideally what you'd want is either:

- Hunter is only person at range on the opposite side of where the rest of your group is stacked at.  They drop Ice and Explosive Traps at their feet and when Pillar is cast, the Hunter moves parallel to the boss towards the group.  Hunter and your other AOE DPS clean them up.  The Hunter moves back to original spot and repeat.  This is the method I usually see in PUGs, and it works relatively well as long as the other DPS quickly switch to the parasites and they're mindful about staying in melee range (so as to not get a pillar directly behind the group).

- Have all your ranged AOE and their healer stack out at range.  Pillar is cast, group moves to other side of room, and kills add.  Second pillar they just move to their initial position.  This is the way my guild does it and the risks are mostly that one of your ranged either doesn't move or runs around like a chicken with their head cut off.

In either case you could also bring out any of your AOE-capable melee to help out, usually the ranged will have enough of a headstart that they're not at risk of pulling off.  The main thing is just to get the parasites down before the next pillar spawns, as a bonus with some wiggle room to get your positioning worked out.

[Rendakor]

My guild does it like your first strategy, except we use an OT because none of our tanks do good DPS as an offspec, and we don't have a hunter. We tried having a mage do it, but either its not doable that way, or our mage was mediocre (more likely). The OT just picks up the worms and tanks them, while the ranged DPS stack in melee and AOE them down.

[Paelos]

My guild does it like your first strategy, except we use an OT because none of our tanks do good DPS as an offspec, and we don't have a hunter. We tried having a mage do it, but either its not doable that way, or our mage was mediocre (more likely). The OT just picks up the worms and tanks them, while the ranged DPS stack in melee and AOE them down.

We had our best successes with me out there as an OT on the adds, but I'm still not pleased with our hunter's output on them. I think he's doing something really wrong and I have to parse his actions this week to figure it out.

[Hutch]

Magmaw doesn't have an enrage timer (or else it's so long that we either wipe or get the boss down long before it's up).

But, there's a cooldown on the Pillar. Best practice is to get the worms down, and get your people back into position, traps down etc, before that second pillar comes.

(If you get a third consecutive pillar, then someone screwed up trying to put Magmaw's leash on).

[Paelos]

Ghostcrawler's take on the current raiding situation:

We addressed our views on dungeon difficulty several weeks ago, and in the interim many players have asked for us to comment on raid difficulty.

I chose to use the word "progress" in the title for this blog quite intentionally. We think progression is the key to players having fun. When groups stop making progress, the members get frustrated. When individuals feel like they are stuck, that’s when they start to lose interest. I don’t think it strictly has to do with the flow of loot being shut off. A big part of it is the sense that as you climb up that mountain, you are getting closer and closer to the summit instead of just sliding back down to base camp at the end of each day.

Let’s consider two extremes. If you complete the raid content very quickly and have Sinestra on farm and everyone has acquired their best in slot items, then you’re probably ready to take a break from raiding. If you worked really hard to get to that point, as many of the current “finished” guilds did, then you’re probably pretty happy about resting until Firelands becomes available. However, if that break point happens too soon, too easily, for too many guilds, then the raiding game can feel empty. Players run out of content before they are ready to run out of content, if that makes sense. Now let’s consider the other extreme, where a guild just has no realistic chance of ever beating a boss. This can be particularly demoralizing if it’s the first boss, but it can happen at any time. That guild might not feel like they are making progress. Many guilds are willing to put in a few weeks trying to master a new encounter, but if it gets to the point where they are wiping for months, there’s a good chance they’ll start to see burnout and thinning ranks. The sweet spot in raid balance for us to hit is that everyone feels like they can still make progress. Content that is too hard or too easy doesn’t meet that goal.

Raid encounters, to some extent, nerf themselves. This is because every week, the raid members acquire more and more gear. Secondarily, the community acquires more and more knowledge and experience, which translates into better videos, strategy guides, or even UI mods, as well as just more players who have experienced the encounters firsthand. Each week that you are able to kill any bosses, your group’s gear improves overall, through Valor points if nothing else. When Firelands is available, everyone’s gear will quickly take a step up in quality. This will give you an even better chance to beat those bosses that are blocking you now. We wouldn’t be surprised to see some guilds try the first few Firelands bosses one night, while using the next night to go back to get the head and chests from Nef and Cho’gall in order to complete their set bonuses, that is until acquiring new set bonuses becomes feasible. On some bosses, though, better armor and weapons may not be enough because some mechanics just can’t easily be outgeared. To mitigate that problem, our tendency is to nerf content over time just to make sure a wide variety of players see it. The trailblazers get to see the fights before anyone else, but we don’t lock the dungeon door behind them.

Having said all of that, there are some encounters that still need adjustment. Heroic 10-player modes can often be the hardest to balance, because those groups just don’t have access to the sheer number of tools in one group that the larger raids have. You’ve probably seen some hotfixes go out recently and we might make more adjustments in 4.1. We’ll continue to monitor progress and make adjustments when we feel the time is right.

Overall, we are pretty happy with our current raid balance. Most guilds that are trying seem to be making some progress. On some realms, we’re seeing pickup groups for at least the earlier bosses, which seems appropriate for where we are in the content cycle. The Heroic versions are particularly challenging, though even in that case, there is a gradient with easier and very difficult bosses. For those of you who feel like you are stuck on progression, we’d like to hear more about why. Are you trying to PUG the encounters? Do you have a very casual guild with a lot of different players each night? Is the problem that you’re undergeared or that the mechanics are too unforgiving? What are the mechanics that are really hard for raid leadership to explain or even understand? Are your tanks exploding, or are your healers running out of mana, or are you failing the berserk timers? We have data on all of this, but it’s useful to hear it from your point of view as well. Remember, our goal is that you beat the fight because you understood the mechanics and executed your tanking, DPS, and healing around those constraints. If you’re just kind of powering through a boss ability or phase that you don’t really understand, then it’s going to be a lot harder for you. As always, feedback on which encounters you are enjoying and which ones you never want to see again is also appreciated, though we’ve gotten a lot of that already, and are designing your Firelands foes with that in mind.


P.S. I am as excited about the Firelands encounters as I am about the current ones. We can’t wait for you to wipe to them, er... see them.

[Malakili]

Ghostcrawler's take on the current raiding situation:

We addressed our views on dungeon difficulty several weeks ago, and in the interim many players have asked for us to comment on raid difficulty.

I chose to use the word "progress" in the title for this blog quite intentionally. We think progression is the key to players having fun. When groups stop making progress, the members get frustrated. When individuals feel like they are stuck, that’s when they start to lose interest. I don’t think it strictly has to do with the flow of loot being shut off. A big part of it is the sense that as you climb up that mountain, you are getting closer and closer to the summit instead of just sliding back down to base camp at the end of each day.

Let’s consider two extremes. If you complete the raid content very quickly and have Sinestra on farm and everyone has acquired their best in slot items, then you’re probably ready to take a break from raiding. If you worked really hard to get to that point, as many of the current “finished” guilds did, then you’re probably pretty happy about resting until Firelands becomes available. However, if that break point happens too soon, too easily, for too many guilds, then the raiding game can feel empty. Players run out of content before they are ready to run out of content, if that makes sense. Now let’s consider the other extreme, where a guild just has no realistic chance of ever beating a boss. This can be particularly demoralizing if it’s the first boss, but it can happen at any time. That guild might not feel like they are making progress. Many guilds are willing to put in a few weeks trying to master a new encounter, but if it gets to the point where they are wiping for months, there’s a good chance they’ll start to see burnout and thinning ranks. The sweet spot in raid balance for us to hit is that everyone feels like they can still make progress. Content that is too hard or too easy doesn’t meet that goal.

Raid encounters, to some extent, nerf themselves. This is because every week, the raid members acquire more and more gear. Secondarily, the community acquires more and more knowledge and experience, which translates into better videos, strategy guides, or even UI mods, as well as just more players who have experienced the encounters firsthand. Each week that you are able to kill any bosses, your group’s gear improves overall, through Valor points if nothing else. When Firelands is available, everyone’s gear will quickly take a step up in quality. This will give you an even better chance to beat those bosses that are blocking you now. We wouldn’t be surprised to see some guilds try the first few Firelands bosses one night, while using the next night to go back to get the head and chests from Nef and Cho’gall in order to complete their set bonuses, that is until acquiring new set bonuses becomes feasible. On some bosses, though, better armor and weapons may not be enough because some mechanics just can’t easily be outgeared. To mitigate that problem, our tendency is to nerf content over time just to make sure a wide variety of players see it. The trailblazers get to see the fights before anyone else, but we don’t lock the dungeon door behind them.

Having said all of that, there are some encounters that still need adjustment. Heroic 10-player modes can often be the hardest to balance, because those groups just don’t have access to the sheer number of tools in one group that the larger raids have. You’ve probably seen some hotfixes go out recently and we might make more adjustments in 4.1. We’ll continue to monitor progress and make adjustments when we feel the time is right.

Overall, we are pretty happy with our current raid balance. Most guilds that are trying seem to be making some progress. On some realms, we’re seeing pickup groups for at least the earlier bosses, which seems appropriate for where we are in the content cycle. The Heroic versions are particularly challenging, though even in that case, there is a gradient with easier and very difficult bosses. For those of you who feel like you are stuck on progression, we’d like to hear more about why. Are you trying to PUG the encounters? Do you have a very casual guild with a lot of different players each night? Is the problem that you’re undergeared or that the mechanics are too unforgiving? What are the mechanics that are really hard for raid leadership to explain or even understand? Are your tanks exploding, or are your healers running out of mana, or are you failing the berserk timers? We have data on all of this, but it’s useful to hear it from your point of view as well. Remember, our goal is that you beat the fight because you understood the mechanics and executed your tanking, DPS, and healing around those constraints. If you’re just kind of powering through a boss ability or phase that you don’t really understand, then it’s going to be a lot harder for you. As always, feedback on which encounters you are enjoying and which ones you never want to see again is also appreciated, though we’ve gotten a lot of that already, and are designing your Firelands foes with that in mind.


P.S. I am as excited about the Firelands encounters as I am about the current ones. We can’t wait for you to wipe to them, er... see them.

Coming from a non-raider, that sounds fairly reasonable.   But I don't have a good idea of how hard this stuff actually is in comparison to any other raids I have done in the past.

[Paelos]

They recently nerfed Magmaw, which I think needed it. People were killing Omitron before him because Magmaw was such a gear check right up front.

People are making progress for sure. I'm not sure I would put as upbeat a face on it from my alliance's perspective, but that's a subsect of the whole. I think GC is being generous when he's saying they are seeing some PUGs for the earlier bosses. If they count the TB stuff, yeah, that's puggable. Omitron or Magmaw? Not so much.