And it’s not a crime against nature for a guy struggling to crank out 1200 dps to queue up for a heroic, either. That’s the whole argument in a nutshell. When’s the last time you ran a heroic without at least one guy doing over 5k dps? Have you ever? I don’t think I have. Most of the time, the guy in 2nd place is pushing 2800+. RDF groups are so massively overgeared that at least the third dps slot is overkill most of the time. You could have that guy afk for the whole dungeon and nobody would notice.
As long as the guy is trying to contribute as best he can, and is not causing stupid wipes, I’m inclined to give him a pass. Other folks helped me along the way. I help this guy. He helps somebody else. Gaming karma. It’s groovy like that.
How is that any different from people joining up for BGs when they suck at pvp, or are below max level for the bracket, or don’t know what the victory conditions are? If they underperform, the whole team takes the loss. BG wins are harder to pull off than any heroic in the game.
If ya sign up for a BG or RDF, you’re agreeing to accept pot luck. Sometimes you get an awesome group that gels instantly, and you shred whatever is in front of you. Sometimes you get a braindead tank that thinks “HEALER OOM” means “Please pull everything in the next three rooms right now. We all want to die.”. Most of the time, you get something in the middle. That’s the nature of the beast.
If that risk is intolerable, then you can stick to guild groups, where everybody is absolutely perfect in every imaginable way, and most bosses surrender as soon as they see your guild tag.
Here’s a question: What percentage of the WoW-playing population do you think is even aware that they need to consult third-party sources to learn whether or not they’re qualified to do something in the game? Especially when such-and-such a requirement isn’t even measured by the game in a way they can see it without third-party addons?
And frankly, I’m getting awfully tired of [not just here, but elsewhere as well] people who dismiss other people’s complaints about other types of players by saying, “Hey, it’s just a freakin’ game! That’s what the ‘G’ in MMORPG stands for! It’s supposed to be fun! People are allowed to play in whatever way is fun for them! Don’t criticize them just because they don’t play the same way you do!” and they keep that up until somebody plays in a way they don’t like, and then all of a sudden the emphasis is taken off the “G” and is placed on the “MM” — “It’s Multiplayer! You have to be considerate of other people!”
Frankly if you don’t put out 1500 dps in a heroic you are doing something very wrong indeed. When this happened to me I would let the person know they were underperforming and then see what happened. If I got abuse from my remark vote kick otherwise let’s finish the run while having a conversation about how they can improve even if it was just a suggestion of going to wow.com or similar for advice for classes I know little of. Usually these days of multiple alts in every group you have at least one person who knows a class well enough to give advice.
Mister Rik is right not everyone puts in the extra mile to play this game, maybe that mage pumping out 800dps has no idea that’s too low because no one has told her and, more importantly, no one has tried to help just vote kicked on impulse.
My warlock dinged 77 last night after getting into Violet Hold surprisingly quickly. I am slightly disgusted with myself as I finished the fight as a meter tard – for the first time in Northrend someone else (a SPreist) was near me at the top of the damage charts so for the last boss I cast Curse of Doom rather than Curse of Elements ( which is a dps boost for all casters). Not that it mattered really as we downed her easily but still I didn’t think I’d be one of those dps-ers.
The only times I’ve pulled less than 1500 in a heroic it was right after switching specs and I gave warning, but I’ve also seen people vote to kick someone who said “I just switched specs so please be patient with me” or “I haven’t tanked much lately, take it slow ok?” I’ve seen someone leave the group when the vote didn’t pass.
Reading through the information out there to find out the specific rotation to use for the new spec takes me longer than the half-run or so I need to find it myself. Mileage varies, of course.
Maybe it’s because it happened in my last three normal HoR groups, but currently I’m a lot more likely to bite someone for dropping group after the waves are done than for coming in and saying “oh shit! apologies in advance to anybody who dies”. Sadly, by the time they jump ship I’m in my server and they’re in theirs and I can’t go find a hydrophobic skunk to drop down their pants… insert here picture of dark-haired dwarf holding a foaming skunk and running after someone tall who wears plate
1500 DPS in a heroic for a level 80 isn’t exactly hardcore pro capability. To put it in perspective, a fresh 80 mage in quest blues would do about 2000 just casting nothing but Frostbolt on the lowest DPS mage spec. When you factor in that AOE and group buffs will be inflating that, 1500 isn’t expert player or geared character, it’s just being at the keys and doing something. I’ve got 9 80s, and every one of them was doing 3000 DPS within 10 minutes of dinging 80 with at most a couple crafted pieces (and we’re not talking raid mats crafting either - I’m cheap).
I don’t get bent out of shape when someone is performing poorly enough to be indistinguishable from an AFK bot, since all the 5-man content now is so trivial that you can 2- or 3- man it even at the level and gear quality it was supposedly designed for. I just mock them in guild chat Personally, I blame Blizzard for making a system that hands out rewards to people that put in zero effort - it’s especially bad in Battlegrounds. But despite that, it’s certainly not elitism to chide someone for not putting in a trivial amount of effort. It’s rude, but so is wasting other people’s time.
Just seems like basic politeness to me to be able to carry your own weight before you saddle up with some dudes who you don’t know from Adam. I mean, yes, I queued with my wife for heroics when she was doing 1200 DPS, but that’s because together we average 2500.
Most of my RDF groups have me on top with 3500-4500, second place is 1800-3000. If the third DPS is phoning it in, that’s a good way to wipe on (for example) the gauntlet after Ick in HoS.
Also, the cure for stupid wipe disease is “learn the fights on normal mode where it’s more forgiving”, in my experience.
And also, I say again–Elune is definitely weird in terms of how overgeared the average RDFer is in my experience. The third DPS slot wasn’t very often superfluous on Icecrown when I was over there.
My level 70 tank puts out about 800k dps (in mostly green gear), so I wouldn’t think 1500 would be a difficult target for a dps class by 80.
In any case, I used that tank in UK last night and had two problems:
I led the charts in dps. That’s not good and made for a looong run.
I hate so say it, because he’s a IRL friend, but my healer is not very good. He doesn’t top folks off in between pulls, he doesn’t heal dps much at all during fights, and I always seem to be below 50% health. I really need to sit down and give him some holy priest tips without hurting his feelings. On the plus side though, I did ding 71 last night at least.
Topic #2 – I fought the Lich King last night! A guild that I have pugged with in the past was on 10-man LK (their first attempt at the fight) and needed a raid healer. I only had 90 minutes before I had to go but we got four tries in. Never got him below 80% but saw definite improvement on each attempt. It was fun to at least get to see the fight, even if we never got to phase 2.
Topic #3 – Following that run, several asked me (again) to join their guild, so I did. I have really mixed emotions though - not about the new guild, which is a nice, mature, casual raiding group (exactly what I was looking for) but I feel really guilty about leaving the Burning Dog Legion. I still want to help out with the BDL raids if there is a spot for me, either with my priest or my new pally (who is staying in the BDL along with my 71 tank and my other alts). I don’t want to sound like a drama queen but I hope no one is too disappointed that I did it. It just seemed Kene had hit the ceiling of what he could do without easier access to raiding. Hopefully people are saying “Uh, skammer, get over yourself - we don’t really care that much.”
Can anyone who has experienced an expansion before (I’m post WOTLK) let me know if my following assumptions are correct:
Switching and power levelling a new profession now will (probably) be cheaper than doing it after Cataclysm hits. I’m assuming here I’ll be competing with lots of new alts levelling.
It’s silly to buy epic flying at the moment as the price of this is likely to come down.
Getting those last few points to max a crafting profession will be easier when cataclysm hits – here I am assuming that new easy to get recipes will be available for the 440-ish bracket but I may be very wrong here.
Highly unlikely. They’ve already changed it so it’s affected by reputation if you go to the right trainer. It’s a perfectly good gold sink.
Now, if you wait until after level 80 to buy epic flying, the price will probably be relatively cheaper, as you’ll be earning that much more gold at the higher levels.
martu, someone else may have have a different opinion, but my guesses are
I’m not sure – I guess it depends if all the new alts are trying to level crafting professions or gathering profs. I would think that raw materials (cloth, ore, herbs, leather) will be cheaper after the expansion.
I haven’t heard if they are changing the price for epic flying – it did not change between BC and WotLK.
This is probably true. That was my experience in tailoring anyway when WotLK came out.
DW Shaman want to be spell hit capped, which is 420. The DW cap is just way too high. If you’re at 7% already, you need another 20% hit or 655 rating to be DW capped.
Optimal hit rating for enhancement shamans depends on your gear level. For most people, reaching the spell hit cap is sufficient, which for a draenei with a boomkin or spriest in the raid is 342 rating. Every point beyond that still benefits you, from increased white damage, increased flametongue, static shield, windfury, maelstrom etc. procs, but other stats will have bigger benefits.
As you get better gear however, you start creeping up to the crit cap, the point at which crit no longer benefit your autoswings due to the single roll nature of white damage. After that point increasing hit rating effectively increases your autoswing crit rate as well, so hit becomes more valuable. In high end gear you want at least 400+ hit rating.
Well no 10 man ICC was scheduled this week, but I was invited to go with a later group which was fun since we could open up hardmodes. Had to pug an offtank, but the rest were guildies. Attempted Lady Deathwhisper, but after a few attempts we went back to normal. Heroic Lootship dropped a shiney tanking ring that I won, but later gave to my offtank since she could used the upgrade more than me. Saurfang finally dropped his bracers for me which was nice, but I had to stick in a def/stam gem to stay at 540.
Right now it looks like there’s no 10man scheduled for next week either. I’m a little worried now.
This leads me to last night, won a warrior mark off of Saurfang and as I predicted the tanking ring dropped from Rotface and it went to another tank. Not that big of a deal, I’ll get it next time. Now I’m stuck deciding on which tier piece I want. If I followed SFG’s suggestion of Tier helm/gloves with pillars of might I’ll lose around 100 defense. So I’m thinking about grabbing the gloves for now, though I’ll lose a gem socket.
Gave up the fight for Loque’nahak in Sholazar and started a new hunt for Gondria and Arcturis. I’m going to nab one of those spirit beast, even if I go crazy in the process.
As for people not doing 1500dps in heroics… meh, I really don’t care. If I zone in an they’re all nice about it they can enjoy the ride as far as I’m concerned. If they’re acting like idiots and disrupting the group they can enjoy another 15 minute queue once I kick them. I’ve had groups where I, the tank, was the highest DPS, but everyone is pleasant and joking around so it’s good times. For me it’s not about dps, it’s attitude. I don’t mind the run taking a few more minutes if the people are good sports about it.
While I agree, I tend to find that “good attitude” and “adequate performance” are nearly 100% correlated, which might color my own attitude on the subject.
The spriest +hit talents, at least as I read them, only benefit the spriest who has them, not anyone else. I think in the past they were debuffs put on mobs, but not anymore.
Personally, I blame Blizzard for making a system that hands out rewards to people that put in zero effort - it’s especially bad in Battlegrounds. But despite that, it’s certainly not elitism to chide someone for not putting in a trivial amount of effort. It’s rude, but so is wasting other people’s time.