GC Responds to the Heroic Dungeon QQ

[Kojiyama]

I feel like the 'hard' lock of rep was perhaps a bit overkill, but the idea that you needed to go through a process to get involved is sound.

At the end of the day, as I pointed some time earlier, heroics right now aren't really heroic. They're just the bulk of the level 80 content. TBC heroics were meant to be 'the next level' of 5-man progression. In Cataclysm, they are the level of 5-man progression. Normal dungeons are both small in number and more or less worthless.

Then again, TBC had what...? 7 max level 5-man dungeons at launch? Instead of 3? Was a lot easier to work with that, I think. One thing I loved about TBC was the sheer quantity of dungeon content available.

[Libellus]

I agree, the pitiful number of level 85 normal dungeons in Cata is a problem. Given Blizz can retune Deadmines and SFK to level 85 heroic versions, why could they not retune those two (quite lengthy) instances to level 85 normal versions?

I think the idea of not being able to do a heroic dungeon until you've done the normal is a good idea. I've had a few pug groups where one or two characters didn't even know the basics of the fight and had to have the whole thing explained from scratch, instead of the rather more helpful question "how does this differ from normal?"

[Caric]

Next week it'll be four.



I concur with this statement. A player who was able to clear TBC heroics so easily 2 months into that expansion should, to my mind, be having no difficulties with Cata heroics at all. Indeed, I'd expect such a player to be complaining Cata Heroics were too easy.

Maybe I am just getting old. TBC Heroics were a pain at times but my consistent experience with them was no where near what the difficulties I have been dealing with now are. I don't run addons (other than Recount and DBM), I use the default UI, it may be the game is far more tuned to the use of these things now a days than it used to be. I really think the issue is more that I am far more dependent upon the rest of the group in current content than I was in TBC.

In TBC tanking was MUCH harder than it will ever be again. TC hit 3 or 4 mobs (don't remember which) Cleave hit two, Revenge hit one. Taunt was short range, there was no Heroic Throw or Shockwave. Because of this, they couldn't afford to add the difficulty to the rest of the group because of how much crap the tank had to go through. Now though, tanking is dramatically easier so they can safely tune up the difficulty on the rest of the group. So in short, in TBC if I could hit the required level of awesome I was almost guaranteed a successful run. Now, even if I reach deep down inside and pull out a godmode level of play, that isn't going to get me through the instance if other folks ain't pulling their weight.

Course I may be just getting old ... still haven't successfully tanked heroic Ozruk, sigh. That could have more to do with only have one or two chances on him before the group calls me a fail tank and replaces me QQ.

[Theotherone]

Course I may be just getting old ... still haven't successfully tanked heroic Ozruk, sigh. That could have more to do with only have one or two chances on him before the group calls me a fail tank and replaces me QQ.

At least you've gotten to Ozruk, I'm not past that stupid, one shot worm; as tank, healer or dps. Of all the fights, that worm is just too unforgiving; especially since you can appear to be out of his dust area and still be hit.

[Kojiyama]

Perhaps your experiences are skewed by the way people played TBC heroics, though. Remember, not only were people forced to do the normals quite a lot before they could do Heroics, they really had to have decent gear to think about bothering. Use of CC was pretty much expected as well.

Nowadays, it's difficult to find randoms that are willing to CC. It is getting better, but it certainly wasn't that way at Cataclysm launch. Transitioning from a bunch of AoE zerging in Wrath to using CC dynamics again is going to be difficult.

I really doubt that the current heroics are more difficult than the TBC ones. I do think that one could make the argument that the playerbase as a whole is less used to doing the things to ensure the success of heroics now than perhaps they did in TBC, though. I think one could also argue that the fact that many people have either not played the normal version of the dungeon at all or have limited enough experience for it to make little difference.

That said, given that most classes have far more tools nowdays, group comps are much simpler and the amount of CC available in a given group is significantly higher. I've been in groups where every single mob in a pull could be CC'd by someone and single-killed. That just wasn't possible as a general rule in TBC. I also feel that there are far more cooldowns to react to emergencies now, which means a higher amount of 'bad' events can potentially be made a lot less bad.

[MellvarTank]

Wait wait wait.... The worm is one shotting you? Stay away from the rumbling....

As for Ozruk - watch his cast animation for the frontal cone, run away for shatter and charge back in after. It took me about 3 attempts to get it right, but now its quite easy.

[Kojiyama]

Another peeve of mine is the fact that a good number of boss fails can be countered simply by zerging back from the graveyard in Cataclysm heroics. As far as I remember, they removed the ability to do this in TBC heroics for fights in progress.

A good example is that even if someone is complete fail on the end boss of Tol'vir they can be back into the fight in 30 seconds or less.

Heck, I've survived on the platform as the tank long enough for a healer to run back from the graveyard. I wouldn't exactly call that super-hard.

(Even more annoying are the randoms that yell at people for not instantly releasing and running from the graveyard in the boss fight. I always try to tell them that they should focus on not failing so much rather than getting upset that someone who they got killed didn't zerg back from the graveyard to throw more bodies at the boss.)

[Kazeyonoma]

Everquest Sleeper Strat translated into world of warcraft... graveyard zerging bosses down. gg

[Caric]

Perhaps your experiences are skewed by the way people played TBC heroics, though. Remember, not only were people forced to do the normals quite a lot before they could do Heroics, they really had to have decent gear to think about bothering. Use of CC was pretty much expected as well.

Nowadays, it's difficult to find randoms that are willing to CC. It is getting better, but it certainly wasn't that way at Cataclysm launch. Transitioning from a bunch of AoE zerging in Wrath to using CC dynamics again is going to be difficult.

I really doubt that the current heroics are more difficult than the TBC ones. I do think that one could make the argument that the playerbase as a whole is less used to doing the things to ensure the success of heroics now than perhaps they did in TBC, though. I think one could also argue that the fact that many people have either not played the normal version of the dungeon at all or have limited enough experience for it to make little difference.

That said, given that most classes have far more tools nowdays, group comps are much simpler and the amount of CC available in a given group is significantly higher. I've been in groups where every single mob in a pull could be CC'd by someone and single-killed. That just wasn't possible as a general rule in TBC. I also feel that there are far more cooldowns to react to emergencies now, which means a higher amount of 'bad' events can potentially be made a lot less bad.

Oh I will grant you, the trash in TBC was harder than current content but the bosses now are harder (at least for me and my groups) than I experienced in TBC. I didn't like using CC in TBC any more than I do now and frankly would use any excuse possible to skip it all together. I genuinely found it easier to skip CC even given the old style tanking mechanics than it was to try tanking and holding mobs while not breaking the F'in CC.

Thing is, trash being hard in TBC didn't cause groups to fail the instance, it just made it take longer, wipe more and be more frustrating. Boss fights being difficult just flat slams your face into a wall. Last night I groaned and queued up for my nightly wave of misery that is heroicness ... zoned into a Grim Batol that was replacing their tank at the gronn boss. So we plowed into it a few times, changing out various toons until I eventually said flush it, this group won't make it. Reque and ... great it's Grim Batol again. So this time I have two hunters, one pulling 10k and one pulling 12k (the two of them combined pulling more dps than what I would normally expect all the dps in an average heroic pug based on prior experience), a healer who hadn't ever healed the instance before and a pally. Couple wipes here and there but finished the instance in good order.

So the moral is ... if I get lucky I can win an instance. Funny thing is, this week almost every heroic has ended with success, fairly painless too. This week might be the dawn of a new age for me but a solid two months of hell prior to this sure as hell shaped my opinions about things pretty powerfully.

[Caric]

At least you've gotten to Ozruk, I'm not past that stupid, one shot worm; as tank, healer or dps. Of all the fights, that worm is just too unforgiving; especially since you can appear to be out of his dust area and still be hit.

Another one of those fights that is so highly dependent upon your group doing its job right. If the shards don't get aoed, if the dps doesn't get the spiders down, if the healer runs screaming into a worm shot or just accumulates too many spiders while RUNNING AWAY FROM ME AT FULL F'IN SPEED and dies ... gg. Nah with the exception of me fail tankin F'in Ozruk (not that I don't get the mechanic just no learning curve for it, fail ... wipe ... replaced doesn't help you get the pattern down) I have completed everything successfully at least once and usually more than that. It is just that I don't enjoy myself at all. I genuinely hate it.

"So why the QQ? Just quit and find an easy sauce game that is more appropriate to your aging skill set you pathetic excuse for a tank".

While I appreciate folks might be thinking that, particularly when reading the "I genuinely hate it" comment, thing is I have devoted 6 years to this game and there is a part of me that hopes that things will get better and I can get back to enjoying this game that has brought me so much pleasure over the years.

"So why don't you just come back in a couple more months when everything is nerfed to the ground?"

Because I am a tank. My job description says take the pain bitch. As miserable as I can get sometimes doin this crap, the idea of running away because it is hard is anathema to me. I just couldn't keep playing the game if I knew I backed away because it was too hard for me. Also, I am not particularly bright.

[Theotherone]

Another one of those fights that is so highly dependent upon your group doing its job right. If the shards don't get aoed, if the dps doesn't get the spiders down, if the healer runs screaming into a worm shot or just accumulates too many spiders while RUNNING AWAY FROM ME AT FULL F'IN SPEED and dies ... gg....

You've been spying on my groups.

[Reev]

Another one of those fights that is so highly dependent upon your group doing its job right. If the shards don't get aoed, if the dps doesn't get the spiders down, if the healer runs screaming into a worm shot or just accumulates too many spiders while RUNNING AWAY FROM ME AT FULL F'IN SPEED and dies ... gg. Nah with the exception of me fail tankin F'in Ozruk (not that I don't get the mechanic just no learning curve for it, fail ... wipe ... replaced doesn't help you get the pattern down) I have completed everything successfully at least once and usually more than that. It is just that I don't enjoy myself at all. I genuinely hate it.

While I understand your frustration (I've been in those groups too), I think that if people aren't fulfilling their role (and "AoE the shards" is a pretty simple role), a wipe SHOULD be the result. And I also think that the success or failure of a group shouldn't be the sole responsibility of one person, but rather of everyone in the group. I shouldn't be able to pull a whole dungeon group through an instance through my own sheer badassitude. If I suck, wipes should happen. If everyone but me sucks, wipes should still happen.

Corborus is admittedly harder if you have no ranged dps, or none who can kill crystals quickly enough (I believe they have 6k HP each?). But most ranged dps have the ability to drop those crystals super fast. I've seen Arms warriors go in before the crystals activate and bladestorm them down. I've killed them on my rogue with FoK, standing at the edges so if I got hit it would only be one at a time. As for the one shots, you get something like 2-3 seconds to see the rumbling dirt and get out of the way. That gives you time even if you have latency, and the spiders don't do much damage or have much HP, so they can easily be killed by a few Fan of Knives, or multi-shots, or whatever.

I guess my problem with your statement is this: Why shouldn't a fight be dependent on the group doing their jobs right?

[Theotherone]

As for the one shots, you get something like 2-3 seconds to see the rumbling dirt and get out of the way.

I'll withhold final judgment on this until they change the spider spawn graphic next patch, which may help with this fight; but I still kind of, sort of, have an issue with a one shot heroic boss especially when you can seemingly be out of the graphic and still be hit.

[Caric]

While I understand your frustration (I've been in those groups too), I think that if people aren't fulfilling their role (and "AoE the shards" is a pretty simple role), a wipe SHOULD be the result. And I also think that the success or failure of a group shouldn't be the sole responsibility of one person, but rather of everyone in the group. I shouldn't be able to pull a whole dungeon group through an instance through my own sheer badassitude. If I suck, wipes should happen. If everyone but me sucks, wipes should still happen.

Corborus is admittedly harder if you have no ranged dps, or none who can kill crystals quickly enough (I believe they have 6k HP each?). But most ranged dps have the ability to drop those crystals super fast. I've seen Arms warriors go in before the crystals activate and bladestorm them down. I've killed them on my rogue with FoK, standing at the edges so if I got hit it would only be one at a time. As for the one shots, you get something like 2-3 seconds to see the rumbling dirt and get out of the way. That gives you time even if you have latency, and the spiders don't do much damage or have much HP, so they can easily be killed by a few Fan of Knives, or multi-shots, or whatever.

I guess my problem with your statement is this: Why shouldn't a fight be dependent on the group doing their jobs right?

I think in pricinple I completely agree with everything you are saying. In practice, when my 95% of my initial 2 month experience was a combination of either failed run or 2 hour run or god forbid a combination of both, my take away from that is ... things are not quite tuned right. When I can bust my ass over and over and over again to no avail, that just sucks.

When they change the model of the the game so drastically from anything I personally can say I have encountered in six years of playing, I find myself not having fun with what has been up to this point the greatest game of my life. I feel it is at least appropriate to mention that. Now the reasons for the problems aren't as simple as just "Heroics are too hard", Koji for instance has spelled out quite effectively any number of problems related to current heroic content that are causing issues not specifically related to poor Heroic tuning. I have pointed out others.

In the end, it doesn't much matter with current content, the nerf bats a comin, gear inflation to follow soon after. What matters is, putting forth a reasonable concern so that hopefully, the mistakes of today are somewhat ameliorated tomorrow.

[Libellus]

While I understand your frustration (I've been in those groups too), I think that if people aren't fulfilling their role (and "AoE the shards" is a pretty simple role), a wipe SHOULD be the result. And I also think that the success or failure of a group shouldn't be the sole responsibility of one person, but rather of everyone in the group. I shouldn't be able to pull a whole dungeon group through an instance through my own sheer badassitude. If I suck, wipes should happen. If everyone but me sucks, wipes should still happen.

I agree. I've become very frustrated with pug groups where some of the dps have cottoned on to what they need to do, but there's always been one who refuses to do anything but nuke the boss. Quite sad really.

I will say that the area of effect of corb's damage being slightly greater than the smoke is annoying, but the solution to that is simply to give yourself a larger margin of error.

[Muffin Man]

I'll withhold final judgment on this until they change the spider spawn graphic next patch, which may help with this fight; but I still kind of, sort of, have an issue with a one shot heroic boss especially when you can seemingly be out of the graphic and still be hit.

QFT. I tell groups that the Worm's body is wider than the graphic all the time.

Also, the spider can spawn in a huge clump which makes it hard to tell sometimes where the worm is going to jump from, which can also be compounded by ground effects spells and different graphic settings. And depending on how hectic it gets trying to get spiders off you/the healer and staying by/finding the tank of course.

Also during ground phase I so dearly wished there was a way to swap into Diablo style combat (ie targetting optional) .

[Libellus]

The group is far better served ignoring the spiders and letting me (the tank) do what I can to pick them up as we run round. Insta dmg spells are fine for people to cast on the move, but otherwise they're not worth the bother.

Once worm is up, gathering on tank, tank aoe taunts, shockwave, thunderclap, yada yada, nukey nukey.

One of the problems I've seen groups having with heroics is that they overcomplicate the fights, when what is actually needed for success is quite simple. Occams razor applies.

[Kojiyama]

Biggest mistake I see randoms making on that fight is spazzing out and trying to AoE all the adds in the burrow phase while they spawn. I typically explain to them that they barely have 30k health and would die from 2 fireballs. AoEing is just a waste of time unless you wait to the end. They're basically just running around getting 8 mobs on them while taking every one to 50% health and letting it stack the DoT on them for no reason.

I find it amusing to watch Mages and Warlock trying to AoE things that I just run up to and one-shot with Mangle+melee swing.

[Theotherone]

We got Stonecore again last night and gave it a few shots; came close then requed. I'm starting to see what's going on the more that I do it (was on my hunter) and it really is the freak out factor as someone mentioned. The little adds beating on the healer was the biggest issue. Thanks for all the advice, it will help.

[Quinafoi]

Best advice I can say for that particular fight during the burrow phase is to group up. You have to dodge the large dust clouds anyway regardless of if you are close to each other or 50 yards apart. It's when you scatter too far apart that things start to get messy because things stay on the healer too long cause DPS or the tank don't get to them soon enough. Simply put, adds die faster if the group is closer together and you're in range of your next target. Once the boss is back immediately scatter a good 10 yards apart for the crystals, but during the burrow phase there is no reason not to be grouped up (a one shot attack that your healer or tank fails to dodge will kill them regardless of if they are 2 yards away from you or 100 yards away).