PST - Episode 29

[Lore]

This week:
- How can I tell if my DPS is slacking?
- Why only dual spec?
- Why does Blizzard let new 85s gear up so quickly now?
- What defines 'casual'?
- Would 'casual legendaries' that are replaced by raiding gear be acceptable?
- Has the dungeon finder made recruitment harder?
- Why do we have both Dodge and Parry?
- How can I know when my guild is ready to start raiding?
- Do Conquest points reset with a new patch?
- What do the different colors of Tier 12 armor mean?
- What's with the staring contest going on behind you?

[Rowdy]

So instead of providing enough content that players don´t quit in droves (between BT and SWP for example) because of boredom, its better to sack any progression and just throw everyone right into endgame raiding? I feel like that is treating a symtom instead of the (root of) the probelm

[Therec]

So instead of providing enough content that players don´t quit in droves (between BT and SWP for example) because of boredom, its better to sack any progression and just throw everyone right into endgame raiding? I feel like that is treating a symtom instead of the (root of) the probelm

Blizzard has a nasty habit of treating the symptom and not the problem. Usually due to resource issues or the fact that the problem lies inherently in the basic 6 year code of the game.

I would say the major cause of boredom and people quitting this time around isn't the lack of content, there's just not much new and innovating at higher levels.

BC had heroic dungeons, jewelcrafting, 2 new races, horde pallys and alliance shaman, 10 levels and 7 new zones to explore.

WotLK had death knights, 10 levels, 9 zones, inscription, 10 and 25 man raiding for each tier, wintergrasp and the achievement system.

Cata had 2 new races, 5 levels, 5 zones, and that's it. Blizzard put too much stock into people creating new alts and playing through all the new quests in the old zones, but the fact was that while waiting for cataclysm, everyone had made enough alts and did not feel that new quests were enough incentive to start over again. Not to mention that with all the xp buffs leveling to outland took less than a week.
The new dungeons were nothing that BC and WotLK hadn't done, Tol Barad was not balanced well at the beginning so it wasn't fun for most people. Same with the new BGs. Arena was the same, end game raiding took even less time since there was no more 10/25 separate lockouts. Raiding time was further diminished for most guilds at the beginning when 75% of people were wiping for months on Magmaw. The fact was that after the first month, there was nothing to do for more than 3 days a week even if you wanted to play more.

Oh yeah forgot about Archeology, mostly b/c I blocked it out of my memory after fruitlessly trying to get my staff to drop for 2 months. It basically sums up the expansion for a lot of players. Excitement, turned into frustration, turned into boredom, and finally giving up and quitting.

[Loganisis]

I joined in Wrath, so I've only heard bits about gearing, but wasn't TBC gearing:

Get drops from raid A -> Get token upgrades from raid B -> Get token upgrades for raid C, repeat to Sunwell? So gearing new raiders wasn't just running with them to gear them up, it was run raid after raid waiting for RNG to gear them because you needed tokens? At least for some tier slots?

And if you do go back to where players can't gear up at a reasonable pace - you don't get new players mid-expansion. You know how hard it was to find solid Naxx/Uldar raids (outside of the weekly) in Wrath?

I think you're connecting 2 issues that aren't directly related.

Putting content out 'quickly' enough is an issue for geared players. Getting geared when you start late is a separate issue - and not connected any way, shape, or or form, to how quickly content is released. How quickly a new player looking to reach end game can is just a separate issue.

[Vrashnar]

Get drops from raid A -> Get token upgrades from raid B -> Get token upgrades for raid C, repeat to Sunwell? So gearing new raiders wasn't just running with them to gear them up, it was run raid after raid waiting for RNG to gear them because you needed tokens? At least for some tier slots?

Yes and No, in my experience at least, if say we were in BT progression and we had an app from a good player who was in Kara gear it was very easy to accommodate him/her for two reasons: 1) In a 4 day schedule, depending how deep into BT we were, we typically would spend 1 day doing tier 5 content to get the few items our raiders needed but due to RNG still hadnt gotten and so that person could get gear from there and 2) the gap wasn't so large between gear that it was impossible to carry 1 dps doing 800 when the rest of us where doing 12-1400. Enrage timers weren't as strict also helped here. So it was easier to carry someone into the guilds current progression content. Much more so than trying to carry someone in Naxx gear into ToC content would have been, for example.

I do understand Sunwell was different though, I never saw it but apparently you needed geared and skilled players for that. Like had been through at least early BT kinda thing.

[trigger]

2 weeks to get gear? kinda surprised to hear that. Since you can do the zandalari instances over and over and over again u get gear extremely quickly. And you do actually get caught up through the valor system aswell since the valor gear is from the current raid not the previous one if u get me.

For example when firelands comes out the will move all the valor gear to justice points. Which you can get as much as u need and if I spend 1 day getting lots of justice points and buy that gear. Iam caught up with the rest except for just a few items. Am I not?

The only problem I think in TBC was that u couldn't do all the raids in a 10 man version which made it hard for "casuals" to go any further then kara.

I also very much agree with Rowdy!

[GuiltyBystander]

Here's the official response to why we don't have tri-spec.
http://www.wowhead.com/bluetracker?topic=1710234234

[Loganisis]

Here's the official response to why we don't have tri-spec.
http://www.wowhead.com/bluetracker?topic=1710234234

And it's still as wrong and full of BS now as it was then... but that threat got locked XD

[Jassinar]

Anyone notice the moth at 23:18?

[Jassinar]

And at 26:41.

[swelt]

2 weeks to get gear? kinda surprised to hear that. Since you can do the zandalari instances over and over and over again u get gear extremely quickly. And you do actually get caught up through the valor system aswell since the valor gear is from the current raid not the previous one if u get me.

For example when firelands comes out the will move all the valor gear to justice points. Which you can get as much as u need and if I spend 1 day getting lots of justice points and buy that gear. Iam caught up with the rest except for just a few items. Am I not?

The only problem I think in TBC was that u couldn't do all the raids in a 10 man version which made it hard for "casuals" to go any further then kara.

I also very much agree with Rowdy!

You can't even queue for Zandalari dungeons til you have a certain ilvl, right? So that's a period of heroic farming + BOE buying first. If we are talking about a genuine new player, they won't have thousands of gold to throw at the gear-up challenge, so I think a period of weeks is entirely reasonable estimate unless you are getting boosted. And when you do, your gear will still be worse than an active raider. There is no way to get tier 11 heroic gear other than to kill tier 11 heroic bosses. The best you can get without raiding (and with a ton of farming) is entry level for the upcoming tier (with ZA/ZG being all about letting people gear up ready for heroic t11 and firelands).

I am absolutely with Lore on saying that the old progression was a nightmare for guilds. Guilds were basically forced to feed off one another, as the only way to recruit players was to take them from other guilds where they had acquired entry level gear. Guilds that couldn't do that were forced to continue to farm content long after it stopped being fun just because they needed to gear up players lost to churn. It was just a huge headache, and most people that bitch about it changing were either not part of a guild at the time, not involved in the organisation of one, or simply have rose tinted glasses. These days, a skilled and committed player has a shot of catching up mid-expansion without the guild having to bend over backwards to accomodate them.

[feralminded]

Oh it definitely helped guilds but it has hurt the amount of relevant content at a time. Honestly blizzard should endeavor to try and keep 2 tiers relevant at a time just so we have more content that matters ... either that or give us more raid content. At the end of WoTLK there were ~2 tiers of active content (ToC still gave better gear (245s) than you got from doing heroics/dailies (232s) and this is when GDKP runs become super popular) and it caused there to be a fairly rich amount of active raiding at any one time. Right now all signs point towards there only ever being a single active tier at a time ... which gives us a very VERY thin amount of relevant things to do. I concur that it was terrible back at the end of BC but I think they have swung too far the opposite direction this time and are simply giving us too little to do. A compromise can be found and hopefully they land on it sooner than later.

[trigger]

You can't even queue for Zandalari dungeons til you have a certain ilvl, right? So that's a period of heroic farming + BOE buying first. If we are talking about a genuine new player, they won't have thousands of gold to throw at the gear-up challenge, so I think a period of weeks is entirely reasonable estimate unless you are getting boosted. And when you do, your gear will still be worse than an active raider. There is no way to get tier 11 heroic gear other than to kill tier 11 heroic bosses. The best you can get without raiding (and with a ton of farming) is entry level for the upcoming tier (with ZA/ZG being all about letting people gear up ready for heroic t11 and firelands).

I am absolutely with Lore on saying that the old progression was a nightmare for guilds. Guilds were basically forced to feed off one another, as the only way to recruit players was to take them from other guilds where they had acquired entry level gear. Guilds that couldn't do that were forced to continue to farm content long after it stopped being fun just because they needed to gear up players lost to churn. It was just a huge headache, and most people that bitch about it changing were either not part of a guild at the time, not involved in the organisation of one, or simply have rose tinted glasses. These days, a skilled and committed player has a shot of catching up mid-expansion without the guild having to bend over backwards to accomodate them.

You can convert your honor into justice to get enough gear to sign for zandalari instances which is extremely leniant when it comes to req ilvl. Ofc you wont have the same gear as a raider but my point was that you have caught up enough to raid in the same tier as they already are.

I also do understand the problem high end raiders have but I think only having one "active tier" is just stupid. It effectivly reduces stuff to do thus making it easier to make the arguement that there is a lack content even though there isn't one.

I also dont think that having a heroic mode is the same as having a new instance. Its still the same boss in the same instance only harder. But that is just my opinion.

[gundecker]

- How can I tell if my DPS is slacking?

This is kind of a toss up.

As a fury warrior, a vast majority of guilds know that a fury warrior is capable of high damage output. In cataclysm, it's very difficult to attain high output as a fury warrior without a hand of salvation from a paladin, on top of the tank getting tricks of the trade and a misdirect. With that, I feel it is foolish for another ret paladin with similar damage to use his salve on me and potentially lower his output to boost mine. A holy pally can salve me, but the 2-3 seconds it takes to salve me can mean gibbing a tank or the tank having to use a cooldown early...just to boost one player's damage output. Really, the only time I feel it's viable to salve me is if there's a prot pally in the raid. Even then, if you're farming bosses, why is there a need to boost damage? For bragging rights, really. You might as well neglect an encounter's mechanics and stand in fires and stuff too if you want to brag about your dps.

If we're on a progression boss and we continuously wipe on a boss at 1% due to hitting enrage, maybe then working a salve on me into the mix would be considered. That's if everyone else is squeezing every ounce of output from their gear as humanly possible. Until then, there's really no need for me to take one.

In general, do the following to maintain consistent damage:

-make sure you have a spec that will maximize your damage in accordance with your gear level and an encounter
-use a threat meter (omen)
-ensure your gear is gemmed and enchanted correctly
-maintain a sound rotation
-use an addon to track procs and cooldowns. Save your CD's for when you have as many procs up as possible (be cautious with this!)
-prepot
-be aware of an encounter's mechanics and execute an encounter correctly (don't pretend to have a pocket healer)

On a fight like Nefarian with MC's, use some common sense and be aware of when electrocutes hit. Don't break your MC late if you're going to be far away from a barrier when electrocute goes off. You're stressing your healers and taking heals that should be going to a tank or someone that really needs it...like frost mage, rogue, or hunter. Understand that you stacking your stolen powers buff and doing 33k dps doesn't mean anything if healing you up unnecessarily resulted in a tank getting gibbed. Use caution and execute the fight correctly and safely until you're able to hit the enrage timer. At this point, you can begin to let loose gradually as you'll know what you and everyone else in th raid are capable of.

No one cares if you do 38k dps and take just as much damage as one of your tanks. People will respect you more if you do 34k dps and take the least amount of damage.


To compare yourself to other raiders in your class to see what you can do to maximize your dps on each fight, view the rankings on WoL and assess one's rotation and procs and compare it to yours. There are some fights like Chimaeron where I can use 'Inner Rage' to boost my output safely and others where I can't due to rage lock or aggro. By looking at WoL, you can determine this.

Doing all of this will help you to become a better raider as well as maintaining consistent damage.

Big Tookee