Tuesday, December 15, 2009

A Farmer in the Dell (Heroic)


3.3 is now live along with the new LFG function, and bloggers worldwide rejoice: a spicey, new topic, fresh off the Blizzard Grill!

SHINEY!

And yes, this is a bandwagon I will happily jump on!

I don't know HOW many Heroics I have run, but it's been a bunch. I've managed to purchase one T9 (tier 9) piece; Turalyon's Gauntlets of Conquest.

If you're following with any interest, between the above purchase, and a few decent drops, my GS (per WoW-Heroes.com) is up to 1710.

(sorry about the fuzzy pic, Blogspot now "enhances" my embedded pics - click to see a clearer version)
Or, if you're more familiar with the Add-on scale, my GS is about 3,300.
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My performance is.... well.... adequate.
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I *DID* have one fight where I hit 4,000 DPS. I can't even remember which Heroic it was in, but I was accounting for ~40% of the total PuG party DPS. (I think I averaged about 3,000, and the next highest was averaging about 1,600)
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BUT, (again, lest good performance go to my head) I've had some fights (the several attempts at Malygos come to mind) where I'm still doing only 1,600. Ick.
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So, it's with a huge dose of Sad Furlbog® that I read in some other blogs (Righteous Orbs) that there are newly dinged 80s, in quest greens & blues that are pulling down ~2k. (a n00bcow in this case)
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So, enough about my "oobur leet geer"...
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Overall, I really can't complain about the new LFG tool. On my battlegroup, it's not uncommon to wait 5-10 minutes if I go in as a solo DPS. If it's later at night, I have waited for 20 minutes or longer.
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A funny anecdote about this. A guildie joins group with me (his main spec is DPS shammie) We sat in LFG for at least 10 minutes. He /p's "Watch this", and re-enters us into LFG, this time with him as healer. As soon as I click "accept", we get the invite. I mean literally within a second or less. Healers are always in demand. DPS? Not so much...

Anyhow, overall I'm pretty happy with the results and the experience. Here are a few observations and some circumstances that stick out.
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- Overall, the LFG *DOES* seem to take relative gear levels into account when creating a group and selecting the instance to put them in. I ran Nexus a bunch when it first started. Since, getting better gear, I've only been there once.
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- Halls of Lightening (HoL) is a bit tough, especially the second to last boss (Ionar) - those damnable crawling bits of electricity. The first time, Deadly Boss Mods (an add-on that gives on-screen prompts about the next type of attack) would give a warning, then -
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*nothing* and then MANY seconds later, I would find myself struggling to outrun the damnable balls of electric hell. I have since gotten better about avoiding them, but for a n00b, new to the fight, they were a MAJOR bitch. Loken was a breeze in comparison.
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- As SO many folks have said - the PuGs are are amazingly quiet. If it's a run that's new to me, I will usually follow for a trash fight or two to establish my DPS vs the group (and I'm usually mid pack) and THEN I'll ask "so, this is my first run through here... anything I need to know?" That will usually get a response, mostly "don't worry, just kill stuff." I have yet to be kicked from a group.
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- The other big comment of other bloggers (and I've commented about this even BEFORE 3.3) was how fast everyone runs through the instances. Only now, after 7 or 8 runs, can I say I know what to do, where to do it and how each fight goes. I had actually watched vids about Nexus, so even before I went in, I had SOME idea, but that was because I knew that was a "beginner Heroic", and that's where I spent my LFG time.
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One note regarding this last comment: with the random dungeon/raid aspect, it's impossible to know where you will be going. This means it is impossible to read up, watch a vid or two, and try to know what's up before going in. This creates a double ding against the new guys:
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1 - They are new. Their gear is "sub par" and since they JUST dinged 80, they won't be really familiar with all their abilities & spells. Ergo the reason they/we are called n00bs.
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2 - They can't possibly read up no all the possible raids they can go in. You
can't simply read the tactics on 5-10 instances and expect to be able to
retain any usable information. It ain't gonna happen. Hell, I've probably
actually GONE through several of them, and I have a hard time keeping
everything straight.
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So, not only are you the scrub new guy, your performance will be below simply because of gear, AND you're going in essentially blind with (often) a group of people that don't communicate, give pointers and probably don't want you there. Not very fun.
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That being said, I have yet to see any open hostility (as some bloggers have ) to anyone simply because their gear is poor. Hell, nobody has even mentioned GS in any of the PuGs I've been in. I've been in a group or two that were simply doomed because of being under geared. (ie, a healer can't expect to heal HoL if he/she is in greens, ESPECIALLY if the tank and one or two DPS are also on the blue/green side.
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But, I've also been the tail end charlie in a couple WAY over geared groups where even the healer has given me a run for the money in DPS. (which is quite humiliating, I might add) There was one run through Nexus that took all of 7 minutes or so, and it seemed like the healer didn't have to heal anyone except for me.
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One last raid of note - Kattastrophe & I enter LFG with both of us as DPS (her new preference) We get teamed up with a group of other low/medium geared folks in Culling of Strathlome.
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One note before I go further - I have tried tanking. I suck at it, and I realize it isn't easy. That being said, you can't out-gear the stupid debuff, if it's bad enough.
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For us, the tank kept running around playing with the trash undead, and kept ignoring the "real" trash, that are too difficult for a non-tank to stand toe-to-toe with. Even with a pretty well geared priest healer.
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The tank just would NOT pull the "big" guys.
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So, after the second wipe against the trash, the healer bails, and we start to vote to kick the tank. He actually leaves before we can, so in an attempt to stave disaster, I switch specs and gear and get ready to at least TRY tanking.
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We manage to get another tank & healer;
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The healer is nowhere near as good as the previous, but he/she is adequate.
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The tank is still less than ideal, but he at least knows what he SHOULD be doing, even if he does keep losing aggro.
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Fortunately, I hadn't changed back to my DPS spec/gear, so I just do my best to play the off tank (and still not doing all that well at it) but between us, we manage to get to the end, WITH Arthas alive (during that escort section, I focused on keeping aggro off him, and bubbling him as necessary), and take down the final boss.
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But seriously, that raid shouldn't be that tough.
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That was one fail PuG we had, and then we had another that fell apart (lost the doofus tank) even before the first trash mob was cleared. (I again switched over and tried tanking, but with a healer in greens & blues - it was destination: fail)
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Overall, I'll give the new LFG system a 4/5. Along with the relatively fast emblem acquisition, there's also the opportunity to tabard your way to a boatload of reputation.
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My only complaint is that the patch failed to address was fixing the jousting. I don't mind that the AI can be tough and smart, but these piss me off to no end:
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- AI that can shield break and charge WAY closer than I am able to.
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- AI that always seems to be on the winning side of any latency. I can go from 3 shields to zero in about 3 seconds, after 1 shield break and some melee. (and my shield timer was still over 30 seconds)
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- AI that refuses to stay ANYWHERE near the field of play, opting instead to go out of bounds, forcing me to either follow (and DQ) or stay in bounds and be shield broken to death (with an occasional charge thrown in for good measure) And even if they don't go out of bounds, they seem to take evil delight getting me stuck on tent poles, fences, torches or any other obstacles.
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Seriously, I could handle tougher AI (more health? smarter?) if only they would play by the same set of rules that I'm bound to play by.

3 comments:

  1. (I am having hell with open ID atm so excuse the weird comment tagging - it's still definitely me!)

    I think I must have over-sold Noobcow - we ran a bunch of instances and I remember his DPS flucutating between 1.7k and 2.8k - which to me (being a DPS noob) comes out somewhere in the 2k mark. DPS isn't exactly static, and definitely not if you were gearing with the speed Noobcow was. Also I was whispering the tacs to him frantically as we went - the speed being occasionally a bit much for his cowfeet.

    Glad you're having relative success with the Sanity Tap - and I'm really really glad you've had positive experiences and nobody has been arbitrarily bastardly to you. That's the way it should be, dammit.

    Also never feel humiliated because you're at the bottom of the DPS meter - as long as you're putting out damage in keeping with your gear score, you have absolutely nothing to feel bad about and anybody who thinks otherwise is a pillock. I think most sensible players respect people who milk the most out of what they've got, instead of over-gearing but playing like a fool.

    Ionar is actually one of my favourite bosses - I don't know why I just find running away from the zaps really fun. I think the trick is not to worry about your DPS output in that fight (everybody's hits the floor) and commmit to running away - right back into the statue corridor - if necessary. I think lots of melee DPS have psychological issues with how far and how fast you have to run (noooo! must be hitting with mah sword!!!) but try to break your instincts and I think you'll find it much more fun :)

    Also: jousting top tips: always use charge before shield breaker, once you've charged and you're coming round, hurl a shieldbreaker, close to melee, beat them over the head until they back away, charge, shieldbreak, melee, rinse repeat. It beats even the most unforgiving of lag spikes :) It's not graceful or stylish but it seems to work!

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  2. Is it my blog that's causing problems with your ID? I *tried* to get it open for anyone to reply, but I'm not sure how that went.

    Great tip on the Joust! I still win 99% of the time (that the AI doesn't leave) but I'll have to try that, simply to speed things up!

    As for the humiliating bit, well, it's not any particular raid that does this, but seeing/hearing about folks that WAY under gear me that are/were matching my output. I do my utmost to "do all the right things" (gem, enchant, rotation, etc) and seeing comparable classes doing better with worse gear leaves me a bit dumbfounded.

    I realize that ranged DPS will generally do better than melee, (for a number of reasons - staying on target being one) especially in fights like Ionar where we melee have to spend so much time running. I'm a space goat, so "hoofing it" is second nature ;)

    As for n00bcow and his damage; it wasn't until I got my first Tier 9 piece that I could reliably beat his numbers. And even now, with even more good bits, I still have a number of "normal" fights in the <2k range. Lady RNG and crits play a big role, obviously.

    Anyhow, thanks so much for your input/response... Always appreciated!

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  3. No, it's not your blog it's 34sp, it's decided for my own security comfort I cans not have open id *wah*.

    I used to hate jousting so much so I've got it down to a fine art of ... well ... okay I still hate it, but I hate it *less*. Also there are quite a few Argent Tournie bits of crap I rather want so it looks like I'll be jousting a fair way into the future. Gah.

    Also do not trust on me on DPS numbers, I rarely interrogate recount the way I should - I check to make sure folks aren't doing, um, like 500dps or something but then I round up and round down and come out with a vague-ish figure. Chances are I'll remember 2.6k as NEARLY 3k which it isn't =P

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