Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Helter Skelter, and this is FaceRolling?


When I'm in a group, and we're starting a Boss fight, my cast order looks like the following:


- Sacred Shield
- Avenging Wrath
- Judgement (wisdom) as I run into the fray - range = 10 yards
- Crusader strike
- Divine Storm
- Exorcism (if AoW procced, if not, skip)
- Consecration
- Crusader Strike
- Judgement
- Divine Plea
...
...
...
.
Bascially running down "FCFS" (first come first serve) using my action bar as shown above. If two spells are available, use the one to the left. (again, as viewed on my action bar)
.
For the occasional Boss, this is the entire fight, and it's pretty easy. (ie, a "faceroll")
.
But, that is pretty rare. Usually it looks/sounds more like:
.
- Sacred Shield
- Avenging Wrath
- Judgement (wisdom) as I run into the fray - range = 10 yards
- Crusader strike
- Divine Storm
- Exorcism (if AoW procced, if not, skip)
- Consecration
- Crusader Strike
SHIT!!! HE MOVED!!
-Turn
-Run over to the boss
-get into rotation
-SHIT! I'M IN THE FIRE!!!
-run out of the fire
-heal
CRAP I'VE GOT AGGRO!
-Hand of Salvation
ADDS on the HEALER!
-Righteous Defense
TANKS POISONED!
-Cleanse
-back to rotation
TOO MANY ADDS!!!
-Bubble
-Lay on Hands
-Run back to Boss
-Restart Rotation
-CRAP! MANA!
-Divine Plea
-back to rotation
-BOSS DIES!
.
THAT is more "the norm" for the raid Boss fights I've been in. And in PvP, it's even more complicated.
.
HOW IS THAT FACEROLLING?!?!?!?!?
.
I sit & watch range DPS do their pew-pew, and the healers clicking on Healbot, whilest I'm foundering around trying to do 3, 4 or more things in different directions, while still trying to "do my job" (DPS)
.
All the while, I read "Retpal = faceroll" and I get pissed.
.
And to make things worse (and my fault - no blame here) I don't have Vent, so I *should* be reading the battle text.
.
Except there's no frikkin way I can.
.
During a lul in a recent ToC fight, I noticed the phrase "Well, have Balth bubble you". I have no clue when that was typed or who I was supposed to bubble (or with which bubble, we have 3)
.
Sorry for the rant... and maybe it's just because I'm still pretty dang new to all out, balls-to-the-wall fights, but calling this class "super easy" is just mid boggling.
.
EDIT - drat... formatting is all cattywompus again, so I had to use periods to separate the paragraphs

6 comments:

  1. Hey,
    thanks for your comment on my rep guide :)
    I too have been thinking about whether some of the classic factions will be "achievable" post patch, Timbermaw, Wintersaber, perhaps the old raid reps like Hydraxian Waterlords and the Brood.
    It's currently an unknown which makes them more important! (for me, at least!)
    Just as a side note, my blog has actually moved now, I'm self-hosted at http://www.view-through-branches.com, so I've imported your comment across :P
    Thanks
    Elsenx

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  2. Hmmmm...looks like you're compensating for poor performance from the people around you. I mean, you shouldn't have to be healing yourself and controlling adds and cleansing. The thing about DPS is that the best DPS, as far as I've seen, have a wider understanding of their role than pewpew - that is, they have good situational awareness, and get out fire, and basically bring a lot of utility to a raid or instance. And it's great that you are that DPS but you shouldn't be that DPS to the extent that you're running around fixing a raid while everybody else stands back, sipping drinks with paper umbrellas in them.

    Also, not the point of the post I know, but the shot of your action bar traumatises me. Is that the standard Blizzard one? Please please please get Dominos (or bartender if you must). I'm trying to link you but your comment box won't let me, lest I am spam, but go to WoWcurse, search for Dominos. You will be a much happier ret-paladin, I promise. It's an action bar add-on which removes the Blizzard standard one and lets you have as many action bars as you like, anywhere you like. It's wonderfully flexible, simple to use and it'll also help you control your keybindings, by tying them directly to the action buttons.

    Also bear in mind that I know very little about this and you shouldn't listen to me over-much, I personally find running down the action bar FCFS a rather cumbersome way to DPS. I usually use buttons 1-4 *only*, coupled with Shift+1-4 and control+1-4, if that makes sense. So the things I cast at the beginning of a fight I have on Shift 1, 2, 3, 4 (FCFS), and the main rotation I have on 1-4. Emergency buttons I bind to keys close to my movement keys (r, for example, is my main OH SHIT button, I know whatever character I'm on, whatever spec I'm in, if I hit r something good will happen).

    Sorry this is probably unhelpful and random advice ... but I reckon if you're not constantly running up and down your action, you'll find doing multiple jobs a lot easier. I don't know how into add-ons you are, but jadedalt is a massive add-on user and has some wonderfully detailed posts on the subject.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Okay, sorry about that Dominos Frenzy of Love - I went through your archives in search of a screenshot and the shot of the Blizzard action bar was *a lie* =P I couldn't imagine that someone who interrogates recount as intensely as you do would not have about a million action bars :) Obviously we all have our own ways of doing but I don't know if some general UI revisitation would make life easier - generally I find hanging around on the right side of the keyboard (I've never use the '0', let alone the '= key for anything ever) really awkward but that's probably just me :)

    Also I totally derailed this post - what I should have been saying is: indeed, yes, life of a ret paladin is hard and under-appreciated :)

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  4. Thanks for the replies!

    @ Elsen - My pleasure... I found your site was linked to mine (the wordpress one) so that's where I ended up. Bookmarks will be changed! :)

    @ Tam - You've inspired my next post! My UI *IS* a mess, but I did make some changes recently (ie, having my spells in proper FCFS order, per elitist jerks) so that I just click the "lit up" spell furthest to the left.

    The sad thing is that all those spells (bindings 5-0) are "the usual". in terms of how many there are. (though #5, Hammer of Wrath only cmoes up with enemy at <20%)

    As for my "compensating" ;), well, maybe... sometimes. A big part of it goes into how I play, the fights I've been in mch of which includes my own failings...(OK, you've inspired *2* posts... I'll get his part answered in the first post...

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  5. I had the same thought as tamarind: You're doing much more, than your average DPSer will do.
    With most DPS I'm usually thrilled if they manage to stay out of the fire or switch damage to adds when needed.

    I don't know that much about you, but what I've gathered from your blog, you haven't grouped dungeons a lot. So I assume that you don't have that level of trust yet, which is needed in a group.
    For me it was the same, when I started running PUGs - I always thought like "omg the tanks health is dropping really low, the healer must have some problems, need to heal him" or "omg the tank probably didn't notice those adds going for the healer, need to spot them"

    In some groups these thoughts are actually the case, but normally people will do their jobs. And yours is to kill things... fast. ;-)

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  6. Well, "doing" might be a bit of a strong word... lol "attempting is more like it.

    Part of my being overly concerned comes from reading other blogs that discuss all these intricate fights, and so on, where simply doing DPS isn't enough....

    As for my dungeon/raid experience, you're dead on. I've only run one "large" dungeon (Magtheridon) which we ~15 manned with a bunch of 75-80 level folks.

    Other than that, it's been, ohhh, about a dozen 5 man raids? So yeah, not a whole lot of experience in "real" groups...

    ReplyDelete