September 20, 2009
The deep end.
I heard something in guild chat last night which chilled me to the bone and summed up how I’ve been feeling about the game of late.
The comment, to one of our levelling warriors who will be flip-flopping MT/OT roles with me when we’re both ready was this (when discussing gearing up):
“Forget Naxx, just run heroics, gear up and get into Uld”.
I just stared at the screen in quiet disbelief…
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been running a lot of heroics the last week or so. For 2 reasons:
1) For emblems so I can greatly improve my gear’s ilevel and stats.
2) So I can learn to tank many and varied scenarios to help prep me for bigger and tougher encounters yet to come.
Seems to me that skipping Naxx and heading straight into Uld is a bit like taking your driving test having never actually driven a car before.
Ok, so many of the members of my guild have progressed through Naxx already and yes, they’re chomping at the bit for bigger and better things, but I still feel it’s a useful, valuable, if not vital experience for any up-and-coming player to make these progression runs.
Before WOTLK, my old guild had a “No Boosts” policy. This upset some players but was a necessary policy since it forced people to run dungeons in properly formed groups. This experience taught the principles of group mechanics and also let them learn how get the best out of their class to support the group’s success.
Now, when I enter an Heroic, 99% of the time people just want to run it as fast as they can, AOEing everything down ASAP and flexing their DPS Epeens for ‘easy emblems’…
Having blasted down everything in sight for a few weeks, then strapped on their shiny new ilevel 226 purples, they feel ready for Uld because “My DPS is 3k+”.
Whoop-de-doo. What’s the point in having earth shattering DPS if you don’t know how to behave in a group, can’t follow the RL’s instructions, repeatedly rip aggro off the MT making the healers work harder than necessary and causing wipe after wipe because you were too damned lazy to make appropriate progression runs to ensure you knew what the hell you were supposed to be doing in a raid group!!!
/sigh
Maybe, I said too much… maybe it wasn’t enough.
Rant over; need to run some more heroics then it’s off to Naxx at the earliest opportunity.
I’m not ready for Uld yet!
Q
September 17, 2009
Let’s talk about threat…
So I dinged 80 the other day, strapped on my shiny new Tempered Saronite plate and hit my 1st heroic. Actually, I’ve been hitting several heroics a day since I dinged and things have gone rather well.
The only times we’ve lost players (barring the inevitable 1 wipe in an Occulus PuG – on the last boss), I’m glad to say hasn’t been due to ‘New Tank Syndrome’. In all cases, it’s been due to players over DPSing.
I have a lvl80 warlock and I know all about threat management from a DPS point of view. In Affi spec, she trundles along, draining away, gaining threat slowly. In destro, she rockets to the top of omen in no time at all and I have to back her off before I aggro over the tank… it’s that simple.
Unfortunately, there are players out there who seem to have forgotten this golden rule of grouping and seem almost happy to tear into a pack of mobs, showing everyone their imba 3k+ DPS, right up until the moment their corpse lies in a heap at our feet.
So, rather than talk about my new gear and possible upgrades, I’d like to pause a moment and reflect on the gloriously underutilised theory of Threat Management.
What is Threat?
Threat is your potential to either harm the mob in question (by causing it damage), or to prevent the mob from harming your group mates (by healing them) and is a linear equation in most cases. It can be readily understood and formulated through game mechanics:
Given that Damage X Time (seconds) = DPS (Damage per Second), DPS X Time (Seconds) = TPS (Threat per Second).
Therefore:
1) The more damage you’re capable of doing, the higher your potential threat (unless you’re a tanky type with threat increasing talents such as Righteous Fury).
2) The faster you apply your DPS, the faster your potential threat is realised.
3) If your TPS consistently exceeds that of the tank, you will over-aggro and your actual threat will exceed his / hers.
4) If your threat exceeds that of your tank, the mob will hit you instead.
5) If the mob hits you, you will die… rapidly.
Group Mechanics
Tanks:
a) Generate massive amounts of threat through direct damage, damage over time and special abilities to ensure the target mobs attack them, and only them, leaving the DPSers to focus on killing and the healers to focus on keeping the tank alive.
b) Are heavy armour wearing brutes, usually with big shields.
c) Have enough Defence to prevent being critically hit
d) Have enough strength & block to absorb (mitigate) heavy blows when they land.
e) Have enough dodge & parry to get out of the way of (avoid) enough swings of the axe to make their healer’s job a whole lot easier.
Most DPSers:
a) Generate threat through direct damage and damage over time.
b) Are often light armour wearers.
c) Have low defence (so they’re just asking for a critical blow which may, in some cases, throw more damage in one hit than they have Hit Points).
d) Are squishy and die easily.
Healers:
a) Generate threat through the level of healing required to maintain the tank (and other party members where applicable). The easier their job, the lower their threat. If they have to consistently spam massive heals because of an under-geared tank, they will quickly over aggro.
b) Are squishy and die easily.
*Qirael’s Wall-of-text hits you for 32,486 (Critical)
* You die
What does it all mean and what can I do about it?
Here comes the fun part. Scenarios…
Scenario A.
Bad DPS, Down boy!
• Tank pulls group with Avenger’s shield (magic user marked with skull)
• Hunter immediately sends in pet (with Growl on) and starts spamming aimed shot
• Hunters pet gets aggro and dies
• Hunter gets aggro and dies
• Tank gets off a consecrate and starts to build some aggro
• Warlock spams Rain of Fire
• Melee mob peels off and turns toward Warlock
• Tank taunts back towards him
• Warlock panics due to unwanted attention and blows all CDs on melee mob before Tank can cause further damage to melee mob
• Warlock dies
• Etc…
Scenario B.
Aggro built up steadily over time.
• Tank pulls group with Avenger’s shield (magic user marked with skull)
• Hunter spots awkward target and misdirects onto Tank then turns pet lose on skull (growl turned off) and starts to DPS with focussed fire on skull until it dies, then turns to the next target (possibly marked, probably not if it’s trash), until all are dead
• Warlock lays down some DOTs and then starts DPS rotation on marked target. Once dead, switches to spamming Rain of Fire and Seed of Corruption to bring down the others (since by this time there’s so much aggro on the tank, it’ll take a week to pull them off
• Everyone lives!
And that’s really the long and the short of it. It’s like making love… Start off slowly, get a feel for each other, then increase the pace in perfect harmony until you reach a crescendo of blissful union.
Alternatively, keep showing your group mates how big your DPS Epeen is and don’t complain at your outrageous repair bills (and certainly don’t complain to the tank!).
Bye for now.
Q
September 2, 2009
In the beginning… well, towards the end really.
Qirael will soon be my 2nd lvl 80 character. I’ve played my ‘lock for a couple of years now and whilst I love her to bits, I’ve recently felt a burning desire to get up-close-and-personal rather than stand back leeching life from afar…
I rolled Qirael well over a year ago but left him in his 20s while I explored WOTLK content and subsequent patches. Then a week or so ago I decided to go back to him and level him up with a view to tanking for my guild.
I’m fast approaching 80 so having to start making serious decisions about rep and runs for gearing. It’s this portion of the journey that I’ll be recounting in these pages… hope you enjoy reading as much as I’ll enjoy sharing.
