The Like/Hate thread (WoW)

[Majicka]

I see what you did there.

The problem with WoW is that there's only one "right" way to do anything in the endgame. However, unless you are a complete retard, you can google and find the "right" way. I'm sure that at some point, someone had to trial and error their way through these endgame dungeons with different equips and specs until they found one that worked. It's possible. You don't "need" guides to tell you how to play, you don't "need" other players to tell you how to play, but I'm willing to bet that it's really helpful. That's why they make strategy guides for games. They can help you figure something out, but you don't need them.

QFT

[Milk Bubble]

I see what you did there.

The problem with WoW is that there's only one "right" way to do anything in the endgame. However, unless you are a complete retard, you can google and find the "right" way. I'm sure that at some point, someone had to trial and error their way through these endgame dungeons with different equips and specs until they found one that worked. It's possible. You don't "need" guides to tell you how to play, you don't "need" other players to tell you how to play, but I'm willing to bet that it's really helpful. That's why they make strategy guides for games. They can help you figure something out, but you don't need them.

Do you remember in the Factions expansion of Guild Wars where they had that optional quest to teach you how to play your class? It had little quests to teach you to chain skills and how to interrupt and such.

They should put something like that in WoW.

[Kole T. Merr]

I agree that Guild Wars did lots of things right. However, you can't deny that there are guides upon guides of builds and strategies to use for certain end-game dungeons. It's possible to do it without the guides, but again, unless you're a retard, you can find a guide.

[Milk Bubble]

I agree that Guild Wars did lots of things right. However, you can't deny that there are guides upon guides of builds and strategies to use for certain end-game dungeons. It's possible to do it without the guides, but again, unless you're a retard, you can find a guide.

Welp, considering they don't link to them in game, and there isn't really anything in game that says "You should probably read a guide on how to play your class or how to do this dungeon", most people skip it until someone in game tells them to.

[Ashe]

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/learn

Everyone knows about this, right?

So how many people do you think go to that, compared to how many people see this?

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/guide/

And I'm not going to comment on the first part, because I don't want to make you feel "guilty and depressed" more. Because I'm not an ass.

I'm going to be 100% honest here, and this is not to be an ass or anything.

That's the first time I've looked at either of those links. Might be cool to look through sometime.

But something about both games - I've learned nearly anything I know about them from 3rd party information by the community. It tends to be how most games go because official forums are cesspools and even the official site info is usually outdated just like our own info tends to be. One thing I even wish about City of Heroes is that there were areas of info even half as detailed and useful as that found on Elitist Jerks, but its a different style of game as well (although finding Earth/Storm Controller info is fucking annoying, and almost always very out of date - better off just looking Earth Controllers and Storm Defenders and trying to merge that in your mind).

[Ashe]

QFT

I actually want to slightly disagree with the quoted comment, though not much. While there is technically one "right" way, if you run raids with different groups, there are many differences in how every guild might do an encounter. The general thought process tends to be similar, but there are still fairly strong differences in execution - with each group strongly defending the method that best fits their specific group.

Example - the Al'akir fight, where you fight what amounts to a gigantic tornado boss, has a phase three where he obliterates all of the platform that your team is standing on and you get caught by wind currents and fly in the air. He'll then, every few seconds or whatever, summon an electrical cloud where the group is that will quickly kill anyone still in the could while they fight him by hitting the people with a chain lightning (I might be getting specific details wrong as its been a while since I've played and as long as you avoid the clouds, its irrelevant what they do).

A lot of guides will say that as soon as the fight starts, get your entire raid to fly to the bottom of your movable space and wait for the lightning cloud, then press space and fly straight up an inch or two everytime a new cloud appears, which will let you keep the clouds below you until you reach the top, hopefully letting you win by then.

The guild I was instead insisted on flying to the very top and moving down, not too different (though frustrating to me because I didn't have "swim down" bound, but did have a "jump" key bound, so I had to angle down to fly and then straighten the camera back out to see the clouds when they appeared) but they strongly had their reasons for it (of which I don't even remember, but it was apparently very important. Didn't ultimately matter to me as long as we all did it together).

Other guilds found that you could fly to the bottom, wait for a cloud, fly up a bit, wait for another cloud, then fly all the way to the top, trigger that one, then down a bit, trigger it (D - C - A - B) then all the way back to the bottom (the lower ones had despawned by now or something). Not entirely certain if I explained that accurately.

---

Quite a few of the current fights have multiple ways that the fights are done as long as your group can do it well. Some group makeups prefer to kite the skeletons in the Nefarion encounter the entire time, using zero slows or cc so that the kiter can keep the most control so a skelly doesn't lose aggro and go one shot people from the buffs, hopefully avoiding them getting flame buffs by kiting around fires and despawning them a bit. Other groups are so cc heavy that they prefer to focus heavily on chain ccing the skellies despite the fires constantly breaking it, which means that if they can't get a cc instantly (and I mean literally cast - break - cast - break - no pause in between, no "wait four seconds and cc again" but as soon as one goes up, it breaks, do again, staggered), the skellies have been standing in the flames that buff them since they haven't been moved, which leads to possibly one shotting people back to back if done wrong. I've also seen mage/warlock teams kite them around using frost nova and shadowfury and avoiding getting hit as opposed to a tank kiting them but taking the occasional hit for the sake of better control.

As long as the general strategy of "Don't let these skeletons hit your team" or "don't stay in the lightning cloud" is followed, you'll beat the encounter, but its up to your raid group to find the exact method of doing so that best fits them.

Actually, I've rarely seen two raid groups use the same style in every encounter (Atramedes the Blind Dragon can be tanked against the wall or as my last guild did it, tanked in the middle with everyone spread in specific positions with specific locations for the beam target to run - back in BC I was very thrown off when we did Netherspite with another group since they tanked the beams and positioned very differently from what I was accustomed to).

[Kole T. Merr]

Welp, considering they don't link to them in game, and there isn't really anything in game that says "You should probably read a guide on how to play your class or how to do this dungeon", most people skip it until someone in game tells them to.

The game doesn't NEED to tell you to read a guide. If you've tried the dungeon, you can see that you either did okay and you try again making slight tweaks yourself, or you realize that you did awful and may need some assistance. And when you realize you need assistance, you can either A. Go to the game's community (because it's an MMO and there's actual PEOPLE that can help) or B. Go to Google.

It's pretty much common sense that if something is too difficult, you can try to get help. If you're having trouble with math tests, you can study more or find a tutor. The math book doesn't have to tell you to study.

[Milk Bubble]

The game doesn't NEED to tell you to read a guide. If you've tried the dungeon, you can see that you either did okay and you try again making slight tweaks yourself, or you realize that you did awful and may need some assistance. And when you realize you need assistance, you can either A. Go to the game's community (because it's an MMO and there's actual PEOPLE that can help) or B. Go to Google.

It's pretty much common sense that if something is too difficult, you can try to get help. If you're having trouble with math tests, you can study more or find a tutor. The math book doesn't have to tell you to study.

As it stands now, in Cataclysm, most people don't do what you just said. PUG raids and heroics are such a nightmare because people don't read up on what to do on the fights, and you pretty much NEED to now if you are not way over geared for it.

[Kole T. Merr]

Then that's their problem. The game doesn't need to tell you "Hey, you better practice your interrupts because there's a boss that you should interrupt coming up."

If you're too dumb to take the time and look ahead at what's coming or to get help if you're bad, then I guess it's a good thing you're playing WoW instead of a game that I actually care about.

[Milk Bubble]

In other news,

Hate: Wiping on Chimaeron forever because no one told me you only had to heal people up to 10k after Massacre. So I kept trying to heal people to full during that time period, OOPS. All was forgiven though, since that has been my only screw up since.

Like: Getting automatic phat loots in raids because I'm the only shaman.

My armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/bl...ste/simple

But I logged out in my enhance set I'm working on, so check back when it says my spec is resto I guess. I also need to go buy some enchants, I forgot to before I logged out after raiding.

[Kole T. Merr]

http://www.crusaderscoliseum.com/catacly...on-tactics

[Milk Bubble]

http://www.crusaderscoliseum.com/catacly...on-tactics

Yes, and I was going to look up the fights, but no one told me I needed to, as our raid leader is fairly good at explaining them. He just forgot to mention the one part about the 10k health thing.

[Majicka]

I actually want to slightly disagree with the quoted comment, though not much. While there is technically one "right" way, if you run raids with different groups, there are many differences in how every guild might do an encounter. The general thought process tends to be similar, but there are still fairly strong differences in execution - with each group strongly defending the method that best fits their specific group.

Example - the Al'akir fight, where you fight what amounts to a gigantic tornado boss, has a phase three where he obliterates all of the platform that your team is standing on and you get caught by wind currents and fly in the air. He'll then, every few seconds or whatever, summon an electrical cloud where the group is that will quickly kill anyone still in the could while they fight him by hitting the people with a chain lightning (I might be getting specific details wrong as its been a while since I've played and as long as you avoid the clouds, its irrelevant what they do).

A lot of guides will say that as soon as the fight starts, get your entire raid to fly to the bottom of your movable space and wait for the lightning cloud, then press space and fly straight up an inch or two everytime a new cloud appears, which will let you keep the clouds below you until you reach the top, hopefully letting you win by then.

The guild I was instead insisted on flying to the very top and moving down, not too different (though frustrating to me because I didn't have "swim down" bound, but did have a "jump" key bound, so I had to angle down to fly and then straighten the camera back out to see the clouds when they appeared) but they strongly had their reasons for it (of which I don't even remember, but it was apparently very important. Didn't ultimately matter to me as long as we all did it together).

Other guilds found that you could fly to the bottom, wait for a cloud, fly up a bit, wait for another cloud, then fly all the way to the top, trigger that one, then down a bit, trigger it (D - C - A - B) then all the way back to the bottom (the lower ones had despawned by now or something). Not entirely certain if I explained that accurately.

---

Quite a few of the current fights have multiple ways that the fights are done as long as your group can do it well. Some group makeups prefer to kite the skeletons in the Nefarion encounter the entire time, using zero slows or cc so that the kiter can keep the most control so a skelly doesn't lose aggro and go one shot people from the buffs, hopefully avoiding them getting flame buffs by kiting around fires and despawning them a bit. Other groups are so cc heavy that they prefer to focus heavily on chain ccing the skellies despite the fires constantly breaking it, which means that if they can't get a cc instantly (and I mean literally cast - break - cast - break - no pause in between, no "wait four seconds and cc again" but as soon as one goes up, it breaks, do again, staggered), the skellies have been standing in the flames that buff them since they haven't been moved, which leads to possibly one shotting people back to back if done wrong. I've also seen mage/warlock teams kite them around using frost nova and shadowfury and avoiding getting hit as opposed to a tank kiting them but taking the occasional hit for the sake of better control.

As long as the general strategy of "Don't let these skeletons hit your team" or "don't stay in the lightning cloud" is followed, you'll beat the encounter, but its up to your raid group to find the exact method of doing so that best fits them.

Actually, I've rarely seen two raid groups use the same style in every encounter (Atramedes the Blind Dragon can be tanked against the wall or as my last guild did it, tanked in the middle with everyone spread in specific positions with specific locations for the beam target to run - back in BC I was very thrown off when we did Netherspite with another group since they tanked the beams and positioned very differently from what I was accustomed to).

Do you still play wow often? Honestly, I'm getting burned out on raiding, and I hate res gear pvp, so, I don't do that often.

[Belle Hibiki]

Currently have an 85 Enhancement/Elemental Shaman (main in Cata and BC, raider), Blood/Frost DK (ex-main from WotLK, over 5k chievo points), 85 Holy Pally, 85 Beast Mastery Hunter, 85 Sub Rogue, 85 Fury Warrior, 80 Frost Mage, another 80 Fury Warrior (don't ask), 75 Disc/Shadow Priest, and a 70 Demonology Warlock. Those are on my main server, Twisting Nether. I also have a 56 Druid on Tichondrius that I haven't touched in a while.

So, you know, I have some experience.

And in my opinion, what Milk has stated about the game is completely true: some of the mechanics of your class just flat out don't get taught or come up during the course of leveling. Shamans forget they have Purge, Mages fail to realize they can Spellsteal, both forget they have interrupts. The incoming damage while they were leveling are so inconsequential that new players probably just ignore it, OR assume that someone else will do it.

Is PvP an answer? Can it teach people? It used to. I certainly didn't start using all the tools in my Shaman's particular kit nearly as well until I had some good ol' fun at level 60 AV. This was Burning Crusade, though, and people didn't have another two expansion's worth of padding to their abilities. PvP at lower levels is such a fucking joke now that most sane people just skip it unless they have some kind of fetish for getting one-shotted by Rogues. Which is a pity, because one of the most valuable lessons you can learn in PvP is how useful it can be to watch a target's cast bar and interrupt heals.

So it's entirely understandable that some players reach max level not knowing this shit. Does that excuse repeatedly refusing NOT learning it when it's apparent they should? Nope, not that either.

The fault is really with both Blizzard and the players; the former for not making any effort or encouragement to teach, the latter for failing to adapt. Even if you weren't taught, these aren't hard lessons. There are nuances to be sure ("Hey, wait to use your CC until the Hunter trap goes down, because his is a pain in the ass to use in combat"), but they're pretty basic.

The culture of shifting responsibility onto other people needs to go.

[Milk Bubble]

Mmhmm, my guild is still recruiting for 25 mans, so we have to often PUG a few people in for them. Every single raid you can hear my raid leader scream on Mumble (yeah we use Mumble) "INTERRUPT THIS! FOR FUCKS SAKE, SOMEONE INTERRUPT HIM! OH MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU NOT INTERRUPTED HIM YET? SOMEONE!!!". I am surprised he has not had a heart attack yet trying to lead these retards, honestly. My raid leader (also the GM) prefers Mumble, and he made the password to our guild Mumble "ImAFuckhead", because in Mumble you enter the server/port and then your username, press enter, and then enter in the password. And somehow, these people are so retarded that they put the password into the username field. So they log onto Mumble, and we automatically know they fail at following simple directions like "Put username here". My raid leader keeps a tally of this during a raid, you would be surprised how many people fuck this up, honestly.

And I play on Blackrock, some of the top guilds/players in the world are on here. Shit is bad. I get praised in a raid because I know how to move out of bad shit, and follow directions. Like, that is just sad.

[Ashe]

Do you still play wow often? Honestly, I'm getting burned out on raiding, and I hate res gear pvp, so, I don't do that often.

Account is suspended at the moment again. We had four members (three of them healers) that were very much core raiders of a 25 man group decide randomly to transfer because they weren't progressing as fast as they personally felt they should have (12/12 Normal down, Hard Mode Halfus down, working on Hard Modes of I think two other bosses). There were some attendance issues that lead to it, so losing nearly all the healers caused the guild leader to get depressed and quit.

Then the rest decided to transfer to Greymane (because the server the guild leader had chosen was a terrible recruiting area, so couldn't replace the healers) and faction change back to alliance. I JUST faction transferred multiple characters to horde and THAT server, (over time) so just suspended instead. Its a shame, because I'm only about 2000 Guild Rep from my Dark Phoenix mount, but I don't feel like logging to grind out the small chunks from dailies and there are no guildees left to run instances for Guild Rep.

Was a level 20 or so guild too, sad times. (Might have been 18 or something, I don't remember. Whatever the cap was at the time.)

[Josh]

They should make some instanced quests that require you to learn some of the mechanics related to raiding, that can't be completed without using said mechanics like spell interrupting.

Maybe call it "Raider 101", and have characters take on one of the roles in a scripted fight with NPC's against a fake boss that can only be completed by that character playing his role properly during various phases of the fight.

[Belle Hibiki]

This was actually the way they were taking heroics at the beginning of Cata, then scaled it back when they realized how awful most of their playerbase was.

Baron Ashbury in Shadowfang Keep? If you didn't interrupt Mend Rotten Flesh, you were fucked.

Ozruk? If you didn't pay attention to his spell reflection, use it to put a dot on yourself, then dispel it, you were fucked.

Karsh Steelbender? Gotta manage that debuff and know where to stand, or you were fucked.

Beauty? CC that shit and focus down remaining adds before getting on boss, or you were fucked.

Corla? Know how to manage your stacks of the debuff and standing in beams, or you're fucked.

So, how that panned out:

Baron Ashbury - Mend Rotten Flesh removed. People just ignore his damage spell. Rely on tank to interrupt Stay of Execution.

Ozruk - People now have enough gear that they just ignore the debuff or remove it immediately. Rely on healer to keep ranged up through the Paralyze toxin's spike damage.
Shatter damage nerfed. Shatter range shortened. Shatter range now explicitly laid out in game.

Karsh - Mostly the same, except that people are so geared now that they never let the debuff fall off. DPS doesn't have to do anything without killing adds away from the boss. Burden is now entirely on tank, to drag boss through the gimmick.

Beauty - Nerfed. Only two adds now. Reasonable nerf considering not every group has 2 hard CCs. Except that no one does this boss anymore.

Corla - Mostly unnerfed. She is still brutal on people that are idiots. As a consequence, she is now skipped.

[Tyr]

I tried that Baron Ashbury thing. Teaching people to interrupt it was fucking nuts, but I thought it was too unforgiving. One missed interrupt and it felt like you just restarted the entire encounter. Funniest thing was after that, it was all easy peasy.

[Ashe]

Kill Runty first to activate Hard Mode

I wish they'd do a hard mode for the normal bosses with special gear for completing it that way. (Similar to Hard Mode raid fights)

Except there are two problems with that. One is that the entire point in Heroics compared to Normal Mode instances is supposed to be that you are doing the Hard Mode of the instances. So people go into what is intended to be the Hard Mode version of an instance, then demand the content be nerfed into the ground because its harder than Normal and they "just want the gear". Two is that if there were a Hard Mode rewarding special gear, people would insist that THEY never have problems on that fight but their team always holds them back (because as usual, like LoL, everyone is stuck in WoW's version of "ELO Hell" where they are the only competent team member every time - their team mates will later claim the same), so its not fair that they HAVE to do the Hard Modes for better gear but not be able to down the highest difficulties with bad teammates.

The end result is the same - you want to do all the highest difficulty versions of things and get the best gear? Group with people you know and trust that can work as a team. Same thing with LoL - pugs always idiots or raging at you for being an idiot? Group with people you know and trust. Still pugging? Then you know what you are getting in to.