Random Question Thread

[Onorgul]

I needed a red gem to activate my meta and didn't feel like spending for a Nightmare Tear.

I queued for a normal dungeon since, you know, I've never really tanked. The game sent me to Forge of Souls. Thank heaven the healer was level-headed about the whole thing. Only death was a spell reflect suicide by the Mage. Please tell me tanking becomes less stressful once you're used to it.

[Siniroth]

Rogue talents give you some energy back when you crit, so sometimes you will get TONS of energy back from fok spam. If you are mutilate, 3-4mobs is good for spamming it... in Ony, on whelps, you'll do like 10-15k dps doing fok spam, just make sure you pop eva and have vanish ready.

Often times on Ony whelps I'll never run out of energy because of that talent <3

Edit: Not less stressful tanking, but it becomes more natural and you get used to looking out for certain things (like the hunters who volley the coldwraith/warrior thing packs in pit of saron when you have the coldwraiths marked), of course in that example I let them pull threat, if they're too stupid to feign death they don't do it a second time

[Kaylia]

I needed a red gem to activate my meta and didn't feel like spending for a Nightmare Tear.

I queued for a normal dungeon since, you know, I've never really tanked. The game sent me to Forge of Souls. Thank heaven the healer was level-headed about the whole thing. Only death was a spell reflect suicide by the Mage. Please tell me tanking becomes less stressful once you're used to it.

You wish. Unless you're doing trivial content (old heroic in t9 gears), it probably won't. Even when you get used to the content, the whole pressure is generally on the tank, and you have to be perfect, unless you want to hear 9-24 people cry at you (a dps slacking lead to a small dps lose, a tank slacking lead to a group wipe).

Like Siniroth said, you will get used to your basic tanking skill, and dealing with normal pull will become a routine. Sadly, this stress will be replaced by raid stress, which is much worse. Just don't give up, expect to get criticized early, and you should be able to enjoy it eventually. At least, you have done most encounter on your warlock (or w/e it is), so it's not like you are new to the encounter.

On the bright side, it's much more gratifying to be a good tank than a good DPS. Not only this, but you rarely have competition for the loot (the 2nd tank, and that's it).


About the meta, just set the nightmare Tear in your first "t9" badge item (or whatever above 232). It shouldnt take a long time before you get the badge for it.

[Norellicus]

Honestly, I'd have to say tanking in terms of clicking your buttons gets pretty intuitive and you can pay attention almost entirely to the mechanics of the fight. So in that respect, yes, tanking gets less stressful. But I'm the sort who enjoys being able to more or less lead the cadance of the fight so I don't find it stressful anyway.

[Odin'sLaw]

not sure if its ment to go here but, trying to download 3.2 patch but its stuck at 70% for over 30 mins anyone else had this kind of problem with there patch? (just started WoW today so not sure how noobish this really is)

[Kaylia]

Close it and restart the program, no point letting your download hang? You can also get it on their website

[Odin'sLaw]

i've done it a few times keeps getting to 70% then stoping like a dick at train crossings i'll take a look on there website thanks

[Tomino]

Unless you're doing trivial content (old heroic in t9 gears), it probably won't. Even when you get used to the content, the whole pressure is generally on the tank, and you have to be perfect, unless you want to hear 9-24 people cry at you (a dps slacking lead to a small dps lose, a tank slacking lead to a group wipe).

Actually, having tried both healing and tanking role in raids, I tend to consider healing, or at least tank healing, more stressful than tanking. I might have issues with trash packs, that melee mob going after the priest and so on, but a lot of bosses I faced are quite "relaxing" as tank.
Tank healer, on the other hand, you are never really at ease unless you're overgearing content; this from a Holydin prespective, since I only had access to reactive heals and not much else.
That's why I think Blizzard is trying to take boss fights more toward constant healing streams instead of randomly popping 20k damages here an there.

Also, one trend I noticed in ICC is making boss fights a little more demanding toward dpses. Some tasks they have to perform are so crucial you can easily say if the raid wiped because of tanks or healers or dpses.

[Eaglestrike]

Actually, having tried both healing and tanking role in raids, I tend to consider healing, or at least tank healing, more stressful than tanking. I might have issues with trash packs, that melee mob going after the priest and so on, but a lot of bosses I faced are quite "relaxing" as tank.
Tank healer, on the other hand, you are never really at ease unless you're overgearing content; this from a Holydin prespective, since I only had access to reactive heals and not much else.
That's why I think Blizzard is trying to take boss fights more toward constant healing streams instead of randomly popping 20k damages here an there.

Also, one trend I noticed in ICC is making boss fights a little more demanding toward dpses. Some tasks they have to perform are so crucial you can easily say if the raid wiped because of tanks or healers or dpses.

Really it depends on the encounter of whether tanking or healing is more difficult. There are fights with add pickup and movement that require a fair bit from a tank and a tank mistake can easily cost the raid a wipe. And then there are fights where there's a heavy burden on the healers doing it right, specifically Anub'arak p3 on heroic.

You're right in that there are certainly "relaxing" fights for tanks, but often it's similar for healers. Really if you're 3 healing 10-mans or in some 25-mans this can be the case. But 2-healing 10-mans is pretty stressful and fun most of the time.

I also think Blizzard has been moving towards more DPS responsibility. This is both good and bad. Good in that it does give the little retards something else to do, bad in that there are so many retarded DPS it causes many wipes, heh.

[Plow]

It's frustrating how it's like... in between, too.

Yeah, fights hinge more on dps... but if 1 dps fucks up on rotface and everyone else is perfect, the raid is more than fine.

If a tank fucks up, even if brez or ss is available there's a very high chance of wipe.

[Onorgul]

I think that's a matter of raid composition and balance. Simply put, there's more DPS than tanks, so you can safely lose a DPS or maybe even two, assuming there isn't a really tight enrage timer. It's sort of stuck like that, too, because it'd be quite hard to script a 10-man encounter where you need 3 tanks, 3 healers, and 4 DPS, much less an entire dungeon around that kind of ratio.

Odin'sLaw, you might consider checking the mirrors at this page: http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_mirrors I tend to use that when the downloader is being its usual unreliable self.

[Plow]

I think that's a matter of raid composition and balance. Simply put, there's more DPS than tanks, so you can safely lose a DPS or maybe even two, assuming there isn't a really tight enrage timer. It's sort of stuck like that, too, because it'd be quite hard to script a 10-man encounter where you need 3 tanks, 3 healers, and 4 DPS, much less an entire dungeon around that kind of ratio.

Odin'sLaw, you might consider checking the mirrors at this page: http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_mirrors I tend to use that when the downloader is being its usual unreliable self.

The ratio is fucked.

5 man:
1 tank
1 heal
3 dps

10 man:
2 tank
2 heal
6 dps

25 man:
2 tank
5 heal
18 dps

10 and 5's have it right, they're just not willing to create more tank roles for 25's.

[Rivero]

The ratio is fucked.

5 man:
1 tank
1 heal
3 dps

10 man:
2 tank
2 heal
6 dps

25 man:
2 tank
5 heal
18 dps

10 and 5's have it right, they're just not willing to create more tank roles for 25's.

Who remembers CTRaid and MT List? Maybe the solution is to go back to 40-man's. : p

[Kaylia]

The ratio is fucked.

Don't put more plate tanks in my 25 man, i want my loot!

Actually, having tried both healing and tanking role in raids, I tend to consider healing, or at least tank healing, more stressful than tanking. I might have issues with trash packs, that melee mob going after the priest and so on, but a lot of bosses I faced are quite "relaxing" as tank.
Tank healer, on the other hand, you are never really at ease unless you're overgearing content; this from a Holydin prespective, since I only had access to reactive heals and not much else.
That's why I think Blizzard is trying to take boss fights more toward constant healing streams instead of randomly popping 20k damages here an there.

Also, one trend I noticed in ICC is making boss fights a little more demanding toward dpses. Some tasks they have to perform are so crucial you can easily say if the raid wiped because of tanks or healers or dpses.

If you're used to an encounter (because you did it on a different spec/classes), and it's tank and spank (jaxx MT, valkyr, korelon...etc), it's not so bad. Your job is mindless button mashing. If you're on add duty on the other hands, or the fight has a lot of gimmicks, you are rarely allowed to make a mistake, because thing goes down really fast the moment people dies. You often need a good raid overview to not accidently kill people, since you often deal with AoE/LoS that are very deadly for everyone, you need to make up for bad positioning from other players, and you often need to understand the bosses mechanics better than anyone (it's true dps are more and more involved in fight, but 95% of the dps gimmick involve changing their focus to add).

Healer can get stressful with a bad tank, but at this point in PUG, healing the tank should rarely be an issue unless he isnt doing his job (in which case, he is to be blammed). I agree healing on holy can be stressful, but in a way, it was the powerless kind of stressful, and not the "too much information to process" stressful.

[Plow]

yeah, I hate to actually make a list because it varies so much, but I'd say in terms of general complexity, responsibility (and awareness requirement), and difficulty, *most* fights go something like this

add tanks
raid healers
tanks
dps with special jobs
tank healers
rest of dps

[erish]

i've done it a few times keeps getting to 70% then stoping like a dick at train crossings i'll take a look on there website thanks

If all else fails you can dl all the patchs from wiki thats what i do usually saves time.

[Tomino]

yeah, I hate to actually make a list because it varies so much, but I'd say in terms of general complexity, responsibility (and awareness requirement), and difficulty, *most* fights go something like this...

Problem is, the learning curve is quite messed up depending on your role / spec.
I understand some classes or party roles will always be harder to play or master, but there's something wrong when you basically babysit dpses to t9 gear, have them only learn how to puch a few buttons and then the whole raid depends on switching targets, handling oozes or simply not being hit by a Blood Beast.

All the tuning problems Blizz is having are, imho, due to the current "mess" the game balance and learning curve has become. I've seen mages or hunters going dumb because they need to actually "think" and react to raid issues.
And I dont know if it's them to blame, because there's nothing between lv1 and ToC10 that can actually teach them how to play their class. Levelling is a joke, HCs are a joke once you're randomly paired with a good tank or healer.

Sure Guild runs help, but since it looks like Blizzard wants everyone to experience everything, I think they'd limit the dps role in a boss fight. So that I'll stop wiping in HoR HC or doing the weekly Lord J. quest in ToC10

[Kaylia]

Problem is, the learning curve is quite messed up depending on your role / spec.
I understand some classes or party roles will always be harder to play or master, but there's something wrong when you basically babysit dpses to t9 gear, have them only learn how to puch a few buttons and then the whole raid depends on switching targets, handling oozes or simply not being hit by a Blood Beast.

All the tuning problems Blizz is having are, imho, due to the current "mess" the game balance and learning curve has become. I've seen mages or hunters going dumb because they need to actually "think" and react to raid issues.
And I dont know if it's them to blame, because there's nothing between lv1 and ToC10 that can actually teach them how to play their class. Levelling is a joke, HCs are a joke once you're randomly paired with a good tank or healer.

Sure Guild runs help, but since it looks like Blizzard wants everyone to experience everything, I think they'd limit the dps role in a boss fight. So that I'll stop wiping in HoR HC or doing the weekly Lord J. quest in ToC10

I was trying to think of a solution to this problem the other day. If I was in charge of the game, I would try implementing a "random raid finder" with a "raid practice" that doesnt lock you out of the weekly raid. Obviously, you need some sort of reward or people wouldn't try it (something based on the overall effort, and not success), but I'm sure it would be possible to give people an inbetween where they could learn, without messing up a raid.



About learning curve, in my experience, anything that involve targeting multiples monsters individually is the hardest to deal with (tanking add, crowd control). When you're dealing with multiple players, the UI do most of the job for you, but when you're dealing with multiples monsters, you actually have to look at the game, and trying to understand what's going on there isn't always simple.

[Onorgul]

You know, what I don't understand is why they moved away from requiring Crowd Control in instances. I was in a PUG of ICC a couple weeks back and the leader insisted, since we had 3 Priests, that we use Shackle on some of the trash pulls at the front because it was a pretty lousy raid (failed thrice to friggin' Marrowgar, c'mon now). It was that nasty pull in the middle room with 8 or 9 mobs. Shackle was really helped, but it took 5 solid minutes of screaming to get people to stop breaking Shackles.

But, really, if anything is going to teach someone to pay the fuck attention, it's Crowd Control. Don't break the Shackle/Sheep/Hex/Sap. That means you have to know where they are, manage them if you're one of the classes that has it, and not just mindlessly AoE while an over-geared tank and/or healer carries your retarded ass through. I know not every class has a viable CC, so maybe things get tuned so that classes without serious CC (e.g., Warriors or Death Knights) are expected to off-tank in their DPS gear. Something. I mean, I don't want to go back to the days of Warriors having no AoE threat, but since Blizzard can't rightly teach people the right rotation for their DPS (since it changes every other patch), there's gotta be something done to teach people to take the game seriously.

[Kaylia]

Problem is that I can duo on tank+healer nearly every pull in the room not too long after the update (I could probably duo everything now with my new gears, which isnt even that great to begin with). Doing Crowd control isnt worth the trouble, just LOS everything and rape them.


I do agree about CC thought forcing people to pay attention, but forcing people to pay attention also cause even more wipe and dead time.