Forum post of the day: No really, you are not prepared
by Amanda Dean 
Dec 14th 2008 at 3:00PM
Khanagi of Maelstrom sent out a plea in the official forums for players to be prepared when they group up for a heroic instance. His main complains is that as a Warrior Tank, he is often out DPSing the DPS. He feels that everyone in the group has a job to do, and many are falling short of their appointed task. His sentiment was met with considerable agreement from responders, who pointed out that AOE tanks will often have high DPS. This does not excuse the DPS from their responsibilities.Back in the day, when Burning Crusade was launched, one had to be revered to get their heroic instance keys. This meant you had to grind out reputation with a particular faction to get the heroic key, usually through the highest level instance. This changed in Patch 2.3.0, which lowered the requirement to honored. At that time, there was much rejoicing. Honored reputation with a faction can easily be achieved with leveling quests. You no longer have to cross the threshold of a dungeon to meet this requirement.
The endgame is a progression. Sure, you can waltz into heroics as soon as you're honored with a faction. You can also talk about religion and politics on a first date, but that doesn't mean you should. Toward the end of TBC I saw people in droves trying to jump into Heroics and Raids as freshly minted 70s. Sometimes they had more experienced players along to carry them, but many other times they fell squarely on their faces. WoW can be a vicious cycle where you get better gear to take on tougher tasks to get better gear to take on tougher tasks. The end result is a sense of accomplishment, not to mention shiny Epics (or possibly Legendaries) to show off in you favorite major city.
Here's an extremely simple guide to achieving your PvE endgame goals:
Step one: Learn to play your class. Get to know all of your abilities- what works in the solo environment does not necessarily work well in an instance.
Step two: Learn how to play with other people, this means running instances as you level to 80 and accepting criticism. Somewhere along the way you may find a guild that you click with and matches your endgame goals.
Step three: Now that you're level 80, you need gear from regular level 80 instances. Replace your greens and low-level blues with level-appropriate equipment.
Step four: Run heroics. If you're not sure you're ready for it, ask a group member for a gear check, and accept their feedback. Wipes caused by under-geared players are annoying to everyone. Some may need to return to steps one and two.
Step five: Try your hand at raiding. You might like it, you might not. But trust me, you'll like it better if you complete the first four steps successfully.
Edit: Fixed some confusion over heroic requirements at level 80.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Guides, Forums, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
voggz Dec 14th 2008 3:05PM
All sounds good but i think step one shouldn't be for when you hit 80, or step two either i mean by level 80 if you don't know your class or how to play in groups then you need to spend more time with your toon or roll a new one.
Samuel Varian Dec 14th 2008 3:09PM
uhhh.. you don't need to have a key anymore, heroics are available as soon as you're 80.
awall Dec 14th 2008 4:28PM
Quote:
Back in the day, when Burning Crusade was launched, one had to be revered to get their heroic instance keys. This meant you had to grind out reputation with a particular faction to get the heroic key, usually through the highest level instance. This changed in Patch 2.3.0, which lowered the requirement to honored. At that time, there was much rejoicing. Honored reputation with a faction can easily be achieved with leveling quests. [b]You no longer have to cross the threshold of a dungeon to meet this requirement.[/b]
niko Dec 14th 2008 5:30PM
"Step three: Now that you're level 80, you need gear from regular level 80 instances. Once you're honored with a faction go ahead and pick up that coveted key."
he contradicts himself in the steps, my friend.
sharkeater75 Dec 14th 2008 3:07PM
shitty raiders are everywhere. or wanna be raiders.
hell its to the point I won't take a pug even from a "respected" guild without checking him out first.
and my crew is clearing naxx. not that I want a total faceroll but sooooo many people think that some blues and 80= win
its sad.
a far cry from vanilla wow.
iopsotacka Dec 14th 2008 4:59PM
Dude...its a month after launch. 90% of the people are just 'lvl 80 in blues' even those in respected guilds. Its wayyy too early for your type of heroic elitism.
Oh yeah, obligatory "heroicz r srs bsness"
Cyondrian Dec 14th 2008 3:10PM
Er. Heroics don't require a key anymore.
jam Dec 14th 2008 8:42PM
"If your dps are doing 2k in a heroic, they don't need the gear there. "
Not true. We did 2k+ dps in blue gear when we started doing heroics. Just aoe everything down. Basically only bosses were killed with single target nukes.
If you can't do that... well, I'd blame the tank. Only in pugs I've been forced to use CC or single target blasts, and in those cases it's often been more about lack of self-confidence from the tank than lack of skill.
Manatank Dec 15th 2008 11:51AM
Is it a fast swing timer? I guess my healers are so good I never noticed. Usually hard hitting bosses hit slow, so I just assumed. And yes, I've tanked him on 10 and 25 man with no issue.
unclelardblob Dec 14th 2008 3:13PM
As a paladin tank, the only people that can out-dps me are unholy spec'd death knights.
I'm constantly #1 or #2 in the meters on patchwerk, and often do 35-40% of the total damage in a heroic.
Oddly enough I ran normal nexus with my level 70 fury warrior (all northrend greens), and did 600k more damage than anyone else, including 2 level 74's.
Clevins Dec 14th 2008 3:24PM
Fine. Go run heroics with no dps... just tanks and healers. Oh, wait....
The problem with the 'dps sucks' sentiment is that it is mostly meter weenies who whine coupled with people who are used to the pre-Wrath meter order where the tank was 4th just above the healer. The good thing about Wrath is that tanks can generate tons of threat. The different thing is that the do this mostly by doing far more dps than in TBC so they're NOT going to be 4th on the meters unless the dps outgears the instance. Let's face it, if the dps is doing 2000dps in a heroic you aren't running it for gear.
The measure isn't how much dps you're doing, but are the mobs dying fast enough that you don't wipe and can move on reasonably fast on trash. If mana users are having to drink from 0 after each trash pack, dps is too low. Likewise if the healer is running out of mana or if they're having to regularly pot or burn CDs to keep mana, your dps is too low.
Most dps is very gear dependent and there's zero incentive to spend lots of time in regular 80 instances since the gear is better in heroics and you get Emblems. So if you want to gear up, you run heroics when you hit 80. Most dps I've seen that geared well in pre-80 instances and quest gear does 1000-1500dps in heroics. Of course as gear drops and they get Emblems, that should go up... but for new decently played DPS with level appropriate gear, that range is about what people should do. However, that's what good, geared tanks can do (well about 1000dps) so the gap is narrow or non-existent. As the dps gears, they should start outstripping the tank.
Ogre Dec 14th 2008 3:34PM
There may be the meter junkies yes, but the sad fact remains the same, most dps are pretty awful lately, and very few people in Wrath seem to understand that even if you have an upgrade for 2 instances and upgrade again, it was WORTH GETTING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I've run into so many people that asked why the hell I enchanted my Librarian's Paper Cutter's, using comments like "once you hit naxx you'll replace those", after 3 full clears of 10 and 25, just yesterday I saw my very first naxx dagger drop, and only an Omen of Ruin.
There is a simple check of how good your dps is (if you're owning up Patchwerk as tank, that's another way to tell they suck) check the meters, not the overall damage but dps. If they aren't 2k in heroic, or 2.5k+ in raid, something is seriously wrong.
Clevins Dec 14th 2008 3:54PM
If your dps are doing 2k in a heroic, they don't need the gear there. Few dps will do that in less that in a significant number of Wrath epics. So what you're saying is that dps is only good when they outgear the instance....
Look, everyone whined about attunements and the requirement to be revered in TBC... so now we have heroics with nothing more than a level requirement. What did you expect to happen? Why on earth would I run a regular instance if I can credibly pull my weight in a heroic when I can get a shot at an epic and get Emblems that I can use to get more good gear?
Here's the thing - are you getting through the heroics at a reasonable pace and without a lot of trouble? Then everyone's doing fine. For some heroics, that might be 1000dps, for most it's probably around 1500. And that's the final thing to consider - some heroics are pretty easy to run in quest gear and pre-80 blues... some are not. It's not that you shouldn't run any, but that you should know which ones you're ready to run and run those first.
Manatank Dec 14th 2008 3:57PM
What are we talking about here? Using both ranks of shield of righteousness (a bug that is soon to be fixed) I can push up to say 2500dps on a single target, and I feel like that is probably pretty high for a prot paladin. What are you doing? I only ask because the DPSers in my guild are pushing upwards of 4500 to 5000 dps (and they aren't even unholy death knights), and if you are topping that I'd love to know how.
ranova Dec 14th 2008 4:17PM
if youre #1 or #2 in dps on patchwerk, its time to find new DPS....
Nathanyel Dec 14th 2008 4:18PM
Erm, as a prot paladin and at Patchwerk, you receive a lot, A LOT of damage, resulting in A LOT of healing on you, resulting in probably infinite Mana to yoink out heavy and costful damage styles.
Manatank Dec 14th 2008 4:32PM
Mana is not an issue on nearly any boss fight for a prot paladin. Patchwerk doesn't increase dps because the only limit to damage out put for a prot paladin is a limited number of GCDs. In fact damage would be lower on this fight because he has a very slow swing timer so reflective damage is minimized.
vazhkatsi Dec 14th 2008 4:46PM
This is hilarious, recently i've had the exact opposite problem. I do 2500+ dps in most heroics and around 3k in raids. I outgear the instances, but i want a few more badges to get my last badge gear upgrades. (only 40 more til i have nothing left to buy) My problem is usually that so many people think that tanking is easy now that they try it in non tank gear, and can't generate enough threat to keep me from gaining aggro. i burn through shards from soulshattering every time the cooldown is up. quite often i've done a third or more of a groups total damage.
In short, its not only DPS who need to pick up the slack ( although i agree that there are quite a few) its also tanks and healers who need to up their game a bit.
BTW, i don't aoe in instances at all anymore, unless its a guild run with a tank i know can keep aggro. 1 seed of corruption in a pack will draw aggro so fast. and if i actually try to aoe, then i'm in real trouble.
The Claw Dec 14th 2008 5:48PM
"In fact damage would be lower on this fight because he has a very slow swing timer"
Well, Manatank has just made it 100% clear that he has never seen the Patchwerk fight.
steve Dec 15th 2008 8:26AM
@ #17 vazhkats
I second that. I PUG a lot on my healer and have experienced all of the failure modes: not enough DPS, not enough tank, and in a couple of cases, failure on my part to heal quickly enough or the right targets. If the DPS is lacking, it becomes a mana race for the healer. If the tank is lacking, everyone gets aggro and DPS has to dial back on the damage, plus the healer needs to use more mana. And, if the healer is lacking, the tank and DPS need to be overpowered to make up for it.
I think all the same rules apply that we had in BC: your group needs to be balanced, everyone needs to know how to play their class, and everyone needs to pay attention to gear itemization. It feels like a fair number of 80s are still in cruise mode from the end of BC when everyone's gear overpowered the heroics.