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Blinded Iraq war vet raids with a little helpGC: If you're OOM, tell your guildies to get out of the fire
by Mike Schramm 
Mar 16th 2009 at 3:00PM
Ghostcrawler did battle with the forumites this weekend, and the topic of discussion was the recent mana changes. Players are saying that the changes (including the BoW and Mana Spring change last week) are basically forcing them to bring more healers along to larger raids, and GC in return expounds on the raid balance that Blizzard is aiming for lately. Interestingly, it's not the 5 healers / 5 tanks / 15 DPS that you might think it would be -- Ghostcrawler says that if they aimed for that makeup, bringing more healers would often make the fights inconsequential.He goes on to say that the way the fights are designed, you aren't supposed to run out of mana, as long as you're dodging the AoE and are geared up correctly. Making mistakes in gameplay digs into your mana reserves, and so when Blizzard nerfs mana regen, they aren't just trying to make things harder, they're trying to take away that extra breathing room that you get around errors. They don't want healers just healing through damage -- they want people trying to avoid it in the first place.
And, if guildies won't get out of the fire, and your healers keep running out of mana because of it, it's time to weed out the ranks a bit. Finally, GC adds what we've heard before: those looking for a tough battle in Ulduar likely won't find it right away -- the instance is designed to be only a little harder than Naxx. But the hard modes are where the difficulty will really ramp up. If short, says GC, if you don't have enough mana on the easy modes, it's not Blizzard's design: it's the way you and your guildies are geared and playing.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Instances, Raiding, Classes
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Tahmid Mar 16th 2009 3:09PM
LESS QQ MOAR PEW PEW.
I agree wholeheartedly with GC...idiots should learn to not suck and actually execute on mundane things like dodging flame walls.
Nintendwarf Mar 16th 2009 3:15PM
When someone gets caught in AoE things like fire, either one of two things. The member is getting distracted by something else (ie Real Life Issues or Computer Acting Up) or the person is that dumb or is not paying attention enough to dodge the fire. If the person seldom gets caught and says he is having issues thats okay with me, however if he gets caught every single time and then blames other people for not healing him or not warning him, then he will get swift kick.
Yeng Mar 16th 2009 3:24PM
Lag does play in here too. It's not always poor ability to dodge AoE. This isn't a boss-encounter example, but I have had times where I've run frogger and not had a slime anywhere near me (on my screen) and have still died.
If Blizz wants to cut into that 'buffer for screw-ups', they need to work on making their encounters lag-less (this, of course, refers to server-side lag and not client-side lag).
zappo Mar 16th 2009 3:27PM
One of the problems is that healers going OOM can be from things that aren't easy to place. Now typically people who can't get out of the fire are the same people who have really bad dps/tanking/healing, but sometimes it's the case where that's their only issue. How do you tell someone they're bad dps if their dps is fine? Some peole aren't going to get that. Even though raiding has gotten rather easy, I'm not sure it's set into the minds of people that raiding in WoW is also very much about coordination and movement.
Sharkhunt Mar 16th 2009 3:54PM
DPS that doesn't get out of the fire is bad DPS, regardless of their output. Dead players do zero DPS.
Shardrell Mar 16th 2009 5:05PM
I am definitely a proponent of getting out of the fire. However, it'd sure be nice if there were fewer boss fights that involve some kind of fire/spit/shadow poop that is so huge that melee DPS often have to choose between getting out of the fire and actually being able to hit the boss.
If Blizzard tunes the fights so that it's a viable option to either choose lower DPS/less damage taken or more DPS/more damage taken, then it's all cool. But Blizzard doesn't have a good track record of remembering that some of us have to stand next to the boss in order to damage it, and thus certain "mobility" challenges unfairly punish melee DPS.
Eisengel Mar 16th 2009 5:35PM
@Shardrell
If this happens, then you likely have a newer tank. If there are environmental hazards that are cutting down melee DPS, the tank should reposition the boss so that melee DPS can get back on it ASAP. Back in vanilla, when Rogues and Shammys were much more powerful, this was widely understood. Not repositioning the boss means less melee DPS, which means the healers have to heal the tank longer... which strains their mana. If a melee-heavy raid is having trouble downing a boss that has close-range environmental effects the tank may be killing themselves by not helping melee DPS as much as they can.
I've also found tanks will often not provide enough room for melee players to get in behind mobs in instances... many times making melee DPS choose between pushing parries on the tank and losing DPS, or possibly aggroing another group.
I think in general the tanking shortage is pretty much gone... but there is now a question of tanking quality. There are tanks that have been playing since vanilla that know how much a tank affects the party/raid in ways other than just taking hits to the face and have tanked very hard bosses, and those that have been tanking for 2 months that haven't had a chance to experience a lot.
I've run a lot of instances and raids with a lot of tanks, and out of all of them, I'd say that two of them are great tanks. Not just that they stayed alive and held aggro, but they were aware of and did the double-dozen things that a tank can do to make an instance/raid go even better.
The Elitist Jerk Mar 16th 2009 5:48PM
Huh? The hell?
You stand in the fire, it's your fault period. There's no excuses to it period, l2p or GTFO. I prefer the latter.
Matt Mar 17th 2009 10:58PM
Blaming lag is silly because it is predictable for the most part. If your latency is 500 ms, you only need to anticipate future placement by 1/2 of a second, which isn't exactly difficult. Retard Frogger is a perfect example of a situation where pretty much every death is due to player error, they either aren't anticipating their lag, or they just are paying attention.
In fights with lots of AoE, there is a large margin of error for moving. If "lag" is killing you, you're trying to move within a fraction of a second of the effect going off, which we can all agree isn't Blizzards problem.
The exception to this is real server lag, which is all but unheard of on my server (Scarlet Crusade). In short, lag gets blamed all the time (kind of like bad luck) but is only rarely the real problem.
Geoff Mar 21st 2009 10:57AM
1. On a server like Aggramar, server side lag is a real danger. It's certainly not an every day thing, but it is far from unheard of.
2. Dodging a targeted instakill aoe like void zones with 800ms+ latency or 6 fps is not trivial.
Kraf Mar 16th 2009 11:42PM
/agreed ppl need to start learning how to move and actually play with skill instead of expecting to get heal then yelling at the healer for doing because of their stupidity
Nintendwarf Mar 16th 2009 3:10PM
I actually like the change, more of a challenge and makes Guilds tighter than ever.
NiGHTS Mar 16th 2009 11:38PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcA6y7sxKcA
We need more chants for the raids!
Dalrint Mar 16th 2009 3:13PM
Blame the person, not the mechanic?
Zaringu Mar 16th 2009 8:57PM
Fantastic. Rare lol irl.
Sidius Mar 16th 2009 3:13PM
In MC/BWL/AQ40/Original Naxx, people actually had to bring stuff like Mana Pots to get through the fight. DPS had to bring bandages, health pots, flasks, etc...
People need to realize we really are in easy mode right now and need to realize that raid progression isn't for everyone. GC gets some points for this one.
Iwanttobeasleep Mar 16th 2009 3:58PM
You can only use one potion a fight. If you're doing hardmode, a DPS's one potion may be their haste potion, and one mana potion isn't very helpful to a healer running OOM. Likewise for bandages, they take time, have a lockout, and overall aren't super helpful when you're trying to eke out as much DPS as possible.
Peli Mar 16th 2009 3:16PM
FIX INNERVATE!!!
Verit Mar 16th 2009 8:24PM
Whats to fix?
Abraxxis Mar 16th 2009 3:17PM
Hmmm. Trying to learn an encounter when you have no breathing room. That sounds very much like the original Vael fight -- not the one that most people defeated, the original one. No breathing room at all.
And saying stupid things like, "idiots should learn to not suck" is begging the question. When there is no opportunity to learn, because there is no breathing room, you cannot learn.