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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-18-2009 @ 1:14PM
Jyotai said...
Wrath punishes tanks.
Lets be frank about that. The introduction of the DK, the ease of gaining threat across all tanking classes, and the drop in number of tanks needed as you progress.
- It all works to push people out.
The DK is a great tanking class. Too good in fact. At farm progression ranges, a DPS DK can click frost presence and tank, and a Tank DK can click Blood Presence and DPS - and both will do well, even if their is for the wrong build. The DPS DK might have some issues with not being defense capped, but its very likely that a quick trip to Ebon Hold to swap runes will solve this.
- This results in there being a lot more tanks than there used to be. And too many of them are alt-tanks. People who find it fun, but don't care for it with a passion. The problem is that with a little more time in game, guilds will pick them over a player who's only desire is to tank.
Next up is threat and mitigation ease. It is just too easy to do now. All of the classes have too simple of rotations, and there are very few bosses in the game now where the challenge is heavily on the tank. Again, this means that simply too many people can enter tanking.
Both of the above would be great changes for the game if not for the next change...
3. The drop in the number of tanks needed. In this game we go from a 1:5 ratio in 5-mans and 10-mans, to a 3:25 ratio. Two tanks get pushed out.
- the further a guild goes, the fewer tanks it needs. But the further it goes, the more tanks it is likely to have. It is so easy to gear a tank now - you can go from 80 to being -beyond- naxx gear in a week of heroics. Which is to say: if you get dedicated for 1 week, put in enough hours for say, 3-4 heroics per day for just that 1 week, you can outgear naxx and never need to enter it, before you ever have.
- And a lot of people are figuring this out.
Now, even if you do not take that extreme step, just running heroics on a regular casual's schedule, say 2 to 5 per week (assuming one day a week you play for several hours, and 2 days a week you log in for a little chat and maybe a quick run if lucky) - then in a month you'll outgear naxx.
If you actually enter naxx, even as a DPS, if the guild lets you roll on the loot the tanks don't take, you will equal their gear in a month or two (assuming you never enter a heroic in all that time).
- Which is to say that by the time the average guild moves from 10-naxx to 25, all of its melee DPS is likely to be able to fill the tank spot, save for those who actively -avoided- getting tank gear.
And yet, that same guild will have to dismiss 2 of its tanks, assuming all 25 people were formely in 10's groups (actually unlikely, more likely is you had 2-10s groups and 5 people are just getting to be allowed to join guild raids, or were your alts before). So, at best you're dismissing 1 tank, quite possibly 2, maybe more if you were holding on to a number of alt tanks.
Wrath punishes people who are dedicated to tanking.
- It makes it too easy for anyone to be a tank (a good thing).
- But flips it by making there less spaces for tanks.
Increased supply matched with lowered demand.
Starting your own guild is a good idea...
But you need to recognize a few things.
1. Hardcore raiders already have guilds. You're only going to get them if a guild on your server explodes. In that case, you might be getting the damaged goods other raiders refuse to take.
2. Casuals often come in cliques of friends. They will be loyal to their friends first, your guild second. The good thing is that they may bring some raiders and ex-raiders with them. The bad thing is the ex-raiders are often like people in AA - they love raiding, but are trying to avoid addiction. Put them on your raid roster and they will suddenly burn out your casuals by trying to raid 7-days a week and calling that casual.
3. You will have to tolerate rebooting progression. If you start your own guild, and the raiders are all already taken, the people you will get are the people who play at a slower pace. You need to adjust your expectations. These people love to play alts, collect mini-pets, RP, and/or consider their offline social life more important. They will enter your raid roster at the bottom end of progression, and are likely to rotate off of that roster frequently. Progression resets are going to happen every few weeks or month or two as you have to constantly rebuild your roster.
Get used to it, learn to tolerate it.
Some of these casuals will be amazingly good players - I've taken people into naxx who've never seen a raid before, and seen them out-perform geared hardcores while in their quest blues. I've also seen the reverse. You cannot tell ahead of time with casuals. They've usually not considered what it takes to show their skill level. They are often not aware they are good (if they are) - and will often even not believe they are good even when the stats show they are.
You also will have to tolerate getting some portion of damaged goods.
1. Raiders who for good reason can't get into raid guilds. They will come to you, and you will not have any good way of knowing if they are bad people, or if the stories they tell of how they were mistreated are true. You just have to gamble and then deal with it if they turn out to be the bad ones.
2. People that got carried. I've seen it very often, especially with healers. A Healer can ding 80 and get invited to Ulduar-25 due to rarity, and by week's end (s)he will outgear your entire guild. This person will gain a sense of entitlement, thinking they are better than anyone else. Their stats might be absolutely horrible. These are the people who can wipe a heroic 5 times in a row with the exact same obvious mistake (standing in the fire for example) - and blame other people every single time. And then turn around and use the 25-Ulduar PUG they cleared as justification to why it wasn't them.
(More or less... When you have 5-6 healers on a 25, 3 of them can be absolutely bad if 2 are great, 2 can be bad if 3 are good, and 1 can be bad if 4 are ok).
So there's another thing you will have to deal with - healer bleed out. Get used to it. Your healers are going to get geared very fast from constant invites into anything, and then the raid guilds on your server will be watching your armory stats and whispering them -ALL DAY LONG- to take them from you.
I find I have to rebuild my entire healing roster once a month. I have maybe 3 that are loyal, and the rest just keep cycling through - they ding 80, and I know I can hold them for about a month before a raid guild gets them. A month later they whisper me saying they hate their raid guild, but they still don't return.
I think my guild has geared a fifth to fourth of the servers raid healers this way...
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