More options for party communication
by Mike Schramm 
Dec 17th 2009 at 3:00PM
Not only is it a bummer because some people used to use it constantly to keep party members in line, but this also means that there's one less means of communication between all of these random parties forming out there on the realms. Sure, in a perfect world, everyone would know the fights and chat would be enough to make sure everyone was on the same page (or depending of your vision of a perfect world, everyone actually uses the in-game voice chat -- a quick survey of our staff here presumes that it works in cross-realm PuGs, but given that I've never actually seen it used on the live realms by anyone, who knows?), but we're hardly running instances in a perfect world. Sometimes chat is not the best way to get a complicated boss fight organized and ready.
One idea that I've seen popping up on the realms is an addon that would copy a boss strategy for any given instance into party chat for you, just to avoid having to type out "stay out of the fire, run away when you get this debuff on you, etc." all the time. A search on Curse doesn't pull up too much in that vein -- there are certainly tactics addons that will help, but usually they're just warning addons (like DBM), or they require everyone to have the addon installed. There's nothing simple for just putting a strat into chat during a PuG.
Other than that, though, options are limited. You can still mark targets (and in fact, anyone can now mark targets in a party), and of course there are optional items -- flares and such -- used to show placement when needed. But what other options could there be? It seems a little lame for Blizzard to start building some strategies into the interface (though we do already get some automatic raid warnings on major events), but that's probably preferable to spending five minutes explaining the Devourer of Souls fight yet again.
Filed under: Fan stuff, Walkthroughs, Odds and ends, Add-Ons, Instances
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
thebl4ckd0g Dec 17th 2009 3:04PM
Does this mean Deadly Boss Mods will no longer work?
Mike Dec 17th 2009 3:08PM
DBM only simulated a raid warning anyway. Never actually made them.
Talutha Dec 17th 2009 3:29PM
Actually DBM had an option to broadcast the warnings through /rw. I have all of my warnings in 5-man and in raids broadcast to the whole party/raid but when 3.3 hit I got hit with a ton of "You are not in a raid" messages when DBM would try to broadcast. They fixed it now the best they could by doing them through party chat when not in a raid but to me, it just isn't as effective.
jurandr Dec 17th 2009 4:29PM
I'm going to piggyback on your first post to bring free advertising to an addon I did not write (you're welcome).
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info13226-BossNotes.html#info
You can put in private notes for yourself and also regular notes that are shared with other users of the mod. You can even print these notes out into party chat.
Barinthos Dec 17th 2009 4:38PM
Thanks a ton for the link jurandr, definitely going to have to give that a go when I get home tonight.
Kaeri Dec 17th 2009 4:53PM
I use BigWigs and in their broadcasting options, it can be set to party chat instead of raid warning. It's not as obvious, though - especially without the /rw alert sound - but it's better than nothing.
I don't know if Deadly Boss Mods does a similar thing. I haven't checked that one out yet.
Alex Dec 17th 2009 3:06PM
You know what would be really rad?
A ghost form the leader could go into and could place visual indicators about where to stand etc.
Something where a party leader could act out part of the fight and not pull the boss. (Heigan's dance come to mind)
Barinthos Dec 17th 2009 3:13PM
Smoke flares work fine for what you're asking. But even then not everyone is capable of following through those strats under pressure. The first time someone does the Devourer fight they might get confused when to stop DPS, when to start, should they try to fight the massive amount of mobs he spawns(which you don't) and what not.
t0xic Dec 17th 2009 3:13PM
I've been in PUG groups that did this (without the ghost feature, ofc). We wiped, and the tank would say something like "You see where the druid's body is? Don't stand there."
Kidding. That's probably not what you meant by visual indicators =)
Noah Dec 17th 2009 3:28PM
This form actually does exist. It's called ".gm mode", and, as you might guess, it's not available to players.
BioHazard Dec 17th 2009 4:36PM
Use a Steam Tonk ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22728 ). Cheap to make, has a pretty good range and doesn't pull mobs. Works great.
rawrawrawr Dec 17th 2009 7:19PM
Warlocks could also use their Eye of Kilrogg, and anyone around for last christmas could use their Crashin' Thrashin' Racer.
Konoo Dec 17th 2009 3:12PM
Not only this but we noticed that raid leaders are now the only ones who can /readycheck. This is kinda stupid... Why?
Wild Colors Dec 17th 2009 3:20PM
This is extraordinarily frustrating to me as well. Was it a problem for PUGs or something? B/c the ability for assists to do this was quite useful, and it seems like you could solve any problems by simply not making the problematic person an assist.
Don Dec 17th 2009 3:34PM
Agreed, the lack of assistant-enabled readychecks is by far the most frustrating effect of this, who cares about raid warnings in parties.
Camaris Dec 18th 2009 5:21AM
Especially annoying when the raid leader is the one who is 'afk 2 secs'.
(cutaia) Dec 17th 2009 3:18PM
Hell, I'd be happy if I could just find a place where boss strategies are boiled down to their most important aspects and stated simply.
Too often when reading up on a boss strategy I find myself having to skim through a lot of extraneous information and specifics that don't really seem to add much to the explanation. Sure, it's still easily understood, but it seems like most fights can be stated much quicker and simpler than most sites, do. Basically, instead of:
"Finally, the Devourer will unleash a wail of souls. This is a 90 degree sweep of the room (either clockwise or counterclockwise) starting from a position selected at random. The wail starts about 3 seconds after casting it and will wail for 15 seconds. Anyone caught in the wail will take a very high amount of damage that ticks every 0.4 seconds."
I would like a site that says something more along the lines of:
"Don't get hit by the mouth laser."
Anyone have any suggestions?
(And yes, a mod like this would be great. I've already considered writing out strategies for various fights in macros so I'll have easy access to them. Ooh! If the mod were customizable to where we could put our own specific strategies in it as well, that would be sweet. Somebody write this!)
Barinthos Dec 17th 2009 3:23PM
I try to boil it down to basic "this is what you need to watch for" as much as I can as well. But having some way to just post bullets on the fight without having to type it all over the place would be awesome.
Maybe add something in conjuction with Atlas, where there's a small button next to each boss in a dungeon that posts up a macro type 1. 2. 3. in chat for that particular boss.
Sella Dec 17th 2009 4:12PM
OMG, you made my LOL (cutaia). I totally agree. As a working busy mom, I don't have time to read long tedious descriptions of boss fights. If there were short, bulleted descriptions of boss fights, raiding would be more possible for me.
V Magius Dec 17th 2009 4:55PM
I've found the strats on WoWwiki to be pretty concise when you look at specific bosses. Quick run down of strats, descriptions of attacks. For me, it works better after I've faced the boss, but your mileage may vary.