Shifting Perspectives: The unbearable suckhood of pugging
by Allison Robert 
Dec 22nd 2010 at 6:00PM
I apologize for the recent absence, guys. While I would like to say it had something to do with battling hordes of evil minions from some morally questionable wizard with an abundant set of apostrophes in his name, the truth of the matter is that I've just been crushed by work. It didn't help that I started a Shifting edition on gearing a restoration druid at level 85 and thought, "Hey! Wouldn't it be nice to include all the gear available to druids from Cataclysm quests on up, à la Emmerald's old gear list, so that people know exactly where they stand in relation to upgrades?"
Some 1,600 words later, I am pleased to report that I am almost to the end of the shoulder slot.
Yeah. You're gonna have to give me another week or two on that ... unless you're planning to go naked from the shoulders down. If you do, send pics.
Anyway, it hasn't escaped my attention that the forums more or less exploded once people started getting into heroics. One contingent claims that Cataclysm heroics are too difficult and need to be nerfed. Another insists that everyone claiming that heroics are too difficult is a bad player with bad gear and bad talent choices and bad glyphs and they should feel bad. Personally, I've seen enough of both the dungeon finder and guild groups as a tank and healer to arrive at my own conclusion:
People on both sides of this argument are equally correct.
Or, if you're in a judgmental sort of mood today, they're equally full of it.
Scene One
A Throne of the Tides dungeon finder group.
Allie: ... So this is the skull; I'll root the melee mob over here. Shammy, can you Hex this dude? Mage, can you sheep the healer? I've marked her with the moon.
Shaman: No problem.
Mage: (silence)
Allie: (foolishly assumes that silence implies consent) LOS pulling.
The entire group minus the Hexed and rooted mob aggros. Allie, who is line-of-sighting behind a wall, watches the pull go to hell as the group opens fire on the skull. The ranged mobs stop dead in their tracks, the melee aggro the group due to DoTs and AoE, and the unsheeped healer mob keeps healing the others to full.
Allie: (Feral Charge) (Challenging Roar) (cooldown cooldown cooldown)
Allie: Mage, if you could sheep the next moon, that'd be great; it's just gonna keep healing, otherwise.
Mage: No.
Allie: Jigga-what?
Mage: Just tank this s%&t, you don't need to CC here.
I encountered several point-blank refusals to CC in normal dungeons (and one or two in heroics the first few times around). On the one hand, I can understand where the impulse springs from, because CC in normal dungeons and even heroics in Wrath of the Lich King was largely an exercise in pointlessness about two months into the expansion.
On the other hand ... these pulls aren't designed to be AoE-tanked at current levels of gear. Healing efficiency (to the extent that it currently exists) isn't designed around healing a tank with lots of mobs beating on her. If you're not CCing in heroics or even the larger pulls in normal dungeons, you should reasonably expect to have a difficult time on trash. This is unavoidable if you have the bad luck to land a group with few CC options for a given dungeon (fury warrior, frost death knight, and mage DPS in heroic Vortex Pinnacle -- have fun with that!). It's equally unavoidable if you're in a group that refuses to make use of the CC options it has.
Apart from that, the art of the "line of sight" pull seems to have disappeared these days, even though Cataclysm dungeons make it significantly easier to do. Bears -- still the only tank without a ranged silence (thanks, arena!) -- are more likely to deal with botched pulls resulting from DPS' inability to keep it in their pants. If you're tanking, warn players in advance when you'll be using line of sight to force a mob pack into tankable range. Not that this will necessarily make a difference to the quality of the pull that'll result, but at least you've got it in writing.
When the "It's your fault" camp is right When you're the person refusing to crowd control, or you decide to reenact the Battle of the Bulge on a mob pack before it actually reaches the tank.
When the "Heroics suck" camp is right When you're healing or tanking through someone else's refusal to crowd control, or the DPS has been drinking too much paint thinner to realize that L2P Garrosh is not Dear Abby.
Scene Two
The final boss, Erudax, in heroic Grim Batol. The group has run back after a wipe.
Allie: Okay, that was a good attempt, but we need to switch DPS to the adds a lot faster. They spawn straight after Shadow Gale, so be prepared to run. Ready?
Rogue: r
Priest: r
Warlock: r
Ret paladin: r
Allie: (pulls)
Warlock: (keeps DPSing Erudax after Shadow Gale)
Rest of group: Adds?
Warlock: (keeps DPSing Erudax)
Rest of group: Adds? Hello? Bueller?
Allie: Goddammit.
Allie Feral Charges one of the adds and helps to DPS it down, because she is awesome. The group wipes on the next add phase.
Warlock: (posts damage meters showing himself at the top)
Allie: (hunts around for the aspirin bottle located somewhere around the laundry bin)
If you're not playing to the demands of an encounter and you don't outgear it, the designers intend for you to wipe. Let me repeat that for anyone unaccustomed to the days of The Burning Crusade heroics:
You are intended to wipe on content when the group doesn't play well and gear doesn't allow it to ignore fight mechanics.
Problem is, this may or may not have much to do with how well you're playing as an individual, and someone getting groups through the dungeon finder will usually have a distorted sense of an encounter's actual difficulty. I've fallen into this trap on both the Wrath and Cataclysm betas, simply because I've rarely played with a full guild or premade group.
A lot of good tanking is about the stuff that doesn't happen to the group, because competent tanks anticipate problems. Good DPS belongs to this category in a more unheralded capacity. Good DPS is about the add that dies before it heals the boss, the interrupt that saves the group from a wipe, and knowing fight conditions well enough to finish it before the healer runs OOM.
When the "It's your fault" camp is right When you're the person not switching targets when necessary, or if you're playing in a full guild group and you're still wiping endlessly on an encounter. Either you're massively undergeared, or something about your strategy isn't working.
When the "Heroics suck" camp is right DPS quality through the dungeon finder could be politely described as inconsistent, and there's really not much you can do about this. To that end, forum complaints about the difficulty of Cataclysm heroic content are actually accurate about how hard these places are with the average PUG.
A heroic Stonecore dungeon finder group.
Tank: Everyone ready?
Allie: Sure. Are you going to mark the p-
Tank: (pulls)
Allie: (to herself at the computer) This will end in tears. Probably mine.
Nobody: (interrupts the Stonecore Earthshaper)
Stonecore Earthshaper: Whoo! AoE! Heal through this, sucka!
Stonecore Berserker: Sweet, I can Spinning Slash through the melee and tank and NO ONE WILL MOVE OUT OF IT.
Allie: (heals like crazy and goes OOM).
Pull: (finally dies for some unaccountable reason)
Tank: (runs to the next pull)
Allie: Mana!
Tank: Are you going to have to drink after every pull? This place is going to take ages if you do.
Allie: TREE SMASH.
I tend to run with an excellent enhancement shaman in my guild groups, and not having him along on dungeon finder runs has given me an inkling of how much damage is being prevented by this one guy's Wind Shear. Take the Stonecore Earthshaper mobs mentioned above. This is a deceptively low-damage mob present in all of the initial Stonecore pulls, but if he gets a Force of Earth cast off, the healing requirements for the pull will skyrocket once he starts Dust Storming the group. Dust Storm can't be interrupted and does an average of 3,000 damage per second to all nearby players (and Blizzard seems to have a very liberal interpretation of "nearby" -- I've been unable to outrange it so far) for 6 seconds.
Figure 18,000 damage to five players for a total of 90,000 damage, and double it if the group's foolish enough to leave the mob alive long enough to do it twice. Healing 90,000 damage on five people as a resto druid in pre-heroic blues could be as much as half of your mana pool, subject to crits and Omen of Clarity procs. Let's not forget that this responsibility arrives at a time when you're already tasked with healing the tank, random charges from Stonecore Berserkers, and any Spinning Slash bleeds present on the tank and melee DPS.
These pulls are supposed to be hard, but they're not supposed to be that hard. In a guild group, my buddy the shaman locks the Earthshaper down. In that heroic Stonecore I healed, nobody did -- and a group's failure to interrupt any number of ridiculously high-damage abilities in 85 heroics will chew through your mana at the speed of light. Blizzard nerfed healing efficiency, but the larger share of issues here will nearly always be caused by a group that doesn't think to prevent damage.
When the "It's your fault" camp is right If people are actually using CC and interrupts are going out on a regular basis -- in other words, if people are actually playing like they're supposed to -- the amount of incoming damage slows to a rate generally healable with efficient spells. You are absolutely able to keep tanks and DPS alive with Lifebloom, Nourish, Rejuvenation, Swiftmend, and Omen procs for bigger spells if the group is playing well.
When the "Heroics suck" camp is right When was the last time that pugged DPS interrupted anything?
To anyone saying heroics are too hard
Don't worry. It's okay. These dungeons are really not that bad with a competent group. They're challenging, but they're not impossible, and in the meantime, you should just look for ways to improve whatever you're already doing. Not because you're going to save the next terrible PUG on your own -- that's really not possible right now -- but for your own sake. The point of difficult content in an MMORPG is that it's fun to do with people you like and trust.
To anyone saying heroics are easy
Not everyone has an amazing guild to fall back on, and being at the mercy of a legion of uncaring, glue-sniffing, nose-picking, vote-kicking puggers would be enough to drive anyone to drink. Have a heart, and be excellent to each other.
What race should you choose for your druid? What happened to Tree of Life? How can you get started as a bear or cat in Cataclysm? Shifting Perspectives has the answers!
Filed under: Druid, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 10)
RussGreene Dec 22nd 2010 6:10PM
Jigga-what?
Elmouth Dec 22nd 2010 8:26PM
I'll say ti again, the easy solution to this whole shitfest is this :
Buff Luck of the Draw.
It will give the healer room to breath.
Mssr Moo Goo 2 Dec 22nd 2010 9:18PM
The success of PuGs with the LFG tool relies heavily on the dungeon guide. I did a lot of pug raid leading of hard content and it has helped a lot to teach/carry pugs through heroics.
Pull 1) Me "Moon is sheep, Triangle is hex, if I need it, square is trap"
I mark skull, then x, then moon, then the mage instantly CC pulls.
CD CD CD. Berserk. Do 3x more damage then the rest of the group, AoE the pack down.
Pull 2) Me " Ok, CC pulls will always be started by me casting roots, after a readycheck."
Eveyrone /agree
Run goes smooth as butter.
Jason Little Dec 23rd 2010 1:14AM
Very well stated article, our guild is transitioning out of reg dungeons and into heroics and having tanked through BC heroics, LK heroics and not yet Cata heroics is can safely say; DPS just doesn't get it! LK allowed them to blast and blast and blast some more! One of our tanks describes the attitude as "WTF can't you hold aggro!" as they are pulling the next set of mobs before the tank does. I try to explain to group i run with that not passing the tanks threat is preferred and sustained dps is much more effective than burst. Hope fully the DPS out there will realize these solid truths and come around, otherwise it going to e a long cold winter and lots of repairs.
Twill Dec 23rd 2010 5:49AM
I have tanked DPSed and healed every heroic now, and in PuGs no less.
There is ONE trick to getting through them all. KNOW THE MECHANICS! If you can explain to everyone what they have to do, 90% of the time they will do it well enough to survive.
Heroics are not hard, they require precision. PuGs are not precise, but you can teach them.
Tell them what to do before hand, don't rage afterwards. If you tell the mage to please sheep {moon}, he will do it. if you mark {moon} and expect him to know what that means, it is your fault. (Those marks, { } make the logo in chat. Type the name of the shape inside it, like {cross} makes the red X.)
I start every run saying something like this:
"/p Hey all, lets sit tight for a bit before each pull so we can do it the right way. It actually is faster than wiping! :)"
Twill Dec 23rd 2010 5:49AM
I have tanked DPSed and healed every heroic now, and in PuGs no less.
There is ONE trick to getting through them all. KNOW THE MECHANICS! If you can explain to everyone what they have to do, 90% of the time they will do it well enough to survive.
Heroics are not hard, they require precision. PuGs are not precise, but you can teach them.
Tell them what to do before hand, don't rage afterwards. If you tell the mage to please sheep {moon}, he will do it. if you mark {moon} and expect him to know what that means, it is your fault. (Those marks, { } make the logo in chat. Type the name of the shape inside it, like {cross} makes the red X.)
I start every run saying something like this:
"/p Hey all, lets sit tight for a bit before each pull so we can do it the right way. It actually is faster than wiping! :)"
Baba Dec 23rd 2010 1:23PM
I've tanked my very first Cataclysm heroic today, which was Deadmines. Apparently that isn't the easiest one out there, and the fights were very close. My guildies all had ~6.8k GS, and I had 6.4k, but because we acknowledged how carefully we had to progress through it we made it with only 1 wipe on the worgen dude, and 1 wipe on the nightmare part of the final boss. I died a few times, but by thinking outside the box (read kite the robot boss to the top of the ramp, taunting him then jumping over the side) we did pretty good.
I have NEVER had so much fun in heroics.
Amirite Dec 22nd 2010 6:11PM
They should be hard so that people will learn to play better. Why make them trivial for the people who actually enjoy it just so that xXLolgolasXx can steamroll while he's watching Dexter in the background?
elvendude Dec 22nd 2010 7:02PM
I enjoyed watching a good episode of Weeds while I healed Wrath heroics, personally.
TonyMcS Dec 22nd 2010 7:30PM
You fdidn't include the second part of the quote:
Be excellent to each other and PARTY ON dudes. Words to live by.
As a guild group we went through normal dungeons fairly easily. Most of us in blue 333 gear and LOSing and CCing like crazy. Ventrilo helps immensely and I have no desire to do these in a PUG, as I despair of most people knowing what CC is, let alone have it on their action bars.
When we were a few points above the average item level required for heroics, in we went. Three heroics later (let's try another one) and lots of wipes, we concluded that a little more gear level, knowledge and organisation was necessary. Yes we wiped, but it was fun and trying something hard for a change was great.
I have no doubt that highly skilled, informed and well-geared people may find these heroics easy, but they will be in a very small minority. The truth is, they're very challenging for most of us and that's a good thing ;-)
But doing them in a pug at the moment is really an exercise in masochism.
Shade Dec 22nd 2010 7:58PM
not that I disagree with what you're saying (I don't!), but I think it's a dangerous assumption to say that a harder series of instances necessarily means that people will learn.
I'm going to say that 20% of people will learn. The other 80% of people will continue to leech the life out of those of us who ARE competent.
Out of the 20% that learn, 80% (that's 16% of all current noobs) will immediately turn around and yell at other noobs "fr not doin it rite".
Pessimistic? Yeah. But on the other hand, I can count on one hand the number of PuG members I've worked with who actually bothered to learn from a wipe since Dec. 7.
yunkndatwunk Dec 22nd 2010 8:07PM
I can remember the days when only the hunters could watch tv while playing with that little water drinking bird hitting their one button for them. Except on Magmadar, where they had to hit 2 buttons.
Pottsy11 Dec 23rd 2010 1:40AM
In my opinion, as stated above somewhere a successful pug heroic run is focussed largely on the dungeon guide, and not getting any really undergeared/horrible players. For the first few days after launch (hit 85 a day and a half after or something) heroics were HARD. However, in the short while cata has been out, i have found the difficulty of these heroics has declined exponentially, and even in pugs if there is a competent dungeon guide even Stonecore etc. are easily doable (with a few wipes if most of group is unfamiliar).
On a side note: adds on erudax are slowable.... do it.... it makes the fight easy to an extreme (if your healer doesn't run out of mana), far more so than any other Grim Batol fight.
Relk Dec 23rd 2010 8:35AM
I agree. Except, a large number of those dumb puggers that won't learn or change, will get frustrated and not queue as often. This should allow a higher percentage of smarter players. I believe that eventually this will trickle down to some of the people who gave up and produce more decent players.
Heroics are excellent. They are a great way to teach a casual player what being in a raid is like. "Interrupt this or we die." "Don't stand in the fire." "When you see dust coming up under you move, or die."
I think the problem is too many people aren't spending much time in regular dungeons. I know it may be a bit much, but I wish Blizzard would require you to complete the dungeon once on normal before doing it on heroic.
matt Dec 23rd 2010 9:42AM
blizz need to alter the combat log API such that damage meters will not function outside of raid instances. raid leaders need that info to evaluate who gets replaced on progression night. In 5-man content; however, DPS shall be judged by the quality of your interrupts, CC, and the amount of pointless dmg you soak.
Liberate yourselves... UNINSTALL RECOUNT, its over, time to wake up from the e-peen nightmare.
DoubleCrit Dec 23rd 2010 11:25AM
People still watch Dexter?
knut-willy wigelius Dec 22nd 2010 6:14PM
Lovely reading
Sean Dec 22nd 2010 7:38PM
Wonderful article. I'm glad there are other people that understand that content is not easy for people who have to rely on PUGs. DPS in random PUGs are stupid. REALLY stupid. Flat-out refusing to CC, breaking CC repeatedly and never learning, DPSing the wrong target on purpose then blaming the tank/healer for being "bad".
The elitists will laugh at the rest of us who are good at our class and role, but don't have a consistent group of reliable people to play with, and the noobs will continue to refuse to learn their role or any boss strategies and ruin groups for us until the rest of us get geared enough to drag the "bads" through it.
There's nothing Blizzard can do about this. This is something that shows us the intelligence of the average American, and it makes me sad. If it's true that the average age of a WoW player is 30 (recent article here on WoW Insider), then stupidity really knows no age limit.
Neuropox Dec 22nd 2010 8:33PM
This is a good read...
Im in the "PuGers tend to suck so heroics are hellish top tree healers" camp.
It has gotten to the point where unless im in a guild group, i wont heal heroics.... im sick of getting blamed for every single wipe, regardless of lack of cc, dps pulling, or whatnot....
Perhaps in a few months it will all be over and i can PuG a heroic w/o grabbing for a bottle of vodka and a gun to shoot myself with....
brian Dec 23rd 2010 1:02AM
An article for all classes.
Sadly, the people that need to learn from this most either won't end up reading it, or will figure they don't need the advice :/