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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBlizzard issues Call to Arms clarification
by Mathew McCurley 
Apr 8th 2011 at 2:00PM
Takralus -- Dungeon Finder Call to Arms
We've been following discussions and reading feedback on the Dungeon Finder Call to Arms feature, and appreciate everyone's opinions on the topic. We wanted to share a few items though that supplement the recent announcement:
The additional reward for completing the Dungeon Finder Call to Arms (called the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries) will be Bind on Account; able to be freely sent to other characters on your account once you receive it.
An error existed in the announcement regarding flasks and potions being picked based on your spec. This is not the case. If someone earns a Satchel of Exotic Mysteries, and if it rolls the random chance to provide a potion or flask, it will be a randomly selected. This helps ensure a broad array of available flasks and potions for all characters.
We also wanted to clarify, mounts that have a possibility to be found in a Satchel of Exotic Mysteries are found with the same rarity as if you had slain the dungeon boss that normally drops them.
The additional reward for completing the Dungeon Finder Call to Arms (called the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries) will be Bind on Account; able to be freely sent to other characters on your account once you receive it.
An error existed in the announcement regarding flasks and potions being picked based on your spec. This is not the case. If someone earns a Satchel of Exotic Mysteries, and if it rolls the random chance to provide a potion or flask, it will be a randomly selected. This helps ensure a broad array of available flasks and potions for all characters.
We also wanted to clarify, mounts that have a possibility to be found in a Satchel of Exotic Mysteries are found with the same rarity as if you had slain the dungeon boss that normally drops them.
The aim of the Call to Arms system is to get more tanks and healers into the dungeon finder as to facilitate faster groups. Since tanking and healing have become less forgiving in Cataclysm heroics, many players shy away from the added responsibility and pressure of performing in these roles. The result has been 30- to 60-minute DPS queues. Now, with incentives like the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries, hopefully tanks and healers will come back to the fold.
By making the rewards bind on account, players can reap rewards with an alt tank or healer from their DPS main without worrying about losing out on rewards. Hopefully this system will spur people into action to bring out those alt tanks and healers and get them running in heroics through these new incentives.
WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 11)
Stray Apr 8th 2011 4:25PM
Any complaints I may have had on this new system are now alleviated. I may even re-instate my shadow priest's disco spec, my mage isn't left out despite her Onyxia-tanking prowess, and gearing my little prot pally ought to be more exciting now.
I have a question of the nature of the Bind-on-Account-ness, though! Is the SATCHEL BoA, or are the rewards inside BoA? And is it a matter of: I just received so-and-so pet, now I choose who gets it, or is bound to everyone like the wyvern hatchling pet? I'd imagine there's some amount of choice, due to the flasks being randomly chosen.
Cigan Apr 8th 2011 4:29PM
@adamjgp I have to disagree about there being too many dps classes. You have mages, warlocks, rogues, hunters. It is a lot, but it's not too many when a dungeon group needs 3 dps and only 1 healer and 1 tank. The issue is that people just don't want to tank and to a lesser extent don't want to heal. I healed my way from level 1 to 85, but to be honest my first toon was a lock, which I picked for role play reasons more than anything else, back when that mattered to me. Now I love LOVE healing, and I like tanking, but I don't currently have the will to get to 85 on my tank toons. Leveling I do not enjoy, at all. Think about the number of DPS warriors and DKs you see for every tank warrior or DK.
The only class I see primarily tank are pallys. I don't know what it is, but Pally's like their support roles. It might be because Ret is kind of a pain right now, who knows. At the end of the day it's about the role not the classes. Every time I see a tank capable class in the an LFG dungeon dpsing I am befuddled. I would never waste my time DPSing with a class that can tank. It just makes no sense to me, but the world is a crazy place.
McGintoy Apr 8th 2011 4:46PM
"The entire reason we're in this situation is because there are too many DPS classes, however, all the whiny rants I've seen boil down to the same thing - I want the extra loot, but I don't want to work for it. There is this sense of entitlement that players seem to have, where they want everything, but are not willing to change what role they play in order to get it. If you want to experience dungeons with a shorter queue time, then play a tank or a healer. If you want shorter queue times as a DPS, well you're sh!t out of luck then."
Sounds to me like YOU are the one with the entitlement issues. This whole paragraph seems to indicate that you feel tanks and healers work harder, therefore they are entitled to bonus rewards and shorter queues.
"If DPS are going to complain about long queue times, but not play as a tank or a healer, then STFU and GTFO. I'm sick of hearing about people complaining about the problem, but not doing anything to help solve it."
This is a somewhat reasonable statement when directed at 'hybrids' as they simply need to respec and collect new gear (and learn to play the new role, obviously). But that's an unfair statement to make to 'pures'. You're telling them that the solution to their complaints is to abandon the character with the name and race/class combo they want, as well as all the titles, mounts, gear, and achievements they have earned, so they can start a new character, spend a potentially long time leveling it up (depending on how many hours they can play per day and how many days they can play per week), gear it up, and learn to play a role with which they may not necessarily be comfortable or find any enjoyment. Congratulations, there is one fewer DPS complaining about their queue times. But now there is one more Tank complaining that they don't get to DPS.
"I now view DPS as a necessary evil, but I would totally cut them out of my groups if I could be successful without them."
I think you just showed your true colors here. This is just about you feeling like you, as a Tank, are better than DPS. But you did touch on a great point: "...if I could be successful without them." Dungeons are a group effort. Remember that. As much as you may hate the DPS, you need them, they need you, you all need the healer, and the healer needs you all.
DBNM Apr 8th 2011 5:14PM
@ Cigan
Adamjgp is actually correct when he says there are too many DPS classes when compared to tanks and healers especially considering their relative size in a 5 man group.
There are 3 specs, 1 sub-spec (kitty/bear druids) and 10 classes, meaning 31 unique playstlyes altogether. Of those 31 there are 4 tanking specs (Blood DKs, Bear Druids, Prot Paladins, and Prot Warriors) representing 12.9% of possible playstlyes (4/31) and 5 healing specs (holy priests, discipline priests, holy paladins, resto druids and resto shamans) representing 16.13% of possible playstlyes (5/31).
In a 5 man group there are always 3 DPS, 1 healer and 1 tank so both tanks and healers make up 20% of any given groups composition (1/5). If every player in WoW were to miraculously queue for a dungeon, and if the population of WoW specs followed the above statistics then DPS would still have longer queue times than tanks or healers. These are pretty far fetched assumptions and are not indicative of the actual behaviors and gaming habits of the WoW community at large exacerbating the issue of tank+healing specs/ DPS specs (9/31 or 29.03%).
These DESIGN features of WoW cause inherent issues when looking for groups because of the increased relative importance of tanks and healers as well as the limited number of tanking and healing roles in the game.
Combine this with player burnout from abuse, steeper learning curves for tanking/healing, and (possibly) a lower interest in tanking/healing specs in general and it is easy to see why the queues for DPS are so outrageous.
With that being said I believe the 'Call to Arms' mechanic actually does provide an excellent incentive for tanks and healers to queue more often and will encourage people to cope with the community based issues with using the LFD tool. However it does not solve the problem of tanks and healers COMBINED making up only 29% of available specs in the game. If Blizzard wishes to create greater parity among game play roles then they simply need to add more tank and healing specs into the game. Period.
Backfire the Exalted
Longtime Lurker Apr 8th 2011 5:53PM
@DBNM
A comment on your numbers, as I've seen this argument a lot lately.
I don't think Blizzard categorizes the roles as you have (out of 31 available specs). As you've pointed out, the numbers/percentages clearly don't work when you use these as a baseline.
I don't work for Blizzard, so I can't say with authority that this is what they're thinking, but it seems more than coincidental (especially since they've added Death Knights specifically to fill role "holes") that this works...
Number of Classes capable of Tanking: 4 (Death Knight, Druid, Paladin, and Warrior)
Number of Classes capable of Healing: 4 (Druid, Paladin, Priest, and Shaman)
Number of Classes capable of Melee DPS: 6 (Death Knight, Druid, Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, and Warrior)
Number of Classes capable of Ranged DPS: 6 (Druid, Hunter, Mage, Priest, Shaman, and Warlock)
Total Class/Role combinations: 20
4/20 Tank = 1/5 = 20%
4/20 Healer = 1/5 = 20%
12/20 Total DPS = 3/5 = 60% (Equally divided between Melee and Ranged)
This seems to be a more logical way to divide the Class/Role combinations, plus it works with the percentages needed for Dungeons (and to a lesser extent Raids).
My two cents...
Cheers!
Scard Apr 8th 2011 8:48PM
@DBMN, Longtime Lurker
The only flaw within either one of your calculations is that you assume 100% even play across all classes. The calculations for either of your arguments are reliant on the fact that each class is played equally. From all the data I've ever seen, this is not the case. From the census data from warcraftrealms.com (which is pulled from the Armory), here's the current class distribution of level 85 characters: DK 11%, Druid 12%, Hunter 11%, Mage 11%, Pally 14%, Priest 10%, Rogue 7%, Shaman 9%, Warlock 7%, Warrior 10%.
Assuming that each class is distributed evenly across the roles in CAN fill by spec gives us what's below. This, by my own admission, is a HUGE assumption, but at least we'd be getting closer to solid numbers. If anyone knows of a site that breaks the census info down by spec (which is also available on the Armory, so I'm sure it's out there somewhere), I'd love to get a link to it.
DK Tank: 3.7%
DK DPS: 7.3%
Druid Tank: 3%
Druid DPS: 6%
Druid Heal: 3%
Hunter DPS: 11%
Mage DPS: 11%
Paladin Tank: 4.7%
Paladin DPS: 4.7%
Paladin Heals: 4.7%
Priest DPS: 3.3%
Priest Heals: 6.7%
Rogue DPS: 7%
Shaman DPS: 6%
Shaman Heals: 3%
Warlock DPS: 7%
Warrior Tank: 3.3%
Warrior DPS: 6.7%
Total Tanks: 14.7%
Total DPS: 70.0%
Total Healers: 17.4%
(Yea that total comes to 100.1%, rounding ftl)
Personally, I've got 3 tanks (no DK tank), 3 healers (no disc priest, he stays holy) and a boatload of dps toons (every class but warlock and hunter, me and pets don't work, apparently). I know each role and play each equally well. The true tank shortage isn't from the lack of tanking specs. It's from the lack of people's desire to play a tanking spec. From my own personal experience in Cataclysm, solo-queuing in the Dungeon Finder as a tank is like walking down the street while having someone constantly pushing you in the back (GOGOGOGOGO!), telling you you're walking the wrong way (CC is for losers) while telling you that you're fat and ugly (You suck at tanking).
Until the DPS (and I admit I'm guilty of it myself at times) decide to check their epeen at the door and stop treating their tanks like dirt, the tank shortage will continue, no matter what sort of incentives Blizz throws at them.
Longtime Lurker Apr 8th 2011 10:24PM
Just to be clear: I'm not arguing that the percentages of Tanks/Healers/DPS in my post above are indicative of the actual breakdown in World of Warcraft (our collective experiences with the LFD tool have demonstrated a disproportionate number of DPS to Tanks/Healers), rather that Blizzard has designed a system of Class/Role combinations that enables the playerbase to more easily match the requirements for play.
If they had a Class/Role combination with 100 DPS, 2 Healers, and 1 Tank, while still expecting a group to be formed with 3 DPS, 1 Healer, and 1 Tank, then they would have designed a system that could only fail. They haven't done this.
The problem is that far more players (at least in the population that uses the LFD tool) have chosen to play DPS, than Tank (or even Healer). The only way to solve this problem is to:
a) Provide a disincentive (punishment) for playing DPS (or over-represented Class/Role); or
b) Provide an incentive (reward) for playing a Tank or Healer (or under-represented Class/Role).
I think we can agree (or I hope so at least) that option "a" is unacceptable. This leaves us with option "b," which is exactly what they've done.
In short, the Class/Roles, Specs, or whatever you want to call them are already designed to meet the LFD tool requirements; they just need to convince the playerbase to be more equally represented across the existing Class/Role combinations...
You could have 100 Tank/Healer classes, but if everyone prefers to play the single, awesome, fun DPS class, you can't build a team...
Cheers!
Necromann Apr 8th 2011 2:06PM
There will be some people that complain that now they HAVE to raise up a tank or healer just to get mounts.
Herman Apr 8th 2011 2:37PM
all the mounts and pets are ones available through other means as well.
ddbrown89 Apr 8th 2011 2:08PM
As a DPS main, I think this is the perfect solution. The reward for DPS players is going to be shorter queue times, which means literally, a whole lot less wasted time. They are giving us back some of our life.
Plus, the rewards themselves can all be obtained elsewhere in the game. I'd bet a DPS has a lot easier time clearing out strat after strat trying to get the deathcharger than a healer does.
loop_not_defined Apr 8th 2011 3:41PM
To give your point better perspective, a DPS can run Stratholme five times in an hour while a Tank or Healer might still be working on their first dungeon in the same amount of time. The exception to this is BC mounts that hide away in Heroic dungeons, which can only be run once per day...in which case, the Required Role Of The Day could get far more chances.
I wonder...Blizzard says the chance of getting the mounts is the same as the normal method, however, does that mean combined or individually? Does a Tank have the same chance at winning a "Rare Mount" as someone has winning a White Hawkstrider from Magister's Terrace, or does he have the same chance of winning a White Hawkstrider as someone running Magister's Terrace?
I.E. 1% chance for Random Mount
or
1% chance for Specific Mount + 1% chance for other Specific Mount + 1% chance for other Specific Mount?
KPB Apr 8th 2011 3:54PM
That's what I was wondering.
If they are all separate independent chances to get a specific mount then the over all chance of getting any random mount is going to be much higher and it would be theoretically possible to get multiple mounts in a single bag. If it's 1 chance for a mount to drop and then which mount is randomly determined it's a completely different story.
V Magius Apr 8th 2011 4:33PM
I'm going to guess here. I think Blizz explained the loot tables once.
Obviously, the bags will have their own loot tables. There should be two rolls initially for what is in the bag, then a series of rolls depending on outcome.
First roll is gear roll. Gear->Material->Slot->Item.
Second roll is for special. Special drops(Y/N)->pet/mount->specific pet/mount->Reroll already have.
MattKrotzer Apr 8th 2011 2:08PM
As a tank with a healer alt... I like this.
Windshear of Duskwood Apr 8th 2011 2:37PM
You look like Paul Rudd... are you him?
MattKrotzer Apr 8th 2011 2:41PM
First time I've gotten "Paul Rudd." Usually I get Jeremy Piven, Bruce Campbell, or during my heavier days, Kevin Smith.
Paulio Apr 8th 2011 4:15PM
LOL can see Kevin Smith in your avatar pic... cranial shape matches Piven, otherwise not so much. You DO sort of look like Paul Rudd's younger brother. Clearly you have actor charisma -- even consider a career as a stand-in? Then you could play WoW on your laptop and get paid while you stand in one place for several hours per day as they set up the scenes.
Adrianne Apr 8th 2011 6:37PM
That's funny, because I can see a young Nicholas Brendon.
MattKrotzer Apr 8th 2011 11:32PM
Well, this has certainly been quite a flattering day for me.
Jack Mynock Apr 9th 2011 1:15AM
Chris Evans