Beth'litac, the first Firelands boss is down, providing hunter shoulder, maelstrom crystal, BoE orb and legendary fragment (staff is for sale here). Standard tank+DD+healer up. The trick we used is hunters downstairs using distractive shot on roping spiders, bringing them down, making P1 damage trivial, so healers started P2 with mana up.
If you want a guild with no attendance requirements, no one yelling at you on voice chat and still killing bosses on first week, come after reading the rules.
Wowprogress is overwhelmed, we'll see results soon where this kill put us. We expect 1-2 more bosses down this week.
This fight also shown me something that the developers are struggling with: melee unfriendly fights. Actually the whole game became melee unfriendly by the introduction of the healing circles on the ground. These are short range, stationary AoE heals. Ranged can stand in it. Melee can't. So healing melee takes more time and more mana than healing the same amount on ranged. So healers hate melee. If you are hated by healers, you don't get spot unless you outdamage the ranged by a large margin as it's always easier to find an OK hunter than a healer. To fix this, the healing circles must be removed, made player centered (healing rain is now a raincloud following the targeted player), or redesigned charge instead of duration based (like lightwell, stays down until depleted by users).
If you want a guild with no attendance requirements, no one yelling at you on voice chat and still killing bosses on first week, come after reading the rules.
Wowprogress is overwhelmed, we'll see results soon where this kill put us. We expect 1-2 more bosses down this week.
This fight also shown me something that the developers are struggling with: melee unfriendly fights. Actually the whole game became melee unfriendly by the introduction of the healing circles on the ground. These are short range, stationary AoE heals. Ranged can stand in it. Melee can't. So healing melee takes more time and more mana than healing the same amount on ranged. So healers hate melee. If you are hated by healers, you don't get spot unless you outdamage the ranged by a large margin as it's always easier to find an OK hunter than a healer. To fix this, the healing circles must be removed, made player centered (healing rain is now a raincloud following the targeted player), or redesigned charge instead of duration based (like lightwell, stays down until depleted by users).
17 comments:
I've never played a melee dps or healer in raid situations, but as a ranged I find that many bosses have a "all players outside of melee range will get hit by Y, effecting all players within Z yards with X" mechanic, forcing the range to be spread out and not partake in aoe ground heals, while melee can stack up all they want and reek the benefits. Festergut is a prime example.
With that being said, many fights are very melee friendly requiring less movement than required by ranged.
The flip side is that melee are usually already grouped up. So circles naturally land on all of them, while ranged are frequently spread out to avoid small area of effect (splash).
You're entirely right about the melee/ranged issue and Blizzard have acknowledged the same but don't seem to know what to do about the problem.
It suggests to me that they have broken it beyond easy repair.
In some fights the melee are grouped and the ranged are spread or moving a lot. Magmaw, for example. On Cho'Gall, the ranged must move more than melee but stack otheriwse. On some fights it doesn't matter much whether you're melee or ranged. Nefarian, Al'Akir, and Chimaeron, for example.
As a healer myself I would agree with jam. I target melee with my Wild Growth and Swiftmend as often as possible due to the fact that they are almost always in close proximity and I get more for my heal because of it. Fights where this can't happen (Valiona phase for example) are often fights where nobody can stack and it really doesn't matter.
No, healers tend to hate melee because in my experience melee tend to be more oblivious to their surroundings and generally take more damage than their ranged counterparts (the stonecore is a good example of an instance where melee have the potential to take way more damage than ranged but can avoid damage if they know how). This makes us waste mana by healing them when they shouldn't need to be healed.
Anonymous:
On Al'Akir hm, you'll want melee to move on Lightning Strike, because they don't lose as much damage while moving and because they've got lots of repositioning skills.
Also it's ridiculous how some fights are made MUCH easier by bringing in a certain class or spec.
Examples:
Twin dragons HM: Subtlety rogue used to be able to pretty much solo twilight realm, simplifying the fight.
Windlords HM: Rogue could reset stacks on Rohash for every ultimate, simplifying it a lot.
Chimaeron: Having a rogue 3rd on threat when burn phase begins can lead to long duration of evasion tanking and simplifies encounter.
Just some quick examples I could think for now.
I have essentially quit the game before 4.2, and don't know how the changes affect said encounters and don't know if the Firelands has similar encounters where a certain spec or class can overly simplify the fight.
(See: hunters distracting shotting spiders, what would you do without hunters?)
Yours, Tsila
I disagree with your point about AoE healing and melee.
Consider that on many fights, there are mechanics that melee can effectively ignore but that cause headaches for ranged. Examples are: V&T, Magmaw, Omnitron, Maloriak, and that's just from T11. In all these fights, melee are naturally stacked and ranged are spread, to the extent that most healing guides I've read have a line equivalent to "Use Renew and PoM to keep up the ranged, and drop your Sanctuary on the melee pile."
Full Disclosure: I main a hunter, and play a DK tank and a holy priest as alts.
In Stonecore, a ranged can do high damage on themselves when shield is up. If ranged forget to DoT themselves twice, they die, unless healed or mitigated. Both are ways to deplete healer mana, or die. Melee have similar mechanics. What is easier: timing your DoT on the shield, or running away? For me, running away. Especially when you compare it to a healer who normally does not DoT. Some classes also have longer DoTs than other classes.
Also remember there are some hybrid melee/ranged classes. An enhancement shaman, for example, is a melee DD, but also perfectly able to provide some DPS and utility in range, and mobile with ghost wolf. A sub rogue is, in some fights, a very mobile melee DD due to Shadowstep. Ranged also have unique abilities which work in melee range. For example, the shadowflame, cone of cold, dragon's breath, light of dawn abilities.
According to http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/183751/blizzards-current-stance-on-melee-vs-ranged Firelands should be more melee friendly than Cataclysm.
Atonement/Discipline takes care of melee pretty well, so long as the boss hit box isn't ginormous a la Al'akir. (yes, this comment was an excuse to say "a la al'akair")
I agree with Gevlon on the melee issue. Ranged DPS have the option to stand in melee range when needed, but they don't have to. Are there any fights lately where stacking melee is good? Token melee utility is cool and all, but it's token.
Hope they're working on it like they say they are.
Apologies I messed up the link earlier. Blue post re:melee/ranged
No, healers tend to hate melee because in my experience melee tend to be more oblivious to their surroundings and generally take more damage than their ranged counterparts.
While I would agree with this general concept, I submit it is due to A) boss models generally being huge, and thus taking up the entirety of melees' screens, B) Melee tend to have combo points on top of DoT-watching mechanics on top of procs, and all of them instant-cast, requiring more things to watch than ranged, and C) on top of everything else, melee has to be in melee range AND behind the boss, meaning if the boss moves at all melee has to recognize said movement and reposition.
I do think the situation is basically beyond repair. Any gimmick that melee can ignore (Shadow Crashes at players beyond 10 yards), ranged can also ignore by being in melee range. Obviously the "needs to be at least 3 ranged targets" style gimmicks can be implemented, but at least then you can decide amongst your 3 best ranged players. Your worst melee players cannot avoid anything.
The problem with melee is not just healing. The dps is bigger problem. On many encounters melee must run away from boss periodically or chase the target or just can't reach the flying boss. This results in loss of dps which you can't afford on hard modes. And developers also can't just make melee stronger than range.
We have decided to reduce number of melee in raid to 5-6 spots because of this.
My 10m group uses 0 - 1 mdps and has for t11 hm also, although I'm guessing 25m allows more mdps than 10m. We haven't kill Alys yet, which is the only fight we've seen that mdps is useful for due to interrupts, although now that resto shaman and holy paladins can reliably interrupt, you don't need as many melee if you have those healing. If you use the 1-tank strat, you also need a sturdy mdps for a hatchling, but that's about it.
(As for why we haven't killed Alys yet, I'm on a realm of baddies and the guild has a ton of problems, like postponing/canceling raids due to people not showing up, and not being able to recruit decent players...which is why we're still 4/7. Excuses, excuses.)
I agree with Jumina, you can't afford the loss of damage done when pushing progression. Adds spawn from all different directions. Plus they move all over the place (just like some bosses do) or are simply not melee-able--ie all players INSIDE melee range will get hit by Y constantly, period.
Cata hates mdps.
BTW, although you don't have to do the first 5 bosses in any particular order, Shannox is usually considered the "first" boss. Killing him also clears up the trash around the paths so there's little trash to kill to reach the other bosses. He was also the easiest IMO, and has been nerfed since we killed him.
Shannox is also a ranged friendly fight. However, I've heard that Alysrazor and Baleroc are melee favoured.
I'm another healer who doesn't think ground-based healing is the source of the melee-unfriendliness. I drop a swiftmend with efflorescence on a rogue and catch the whole melee pile. Many fights have a "ranged spread out" mechanic that prevents ranged from running to healing puddles on the floor.
I also agree with Azuriel about the task-loading on melee rotations and the issues with bosses taking up much of the screen. Melee are also often surrounded by ground effects from healers, pallies, and DKs, making it difficult to see "don't stand in it" mechanics.
Here's the thing about the melee/ranged problem: it is better to be able to stand anywhere within 40 yards of the boss than to have to stand within 5 yards of the boss.
They can't fix that.
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