Greedy Goblin

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Blizzard's cataclysm role philosophy

Ghostcrawler announced several fundamental role changes, and some others were already announced or implemented:
  • DPS warriors should have no rage problems (mana-based DPS already have infinite resources)
  • Healers should be able to decurse and DPS not (priest in shadowform for example)
  • Healer mana will be the limiting source of the fight length (instead of enrage timer)
  • Tanks should not have difficulty fighting for aggro with DPS
  • Tanks have very high DPS
What is fundamental and above all philosophical change here? In one sentence: the DPS role will be extremely simple and will have zero responsibility for success outside the very competitive high end raiding:
  • DPS does not have to bother about resource management
  • DPS does not have to bother about dispelling
  • DPS will never fail. If the raid wipes, that will always be healer fault.
  • DPS does not have to bother with aggro
  • DPS does not even have to do damage, as the tank can kill everything besides top-end bosses
  • Update: DPS can stand in the fire. It's the priest's job to life grip them away.
Some parts are already implemented. The "damage less than the tank" was once an insult, now it's custom. Strike that, I usually see 1-2 DPS below the healer (in lowbie 5-mans and HCs) and the monsters still die. The DPS just start his AoE on everything without having to think about either aggro or mana.

The dispel changes are necessary. I mean if dispels cost mana and healers have limited mana while DPS do not, the rational solution would be that the DPS dispels and guild leaders would request it. To prevent this, Blizzard must take dispel abilities from DPS, as they already announced with shadow priests.

The "DPS never fails" part is obviously about appearances. The "boss enrages after 8 mins" and "healers run out of mana after 8 mins" are equal to logical people. However for socials it's worlds apart. The first case is a hard-coded barrier, failing to kill the boss in 8 minutes is clearly DPS fault. The second case is a bit flexible and the result really depend on healer performance and gear. But if the healer made no mistakes and managed his mana perfectly, it's obvious only to skilled log-reading HCs, the "casual" DPS is free to claim (and believe) that the healer failed to keep his mana for one more minutes (as opposed to he failed to kill the boss in 8 minutes).

The "responsibility" for socials is a crucial thing. A social is completely content with complete failure as long as he and his peers blame someone else for the failure. Please note that failure is a must in any MMO, if the average player would clear the content on the first day, there would be no game. The average player must wipe, but since wiping is "no fun", he must be saved from the wipe. This contradiction will be solved by the "blame the healer" philosophy introduced by the changes. Blizzard masterfully noticed that the "average healer" is a supporting, helpful person (noticed how many women are healing?), so they can be used as scapegoats. If the average DPS is blamed for failure, he'll get defensive, make drama and quits. If the average healer is blamed, he feels bad, apologies and tries harder.


What is the solution for us? In cataclysm, be DPS! Not because it's easy and we can ride without blame. Be DPS because DPS will be the difference between a top raidguild and the "lol we play for fun" filth. The tanks and healers will be almost as good in the low-end guilds as in the world first. They must be, or they get so much abuse that no social can take.

On the other hand DPS will be spoiled and not motivated to be better. Strike that he does not even has to recognise that he is bad! He can be useless and be completely sure that he rocks! Therefore good DPS (who can kill the boss before the healer runs out of mana) will be rare. If you'll be one, the top guilds will be waiting for you with open arms.

57 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ugh. This is quite evidently already here.

I did the weekly raid on Frostmourne, which is Patchwerk, last night as a DK tank.

I came third on DPS with 2.6k There was 5 others beneath me, with the offtank at 5th. The top DPS was a shadow priest offspec using healing gear.

DPS not needing to do anything is already here Gevlon... already here.

Klepsacovic said...

DPS will still have to manage resources. GC has made it clear that warriors will not have unlimited rage.

I mourn the loss of DPS-dispel as a sort of "we are not just rogues with a different name".

DPS will fail, just as they do now. As you said yourself, this is a stupid idea. So what? Leave the stupid ideas to stupid people. Doesn't have a damn thing to do with 'socials' though. They're just as capable of lying for a healer as for a DPS.

Nowhere in that link does GC mention aggro or threat (I searched), but he has previously stated that they don't intend for Cataclysm to be an aggro-independent AoE-fest.

As for tank DPS, you're exaggerating horribly.

I know this is hard to understand, but the world is not an eternal struggle between bordeline-retarded 'socials' and a small group of highly skilled and motivated geniuses.

DPS, healers, tanks; they all are played by people. Some are good, some are bad, some are in the middle. Some want to improve, some don't, some want to improve but don't know how. There are slacker DPS and slacker healers and slacker tanks.

Nothing significant is changing. Already it is the DPS that tends to separate guilds. Healers already get blamed. This isn't a crazy new conspiracy by Blizzard to appease the socials.

Anonymous said...

I'm still more likely to blame the dps for standing in bad stuff then a healer, especially when the healers will need to be more selective with who they heal. A dead dps will still do no dps, so maybe they will be forced to have increased awareness or they will die. But it will be an interesting shift in responsibility - especially if a certain shadow priest has to heal. They will NOT be blaming me without a fight.

Gevlon said...

@Klepsacovic: the average people is as good as they have to be. If there is a DK "tank" who tanks in blood presence, he will be kicked because he can hold only one monster, the rest will kill the healer. So this DK "tank" will either learn tanking or become DPS.

On the other hand if the very same DK is doing 900 DPS in a heroic, no one will give a damn, so he is not even aware that he is useless.

If the HC bosses would require 3000 average DPS, he would learn to play or quit playing.

They are not inherently bad and tanks/healers are not natural born good. Tanks and healers are forced to be good (or not be tanks/healers), the DPS is not forced to do anything.

@Pugnacious priest: how many times have you heard in HC-s that "where was the heal n00b?" from a 900 DPS melee who just got whirlwinded. Yes, the firedancing DPS will die and do 0 DPS. They spend the remaining time of the fight abusing the healer. Of course you can fight back against blame. It's just pointless. In a "casual" guild it will be 20 vs you.

freakpants said...

"To prevent this, Blizzard must take dispel abilities from DPS, as they already announced with shadow priests."

As far as i understand, shadow priests still get to dispel, only "remove disease" is going to be impossible in shadow form.

Unknown said...

im in a fairly hardcore guild, and everything is ALWAYS the DPS or the tanks fault. Our healers are healing, if you die because you didnt get a heal its because someone else was doing something stupid at the same time requiring massive healing.


The one thing they have said, and you did not post about, is that health pools will be greatly increased, meaning damage will come slower and steadier so that healers overhealing will be doing it wrong. That will make a large difference in how the game is, because the tank wont have 2x - 3x as much life as everyone else (tanking plate will have the same stamina inherently as dps plate).

Anonymous said...

@Pugnacious priest: how many times have you heard in HC-s that "where was the heal n00b?"
If I hear someone saying that, I just say "Sorry, I can't heal through that much damage. Maybe you can try standing outside of the fire while I'm healing the tank".

Anyway, becoming DPS will at one side be very interesting. If you are a good dps, you can rock the meters and show what dps should be like.
On another side, as you said, only good tanks and healers will remain(most likely). This also mean that some "just not good enough yet" healers and tanks will go play dps.
More dps and less tanks and healers is something I really don't want to see happening.

I'm also curious at how they are gonna implement the "depends on healer's mana" thing. Chainpulling won't be possible then. I only do heroics mostly, and those are just a chainpull. But if the healer is OOM after each bossfight, maybe, just maybe, dps will learn to not pull every single mob in sight before the healer can even start drinking. Should be interesting too.

Klepsacovic said...

That DK tank will be given the suggestion of switching to frost presence. If he is a normal person he will notice he forgot to switch while doing dailies and will fix the problem.

DPS will always be 'invisible' because there are 3-5x as many of them. They could be made visible by simply making heroic mobs hit so hard that parties are 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 1 DPS. Then it will be clear what he is doing.

You're right that most people are as good as they have to be. But the DK pulling 900 DPS isn't useless. He's above zero and isn't pulling extra packs. I'd kick him if he did. Otherwise, I might check to be sure he's using diseases. I ran into a tank like that once and was able to talk her through it. She was very stubborn, but because I didn't just declare her a moron and try to kick her, I think I've gotten someone started towards being better.

Or let's rewind to pre-BC with a shaman who had no concept of aggro and died over and over. He didn't learn anything at all from dying and thought it was funny. Moronic social, right? Perhaps, but I think since then I've learned a bit and it wasn't death that caused it, but a social sense of obligation to others.

In your response to Pugnacious Priest you're assuming that the guild is on the side of the DPS. Socials can side with healers too. I've seen it myself. Anyone can get blamed if they're unpopular enough or fuck up in an obvious enough manner.

Sae said...

Thank you Gevlon for clearly and concisely summing up why even those of us who consider ourselves social are quitting healing or tanking for good.

Have you had a group tell you you have too little mana or health in a 5man, whilst you are in full gemmed and enchanted T10 for your spec? I have, and was glad when they kicked me. When Cataclysm comes out I fully expect most groups to force their healers and tanks, especially healers, to over-gear everything to an even more ridiculous degree simply so they can do the minimal amount of work and still be carried. After all they want to "GOGOGO!!!1!", not have wait for you to drink.

Currently, a depressing majority of the dps in my randoms have been retarded and/or lazy. Even if one is kicked it is replaced by more of the same. If I did not heal them while "two tanking" or when they stand in fire or, heaven forbid, ask them to do some useful non-single-button-dps task then they revert to screaming two-year-olds.

So why deal with the aggravation, even as a social, when you can have a relaxing and fun time dpsing and be heralded as a god amongst dps simply by doing your job? If you like tanking, you can still protect people using cc, misdirects and interrupts wisely. If you like healing, you can still toss a heal when the healers struggling or stunned. And you won't have trouble with groups, because your healers and tanks will love you. After all, good tanks and healers know that competent dps are the rarest commodity of all.

Sean said...

I'll first make it clear that I'm a Healer and are not biased towards DPS. My raid experience is 8/12 ICC10 heroic, and I've been to quite a few PUG 25-man raids/dungeon runs. Gevlon's post has quite a bit of fallacies to it:

DPS does not have to bother about resource management
This already happens for some classes. Basically, it has been found that it is more "fun" for the DPS to worry about rotations rather than resources. This change is a result of feedback from the players to the developers.

DPS will never fail. If the raid wipes, that will always be healer fault.
Well, if the damage meter comes out and FailDPS is last on the meters with pitiful damage. Do you really think that people are going to ignore this?? If the DPS stand in the fire (or get cleaved) and die, do you think this will be unnoticed? Simply showing the combat log is very simple proof of what happened.

DPS does not have to bother with aggro
This point is not obvious to those who are not raiding (or have not been following raiding) at a high level. Currently, DPS damage is scaling faster than tank threat. The consequence of this is that the tanks are struggling to hold agro and the DPS has to hold back. This has been deemed as not "fun".

DPS does not even have to do damage, as the tank can kill everything besides top-end bosses
Again, this is related to feedback from players to developers. It has been found that it is not "fun" for tanks to be doing far less damage than DPS. Increasig tank damage is a good change so that tanks can also measure their performance. And related to what I said above. I find it impossible to believe that low DPS are going to "slip under the radar" (even in PUG raids).

The "DPS never fails" part is obviously about appearances. The "boss enrages after 8 mins" and "healers run out of mana after 8 mins" are equal to logical people.
They are not equal. I prefer the "healers run out of mana after 8 mins" because this "8 mins" is variable depending on healer performance and gear. The boss enrages after 8 mins means that healers have no impact on the enrage timer at all.

The tanks and healers will be almost as good in the low-end guilds as in the world first. They must be, or they get so much abuse that no social can take.
I'm not sure whether Gevlon has experienced enough raids on both the high and low end. I've seen many fail tanks and fail healers, just as I've seen many fail dps. And I believe that this trend will not change in Cataclysm.

Gevlon said...

@Klepsacovic: "why switch forst lol im blood spec n00b stfu". There are 3 tanks, 5 healers and 17 DPS in a raid. The tanks are busy tanking, the other healers are happy that it's not them being abused, the DPS stick together.

@Azzur: EXACTLY because you are a high-end raider, the change is invisible to you. The DPS already and will always have high responsibility in high-end raids. However 95% of the guilds do not do high-end raiding. "if the damage meter comes out and FailDPS is last on the meters with pitiful damage. Do you really think that people are going to ignore this??" shows perfectly that you don't have the slightest idea what's going on in the bottom sections. In "fun" guilds POSTING damage mater itself is "mean". Also, while I agree that there are tank mistakes too, please note that there are different levels of "failure". In your top-end guild I'm sure that a tank who does not interrupt while holding two mobs dodging fires and taunting after 3 stacks is considered "failed". I've see such tank fails all the time. However the DPS I'm talking about are doing less damage than the healer and take more damage than the tank.

If we consider the perfect guy 100%, than the average tank in the WHOLE playerbase is around 80%, the average healer is around 70%, the average DPS is around 30%.

Unknown said...

I have to disagree with you on your assesments here, Gevlon.

I raid with one of my servers top-end guilds, and as a tank who makes sure to know the tactics, I can tell you this.

DPS failing isn't about overaggroing. While it's true that keeping aggro is sometimes an issue, in general it's not.
DPS failing isn't about hitting enrage timers. There are very few fights where the enrage timer is a big enough issue - if there is a noticable enrage timer, you probably hit it because of the real reason of failing DPS.
And that's tactics.
If DPS stands in the fire and die, they screwed up. If DPS is late biting someone, they screwed up. If DPS is late switching to another mob, they screwed up.

What I see is some headaches being removed, not the game being dumbed down. Resource management will become something that takes a little care, but nothing horrible if you play well. Which is as it should be.

Interesting and difficult mechanics isn't a bad thing, headache-inducing mechanics that seem to serve no purpose other then inducing that headache is.

Kaaterina said...

I haven't seen the source of enrage timers going away, Gevlon.

IIRC, they implemented them precisely because in Vanilla DpS could suck horribly and still get boss kills.

Also, I am quite sure that you're doomsaying a bit Gevlon. DpS has a reasonable degree of responsability in today's raid. Has had some in every raid instance.

There were interrupts to be done in Ulduar, Iceblocks to break, staying out of the ice, staying in the ice, staying out of the lightning, staying out of the fire, staying out of the mines, staying out of the rocket, staying out of the eyebeam, blowing up plants, NOT blowing up plants, Killing the cat but NOT in the raid, and so on and so forth.

Even in later tiers we have run with the fire, spellsteal the buff, shoot down ice, give fire to poisoned tank. Or even in ICC. Interrupt, CC the MCs (NOT KILL THEM), Shoot the blood beasts, kill the add slimes, help the kiting tank by bringing him your slime.

In short, most of the fights now, in the most casual-friendly raid expansion has SOME kind of responsability passed down to DPS. Mechanics that can NOT be ignored in the current tier, but can be ignored in past tiers. (No one cares if you suck at dodging Icehowl, the ICC tank can just TANK through his enrage.)


I'm not sure whether this is a good or bad thing. Current tier will be done by medium to good people, while bad people will be stuck in past tiers.

What's different from now?

Kaaterina said...

Also, Gevlon.


I expected better from you. 86.5623749% of all internet statistics are made up on the spot. Please cite sources for your claim, or not at all.

It is ok to have opinions of the like in your last comment, put it's not OK to pass them on as facts.

Sean said...

Gevlon is right in that my experience in the "low-end" raiding is very limited.

If Gevlon's descriptions are correct, I guess it shows that I'm really out of touch with the low-end scene.

I guess the whole point of the post is that as a DPS you'll be able to differentiate yourself more noticeably. However, I contest this and I believe that all roles can show they are skilled almost equally.

Anonymous said...

In Classic, it was always the healer who would get the blame if a wipe happened, since all wipes were due to tank loss. If I hadn't quit a while ago because of boredom, I would not look forward to these changes, because having to be accused of failing by people who do not even bother to walk out of the fire is just so damn nerve-wracking.

When I left that guild and entered one that was clearly more hardcore (and smaller), suddenly the abuse stopped. The healers weren't much better than before (in fact, most of them were the same people), but the DPS was vastly superior, doing twice the numbers while taking a tenth of damage themselves.

Cataclysm is a huge retard-buff.

Kaaterina said...

I'm still waiting for those gamebreaking changes that will come in cataclysm, making it retard-friendly.


No, what GC says doesn't count, else we'd all be riding ponies.

I want to see the facts.

ardoRic said...

After reading this and the new priest changes, I couldn't help but get a smile on my face.

Have you noticed the "Life Grip" ability Priests are getting? DPS don't even have to not stand on fire... It's the healer's job to grip 'em out of it.

Precious

Sten Düring said...

@Azzur

I pug raids, as in 100% of my raiding is pugging.

DPS comes on a scale from truly atrocious to decent. A couple of times every month I see good DPS, and by good I mean touching the 10k dps single target.

I see 2k dps on our way clearing to Marrow 25-man, and just trust me, 2k dps there is way, way, way worse than 900 dps in a five-man heroic.

I see "I'll AFK this, call me when we're at boss." -DPS.

I see 8k dps refusing to move from goo on floor because "it would lower my dps."

I, of course, see tanks and healers pulling their versions of the above stunts. They're kicked, quickly.

Getting kicked from raids improve one out of two things:
1) Improved performance results in less kicking.
2) Idiots ceasing to ask for spots in raids, or on low-pop-servers being recognized as idiots pre-raid, lowers the amount of trash your risk to carry through the content.

@ardoRic
Damn, didn't think of THAT atrocity.
I saw Lifegrip as a smart way to generate warrior LoS pulls. Charge, Thunderclap, get gripped out of the shit and run around the corner together with priest.

Anonymous said...

I'm just gonna copy the newest announcement from blizzards side:
"Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or “Life Grip”) is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can’t seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown."

Let's see what Gevlon said:
"DPS will never fail. If the raid wipes, that will always be healer fault."


@Kaaterina: "DpS has a reasonable degree of responsability in today's raid." Yes, you are absolutely right, and you will get your wish granted, they are about to make the raiding "retard-friendly" as they did in ICC. What I mean with that is that a Pug can kill the first 5-6 bosses without problems. Name one raid in bc or vanilla, that had it's first half of bosses being killed by a pug. (Karazhan maybe)

Jb said...

Aren`t you forgetting one important thing Gevlon ? 99% of dps is meeterwhores. In every single one of random hc I do,k noe exceptions, dps meeter comes out and very often followed by some comment like "9k, omg awsome" or 1,5k, jeeze ltp m8. Beeing a <2k dps is going to be even worse now imo.

Sten Düring said...

@Jb

You forget that it doesn't help at all.

Weekly retard random hc /I get one per week on average):

Retard dps: GOGOGOGO
Me, going, pulling just about everything in sight.
Retard dps: GOGOGOGO
Me: STFU or I'm going -- together with 50% of the party-damage.

Deepfriedegg said...

@ardoRic and Gevlon

Even though there might be talents or glyphs that would reduce cooldown on "Life Grip", I can't imagine priests massively saving people from fire with something that has 45 seconds cooldown... Yes, it might happen but not on regular basis. Really nice example was the one with LoS pulls. Even better one with Life gripping hunter who is Misdirecting to a tank.

Aconitum V said...

I raid ICC10, my guild on the whole isn't up to 25man or hardmodes. We are a casual raiding guild (LOL)

We have maybe 3-5 members who are a delight to have in raids, tanks who tank and are happy to go the extra mile when something goes wrong, healers who bend over backwards to cover for "lesser healers", failing tanks and dps who wouldn't know common sense if it slapped them in the face. We don't have good dpsers, we have a handful who do good dps, but they generally do so at the expense of moving when they need to, switching targets, removing curses and the likes.

I play a healer, and I do it bloody well, these changes will probably see the end of my healing career though.

A few regular things we healers have to deal with:

1. The fury/arms warrior or ret pally who joins in dps gear, no mitigation and roughly the same HP as my healer and insists he's a tank because he read some dumb ass forum post somewhere that said he could.

2. The rogue in green/blue gear who insists I "keep him up" as he proceeds to "tank" when the actual tank goes for a bio, to put the kettle on, or DCs

3. The moonkin that joins as tank and uses pvp gear to become crit immune

Raids are even worse

4. The mage who screams at you to decurse because it's more important that he keeps casting than it is that I keep him alive while he's stood in fire.

5. The dps who simply doesn't have a clue. You know the type... female, cutesie, braindead. She gets where she gets by flirting her way around the guild, and playing dumb so that if ever anyone should point out what a useless waste of space they are, the entire guild would come down on them like a ton of bricks.

This will be the dps who consistently dies at hodir because they can't tell the difference between "big" and "small" circles, the one who throws a tantrum and starts crying because they were too stupid to see that all other people bar 2 had left the other boat and maybe they should consider going too. They'll also be one of your better dps, though on further inspection (which no one will do because it would show up the truth) they have the lowest "active time" largely due to being dead, chatting, cybering and being a moron. They get the high dps numbers by standing in one spot and blasting all they have until they die, and having everyone else pull out amazing feats from start to finish to keep them alive against all odds.

So, in light of this what have blizzard done to make my life easier? They've gone and handed a talent to a healer that when read by dps says "Stand where you like and blast, it is now MY job to make sure you move when you need to"

Started the game as a prot warrior and gave up when the wave of prot paladins hit and we were no longer wanted, I became a mage main which lasted a year or two, wasn't really me though, I got tired of 40man raids and me being the only one equipped with a decurse button (ok I wasn't the only one, but it's certainly how it felt) Now I'm a healer and have been for a year or so, how long will I last? What will become of me?

A healers role is to ensure that the health altering effects of the game are countered by life giving effects. It should stay like that. We shouldn't be expected to give health, shield from damage you could have avoided yourself, and now you want me to cover for your lazy, unobservant, meter watching ass by grabbing you and dragging you out of things too?

How about you learn to play?

Sten Düring said...

@jan

No, they won't, and they shouldn't.

You honestly believe that'll prevent them from getting yelled at by the morons? Hell, I get yelled at for not interrupting every Frostbolt from Deathwhisper...

Kaaterina said...

Oh god.

The Life Grip 'pulling out of the fire' comment is a facetious comment made by the developers.

Get a grip.

Kaaterina said...

@ Anonymous

"What I mean with that is that a Pug can kill the first 5-6 bosses without problems."

No, you're trolling. Or fishing for an angry response, or whatever.

You know what a PuG is? Going to Trade chat and inviting ANYONE who offers to join. So long as you have 2 tanks, 2 healers and 6 DpS.

That kind of PuG won't kill much of anything.

If however, you impose limits of who can join, why yes, you will get quite far.

As far as I remember, multi-guild groups were hitting Mother in BT in TBC at the end of the expansion. (Prior to the great nerf.) The requirements to join them were pretty much the scaled down standards of today's average Trade Chat PuG.

I should know, I got my Hand of A'Dal title by joining or creating such PuGs.

So don't come to me and lie in my face that PuGs didn't exist in TBC. They did, but were mainly exclusivistic due to the logistical nightmare of 25 raiders vs 10 now.

ardoRic said...

Of course the Life Gripping people out of fire was a pun.

It was, however, deliciously related to what Gevlon is saying on this post.

But it is true that we do have SOME responsibilities shifting to DPS roles.

Interrupting, dispelling enrages (yeah, i'm a hunter), take some care not to die (ever stood more than 5 ticks in Gormok's fire in hc?). All this while pumping out enough dps to beat timers (even if soft enrage points where things get out of hand).

I actually like having this kind of responsibilities to handle. Straight out nuke fights like Patchwerk or Saurfang for melees bore me out of my mind.

sam said...

If the average healer is blamed, he feels bad, apologies and tries harder.

till the healer quietly leaves without telling them why and they begin to blame blizzard because there aren't enough healers.

LMAO....didn't we do this two expansions ago.

but the real problem is that the people that like playing healers will like this and trudge through it. The people they convinced to play healers for imbalance problems will hate it and bail for DPS classes. Then it won't be tanks slowing down LFG it'll be healers.

sam said...

Started the game as a prot warrior and gave up when the wave of prot paladins hit and we were no longer wanted, I became a mage main which lasted a year or two, wasn't really me though, I got tired of 40man raids and me being the only one equipped with a decurse button (ok I wasn't the only one, but it's certainly how it felt) Now I'm a healer and have been for a year or so, how long will I last? What will become of me?


this is hurting the game more than anything else.

People playing what they think will be most useful instead of playing what is most fun for them.

Klepsacovic said...

Yes, Gevlon, the 1% of absolute idiots will never learn. They're irrelevant to any discussion of game design or philosophy.

DPS aren't going to rally around the really terrible ones. Why would they? It's a much bigger ego boost to pull up a meter and insult the really low DPS. Haven't you noticed yet that stupid people are eager to point out any flaws they can find and are incapable of coordinating their attacks?

And if you're going to break out the "healers are supportive and nice because they're girls" stereotype, then why not also bring up that e-boobs are a powerful defense against anything?

Nielas said...

I am with Klepsacovic on this one. The idiots will still be idiots and the normal players will keep ignoring them. There really is not some big 'class struggle' going on in WoW. Good healers will stop healing people who stand in the fire and will laugh at those who insist that they be life gripped out of it.

Healers are not some victim class that likes to be abused. They simply find fun in the resource management mini-game that is healing while tanks find fun in the threat generating and damage mitigation mini-game and DPS find fun in the damage min-maxing mini-game. Healers who stop having fun will quit healing for idiots and join guilds that appreciate them. People in PuGs will either learn to appreciate good healers or have to deal with bad healers.

Gevlon's reaction is way too much 'the sky is falling' though that is understandable with his 'crapsack world' view on things.

Anonymous said...

I had no idea what Gevlon meant about "low-end" raiding until I joined a social guild on an alt I was leveling. Much to my surprise they actually had "scheduled raids" in which they attempted to take down content. They pretty much always failed. While I don't agree with the "95%" statistic, if what Gevlon is saying seems alien to you don't rush to conclusions. After careful review I've realized that there are tons of these social guilds out there that are some poorly mashed together grouping of random individuals who have no idea what they're doing.

Analogue said...

A good but socially oriented healer often does not really mind getting blame - most of the time. See: Healer Burnout for what happens when they do. I think this is why women are attracted to this role at a seemingly higher than average rate. Many women although we don't like to admit it have nurturing "let's all get along" instincts. Ape-subroutines if you like due to us having to raise small squabbling brats to independence.

So honestly I don't think that too many healers will give up and quit in Cata if it becomes the default to blame the healer. Deep down inside, we sort of like being martyrs. We get fulfillment from knowing that everyone else in the party is a moron but we still kept them alive.

Twisted, yes. Stupid-social, yes. But a real dynamic that will be in play.

Anonymous said...

I have never agreed with Gevlon more. Although, I do think this is no new development - it is the logical extension of the game's development over the past several years. Throughout BC and Wrath, the developers have been steadily removing complexity and challenge in the name of accessibility and "fun".

I raid in a small 10 man guild on an average server. Our healers and tanks have carried our dps to our first LK kill (which came with the 5% buff) and now to 8/12 in heroic ICC. We have about 6 dps that are basically interchangeable and not 100% reliable and also usually have 8-9 guild members on for raids and are forced to pug the last 1-2 dps spots. The constant has been 2 tanks and 3 healers - by far our most reliable and most skilled players. We have literally brute forced every encounter in ICC, often the majority of our dps don't really understand the mechanics of the fight - they simply don't need to understand. The raid leader calls out the basics - who to bite, what to target, etc - in vent and that is usually enough. But only because our tanks and healers are excellent and no each fight completely.

Everything I have read about Cataclysm deepens my belief that Blizzard is moving even further in this direction. I stuck around to see Lich King and complete the encounters that were interesting and compelling to me as a fan of the warcraft games and their story. I doubt if I'll be buying the next expansion and honestly can't understand what anyone other than the worst of the worst finds appealing in the announced changes and philosophies.

Tonus said...

I don't have a problem with a system where tanking and healing require more planning and effort than DPS. It means that bad players will drift away from those roles and towards DPS, which is already overcrowded. So if your bad DPS is throwing a drama-fit, you can boot him out the door because he is a dime per dozen and easily replaced.

Shannon Fowler said...

"No, what GC says doesn't count, else we'd all be riding ponies."

...What the voice of all the designers says doesn't count? What world do you live in? GC is the definitive source for all design information, and is very closely working with the tank community, at least, to help them understand changes.

Demanding sources and then saying the most reliable and helpful one 'isn't allowed' accomplishes nothing but make you look like a petulant brat stomping your feet because you hate being wrong.

Anonymous said...

I guess most people reading this kind of website are above the "low end raiding" guilds, as last anonymous is sadly correct. I belong to such a guild as I leveled in it and have made some really good friends that I have fun with. But raiding is a frustrating experience as other then about a half dozen or so decent players the rest just don't really get it.

Range dps on Marrow shooting the boss when they are standing right behind someone dying on a spike and complaining "how hard" they have it because they have to move out of the fire.

Having to tell half the raid about every switch or move, every time, no matter how many times you've attempted a fight. And then getting "yelled at" for telling someone to move out of something bad.

Having at least a couple people that don't know the fights, on every attempt, and refuse to get on vent to hear an explanation. And then say "can't we just zerg the boss".

The list goes on and on. What ends up happening is you end raiding less and less in the guild, doing more pug raids with other frustrated raiders, and only doing your frost and maybe the weekly with your friends.

But don't think the bad doesn't exist in abundance, because it most surely does.

Orange said...

"The tanks and healers will be almost as good in the low-end guilds as in the world first. They must be, or they get so much abuse that no social can take."

Absolutely not true. Every player is responsible for their role in a very high end guild. There are tons of situations where healing even the unavoidable damage in a raid is extremely healing intensive, or tank coordination needs to be very precise. The world-class healers, tanks and DPS are probably all at least 10 times as good as the average.

Taemojitsu said...

I think some of the interpretations might be incorrect. For warriors, normalization is supposed to give sufficient rage to use abilities, but not so much that no choices are made. Some warriors will complain in Cataclysm when they cannot spam their most powerful abilities on every GCD.

Encounters will still be designed with penalties for slow dps to avoid world first of bosses by bringing 90% of raid as holy paladins. The mana change is to encourage spell choices, so going oom is an option to prevent raid from wiping.

Mystery Mechanic X which will ensure threat and dps scales for tanks has not been revealed, and the caveat is that tanks who make poor talent/gear choices will have problems with threat. Blizzard has consistently said they intend to make the game more challenging for all players, it's just a matter of how well they can design mechanics to accomplish their goal especially when a challenging game has danger of players quitting if they cannot advance, and I think the position on hard modes* is also important.

It looks like MMO-Champion did not report on healing philosophy due to the large amount of other announcements.

Anonymous said...

In raid situations, the dps has to be good, because you have two time limits, your healers mana pool for keeping the tanks and raid up as damage is thrown about, or the berzerk timer. A discerning raid leader that wants success, will look at the damage meters, damage taken, and healing received to note who's getting heals and who's standing in fire.

These dps who get benched due to high damage taken must work to get better or be forced to wipe. So what if they rage and quit? There are others that are ready to replace him and eager to see the content. Perhaps I'm a social for choosing to raid successfully with mostly my real life friends, but they are success oriented. That means dps can be just as to blame as the tanks or healers.

Though its true, if nothing goes wrong (ie people don't wipe), no one cares about the meters at all. The boss is dead, loot to be had. Its only when shit goes wrong that people review this stuff.

Taemojitsu said...

oh, they did reveal mystery mechanic X.. vengeance in warrior preview. no hybrids for cataclysm as it looks like they won't be changing gear mechanics, and probably faceroll dps as described. altho kind of fail as it still doesn't account for polynomial dps, leading to a repeat of the wotlk situation of poor scaling except with extremely high tank dps. The most overpowered for sure will be a prot warrior dual-wielding in dps gear in a heroic dungeon supported by two healers, who does half an elite mob's life with aoe shockwave.

sad. ..face

Nielas said...

When it comes to 'bad' raiders I tend to split them into two groups:
-those who are simply not skilled/competent to do the raiding
-those who insist on grouping with the incompetents and expect progression

The first group simply is not skilled at a specific task but if they are all having fun and recognize the fact that they are lousy raiders then more power to them.

The second group earns my contempt since they know they will fail yet expect divine intervention to save them. If they are unable to train their guildies to be better raiders then they either get out of raiding or need to find another guild. Complaining about it makes them pathetic since they are not forced to participate in the debacle yet choose to.

PS
I do support the idea of a player being part of multiple guilds. This way one could be part of a 'social' guild and a 'professional' guild and not have to abandon old friends who cannot/will not raid

Taemojitsu said...

In more detail: "threat is not fun" --Ghostcrawler.

According to the NA healing class role forum, healing is about sparkles. Why are they not adding more sparkles in Cataclysm?!

Sten Düring said...

@William

You're both correct and wrong.

World class whatever are better than the average. Of course.

If you bring a truly atrocious tank to ICC at least you won't wipe on Marrowgar -- you will never even reach Marrowgar.

It doesn't matter if it's 2am night between Tuesday and Wednesday. That tank MUST be replaced, or you call off the raid. Both viable options.

A truly atrocious dps will still allow the raid to clear out the first wing, even on 10 man.
Yes Saur is 9.3 mannable. I've downed him with one melee-dps doing 1.5k dps, with raidbuffs, geared in 226 - 264 gear AND 10% instance-wide buff.

Slightly OT: I'm still in awe of that DPS. It takes considerable skill and finess doing that low dps, because I'm not positive it's enough to go autoattack and AFK.

Jyi said...

You're wrong about your conclusions, Gevlon.

1) Casters don't have an unlimited resource currently and I doubt they will have one in Cata. Their mana-regeneration and mana-regenerating cooldowns are the cap to their dps. A mage can't just keep spamming Arcane Blast even though it's crazy dps because the mana cost becomes too high. Warlock can have virtually unlimited mana, but it comes at the cost of life AND time. The time used to Lifetap + GCD is time lost dps'ing. It adds up. And the classes that don't need to use abilities to regen mana just can't hit higher dps by spamming a single spell: their challenge comes from doing the correct rotation = skill.

2) The developers have said they don't want the tank classes to be struggling with threat all the time, but they don't want to make it too easy either. It means dps can't just nuke away. I'm thinking it might actually be harder for dps and tanks in Cata, because the devs have been expressing thoughts about Misdirection and Tricks of The Trade not playing so big role (and currently the aforementioned skills make threat a joke).

3) If there's no hard-enrage and healer mana will determine the duration of the fight, an idiot dps who wastes healer mana will lose the fight. Granted, priests can 'life grip' someone away from fire, but for example if it was a melee, he loses more dps-time by getting gripped 20-30 yards away and then running back than he would've lost by sidestepping 5-10 yards to get out of the fire. Also, the 'life grip' will have a 45 second cooldown and a mana cost, which means the priests can't use it on every idiot.

Generally, the more retarded the dps are, the more time they will cost.

And remember, the devs and players have liked the complex priority-rotations of specs like feral druids or affliction warlocks. The devs are obviously maneuvering warriors and hunters more toward that kind of skill & resource priority -rotation instead of a hardcoded "do what this macro says and you'll do optimal dps".

Combined, a harder, more thought-requiring dps-rotation and the need to pay attention to shit around you seem like enough challenge for me.

Zyrus said...

The dispel change is because of PvP, you're missing the point of this.

While yes, it will have the consequences you mention on PvE, the change is mostly focused on PvP.

Anonymous said...

"DPS does not have to bother about resource management"

Already here. I have huntards just standing and autoshooting with Aspect of Viper on. Or volley if there are more than 1 mob.

"DPS will never fail. If the raid wipes, that will always be healer fault."

Again. Already here.
Standing in shite? well that the bad healers fault for not healing hard enough.

"DPS does not have to bother with aggro"
L2Taunt noob tank! Who hasn't heard this?

"DPS does not even have to do damage, as the tank can kill everything besides top-end bosses"

I consistently out dps the dps on my protection paladin.

Nothing new here. Just blizz making it official :)

Anonymous said...

Removing *mana* management as a factor for DPS is necessary, because as of now, it unfairly biases some fights away from certain classes. (There are fewer DPS specs that have mana problems, then there are that don't).

DPS will still have to manage resources - just not mana.

That's not much of a deal for most guilds, but it is a pretty big deal for guilds pushing hard modes. Many, but not all of the changes are motivated by Blizzard trying their best to bring all the PvE specs in line with eachother, for that reason.

Darbaris said...

Good DPS is already hard to find, this is followed by good healers, and good tanks.

One thing you are right about. Players are as good as they need to be.

Kaaterina said...

@Shannon

...What the voice of all the designers says doesn't count? What world do you live in? GC is the definitive source for all design information, and is very closely working with the tank community, at least, to help them understand changes.

Demanding sources and then saying the most reliable and helpful one 'isn't allowed' accomplishes nothing but make you look like a petulant brat stomping your feet because you hate being wrong.

Please leave your condescending tone at the door. To resort to ad hominem is the lowest informal fallacy you can bring to the table, and it shows that you're just desperate to win an argument, ANY argument on the internet.

Remember what GC said in Wrath beta about paladin burst being fine? Remember how they were literally HOTNERFED on live 24 hours after Wrath shipped?

Remember what GC said about dances? Wait, where are the new dances?

Remember the epic mage thread in which Ghostcrawler answered "GHOSTCRAWLER PROMISED ME A PONY!'. Sure, that mage is an idiot, but literally every complaint he had there was, at one time or other, promised directly or indirectly by GC, REGARDLESS of the fact that several were facetious comments that were taken out of context. Now where have I seen this before. OH YEAH, THE LIFE-GRIP.

So yeah. I'm the petulant brat who demands patience to see what changes come in beta. I'm the petulant brat stomping his feet NOT doomsaying about how the sky is falling. I'm the petulant brat who recognizes that between the cub and the lips there's a HUGE distance. I'm the petulant brat who pointed out INCONSISTENCIES in their declarations, inconsistencies that have yet to be pointed out wrong.

I'm the petulant brat who likes waiting before there's some more data available before ducking for the bomb shelters. I'm the petulant brat who doesn't QQ like hell when his little bubble of comfort is shattered by changes that have yet to be implemented.

If I'm a petulant brat, what does that make most of you them? QQing toddlers? Bandwagon sheep who can't even recognize the wisdom of waiting for beta before passing a judgement?

Tell me. What does THAT make you?

Grip. Get one.

Anonymous said...

We downed Lich King today (last night, its morning in germany), and i must tell you. That isent right, not even close. I came out 5 th place with my fury warrior on lich king with a wooping 11.8k dps , imagine what the others did. Our lowest was 8k dps which is okay as he has lag issues.

On the other side, healers, healers dont do faults, they dont get compared, if nobody dies its okay, you just assign one for dispells and the rest raidheals , two pala tankheal be spamming their really simple two button ot one button rotation.

Tanks are hardest
Dps are second

Healers are way behind

No matter in which dungeon, healers have the easiest jobs, it s just that nobody tells them because the feel like special primadonnas all of them.

If you can heal (in top guilds or okay ish liek mine) you are spoiled like tanks are everybody is a your mercy and therefore at your knees).

As dps you get thudnerfucked, you have to dps high, have awesome gear, be top five in charts, dont stand in anything that is bad, keep the right things dying fast enough(vakls anyone) and you only get flamed.

Dispelling is eay as hell in wotlk just pushing one button.

healing is easy as hell.

Threat is not any issue, the only thing that matters is situational awareness and that is the thing tanks should have to most (soul whatever) and then dps because when dps fails the cant self heal out of it they die.


bla bkla bla you get it and sorry for bad spelling

Unknown said...

"The "DPS never fails" part is obviously about appearances. The "boss enrages after 8 mins" and "healers run out of mana after 8 mins" are equal to logical people."

In WOTLK the trouble with enrage timers was that you needed all the DPS you could get. If they remove the enrage timer, what would be stopping guilds from having 3, 4, 6 healers in a 10 man?

If it really was a trade off from 8 minutes of enrage timer to 8 minutes of healer mana, i see your point. However, enrage timers were the only thing keeping a raid of half healers

MyName said...

@anon:

>No matter in which dungeon, healers have the easiest jobs, it s just that nobody tells them because the feel like special primadonnas all of them.

That's not true. Different fights challenge different roles. Two healing a 10 man fight in Ulduar because that's the best way to manage enough DPS was way harder than being DPS. It's just a matter of "don't stand in the fire" and "move to the left or right when your get a debuff", with healers you have to look at Grid and can't even see the boss or the fire because the way it is now people go from 100% to 0% in 3 sec.

That same fight as a tank is just "stand in one place and do your threat rotation, nothing happens to mess you up this fight". Then the next fight is "you gotta kite this guy in a square because if you stand still a big fire patch blows up and kills you".

Different fights challenge different groups and this "healers have it soo easy" stuff is completely false.

Cecht said...

@Anonymous in Germany
You very incorrect, sir. While there are certain fights that are test the situational awareness of dps(LK, Professor P, C'thun come to mind) for the most part addons have been developed to warn DPS in giant letters with a warning noise if they are f-ing up.

Healers, on a other hand, must have the same situational awareness of the environment while being constantly aware of the current HP of the people they are responsible for and the rate of HP loss of the people they are responsible for. The addons that help healers with this awareness, such as Healbot, typically hurt more than they help. In addition, fights are now being designed around debuffs that cannot be mindlessly dispelled by addons like Decursive. (Note, I am not talking about addons such as Grid or Clique that help with targeting and reaction-speed. Those are insanely valuable.)

I have played a priest healer in classic, a paladin healer in TBC and a druid healer in WotLK, and have been subject to healer burnout in classic and WotLK. I do not enjoy the added stress that comes from feeling personally responsible if anyone, *ANYONE* dies. Even if the person died to their own stupidity, a lot of healers still feel responsible.

This is the great difference I think between DPS and tanking/healing. DPS is only responsible for themselves. They monitor their own cooldowns, they monitor their own positioning, they monitor their own threat, and they rarely have to worry about anyone else.

Tanks have to pay attention to themselves and the boss and the healers cooldowns.

Healers have to pay attention to everyone. Is the tank's shield wall cooldown ready? Is that DPS standing in the fire? How much mana do the other healers have? Is the off-tank taking so much damage that I have to Greater Heal him or is a shield and a renew enough?

Overall, I agree with Gevlon. I think Cata is being designed to make WoW "more accessible" i.e. easier for the masses. This includes things like the simplification of gear and passive talent tree bonuses. While the top DPS players will continue to research gear, research fights, research talent specs, invest in enchants and gems, and practice rotations on dummies, the bad DPS will be capable of throwing 71+ points in 1 talent tree, gearing straight strength, using crap gems and enchants, and not understand how to play their class.

I don't think this will show up in most player's guilds, but pugs and purely social guilds will be affected.

Krytus said...

@Cetch

What do you think its the big difference of Healbot vs Grid+Clique?

Anonymous said...

I almost feel that you overstate this in light of the moron boosting currently forced on (non-casual) raiders. Look at random heroics: the whole point of the new system is to have successful raiders carry hopeless slackers.

This is an example of why I will not be playing the next expansion.