I am not a top 5 guild progression player. I never will be. However, I try to read up on where I am going, and to be gemmed, enchanted, and take consumables.
I also personally feel that the hardest role in the game today is healer.
- Tanking is really not much different from Northrend. Good tanks already know about fire, and how to get out of it.
- DPS are asked to CC, interupt single target or may be dot up a couple of mobs instead of AOE, and get out of the fire. With the exception of having to learn that fire hurts, it still isn't that hard.
- Healers have been hit - hard. They are not meant to keep everyone at 100%. Their spells have been played with and re-organised. They are meant to run OOM, and to let DPS die. Some healers are enjoying the challange, but many others are daunted by the task (I am both daunted and enjoying it).
Unless I am running farm content (and I rarely farm), I will personally provide group consumables, applied at the start of the run, and after every wipe:
- Drums of the wild where there is no druid : Cost - negligible.
- Runescroll of Fortitude#2 where there is no priest : 100g per use
- Goblin Barbeque (or equivilant) : 50g per application. Alternatively you can pick up good food for 5g per use.
A wipe costs very roughly another 15g for personal repairs. So, a run on my healing priest with a druid tank will cost me 80g to start, and 95g per wipe. If you are in Arozcaldo (recruiting for DPS), I will pay for a wipe with guild repairs, and I will provide group buffs. It is not that expensive to take a few elixirs.
Does it matter much if you are missing a single buff or enchant? Probably not, unless you miss a kill by 1%
Does it hurt if you are missing 5 buffs or enchants? (Wild, Fortitude, Food Stamina + Stat, Guardian elixir, Battle Elixir) Not always, unless you miss a kill by 5%
There is already some farm content. I don't usually run normal dungeons on my tank or healer, but when I do, I don't bother with personal consumables. If your content is truly farm, I don't expect you to use consumables either.
Consumables also make for a faster run. More DPS, less healing required both mean less time watching a healer drink.
Healers do not currently have the tools to heal stupid. A death in a heroic instance is due to too much damage taken for the healer to heal. Wipes start with toon deaths. When you have died in a run, can you honestly say that you did everything you could to help your healer?
Yes? But no food buff or guardian elixir? You died because the healer was busy or OOM. Without buffing with consumables, you directly contribute to the healers problems.
You can pay for food buff (5g) plus Guardian elixir (15g) plus Battle Elixir (15g) easily and quickly: Two daily quests, or 1 stack of gathered mats will cover this.
If you have time to run dungeons or raid, you have time to pay for consumables. Slackers don't bother with consumables.
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My mage would prefer to use Elixir of Impossible Accuracy to better deal with wanting Heroic and raid hit cap. But both guardian elixir just seem pointless. So I use the int flask. And with Cauldrons and cauldron enhancing perks, it looks like flasks will be the standard. Which guardian elixir do you recommend for rDPS and healers?
ReplyDeleteOn my server, a goblin BBQ costs more than the buff food that provides 50% more bonus.
Reporting to a guild event (raid or dungeon) without consumables should mean you don't make the run that night. I think we all rather expect a PUG to be more ill-prepared and less practiced (not necessarily less skilled) than our guild runs. We also expect our guild runs will be as prepared as possible.
ReplyDeleteYou are right--for DPS or Tanks to report for duty without consumables means they are just making everyone's job harder. If the leader would leave them at the curb when this occurred, it would probably take no more than a time or two for them to realize 'come prepared with appropriate consumables' means just that.
And if they get frustrated and leave the guild? They become someone else's problem.
Personally, I'm disappointed with just how quickly things have got so easy again. I've played Resto Shaman as my main since ICC, and absolutely loved the challenges that Cata brought to healing... at least for the first few weeks.
ReplyDeleteThat challenge is now dead outside of raid content. Heroics are a faceroll. You can easily keep everyone topped off and not worry about mana at all, whether this be in a pug with the 5% buff or with a guild group. Within 2 months, the state of the game is back to Wrath levels and this makes me cry inside.
What I'd love to see is some sort of dynamic tuning for 5 man content. Something based on, say the average ilvl of the group and adjust mob health and damage based on that. That way, content will continue to be a challenge throughout the lifecycle of the expansion.
I've already become bored of the game outside of raiding because of this and the general lack of innovation in any other part of the game with Cata - do you not just feel like it's more of the same?.
With all the pandering to the crying fools on the forums, Blizz are alienating and will eventually lose some of their most dedicated player base.
@anonymous : Ranged toons (DPS or healers) tend to take magic damage (not always, but most of the time), so a prismatic elixir helps (+magic resistance). I bring BBQ's because they are convenient, not because they are cheap. And yes, the +90 food is often cheaper.
ReplyDelete@Kammler : Yup.
@Moreveac : Also Yup. I am personally still challenged as a healer, but that is largely due to a comparitivley limited dungeon running time, (and/or playing my healer like a tank). There were rumours of a scaling dungeon difficulty for low level toons.
Players could be 'rewarded' by even 1 or 2 'points' for personally downgrading in a random (eg elect to take an unlucky draw debuff). I am sure that you would not need much incentive to have an increased difficulty.
For our Guild, If you don't bring consumables, there are consequences. First of all, our Guild Master let's you hear about it via teamspeak with some not s prettty words. If your new, your getting kicked out no questions asked. If you're a veteran, you'll take crap about it for a long time. There's just no excuses.
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