Nah, if that is the criteria then clearly it has to be the Dance Studio. Kael'thas shall have his revenge after all.
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World of Warcraft |OT4| "Why do we keep playing? It is simply in our nature."
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Nah, if that is the criteria then clearly it has to be the Dance Studio. Kael'thas shall have his revenge after all.
scaleable raids
Not entirely. One of the pretty legit/large complaints of the Brawler's Guild (and I guess it can apply to the treasure run as well) is that is favors DPS. Tanks/healers can get decently into the guild but the dps requirements get so high that if you aren't DPS you can't do the higher rank stuff. Their current iteration of Proving Grounds (based on the last interview they talked about it in) it's supposed to give similar vibes as the Brawler's Guild but be usable by tanks/healers. So you could heal your way through different fights to prove you're the best healy man or whatever.
Not to mention that the other purpose of Proving Grounds is to teach you how to properly play your role, which, the Guild doesn't really accomplish either. I mean yeah you can't make it through certain fights without knowing how to play properly but it doesn't really act as a teaching tool either.
Also it's worth noting that they've been talking about Proving Grounds for a while, I think it's safe to assume that it's a separate feature from the unannounced thing, especially since they've said a few times now that the unannounced feature will involve old content in some way.
The Lamonster
Member
I really think it's scaled raids or quests (or both).
RPGCrazied
Member
Anyone else having server issues? I can connect fine, but my framrate is lower than usual. Which was fine yesterday. Also getting some random battle.net disconnects.
RPGCrazied
Member
Yeah, I don't see that on login screen anymore. I guess I will wait an try later. I have AT&T U-Verse.
Been having huge issues on Kel'Thuzad. Instance errors changing zones, character does not exist when attempting to log into a new character. Brings me back to WotLK when you couldn't enter instances because you got the error "additional instances cannot be launched, please try again later."
Yeah, servers been acting strange today, i couldnt even leave LFR ToT today on my paladin after we killed the last boss of a wing because of some "cross realm" error. And I couldnt relog on my character after that because the world server was down apparently, even though i could log on my mage.
NotMyUsername
Member
I was randomly reading about the last boss for Trial of the Crusader and noting that the Heroic version on 25-man required more than two tanks. Does anyone miss the different raid compositions from the past? LFR is always two tanks, six healers, and 17 DPS now. I imagine it's due to trying to keep queue times a bit lower but why not have at least one of the raids with slightly different compositions? Have three tanks, seven healers, and 15 dps, for example. Queuing might take a bit longer but it could allow for a bit more variation in the fights.
I just miss some of the old mechanics that required extra tanking. Having one MT on a boss and two OTs to handle splitting adds (or two on boss with one OT grabbing adds) is something that seemed so standard in the past but doesn't happen any longer.
I'm guessing that some raiders doing 25-man heroics do have different compositions than LFR for their own needs and part of the reason they don't do this, aside from queue times, is because they don't want to overcomplicate LFR so more random groups can get through the content. Still, I think it'd be a good way to add some complexity and variety.
I just miss some of the old mechanics that required extra tanking. Having one MT on a boss and two OTs to handle splitting adds (or two on boss with one OT grabbing adds) is something that seemed so standard in the past but doesn't happen any longer.
I'm guessing that some raiders doing 25-man heroics do have different compositions than LFR for their own needs and part of the reason they don't do this, aside from queue times, is because they don't want to overcomplicate LFR so more random groups can get through the content. Still, I think it'd be a good way to add some complexity and variety.
Carpe Libertatem
Member
You didn't need more than 2 tanks to beat heroic Anub'arak (especially if you had good Rogues/Hunters to Tricks&Misdirect), although some guilds chose that. Similar to how some guilds may add or remove a healer or two depending on the fight.
I can't really imagine it would work in LFR at all, unless you split off the bosses that would require 3 tanks into one bloc to separate them.
Fulleffect
Member
Haven't been trolling the thread too long, was considering getting back into wow, but gave my account away, would have to rebuy everything.. Seems a bit expensive to get caught up with all the expansions 
NotMyUsername
Member
Well, it could be for a smaller raid, like Terrace. That's pretty much what I had in mind. Have one boss with two tanks on the boss, one for adds. Have another where stacks take long enough to drop that a third tank is in the rotation, another has three bosses that can't be tanked near one another (yet perhaps still require some movement around the place so there's still some danger of them getting near), and then lastly some other mechanic. Four bosses that require different three tank mechanics could be interesting, that's all. I haven't put any real amount of thought into interesting mechanics but I'm sure they could do stuff with three tanks that'd be interesting that couldn't be done with two.
With 5.3 allowing for OS drops it'd allow guilds with two regular tanks to have one of their healers/dps play as an OT for one raid and gearing up for it wouldn't likely be all that difficult.
Haven't been trolling the thread too long, was considering getting back into wow, but gave my account away, would have to rebuy everything.. Seems a bit expensive to get caught up with all the expansions
At full price you're looking at $80 (with a free month of play). Blizzard has sales every three or four months it seems (they just had one for Cata, I believe?). And I imagine you can find them cheaper by keeping an eye on local and online retailers. Depending on if you want to start this week or within a month you might be able to get them all for a good amount less. Not too sure if Pandaria goes on sale often, though.
10 man caused the tank issues moreso than LFR, lfr just sealed the deal. You won't see 3 or 4 tank fights like the past because the smaller sizes and the strict LFR sizes just don't function with it. Those are the fights that cause the most breakdowns in difficulty between the sizes, and they allow interesting mechanics that we simply don't see anymore.
NotMyUsername
Member
I still think that with how they change mechanics from LFR to normal raiding that the same could be done between LFR and 10-man to make the fights only need two tanks in 10-man if they were worried about having one raid require a different number of members. In all my examples they could easily change things so that stacks drop quicker in 10-man or not as many adds are around or the three bosses are able to be tanked two together but not all three, etc.
I just really think that would be one way to add new (or modify old) mechanics while keeping things interesting. And with the now easier method to get OS gear I think it wouldn't hurt things too much overall to at least try it with a smaller raid. Obviously I'm not asking for the Siege to do this but perhaps one of the starter raids for the next expansion could experiment with this stuff.
I came in late to Cata so I didn't run those raids but didn't Conclave of Wind require three tanks for the three platforms?
Only when you're talking about mechanics like tank swaps. Look at a fight like 4 horseman, the fight was COMPLETELY gutted in WotLK because of 10 man (and partly cause of 25 since it was 40 originally, but 4 tanks in a 25 man would have worked and number tuning would make that realistic).
Nah, Sand man platform didn't require a tank.
But, a lot of guilds early on did use a third tank for Nef in BWD because of the adds in phase 1, you didn't have to because they could be CCed, but an additional tank kind of trivialized it. Carpe does have a point though, you still see weird comps from time to time on fights. During Cata my guild used 2 healers (10 man) on a lot of fights since our healers were damn good and it made mechanics on fights easier to deal with in some regards. We actually got to a point where we were doing Baleroc with 1 tank, 2 heals, and 7 dps which was pretty fun/hilarious to be honest.
But yeah, Yanger is right, current raid structure makes a fight requiring extra tanks really sketchy. More than anything it's already hard enough to balance 10 and 25 mans and having a fight that requires more tanks on one version is just asking for complete destruction of balance. One version would come out on top as the easier version and if it was 10s most 25 guilds would probably break down their raid into 2 10s for that fight.
I just think it's a shame because much moreso than back in vanilla, it's EASY to have tank offsets on DPS mains, or they can move forward and make DK/sWarriors like the rest and just use dps gear, that way it's simply a spec swap and you don't have to have like 5 tanks and bench 4 of them cause it's a 1 tank fight. That was the only real downside before, now for instance I dps primarily but my tank set is MORE than adequate since it's easy to gear up extra tanks, and I do frequently switch when needed.
RPGCrazied
Member
Seems to have smoothed out. Was freaking out, thought it was my video card. I should look at getting a new one anyway sometime, but it works fine with WoW. I can run it at ultra settings no problems.
Yeah, nowadays would be perfect for it since gearing isn't a complete bitch like it was back then but balance issues keep us from it. I almost wish they would combine raid sizes since it would give them a lot more creative freedom on encounter design, but, I don't think realistically they could get away with going back to pure 25s (not that I'd personally want to either) but I don't think only 10s would mesh well either.
Having trouble designing compelling fights for two tanks doesn't say jack shit about designing fights that have more tanks. It's the exact problem we're talking about, you have LESS design space with less tanks, imagine if every raid only had a single tank, you wouldn't have even half of the mechanics we have now, and we already have so few.
The only issue with LOTS of tanks, is if you're forced to bring the same number to every fight IE: every fight requiring 5 tanks, is not really any better than every fight requiring 2, but if you can design a fight that works well with 5, and another that works well with 1, and not have to pussyfoot around that, it's fantastic.
There are plenty of fights that you can't just scale down, the entire fun aspects of them break down with less of specific roles. Tanking is just the most obvious since it's forced into '2' for every size of every fight right now, it doesn't even scale like healing or dps between 25 and 10.
The only issue with LOTS of tanks, is if you're forced to bring the same number to every fight IE: every fight requiring 5 tanks, is not really any better than every fight requiring 2, but if you can design a fight that works well with 5, and another that works well with 1, and not have to pussyfoot around that, it's fantastic.
There are plenty of fights that you can't just scale down, the entire fun aspects of them break down with less of specific roles. Tanking is just the most obvious since it's forced into '2' for every size of every fight right now, it doesn't even scale like healing or dps between 25 and 10.
You know what new feature would be nice for 5.4? Adding the ability to join heroics, LFR raids or BGs while playing an alt.
For example, you join a LFR queue with your lvl 90, and rather than wait 30 mins on him doing nothing, you can go play a low lvl alt and the LFR window will pop up while playing that alt and the game will automatically log you on your 90 during the loading screen if you click accept. That would be nice.
For example, you join a LFR queue with your lvl 90, and rather than wait 30 mins on him doing nothing, you can go play a low lvl alt and the LFR window will pop up while playing that alt and the game will automatically log you on your 90 during the loading screen if you click accept. That would be nice.
Pretty much, though, I don't think it's as bad as you say really. We still have plenty of creative fights with interesting mechanics. It's just those mechanics don't focus on tanks. It's more of just a role flaw than anything else, like you say they simply don't scale the same way DPS or healers do since you could have a million DPS in one raid if you just buffed the bosses HP while tank numbers depend entirely on the mechanics of a specific fight.
I think there is a (tiny) bit of truth to what Sciz says though, not because Blizzard is failing at coming up with interesting things to do with tanks, more just that there isn't much the role does that actually separates them from DPS. Vanilla 4 horsemen actually is a good example because it shows the problem pretty well, you can always just adjust numbers to make a DPS take the place of a tank, because really in practice there isn't much mechanically different from vanilla 4h and wrath 4h you were just substituting DPS for tanks. But I do agree a DPS doing a tank job is pretty lame which is why I still stand by what I said earlier.
That sums it up pretty perfectly imo.
On a similar topic though, I actually think tanks would be a lot more interesting if they could spend their resource(s) on protecting the other tank. Instead of having a boss where the other tank taunts off you and then you just sit there building your blood shield or whatever I think it would be more interesting if the boss hit harder at the base level and while the other tank had the boss you could use your abilities to protect him.
Back in Cata both of our tanks were Prot warriors and it was oddly cool watching them spam a talented safeguard on the other tank while he was holding the boss. Would make the generic taunt swap boss a bit more interesting.
NotMyUsername
Member
In terms of a tank being pretty much the same as a DPS mechanically and you're thoughts of tanks being able to use their resources on other tanks...how about this?
What if all tanks suddenly were able to shield, much like discipline priests. Ignoring disc priests for the moment, think if tanks had to rely on actively shielding themselves, the other tank, or even be aware of the need to actively be shielding dps and healers for particular fight mechanics. I don't plan on writing out a full theory on how this could all work but imagine if it had to do with shielding damage that healers theoretically couldn't heal through (large spikes or healing debuffs, etc). Tanks would still be the meat shields for the hits but on fights where they mostly just stand and soak the hits they could be doing active shielding and able to keep an eye on things and fights where they have to worry a lot more about movement and grabbing adds the focus on their shielding would be more central to the tanks and less on shielding the other members.
Naturally this would require a HUGE change in mechanics and abilities. And also it's a pretty ridiculous idea but it'd put tanks into a unique role that's both dps and pseudo-healer (or at least an assistant for healers). As for disc priests, it'd completely change them as to either no longer shield or more amusingly they could try to really make things screwy and make them cloth tanks, heh. I think it'd make more sense to change their purpose in this situation.
Anyhow, there's my random stream of nonsense I just thought up after reading Zenax's post, so it's not something I've put much thought towards. I haven't even tanked heroics/raids since Wrath so this isn't something I'm pushing for my main. Just something I think could potentially be very interesting.
Edit: Also, I'm completely ignoring all lore. I don't know HOW tanks would shield other players exactly. Warriors would be the hardest for me to rationalize as paladins and druids have magic systems and death knights are fairly magical in a sense as well. Warriors would...shout? Heh.
That's pretty much what I was suggesting haha, I just only applied it to the other tank(s) in your raid since actively shielding every member of the raid would lessen what is required of healers which I don't think is for the best overall. Simply having the tanks focus on each other wouldn't change much in the long run (basically if the bosses just hit harder in general it would give the current offtank more to focus on while he was waiting until his turn to taunt).
The bolded part actually exists now though, which I think is for the better. In MoP every tank works on the DK model, you spend the majority of your rage/runes/holy power/whatever using abilities that protect yourself from harm. The core problem with it really though is that on these fairly common "tank swap" style fights all your really doing is building up your resources so you take a lot less damage for about 10 seconds after you taunt, not really that fun or interesting mechanically. Shifting that time and energy into something else would make that style of fight more interesting.
NotMyUsername
Member
I know that active mitigation is a current tanking mechanic. Pretty much I was thinking of things like perhaps something would be case on a healer/dps that does 1,000,000 damage but a tank could throw a shield on the player and the ability suddenly only does 200k (not saying any active ability does 80% mitigation, just throwing number examples out). This would be something that a healer wouldn't be taking care of without the shield since it'd be an instant kill but it'd give the tank a little something to do specific to them.
But yeah, perhaps it'd be better if the shielding was only able to be used on other tanks? That's probably a better more streamlined way of doing it but I rather like the idea that tanks throw out sporadic shields as abilities dictate. I see what you're saying about lessening things on healers but I'm not thinking that the shields would be strong enough so healers wouldn't have to do anything. I'm thinking of them being less like damage absorption and more like a few seconds where it takes off a percentage of incoming damage or something.
Hmm.
Man you would think so but between Holy Paladins and Disc priests life as a Resto druid can be a rough one in raids. Bubbles are the devil!
NotMyUsername
Member
That was mostly in reply to you saying that my suggestion of tanks being able to shield other members would lessen what is required of healers. Besides, my thoughts on it wouldn't be that the tanks would be concerned with keeping shields up on everyone constantly, it'd be more that in most fights they'd worry about keeping shields going on themselves, as per typical mitigation, but also have fights where perhaps certain abilities that target non-tanks would need a tank shield to withstand the hit as it would otherwise be an instant death.
Regardless, it makes more sense in terms of how the game is set up to just expand it, as you suggested, to using their active mitigation abilities on the other tank. I just think it'd be interesting if tanks role changed more drastically into a group-wide active mitigation role so that they felt more different than just a meatier dps class, as you somewhat suggested earlier.
And to reiterate, when I say shield I'm thinking of it as in a 50% damage reduction. Not a 300k damage is soaked ability. A hit for 350k would still hit for 175k instead of 50k. So I guess with that in mind disc would have their bubbles still which would feel somewhat different.
Eh, whatever. A silly idea but something I wouldn't mind seeing pursued. WoW isn't likely the game for it but perhaps we'll see it somewhere eventually in an attempt to change up the typical tank/healer/dps roles. Though this wouldn't be changing that trinity, as those three would still exist, just that tanks would have different expectations. And with that I think I'm done thinking about this nonsense!
I was just jokin' with ya (though bubbles really are the devil ;_. That said, though, I actually think WoW is a good fit for that line of thinking, tanks are meant to be protecting people and that would just be an additional layer on what they currently do, seems like it would fit in perfectly imo.
. That said, though, I actually think WoW is a good fit for that line of thinking, tanks are meant to be protecting people and that would just be an additional layer on what they currently do, seems like it would fit in perfectly imo.Okay question for you guys - Since I resubbed I've still been chilling on a cata account. Just upgraded to MoP today. I entered my CD key on battle.net
When I resubbed I did a full install of the game from blizzards website. Am I correct in assuming I dont need to actually install from the MoP discs because I technically already had the content on my hard drive I just couldn't access it until I upgraded my account?
When I resubbed I did a full install of the game from blizzards website. Am I correct in assuming I dont need to actually install from the MoP discs because I technically already had the content on my hard drive I just couldn't access it until I upgraded my account?
As I understand it, that should be it pretty much.
(Might have to download some data, but I imagine most of the stuff should be already downloaded assuming you've updated to the latest stuff.)
I think they've implied it's something that'll add a ton more content to the game, which suggests to me it's either a way of repurposing old content (i.e, as you suggest, scaled raids) or a form of content generation from outside (user-created scenarios?). I'd lean more towards, as you mentioned, scaled raids. However...
The slight problem with scaled raids is the question of loot and rewards as a result of it; while it's trivial to scale loot to a given iLvl, that's not necessarily the best goal - what iLvl do you aim for? Current-tier? If you do that, it'll be ineffective beyond that tier, and the content will become obsolete - or you could rerun the same content for the new, higher-iLvl version, which is something else I'm not comfortable with.
I'm thinking a more realistic prospect is raid challenge runs... awarding tokens which can be used instead of VP to upgrade gear. That keeps it viable independently of the VP cap (it can still be independently capped, of course), and allows it to improve your gear without interfering with the natural gear progression.
This policy *really* sucked for the third tank when you weren't on those bosses. Even now, with the occasional single-tank fight, it's tricky.
Paladins already can in two different ways. Sacred Shield on a minimal cooldown, Hand of Sacrifice on a longer one. I do need to get better at sharing out my SS when I'm not tanking directly.
NotMyUsername
Member
That's why I said have all the fights in a raid need the extra third tank so it wasn't a situation of an OT at a boss and not having their real role to play for the fight. For a shorter raid of four to six bosses I think it could be an interesting change. The hardest part would be to scale it for 10-man which a regular group of 10-man for a guild could feel disadvantaged if the 10-man version still required three tanks. So Blizzard would either have to change up abilities so that only two tanks would be needed or just rely on a regular guild group to have one DPS that's built up a tanking OS to be a tank for that particular raid.
Obviously I haven't exactly planned out all the logistics. It's more just missing some old mechanics that aren't possible with what's become a rather standard raid composition.
I liked it when they rarely would drop a boss that required a different method of tanking, like warlock tanks on Leotheras and Illidan, or hilarity of Iron Council hard mode. I guess Garalon is somewhat like that, with pheromone kiter leading the boss and tanks soaking up damage.
Besides, I can't really think of many fights that really required 3 tanks, huh.
Besides, I can't really think of many fights that really required 3 tanks, huh.
I think if it's scaled anything it will be scaled 5 mans. Scaled zones don't make much sense unless there is a way to repeat old quests (which isn't impossible I guess) and scaled raids are victims of time. Scaling 40 people to do level 60 in current WoW wouldn't be the same as level 60 people in vanilla. Current level 60 players can pull like 1 to 2k dps pretty easily which is about 4x the dps anyone was doing in MC originally. Also healers are much more useful in the current game than they were back then which means you wouldn't need 15 healers in your raid like vanilla which would just make the DPS problem even worse.
Basically what I'm getting at is scaling a raid would take a lot more work then simply scaling people's item level because WoW is a much different game than it was back then. Also I doubt they want to take the focus away from the siege of orgrimmar and scalable raids would have to offer some sort of gear which would slightly diminish the reason to go into the current raid tier.
Also it's worth keeping in mind that they have said they are trying to offer alternate gearing paths for people who don't want to raid. Daily challenge mode/heroic scenario and Barrens stuff is a step in that direction but I assume they are referring to something you can grind since all of those things are limited to once per day/week. I don't think it would be much of a stretch for them to add in new JP gear (or some sort of new currency even) and have you able to run any 5 man in the game for it to just grind out gear like you could in the past (as there is clearly a body of people who enjoy that method of gearing).
Personally, though, I think any of those 3 things are pretty tame and maybe borderline predictable. Would be nice for Blizzard to totally surprise us with something we aren't expecting.
Or disable recount if you're running it. Seriously, recount is a damn monster in 25 mans.
That much? I got 8gb of ram, i doubt Recount affect my game that bad.
Recount is weird, I'm not saying it's lowering your performance by like 20 FPS or anything (that would be the insane amount of spell effects going on most likely, try kicking them down a notch) but it does effect performance and specifically has some weird interaction with Stampede. It's a pretty common problem where people are seeing massive frame rate drops or complete game lock ups when a hunter pops stampede in 25s with recount set to track pet damage. Doesn't always happen but I imagine it's not entirely random either.
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