Buffs > Nerfs: Why no one’s Griping about the ICC Raid Buffs

When my guild sets foot into Icecrown Citadel tonight we will find that Varian Wrynn, impatient with our progress against the forces of the Lich King, will have increased his assistance to us by another 5%. The Strength of Wrynn will now grant us 20% increased health, 20% increased damage, and 20% increased heals. I expect my World of Logs ranking for Marrowgar-10, initially 14th, will drop even more as more Holy Paladins blast out ever-larger heals.

On the face of it, a buff to a player’s DPS is pretty much the same as an equivalent nerf to a boss’s health points. When Blizzard dropped the pre-Wrath patch on October 15, 2008, they were roundly blasted by the community for cutting all existing raid boss’s health and damage by 30% (never mind that the nerf was needed since those bosses were designed to square off against players with talents, spells and special abilities that were changed or gone entirely). Many players on the forums to this day define themselves as having killed this boss or cleared that raid ‘pre-nerf’ as opposed to ‘post-nerf’, and I can think of at least one guild leader on my realm who was roundly ridiculed on the forums and in trade chat for getting his Kael kill a week after 3.0.2 dropped (I was actually there for it). Even today you’ll see people establish their raiding credentials by proudly proclaiming that they got Firefighter ‘when it mattered’ (i.e., pre-nerf).

Interestingly enough, this sort of posturing and positioning does not extend to Icecrown Citadel, at least not on my server. The day the first 5% buff went live, a thread popped up on our realm: ‘Icecrown raid buff today – will you use it?’ The overwhelming response? ‘Hell, yes!’ The most tempered response from one guild was ‘If everyone else uses it, we will, too.’ By and large there was no complaining about it, no grousing about Blizzard trivializing content or making it so that everyone could get the epics that only the cream of the crop should have. This is in quite the contrast to the response to many boss and raid nerfs of the past, or increases in Badge/Emblem drop rates for that matter. My own guild only briefly considered the question when I threw it out there, and voted overwhelmingly to run with it. (And here’s a caveat: We were 6/12 when the first 5% went in, having killed Rotface for the first time the night before; it took us another 2 months and an additional 10% buff to get our next two bosses. /shame)

What is the reason for this relative silence on the matter? For my realm I suspect at least part of it is because, at the time of the first buff, no guild had killed Arthas on 25, and only 4 had succeeded in 10’s. Since most hardcore raiders view 25’s as the Gold Standard, no one had the ultimate bragging rights, no one could talk shit about anyone else. As the number of guilds clearing the instance rose with each successive buff, there was no slagging in either the official progression thread or in trade chat, likely because everyone needed at least some buff to get the kill in the first place. For once people seemed to follow the maxim about glass houses and stone throwing.

Second, and maybe more importantly, is that this was a buff to players, and not a nerf to the encounters. The people that it mainly helped were the people who were skirting the edge. Consider Festergut-10 for example. Ignoring the dps contributions of tanks (which is considerable with 9 stacks of Gastric Bloat) and healers (which is pretty insignificant, for the most part) the six dps (assuming a 2-2-6 composition) have to average 5229 dps to kill him at the enrage timer. The original 5% buff would give groups that were stuck and averaging 5000 dps just a little bit of a boost, perhaps enough to get the kill, provided that they did everything right. A raid team that is either far under geared, or far under skilled and was doing 4500 dps would still not be able to kill him, as that 5% buff would only up their dps to 4752 – not enough. Even at 15%, players eking out 4500 dps without the buff wouldn’t be able to push it up enough to get a kill, though the new 20% should allow them to. The 5-10-15 buffs were enough to help push some folks over the bar, but if those groups were barely killing Festergut with the buff, they would likely not be able to kill Putricide or the other end bosses, at least not until they farmed some more gear or figured out how to do 5K dps unbuffed.

At the same time, the boss’s abilities have stayed the same – in other words, they are hitting just as hard and fast as ever, and using all of their special abilities in the same manner. What has changed is they are hitting players that have been buffed by a little bit in health. Consider Festergut again. On a recent fight at 3 inhales our tank took the following damage:

[21:37:25.167] Festergut hits Tanky 15097 (B: 3078)
[21:37:26.086] Festergut Gastric Bloat Tanky Absorb (8275)
[21:37:26.086] Tanky afflicted by Gastric Bloat (3) from Festergut
[21:37:27.179] Festergut hits Tanky 16712 (A: 2044)
[21:37:28.114] YoursTruly Holy Light Tanky +15815
[21:37:28.114] Festergut hits Tanky 16381
[21:37:28.940] Retadin Divine Storm Tanky +1124
[21:37:29.113] Festergut hits Tanky 17803

Without the 15% health buff, Tanky stood at 48,592 health; with the buff 51,168. The first three hits did a total of 48,190 damage. Tanky would have been hanging by a thread without that key heal (and the block and absorbs), but it would have taken the exact same number of hits, with or without the buff, to kill him. Sometimes the buff will make a difference, sometimes it won’t, but the difference between life and death is small. Up to this point, the raid buff to health may save a life for one more hit or one more tick of the DoT, but it hasn’t allowed most groups to sail through the content.

Ultimately I believe that’s why the raid buff has been largely shrugged off by the masses: Because it hasn’t to this point trivialized the content. You still have to execute, in some cases to perfection, to beat the raid encounters. Even with 15% extra health you have to kill the Bone Spikes, stay out of Death and Decay, kite the Gas Cloud and avoid the Malleable Goo. You have to heal through the Mark of the Fallen Champions and pass on the Vampire Bite, and kill the Suppressors. The buffs have given us just a little bit of a boost; given us just a hair more time to live and get out of the fire, but they haven’t just picked us up and carried us through, and that’s a good thing. I expect as the buffs increase there will come a point where you really will be able to ignore some of these effects, and then we’ll hear some complaining. Hopefully I will have earned my Kingslayer title before that day comes, or before Blizzard decides that they really DO need to increase the cooldown on Gastric Bloat, or change Putricide so that he only casts one Unstable Experiment per phase – you know, when they nerf it for real. THAT’S when you’ll see the real complaints.

Progression Blues

Everywhere I look these days it seems I see the same thing: raiders complaining about a lack of participation on progression night. It seems that folks show up for farm night but, when new bosses are encountered, a lot of people suddenly discover they have far more compelling things to do. Raids end up getting canceled, people get ticked off, and who knows where it leads to, maybe even guild break ups. While some would argue that it’s really a sign of ‘pre-Expansion Blues’, this has clearly been a problem for some guilds for some time going back to vanilla.

When people don’t show up for ‘progression night’ it makes me wonder: Why do they raid? I did a bit of digging around the blogosphere; my unscientific study of the question reveals three main reasons (in no particular order):

Loot
Camaraderie
Challenge

There are others, of course. ‘Experience more content’; ‘Nothing else to do’; ‘The guild/girlfriend/boyfriend want me to’ – but I think the three listed are probably the most frequently-cited. Some people will try to slip in ‘Character progression’ but in my view, that’s a euphemism for ‘loot’. You tell people you’re in it for ‘Character Progression’ because, if you tell them you’re in it for the loot, you’ll look like a greedy bastard. Who wants that?

At any rate, if you’re in it for any of these three reasons, then skipping progression night seems pretty counterproductive overall. If you raid for Loot, it’s in your interest to suck it up and go on progression night, because that’s where your upgrades are likely to be. After all, unless you’re extremely unlucky with drops or rolls, loot from farm bosses has pretty much been exhausted at this point, and most of it is getting DE’d or vendored for gold. Farm content isn’t challenging at all, unless you’re going for a difficult achievement or playing around with ‘let’s see how much dps the healers can do’. Maybe the real ‘challenge’ in farm content is in seeing how long you can maintain the group’s interest in running content that is ridiculously easy.

That leaves camaraderie. Camaraderie really seems to be the only frequently-cited reason for raiding that can suffer on progression night, particularly when the group struggles. Repeated failure makes it much easier for the group to break down, for fingers to get pointed, and for people to get sulky (although we all know that happens with loot, too). If you raid for Camaraderie you may well find your lovey-dovey feelings put to the test when you get firmly stuck; then you get a new challenge – keeping your group together when the going gets tough, maintaining the proper ‘group mind’ and morale to find a way to overcome the challenge. It’s certainly not easy, but when you do finally break through there’s a tremendous feeling – relief and accomplishment mixed together – that is greater for the effort the entire group put in than you get from completing a difficult solo task.

For me and I think for most members of my guild, the camaraderie and challenge are the top reasons why we raid. As such, I have a hard time understanding why people don’t show up for progression nights. My raid group would actually like to ‘farm out’ the farm content to new raiders or alts and let them get the gear and experience. We could then go in and work on the progression bosses. One of the problems that we have had is we often get to the new bosses late in our raiding night when everyone is tired and we don’t get as much time to work on them as we’d like (and our ‘continuation night’ is running into conflicts with changes to real-life schedules). I think most of us would be quite willing to sacrifice a few Emblems of Frost and the odd BoE epic in order to make some real headway on bosses we’ve barely gotten any attempts on.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the newer folks wouldn’t want to just keep going, and then we’d have to run the farm content ourselves anyway. That might actually set up a new challenge: a race to the next progression boss. A little competition within the guild might not be such a bad thing, as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.

What about you – do you show up for progression night? If not, why? I’d like to know.

Re: A Title at What Cost?

Just as an update to my last post -- I was cruising around in Dalaran when I saw the following advertisement:


I did some investigative work and found the guild's website. Those are indeed the instructions, and they are serious. The 25,000 gold gets you the title and achievement, but no loot. Guess you can't ask for too much! As of today, one person had applied for himself, and was suggesting that his brother might also want to pay. What the heck, it's only pretend gold, right? Still, I can't imagine feeling too good about a Kingslayer earned this way.

I expect I'll actually have something more useful to say about other topics later in the week. My brain is once again not cooperating too much with me.

A Title at What Cost?

Years ago when I was young and in shape, I was an avid player of Deck Hockey (a form of floor hockey played on a special rink with boards, regulation-size goals, referees). I played for many years with a tightly-knit group of friends. We had some great seasons and some forgettable seasons, but I always had a lot of fun playing, and I miss the competitiveness, the activity, and the camaraderie of playing on a team.

One magical season everything came together for us and we won our League Championship. Unfortunately for me I took a (very deliberate) knee to the side while diving to keep a ball in the offensive zone during the second round of the playoffs. The blow ended up cracking 3 of my ribs and ended my season. In WoW, it’s akin eating a Shadowcleave from a nasty Igor-type in the first wave of adds on the Deathwhisper fight without a Soulstone, and Battle Rez on cooldown. Still, I came down to every game of the playoffs and contributed how I could: I sat on the end of the bench, opened the door for line changes, shouted encouragement, offered my observations, handed sticks over the boards if someone broke one, I even tied a couple of shoe laces. When the final horn sounded during our championship-winning game, I ran out on the deck with everyone, jumped up and down (painful), gave and received hugs (even more painful). I had beer poured over my head, hoisted the trophy like it was the Stanley Cup itself, and partied into the wee hours of the morning. Despite my lack of playing, this championship was as much mine as it was anyone’s on the team, and while there was a touch of regret over not being able to play, it was tiny compared to the joy I had for me and my team.

Something happened last night that made me think on this a bit today. A guild member mentioned that the top guild on our server was selling Lich King 25 kills for 25,000 gold a pop (seems like they could do better; I recall guilds selling Amani War Bears for 25K in the not-as-long-ago-as-my-hockey-story). According to my guild member, their instructions to the buyers were to be as follows (and I’m not sure how he knew this):

‘When the encounter starts, jump off the ledge.’

Knowing the kind of people that are in this guild (a number of first-class assholes, which was further confirmed in an incident in a ToC-25 pug later that night), I quipped ‘And for an extra 25K, they WON’T shout all over trade and the official forums how you got your title’.

In terms of my hockey championship, I could be happy despite not playing in the Finals, because these were my teammates and friends. I had contributed to our drive to the playoffs; I had played a key role in our first-round victory and, even though I was sitting on the bench for 4 games, I contributed something to the team during our eventual victory. It sucks to be dead on the floor for ¾ of a fight, but you can still be happy when that boss goes down for the first time, and you can take pride in your group, even if your own contribution was small.

How much pride can you take in a title that you buy? At least Gevlon, who bought himself into a top-raiding guild, was a competent player who was able to contribute to his guild’s success. Maybe he only got into the guild in the first place because of his cash supply and business acumen, but they wouldn’t have tolerated his presence if he was a complete and utter failure (or would they?). The Kingslayer-selling guild is assuming that their ‘customer’ would be a hindrance alive, incapable of making a positive contribution (and maybe they're right); it’s a pretty good bet that they’ll treat that person with the contempt and disdain that I witnessed last night, wherein one of their members joined the group, zoned in, and immediately asked ‘Who’s dick did [undergeared player] suck to get in this raid?’ In my view, any title or ‘achievement’ that is ‘earned’ by deliberately killing yourself so that you don’t fuck up is not worth having. I personally don’t even feel comfortable wearing the ‘Of the Nightfall’ since we zerged it a month ago. Having people congratulate me on my ‘Kingslayer’ title, or my ‘Glory of the …’ mount if I had to get it this way would be worse than hollow, it’s downright humiliating, and I will not debase myself like that for a mere title or mount.

The Crowd Control Cure

This weekend, I healed a partial Heroic Halls of Reflection with some guildies.

I say ‘partial’, because we flamed out after multiple wipes on Falric/Marwyn. We’d made it past Falric with one wipe on trash, but then got repeatedly slaughtered on the second set of spirit waves. Given that we were running with three solid dps, it’s safe to place the blame on me or the tank, who is a bit undergeared (we had to enter the dungeon the Old Fashioned Way – by flying to it and walking through the door, as we were not allowed to queue for it due to her gear). I was disappointed at our failure, but had a realization:

I worked harder healing this heroic five man than I had healing an Icecrown 25 the previous night.

This realization, along with some other things I’ve been reading, overhearing in vent, seeing in guildchat, etc., made me wonder: What are we looking for in this game, and will we be happy when we get it?

I had read something on WoW.com recently in which everybody’s favorite former marine biologist stated that Crowd Control would be making a bit of a comeback in Cataclysm (and for the life of me, I can’t find that thread now). This was met with a ‘yay’ from a responder, and in general a lot of positives from the community. In searching (unsuccessfully) for that, I also came across this O-boards plea for more CC. Seems like there’s definitely some support for it.

So what do we want? Do we want to continue playing a game where you can clear a heroic in under 10 minutes? Or do we want to have to take our time, plan out pulls, single-target mobs down, and use Polymorph, Sap, and Banish?

Personally, I feel that more Crowd Control, and more need for strategic pulls can only improve the game, even if it requires a little more time. ‘Idle hands are the devil’s workshop’, they say. In WoW, idle hands lead to trade chat heroes and LFD terrors. I honestly believe that if dps were more engaged in heroics (i.e,, had to do something besides spam their biggest, bestest, AoE ability) then maybe groups would actually function like, well, a group. Of course there would be some inevitable conflicts when someone breaks CC early, or if someone forgets to re-sheep, etc., but I think in the long run, we might actually have more interesting experiences, and it would not be as much of a snore-fest as they can be now.

Sadly I’m not sure how well it would go over in practice. WoW heroics have evolved (or maybe DE-volved) into a race to the finish. This is both good and bad. I can recall turning down the opportunity to heal BC heroics because ‘we’ve got a raid in an hour’. It was a legitimate possibility that an hour would not be enough, especially if they were asking for something like Shadow Labrynth (heh, you could easily spend 2+ hours in there and not succeed). I think our top speed for things like Hellfire Ramparts and Underbog in T5 and Badge of Justice level gear was around 40 minutes. Nowadays we’re looking at six and a half minute clears of Drak’Tharon Keep. Raid in one hour? Sure, I’ve got time for three or four heroics! Our current WoW culture may not really accept spending more time in a measly heroic, and if there’s one thing that Crowd Control requires, it’s time.

It also requires communication. Even if it’s a simple ‘Mage sheep moon, Rogue sap star’ in party chat before a pull or at the start of the dungeon, you have to communicate with your party members (and boy, do I hate it when people say things like that. ‘lock, summon’, ‘mage make table’. Even when they insert a ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ it strikes me as rude, and I hate rude). As far as I’m concerned, any form of communication that doesn’t involve variations of ‘nub’ or ‘lrn2p’ (or some of these) are positives compared the silent runs we’re currently experiencing.

Balance is the issue. I don’t think anyone wants to see a return to the days where you can’t complete something if you don’t have 3 mages. Then again, most dps classes ended up getting fairly reliable forms of Crowd Control heading into Wrath, but they never gave us a chance to use them. Let’s see it come back, at least a little bit. I feel that the increased engagement of all players, and the need for more effective communication in the party, will combine to make the world of the World of Warcraft a bit of a better place to be, even as the Cataclysm tears it apart. Sheep the Moon in 3…2…

'Good' Loot, 'Bad' Loot

Last week something happened which has made me look at how irrational I can be about loot, and reopened feelings I haven't really had for two years.

One of my guildies asked me if I needed Marrowgar's Frigid Eye. He'd found it in his frosty sack of treasures the previous week when we had rescued Darnavan (who somehow found himself, like Kul and Corki, in hot water again this week). I guess he didn't need it, and didn't want to vendor it or put it on the AH. He needed bag space for the expected haul and thought I might like it. Best of all, it was free.

This is a dream ring for a Holy Paladin. Nice Stam/Int, good spellpower, and HASTE, which I am currently pushing as much as I can. Oh, and a yellow socket. Nice. So I took it, and after the raid I went to my bank, took out one of several Brilliant King's Amber that I keep stashed away, and socketed and equipped the ring. It replaced the very nice Signet of Putrefaction.

Yet as I equipped the ring, I felt a moment of hesitation -- I didn't really want to replace the putrid ring from Festergut (no way am I replacing the Ashen Band of Exaltedy Goodness -- I wouldn't want to make Tirion angry). There was something about picking up this ring that I really didn't deserve, even though my healing made it possible for my guild member to win the ring in the first place.

It's made me think a bit of my first gear purchases from the Auction House. We had been thoroughly, completely humiliated in Karazhan, and it was clear that we weren't ready. After a bit of searching I had found an excellent pre-raid gear guide for Holy Paladins over on Allakhazam, which did a great job of laying out what I should get and from where. I ran all the heroics I could to get some of the great drops, boosted my Lower City Reputation so I could get not one but two copies of the Lower City Prayerbook, and even went and did the painful Nesingwary Nagrand quests for the best available libram. But I still needed a weapon and a shield, and the guild directed me to the auction house, for the Essence Focuser and the Crystal Pulse Shield.

I was happy to have these items, to be sure, and they served me well. Yet I didn't take the same satisfaction in toting them around as I did from my Breastplate of Many Graces or my Justice Bearer's Pauldrons (I loved that so-called purple judgment set, though the Mask of Penance was pretty creepy). For me, buying those items diminished them in a way. It was good that I had bought them; it sent a message that I was willing to do whatever it took to raid, yet I felt like it really said 'Ha, you can't get decent gear the right way.' In the same way, wearing Festergut's ring was like a badge of honor. Using a ring that was given to me, even though I played a role in it's acquisition, felt almost like a cheat.

The funny thing is that I'm not really a gear snob. I don't look down my nose at crafted gear or emblem gear, or the people who use it (I have plenty of emblem gear, I have no right to look down on anyone!). I had no problem shelling out big bucks for Je'tze's Bell or for the Darkmoon Card: Greatness, or the battered hilt, so it's funny that this little ring would make me feel so uncomfortable. I think it's likely because Festergut caused us so many problems (I believe it was > 40 attempts total before we bested the bumble) that his ring was like some sort of trophy, like a way to thumb my nose at him.

So I've equipped the ring, and I've used the ring and it's been another little buff to my stats. I suppose I can forget about how I got it and tell myself that it's payment for all the bone spikes, coldflames and Saber Lashes I've taken since Icecrown was released and be satisfied. But I'm already checking Atlas Loot for something to really earn.

Yesterday's News: Tomorrow's Problem?

Yesterday, after struggling vainly to write a meaningful post, I visited WoW.com where I found the following video, 'Yesterday's News'. If you have not seen it, take three minutes to watch it. If you've already seen it, do it anyway. I'll still be here.



I found this video quite touching. In fact, I'll admit it -- it brought a tear to my eye, and that tear managed to find it's way down my cheek to, and I alternately laughed at and cursed myself for being such a mush.

The initial emotional reaction on my part was at the sheer sadness embodied in our little dwarf as he saw his life's work trivialized. At the end it was uplifting to see him pull himself out of his own misery and extend a comforting hand to someone who found herself in the same situation. A simple act of kindness, the ability to heal and move on -- these are wonderful traits. But that's not what I want to discuss here. I want to look at what we've lost in WoW with some of the new convenience features like 'Teleport to Dungeon.'

There's no question that teleporting to and from dungeons saves us tremendous time. I didn't run too many instances on my main until I hit level 70; I did more on the way up on my lock and, quite frankly, it was frequently a pain in the butt. There were too many people who'd look at the map upon joining a group and think 'eh, those guys are much closer, I'll wait for a summons.' There were also plenty of times (with my lock) where I'd spend 25 minutes trying to actually find a group, then spend another 15 minutes schlepping from Stranglethorn Vale all the way to Tirisfal Glades only to have the group fall apart before even getting inside the instance (it's always the worst with Scarlet Monastery, by the way, have you noticed that?). It's certainly much more convenient to port directly to the instance, and then to be able to port back out right where you were. No more spending another 20 minutes flying back to STV!

Yet watching the film brought back certain memories -- good ones. The film communicates a certain joy in the summoning process, as characters come together for a common purpose. Running or riding up to the stone, a wave, a 'hearty hello', hugs -- followed by a group effort at getting the rest of the group (even if they are lazy and inconsiderate for not trying to get there) together. The summoning process requires interaction, even if it's as simple as 'type 1 for summon' or 'clicky plz'. Note again how the characters come together and act as one. Compare that with how the characters just disappeared from the streets of Stormwind -- they're all standing apart as individuals. No interaction, no warmth, nothing. One second they're there, the next...gone. Instead of working to bring the group together, of bonding, however tenuous it might be at the summoning stone, we suddenly find ourselves in a dungeon with a group of strangers. And half the time they're already halfway through the first pull when you zone in.

I've only been playing WoW for about three years yet I've seen it become increasingly individualized. The rise of meter watching (which includes World of Logs ranking dps and heals), gear score and achievements are all things that serve to break down the group aspect of play. The new LFG system and it's Teleport to Dungeon feature, while convenient, further erodes the social structure of the game. Less talk, less interaction, less seeing other players as people. Let's just hope that we can continue to reach out and connect with other players, the way the Stonemason did with the Flight Master, as the game continues on this path.