So, I got to spend tonight wiping on Festergut. Now, this is a fight I’ve found extremely discouraging in the past because not only is it a DPS-race (not my favorite mechanic), but it’s a movement-intensive DPS race! Oh joy!
(Seriously, I have a fucking issue with whoever designed this. Let’s make a fight where melee DPS – y’know, the ones with mostly instant abilities – stand still and whack the boss. Let’s give the ranged (you know, all the people with cast times) a requirement to move twice a minute, plus a fun debuff with a disorient-effect to deal with, and let’s make the enrage timer super tight? What do you think? DIAF is what I think.)
I am terrible on this fight, unless I get the cushy-stand-in-melee-range position. I know I am terrible in this fight. I know the main reason I’m there is to toss down Totem of Wrath for a spellpower buff, and because I’m smart enough to not do shit that gets other people killed. I know how to stand 8 yards away from my nearest neighbor, and I know where to move when I get a spore (or when I don’t get a spore). The mechanics I get. But with that much movement and one instant cast spell on a 6 second cooldown, I know I’m not an asset.
Honestly, I know I should probably crunch the numbers and see if it would actually benefit the guild if I sat out on this fight. It would, of course, fluctuate with the number of casters, but … 280 spellpower isn’t trivial. I’m a buffbot. That’s why I’m there. But y’know what? I don’t have to like it.
But you know what makes me NOT want to be a team player anymore? Seeing this in raid chat:
(For the record, “it” refers to the ICC pity buff for damage that we accidentally turned off for the night.)
I’m almost tempted to say fuck it – next week, I drop Searing Totem and screw everyone else. I won’t – I have held out so long against the idea that individual DPS > Raid DPS. I’m not giving into that line of bullshit now. I’m there to be part of a team, not for individual glory. I just wish everyone I raided with felt the same way. Maybe we’d see more dead bosses.
So Much WoW, So Little Time 
21 comments
Comments feed for this article
03/19/2010 at 1:32 AM
Math
Personally – man, this is buried in my list of 20 other topics I want to write a post on, but PERSONALLY, I think that all the raid dps that we get because of Totem of Wrath, all the extra dps all the casters do because of it, should count as part of your personal dps contribution to the fight, as much as your casting Flame Shock or Lava Burst is. It’s part and package of the dps you bring to the fight, and if you didn’t do it, raid dps would be lower by a measurable amount.
To not count it as personal dps, regardless of what recount shows, is, to me, asinine. So dropping Wrath ups your dps contribution! 😀 So you’re doing less personal dps with searing totem, too.
…
… plus, if you’re in melee range, isn’t magma totem more dps? Plus, fire nova is another instant cast dps 🙂
03/19/2010 at 10:21 AM
Krikket
… plus, if you’re in melee range, isn’t magma totem more dps? Plus, fire nova is another instant cast dps 🙂
Honestly, I know that until something changes in our raid comp (y’know, like another elemental shaman or Mork going demonology), I need to drop ToW, so I haven’t committed the theorycrafting to memory. Magma is definitely more DPS if there’s more than on target, but I think searing beats it on single targets (I think in large part because it has to be re-dropped less often). I also don’t use Fire Nova on single target when I’m supposed to not be up the bosses butt because I believe I lose more DPS running in to drop and running back out than I would gain from Fire Nova’s damage on a single target. I don’t have numbers to back that up, but it’s my instinct.
03/19/2010 at 6:47 AM
kyrilean
Awww! He was just giving you crap and I hope you realize that. Granted you still don’t have to like that range is somewhat screwed on this fight.
But what Math said. This is just another reason to hate how some people read Recount. The most important thing to me is that we all just have some fun whether bosses die or not.
Don’t get too discouraged! 🙂
03/19/2010 at 10:27 AM
Krikket
Well, seeing as the first time I misread it as “maybe we would have had it if Krikket was doing at least 5K” – in other words, my poor DPS was the reason we didn’t kill the boss, at the time, No, I didn’t realize he was “just giving me crap”.
I thought it was incredibly rude to call me out like that. Having screenshotted it and reread with a cooler head, I still think it was rude, but more of the kind of rude that happens when you don’t know your audience than the kind of rude that happens when you just don’t care. I wouldn’t have reacted well to that from a friend – I certainly wasn’t going to react well to it from someone I barely know.
But I also think that performance issues of any sort lie completely in the hands of the raid management team to deal with – if as a raid member, there is an issue with someone’s performance, you bring it to someone who is in charge, not just blurt it out and basically publicly shame them. We all have recount. We all know how to read it. We all know who isn’t pulling their weight on a given fight.
03/19/2010 at 6:56 AM
Myssidia
>_< Glad I wasn't there… For multiple reasons, but mainly that comment… I don't like being picked on, and I don't like it when others get picked on. I mean… not like I could have done any more than "STFU!" but the wrath of healers is not generally something *anyone* wants to feel.
03/19/2010 at 10:28 AM
Krikket
::hugs::
03/19/2010 at 7:57 AM
Souci
oh, that raid comment =( i’m sure it was said in the spirit of funness, but it’s hard to be on the other end of that (i happen to know from personal experience). meow meow.
question (i’m asking out of honest curiosity, please take in innocense): what is the benefit from having raid members outside of melee? does the raid tale more damage from not having people at max range? or is it a spore issue? would there be a way to stack the majority of the raid inside melee range?
03/19/2010 at 10:33 AM
Krikket
Ok, you know that puking debuff he casts? He only casts it on people at range unless there are fewer than 8 people at range, then he can cast it on anyone. And since it spreads to anyone who’s not at least 8 yards away from the next closest person. Having that effect in the melee (and therefore on the tanks and the healers) would be an instant wipe.
I respect the strat we used last night (more caster DPS outside the raid and less healers because that fight is healing-intensive as hell as well and moving healers are generally not healing healers), but I knew it was going to be rough on my numbers. Topping that off, I had yet another issue out of my control impacting my DPS that was making me really irritated to start with. Overall? I was just not having a good time, and that made it a hundred times worse.
03/19/2010 at 11:46 AM
Souci
that puking debuff he casts? He only casts it on people at range unless there are fewer than 8 people at range, then he can cast it on anyone.
ahhh – see, that makes much more sense. yeh, movement, even necessary movement =/= fun for casters. in the ranged, i’ll be spamming Moonfire – bah!
this hybrid-y business is rough, meow meow. i’m with you & sharing big feathery hugs.
03/19/2010 at 8:41 AM
Ori
I know that he was joking about it and picking on you but I still went “Uhm … what?” when he said that. Joking about someone’s performance is not the best idea, because it’s gonna hurt feelings.
In this case, if I even looked at recount I wouldn’t expect the ranged dps to be up there with the melee in numbers. You guys have the movement, plus the occasional puking to deal with.
03/19/2010 at 10:41 AM
Krikket
When I look at recount during that fight? It’s to make sure that Evis is doing around 9K (or more) to make up for my fail. Because I have mentally decided that Evis is responsible for making up any DPS deficiency I may have during that fight because he gets to stand still and stab stuff. He can totally carry an ele shaman. Totally.
In all seriousness, though, I may take a page out of your book and raid with pie from now on.
03/19/2010 at 11:55 AM
Souci
we get pie?
03/19/2010 at 12:14 PM
Krikket
Ori gets pie. She’s working on a way to send it through the interwebs as we speak. 🙂
03/19/2010 at 5:10 PM
Souci
OM NOM NOM!
03/19/2010 at 9:02 AM
Kotakh
Wow, i wasnt in the group when that comment was made (or maybe i just missed it) but i have to say it is a very crappy comment to do, even if it was meant as “humor”.
And comming from me, its saying something. I’m the king of teasing humor (just ask Amber lol). But there’s a single rule i follow with my crappy teasing “Dont EVER tease someone who’s failing for real” (I’m not saying you’re failing btw. Your class just isnt very good for movement fight. I should know, i have an ele shammy and when i have to move a lot i lose half my dps lol).
That’s why i’m always teasin Amber, Ori and Evis…they’re the best healers and dps we have so there’s no way they’re gonna believe my “you fail” comment.
And seriously, if someone deserved to be tease yesterday, its the dumb guy who turned off the 5% buff on a dps progresson fight…
5% buff to 17 dpser is a shit load of damage. Maybe we still wouldnt have killed Fester with it but we would have been VERY close (we got him down to 13% without the buff).
03/19/2010 at 10:36 AM
Krikket
No, that comment was put out there after our second wipe-to-enrage, when it was clear we had the mechanics down, but we weren’t putting out the numbers we needed, so we were moving on to more trash.
The person who turned off the buff got beat down for it as well – I didn’t really like that either, but … I cannot be the “play nice” police. It’s not my job or my place.
03/19/2010 at 10:50 AM
Beruthiel
Krikket,
A suggestion that might help with the movement of the fight, if you are your raid leaders are up for it 🙂 (It’s what we use in the 10s when a healer has to stand at range).
As movement effects elemental shaman and moonking significantly, perhaps in your spore breakdown, have everyone on your side move to *you*, including the person with the spore.
So for exaple, our raid has 3 spore spots: Melee/tank/healer, Ranged group 3 and Ranged group 4. Ranged group 3 is left, Ranged group 4 is right. Generally group 3 converges on the spore on the left and group 4 converges on the spore on the right. If there are double spores in one of the three groups, we just call out for so and so to move to point x. It’s generally pretty effective.
However, this can be easily changed to mark a “go to person” for each group. So group 3 would always go to Krikket, group 4 would always go to person x. Regardless of who has the spores. When they come out, everyone just moves to you.
This will do a few things: 1) keeps everyone in your group innoculated, 2) keeps caster classes that seriously suffer from movement from having to move (i.e. ele shaman, moonkin), 3) may simplify that aspect of the fight if the raid knows “ok, I move to the pink diamond…always, and 4) will up the DPS of those that don’t have to move for innoculation. In essence, it can keep you at range, but let you still pump out the same damage as if you were one of the parties that stay in melee range 🙂
Hope that helps!!!
03/19/2010 at 11:05 AM
Krikket
We have done that strat precisely in 10 man (when you have only 3 people at ranged), and we tried it originally in 25s, but that was when we were still putting healers at range, and of course, they got those spots (which I absolutely support – me missing a lightning bolt cast never killed anyone!).
Now, I’m not the raid leader, but Ithink the reason we made everyone at range move last night was to impress the need for personal responsibility on everyone. I.E. – no one got the easy way out, & therefore, if for some reason the move-to target had to be switched at some point, everyone would know how to / where to move.
I’ve discussed my issues on this fight with raid management, and … I’ve just accepted it’s not going to be my fight to shine, y’know? They know the cause of the underperformance, and it’s up to them to decide how to deal with it.
That said – I appreciate the time you took to type out your strat here. 🙂
03/19/2010 at 12:34 PM
Mach
You havn’t discusses these things with all that raid management…IE me, the raid leader :-P. I knew going into last night that we were going to have a hard time, some moreso that others. Unfortunatly when taking on fester there is little room for error and even less room for comfort. You are correct in your asumptions as to why healers were stacked on the tanks. I was worried about the tanks staying up at 3 inhales and didnt want healers running around when big and ugly was rockin’ me for 30k a swing. Please keep in mind that a lot of planning and thought goes into everyraid we run. Composition, positioning, starts, all of that. If you have comments, concerns, questions, those need to be brought directly to me. Speaking with another officer or Amber will likely get the information to me eventually, but since these decisions are mine, I would be the best person to speak with. Despite the comments, failures, whipes, and hardships, we had an amazing raid week. I know we’ll do even better in weeks to come.
03/19/2010 at 12:51 PM
Krikket
It was not my intent with this post to criticize the way you’re running the raid, so I hope it didn’t come off that way. I’ve been in your shoes (well, the 10 man version of your shoes), and I’m not a huge fan of those shoes. I have great respect for what you do, even if we don’t always agree.
Last night after raid, there were other things that needed officer attention, and I had something I specifically wanted to speak with Amber about so she kind of got everything that was on my mind, instead of just the one issue I wanted to speak with her about in the first place.
However, IIRC, we have talked about this in our 10-man groups that I get totally wrecked by movement, and I thought that you were totally aware of the issues already, so why be a broken record? I have faith that you would make accomodations for that when possible – but I also understand that it’s not always possible.
What was most upsetting to me was that comment in raid chat, and the fact that almost everyone just let it pass like it was totally ok. If you want to call me out for poor DPS, hey, that’s part of your job. If said raid member wanted to whisper you, and say “Hey, why are we bringing fail-shaman?” that’s his perogative. But there is no circumstance where I think it’s appropriate to call out another member publicly for poor raid performance, IMO. It may have been intended as a joke, but it sure didn’t feel like one at the time.
03/19/2010 at 3:11 PM
Mach
I get what you’re saying and agree when it comes to the statement. TBH I actually must have missed it in raid chat. As for raid leading don’t worry I’m not offended 😛