Enrage Timers Counter Productive?

[Orici]

why bring any dps at all then? just bring tanks and healers you can never lose.

 

Because during the fight certain adds spawn that need to be dps's down quickly or we wipe... because with those raids, because there is little room for error you dont want to spend 4 hours tapping the boss down. The longer the fight goes, the better chance there is for 1 person out of 12 to miss a platform... or run to the wrong spot... or get away from the group when he has the "green eye of death".

[finkelmana]

Enrage timers have nothing to do with gear, ability, dps, or whatever.

 

The only reason for enrage timers is that you dont go into an encounter with 1 tank and a frak load of healers and never die. Thats it.

Edited March 16, 2012 by finkelmana

[Dirtybomb]

I disagree, you should be using a spec you enjoy to play. Even if that spec is somewhat suboptimal, it should still be possible to do any non-raid content (for hardmode and nightmare OPS I can see your point, but those aren't meant for more casual playstyles anyway).

 

But the thread is about enrage timers in Ops. Sure, anyone should be able to play however they want, as long as they are realistic about the limitations of their play style/choices. Problem is that there are a lot of people that want to be able to faceroll content with whatever spec/gear they choose. Enrage timers prevent that.

 

To answer the OP... I see them as counter-productive, at least if every boss in hardmode flashpoints has them. The people in need of the gear from those flashpoints will be the ones most likely to hit the enrage timer, which can be discouraging. If they're going to stick with enrage timers on all bosses in hm flashpoints, they should at least be slightly more lenient.

 

There is no problem with clearing the content with the existing enrage timers as long as you put in a little time. Having a problem beating the enrage timers in HM? Then the problem is either your strat or your gear. If you are undergeared, then you haven't spent enough time in normal modes gearing up. If you have all the gear from normal mode, but are still running into the enrage timers in HM, then your group is doing something wrong and you need to rethink your strat and/or playstyle. Keep in mind that hitting the enrage timer with 5% left on the boss is still doable.

 

I would rather see nifty mechanics instead of engrage timers on every boss, but it isn't stopping anyone from clearing the content if they have prepared properly.

[Dayln]

If you need them personally then hire a better MMO player to stand behind you and make suggestions for you. Don’t dumb down the game for the rest of us because you are having difficulty

 

But if you do get them, and do use them, please remember that none of us are willing to listen to a single thing that someone says that uses a chess program to play chess because they are unable to do it for themselves.

 

Using a chess program does not make you a chess master, it makes you someone that likely knows just about nothing about the game.

 

Same with DPS meters and threat meters and other such add ons.

[Lazzer]

So what's the problem?

 

It's too easy, and gear reliant instead of skill reliant. You're assuming I've joined the thread to complain "I can't do it!" but I haven't. My complaint is that every boss is essentially a DPS race and not really a challenge, it takes a bit of organisation and you have no problem at all.

 

My problem is that the Operations don't require tactics and awareness, they require the ability to follow a rotation and have a good gear set.

[Flxm]

If you need them personally then hire a better MMO player to stand behind you and make suggestions for you. Don’t dumb down the game for the rest of us because you are having difficulty

 

But if you do get them, and do use them, please remember that none of us are willing to listen to a single thing that someone says that uses a chess program to play chess because they are unable to do it for themselves.

 

Using a chess program does not make you a chess master, it makes you someone that likely knows just about nothing about the game.

 

Same with DPS meters and threat meters and other such add ons.

 

I love this analogy

[Drgkain]

Part of me feels they are an easy way out for a dev. Rather then building new, interesting an innovative mechanics to keep our players challenged, let's throw an enrage timer on there and move on. Get the content completed within the next month so we can start on the new content do out the following month. Let's keep throwing the same things at them with different skins, more HP and More damage.

[Drgkain]

It's too easy, and gear reliant instead of skill reliant. You're assuming I've joined the thread to complain "I can't do it!" but I haven't. My complaint is that every boss is essentially a DPS race and not really a challenge, it takes a bit of organisation and you have no problem at all.

 

My problem is that the Operations don't require tactics and awareness, they require the ability to follow a rotation and have a good gear set.

 

+ 1 I agree completely

[Xeres-]

No I don't think they're counterproductive. They set a bar which you have to reach in order to progress. There are several ways to reach that bar. Gear, tactics, spec, performance to name a few. If it forced you to spec a certain way to 100% min / max your char (original Brutallus) then I'd agree it may be counter-productive. However, I don't feel this is what's needed to beat the timers.

[Dirtybomb]

My problem is that the Operations don't require tactics and awareness, they require the ability to follow a rotation and have a good gear set.

 

No tactics and awareness? Please. Granted these fights aren't the hardest in the genre, but some of these fights aren't tank n spanks either. Go into HM Soa with no tactics and/or awareness and you end up with a room full of lightning balls wiping people out and people coming out of cyclone right before the floor drops out from under them. Or have Gharj swiping most of the group because they aren't aware enough to move behind him when he changes targets.

 

If you want to hate on the enrage timers, cool. But don't pretend that if everyone knows their rotations and has the gear, they can just stand there and not pay attention.

[JerokTalram]

You don't have any experience in team games. It's like playing soccer and doing only long driven solo runs instead of passing the ball around. Not everyone is a Messi.

 

In team sports, the fun element comes from a victory achieved as a collective event. If that means sacrificing personal preferences for what the coach/manager needs, then so be it. As long as the team wins, your contribution is worth its weight in gold.

 

Stick to solo sports if you want fancy individualization.

 

I'm sorry but I'm not respecing every time I want to go raiding. If they want us to do that they need to give us Dual Spec.

 

Every basic spec should be viable in RAIDs. Hybreds don't matter, if they are better or good enough fine. If they are worse, why are you playing them.

Edited March 16, 2012 by JerokTalram

[Azkit]

Normal ('story') mode is for the story.

 

Hard/Nightmare mode is for progression.

 

Progression does not mean you should be able to go in with sub-optimal specs and rotations and expect to succeed.

 

Enrage timers are needed for progression fights if there are no mechanics that make the fight progressively more difficult for DPS.

[Dirtybomb]

Every basic spec should be viable in RAIDs.

 

How do you define "basic spec"? Or maybe give some examples of what you feel are basic specs that aren't viable in Ops.

[Xeres-]

I will say though that if you're able to do terrible DPS and keep enough people alive for a 15 min fight or so that should count for something.

[TOURDallas]

Why should dps respec for raiding, enragetimers are counter-productive to the general idea that tanks and healers should be able to carry dps.

[Dirtybomb]

Why should dps respec for raiding, enragetimers are counter-productive to the general idea that tanks and healers should be able to carry dps.

 

Please tell me you forgot your /sarcasm tag.

[TOURDallas]

Sarcasm tags are for beginners.

[Idunhavaname]

They're there to make sure you can't play safe (1% dps, 2% tank, 97% healers) and turtle alll day.

 

I honestly prefer soft enrage timer like additional damage done by boss as fight progress or mobs spawn rather than a hard enrage.

Edited March 16, 2012 by Idunhavaname

[Chindi]

I've done plenty of difficult raids in other games that didn't have "haha you lose!" enrage timers. Not against them per se, but there are much more interesting ways to make fights a challenge.

[Orici]

I've done plenty of difficult raids in other games that didn't have "haha you lose!" enrage timers. Not against them per se, but there are much more interesting ways to make fights a challenge.

 

I agree 100%

[Nagadeath]

enrage timers are just a artifact left over from older games. they were originally made to keep people from holding world spawns to bring the respawn window in to a better time frame for their guild.

 

if the devs wanted to they could hide the timer behind other aspects such as if you don't kill the boss in time reinforcements arrive or the room gets flooded or a self destruct will go off and debris will start falling on the group.

 

i just think the whole if the boss isn't dead by a certain time he turns in to superman thing is over used and boring.

[Lazzer]

They're there to make sure you can't play safe (1% dps, 2% tank, 97% healers) and turtle alll day.

 

I honestly prefer soft enrage timer like additional damage done by boss as fight progress or mobs spawn rather than a hard enrage.

 

There are several different ways they can gauge the DPS, the enrage timer + instant death is a slap in the face of a tactic for people that can't do the DPS. Tackled from the other way around such as a high rate of regeneration on the boss meaning you have to still have a high DPS to succeed makes for a longer fight and a slow one by one death of players that don't have the DPS.

 

It's the same effect, the same DPS requirement and the same result except people won't get so annoyed with it as it gives the feeling that you "did well but couldn't quite manage it" instead of the quick "you failed" feeling.

 

Then instead of the complaint of "We wiped 5 times!" you get "We fought it 5 times and lasted longer each time, we're getting there". It keeps people going.

[harpuax]

I've done plenty of difficult raids in other games that didn't have "haha you lose!" enrage timers. Not against them per se, but there are much more interesting ways to make fights a challenge.

 

I and I'm sure many other agree. But that's not what the issue presented by the OP is.

 

The OP doesn't like enrage timers because they limit his choice of builds. Which is a case of imbalance between the trees, not boss mechanics. If the issue is that you feel forced to spec into lightning instead of madness because it is more dps than that is a balance issue. If you want to make some random tank spec with 5% less mitigation then that is just a bad build and your own issue. The issue there is L2play to put it bluntly. Neither is issue is a problem with enrage timers.

[Dirtybomb]

Then instead of the complaint of "We wiped 5 times!" you get "We fought it 5 times and lasted longer each time, we're getting there". It keeps people going.

 

So the problem is really how people perceive the result of the fight, and perception is going to differ from one person to the next. Instead of "we wiped 5 times" because they hate the enrage timer, they could be thinking "we wiped at 12%, 10% and 8%, we're getting there."

 

If they don't recognize progress with the enrage timers, they probably won't recognize progress without them either.

[Evel]

I agree with the OP. They do it purposely for a bottleneck and it serves no real purpose. They should want people to try out off-specs or even uncommon group compositions. If someone can bring a tank and seven healers and want to try and clear EV then they should be able too.