A challenge to the 'elite community'

[Elusive_Thing]

Had another good run today as a healer, with a friend as a DPS. The tank was new, the other DPS had been in the instance (HM False Emperor) once. We showed them the bonus boss, some of the easy shortcuts, how to operate the control panel in the Mando boss and how to sneak the bonus quest consoles as a stealther. Altogether a nice run and two more people with some more knowledge.

 

Nice and relaxing between all the Alliance Proving Grounds pops.

[soowonlee]

There has been little to no incentive for serious raiders to do flashpoints since 2.0, since gear from flashpoints became irrelevant for progression raiding, and Lost Island was the last flashpoint released that was actually challenging for serious raiders. There is even less incentive now, since there is no gear requirement to do SM operations.

 

So, I'm not sure who the OP is addressing.

 

I'll occasionally form HM pugs that are not EV/KP and will take on inexperienced players. My policy is simple. If you are willing to use voice chat and parser, then I'll work with you. If not, ****.

[xkcurtisx]

There has been little to no incentive for serious raiders to do flashpoints since 2.0, since gear from flashpoints became irrelevant for progression raiding, and Lost Island was the last flashpoint released that was actually challenging for serious raiders. There is even less incentive now, since there is no gear requirement to do SM operations.

 

So, I'm not sure who the OP is addressing.

 

I'll occasionally form HM pugs that are not EV/KP and will take on inexperienced players. My policy is simple. If you are willing to use voice chat and parser, then I'll work with you. If not, ****.

 

love this reply

[Finnlaf]

There has been little to no incentive for serious raiders to do flashpoints since 2.0, since gear from flashpoints became irrelevant for progression raiding, and Lost Island was the last flashpoint released that was actually challenging for serious raiders. There is even less incentive now, since there is no gear requirement to do SM operations.

 

So, I'm not sure who the OP is addressing.

 

Guess the simplest response is to say that am addressing the over 700 pages on this thread:http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=633655 I think that is significant enough to warrant some sort of solution.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Finnlaf

[Lodinn]

First of all, I'd state I'm the arrogant tank who guards healers but then again, mass taunt is back where it matters, chained cc can account for the rest. Last time I lost aggro in an FP was when both dps (carnage+arsenal) were tunneling 2 gold star targets, and the mob of 6-8 silvers were left for tank to kill. Guard is for damage reduction, not the aggro, mind you. Since there is twice as many dps as there are tanks in the group, tanks are meant to maintain aggro versus no-guarded targets.

Also, losing aggro is never a big deal in FP, if dps pulls it odds are dps knows what he's doing and can pop a couple of defensives anyway.

 

As for filling heal+tank spots... First of all, the more experienced players there are, the less learning experience there is unless people ask questions. Everyone is welcome to ask, as it was multiple times stated above. If not... Well, newbs are given the opportunity to look at the fights. Being willing to learn or not is up to them. When the question about motivation comes up, it is evident that there's a type of players who want to improve no matter what and hence be able to do more challenging stuff (carrot motivation) or who want to avoid wiping in whatever they're already doing (stick motivation). Bottom line:

No wiping=no learning.

With that being said, carrying people does literally nothing with their skill. To improve, they should feel responsible for whatever they're doing, which means... Right, not playing dps in flashpoints!

Well, I can carry more on a mara than I can on a sintank just because I can both offtank whatever needs tanking and even maintank the boss if tank can't keep aggro, but as well I can pull some 7k singletarget dps, as opposed to what, 3k dps on a tank? There is no way I can do more as a tank while running LI last boss (or even bonus) or BH first boss aside of controlling adds (if any) or keeping the boss on me, turned away from the group, mitigating some damage to help healer keep up and blah blah. No way I could help the enrage coming even if swapping some gear to dps one, granted, on juggtank I can respec at least and tank in mostly dps gear, but sintanks simply won't afford that.

Ahem. So, the only point dps player would feel like he needs to improve is when you hit enrage. But there're two issues here: he's not the only dps in the group so the problem may as well be with the other guy and "l2p" in this case is frustrating for many players who prefer to learn from the actual experience. "When I get a new ability, I'm eager to test it" - sure, but if you choose to improve from your own experience as opposed to reading guides you'd need a ton of calculations and thinking put into it, from gear stats to rotation. I bet dps player would sooner read a guide than essentially be able to write a guide of his own.

If he doesn't do either and keep spamming random buttons, he's ineffective. Period.

(Not to say about raid utility or defensives as a matter of interacting with a healer).

 

How many times was issue with using raid buffs mentioned here and in the "Weird people..." thread? People just don't know their abilities, class, spec, game, whatsoever, but the community is very unhealthy in maintaining the attitude of "It's a shame to ask". I've NEVER. EVER. seen a good player who'd deny an explanation or something unless it would require too much time, in which case it's normally 'read dulfy'.

Be more specific. One won't teach you everything about your class even if he knows it really well. Rolled an insta 60 and want to know what your abilities are doing? Read a guide or skill tree, in SWTOR just reading tooltips can generally get you there. Not sure about rotation (for dps) - read damn guide, no one would write you down 20 ability names in succession so you could execute just that. For priority system, it's easier and that's why getting healer and tank to the baseline (read: able to fulfill their role in HM FP or in SM OPS) is way faster.

It's the attitude that ruins it, however. Last week, I had to essentially solotank the entirety of phase 2 on terror HM because other tank didn't know what to do, neither would he listen to my advice to taunt his tentacle so he kept losing aggro in phase 1.

 

It's not the problem with the "elite" players because they can roflstomp all the content newbs run (read: as an elitist scum, I'd rather not attempt NiM ops with people who can't do HM properly or who can't hit even 5k on a dummy as a dps, much less with ones who think they shouldn't parse at all because the game haven't required it of them so far). It's a problem with self-proclaimed elitists no matter how bad they are themselves.

 

I got kicked from Rishi for telling to kill sith and jedi approx same time by the leader who has barely touched HM ops. I got blamed for being a bad dps when I kept reaping aggro from the tank even when aggro dropping after his taunts. I don't want to even start on people blaming healers while tank has a focus offhand.

 

While I agree with OP on that learning system is basically absent from the game in its current state, I must also note that having experienced players in HM FPs on tanks and heals have NOTHING to do with it, especially with dps improve. Also, focus on gear is just painful now, many of us can do flashpoints in 192/198 mix without much of a problem (we did LI right when 4.0 hitted to take a look on scaling), I got blamed for having 75k hp as a tank because was just wearing token 216 gear, people require 220+ for HM ops, and I call them insta morons for this... While full 224 "new generation" dps are still far inferior to 192/198 "old generation" dps mechanic, survivability and dps-wise.

 

Now I shifted to FFXIV, they have a quest for parsing there and a whole bunch of tutorial 'solo flashpoints' for each of the roles (I've heard those tutorials are a thing in WoW, too). So yes, game would benefit greatly from introducing some tutorials with cc/interrupt, target order etc requirements, where

NOT DOING STUFF PROPERLY WOULD RESULT IN A DAMN FAIL.

 

But then again, elitists would say "nah no way with this group" and quit only to require some dumb stuff like "link pre-nerf DP (or have 220 augmented, depends on a fraction of the dead part of the brain) for EV HM" so that real good players would carry them.

 

So far, I can only offer OP to ask more specific questions (like "How exactly does %ability_name% work?") or read guides. Experience will only get you so far, and raiding anything a tiny little bit challenging, even counting HM FPs towards it, is for learning boss mechanics better, not class ones.

[BenduKundalini]

Interesting, thanks

[Finnlaf]

@Lodinn: First off let me say I will like to learn the rotation/class you use to pull 7k single target dps, am always seeking to improve and that looks like some real valuable intel . Moving on to other things, what I find interesting in your post was that you could mention specific instances when dps fails becomes an issue and yes I completely agree with you. But when it comes to tanks and healers you were more general in your assessment, if nothing else this seems to suggest that aside from a few HM FPs (especially BH and LI) and ignoring bonus bosses, hitting the enrage timer isn't that common?

 

At any rate, I believe people are more encouraged to seek help if the situation doesn't seems completely hopeless. If for example we fail to kill a bonus boss, but moved on to finish the FP, odds are I would be more encouraged to figure out how to better improve my dps as opposed to we all called it quits at the bonus boss because someone typed "l2p" and quit the group.

 

I stated at some point that its safer to think 'Naruto' than 'Sasuke'; to further clarify the analogy Naruto is kinda slow and learns only by getting his *** repeatedly handed to him, in swtor terms that means he wont read any guides, jumps in without thinking and more often than not requires bailing out, but goes on to become a force to be reckoned with in the shinobi world. A few hints could drastically alter how a person plays, even mentioning what a proc looks like and how hard it can crit might be enuf to send the fellow to dulfy. I remember specifically a sage healer at lvl 65 fully specced with 216 gear who didnt know he had a "roaming mend". I had to let him test it on a few avoidable trash mobs just so he can get a feel for it.

[Ruskaeth]

Could be off the topic but I recall some people saying that especially class and operation guides would take a hit if the so called "elite" would leave due to lack of PVE content. Has that happened to any extent so far? Also, OP, why would anyone do anything just because they feel they are elite? To prove themselves? Really?

[LordTurin]

Could be off the topic but I recall some people saying that especially class and operation guides would take a hit if the so called "elite" would leave due to lack of PVE content. Has that happened to any extent so far? Also, OP, why would anyone do anything just because they feel they are elite? To prove themselves? Really?

 

Tough to say, as there isn't really new content requiring new guides yet. But it does seem like the dulfy 4.0 class guides have come out slower (though they are for the most part very similar to 3.0) and the operation guides haven't been updated afaik to account for the mechanics changes. So I'd say we are starting to see it, but that given the lack of content its just not a big deal yet.

[Lodinn]

@Lodinn: First off let me say I will like to learn the rotation/class you use to pull 7k single target dps, am always seeking to improve and that looks like some real valuable intel .

Well, that one might be a bit of over-exaggerated claim since it's next to impossible to maintain in raid unless mechanics influence on rotation is minimal, but in case you wonder my dps main was anni mara since I even started playing dps. 6.7-6.8k is an absolutely achievable mark if uptime allows for that (like LI bonus boss I've mentioned before). It vastly depends on a number of other factors, however, most notably having a dps spec who can put an armor debuff on boss. That all has little to do with actual topic, however - I can facetank the boss for a good 30 seconds on a mara (actually we ran half of SnV HM with me or our sniper tanking for minutes since tank didn't know about target of the target or never bothered, dunno). AND if other dps is slacking big time it's carriable way more efficient than on a tank (judging by starparse during ops, tank dps may differ by like 500 dps and even if you put healer offdps of 500 (overestimation) provided by timely usage of defensives by tank).

Long story short - on a dps you can bring as much as 2k if not more above the requirement boss is tuned for, and at least that'd be near 100% guarantee it'll be far more efficient than inexperienced dps doing it, while as a tank you can go only a bit over the required performance margin. Moreover, many tank mistakes can be compensated for by dps. On few classes, one can efficiently tank the boss by using defensives right, but no tank classes allow for efficient dps if not respeccing/at least switching gear.

Brick wall you hit when there's nothing to do about it is way too often dps faults, not tank/healer's one.

Moving on to other things, what I find interesting in your post was that you could mention specific instances when dps fails becomes an issue and yes I completely agree with you. But when it comes to tanks and healers you were more general in your assessment, if nothing else this seems to suggest that aside from a few HM FPs (especially BH and LI) and ignoring bonus bosses, hitting the enrage timer isn't that common?

 

At any rate, I believe people are more encouraged to seek help if the situation doesn't seems completely hopeless. If for example we fail to kill a bonus boss, but moved on to finish the FP, odds are I would be more encouraged to figure out how to better improve my dps as opposed to we all called it quits at the bonus boss because someone typed "l2p" and quit the group.

In my eyes, and in the eyes of fellow raiders I'm afraid situation is not quite what you described. There are two types of HM FP runs - just stomp everything on your way runs, and it's hard to assess what they look like from a newb perspective, maybe some things feel hard, dunno. Best I can remember it all wasn't any bad when I did it first.

On the other hand, however, 'hopeless' situations again are enraged bosses (BH, LI, Korriban, Manaan, Rishi can become a dps fail as well, in old FPs dps check wasn't a thing, granted). Those are like textbook hopeless situations ("boss enraged at 60%, l2p, gg" - seen that once in BH). Literally no way to progress it further.

 

Bad tanking/mechanics handling can be improved relatively easily or otherwise passed (sorry for sticking with the same examples but I didn't remember great many flashpoints posing any problem at all except for a few, nor did I run many of those). On Sav'rak we had to wipe like 5 times before we got mechanics down for a new guy, and learning mechanics is a 100% passable situation. If you feel healer is bad, receiving less damage is an option very often given how op healers actually are so even bad performance is sufficient.

With all that in mind, from all the runs I've seen I can only conclude it's way way easier to carry a bad, even hopeless tank and/or healer than to carry hopeless dps. Sometimes even 1 of them.

 

There's more, however - with bad dps "elite" healer will start nodding very soon, hence the lack of tanks. Granted, I don't queue in HM FPs any often (only started doing so recently again for Aratech quest), but when I tank them or even heal (and I'm a bad healer), there's either nothing to do at all or a brick wall. It's not hard to see how it's a bad situation for myself - pretty much I know how to improve a bit (time things bit better, use dps adrenals/gear on a tank/healer), but there's no way to improve a lot. Sure thing, every time I tank we wipe cause people stay in stupid or don't kill things fast enough, but I don't see how to fix it after 5-10 failed tries.

 

Another important note - as a raider myself, I consider situation a success even if the whole group dies but the boss is ultimately down. If we keep wiping on trash but taking 1-2 mobs with us, I see it as a very dumb state of affairs but as a mixed success also - things are getting better all by themselves.

But I know very well many beginners perceive any death in raid as a major bad event and feel down cause of it. So even when not-so-skilled, but experienced friend tells me like "We ran DF SM with a guild today, a couple of deaths, nothing major" - I understand what was going on, and maybe, just maybe, it felt like a motivating experience for the other participants ("I stood where I shouldn't so I died so I need to improve that part"). My point - from a more experienced player's point of view, literally nothing has happened in a run where not a single full wipe took place nor you barely managed to kill the boss (i.e. tank+healer were the only two surviving so it took long or dps had to tank and kite due to dead tank or whatsoever). Therefore a very little communication takes place here, if a new player asks for what to do he is replied with "just avoid aoe and kill the boss, when boss does %mechanic%, run and hide to the %specific_spot%". Rest is experience and class knowledge.

 

HM FPs used to be a stepping stone before SM ops, now situation is rather the opposite, bar gear rewards - SM ops are mostly easier, offer greater training (if you're able to learn on your own) and rewards.

If one seeks some advice while learning, find someone who can tell you something about your specific class (tanks can normally help with all 3 tank classes, same for healers). I was seeking advice on snipers back in a day and I found it by asking Tyr who is a goood sniper, he helped me with rotations and some DCD usage advice. Questions like "I have difficulties with %boss_name%, is it better to use %your_ability% when boss does %boss_ability1% or save for %boss_ability2%/adds phase?" are totally ok to be asked on a fleet general chat, not to speak about asking them while doing the actual boss. Again, be more specific - unless you find a mentor there's no one to hold your hand on everything you do with the class, so learn from experience and read guides.

 

Why I so strongly advise against learning from experience as a dps - well, nearly an year ago I stated that dps is a hardest role with a very high skill cap in every environment and it's hard to see your mistakes. Like, literally - as a tank if you lose aggro, you see it the moment it happens. If you turn the boss the wrong way, same. If you die to incoming damage, you learn to manage defensives. All of it you know usually the moment the fail happens or shortly after. As a reactive role, healing is almost all about adjusting to environment, so if anyone dies to damage it's either not your fault (staying in stupid) or you know to heal him better next time (and with SWTOR balance, it's easy to achieve).

As a DPS rather you only know how good you were normally only when you have the parse enabled and most of the HM FP runners don't even bother with it. To improve after certain point, you have to already possess a great deal of class understanding, know your hardest-hitting abilities and so to say combos and conditions in which you can use them, find dps windows while handling boss mechanics. It's by no means a head start given by "elite players" like you picture it. One can only help to improve at certain points, when the person is ready to ask a question. Otherwise there's too much to tell and class guides serve that exact purpose.

 

tl;dr: If you want to learn from experience, roll heal/tank. I've rolled tank myself as my first role/character.

If you want to dps, read the guide or do the thorough work of learning everything about your abilities. As someone said, it's a science, and being a good dps is science->experience->more science, and that circle is endless.

Also, always have a goal in mind. Either run challenging content or chill out and observe what you've achieved in easier one.