Lethal Shots

As I’m sure everyone is aware by now, Blizzard dropped a bombshell of an announcement the other day detailing their intention for raid IDs and loot disparity for 10- and 25-man raids in Cataclysm. You can click here to read the blue post, but I’ll summarize the changes here:

• 10- and 25-man modes will share the same lockout. This means that you only get to run one version each week, so pick wisely. No more running both modes every week for extra badges.
• Difficulty will be normalized between the two modes.
• Both modes will drop the exact same gear. (This is the big one, and boy does it have people up in arms.)
• To compensate for a greater number of people and higher logistical requirements, 25-man will drop a greater quantity of loot (items as well as both badges and gold).
• More raids per content patch with fewer bosses each.
• Blizzard will continue to gate content.
• Heroic modes will be on a per boss basis and set up similar to normal modes, with both 10- and 25-man dropping the same loot and being tuned to the same difficulty.

My opinion in a word: FINALLY! If you ask me, this is how Blizz should have done it with Wrath and it is good to see they are learning and making changes for the better. I’ve never made it a secret that I don’t particularly care for 25-man raids. Given the choice, I would rather spend my time in 10-mans.

In a 25-man raid odds are you don’t know everyone there and might even despise a few people, but you deal with to get the machine moving. A machine that seems to always take forever to get going, especially if you have to PuG in players. Vent has to be kept on lock down if you don’t want it to quickly turn into unintelligible chaos. Loot drama is almost a guarantee. Player accountability is terrible.

On the flip side, 10-mans are much more personal and more than likely you know the other nine people fairly well. The runs start rather quickly and you rarely have to PuG in players. Vent is more open making it easier to talk and joke around. Loot drama is non-existent. And when something goes wrong it is vastly easier to pinpoint the problem and fix it.

I’ll admit that even though I don’t care for it, I do run ICC-25 most Sundays. Why? Because of gear. I strive to get the best gear that I possible can, and to do that means I have to run 25-mans. If I don’t then I will eventually fall behind and end up being carried by my guild. ¹

Also consider that at some Tier levels a player was required to farm both 10- and 25-man content to even build a full set of gear for that Tier, the most recent example being Tier 9. As a Hunter I was unable to get a T9 trinket out of ToC-10. And the Fury Warriors I know always complained about being stuck using Agility-based swords because no decent 2-handers dropped out of 10-man. With these new changes in place that will never happen again.

So ultimately these changes make my life easier. I can stop running the 25-mans I don’t care for and just focus on the 10-mans without having to worry about gearing. I won’t feel obligated to farm the same raid twice a week to obtain enough badges to keep up. These changes will allow me and many other players to play this game we want to.

A post by Larisa over at the Pink Pigtail Inn brought to my attention a debate floating around about whether or not tanks and healers should be given extra rewards as an incentive to try and solve the shortage of each. The whole discussion was spawned by a guest post by Gordon (of We Fly Spitfires) at World of Matticus and has been followed with articles from several blogs (check Larisa’s article, she linked them well so no need for me to do it again).

And you know what I think on the whole idea? Bullshit. Allow me to explain my reasoning though. Below is a direct quote of Gordon’s article with my thoughts, comments, and rebuttals between the paragraphs.

Tanks and healers are the most important classes for any group. Tanks set the pace of the group, the flow of experience and man the vanguard as they lead the team into battle. Healers mend the broken bones of their companions and keep the tanks a live – without the healers there could be no tanks and there could be no group. These are the two most important classes that exist in any MMORPG. But the DPS? They’re just meat in the room.

What Gordon forgets to take into account is that a group also requires DPS to progress. Simply because DPS are more plentiful does not make the job any less crucial and far more than just “meat in the room”. ¹

Look at it in terms of supply and demand and stress and responsibility. Tanks and healers are in consistent short supply whereas DPS are a dime a dozen. And there’s a reason for that. Tanking isn’t easy and it comes with a lot of pressure and responsibility. Do it right and the group will sing your praises for days to come yet do it badly and you’re on the receiving end of every criticism and jibe. Healing is much the same and also comes with it’s own set of stresses and strains. If the tank dies who gets the blame? Not the DPS classes that didn’t burn the mob down fast enough but the healer who didn’t heal well enough. They carry the heart and soul of the party on their shoulders and all of the difficulties that come with that.

It’s a known fact that tanks and healers are in high demand. And yes, DPS are plentiful. But you can’t gloss over the fact that many DPS can barely faceroll out 1000 on the meter. Good DPS are just as rare as tanks and healers. Also, as DPS I’ve carried my fair share of sub-par tanks and healers though runs. It is amazing how shitty of a tank and/or healer you can run with if you can kill things fast enough. And while I can’t speak for Gordon, I know I have no problem calling out a DPS if they are the source of the problem.

And raiding? That’s even more stressful. Not only do we even already acknowledge the importance of tanks and healers in this situation. We have Main Tanks and even Main Healers but who’s ever heard of a Main DPS before? There’s a huge amount of pressure to do these jobs right. Sub-par DPS can join a raid (even if it’s not desirable) but sub-par tanks cannot tank one and poor healers cannot heal one.

I’m sorry, but that whole paragraph is riddled with inaccuracies and assumptions. Progression raiding is stressful on the whole group, not just the tanks and healers. Everyone has a job, and if one person fails the whole group goes down. Rogue missed an interrupt? Wipe. Not enough DPS to beat the enrage timer? Wipe. A mob not CCed properly? Wipe. See where I’m going with this? And as to the titles of “Main Tank” and “Main Healer”, Gordon is giving way too much prestige to a simple way of saying who tanks the boss, who tanks the adds, and who heals who. And I have heard of a “Main DPS”, but it is more commonly referred to as a Main Assist and is actually a quite important role when it is needed.

All of this stands to reason that tanks and healers should get bigger rewards than anyone else. I mean, it’s in our culture to reward those that do the most and work the hardest, right? Call it a Tank or Healer Bonus, and a well deserved one at that. They are more important and necessary than anyone else, rarer to find, and they’re jobs are a lot tougher and far more stressful. They’re like the mommas and papas of any group, bringing the necessary order and structure. Without a tank there is no group, without a healer there is no group. DPS can just be picked up randomly as required.

I’ve got nothing against DPS. It’s fun and there’s nothing wrong with that but they simply don’t deserve the equality of rewards. Tanks and healer should get a little something extra on the side (maybe a nice ‘Thank You Drop’ from the boss mobs they fell) because they have the hardest and most demanding jobs and are traditionally the slowest to level up (unless you turn them into DPS). They require the most effort and who can argue that as a result they should get the biggest rewards?

Again, full of inaccuracies and assumptions. Just because DPS are more plentiful does not mean they deserve less of a reward than tanks and healers. They are a key part of the group dynamic, the third node of the Holy Trinity if you will. Tanks and Healers with no DPS get nowhere. Gordon claims that healing and tanking are more difficult and stressful. Well, I’ll let you in a little secret: they’re not. I have three end game characters, a Hunter, Resto Shaman, and Death Knight tank. I have filled all three roles in both heroics and raids, and they all carry the same level of difficulty. Anyone can faceroll a DPS class, but you have to be good to earn your raid spot over the rest, paying attention to aggro management, crowd control, etc. Tanking and healing might have a steeper learning curve, but neither are too difficult once you have a little practice and a solid group of players.

Any class that can tank or heal can also DPS. It is a choice made by the player. No one is twisting their arm or holding them at gun point to play that role, they have freely chosen it for their own reasons. There is absolutely no reason to reward that choice other than to try and convince more players to tank or heal. But, while extra rewards may bribe players into filling those roles, it would only create more sub-par tanks and healers hoping to be carried by good DPS.