This.
With my friends we run a DK Tank, Holy Paladin, Warlock and Hunter (though it’s typically just one or the other due to their play times). So LFD is pairing us with two DPS on average.
Almost every single DPS we get has at least one (very often more, or all) of the following problems:
-Doesn’t know fights beyond the first boss or two. This is undoubtedly the most common problem and leads to someone in our group having to type out an explanation for every fight every time. It’s frustrating and infuriating and I can tell you exactly why it happens: 45 minute DPS queues just to get a group that falls apart after a wipe. I mean, if you’re a tank, why stick with this group of “noobs” when you could just re-queue and be back in the action instantly?
-Terrible DPS. This is almost always due to bad gear, because doing Heroic-level DPS with appropriate gear isn’t (with a couple exceptions) hard. Again, this stems from 45-minute DPS queues. You can’t have the gear if you can’t run the dungeons.
-Doesn’t know how to CC. 1-80 (arguably to 84) you are never required to use CC in PvE. Ever. Never ever ever. I have gotten more Shaman that don’t know what Bind Elements is than I can count. Mages typically know what sheep does but do things like cast it on DoT-ed targets. Warlocks aren’t familiar with banish and typically don’t glyph Fear. Priests rarely know what Shackle is. Druids don’t realize how good Root is. Rogues don’t have Improved Sap, or realize they have to be the very first to CC due to Sap’s out-of-combat rule. Etc etc etc.
-Has a total sense of entitlement. It’s astonishing that DPS will talk shit when they have a 45 minute queue. Somewhat frequently a DPS will zone in and say something like “lol DK tank” and proceed to bitch about how awful DK tanking is whenever I drop beneath 50%. You realize I can kick you at whim, right? You realize my queues are instant and yours are almost an hour, correct?
-Just really can’t do what you ask/tell them to. Ask a Hunter to drop a frost slick trap? Nah. Ask the Druid to root the moon? Nope. Can we get Gift of the Wild so we can stack it with Might? Dead silence.
-Know nothing about their utility skills. Good fucking luck getting someone with Remove Curse on their bar, or someone that helps the healer dispel/remove poisons.
I liked Heroics at first because they were “hard.” You had to CC! You couldn’t AOE everything! You can die even if everyone is at their keyboards and trying! How exciting! And the noobs that say Heroics should be easier need to l2p, lolz.
Now, after doing quite a few, I see the glaring problems with how Heroics are set up.
-There needs to be a higher ilvl requirement. 331 seems like a good spot.
-“But what about PVP gear? What if I can’t get 331 despite the countless quests and easily-raised factions at cap that reward 333s?” This is pretty simple too: You have to do the normal version of a dungeon before you are allowed to do the heroic. This would solve, or at least mitigate, plenty of the problems listed above.
-As an extension of the last point, there needs to be normal versions of level 80 Deadmines/SFK.
-Some heroic stuff just plain needs to be made easier. I hate to say it, but it’s true:
*If you’re going to put raid-level mechanics in 5-man boss fights, you need to make it pretty damn clear what the hell is going on so players can figure it out in 1-2 wipes instead of trying to read buff/debuff tooltips and combat logs mid-fight. Imagine trying to figure out SFK’s Baron Ashbury without background knowledge – the interrupt timing required, the counter-intuitive healing method, the burn phase – it’s a raid-level encounter which would have taken 5-10 wipes before you could formulate a solid strategy back in the day.
*Loosen the requirements on group comp for some encounters. Again in SFK, Commander Springvale is next to impossible without a very specific group composition. Grim Batol’s Erudax is very, very difficult without plenty of snares and strong burst DPS for his adds.
*Tune back the gimmicks. Heroic Deadmines, I’m looking at you and your last 3 boss “experiences.” Vortex Pinnacle’s Altarius: are 50 cyclones really necessary for a “fun” encounter?
*Does one mistake from one player really necessitate punishment with a full wipe? If the tank fails to dodge a Shatter or Ground Slam, does the whole group really need to die? If a DPS fails to snare an add, does the whole group really need to die? If you can’t kill the dream-worgen in time, does the whole group really need to get deathtouched?
I dunno, it’s just pretty silly at this point that 5-man heroic bosses have more complicated mechanics than raid bosses from prior expansions. As my girlfriend creeps ever closer to 85, I begin to dread the fact that she’ll expect to jump right into heroics like in WOTLK. In today’s heroics, she’ll get yelled at and harassed when she does bad DPS/misses traps/whatever.
The worst part will be having to explain to her that she shouldn’t – or just can’t – do heroics. She wants to be a Beastmaster. She wants to have cool pets. She doesn’t like Survival and doesn’t want to play it.
As a result, she will do terrible damage and at this point it’s just not possible to carry 3-4k heroic DPS yet. I wince a little when she asks me to tell her how her damage is – she’s always dead last by a large margin.
If she’d spec Survival and press 3-4 buttons in sequence until one gets a shiny border, she’d do double that. But that playstyle is boring. It takes a non-gamer telling you matter-of-factly that it’s boring to really realize that, yeah, it really is. She wants a big spirit bear instead, or a pretty wolf, or whatever. And it’s hard to tell someone who actually wants to play the game to enjoy it – and not just overcome challenges – that they’re not allowed to play with the big kids until they accept boredom.
