4521

Shield slam is a purge.

4522

Well that explains that! Thanks!

Also thanks to Blizzard for designing an encounter where the tanks #1 priority ability fucks everything up.

edit: ARGH I’m cranky. I’m not a great player (obviously; I forgot that my Shield Slam has a purge) but honestly - I cannot remember the last time the purge aspect of Shield Slam played a role in anything. And I tanked every fight in ICC! :(

4523

I get your point, but surely if you’ve worked out why the Bulwark exists and what the point of it is, presumably it’s a small step to “maybe I shouldn’t get rid of it”?

Edit: Aah, you just forgot it purged. Fair enough. I forgot for about half an hour that I could purge on Omnitron.

4524

Its “flavor”! It is annoying, but occasionally stuff like that happens, where one or more tanks get screwed by encounter design. A ton of paladin’s single-target abilities in Wrath were AoE, but on fights like Saurfang and Lich King, you couldn’t really use them for long periods due to not wanting to pick up adds. I believe that DKs and paladins are also more affected by silences than druids and warriors. Warrior mobility is really awesome for some fights, but their almost total lack of ranged abilities makes kiting for long periods extremely difficult.

Overall, occasionally a pain, but I prefer it to the alternative where every tank has the exact same abilities.

This particular instance is especially bizarre, because how often do mobs have buffs that you DON’T want to get rid of?

4525

Honestly Andrew it really was just that I forgot about it. The purge aspect of Shield Slam never comes up in PVE; and seeing as how it’s my top threat ability there’s never been a reason not to hit it as soon as I can! Now that I know I’ll be careful not to purge the Bulwark, but it’s frustrating to know that I was inadvertently helping cause our wipes and there wasn’t even any feedback mechanism to let me know I was doing it! :(

Having now done this encounter; I can say that I agree with the people who have complained about it. There is no way a typical PUG could ever beat this boss in a reasonable number of tries; the mechanics are simply too undiscoverable.

4526

Hahahaha, that’s funny. I feel for you, jeff, but that’s funny :p

4527

I don’t think people have been complaining that PUGs simply have no idea how you’re meant to do the boss, just that it’s too hard to execute correctly. Which I strongly disagree with but hey!

The tooltips for the various effects strongly suggest at what you’re supposed to do.

Edit: To clarify:

Elementium Bulwark Magic
100% chance to reflect spells.
10 seconds remaining

Elementium Spike Shield
Applies damage over time to melee attackers.
Cannot occur more than once every second.
10 seconds remaining

Paralyze Magic
Stunned.
Deals 47500 to 52500 Arcane damage after 8 sec.
Effect ends when damage is taken.
8 seconds remaining

4528

I think asking a PUG to parse tooltips to figure this out is asking a lot, but we can disagree there. You’re right, the execution is pretty punishing - there’s basically 0% margin for error.

4529

Yeah I’m over being pissy now, and it is kinda funny that we spent so much time headscratching over why the Bulwark wasn’t reflecting spells last night.

Oh well, I’m never forgetting Shield Slam is a purge ever again, that’s for fuckin sure!

4530

Sounds like somebody’s going to be mad in 5 months when everything for the remaining 19 months of Cataclysm’s lifespan is trivial.

4531

You have a point, let me refine my complaint.

Therazane: 7-8 dailies, easy exalted.
Ramkahen: 2 dailies, 400 rep per day (excluding guild buffs)
Guardians of Hyjal: zero
Earthen Ring: zero
Dragonmaw Clan: none listed on wowpedia, never saw any blue exclamation points in the zone, but wowhead says there are 4
Tol Barad: forgot about these guys, but their gear has to be paid for with their own currency

So it’s not as bad as I thought, but three of those factions’ exalted gear is still out of reach if you have to wait 45 min for a queue with no guarantee that the group can clear the content, or that you won’t get zoned in for just the last boss.

4532

Having now done this encounter; I can say that I agree with the people who have complained about it. There is no way a typical PUG could ever beat this boss in a reasonable number of tries; the mechanics are simply too undiscoverable.

I know this is going to sound snarky, so apologies in advance…

Is searching for a boss on wowhead and reading the user comments for a description of its abilities and a basic strategy too difficult for a “typical PUG”? I know you can make a case that it’s poor game design if your players have to look up boss abilities on an external website, but is it really that onerous? That’s exactly what my elitist progression guild did to defeat the heroic bosses the first time we encountered them; why is it too much to expect casual players to do the same?

4533

They’re all at the Bloodgulch camp on the map, I think. It was weird because I can’t remember anything directing me towards them (you pass through there and do them as regular quests first, but don’t get pointed back there once they unlock as dailies) and only noticed them when I happened to see some blue exclamation points while flying over it towards something else.

Edit:

I thiink the problem for a casual player is that they’re not going to read all of the strategies for all of the bosses in all of the dungeons ahead of time and memorize them all, and then when they get dumped into a random dungeon by the LFD tool, are they really going to scramble to their web browser and try to find the strategies they need before the rest of the group charges ahead?

4534

For the Alliance equivalent of the Dragonmaw quests, you do most of the “dailies” as part of the normal Twilight Highlands quest chain, except that you are doing the non-daily version. I didn’t even realize they had a daily version until I happened to fly over the area a day or so later.

4535

Yeah, it’s the same for the Horde. You do them as regular yellow quests first, but then there’s no indication that you can go back and redo them as dailies later on, since you’ve moved on to other areas by then.

4536

That’s how most dailies work, isn’t it?

4537

Most other areas that I can remember had central quest hubs that you’d revisit and see the dailies at, whereas in Twilight Highlands they’re at a camp that’s just another one of the temporary spots you do a few quests at and move on to somewhere else, and the dailies haven’t unlocked by the time you leave.

4538

Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I agree. In Uldum, for example, the two dailies are pretty much on opposite sides of the map, with the one where you have to shoot mortars at a hillside way up in the northwest corner where you’d otherwise never have reason to go.

4539

Wait, that one turns into a daily? Another one suffering from the same problem! At least the pygmy-whacking one is available right from the start, so you almost certainly notice it while just working on other quests.

4540

They could do more to help you mouseover the tooltips or whatever, but how far do you go? For example, as a guild we approached the new dungeons without looking up strategies - the learning process is good fun and it’s entertaining to think on your feet. When we come up against something we haven’t seen before, we check things like buffs and debuffs - it’s all part of the game, the information isn’t being hidden from you.

My issue with people complaining about Ozruk is that it’s basically a simple fight. No-one should be dying to shatter unless all 5 people have no idea what is meant to be done on this fight.