A meme has been making the rounds in reference to the performance deficit between players in random heroics. The argument goes thusly:
"Player 1 thinks he is carrying Player 2 because he does twice as much dps. But in reality, it's just his own gear that is carrying Player 1 himself!"
This is wrong on so many levels. The quickest one to note is that tons of people are wearing full tier 9 now and still sucking.
The largest and most onerous problem with the idea of "gear doing the carrying" is that it completely ignores all the time and effort put into getting that gear and optimally gemming and enchanting it. It even ignores the research that goes into getting the right gear. Yes, the stats on the gear do contribute to the performance of the character. But that person put in the time and effort to get the gear and prep it. You can't just consider the gear in a vacuum. MMO's are about time, effort and skill put in to progress your character almost as much as they are about being a good player. If you want a game where all that's considered is skill, play an online shooter. If you want a game where all that's considered is what a nice person you are, play Facebook.
This is why going in ungemmed is so onerous. Leaving out gems will reduce your damage just as much as having a crappy rotation. So both should be reviled.
If you don't gem, you are saying "I care so little about my performance and helping the group that I'm not willing to spend a few gold on the AH before I Q up. Now please use those gems you paid for to make the run go faster for me while I slow you down. And I'm not slowing you down because I'm new, inexperienced, or simply haven't gotten the gear yet (which would be understandable), but simply because I'm cheap and don't give a crap about other people."
If you do not gem, you are a jerk. Plain and simple. You should not have a good self-image.
And I should not have to bother saying that! How far we as a people have fallen that someone actually has to say "please gem your gear"!
At the same time, I have a lot of sympathy for new players with suboptimal rotations. Finding the right information is not always easy - oh wait, it is, just go to elitistjerks.com, or any of the million WoW sites and blogs that explain to you step-by-step exactly how to play your character!
I even did the work for you: (you'll never guess how I found these...google!)
Death Knight
Druid
Hunter
Mage
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior
You now have no excuse.
Or is there something I'm missing that makes reading things on the internet just too hard to bear?
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7 comments:
Even if you are a fresh 80, after your first couple of goes at heroics in any role, your group mates should have said something to you about your gear or DPS or healing style. If more than one person is telling me I’m doing it wrong, I’m going to go look up as much info as I can if not to prove to the next accuser that they are wrong. Or in most cases I realize I was doing it wrong.
Funny I just posted the first of many “what newbie’s 80's should expect” on my blog /end self shameful promotion. I know of about 30 more sites in addition to the ones you listed for holy paladins alone. Some people think WoW is a first person shooter and you only need to mash buttons.
You assume that people can learn from reading, and not doing. And even "doing" on test dummies is not the same as doing in a heroic/instance/raid where there are other mechanics to split your attention on.
Not saying EVERYONE falls in this category, but I'd wager there's at least a few terribads where this is the case.
I leveled back in TBC, and I personaly have this huge research bent, I enjoy researching. I'll research anything that catches my eye. and Even so, it took me almost getting to 70 before I started to compile any sort of reliable resources on how to better play my class. And I was stuck at 69 for a while. My first character was a hunter and even while having some advantage of being a gamer and having mostly played ranged characters, I still though that strength was good for me at lvl 40. I didn't realize that I could turn off growl for my pet, until someone yelled at me in sunken temple run. I didn't see what the point of bestial wrath or improved aspect of the hawk was and had my talents more or less equally split between marksmanship and BM tree. It took hearing about mysterious Kara and wanting to see it for me to start to research how to play better. my first stop? not google. coming from a solo gaming back ground, it was a combination of a bookstore purchased strategy guide and official website class descriptions. I think I've read about BRK while browsing official forums and discovered the amazing world of WoW outside of WoW.
right now it quite possibly taking less time to get to 80 then it did to get to 70 back in TBC (never mind leveling in Vanilla). Not to mention, a lot of leveling has been simplified. even if you are a new character and don't have the benefit of heirloom gear. A lot of people solo through game and they do just fine with their choices. A lot of people have no idea about addons and how to use them (recount etc doesn't exactly come built in, though quest helper does now).
Most of the time, until you point out, politely that they could be doing better? they might never improve, becasue they don't realize there's any need. they don't realize that there are online resources that they could be using.
though you can instantly tell a bad from a newbie by the way they react to your offer of help. newbies are overwhelmingly receptive of the advice.
Also, not everyone uses Recount, or any add-on like it, with the game itself not having a way to show you your dps, they can't improve on their own.
i'm curious how other people feel between gemming 19 SP or 23, because seriously?
19 SP gems are like 40g, and 23 SP is like 180. 4 SP for 140g works out to be way too little for me to care about.
I suppose if I regemmed ALL my 19s, I could get about 24 extra spell power, at a cost of about 800g... but I tend to shop at the AH like I do at the computer parts store... get one generation ago, because it's dirt cheap compared to bleeding edge that isn't really that much faster.
i'm horrible, and am the first to admit it.
Ixo:
When it comes to people in 5-man heroics, I honestly don't care if they're gemming with greens. As long as they gem in the first place, and as long as the gems make sense (yes, spell pen gems are nice and cheap, but no, that doesn't make it okay to use them), I really don't care if people spring for blue or epic gems. Especially since there are plenty of people (like me) who opt not to use epic gems for our alt specs or alt toons.
@Karial: Good point that reading up on playing your character is different than learning to perform that stuff in a hectic, stressful in-game environment. I have a lot of sympathy for that.
@ Leah and Pangoria: Ooh, also good points! There is a distinct lack of feedback in-game, especially for the newbie. I've always been in favor of in-game tutorials to help prep players, because I don't think there is nearly enough feedback given by the normal game itself about your performance. And leveling is so different from instancing and raiding that the skills you learn while leveling almost aren't transferrable at all...
@Ixo: I'm with Ink: green gems are fine for heroics, just don't leave the slot empty. The cost difference between the tiers of gems is massive. IMO, epic gems are only for if you are doing a lot of raiding in content where others are depending on you to eke out every last bit you can from your performance (ie ICC and maybe ToC). Blue gems are for alts, offspecs, or mains that do little/no high-end raiding. But those ideas are more open to debate for me than "don't leave a gem slot empty".
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