Q. when is a boost not a boost?
A. When you’re both level 80.
I’m starting to understand why people-I-have-in-the-past-termed-wanktards go on about the game beginning at 80. To be fair, I still think such people are wanktards because anything you say or do that attempts to undermine or invalidate the experiences of others playing the game makes you a wanktard anyway, but, at the very least, I’m starting to see where they’re coming from.
Since hitting 80 I’ve not touched a single alt, except my bank alt. I feel kind of bad about it, but I kind of went on this weird, semi-self destructive orgy of instancing, sucking rep cock and grinding for epix lol. And I’m just about emerging from the fog of purple desire, dazed, confused and slightly sticky. I mean, this isn’t how I play WoW, you know? I’m a bimbler, a bumbler, a chaser of fancies and whimsy.
I think one of my major motivating factors was pique. I got to 80, WoW looked at me, laughed in my face and was like “you suck.” And that was miserable. I wish WoW, and the playerbase, did more to acknowledge the “lost” gear stage between 80-ding and heroics. At 80, the expectation of the game seems to be that you’ll grind level 80 instances to gear up (there are even heroic dailies to facilitate it), gather resources for crafted epics and slowly accumulate faction rep. The expectation of the player base is that you “just run hcs lol.”
This is a genuine problem, unless you have a large and powerful guild to get you geared. The issue is, of course, that most people are, and want to be, DPS and you can go into a heroic quite happily with inadequate DPS and be carried along by the rest of the team. Or ultimately just the tank and the healer if they’re geared enough to do it.
But if you are a tank or a healer? You’re fucked.
Yes, I know you can either swap spec or dual-spec to DPS and coast along until you get yourself geared but this, again, compounds the problem because it floods the market with yet more DPS LFG. Furthermore, it means that, of the available DPS, a bunch of them are going to be fresh-80s or people in tank-gear with a tank-spec trying to DPS their way to the necessary upgrades. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this per se (it’s sensible behaviour) but it does have the knock-on effect that if you’re NOT over-geared as a tank or a healer and you get a team of these aspirants you’re going to have trouble because all the fights will take that little bit longer and, consequently, be that little bit harder. I’ve run heroics that have pushed me to the absolute limit of my abilities and my current gear simply because the DPS weren’t cracking 1k. But nobody else notices that kind of thing because ultimately the bosses get downed, and the loot gets dropped. There’s just me with a completely empty mana bar, heart racing, perspiring into my keyboard, wondering if we have a hope in hell of surviving the next one, and knowing everybody is thinking it’s my healing that sucks.
This in turn exacerbates the original problem because suddenly you can’t just have an adequately geared tank and healer, they both have to be over-geared in order to support the masses of under-geared DPS. Which makes it even harder to find and be either a tank or a healer. It used to be 22k hit points to tank a heroic. Now it’s 25-30k. What the hell? What’s next? You’re going to have be kitted out in Ulduar gear before you can run a fucking heroic? Please.
I PUGed heroic Nexus the other day and the DPS who put the group together (for the record, he wouldn’t mark, and wouldn’t go to the summoning stone, what a Prince!) gave the tank a hard time for having a mere 22k hitpoints. “You def-capped?” he kept asking, as we started on the trash. I was healing and, trust me, you can tell when somebody isn’t def-capped. I was about to get snippy but the tank merely observed laconically: “bit late now if I’m not isn’t it?” Hah. Yes. He was a perfectly good tank, considerate and polite (he even whispered me about when he was using his cool downs during the boss fights – what a star). He wasn’t dripping in purples but his gear choices were intelligent and more than sufficient. He was entirely capable of tanking heroics and although healing him wasn’t an absolute cake walk (i.e. I actually had to do something instead of standing in the back in my sissy robe, casually hitting renew when I felt in the mood, which is basically how it goes with M’Pocket Tank these days) it was manageable without angst or woe or trembling or freaking out.
But ultimately I don’t want to be the weakest link. I don’t want to be boosted through content by hardcore raiders. And it is a boost, an unacknowledged boost, if you show up to a heroic, insufficiently geared for it, and expect the other players to carry you through it. To be fair, I think this is largely ignorance rather than malice. Other players aren’t trying to make my life harder, but there’s a sense of entitlement there that really really annoys me. One of our level 80 guildies was genuinely shocked that we couldn’t just walk into heroics whistling, having just stepped over the 80 threshold. Because, of course, having always played DPS, that’s precisely what he did, and naturally he’s geared to his eyeballs (still only capable of 1.7k DPS, of course, despite his Tier 7.5 set, because he has never actually had to think about how to play the game – sorry, that’s bitchy but for fuck’s sake, there’s no excuse). I’m not trying to say it’s all down to the numbers. I’d much rather have a DPS who hadn’t yet cracked 1k but didn’t stand in green any day of the week. I’m not going to be sitting around on LFG going “LF gd grd tank” for six hours straight.
But I realised last night that I’ve finally made to the cusp of over-geared. I healed a guild run with M’Pocket Tank and it was mighty smooth, like a good sipping liquor. It was UK-heroic which is, of course, pretty forgiving but we managed Gundrak the day before and the first boss in there is an absolute killer. That was, err, not so smooth but the point is we did it (and, having faltered on him before, we were so damn pleased with ourselves, it doesn’t bear repeating). I got a random whisper from a WoW-friend later asking me to heal VH-heroic. Anticipating disaster, I didn’t think I could get out of it so I reluctantly said I would. And, needless to say, it was not so smooth. The DPS wasn’t as high as it could have been, the tank had lots of stamina but lacked mitigation, and was a bit shaky on the whole “no you need all the aggro mate otherwise I WILL DIE DIE DIE A SQUISHY DEATH” principle, but I healed them through it with only minor amounts of wincing and nail biting. I even had a crisis of conscience over the purple caster bracers that dropped because I won the roll and then realised that, while they were a minor upgrade for me, they were a major upgrade for the warlock, so I traded them to him.
(I really like the loot trading, it gives you liberty to have crises of conscience)
So, it’s official. I can heal heroics. Bad heroics, good heroics, heroics. I can heal heroics. Getting to this point has been crappy, no two ways about it, I’ve found it frustrating, demoralising and depressing. I’m not saying I want other players to go through hell in their turn in order to be allowed into heroics and I’m perfectly happy to semi-boost under-geared people through the things now that I actually can … but I want some acknowledgement of what’s going on here. I’ve kind of cottoned onto the fact that gearing is the equivalent of levelling at max level (give the man a prize) so a way of thinking about it might be this: level 80-85 is represented by level 80 dungeons, level 85-90 is covered by heroics. (let’s not even get into how ToC has unbalanced the whole system). Ultimately players are expecting to leapfrog a bunch of levels by relying on the time and effort of other players. I guess if it’s safe, sane and consenusal that’s okay – but there’s a sense in which it isn’t consensual, becasue nobody admits it’s happening. You either have to be the sort of objectional toad who says things like “whats yr sp?” in which case there is a special circle of hell reserved for you, or just have kind of have to bend over and take it because that’s the way it’s presumed to work.
I agree completely about the weakest link bit, so much in fact that my new dinged paladin has done all kinds of weird things in which to gear up rather than be “carried”. Its also cost a fortune and my guildmates really don’t understand why I refused to go to our alt 25 man TotC (or w/e people are calling it these days) 3 hours after hitting 80 whilst still sporting a good junk of tier 6 (another reason why leveling through AV is bad).
The cynic in me also wonders if thats why Blizzard put triumph badges as a reward for the daily heroic, because suddenly all your geared healers/tanks have a reason to run heroics again.
That’s the great thing about gear and playing experience at max level. At the end of the day you can go back and do the same thing you found very difficult early on and see how much easier it is.
Doesn’t it make all the enchanting, spirit runs, LFG angst worth it?
Yes, boosts happen at level 80. Personally, I enjoy doing it, but I agree there *should* be recognition of the fact. Recently we finished off our 8-man-naxx achievement, of which we only had to down Saph and KT, so we boosted two fresher level 80’s through and gave them a ton of loot, then kicked them out after the four horsemen and 8 manned the last two bosses.
Did they mind? hell no! And what difference did it make to us? Nothing in there is an upgrade anymore, and we were there anyway for the achievement, might as well make it worthwhile for a couple of guildies!
Still, about BEING the weakest link, yeah, that’s why I haven’t played my alt-priest since she got to 80, because I don’t like feeling gimped when I’m used to my druid, who is, shall we say, on the other end of the scale
And in response to your comment on my last post:
Yes, after 50 days /played at level 80 spent healing my little ass off, I am definitely enjoying making some OTHER healers cry for a while!
Why, god, why is the DPS no matter what their gear not cracking 1k dps? Especially in a place like Violet Hold where practically all you have to do is pick a spot in the middle of the room and pew-pew for 20 minutes.
I’m a pretty fresh 80 and still in half quest-blues, but I scrape a respectable (for the time being) 1.5 – 1.8 most of the time. Under 1k means I died in the fight, or something weird went on that nobody warned me about (Ack, instead of attacking Herald Volazj everyone’s attacking me wtfwtfwtfwtfffffff?! Oops).
They should take a break from emblem farming (why do you need gear for raids if you can’t survive heroics?) and do some regular 80 instances. That’s why we HAVE regular 80 instances. Put on your tabard and go flatter some dragons or something.
My rogue just hit 80. I’m wearing full raiding epics from Burning Crusade.
I can *just* hit 1.2k on a training dummy.
I have a new appreciation for gear these days
I recently found your blog and really enjoy it. I hit 80 on my Tree this last weekend and was fairly certain I would not be healing heroics any time soon. I thought I was going to have a tough time getting geared but luckily the economy on my realm is very mature. I picked up 2 lvl 200 epics for about 250g total (silly weekend under cutters) and crafted 2 more epics on my leatherworker. Not a bad start at all.
Then I headed into regular ToC for helm/belt/trinket. That instance just rains purples, it’s kind of ridiculous actually. I went from 1300 spell power to 1800 inside of a couple hours. Not so bad really. So I get into a heroic daily pug thinking, alright this will be tough but I’m ready. Rejuv… AFK… sigh… I think underestimated the power of the Tree. On to Naxx pugs I guess.
I cannot agree with you more. No need to say anything else as you have covered it.
“I actually had to do something instead of standing in the back in my sissy robe, casually hitting renew when I felt in the mood, which is basically how it goes with M’Pocket Tank these days”
That’s how it always is with my fiance too =/ We actually ran with a different healer last night, and he was complaining that he was getting bored because Khoa never takes any damage.
The normal gear curve works great when the expansion first came out, before there are any overgeared people. But after a few patches, it falls apart, and you’re late to the party so you never saw it the way it should be. BC was much the same — we were geared in epics from our twice-weekly ZA runs, mowing down Shattered Halls with undergeared DPS in 45 minutes or less every night. But it certainly wasn’t like that at first.
There was a post on the official forums which touched this subject, actually. Basically, a badly geared tank was demanding that he be invited into PUGs and get carried because everyone else must have been carried when they had his gear, too.
(I didn’t agree with the guy, for other reasons too, but yeah, this is the way a certain part of the population seems to perceive it.)
Really? Interesting. I tend not to frequent the official forums because, well, I’d lose my will to live to be honest. Obviously I don’t agree with him either (cf enormous post above =P): nobody is *owed* anything from other players. If we do help each other – and we should – the generosity should be acknowledged.
Progressing through content and improving my character is what made me like WoW. With the changes to badges Blizzard f***ed this sideways. Suddenly Ulduar and Naxx are obsolet, and I’m stuck doing heroics again, which is a real snooze when you’re over geared for it. Yes, there is still Trial of the Crusader. But without these changes we’d be contiuning to progress through Ulduar instead of going back to heroics.
In your case it’s a bit different, you can pretty much gear your self up by doing (tons) of heroics and the new 5-man (both normal and heroic), but you’d be missing a lot of content. OR you can do the “old way” which is almost impossible because people always go with the easy route.
Blizzard really screwed up the “gearing up part” for everyone, both newly dinged, casual, hardcore, any 80, with these changes.
/rant mode off
Rant away, I entirely agree with you. I don’t actually like the new badge system at all. I’m casual as all hell and proud of it, dammit, but quite frankly you don’t *need* raid-quality gear if you’re not raiding, and for that matter I don’t believe you deserve it. I know that’s probably a terrible thing to say but, as you yourself put, gearing has be fucked sideways for everyone and I hate it.
With a good group, you almost can jump right into some heroics in Wrath, really. I know some folks said the same about TBC, but back then the jump in difficulty was much more noticeable. There aren’t many pulls I as a tank am concerned about in Wrath, it’s mainly just pull-AoE-AoE-loot-repeat. TBC was a totally different story.
But “good group” and “PUG” don’t often meet, and I admit IF I was desperate enough to PUG I’d be wary of people who look like they hit 80 three seconds ago.
True – *sigh*. I do PUG more than is good for me. Our guild, though lovely, is a bit shaky sometimes – we can put together a really impressve, take anything you throw at us 5-man team but that’s dangerously cliquey so it’s often politic to take players who, although lovely, well, are difficult or clueless.
Since the Fabulous Five of golden days of yore, I haven’t really had a fun and reliable group of people to play through content with. It makes me sad
I have found when gearing up you don’t -feel- the improvement in your gear much… you just dordle your way through heroics perspiratingly nervous when tanks are undergeared or dps arent pulling their weight… and maybe you have a few wipes on the Gundrak snake boss, and its fruterating.
But last night I eventually noticed my gear change… I healed (is it OK with the guy flying on drake?) and it went effortlessly, when months ago I ran this with worse gear I struggled greatly (and it didn’t help the tank wasn’t up to scratch) but I finally realised how far my gear has jumped, and that was a nice realisation. You feel your effort has paid off.
I’m refering to my Resto druid by the way – still leveling the priest
God, I hate OK. I’ve never managed to do it, on normal or heroic – can’t seem to make that tedious, annoying, toe-curlingly frustrating vehicle fight work.
But, yes, I know exactly what you mean about the *moment* when you realise you’re suddenly geared for what you want to do. I had it when I got that slightly crappy VH run through without too much pain and suffering all round. That’s the thing, though, it has been an effort, an climb, a struggle. A lot of the incredibly uber-geared DPS in my guild just kind of walked into purples whistling. I don’t *resent* them for that, but it does grate a little.
Also I like the added confidence that comes of knowing you’re up to par. I tried to heal ToC-hc last night and the tank was terrible. He had simply had no idea what he was doing. I mean, he ticked all the tanking boxes but he couldn’t hold aggro on a group of mobs to save his life.
And after a couple of wipes I was “Hasta la vista, it’s not me, it’s you.” (not quite like that). Whereas previous I’ve been knotted with guilt and blaming myself.
All Blizzard did was add a choice. A choice to take the easy way, or the challenge. That people generally tend to be lazy buggers isn’t Blizzard’s fault.
I had much more to say, but I’ll turn it into a post, since the comment was getting rather long >_<
Oooh, I’ve inspired a post? Wow! That makes me really happy
I know there is an extent to which it is a choice – but it’s an implicit rather than explicit choice. You can, in fact, with a decent team assuming you’re not wearing, I don’t know, cheese and lace, run heroics pretty much *at* 80. But this is dependent on the strength of the team and everyone behaving in a sensible manner, being willing to use cc, to mark, to take things slowly, to strategise and support each other.
Except very few players seem to want to this. The want to blitz through heroics for the loot, and they *expect* to be able to do so, and all that does is place an insane amount of pressure on tanks and healers. No wonder they’re so rare.
LF gd grd healer for fast hc farming, goes the cry. Not: LF intelligent, thoughtful healer for careful, considerate run.
I dont mind somewhat undergeared DPS, but if you are doing under 1k dps you are doing something very wrong. I did more than that at level 70. 1k DPS is just not knowing how to play your character.
Everyone should contribute or it does become a boost.
Newsflash: some people just actually don’t know how to play their class. One my guildies is pretty much decked out in tier 7.5 hear (from running heroics, obivously) and he can’t crack 2k dps. For God’s sake, *I* can crack 2k, I’m still partially in blues and shadow is my off-spec.
You have 1 Tank, 1 Healer and 3 DPS for Heroics.
For Raids, you have around 2 or 3 Tanks, 5 Healers… and 15 DPS. Therefore its easier to play DPS and get geared because the chances are no one will ever notice how crap you are at your class. And if they do notice, there’s always tomorrow. Or next week.
As a geared Prot Pally, I have done about 20 Heroic Nexus runs. 2 of them were memorable because the fights took longer, and it was entirely down to DPS, however much they tried to wriggle out of blame.
And here’s the thing. We still did the Heroic, they still got badges and gear. They will go onto Ulduar, hiding in the background and rolling on gear that are major upgrades for them.
Why? Because its easier to play DPS.
It’s kind of funny – our guild is decked to the 9’s (or is that 9.5’s..bad joke, sorry) in gear – but we’re a tiny guild…just 10 players. We usually wind up joining PUGs for the daily Heroic, and it’s a lot of fun. One reputation we have established though is that we won’t summon (within reason). We’re all in Dalaran or wherever. We all have to fly there. When we’re the ones doing the boosting, we don’t feel like you should get to keep doing your thing and wait on a summon. Of course we make this clear from the onset.
Now it’s about a 50% chance that when we pick up a PUG the first thing they say is “OMW to the stone!”.
[...] the “when is a boost not a boost” feeling is more pronounced than ever. I am, actually, semi-smug at my current level of [...]