Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Goat Rope

Back in Vanilla WoW there was a lot of argument about Horde vs Alliance progression, as racials and classes played a large part in some of the boss fights. Horde had Shamans (WF Totems! Tremor Totems!), and Alliance had Paladins (BoK and BoS!). Alliance had the Dwarves handing out Fear Ward, Horde had to depend on the 5 second pulse of Tremor Totem.

These rants carried over to Battlegrounds as well - "WotF is OP!" "NERF THUNDERSTOMP", and even now I don't know a caster who wishes the Blood Elves had never gotten Arcane Torrent.

Raid stacking FTL

In BC we had to make sure our shamans and mana batteries were spred out evenly around the raid. Buffs were party centric, and not stacking your raid right could result in significant DPS loss - plus a healthy dose of QQing from anyone who felt they deserved that one spriest over another group.

Fortunately most of this changed in WotLK when buffs became raid wide. Healers and casters rejoiced as replenishment filled their mana bars, and no longer was the perfect melee group warrior, rogue, retadin, shaman, feral.

Unfortunately, there are a few buffs that remain party only, and one of them is a major crutch for the Alliance. I'm talking about the Draeni +hit bonus, which gives everyone in the party a 1% increased chance to hit - and I believe has a nearly unlimited range (100yds or something). This has led to many raiders gearing up for 7% hit instead of 8%, and has led to constant raid shuffling.

Me: "OK, who needs a goat"
Fifteen raiders sound off.
/looks at roster and sees 3 goats.
Me: "Ok, 8 people get goats because we're keeping Mana Tide with the healers - who can hit the cap with a gear/food change"

/sob

Maybe I'm wrong here. Maybe the thought of gearing as if you wouldn't have the hit buff is wrong. I mean, what do you do if you're in a five or ten man and you don't have that buff? I hope you've got some Snapper Extreme in your bags. Personally, I consider not being able to hit the cap on your own to be unacceptable. If you get the buff, great - if not, don't be a hindrance to your raid.

I've even got players refusing to take upgrades because the item has hit on it. "I don't need it, I'm capped. With a goat". I hate them all. Maybe that's why I'm the healing lead and not the DPS lead, I'd hit them all in the head with my goat.

1 comment:

  1. If everyone geared for having 8% hit (which is a matter of swapping out 2 gems for any physical dps class) then the actual Drenei Racial would be wasted. When you are trying to find every little advantage to pushing the absolute most dps that you can why would you gear up to waste a buff?

    The upgrade in question you are talking about has close to 3 points of hit. So at that point not only is the Drenei Racial wasted, but every extra point of hit on your gear is a wasted stat. You can't miss less than 0%.

    As far as 5 mans, the mobs are level 82 and have a lower hit cap. 10 mans are the same as 25's hit cap wise, but it's a matter of using hit food or equipping a different ring or Grim Toll or whatever else to get to the hit cap ifno goat is present.

    The whole thing is just a matter of using your available resources to their fullest potential rater than wasting them, and yes, this is why you are the healing class lead and not the dps lead.

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