Wednesday, April 29, 2009

need DPS. GOOD DPS

The title is part of a line I just saw flashing by in trade chat. The whole line was, "Need 1 more for heroic Occulus. need DPS. GOOD DPS. It made me scuff a little.

What is good dps? 2K, 3K...I have to say when I look at the rogue in my 10man doing 5 to 6 K on some bosses in Ulduar, 2 or 3 K seems sort of crap.

Another one I just saw was, "Need 2 more dps and a healer for 10man VOA, YOU WILL BE ARMORIED!" (yes the capitals were there I didn't make them up *sigh*)

As if you can see by looking at gear what a player can do with that gear. My hunter is very crappily geared (she has mostly quest blues still) and I pull off that 3K dps, whereas I was grouped with a completely 25man Naxx geared warrior earlier this week who couldn't get to 2K (and then I'm even being generous on the numbers).
I did a pug 10man VOA earlier today. Had 5 guildies come along, 2 dps of whom I knew they could pull off 4K dps on Emalon, one of our guild's MTs, and a mage who had just turned 80, but hey it was a guildie so I knew even he could pull off 2K or so.

We found another healer and some dps, and then we had to find a second tank of course. This was a bit of a problem since it was going towards 4 am server time, and the crowd had thinned out quite a bit. Eventually we found a DK who said she had never done the fight before, but that she was willing to try. Me and my guildies looked at her hitpoints..24K, and sighed a little, but took her anyway. We had nobody else so we just had to make it work, right?

So we went in, got all buffed and started pulling adds. This was the time to see if the pugs had the dps to pull this off. The first trash pull went down with only 4 charges, and over vent my 4 guildies and myself were pretty relieved. This would work, we would make it work.

We got to Emalon and assigned the DK to tank the boss off to the right, while our pallie MT would take the adds off to the left.

About 10 seconds later the fight was over and we were all biting dust. This would be slightly harder than we had thought.

So we went back in and rethought our tactics. Our pallie MT would just tank it all, and the DK would dps. We set up for the pull, it seemed to go fine, and then poof, MT dead, and 5 seconds later we were once again checking out what taste the floor had.

We shuffled back and forth a little, not entirely sure on how to solve this problem. Meanwhile the DK had told our MT that she really wanted to tank, and if we could please give her another chance. So instead of following the normal setup and rules for this fight, the MT gave her two of the adds to tank, and he would take 2 and the boss.

I had to say, by this time I was sceptical at the least, and had already announced that if this wasn't going to work this time that we'd just have to find another player to fill the tank spot. But, our MT insisted and to be fair, the DK was turning out to be a really nice person, and even apologized for her lack of gear.

We got ready to follow the tactics as suggested, buffed up, and pulled. And you know what?

We pulled it off, the DK neatly took the 2 adds she had been assigned, but not only that she also picked up the extras if needed, made sure the healers weren't interupted and I could see that she was keeping an eye on where the healers were when she had to move. She was completely aware of what was happening in the fight, and around her, and even of the positioning of the other players around her.

5 minutes later Emalon lay dead on the floor and we handed the DK a pair of tanking legs. It's been a long time since I saw someone this happy with a piece of loot, and it made me so glad we stuck with it.

I guess what I'm trying to say with this is that gear checking is fine, but do give people a chance. This DK looked as if she would be blown over by the first hit from the boss, but we made it work and she showed that she was low in gear, but definitely not in skill. It was a good reminder for myself as well to not judge people from the outside.

And honestly...if you're so good that you feel you can judge others, surely you can help them to make it work, no matter what their gear is, right? ;)

Alanni from Icecrown, you're probably not reading this, but your guild is lucky to have you, thanks for doing such a good job.

2 comments:

  1. Awww you guys pug'd Emmy without me! <sadface>

    ReplyDelete
  2. Truth be told I wasnt completely sure I would be able to pull it off. VoA is quite the big deal, and I did good just to OT Naxx in which case I actualy did the night prior.. anyhow I figured after seeing the paladin take on 5, I knew he would'nt be able to hold on for very long, so I thought to switch roles.. me with the adds and him with the "big'un"... we tried and it went well. I was suprised at how well I was tanking just two so I decided to press my luck and grab somemore, I figured it wouldnt hurt to releave the MT of his mobs so I stole his, funny thing about all this... the last time I did any major tanking was back when Everquest's Second expansion came came out =P

    back in EQ it was the tanks job to make sure the Healer lives through everything at all costs... to me, a healer at less then 90% health for the complete duration of a battle is a failure to tank correctly... EQ tought me a lesson that most people dont learn. aggro management while things are extremely harry. when it does, most people are quick to say wipe.. I for one only think, "finaly things are getting interesting" anyway I dont like it when my healers are harrased and so I only reacted instinctualy. I'm just glad that there are patient folk still out there its very refreshing to see ^^

    ReplyDelete