Just food for thought. Case being discussed: highest level dungeons 5 man normal and 5 man heroic dungeons (whether you manually build your group or use LFG tool). I.e., I’m talking about the normal and heroic dungeons in the the current latest expansion, where your level matches the dungeon level. I am NOT talking about doing lower level 5-man normal dungeons from older expansions in this post. And I’m not yet addressing raids. Just 5 person dungeons that are currently the highest level dungeons in the game.
Here’s the summary for TLDR:
The game is DESIGNED to be “Need a tank and a healer in a dungeon otherwise you can’t do it” yet now if you have a person with ridiculous high equipment level, they can practically solo and you no longer need a tank, a healer, or even both. This goes against the clear DESIGN of the game: not letting you go into a dungeon without a tank and without a healer.
In the HIGHEST LEVEL 5 MAN (normal/ heroic/ mythic) DUNGEONS IN THE GAME, it seems bad design if any of the following can happen, even if you are geared for mythic but go back and do normal:
- Tank is not needed because someone else can TANK
- Healer is not needed because others either don’t take much damage and/or can heal themselves enough and/or mobs drop so ridiculously fast they hardly touch your group.
- One person (or two) can solo a group encounter in the dungeon
- One person (or two) can solo a BOSS fight (which I just saw the final boss get solo’d by one person)
END of summary
I don’t care HOW you would change this, but none of the above should happen when you are doing THE HIGHEST LEVEL (NORMAL/ HEROIC/ MYTHIC) DUNGEONS CURRENTLY IN THE GAME, since it just absolutely destroys the fun of playing dungeons.
From 2004 to about 5 years or so ago, I hardly ran into this - now I can’t escape it. Even when I put together a group, you can still get a person who ruins the dynamic and have to play equipment police because the game design is lopsided from what it once was.
It’s just flat out BORING in a dungeon when it doesn’t matter what you do, doesn’t matter if you don’t cooperate and/or you don’t need a tank and/or don’t need TO tank and/or you don’t need a healer and/or you don’t need TO heal. There’s absolutely NO fun in it. I might as well watch TV or read a book while the dungeon run is going on. I’d have to pay more attention in PvE out in the zones than in such dungeons.
One consideration (since after all we are talking about the highest level 5 man (normal/ heroic/ mythic) dungeons in the game at the moment, not the lower level ones) :
Perhaps use a sort of scaling to make mobs hit people at a similar % of max health damage that you’d experience if you were MAX geared for the dungeon but not yet geared enough for next higher tier of dungeon difficulty (where cooperation, tanks, healers, tanks tanking, healers healing would now be needed like they once were).
Same for how much damage mobs take: cut down to a max % of the monster’s health any hit can do compared to the damage they take if the people were geared max level for that difficulty, but not strong enough to be allowed in higher level dungeon yet.
Numeric example: So you need iLevel 157 to get to heroic. Figure out the average damage % of max health done and received when entire group is, say, geared 155, and make it so even if you gear higher than that, when you go to a normal dungeon you’ll still give at most that same % health damage to moves and still receive that same % max health damage to yourself. You’d still be strong for the dungeon, but it wouldn’t become an absolute joke for you and everyone else. Lower level 5 man normal dungeons becoming a joke makes sense. The latest expansion 5 man normal dungeons becoming a joke is another story.
If you do this, then tanks HAVE to tank and healers HAVE to heal and no one can SOLO.
There would actually be a point to grouping and getting a tank and healer again!
Why would people INSIST that a non-tank be able to tank the highest level dungeon in the game and that perhaps you don’t even need a tank?
Why would people insist that you should be able to get through a dungeon with no healer?
Why would people insist that you should be able to get through a dungeon with no cooperation?
A tank should be required.
Tanking done by the tank only should be required, with others trying to tank too long (or tank not holding aggro too long) will lead to a group wipe.
A healer should be required.
Healing from the healer should be required.
And for those who claim it will slow down their runs, well consider this:
For you power levelers that are over-geared for these dungeons: At the moment you DPS sit in queues waiting for a tank and a healer THAT YOU NO LONGER REALLY NEED.
Why not insist that you be allowed to get a group far sooner with 1 healer and 4 dps? You’d get groups many times faster!
Why not insist that once your gear is mythic you be allowed to run normal dungeons with 5 DPS since you don’t really need a haler?
You don’t - you sit in the queue for a long time waiting for a healer you don’t need and a tank you don’t need.
If you design your game around ONE playstyle of “We’ll let you practically skip playing this game AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL so you can just minimax your equipment as quickly as ever loving possible” it ruins the fun factor at the highest level.
Just food for thought.
I’m sure many will hate this idea: but you can breeze lower level dungeons. The highest level dungeons that are currently in the game at any time should not be ones that can be breezed through like they’re a joke.
