Please do NOT change Survival to ranged (+ tuning suggestion)

Classes Hunter
62

Idk that I would call it toxic. It’s just the mentality. And I completely understand it to some degree. But the extent to which it has been applied is outrageous, imo.

Which at this point is 99% of content. I’m sorry but they are being stingy with under +15. And that is not content that out-scales any class/spec.

The thing is that SV (and many other non-fotm specs) meets those thresholds on all but the highest level of content. So →

→ That statement is incorrect 99% of the time. If I meet my threshold then no1 has to pick up my slack. People want you to do more so they can get it done faster. But they don’t NEED it. They would rather others not have the fun they would like to get out of the game so that they can be more efficient. And good for them. That is their choice. And I respect, or at least I try to, the fact that the community as a whole has every right to be an exclusive prick to enrich their own experience. But, that does NOT negate the fact that SV is a perfectly viable spec for almost everything. It’s just that viable isn’t good enough for the community.

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63

Tell that to the failure rate for sub-15 keys. MSV is certainly capable of doing 15’s. Well beyond 15’s, in fact. But the fact remains, the more capable a spec, the more that spec is able to cover for the failings, inadequacies, mistakes, and inexperience of others.

If someone accidentally overpulls, a fire mage can pop combust and melt the pack. Might set the timer back slightly if it shuffles their cooldown timing, but it saved a wipe. If that fire mage were instead, say, a feral druid or a demo lock…now that overpulls may instead turn into a wipe. And maybe that breaks pathing because a skip you used can’t be easily repeated. And the entire run falls apart.

Again, it’s not just some minimum threshold where DPS above that is useless and unnecessary. That extra DPS helps against mistakes and error. It quickens fights, which reduces the window for those mistakes, and eases the burden on the healer. Maybe it even let’s you 2-chest what you’d only 1-chest, or be able to still time it after that bad wipe or accidental reset or death without a BR.

And that’s just on the DPS side. Utility and control are equally vital. While SV brings a stun, so does BM, and MM brings a knockback and brings Binding Shot without having to sacrifice Posthaste. MM and BM are also both less susceptible to incidental damage and deaths due to not being in that quite-a-bit-more-hostile melee radius, and are better able to apply their DPS, since they don’t have as demanding positioning requirements.

Where you may have to stop DPSing and run out to avoid things like the pools on Hakkar, the statues on Lord Chamberlain, or stun circle on Domina, the whirlwind on the Theatre trash, or the knockback circle on the Mists maze trash, ranged DPS just keep on murdering.

There’s a reason ranged DPS are preferred in most PvE content. They’re simply more flexible.

It’s not just about speed, it’s about tolerance for mistakes and variance. If you’re right at that minimum threshold, a single mistake burns the run. And if the MDI has proven anything, it’s that even the very best players in the world make mistakes, and need to have the buffer room to handle them. Amplify that even more for players further down the skill spectrum.

Basically, there isn’t some magical “enough” beyond which everyone is functionally equivalently useful. More DPS is always helpful.

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64

I can’t disagree with any of your statements. As I said before, I understand the concept of why ‘x’ is preferred over ‘y’ and that it would be silly to take x when you have y available. Including the tolerance for mistakes.

But,

The spec is more than capable of doing a +14. So, they are more than capable of covering for others ‘failings, inadequacies, mistakes, and inexperience’ since they have ‘dps to spare’.

It feels like I’m being told that any spec not capable of saving the group from a wipe is not worth the time? To some degree we are all responsible for each other in a party. But that does not negate individual responsibility. It shouldn’t be ‘Well if we took the fire mage over the Demo lock this wouldn’t have happened’. It should be ‘If that guy didn’t face pull this wouldn’t have happened’. Or, even better imo, the whole group works together using all of their capabilities to prevent the wipe.

But my feelings on the subject don’t reflect the majority and I know that. It just makes me unhappy to see so much fun sucked out of the game by the widespread use of the ‘most efficient’ mentality. It’s always been there. But it didn’t used to be so punishing. I just need to vent about it on occasion.

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Im sorry, maybe Im not following. Are you saying that sub 15 keys fail at a high rate because they are not exclusive enough in the classes and specs they bring?

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You still seem to think this is some binary threshold, where you either meet it or you don’t. Literally every single spec in the game can and has done 15’s. So by your argument, literally every spec in the game is equal in terms of their usefulness in M+.

And yes, the success rate defies that conclusion. Runs that bring certain specs succeed more often than runs that bring certain other specs. Why is that?

Because it’s not just some minimum threshold, as I said before. It’s not about having enough.

I’m saying that the failure rate even at sub-15 keys shows that thinking about this like there’s some minimum threshold is faulty. I mean, every spec in the game has completed a 15, so why should any runs under 15 fail? And why are those failures disproportionately represented by runs with certain specs compared to others?

Oh right, because when mistakes happen, some specs can do a lot more to offset those mistakes than others. Some specs can contribute a lot more towards saving the attempt, avoiding the wipe, fixing or negating the mistake.

The meta isn’t just made up out of thin air. Ya, some peeps adhere to it a bit too religiously at lower key levels, but the fact remains, the specs that are “meta” are “meta” because they are demonstrably better at helping a run succeed. Some of that is tuning (and some of that, such as fire and balance, is being reined in in 9.1). Some of it is utility, such as balance druid trees, mage roots and Time Warp, UDK’s AMZ, etc. Some of it is simply synergy (VDHs bring a magic damage amp, so magic classes are preferred over physical. Fire mages benefit immensely from CDR, so NF Disc or Shadow priests are more common than they otherwise would be.).

But it’s absolutely false to try to assert that because a spec can do 15’s, that they are equally effective at helping any given group succeed in a 15.

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I never said some weren’t more useful than others. Hence my repeated statement that I understand why ‘x’ is better than ‘y’.

I’m just not sure how to get my point across I guess cause now we are talking in circles. We can just leave it at me not being able to communicate in a way that other people understand what I’m actually trying to say. It’s a running theme throughout my life and I’ve learned to try and notice when it’s happening. And this seems to be one of those times. :slight_smile:

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There is a minimum threshold, and always has been. Dungeonfinder demonstrated this when it killed the meta mentality in 5 mans. Prior to dungeonfinder the meta mentality was equally bad. Though I would argue warrior tanks in late wrath did struggle compared to other tanks in 5man dungeons, the fact remains that dungeonfinder has been all around good for the game by defying this mentality.

Well, for a few, they are timed, and you cant replace a party member if one has to leave, and people need to cooperate at least when it comes to following a given route. None of those challenges take class or spec into account.

People will leave a pug group after one wipe, even if there is more than enough time to complete the key, bricking someone else’s key. Like… a little less single target DPS is not that big of a problem in comparison.

This is totally true. And LFG should continue to exist as is to allow people to build bespoke dungeon groups, but there should really be a mythic+ level alternative for players who enjoy the challenge but dont care about optimization.

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Sorry, I should clarify. I didn’t mean that there isn’t a minimum threshold, because there clearly is. I meant that it isn’t a case of hitting the minimum threshold and then everything is good. It’s not just a simple binary of “is good enough, yay/nay?”. Every spec in the game is technically “good enough” for 15’s, but that doesn’t mean that some aren’t quite a bit better at contributing to the group’s potential success than others.

And yet, keys are failed because people completed the dungeon, with everyone still in the group, but didn’t do it in time. More DPS can solve that. And frankly, there are quite a number of wipes that more DPS solves as well.

It’s difficult to tell what you’re asking for here.

Do you mean you want something similarly rewarding, that simply doesn’t require as much skill, time, effort, and coordination? Not going to happen. A central tenant of games, and frankly competitive enterprises all of colors throughout human history, is that more difficult challenges are more rewarding.

Do you mean you want something of similar difficulty that simply doesn’t require as much optimization? Difficult to nail down, tbh. Requiring less optimization means it necessarily is easier, so having it have a similar level of subjective difficulty depends greatly on where the player is, in terms of skill and optimization, versus where the content is balanced at.

However, given that M+ is a sliding scale of difficulty, I’d argue that lower keys are that content. If you don’t like the optimization needed to run a 15, run a 12. If you don’t like that, run a 9 or a 7 or a 5. You’ve got direct control over how difficult the content is, and thus how much optimization is required to be sufficiently successful at it. There are a lot of more casual key groups floating around. There are a lot of groups in the LFG specified as “just for completion” that are directly aimed at those that aren’t in it for the optimization.

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I hinted heavily at what I want. Toxic meta culture was solved (albeit imperfectly) 12 years ago with the introduction of dungeonfinder. It did not require the dilution of heroic dungeons to be effective nor popular. It did not make the content easier. It actually made it harder- but at the same time it made it more accessible.

An m+ dungeonfinder would not necessarily take anything away from LFG, or guild runs. It would simply be an imperfect and chaotic and frusterating option available for people who can’t be bovvered to beg groups for acceptance.

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It’s nice that you’re fixated on the level of the character I post on vs the message contained within.

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72

Ah, so you want a version of M+ that 5 random people can get thrown into and expected to succeed at.

Honestly, M0 being added to the dungeon finder is about the best you can hope for there. M+ is simply beyond the scope of what a random matchmade group can be expected to accomplish. Affixes, coordination, timed, simply not going to happen.

Take a look at how dumbed down LFR has to be even relative to normal. That’s what would have to happen to M+ to make it even remotely viable for matchmaking.

Besides, we already have a perfectly workable group finder for M+ right now. As far as I can tell, most of the people asking for automated matchmaking for M+ are really just asking for groups to not be able to decline them, to be forced to run with them. And there’s a very specific type of person that falls into that category, and they are not conducive to successful runs.

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73

You’re wildly mis-remembering. Heroic dungeons in TBC were actually hard. Heck, they were pretty darn difficult in WotLK, too. Cata was when the proper dungeon finder, as we know it, was added, and there was absolute outrage at how difficult Cata dungeons were in the LFD. People were up in arms over having to use CC and take it slow, rather than just YOLOing through the entire place without a care in the world.

Heroics ever since have been an absolute cakewalk. In fact, devs have several times remarked on the lessons learned from how difficult Cata dungeons were, and the upper threshold on what a matchmade group can be expected to accomplish.

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Reddit I feel like is a grab bag. You sometimes see enthusiasts or people who like the idea of SV but admit to not playing it, and then other times you see people who are understandably still upset. It’s kind of a weird atmosphere over there.

Though I’m inclined to believe you about the rest, though that’s mostly because I don’t use Twitter / watch most WoW related content creators on YouTube xD

Perhaps I’m naive, but I still want to believe they take some of what the forums and players at large into consideration. I do agree they definitely take some of what content creators suggest, but I think for the scope of what we’re talking about they will end up wanting to look beyond just them. I think Blizz has to know the situation they made with SV is kind of a big deal. I honestly believe it’ll get reworked again by next expansion at the rate we’re going at, and what that means for the spec is a giant question mark at this point.

And to be clear, I’m not even really referring to the whole RSV vs MSV debacle there. I just mean generally speaking as far as how the spec is doing along with community perception towards it.

75

Im sorry, but this cant possibly be true. When I run my own keys as a tank, I am never picky, I don’t make sure everyone knows all the fights, and I havent even used my pocket healer for m+ yet. And I dont always time it, but provided we all have good enough gear (minimum ilevel) we will finish the dungeon if no one leaves. There is nothing that LFG does with human intelligence that Dungeonfinder cant do with artificial intelligence, except prejudice.

LFG is very often a random matchmade group, but an idiot (me) is doing the matchmaking instead of an AI.

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76

I mean, they could in theory do something similar like they have for the current group finder and add filters to what you’re willing to join / accept into your group? They are adding in raider IO next patch, so you could filter based on scores, as an example.

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And that’s the issue. Failure to time it is still a failure. People would be up in arms at how often those queued groups fail.

Heck, we already have people complaining about how difficult M+ is. If you add in matchmaking, people will be calling for it to be nerfed until it’s no more difficult than heroic.

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I think this is a bigger issue than actually making the LFD functionality work for M+. The community has different ideas and expectations out of M+.

Generally, I of course want to make the timer. But more than anything, I just want to complete the damned thing. Where as other players don’t care and will sooner leave than stick around for an extra minute.

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Actually, dungeonfinder was a huge part of ICC. The daily valor points, the justice point grind. That was a massive part of the game for me personally, because I couldnt reliably devote to a raid group.

The backlash in cataclysm wasnt because the dungeons were hard, it was because they were so different from the AoE fest in Wrath. You couldnt just pull half the dungeon until people were better geared, and honestly that happened pretty quick.

Tanks were much better balanced in cata than they were in wrath. Warriors got blood and thunder which filled a huge hole in their dungeon kit… that happened because dungeonfinder revealed that hole.

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80

Well, I think it actually was both in that case. The dungeons were harder because you couldn’t just AOE everything down and needed to CC stuff similar to how dungeons were in BC.

IIRC, they ended up nerfing a lot of the cata dungeons fairly quickly into the expansion due to the amount of people who were upset by it. I remember enjoying the dungeons until they became really easy again anyways.

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81

It is and it isnt. Like, yeah… if you are doing a key way below your ilevel appropriate key, and some crap tank (me) causes your run to not time the key, that sucks. You didnt get any gear, and you didnt get an upgraded key and even your great vault reward for that run is useless. Just boo.

There should be some kind of restructuring to the system so that the only major downside of not timing a run is not upping your key. Idk, maybe max ilevel for lower keys, and if you really want to help your little cousin you can party sync down with some scaling? Idk… it can be done though.