I recently resubscribed and figured I would take the time to get my warrior to level 80 in preparation for RBGs and Cata arena. My game plan was to spam Random Dungeon Finder (RDF) for speed. Going in, I expected that I might end up carrying a lot of boosted players or dealing with individuals who didn’t know the mechanics. Well, that was a significant understatement on my part.
In one RDF dungeon run, only I, the tank, and the healer, were not wearing level 70 boost gear. We wiped three times due to DPS players not knowing the mechanics, and the healer and I ended up being the top DPS on the meters.
To preserve my mental health and well-being, I decided that if I queued for RDF as a well-geared tank who knows all the dungeon mechanics, I would give my groups a “three-strike” rule. The rule was simple: if we wiped three times, and it wasn’t my fault, I would leave the group. I didn’t communicate this rule verbally to the groups out of respect.
After running a total of five dungeons, levels 69-72, I was only able to complete two of them due to the incompetence of group members and players not understanding the mechanics. Some of them even became toxic when I attempted to explain the mechanics.
It seems like the older players were correct; the current state of RDF is more challenging than the retail version, especially mentally.
What are your thoughts on the current state of RDF? Are you happy that you can find groups without spamming chat channels? Do the problematic experiences in RDF groups encourage you to go back to manually forming groups or only grouping with guild members? Please share your thoughts in the comments. <3
EDIT: After spending a good portion of the day testing RDF at multiple level ranges Im pretty happy with it. I will like make a funny RDF moments montage for all the wild stuff that happens in those random groups
No because I haven’t had any problematic experiences. Been running ICC heroics and gammas all week on my Warrior that only just meets the gear requirements, and every run has been mostly smooth, save the occasional death that’s completely forgotten about 2 seconds after ressing
I imagine at that point it doesnt matter because your max level doing the HM content so everybody should already know what they are doing unless mad cus bad.
This is about what RDF was designed for: being a leveling too.
I’ve also been leveling a couple of lowbie characters, and the worst I’ve seen was at level 22 in the Stockades, with a paladin tank that didn’t have consecrate, and a priest healer that would use psychic scream on cooldown. Which, I mean, at that level I expect people to have zero idea what they’re doing…
I will say though, the level 70 range is definitely a rough one, the itemization on boost gear is absolute trash. I used my boost on my priest, and had a pretty rough time of it in UK. Still was able to fully clear it, though
There is an awkward gear gap when you first transition from TBC level content to Wrath level content if you have no wrath quest level gear, but I kind of doubt most groups have the issues you’re describing. Normal Wrath dungeons outside of Oculus don’t have especially complex or important mechanics on every fight. It’s not Cataclysm heroics.
I’ve been leveling an alt in dungeons and occasionally you get a toxic annoying group but 90% of them people are civil. You shouldn’t expect to get into a geared or knowledgeable group when solo queuing, you adapt to what you get. As long as people aren’t rude/awful I just go with the flow and it seems to work out more often than it doesn’t.
I’m on the Pro-RDF side. I had a number of “waiting” non-80’s ready to get into it. Mostly I heal and have yet to find a group where people watch mana, care about mechanics, etc. But to be honest…this really isn’t much different from the Before Time. My best groups are Heroics-Gamma so far, but I agree that the 70+ RDF’s are mostly awful lol. This however is a small price to pay to be able to spam the dungeons. Prior to RDF it was quite painful getting non-heroic + groups.
I explained how we wiped twice to ice block on Prince in the first WOTLK dungeon. Basically any mechanic that couldnt be performed at cow-level intelligence can be messed up by random RDF people.
Yea just rolled a low level one and had a tank not know how to traverse RFC. This is honestly bringing me enjoyment might have to make a YouTube montage of funny RDF moments