Tl;dr at the bottom
This thread is created with regards to the complaints about there being a lack of tanks/healers for m+ keys, and serves to broaden they playersbase’s perspectives on that issue. On top of that, it comes with a suggestion of how to lessen (not entirely solve) the issue, but focused on the DPS rather than the tanks/healers. The suggestions main goal is to raise the skill floor of DPS to a similar level of tanks and healers.
Who am I?
Since some people demand credibility whenever you present ideas or they’ll be quick to ignorantly label you as troll, I’ll introduce myself here.
I’m playing on the EU servers, my main this season is Tómtefar, a zandalari paladin to the kazzak realm. I casually play m+ and pug all my keys, and I’m currently tanking in the +14 key range at 3.1k rating, but I also dabble with alts that tank/heal/dps around the 10-12 key range. Not that that matters, judge this idea for what it’s containts rather than who I am, if you have the cognitive ability to do so.
Here’s some keywords you need to understand before you read this:
Hard-carry = The group act of playing good enough to allow one player to fully afk, yet succeed. The group hard-carries the afk player.
Skill floor = The bare minimum you have to be able to perform to pass the role-specific skill checks.
Skill ceiling = Your utmost capability. This is what you can achieve with perfect gameplay.
Tank buster = A hit that deals devastating damage to the tank. Just to define it with numbers, let’s say 70% of their maximum health if they have no external buffs or personal defensives up. Adjusted for the recommended ilvl for the specific key it happens in (just to throw a number out there, lets say 619 ilvl in +10). In tank busters Tank carries the major ability to influence the outcome, but other group members can help the tank by using externals.
Heal check = An event that deals major damage to one or more allies that the healer must counteract by healing a certain amount within a specific timeframe (for example Dark Pulse at third boss in City of Threads) to pass the check. In heal checks the healer carry the major ability to influence the outcome, but other roles can help the healer by using defensives and contributing healing.
DPS check = An event where a certain amount of damage has to be dealt within a specific timeframe to pass the event (for example the crystals from Umbrelskul in Azure Vault in DF s4). In DPS checks the DPS carries the major ability to affect the outcome, but other roles can help the DPS by using offensive cd’s and contributing damage.
To start off we need to establish some things.
- The issue that there’s too many DPS relative to the amount of tanks/healers lowers the higher the keys being done are. At the absolute top the DPS surplus is substantially lower, if not next to non-existing.
- DPS carry no personal responsibility (Up to and including +10 keys, they carry small but yet increasing responsiblity in keys higher than that). Sure, they along with the rest of the group have a collective responsibility to do enough damage to beat the timer, but since one DPS can go fully afk in keys as high as +10 and still time it because the rest of the group picked up their slack, the skill floor for a DPS is at an absolute ground level (up to 10s, I’ll explain more about higher keys later). A single DPS can without much effort be hard-carried by the group in keys up to +10.
To compare (2) we can look at the skill floor for healers and tanks in +10 keys.
If a healer were to afk or die the very first second of a pull, the group can still successfully proceed forward depending on the group comp. If it’s a group comp that lacks capability of restoring their own and other group members health, they’ll at least be able to proceed forward for a while, but won’t be able to to finish the entire dungeon. Only with specific comps can a healer be hard-carried in keys, with most comps they absolutely can not.
If a tank were to afk or die the very first second of a pull, the group will wipe within seconds of continuing the fight. The tank can under no circumstanses be hard-carried in any key.
This illustrates how the skill floor is at the absolute floor for a DPS, higher for a healer, and highest for a tank in the most commonly played keys. As you venture into higher keys the dungeons start to demand more of each specific role, I.E. raising the skill floor. Here’s where I admit that the skill floor doesn’t raise linearly between the different roles, and that the DPS skill floor will eventually become higher than the tanks and healers skill floor (high keys, higher than any 14-15 key that I’ve ran myself). That is because as the skill floor raises, the gap between skill floor and skill ceiling narrows, and due to DPS having a more complex rotation they naturally have a higher skill ceiling.
The issue at hand
There’s far too many DPS that are failing upwards, I.E. been carried into keys they shouldn’t have any business in. Remember the example of a DPS being able to fully afk in a +10 key, if you perform at the level that equals being afk you simply have no business being in a 10 key.
So how do we prevent DPS being able to be hard-carried in m+? Some may say we should make timers tighter, but that puts pressure on the tank to pull bigger, survive better, and the healer to heal more. In other words it doesn’t raise the skill floor for the DPS, it raises it for everyone. We want to bring specifically the DPS skill floor more in line with tank and healers skill floor.
My suggestion is to implement DPS checks. Failing these DPS checks should have as disastrous catastrophes as failing a tank buster or a heal check, I.E. a full blown wipe.
So how challenging should a DPS check be?
This obviously has to be tested and tuned by blizzard, all the numbers presented are just to give you a general idea of the concept that is a DPS check.
Since +10 keys these days can be completed with just 66% of the groups DPS being present, I think we can start out with DPS checks requiring everyone in the group to perform 70% (maybe it should be 80%, tuning and testing will have to decide) of the maximum theoretical output that they’re capable of with a standard m+ build (see wowheads default m+ builds for your spec), adjusted for the recommended item level for the key in question. This change promotes a strategical use of offensive cooldowns, which raises the skill floor.
This also means that there’s still room for a wide margin of error up +10 keys where the rewards end, if someone isn’t performing 70% the rest of the group members can pick up some slack by performing for example 90%. In keys above +10 the margin of error lessens, and eventually you’ll hit a spot where everyone needs to contribute 100% to pass the check. You might argue that it is impossible to contribute 100% to pass the check, but likewise it eventually becomes impossible to contribute 100% to pass the dungeon timer too. The question is what will be the limiting factor for the absolute highest keys: DPS checks, heal checks, tank busters, or dungeon timer?
How does this help with having an abundance of DPS in lower-mid keys?
By raising the skill floor for DPS, we effectively keep the DPS who aren’t skilled enough from slowly climbing up the rating and gear ladder by pure carries. If they can’t perform at a level that allows the group to complete a for example +6, they’ll never reach a +6. As there’s now less DPS in keys, the relative amount of DPS per tank/healer is now lower, effectively making the competition for spots in m+ groups less fierce. It may also result in the DPS who finds that he lacks to skill to venture further than a +6 trying out a tank/healer instead, and find that their skill floor allows him to venture up to a +7 or +8 now, thus increasing the tank/healer pool too.
Pros and cons of DPS checks:
- Pros
- There will be less unqualified DPS to take up spots in keys, resulting in more tanks per DPS.
- Tanking/healing suddenly has less responsibility than they previously had relative to the responsibility of a DPS, and may draw more DPS to try out tanking/healing when they can’t overcome their DPS checks. Not all DPS will want to try other roles, but some may be incentivized to do so as DPSing isn’t as easy as before.
- Less frustration about DPS getting carried into key brackets they have no business being in. DPS now have to pull more weight to get there.
- Cons
- Less carrying potential. Since DPS can’t fail upwards, more might fail because the rest of the group can’t pick up as much slack for the severely underperforming DPS.
- DPS players who got previously got carried may quit wow due to not being able to fail upwards anymore, resulting in less revenue for blizzard.
- If the healer/tank refuses to help in a DPS check, there’s extra pressure on the DPS to compensate. Much like how there’s extra pressure on healers during heal checks when people don’t use defensives.
- Potentially less token sales for blizzard if hard-carrying keys up to +10 becomes impossible. This can be prevented by making it hard to hard-carry, but not impossible if you’re overgeared.
All in all, m+ should be a challenging mode, and for it to be able to challenge DPS you have to be able to fail as a DPS.
Feel free to discuss and criticize the idea, what effects can you foresee if this were happen?
Alternative punishment for failing a DPS check
Since wipes can feel overly punishing, an alternative to failing a DPS check could be having the groups damage done reduced by 90% for 20 seconds (I made these numbers up and they can be adjusted as you see fit). That way you may fail one DPS at the end of a rough encounter, but not have to start the encounter all over again. It punishes the group collectively due to the time going to waste, but mainly the DPS instead of the tank and healer.
Tl;dr
DPS skill floor is too low, raise it so that not only tanks and healer carry importance and responsibility, but DPS too. I suggest through DPS checks.
Edit:
Added to Cons:
- Potentially less token sales for blizzard if hard-carrying keys up to +10 becomes impossible. This can be prevented by making it hard to hard-carry, but not impossible if you’re overgeared.
Added example of recommended ilvl for 10s as 619 ilvl. This is just an example and in no way indicative of what I think the recommended ilvl should be.
Added an example of an alternative punishment for failing the DPS check under the label “Alternative punishment for failing a DPS check”, group deals 90% reduced damage for 20 seconds (I made these numbers up and they can be adjusted as you see fit).
Added some background information about me to explain the level 10 alt post in Who am I? to let the forum trolls have one less thing to make angry noises about.