A Hunter's Story

No, not going to talk about RealID on the forums. Everyone else is doing that today (and rightfully so, but I’ll save that for later!).

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” -Albert Einstein

So, this is on people not using the apparently uncommon common sense, or that other thing called Logic. This is actually something that annoys me everywhere, but last night kinda ticked me off.

I got into a pug for RS. It was mostly a guild run, and they only really had Halion left. So I come in, having never done the boss before, being a pug, and figure I’ll follow directions and do as directed. Was a decent enough group for the most part, and people were learning, so I certainly didn’t mind wiping a few times. But what annoyed me a little bit was that we were doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, but getting the same wipe each time. So I looked at it from a new angle and realized one of our problems.

Now bear with my pathetic illustrations, hopefully they’ll make sense. Blue = Halion. Green is the circle you must stay within – if he gets pulled outside the circle, he resets. Green is basically safe area. Red is his cleave, his breath, or his tail lash since he’s a dragon. Basically dead zones that you don’t want to go into at all (except the MT, of course). Again, this leaves green as safe zones.

So our tank pulls him, and puts his head towards the edge of the circle and his tail in the center. Which sets up the fight as such:

Now add in his next mechanic, where he sets someone on fire. The longer they have it on them, the more charges you get. When it’s finally dispelled, it creates an additional flaming circle of death, proportionate to the number of stacks you had on you… (plus it gives a knockback to anyone too close to you, which typically tosses them towards a death zone, but that’s minor compared to the other things going on). So experienced group – small circles of death. Inexperienced group like this one? larger circles. Also, experienced group – the circles are out on the edges of the safe zone. Inexperienced they end up closer to the center of where everyone is standing. Note – I’m not knocking the group for this – it’s pretty standard with any new group in a new dungeon with very little experience. It’s called a learning curve, lol. Anyway, so as these new circles of death start showing up, the raid begins to look like this:



Anyone seeing the problem yet? Where to stand?! You can’t go in the safe area behind his tail (far enough to not get swiped) because that’s too far of a range to hit him, or you’ll be too close and get swiped. You can’t stand up by his head because of the cleaves. And now, you can’t stand on the sides because of the fire circles. And it’s particularly hard on Hunters because we need to stay a minimum range from him, otherwise we aren’t effective at all since we can’t shoot. No wonder we kept wiping! Here, let me add the Hunter dead zone just for the visual. Especially since 2 out of the 10 in the group were Hunters:



So anyway, up to this point, everything is understandable. You have to go through these fights in order to figure out what works, what doesn’t, how to make it easier, and so on. So after a couple of wipes, I suggest that instead of the tank running in with the group and then pulling, turning 90 degrees, and dragging him back to the edge of the circle, I suggest 2 things:

1. Tank runs in from a spot on the circle 90 degrees from the rest of the group. No turning necessary, everyone’s faster to get in on DPS and heals, and the whole thing engages easier.
2. Tank him in the center. Frees up a lot more room to maneuver, a lot more safe zone (that you can DPS from). In fact, here’s the same drawing as above, but with my suggestion:

Notice how much more safe green zone there is? I didn’t even move the fire circles, but with more green room there’s an ability to move those farther out, which further gives safe fighting green zone! Even if this wasn’t logic, but a simple suggestion that had some possibility for success, it would still be worth trying at least once, right?

No.

Our MT has already done this successfully on 25 man once. Therefore he’s an expert. His way or the highway. Nevermind that his way has just failed 4 or 5 times in a row, and we’re still only barely hitting Phase III. Nope, he’s an expert and suggestions with logic, or even baseless suggestions aren’t allowed because he’s done it on 25.

So that’s where I ended up getting so frustrated with the group. Which was ok because it broke up for the night at that point anyway. But what annoyed me so much was that they didn’t even consider the suggestion. I would have been fine with “When we tried that on 25 man it was actually harder because of A, B and C.” or “We’ll try that next, I want to give this method another shot” or any number of responses. But “No, our tank has done it on 25 – he knows what he’s doing” is the same thing as saying “Because I said so”. Somehow I’m guessing that the raider saying the tank’s done it on 25 is a parent, and he uses “Because I said so” all the time.

I hate that response. I mean, it’s fine if it’s coming from someone I trust, because I know that they have a valid reason, and not only that, but I expect that they’re waiting for us to do it their way and for me to see and understand why their way was effective. But in this situation where I don’t know the guy? Where obviously this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing or we wouldn’t have just wiped so many times? Hell, I would’ve even been ok with a response of “I’m sorry, for our raids we ONLY do what XYZ says. We don’t listen to suggestions or input on wipes, we just do what XYZ says, even if it means we never down the boss because we wipe due to the same reason over and over.” Then I would’ve at least known not to bother making any suggestions.

It was the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results… But really, the thing that annoyed me most was “He’s done it (once) on 25 – he knows what he’s doing”. I’m sorry, but just because the stars aligned and you luckily managed to down a boss does not mean you are an expert. Consider Heroic Dungeons – lots of people can do them pretty quick and easy on a guild run. But throw them in a PuG with lower gear quality and less skill? They won’t be as successful. And besides, if we’ve just proven 4 or 5 times in a row that you don’t know what you’re doing, how are you still the expert? Makes we want to strangle people and knock some sense into them!

So anyway, no I’m not annoyed that I got saved to a raid and didn’t down any bosses. I knew that was a possibility (probability) when I hit “Yes” upon entering the dungeon. What annoys me is when people are experts because they’ve done something once on 25 man, and when they won’t listen to any suggestions. Seriously, just listen to them. If they make sense, use them. If they don’t, don’t. But at a minimum, listen to the suggestion and consider it. Don’t assume the only one who understands raid mechanics is the guy whose done this particular raid once on 25 man knows everything and everyone else knows nothing. Maybe they have good ideas too.