Anatomy of a Wipe in 10 Easy Steps

Following up on the last post . . .

Yes, another PoS wipe with one angry player going all nerd ragey and quitting the group.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone should be wiping a lot in PoS. Seriously. It's not a terribly difficult dungeon run.  My issue is with the person who causes the wipe in the first place, nerd rages, and still doesn't understand how the wipe happened.


The Story

Our random consisted of a DK tank, a Druid healer, a hunter (no idea what flavor), a mage (frost judging by all the ice being thrown around), and me in Arms.

Over all, a pretty solid group.  The gear levels are pretty wide, so it's not going to be a walk through, but as long as everyone doesn't SIS*, we're good.

The wipe occurs on the hill.  We set up for the first pull and the tank kindly marks the two fire guys that like to kill everyone instantly and suck the healer dry.  Me and Hunter beeline for the skull, mage-boy hits the X first. I figure at least he hit a marked target, so we're good.  The tank has to pull a mob off the mage and heath bars start dropping, but by then hunter and I can start aoe, so we mow the bad guys down.  Easy enough.

So we pull the second group, and again Hunter and I are on the skull, but mage-boy is pounding away on random mob #4. He yanks aggro. The tank can't see him. Bam, down goes the Mage while the healer tries frantically to keep him and the tank up at the same time. The healer pulls aggro, and Bam down he goes. DK frantically tries to get it under control, hoping me and Hunter can just burn them down, but five mobs pounding away with no heals isn't gonna work. Down he goes.

Now hunter and I are popping cooldowns, I'm in Def trying to tank and half a second after the tank eats it, Hunter FDs. At this point I'm scrambling around for the Vanish key. Oh, wait, I don't have Vanish. I have... oh @#$! it.

WTF Happened

So why did this happen? Let's break it down.

On that particular pull it is absolutely essential to obliterate the two fire casting guys. Unless you have an ICC geared healer and/or tank, the damage output from that group of mobs will kill your tank fast and the healer just can only just barely keep him up. Thus, the tank marks the kill order and DPS follows the kill order.

Mage boy hit a mob the tank wasn't going to worry about. The tank had enough AoE threat on that target to hold him through normal healing, but not enough to keep aggro if someone started pounding the mob.  The tank is concerned with holding the mobs that DPS is suppose to be hitting.

Mage boy is also standing practically on top of the mob he's unloading on, which increases his threat significantly!  So naturally he pulled.

Now the tank is taking a massive amounts of damage, and the mage has joined him on the hit parade. As the tank turns to try to pull the mob off the mage, he starts taking shots in the ass, with no chance to Dodge or Perry, thus taking even more damage.

The healer, meantime, has gone from steady measured heals to panic spam heal mode.  As he pours heal after heal into the mage and the tank at the same time, HoTs stacking up the longer the mage stays alive, he's dramatically increasing his threat.  At this point, the healer is number two on the threat meter.  Guess where that mob is going to go?

Now the healer is in a no-win situation. He can protect and heal himself. Or he can keep the tank up. Or he can try to do both.  I can think of a few PvP healers that could pull this off. But most PvE healers are dead meat.

Now the tank has virtually no time to recover the stray mob. The healer takes a couple of shots, chooses to heal the tank, and down goes the healer.  Probably faster than he thought possible. The tank is desperately trying to get everything under control when suddenly none of his buttons are working and his toon has decided to take a dirt nap.

This is how most wipes occur. They almost always start with DPS doing something they shouldn't be doing. Almost Every Single Time.

10 Step Program

Step 1. DPS pulls aggo.
Step 2. Healer heals DPS (increasing threat).
Step 3. Healer tosses massive panic heal to Tank (increasing threat).
Step 4. Healer has to decide to heal tank or DPS.
Step 5. Healer chooses to heal tank, chucking in some AoE heals (increasing threat).
Step 6. DPS dies.
Step 7. Healer is now tops on threat for that mob (and possibly others).
Step 8. Healer dies.
Step 9. Tank dies.
Step 10. Rest of the DPS dies.

Run back and try again.

In Wrath, in this senario, either the tank is expected to pick up the stray mob, or the healer is expected to drop threat or heal through the whole mess.  DPS basically has no responsibility except to pour as much damage into the mobs as possible.

Prior to Wrath this wasn't the case. It started getting that way toward the end of BC. Now with Cataclysm changing everything back to the way it was, DPS is simply going to have to adjust.

Turn off your DPS meter.  Turn on your Threat meter.  Be prepared to survive.

No more free rides DPSers.  Time to L2P.

Since we've been over proper DPSing a bajillion times, next time we're going to look at an old form of crowd control that hasn't been used in 5-mans since the early BC-era; it's called Off Tanking. In particular, Arms Warriors are looking like they might be pretty darn good at it!

-Fri

*Stand in S#&!

The Approahcing Train Wreck

There's one coming. It's called Cataclysm 5-Man Dungeons. And we are all going to die. A lot.

The other night in Guild Chat we were discussing what we were going to do first when Cataclysm launches. Pretty basic stuff.  "Imma start a Worgan!" "I'm going to make a Human Hunter!" "I'm going blast to 85 and check out the new zones!" and so on. 

Me? I'm gonna barge, bully, bash and bone run my way to the dungeon entrances and start running the 5-mans.

I love them.

Solo'ing VC at 38 for Mount money!

Ever since Friday and I spent three hours in Deadmines at level 16 and didn't even get half way through. I'm not even sure we had a "tank."  It was the brute force approach to dungeon running. Attack (not pull) one thing at a time and kill it, then go on to the next.  Which of course didn't work.  We'd get a multi-mob pull and all hell would break loose. Someone would yell "pat!" and the rest of us would look around going "who the hell is Pat?!?"  We'd die, but we took two of the bastards with us!  Run back and try again!

And yes, that was fun! By 20 Friday had tanked VC as DW Arms by stacking Agility. I didn't know what avoidance was, but not getting hit sounded like a great plan.  She solo'd the instance at 30. In fact, that's how I made enough gold to buy my first mount!

So it doesn't matter how hard the dungeon is, it's just fun to run them.  I don't mind wiping as long as everyone is getting along and having a good time.  Who cares, right?

For the Pony!

I've been leveling up Rowen the Rogue a bit and enjoying the random dungeon finder. Old world instances need a LOT of love.  Rowen basically tanked VC at 18. Most of the rest are a breeze with an even half-way competent crew. With the plethora of Wrath Babies running through them, they were pretty much like Northrend Dungeons. Pull, faceroll, pull, faceroll, stop for loot, repeat. 

It's kind of funny to watch some newer players that are use to free T10 gear and small AoE pulls go all nerd rage when they suddenly pull 20 mobs in BRD and wipe.  I LOL'd a lot. I didn't LOL so much when that tactic actually worked! Wha?!?

Then Rowen started this weekend on Outland Dungeons.  Even nerfed as they are, they aren't easy to faceroll unless everybody does their job properly. You can't AoE the room full of mobs in Shattered Hells. You do and you die. Nerd rage ensues. It's not pretty.

On one run through Ramps we went through 4 dps and 2 healers and 2 tanks.  On Ramps!  SRS?!?

These people would quit the group after one wipe!  I'm sorry but I don't have time to re-queue for 30 minutes just because some twit doesn't understand basic concepts of threat and aggro.  Gah!  Luckily, the groups tend to fill fast, but really.

I don't even have a problem with them not understand basic play mechanics.  I love noobs.  What I can't stand is the people that get all shitty about a wipe and then quit the group with no desire to understand why it happened in the first place!  There's a difference between being ignorant and being an idiot.  One is curable.


Enter Cataclysm. The devs have said that 5-mans in Cat will be between BC and Wrath in difficulty. If that works out, there's going to be quite a few players that are in for a rude shock.  Commence the train wreck.

Wrath Babies I get. They might have picked up some basic dungeon group concepts if they ran heroics in greens and blues. They probably had a few experienced players to guide them through that.  For the most part though, they quickly get to a place where they can slap on decent gear and run through Wrath dungeons with barely a breath. (Does anyone remember having to call for a bio in 5-mans?)

Learning about threat the hard way in SM Cath.

Don't get me wrong, I liked most of Wrath's 5-mans. But at a certain, early point, they just became badge runs. Nothing terribly wrong with that, I suppose, but at some point all you're doing is the same dailies and the same badge runs over and over again.  That's less entertainment and more like a task.  Blah.

I don't get the experienced players that have just gotten lazy. I see the Warrior tank that doesn't know what an LOS pull is and has no idea what I mean when I offer to cc the bomb dropping Technician. I get that. I see the Pally tank that DOES know what an LOS pull is and then charges in anyway, rounds up the whole room, and then stands there in the ooze and dies, all the while screaming "WHY IS NO ONE ATTACKING?!?" 

Sorry, I don't want to get green ooze on my pretty new purple boots.  Maybe you could scooch them over just a bit? Please? Thanks.

I just have a bad feeling that when (if?) they up the difficulty factor a notch or two in Cataclysm, there's going to be a lot more of this.  The Outland dungeons have been nerfed to hell and in about two dozen runs I have yet to see a group make it all the way through intact, or I've come into the group as a filler.

L2P Fri! Be prepared! No Outland in your underwear!

I'm guilty of it, too. For the first time in years I got called to task by a tank in PoS for pulling aggro! Wha?!? He even had the gall to suggest I use the target of target feature!!! My first reaction was "Quit being such a lame ass tank, bitch!"

But he was right. We were never in any danger and I took a few shots to the melon and an heal or two. Yes, the tank was way below my gear level.  I should have been adjusting my DPS to match his threat output. He was doing fine.  (Controlling your DPS when spec'd Fury is not easy, but that's another post entirely.)

Guys, if you can't handle a wipe or two (or five), you need to get into some of the Outland dungeons and L2P. Serious. If you don't understand threat, aggro, when to use cc, when not to use AoE, what LOS is, etc. you're gonna be hurting come Cataclysm.

I know I'm taking Rowen's adventures as refresher course.

I suspect, though, that with the right group, Cat dungeons are gonna be monster fun, wipes and all. Bring on the train! :)

-Fri