Top WoW Videos - #3 - Tales of the Past III

The #3 video on my countdown is Martin Falch's magnum opus, Tales of the Past III.

Note that there's no Youtube link. In a world where most machinima are shorts, rarely exceeding the 10 minute mark, Martin Falch made a full-length, one-and-a-half hours-long, movie. The movie is 2.3 GB in size, so I recommend using the torrent option to download it.

The movie is pretty epic. It features many of the big names in Warcraft, including Thrall, Jaina, Arthas and the Ashbringer. Also, there's a paladin in full Judgment, which automatically makes every movie better. Tales of the Past III is over the top, but gloriously so.

It is not a perfect movie. In a lot of technical aspects, it is weaker than the other movies lower on the list. But I admire boldness and daring. Martin Falch dreamed a greater dream, one that most other machinima creators would hesitate to raise their eyes to. And he had the fortitude to see his vision to completion.

Top Video List (so far):

3. Tales of the Past III
4. The Craft of War: BLIND
5. Big Blue Dress

Measuring Absorbs

Ah, Discipline Priests. According to some meters, they are the worst healers. According to other meters, they are the best healers because their shields prevent so much damage. What's the truth? Who really knows? Probably somewhere in the middle, would be my guess.

All of this is because the combat log does not report absorbs correctly.

The lesson here is, again, one of feedback. You need to feedback to be able to correctly evaluate abilities.

How does Sacred Shield compare to the other abilities? Is it weak or strong? I have no idea. I take it on faith that it's doing good, so I keep it up on the tanks always. But I really don't know.

That could actually be another point in favor of the FoL paladin healing style. Focusing on Spellpower gives you a really strong Sacred Shield. Maybe that's the element which makes the build truly viable. We don't know, though. We can theorycraft, but theorycraft really needs data to confirm the math.

If you have a game with a combat log, all effects need to reported and properly attributable. Blizzard really needs to get a proper reporting system for absorbs up and running.

Gevlon Is Right

I may disagree with his methods, but at his heart, Gevlon is right. Most people do not play anywhere near their full potential.

Why then is it verboten to point this out? Maybe all the people who advise you not to make a fuss are just cowards. They're afraid of being called "mean" or "elitist". Who cares about about other people, so long as you get your badges. Much easier to take the safe route and avoid confrontation; to laugh about a poor player in guild chat behind her back.

Surely the better path, the harder path, is not to turn a blind eye to poor players, but to help them become better ones.

The difference between Gevlon and I is what we believe are the motives. To Gevlon, bad players are "morons and slackers", who are bad players because they choose to be bad. In my view most people want to be decent players, but a lot of them don't really know how to be good. They don't see the path from what they are to what they could be. Or worse, they ascribe the difference entirely to gear, which is pretty much the worst mistake you can make if you want to be a better player.¹

Pointing out that a player has poor DPS is not mean. It's a fact. If you can shame or push them into seeking out external information at Elitist Jerks or the WoW Forums, that's pretty much the only thing which will make them better players.

Of course, though, it's all about style. Calling them terrible and trying to vote-kick them from PuGs unless they do better isn't going to work. It would work if they were actively slacking, but not if they don't know how to do better.

1. See the Why Are DPS So Bad? articles on the sidebar for more on this.

Kicking Underperforming Players

Gevlon is turning into a real social type of player these days, on a crusade to improve the level of play in instances. Whatever happened to goblinish profit-above-all motives?

Still, I can't help but think his methods are backfiring. Attempting to kick the lowest DPS resulted in the group kicking him instead. To be honest, that exchange was probably the funniest thing I've seen all week.

People generally aren't going to kick someone for underperforming, so long as the performance does not affect success. If success is a bit slower than it could be, that's okay for most people. However, causing the group to wipe--as Gevlon did--will get you kicked.

In my experience, people are very lenient about trying. As long as the player is not just /afk leaching, people are tolerant of performance, regardless of how good they are actually doing. It's only when wipes happen, where the lower performance results in actual failure, that the tolerance disappears.

I think the carrot might be a better weapon than the stick, at least in random PuGs. Post the meters, say that X could do better, and then point her to Elitist Jerks. That probably will have a better success rate than attempting to play power games, even if you are the healer or the tank.

Thoughts on FoL vs HL Builds

There are are currently two styles of paladin healing builds at endgame: one focusing on Flash of Light, and one focusing on Holy Light.

The Holy Light build is the pretty standard gem-everything-with-Intellect build that we all know and love. It relies on massive amounts of Intellect so that mana regeneration from Replenishment and Divine Plea is maximized.

The Flash of Light build focuses on Spellpower, and relies on the fact that FoL is very efficient to handle mana concerns. The idea is to get enough Haste so that your FoLs cast in 1.0 seconds (about 650 Haste rating), resulting in steady stream of very fast, moderately strong heals. It's sort of being like a living HoT. You generally need T9-level gear before this style becomes viable.

One thing to note is that neither build uses one spell exclusively. HL builds can use Flash of Light when damage is low to save mana, while FoL builds can still drop Holy Light when the going gets rough.

Holy Light's advantage is that it has huge raw throughput. Flash of Light's advantage is that it is "good enough" most of the time, is very steady healing, and you don't have to worry about using Divine Plea or the -50% healing Divine Plea entails.

My personal preference is Holy Light, because the Holy Light build is a bit more "forgiving" than FoL. Massive amounts of healing makes up for a lot of mistakes. If you use HL when you could have used FoL, oh well, you just wasted some mana. On the other hand, if you use FoL (even a strong FoL) when you should have used HL, someone might die.

Exponential Soft Enrages

One new element in Icecrown Citadel are exponential soft enrages. These are mechanics which start out slow and "speed up" as time goes on. There are currently three fights that use exponential soft enrages: Deathbringer Saurfang; Professor Putricide; and Blood Queen Lana'thel.

In the Deathbringer encounter, Saurfang gains Blood Points when he deals damage to someone. When he reaches 100 Blood Points, he puts a Mark on someone and deals damage to them whenever he hits the tank. That means he generates the next Mark faster, and so on. If a person with a Mark dies, Saurfang heals for 5%.

In Putricide Phase 3, the tank gets a debuff which causes raidwide damage. Each stack increases the raidwide damage by a factor of 3. If the debuff expires for any reason, including tank death, Putricide is healed for a large amount (10% maybe, but P3 starts at 35%, so it's effectively a third or more of his remaining health.)

In Blood Queen Lana'thel, one person is turned into a vampire allowing them to do more damage. After a short time, they have to bite someone else and turn them into a vampire as well. After another interval, two new vampires have to be created, and so on. If you aren't able to bite someone, you get Mind Controlled.

One of the most interesting things about these setups is how vulnerable they are to "fiddling" in the early part of the sequence.

For example, in Deathbringer Saurfang, you can let the first Mark die. Saurfang heals for 5% and you lose a DPS, but you effectively reset the soft enrage timer. Let's say the first Mark comes at 2 min with the second Mark coming at 3 min. Letting the first Mark die means that the first active Mark comes at 4 min, with the second mark at 5 min. You gain a huge amount of time because you were able to reset the sequence, and the fight becomes trivial. The penalty of 5% health and a DPS is not enough to prevent the tactic from working.

In Putricide, the penalty is very high. It's high enough to make resetting the stack non-viable. However, you can buy a bit of extra time by inserting more tanks into the tank rotation. Each extra tank would give you an extra 40s in P3 while keeping the raidwide damage low. It's possible that a guild which is having trouble with P3 could drop a healer and put in an extra tank.

For Blood Queen Lana'thel, originally the sequence of 1-2-4-8-16 was less than the hard enrage timer. So people started doing a sequence like 1-2-(4-3)-6-12-24. When you hit four vampires, one vamp would deliberately die to shift the sequence slightly. A small change early in the sequence netted more time, enough that the hard enrage became the limiter. Again, there was no penalty for fiddling with the sequence. Blizzard eventually increased the timer, so the normal sequence would hit the hard enrage timer as well.

So exponential soft enrage timers are a very interesting mechanic introduced in Icecrown. However, they need strong penalties to avoid people tampering with them. An early reset or delay can push back the soft enrage by a large amount. In two of the three fights that use it so far, the penalty wasn't strong enough.

AoE and Crowd Control

Often the debate on Crowd Control sounds like it is a choice between AoE or Crowd Control. If tanks don't have good AoE threat, then obviously you can't cast AoE spells, but you might use Crowd Control more.

Are we doomed to have choose between Blizzard and Polymorph? If you could only cast one of those spells in instances, which would you pick?

Perhaps the solution doesn't lie in player abilities, but in how mobs are created. For example, you can't really AoE in Faction Champs because the mobs have a -75% AoE buff.

What if we extended that buff to all elite creatures? The major difference between Elite and normal creatures would be that elites would be very resistant to AoE and normals are not. At the same time, rather than only having elites in an instance, Blizzard could put in more normal creatures, or convert some elites in a pack to normals, with higher health and and attacks.

Right now, pretty much every mob in an instance is elite, which has made that designation lose a lot of its meaning.

So now you get a choice, depending on what mobs you face. If you face elites, you might have to use Crowd Control. If you face normals, you can use AoE. Fights that currently use Crowd Control can have the adds tagged as normal, but with the same stats as now.

It might even allow Blizzard to make more interesting trash packs. Imagine a pack with 5 elites and 10 normals. You might have to separate out the elites so that they can be controlled while the normals are AoE'd down.

The big advantage of this solution is that you don't have to nerf tanks. They still have good AoE threat for when it is necessary, or when AoE would make a fight better. But they can't rely solely on AoE threat, and they have to single-target at appropriate times. In a multi-type fight, a warrior would use Thunderclap to pick up the normals, and Shield Slam to hold the elite.

In many ways, I think this solution, creating a difference between elites and normals regarding AoE, could give us the best of both worlds.

Top WoW Videos - #4 - The Craft of War: BLIND

The #4 video on my countdown is The Craft of War: BLIND, by Percula.



Like 90% of WoW's population, this video inspired me to make a rogue.

Though most of elements such as style, music, plot, and pacing are well done, the real strength here is the animation. Percula used the WoW models and scenery, but did his own animation. He did a superb job. Everyone, from the soldiers to the rogues to the trumpeter, is extremely well done.

In particular, I love how he used the animation to convey the essence of his main characters. The rogues are all style and flair, with lots of movement. On the other hand, Lady Prestor, who is the dragon Onyxia masquerading as a human noble, is very contained, with minimal motions. It is a beautiful contrast.

One thing I enjoy in movies is a good introduction of a villain.¹ The first impression you get of the villain is often the most important one. Percula's presentation of Onyxia in this video is awesome. He spends the video building up the blood elf rogue, from the tavern fight, to the two rogues fight, to the group of guards before Lady Prestor. Then the rogue, which Percula has taken such pains to establish as exceptionally competent, gets to Lady Prestor. And Lady Prestor just beats down the rogue without breaking a sweat; then has the audacity to mock the rogue about Lady Prestor's secret identity, thus using the rogue's own Blind against herself. It is a superb introduction that utterly establishes Onyxia's credentials as a genuine bad-ass.

There are also a lot of small touches in this video. For example, the scratches in the Blood Elf's sword at the end, and the way the guard flinches when Onyxia deflects the dagger at him. All these small touches add to the finished product, making The Craft of War: BLIND a great, great video.

Top Video List (so far):

4. The Craft of War: BLIND
5. Big Blue Dress

1. My favorite villain introduction is in the movie The Illusionist. That introduction is just sublime in its efficiency.

Difficulty and WoW

Various people are once again discussing the difficulty (or lack thereof) of WoW. I don't really understand the fascination with this topic.

Here's a some cold, hard truths:

1. If an activity is hard, most people who attempt it will be never be successful.

2. Fifty percent of all people are below average.

So what does this mean? Let's say you made questing in an MMO to be of average difficulty, whatever that may be. Congratulations, you just eliminated half of your potential customer base! I'm sure your shareholders are thrilled with the purity of your Vision™.

The basic activity in your game must be fairly easy. Questing should be easy enough that 90% of all potential players can do it. (And judging by the fact that people seem to need addons like Questhelper, it isn't there yet.)

After that, you can scale difficulties upwards. 75% of players can do regular dungeons, 50% of players can do heroics, 30% of players can do normal raids, 10% of players can do hard modes, and 0.1% can do the single hardest fight in the game.

To my mind WoW has done a very good job of providing content of appropriate difficulty for everyone. There is something for people of every skill level including those people who are not that skilled. Providing basic gameplay that low-skilled players can do is just good business sense.

If you think WoW is too easy, maybe you should step up to the next level of challenge.

Will You Play Star Trek Online?

I'm not in the Beta for Star Trek Online. The shenanigans to get a beta key seemed like more work than I was willing to put in. But I've been watching a lot of the news and reactions to the game.

I'm really on the fence about this game. The ship combat looks kind of neat, but I'm not sure about the rest of the game.

I've been watching the EJ thread on Star Trek (amusingly entitled "Elitist Kirks"), and one thing that strikes me is that the game seems to get very complicated very fast. And I'm not sure I'm up for a very complicated MMO.

I'm also not sure about the IP. I like Star Trek, but it's always struck me as something I watch. To see a story unfold. I never really thought of it as something active, something you play. I think I've only ever played one Star Trek game (Star Trek:25th Anniversary on the NES, if I recall correctly). I don't actually remember too much about it, but Star Trek has always been firmly in the "not-game" category in my mind.

I guess we'll see how bored I am when STO actually launches.

Beacon of Light and Range Tip

One fact that's often overlooked is the fact that Beacon of Light has *60* yard range, even though paladin heals have a 40 yard range.

So if you're assigned to heal a target that occasionally goes out of range, keep Beacon up on them, and heal people closer to you. This gives you a little more leeway in moving. You don't have to move right away to keep pace with your target, you can move a bit later. Or sometimes you don't have to move at all, if they will come back in range.

This is a particularly useful tactic for fights where someone has to go pickup adds and bring them back to the group, as they'll often only be out of range for a few seconds. Beacon of Light can even be cast when the target is up to 60 yards away, so you don't even need to refresh Beacon early.

This is a small tip if you are having range issues as a paladin healer. Choose your Beacon target wisely. Sometimes the main tank is not the best choice.

Unifying Paladin Mana Mechanics

Each paladin spec has it's own mechanic to regenerate mana. Holy pops Divine Plea once a minute to get 25% of total mana back. Protection has Guarded by the Light to get 100% of total mana back per minute. Retribution has Judgements of the Wise which returns roughly 190% of base mana back per minute.

The interesting thing is that the amount of mana returned is not that far apart. If we say Holy has a total mana pool about 5 times base mana, then Holy gets 125% base mana back per minute. Ret is a bit of an outlier, but not that much higher.

Rather than having three separate mechanics, maybe it would be better to have one mechanic that all three specs use. I think the best mechanic out of these three is Retribution's JotW. Judgments are an iconic part of the paladin class. Plus, Judging is fun. A giant golden hammer drops out of the air and smacks your enemy in the head. Never gets old. Hitting Divine Plea once a minute is not particularly fun. As well, most tankadins seem less than enamored with the way Guarded by the Light works.

Suppose JotW's functionality was built into the base Judgement spell, so that each Judgement returned a net of 15% base mana. JotW could increase the mana returned by another 5% or 10%, to keep Ret the same.

That way, each spec would be encouraged to Judge a lot, and Judgement would be the primary method of regaining mana. We could then remove Divine Plea from the game.

Crowd Control and Tank Threat

In a comment to the last post, Jeremy offers another suggestion for promoting Crowd Control:

Another alternative is to make it difficult or impossible for a single tank to hold threat on all mobs simultaneously.

Back in the good (bad?) old days of vanilla WoW, when warriors were basically the only tanks and had very few AoE threat-generating abilities, you *had* to CC because the tank simply couldn't hold all of those mobs at once.

In BC, when tankadins became viable, their AoE tanking abilities became the gold standard: groups forgot about CC, and other tanks suffered because groups expected them to just tank everything. (As a warrior tank at the end of BC, I routinely felt like I just didn't have the tools to tank effectively.) In WotLK, this imbalance was fixed by giving *every* tank reasonable AoE capabilities, which made CC irrelevant.

Thus the "quick" fix for the lack of CC is to nerf every tank's AoE threat generation abilities to the point where they can't reasonably expect to hold more than three active mobs at once.

I don't agree with this idea. The thing is that there is an alternate strategy to Crowd Control if the tank's AoE threat is poor. The DPS simply focuses on a single target, and nukes them down one by one.

Now, admittedly, many DPS seem to find the concept of "focus fire" and "assisting" to be advanced techniques, but there's nothing really preventing them from learning. Kind of honestly, they seemed to have the same problem with "not breaking sheep".

A tank just has to generate enough AoE threat to get past the healers. Strictly speaking, good AoE threat is not absolutely necessary, it's just necessary if people want to use AoE spells.

Tankadins really came into prominence in TBC because it was "easier" for a paladin to gather everything and the raid AoE things down. I remember seeing Hyjal tanked by Warriors, and they were fine, you just had to be a little more careful.

You could have such weak AoE threat that the healers would pull off a tank, and that would make Crowd Control much more useful. But it would also make running dungeons a bit more dicey. Sheep breaks, and the mob runs straight to the healer. That's pretty much a recipe for a wipe.

Tanking is already an unpopular role. Making it harder for tanks probably isn't the best of ideas.

In a way, that may have been the bargain: Crowd Control was sacrificed to make tanking easier, making more people willing to try tanking. Overall, I'd say it was probably a good bargain. I would rather have more tanks than more use of Crowd Control.

Crowd Control

A lot of people feel that Crowd Control should be more prominent. You should have to Polymorph more, or Banish, or even Sap. I am not entirely sure I agree with this. I'm not sure I disagree with it either. I remember the days of Sapping or Sheeping, and they were kind of cool.

However, when I think of Crowd Control, I think of those demons in Tempest Keep. The ones with the Buzzsaws of Doom. You may remember them. If you failed to CC them, they started launching buzzsaws at the raid, doing massive damage before you could get them locked down again. Even the gap between Banishes was dangerous. Kind of honestly, I would rather not see trash like that again.

The thing about Crowd Control is that, in order for it to be used, the mob must be too dangerous to leave active while other mobs are alive. That means if you make a slight mistake, it often leads to a wipe. If the mob is any less dangerous, then it will just be tanked down.

Another problem is that mob must eventually be tanked and killed. You can't really make an untankable mob and expect people to control that. So the controlled mob exists in this zone between "can be tanked" and "cannot be tanked". And the better the gear you get, the more the mobs move to the "can be tanked" category.

I suppose if you really wanted to enforce Crowd Control, you have to create dependencies between mobs in the same pack. For example, Mob A applies a debuff to the tank increasing Fire Damage taken by 500%. Mob B does Fire damage. The optimal solution here is to fight the two mobs seperately, either by using two tanks or crowd controlling one until the other is dead.

I think that would be a fine mechanic to use once or twice. But if every trash pack started having these dependencies, just to force people to use Crowd Control, it would soon seem contrived.

Top WoW Videos - #5 - Big Blue Dress

Since Saturday is a pretty slow day, I thought I'd take a look at what I think the best WoW machinima videos are over the next few weeks, and in true Blessing of Kings style, over-analyze them to death.

We'll start with #5, Big Blue Dress, by Cranius.



Now, I'm not precisely sure that Big Blue Dress is the fifth-best WoW video, but I couldn't think of anything else I would put above it. Plus, Cranius does have a very good track record with his other videos as well.

Big Blue Dress is also nominally a PvP video. PoM-Pyro has always been a classic PvP mage tactic, and it's amusing to see a video devoted to it.

Finally, the kicker is the absolutely hilarious gnome chorus, which just fits the video perfectly.

Limited Attempts on Putricide

I really like the limited attempts model on Professor Putricide. For those who are unaware, Putricide is the last boss in the Plague Wing of Icecrown Citadel. You get 10 attempts on Putricide each week, after which you cannot engage him in combat any more.

I like the 10-attempt limit. It's a good number, large enough so that it gives you room to maneuver, but small enough that it really restricts you and causes a good stratification among the guilds. The 50-attempt limit in Trial of the Grand Crusader was way too many. Many weeks, we never even used up all 50. In contrast, only 10 attempts makes it feel like you need to make each attempt count, while still giving you time to talk things over.

(We haven't beaten Putricide yet. We've pushed into Phase 3 a couple times, and have 5 attempts left for our next raid day.)

I'm not sure how the rest of ICC's raid model will work. From what I understand, the attempt limit will increase, but each end boss will share attempt counts. I.e. Maybe next week you will get 15 attempts to defeat both Putricide and Blood Queen Lana'thel. The number of attempts will keep increasing. As well, eventually the faction leaders will provide a raid buff to help guilds complete ICC.

Personally, I think that seems a little bit complicated. I think a better model would be to have attempts on the bosses be independent of each other. Then, the number of attempts should remain at 10 always. For example, you get 10 attempts at Putricide, and then 10 attempts at Blood Queen Lana'thel. Only the faction leader buff will "nerf" the instance as time progresses.

I think this model would be easier to understand, and easier to make decisions about. You don't need to juggle number of attempts and bosses. Additionally, the 10 attempts provides a real limit for all guilds, and will produce the nice stratification that the Putricide limit has created.

Lowbie Tank Tales: Authority

One of the interesting things about tanking is how the rest of the group automatically defers to you.

I've ran Gnomeregan a fair bit, and now know the easiest way to get to the boss with a minimum of fuss.¹ When I'm on my tank, the group falls in behind me and we move through the instance smoothly.

On the other hand, when I'm on my rogue, generally people don't know which way to go, and the group stops for discussion. I can tell them the way to go, but they never seem to listen to me. Half the time we go in a crazy direction, and the group never makes it to the end boss. This happens even I am the nominal Party Leader.

Generally, my tank is perceived to have much more authority than my rogue, even though there's not a lot of difference between the two characters. It's like WoW players are trained to defer to the tanks.

Maybe it's just that the tank goes in first. Maybe being the first person in the battle confers an aura of leadership, in the style of ancient generals and kings.

I find the automatic mantle of authority to be a very interesting part of tanking, even if I'm not completely sure why the tank is assumed to be in charge.

---

1. Generally, always go left, and don't jump down. Jumping down with an inexperienced group inevitably causes more problems than it's worth.

Trauma and Paladins

I got a new mace from ICC tonight: [Trauma]. It replaced my mace from Ulduar.

It's rather underwhelming so far. The proc does like 0.6% of my healing.

According to Ghostcrawler:

Estimates of Bryntroll at 8 to 10% of dps seem exaggerated to us. Something at the 3 to 3.5% seems more typical. It should be eminently possible for healers to get 3 to 3.5% healing out of Trauma.

I'm not sure what data Ghostcrawler is seeing, but I get nothing close to this. And I'm usually healing tanks, so it should be hitting the melee DPS as well.

The worst part is that [Trauma] is pretty much the only upgrade for a healing paladin in ICC-25. The only other alternative is a sword with hit rating.

I hope Blizzard takes a look at this weapon and upgrades the proc effect for paladins.

As well, they really need to drop an alternative weapon type that paladins can use. The other healing classes get daggers and staves in addition to maces. Paladins can use caster swords, but Blizzard always seems to put hit rating on the swords, restricting the swords to the DPS casters.

Edit: I forgot to mention that in addition to being a lackluster proc, effect-wise, it also lacks flash, which is a very common complaint for healing effects. In comparison, [Nibelung] spawns Val'kyrs to smite your enemies for you! Why does healing never get the cool stylish effects?

More on Tanking and Healing

Gordon responds to the previous post:

Secondly, I'd like defined "harder" in this context. I think leveling a healer or a tank (with that spec) is tougher and more time consuming than leveling a DPS class. Yes, tanks could level as a DPS spec but then would suffer the consequences in their grouping ability and/or be forced to pay the 1,000g to allow for dual speccing. DPS classes don't face this obstacole.

I disagree with this. First, you could always tank and heal normal instances regardless of what spec you have. The base class always includes the necessary tools to heal and tank. Back in 2008, I wrote a post about Retribution Tanking for WotLK normal dungeons. It's really only when you hit end-game heroics and raids that you need to spec for your role.

Second, the new Dungeon Finder makes leveling as a tank or healer significantly easier than it used to be. I've taken a warrior from 15 to 32, and it's been blazingly fast. I would rank it as faster than questing. Not to mention that character has much superior gear for her level. She's almost all blues, without really trying.

With the Dungeon Finder, it is quite possible that tank and healer leveling has become easier than leveling as DPS.

Also, I think there's a fair argument to suggest that both tanking and healing are more stressful roles than DPSing because you are really carrying the weight of your group or raid on your shoulders. I know people will vehemently disagree with me on that point but so be it.

In my opinion as a long-time healer, the idea that "you are really carrying the weight of your group or raid on your shoulders" is an illusion. It is an illusion born of unfamiliarity with the role and the fact that you are an obvious point of failure.

It's true that if the tank or healer makes a major mistake, the group wipes. If you're new to healing, this idea can seem intimidating. This is especially true when you're faced with a new role. DPS is familiar, it's what you did all through your leveling experience.

So when faced with an unfamiliar role, where failure is obvious, it's not really unexpected that the roles of tanking and healing would be invested with more weight than they deserve.

However, once you tank or heal for a while, the unfamiliarity goes away. Once you get as comfortable with healing as you were with killing mobs, it doesn't seem harder or easier, just different.

The first time I tanked on my warrior at 15, I was very nervous. Now, at 30, I'm jaded. I know my role, I know my purpose, and I can take care of my end. That's how fast the acclimation process goes.

You don't have the weight of the raid on your shoulders. It just seems like you do at first. And practice cures you of that illusion.

Should Tanks and Healers Get the Biggest Rewards?

Gordon, from We Fly Spitfires, recently wrote a controversial guest post on World of Matticus, Tanks and Healers Should Get The Biggest Rewards.

I think a lot of the controversy comes there are several issues entangled together in this piece. If we unravel the issues, I think a clearer picture emerges.

Gordon says:

Tanks and healers are the most important classes for any group...These are the two most important classes that exist in any MMORPG. But the DPS? They’re just meat in the room.

This statement is true for certain levels of play, but completely and utterly false at different levels. At the lowest levels of skill--for example, normal dungeons, easy heroics, Naxxramas--yes, the tanks and healers are the most important. A solid tank and healer can carry the DPS to victory. A bad tank or healer will probably wipe the raid.

But at the higher levels of play, the DPS takes on more and more importance. Good DPS becomes supremely valuable, much more so than tanks and healers. Excellent DPS can carry decent tanks and healers on difficult content, while the reverse cannot happen. In my view, the single greatest difference between Royalty guilds and the rest of us is that their DPS players are significantly better than most of the DPS in lower tier guilds.

I mean, it’s in our culture to reward those that do the most and work the hardest, right?

This line goes to the heart of the issue. Gordon assumes that tanks and healers do the most and work the hardest. But he never actually proves that they do.

In my experience, good DPS works just as hard as tanks and healers do. They theorycraft, get the best gear, and hone their rotations on the target dummies. Kind of honestly, the DPS in my guild do more work than I do.

I think a lot of the problem here is that Gordon is conflating "scarcity" with "moral value". Specifically, it is undeniable that tanks and healers are less popular roles than DPS. But that does not mean that DPS players players choose DPS because they are lazy. Or that tanks choose tanking because they are noble souls devoted to the betterment of humanity.

There are many other reasons. DPS is more active. You are actively killing the enemy, not just holding the line the way the tanks and healers do. The DPS archetypes are often more popular and may resonate in the imagination to a greater degree. Hunters, mages, and rogues in particular are very iconic archetypes. Retribution is much closer to the archetypal paladin image than Holy is.

So I don't think that tanks and healers "deserve" the biggest rewards. "Deserve" implies connotations about moral value that I do not agree with, especially given how important superb DPS is in the harder levels of the game.

However, it might still be a good idea to give tanks and healers higher rewards. A higher reward might nudge more people into trying tanking or healing. It's like the new rewards for Oculus. If you complete Oculus, you don't "deserve" better rewards. It simply isn't that hard, especially after it was nerfed. But the rewards do encourage people to stick with Oculus, leading to a better game experience.

Similarly, a higher reward might convince some DPS to switch to tanking or healing. More tanks and healers mean faster dungeon queues for everyone, making everyone a winner. Extra badges would be a bad idea, because that would gear tanks and healers up faster, encouraging them to stop earlier. However, extra gold might be an interesting incentive.

But to reiterate, extra incentives to play a certain role does not mean that role is morally superior to the others.