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  1. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by Cattlehunter View Post
    This post is IMO like reading a straw-man of the things those who dislike PGs say IMO... except, presumably, you're being genuine? You're saying you lack an understanding of how your class (or even combat in general) works to the point where you had no idea what happened during the trial? And then you say that there's "RNG" because you didn't understand what happened to such a level that it genuinely appeared to be random to you?
    What I said is that I honestly do not get how I managed to survive Wave 10 on Gold; it took about 10+ tries, blowing every cooldown I had and nearly getting globalled with cooldowns regardless when both Conquerors would enrage. The 11th try, the one I got it on (lasting past their enrage, at which point it became easy) I literally do not know how I managed to survive it that time when I failed the other 10 tries by doing the same thing i.e. popping heavy cooldowns (GAK in my case as Prot Paladin) when both Conqs enraged. So yes as far as I'm concerned it's RNG, if I got lucky and dodged or parried an attack.

    Therefor me Proving Grounds as a tank doesn't teach much of any skill beyond "Pop cooldowns and pray that you get lucky" because pretty much trying Endless, that's what it is, an exercise in how lucky I can be each attempt - I have rotated cooldowns on the heavy hitting wave #6, and still get destroyed before I can get off enough HP to even pop a Shield of the Righteous. It teaches how to deal with packs of adds, which is very little of what a real raiding tank does. Which is also why I would have preferred a tank trial like on Norushen, because THAT is more indicative of what a tank does in raids than picking up groups of adds and getting beat on while waiting for a shitty healer (because that NPC is fucking awful) to heal me and hoping that I don't take a string of bad hits in a row. The number of times I've had to deal with a knockback or some random pack coming from behind are minuscule, and that's pretty much what PG is for a tank.

    Personally I think they should have been different for each level, not the same thing with more waves. Bronze is meant for new tanks to show if you can tank dungeons, so you should have more adds and pack management since that's most of what is in a dungeon. Silver and Gold should have focused more on actual bosses.
    Last edited by Nobleshield; 2013-10-03 at 09:38 PM.

  2. #42
    People need to look at this question a little differently. If you frequent MMO-C and have played since Vanilla, you likely won't learn TOO MUCH from this feature. I really think this was meant for newer players, so its no surprise that many of you probably thought it was boring.

  3. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by Nobleshield View Post
    Nice idea but IMO it could be improved on. I've only done the tank one but IMO it doesn't accurately represent the trials of tanking. 463 iLevel is IMO too low to be effective (should have been at least like 489 or hell 496 to assume a new tank with Timeless gear). The tank trial is pretty much can you survive against waves of adds that do a truckload of damage, and in some cases it's pure luck (I still don't really know how I lived through Gold Wave #10). The tank trial should have been like the trial on Norushen: Tanking a boss-like add with boss-like mechanics and being able to survive through it. It should have included an NPC tank to demonstrate a tank switch. As it stands, the tank one penalizes you for not being able to output a lot of DPS as some of the mobs have a ridiculous amount of health (the Wind-guard) and the NPC with you is pretty ineffective.
    Agreed. I thought the dps one was fairly decent and the healing one was really good for getting people used to healing groups..

    But the tank one was just a little too gimmicky. There was too much emphasis on putting the mobs in a fire and avoiding the knockback,, and not nearly enough on single-target survival basics. I was thinking exactly the same thing, the Norushen challenge had some better features. Adding some type of tank-swap test would have been awesome too. The tank one wasn´t hard, but it really didn´t feel anything like tanking a raid or dungeon.

    I thought the healing one was excellent with the movement stuff, the dispell and having to react to unexpected big hits. Doing gold felt like running a heroic dungeon with some bad players.

    The dps one was ok.. but felt it was a little too much about dots... again, like the tank one, it would have been good if somewhere in there there was a big, single mob that required you to go through your full rotation for awhile. The entire dps one felt like bursting trash mobs and using any ability that last more than 20 seconds was a waste ( I never used rip as a druid).

  4. #44
    Warchief Felarion's Avatar
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    Acutally i didn't even try them. I don't fell like i have to, similar to pet battles and brawlers guild. So it's fail from my pov

  5. #45
    Herald of the Titans Baine's Avatar
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    Didn't try it yet. I am neither a healer or a tank and I am already busy to do activities to try the dps challenge.

  6. #46
    The Lightbringer Lovestar's Avatar
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    The problem with PGs is that it's designed in a completely baffling way. They don't really teach you how to do anything except win Proving Grounds.

    Like, it's a lot of fun, but it only teaches you the barest minimum about playing your class cooperatively. Yes, it's a good crash-course on "These are your buttons, press all of them sometimes".

    But it's not really teaching you key points about playing your class with other people, and it encourages playstyles and tactics which are not useful or relevant outside Proving Grounds.

    It also does approximately nothing to explain what you're doing wrong, and in fact deliberately antagonizes struggling players with abusive NPCs that angrily blame you for their incredibly bad "play" decisions. It's like Blizz is codifying PUG infighting/fingerpointing behavior as "correct".

    So... gosh. As a feature, on its own, I think Proving Grounds are a lot of fun. As a teaching tool? Very, very messed up and poorly thought out. And really, the amusement wears off fairly quickly as a "feature".

    So, even though I personally enjoy them, on an objective assessment I have to lean in the "fail" direction in their current state. I guess it's much better than nothing, especially for trying out a new class or spec, and I give Blizz credit there. But PGs really, really do not live up to their potential.
    Last edited by Lovestar; 2013-10-04 at 01:14 AM.

  7. #47
    I enjoyed the 3 days I spent doing the 3 endless modes. Would like to see it get expanded later to include more

  8. #48
    Herald of the Titans
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    I think it's boring and grindy, and not only that but inconveniently located.

    Maybe I'll pay more attention to it when Siege has been out for six months or something and there's nothing at all to do.

  9. #49
    Elemental Lord Sierra85's Avatar
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    i agree that the proving grounds should be more "training" orientated and teach players how to play their class for PvE. The emphasis should be more on teaching players to use their abilities at certain times, avoiding damage and learning how to maximize their potential.

    The only problem with this is that it would require individual sceneario's created for every spec of every class, with tips, tricks and specific guides created by blizzard, and when you do something "wrong" the proving grounds should tell you what you did and how to do it better.

    Is this too much hand holding?
    Hi

  10. #50
    Immortal FuxieDK's Avatar
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    I hate the fact, that proving grounds, nerf your gear to 463...
    As a Moonkin, I probably play the most gear dependant class, in the game, which makes it rather difficult to do PG..

    I know you need to do some king of scaling, in order for PG to be relevant, and not zerg'able when you have enough gear.. But you could acomplish the same, if the mobs scaled up to your iLevel, rather than gear scales down..
    Mob-scaling would also remove the need for constant reforging etc when going into PG...
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  11. #51
    Elemental Lord Sierra85's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by FuxieDK View Post
    As a Moonkin, I probably play the most gear dependant class, in the game, which makes it rather difficult to do PG..
    i found PG pretty fun as a Moonkin but definately felt some unlucky strings of non crits hurt my performance.

    Unsure if scaling up would work, but i agree some more work needs to go into Proving Grounds to make it a bigger success.
    Hi

  12. #52
    With my current gear - I will have to re-gem/re-forge most of my gear to get gold on my holy priest. Just not worth it for me. Stats can be a bit imbalanced for certain specs when scaled down making it a little more annoying (not difficult, just annoying in having to re-gem/re-forge). Then again I hear they've made some changes to the AI on heal mode, maybe I will try it again soon.

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by TheWindWalker View Post
    Honestly, it's pretty amazing for DPS specs. It's specifically not bland at all. You have to know how to prioritize different enemies, to balance interrupts, when to stun or snare and how to quickly maximize your DPS when dealing with enemies that will kill the raid if left alone. It's a fantastic start.
    TBH knowing how to do this is key to being skilled enough for certain guilds.

    Even when a raid leader tells you what to do, you will sometimes have to make a personal judgment call on something that may wipe or cause the kill for your group.

    Nice ability to have.
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  14. #54
    How is it a fail when you can practise there to get better? Of course it's helping you to get better when you can practise there without the pressure of other people, as long and as many times as you want. Want someone to hold your hand through dpsing (it's so hard)? Maybe then it isn't the mode for you.

  15. #55
    Elemental Lord Rixis's Avatar
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    Never even bothered going in yet, don't see any point.

  16. #56
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    I liked doing the achievements there, all with my monk. But it gets old really fast. The repetitive waves of endless mode, with only a stacking buff on the mobs, get boring with time. Especially because you have to get through the low waves again, if you for some reason want to push a bit further to see how far you can get.
    So: Nice idea, but it could be expanded with different waves, different modes or different scaling - e.g. where the mobs get scaled up to your item level, instead of the items scaled down, screwing hastecaps and such.

  17. #57
    Deleted
    I did it just to get the achi/title from the dps one.

  18. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by Firebert View Post
    Impossible for me as Arcane, as I have no on-the-move spells aside from ABarr and FiB (and a non-Frost Bomb). Failed on stage 2 every time, simply because blowing cooldowns was pointless.

    - - - Updated - - -


    I don't think there's any tactics for moving whilst using a turret spec.

    - - - Updated - - -


    Sure they tell you, but that's quite disconnected from whether your spec can do it or not.
    I did gold as Arcane. I went with Evocation and Frost armor instead of Rune of Power and Mastery. It's definitely doable, but it requires a fair bit of work.

    As for Proving Grounds in general, I love it. We look at it when recruiting for the raid team. It's not the deciding factory, but someone who can't even heal Silver is not welcome to raid with us.

  19. #59
    The Lightbringer Siri's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by andreas1999 View Post
    I did gold as Arcane. I went with Evocation and Frost armor instead of Rune of Power and Mastery. It's definitely doable, but it requires a fair bit of work.
    Proving Grounds as a mage of any spec gets easier if you're one of the people who realize that if you apply living bomb to a nova'd target it gets shatter crit bonus the whole duration. A juiced up bomb like that kills or almost kills pretty much anything, especially as Arcane.

  20. #60
    Bloodsail Admiral Snorkles's Avatar
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    The difficulty curve of Gold (Tank) is a bit daft - easy for at least 8 waves then a sudden spike up to wave 10. Sort of disheartening when you die knowing you've got 8 waves/10 minutes of rubbish before you get to try again. So much so that after a handful of attempts I stopped bothering.

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