Raid *Leader* Awareness

[Akraen]

This is a discussion that comes up with mages a lot because of the ridiculous amounts of misinformation regarding our specs and talents. I find from all the mages I help that they are often given incredibly bizarre orders from their raid leaders. Hell, I had a raid leader of a 8/14H 10 man guild PM me asking me if there was a way his guild's frost mage could track his icicles because he's losing 50k DPS... I'm like "icicles fire automatically who would ever say that." His reply: "Our hunter analyzed his logs and said he lost 50k dps because he didn't fire his icicles." WTF?!

So a couple questions directed at a couple audiences:
1) As a non-mage, do you feel your class has this problem too?
2) Raid leaders, do you try to filter through the BS, or do you latch on to any idea you hear as to why X is doing Y less DPS?
3) Would you guys like to see a Blizzard developer watercooler acknowledge some of these points to help clear up confusion?

Already in the mage forums, mages are in a scared state and filled with anxiety about WoD. Because a majority of us HATE Rune of Power and are terrified that even if it isn't the best talent, it might be "perceived" as the best talent, therefore become mandated. Here are my thoughts on the matter:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...2#post26758052

My strategy as a leader for years has been to focus on results only. I don't really care how conventional or theoretically optimal something is. If the player yields results, I don't hassle them to change.

So what's going on here, why have raid leaders in MoP made unusual, drastic, and often completely misguided demands on DPS, hoping to get better results?

[Aboubacar]

It would be great if all GMs played every class and spec, but that is not a reasonable expectation to put on a person. Additionally, improving damage is a personal responsibility, but the GM could point a struggling guild member in the direction of help (other successful players of same spec, forums, guides etc).

A mechanic like icicles is so dumb to look at when analyzing a mage. I would look at icy veins use and see if he was using at correct times (lust, berserker stance, etc) to help the guild get through tough parts of the encounter. I'm not a mage, but I'm fairly sure Rune of Power is actually the best talent for arcane, but if you're new or just plain shit at using it (low RoP buff uptime in logs) might as well be invocation.

In my guild our officers/GM checks what mobs took the most damage from people, who did the most boss dps, etc and who's dying(14/14H for months just for reference). That's all you need to do. Raid Leaders need to understand the encounter, not everyones class. If someone is struggling with just low overall numbers (especially single tar fight or something), say 20-30% behind the rest of your group, just try to get them help. It's incredibly simple. No need to delve deep into logs.

for the questions
1) no
2) not a raid leader
3) no, maybe you can elaborate on how that would help w/ people that are uninformed and jump to conclusions?

[Wilderness]

Are you sure you're not just overreacting a little bit from some isolated raid leaders who might not really understand mages that you happened to run into?

In my experience in my guilds, the raid leaders have usually been pretty knowledgeable about my class (mage) but I've only been in a few guilds and they've always had a hardcore approach to raiding so that kind of knowledge was needed and expected. I've certainly run into plenty of raid leaders in pugs or other groups I've joined for various things who have not been nearly as knowledgeable about my class - but in those kind of situations I've found that the raid leaders are often not knowledgeable about a lot of the classes, they are just more casual players without the broad knowledge of the game.

Even guilds that are progressing through heroics don't always have someone who knows the specifics about each class, particularly when we're in content like SoO that has been out for a while already so getting to 8/14H by now isn't the same as someone who did it months ago.

To be honest, I don't know how the good raid leaders I've raided with do it - I can't keep up with all that stuff and have never had that sort of knowledge about most other classes. Probably a big reason I've never been that great at PVP.

Anyways, to me it seems like its probably just the fact that a lot of raid leaders don't know the ins and outs of each class, and you happened to run into a couple whose lack of knowledge included mages. You may be seeing it more because you have a guide and other informative posts in the mage forums, so when a raid leader thinks a mage should be doing better/differently but doesn't know the class, they will of course come to forums like these and look through guides to try to understand it. But they don't always take away the right information or really understand what's being discussed, so they misinterpret things and go tell their mage "Akraen said to do this!" and then that mage is like wtf Akraen?

I hope that RoP doesn't end up forcing you away from your mage or the game, as I've definitely enjoyed your guides and information in the mage forums, but I don't believe there's an over-abundance of raid leaders who don't know mages and are making crazy demands of them; or at least not any more than any other class since the lack of knowledge, in my opinion, balances out overall.

[Akraen]

3) no, maybe you can elaborate on how that would help w/ people that are uninformed and jump to conclusions?

Imagine a talent summary on battle.net, which did basically what we do at Icy Veins: described the situation in which talent A > B, B > C, C > A, and so forth. A dev watchdog could post stats on spec popularity vs. their internal tests.

This type of attention and public acknowledgement can help separate the buffmeplox from the actual weak specs, as well. If they see nobody using X spell, they can see if that's a perception issue or a numbers issue, or both, or neither!

- - - Updated - - -

Are you sure you're not just overreacting a little bit from some isolated raid leaders who might not really understand mages that you happened to run into?

-snip-

I think you've happened to run into the few who don't cause trouble. I help dozens of mages out each day, sometimes I can't even keep up with them. I'm also a moderator on Icy Veins and see a lot of the traffic and post topics there. This is a more common issue than you're willing to acknowledge.

[Wilderness]

I think you've happened to run into the few who don't cause trouble. I help dozens of mages out each day, sometimes I can't even keep up with them. I'm also a moderator on Icy Veins and see a lot of the traffic and post topics there. This is a more common issue than you're willing to acknowledge.

That's certainly a possibility, but the flip side of that is that because you're active on the mage forums here, have guides up, and are a moderator over at icy veins that you see a disproportionate amount of that because you're visible so people with those problems come to you? Selection bias and all that - people who don't have raid leaders making crazy demands on them aren't going to come to here or Icy Veins and ask you for help because they don't need any.

[Akraen]

That's certainly a possibility, but the flip side of that is that because you're active on the mage forums here, have guides up, and are a moderator over at icy veins that you see a disproportionate amount of that because you're visible so people with those problems come to you? Selection bias and all that - people who don't have raid leaders making crazy demands on them aren't going to come to here or Icy Veins and ask you for help because they don't need any.

That's all fair enough, which is why I asked 3 questions. I'd like to hope you're correct. I didn't make this post thinking "I'm definitely right about this and it's absolute." Naaaaah, not the implication at all. I'm sharing my experience and asking for the experiences of others in hopes that reality is much more tempered and averaged out than what comes my way.

I use forums as a way to crowd source opinion and perspective to help grow my own ideas and validate my interest in some potential topics. If I was 100% sure of myself, you wouldn't see a forum post like this, you'd see an epic write-up posted on battle.net forums and tweeted at every important WoW name at Blizz HQ.

[Txiv]

I hate stereotypes but i did chuckle that it was a hunter who pointed it out. Huntards reading logs.

The only poor raid leader is one who after the Mage explains how icicles works didn't apologize and move on. Not everyone knows how every class works. You need to be flexible with the information you process.

[Deja Thoris]

Already in the mage forums, mages are in a scared state and filled with anxiety about WoD. Because a majority of us HATE Rune of Power and are terrified that even if it isn't the best talent, it might be "perceived" as the best talent, therefore become mandated.

I'm sorry but this is pants on head retarded. Is the whole mage community so meek and timid that they can't formulate an answer like "Well no, RoP isn't the best talent. I'm in this team for my skill as a mage, please trust me to know my job"

People butting in with wisdom about classes they are clueless on isn't anything new and a watercooler won't change that.

[NRL1515]

As a raid leader myself, I have to trust that my raiders know what they are doing, or else I wouldn't have recruited them in the first place. If I had to spend every minute micromanaging each of my raiders to see whether they can get 90%+ of their theoretical DPS, I'm pretty sure I'd be spending the rest of my life in meditation out at a Tibetan monastery to find peace.

It's about the foundation you set as a group and as a guild; I love sports, and I liken building a raid team to a successful sports team. In order to win, you need a team filled with members who have the same goals as one another, who can fulfill different roles well, and can communicate and work together. You're only as good as your weakest member.

I'm one of those 'old guard' players that has been playing since Vanilla and I've leveled almost each class to level cap and done SOME form of endgame to some capacity on each, so I'd like to think that I have a enough general knowledge to know if someone is totally missing the mark. However, there are times where I don't know what the problem is and why a player is under-performing - IF I have the time, I will consult the class forums here on this site, or I'll ask an experienced friend to take a look and see what they think.

A wise person knows what they know, and what they don't know. And there are plenty of resources out there to help with any issue, it's all about getting that help.

[Wilderness]

That's all fair enough, which is why I asked 3 questions. I'd like to hope you're correct. I didn't make this post thinking "I'm definitely right about this and it's absolute." Naaaaah, not the implication at all. I'm sharing my experience and asking for the experiences of others in hopes that reality is much more tempered and averaged out than what comes my way.

I use forums as a way to crowd source opinion and perspective to help grow my own ideas and validate my interest in some potential topics. If I was 100% sure of myself, you wouldn't see a forum post like this, you'd see an epic write-up posted on battle.net forums and tweeted at every important WoW name at Blizz HQ.

Fair enough, but I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish with the watercooler post you mentioned in question #3. In order to be useful for raid leaders or interested people in ways that tie into what you're talking about in the rest of your post that watercooler would have to be rather detailed - basically a thorough, accurate, up-to-date "How to dps/heal/tank" with each spec in the game. That's beyond the scope of what a watercooler would or could do. But maybe I'm not understanding what you would like that watercooler to be or what it should accomplish.

[Migraine]

As a raid leader I don't really care what your issue is but if your dps is weak and I need more dps you either need to fix it yourself or I am going to replace you. All I tend to look at is overall damage, where it was directed and survivability, it's up to individual raiders to work out how they are going to manage those metrics. I genuinely do not care what someone does to achieve the metrics that I set and I have to convey this sometime 'do you know how you fucked up?' and 'can you fix it?' are not pretty straight forward questions that don't require an answer that explains class mechanics.

I think you could probably afford to reword some of your post if you intend to try and convey your feelings to Blizzard, when I see Scared, anxiety, Hate and terrified in a paragraph about a talent, I feel like it diminishes your point.

[Volitar]

I'm sorry but this is pants on head retarded. Is the whole mage community so meek and timid that they can't formulate an answer like "Well no, RoP isn't the best talent. I'm in this team for my skill as a mage, please trust me to know my job"

People butting in with wisdom about classes they are clueless on isn't anything new and a watercooler won't change that.

^If a GM is making you use an incorrect talent/glyph/spec you can: 1. Explain to him why hes wrong. 2. Ask him to let you try it your way and see the results 3. Find a better guild not run by dumb people.

[trystero]

All I can contribute to the primary discussion is this: my RL/GM's been chill about what people do, as long as they're performing. It's when they aren't performing that he gets curious. The good thing about being in a 25m guild is that we have class redundancy, so it's easy to see who's doing what they're supposed to. He also has pride and intelligence, so he's not about to go off on a player because of what he heard from some random player in the guild. Like he'd never straight up say, "you have to cast your icicles, our hunter said so." He'd confer with another mage first to make sure the criticism made sense. I guess that's what the guy who messaged you was doing, and I don't have a problem with that. He doesn't know mages well at all so he consulted with someone who did first before bringing it to his raider. Assuming he consulted you first, that is.

Already in the mage forums, mages are in a scared state and filled with anxiety about WoD. Because a majority of us HATE Rune of Power and are terrified that even if it isn't the best talent, it might be "perceived" as the best talent, therefore become mandated.

I have to second what Deja said above. As a prot paladin I've experienced a lot of players, some in my own guild, who question what I do. Why do you gear Haste, why don't you wear stamina trinkets, why don't you use Holy Avenger, etc, though those questions have died down as the expansion progressed. With that said I did roll on haste/crit boots in H SoO and some people still didn't seem to understand it since "crit is worthless" (it ain't Wod yet people, I can reforge). It'd be the day that I chose an incorrect talent or approach because of 'perception.' It's your job as a raider to set the skeptics straight.

edit: And, no, I don't want watercooler strategy posts from Blizzard. They design the games, that's it; we play them.

[Revi]

Never actually encountered this with Mages, but I've heard of a lot of clueless raid/class/guild leaders. Unfortunately the only thing you can do is send them a link to a simple rotation (Icy-Veins for example) and hope they aren't too stubborn to read it.

I think this happens to all classes and specs. It's an unfortunate side-effect of logs and damage meters, when clueless people try to analyze.

I run into the opposite problem a lot more often, when we get a trial who refuse to take advice from officers or other knowledgeable members because "You're not my class, you don't know!". DK's seem to be the main offenders of this (in my experience).

[Akraen]

Never actually encountered this with Mages, but I've heard of a lot of clueless raid/class/guild leaders. Unfortunately the only thing you can do is send them a link to a simple rotation (Icy-Veins for example) and hope they aren't too stubborn to read it.

I think this happens to all classes and specs. It's an unfortunate side-effect of logs and damage meters, when clueless people try to analyze.

I run into the opposite problem a lot more often, when we get a trial who refuse to take advice from officers or other knowledgeable members because "You're not my class, you don't know!". DK's seem to be the main offenders of this (in my experience).

That's a really good counter point-- I've certainly seen my fair share of that over the years, too.

See I'm probably a little out of touch first-hand because I've led my own guild since 2006 and therefore haven't been accountable to anyone but myself! :P

[Mini]

1. I'm a Mage, but there are definitely times where someone will bring up "why is class X gemming Y stat instead of Z?" to me and expect me to do something about it.

2. I raid lead a 14/14H guild and I rarely delve to the level of individual rotations for any reason. I expect my members to do competitive dps and I'll tell them if they aren't performing and they need to fix it. I'm usually not more knowledgeable about their class, so my advice is typically limited to addon/UI suggestions, or encounter-specific CD or positioning suggestions.

When RL'ing I typically focus on raid CD usage, positioning, raid comp, etc. if someone is under performing I don't have time to fix their rotation right there, so they will sit. Of course, part of progression is to have people try different things, some of which won't be successful. I think it's important to let people try things and figure out what works best.

3. No, I don't think a water cooler on this subject would help. The subject is also pretty vague. I'm not really sure what you'd hope to get out of it.

@RoP - first of all, I hate it. I hope it burns in hell. But just because something is Patchwerk optimal doesn't mean it's always the best choice and RoP is a good example of that. If it isn't tied to arcane's mana regen, it will only be optimal in situations where you have to recast it less often than X times per minute. Otherwise, you can use something else.

[Tharkkun]

I'm pretty sure Blizzard won't divulge to us the exact rotation. They will speak up though if the community is doing something horribly wrong due to bad theorycrafting. But they like to leave some mystery to the community to figure out.

What they need is somewhere on their website putting a seal of approval on specific websites that post good class guides.

[Tehterokkar]

I'm pretty sure Blizzard won't divulge to us the exact rotation. They will speak up though if the community is doing something horribly wrong due to bad theorycrafting. But they like to leave some mystery to the community to figure out.

What they need is somewhere on their website putting a seal of approval on specific websites that post good class guides.

WW Monks are in this state currently, Blizz says our theorycrafting does not match theirs and they right out refuse to tell the right way to play WW. The WW community has been actively trying to find this magical playstyle since 5.4 PTR without success. Everything was done, every possible stat priority and cap was simulated. Yet still the "wrong" way(12-13k Haste > Crit > Mastery) is better than anything else.

[Frolk]

After many years as officer and raid leading ive learned more or less how all the different classes and most specs work, and i do think a raid leader should know how every class work, at least the "basics", but this might be me being uber elitist ^^

[britishbubba]

I don't understand why someone would ever be assigned to look over someones logs, if they don't play the class that they're analyzing. When we had a spriest trial that was sucking, we didn't say "yo holy pally, look at these and fix him". We had our prot paladin who mains a spriest look at it.

Guess that just makes sense or something.