Set Roles in LFR

[eem5]

IMO, if you queue as heals but don't heal you are placing a burden on the tank and other healers. You are taking the fast queue, but not doing the extra work. If the raid wipes, they are well within reason to kick you. Same with tanking, don't queue as a tank and expect to DPS. Play the role you queued for, or queue for the role you want to play.


My exceptions to this are:
When everyone overgears the content, and you communicated your intent to the raid first (however, wipes are still on you, you picked wrong),
When some of the raid is missing and DPS step up to tank/heal until the queue is filled again, and you announced your intent
When one tank completely outgears the content, and the other tank negotiated changing to DPS

TL;DR - Don't be selfish, play what you queue. If you do change spec mid-raid, tell the raid.

[Illana]

So if the raid wipes and it's nothing to do with my role change, it's still my fault?

immaculate logic.

What I was doing was far from selfish, I was caring enough to take the time and effort to evaluate the raid and then come to a conclusion on how my character could benefit the raid the most.

What I couldn't anticipate was something out of my control (the tanks) going wrong.

[eem5]

I was covering the broader topic of people not playing the role they queued for, rather then your specific case. However, I don't consider my statements out of step for your specific case, anyway. If you evaluated the raid and determined you could dps on that fight, you didn't account for the tanks not knowing the fights (maybe you couldn't have guessed that). However it's a technical fight, not a dps race. In fact it's the one fight where dps has to be measured and controlled and a fight with a high demand on the healers. 6 heals might have saved the raid by pumping heals into the raid till the tanks realised - maybe not - I wasn't there. The problem is you paint a target on your back when you step outside your queued role. You took a gamble, and you lost.

The other issue is the example set. Others are not as careful, well geared and thoughtful as you. However if it's good for you, it's good for them. The more people do it, the more it becomes the norm, the more wipey LFR becomes.

[Illana]

which brings us back to the main point: set roles in LFR. Tune it to these set roles.

[Wilderness]

So if the raid wipes and it's nothing to do with my role change, it's still my fault?

immaculate logic.

What I was doing was far from selfish, I was caring enough to take the time and effort to evaluate the raid and then come to a conclusion on how my character could benefit the raid the most.

What I couldn't anticipate was something out of my control (the tanks) going wrong.

The wipe isn't your fault in the situation you're saying, but it did bring to light that you were gaming the system in order to get a faster queue. People might not like that, and kick you as a result. The wipe was out of your control, but queuing as the correct spec you wanted to use in the instance was absolutely within your control.

If you were simply being unselfish then why did you not queue as dps and then if healing was a huge issue you could switch to heals and help out? Oh, because that would have made your queue time much worse. I don't care that people do this when it doesn't affect the raid, but please don't try and claim you're doing it out of the goodness of your heart.

There doesn't need to be systemic restrictions to halt this sort of behavior because its not a big issue. If people want to do it, and there are no issues with the run, then good for them they got a fast queue and cleared what they wanted. But they know they are not using the queue system as intended, so getting noticed and kicked for it is a possibility. If you don't want that risk - don't queue as one spec and play another.

[aziras]

What I couldn't anticipate was something out of my control (the tanks) going wrong.

Basic assumption for LFR: You will be the only one out of the 25 who has a clue. If you are so pro, you can actually carry the entire raid as a good healer.

I systematically votekick people not doing their assigned role as well. So what if the raid actually have 6 pro healers? Have you ever actually tried one of those? I have and if you take 6 pro+geared healers and put them in the same LFR nobody dies almost regardless of how retarded they are. Point being, trying to be clever and decide how you best help the raid could very well mess with people's chance of success and waste their time.

If you want to DPS so bad, do everyone a favor and remove that checkmark at the healer box when you join. It is your choice what role you feel like playing! But opening up for playing healer means you let the game decide what you should play in that raid.

Now, one thing I do not understand is why the LFR finder is not re-assessing everyone's choices when people leave. I somehow often end up as dps when I queue tank+dps. Then a tank drops, but I cannot just be put as tank and stuff the raid with another DPS. Of course I can tell the raid that I will go tank, but if a lot of people left, the game will typically not fill the raid with all the DPS unless a tank is also picked. So instead of being ready to continue in 30 seconds, it can take minutes before we can get a full raid and get going.

[mirthen]

People should play the role they queue for. Plain and simple as that. Yes there are perks to queuing up as a healer and then DPS'ing. However that remains unfair to those sitting in queue for extended periods as a DPS because they are playing a class with out a healing ability. Playing a class that can both heal and dps myself, i never once queue as a healer and then DPS. If i want to DPS(my main spec) then i queue as a DPS and just suck it up for the queue times. If i want to heal on my off spec, then i queue as healer and get the shorter queue(and maybe a satchel).

Regardless of each situation, in the end it remains unfair to those who can only queue as DPS, along with those who really are healing in the raid as each of them have to make up for any slack cause by one less healer in the instance. I don't care if you are doing 50% of all damage in the entire raid and the next person below you is only doing 9% or something, you are still not doing what you agreed to do upon entering the raid.

I for one would love if blizzard stepped in some on this one. Perhaps added forced spec/gear checks before you can queue to ensure you have the proper spec(only have it learned not actually active at that point for obvious reasons), and can be geared for it, either in bags or equipped. So people cant queue as a healer but only have agility/strength gear in their bags or equipped. Perhaps even force change spec upon entering the LFR/dungeon. This would be both a time saver(hey wait up guys i gotta change specs...) and also ensure people are at least in the proper spec for the role they chose. This could be further modified to tank and even dps roles. If the player has more then 1 spec learned that fits the role they set, then it can simply ask which of those specs they want to use upon queuing or entering the lfr. In addition, adding a forced check if you try to change roles in the LFR, limiting you to your set role or perhaps only 'going up' with DPS being on bottom, healing second, and tank on top allowing people to 'fill in' like happens so often in LFR when waiting on tanks/healers to join a partial raid.

[ItachiZaku]

So what do you guys think about not allowing a person to change spec and not allowing a person to join LFR without being in the right spec?

When zoning it, it automatically loads you in as the spec you picked - if you pick multiple, you load as the spec you are assigned. Easy.

[Illana]

The wipe isn't your fault in the situation you're saying, but it did bring to light that you were gaming the system in order to get a faster queue. People might not like that, and kick you as a result. The wipe was out of your control, but queuing as the correct spec you wanted to use in the instance was absolutely within your control.

If you were simply being unselfish then why did you not queue as dps and then if healing was a huge issue you could switch to heals and help out? Oh, because that would have made your queue time much worse. I don't care that people do this when it doesn't affect the raid, but please don't try and claim you're doing it out of the goodness of your heart.

There doesn't need to be systemic restrictions to halt this sort of behavior because its not a big issue. If people want to do it, and there are no issues with the run, then good for them they got a fast queue and cleared what they wanted. But they know they are not using the queue system as intended, so getting noticed and kicked for it is a possibility. If you don't want that risk - don't queue as one spec and play another.

who says I wouldn't heal if needed if I was assigned a DPS role?

Knowing the general LFR population I would probably kicked for that as well.

[Puri]

Just stay off the meters and nobody will notice. Thats what I do.

This only works as dps. If you wipe and people start to look at healing done they will notice if someone is missing in the list.

But btt, I have often seen a dps respeccing to tank after we waited several minutes and no one joined. I don't think that locking the specialisation would improve lfr raiding quality. It's self regulating - if you wipe, and you did not do what you queued up for, you will very likely be kicked - no matter if you are responsible - and if you don't wipe no one cares.

[PaladinBash]

I don't really care if people are DPSing as healers, they're still doing something. If we wiped because of them then yeah, I'd kick them. I'll kick anyone really, I'm a dick. I kill everyone I can in LFR for a laugh and if the blame game starts, I make sure it's someone else who takes the fall. A healer that's DPSing is an easy target and they'll get butthurt and defensive 90% of the time if you call them bad for doing it. Mouthy people are the ones that get kicked from LFRs, not silent jerks like me.

[Deleted]

It annoys me when people queue as healers and then dps when they then spam raid chat about how they cheated their way past the hour long dps queue, since I play a hybrid but would never dream of queuing as anything other than dps and I resent their fast queues. It's also an issue if someone leaves and the queue system thinks that, as it's given us six healers, we have six healers, and there's no way of telling it that actually four of them are dpsing and one is afk.

People seem to assume that I (or not necessarily only me) queue as a healer with no intention of healing.

I gear both my specs equally and play them to a high standard. Of course if there's actual healing required then it would be a no brainer to heal, however most groups in LFR do not require the extra healing and the fight is made significantly easier with a strong DPS who knows what they are doing.

But unfortunately what might be a no brainer for you isn't always a no brainer for other people. There are people who sign as healing who have no intention whatsoever of healing: I joined a group with two stacks of determination on Galakas last reset and was second on healing on the first attempt I was present for, as a shadowpriest. Which was a wipe that was absolutely a healing issue, but designated healers were still staying as cats and rets regardless.

Most recent example I have is on LFR Blackfuse. Nobody would volunteer to do the belt so I just said in raid "I'm going dps and soloing belt". Oneshotted the boss and moved on without a problem.

However on the example given in the OP, I went DPS on horridon after explicitly asking the other healers "is it ok if I go dps" and the reply was "yes", we wiped due to poor tanking (Jalak one-shotting people) and I was booted because 4 morons think that there's more healing required.

Some people will always blame the healing, and you surely recognise that you make yourself an easy target if you sign as a healer and then dps, I guess that's the payoff for the instant queue. If all the healers were healing these people would be kicking the lowest healer no matter how perfect the healing was and how much it was a tank fault. I've seen people try to get well geared disc priests kicked for doing high damage, because it didn't occur to them to look at the heal meters and see them doing 90% of the healing at the same time. Some people are just dicks, and some people don't know much but like to be mouthy.

As said before, if the healing is required, I'm more than happy and capable of stepping up to that role. However I'm experienced enough to know when there's healing required and when DPS is more beneficial.

But you're talking about LFR, where many people aren't experienced and you can't expect them to have the same insight into what went wrong with a fight that an experienced raider does.

To answer the question in your OP, I think fixed roles would be unhelpful; people willing and able to switch to whatever role is needed are very valuable.

- - - Updated - - -

I wish they'd massively extend the debuff for tanks/healers who drop as soon as they get their buddy into the instance. Great, their buddy is now in a group and the group gets to wait for a new tank or healer. That's particularly annoying in dungeons.

Definitely agree with this!

[Dasani]

Didn't blizz actually state they were gonna let you only queue for specs you actually had and then once in lock you into that spec?

Could've sworn they said that somewhere for something they're adding to WOD.



While this change is "good" for the plethora of useless garbage people who go into groups queued as healer and then are only there to DPS and bypass the line to get in, I remember being kinda sad about it because I occasionally DPS for funsies and if a tank is missing or whatever i'll go tank till a replacement is found just so the group doesn't have to wait.

Honestly though, blizz has to design around useless garbage people. Good people suffer for it, but more people would suffer if they didn't account for useless garbage.

[Socialhealer]

thing is sometimes it doesn't impact the raid but they THINK it impacts the raid and it's actually somebody else screwing up.

thats the problem with LFR, retards attempt to think and shit hits the fan.

[Krommm]

Debatable. If the healers aren't trash then a few Q'd as in DPS is not an issue. It's not fair to the group if the healers are undergeared/trash and ON TOP OF THAT someone is DPSing. There is a huge issue across the board with AFKs and underperformers by a very large margin. It's the primary reason LFR wings take longer than an entire heroic progression night. I've had some fair or GOOD LFR's, but they are in the minority.

I think the bigger issue is since it's debatable that the kick timer should be less protective for those that abuse the Queue. Mostly either really poor tanks or DPS queued as tanks/healers often resulting in a group wipe. If you are just amazing and can solo the instance it's no problem, but most of those that queue up in this way make matchmaking a nightmare.

This also applies to Tanks/Healers who Queue into a dungeon/LFR then leave immediately after to get their "friends" in. It's hit and miss, but often the DPS that queued with them don't get kicked and then we'd have to wait 15-30m+ for a tank/healer to queue in. (then probably leave right after if it's not the exact boss they need)

My best solution is to avoid solo queues because people are assholes and abuse the system. Pretty shitty when there is no good answer for Solo queue players.

[Illana]

Yeah i've seen more and more LFRs (especially in tot) where the tank has literally joined in boosted green gear with a few timeless pieces and gone squish on every trash pack.

Imo since LFR is a spectator mode instance, they should just add a raid wide debuff on the mobs so that even the most terrible of raids can at least progress through it in reasonable time.

Lock the roles and tune the instance to be doable with 1/2 or even 1/3 of a raid.