Proving Grounds - Success?

[Deleted]

Hoped for more, but it works, just annoyed with what ilvl its scaled to, rogues are pretty weak at that itemlvl + very slow.

[Ronduwil]

Contrary to popular belief, the biggest skill in raiding is not executing your 1-2-3 rotation and moving out of bad stuff (although that certainly helps). The biggest skill is being able to plan, knowing your class abilities and adapting to new situations and PG does teach that by providing you with a completely new environment you have to perform in (talking about high endless waves obviously, nobody cares about gold).

If the tanks derped nearly as much as the ones in Proving Grounds do they would be kicked from the group. If the DPS left as many adds up and let as many interrupts slide as the ones in proving grounds do they would also be kicked. In my experience the skill stops at planning. There are typically no surprises in raids. At 60% the boss does this and at 30% they do that. Stand in this, don't stand in that, stack here, spread out there, and hit the "win" button when it's your turn. That's pretty much what raiding has become. For a healer, the biggest key to success in raiding is knowing the optimal time to blow your cooldown. I laugh at the LFR heroes who brag about their huge HPS after a wipe because they happened to blow their cooldown out of the gate. I know that later on in the fight when they needed it I would have had to carry them. Proving grounds (for healers) is a good exercise in mana management, and that's about it.

[Deleted]

Do you hate balance druids and mistweavers? Cause its nearly impossible for both to do gold due to how massively they are linked to their ilevel.

I was told, in order to pass the healing test on gold on my monk, I would need to gem all spirit and reforge into all spirit and spam a single skill, and play in a way that is not accurate in the way the class plays. That does not test competence.
That shows zero about skill level.

How about this, blizzard tunes the PG for every spec and class, not at a random point like 463. Cause in its current iteration, it shows zero about the competence of a person's skill in a raid environment.

http://www.wowprogress.com/char_stat...ield.pg_healer

Monks have way more CC than other healers. If anyone should complain it should be priests and paladins (and surprisingly shamans)

[Ronduwil]

Monks have way more CC than other healers. If anyone should complain it should be priests and paladins (and surprisingly shamans)

That's why I say PG has very little to do with raiding. Shamans are generally at the top of every raid I've done because they have excellent AoE and smart-healing capabilities. If you were to try proper raid healing in PG you'd OOM by wave 4. Adds in PG are immune to hex, so success boils down to macroing windshear properly and being able to predict when and where to place your concussion totems. Neither of those skills apply to real raids. These days I only have to perform very basic mana management. Maybe that skill was relevant in early MSV, but it is meaningless for most raiding tiers.

[Stormspellz]

i highly doubt any good guild will look at ur proving grounds achievements as a factor on if they accept u or not, as a healer proving grounds does nothing to help u improve ur skills and as a dps it is extremely easy to get gold.

actually I disagree, at least on endless you are forced to do more then play wack a mole with health bars.

[Granyala]

I made a ~4 half assed attempts (no flask/food, no reforge, no second helmet with functional meta gem) and, once I realized that the DPS adds can be CC'd, managed to get the final Sha down to 10% before the timer ran out.

But I'm not intrigued enough to put more effort into it, since there is no tangible reward in it.
Since I already raid Normals and a few Heroics I have nothing to prove either.

Personally I'd prefer if the Mobs would scale UP to MY ilvl. It's extremely frustrating to play as a shadow priest, when the downscaling kills your haste. And you constantly get error messages, because you're used to way different cast timings.

PG has very little to do with raiding

I concur. The timers on Gold are WAY too strict, you will never have close calls like that in normal raiding. Also there is pretty much nothing relevant to avoid at all, since you can CC the adds and nullify the whole "don't stand in bad stuff" aspect.

[tiporispit]

Failure, it's way too cookie cutter and small to be worth a damn.

There needs to be more modes and options available.

AoE mode so you can solely practice on AoE
Single target mode so you can practice your DPS on 1 target
Moving target mode
Survivability mode

etc....

Bronze, Silver, Gold and Endless are simply too cookie cutter and bland to be meaningful

They should put you on the development team. Exceptional ideas imo

[Ronduwil]

actually I disagree, at least on endless you are forced to do more then play wack a mole with health bars.

Except playing whack-a-mole with health bars is 60% of raiding. 20% is standing where you're supposed to when you're supposed to, 15% is blowing your cooldowns at the proper times, and the last 5% is what proving grounds focuses on: interrupting and/or stunning as needed. Any player behaving in raid the way the NPCs behave in PG would be kicked by the third pull.

[Louis CK]

Failure, it's way too cookie cutter and small to be worth a damn.

There needs to be more modes and options available.

AoE mode so you can solely practice on AoE
Single target mode so you can practice your DPS on 1 target
Moving target mode
Survivability mode

etc....

Bronze, Silver, Gold and Endless are simply too cookie cutter and bland to be meaningful

I'm unclear on your post, because you listed all the things that are currenlty in PG. It sounds like what you're looking for are different types of target dummies moreso than PG. Is this correct? Or you're just wanting everything separated as opposed to combined in different waves as it is now?

While the different types of target dummy idea seems cool to help practice different setups, etc., having everything separate (instead of varying and combined in different waves as it is now) seems like it would defeat the only purpose I find in DPS PG, which is to teach players basic target switching techniques and CD usage.

[Deleted]

Except playing whack-a-mole with health bars is 60% of raiding. 20% is standing where you're supposed to when you're supposed to, 15% is blowing your cooldowns at the proper times, and the last 5% is what proving grounds focuses on: interrupting and/or stunning as needed. Any player behaving in raid the way the NPCs behave in PG would be kicked by the third pull.

I think learning to cope with other players' mistakes is a useful part of healer training. Or tank or dps training, for that matter.

[Nobleshield]

I'm unclear on your post, because you listed all the things that are currenlty in PG. It sounds like what you're looking for are different types of target dummies moreso than PG. Is this correct? Or you're just wanting everything separated as opposed to combined in different waves as it is now?

While the different types of target dummy idea seems cool to help practice different setups, etc., having everything separate (instead of varying and combined in different waves as it is now) seems like it would defeat the only purpose I find in DPS PG, which is to teach players basic target switching techniques and CD usage.

I think it should more simulate a raid environment for everyone. Meaning for example the DPS PG should have some of the group NPCs and be something like:

Wave 1: Group of regular mooks (typical dungeon/trash pull) that you just AOE down
Wave 2: Elite mook with some tricks (a la Shaman on Nazgrim/Galakras) that requires you to target switch
Wave 3: Simulates a boss with adds, you need to switch to the adds

etc. Each wave IMO should be teaching a particular mechanic and only that mechanic, and not just be a "How long can you survive" kind of thing. I'd even go so far as to say that PG in general should have let you pick different waves to practice on. So let's say you are failing at prioritizing adds on Galakras. Go and do the "DPS Training - Kill Order" Proving Grounds a few times until you learn how to do it faster and better. Or let's say as a tank you want to practice timing your Active Mitigation for a big hit. There would be a "Tank Training - Active Mitigation" option that would spawn some big Mogu add that would do some kind of stacking debuff attack with a cast time, and teach you to time your Shield Block/SotR/whatever to mitigate the damage.

That would IMO be a lot better than what we currently have because it would let you focus on a particular aspect that you need work on and practice it. Similar to the training mode in many console games (Metal Gear Solid springs to mind here) that lets you practice skills used in the rest of the game in a controlled environment meant specifically to practice that particular skill, and no others. A "Danger Room" as it were, instead of "Survival Mode" which is what we ended up with.

As another example, to practice my mitigation I would often go to the Isle of Giants and pull one of the big Direhorns who do the Triple Puncture mechanic from Horridon so I could better learn how to time my Shield of the Righteous for ToT progression. Something like that in Proving Grounds for tanks is what I'm talking about, and similar mechanics for healers and DPS (DPS maybe a high burn phase, healers maybe one to test raid healing and one to test tank healing + big cooldown on the tank).

[Louis CK]

I think it should more simulate a raid environment for everyone. Meaning for example the DPS PG should have some of the group NPCs and be something like:

Wave 1: Group of regular mooks (typical dungeon/trash pull) that you just AOE down
Wave 2: Elite mook with some tricks (a la Shaman on Nazgrim/Galakras) that requires you to target switch
Wave 3: Simulates a boss with adds, you need to switch to the adds

etc. Each wave IMO should be teaching a particular mechanic and only that mechanic, and not just be a "How long can you survive" kind of thing. I'd even go so far as to say that PG in general should have let you pick different waves to practice on. So let's say you are failing at prioritizing adds on Galakras. Go and do the "DPS Training - Kill Order" Proving Grounds a few times until you learn how to do it faster and better. Or let's say as a tank you want to practice timing your Active Mitigation for a big hit. There would be a "Tank Training - Active Mitigation" option that would spawn some big Mogu add that would do some kind of stacking debuff attack with a cast time, and teach you to time your Shield Block/SotR/whatever to mitigate the damage.

That would IMO be a lot better than what we currently have because it would let you focus on a particular aspect that you need work on and practice it. Similar to the training mode in many console games (Metal Gear Solid springs to mind here) that lets you practice skills used in the rest of the game in a controlled environment meant specifically to practice that particular skill, and no others. A "Danger Room" as it were, instead of "Survival Mode" which is what we ended up with.

As another example, to practice my mitigation I would often go to the Isle of Giants and pull one of the big Direhorns who do the Triple Puncture mechanic from Horridon so I could better learn how to time my Shield of the Righteous for ToT progression. Something like that in Proving Grounds for tanks is what I'm talking about, and similar mechanics for healers and DPS (DPS maybe a high burn phase, healers maybe one to test raid healing and one to test tank healing + big cooldown on the tank).

I do like those ideas, and I agree that PG would be a lot more useful and relevant if it involved more teaching methods. Tiered difficulty to teach different aspects of the game is a great idea. What we have now doesn't really teach the player, it expects them to figure it out, and it feels like they thought about doing some of what you proposed, and then said fuck it and just tossed some shit together.

At current: It's not quite a training tool and not quite a challenge mode. It's somewhere in between that just kind of falls into a level of medioctrity that doesn't really make it useful beyond a few easy achieves.

Even some smaller PG's leveling up, every 10 levels or so per class that advance each time to put the abilities you've learned to use. A player learns different aspects of their class slowly while leveling up (things you don't learn in questing and 5mans) and then at max level you get to put it all together and "train" in the Proving Grounds.

Using PG to actually "teach" a player their class and role seems a lot more useful than throwing them in there and expecting them to figure it out. If they were the type of people who know how to "figure it out," in most cases they would have already and would have no need of PG in the first place.

With that said, it seems extremely unlikely that Blizzard would put the resources into setting it up this way, but I think it's a bigger waste of resources if they continue to make more PG's in the future in their current state.

TL: DR - Proving Grounds would be much relevant if it were more of a focused training tool than a shit storm of random mobs to deal with little to no actual training.

[cityguy193]

http://www.wowprogress.com/char_stat...ield.pg_healer

Monks have way more CC than other healers. If anyone should complain it should be priests and paladins (and surprisingly shamans)

Did you just ignore the entire point of the post with a random list of people who have beaten it endless?
Its not indicative of healing in raids. Each monk there did a specific cheese stat spread that they would otherwise not normally do due to the 463 ilevel.

If a player is forced to do that, then the entire system is a failure.

[Reckles]

I agree that Proving grounds for your MS is fairly bland. But, honestly, one of the most fun and engaging times I've had in my 5 years of playing was trying to get Proving Grounds healer on my Fury Warrior. My DK buddy was able to get Bronze without too much trouble, but Off Spec proving grounds provides enough fun and excitement to be comparable to soloing dungeons or raids; you have to really think about your talents, specs, and each GCD. Give it a whirl.

[cityguy193]

I agree that Proving grounds for your MS is fairly bland. But, honestly, one of the most fun and engaging times I've had in my 5 years of playing was trying to get Proving Grounds healer on my Fury Warrior. My DK buddy was able to get Bronze without too much trouble, but Off Spec proving grounds provides enough fun and excitement to be comparable to soloing dungeons or raids; you have to really think about your talents, specs, and each GCD. Give it a whirl.

Its funny actually. I have nearly gotten gold in dps on my healer, closer than that of the healing one.

[Maegor]

So i just finished gold on the proving grounds, and wondering what people thought of them as a new feature?

success / fail / what is proving grounds?

Are they something guilds will look at when reviewing applicants?

I think they are neat. It would be neat to see Blizz implement them as a way to get around ilvl gates for LFR (say with a gold you can get into SoO at 475 instead of 496). They do show that you know your class, however it is not balanced for all classes/specs. I doubt many guilds will use them, since it would mean the guildies would need to go prove themselves too.

[lokatii]

Because designing something that only a few specs can get the most out of is good design.

Alrighty then.

You do understand that in raiding some fights favor diff specs of the same class right? Like some fights would be best that you went fire some arcane etc. Also writing "alrighty then" to mimic the previous poster makes you look like a 5 year old.

- - - Updated - - -

And LFR queue times will increase.

GC said it'll probably be something like: either PG Silver and low iLevel requirement, or just a high iLevel requirement. Which is fine, because LFR shouldn't be permanently shut to a slice of the max-level community (last time that happened was Firelands, and that necessitated LFR in the first place).

If you can't even get Gold just uninstall the game. Or idk, practice and get better.

[IIamaKing]

I forgot about it till I saw this post. Take that how ever you want.

[Ronduwil]

I think learning to cope with other players' mistakes is a useful part of healer training. Or tank or dps training, for that matter.

It may be useful, but it's not required for raiding because, especially at the heroic level, there is no room for error. Mistakes in that situation are pretty much a one-shot. That's why real raiding guilds wouldn't use it as criteria. It doesn't test the skills that an actual raiding healer needs. In all honesty it's more applicable to LFR or Flex raiding than it is to Heroic Raiding. If raiding guilds wanted to cope with other players' mistakes they wouldn't conduct mock job interviews complete with applications before accepting new members.

[Firebert]

You do understand that in raiding some fights favor diff specs of the same class right? Like some fights would be best that you went fire some arcane etc.

Again, the delta between the different specs is acceptable in raids, and I'm saying it's not in PG.

If you can't even get Gold just uninstall the game. Or idk, practice and get better.

Why should I uninstall? And there's no point in getting better in PG as it doesn't reflect raiding (the real end game that everyone sees you do) at all.