Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
I woke up super early one morning and came across this article. The video is kinda long if you watch the entire thing, but the author Sean "Day[9]" Plott arranges it in a manner that I think puts the most important fundamentals up front. While the video is about Starcraft II, a *lot* of it applies to WoW as well.
Starcraft II's game system rewards players who are capable of processing large amounts of information and efficiently execute (speed + accuracy) commands to units to reactively address events occuring in the game and proactively influence how events will unfold in the game.
The exact same thing applies to World of Warcraft. Let me go into this in detail.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
On my old server, I raided with some people who did exhaustive research on boss fights. Some of these people were the raid leaders and they were rightfully doing research in order to devise an initial strategy (if we were doing a boss for the first time) or to improve strategy. Some of these people were just rank and file raiders. Among the rank and file raiders, the ones that drove me nuts were the ones who verbatim copy-pasted a written strat or verbally recounted a video strat. They did not understand the 'why' things were being done in the strategy -- they would just tell the raid leaders, "dude, you're doing it wrong; in the Forte video, all the priests stood over here". This just cluttered vent and caused my raid leader (who had an Australian accent) to have to mute them.
This isn't as big a deal nowadays since in 10 man raiding, you can actually communicate and try out a lot of different strategies on the same night. Back in the 40 man days, you couldn't communicate and set up too many different things on the same night not to mention a lot of the strategies revolved around raid composition. My personal expectations in a 10 man raid is that all ideas are welcome. However, I do expect people to state their suggestions in the right way.
If you have an idea and know the reason (or think you know the reason) why the idea has an advantage or mitigates a disadvantage, say it -- "The healers and ranged should stand in melee range of Magmaw so that they aren't valid targets for the pillar of fire". This clearly communicates to your raid what they should plan for so they can take advantage of it (e.g., the DPS know that they can stand still and just lay down AE without wasting time moving).
If you have an idea and don't know the reason why the idea has an advantage or mitigates a disadvantage, say it -- "In a video I saw, only one guy was at range and everyone else was in melee range". This clearly communicates to your raid that there is something they can try and that they should plan to be in an observational mode so we can figure out why it should be done.
While I personally don't like doing things randomly just for the sake of trying them randomly (I'd rather troubleshoot what's wrong with an existing strat and adapt it), there have been times where Jim has said, "let's try it this way and see how it goes" and I just have to shut up and try to observe as much as I can during the experimental attempts.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
We've got a lot more people actively raiding and I'm hoping that bits and pieces from this rant can help you out with some of the problems you might be facing with your own playstyle. Even though the raids are harder, I personally find them a lot more fun (PW:Shielding 10 people nonstop during WotLK was boring as hell).
-HP
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
-HP
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- Joined: February 17th, 2008, 10:18 am
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Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
/ps we all know you are just driving up your post count!
/delete this reply, sticky and lock thread, link in MotD
XOXOXO
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
"Is my UI not giving me the information I need?" -- Are you always missing the boss timer that tells you when things are going to hit or need to be interrupted? Are you always missing that buff/debuff that needs to be purged from the boss or your raid members?
"Is my visual scan path through my screen paced inappropriately so that even if my UI shows me what I need to know, I'm not seeing it until it's too late?" -- Are you fixated on your DPS addon so much that you never check your feet for that circle of fire you need to move out of? Are you fixated on the raid healing grid so much that you don't notice you're standing in a whirlwind and now have to heal yourself through a massive DoT.
In the Starcraft II video, Sean talks about how bad players will be doing 'micro' on their guys during a battle and will completely miss that their opponent was fighting the battle while simultaneously expanding, outflanking them, etc. Sean explains that if you are constantly including the minimap in your visual scan path, you won't miss a beat. The same applies to WoW. I play a healer. Even in the most intense boss fights, I am doing the following:
I am checking 10 health bars.
I am checking 10 raid frames for debuffs (and not just priest dispelled ones).
I am checking the boss timers.
I am checking my feet.
I am checking my positioning.
I am checking the positioning of the players in my visible area.
I am checking the positioning of mobs in my visible area.
I am checking the player proximity window if applicable.
I am checking the boss/mob raid frames for buffs.
I am checking my healing cooldowns.
That's a lot of stuff, but the game rewards me for being able to process all of that information. I am able to heal effectively. I am able to always be in the optimum position for events that unfold in the fight. I am able to recap to the raid how the fight unfolded (what went bad and what went well -- as well as the events leading up to it) after a wipe.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
I could be standing in fire. Now I have to heal myself which means that I won't be healing the tank which could lead to a wipe immediately or it could be more healing load on myself which means I'll be regretful later when the boss is at 10% and I'm OOM because I burned 20k mana just healing myself for all the fire I stood in during the fight.
I could not be paying attention to the kiting path that the tank is taking and suddenly be more than 40 yards away from him. I waste 3 precious seconds moving back in range during which the tank gets heal starvation and dies (or uses a precious tank CD that he was saving for boss burst damage 15 seconds later).
I could miss out on a melee DPS standing in fire and I miss out on the opportunity to pre-shield and under-PoM him so that he lives a little longer (and not cause me a healing distraction) while he slowly reacts to being in a bad spot.
Your UI plays a huge role in your ability to effectively gather information in WoW. Are your boss timers tucked up away in the upper right corner of your screen? A favorite of mine was back in Sartharion where after a certain patch, the default big bar boss timer position was right under my feet which caused me to miss seeing void zones when I was doing my visual scan -- when things go wrong during a boss fight, always, always, *always* rewind the events that lead up to things going wrong and double check that your UI is not contributing to the problem.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
As a shadow priest, I have done enough heroics so that I can do my DPS rotation just like how I heal -- I scan my remaining DoT duration, I scan my DPS cooldowns, I scan my DPS procs, I scan the boss' health -- among all of the other things that I scan like boss timers, position, etc. I want to emphasize that the way Cataclysm PvE encounters are architected stratify poorer players from better players.
Poor players are not accustomed to their DPS rotation. They stare at their DPS UI elements intently and miss out on all of the other important information in the UI. They stand in fire and take extra damage. They don't notice that the tank is repositioning the boss and are suddenly out of range to cast their next spell.
Average players are accustomed to their DPS rotation and don't have to stare down their DPS UI so much. They notice that their DPS cooldowns are up, so they use them more often. As a result, their DPS is higher than that of poor players.
Superior players scan their UI and take in a lot of information. They know that there is a fire circle under their feet, so they move. They see a boss timer that tells them the tank is going to reposition the boss, so they move during the GCDs of their instant casts so they are in a better location and don't lose DPS time trying to stay in range while the boss is repositioned. They notice the spell alert that tells them they have a proc and can use their super DPS attack earlier in their rotation (for a shadow priest, this means noticing that you have a stack of 3 shadow orbs and casting that mind blast pronto before you 'waste' potential shadow orb procs). As a result, their DPS is even higher than that of average players, they rarely take damage, and their healers love them.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
"Are the hotkeys for abilities that I use located in effective places?" -- Do you always have to move you hands to various areas of the keyboard to hit certain keys? Does this sometimes cause you to go back to your 'home row' one key off (e.g., you mistakenly bring your middle finger down on 'D' instead of 'S' and spin in place instead of walking backward)?
Early in the Starcraft II video, Sean talks about hand positioning on the keyboard and the mouse that apply in general to computer usage as well as gaming. If you're getting very fatigued while playing WoW or even worse, making inaccurate mouse clicks or key hits due to bad computer usage habits, you should examine them seriously.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
I take advantage of the same scheme in WoW. For my clique bindings, I bound all of my instant heals to button 4 (button 4 is PW:Shield, alt+button 4 is PoM, shift+button 4 is renew). In a worst case scenario where I have to panic heal on the run, I can by muscle memory roll through that sequence of three bindings and get three GCDs of movment. Similarly, I bound my direct heals to the right mouse button (button 2 is penance, alt+button 2 is binding heal, shift+button 2 is greater heal). To round out the ingrained mental/muscle memory, I bound my right mouse button over an enemy target frame to be smite. That way, when I'm scanning the 10 health bars deciding who to heal, if no one needs a direct heal, I scan my vision (and move my mouse) over to the enemy target frame and fire off a smite to get an atonement heal.
Similarly, I have bound my right mouse button over an enemy target frame to be my rapid action for a given class/spec -- for my disc priest, it is smite; for my shadow priest, it is silence; for my prot paladin, it is taunt; for my holy paladin, it is judgement.
The scheme I use above is not for everyone; you may use a different scheme. If you do change schemes, remember what Sean says in the Starcraft II video, "You will suck for a while". I practiced, tweaked, and troubleshot my new healing scheme in the overpowered random heroics we did when patch 4.0.1 came out prior to Cataclysm. If you want to overhaul your scheme now, be sure to allot for time to practice it in guild heroic runs so you can commit it to mental/muscle memory (and give the group a heads up) before you need to use it in a raid.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
If you have ever been in a raid with me, you have usually seen me type (or if you were in raids much earler, heard me say over vent), "If you wait to hear that something is happening in vent, it is already too late". The round trip delay of:
1) Having someone else in the raid observe something happening.
2) Having that person mentally compute that it is important to say it in vent and formulate a sentence.
3) Have that person say that sentence into the microphone (e.g., "XYZ, get out of the fire").
4) Have that data go from the speaker's computer to the vent server.
5) Have that data go from the vent server to your computer.
6) Have you hear the sentence from your speakers.
7) Have you mentally compute that it is important and decide on an action.
8) You take action.
By this time, you have taken enormous damage from standing in the fire. Your healer now spends 10k mana and 5 seconds landing two greater heals on you instead of healing his tank. His tank notices healing starvation and uses a tank CD he really wanted so save for that uber boss ability that was coming up 10 seconds in his boss timers. Eventually, your raid wipes at 10% boss health because your healers were running on fumes and the raid is frustrated and angry.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
In heroic Stonecore, the first few packs of trash have berserkers. These berserkers love to charge people (it's random secondary target). These berserkers also love to whirlwind in place which places a stacking DoT on anyone nearby. I learned the first few times I ran that instance that they love to do both at the same time. Proactively, if the mob charges me, I PW:Shield myself. During that 1.5 second GCD, I check to see if the mob starts to whirlwind. If he starts to whirlwind, I immediately strafe out and PW:Shield the tank or some other low party member if I see a weakened soul debuff on the tank -- it doesn't matter if the tank is at half health or if I have a melee about to die. This is a proactive movement action -- I'm pretty sure a lot of you have been in a group where the healer stood there following through on the 2.5 second heal they had queued up. Now that healer has a huge DoT on them. This now poses them with a huge dilemma because any time they spend healing themself, they are not healing their tank or some other melee who didn't move out and is eating a huge DoT. To toot my own horn -- I rarely find myself in bad healing situations because I plan to never be in a bad healing situation.
Here's a DPS example. In heroic Grim Batol, when Drahga Shadowburner is mounted on Valiona, the boss will periodically cast this huge cone breath that hits half the room. A lot of times, this happens while there is a fire add spawned that is tracking to a target to nuke them. As a shadow priest, during the 3 second channel of mind flay, I will scan the field (and pan my camera) to find the fire add spawn point. Once I locate the spawn point, I proactively move myself so that I am next to the boss on the side farthest away from the add spawn point. I pan my camera and mouse over the add spawn point. If there is a risk of accidentally clicking on the boss, I proactively tilt my camera so I have an unobstructed view of that fire circle. As soon as the add spawns, I click on it to target it and cast a 1.5 second mind spike. I visually scan the boss to check for its breath charging animation. If I see the animation and see it pointed at me, I run through the boss the minimum distance needed to not get hit by the flame. Since I am now safe, I spike the add some more, mind blast, and SW:Death it. By proactively positioning myself, I set myself up to have no DPS time lost on the add *and* I don't burden my healer by standing in the breath. I'm pretty sure a lot of people have been in a group where the DPS had to run miles to get out of the breath and when the add reached the healer, their excuse was "I couldn't get any DPS time because I had to move out of the breath". Proactive players plan ahead so that there are no excuses that need to be made.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
These people have a very acute sense of observation and they integrate mental/muscle memory from other PvE encounters that they've done previously into what they're doing for a new encounter. I'm not one of these people. I have to either read the boss abilities beforehand or experience a wipe to jog my memory, "Oh yeah, we should make a melee triangle behind Maloriak so that the biting chill debuff doesn't splash the melee like we do on Kel'Thuzad" or "Oh yeah, we need to punch through Ironstar's shield and interrupt the execution just like Kael'Thas".
So how do you know how much research to do beforehand?
1) It depends on your raid leader.
2) Use the following guiding principle, "Never be lost". You don't have to know a fight inside-out beforehand -- that's an unreasonable expectation. You are expected to not be completely lost during an encounter. You are expected to be taking steps to improve between attempts and between weeks of raiding -- you should always be striving to make this week's kill of Magmaw better than last week's kill of Magmaw.
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
edit: sticked and moved to general in the hopes that people will find it more easily
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Tips on Being a Better PC Gamer
how good your innate "gaming intuition" is.
http://www.jmtb02.com/flash/grid16-jm.swf
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