As a DPS, I normally don’t feel under the same pressure that I do on say, my healer (or as I imagine a tank would feel, though I haven’t tanked so I can’t say.) I mean sure, we’re sort of fighting against this nebulous “enrage timer” but for the most part, “DPS faster” or “DPS more” just means I’m gonna… press my buttons a little harder and hope it somehow turns into more DPS. It doesn’t really feel like I’m contributing something tangible, so much.
Enter “Iron Council Medium Mode”.
See, today I logged on, went to go do Icecrown dailies, and received a whisper from someone I hadn’t heard of it in a long time. It was my old Naxx group. The one I went to Naxx10 with every week for a good few months earlier this year. They invited me to a 10-man Ulduar. I had nothing better to do and I was excited to see some people I hadn’t played with in a while, so I accepted.
…so…
…so, in the time between us struggling our way through Naxx10 and now, they got good. And also got some friends in high places. We were smashing through achievements left and right with tanks who had close to 50,000 HP.
Anyways, Iron Council, aka Falcon Punch. Apparently the order you kill the guys in determines how difficult your encounter will be. We opted to go for a “Medium Mode”, which involves little elementals that spawn every ten seconds or so and must be AoE’d and slowed and kited and pretty much killed immediately, or Bad Things Happen.
Due to group makeup, it was pretty much up to me, a warlock, and a mage.
…and I dunno if I’ve ever felt like so much depended on me as a DPS. If we died, it wasn’t cause the tanks failed or the heals failed or because of something passive like a lack of gear. No, this time, if we died, it was all on the heads of the DPSers.
As a hunter on this, your job is a.) keep your pet on the boss, b.) Keep an eye out for the purple circles, c.) lay down Frost Traps as available, d.) Volley the heck out of the purple circle, e.) pick off any stragglers that snuck past the AoE, f.) avoid the crap on the ground, and g.) somehow manage to keep your mana up throughout all of this (curse you Volley, you mana-sucker you.)
It was not easy.
But man it felt good afterwards.
Warlock, mage, and I all got specifically thanked by name afterwards for our work.
DPS frequently feels like a thankless job, but I felt good today. Kudos to Blizz for (perhaps finally) making an encounter where it feels like all depends on you and your active efforts, my fellow PewPew-ers.
I’m quite impressed. I tried that in 25 man where it was two of us hunters handling the adds and when we dropped our traps, we blew up. Talk about poor timing. All I can remember is “There it is, go now!” and then *BOOM*. Grats on the achieve there Pike 😀
Haha, just wait until you try IC hard mode.
You seek the secrets of Ulduar? THEN TAKE THEM!
I have not yet been in a group that wants to do the council but the experience as you’ve described it reminds me of the first time I had zombie duty on Gluth. It’s too rare that we get to play such a pivotal role.
Grats, Pike!
We tried IC medium a few times a few months back and were making good progress, before we stopped trying fun things. We have good AOE so it wasn’t as much preassure on me, but it was still cool.
Gluth, I admit, I can’t do. I just plain suck at it. I can’t keep aggro well on it then get too many stacks from being hit, and die. ><
Grats Tawtaw! 😀
Oh, wow. Somehow, I only just realised you are from my old home server. I played on Silver Hand from release up until about 2 years ago, when I moved to an Oceanic realm cause I was now in Australia. 😉
Used to be in on SH, we had a great alliance with , and I raided now and then with the Leftovers there. I was in the raid when the AQ40 gong was struck by Leftovers’ leader, and highly jealous of his bug. =) Probably none of them still exist, but it was a great server and I loved it. =)
Tank vs DPS… I feel more stressed out doing DPS.
Tanking all I have is a screen full of Boss Crotch(tm) and pray that my healers keep up while the DPS goes to work. Otherwise it’s faceroll keyboard for 30 to 540 seconds, depending on the fight.
DPS I have to make sure I move properly, activate abilities the nanosecond they come out of CD, min-max analyze everything at my disposal and still worry about the healers keeping me up depending on the fight. Being a Hunter means adding pet management on top of that (Rogues have it easy. :p).
I love seeing other hunters UI’s.
Tanking is so stressfull, you always here the adage, If the tank dies its the healer’s fault, if the healer dies its the tank’s fault, if the DPS dies its their own darn fault.
Well I dont think that is the case, if the dps dies because they pulled aggro, well then why didnt the tank have the aggro to begin with. I see this so much with DK tanks. I have a warrior tank as my main and I try like heck to get as much agg at the start of a pull as I can, then i am still checking constantly omen, health bars, cooldowns, ahhhh the enormity of it. 😉
Well I dont think that is the case, if the dps dies because they pulled aggro, well then why didnt the tank have the aggro to begin with.
Sweet eternal christ, THANK YOU.
Especially with tanks that fail to even generate 2000 TPS. I could out-threat that with Auto Shot FFS.
What a great post and thanks for point out that DPS is the true thankless job in WoW.
Great post, you’re right, the DPS really does not get thanked enough when doing their job. Honestly I find it a bit harder to play a DPS then the Tank/Healer, no matter how good a Tank or Healer is, the DPS is what makes or breaks a fight generally.
We can only Tank for so long before we die.
@Rilgon True that, I don’t even know how people can’t even generate 2000 TPS, seriously, I could probably do that with my god damn white damage.
Although there are some times where some classes do a ridiculous amount of threat. Generally they know what they’re doing if they have to ease up a bit, although it does give me a nice challenge when Tanking!
I <3 Crazy DPSers
This post made me smile. Having played all 3 roles in raids. Normally dps is the least stressfull one. Thanks for showing that, sometimes, “feeling great afterwards” is 100% deserved even as dps! hehe
My warlock has gone offline.
My warrior has come online.
Gehehe, screenshot fun.
Great post…
Great example of where DPS is the lynchpin!
My ten man group is a pretty melee heavy group (and our ranged don’t have great AOE – Hunter, Boomkin, Ele shaman). Iron Council hard mode is actually a LOT easier for us than medium mode because of this. We’ve only done medium mode once so far on ten man and I never, ever, ever want to do it again on my hunter. >_<
I’d be interested to know what all addons you’re using, esp for your UI.