Friday, October 30, 2009

Little fish in a big pond

Two days ago a Real Life friend transferred his warlock to my server to join our Guild of real life friends. He transferred from a low pop server where he was in an average guild for that server. He was a big fish in that Guild and constantly sat at the top of the DPS.

I wasn't sure how good his DPS actually was but Wednesday night I put in the effort to get him an invite into our 10 man raid. I went on my priest to heal opening a dps slot for him to take. So how did he do with our experienced group? Around 3k dps which netted him dead last amongst the rest of the dps.

He was really excited and enjoyed running with a good group of skilled players and he picked up some nice upgrades to boot. In a few months I'm sure he will catch up to the rest of the group but it still brings up an interesting topic.

Can people grow at the top?

It takes a lot of time and effort to reach the pinnacle in any field and playing WoW is no difference. The warlock was a big fish in a little pond on his old server but here on mine he is just a little fish in a big pond. With a larger server comes more talented and skilled players not to mention that the economy on high pop servers is much more stable. He mentioned that epic gems on that server cost upwards of 1200g each where as on ours you won't see any over 200.

I wonder if he had stayed on his server would he have gotten better as a player? Without competition would he look into his own flaws and mistakes to try and improve them? I'm sure that some people have that internal motivation to constantly get better but it still begs the question of with a limited pool of additional resources (more people), do people reach a cap of what they are capable of?

The group I play with is a very skilled group of people. They are very intelligent and take raiding very seriously. I've grown pretty accustomed to them, yet I wonder if I would do better in an actual hardcore guild. I find myself slacking because my performance and gear is "good enough". I generally keep up regardless of not min maxing my gear as much as other raid members.

In a more hardcore guild I would be lower in the dps rankings and therefore have more incentive to min max my gear and focus on just one character. Unfortunately I don't have the dedication to be a part of a hardcore guild. Fortunately though I have a group that fits in very well with my skill level.

Last week we had a rogue with us that was only doing 2800 dps in mostly 232 gear. I was frustrated because the raid leader was still going after hardmodes in ToC even though it was obvious that this rogue was dragging us down. I said something out loud about it and my wife just stared at me.

"I do 2800 dps!" She said.

I had to stop and think about that one. While her gear isn't as high of quality as the rogue's she did have a point. The few times my wife has pugged she has commented on how she is always the highest in dps and yet when she runs with us she is lowest.

The rogue had a suboptimal spec and that was a big part of why his dps was low. Should I have said something? My past experiences with trying to help people improve their dps has left me wishing I would have just bit my tongue instead.

That rogue may have gone back to his guild and said OMG I just ran with the most awesomest people! Maybe it would even motivate him into getting better! Instead he got bitched out in our 25 man run by behindya who just recently started raiding again and destroyed pretty much everyone in dps.

6 comments:

falloutmommy said...

When doesn't B2 kick ass tho? I feel sorry for the rogue coz yeah... b2 is an acquired taste (haha) but seriously I sympathize with the rogue coz like I said at the time "I do 2800 DPS!" and I am only invited when they need to fill a spot and I'm better than them being a man short.

I get kind of mad sometimes because you are my husband and you love me and you always make these excuses that the group is epic and i'm like rare and so i shouldn't be disappointed to pull off the low end of the DPS scale w/ them, but more than once I have heard you getting pissed at someone in raid that isn't pulling their weight according to the group standards. I am a casual. Maybe the rogue was a casual too. I mean srsly... he got picked up for raid with a bunch of people he didn't know. If he was hardcore he would either have his own group or be in a hardcore guild.

I really want to get a dedicated 10-man together for Ulduar. I have been in TOC 10 or 25 man all of 2 times and I HATE it. I don't care if it has the greatest gear or what, Ulduar is still an upgrade for me, not to mention it's fun to boot.

Besides.. Warlocks are OP. Aurora will fight Skillet for gear anyday. Even if you do totally out DPS me. I expect first dibs because you're my hunny and you love me... And oh yeah I forgot about Coag... 3 Locks in a 10 man..how fun!!!

It'll be like Disney World :D

Zan said...

People at the top can grow. Our top DPS are looking at how they're doing and how they can improve.

They join VOA25 runs that friends of ours in top guilds are in and try to go toe-to-toe with people in full TotC25 hardmode gear.

That 7k hunter and 7k rogue look at that 9k mage and have a drive to try and catch her.

I think it just takes some encouragement. I ran my hunter through VOA25 and did 3.5k sustained dps, he's my neglected T7 bank alt. I tell raiders that they should make their first dps goal to be to out-dps my alt (3.5k sustained).

Be careful, though, watching dps meters can sometimes cause people to become so competitive they fail at doing other important things, like getting out of the stupid.

What's my main Again? said...

See that is sort of my point though. You grow by being exposed to players that are better then you. If you are on a small realm it is entirely possible for you to be in the top guild and the top dps but still not reach full potential.

My mage got into raiding because we had some terrible mages in our 25 man raid groups. I begged them to let me bring my undergeared mage and mopped the floor with the other much better geared mages. Now 2 months later they are pretty close to me and sometimes beat me in dps and are only slightly better geared. It is a huge improvement for them but I don't think they would have gotten better without me there kicking their ass.

Zan said...

Cross server LFG may revolutionize this. There's been talks of cross-server raid LFG as well, though no confirmations yet.

It would mean that anyone on your faction in your battlegroup can join your raid.

What's My Main Again? said...

From what I've read so far they pretty much said they won't be doing cross realm lfg raid. Raid grouping brings up too many issues when you figure in lock outs and reset timers for 25 people all on different realms.

Heroics 5's don't really present a chance for people to grow because most of the current instances require aoeing everything as quick as possible. There is one hope... that the icecrown 5 man and heroic will be really really hard... but I highly doubt that will be the case.

Zan said...

Done two of the icecrown heroics on PTR so far. In T9 (badge / 10 man gear) they're a complete joke. Three-manned.

On premade toons (a disc priest and a prot paladin) we two-manned the last boss of one of the instances. ._.