Saturday, June 27, 2009

Where Ixo Invades the PTR?!

I really don't 'get' the PTR.

Actually no, wait... let me take that back.

Let's start over.

I think I'm the only person in WoW that 'gets' the PTR.

Why do I log in and see people LFM Gruul's Lair, or LF1M tank Heroic HoL Daily? Um, people. This isn't live WoW. It's the frigging test realm. Where you can try new things that aren't in the game yet. I'm already pretty sick of Naxx on live, so no, I really don't want to come tank it for you here on the PTR. Are these people brain damaged?

Speaking of idiots not understanding the test realm, what's up Blizz? Why is my tank fully loaded with 8 billion gems, 450 jewelcrafting, 3 full sets of gear (tank, dps, pvp), and then stuck with nothing but attack power enchant scrolls? I have 5x Berserker Weapon enchants, 5x +10 stats to chest, 3x resilience shoulder and head enchants, and a stack of Haste to Cloak scrolls. Leg enchants? Why, 5x Leg Armors of 75 Attack power and +crit, every tank's dream! Why give me 450 Jewelcrafting, and enough Dragon's Eyes to make a zillion Jewelcrafter exclusive gems (limit: 3 fancy gems on at once), but no Enchanting, not a single abyss crystal to enchant something with a piece of stamina, no Inscription, nor a single Peacebloom to mill and make a tanking glyph?

Oh, wait! I get it! Ha Ha! None of the tanking classes want to tank on live, so let's make it an uphill struggle for them to tank on the PTR, too. That will teach them to not want to tank. I filled every gem slot I could with +def gems, in full Tier Zillion, and barely managed to hit 541. I was at 28k HP. GG. With all this 'uber gear' I was actually worse off than my tank on live, that's run naxx 10 twice. There's tier 9 you can buy near the coliseum, but apparently there's no set bonuses, and without those, they're pretty minor upgrades. I'm serious. Plus I put my one (pvp) meta gem in the helm already, and there's no one to transmute new ones that isn't putting them on the AH for LOLOL 99999 GOLD?

Whatever. Apparently, there's not a whole lot to even tank anyway, as the Argent Whatever Event isn't up yet, and joining a raid for the 'For the Horde' Achievement (ON THE PTR) is pretty low on my list of priorities. Then I realized that VOA has a new boss! Oh hey! Here we go!

First of all, I get grilled on why I rolled a premade, instead of bringing my 'real tank' over. Then I get quizzed on who my main is, on what realm and in which guild? Um, seriously? You do realize that I could just pull ANY name out of a hat, because it's the PTR and we aren't actually ON our toons, right? Then I finally get in a group, and the DK OT is like 'I hope you faggots all know the fight already'... because it's the PTR and we've had him on farm for months? I'm like 'this is my first time in here, what do I do' and he just /sighs, runs in, grabs aggro, and proceeds to stand in a fire until he dies, then rage quits.

Did I mention the PTR part yet?

So I go thru about 8 different ten man groups, and over the course of them, I begin to piece together a strat.

***SPOILERS INCOMING?*** (lol, as if anyone cares... people read strats or watch videos before the content is even released)

Here's my basic understanding of the fight, that evolved over time.

1) He does a spinning AoE fire breath thing, that from what I see, just needs to be healed through.

2) He casts Meteor Fist, which then proceeds to kill Izobelle.

3) He cleaves.

4) He drops fire on the ground, a la Magmadar.

At first, I thought the Meteor Fist ("MF" from here on) was interruptable (has a cast time), or that it needs to be split among the tanks. Turns out I was half right. It isn't interruptable. Looking at the debuffs (after I died, and it was just the other tank taking it), it turns out Meteor Fist is a debuff that 'splits damage with another target withing 10 yards'. So it's like the Lynx Boss (or bear) in Zul'Aman. You need to have the tanks stack on each other the whole time (or at least for MF). I'm not sure if it will automatically choose the 'next closest target' to the tank, or if it will randomly gib a rogue... see, it's the PTR, and while I was trying to figure shit like this out, other people were posting DPS charts and rage quitting because their underwear were getting all bunched up or whatever.

So I pieced this all together over the course of a whole evening, and the best attempt I had had him down to 50%.

Anyway, back to the fight.

It turns out (and again, this is just my observances), it's not anything that really requires taunting, or shifting aggro like I inititally thought. Just one tank takes a beating, while moving out of fire (and keeping HIM out of the fire, too... it puts a stacking buff on him that increases damage 5% per stack), and when MF is cast, both tanks need to take it (while melee *might* need to run out, a la Lightning Nova, not sure... that's if it chooses the second target randomly out of anyone within ten yards), then just continue to DPS the whole time.

There's no adds to deal with, and nothing spectacular other than moving while keeping the tanks stacked. In theory, it's a coordinated tanking movement intensive fight. That's pretty much the gist of it.

Now let's look back and c wut I did ther. Over the course of about 8 PUGs that fell apart because people are stupid and insecure, there was Izobelle, tanking a new boss, checking debuffs and combat logs after each wipe, and OMG FUCKING TESTING! Not running RFC. Not posting bullshit in the AH for LOLOLOL 7999 GOLD HAHA. Certainly not running for the instance exit like a fucking moron when a wipe was underway, and certainly not ragequitting when we didn't one shot the new boss that nobody had quite figured out yet.

I'm proud of myself for not instantly going to and looking up strats, and for putting up with as much bullshit as I did. If I actually had a group of ten likeminded indivuals, I think we could have maybe got him down.

But then I get back to Dalaran, and what do I see?




Xay said...

I know the feeling.

The European PTR's arnt much better, people still do Naxx and stuff (To be fair, emblem changes to check out, but meh.).

Combine that with the fact the French and German players are also on the same realms (though they do tend to go for particular ones) makes things difficult.

The Life of a tester, eh?

Kyir said...

I don't do PTRs, I figure other people will just tell me what everything's about.

JThelen said...

Yea, pretty much sums up my feelings regarding the PTRs. I moved a couple premades over, and my shaman to test changes with my current gear. After that, I really don't care much.

Wasting time on stupid stuff is, well, stupid. Such is life, however.

Beej said...

That kind of garbage happened on the Ultima Online test realm all the time. I only rarely logged into Test Center when I wanted some unadulterated PvP with classes I didn't have on live. And I've never set foot on the PTR for WoW. Why? Your entire post explains that for me. I have to put up with enough idiots on live that I can't justify the time on a test realm when I can wait a month and see the content with friends who act like they're real people (well, some of the time at least, heh).

Anonymous said...

which is why I tend to log in on ptr and if my guild from live isn't planning anything - hammer at test dummies, figuring out the new rotation based on talent changes (as well as respeccing until I find something I feel is working), and then log back out again. pugging is bad enough on live. ptr? /shudder

there are other people who "get" ptr. I'm just not sure they pug much.. if at all.

oshin said...

PTRs are horrible, premades never have what you need to do some testing, back when I used to bother you didnt even get flight paths. At the very least there should be a vendor with every possible item / gem / enchant you need to test the new content.

I also loled at an article at that said the new boss is easy, or at least it was for the blogger with his "well geared friends". Yeah.. cos you`ll get them on your alt at 12 oclock on tuesday morning when you want to do VOA.

HP said...

I did 10 man VoA new Boss and I still have no idea what the strategy was because all I did was heal people and run out of fire. It seemed tank and spank to me especially since we one shot it. I think the RL organized everything so perhaps the ease of the execution was with how he set it up? No clue. I later went to pug more raids and PTR players are so bad -.- There is even less incentive for them to be on good behavior because it is PTR.

David said...

You are made of sterner stuff than I. When people go on the PTR, they shed that last bit of humanity that , in real life terms, keeps them from spitting on people on the street. Some people are on premade characters that they may not be too familiar with, so you have johnny roguestabber rolling a Warlock and wondering where he can buy soulshards. You can always count on queuing for a warsong gulch and just have an all-out brawl in the middle until you want to /afk out. But now there's a 20 minute timer, eh :) The last time I was on a PTR was when all the WOTLK talents came out. Since then I've avoided it like the plague.

Klepsacovic said...

You must be lying about that last part. Please. PLEASE BE LYING! Because seriously, that's incredibly stupid to do the same BGs, on the same characters, just on the PTR. They can't even pretend to be testing for PvP-related bugs if they're apparently trying to form some PTR Dream Team.

I don't go on the PTR much, last time was for 3.0 and probably 2.0 before that. Testing is boring and anything else I might as well just do on my real characters.

Feather said...

That's why i HATE PTR...i go there yes, but so many people making things like Gruul?! Hum...the last PTR-time we went look what should be coming up.

Now i hope with enough people we will hopefully do the new raids and instances.

Pixelated Executioner said...

This? Right here?

Exactly why I don't even bother with the PTR anymore. It's filled with complete idiots who don't have any interest in actually TESTING the new content, and working toward a goal.

No, they'd just rather do stupid things for inexplicable reasons.

You are not alone, Ixo. There are many others who understand where you're coming from.

Firespirit said...

See, this is why they need to just make everything free on the PTR. It will cut down on the AH crap.

They also need to cut out all instances (and BG's) that aren't a part of the testing.

If they want focus testing, they should really make it so that people can focus test. And we wonder why bugs still hit live?

Geoffrey said...

Why would anyone ever go on the PTR for anything? It seems like a complete waste of time. If Blizzard wants me to test their content, I expect compensation. WoW is play time, not work time.

Anyway, I guess some people like to test stuff for free, I just don't understand why.

Tesh said...

I used to play on the Puzzle Pirates test server, the Ice Ocean. I loved it, and while there were some idiots (it's inevitable on the internet), for the most part, those who were playing there actually did test the new features. That was a lot of fun, experimenting with new game mechanics (which could be broken in interesting ways) and bouncing new ideas off of other players.

THAT is the sort of experimenting and exploring that I love about games that keep generating content. If I were a WoW nut, I may well spend more time on the test realms than the real realms.

Then again, I'm a freak who actually works in the game industry, and who enjoys testing from time to time. That's the sort of thing that I enjoy doing, not the mainstream walkthrough-saturated pablum.

Of course, I'd have to set up a guild or something with those who actually want to *test*, not screw around.

And I'd want to get paid for it, since hey, game testing is a job. I've held that job for a little while myself, when I'm not doing art or design.

(So yeah, Ix, in your continued quest to get a job in the industry, you seem to have your head on straight. Keep at it.)

Random Poster said...

They should disable the stuff that doesn't need retesting IMO. Disbale Naxx, all the 5 mans, and all the old BG's (unless there has been a change for them ala WSG).

Won't cut down on people who are just idiots (such as that first tank you described) but at least it forces people to the places they need to be.

Dw-redux said...

yea I gave up on that whole "ptr" thing about 2 hours after i first tried it. Wrath beta did it for me. Logged on tried a DK, had a blast, got out of the DK starter zone and into general population and 2 minutes afterwards i logged out.
Or like one of my guildies puts it: test realms are like early x-mas presents, except the presents are broken not yet wrapped and will ruin the gift for you once its finished aswell.
Imo there are two types of people who roll onto the PTR: guilds that want to be world first and test the bosses (they wont talk to you) and morons who leave their old realms to escape their horribly bad rep ( they *will* talk to you). And then Ixo i guess. Good luck getting the firelord down.

Temitope said...

Could be wrong, but isn't the reason to run things like Naxx on the PTR that it's a good way to see how the changes to your class affect their performance.

I'm relatively new to high-level WoW, but I can see how you might want to head to - say - Patchwerk to see how the changes to the class affect your DPS output.

If you go into a new raid, there's no way of knowing what's a problem with changes to your class, and what's a problem with the fight.