@Ghostcrawler re: Holy Pallies and Loken

#0 - Dec. 16, 2008, 8:08 p.m.

I've been reading the healing forums for sometime now and it's a great forum for organizing all the healers in one spot. However, I've been reading/tracking the thread Healing Halls of LIghtning as Holy Paladin, I have to admit I was quite disturbed by your response. The thread has been getting some heavy traffic I will grant you, but simply responding with a step by step "how-to" seemed over the top. In the past when players had difficulties with bosses, they would post on the forums and QQ about it. Blues would usually respond with a vague or ambiguous comment to somewhat point the players in a new or different direction to approach the boss strategy. This is one of the first times I've ever seen a post describing an actual step-by-step "how to" on a boss fight.

I do realize this is a 5 man boss and it's not like you are posting "how we at Blizzard kill Malygos25". Still, the underlying message seems the same to me. I feel different players and different classes all have to adjust to a new boss strategy each time they confront a boss depending on group make-up. As you posted, the fight is more about group coordination and players helping themselves out by reducing the amount of incoming damage to them vs. forcing a healer to "outheal" the fight. I'm sure after years of testing, one could assume that Blizzard and alpha/beta testers have all attempted and killed Loken with a pally healer at one time or another. I don't think Blizzard devs are short sighted in creating a boss fight that specifically alienates one class or another from successfully completing it. I will tell you as a healer, this fight one of the more difficult 5 man bosses in Wrath, though after some fine tuning and some "Hey, let's focus here" chat dialogues, Loken finally admits defeat.

To put it simply, I feel a disturbing equation that seems to arise from this post.

QQ about a boss + lengthy thread in the forum about it = Blizz posting step-by-step strategy for defeating a boss

Shouldn't this be left to players who have completed or tried it? This has been going on for years on the WoW forums and other fan sites. I feel it should be players who create content as to what strats they use for killing bosses and overcoming encounters. That's the beauty of the forums. A group can get together and if their strategy isn't working, they can go on various forum threads and get some idea from other players or from other players on their server for ideas..

Overall, I've thoroughly enjoyed most of your forum posts/replies, Ghost. Most are insightful, witty, and grounded while still being informative and succinct. They make reading the forums more enjoyable. I just can't help to feel in this instance that you threw in the white flag by telling us what's behind Door #1.

Ghostcrawler

#22 - Dec. 17, 2008, 6:25 a.m.

I didn't post some secret that only the developers knew. I have done that fight many times on live and wanted to share what worked for us. There was some concern from Holy paladins that they were at a severe disadvantage for that fight so it felt like it had crossed over into a class balance issue. I was pointing out how I have seen Holy paladins heal it.

Ghostcrawler

#46 - Dec. 17, 2008, 5:43 p.m.

I would not expect many "blue strategy guides." In this case, we were trying to explain how a Holy paladin has the tools needed to do the job in any heroic.

But I totally get the concern and we will try not to be so obtrusive or intrusive.

Ghostcrawler

#78 - Dec. 19, 2008, 8:06 p.m.

Q u o t e:
I right now Healing Paladins are seen as a liability in Heroics and also by most raid leaders.

The problem with statements like that is that other readers may say to themselves: A) that person is claiming to speak for me, while I disagree with them, B) that person is experiencing something I never experience and claiming it happens to everyone, or at worst C) that person just doesn't know what they are talking about.

I am zeroing in on "are seen" and "most raid leaders." I imagine you chose those words to make your argument seem forceful, but instead it weakens it IMHO.