One of the complaints in the never-ending PvE vs PvP debate is that the lure of honour gear empties the pool of people willing to run heroics.
I’d argue that heroics stopped being an attractive proposition for many players when the key requirements lowered the bar, even if that sounds a bit counterintuitive. In practice, though, and my relatively limited heroics experience confirms this, the easier access to heroic mode exposes you to running with unexperienced and sometimes massively under-geared players, leading to massive wipe-fests and mounting repair costs. Not exactly a fun experience, now, is it?
Of course, this is far from an isolated observation, the blogosphere at large has been quite negative about the honoured-rep heroics, in particular PUG runs of course. But bad PUGs are expected, and guild runs can actually be worse, simply because the lack of bond with random server denizens 1 to 4 gives you more freedom to call it quits without remorse, whereas a run with undergeared guildies may actually leave you feeling duty-bound to sit it out.
What you can do, though, is take a leaf out of the PvPers’ book and assemble a Heroics Preform. Yes, like the BG preforms. Recruit on server chat and realm forums, put up a schedule, and set gear requirements just like a BG premade will require certain resilience and HP values. I’m willing to bet that you will be able to find enough people who will be more than ready to run with like-minded serious and experienced players on a regular basis. What a Heroics Preform will bring them is the reassurance that they will be running with people who know what they are doing and removing the risks tied to undergeared noobs who wander in with greens and no clue about the pulls.
Just like any serious raid leader or BG Preform leader does it, though, do not compromise. Not meeting gear standards? Gear up before you apply. One of your regular Preform Members missing? Don’t waste time LFM, just cancel until next time. Not running will actually do better for your Preform’s reputation than running with a sub-optimal group.
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Tags: Arena, Heroics, Heroics Preform, Raiding, WelfareYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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3 Responses to “PvE Preforms for Heroics”
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On my server me and my friends start a private channel before they dropped the key requirements and we’ve just picked up well geared DPS and Healers that we know are cool. Right now it’s at maybe a dozen people but all of them are more than capable of running heroics. We’ve even got together with some other people and raced heroics and what not to make them more interesting as we’ve all started gearing up from 25-mans.
There are less people running Heroics in general on my Server since a lot of them do PvP/BG’s/Arena for gear where win or loose you gain vs having to stick it out for a kill in Heroics.
However I PuG Heroics to my hearts content as a Tank. Lowering the lvl required has resulted in more people being selective when doing Heroics in general. Some stick with guildmates more for Heroics or just who they know.
As for me I just Tank Heroics in PuG, whether guildmates are there or not. The easier Heroics are easier to just open PuG. The Harder heroics you can be more selective in finding selective friends even with still a PuG group but you handpick the group to ensure the right class mix. At least thats what i do.
Im the Tank, usually i have no problem getting groups for Heroics. Often its a PuG needing a Tank. If i need to I hand pick it with friends on friends list. Im just not scared to PuG. I can afford any repair bill many times over.
However what i find is if you have a good Tank and a good Healer, Often you just need half decent DPS or better. Both can carry a group in what i have found. If either the Tank or Healer is lacking your liable to have more problems in Heroics even with half decent or better dps. Thats my observation from Tanking tons of PuG group in Heroics.
If most people get out more and PuG in Heroics you actually find some decent people as players or people thats learning. Yes you will find the ocassional person that may not know better. However its often a chance to teach that person something at that point so that they can become better. But if you never PuG sometimes you never learn even with guildmates. Some people in my own Guild are paranoid at the though of being in a Heroic PuG. They only run with Guildies. I tell them to PuG their normal 5 man sometimes. Their response they are afraid to. If that person don’t even have the courage to PuG a normal run let alone a Heroic, you can just about bet they not usually going to be on a run with me. I’m a Tank and I PuG IT in Heroics and thats my Game!
Of the 20+ Pug heroics I have run since 2.3 I have only run into 4 people I would consider seriously undergeared. In all cases we completed. But I check for known people / guilds before joining a group. If I am not tanking and dont know the tank I will armory him. But how busy is your lfg? If I checked lfm for the daily heroic I can generally expect to see 20-30 people mostly lf tank.