What are your stats?

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It’s the newest thing in World of Warcraft.   I’m seeing it everywhere.  You join the LFG channel and see a group advertising…

Group Leader: “LFM DPS for Heroic Halls of Lightning!”

Keen: “I’ll go, DPS here.”

Group Leader: “What are your stats?”

Keen: “Well, I have 25% crit, 160 hit chance, 18k hp, ~1650 DPS on single target boss fights.”

Group leader:  “no ty”

Wait, what?  “no ty” based on my stats?  First of all, I’ve done Heroic HoL before and I know that my stats are more than sufficient.  I ask why he doesn’t want me and I receive no answer.  Okay, maybe it’s just one jerk.  I try another instance this time and get the same question: “stats?”.   Then I get a “no ty”. Seriously, why?  I’m completely geared on regular instances.  There are no more upgrades for me there.  I NEED to do heroics to gear up for raids but groups are telling me “no ty”.   I proceed to once again give my stats and I’m rejected.  Paying closer attention to the LFG channel I start seeing things like “Group LFM for X, pst class/spec/stats”.  Forgive my nerd rage here, but I have never seen this kind of B.S. in any game before – not even in oldschool WoW.  Doesn’t it make sense now more than ever that groups will want intelligent players?  Gear has become so easy to achieve – how can it possibly be a barrier of entry for a FIVE MAN?

Hopefully my guildies get their power back and we run some instances soon.  I don’t know how long I’ll last in WoW if this is the PUG experience that I can expect.  I’ve been burned by PUGs before but never before I even join them.  Anyone else encountered this min/maxing elitism in PUGs?

  • Well gear is probably used as a measure of intelligence. If you have good gear, it proves that you’ve done hard instances. As well as that it makes the run easier for everyone. Seems logical to me.

  • its not just your stats i am sure, a lot of ppl just will not take dks at all, sucks my new main is a dk but way to noobs play them and gives the ones of us who know how to play them a bad name.

  • I’ve had much more luck getting into Heroic PUGs on my DK by tanking than DPSing. People are desperate for tanks, but DPS are a dime a dozen. With so many DPS trying to find groups, the easiest way to filter people is to check stats. Not saying I agree with it, its why I rarely do PUGs unless I’m desperate, but its the ugly reality of WoW pickup groups.

  • Pugs are bad, really really bad. I do not want to say that all of them are bad but most of them are and trying to get 4 other good pugs is like winning big prize on lottery.

    Also because number of DK is very high people dislike them. It is like with hunters before – 90% of them suck balls, 9% are OK and only 1% know how to play on high level.

    I myself never pug because it is like torture for me. But if I would have to and you would whisper me I would surely check your armory.

  • It’s one of the more frustrating aspects of WoW, it’s become such a primarily endgame MMO and status / elitism plays such a strong role. If you’re not wearing the latest and greatest, you’re looked down upon by a significant portion of the population (oddly, who often aren’t top geared themselves).

    It’s so odd to me that the game with the highest population and probably the most ‘casual’ content has the social aspects overwhelmed with stand-and-model your gear.

    It’s the ultimate in the concept of “newb” as the gauge, you’ve not only got to know every theorycraft detail, but you have to physically represent it too by wearing all the right stuff.

    It’s a paradox for me, I love the itemization and I like gear-driven stuff (City of Heroes was a nice break, but I missed it so much, WoW was the perfect cure at the time)– but ultimately if it’s too gear-or-die it becomes depressing socially.

    The cure, is to have a good core of friends / guildmates. That goes without saying I guess, but if the overall population is fixated on this stuff, it kinda spoils a bit of the experience.

  • The two most common causes for this that I’ve seen are:

    1) The people in question are terrible and want to be carried through the instance by you.

    2) The people in question are overgeared and only want similarly overgeared people to come with them, for a stress-free run.

    The best way to defend against this kind of behavior is to either do a guild run, as many people suggested, or start your own group.

  • Well, it’s not like it was a DK thing. I advertised myself as “DK DPS” and then they asked for my stats. I’m at 521 defense right now. If I can get a few more defense upgrades from regular instances then I’ll have enough to actually tank heroics. Maybe they’ll take me at that point… but then again I’ll be the bare minimum geared for tanking Heroics so I’ll probably not be “good enough”.

    @Rog: I can’t agree more. I like the itemization stuff too but when it becomes too gear dependant then I get depressed. Mostly because my luck blows when it comes to getting gear and I just can’t/don’t want to keep up.

    @GoW: That sounds logical. I hope it’s just that they aholes and this is not reflecting an overall turn for the game.

  • Ah, gear-based games. How fun are they. Not.

    I happily play Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 now, after having stopped with WoW, and nobody ever asked me anything about their gear. In fact, nobody ever had better gear than me. So if they killed me, it was because they played better (or were luckier). If I killed them, it was because I played better.

    It helps get over losses (as I know I can learn and give back what I took), and it gives a warmer feeling when I win. Really, I see no downsides at all.

  • I’ve seen this lately as well, and was actually having a chat like this with some friends just the other day. How exactly is this guild elitism mentality oozing out into PUGs? Are these PUGs just trying to mimic the popular kids and hope they get better groups because of it? Furthermore, aren’t we running these instances to -acquire- the better gear in the first place? If I had better stats, why would I even run an instance with these people? The ‘ol “catch 22” as they say. If you need retail experience to work in retail, how do you get that experience in the first place? It’ll be horrible if this mentality carries into the lower levels. My girlfriend just recently started playing, and Azeroth is dead enough as it is, let alone to have people question her stats for a Deadmines run.

  • Do not blame the players. Blame the game. This mentality is rare, it does not happen that often. The game is easier than it ever was before.

    The stat and level obsession, blame it to the core of WoW. At the core it is still just EverQuest on steroids, with all the pros and cons of a system build for constant levelling and gear improvement.

  • Long time K&G reader here….you are part of the reason I gave WAR a fair shake, but it wasn’t the game for me. Moving along to the topic at hand….PUG’s on just about any server are going to be filled with idiots for the most part. Your enjoyment of WoW is highly contingent (post leveling to 80 that is) on being a guild that accepts you and is active. Guild size plays a huge part in that. I’ve never once been asked “what are your stats”, because I staunchly refuse to run anything without my guild. Maybe thats elitist, but its really the only way to avoid jerks like the one you ran into. I’d suggest some heavy recruitment for the guild you are in, or possibly looking into joining a larger guild. It will make you enjoy the game alot more.

  • Well DK DPS is probably a dime a dozen as Ian said, so you’re getting filtered right from the get go. Even if you were picked, I’d stay away from PUG’s altogether. In the past when I did them, about one in five actually was productive so I decided not to waste my time anymore. Too frustrating.

    Hell I most definitely blame the players. There are selfish egotistical idiots out there, plain and simple. The frequency of them in PUGs is pretty high but you can get lucky once in a while and have a productive run with some decent people.

  • i cannot agree more with Pignasty. having a friendly happy-go-lucky guild can help a lot in enjoying your WOW time. its true to any MMO but in WOW its a must.

    as for your blog keen , i appreciate how you fairly review WAR and WOW according to your own perspective and avoid fanboy / hateboy review on games.

    merry xmas

  • Ugh, that would piss me off too. It sounds petty but the whole “no ty” thing instead of a true explanation is really irritating.

    I’ve played on a normal server (where my main is) and an RPPVP server (70 warrior alt. there) and I’ve noticed this type of behavior immensely more on the normal one. I’m sure it still happens on RP/RPPVP servers but I think they generally attract a more mature crowd… that’s more willing to talk and not bluntly refuse you with no explanation or even coherent sentence. My experiences have also been a little better with PuGing, since that’s all I did usually. Maturity can make a huge difference in all aspects of the game. /rant off

    Anyways, I’ve never experienced it personally but I could see this happening on Cenarius. There’s a lot of dumb stuff like that. Even though I love my guild, and am not a real RPer, I plan on transferring to an RP server when I hit 80. If nothing else, it will decrease the frequency of seeing names like “ihealzu” or “pewpewurded” all over.

    Good luck, Keen. I hope this stuff doesn’t drive you away to quickly. The above are right; get into a decent size guild and always try to run with as many members per group as possible. I wouldn’t discount PuGs since not everyone is an idiot but having even one other person you know in there can make it a whole lot better.

  • Im having the exact same problem with my DK and ive got the exact same stats as you :O

    Problem is, with equivalent gear and fully buffed, ive seen BM hunters, Boomkin Druids and even a enc shaman do over 3k dps. Almost double mine. Im pretty sure im doing the max i can with my built/stats. So when i did Vault Heroic, in the top 15 DPS, the last 3 were DKs. Next time that raid leader will be looking for some more hunters/druids/dps+

    Back to leveling my Hunter.

    Have fun 😛

    Higgs.

  • I tank a lot of heroics, and we get a LOT of undergeared dps in on the groups. And it makes the difference between a nice smooth fast run and a more painful one in some encounters (that are more of a dps check).

    If I’m putting together a PUG why would I not try to make it as easy for myself as possible?

  • Ohh a comment to all those above saying finding a guild is the way to go. Yes it is, that is if your guild is at the same stage as you in their gear development. If you are more of a casual player than them you will end up and the rear gearwise and after a while you will not be good enough geared to do the instances they are doing, and they will not be doing the instances you need to do because it has nothing to offer them.
    So there you are, left with either begging for boosts from the guild or finding PUGs.
    Well that’s what happened to me with TBC at least, so thats why I say have fun with WoW m8. =)

  • I have guildies that refuse to move to merge our current WAR guild with another because of this mentality. They think the people in the larger WAR guild will treat them with the stats question and have to fit into certain clicks in order to do anything. I tell them that DaoC and WAR are different from WoW in that the players have different attitudes and are more accepting. Still no go yet for merging, but I have yet to see anything in WAR yet like the described blog post here.

  • My experience is about the same as what Proximo says. I tend to level up much slower than most because I don’t have that much time to play, so I’m often not actually grouped with my guild.

    I only played WoW for 4 months when it first came out, but even then I ran into shades of this line of thinking in the endgame instances.

    For chrissakes, we’re talking about NPC adversaries in a dungeon and you generally know what you’re gonna get when you head in — which is why they’re usually called “(dungeon name) runs” to begin with.

    Problem is, when they “run” a dungeon, they now want peak efficiency so they can run it X number of times a night.

    This is just another effect that WoW’s overly gear-based reward system has had. People want that gear quickly, so they need to run it a lot. If they want to run it a lot, they want to do it as efficiently as possible. Voila — you’re now a job applicant and not a groupmate.

    Most games don’t have the depth of gear-based rewards that WoW has, so this isn’t quite so common elsewhere, but it’s not necessarily limited to WoW itself since the system is not uncommon either.

  • Hmm, so far I haven’t had anyone ask me my stats. But I haven’t run any Heroics yet and I’m not dps, I’m a healer. I have had people ask me my spec before, and when I say discipline, they will not say anything further and won’t invite me.
    So I’m not sure if they are writing me off because they think discipline is not a healing spec for some reason is not as good as holy? If so they aren’t up on the latest with Priests.

  • You just happened to run into douchebags, bad luck, I did Naxx 1 day after I turned 80 and havnt touched normals at all on my enhance shaman, sometimes people ask stats, I dont know why, it never says how good people are (174 dps MH rogue was doing 1400 dps in a heroic).

  • hell that was happening even back when i played, pre BC. i was a boomkin and was laughed at by all except those who would give me a try. they would ask for a DPS. i would say im dps, tell them im a boomkin and they would laugh.

    every once in a while someone would give me a try and WHAM, i would out dps the rogue the whole time and backup heal. they would be floored because they were sused to boomkins sucking. sounds like the same syndrome except with a now heavily played class.

    its also the thing i got tired of in WoW the loot treadmill was annoying, i had to work outside of raids on my time to get gear so i could raid on the guilds time and it ended up being a full time loot grind only.

  • This isn’t just limited to WoW imo. Even on EQ2 now you see “Group LFM: uber dps/solo healer.” …. I always wonder who answers to those broadcasts with “Oooh me! I’m an uber solo healer.. take me!!”

  • Well I see this every now and then but not that often, you might have just gotten some bad luck that day when trying to find a group. On the topic of what most ppl are saying here, let’s face it, the game plays off of societies ideals. Do we not enjoy having a nice house, nice clothes, a nice car etc etc etc. It mirrors directly into the mmorpgs we play. Since there is social interaction, real world ideals are directly mirrored into the games we play weather you like it or not. Saying things and talking down about people wanting the best etc is dumb, go look in the mirror, or turn on the tv.

    Back to the subject of wotlk, loot is easy as hell to get compared to past expansions. When the end game content released so far is beaten within 3 days of release it is safe to say that the pve is NOT hard. Therefore just keep at it and loot will come. Hell naxx now on 25 and 10 man is a LOOT RAIN FOREST! Compare this to last expansion when people could only run karazan once a week with the few bosses in that instance. Much less loot was dropping compared to now. Not only do we get a instance with 10 plus bosses but we can do it on 10 man and 25 man, add to that OS, WG, and Maly. If you can’t get some of that loot then I don’t know what to say lol. Hell people are Pugging 25 man naxx regularly already. You did NOT see this in burning crusade with sunwell.

    Conclusion: People will always want to be the best, have the best, and be a part of the best, it’s human nature.

    The loot is falling from the sky, easier than ever to aquire. Find a decent guild and get that gear!

  • I get consistantly asked how much HP I have when I offer myself as a tank to PuGs…

    Had multiple rejections of “you don’t have 30k hp? no ty”

    Getting to 30k hp unbuffed and NOT being a Feral Druid is darn near impossible if I want to keep any form of Defence xD

    Still, one encounter away from having cleared all the current raid content so never mind 🙂

  • Most groups who say this need to outgear the encounter to complete it usually. I started tanking heroics with blue 80 dungeon gear and 19k hp, fights were harder and required more work(Most people don’t know you can kill the adds on the first boss of Drak’Thoran Keep so that they don’t hurt your tank when he explodes the corpses, and if you ask them to they will BITCH about it hard) but I did fine even with low DPS groups, w/e.

  • DKs are coming out tops in our 5 mans, and 10/25 man raids…. by a lot…

    The options are that they really know the class, or they’ve got great gear, or they’re a different spec? Or the other players don’t know how to play their classes – not really an option because these are good players 😛

    They seem pretty powerful to me 🙂

    I’ve got a healer, so never had any problems getting into a group, but I still avoid PUGs like the plague.

  • It’s funny I’ve had the exact opposite experience but with tanks. I’ve been in PuGs where we were so desperate for a tank we accepted tanks with 19k life (unbuffed) for heroic runs. All of the DPS has more health 🙁 Needless to say we never got passed the first boss.

    If you really want to PuG go as tank, almost no one will turn you down because there is such a huge shortage of them (I play a healer myself).

    But I think the better advice, which several people have already written, is of course to group only with guild mates if you can.

  • Well I’m not trying to tank. I can see wanting a tank who can take hits or have defense. I’m just trying to DPS. I’ve had a lot less problems over the past few days. Only got asked my stats once. The other times I was invited straight away into the group and did just fine.

  • keen if your server is anything like mine, it’s probably loaded with dks (25% for boulderfist) and probably 90% of those are bad. The downside to gear being easily obtainable is that there are plenty of people that are very well geared already, so when you’re making a group it’s easy to just want to take those already in the 2k+ range because there will just never be a shortage of those.

    your best bet is to just make friends, and run a bunch with the same people every day. a 2 hour commitment is easily 4 or so of the shorter heroics even at your more entry level of gearing, so don’t take your being declined as a heroic barrier, just people preferring better geared people.

    as another note, don’t advertise your dps, just use your ap instead. plenty of people will hit 3k on a short tank and spank with bloodlust and cooldowns all popped, and call themselves 3k dpsers, while really averaging sub 2k on a normal boss fight. 1650 will be looked down on by idiots who probably do the same, you’re just more honest/realistic

  • I see it all the time on Fenris. I never saw it before WOTLK, but now constantly in the trade channel dps “requirements” are given. To a certain extent I think it is good, I remember once they lowered the rep requirement to do heroics in TBC every player in green gear that just hit 70 wanted to join in, and they just couldn’t contribute due to gear.

    BUT, it has gotten ridiculous.

    And it’s not just DKs, everyone is treated like this now. Some people would let me heal while a few levels underleveled, others didn’t want to talk to me if I was not at the top of the level range. And too many people out there still think Disc is a pvp healer tree.

    I did have a 72 tank ask me to heal in regular Drak, i said i thought he was underleveled he just replied he’d done it before without a problem so I said ok and tried it. He was just fine.

    But as others said, it’s a sign the people asking don’t know what they are doing. They think they need that huge buffer because they are used to failing. so maybe that’s a sign those are not people you want to group with.

    Or it could be people who want to race through for rep and already outgear the place. In the same case not people that sound like they’ll be fun.

    I am starting to think once I get my 2 mains to 80 and get a few of the special pets/mounts I will probably quit again. It’s the same old game I got sick of before. Though for now it’s fun.

  • I havent seen any stat requests on my server – Feathermoon, but I think if I did I would probably reply NVM and move along. Pugs suck now more than ever and I doubt that will ever change.

  • Yeah, I think the general consensus is that the guild you are in is the main factor in enjoyment of WoW. Seeing as how the social aspect of an MMO is the underlying “mortar” holding the experience together, this isn’t really a “bad” thing….although it can sure be frustrating. Hell….this blog is widely known and you did some amazing pre-release recruitment for WAR. Why not recruit for WoW? I’m sure it’d be a blast to play with folks as up to date and analytical about the games of today.

  • Weird, I really haven’t heard cries of “stats” on my server, and I am a DK DPS as well. But just about everything needed to be said has been. All I can add is that I feel the only reason to ever PuG something is to find a new friend after a pleasant run so you have to PuG one less person next time. Between friends list and guild, I can’t remember the last time I had to get more than a single random person per group. DPS I really don’t care what they can do because as a fellow DPS, I know I rock and can pick up the slack if they suck. And, to be a bit of a DPS whore, I frankly enjoy getting 45% of the damage done in the meters, more than I hate the slightly slower rate we kill things. As long as we aren’t having trouble (And there are precious few fights that REQUIRE massive DPS to do) then, hell, bring on the bad DPS so I can feel better.

  • Its pretty simple really: If I was making a PUG and had the choice between a well geared person I don’t know and a mediocre geared person I don’t know, I’d take the one with better gear. PUGs are intolerable anyway, so in the rare case that I would actually do one, I’d try to make it as easy as possible on everyone.

    Sure, you could end up turning a perfectly good person away from the group, but quite frankly you don’t have time to get to know everyone and you’ve got to set some sort of standard.

    Granted, I would only VERY rarely do anything with anyone outside my guild when I played WoW, we were one of the top 3 raiding guilds on the server, and quite frankly running with people less disciplined and experienced generally just made me want to punch a hole in my monitor.

  • I have to tell you, I personally find the attitude you’re discussing to be completely appalling!! I can see not taking someone who’s gear in some way shows that they have no idea in the world what they’re doing, hunters stacking spellpower, for example. But, to disallow someone with perfectly decent stats from a heroic on that basis that they in some way don’t meet the standards is atrocious. I mean, heroics are how we gear up, how are we supposed to do that if people won’t accept us based upon our stats? It’s circular logic and it doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever.

    I only run with guildies, I don’t pug, and this sort of thing is the reason. It just seems like elitism and it ticks me off, so I just flat refuse to do it. The only pugs I ever run with are pugs that guidies bring in to nearly all guild runs. You know, that random fifth guy because it’s 3am and there’s no dps online. I just say no to pugs otherwise.

    Thanks for the great post, this is my first visit here. I found your site by way of The Pink Pigtail Inn! 🙂

  • Well we are playing on different realms/areas etc but in my realm we never ask for stats like that, at least me.

    Ofc the tank and the healer should have some decent ones to be able to tank/heal it, but untill now i didn’t have any problem with blue geared dps, if they know their class that is.

    I really can’t understand why you ask a dk his stats, if he is 80 he should have some decent gear already, except if he payed a chinese to lvl the char.