I’m a nostalgic romantic. In more practical terms, I am stubborn and resistant to change.
Playing Rift “my way,” I was excited to find a guild and players that supported the “play what you want” philosophy. I listened to the arguments and discussion about cookie cutter builds, but was swinging away merrily knowing that the data miners would never be able to strip mine my glorious Rift. Boy was I naïve.
One of the selling points of Rift for me is the adaptability of the soul system. Not only can different classes assume different roles but there is room to adjust in each specific role to meet a variety of situations. For example. as a warrior I can modify my build to suit a DPS or tank role. As a tank, I can further refine my strength versus physical or spell casting opponents.
Changed happened slowly. At first I saw the discussion and exclusion of certain class combinations. “Warriors can’t DPS a ranged boss,” I was told. I scrambled to adjust, cobbling together a passable ranged combination while I hoped that my melee damage would carry me through the rough (ranged) times. I heard other similar arguments: “Bards and Chloro’s can’t heal,” “Rogues (or is that rouges?) can’t tank,” but all were debunked in the hands of skilled players.
Then it hit: if I wanted to raid as DPS, I needed to optimize my build. Overnight the pretty graphic of Riftstorm was replaced with a clowder of smooth-skinned, eye-lidless purple kitties following around the folks with the awkwardly brandished two-hander. I weakly tried to argue that specs were situational dependent, but it fell on deaf ears. “If you aren’t maximizing your DPS, then you’re doing it wrong,” was the reply.
Sure I love being the heavy hitter in a group. What DPS doesn’t get caught up in the damage meter race? Additionally, raiding is about group goals and personal sacrifice. As such, I will
embrace the changes and support them, but secretly I will miss the days of old, when I was on the Great Journey of Doing It Wrong, so oblivious to the right way that I had fun on the ride.
To satisfy my stubbornness, I still keep my crappy build and pull it out to solo in the newbie garden when nobody is looking.
Nice post Hess, I really believe we all knew in the back of our minds, that Cookie cutter specs would eventually be the way we all had to go. There are so many dps checks in this game that is was the only viable option. Again though the souls and the way they are built leave a small room for personal style.
IMHO the bigger issue is now we NEED x class. We can’t do a certain boss in a 20 man raid because we do not have 6 rogues 4 tanks to pump out the necessary dmg. Yes Mages are warm body fillers after you have your 2 chloros and 1 archon.
Personally, I could have told you months before Rift released that (a) the different combinations the soul system provided would never be balanced, and (b) the community would spit on you if you didn’t choose the “right” build.
All i can say is I wish the damage parsers would have stayed away, When you get questioned on your DPS for a T2 expert you really gotta wonder….. Hmmm It took Wow 3 years to get to this point and rift did it a whole lot faster.
Nice first post Hess I am sure you are expressing alot of peoples feelings with this one.
Just like the person that says ” hey your a rogue, Do you have a bard spec?”
What if I don’t wanna be support……
MMORPG = Play for others not for yourself. If you want the experience of being in cutting content then you are shunned for playing the way you would like to play. I find that hilarious.
The question I have about non top of the line DPS specs is this – why? What purpose do they serve? What does your specific spec/rotation/gearing priority bring to the table that makes you and or it better then someone else who is maximizing their DPS?
More DPS means a ton of things – faster boss kills, less chance that people can make mistakes to mechanics, less chance that you wipe on farm content because the MT DC’d and took out half the top DPS before the boss was contained, less healing required, etc, etc. In short, having more DPS takes the strain off of everyone else and generally makes everything easier.
Its a slippery slope, really. Just like in WoW, when there was the Fire Mage who just spammed Pyro, the Frost Mage who only cast Arcane Blast, or the Warrior who wanted to use a staff. Where does it end? At what point does your personal preference become more important then the other people in the raid?
As a former raid leader, it bothered me to no end when people would spec the clearly inferior spec/gear incorrectly/execute their rotation improperly all for the sake of “Flavor” or “Personal Preference” Guess what? Its the raids personal preference to down bosses, and the Flavor comes in the tasty form of new shinies, which would be impossible to obtain in many situations if the entire raid decided to “do it wrong”
If a specific spec doesn’t have any tangible, meaningful advantage over the higher DPS counterpart, then you are relying on everyone else to do it right to cover for you – and to me, that isn’t working as a team. Its having the team work for you.
This is an alrtice that makes you think never thought of that!