I'm obviously not thinking too clearly this evening. You're right: timed adds steadily increase the total amount of damage that must be done by the raid before the encounter is beaten. Very generally, a two-minute add timer has the same effect as a heal on the boss with a two minute cooldown. But they are different enough that I won't compare the two when talking about a lack of creativity in the design of raid encounters.

I thought dps stacking was always rewarded by fights and raids just being faster. And the faster it is, the less time everyone has to make mistakes on an execution fight and the more likely everyone is to be able to get to bed at a reasonable time ;P

It's pretty much common sense that if you had the choice, you'd take the minimum healers you could get away with and fill the raid up with dps for a fast smooth run, no?

I think the main issue with the dps fights is just that it forces differentiation between good and average players of the dps classes. If every dps player was shit hot then the stacking wouldn't be such a problem. And in fact, with healers you can usually have a good healer compensate for an average one to some extent. With tanks, you just make your best tank MT. But now with dps, we're forced to have them all be great. This is clearly not such a problem for top end guilds where they already are


Anyway, hopefully patch changes will ease this a bit.

I think the fact these berserks are as dull as dishwater doesn’t really matter, you’re not really supposed to see them. While it’s much, much better to have the time limit enforced more subtly with eventually unmanageable waves of adds, stacking damage debuffs/debuffs, etc. these are all core to the encounter itself.

Berserk timers are a good thing when the right one is used in the right place. Putting a strict timer on a “burn me down before I kill you all” boss is perfectly valid, it somewhat restricts your raid makeup but so do a lot of things. Patchwerk is a shining example, you need to kill him as soon as possible and the strategy for the DPS classes there is purely: kill him as soon as possible.

Likewise putting a forgiving berserk timer on most other bosses is fine, a “okay, you’ve had more than enough time” berserk that triggers when the only reasonable explanation is something has gone very wrong or there’s only one group left is more than justified.

I think a problem arises when the strict berserk timer appears on a boss for no other reason than because it can, when it’s not really a ‘part’ of the encounter, more a condition. It’s not adding anything and it’s not something you necessarily expect the boss to do.

At C’thun, you could sustain on him in the 2nd phase forever (to my knowledge, if he did berserk after a while, colour me embarrassed), but you still wanted him down on the 2nd or 3rd vulnerability or things are going to get hairy because it’s hard to sustain anything that long. Given that does, say, Hyrdross really need a strict berserk? Staying on Hydross for long periods of time means you need to change his element, it’s already harder to stay on him that long, I don’t really see the need for the strict berserk mechanic here.

I think Enrages are good but certainly something you don’t want to overuse. A lot of classes and items allow for burst damage, and I really enjoy things like Princes Huruharn and her “not yet... not yet... wait for it... everyone get ready for 20%... NOW NOW NOW.” Anything that makes me envision Ruby Rhod screaming over the top of it is awesome.

My post was already made, but I can sum up my feelings in this new thread with: Berserk timers should never, ever, be used. They're artificial, and a sign of a poor encounter design.