what is the need for enrage?

I don't find this to be true. People want to bring DPS so that the fight goes faster, whether there is a time limit or not. Not everyone wants to spend 4 hours doing 1 boss.....but if they want to, it should be their choice.

It'd be interesting to find out -- but I have a sense that, if people had a simple, obvious way to cheese boss fights, they'd do it.

There's also the fact that it's important to have a standard raid comp consisting of roughly X tanks, Y heals and V dps so that there can be some continuity. Otherwise, from boss to boss you will need to sit or bring in more of a certain role to clear the current boss, leading to unhappy raiders when they get sat. It's nice to have a fight or two each tier where asking a player or two to respec to another role is optimal but everyone doing it constantly would be annoying given the fact you'd have to manage two gear sets if you wanted to be effective at both. Most players play a role because they enjoy the playstyle. Constantly having to switch to another role in order to defeat bosses would lead to unhappy players, once in a while is okay, not all the time.

Also, each role should have a task to perform on each boss. Remove enrages and it removes the importance of the entire dps role.

Also, enrages force players into executing mechanics properly. If you can just bring in extra healers to ignore heavy damage phases without fear of wiping to an enrage it makes the mechanic pointless and boring.

Also, enrages in WoW are rarely what people are fighting against unless the boss is designed to be a dps race. Most often it's not a deciding factor but there to ensure people aren't stacking haelers and tanks to cheese the fight.

Also, the reason the enrages come into play so often in this game is most likely because people can't figure out how to push their dps without a combat log/meter. The devs couldn't design complex and interesting mechanics because there are no logs to use to critique yourselves and see where you failed. Adding somewhat tight enrages are at least obvious when they're what you wipe to. You didn't meet the enrage ---> pick up your dps.

Enrage timers are what stop my GM from kicking every DPS player out of the guild and replacing them with healers (even bad healers) so that we can patiently grind down each boss with 100% chance of success.

While that is true the more serious answer is that boss damage sets a minimum requirement of gear/ability on your tanks and healers so why shouldn't there be a minimum dps requirement?

The proper term is "Game Mechanic". It is nothing more than one of many systems and processes that game designers use in order to ensure good playability.

A fight with an enrage timer simply lets you know that you have "X" time to do "Y" damage. If you do not do "Y" damage in "X" time, you fail. Now it is your job to figure out what you need to bring to the table in order to meet the fight requirements.

"Balance" is the other reason they exist. One tank and 15 Healers isn't a balanced fight and enrage timers prevent these exploits by forcing the party comp to look beyond an easy (albeit very long) fight.

DPS has always been the more popular role in MMO's but this wouldn't be the case if they weren't needed.

Simply put, enrage timers exist to prevent unintended party comps from trivializing content.

How dare you bring logic onto these boards? You realize you're making these silly replies about dps checks pointless?!!!


Seriously, you're right, having a buncha dps geared up, it's no different than stacking healers. Either way the result is the same, There needs to be new ways for bosses to challenge raids, some mechanics are just rather tired. That's mmos for you though, make a new game, and just use stuff that's been around since Napoleon was playing mmos.

The issue with NOT having enrage timers is that it allows you to stack tanks and or healers. Imagine Nightmare Bonethrasher, this can be a healing nightmare. Now bring in 6 healers and two dps. While this strategy may take an hour + to kill the boss it makes it trivial based on the ammount of healing available.

The enrage timer is there to force operations to take a nominal group balanced with tanks, dps, and healing.

That's just it. If you stack 2 tanks and 6 healers for an 8-man raid without enrage timers even Nightmare mode would be a cakewalk. Just put 3 healers spamming one heal on each tank, and the tank using a super simple rotation and you win. Healers just have to heal themselves once in a while, and that's it. Super simple. No challenge.

The only other mechanic to get around enrage times is forcing WoW-like mana pools for healers. This really isn't any different than an enrage timer since you now need to drop the boss before your healers go OOM. With SWTOR, you can't do this because everyone has a fast regen time on their skill resources. Their only option is enrage timers, or some other mechanic that works in the exact same way.

Wow...just wow...this community is more clueless than I thought possible.

Let's look at this a little more closely.

Enrage Removed

Stack a raid with 1 tank and 15 dps what happens? Everyone dies due to lack of heals.

Stack a raid with 1 dps and 15 tanks what happens? Everyone dies due to lack of heals.

Stack a raid with 1 tank and 15 heals what happens? Boss dies eventually, guaranteed.

Stack a raid with 1 heals and 15 tanks what happens? Boss dies eventually, guaranteed.

Stack a raid with 1 dps and 15 heals what happens? Boss dies eventually, guaranteed.

Stack a raid with 1 heals and 15 dps what happens? Everyone dies, dps can't tank a boss.

Summary - DPS classes lose value since without an enrage timer replacing them and stacking heals or tanks still results in a kill.

Enrage Timer Present

None of the above scenarios are possible and all three roles have importance when forming a group.

It's called asking someone what they are specced for. If they lie, and you find out otherwise, you get to black-list them. If you know what the other three players are, and what they are capable of, and the boss still wipes the group, you know who the problem is: the fourth person.