Random Dungeon Domination
Posted on May 17th, 2010 by Lawbringer under Efficiency Tips, Exploits, General Tips, Heroics, Instances, PVE, Tank, Tips, Tricks, World of Warcraft, WotLKHow To Queue Like A Tank For Randoms As DPS
There is something very exciting coming for everyone at DYS in the next couple of weeks. We’re not going to let the cat out of the bag quite yet, but Gavin and Law are hard at work – and making some interesting discoveries to boot. For the last week, we’ve been chain running randoms as part of our research and we’ve discovered a nifty little work-around for those long Q’s for those of you who are DPS.
You know how it goes. Let’s say you’re like Law and have a couple of toons (or four) to do randoms with every day. Getting the invite if you are heals isn’t so bad, maybe a few minutes, while tanks will Q virtually instantly for the most part. Then you get on your DPS and sit there for 15 minutes while you wait around for the next tank. If all you have is DPS toons you have no idea how nice it is to queue up as a tank.
Typically, I will do my JC daily on my mage while I wait for the Q to pop. And then the cooking daily, perhaps fishing as well, and then – well, I get bored. Not much you can really do except sit there and watch for it. I guess I could farm, but I just don’t do that – especially on my raiding toons – at least not for herbs and ore. And killing elementals isn’t my idea of a good time.
So suffice it to say that I miss the queue from time to time. It’s not unusual to have at least one DPS miss most Q’s – they probably fell asleep waiting. And that just makes things worse. Go grab a drink, miss the Q and you’re back at the bottom of the list, another 15 minutes? Bah, there has to be a better way.
And there is. You COULD do what Gavin and I did and just swap out runs. We both have tanks and DPS toons, so we just switch around. The only problem with having a system like that is that sometimes we’re not on at the same time, plus, we have this big project to do together when we are playing
Beating The Dungeon Finder System
Gavin stumbled upon this little trick quite by accident. It’s unbelievably simple when you think about it, but it’s not very obvious. We’ve all been running randoms for months now, and until Gavin said something to someone else in a group, just out of the blue, I had never thought of it. Really, four toons with the “Patient” title and it never dawned on me.
We had been in a group with this shaman healer for three randoms in a row and he was begging Gavin not to leave the group – good tanks can be hard to find at level 30-ish. So Gavin said: “I tell you what, I really need to be moving along, but I WILL queue with you again and then drop so that you’ll be at the top of the list and get the very next tank.”
It went over my head for about two seconds and then hit me like a brick. I was practically yelling at Gavin over Skype. HOLY CRAP MAN! THAT’S IT! That’s what, he asked. That’s the secret right there! “I was just saying that,” he says, “I don’t know if it really works, lol.” Well, it turns out, it DOES work, and it’s an awesome work-around for all your DPS toon wait times.
OK, you’re still going to need a tank that will Q with you, but they don’t have to make the run. All they have to do is join your group, accept the Q and then bail. You’ll sit in the instance for maybe another minute, at the longest, while the dungeon finder grabs your group another tank.
This works best if you have two accounts. Just use your own tank (if you have such a beast) to queue yourself to the front and then bail him out and run on your DPS toon. No more wait times. Well, next to none. My average time to queue on Fenris as a tank is about 10 seconds, while on DPS it’s more like 10 minutes. By using my tank to Q my dps toons I get the tank time plus about 30 seconds standing in the dungeon waiting for another tank.
If you run two DPS toons every day through one random each, this little trick can save you between 10 and 15 HOURS a month. Bet you never though about how much time twenty minutes a day actually was huh? Instant queue’s for randoms on your DPS toons – it’s pretty simple, and quite Dominating.
I would strangle someone for a 10-15 minute DPS queue.
I have sat in the queue for an HOUR for my mage. I’d forgotten I was on the list, until it popped up and scared me.
Yeah i know i have waited literally for an hour and 41 minutes for a que. life sucks when it comes to Qing as a DPS
So what happens when a majority of dps use your system? those that dont will get longer queues. Good thing my pally is prot / holy so i will never have to deal with that issue once it pops up.
Well, Red, although quite a few people read DYS, I don’t think you have to worry about 5 or 6 million folks beginning to do this all at once. And that’s the nice thing about DYS, we’re big enough to find, but not so big that we can upset the apple cart. In other words, it’s insider information that can still stay pretty inside. Unless you’re trying to work the ah on Fenris – way too many people with the gold guide there lolz.
just a footnote, but I have found that this way of leveling also works for doing battle grounds instead of random dungeons. I always wanted to try a rogue and tried this method and have leveled up quicker than any of my other toons. I have 6 lvl 80s (I know that’s sad) and this method has worked out best for me and has given me some pvp experience. I wanted to ask you if you guys have thought about doing a pvp guide? I tried out the “PVP Bible” but it seems to be outdated. I am finally coming around to get into pvp but I feel a little (or a lot) out of my league and was thinking of how you guys have helped so much in the past. Would really like to see a pvp starter guide from you. I know that is a little hard to try to explain, being how it is so much a part of how you play, but if anybody can do it, I really think you guys could cut into that market, there is so little out there, at least as far as I can find. Just thought I would mention that to you guys. Keep up the great work!
What do you mean by bail? Leave group, or go offline and get voted out?
Leaving group leaves you with a nasty debuff that prevents you from helping anyone else soon again – and going offline disrupts gameplay for the one helping…
Anyhow, I think the effect is going to be quite small, since it is inconvenient for the helping tank.
Flyhard,
Get a friend who is a tank to queue as party with you. Then, when you get into the dungeon, the tank friend leaves group. This leaves you and the other 3 in the instance with no tank. It appears dungeon finder will stick the next available tank in your group, significantly shortening your wait time (you can even teleport out of the dungeon and do other things while waiting for a replacement tank, then teleport back in when the new tank joins).
Yes, your tank friend will get that debuff – but the idea here is that he didn’t want to do randoms with you in the first place… if he did, then he could just not drop. If the tank’s not planning on doing randoms, then the debuff has no significance to him.
I’m really very surprised such normally responsible players would suggest this. This seems more of an exploit than a trick and I think if it happens in any kind of significant number Blizzard will either fix it or punish you for it. Each time you do this you are subjecting everyone else in the queue to longer wait times (except the tanks). It obviously would work, so does cutting in line at the bank, although we all know how people feel about that. The fact that you are somewhat anonymous online doesn’t make it any better you’re still effictively cheating. I’m kind of surprised you would write this up as a legitimate strategy. Sending junk to random players requiring COD payments would work sometimes too, I don’t think you would suggest we start doing that.
Apparently you haven’t read our posts about such cut-throat tactics as cornering markets on the AH and otherwise causing great havoc and profit in a wide variety of ways. So I guess you could say – no, we’re not really “responsible” players after all.
We are only responsible for winning. Sometimes that means beating people. If you like 20 minute waits, by all means do it your way. If you don’t like the idea of maximizing profits because of some weird idea about what is fair – I don’t know what to say.
In every system there are rules: life, games, whatever. Within each of those sets of rules there are gray areas. When we fill out our tax returns there is an entire industry of highly trained professionals there to help us avoid paying as much tax as legally possible or to get as big a tax return as possible.
We are the accountants of WoW. We are showing people how to make the most gold, get the most enjoyment and spend the least amount of time doing really stupid things like wait around in line.
So to your point about cutting in line at the bank – I just happen to have a friend who is a teller who will open up a new window for me every time I go in there. I didn’t push some old lady out of the way, I just have help. I have a tank, I can Q with it, it’s within the rules, and I will work this system just as hard as I will any other system.
Blizzard already changed the rules on this one – from a 15 minute debuff to 30 minutes. Doing it even longer would really be a strain on the whole thing, so I doubt that’s going to happen.
But sit there and whine all you like while those of us who don’t see anything wrong with tweaking a system get more done in far less time.
Lawbringer,
If that were the case then the article also left out the part about rolling “need” on all the articles in the dungeon. It may not seem right, but it will get you more gold. However, that was left out because we all know that, even though everyone can do it, it is not an ethical move. Just because we can, does not always mean we should.
Cornering the market at the AH only hurts the other players that choose to be hurt, they choose their sell/buy prices. This move hurts other players indiscriminatly, forcing them to wait longer because you feel your time is more important than theirs. The reference about income taxes is irrelevant becuase people are not trying to “avoid paying” their taxes, rather they are trying to minimize the amount they overpay to the Government.
This “trick” may not be against the rules, but is it ethical?
This big project must really be distracting you if you only thought of this so late after the LFG/LFD tool came in. On a wewbsite that is supposed to be about making gold easy, I am surprised you did not take this “original” idea further and suggest tanks charge for a quick queue (whether they stay or leave)…
Been using this technique since the dungeon tool came out
works great seeing as I hate tanking and 99% of the time a DPS isnt needed on its own
This occurred to me, I run two accounts and I have a tank on one of them, but I have never used it because it is deeply unfair. I hope Blizzard comes down hard on people who do this.
Life’s not fair, Phil. This website is about DOMINATING, not making sure everything is fair for everyone.
Okay, I am all about fair play, but not sure what is wrong with a tank turning a profit for a long debuff….just seems like using the system to make a couple gold, isn’t that what DYS is all about? I see it as the same as selling your transmute, it is a service that one can help another with their game play. Can’t see that it would become that big of an issue(tanks standing on every corner offering their queue) or the market would drop to a few gold a pop. My wife and I had figured this out while leveling one of her alts, we had two dps at the same lvl(high 70s), and it took 39 minutes to get into a random. So I decided to flip to my raid tank, and we got greeted with nasty comments from the other pugs about how she ‘couldn’t’ run without an 80 tank….Point, there is enough crap in the game, that anything(being within the rules) that assists one through the wow world should be embraced as simply working the system to your benefit.
this is G E N I U S ! ! !
my wife and i both have tanks.. 2 dps and a healer each. i tend to do most of the dungeons on the 2 accounts and this will save me no end of time… 2 mins each on 4 dps.. .5 mins each on 2 heals… and insta on tanks… well this is just good business
then at the end of the dungeon there is a good chance my tanks debuff will have worn off so i can do it all over again
THANK YOU GUYS!!! now maybe i can achieve something in game with the time left over..
20 mins each^^^^^^
Guys I think you are missing the point here! This is not about charging gold to queue faster as the time you save by using this method can be used in other areas, like doing your dailies. Its about DYS providing us with information to make our game life more enjoyable and easier so that we can dominate in area’s some of us have not.
If you think this is not fair thats fine, but dont go wishing missfortune upon others becasue they choose to a short cut. Gaming is all about the short cuts, the quickest way to get gold, the fastest way to kill a mob, the easiest way to get from one area to another, the smartest way to level a trade. So cut these guys a bit of a break they are only providing you with information how you use that information is completely up to you.
I’m not sure you understood the post there Fly. If you are using an alt tank to do this, the debuff doesn’t matter. If you get a friend to do it for you and he doesn’t really want to run the heroics or randoms with you, the debuff doesn’t matter. If they want to run randoms they will just tank for you and it doesn’t matter. So basically what you’re talking about has an effect that is quite small – unless that’s what you’re saying, but I can’t quite tell.
Well, with the deserter debuff you would only be able to do this about twice an hour or so, so it wouldn’t even rival selling portals which don’t have a cooldown. Overall if you really wanted to make some dough you would be better off just doing the randoms and getting the 13 gold plus loot. I doubt you could charge more than 5 or 10 gold a pop for something like that. Besides, it would mean hanging out in trade and spamming for it – blech.
Actually, this trick has been known on my server for a while, and alot of tanks now advertise to join and leave in trade chat to speed you on your way for about 30-50 gold a shot. Yea, expensive, but, there are a ton of dps now who will pay it, just to get into a run faster, much faster than waiting, as our average times are 15-21 minutes a wait in queue.
As for it not being fair? Well, if Blizzard had an issue with it, they would have blocked it by now, that they are turning a blind eye to it, means they don’t mind it, since it isn’t really cheating, it’s using the set rules they put in place to your advantage, and not really abusing any of their programming.
I like the DYS messages I get, some don’t follow through enough for my tastes (rarely), but, overall, very well done, and this one is no exception, at least they are letting you know it is available, whether you use it, is entirely up to you.
As they say, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Just because you have a gun, doesn’t mean you will kill people, just as having this knowledge doesn’t mean you have to use it, but, at least now you know it!
This article is full of WIN. The only issue I have with it is that I dualbox with mymy two accounts, so I can 2 account dps it if I get a friend Tank to help. Espically if said friend is going to log off his tank and log onto another toon. But if I want to dual box it and try it with my tank, the minute I add a another person to my party (my 2nd dps), won’t that drop me out of the queue?
I have to agree with Law on this one. For those who get pushed back further and have to wait longer because of this, yeah it sucks. However each of us gets the opportunity to choose if we want to wait or have a fast que. I have been reading DYS since shortly after it came out and have always been grateful for the tips. The point of DYS is to help the few of us who tune in to literally dominate our servers in every aspect of the game.
This tactic is one more way for us to become smarter than the average player. In my honest opinion if people have a problem with making things easier for themselves in game at the expense of others who are less informed, then maybe you should unsubscribe and quit wasting everyones time.
Side note – I don’t post comments on here often but wanted to say thank you to Gavin and the guys at DYS. Some of the coolest things I know about WoW that make me stand out from the crowd were taken from your website.
My main is a tank; I hardly ever queue up as dps. Even so, I think this is an incredibly impolite thing to do. It’s one thing to compete in the AH, or in pvp, or in raids, or even for raid slots and gear, because those are all places where competition is expected, if not appreciated. But when you take a part of the game that is specially designed to give people the expectation that everyone is getting equal terms, it’s just poor sportsmanship to abuse it.
Yes, you can do it, and profit by it, but doing so officially makes you a grade A jerkoff.
Perhaps Blizzard will announce their upcoming “next generation” MMORPG soon…
World of Politecraft
It’s an epic world of etiquette where you level up by helping old ladies across the street, and by picking up pieces of trash from the ground that other people left there, without anyone asking you to!
My understanding is that end-game raids involve you walking down the street while a never-ending stream of ladies walk past you… you have to cast “hat tip” and say “good evening ma’am!” in rapid succession, and you lose health for each lady you miss.
There’s no auction house per se, instead there is a central marketplace where everyone just gives everyone else whatever they need, out of kindness.
I’m hoping I’ll get a beta slot…
Gavin,
Congratulations, both sarcastic and off the mark. Your entire description went to sarcastically satire what carrion stated as competition being expected or appreciated. You never addressed the “sportsmanship” or ethics (as I prefer to state it) aspect of the arguement, which was the point of the post.
Most of your articles attempt to help the reader become a better player. This one does not make the person a better player, and definately does not make the player a better person.
You can cut the corner faster if you pretend you are a tank, and you are not. All the group will be pissed off, but so what, they may not be able to kick you out for some time, enough to finish the dung due to overgear.
Disgusting. Same as tank mercenaries. Or tank leavers.
Why would you need this 2 frosties if you are so clever anyway ?
Another thing to realize with your suggestion is that the Q’n toon don’t even have to be a tank. you could probably use a holy/ret pally to Q u up too. All they would have to do is click tank and then leave after wards. Druid, dk’s and warriors could all do the same thing even if they don’t have a tank spec. Good to know guys.
Another thing that helps the que is gear, the better your gear the faster you que, I have a rogue main so this is something I know well. I have seen a ton of other dpser’s do this, if the get epic gear they can wear they use the equipment manager and make a que set, swap once they get the run. I do this. I have some epic cloths and druid gear and swap back to my “kill everything” rogue leather, usually my wait time is 3-5 minutes at the max. Item level does help a lot. Just adding in my own observations. Thanks for the tip guys and gals.