Patch 3.3 and My Experience With the Dungeon Finder Tool

In patch 3.3, Blizzard implemented an upgrade to the Looking for Group tool. It’s called Dungeon Finder and it allows you specify which dungeon you’re interested in, which role in the group you’d like to play, and matches you with others in the same battlegroup. Not only that, but players will receive bonuses in the way of gold, and extra emblems as encouragement to use the random dungeon feature.

I can’t overstate how huge this is for a player like me.

My Warcraft playing habits have been reduced to whenever both my two-year old and five-month old are sleeping. I don’t have time to pencil in 3 hours to raid on a set evening. My kids have no regard for my video game time, as well they shouldn’t. So, prior to 3.3, my gaming experience went something like this:

• Log in at 11pm and enter the LFG channel
• Do dailies or some battlegrounds until I found a group needing a healer
• Notice a group who needs a healer and dps for a dungeon that I’d like to do
• Whisper and get flack asking if I’m geared enough for a heroic (which I’ve been doing since 3 weeks after Wrath was released).
• Get an invite and see that the entire group is spread all over the map, with no signs of heading to the meeting stone.
• Sit around for another 30 minutes trying to find the last member of the group

It was too much work and I stopped PUGing altogether.

The Dungeon Finder solves all of those problems. In all three cases that I’ve used the tool, I’ve found a group within a minute. There’s no talking or haggling back and forth when forming the group. Just click “Ok” to enter the dungeon when prompted and you’re teleported into the instance with your party. Beautiful. No more sitting around for an hour hoping that a group needs a healer. No more waiting at the stone while players are shopping in Ironforge. And also, since it’s the only way for players to get their hands on the new Emblems of Frost without raiding, it gives incentive for good players to roll the dice.

Oh, and the party receives a buff called Luck of the Draw which increases some attributes by 5%, which serves as a handicap to offset the potential disadvantages of rolling the dice.

So far I’ve randomly been placed in heroic Utgarde Keep, Utgarde Pinnacle, and Old Kingdom. All three runs have been successful, netting me 16 Emblems of Triumph, and 6 Emblems of Frost.

The one negative result of the tool is, since good, well-geared players are using it, in two out of my three experiences, I’ve had a tank who is in a rush and who has no respect for the dungeon itself. I’ve said it before, tanks who get cocky and are in a rush, almost always cause unnecessary wipes which makes the run take longer than it should. Not only that, but there’s a social aspect that I enjoy when grouped with four strangers. Having a player bark “Go go go” “Mana up” “Hurry”, sort of takes away from the fun.

Last night I was grouped with a pally tank sporting around 42k health (with buffs) for heroic OK. As soon as we were ported into the instance, he ran ahead and started fighting. I was still buffing and eating. We wiped on the first boss because there were about 1,000 small spiders swarming me. The dps must have been ignoring the ‘guardian’, which allowed the spiders to accumulate out of control. The tank’s response: “Healz?”

What?

I threw on some PvP gear for extra stamina and the dps paid attention to the guardian so we downed him easily on the next attempt. But the entire run was a rush. Occasionally he’d bark at the dps to “pick it up”. Or he’d yell, in caps, “HUG THE WALL”. Again, this didn’t ruin the run but it did take away from the experience. Also, it is the first time I’ve witnessed a tank yell OOM in the middle of a fight.

Overall I’m very happy with the new Dungeon Finder tool and will make it a point to use it nightly, since I can log in, find a party, and be inside the instance within 3 minutes.