5%, 15% and 80%: The Random Player Breakdown

I came up with this numbers about the types of players in randoms using no scientific method, just observation without notes and a complete guess.  I came up with them in a response in one of my posts to something someone else said about bad players.

I would like to see how you see the player breakdown.  Admittedly there are many more types of players but I decided to break them down into three groups.  The good (5%), the capable (15%) and everyone else (80%).

These assessments are for the players we see in randoms and how I would break them down.

The 5%:

These are the people that are either exceptional players or players that try their best to get better.  They do not need to be exceptional but they will at the very least try the absolute best they can to become as good as they can be.  They read, they study, they know.  They use the tools available to them to try and get the most out of their game play and do as good as they can do. 

They are the type of players that had the right spec and not just the cookie cutter spec because the sites said it was best.  They knew why that cookie cutter spec was the best and they knew when they needed to change it for just one fight.  They knew what to remove and what to take, even if it was for only one fight. 

They are the people that have addons that are just for their class or spec to help the perform better at what they do.  They don't just have the standard addons that might be considered normal for most.  They have other things that help.  They spend time working on their craft. 

Tanks that do not just tank the mob but use all their utility as well, they tank the mob and they try to get maximum DPS while doing everything else that is required of a tank.  They take pride in interrupting anything that can be cast.  They take pride in the little things like moving just enough to avoid a melee hit to help the healers, they use their cooldowns even if they don't need to because the more damage you can avoid the better the tank you are.

They are the healer that not only heals, they use the other tools healers have.  Interrupts, purges, and the such.  They are masters at positioning and even masters at aggro.  A good healer knows when healer aggro is generated and will make sure they do not grab stray mobs with it.  They also know that if something is running for them to run to the tank, or behind the hunter knowing that a good hunter can take care of any stray mob.  A good healer will not only know how to heal but how everyone in the group works and how they can use that to their advantage.  They will know which people are going to take what damage before the fight even begins based on the class and the fight mechanics and they have their healing priority set up before it is needed and not in panic mode when everyone starts to take damage because they knew it was coming.

A good damage dealer knows that it is not all about the DPS.  There is a lot more to be done.  A good damage dealer does not blame the tank if they get aggro, they blame themselves because they know they can throttle damage until the tank gets a full hold.  They know that they too have many tools at their disposal and can use them on the fly, they don't need to spend 5 minutes trying to find a rarely used ability when needed because they can tell you without even thinking that their tranquilizing shot is alt-6.  They know that mechanics mean more than DPS.  They will spend time on the dummies for hours on end working on how to get the most out of their class for those times when the DPS does matter more because there are no mechanics that will hinder you from doing everything you can.  They know that sometimes you save those cooldowns for a increased damage phase.

Those people are the 5%, those people are the rare ones.  They don't need to be the best players in the game, they might even appear to be extremely average on the surface but they are part of the 5%.  They are the rare few in the game.  The 5% could be people that are heroic world/server first type players or they could be part time players that never raid.  Your progress in game does not mean you are a 5% or not.  It is your approach to the game, your knowledge of the game and how hard you try to maximize your ability at it that makes you part of the 5%.

The 15%:

These people can span a large range just like the 5% can.  These are the people that might read a little.  They know their best spec because a site they trust said it was best even if they do not understand why it is best.  Or they might even just wing it with whatever they think is best but the key is that they seem to do decently.  They might not always be great but they will always appear as if they are doing the best they can even if they could do better.

You will rarely see one of the 15% and say they suck but you might say they can do better.  That is a key to most 15% players, they do well enough to get most stuff done as well as they could.

These people will often enter a dungeon or raid and have no idea what to expect but they are fast learners and if they wipe once or twice they can pick up on what went wrong and make sure not to do it again.  They also have a fairly good memory and can easily pick out thing that look familiar and adapt from their past experiences with the same mechanics.

Sometimes this can make the 15% player appear to actually be a much better player because they can see something for the first time and do well at it.  It is not so much a skill issue, they are just not idiots and know the basic mechanics.

The average player will fall into this category usually.  They do not read the forums and surely do not read blogs like this one.  They might, at the most, have checked out some top spec sites from google and ended up somewhere like elitist jerks or noxxic and they will have it bookmarked for reference but that is about as far as their research usually goes.

They will be gemmed and enchanted correctly and might even be reforged but they will not be what you would call the ideal example.  Where a 5%er might put a +50 intellect gem in a blue slot the 15% will be more likely to put a +25 intellect / +25 hit because it matches the slot.  They show they know what they are doing, but they do not do it to the same high level someone else might.

These are usually good players, and they might even be heroic raiders and do well at at, but they are not great players.  They might have their moments but they do not sweat the little things like a 5%er would.

They have the basic addons that everyone should have but they will most likely never have the small name ones.  Big name ones they will find with the limited research or just from hearing the names mentioned all the time but a 15% mage will not have combustion helper, a 15% rogue would not have slice admiral, you get the idea.  Those addons are for people that put in the extra effort because even if they do not use them they at least put in the effort to find them to see if they would help.  That is not really a trait of most 15%ers.

When you see someone in a random that seems to have an idea what they are doing but they have crappy gear or weird enchants, but do well, it is most likely a 15%er or a 5%er on an alt.  Most 5%ers would appear to be 15%ers when on alts.  It is hard to tell however, because like I said, the 15%er are what most people would consider the average player.

You can easily do random content with the 15%ers, they are competent players they are just not as well versed as the 5%ers.  Hence the reason we call them average players but looking at the numbers, the fact they are the 15%ers, they are not actually average, they are well above average.  The concept of them being average comes for them being average competent players, not actually average players.

The 80%:

This is where everyone else fits.  This is the majority of the player base.  The 80% includes a wide variety of players.  It includes all the PvPers.  They might be the 5% of the PvPers, they could be amazing at what they do, but they are not PvEers.  They might even do well in some cases in randoms but they are still part of the 80%.  Remember the numbers we heard from blizzard said that nearly 30% of the player base is PvPers mainly, if we can believe that number, which I do.

The other 50% of the 80% can range from decent players to horrible players.  It could include people that used to be good but just don't care any more.  It could include people that play to annoy others, that is how they have their fun.  A wide range of people exist in the 80% and while you can do randoms with them most of the time you would rather not.

Many of the 80% will never enter a fight knowing what to expect.  They figure everything is tank and spank, the idea of mechanics is completely foreign to them even if they noticed that every fight seems to have them they just ignore them.  You see this a lot in LFR from people that think they are good.  5%er and 15%ers know which mechanics you can ignore in random content, 80% think you can ignore them all.

Many of the 80% will not even have the most basic of basic addons like deadly boss mods but it is quite possible they have recount and will spam it after every single fight.  Sometimes even during a fight if they had some high burst at the start and want to show how incredible they are.

Many of the 80% have never read the forums and never will.  They would have no idea where to even find them.  They never once thought to google a question, if the people in the guild do not answer them when they ask in guild chat they just figure no one knows and forget about it.

These people, that 80%, are the reason we no longer have spec choices like we used to.  There were too many of them running around with sub optional specs that blizzard decided to take the option away and give everyone the perfect spec.  Doesn't mean it will help most of them.  You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

It could include people that think they are good and everyone else is bad and it usually does.  If the tank dies because they are wearing PvP gear with no avoidance and has no idea what a cooldown is and then blames the healer, the tank is part of the 80%.  If a damage dealer with a 400 item level goes off on a mob when the tank is barely capable of being in the dungeon with a 330 item level and gets aggro and then blames the tank, the damage dealer is part of the 80%.  Usually anyone that blames someone else for something they could have fixed themselves is part of the 80%.  It is a safe bet to say if anyone ever complains about someone else in a way like the above examples that they are a sure part of the 80%, yes, even if they have heroic kills, they can still be part of the 80% because as I said before progress does not dictate which percentage someone fits in.

Many of the people in the 80% are just there to have fun.  They want to go in, hit a few buttons, kill some internet dragons and go about their day doing whatever else they have planned.  They do not look for challenge, they do not look for achievements or accolades, they just want to play and have some fun and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that even if I view fun a different way because I can understand that.  It is all fine and dandy to want to play just for tun except for one thing, blizzard did not design randoms to be just for fun, they designed them for people to work as a group and if you get to many 80%ers in one group it could make the random impossible. 

That is why they are the 80%.  Because randoms were not designed for them, but they should have been.  Blizzard designed the random content for the 5%ers and somewhat for the 15%ers.  Some could still give 15%ers problems, even more so at gear level.

Not saying you can not do random content with 80%ers, you can.  It is just not always fun and rarely smooth.  You can do the content with them but would you really want to?

In the end, in randoms, I would say that 80% of the players are the bad players, the just for fun players, the player vs player players and the assorted grief as their fun player types.


With that said I have three questions.

What break down would you have for the randoms using the concepts I outlined?
5% = The Good, 15% = The Capable, 80% = Everyone Else

Being the 80% are the majority, shouldn't the content be designed for them instead of us?

Don't you think that the new talent systems seem more like they were designed for the 5% and 15% instead of the 80% like they said they were being designed for?