Wednesday, May 1, 2013

I Can Do 38K on my Hunter

Yeap.  I am not kidding.  I can do 38K on my hunter and I know you are jealous.

If you would like I can clue you in on my ultra leetness.  It is actually not too hard if you follow these very complex instructions to the letter.

Step one:  Right click target to auto shoot.

That is it.  Think you can be that awesome?

I remember back when we first downed Ultraxion I did 38K and was excited.  I think at that point it was my best DPS performance ever on a non damage buff fight.  Of course later on as I got some more gear I did eclipse that.  However, that was when 38K used to be considered good, for me in my mind at least.  38K was good in DS, before you were fully geared up and before the debuffs and heroic gear were added to the equation.

I was doing the LFR with some guild mates when someone asked a question and I said, let me look it up, I have the site bookmarked.  So I was just right clicking on the target and tabbing out while we were clearing trash.  I was doing 38K just auto shooting.  Wow, how things have changed in one expansion.  Less than one expansion really.  The end of one to the middle of another really.  Two thirds of an expansion if you will.

Not sure why that 38K stands out in my mind.  Probably because Ultraxion is as close to a patch work fight you can have and that is one of the few fights you can really work on a true DPS effort without any buffs or debuffs, just some timing of cool downs was all that was needed.  Something that in my mind is crucial to being a good damage dealer.  Knowing when you use your cool downs in an effort to maximize what you get from them.

After three trash packs, one of which I only did 33K on, my auto shot leetness does have its moments of failure it seems, I came back to playing and we joked how I finished no lower than 10th in damage done on any of the three pulls that all I did was auto shoot on.

This brings me to a real question.  Not one trying to be insulting at all, not in the slightest.

How do people do so badly?

I've always said that being a damage dealer can be really hard if you want to get the most out of it.  But we are not talking getting the most out of it here.  We are talking about beating someone that is not even in the game at the moment and nearly half the damage dealers could not beat me while I was tabbed out.  I do not have great gear, nothing that anyone can not get.  Once again I have been stuck in the position of tanking and not DPSing in our guild raids and the few runs I did do on my hunter I lost every roll.  Oh well, I am used to it.  But the fact is, anyone can be in the same gear I am in.  So I am not geared with anything special.

There had been a lot of changes since the end of last expansion.  But apparently doing 38K has not changed much.  It was doing decently in DS before you were geared up, and if seeing the numbers in the LFR show anything, it is still doing decently for people 100+ item levels over those that we had in DS back when doing 38K was decent.

I should have been dead last.  I was tabbed out.  Yet I was middle of the pack.

Is this really how the middle of the pack players play?  I guess I am spoiled.   I guess I really am as out of touch with the actual player base as blizzard seems to be because personally I think 38K is horrible but the masses consider it just fine.

It was just fine, last expansion.

31 comments:

  1. I am curious as to what "I do not have great gear, nothing that anyone can not get." means.

    What is your current iLevel and what weapon are currently using? It would be nice to do some tests on the Autoshot.

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    1. Agree - I'm a fairly casual hunter, sitting on ilvl 498, and doing ~60-70k sustained dps in LFR (from a high of ~120-140k dps at pull), and my autoshot only does ~17k dps on a target dummy with self buffs

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    2. @ Bob - It means not one single piece from a real raid setting. Valor, LFR or crafted only.

      502 weapon off the maze of death boss. 510 over all.

      @ Anon - Also remember, it was in a raid so I had all available raid buffs. Which do up your damage done considerably. So testing on a dummy and in a raid will offer two completely different results.

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    3. 510 ilvl is higher than most people that only run lfr. You either have some normal drops in there that you are forgetting or you've been very lucky with lfr drops.

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    4. No normal mode drops. No extreme luck either. Heck, very luck and me do not go in the same sentence, they are not even in the same language.

      This is the first tier since ulduar where I got a weapon before the tier was almost over, so no, no luck involved.

      It is all the valor gear. The same exact gear every single person can get. The only thing that might seem extra is I got the 522 boots crafted because they were a massive upgrade. Otherwise, it is all valor gear and a couple of 502 drops. 510 is not a high item level.

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    5. I am only at 508 and I have gotten lucky with 5/5 lfr tier, all the valor pieces I need except the exalted SPA shoulders because I'm not exalted yet, and every other 502 drop except boots. Everything is 502 or higher except boots still at 483 and my overall is still 508. My other toons that I also run lfr on every week haven't been as lucky and are barely over 500. So 510 is still high for an LFR only player at this point in the patch.

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  2. Makes me wonder how many people are qualifying for LFR by the gear in their bags, is what it does. (That still works, right?)

    I mean, I quite definitely suck and I will be at about 55k DPS in LFR while half-assing my rotation and chatting to someone in RL.

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    1. I think it still works, at least it did at the start of the expansion which I used it on a few alts to cheese my way into them. But I at least pulled my weight or so I would like to believe.

      55K is quite good in the LFR actually. I have been in many kills in the previous ones (not ToT) where only one person at best was over 50K.

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    2. sickening part is, my gear is pretty dire. i495, no set bonuses, no current tier gear apart from a normal-mode weapon and I can get in to the top 10 DPS in LFR purely doing autoshot as SV.

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    3. That is sad. But it is the state of the game.

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    4. It definitely still works. I got my mage into MSV LFR just by making some crafted gear and not actually equiping any of it, and using boa gear. You can still "borrow" valor point items too just to queue. As soon as you hit queue you can sell it back. A lot of people get in with PVP gear, and a lot get in with gear from other specs. Had a tank in ToT last night in mostly 463 heroic gear because he queued with pvp and dps gear. So there are definitely a lot of people that are actually undergeared considerably getting into raids they shouldn't.

      That said there was also a warrior last night who had great luck with gear. Had won two 522 ilvl tier pieces from world bosses, already was 5/5 new tier, lots of the 522 valor pieces, and was 502 or higher in almost every slot. He way outgeared almost everyone in the raid and yet he was 18th on dps. After the fight he was asking in raid how he'd done, thinking he'd done well during it.

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    5. That is the new raiding model of blizzard.

      Luck > Skill.

      It might be wrong of me to say it but I sure feel it sometimes that the people that do the least get the most. It almost makes you want to not try.

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  3. I'm not in the bottom half, but I'm also not in the top 1 or 2 slots. My hunter has an iLvl of 474 and doesn't do 38k on autoshoot. The target dummy is not the best comparison, you don't have all of the buffs you have in a raid, although they still shouldn't double the damage.

    I read icy veins, noxxic and others to learn the best rotations and they've improved me immensely. Gemming and enchanting up also help immensely, I noticed a 10k jump when I went from none to all.

    Still, you say you hit 100k with an iLvl of 480 something. My main, a feral druid, is around the same iLvl and I only hit 100k on AoE damage, with 4+ targets, and only 70-80k on regular one on one boss fights.

    I'm assuming I'm using nearly the best series of actions, but I'm not as effective. I think its because I don't necessarily use my CDs as effectively as I could and that I probably make some mistakes in timing and sequence that a better players doesn't.

    I used an addon for elemental shamans called elementarist, it literally shows you the best spell to use at any moment in time. With the slightly more optimal sequencing of actions I've noticed a significant increase in my DPS output. It's amazing what a small tweak to the rotation as well as a sightly better realization as to when certain things are coming off CD makes in my DPS.

    One of the suggestions on icy veins for arcane mages to best use that power that lets them go back in state 6 seconds, goes something like, "use it when you have 4 arcane charges and mana greater than X%, use it only with Y power activated, which should be activated right before it for maximum effect, right after it's activated use Z and W powers followed by your normal rotation. Then, *before the 6 second duration is over* use V power." Or something similarly complex and detailed, you get the idea.

    I emphasized that one point to indicate that for me, by the time I've done all of the "must use" powers during its duration, the duration is over, I've not been able to do "my normal rotation". I have no idea how people can use that many powers in such a short period of time.

    Also, *who the hell* designed a power that needs to be used like that to benefit from it. It's worse than the entire technical description in Taiwanese for how to assemble your new flat-pack furniture.

    And this seems normal for the theorycrafters.

    I can guarantee you I am unable to do things that precisely in that order in that small a period of time. Maybe there are better HUDs that show all of the CDs for all of those powers so I could may, possibly get close.

    I think that a lot goes into doing so poorly.

    They don't know the optimal sequence for their powers, they may not even know of certain powers that are mandatory for best performance. They don't have their equipment fully and optimally gemmed and enchanted. They can't juggle 10 different ideas all ticking down in their head at once. They don't use DBM so they don't receive warnings of important things to watch out for or not do. And on and on.

    .

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    1. (Had to split this, blogspot didn't like the length :D

      The people are not raiders, they don't go over all of this stuff day and night. They don't have the time, gold, knowledge, or inclination to use the best addons or the best websites to learn rotations. I didn't know those things existed for the first 1.5 years I played WoW. And they also don't have guildmates to go over their items, gems, enchants, etc and help them optimize. If they did, they'd be regular raiding.

      I think Blizz and players like you vastly overestimate the knowledge level and skill of the average player. You do this stuff as natural as you breath, the rest of us cobble it together the hard way. And there are lots of people less intent on being better than I am.

      Raids are for people who like raiding and doing all of that. I kinda sorta do at times, but don't have the talent to fully implement it.

      And Blizz's only option for them to get equipment with the VP they earn all the time, is to raid, which they are eminently not suited to do.

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    2. To do 100K at 480 you need a few things. Most important being a favorable fight. Pre potting does wonders and for BM, yes, buffs do actually mean that much. Believe it or not my BM burst can different by 100K depending on if I am raid buff or no buffed.

      I can pull 140K on opening burst on the dummy in BM but with a pre pot and full buffs I can break 240K most times and if I get a lucky streak I might even peak as high as 300K. That is in 500 gear however.

      But that explains how you can do 100K. If the fight is short enough your burst does not fall as much as it would in a longer fight. So 100K is not only attainable but something to aim for as your top number in best case scenarios.

      In 470 gear 70K-80K that you say you are doing is fantastic. I am sure you can do 100K in the right situation if you can do 80K normally.

      Using CDs effectively is also huge. I did the first fight in ToT on my rogue two times with the game gear. Did 102K the first time but the second time when I lined my CDs up better I did 122K. So yes, they can make a big difference, so much so it was worth a 20% increase in my rogues DPS.

      I have not been able to figure that one out on my mage either. I can;t fit in everything in those 6 seconds. I guess it is a matter of practice. Something like that reads like stereo instructions. I am quite amazed any one can figure it out sometimes.

      Blizzard might over estimate the players. I do not. I've often said here that the LFR is too hard for the average player. The average player does not have DBMs, the average player might not be gemmed or enchanted or reforged. The average player will not know the mechanics before entering a fight and even after seeing it might not recall it immediately the second time doing it. The average wow player is NOT a raider.

      Blizzard might over estimate their player base. I do not. I have absolutely no faith in the average warcraft player base to ever be capable of handling things like the current LFRs and if blizzard continues to force people that do not want to raid or do not care to know how to raid into raids I might as well quit.

      Forcing people into doing something they do not want to do is not good for the person and not good for the people they are forced upon.

      I am with you that blizzard grossly over estimates their player base. They have for a long time and they will just never get it. The average wow player just wants to log on for a little bit and have some fun. LFR is not fun.

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    3. Tiessa, that level of optimization of rotation is more for world first type raiders, not a typical, good quality raider. The rest of us have various limitations - limited numbers of useable hotkeys (my personal issue, I've never been able to work with modifiers so I have a grand total of 11 rotational hotkeys I can reliably hit), high latency due to a bad connection or a low-power PC, etc... all you can do is the best you can within your own limitations. Learn what yours are and do your best to work around them. :)

      (my hotkey issue results in me using a lot of macros for cooldowns that are off the GCD... having to find and click a button with the mouse usually slows me down enough that it's less optimal than just using a macro... failing that, I macro cooldowns to other cooldowns)

      As a general comment, I'm going to make a suggestion on what acceptable dps numbers are for certain iLvls on a non-gimmick fight for someone who's decent and paying attention - let's go with 3rd boss of MV, assuming you don't go into the shadow world or spend half the fight hitting CDs or healing yourself because the healers are crap. Curious what others have found on their toons at similar gear levels. The large spread is mostly to reflect different weapon levels, having a better weapon should push you closer to the higher range, worse weapon, lower.

      i460 - 40K-60K
      i470 - 50K-70K
      i480 - 60K-80K
      i490 - 70K-90K
      i500 - 80K-100K
      i510 - 90K-110K

      I've found that my toons generally fall into these ranges on a fight like that in LFR. I haven't had a toon do over 80K in i480 gear on a non-gimmick fight that I can recall, 70K seems more typical, my hunter caps out at about 72K in i482 gear (i476 weapon), for example.

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    4. See, another person that agrees. Your 80K is doing fantastic. Do not think you are not doing well. If anything you are well ahead of the pack.

      I would say your numbers are nearly dead on balls accurate for a solid good player to aim for. Sure you can get more with the extras, like you mentioned, pre pots, hot keys, good computers, etc. But I think that is about where you should be.

      Think a little less for heavy movement fights, even as much as 20K less.

      And yes, in MV I think my average was in the 70K-80K range with my 463 weapon. When I got a better weapon I bumped up to about 85K but that was toward the end when I got the one of normal MV.

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  4. One more quick point :D

    Think of it this way, they come home from work, eat dinner, put the kids to bed and log onto WoW a couple of times a week to relax. Blizz says they should raid, so they do. Now, this person hasn't spent the time reading up on how to best play their character, they haven't spent the time to gem/enchant, etc. They don't even know addons exist nor how to install them.

    They join the raid, they do as best as they can because they don't know the fight. If the boss goes down, they feel great because they helped. If they wipe, they don't think its them because they tried their hardest, if you try hard, you must be doing reasonably well, right?

    And here's the important point:

    Since they don't use addons, they don't use recount and *don't know they suck.* So, they don't even try to improve.

    There's no ABCs of raiding and playing your character in the game client itself and that's all they think they need.

    I'm surprised any LFR succeeds.

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    1. Actually I do not mind someone that tries their hardest and does not do well. Never have and never will. People like that are asset to the game and have the potential to be better if only someone would tell them how to be better.

      What bothers me is people that do not even try.

      I am with you 100%, you are preaching to the choir here. I have said everything you said here dozens of times on this very blog.

      LFR should be designed for people without add ons, without gems, without enchantments, without advanced skills, without a lightning fast computer that can keep up with heavy graphics and without any true pressure on them.

      The LFR should be designed to be fun.

      While it is true that if I went with my guild and did it we would blow through it without batting an eye lash. But we are raiders, and we are NOT who the LFR is made for. It is supposed to be easy for us.

      More importantly, and where blizzards error is, the LFR is supposed to be that easy for non raiders.

      When 25 people that have never met, will not communicate and are playing just for fun and never downloaded an addon or looked up a fight can blow through them like my guild could, then the LFR would be good.

      I too am surprised that any LFR ever succeeds.

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    2. Weel, don' ye mean scenarios? ;}

      nah, ye 'new I am jokin'.

      ye wee loddie,

      roo

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  5. Couple of points form my side

    a) part is you class - I don't think there is any other class who can do ranged auto attacks, is there?
    b) in my experience there are always a few people in LFR who know what they are doing (plus some DBs who know what they are doing and simply want to show of their "skill"). Those are the main reason LFR succeeds. There are a couple of fights in ToT a pure random group would never ever manage.
    c) so overall I think Blizzards design falls short - and LFR only succeeds,, because people run it that - according to multiple blue posts - really are not expected to be there.
    d) Blizzard would need to include an individual feedback for DPS into the GUI - think of a traffic light, if your DPS is ok for you ilvl it shows green, below 66% it shows yellow and below 66% it should show red. At least you have an indicator how good you are doing, because without DPS tools there is no reason to start improving yourself.

    Rauxis, chosen of CAT

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    1. Nope, only hunters can and only hunters can do it on the move too.

      I think there are more than a couple a complete random group can handle. Actually, thinking about it just now, there are none that a complete random group of bad players can handle.

      I like that idea. It is like I always say, I try to be 80%, that is my aim. If I sim for 100K I try to be at least 80K, anything less and I consider myself doing poorly. But taking movement into account, connection into account, etc, I would say for the LFR a 50% should be the minimum. If it says you can do 100K can not even do 50K, you are no longer welcome to queue again.

      I agree however. If someone does not have any addons and the boss goes down, they think, I did well. They do not realize that it was that mage doing 224K at the top of the pack that was covering for the mage with the 425 item level doing 30K on the bottom. It was not you did good, it was you got carried but as you said, without being told that, they will never learn.

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  6. A mage, warlock,shadow priest, Balance Druid, and Elemental shaman cannot auto-attack to any level of effectiveness. Melee characters can auto-attack, but they are vulnerable to the slightest repositioning of mobs (assuming AFK auto-attacking). So, in a very real way, no rational comparison can be made. People do worse than your 38k auto-attack (which includes pet damage, I assume) because their damage is almost entirely dependent on actual button presses, which can lead to player inefficiencies even if they know exactly what their best rotation consists of.

    Hypothetically, let's say that a Frost mage can deal 38k DPS by spamming just Frostbolt over and over. If this Frost mage allows even a 0.1 second unnecessary gap in the rotation, his/her DPS drops to 34.2k. A 0.2 second gap drops them to 30.4k, a full 20% below your auto-attack. What a noob, right? If we assume this 38k DPS Frost mage is casting Frostbolt every 1.5 seconds, missing just a single Frostbolt somewhere in a 10 minute fight is a 95 DPS loss. Not that big a deal, right? Well, sure, but that mage pushed the right buttons 399 times out of 400 with no gaps whereas you pressed zero and are now questioning their intelligence.

    Alternatively, consider the same Frost mage dealing 90k DPS spamming Frostbolt. The 0.1 and 0.2 gap is 81k and 72k DPS respectively, and each missed Frostbolt is 225 DPS loss.

    None of this even touches on basic class differences (hunter strength vs mages, etc), relative gear levels, and if their stats are optimized. Hell, I would be surprised if more than 20% of the playerbase even had Recount or another such mod installed - a requirement from which all other DPS stems, given it's really impossible to know if you are performing poorly otherwise.

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    1. Very fair point. I can auto attack from range and do not ever need to move, not to mention fluffy will always do his fair share. Still I believe that if one person, even if easy for them to do, can auto attack their way over 30K that someone else in a 500 item level should be able to do better, even only pressing one button every few seconds. 30K is not much to ask is it?

      Funny part is when I was running yesterday there was a boomkin doing 5K in a random on a boss and he thought he did good because the boss went down so fast. Like it had nothing to do with the fact the mage did 220K and I dd 195K.

      As you say, without the tools, people will never learn. Perhaps if he had the tools he would not have been so happy that he is getting better because the boss went down so fast and realized that it had nothing to do with him.

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  7. I agree that a lot of the problem is that the game, in and of itself, gives so little guidance as to how to better one's skills. There's nothing in the standard interface to clue you in.

    And the bigger the group, the less likely one is to pick it up. In a 5-man, at least, one DPS player sucking is going to make it harder to win. In a 25-man LFR? Not much chance.

    I do think there's another class of player that LFR is good for, though; people like me. I simply can't devote the time to the game to be a real raider. It'd be hard for me to make even a single night per week of raiding; my work schedule and other distractions are too much for it.

    LFR is perfect for me. It means I get to do things that I would otherwise be excluded from because of ability to commit time, not ability in the game. It means that when I get a free night I can go in and queue for LFR and probably get to run a couple of 'em in the evening.

    I suspect players like me are also helping keep LFRs successful; we're not as geared or good as habitual raiders, but we're not utterly clueless either. I'd say that raiders fill the top 10-15% of LFR, but the rest of the top 50% or so are filled out by players like myself who can't commit to a raid schedule but do care about our results.

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    1. I would like to ask an honest question and get an honest answer.

      How is that working out for you? The LFR being for the raider without time to raid on a schedule?

      Personally I can not seeing it being very time friendly. I do know it was intended for that person but I do not see it. I have spent 4 hours in one LFR counting raid time. I do not even raid that much with my real raid group. In my opinion the LFR is anything but for the person that has little time. You need more time to complete the LFR each week then many raid teams raid a week.

      I would really like to know that honestly. I wonder as I just don't see how it can be useful for you at all.

      But, I see what you are saying. The part timer that can not commit to a schedule but has the skills to play are the ones that carry many of the people. You could very well be doing just as good as me if not better but you just do not have the time to raid.

      If anything, blizzard should thank you and perhaps let your voice be heard. Because if the LFR is ever a success or a failure it will not be because of the raiders or the non raiders. It will be because of the people that have the ability to raid, but just do not have the time too.

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    2. I'm in a similar situation. To me it's not as much about the amount of time, as it is the scheduling and the when. I'm similar in that I only raid LFR. Most raid groups run too late for me, and most have a set schedule of certain days. LFR allows me to queue up when I have time even if it's sunday morning, and I don't have to worry about which day of the week it is. I actually play more hours than most raiders probably do, it just seems that most raid groups are ending at like 1130 or midnight or later which I can't do. If I could find a guild that was like 7-10 two nights a week maybe I could raid for real again.

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    3. Sounds like you are looking for my guild. lol Those are our raid times, but we do 7:30-10. Actually, I am thinking for you it might be a server issue. Most guilds I have seen are 7-10 or 8-11 raid times. Perhaps, if it is an option for you, a server change to something in a different time zone might help fit a real raid in your schedule.

      Thanks, you answered my question perfectly and in a way I did not think of. I don't think there is any guild that raids 4 hours on an early sunday morning so if you are raiding then, it is perfect for you and working out well for you. Again, thanks.

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    4. What time zone are you? I'm already on an EST server and still the raids of all the guilds seem to run late. Started playing in 2005 and only ever seen one guild that stopped raids before 11pm and they don't exist anymore.

      The other problem with that is as you have noted in other comment threads it sucks having only one toon on a new server, and moving 10 toons just doesn't make sense financially. I wish Blizz would make it easier (cheaper) to move the army of alts that a lot of us have at this point in the product life cycle. I get that others transfer all the time and don't worry about the cost so blizz makes a lot of money off it, but I think there are a lot of people who have a lot of alts stuck on a server that isn't optimal for them because they don't want to pay to move everyone. This often leads to them being less happy with the game and more likely to leave.

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    5. I am EST as well, but my server is not. So out 10 end time is my 11 as I am in on the east coast.

      Yeah, that is exactly how it is. I would dread having to move all my characters but I have become so spoiled by the fact I can take care of myself 100% that I wouldn't want to play any other way.

      I would transfer all my characters if I could get the people in my guild to come with me. My server is dead basically. But nothing different from nearly ever other server in the game. At least from my inspection.

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    6. I was in a cross realm raid the other day and when the person invited me I was in the Shrine. I was so shocked at the number of people when I got pulled onto their server. The place was packed. A far cry from the few random people I normally see in the Shrine.

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