Thursday, June 27, 2013

You Have No Business Being a Damage Dealer in ToT If...

I've been assessing my damage dealers in the 25 man as we are still trying to figure out who our remaining regulars will be.  We have 7 open spots and about 5 spots on the hub, where they are okay but they can easily be replaced.  That is nearly half the raid team.

Over all our tanking situation is okay for the most part as is the healing.  Only one of the healers is on my watch list as possibly being replaced and a second has their highs and lows and I am hoping they can smooth it out.  Our main issue is with the damage dealers.  With 2 tanks and 6 healers that means we have 17 damage dealers.  11 of those 12 spots I mentioned being an issue are the damage dealer ones.

There is a joke on my server that has been going around for a while this raid patch.  We are the only server were damage dealers think 50K DPS is good.  It is a joke that is not funny because it is true.

I will give those people on my "might be removed" list one little bit of a compliment however.  They all know how to move from the crap and when to stack when I say to and what to stack for.  But even if you are ace at mechanics if you are not doing your fair share in the damage dealing department you are going to be holding the group back.  While I would choose someone doing 50K that moves from stuff over someone doing 80K that doesn't move from stuff if the fight needs 80K I would rather 80K that moves from stuff over either of those options.

We are getting three deep each week easily now but if we want to get them done faster to get more attempts at the forth or even get the forth down, we will need some people to step it up.  Those people are for all the damage dealers.

So to put it simply, assuming they know mechanics and it is just a DPS issue, you have no business being a damage dealer in ToT if you can not pull at least 80K at a 500 item level.  I feel that is being generous.

Just look at the DPS requirements for the bosses in ToT, I believe icy veins has a nice list of them for all bosses.  They look something like this, 83K, 87K, 89K.  Do you notice a trend there?  None of those numbers is under 80K.  Actually every single requirement is over 80K.  All I ask for is 80K.

I do understand that some people I drag in at a lower item level to test them out and see what they can do.  I judge them based on the gear their have.  Like seeing a lock do nearly 70K when he was at a 463 item level.  He moved from the stuff, had everything gemmed and enchanted, had the right reforges and he followed mechanics.  So while he was doing less than 80K I really don't care.  I knew when he gets gear he will be just fine if what I saw was really how he played and not some fluke.

My issue is with that joke about my server.  We are the only server where 50K is considered good.  I had a mage finish horridon last night with 56K, I point him out because he is becoming a problem and I will soon be showing him the door, more on that later.  The damn dinosaur has a 200% buff.  Even if you were horrible throughout the entire fight doing 100K on that fight over all should be simple.  That mage, well, he was not the only one that did horrible, a few did and a few did worse.  We had a boomkin at 58K, a lock at 63K, a shadow priest at 55K, another lock at 54K and someone, don't remember who because I probably blocked it out to keep myself from raging, doing 36K.  Maybe it was a healer for all I remember, in that case, that was pretty good actually.

The thing that bothers me the most was that many of the main team have alts we would like to get some gear for.  Most of us need nothing from the first three bosses so we would like to bring them along.  But we can't.  I even had someone get upset last night when I asked him to switch to his main because we needed more DPS.  He said, and rightfully so, how come I need to switch, I am doing more than half the other people here.

He was, he will doing 80K on the doors, so surely if we had got to horridon he would have been topping 160K at least.  I said, the best way I could, they need to get better and that is not going to happen in one attempt but you already have better if you switch and that can happen in one attempt.

I also had two others switch from alts to mains to help out.  But at least both of them were doing fairly bad on their alts.  One on a hunter alt doing only 29K.  It made me want to cry.  I'll have to take that boy out and teach him that hunters don't do 29K.  It is just not supposed to happen.  The other was a 50 something DPS that switched to a 90 something DPS.  But still it was a move upwards.

It is unfair to him that he was on an alt that was doing the acceptable damage needed for the raid and was forced to switch because so many other people were doing so poorly. The others offered to switch freely, but I feel bad for him.  Felt even worse when the next two bosses dropped something that he could have used and because he was forced to switch to a character that needed nothing from there he didn't get a chance to get them for the alt he was gearing up.

In the end we had 6 people over 240K DPS and 6 people under 60K DPS when we downed horridon on the next try.  I knew we just needed a little more DPS and I was right.  So does that make me a brilliant raid leader?  Nope, it makes me a frustrated one.

How the hell do you do under 60K DPS on a damage buff fight?  Heck, how do you do under 60K in a 500 item level.  And back to what this post is titled.  I would believe any damage dealing class in the game should be able to pull over 60K on the dummies unbuffed in 500 gear, as least assuming they are not running around with a 450 weapon.  If they are, sucks to be you.  I've been there.

You have no business being a damage dealer in ToT if you can not even do 80K.

There are better players doing more in there.  Players capable of pulling at least 150K on every fight, more on the damage buff ones of course, and they do not mind covering for someone doing 80K.  Like I said, 83K or 87K is needed, so they will be glad to cover a little for people that are close, are at least 80K.  But it is unfair to make them cover for people doing 50K.  Can they do it?  Yes.  We have seen that the last few weeks.  Should they need to?  Absolutely not.

I ask for at least 80K at a 500 item level.  If you can not do that, get to a 510 item level or even a 520 item level and do your 80K.  Sure at 510 or 520 you should be doing a fair bit more, but at least be capable of doing the minimum we ask for even if your skill level means you need to over gear it to get to that minimum.  Just do it, I do not care how you do it. Meet the requirements.

We will have to continue carrying some people because we really have no option.  There are no other players out there to use.  Not in guild and not in trade.  Remember, on my server 50K is considered good.  But the added stress it puts on the other players is not fair.  As I said, we can do it, but why should we.

Gearing up someone that is worth gearing up is fine.  Carrying someone to some gear that will see that gear result in a payoff later on is how many casual guilds live.  It is what we have to do.  But carrying someone to gear that is showing no results makes the entire team weaker and make people feel used.

And on to that mage I mentioned, as the perfect example.  He was doing 50K or so when he joined the 25 man some six weeks ago at a low item level.  So he was worth some gear investment in.  He seemed to have some potential.  But 6 weeks later, 5 items won later, one of which was thunderforged, and some upgrades of his own along the way he went from his 470ish item level to a 510ish item level and he is still doing DPS in the 50s.  That is called using people.  That is called not trying.

We added new loot rules, as I mentioned in a previous post that I would be doing, to allow for more loot distribution so a few people do not win everything and we can spread the wealth.  Only downing three bosses is not horrible for a 25 man, it is still 18 possible pieces of loot.  Even if we are now to the point where some things are being disenchanted.

He won something off the first boss then rolled on the second boss for a healing trinket.  I ignored his roll.  A mage does not need a healing trinket even if it has over 1200 intellect and that would be an upgrade.  Sorry.  Not going to happen ever in my world and lets not make any mistake here, this is my raid so this is my world.

He got upset that he should have won it based on his roll but I did not give it to him.  Next up was a weapon, he rolled again, which is allowed with the new loot rules, but if someone else that did not win anything rolls, your roll gets put aside.  And someone, a few someones actually, rolled for it.  So the highest roll won it.  But his roll was higher, he should have won it.  Or so he said.  No, he should not have won it.

I explained the loot rule changes clearly before the raid, asked if there were any questions.  I explained why he could not win the healing trinket because it has an on heal proc and healers need healing trinkets, not damage dealers.  I explained that even if he had the highest roll for the weapon the reason it went to the second highest was because they had not won anything yet this week.  Then suddenly, something came up and he needed to go.  As in instantly.  The time between him typing I have to go, to leaving the raid group to logging off was nearly instant.

While it is completely possible that something did come up that is now how I perceived it.  I saw it as he was denied loot that he rightfully won, in his mind, and he got pissed and left.  I would not be surprised if he quit guild by the time I get home from work today and if he does I would be completely fine with that.  We don't need selfish players, we don't need rage quitters because things did not go their way and even more importantly, we do not need people doing 50K DPS.

Just to give you an idea how bad the lower end DPS was and why I am making such a big deal about it consider this.  We hit the enrage timer on horridon this week when we downed him.  6 people were over 240K.  Now imagine what the rest of the DPS looked like if 6 people were over 240K and we still hit the enrage timer.

Seriously, you have no business being a damage dealer in ToT if you can not pull at least 80K... on horridon, a damage buff fight.

As a side note, the person that actually won the weapon was one of the people doing over 240K.  He left because he thought he should have won it because he had the highest roll even if the loot rules were clear that if you win something you can only win a second thing if no one else needed it.  Yet he apparently thought he deserved it more because he had the highest roll, loot rules or not.  I really wonder what goes through peoples minds.

57 comments:

  1. I wanted to compare some of the numbers you were talking about to get a better perspective, so I went and looked up my 1 Horridon kill from 6 weeks ago.

    This is all anecdotal of course but I have a better idea of the numbers you're referring to now.

    10man group but lowest DPS(e) was 96k and highest was 153k. I wish WoL recorded iLvLs some how, but it's not in the combat log so... I'm guessing my iLvL then was 515-ish (I was 2nd with 144k DPS(e)).... I'm not sure what the spriest with 96k had. He has 521 now but not sure how much he's geared up in the last 6 weeks.

    I guess the 240k you mention is during the burst phase at the end against Horridon. The rogue (top dps) peaked at 427k and I hit 370k.

    I'm sure that the group had a higher avg iLvL than yours but I don't know how much higher or how much difference that accounts for.

    Crap, going to be late for work... to be continued...

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    1. The people over 240K (over all, not just during the end phase. doors & boss combined) all have over a 520 item level. Two even 530. So that is why the higher numbers. Gear does play a huge factor. Even the difference between 515 and 530 can be huge.

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    2. Horridon is an especially edge case for dps, though... gear is a factor but the way the fight goes is even more important. If Horridon goes into the burn phase with full health (no time to dps him on the doors &/or the priest healed him back to full) and the fight lasts to the enrage then you're going to put up HUGE numbers vs a "normal" kill. The one and only time I ranked on that fight in my normal group was a 1s before enrage kill because one of our dps died early in the fight and we had to save our rez for a tank (at that point in our progression we lost tanks semi-regularly). Having almost a full 6 minutes on a +200% Horridon makes the numbers look a lot better than they'd normally be.

      I'll give you some baseline numbers from my mage, this was my one and only time I've raided him in MoP and it was with a very good raid group (so no chance to cheese the numbers like on Horridon above, in this group they had to stop dps on Horridon by door 2) and I felt I underperformed in a number of ways, including dps, and 2 of the fights I wasn't even familiar with on normal as a dps (6 and 7). So, arguably, worst case scenario numbers. i496 gear, far from cutting edge, with a T14 weapon, fire spec.

      1H - 134K
      2 - 90K
      3 - 103K
      4 - 101K
      5 - 75K (need to work on my mobile dps)
      6 - 91K (without the buff)
      7 - 77K

      There's no reason anyone i500+ who has done the fights on LFR shouldn't be able to hit those same numbers first time in, let alone after a few weeks of practice. I'm not a high skill player and my mage is about my 5th alt, I haven't touched him much in MoP.

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    3. And just for fun, my Atonement priest on the same fights, i502 gear, spirit/crit build. DPS/HPS listed. He caps out at about 52K dps on a non-gimmick fight. All 2-healed except 1H.

      1H - 71K/57K (3-healed)
      2 - 81K/39K (almost 100% on Horridon)
      3 - 49K/56K
      4 - 62K/45K (almost 100% on Tortos)
      5 - 46K/69K
      6 - 49K/44K
      7 - 51K/31K

      The other healer was good, of course, and was generally 30-40% ahead of me in the numbers but that's probably on par with his gear delta. When my HPS numbers are low it's because we didn't take much damage, I had over 32% overhealing which is unusually high for Atonement.

      So, if you want absolute baseline values that a dps should be able to exceed, these should suffice. :)

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    4. @ First Anon

      See, exactly what I said with my mage to another person. I have similar gear, but a 516 weapon from the heroic scenario and I had no experience at frost and did okay. It is like a 7th alt for me. But over 80K and you did basically the same, over on most, close on some. You did well. It should be, as you said, what anyone that has done it at least in the LFR should be able to do in a few tries.

      80K is not really a lot to ask from a 500 item level I think. Even with a lesser weapons (but not too much lesser of course).

      @ Anon 2 (same person I think, but just in case)

      How do you manage those DPS numbers as disc. I just can not get them up there. My heals are much higher than yours but my DPS is less than half of yours.

      I am guessing it is because I do not do atonement all the time, just throw in shots when I can. I more straight heal.

      But with that said, even if I go full out DPS I can never, or rarely, break 30K DPS.

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    5. Same Anon, yeah. At this point I should probably create an account rather than posting under Anon... blog commenting was never supposed to become a thing but you keep posting interesting stuff.

      That's the funny thing, though, I've been hoping to get a spot high on their bench for that raid, they raid more often than I'd want to as a regular raider but I'd love to be their first or second choice for a fill-in slot so I wanted to perform well. I did on my priest but I was really disappointed with my mage results after that run to the point that I apologized to their RL afterward. I felt those were sub-par numbers even with all of those caveats (low use alt, not much gear, first time in, etc). I don't feel like I did well at all and felt like I'd hurt my chances for even a bench spot. We'll see how that goes, hopefully he agrees with you more than me.

      With more time to prep I probably would have run frost, I think it would probably do more dps than fire for someone who's more worried about surviving mechanics than maximizing dps.

      As for my priest, I've specifically tweaked my priest over time for a full Atonement rotation with as much mobility as possible (so I use the Penance glyph, that's saved asses more than once at the cost of a bit of mana). He's set up to be as mana-efficient as possible (low haste) and low mastery since that doesn't contribute to dps. Crit all the way, with enough spirit to maintain the full Atonement rotation with a few tweaks. I also still use the Smite glyph, it's only dps and not hps as of 5.3 but nothing else caught my eye to replace it.

      I generally just do a full Atonement rotation... Penance > PW:Solace > Smite. When I'm oom (happens occasionally, especially on 7m+ fights like Horridon) I'll drop Smite from that rotation temporarily until my mana recovers or until we need more healing again. Whenever there's any AoE healing required I'll use Cascade on myself a second or so in advance (thought about taking Halo but haven't to this point), I'll sometimes toss a PoM on myself during periods where I know I'll take damage and I'll self-shield when it seems necessary. That's about it, I rarely direct heal, my reflexes generally aren't fast enough to be better than Atonement for keeping someone alive. On rare occasions (Meg during the stack-ups) I'll do a normal AoE healing rotation with PoH (with or without Spirit Shell) and normally I only use Archangel when I'm anticipating a period requiring heavier-than-normal healing. But mostly I just do an Atonement rotation and toss out the occasional Cascade. I run about 12K combat MP5 unbuffed, it more or less supports that rotation, the non-Atonement buttons burn my mana pool pretty quickly, especially PoH.

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    6. I am glad you find it interesting. I just like to write, that is why I do it. And I complain by nature I guess, so it comes natural to be grumpy. ;)

      The game needs more people like you. Our mage in question has been with us for weeks. He showed initial good ability at the get go with decent DPS for his gear and the ability to move from crap.

      After weeks of getting gear all that is left is someone that knows how to get out of crap, and while I rank that extremely high on my list of good raider qualities, with the fact he has not upped his numbers despite a substantial gear increase and then his recent rage leaving the raid only 2 bosses in has changed my initial opinion of him.

      The difference is you want to get better and he thinks he is doing just fine. The game needs more people like you and less like him that think just because 50K was fine 20 item levels ago that it is still fine. I let it go because he was new and under geared, after 6 weeks, the new part is not a good excuse and he is not under geared any longer. He should be doing better.

      That is probably my issue. I always heal even when I do what I call full attonement. I still shield the tank, throw PoM, cascade, and other heals as I feel it is needed. I never trust that my smite heals will be enough.

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    7. Yeah, that's what I find baffling... people not trying to get better. If that's the case, why raid? In order to down new bosses you HAVE to improve... better at avoiding, better at timing, better at dps, better at special mechanics. If everyone's doing the same stuff on attempt 20 as attempt 1 how is anything supposed to change?

      Back in Wrath when I was a complete raiding noob I recall we used to get 3 or 4 people together of the same class to hit the dummy and share ideas. We'd steal rotations from each other, basically. I'd have people asking me for advice on their rotations even on classes I didn't have and I'd ask others for help as well. When was the last time someone asked for help with a rotation? I'm at the point where I'm OFFERING it up (generally, not to specific people, even though it is often somewhat targeted) but nobody ever comes asking for help. It's weird. A buddy's guild in Cat basically imploded when they got the point that he felt he had to start implementing a policy around personal accountability... from the outside I completely supported his stance and a few inside did as well but the majority backlashed hugely and everything fell apart. I just don't understand how that happens with a raiding guild... or even a casual raiding group consisting of people who think they're raiders.

      Depressing.

      I'm mostly at an ability cap on my monk at this point on the bosses we're downing but I was still tweaking my rotation, CD timings (both offensive and defensive) and talent choices on Tortos on our 30th attempt. I wasn't to the point of saying "okay, done" until about our 3rd week of downing him. Sure, there's a point of "good enough" that happens earlier than that but at some point I'm going to be up against content that will benefit from further improvement, isn't it easier to test that stuff out on farm bosses than progression ones?

      As for Atonement, trust the rotation... obviously there are occasionally periods of high damage where you might have to switch to single-target or full AoE heals (if Horridon didn't take 200% more damage in the burn phase I'd switch to full single-target tank healing, for instance) but 98% of the time Atonement is enough. Remember also that you aren't healing alone, as Atonement you aren't a "tank healer" or "raid healer", you're basically a "gap healer"... you'll automatically heal whoever needs it most. How is that not a good thing to have? I'd do a mostly full Atonement rotation and only change that if people are dying at certain spots because of it. You seem to be coming at it from the other direction, that's perfectly valid but I'm a dps on a healing toon, not a healer doing some dps. If I wanted to HEAL I'd run holy. :)

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    8. Actually people ask me for help all the time. If they listen is another thing. one of the people in the guild calls me her personal wowhead, whenever she has a question she asks me. Whenever everyone has a question, she says, ask me when I come on.

      I think I spend more time helping others then playing some days. lol

      Then I have it the other way, where I offer over and over to people I see need the help and they just flat out refuse. I'll make your your enchants and gems, I'll teach you your rotation, I'll run some dungeons and raids with you so you can get gear. No thanks. But then they still want to come on the main raid. Sorry, you are not invited.

      I just can not trust the smite healing. I know you say it, I read it, I just can not trust it. It is a mental block. Hey, I still think all warriors should be tanks and all priests should be healers. So thinking a healer should heal only makes sense to me. :P

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    9. Oh, I should clarify. Q&A? Sure. Mounts, pets, professions, etc, those I get asked about sometimes.

      But performance improvement? Rotations? Stat priorities? Even spec limitations (AoE vs single target)? Very little to none of that. I mean, seriously, I have to think I could spend 5 minutes with your 50K mage and turn him into a 75K mage as long as the issue isn't technical (very low frame rate, multi-second lag or latency, etc). Are you getting THOSE types of requests?

      Yeah, I had a similar issue with Atonement when I first started using it. Thing is, I trust numbers and my numbers with Atonement are at or above what I can do old-school healing with the bonus of generally being smarter than I am. I was also concerned about healing while mobile but it's basically the same, I can Penance on the run either hitting a mob or healing a friendly and I have both PW:S and PoM available as instant and Atonement has the added bonus of PW:Solace being an instant (sure, you could do that as a healer as well but I have major issues shifting into dps mode, even occasionally, when I'm healing... I never got the habit of Judging every 30 seconds or whatever on my pally in Cat, for instance, but I can swap from dps to emergency healing since I have to do that on dps/tank toons semi-regularly, that's by far the more comfy hybrid model for me and that's basically how I play Atonement, I do that until I have to do otherwise, then I go back to it... and most of the time I don't have to shift out of it in the first place).

      Assuming you'd like to get past your block, make yourself a deal... go Atonement until you can point to a specific death or wipe that was a result of Atonement. I'd bet that'll never happen... mostly because that kind of thing is almost impossible to prove, but that's not a bad thing in this case. :)

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    10. I get those, sort of. Like what gems do I need, which enchants should I have, what is a good level 90 talent.

      I don't get a great deal that want to go into detail but the few I do really seem interested and become great players. If people want to be good they seek it out. The problem is not many people want to be good any more, they just want to be good enough. If you know what I mean.

      If they do 50K and the boss goes down, then to them 50K is enough even if their gear says they can do 120K. I really hate that mentality and even when I try to attack it dead on I get the standard response. If my DPS was enough to down the content I was in it doesn't matter.

      Sorry, to me it does.

      Maybe I should give it a real try and push to Attone and not heal. I just keep thinking that I am letting all the other healers do the heavy lifting if I am just DPSing while letting my smart heals snipe their hard worked for heals.

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    11. @Jaeger The longer the last phase lasts (like hitting enrage), the higher the dps, because you get the damage buff for longer. The one time I looked, I was 800k dps on the last bit, which boosts overall dps considerably, so don't bother much with comparison. Also, keep in mind melee usually have a harder time there.

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    12. I like to think of Atonement healing as an Oh Shit button for the other healers... you have tank healers and raid healers, probably (or at least semi-focused), their roles won't change. You won't be keeping tanks up and you won't be keeping the entire raid alive.

      If someone stands in bad that the other healers aren't expecting, though? That's probably the guy you heal. When one tank takes an unusual spike? That's when your heal sneaks in.

      Plus, Atonement crits, like Disc crits in general (I think), spawn shields, not heals, about 30% of my healing is shields... so just by doing the rotation you'll have a happy little set of bubbles going out that just make everyone else's life easier. None of your individual heals are going to hit for huge amounts (Penance heals for a lot but I believe each pulse will heal a different target if that's the optimal target mix) so you won't really be sniping heals on your normal healers. LFR? Oh, absolutely, you'll be owning it in there (and with 3 Atonement priests in LFR the other 3 healers can basically AFK to auccess). But I find it a very interesting and useful niche for normal healing, even in 10s, and I'd expect especially in 25s.

      I am biased, though. :)

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    13. We usually do not worry about damage during the door phases. There are still too many new people and quite frankly I prefer taking the easy route of tanking him all the way on the other side of the room so someone does not get us killed by being horrible placing a charge. That is why we get more up time with 200% and probably the reason for the higher numbers.

      @ Anon

      I can see it being bigger in 25s where it could server as the incidentals healer, as you mentioned. In 10s their place is a lot different. They work best as a third healer if they are going straight attonment, in my opinion at least.

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  2. Yeah I had a mage apply to my guild to join the raid team. For starting the first bosses his ilevel seemed fine. I asked what his damage was and he told me 45k. I blinked and asked again figuring it was a mistype. Got the same answer - 45k. We are desperate for more people, we really need more of everything well except maybe melee dps, we're crying out for ranged. We keep having to cancel raids, we're circling the drain really. However, I said that I would keep them in mind for when they'd geared up a little. My GL asked me why I wouldn't take them. I told him that I felt that 45k was not an acceptable dps for Throne.

    On non cheese fights, so just on regular tank fights, I do 60k easy, as a tank. Now it might be mean of me, but if you can't beat my non cheese dps, then I'm not taking you. Unless it's cheesed then no dps has any business being below tanks. Unfortunately even with my group we sometimes get dps who fall short. Council for instance I wouldn't say is a cheese fight unless it's solo tanked which we don't do. I should not beat dps there but I sometimes do. One fight a few weeks ago I was third on dps, my co-tank was second. The only dps that beat us was a ret paladin. True we were both over 100k but we're the tanks, we're not doing crazy vengeance increasing mechanics, we're not standing in bad, we're not taking hits we shouldn't. Hell I don't think on that occasion I even blew cds to max my dps (which I have been known to do if I know that I won't need them for survival) I only blew them for survival. That just seems wrong to me.

    I am a tank, not a dps. Do I love doing super high dps? Well yeah, it's fun. Do I love soloing bosses/mini quest bosses down when they've killed the group and I'm the only one left standing. Absolutely. Should I be able to? Well as much fun as it is, probably not. Raid tanks do have to contribute dps, now more than ever, as when the enrage timer is tight every bit counts, so despite what some people say tank dps is important. However, the primary function of a tank is to take the hits, survive, protect the group, position things correctly, do utility functions like soaking bad etc. when possible, it's not to kill the boss really, that is the dps job.

    So yeah 45k mage I have to say no too. My co-tank has an alt warlock and he did over 100k on it the first time he set foot in Throne, on every single boss, more on the damage buffed ones. My alt warlock has a 450 weapon still, barely scrapes 480 and I can do more than 45k. I would never ever dream of taking it to Throne as that dps is just not acceptable. My offspec is ret and I get a sense my dps would place 80-90k, so unless I had absolutely no other choice I would never take my OS into Throne. On the extremely rare occasion when we have other tanks sign I sit myself rather than take a dps spot, because I am not good enough. It's a question of standards, and also a question of respect. I'm not going to make my team have to make up for my shortcomings. I am not going to make my team make up for anyone elses if I can help it.

    Am I being mean? Perhaps. I do understand though where you are coming from. It's about personal responsibility. It's why I like 10 mans best, as every person counts. Perhaps as it's 25 man, they think that they can be invisible and it won't matter. Maybe you should set a minimum dps requirement and not take anyone under it. You might have to cancel a raid or two to make a point, however it might give people cause enough to pull themselves up and do better. Still you'd know the dynamics of your group best, and would know whether that would work or just destroy what you have. Sometimes I think it's better not to raid than to resort to desperate measures, like taking people who shouldn't be there. It's unfair on the rest of the group, breeds resentment. It's tough to know what to do for the best. I wish you luck.

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    1. You have to remember that you are better geared and also have vengeance working for you on a lot of fights. Just because my bear tank can do 200K+ tanking bat adds doesn't mean I should say everyone should be over the tank. We can not judge others to what we do as tanks, we are a special case when tanking.

      You speak of alts, I switched my mage to frost. First time playing it in ages. Went into the LFR with my 495 item level. No gems, no encants, nothing. Just playing for fun. Pulled 127K on the first boss, 114K on the second and 103K on the third. This is a character I would never even think of taking in a raid. He is not raid ready in any way shape or forum.

      My numbers more than doubled that of the "raider" mage on the first two fights, don't know about the third because he dropped and I won't assume. But that goes to show you, it really is not that hard if you are willing to just read how the class is played. I did not having no clue about frost. Just gave the guides a quick once over and went for it.

      Sure, if I where gemmed, enchanted, or even at hit cap, I most likely would have done better. But it goes to show you, you can do okay, even without the best gear and all the extra if you do only one thing... try.

      Hey, the fact we got 3 on farm for a 25 man that only started as a whim and a joke to see if we could do it a short time ago, I am impressed with that and happy. While I would like to see 4 down, time wise, we will never get much further than that without more time spent raiding. So we are doing okay for our short time. But if we could fill in those other DPS spots like our first DPS spots, we would be 12/12 already.

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    2. I wasn't talking about gimmick fights, I did say that. I'd never expect anyone to match me on bats, in fact if I don't finish that fight #1 then I've done something wrong. I was just talking about regular fights because I needed a benchmark number.

      You are a dps player, so you know what is right for dps, what people should be putting out in what gear etc. I'm continually surprised be the numbers you suggest as they are a lot higher than I would have thought. So I pulled 60k as my benchmark, need to be higher than, as it's what my tank dps is on a normal fight, so I figured that would be fair. You said you wanted 80k so you're higher than me, and you are bound to be correct.

      I am not a dps player, I can't do it, I can't take the pressure. That must sound odd coming from a tank, but measuring myself up against numbers, it's so exact, and there's no way to hide from it. As a tank so long as I don't die then my performance is sort of hidden. I'll know if I screwed up but generally no-one else calls me on it. I'll work doubly hard to ensure I don't do it again, but there's no public humiliation. With dps, everyone runs recount and can see the numbers, and if they don't then I upload logs of every raid for the world to see. It's just too much.

      I think I half refused to take that 45k mage as I was embarrassed for him. If it was me doing 45k and everyone else was doing double or more than that, well I don't know what I'd do. Fake a dc or something just to get away from the horror of it. I always have to pull my weight, and a bit more besides if I can, as otherwise it doesn't feel right.

      Sometimes I'm not sure where skill should take me, and where gear should step in. My lock friend can do double the dps I can. Is that because I have a 463 weapon and he has a 516? Or is it because he's just so much better. I don't know. I do my best and I still don't pull the numbers that you talk about.

      Yeah I'd heard 25 man takes longer to down. Our best ever night on 10 man we got the first 6 bosses down. We usually get 4. That's in 3 hours going reasonable pace. So you raid for what 2 hours I think I remember you saying? So 3 bosses on 25 man isn't bad then actually. I'd forgotten that 25 man takes longer. Just ignore me then :)

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    3. Depending on the fight my bear can do between 35K-50K but I have significantly lower gear than you do. That too is single target. It really has to do with how much damage I am taking. If I let me healers just heal me and not use my dodge cooldown as often as possible so I take a few extra melee swings I might be able to push 60K on some fights.

      That is what I always say about damage dealers. Everyone says they are a dine a dozen and while that might be true, decent ones are not. And there is a lot of pressure to be a decent one because you can not hide from numbers. Some people might look at me and think, you did well, but I look at me and say, 127K, hmmmm, I could do 140 on that fight, I messed up a few times. So even good is not good. There is a huge amount of pressure for a damage dealer that actually cares about doing his role well.

      It could be half and half. The difference between a 463 and a 516 is huge indeed, do not doubt that. Could it double up? Maybe, but not likely. If you are doing 70K with a 463 I can see doing 100K or even 110K thanks to the upgrade to a 516 but not double. But that is all guess work there. Either way, it is still significant.

      Yes, 2 hours. I think we can squeeze in 4 once we get some practice on the forth as a team. But to do that we need to cut out the horridon wipes. We one shot the 1st and 3rd no problem, but have never one shot horridon. Best ever was 1 wipe and we only managed that once.

      If we get better damage dealers we would get things down a lot faster and that would allow us to get more turtle time in and eventually get to 4 down at some point. I think in our 2 hour time frame 5 would be absolute max and that would only be with all solid players and moving at a break neck speed.

      Somewhere in the back of my head I think of the DS normals with the 30% when we would run a speed run on normal to carry someone to gear and do all 8 in 1 hour 20 minutes. I kind of miss being able to do that.

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    1. The mage doing low DPS but that had won something already, so he was not eligible for it, had the highest roll.

      The second highest roll was one of the top damage dealers. Being he had not won anything yet, he got it.

      He left because we gave it to the person that deserved it (the 240K with the second highest roll that had not won anything yet) because he thought he should have still won it because he had highest roll, even if the loot rules said otherwise.

      Hope that clears it up. I will go back and rewtite it a little. It might be confusing the way I wrote it.

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    5. He has not left as of yet. He might however. Maybe he is thinking on it.

      Maybe if you share your chunky mixed fruit cocktail with him you might scare him away.

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    7. I won't tell him your name, just tell him it was a mystery hunter bearing gifts.

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  4. What spec is the mage playing? Is he trying to run ToT as arcane or trying to use rune of power? Sounds like you need some mentors for your people that have great raid awareness but low DPS. In my raid I always say I can teach you how to DPS heal or tank but I can't teach you raid awareness. Do you have a mage in your main team that can review the logs and see what he’s doing wrong? Just a guess but it’s probably his uptime on bombs. If you have logs I’d be happy to look over them and give your mage some tips. I had to add some really annoying weak aura’s for myself so that I will remember to refresh my bombs and invocation. (my partner makes fun of me but I’m raid leading and it’s easy to miss when I’m calling the raid and watching what everyone is doing.

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    1. Yes, and I told him that he needed to look into changing it. Even suggested some options and how he would need to change his style and sent him to a few sights. I used to play arcane too and changed because I had not choice, too much movement involved.

      Yes, We do have a mage from the 10s that has moved over to the 25s because we need a few mains on there. He is fire and can do some amazing numbers. As I said a few times, my 10 team is really up there with their DPS. He has tried to help him but he will not listen.

      Now, as I have said before, we are not a hard core guild. But there is still a minimum requirement in my mind. If you want to play arcane even if it is not great for this tier. Fine. But two things he must remember. If you can not pull your weight, you will be replaced. And if you start to hold us back, you will be replaced. I guess he is just choosing the "be replaced" option. Even more so for this dropping group because we would not break loot rules because he wanted something off every boss.

      I use need to know for my bombs. Seems to be easy enough for me. I never could get into auras. I tried them, didn't like them. But I did not really give them enough time to grow on me I guess. Have not touched auras since wrath.

      I know about missing things as the raid leader. Oh do I. I've noticed a marked decrease in what I am doing because I have to micro manage everything now in 25s with so many new people. Not so bad that I would kick myself, but bad enough that I know I could do better.

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  5. hehe I like that I nailed that he was playing arcane LOL. I guess in your situation I would politely point out that I was about to drop him from the raid for poor performance and that it might be worth looking into the other specs maybe you will do better. Then after the verbal warning if he doesn’t improve no more invites (sounds like what you do anyways) that’s not even going into the loot issue and dropping raid. If someone dropped my raid because they didn’t like loot rules they agreed to at the start of the run there ass would have been kicked so hard from the guild my foot would have come out their mouth.

    I really really feel you on the DPS loss from Raid Leading. I actually had a come to jesus moment that I just wasn’t handling fire well enough as raid leading and constantly f’ing up my combustion that I just went and have stayed frost (it just seems to flow easier to and there really not a hard way to screw up that will completely devastate my DPS (back to what you said yesterday about thresholds ) I would say I could get another 20k out if I wasn’t leading probably enough to get my out of #2 and 3 back to #1

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    2. Yeap. That has the be the #1 issues when you hear a mage say "can you help me with my DPS?" you ask, "are you arcane?"

      I agree, but as we are not a hard core raiding guild and he is welcome to other aspects of group play I would not kick him over an action like that in a raid. I will however choose to leave him watching from the outside because of it when we do raid.

      I feel my raid leading loss on DPS depends on the fight and how much I need to micro manage. Over all I would say I am suffering from a 10-15% loss on most fights. Not enough to drop me out of the top 5 from my 10 man group but more than enough to make sure I am always left not competing for #1 any more. At least in 25s. Not like I could ever get #1 any more, the druid we have is just devastating the charts and being he got the thunderforged staff last night upgrading from a raid finder one I don't see me ever catching him with me pitiful 520 item level. But more power to him. The better he is the better we are and us top 5 push each other to be better. Now if only I could do that with the rest of the team.

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    3. @Roo

      He might be better to explain, but I'll try to give a short guide to the 5 button version.

      Warning: This will not give you maximum DPS, but it might be enough to be #1 in the LFR at least.

      Take frost bomb as the level 75 talent.

      1) Hit frost bomb on cooldown.
      2) Hit frozen orb on cooldown.
      3) Spam forstbolt.
      4) If frostfire bolt lights up, hit it.
      5) If ice lance lights up, hit it.

      Stats: Stack haste.

      That is the simple but respectable DPS version.

      You can add a lot to it to make it much better of course. But if you want to go the easy route that would be, at the very least, respectable.

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    4. Yeah see I would be remove him from guild immediately if I wanted drama from guildies I’d only invite contestants from Ru Paul’s Drag race to guild! Mostly for being disrespectful anyone that agrees to rules and then disregards them is not someone anyone in my guild would want to do anything with.
      Yeah 10 to 15% seems about right to me when you’re clocking in anywhere over 100k tho that’s a good sizeable loss but some ones got to do it right?
      For frost that seems about right, I take nether tempest because of my obscene amount of haste (plus it has a better visual, plus too lazy to change it) and the fact that I can’t stand frost bomb. (I like my instant cast) There’s cool downs trinkets and other procs to manage to maximize but just doing the above you would never do bad enough to get on grumpy’s kick list I’d wager.

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    5. Yeah, someone has to and it might as well be me. Heck, that is how I ended up a raid leader to begin with. I was the only one willing to do it.

      In the end, I think 10-15% is why we do it. Some people would lose a lot more. Someone in my guild once said to me after a raid night where I was number 1 on all fights (it was farm stuff so I could concentrate a lot more on doing damage) that he would never be able to lead and keep his numbers up like I do.

      So perhaps, even if we are losing something in the process, we are losing less than someone else would which turns out to be a net gain in the end.

      I did a LFR last night on my mage, last part, did over 90K on every fight finishing third, second and second in damage done on the three fights while still unenchanted and ungemmed. I did win 2 pieces so I am now 500 and will now be gemming and enchanting and reforging. Of course I did use the cooldowns, icy veins, mirror image, alter time, but even without them it goes to show you that you can be at least LFR competitive without much real effort.

      Goes to show you that all you really need to do to do good is try.

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    7. You will live and die by the ice. Free people in place with your spells and your elemental and blow them up with the spells I mentioned as you get them.

      Remember to use poly whenever you can. Never take 2 mobs, always CC one, never take 3, always CC one. Limit what you need to do, keep your distance and blow things up.

      I really do not have a great deal of tips as it has been an extremely long time since I leveled a mage. Do not even know what level you get what spells at any more.

      The idea would be to keep them as far away as possible and you have a fair amount of spells to do just that.

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    9. Well, I am always glad to help if needed. And I am sure the few that do read here would help as well if they notice you ask. Most seem like really nice people.

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    11. Mana is now a set number based on your level.

      Int is still your best stat and your main stat. It increases to power of your spells, crit of your spells, what ever it may be, it is worth it and is your number one priority when gearing.

      Mana goes up because the cost of spells goes up. Rage, focus, energy do not go up but then again the cost of their abilities never goes up either. So is something costs you 30 focus at level 10 it will cost 30 focus at level 90. There is no need for it to increase as you go.

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    13. I am leveling a new hunter on an RP realm with nothing. The fact it is taking a tiny bit longer is actually good.

      While my professions are still really falling behind they are not as much as they would with heirlooms.

      I agree. Why don't they make mana like the others and a steady number from 1-90. Might be easier for people to learn that way. Even if in the end it should work the same in theory.

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    15. You're welcome.

      Have fun leveling. It can be really enjoyable sometimes.

      If you are not in a heavy CRZ area that you have to wait an hour for a spawn to complete a quest that is. ;)

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    17. There is something to be said about taking your time. Even someone like myself who sets record leveling speeds left and right and has never met anyone that can level faster than me occasionally like to stop and fish at every fishing pool while leveling. It is nice to take a break from time to time.

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  6. Katzbalger-Arthas (US)June 28, 2013 at 12:18 AM

    I really don't see how they're pulling such low numbers. Especially the hunter doing 29k dps you mentioned! I honestly think if I had a fight without movement I could just sit my toon somewhere, start him off autoshooting and go afk and beat that.
    Actually I just went and tested that theory. I'm a lot better geared than your hunter's going to be admittedly, 538 ilvl, but as Survival, just autoshot and my pet...25k dps. As BM, 50.5k dps. Can I come join your raid and just afk? ;p

    Hopefully the new Proving Grounds in 5.4 will drum it into some people that they really aren't playing to anywhere near their potential. I don't know how they're going to work but I'd expect the lower difficulties to be aimed towards a basic knowledge of your class abilities, with a gradual increase as you go. Perhaps it'd be something you could work into your requirements for raiders, achievement Bronze in Proving Grounds to be eligible for a spot!

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    1. I know for a fact I can do more than that. Did 38K once when I was tabbed out reading up on something on my hunter. Was BM of course, was a little over 500 at the time I think. That is just auto shooting and my pet attacking.

      You could just come and do that and beat some of these people that think they deserve a spot in my 25 man.

      Do you want to know the sad part? This is the best we are able to recruit.

      There are only a few guilds on the server with more progression in 10 man than us, and we are the only 25 man on the server at all. With our 3 bosses down in 25 down, which even if that is all we did, would still make us the #10 guild on the server. There is not a lot for me to work with.

      He switched to his main and gained 100K, so it was a nice upgrade to have him switch. You think? ;)

      If they do work as intended I think I would demand at least a bronze to even get an invite to the raid.

      One thing I worry about is the shared achievements. I believe I could rank a gold on my hunter with little to no problem but that would mean my rogue would also have the gold achievement and I am by no means the gold standard of being a rogue by a long shot.

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  7. So... did he leave?
    I don't think he'll leave just yet, I think he's gonna give you another chance :))

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    1. He has not even logged on since.

      He is welcome to give me another chance all he wants. The real question is, would I give him one? Nope. I'll go with 24 next week if I have to.

      If I let him sit for 2 weeks and he is willing to take it like a man and not whine, I might consider giving him another try in 3 weeks.

      He just better take that time to get better at his class because I've been playing around with my mage. If he wants to stay in the group on his main, a mage, he better be able to beat me on a dummy test on my alt, a mage.

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    2. I was joking, of course. I'm sure he holds you guilty for not giving him his gear that he won fair and square!

      We added some members from a while ago to our guild (I'd call merge, but that's like merging a branch to a tree). They had really bad progress. Like 1/12. We did a 25m with them. They were rolling need on everything, even if it was for offspec. And if any of us won anything they'd whisper us if we need the items. I swear, the impression I got from them was that we wanted to steal their gear. I'm not even gonna comment how they wouldn't have ever seen Lei Shen without us, but their attitude was so schewed.

      So. My warlock explained to me that these people have never really seen gear drops. And as such, they just want them. They are not malicious about it, but they don't understand common courtesy. Like poor people seeing food and beating anyone in their path to get to it.

      So yeh, your mage probably feel like you did him wrong, I doubt he'll ever understand that it's his problem, though.

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    3. I am sure in his mind I am the biggest dick in the game right now for stealing his gear from him. I am fine with that, comes with being a raid leader sometimes.

      There are a lot of people like that. The mage doing 50K that was pissed that I gave the wand to the mage doing 266K probably thought "but he doesn't need it" where I looked at it the exact opposite way. He needs it more, because he might actually do something with it whereas you won't.

      But that aside. That 266K mage would have not minded if he lost the roll to someone else within the loot rules. Sure it would have been a huge upgrade for him, but if someone else won it, it is fair and square.

      Your analogy is pretty much what it is. He saw the other mage with gear, him without it, and would have trampled over him to get it.

      He did not understand that we will be beating these three bosses (at least, hopefully more soon) until the next raid patch. He will get his gear in time. But he is just hungry and he wants his food now and doesn't care about anyone else.

      The 50K mage did not understand he would get to eat again next week, so he wanted it all. The 266K mage knew that he eats every week, so he can get it later.

      Yeap, very nice analogy.

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    4. That "poor people seeing food" analogy made me both cringe and nod simultaneously... well played.

      I have a personal policy when joining someone else's run (either I'm new or just filling in) or if I'm on an alt in my normal run that I'll put myself last in the main spec priority list for upgrades, if anyone on a main toon needs gear, I'll leave it for them. This makes sense to me and I'm not really driven by loot (I'm more driven by lack of loot, historically) so it works but I can definitely understand someone who comes in wanting as much as they can get.

      First off, technically they're helping out that run, regardless of their performance. If they weren't needed they wouldn't be running with you.

      Second, assuming they won't become a regular, this could be their ONLY shot at normal-mode loot. If they aren't specifically trying to impress you, why not try to get everything they can to improve their chances of getting another run in the future, if not with you? Also, items will probably drop again sometime when they aren't there, the regular raiders can get the loot at that point.

      I'm not a fan of this way of thinking, obviously, but I can understand someone having it, especially someone who's either young or inexperienced with how this stuff generally works.

      (all that aside, I'd have turfed the mage immediately when he rolled on the healing trinket, there are limits to what anyone should have to put up with...)

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    5. James did hit the nail on the head with that one for sure.

      I am guessing many would have kicked him for rolling on the healing trinket but I have seen trinket errors a million times. They see intellect and the proc means nothing to them, they stop reading. Heck, some times they do not even read what the trinket gives, it is a trinket so they roll. In my wow history I don't think I have ever done a run where someone rolled on a trinket they did not need. A warrior on an agility trinket (post wrath), a mage on a healing trinket, a hunter on a spell power trinket. It is just a trinket, and they are so hard to get that people lose their minds when they see one drop. lol

      I don't mind people winning loot that are not regulars, they helped us down the boss and they are entitled to it as much as the next guy. But as long as it is within the rules. He was like "damn the rules" even if he did not come out and actually say that.

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  8. Are you recruiting?

    I'd reroll to find a guild doing current content but not demanding achievement in normal prior to invite.

    https://twitter.com/potatoeWoW

    I am most familiar with blood/frost DK and disc/shadow priest specs/classes.

    DK

    Priest

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    1. Shoot me a mail at blog.thegrumpyelf at gmail.com

      I prefer to keep my blogging and in game life separate, but we can talk there. Only one person that was ever in my guild even knows I blog and they are retired.

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