I guess I was wrong about LFD.

Yesterday I did my random dungeon and got a guild group of four people.  Sometimes that is a good thing.  Four people together in a guild could very well mean they are on vent and someone knows what they are doing and is explaining it to everyone else.  Guild runs are sometimes the smoothest even if you might hear a lot of horror stories about it.

While it is true that most of the time if anything goes wrong you will be blamed for it sometimes it is impossible to blame you.  Usually if there are four people and they seek a tank or healer the tank or healer is the one that takes the blame.  If you are a DPS it is much different.  As long as your DPS does not suck, you know how to interrupt, know the mechanics and stay out of the painful stuff that can be avoided you will never get blamed for anything. Well, you still will anyway.  No one ever admits they are wrong.

This isn't about that however.  It has nothing to do with blame.  It has to do with what I wrote yesterday about looking for 8K DPS to make heroics nice and smooth.  The run I had yesterday was nice and smooth for the most part.  Only one wipe and the tank apologized because he knew it was his fault.

I got Stonecore as my random.  Stonecore and Grim Bartol are the two randoms I cringe when I get them.  No matter how geared people get, no matter how well they know the fights, these two still seem to beat the level living crap out of randoms.  Sure, they get done, but usually not without 4 or 5 wipes.

I was a little off on my DPS.  For some odd reason I was having a hell of a hard time keeping my DPS respectable.  I was 10K most of the time and that is about 2K under my average.  Maybe it was because I am doing all the work?  If anything I should have been higher then.

See, we had a DK tank that was doing 6K which is awesome from a tank.  That is the tank number that is considered great.  The Enhancement Shaman was doing 5K, which is really bad but compared to the Mage that was doing an amazing 3500 it was awesome.

After the first boss I was a little worried.  But in a way it worked out.  I did not have to worry about the shard adds.  The Mage took them out.  Awesome, more boss time for me and that is where I excel.  When you have to have a Hunter as the only person downing the shards you are in trouble most of the time.  I've learned to over stock focus so I can get two multi shots off on the shards.  It lowers my boss DPS for sure, but most groups I am in I can not trust people to switch so, as always, I have to do everything myself.

In the end, if that was the reason the Mage was so low, I can accept that.  It allowed me to do more boss DPS so I did about 3K more on that fight then I normally would when I have to conserve focus for the shards.  That made up for some of his lower DPS.  The Shaman, well, they had no excuse.  I did the same instance on my Shaman yesterday and did 6K DPS and I am not even heroic geared yet.  So a heroic geared Shaman has no excuse for 5K.

The group had no problem on trash groups.  They mowed them down like pros.  Lots of CC.  Lots of on target hitting.  It moved along nice and quick.  Next boss came up and I figured this is where the Mage would shine.  They can attack the Dragon the whole time whereas melee can't.

We down the boss and the Mage once again sits at 3500.  The Shaman once again a little over 5K.  The tank once again around 6K which is pretty nice knowing that they can't always attack.  The Mage died half way through.  The Shaman died at the beginning and reincarnated.  I did what it is I do.  I murdered the sucker.  This is a fight build for any ranged class.  Did only 13K because of the wait time a few times for hiding.  Otherwise I am sure 15K would have been a breeze.  I was double the damage done of the other 2 DPS combined.  Sad.  But amazing.  We have two DPS doing what 1 DPS should be doing and we are still downing bosses.

The rock guy might prove to be interesting if I did not play the role of the boy scout and always be prepared.  I walk around with stacks of sulfron slammer should I ever get Stonecore as a random.  So I never took paralyze damage even once, every Hunter worth their name should do the same or they are just a slacker. 

We where doing well, even the Mage was up to 4K, when the tank accidentally turned the boss and it surprised us taking me, the healer and the mage out.  The Shaman and the DK tried but there was nothing they could do after we where gone.  The boss did not have much life left but the damage was just not there.  Maybe if I were there doing my 15K on that boss instead of the Shaman doing his 5K it would have been easier.

We go back, we get it done.  Again, Mage in the 3500 area and Shaman in the 5K area.  Last boss, apparently no one cares that the adds are going for the healer so I have to split time between the boss and saving the healer over and over, when it is much easier for a Shaman or a Mage to begin with. Sucks for me with focus and being a Hunters only AoE is Multi and it takes forever to regain focus to do another one.  This meant I was kiting about 25 mobs around while waiting for more focus to do something.  The boss went down, I did a lame 11K but the Shaman stepped it up, they had a whole 5800 that time around.  The Mage was still sitting at 3500.

I wrote yesterday that you need 8K to do heroics.  I apparently was wrong.  As long as your DPS, even if the suck at DPS, can get out of the bad stuff and the healer is really skilled as to not wasting mana, then fights going on longer can still be done with one really big DPS player in the group.  However, I stand by what I said.  8K does make things easier for sure..  I am amazed that we did the dungeon is just over an hour and with only one wipe.  I am even more amazed that things went down with such pitiful DPS.

What bugs me however is that when you look at the end results I did nearly 50% of the damage and not once did I get a thank you for dealing with what on the surface was a completely subpar group.  At the end when I said thanks for the group not one of them said thanks back.  I was not looking for them to say, hey, thanks for carrying our crappy DPS players, I was at least looking for a thanks for coming.

When I do guild runs and we pull one person in we always, all four of us, say thanks for coming at the end of a run.  We are respectful people, that is what makes my guild good in my opinion.  We are not jerks like most people that play the game and I have no tolerance for people like that.  It takes no time to say thanks for the run at the end of a run. 

I can't believe it was done, but as it seems we did that dungeon with 2 DPS because the Shaman and the Mage added together made for what should have been the output of 1 DPS.  So I was wrong, 8K is not needed.  But it sure as hell is appreciated.  I hate being in a group knowing that if I die it will be a wipe because the DPS will never get the boss down.  Who says the tank and the healer are the only important people in a group?  There is proof that the DPS is just as important or in this case, more important.  Without me, they would have never made it past the first boss.

How can you enter an 85 heroic doing less DPS then you could in an 80 heroic the day you hit 80?  I still do not get it.