The Next World of Warcraft Thread

[Cuellar]

The problem with recount is people who rely on it too much. I don't look at it on my rogue anymore because I know what I'm doing, and I'll only look at it at the end of a fight so I can recap and make sure I did a good job.

I think that's the entire point of it. The usefullness in my opinion is not for e-peen, rather "gee I really sucked there, wtf do I need to do to focus?" Case and point is I was doing Ony 25 man last night, first round I sucked balls and was 6th on the meter. I noticed I was screwing around waiting to kill adds rather than just hammering ony and switching after 20 seconds. Next 2 times I was top of the meter.

The biggest problem with using dps vs dmg is as noted above that peopel can overagro and die, but get the top of a dps meter. At the end fo the day, I purely measure how much dmg I put out against a boss, which is how useful I was. DMG is almost always better than DPS, especially since a few specs do large bursts of dmg followed by periods of doing diddly shit, IE fire vs arcane mage.

The other problem with the meters period is that they really don't measure raid-things you do. Case and point is measuring 2 mages... one is spec'd for focus magic, the other isn't. I'll boost the other mage's dps, yet he does didly shit for me. Then, I also give up about 200 dps to glyph for imp scorch, since I usually PUG 10 mans (and most other people are fucking lazy). Clearly my buff to the raid isn't getting added to my dps, but the DPS loss is. Obviously I'm not going to respec just for epeen.

I think between failbot, recount, and ORA you can figure out if people suck or not. Usually DPS that blow, suck at all 3. Last time I did VOA, some dipshit got hit by 22 ticks of the damn fire, and managed to do 1100 dps. So I guess my point is that looking at this shit just lets you know who the mouthbreathers are. And if you got 2 great players who want to join your raid, one does 2k dps and the other does 4k dps... who do you want?

Crappy heals/tanks are a lot harder to measure. Case and point was yesterday in HToC, and someone (who will remain nameless) blamed my priest for not being able to heal... meanwhile the guy didn't have frost pres up, and even then I had to spot heal for Tarts since people kept standing in poison.

[Greywolf2375]

Crappy heals/tanks are a lot harder to measure. Case and point was yesterday in HToC, and someone (who will remain nameless) blamed my priest for not being able to heal... meanwhile the guy didn't have frost pres up, and even then I had to spot heal for Tarts since people kept standing in poison.

yeah, for this reason I wish it counted up the number of Cleanses that got thrown out there - it isn't a dispel, so it doesn't count. first two times I'm not sure I actually did DPS after dropping a judgement.

[Guest Nadine]

*shrug* My dps on ala/rick suffered when I spot healed too. Yes, there is too much focus on numbers - noone can dps when they are dead.

I leveled my son's JC as much as I am going to - 437 is good enough and he can make prisims or something for the last pts. Got his mining to 415, so he is set for Northrend. He is quite happy and states I am the best mom in the whole world.

Was going to mine in Wintergrasp today, a drood came up to me as I was hitting a node and had me half dead before I got wtf out. She killed me and hung me like a goose. Ha!! Hope that made her day. Well, not sure what happened there...are you always PvP in Wintergrasp, even if there is no battle?

[Inigima]

Was going to mine in Wintergrasp today, a drood came up to me as I was hitting a node and had me half dead before I got wtf out. She killed me and hung me like a goose. Ha!! Hope that made her day. Well, not sure what happened there...are you always PvP in Wintergrasp, even if there is no battle?

Yes, Wintergrasp is always a PvP zone, regardless of PvE/PvP realm, PvP flag option and Wintergrasp battle status.

[Foreverlad]

Entering this discussion very late, so my apologies. While no one's asked for my opinion on DPS meters, I'm still happy to share.

DPS meters are only annoying when used by annoying people. I'll be the semi-odd man out here and tell you I'm about 95% assured by what a DPS meter tells me about people I group with. With that statement, I will admit there's any number of factors that need be taken into account.

1. 5-mans aren't a great source of reliable information. Pulls occurring while someone's drinking, AoE packs, someone staying on the boss instead of focusing down the adds, etc. While all these factors will influence someone's score on the meters, it doesn't make that information meaningless, so long as you (or whoever is watching it) considers those factors.

2. Gimmick fights. I play a hunter (non-huntard variety), there were fights in Naxx and a few in Ulduar where my DPS is going to be lower than others. Some of it is range, some of it is add-duty, it can't be helped. While my DPS suffers on some fights, I have advantages in other boss fights. Recounting the final numbers should give a guild a pretty even display of who managed what. Obviously trash mobs shouldn't be recorded, so as not to influence 'reality'.

3. Talents & Specific Builds: Some parties/raids/groups have players spec for particular reasons. This'll throw off your contribution if you sacrifice DPS for utility. A cursory glance over a player's profile, or the odd way in which mobs are never getting a cast off, should be more than enough to acknowledge the reason for lower dps.

Bad players follow the damage meter at the expense of following the threat meter. Others add meaningless variables (like recording trash data) to boost themselves up. I keep my DPS and threat meter running throughout. It only takes a minute of a boss fight for me to recognize if I'm slipping up on my shot rotation or I'm playing sloppy.

Anyway, on the subject of gear scores and "LFM X dps required", it's unfortunate but understandable, if you use the right point of view. Most groups want to be in and out of a dungeon quickly. Not having the gear means there's a good chance you don't have experience in that raid. Not knowing your DPS means you (general) are likely one of those folk who aren't studying class mechanics, raid guides, etc. Most Naxx runs have become badge farming runs. Undergeared party members turn it into something progressive, not zerg-able.

While a gear score doesn't tell you everything about a player, it can indeed tell you SOMETHING. Gear supplements talent. No matter how great a player you might be, there's only so much DPS/Heals/Threat you can eek out of dungeon blues. Conversely, there's plenty of players with the gear and no talent.

If you're stuck running with pugs, you're gonna be stuck playing the expectations game. No two ways around it.

...sigh. Tommorow night it's back for my 3rd hour of Algalon 10 man. He needs to die this week.

[Myshkin]

Was going to mine in Wintergrasp today, a drood came up to me as I was hitting a node and had me half dead before I got wtf out. She killed me and hung me like a goose. Ha!! Hope that made her day. Well, not sure what happened there...are you always PvP in Wintergrasp, even if there is no battle?

Was mining titanium and crystallized fire there yesterday and some bastard druid waited until I had pulled 3 mobs before he attacked. What a dick. I got him back though; rezed, flew to top of bluff then shot the shit out of him before he could figure out where I was.

Was farming Strathholme for the mount today and found Cloudkeeper Legplates, which I managed to sell for 950g. Yay.

[Forderz!]

And that was the last I've heard of him. It's so funny just how numbers-focused people have become in this game. Between DPS/Gear Score/ wow-heroes.com score...it's just silly. It's a game. There was a time where skill mattered more than DPS, but sadly...BC marked the end of those days.

Hunters got it sooooo easy nowadays, if anyone actually let them kite, you know, stuff.

On the metre-talk, if someone is pulling 6k on any single target fight you know that person is rocking out in the latest rotations with some pimp gear. What that doesn't tell you is their situational awareness/reflexes. I have a boomkin and 3 locks in my guild that I can say with full confidence suck ass. They all do ~5.5k, but i can't tell you the number of times we've wiped on HBeasts25, when absolutely everyone needs to stay up the whole fight, and they get 4 ticks of a fire in p1. Fucking slugheads.

Also: fuck Alliance that wait until I have Chillmaw down to 40% before jumping me. Fuck you to hell.

[Inigima]

Was farming Strathholme for the mount today and found Cloudkeeper Legplates, which I managed to sell for 950g. Yay.

From the Lucky Bastard files: When I was the right level for Strat, I only went through it once and only did the Scarlet side. When I was in the late 70s, I went with another rogue from my guild to farm for runecloth, and we did the whole thing, so that was my first time killing the Baron. Deathcharger's Reins dropped. Other rogue only has eyes for Midnight (from Kara) and passed, so I got the reins.

[PhelanArcetus]

My pally's been riding the Deathcharger since 3.0. It's sweet as hell.

I don't agree with leaving out trash from meters. Separating it, perhaps. But trash counts too. It may only rarely drop anything worth even disenchanting, and most of it is trivial AoEfest, but it matters. I can't just go into an instance and jump straight to the boss by telling the trash it's irrelevant. And the number of people I've seen in raids who decide trash doesn't matter so they put no effort in until a boss? I don't want them because they're slowing up the run.

Recount does have a dispel counter as well; I look at it periodically.

I normally leave it sorted by total damage and displaying DPS.

Got 2x H-ToC and 2x H-DTK (the daily) done as well as some tournament dailies (I just want to get my two real characters squires and ponies for those squires, and hadn't started til recently). No problems, though the pug I had for the first ToC was pretty silly. We all pass on loot, all say "no, I don't DE", and a minute later the ret pally says "oh wait I can DE". Good work! The warlock was pulling under 1k dps, which is just embarrassing to my mind.

Otherwise they were all guild runs and thus quite trivial. Even got my warrior the two DTK achievements we'd never bothered with before. Just grinding grinding grinding my way towards the EoT that'll let me get some more upgrades.

[Weak With The Dawn]

I normally leave it sorted by total damage and displaying DPS.

This.

Damage and DPS are like peanut butter and jelly ( or fluff and nutella), you can't have one without the other.

DPS shows Potential, Damage Done shows Skill.

If you're top of the DPS but lowest on Damage done, it means you were standing in shit. If you're top damage and lowest DPS, you should probably stop pugging because everyone else is standing in shit :rofl:

Obviously this is only relative for stationary fights without cast interrupts. But recount counts a number of other things as well. I.e. interrupts, friendly fire, dispels, over all healing and HPS.

So if I'm sitting on the side interrupting something, just auto-attacking (easy mode Iron Council) at least you can see how many times I prevented a chain lightening.

Recount really shows an ability to work in a group, that's why it's good to have.

Personally though, WWS (WoW Web Stats) is better then recount but the person running it can't DC or the whole record is screwed.

[RaceBannon42]

They are tools. They need to be used properly. Sure you can use a socket wrench as a hammer, but really it should be used to tighten nuts with. :P

I use it more to see who is doing interrupts, or dispells. I dont really care what peoples dps is unless we are running into enrage timers. But if a person is low you can use that to see what they are doing wrong to help them improve.

Now I'll share a recount horror story from last night.

We finished our attempts on ToC heroic about an hour early last night, so I ended up going to a Vault 25 pug on my DK. It reminded me why I dont pug much. There were only like 6 people above 3k dps and there were like 4 dps under 2k including one ret pally who kept pulling aggro at like 9k tps. looked at recount and they were under 900 dps. Hand of Reckoning (Pally Taunt) was his 4th best source of damage. Group broke up after the 4th wipe. Honest when my crappy geared alt is 3rd on dps the group is in trouble.

[PhelanArcetus]

I normally find people who are higher on dps than damage... and given the circumstances, I consider it to be poor reaction times and failure to chase the tank closely, rather than standing in death.

I want to WWS sometime in the relatively near future so I can actually look in some detail (and possibly get other people's input on some things). At least our boomkin seems to have learned a better rotation, which easily added 1k dps.

I basically don't dare pug 25s, even Vault, anymore. It's not nearly so bad as it was before 3.2 hit, because now people who are pugging Vault hoping for gear, well, they can get quality gear. Suffering through a group with 8-10 people appropriately or over-geared for the instance and the rest typically undergeared, in the vain hope of seeing something other than warlock PvP pants... not worth it. 10-mans weren't nearly so bad, between the lower gear threshold and less opportunities for a moron or lazy bum, but they still weren't great. Right now it seems like we'll probably have time to get two Vault and Ony runs with core people each week, so I'm in good shape.

[Inigima]

So I made some changes -- mostly swapped out a bit of hit for a bit of expertise. Still working on emblems for the Conqueror's Terrorblade Breastplate. I also run a couple Heroics (CoS, Nex).

Usually I just look at overall DPS. About halfway through Nex I decided to check both my overall DPS and my DPS on bosses. I still only pulled 1785 on everything (trash included), but on Ormorok the Treeshaper, I pulled 3467, right behind the DK at 3600-something. (And was second behind him in damage too -- I forget the absolute numbers, but the percentages were about 33.5% and 30.03% [second number is me]). (Last DPS was okay but not great.)

Am I correct in thinking (hoping) that I'm actually doing quite well?

[Guest Nadine]

Those are nice numbers - what kind of gear do you have? Also, hit is #1 prio until you are hit capped.

[Inigima]

Those are nice numbers - what kind of gear do you have? Also, hit is #1 prio until you are hit capped.

Thanks. I'm well past the YHC, which is 99, currently at 227 after dropping the 16 hit in favor of 16 expertise -- the next cap is Poison hit cap at 315. My understanding is that the YHC is priority #1 but the PHC is further down the food chain, no?

Got one piece of the emblem T8 (Conqueror's Terrorblade Helmet), enchanted with the Ebon DPS arcanum and gemmed with Relentless Earthsiege Diamond and +16 agi. Chestpiece to follow, but need 23 more emblems first. Broach of the Wailing Night, Shoulderpads of the Infamous Knave (gemmed for +16 agi). Ice Striker's Cloak. Darkheart Chestguard (Ebon exalted chestpiece enchanted with Powerful Stats, for now. Bindings of the Tunneler are my last blue. Gloves of the Argent Fanatic, enchanted for +20 hit and gemmed with +8 hit/+12 sta. Belt of Fierce Competition, now gemmed for +8 hit/+8 expertise. Gored Hide Legguards, with Icescale Leg Armor (+75 atk, +22 crit). Boots of the Neverending Path (Argent exalted reward) enchanted for +32 atk. Uraka's Band of Zeal, Titanium Impact Band (gemmed for +8 hit/+8 expertise). Trinkets are Coren's Chromium Coaster and Banner of Victory.

[Shryke]

Okay, I'll put it this way: when someone in trade or LFG channel is saying "LF 2k+ DPS for naxx10 run" they don't care about how big your epeen is. They're looking for someone who is competent, and that's the best quantitative way to judge independently whether or not a DPS is competent.

I've been developing a new theory of how to judge a DPS class (or at least some of them):

Spell Interupts

If they actually use them, they automatically become competent in my eyes.

I've been running ToC like crazy for the past week and I swear 99% of the DPS classes out there never even trained Kick/Wind Shear/Mind Freeze/etc.

[Inigima]

I've been developing a new theory of how to judge a DPS class (or at least some of them):

Spell Interupts

If they actually use them, they automatically become competent in my eyes.

I've been running ToC like crazy for the past week and I swear 99% of the DPS classes out there never even trained Kick/Wind Shear/Mind Freeze/etc.

Doesn't work on a lot of things. You can kick that bastard Colosus out of his heals, but the proper bosses are all immune.

[Shryke]

Doesn't work on a lot of things. You can kick that bastard Colosus out of his heals, but the proper bosses are all immune.

Paletress ain't and she's the worst.

[Kalbear]

That's an excellent theory. Especially since there are many, many fights in raids that revolve around interrupts - and there are many dps that simply fail at them.

Got Yogg+1 down tonight, and a bunch of people got their Ironbounds. Once we had a solid brain phase things basically went smoothly. Of course, I ended up being DCed as my UPC blew up as soon as lightning hit, causing me to be offline for 20 min and floating in the dead fortress of ghost Ulduar on a mount I couldn't get off.

After a few logins and taking res sickness, I came back in, we pulled, we won, and I got top DPS for melee. Fuck you, yogurt monster.

Then we proceeded to one-shot heroic beasts after sucking on it so much last week, one shot Jaraxxus, and then kill FC after a couple pulls of 'wait, should we kill the most dangerous thing that wrecks us or not?' Then proceeded to flail like retarded walruses on Twin Valk hard. Sigh.

At least we have a whole nother night to flail on them.

[Shryke]

That's an excellent theory. Especially since there are many, many fights in raids that revolve around interrupts - and there are many dps that simply fail at them.

It's situational awareness.

It's seems there's like 3 general levels of players (especially DPS).

1) The Dummies: The DKs in Spell Power gear. The guy in Full Epics doing 900 DPS. They have no idea what they are doing.

2) The Monkeys: They read a guide, they push the buttons, Recount says they're a good boy. 'But if something comes up that isn't in the guide (ie - you might have to move or interrupt a spell or something) they are lost. They are monkeys following a script. They get by because most of the game isn't terribly punishing on the clueless who can pump out big DPS numbers.

3) The Competent: The people who are actually paying attention.