Looks like Blizzard is aware of the raid performance issues that were introduced with this week's patch. Good, everybody in the raid dropping to 5 frames really hurt our raid yesterday.
It was weird I had that hit me for about 10 seconds when I zoned into the final wing of LFR antorus but then it went to normal and was fine.
Ha. Random q into the MoP instance that starts you inside a tree. Could not get past first boss, despite killing all the goo and soaking mid puddle, explosion was one shot every time.
Ha. Random q into the MoP instance that starts you inside a tree. Could not get past first boss, despite killing all the goo and soaking mid puddle, explosion was one shot every time.
Possible bug? That happened to us once in a Timewalking. We were soaking and the explosion still killed us. It somehow fixed itself after a few wipes though; we couldn't figure out what we did differently/wrong.
Got my Prydaz on my Resto Shaman, which is my last Resto BiS leggo, so that's cool. With that can just use my Essence to buy Ele leggos to try to get the Gloves.
+2
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Welp AOTC, I guess expansion over.
I absolutely love what disc can do though. There are so many fights in Antorus where it shines incredibly.
Got my Prydaz on my Resto Shaman, which is my last Resto BiS leggo, so that's cool. With that can just use my Essence to buy Ele leggos to try to get the Gloves.
What a coincidence. The gloves are the only BiS leggo I'm missing, too.
My guild tends to not be dicks about DPS and stuff. Like when were doing progression content and your way under performing they'll whisper you and say "Hey we might need you to bench until you get better gear or get this on farm" and you sit out for a few bosses for a week.
We truly have cruel and unusual raid leaders and officers
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
It is disturbing how easy Argus is even on heroic. Like, our second attempt a couple people (like myself, zoned out for the first cone like an idiot) died to stupid shit and we had to decide if we should bother to brez. Which then turned into a kill. Pretty much the boss that wiped us the most was Coven.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
My guild tends to not be dicks about DPS and stuff. Like when were doing progression content and your way under performing they'll whisper you and say "Hey we might need you to bench until you get better gear or get this on farm" and you sit out for a few bosses for a week.
We truly have cruel and unusual raid leaders and officers
I don't think it's cruel and unusual to state that anybody who can understands their class should be able to get at least 65-70% for their item level (or, if doing high heroic/mythic progression, 65-70% overall) or they aren't really playing well. Too many people focus on their DPS relative to the rest of their raid. Someone who tops their raid's DPS but parses green on every fight is an underpeforming player playing with players who underperform even more, and likely isn't leading by as much as he should.
Everyone should always be comparing their DPS to the potential DPS they themselves could be doing. When I evaluate my DPS on a fight, I don't compare myself to anyone else in my raid, I compare myself to other Havoc Demon Hunters on the same boss, and work out whether I'm up to scratch with them. If I'm not, I work out what I need to do better.
Less than 70% rankings are always a player skill issue, and never an issue of gear, barring the most extreme circumstances.
I'm not sure I entirely agree. While I do agree everyone should try to get better, not everyone is pushing for doing Mythic. Some people are fine with Normal, so if they are keeping up with the other DPS in their raid and that raid is progressing through Normal, they are fine. Same with Heroic.
Also, percentiles on WCL aren't the percentage of your potential damage you do, it's what percentage of people are below you. By definition, 50% of the population will always score 50% or lower. Even if every person playing a given class was within 10% of each other in DPS, you'd still have some people only scoring 5%, or 15%.
Boss kill times are a huge factor in dps rankings. You should compare yourself to other parses with around the same fight length.
Sometimes when we have the whole raid on farm we try to go for speed kills by cutting healers and ignoring as many mechanics as possible that detracts from killing the boss faster.
When we succeed, everyone ends up having improved on their personal best by a very noticable margin just because the time outside cooldowns is minimized.
We very rarely bench people because of dps, its always the people who keeps failing mechanics that go first, even if they top the meters.
+1
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Boss kill times are a huge factor in dps rankings. You should compare yourself to other parses with around the same fight length.
Sometimes when we have the whole raid on farm we try to go for speed kills by cutting healers and ignoring as many mechanics as possible that detracts from killing the boss faster.
When we succeed, everyone ends up having improved on their personal best by a very noticable margin just because the time outside cooldowns is minimized.
We very rarely bench people because of dps, its always the people who keeps failing mechanics that go first, even if they top the meters.
Boss kill times matter for deciding between 90% and 99% rankings. They don't make the difference between 30% and 70%.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Also, percentiles on WCL aren't the percentage of your potential damage you do, it's what percentage of people are below you. By definition, 50% of the population will always score 50% or lower. Even if every person playing a given class was within 10% of each other in DPS, you'd still have some people only scoring 5%, or 15%.
I am well aware of how percentiles work. What you say isn't wrong but also isn't applicable to the actual WoW population, because people aren't within 10% of one another. There will always be mediocre players, and there will always be truly terrible players, who simply have no idea how the game works. Anyone who actually has any interest in pulling their weight and takes the time to learn their correct rotation and how best to play their class and spec should be parsing well above 50%.
Fight length, RNG, padding on adds, all of these things make the difference of 5-10%, not 50%. A suboptimal fight length might turn a 99 parse into a 90 parse, or a 75 parse into a 67 parse, but it won't cause a good player to suddenly parse green. Green and grey parses on farm bosses are indicative that someone is not playing their class correctly.
Now, if you're in a guild like the one you mention, progressing through simpler content at a more relaxed pace, then obviously that's not a problem. The people parsing green and grey are in a situation that means playing badly isn't a big deal. That doesn't mean these players aren't playing badly, nor that they shouldn't seek to make improvements.
Edit: also, I really hate this "but mechanics!" mantra that gets trotted out to excuse low DPS constantly. The reality is that these mythical players, who parse high on damage but mess up every mechanic, or the players who do mechanics flawlessly and do less damage than the tanks? They aren't real and don't reflect the majority of the raiding population. Good players are good players, and they do mechanics well and they do DPS well, and bad players are bad, and are likely to perform below par AND mess up fights. One is not mutually exclusive to the other, at all.
And some players just aren't interested on getting better and just want to get their hand held into loot and boss kills. Like, there was this Ret Paladin that quite simply wasn't interested on getting better, so he ended up getting benched on H FA and KJ last tier, and this tier, there's this new Ret paladin that quickly overtook him, with less gear, so he's just out of the core period since the RL gave him a chance this tier and there was no improvement.
Was this incident while we were progressing on H FA when I noticed that he removed his tier set for slightly higher ilvl gear and I noticed and called him out since, you know, people are expected to perform. Didn't took it well, just stopped talking with most people on the guild.
I absolutely love what disc can do though. There are so many fights in Antorus where it shines incredibly.
I keep on thinking about the whole "artifact instability" thing, looking at Light's Wrath, and wanting to ship it to somewhere very far, far away (or a Horde city) before it blows up.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I currently raid with several players with 99% parses who often needs a good talking to about handling mechanics proper. They exist.
Some people are just very good at class performance but have low raid awareness.
Our view is this: you can kill the boss with low raid dps, but you can't kill the boss if the raid blew up. This tier especially has been very lax on dps requirements.
There’s also a lot of people who (consciously or otherwise) make the decision to do mechanics badly because they can do more DPS that way. A lot of players will risk a play that kills them (say) 1/10 times if it carries the possibility of a higher-variance parse.
I really wish WCL parses assigned some sort of sliding weight to mechanical failures, cause atm the incentive can get kinda perverse.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
I wish I could faction change all my characters to Horde. It sucks being on a PvP server in a server group so heavily dominated by Horde.
I also wish the boost price was based on level. I really don't want to level my 85s and 90s to 100 through Panda place and Draenor. I find both those zones so tedious.
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Finally did last wing LFR, both were...straight forward?
One wipe on Aggramar due to a mechanics snafu (neither tank was aware that he did 4 of the slams where you had to share the damage in a row), and one wipe on Argus due to enrage (we had a few DPS doing sub-300K). Was still close to a one shot.
Got the Insignia and immediately banked it since I'm sporting the Cloak and Soul ring.
Got Golg's last night. Just 10 more weeks until it's maxed out. Still can't get my normal shoulders. I think I'd dropped about 12 tokens and 6 unique kills on Coven and no Normal shoulders. Thank goodness for LFR.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
One of these days I will actually bother to do the new raid in LFR :P I haven't been logging in at all for awhile - just haven't been motivated to play I probably lost a bunch of my mail too :P
Not sure if the MoP/WoD overworld monsters just destroying people in one hit stuff got fixed. Nor about all the other bugs, like Mythic+, borked quest givers, etc....
hippofant on
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Well. Someone actually put up data on leveling in the new system.
For a normal playthrough, turns out the time to level is really mostly the same or very slightly slower. The ability to super speed level is what may be gone. But these changes were not for the end game player trying to make a new alt over the weekend. They are for new players and people wanting to actually experience the large amount of content that exists before 110.
People are perceiving it to be so much worse because things die slower and they aren’t flying through dungeons getting bursts of xp. They massively discount how much of an impact moving between zones had on leveling time.
+2
StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
Can a 110 at 868 ilvl solo mythic Blackrock Foundry?
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
I've just started playing, and have a question regarding story progression, and how the expansions unlock as you play.
At the moment, I'm going from zone to zone, as they get higher level. Is there an end of vanilla story questline ? I'm 46 now, so I'm wondering what happens when I hit 60, which I think was the old cap ?
Does Burning Crusade unlock in some way, or is it a matter of finding the right NPC and starting new quests ?
Also, are dungeons tough when you;re levelling ? Or can I just join the current recommended dungeon on the Adventure Guide and just join a PUG ?
Lastly, as a Windwalker Monk, do I count as a tank for role purposes ?
I've just started playing, and have a question regarding story progression, and how the expansions unlock as you play.
At the moment, I'm going from zone to zone, as they get higher level. Is there an end of vanilla story questline ? I'm 46 now, so I'm wondering what happens when I hit 60, which I think was the old cap ?
Does Burning Crusade unlock in some way, or is it a matter of finding the right NPC and starting new quests ?
Also, are dungeons tough when you;re levelling ? Or can I just join the current recommended dungeon on the Adventure Guide and just join a PUG ?
Lastly, as a Windwalker Monk, do I count as a tank for role purposes ?
Thanks.
I want to say that a Windwalker Monk is DPS, and it is Brewmaster that is the tank... I think.
+2
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited January 2018
Windwalkers are DPS.
At level 58 you can get a quest to go to Hellfire Peninsula from a capital city, which is the start of TBC. There won't be any particular end point to the quests you're doing, just a matter of timing for when you hit 58.
I've just started playing, and have a question regarding story progression, and how the expansions unlock as you play.
At the moment, I'm going from zone to zone, as they get higher level. Is there an end of vanilla story questline ? I'm 46 now, so I'm wondering what happens when I hit 60, which I think was the old cap ?
Does Burning Crusade unlock in some way, or is it a matter of finding the right NPC and starting new quests ?
Also, are dungeons tough when you;re levelling ? Or can I just join the current recommended dungeon on the Adventure Guide and just join a PUG ?
Lastly, as a Windwalker Monk, do I count as a tank for role purposes ?
Thanks.
Remember you are not playing actual vanilla story, you are playing Cataclysm 1 - 60. As of this patch, at 58 (or maybe 60 now, not sure) you'll get a choice of going to either TBC Outland or WotLK Northrend. You can do either one or go back and forth, your choice. At 80 you'll get a choice of "80-85" Cataclysm or MoP Pandaria, and again you can do either or mix. At 90 you go to WoD Draenor. At 100 it's Legion Broken Isles.
Before this recent patch the story/levels were:
Vanilla 1 - 60
TBC 60 - 70
WotLK 70 - 80
Cataclysm 1 - 60 (replacing vanilla zones and quests) and 80 - 85 (new zones you could not get to back in actual Vanilla)
MoP 85 - 90.
WoD 90 - 100.
Legion 100 - 110.
Leveling dungeons used to be faceroll easy 15 - 80, then just easy after that. 7.3.5 made them harder, and at least the MoP ones i was doing the other day on my 87 were super hard. Not sure what today's patch did.
My guild tends to not be dicks about DPS and stuff. Like when were doing progression content and your way under performing they'll whisper you and say "Hey we might need you to bench until you get better gear or get this on farm" and you sit out for a few bosses for a week.
We truly have cruel and unusual raid leaders and officers
I don't think it's cruel and unusual to state that anybody who can understands their class should be able to get at least 65-70% for their item level (or, if doing high heroic/mythic progression, 65-70% overall) or they aren't really playing well. Too many people focus on their DPS relative to the rest of their raid. Someone who tops their raid's DPS but parses green on every fight is an underpeforming player playing with players who underperform even more, and likely isn't leading by as much as he should.
Everyone should always be comparing their DPS to the potential DPS they themselves could be doing. When I evaluate my DPS on a fight, I don't compare myself to anyone else in my raid, I compare myself to other Havoc Demon Hunters on the same boss, and work out whether I'm up to scratch with them. If I'm not, I work out what I need to do better.
Less than 70% rankings are always a player skill issue, and never an issue of gear, barring the most extreme circumstances.
The wowlogs percentages are a percentile ranking, right? that would mean it's impossible for more than 50% of players to have parses better than 50% because that's what the percentage means, if you have a 50% ranking it means your parse was better than 50% of the other parses and worse than the other 50%.
Also I can tell you from personal experience that it's quite easy to consistently not be able to parse higher than 30% despite understanding how to press your spec's buttons perfectly. I don't know why exactly but I think it's a latency or connection quality issue.
BahamutZERO on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
My guild tends to not be dicks about DPS and stuff. Like when were doing progression content and your way under performing they'll whisper you and say "Hey we might need you to bench until you get better gear or get this on farm" and you sit out for a few bosses for a week.
We truly have cruel and unusual raid leaders and officers
I don't think it's cruel and unusual to state that anybody who can understands their class should be able to get at least 65-70% for their item level (or, if doing high heroic/mythic progression, 65-70% overall) or they aren't really playing well. Too many people focus on their DPS relative to the rest of their raid. Someone who tops their raid's DPS but parses green on every fight is an underpeforming player playing with players who underperform even more, and likely isn't leading by as much as he should.
Everyone should always be comparing their DPS to the potential DPS they themselves could be doing. When I evaluate my DPS on a fight, I don't compare myself to anyone else in my raid, I compare myself to other Havoc Demon Hunters on the same boss, and work out whether I'm up to scratch with them. If I'm not, I work out what I need to do better.
Less than 70% rankings are always a player skill issue, and never an issue of gear, barring the most extreme circumstances.
The wowlogs percentages are a percentile ranking, right? that would mean it's impossible for more than 50% of players to have parses better than 50% because that's what the percentage means, if you have a 50% ranking it means your parse was better than 50% of the other parses and worse than the other 50%.
Also I can tell you from personal experience that it's quite easy to consistently not be able to parse higher than 30% despite understanding how to press your spec's buttons perfectly. I don't know why exactly but I think it's a latency or connection quality issue.
Yes, because the average WoW player is actually super fucking mediocre at the game. Thus there's a huge population of people who do very meh DPS and bulk out those lower rankings. One's goal should be not to be among their number.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Like, for example, there are a shit ton of Vengeance Demon Hunters who hover around 600k DPS on Varimathras Heroic, even at ~960 item level. Why?
Because they're using Soul Cleave, instead of taking it off their bars and using Spirit Bomb. That's just straight up playing their class wrong. Is it preventing their guilds killing that boss? Obviously not, since they have kill logs, but it doesn't mean they aren't playing badly.
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StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
How many people should I take for a dreanor mythic raid?
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
I took a closer look at some DPS logs to illustrate my point.
I looked at Havoc Demon Hunter logs from Heroic Varimathras. I chose Havoc because I understand the spec, and I chose Varimathras because it's a fight that tends not to have too many weird deaths or chaotic nonsense, it's the closest thing to a Patchwerk fight that this tier has, minimal RNG affecting DPS.
I picked four logs, all roughly the same kill time, within 20 seconds of one another.
A 99% rank, one of my own at 89%, a 49% rank, and a 16% log.
Now, the main things you look at when evaluating a Havoc DH log are;
1. Annihilation and Chaos Strike usage. This is our big damage ability, costs resources and is where most of our damage comes from.
2. Cooldown usage - Metamorphosis and other DPS cooldowns uptime is crucial to the spec and a good log should be within a few % of the optimal uptime. On top of that, did the player cast any abilities that shouldn't be used?
3. Resource management. Did the player spend their resources correctly, or sit at max Fury cap without spending it while still generating more? High usage of Demon's Bite is a red flag here for Havoc, because it's a weak ability that does nothing except generate Fury - if you're using it at max Fury, that hurts your damage.
4. Total number of casts per minute. We're all playing the same spec in the end, and Haste differences don't affect your average number of casts per minute. But end of the day, a fight only has so many GCDs in it, and a GCD-locked spec like Havoc should be filling every single one with an ability. Preferably the right ability, but even the wrong one is better than leaving a GCD empty.
5. Ability usage. Did the correct abilities get used? Did the DH use abilities they shouldn't be using?
So let's have a look at those, one by one.
First, Annihilation and Chaos Strike usage.
99% rank - ~34 uses per minute
My 89% rank - ~38 uses per minute
49% rank - ~30 uses per minute
16% rank - ~23 uses per minute
So right off the bat, you can see that there's a huge drop off in the usage rate of our hardest hitting ability between the four ranks. This doesn't tell us why, only that there's a problem. Also, there's probably something else I did wrong in my log, because I actually had more usage of the harder hitting abilities.
Seems normal here. We've just identified the reason for the gap between my log and the 99% log - He had more and better Meta uptime than I did, so although I had more Chaos Strikes & Annihilations, he had a better ratio of Annihilations, which is the harder hitting of the two. The lower logs had similar uptimes, so this isn't the reason.
Thirdly, resource management.
99% rank - ~1200 Fury per minute, wasted ~15 per minute
My 89% rank - ~1362 Fury per minute, wasted none
49% rank - ~1050 Fury per minute, wasted ~25 per minute
16% rank - ~900 Fury per minute, wasted ~50 per minute
Here's a HUGE difference. We've identified the reason for my increased ability usage over the 99% log - I generated more pain than he did, and wasted none of it. And we've also identified a huge problem with the lower ranks. They're just not generating enough resources, and of the stuff they do generate, they're wasting big chunks. Chaos Strike costs 40 Fury and has the potential to refund 20 of that on a crit, so the 16% rank was wasting nearly two Chaos Strikes every minute worth of Fury! I suspect if we go into the total ability usage next, we're going to identify the same pattern.
Fourth, total casts per minute.
99% rank - ~54 casts per minute
My 89% rank - ~57 casts per minute
49% rank - ~ 55 casts per minute
16% rank - ~55 casts per minute
Everything's fine here, nobody's sitting AFK in the middle of the fight or anything. However, here's where the next point comes in.
Fifth, ability usage.
99% rank - Log is mostly made up of Annihilation, Demon's Bite, Chaos Strike, Eye Beam. Other abilities are used in the single digits, like DPS cooldowns.
89% rank - Same story, no wasted GCDs here.
49% rank - Ah, now we start to identify some problems. While his log is still dominated by the correct abilities, he used Throw Glaive 9 times during the fight. That's a ranged ability, only EVER used to pull mobs, or hit something when you literally cannot get into melee range. It does not belong in the Havoc rotation, and he spent 9 GCDs on it! He wasted about another 10 GCDs on miscellaneous abilities which don't belong in the Havoc rotation.
16% rank - This one is all over the fucking place. 15 uses of Death Sweep and Blade Dance combined, which is an ability that is only ever used when fighting more than 6 mobs in an AOE situation. A bunch of uses of Throw Glaive. And apparently he also used his Chaos Nova stun? It does essentially no damage, and bosses are immune to stuns. Bizarre.
So we've just identified, really, the main differences between these logs. Everyone's doing roughly the same number of total casts, but the better logs are using those casts correctly. Everyone's got roughly the same RNG on buff uptime, but the better logs are using the right abilities during those buffs.
The people on the bottom aren't getting bad latency, or bad RNG, or bad anything. They're just making bad decisions, dumb decisions, about how to play their spec in a raid fight, using completely wrong abilities half the time, and getting the results commensurate with their level of knowledge about the encounter.
How many people should I take for a dreanor mythic raid?
Depends. The safest thing is to go with groups of 2-3 people since some fights, specially things like Hellfire Assault are currently very hard to solo (Mythic Blast Furnace on BRF cannot be killed without a Priest) but I've been killing enough BRF Mythic bosses per week on my own to fully farm the mog:
TryCatcher on
+1
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Maybe the 16% is still in T20 (wasn't Blade Dance an integral part of that set bonus)? I dunno...
So @Dhalphir et al, I have a question about my DPS-readiness on my BM hunter, ilevel 932, no buffs.
Against a regular target dummy, I average about 1.35M DPS with a Core Hound Insanity.
Went into LFR Varithamas, my real performance was 1.06M DPS.
Where does that put me in terms of readiness for raids/mythic+s? Obviously I know it's more complicated than just my pure DPS numbers, but I'm having a really hard time getting a sense of where I'm supposed to be for what, especially since a lot of PUGs seem to list insane requirements. I tried looking at the Warcraft Logs site, but I don't even know where to start parsing, cuz people are at all different ilevels possibly slumming it in lower tier raids, etc..
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StragintDo Not GiftAlways DeclinesRegistered Userregular
Can I go to legion at 98? I want to escape dreanor as soon as possible.
PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Posts
It was weird I had that hit me for about 10 seconds when I zoned into the final wing of LFR antorus but then it went to normal and was fine.
Possible bug? That happened to us once in a Timewalking. We were soaking and the explosion still killed us. It somehow fixed itself after a few wipes though; we couldn't figure out what we did differently/wrong.
:thinking:
Gee Blizz, is like ignoring PTR feedback has consequences or something.
I absolutely love what disc can do though. There are so many fights in Antorus where it shines incredibly.
What a coincidence. The gloves are the only BiS leggo I'm missing, too.
Steam: pazython
We truly have cruel and unusual raid leaders and officers
I don't think it's cruel and unusual to state that anybody who can understands their class should be able to get at least 65-70% for their item level (or, if doing high heroic/mythic progression, 65-70% overall) or they aren't really playing well. Too many people focus on their DPS relative to the rest of their raid. Someone who tops their raid's DPS but parses green on every fight is an underpeforming player playing with players who underperform even more, and likely isn't leading by as much as he should.
Everyone should always be comparing their DPS to the potential DPS they themselves could be doing. When I evaluate my DPS on a fight, I don't compare myself to anyone else in my raid, I compare myself to other Havoc Demon Hunters on the same boss, and work out whether I'm up to scratch with them. If I'm not, I work out what I need to do better.
Less than 70% rankings are always a player skill issue, and never an issue of gear, barring the most extreme circumstances.
Also, percentiles on WCL aren't the percentage of your potential damage you do, it's what percentage of people are below you. By definition, 50% of the population will always score 50% or lower. Even if every person playing a given class was within 10% of each other in DPS, you'd still have some people only scoring 5%, or 15%.
Sometimes when we have the whole raid on farm we try to go for speed kills by cutting healers and ignoring as many mechanics as possible that detracts from killing the boss faster.
When we succeed, everyone ends up having improved on their personal best by a very noticable margin just because the time outside cooldowns is minimized.
We very rarely bench people because of dps, its always the people who keeps failing mechanics that go first, even if they top the meters.
Boss kill times matter for deciding between 90% and 99% rankings. They don't make the difference between 30% and 70%.
I am well aware of how percentiles work. What you say isn't wrong but also isn't applicable to the actual WoW population, because people aren't within 10% of one another. There will always be mediocre players, and there will always be truly terrible players, who simply have no idea how the game works. Anyone who actually has any interest in pulling their weight and takes the time to learn their correct rotation and how best to play their class and spec should be parsing well above 50%.
Fight length, RNG, padding on adds, all of these things make the difference of 5-10%, not 50%. A suboptimal fight length might turn a 99 parse into a 90 parse, or a 75 parse into a 67 parse, but it won't cause a good player to suddenly parse green. Green and grey parses on farm bosses are indicative that someone is not playing their class correctly.
Now, if you're in a guild like the one you mention, progressing through simpler content at a more relaxed pace, then obviously that's not a problem. The people parsing green and grey are in a situation that means playing badly isn't a big deal. That doesn't mean these players aren't playing badly, nor that they shouldn't seek to make improvements.
Edit: also, I really hate this "but mechanics!" mantra that gets trotted out to excuse low DPS constantly. The reality is that these mythical players, who parse high on damage but mess up every mechanic, or the players who do mechanics flawlessly and do less damage than the tanks? They aren't real and don't reflect the majority of the raiding population. Good players are good players, and they do mechanics well and they do DPS well, and bad players are bad, and are likely to perform below par AND mess up fights. One is not mutually exclusive to the other, at all.
Was this incident while we were progressing on H FA when I noticed that he removed his tier set for slightly higher ilvl gear and I noticed and called him out since, you know, people are expected to perform. Didn't took it well, just stopped talking with most people on the guild.
I keep on thinking about the whole "artifact instability" thing, looking at Light's Wrath, and wanting to ship it to somewhere very far, far away (or a Horde city) before it blows up.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Some people are just very good at class performance but have low raid awareness.
Our view is this: you can kill the boss with low raid dps, but you can't kill the boss if the raid blew up. This tier especially has been very lax on dps requirements.
I really wish WCL parses assigned some sort of sliding weight to mechanical failures, cause atm the incentive can get kinda perverse.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I also wish the boost price was based on level. I really don't want to level my 85s and 90s to 100 through Panda place and Draenor. I find both those zones so tedious.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
One wipe on Aggramar due to a mechanics snafu (neither tank was aware that he did 4 of the slams where you had to share the damage in a row), and one wipe on Argus due to enrage (we had a few DPS doing sub-300K). Was still close to a one shot.
Got the Insignia and immediately banked it since I'm sporting the Cloak and Soul ring.
http://www.wowhead.com/news=280875/na-realms-back-up-raid-scaling-outdoor-mob-hp-performance-issues-fixed
Not sure if the MoP/WoD overworld monsters just destroying people in one hit stuff got fixed. Nor about all the other bugs, like Mythic+, borked quest givers, etc....
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/7rlc4o/i_have_leveled_from_160_under_the_new_system_and/
For a normal playthrough, turns out the time to level is really mostly the same or very slightly slower. The ability to super speed level is what may be gone. But these changes were not for the end game player trying to make a new alt over the weekend. They are for new players and people wanting to actually experience the large amount of content that exists before 110.
People are perceiving it to be so much worse because things die slower and they aren’t flying through dungeons getting bursts of xp. They massively discount how much of an impact moving between zones had on leveling time.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
At the moment, I'm going from zone to zone, as they get higher level. Is there an end of vanilla story questline ? I'm 46 now, so I'm wondering what happens when I hit 60, which I think was the old cap ?
Does Burning Crusade unlock in some way, or is it a matter of finding the right NPC and starting new quests ?
Also, are dungeons tough when you;re levelling ? Or can I just join the current recommended dungeon on the Adventure Guide and just join a PUG ?
Lastly, as a Windwalker Monk, do I count as a tank for role purposes ?
Thanks.
I want to say that a Windwalker Monk is DPS, and it is Brewmaster that is the tank... I think.
At level 58 you can get a quest to go to Hellfire Peninsula from a capital city, which is the start of TBC. There won't be any particular end point to the quests you're doing, just a matter of timing for when you hit 58.
Remember you are not playing actual vanilla story, you are playing Cataclysm 1 - 60. As of this patch, at 58 (or maybe 60 now, not sure) you'll get a choice of going to either TBC Outland or WotLK Northrend. You can do either one or go back and forth, your choice. At 80 you'll get a choice of "80-85" Cataclysm or MoP Pandaria, and again you can do either or mix. At 90 you go to WoD Draenor. At 100 it's Legion Broken Isles.
Before this recent patch the story/levels were:
Vanilla 1 - 60
TBC 60 - 70
WotLK 70 - 80
Cataclysm 1 - 60 (replacing vanilla zones and quests) and 80 - 85 (new zones you could not get to back in actual Vanilla)
MoP 85 - 90.
WoD 90 - 100.
Legion 100 - 110.
Leveling dungeons used to be faceroll easy 15 - 80, then just easy after that. 7.3.5 made them harder, and at least the MoP ones i was doing the other day on my 87 were super hard. Not sure what today's patch did.
The wowlogs percentages are a percentile ranking, right? that would mean it's impossible for more than 50% of players to have parses better than 50% because that's what the percentage means, if you have a 50% ranking it means your parse was better than 50% of the other parses and worse than the other 50%.
Also I can tell you from personal experience that it's quite easy to consistently not be able to parse higher than 30% despite understanding how to press your spec's buttons perfectly. I don't know why exactly but I think it's a latency or connection quality issue.
Yes, because the average WoW player is actually super fucking mediocre at the game. Thus there's a huge population of people who do very meh DPS and bulk out those lower rankings. One's goal should be not to be among their number.
Because they're using Soul Cleave, instead of taking it off their bars and using Spirit Bomb. That's just straight up playing their class wrong. Is it preventing their guilds killing that boss? Obviously not, since they have kill logs, but it doesn't mean they aren't playing badly.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
I looked at Havoc Demon Hunter logs from Heroic Varimathras. I chose Havoc because I understand the spec, and I chose Varimathras because it's a fight that tends not to have too many weird deaths or chaotic nonsense, it's the closest thing to a Patchwerk fight that this tier has, minimal RNG affecting DPS.
I picked four logs, all roughly the same kill time, within 20 seconds of one another.
A 99% rank, one of my own at 89%, a 49% rank, and a 16% log.
Now, the main things you look at when evaluating a Havoc DH log are;
1. Annihilation and Chaos Strike usage. This is our big damage ability, costs resources and is where most of our damage comes from.
2. Cooldown usage - Metamorphosis and other DPS cooldowns uptime is crucial to the spec and a good log should be within a few % of the optimal uptime. On top of that, did the player cast any abilities that shouldn't be used?
3. Resource management. Did the player spend their resources correctly, or sit at max Fury cap without spending it while still generating more? High usage of Demon's Bite is a red flag here for Havoc, because it's a weak ability that does nothing except generate Fury - if you're using it at max Fury, that hurts your damage.
4. Total number of casts per minute. We're all playing the same spec in the end, and Haste differences don't affect your average number of casts per minute. But end of the day, a fight only has so many GCDs in it, and a GCD-locked spec like Havoc should be filling every single one with an ability. Preferably the right ability, but even the wrong one is better than leaving a GCD empty.
5. Ability usage. Did the correct abilities get used? Did the DH use abilities they shouldn't be using?
So let's have a look at those, one by one.
First, Annihilation and Chaos Strike usage.
99% rank - ~34 uses per minute
My 89% rank - ~38 uses per minute
49% rank - ~30 uses per minute
16% rank - ~23 uses per minute
So right off the bat, you can see that there's a huge drop off in the usage rate of our hardest hitting ability between the four ranks. This doesn't tell us why, only that there's a problem. Also, there's probably something else I did wrong in my log, because I actually had more usage of the harder hitting abilities.
Secondly, cooldown usage.
99% rank - 56.13% Metamorphosis uptime
My 89% rank - 49.81% Metamorphosis uptime
49% rank - 52.46% Metamorphosis uptime
16% rank - 51% Metamorphosis uptime
Seems normal here. We've just identified the reason for the gap between my log and the 99% log - He had more and better Meta uptime than I did, so although I had more Chaos Strikes & Annihilations, he had a better ratio of Annihilations, which is the harder hitting of the two. The lower logs had similar uptimes, so this isn't the reason.
Thirdly, resource management.
99% rank - ~1200 Fury per minute, wasted ~15 per minute
My 89% rank - ~1362 Fury per minute, wasted none
49% rank - ~1050 Fury per minute, wasted ~25 per minute
16% rank - ~900 Fury per minute, wasted ~50 per minute
Here's a HUGE difference. We've identified the reason for my increased ability usage over the 99% log - I generated more pain than he did, and wasted none of it. And we've also identified a huge problem with the lower ranks. They're just not generating enough resources, and of the stuff they do generate, they're wasting big chunks. Chaos Strike costs 40 Fury and has the potential to refund 20 of that on a crit, so the 16% rank was wasting nearly two Chaos Strikes every minute worth of Fury! I suspect if we go into the total ability usage next, we're going to identify the same pattern.
Fourth, total casts per minute.
99% rank - ~54 casts per minute
My 89% rank - ~57 casts per minute
49% rank - ~ 55 casts per minute
16% rank - ~55 casts per minute
Everything's fine here, nobody's sitting AFK in the middle of the fight or anything. However, here's where the next point comes in.
Fifth, ability usage.
99% rank - Log is mostly made up of Annihilation, Demon's Bite, Chaos Strike, Eye Beam. Other abilities are used in the single digits, like DPS cooldowns.
89% rank - Same story, no wasted GCDs here.
49% rank - Ah, now we start to identify some problems. While his log is still dominated by the correct abilities, he used Throw Glaive 9 times during the fight. That's a ranged ability, only EVER used to pull mobs, or hit something when you literally cannot get into melee range. It does not belong in the Havoc rotation, and he spent 9 GCDs on it! He wasted about another 10 GCDs on miscellaneous abilities which don't belong in the Havoc rotation.
16% rank - This one is all over the fucking place. 15 uses of Death Sweep and Blade Dance combined, which is an ability that is only ever used when fighting more than 6 mobs in an AOE situation. A bunch of uses of Throw Glaive. And apparently he also used his Chaos Nova stun? It does essentially no damage, and bosses are immune to stuns. Bizarre.
So we've just identified, really, the main differences between these logs. Everyone's doing roughly the same number of total casts, but the better logs are using those casts correctly. Everyone's got roughly the same RNG on buff uptime, but the better logs are using the right abilities during those buffs.
The people on the bottom aren't getting bad latency, or bad RNG, or bad anything. They're just making bad decisions, dumb decisions, about how to play their spec in a raid fight, using completely wrong abilities half the time, and getting the results commensurate with their level of knowledge about the encounter.
Depends. The safest thing is to go with groups of 2-3 people since some fights, specially things like Hellfire Assault are currently very hard to solo (Mythic Blast Furnace on BRF cannot be killed without a Priest) but I've been killing enough BRF Mythic bosses per week on my own to fully farm the mog:
Against a regular target dummy, I average about 1.35M DPS with a Core Hound Insanity.
Went into LFR Varithamas, my real performance was 1.06M DPS.
Where does that put me in terms of readiness for raids/mythic+s? Obviously I know it's more complicated than just my pure DPS numbers, but I'm having a really hard time getting a sense of where I'm supposed to be for what, especially since a lot of PUGs seem to list insane requirements. I tried looking at the Warcraft Logs site, but I don't even know where to start parsing, cuz people are at all different ilevels possibly slumming it in lower tier raids, etc..
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Pretty sure you can. Maybe 99, but I definitely hit Legion before 100. Just gotta go back to Org/SW and answer the summons, IIRC.