Originally Posted by Graul
I keep seeing WWS with Mages, Hunters, Warlocks and Rogues pulling out some crazy numbers and wonder if it's just some kind of gimmick they are using (like stacked groups with bloodlust rotations and drums of battle), if gear truly makes a Hunter go from 850 sustained average damage to 1100+ or if it's really just a matter of being that much better and knowing the exact rotations you should be doing at all times on any given encounter.
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I think it's much more skill than gear. The
same Hunter in the same gear can go from 750 to 1150 from night to night due to lag, group composition, available buffs, consumable use, or just not pushing the right buttons.
For instance, my personal high and low over the last couple weeks:
Wow Web Stats (1150ish)
Loading... (750ish)
Note that I'm a Survival Hunter, too. A BM Hunter with similar gear should be higher.
On topic more, the above is probably a good example of why some players aren't in hard-core guild. I can perform as well as some hard-core players (and I do it with worse gear). But I can't perform at 100% every night. I've gotten better, but I'm still too inconsistent.
Originally Posted by Trouble
The problem is that people are trying to describe multiple scales of attributes in a single dimensional scale.
Plays a lot <----> doesn't play much
Sucks at game <----> awesome at game
Reads strats/theorycraft a lot <----> never reads anything
Farms a lot <------> never farms
There's probably more. Some of these have some interconnection but they all definitely stand on their own. For example, I am good at the game, I play a lot, I read every strat and tons of theorycraft, and I never ever farm. I'm a welfare baby when it comes to materials.
People try to describe everyone on a scale of hardcore to casual and that's just dumb. Hardcore and casual tells me nothing at all. In order to understand what they mean, I have to try and understand what the person saying it actually means. A hardcore raider saying casual often means a sucky player. A casual player saying casual often means someone who doesn't play much. But it's still a guess until they describe in more detail.
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That's a good point. But any of those can have an affect on progress. If you have a bunch of great players who can only raid 2-3 nights a week, you can make progress if everyone has high attendance. But what if you have a bunch of players who can each raid 30% of the time? You're going to have all kinds of problems with training people on each encounter, gearing up much more slowly, and with general class balance. But by some definitions, a group of highly skilled players with rough schedules would be "hard-core" even if they didn't make much progress.
Likewise, if you have a group of skilled players who raid often, but never farm, you're still going to run into some issues with progress. Or if you have a bunch of players who raid alot, but are not quite skilled enough for BC content so you have to do every boss over and over until the worst players get lucky.
I tend to judge how hard-core groups are by progress more than behavior.
Based on your criteria, I should be hard-core. I play too much. I'm above average in skill compared to the playerbase at large, but I'm no Howitzer. I read strategies. I farm so much I've head people say things like, "Where did all the mobs go? Oh, Nyidi is here." And yet, I consider myself casual. Guilt by association, I suppose. I'm in a group that is basically 1/6 SSC. I wouldn't presume to be hard-core from that. But the vast majority of the playerbase does not raid at all, so compared to them I'm hard-core. I'm definitely hard-core from a game designer's perspective. I'm the sort of player than MMOs don't make much profit from.
If I was a better player, I'd probably be trying to join 11th Hour or even looking for a server transfer. Casual raiding can mean very slow progress. Frankly, it can mean a few players end up wasting everyone else's time while they learn basic MMO skills that hard-core raiders learned in EverQuest or at least in AQ40/Naxx. But there's no shortcut to that learning process, apart from recruiting people who have been through it already. And on my server, the pool of skilled raiders is unusually limited. If you're serious about raiding, you're likely in one of the serious raid guilds. There's a bunch of less successful groups like the ones I'm in that can either choose not to raid or attempt to raid with less than ideal players such as myself.
On the other hand, being in a more casual group means not getting kicked out for having inconsistent DPS. And it's more compatible with my unpredictable work hours.