Agreed with the above. If someone feels inclined to compile a list of the most frequent pitfalls (no WF for melee, clipping tons of autoshots, not refreshing DoTs, etc.) that cause people to have miserable DPS, I can edit it into the first post of the thread, with a new expectation that people check their own logs for all those things before asking for help or advice here.
Agreed with the above. If someone feels inclined to compile a list of the most frequent pitfalls (no WF for melee, clipping tons of autoshots, not refreshing DoTs, etc.) that cause people to have miserable DPS, I can edit it into the first post of the thread, with a new expectation that people check their own logs for all those things before asking for help or advice here.
I remember this post regarding DPS issues from a while back: The WWS Thread
Here's the relevant part:
Originally Posted by tedv
I've seen a lot of parses where people say "Why is player X's DPS so low?" and the common responses are very well correlated with their class. Would this be a fair summary of the responses?
Mage: Low on +hit, ran out of mana Warlock: Didn't refresh DoTs, low on +hit Shadow Priest: Didn't refresh DoTs Rogue: Didn't refresh Slice and Dice, didn't have Windfury Hunter: Didn't use shot cycle, didn't use pet, ran out of mana
And the ubiquitous "talent spec is PvP oriented" and "gear sucks".
Anyway, people are clearly interested in analyzing and maximizing their raid's performance. It just seems like there's a lot of simple stuff that would increase damage, and 90% of the time it's the same simple stuff.
It seems like a good idea to break the suggestions into three categories: skill use, talents, gear. All of those comments refer to what skills people actually use in the fights. Another section of talent builds (rogues go combat, mages go fire, etc) would be more helpful than my "don't take a PvP spec" comment. And a third section on gear (Rogues and mages get +hit, shadow priests don't take crit, etc) would really help stratify the common problems. Maybe if I have some extra time today I'll do a full writeup for each class and skill/talent/gear pairing. At least for the ones I understand.
Agreed with the above. If someone feels inclined to compile a list of the most frequent pitfalls (no WF for melee, clipping tons of autoshots, not refreshing DoTs, etc.) that cause people to have miserable DPS, I can edit it into the first post of the thread, with a new expectation that people check their own logs for all those things before asking for help or advice here.
Does anyone have any parses of survival hunters doing more than around 800dps on 'simple' fights like Rage, Anetheron, Teron etc.., looked around abit and found only BM hunters being up there, thanks in advance ;o
Firstly I'd like to thank lossendil and this thread for doing wonders to our guildwide dps. We've gone from a lengthy gruul kill (this was before we had a guild account, so report has expired) to getting our first hydross kill in 8:21 since we started using this.
Here's our first hydross kill and first lurker kill:
Scorpse is recently returned after a long hiatus
Umbraa is PvP specced
We used a 3 sheep strat on lurker, so mages dps time was very low.
Our enhancement shammy has a 1.5 speed offhand (Yes, I've mentioned it a couple of times)
I don't think there's a great deal that we're doing too wrong, but I'd be pleased to be shown otherwise
Does anyone have any parses of survival hunters doing more than around 800dps on 'simple' fights like Rage, Anetheron, Teron etc.., looked around abit and found only BM hunters being up there, thanks in advance ;o
Gonktarget is our SV hunter and normally is in the ballpark with our BM hunters depending on fight. Small note that Hau is MM and keeps up decently on most fights as well. If you need more just look through the EJ logs for Gonk as SV, Hau as Marks, and Eliiria/Snowcrasher/Kurapica will all be BM.
Agreed with the above. If someone feels inclined to compile a list of the most frequent pitfalls (no WF for melee, clipping tons of autoshots, not refreshing DoTs, etc.) that cause people to have miserable DPS, I can edit it into the first post of the thread, with a new expectation that people check their own logs for all those things before asking for help or advice here.
It might be worth taking the time to explain to people how to see such things as well. What do you look for to see if dots are being kept up. If WF is being dropped enough. etc.
Some of the answers are obvious, some not. I think a lot of this thread is that people don't know how to use WWS, and haven't bothered to read previous posts to learn how to use it. Not just that they don't know how to click on armory.
[There's a misty gray area between too few tips resulting in more stat logs posted with known easy problems, and too many tips resulting in TLDR syndrome. Take the following with that grain of salt.]
Expanding on Common Mage Pitfalls a bit:
- 10/48/3 yields best boss DPS in practically all cases
--- main cycle is Scorch,8xFireball
--- don't ever let scorch debuff fall off
- VERY roughly, for tier4-class mages: 3 hit rating = 6 spell damage = 8 crit rating
- 16% spell hit (201.6 spell hit rating) from gear/talents
--- 3/3 Elemental Precision gives you 3% for frost/fire
--- 5/5 Arcane Focus gives you 10% for arcane
- when chance of a boss kill is in doubt, use elixirs, weapon oils, and food buffs.
- pop cooldowns as early and often as you can without pulling aggro (combustion, arcane power, water elemental, trinkets, mana gems, mana pots)
- don't try to game clearcast unless you've exhausted all other options to regain mana (you've lost the DPS game in that case anyway)
In general:
- Most classes have 1-2 specs that are optimal for boss fights, but there is a little wiggle room if you really, really want try other specs. Just remember:
--- There's viable alternate specs, and then there's just nutty specs.
--- PvP specs sometimes do not make good PvE specs.
--- Gear and/or skill may have to compensate.
--- Random luck may compensate and yield a false positive.
- Search WWS for boss kills, and compare yourself to other raiders in your class and role. In particular, check the following:
--- their buffs (Are you potting enough? Are you getting good group auras?)
--- their ability cycle (Are you using the wrong abilities?)
--- their average damage (Do you need better gear/spec? Look them up in the Armory.)
--- their hit rate (Is your hit rating too low?)
Shadow Priests:
- Keep up VT. any moron can keep up SW:P, but VT takes some effort (and brain power)
- Running out of mana, mind blast and SW: Death are good ways to boost your dps, but if you end up wanding with the boss at 50%, then it wasnt worth it.
- Buffing, typical buffs for a boss fight is Food, Wizard Oil, Shadow Power, and Major Mageblood. Flask of Supreme Power for shorter fights
- Spec: This is a Good Build This is a Bad Build
-Gear:
+Shadow Damage is king. +9 spell power gems are really the only choice, getting anything else for anything but activating meta gems is a waste. Ignore the shitty socket bonuses.
Try to get +6% hit from gear to be hit capped. Later on in pve progression, you can get +8% hit from gear easily, and drop to 4/5 shadow focus for more points in improved mind blast.
Try to maintain a reasonable mana pool and hold onto what mana/5 you can (which will be next to none till T6 )
Use this macro to prevent from clipping your mindflay:
/cast [nochanneling] Mind Flay(Rank 7)
I have to agree that people need to at least look at their own logs before sharing them.
[snip]
Please people, evaluate yourself first, and then if you still need help, ask for it. Your expected to search before you ask a question. Why would it be any different with a WWS log?
Sorry for diluting these summaries. But I think this thread has great worth into having a non-guildmember being perfectly honest about people's performance. You guys can be honest and flame other people down (with arguments) something, which you just can't do in a guild.
Some people just don't take advice easily, and this thread might be a way to get honest opinions by 'strangers' with expertise.
[There's a misty gray area between too few tips resulting in more stat logs posted with known easy problems, and too many tips resulting in TLDR syndrome. Take the following with that grain of salt.]
Expanding on Common Mage Pitfalls a bit:
- 10/48/3 yields best boss DPS in practically all cases
--- main cycle is Scorch,8xFireball
--- don't ever let scorch debuff fall off
- VERY roughly, for tier4-class mages: 3 hit rating = 6 spell damage = 8 crit rating
- 16% spell hit (201.6 spell hit rating) from gear/talents
--- 3/3 Elemental Precision gives you 3% for frost/fire
--- 5/5 Arcane Focus gives you 10% for arcane
- when chance of a boss kill is in doubt, use elixirs, weapon oils, and food buffs.
- pop cooldowns as early and often as you can without pulling aggro (combustion, arcane power, water elemental, trinkets, mana gems, mana pots)
- don't try to game clearcast unless you've exhausted all other options to regain mana (you've lost the DPS game in that case anyway)
10/48/3 is like an ancient relic now.
Deep Arcane beats it by far, its just a thing that you cannot compare.
Deep Arcane gives you the ability to nuke extremly hard when its needed, and to chill when its needed. It requires practice, and if bad mage specces it he will not be able to deal any dps at all, but Deep Arcane for a good player is superior.
Shame that we dont use WWS, all our mages are Deep Arcane, but what i remember from from last kills (checking SWS during/after combat)
Last Teron: ~1200DPS without any consumables (keep pushbacks in mind)
Also cant say for sure atm on which boss it was, and dont want to mess things up, altho im pretty sure it was on Solarian, during the period from pull till first adds, mages DPS is up to 2000DPS while nuking (heroism and cooldowns).
Those numbers clearly are speaking about the great control, and in TBC you have encounters where you NEED to nuke, and after nuking need to chill, and cycles repeat, so the more control over your DPS you have the better, and what gives you fire? Combustion maybe, otherwise just pray to get crits
10/48/3 is like an ancient relic now.
Deep Arcane beats it by far, its just a thing that you cannot compare.
Deep Arcane gives you the ability to nuke extremly hard when its needed, and to chill when its needed. It requires practice, and if bad mage specces it he will not be able to deal any dps at all, but Deep Arcane for a good player is superior.
Shame that we dont use WWS, all our mages are Deep Arcane, but what i remember from from last kills (checking SWS during/after combat)
Last Teron: ~1200DPS without any consumables (keep pushbacks in mind)
Also cant say for sure atm on which boss it was, and dont want to mess things up, altho im pretty sure it was on Solarian, during the period from pull till first adds, mages DPS is up to 2000DPS while nuking (heroism and cooldowns).
Those numbers clearly are speaking about the great control, and in TBC you have encounters where you NEED to nuke, and after nuking need to chill, and cycles repeat, so the more control over your DPS you have the better, and what gives you fire? Combustion maybe, otherwise just pray to get crits
This is with mages with 2 set tier 5 bonus? I find it hard to believe a deep arcane spec can push those numbers without the set bonus.
If it is with the bonus I think its generally accepted at least on these forums that once mages hit the 2xT5 bonus ((2) Set: Increases the damage and mana cost of Arcane Blast by 20%.) then a deep Arcane spec can pump more DPS when needed than the cookie cutter fire spec.
If not I'd be very interested in the parse of both the mentioned fights, especially the Solarian one.
And yes, our guild just started on VR so we have no 2/T5 bonuses yet
Here's our Voidreaver to compare my 10/48/3 spec to the arcane mage there Zipher - WWS
He has a minute extra of dps time and the gap is only 23k damage(I died because tanks lost aggro, voidreaver rampaging from one end of the room to the other makes it hard to dodge balls). I also missed out on nearly all of my Molten Fury time.
I don't think I'll be giving arcane a second try until 2pc t5. Without any tirisfal it's just not worth it. It might be more interesting than just slinging fireballs, but it doesn't outperform by a long shot.
10/48/3 is like an ancient relic now.
Deep Arcane beats it by far, its just a thing that you cannot compare.
Yes you can, its just that for some reason every single post in the mage forums the arcane mage selectively picks the fights where they have great DPS, and pretend its the normal DPS. Or often, when you see big figures, you check the WWS and, surprise, the guy received 2 innervates. Or better yet, you perpetuated this ridiculous habit and posted numbers from an arcane mage AB spamming with AP and bloodlust. Nobody really cares about providing that much damage for a few seconds, except for reliquary of souls phase 3. If you make an average on the bosses (with hyjal/BT in mind), it comes up pretty much on par. Sometimes, particularly when fights are short, it comes on top, but it also has its lows. Its not 100% of the time better.
Originally Posted by Sathik
Deep Arcane gives you the ability to nuke extremly hard when its needed, and to chill when its needed. It requires practice, and if bad mage specces it he will not be able to deal any dps at all, but Deep Arcane for a good player is superior.
Superior depending of the fight. It has highs and lows.
Originally Posted by Sathik
Shame that we dont use WWS, all our mages are Deep Arcane, but what i remember from from last kills (checking SWS during/after combat)
Last Teron: ~1200DPS without any consumables (keep pushbacks in mind)
A fire mage does more than that unpotted on Teron. Yes, I am aware of the several pushbacks, but don't think fire is unable to push those numbers; it easily can.
Originally Posted by Sathik
Also cant say for sure atm on which boss it was, and dont want to mess things up, altho im pretty sure it was on Solarian, during the period from pull till first adds, mages DPS is up to 2000DPS while nuking (heroism and cooldowns).
That is nice for reliquary of souls phase 3, but otherwise there are very few places where you get a full use of of a mere few seconds of high dps.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Shadow Priests:
- Keep up VT. any moron can keep up SW:P, but VT takes some effort (and brain power)
- Running out of mana, mind blast and SW: Death are good ways to boost your dps, but if you end up wanding with the boss at 50%, then it wasnt worth it.
- Buffing, typical buffs for a boss fight is Food, Wizard Oil, Shadow Power, and Major Mageblood. Flask of Supreme Power for shorter fights
- Spec: This is a Good Build This is a Bad Build
For the buffs, I think people being hardcore enough to use shadow power/mageblood really should not need this kind of advice. I've never used them over a flask myself since the patch. Before I used both shadow power and mageblood on Al'ar but tbh after that I have not seen such an intensive fight again. I never did Illidan, which is quite long and it might help there. But again, I doubt it is necessairy. And using a manatic buff won't seperate you from a spriest's best friend anyway, and that is Super Mana Potion.
Mana pots, spelldmg flask, sta/manatic or spelldmg/spi food and wizard oils are the stuff you want to carry with you. And if you take it seriously, you will need a LOT of mana pots. I have easily killed 30+ on a raid night. Super Mana Potion is the only thing that will enable you to use Mind Blast + Sdw Death and if you want to compete on a dps meter, you won't be able to do without heavy use of those spells.
And @specs, I really hoped that the misconception of Blackout = PvP / Spirit Tap = PvE finally got extinct. The ONLY use for Spirit Tap is for solo farming. Maybe in some very weird boss fights, but generally a spriest hits the boss and not adds. Hitting adds is terribly inefficient mana wise and without full stacks of shadow weaving, the dps is not there as well.
Blackout helps a lot with mass trash pulls, stuns always help and trash is after all a big part of raiding.
And then there's the occasional encounter where it's gold, kael'thas weapon phase for example. And it helps a lot in various other fights, examples would be when hitting the priests at Solarian, killing your demon at Leotheras, killing nagas at Lurker and of course doing the trash waves in Hyjal.
edit: Oh and don't even bother looking at my spec. I had to step down from raiding about 3 weeks ago due to taking a job and I specced a mix of pvp/pve for the moment, so no comments on me having Silence pls. :P
The 4/5 Shadow Weaving is something I would always go with for raiding with more then 1 spriest though. A case can be made for 3/5 and more points in imp Mind Blast as well, but if both spriests run that, you might get unlucky and thus gimping both warlock and your dmg for a few seconds.
Here's my take on a comprehensive guide to basic raid skill usage. I originally had sections on gear and talents for each class / role pairing but cut it for length reasons. Besides, you can analyze talents and gear from the armory alone, but only WWS lets you analyze skill usage.
And while I've raided on six different classes, I'm certainly not an expert at most of them. So if something is wrong just let me know what the right information should be and I'll update it. Lets save the indepth numerical analysis for the Class Mechanics forum.
Tanking:
General:
Your #1 objective is holding aggro at all costs. Your #2 objective is reducing the incoming damage as much as possible.
Warrior (Protection):
Shield slam and shield block every cooldown. Don't use heroic strike unless you have a massive rage surplus. If possible, get another warrior to handle thunderclap / demo shout / sunder so you can use rage for higher threat abilities.
Druid (Feral/Bear):
Assuming Mangle is on cooldown, the best use of a global cooldown is Lacerate. Only use Maul when you have spare rage. Only use Swipe against more than one monster.
Paladin (Protection):
Most of your threat comes from blocking, so keep up holy shield at all costs.
Melee Damage:
General:
Only attack the monster from behind. This removes parry from the hit table which not only increases damage but also stops the boss from increasing their swing speed and dealing spike damage to the tank.
Rogue:
Always keep up slice and dice. Rupture is usually your best finisher. Don't eviscerate. You always want Windfury, even if you are mutilate spec. Don't poison your mainhand, or you won't get the Windfury buff.
Warrior (Arms or Fury):
You absolutely must have Windfury unless there are no other warriors, rogues, or ret paladins in the group-- and if that's the case, reorganize the groups so that it isn't anymore. Make sure you get Blessing of Salvation if at all possible. Don't use heroic strike as a rage dump unless you have a ton of it. Arms warriors are better off using slam to dump rage.
Shaman (Enhancement):
Dual wielding is far, far more damage than two-handed. Always use Windfury weapon on both weapons. Both weapons should be as slow as possible-- a 2.6 speed 55 base DPS weapon will outdamage a 1.8 speed 85 base DPS dagger. If you are low on mana, stop using shocks. Watch aggro early in the fight when Windfury crits can pull aggro. Your group will probably benefit the most from Windfury totem even though it's of no use to you.
Druid (Feral/Cat):
Shred is your best move if mangle is up. Rip is the best finishing move and you really want 100% uptime of 5 point rips. When you get 5 points, wait to have 80+ energy, then rip, then Mangle. Mangle won't be up 100% of the time but this gives more energy for shred. On bleed immune monsters, if you have more than 45 energy, it's better to Shred than use a 5 point Ferocious Bite.
Paladin (Retribution):
You need Windfury. Watch your aggro. Do not lose your vengeance stack if you can help it; save your judgement for an extra chance to crit. Horde paladins should use seal of blood, which has many more chances to proc Vengeance.
Ranged Damage:
General:
It's much worse for ranged to pull aggro than melee because the boss is more likely to get out of position. Don't do it. If your class has DoTs, you need to keep them up. You can measure DoT uptime by multiplying the DoT ticks by the tick rate. For example, Shadow Word: Pain ticks once every three seconds. If you have 60 ticks, the uptime was 180 seconds, or three minutes. This is good for a three minute fight and bad for a five minute fight.
Shaman (Elemental):
Make sure you keep your totems down. Usually this will be Mana Stream, Wrath of Air, and Totem of Wrath, and your ideal group is three mages and one shadow priest. Depending on the group makeup and/or fight, consider Searing Totem (great bonus from spell damage) and Tranquil Air (to save the mages during AoE). If you are running low on mana, stop using shocks.
Druid (Balance):
Sorry, all I know is that this spec is an object of mockery and scorn, and I'm not convinced this description is unwarranted. Keep your Faerie Fire and Insect Swarm up because that's all you contribute to the raid that a mage can't do.
Hunter:
Learn about shot cycles: don't clip your autoshots by spamming special abilities. In general you want to start casting steady shot right as your autoattack goes off, then wait for your next autoshot before starting the next cast. Replace steady with multi or arcane when you have mana for them. Don't ever use aimed shot after the pull.
Mage:
If your DPS is poor and you aren't specced 10/48/3, you need to respec. Other builds might be viable in certain circumstances, but odds are that you won't be the person to prove that. Don't let improved scorch fall off. Generally you cast 8 fireballs and then one scorch after scorch is stacked to 5. Don't fireblast unless you are moving and have mana to spare. After all the melee DPS have shaman for Windfury, on most fights you have second priority on a shaman.
Warlock:
Curse of Shadows, Elements, and Recklessness will almost always provide more damage than Doom and Agony. For Shadows and Elements, use them if at least two people would get the benefit. For recklessness you need 5 total melee DPS and hunters, and for the tank to be in no danger of dieing from the extra spike damage. Which curse to cut if you have less than three Warlocks depends on your raid makeup. Affliction Warlocks in particular must keep their DoTs up. Even if you are specced deep into shadow, it's worth keeping up Immolate.
Priest (Shadow):
If Vampiric Touch falls off, your group doesn't regenerate mana which means you're just a bad warlock. Keep Touch and Pain up at all times. Your cast priority should be to refresh Touch first, Pain second, Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death third (if you have mana), then Mind Flay. Only refresh Vampiric Embrace when you would otherwise cast Mind Flay, unless your party needs the healing right then. You should get a shaman assuming the melee DPS already have one. Don't stack two shadow priests in the same group.
Healing:
General:
Your objective is not to top healing meters; it's to make sure no one dies. Even overhealing is meaningless as long as everyone lives. Learn to downrank your heals-- there is no benefit to healing someone for more life than they have and it costs you extra mana. You should have at least one lower rank on your bar for each heal spell that comprises at least 40% of your casts.
Priest (Holy):
Save your Inner Focus for right after a Clearcasting proc. You can get a solid 5 to 10 seconds of full spirit regen this way. Don't use Flash Heal unless the situation is dire. Try to focus heals on the tank as Inspiration is one of the best tanking buffs in the game. It's still worth keeping up Renew on people if you have time. Remember that Prayer of Mending gives threat to the person receiving the heal, so refreshing it on the tank is doubly valuable.
Shaman (Restoration):
Chain Heal and Earth Shield are the two most efficient heals in the game. Abuse them as much as you can. Earth Shield also gives threat to the person it heals, so keep it on the tank. Remember to drop your totems. If you are grouped with a shadow priest, they will run out of mana well before you, so don't watch your mana bar to decide when to drop Mana Tide-- watch theirs. Drop tide when they are at 70% mana and your tide will probably be up for a second time that fight.
Druid (Restoration):
A triple stacked Lifebloom is amazingly mana efficient, especially if the stack was started with trinkets activated. Don't let them expire unless you need to Swiftmend. Regrowth is generally mana inefficient and should be avoided.
Paladin (Holy):
You have no HoTs and no group heals, so focus on your strength: sustained single target heals, ideally on the main tank.
As for Teron, yeah maybe it aint perfect fight to compare, since Arcane Blast when gets pushback basically resets its cast time, while fire spells have 70% to be uninterrupted, that makes a great difference also.
Still, I'd like to see some parses where unpotted fire mages are doing ~1200dps on Teron.
Also, we never use innervates for mages, or if it happens, its more in a way of a joke, like on some SSC fights etc. Mana is really no issue, as long as you have decent gear and a shadow priest + pots. Also, if you'r paladins are capable of keeping JoW up, you can basically forget about your mana bar.
And yes, our guild just started on VR so we have no 2/T5 bonuses yet
I checked your top rogue, Daxwax, and he's got some spec and Combo point cycle problems.
Daxwax used Sinister Strike 11 times and he's 15/41/5. He also messed up his points in the Assassination Tree. He's got two points in Imp Evis, zero in Murder, and he missed Relentless Strikes. And looking at his combat tree, he also put 3 points in Aggression, which really doesn't help because other than bleed immune bosses, he should never be Eviscerating. Have him change his build to this: Wowhead Talent build. He didn't gain SnD until 17 sec into the fight (he should be doing this after his first backstab, 2 tops. Once he gets into his cycle, he should be using the following cycle 3SnD/5SnD/5Rupture(Evis only on VR and Hydross). And he really needs to pick up two new weapons, although I'm sure he knows that.
This is a fight your rogues should be able to dominate if you have them stay in and DPS through the poundings, because they will have far less movement than your ranged dpsers. For example, this is my guilds first VR kill WWS Parse, and while our ranged dps does need to work on some things, we had a mutilate rogue (33% decreased dmg on her CP generating attack) do 800 dps. which is quite a bit more than what your rogues put out. Do you have your melee stay in for poundings?
Also it's generally better to Shred again than use a 5-point Ferocious Bite on a bleed immune boss if you have 50 or more energy. I think this was shown in one of the feral threads.
Also it's generally better to Shred again than use a 5-point Ferocious Bite on a bleed immune boss if you have 50 or more energy. I think this was shown in one of the feral threads.
Er I meant to say you should always mangle if mangle is down and shred if it's up. Adding both of those.
07/16/07, 11:27 AM
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