Since Im playing a paladin myself, short question. I cant see how HL4 is more efficient then flash. Trying to work it out myself: my HL4 goes for around 2k, my flash for 1950, with around 26% holy crit raidbuffed, which means 1350 HPS on HL4, where flash has 1470 HPS. Which means flash has an almost 9% higher HPS.

As for mana effieciency, holy light rank 4 is 190 mana, while flash is 180. The only thing different between the 2 spells is an added 6% crit. 6% crit translates to a 3.6% mana reduction, which is a 6.48 mana reduction. What you end up with is that HL4 will be 3.5 mana points more expensive then Flash of light.

Also, the more +healing you stack the more benificial FoL gets over HL4. HL4 gains 20.3% of your +healing, while FoL gets 42.9%.

The 'primed' argument is valid, but downranking below HL rank 5 is pointless. I wouldnt touch any of the holy lights below rank 5. HL5 is awesome for tank healing, but HL4, not so much.

Oh, my gear added incase that matters:

The Armory

@ Gange

Someone covered some issues with your hunter earlier I also want to point out that he is using a pet w/o a focus dump ( IE: Bite as its only focus attack ) Using the correct pet/correct trained pet even while marksman can add a fair amount of damage.

Basically he needs A LOT of help just about everything he is doing is wrong. From spec to execution.

I would point him toward some hunter mechanics threads on this forum and there are even some good ones to be found on the public wow forums.

I don't want to derail this thread too much. As I mentioned, I will make a big post with all of my findings so that we can debate there. =)

You would think that FoL would be more efficient than HL if you just look at the numbers, but you'll notice my post makes several stipulations on my statement:

- BoL is on the target
- 4-piece T5
- Libram of Souls Redeemed

I did state one thing incorrectly, though. HL4 is about the same efficiency as FoL7 with [Libram of Souls Redeemed] (it's slightly less, actually). However, it is much more efficient with [Libram of Absolute Truth].

Anyway, look for that other thread I'll make (I'll edit this post to make a link to it when I post it).

*edit* Here's that thread: Paladin Healing Efficiency

I accounted for all 3 factors in my post, and yes, the lurker libram obviously boosts your mana efficiency.

Anyway, looking forward to that topic :p.

Also, I didnt account for the regen you actually get in that 0.25 seconds cast time, which probably makes it less mana then flash, but still wont make it as much healing per mana as FoL.

Finally got our guild a WWS server last night. Was hoping someone more experienced in reviewing these would be able to offer some insight. We've killed Vashj several times at this point, but the phase 2 to phase 3 transitions are still a pain source. We wiped on her for 3 hours before finally downing her. (It's also what prompted the guild account.)

Any suggestions from a brief glance?
Wow Web Stats

(Healing assignments: Dashaman/Rigged heal melee and locks, I heal tanks with Althier, the other healers and DPS are on elementals and striders.)

It's just frustrating to know we can kill her, but not be able to do it with any consistency.

@Levidian

We've sent him over to the shot rotations thread. Hopefully that'll do it. What I don't understand is how rogues in other WWS's pull out well over 1k DPS, while I can barely break 600. My gear isn't great, but I don't see how gear can more than double the DPS I'm putting out when I've got a (IMO) pretty good combat daggers spec and try and keep a 3s/5s/5r cycle going.

Our third kill was 9000 dps ... O.o. It also took 12.5 minutes, and was a frenzy of kiting and holy priest Smite spam. But she died.

Then this week we did 12k dps, and killed her with 40 seconds to spare on the enrage timer. Go figure.

We ignore the bats and just run her around the room. I'll see if we can't get away with one less healer. As for 3 hours, we actually started a few wipes before those, however I couldn't get anyone to record via WWS until after that point. Thanks for the DPS number, though, it's not something I was even looking at. (I don't know what a decent DPS point is, I usually focus on healing.)

Your stats aren't terrible, but your gear can definitely use some work. Your AP is kind of low, as is your crit for being dagger spec (21ish % without the weapon spec). However, don't expect to be hitting 1k without better weapons. To put it in perspective, the best I ever did with an 81 DPS mainhand and S2 OH was 977 DPS. I was sword spec, DP offhand, WF MH, enhancement shaman, feral druid, and DPS warrior in my group. That means I'm running buffed with WF, SoE, LotP, imp BS, and more often than not Unleashed Rage. That's on top of 20 agility buff food, unstable flask of the bandit, might, salv, kings and other standard buffs. This was also pre Windfury nerf, in which sword spec (any sinister strike spec, really) was just insane. I was also more geared out than you are.

There are some things that I did notice in your WWS that are holding you back, though. You feinted 18 times. That is 360 energy that is better spent backstabbing (better for your cycles, too). You also let SnD drop at least 20 times...ideally SnD should be refreshed just before it is about to run out, and additionally, feinting tends to muck up cycles by using energy that should be used on building CPs (this has a greater effect on c daggers as well, since BS is 60 energy instead of 40).

You also don't seem to be running melee with a shaman of any kind. Put 2 rogues, a feral druid, a DPS warrior, and a shaman (preferrably enhancement) in a group. MAKE the shaman drop windfury/SoE, or lose his raid spot. It's that good for warriors/rogues.

Beyond that, you really just need to gear up more. Better weapons (S2 MH, ER, Malch), and more stats will help you in upping your DPS. Tightening up your cycles, and making sure you have proper group synergy are two huge parts of rogue DPS, so once you get those down, it's basically gearing yourself that makes you better.

Edit: I also am not quite sure what Snowmane was doing. He used Bear form abilities, cat form abilities, and caster abilities. Tell him to smarten up, and if he's there for feral DPS, to do feral DPS. Make sure he's keeping mangle up, and make sure you're using rupture at appropriate times. 24 ticks of rupture means you used it exactly 3 times over a 14 minute fight (though to be fair, lurker is up a minute, down a minute...so really you used it 3 times over 7 minutes of lurker up time, which is still really low). 3/5/5 is a cycle that ends in rupture (unless he's going to be submerging very soon), so make sure you're using it accordingly.

Well first off from what I see WWS only lists your report as having 23 people in the raid.

Second you have 3 shamans and none of your melee got windfury. If your shamans believe GoA + double poisons is better there wrong, get your melee windfury and you will see a 150-200 DPS increase in the rogues. Warriors gain even more from windfury, it gives them more DPS and for tanks better threat generation.

Third Otep used scorch way to much. Even if he was on elementals the whole second phase 27 fireballs is low for how much time is spent on Vashj herself.

You still have to learn to configure WWS

- Make sure all players are listed correct (I`m sure you haven't killed her with 23 people)
- Fights like Vashj need more than 1 source, especially if the person who logs the fight is at one side on the elemental spawns (Try to get the log from a naga tank)

I'm looking for some help in understanding the WWS data for Shadow Priests. We regularly run with 2, but they're having some trouble breaking the 800 DPS barrier. I've been forwarding information from this thread and these forums in general, but I'm worried that I'm missing something.

Here's a recent Hydross kill: Wow Web Stats

And Lurker: Wow Web Stats

In general, Penella seems to have solid DoT uptime, gets plenty of MB/Death in, but has what looks like a low number of MF ticks. Coldness had decent DoT uptime, perhaps not as good with VT, but many more ticks of MF. In general, they're usually neck and neck and put out a respectable performance, but I'm looking for advice to help them improve and get up to the 8-900 DPS mark.

In all honesty, don't expect them to be pushing 900+ dps on most fights. Period.

The best shadow priest WWS parses I've seen are from Fusion's kills (shadow priests are Trouble, Seres, and Dissent): example Wow Web Stats.

They have 200 more shadow damage, a lot more regen, and a lot more gear than your shadow priests ... and they are only running 850-1100 dps on the various fights through SSC. Welcome to the world of a 43% scaling primary dps spell. :-(

Here's our shadow priests in a SSC clear:
Wow Web Stats

As you can see, roughly the same dps is happening, and they're in roughly the same gear as your priests, +/- 50 dmg. It should be noted that they are getting *no* buffs -- no elemental shaman, no boomkin. Just CoS, and some Imp SB uptime.

Unless someone can tell me that *most* shadow priests run the dps levels of Dissent and Trouble (and if you look at their gear, especially Dissent, you'll see why that's a load of crap), I think I'm right in stating that shadow priest dps over 750 is unusual while clearing SSC, and only edges up over 950 once you have access to full T6-level gear.

I would recommend (if I read your WWS correctly) that you merge a couple more logs into your posts, to ensure you have all the data. I find the 2nd log provides 1-4% additional data, which can often be very illuminating.

In specific analysis of Penella: all of the DoTs and ticks and spell damage ranges seem to be correct. I would question Vampiric Touch uptime (too few DoT ticks for the length of your fight, and hence, too low mana return) and Mind Flay usage. If Mind Blast / SW were higher, I could see why the MF ticks would be so low ... but since they aren't, it's a mystery.

You may want to suggest your SPs fight all of Phase 1 Lurker completely underwater, with VE up. It can help a lot in preventing down-time in the spout phase, and prevent you from ever getting punted. Just pop out of the water and nuke the adds when the phase change happens.

Greetings All,

Our guild has been one of those who never really knew that DPS was an issue. We pushed KTM as hard as we could, and told everyone to back down instead of pushing the tank forward. People who couldn't control aggro were seen as the problem, instead of realizing that you could create a TPS/DPS gap to increase raid efficiency. We built groups around how easy it was to heal and buff them instead of the dynamics that one class leads to another.

Gruul has been a turning point for us. Sure, we have seen enrage timers before with bosses like Hakkar, Prince, and Moroes, but we never knew how bad our problem was. After discovering EJ, WWS, and a few other eye openers, I found that our guild DPS was on average about 350. Which consequently was the same as our tank's TPS. We were building habits of low dmg.

Through some research, I have found 21 factors that can increase a person's DPS, and we have been working on everyone of them in a furious manner across all classes. Last night we did Gruul getting him down to 15% before a wipe (as our current best attempt) We have figured out the shatter mechanic, but I know that our DPS is still low.

Here is a WWS report of the encounter.

And a VIDEO of the 15% marker .

The video shows group makeup and any other details that might lend insight into what the WWS report shows.

I really value the feedback and insight of this community and would appreciate any suggestions you can share as to what we are missing. At this point, I'm building the raid with everything I know to do, and we still can't peak 700. Rogues are bringing drums, we put SPriest in w/ Mages for mana, keep up wisdom, all classes are focused on making the Hit Cap etc...

Some of us are hitting 700 (barely) while most are in the 500 range. Anyone below 500 has to go to training on Dr. Boom before they can raid again as that's our current floor. As we know more, we will ratchet it up to 600, 700, and possibly 800.

Any insight?

Lurker Below and Hydross aren't two fights you'll see shadow priests near the top due to the nature of them. For Lurker Below, our relative damage on the adds will be less than most classes. Look at their damage on the Lurker itself -- The Lurker Below - WWS -- and you'll see they did pretty good. They probably could use a few more SWD's, unless they were running into mana issues.

Here's our list from our last Lurker kill: Wow Web Stats -- it's not like I exactly scrubbed it up, but shadow priests aren't particularly great against mobs with low hit points, such as the adds while Lurker is submerged. In fact going back through all of our SSC's, I think that was the only time a shadow priest broke 900 DPS on Lurker, and of course that's with considerably better gear. I also wish I had thought about the little trick of staying submerged in the water, since VE would heal the scalding damage -- that 900 DPS was with me jumping in and out for every spout.

For Hydross, it looks like you keep them full time on Hydross which is good -- just keep in mind they have to be pretty careful about aggro on transitions so there's definitely a little break in DPS there. I tend to burn pretty hard on the nature phases, since pulling aggro there would have little consequence besides my death. They may be letting their dots expire before the transitions (I usually do, especially when going nature->frost) so that'll cut down on their dot uptime as well. But then for Hydross, that was our only rule.. never pull aggro on a transition so I always played it conservative there. Looking at quite a few of our Hydross parses, the shadow priests usually fell around 700-750 DPS.

TL;DR -- your shadow priests are doing OK for their level of gear for those particular fights.

Well, Penella is the better-geared of the two, and is only 82 Shadow damage behind Trouble (assuming that Trouble's current Armory is accurate) -- 1155 versus 1237 before the Crusade card. What I'm trying to figure out is how he can do 300 DPS more on Hydross, or nearly 50% better. Don't get me wrong, I realize he's an excellent player and is very well geared, but I just get the feeling my guys aren't quite doing something right. Maybe they're still holding back a bit because they don't want to pull aggro on the transitions, I don't know. The above link was only our second kill, after all.

Of all the guilds who regularly post their WWS data, I've probably studied the EJ ones the most. Their 2-3 Shadow Priests also seem to be able to crack 900 DPS on most SSC fights, even before they got into the Tier 6 zones. Again, I know they're excellent players, I'm just trying to understand what the difference is and see if there's anything my guys can tweak to improve their DPS.

Good point about using more logs, I usually get an additional 2-3 but everyone was slack about sending them in this week.

Great, that's really good to know. We're only 2/6 right now, and I'm sure once they get more comfortable with the fights their DPS will increase. Morogrim might be a better fight to compare against other guilds, he should die for us on Monday night. Thanks for the information!

Morogrim they should do higher on, except casting SWD there is usually not possible due to Earthquake. And yeah, as they get more comfortable with the fights the DPS should certainly go up some -- basically I didn't see any major problems, just maybe squeeze in a few more SWD's, focus even more on DoT uptime and so forth.

Karathress is a fight that you should see them do considerably better on too.

Fusion's WWS parses for Lurker (and SSC in general) are amazing and make me wish we were going back to try the "staying in the water" strategy. Also, 1151 DPS by Dissent Dissent - WWS on Morogrim? Jesus. That's amazing considering only 1 SWD was cast. Of course, he didn't get graved at all, which is a huge help...

Comments for Muneyus:
Warlocks
Ganstagrizza is destruction ... but did 49% of his damage with random DoTs and ... Searing Pain? In a raid setting? Tell him if he wants to be destruction, that he throws up Corruption, Immolate, and then SPAMS Shadowbolt. I can only think that he was somehow trying to keep his 2-piece T4 bonus up somehow (for both schools?). It may not show on WWS, but if he's destruction, he should have his pet sac'd for this fight.

I also don't see applications of CoE or CoS from your warlocks. Melolyn appears to have gone the entire fight without ever using a Curse. This may be due to bad logging, but it does seem very odd. The same is true for Jimi.

You may want to suggest that all of your warlocks respec Affliction for the next night of Gruul attempts. They are putting out less than 500 dps ... with somewhat reasonable gear. As full Affliction, just stacking all their DoTs and keeping them refreshed is worth that much dps, and any SBs on top pushes their dps to 650+. If they can't actually PLAY as destruction, don't let them. 2 of the 3 are currently very very weak, and Gansta is weird.

Rogues
Agille: wtf is with that mainhand? Look at his/her average melee white damage, and try to explain to them that a MH like that is completely gimping their output.
Fallenleaves: looks normal, and very clearly was pushing things : haste pots, Drums of Battle.

Mages
Valter, Icycles, and Empire all slacked on their Scorch applications, putting the load mainly on the shoulders of Digit (and to a lesser extent Ekem). Drill into their heads that they should be doing a 8 fireball, 1 scorch rotation. With 6 fire mages in the group, they could probably even go 9-1 or 10-1 and still keep the stack up. Still ... it's *everyone's* job to keep the stack up, not just one mage.

Threat and Tanking
As far as threat and tanking goes:
1) Denholm cannot possibly POSSIBLY build raid-level threat with a blue quest reward. He needs a new weapon. Now.
2) You appear to be using Tamak as MT, and Denholm as OT. This is precisely backwards of how you should have it set up. Feral druids make *much* better OTs in this fight, and can actually generate enough threat to overtake MTs who are warriors, when they go all out. The opposite is not always true.

Get Denholm an epic MH, keep PoM up on him as much as you can, and have Tamak OT the HS. You'll find the healing is easier on the HS hits (AC is king), and that the threat situation straightens up.

Huntards
You had three hunters in the raid. Only 4 Misdirects were used in 6 minutes of fighting. This is a problem. Belann put up 3, and Kickenwing put up 1. You will note that they were all put on the MAIN TANK, instead of the Off-tank, who presumably was lagging the MT in threat. You almost *never* burn a misdirect on the MT -- they have infinite rage, they'll be fine.

Joriel should be smacked for not using Misdirect at all, and Kickenwing should be told to use it more frequently. You should have had 9 misdirects go up through the fight: you had 4. That's a lot of threat you're missing.

Belann is also completely useless as a BM hunter. If he puts out under 500 dps again, stop bringing him ANYWHERE. Even with his gear (greens/blues/epics), his pet should be reasonably competent. He basically stood there and auto-shot for 6 minutes, and used Kill Command once in a while. If he can't learn to play as BM (the easiest of the 3 specs to learn), he won't be worth keeping around. Examine his situation closely, and make sure to watch him in future - if he doesn't improve, he's deadweight.

Windfury and Its Uses
You wasted your enhancement shaman on a tank group that included a feral druid (useless to give a feral Windfury), a warlock, and a tree druid. Why? Put the enhancement shaman in a group with both of your rogues, and have him dropping WF and SoE for them. Their dps will increase dramatically. Also, tell him that it's not intelligent to put Flametongue on his OH ... he's using a slow OH intentionally to get WF procs ... put WF on it. It's been proven to be higher dps, and he desperately needs to pull his numbers up. He was beaten by the TANK. (looking at his gear, he's quite undergeared for Gruul - that may be part of it).

Also ... heroism on a tank group with 2 healers and a warlock? Come on. At least move him into a dps group before he drops heroism. It's wasted on a tank.

You don't have a dps warrior in the raid: this is lowering your overall raid dps and utility, and also lowering your rogue dps. Get at least one warrior who can sit in a melee group with your shaman and your rogues.

Debuffs
I don't see Demoralizing Roar or Demoralizing Shout up anywhere. This absolutely must be up on Gruul at all times. Scorpid Sting did stay up most of the time, which is good of your hunters on a tough fight - it helps.

Healers
Ignazio is useless. I have no idea what he was doing, but it wasn't really healing. He did some nice SW: P damage, though. He didn't cast GH once, and unless he's respec'd for the weekend, he's full Discipline. If he shows up to a raid as that, don't let him come into the instance.

Heilenstein is also in love with Flash Heal. Try to convince him that Greater Heal is a better use of his time, and to leave the Flash Heals to paladins. His spec is much more raid-suited.

Doubleface needs to get his act together ... he was outhealed by Leader of the Pack. Come on. Either he doesn't *have* healing gear, or he was running around in his prot gear on a fight where he was acting as a healer. Either way, he was deadweight. Pull it up, or sit for someone useful.

You did fine. I would encourage you to bring a 3rd paladin so you can try to get BoL on more people; it'll help a lot with the healing. You can also encourage your mages to put Amplify Magic up on the entire raid: there is NO magic damage for Gruul, so it's pure benefit.

You will note that your tank died to Reverb:
but the actual cause was un-Thunderclapped melee attacks from the boss while a couple of retarded hunters allowed their pets to cause the boss to speed up his melee attacks.

Note:
are most definitely NOT 2.0s apart (not 2.5, as you'd get from Thunderclap).

Conclusion: reverb screwed you, but the actual culprit that caused the tank death? Pinchy, the hunter pet. GG.

Hunter pets, OTs, melee dps, in fact ANYONE but the MT should never, ever attack from the front of the mob. Ever. If you do, especially after the 10th or 11th growth, the tank dies. Especially during a Reverb.

Conclusion
It's hard to tell where else to start. You need to get a slightly better balance for your raid, and fix some glaring errors. You need a 3rd paladin. You need a tank with a real tanking weapon. You need to switch the feral druid and the warrior in roles. You need to either dump the prot paladin (for the fight), or tell him to actually heal something. Encourage your resto druids to keep it up: they are carrying things for you right now. Tell your rogues that they are getting an enh shaman next time, and encourage them to figure out ways to optimize this.

(Hint: haste pots + heroism + drums of battle = pwnage)

Realistically, any ranged dps who is under 500 dps at this point is either undergeared for the content, or incompetent. Anyone above 600 probably knows what they are doing, but could use some group composition help, or raid buff help. Anyone above 700 is a definite keeper.

Final Note: Positioning
Like most guilds, you tank Gruul facing NE in his room. Up in the NE there are 3 rock formations which, used properly, are a godsend for healers. You should be plunking at least 2-3 healers up in that corner, and they will *never* have to move through the entire fight, cave-in excepted.

I would suggest putting the tree druids up there, as they should be maintaining 3-stack Lifeblooms on both tanks at the same time, and having to move back from Shatter means they probably have to restart their stacks, which really hurts the efficiency.

If you're really struggling with positioning, force everyone in the entire group to go and hide behind an obstacle to avoid being punted, and then assign positions to move into after the Grasp has gone off. We did this while learning the fight, and it made a huge difference to total damage taken from shatter. Just use Deadly Boss Mods and call out when people should run to the walls to hide.

For the staying in the water strat, where exactly do you stay? I tried it this week and gave up by the first submerge. At first, I was too high and had LoS issues, then I got whirled, then I started taking 500 dps instead of the ~167 you're supposed to. If anybody could take a SS/direct me to a fraps of where you swim it would be rather helpful.

3' off the edge of the outer edge of the ring, down low enough that you can actually get LoS on the boss. You should never get whirled unless you're trying to submerge yourself inside the ring ... which is a dumb idea, because then you're in melee range, and he'll smack you around.

Our shadow priest has fairly reasonable success using the CW-most island as a guide, and dropping into the water halfway between the ring and the island, then pressing "X" until he can shoot Lurker.

Thanks for the feedback. All is appreciated.

We had Tamak in the MT role as a desparation move. For some reason, we can't get our warriors TPS above 400, while prot pallies can hit 800 to 1200, and Dr00ds are hitting 700+ consistently. I think our raid has the dps to down Gruul, but not if we are capped by 400TPS from the MT. Right now, our dps is casting scared, so we went w/ higher TPS for this attempt. Previously we had Doubleface MT, but we were short a healer (WTB: Paladin) and made this change to allow the DPS to flow while gaining an extra healer. (He has +1200 healing gear as a backup.)

I'll get on the other changes with our group and see what we can do.

Thanks again for the input.

Edit: The shammy was in MT group to help out w/ the TPS issue. Again, not sure how to fix that and grasping at straws a bit. The rouges (where he was) were not happy with me. But... what good is a WF totem for More DPS if the TPS holds you back on threat?

Have the shaman start the fight with the melee and drop SoE and Tranquil Air. That will let them go a little harder and be less worried about getting insta-gibbed.

Once the tanks have a solid lead (courtesy of 3 Misdirects and their own threat building, plus the threat from Lifebloom and PoM), then drop Windfury and go to town. Coordinate a time in the fight (7 growths is about right) and have all of your rogues Vanish then, and then burn Heroism and Drums of Battle. They'll get a nice solid burst of dps, but won't pull aggro because they will have reset their threat moments before.

If Doubleface can build threat competently, put him in as the MT, and put your retarded warrior in with the melee to provide Battle Shout. He can thunderclap and demo shout Gruul, keep a 5-stack of sunders up, and generally be as useless as he seems to be now, while letting other, more competent people tank the boss (your druid and paladin).