Raid DPS -- viable or no?

[Thaljafi]

Pursuant to the conversation with Ike and other raiders in Dumbledork's thread, I've a couple of screenshots of last night's Kara run. I joined the first pug that would take me as dps. Pug fell apart after Opera, when both tank and off-tank had to leave. May or may not pick up again tonight -- if so, I'll try and get more screenshots.

One thing --

Recap doesn't show me the individual encounter dps -- either % dmg of total against a target type (doesn't track time against that target, either), or overall dmg against time, or recent encounter dmg. Can anyone suggest an add-on that does allow this analysis, before I start randomly combing WowAce?

Thanks in advance!

Just before heading into Moroes' room
[img=http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/6526/wowscrnshot072908195936yk8.th.jpg]

Just before pulling Moroes
[img=http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/659/wowscrnshot072908201049vg0.th.jpg]

After Moroes'
[img=http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/6135/wowscrnshot072908202141ig7.th.jpg]

Rough numbers give a 354 dps on the Moroes encounter, which appears to still exceed the rest of the raid.

I did heal on Maiden, because of Cleanse and Blessing of Sacrifice, but I always volunteer to do that.

Also, oddly enough, numbers were showing up differently between myself and people around me. The tank, for example, showed me doing 725 dps on the Spectral Performers before Opera. Without more information I can't say what the meaning is.

Of note, there was one spell not counted in Ike's theoretical rotation -- Hammer of Wrath. Because of overall raid dps, I was able to cycle straight from Judgement to Exorcism to Holy Shock to either Judgement or Hammer of Wrath most of the individual-pull trash mobs.

Lastly, the character has the Imp Seal of the Crusader, Judging which grants 3% extra +crit chance raid-wide.

I honestly don't know if it's worth it to try and continue the conversation, but I did promise to post numbers. I do still hold that the character can do viable dps in a raid, -- admittedly I believe I am using different criteria to judge than others may be using.

 

[Ike]

Get Recount. It does what you're looking for (and is by Wowace, so you'd have found it anyway), and a heckuvalot more.




Secondly... I'm not trying to be a dick, but you just proved me right, man. Doing the math (subtracting your damage before moroes from the damage afterwards, as well as using time interval between them (5 minutes, 2 seconds)), you had 352.119 dps.


That's even lower then my predicted values, iirc.

Not only that, but 352 dps is pretty damn terrible.

Even worse, the 2nd dps on your list was the freakin tank, and third was an enhance shaman who's gear made me cringe.



I'm pretty happy that my math proved accurate, though, and I hope by the fact that you posted this means you aren't offended by my ripping on your justforfun spec.

But for your own knowledge... Someone who is only putting out 352 dps in even the gruul fight is simply not pulling their weight. You might be able to get away with it in hking (highly unlikely, due to only having consecrate, holy shock, and hammer of justice), but even there its doubtful.

It might be fun to go and do farm with that spec (high mana+aoe spell damage+plate=easy farming, i'd imagine), but it is in no way a viable pve spec.

 

[Bjorn]

No time to really look over the mechanics of your fight (I've got a plane to catch in a few hours, and I'm moving on top of that) but yeah, 352 DPS on Moroes does sound pretty dismal. The numbers on your screenshots look decent, but I've got no knowledge of ret pally synergy or fight mechanics so I'll refrain from commenting on that, tho.

For improving your DPS cycle, there's nothing better than taking notes from the world's best. Check WoW Web Stats for combat logs from guilds all over the world, from 5 man instances to Sunwell Plateau. More specifically, check this ret pally's DPS cycle on Brutallus.

I've got more to say but I've really gotta run. See ya in a few weeks, give or take.

 

[Ike]

No time to really look over the mechanics of your fight (I've got a plane to catch in a few hours, and I'm moving on top of that) but yeah, 352 DPS on Moroes does sound pretty dismal. The numbers on your screenshots look decent, but I've got no knowledge of ret pally synergy or fight mechanics so I'll refrain from commenting on that, tho.

For improving your DPS cycle, there's nothing better than taking notes from the world's best. Check WoW Web Stats for combat logs from guilds all over the world, from 5 man instances to Sunwell Plateau. More specifically, check this ret pally's DPS cycle on Brutallus.

I've got more to say but I've really gotta run. See ya in a few weeks, give or take.

Bjorn... The point of this was that he was doing this as a Shockadin, NOT as a ret pally.


Ret pallys can put out decent dps on their own, and obscene dps if they get WF totem.

This fella, http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.x...er&n=theironman, is a guildy of mine. He puts out about 850ish dps just with minor raid buffs, and around 1000 dps with wf totem. If he even got the badge 2hander, his dps would shoot up even more.

 

[Thaljafi]

I think you're still missing the point I was trying to make, but I'll try again.

I never argued that the spec would be a top-performing spec for dps if the rest of the raid was equally-geared and playing to the same level. In fact, if you'll recall, I didn't disagree with your numbers at all -- further, I can give you a link to the elitistjerks forum where the math is covered in-depth. What I was arguing was that the spec could put out enough dps to be viable in a dps slot -- for this specific instance, under specific circumstances.

Good for progression -- as in your guild doing a raid for the first time with none of the gear from/for that raid? Not as dps, that's for sure. As a healer / support slot possibly, depending on the rest of the raid.

However, as I was showing here, not only is it possible to do enough dps to get a dps slot in a raid, you can be doing significant dps *for the raid that you're in*. I certainly didn't expect to be topping the dps for the raid in this experiment -- especially when the rogue was bragging about his t5 gear (which I never did inspect *shrug*)

If everyone were equally geared and played, there's no question that a warlock, or a mage, or a hunter would out-dps a shockadin. But everyone is not equally geared! If the pally's dps gear and play are good enough that the pally can out-do the warlock, which character would you rather have doing dps on the raid? This is what I mean by being good enough to hold a dps slot.

This is why I can agree with almost everything you've been saying, and still can disagree with your conclusion.

I'm loathe to use it as an example, since it's so bad, but given the choice of any of the toons in the raid shown to fill a dps slot in *your* Kara raid, who would you rather have doing dps for you? And please -- 'none of the above' is avoiding the question. I tried to make this clear in my first post, when I noted that in order to top the dps chart you don't need to be doing superlative dps -- you just need to be better than the others with you.

This goes beyond simply shockadin-spec -- I can provide a link to that same elitistjerks forum that discusses the Smite priest spec in detail as well. The judgement on that one was the same, in that since Surge of Light no longer procs off of itself Smite is only a marginally-viable raid spec and Shadow is considered to provide better overall raid utility. But it's still fun and you don't need to waste beaucoup mana to change between dps and healing in the same heroic. Neither shockadins nor smite priests truly excel at any one area, but both are able to handle more than one role adequately enough to get the job done.




-- I had Recount -- if you look back, I noted that I removed it because it wasn't working. Was eating lots of memory and wasn't providing output.

-- Lesson Learned -- don't give all your mana pots away to the healer that showed up without. Ended up with no mana to finish off that two last two mobs that had been CC'd after Moroes was down, so my numbers suffered.

-- Every Gruul's fight I've been in so far, successful or no, had more than one member doing 350 dps or less. Same for Mags. TK and SSC, on the other hand, did not -- perhaps a higher standard?


And no, I've not been offended (at least not yet). Just trying to explain that I think we're talking past each other -- especially since I agree with what you're saying and we're still coming to such different conclusions.