Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Beastly DPS

Here is my toon.

Here was my dps from the shade of aran fight as an example in a karazhan pug last week.

I picked up 2 of those epics (the cloak and ring) AFTER that dps was recorded, meaning i was using even worse gear.

A) I'm using a less than optimal bow for beast
B) I refuse to use macros to time my shots for me. I think it takes all the fun an interactivity out of the class.

People keep telling me that I NEED a macro to do good dps in pve. Clearly, this is not the case. I LOVE hunter pve because of shot weaving. It's fun.

However, it's just not as applicable in arena (when many other classes are more of a fire-and-forget or auto attack while spamming independent attack timers type deal), while having to be stationary to do it.

Don't let anyone sell you with the point that hunters need to rely on macros to do competitive dps these days. That's a lie. THEY might need one to do maximum damage.

The only problem that hunters typically have is trying to spec marks and hoping to keep up with BM dps. I probably generate a whole 35% less dps as marks. That's a substantial drop off, mostly due to not having serpents swiftness. That talent is absolutely essential for pve dps.

I've seen some comments on this blog stating such things like: "I just get tired of people saying hunter dps is fine in pve. IT IS NOT FINE, hunters made it work when blizzard destroyed our dps pre TBC."

I'm not even sure how that makes sense. Hunter dps is only fine because hunters made it work? What?

Also, how do you explain this:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...84542153&sid=1


So the stats from 10000s of Brutallus parses are in.

These are the rankings

1. Rogue - 2870 dps
2. Hunter - 2568 dps
2. Warlock - 2536 dps
3. Warrior - 2449 dps
5. Mage - 2386 dps


These are the actual stats:
http://www.wwsscoreboard.com/bosscla....php?bossid=42


By the way, for those who don't know, Brutallus is a fight of PURE straight up DPS. The fight is DESIGNED to be the best possible situation for direct damage classes (such as mages and rogues) to be able to dps. Since the fight has no mobility, it is the perfect fight for such classes to do the absolute maximum dps they are capable of without fear. The fight lasts approx 6 mins, and is considered a hard gear check for the raid.

According to the stats, the highest melee dps is done by Rogues, the highest ranged dps is done by Hunters and the highest magical dps is done by Warlocks.


So, where's the problem in pve dps?

48 comments:

Sek said...

Well, Brutallus can have movement in the fight depending on random factors, but I assume the problem with PvE DPS is that so many classes want to be equal with others when the classes at this point in time are not designed to be equal (Is a dual Warglaive rogue supposed to do as much damage as a mage?).

Of course, this problem is compounded when guild leaders stack groups of the class they believe does the best DPS, and the guild members think that the class being stacked is imbalanced and that the classes not being stacked need a DPS boost.

Anonymous said...

Hunters have not had PvE DPS issues since they made BM raid viable. I did T4/T5 dungeons when scorpids were viable, I was top damage most of the time. Now (full T6) rogues do better damage but it is comparable and rogues usually get better groups. I can still easily give them a ride for the top spot on most of the BT fights.

You can manually weave in shots as BM, especially if you employ 1:1 rotation, however for a slower weapon 3:2 rotation macro is better, imo.

Anonymous said...

"So, where's the problem in pve dps?"

Here:
* Shaman, 2176 DPS
+ BL, Windfury, Str, +10% ap (+tremor,+spellinterupt) (needs WF)

or + BL, WoA, ToW (+tremor,+spellinterupt,+heal) (doesn't need anything group wise)

Damage wise Brutalus is Bloodlust fight...

* Paladin, 2037 DPS
+ raidmana, +3% crit raid, +2% group damage (needs WF)

* Warrior, 2449 DPS
+ 4% debuff, 355ap to melee group, tanks trash till brutalus. (needs WF)

Then we take hunter. 2635 DPS
+ 3% group damage if pet is alive and attacking (needs GoA+LotP)

PS. This hunter didn't fire 1 Scorpid sting, had full drum rotation, 2 bloodlusts and perfect group...

And Here:
* I did Ilidian last night (we got first Warglaive yay), Pet retardedly wants to attack from behind stepping in flames. (Ilidian is tanked and moved few yards each time he does blue flame thing...all melee is hitting him in side, p1) So I used pet... first 30 seconds and then in p3-5 a bit. And Ilidian is quite EZ on pets.

Conclusion:
1. Hunter PvE dps is fine on fights where pet is allowed to live.
2. Pet is not allowed to live on 1/3 fights.
3. Hunter requires specific support that is not compatible with other dps. Where Retri/War/Enh shaman share everything.
4. Hunter (apart from SV hunter) doesn't bring as much to the raid as other dps.
5. BM Hunter with 2700dps contributed less raid damage done than Shaman with 2000, paladin with 2000 or warrior with 2400 dps.

Only class you can compare hunter in terms of dps directly is Rogue. Because They like (bm) hunters only bring DPS to the table. (well and interrupt, witch hunters don't)

Anonymous said...

**Fix: Enh.shaman doesn't need WF totem.

Sam said...

So hunters "only" bring massive personal DPS, 3% damage to the group, and smooth pulls/phase transitions via misdirects.

I think you're also forgetting that hunters are ranged physical dps that never have to worry about eating mob-based AOEs, cleaves, or most other AOE effects, and require very little upkeep on the healers' part. And as far as I know, nihilum stacked hunters and ranged dps with 0 rogues on twin eredars fight, no?

Are you sure you're looking at the whole big picture rather than just the buffs that people bring?

Anonymous said...

Fact remains that the effort required for hunters to DPS is much greater than the other classes. This should change, in my opinion. Clearly it *can* be managed, and many people do pretty well, usually with the help of macros, auto shot timer addons, and so forth.

The mechanics that you mentioned in your previous blog, that precarious reliance on weapon speed and weave time, that's what lessens the overall positive feel of the hunter in my opinion. In a game like WoW, we shouldn't be worrying about certain upgrades actually making us worse, or certain weapons being a good bit better than others due to a particular speed which is completely non-obvious without some research.

Sam said...

I agree that hunters require more effort to be effective at for great dps, but unfortunately that actually makes it more enjoyable for me in pve. =[

I'm not really a fan of mashing shadowbolt 900 times in a row for 3 hours straight. I'd really hate to see hunter dps dumbed down to be that simplistic, even though it very well may. :/

Anonymous said...

"So hunters "only" bring massive personal DPS, 3% damage to the group, and smooth pulls/phase transitions via misdirects."

* 3% damage to group that includes Resto shaman and Tank Feral.
* Smooth pulls yes (1 hunter)
* Phase transitions... heh 1 hunter can do it if it's needed at all. I know we don't need to here.

"I think you're also forgetting that hunters are ranged physical dps that never have to worry about eating mob-based AOEs"

* Such as most common AoE at bosses witch is ZoneWide or 100yards. Mmmh. Last time I evaded AoE due my 41y range. (Range that BM, ala masive dps don't have). Was probably... RoF at Antheron and Consecration at Ildari Council..

"cleaves"
* Frontal attack... witch on static fights means no problem. Dragons had bit of "challenge" here. TailSweep +Cleave mmm :)

"or most other AOE effects, and require very little upkeep on the healers' part"
AoE, lets see...
Hyall: RoF(azgalor)
BT: Consecration (council), Helfire(trash), Ilidian in Demon form.

Less upkeep. HAH we re totally screwed without JoW on boss (at least those 2k+ numbers witch are not possible without haste pots btw).
I can dump my 8k buffed mana pool into DR.Boom in 100 seconds! (no consumables). I'm farming Dark Runes and drinking Fel Mana pots...

Less upkeep "on healers" is a Myth too. Even then... i don't remember fight post t5 content where we would wipe due healers being oom. Last such wipe was probably Prince in KZ when we had blue 70/old t3 gear.

And then again. BM hunters have 1/3rd of their dps in form of Pet AI melee witch eats that "short aoe"... and sometimes straight moves there even if player doesn't want. (Boss turns to cast ability, pet goes behind, boss turns back on tank, cleaves pet dead. Or.. pet attacks (0hit/expertise), boss parries, bursts tank. Really Fun.)

And they (BM hunters) "only" have standard 36y range. Same as your friendly neighborhood mage/warlock/ele.shaman (with talents.. that are in proper tree).

I'm seeing much larger picture than you think I see. The one that takes boss down more reliably instead of faster and more random.

Anonymous said...

1 hunter in raid does all.
Survival speced for EW. 2x MD. Has more mana management (toth) and due his 1.5:1 rotation can keep up Scorpid Sting (probably best thing hunter brings) up most easily.

Other hunters are BM and totally expendable (easily replaceable by other class) for almost every fight in TBC.

We can get to a game. You name a TBC boss and group setup. I'll remove all hunters except 1 SV and make better setup. (TBC because in vanilla wow we had T.Shot! band-aid).

Anonymous said...

"5. BM Hunter with 2700dps contributed less raid damage done than Shaman with 2000, paladin with 2000 or warrior with 2400 dps."

Maybe so (even though I am not sure it's true) but the thing is that each paladin and warrior require WF totem so they have to be in a very specific group.

Hunters don't have as much synergy as the melee classes but you can put hunters in any group and they put up great numbers. Move ret paladin out of his WF group and his damage will plummet.

While it's totally possible to replace hunters or rogues completely (Nihilum couldn't make a full melee group so they used a hunter group for the first twins kill) it doesn't happen that often. Most of the raids I see on WWS have 1-2 hunters, which is a good enough representation.

Sam said...

The only beef I've really had with raiding AND pvping on the hunter is the same: It's too expensive. Good arrows are damn expensive, and more than make up the cost of the few times you can realistically escape death via feign. (Very problematic in 25 mans where you'll probably die to pulsing room-wide AOE's before the encounter resets)

Yeah, hunters gain less benefit than others by being in a shaman or warriors group. That's true. But then again, hunters don't NEED to be in their group to put up great numbers, as the above poster has stated. They do fantastic damage independent of their group makeup. So what if they require a JoW to sustain their mana-intensive shot rotations? How hard is it to ask on vent: "Hey, can someone throw up a JoW. Thanks." I do it all the time no problem, because my paladins understand what a huge boon it is to me and any other hunter in the raid.

The healers also understand how important it is to keep those pets up as well. All it takes is the occasional lifebloom, and when I'm raiding on my druid, it's hair-brained easy to spare 1 single GCD to toss some HoTs on pets.

So yeah, you have less synergy with the raid, but you also don't require specific groups to really shine. You see it as a con. I see it as a pro. I'm equally viable in any setup and group.

In addition to all of this, I also like how relatively gear independent the hunter is. We have to worry about fewer stats than rogues, in addition to not needing specific group makeups. Rogues need far more hit than we do, and expertise: Something we can flat out ignore. (Although I do see huntards with the expertise trinket from Heroic MGT all the time. Sigh.)

No, pets don't scale with hit/crit, but looking the current stats: Imagine if they did? Hunters would be outdpsing rogues at the highest levels of play, without requiring specific groups, and without having to deal with melee-specific issues of raiding. Now I ask you: Would that be fair?

It's realy not as grim as you make it out to be.

Anonymous said...

* You must be joking about stats.
What rogues lose on higher hit requirement they gain due fact we hunters have ton of Intellect on our gear.
No wonder that for pure DPS 4/8 of main gear choices for hunter (+1 if SV) are Leather...

* I would like to see that 2.6k DPS Brutalus hunter do 1.6k in healer group. Great number I'm sure if he can pull it off witch is unlikely.
Especially vs Elemental Shaman 2k dps while buffing healers and dps at once without any group support.
Or Enhancment... he does same dps with Warriors BS than he would do in his own Group6 (GoA instead WF).

* "Hey, can someone throw up a JoW. Thanks." = 1 paladin minimum in raid not healing MT/OT. =3rd paladin in 25man usually... 3rd!.
Thats important info, since we are not really talking about hunter dps here but about how many hunters do you take in endgame 25man raid.

* "All it takes is the occasional lifebloom". -- Not when you are looking at 27.500 or 45.000 total healing required (overtime) due sheer stupidity of AI (i wan't option to disable "attack from behind" thanks). Or when entire raid is struck by periodic increasing AoE. Or when he gets random 4k dot ticking... or 2.5k periodic 15second dot, or worse... debuff witch spreads(1 pet gets it, all get it with occasional backstabbing melee).
Pets become raidmember 26,27... in all already heal intensive fights. Their best friend is Shamans CL witch might jump on them and CoH.

* "No, pets don't scale with hit/crit, but looking the current stats..." -- I believe I said our DPS is Fine even Great (on pet friendly fights). However there is currently 1 true pure dps (patchwerk) fight t6+ game.

Brutalus (where dps truly matters (short enrage), there is no decursing, 2 tanks only, 2 tight groups getting damage(aoe heals, less healers), no running, no aoe required, and pet is safe)

"It's realy not as grim as you make it out to be."

Because people are looking to much on dps meters it's even worse. And btw when you start chaining drums, other hastes with DST and Hawk procs... you will start using shot macros... and g15 keyboard. That's how 2.2k+ numbers for hunters are made. Totally wrong...

Draele said...

"I agree that hunters require more effort to be effective at for great dps, but unfortunately that actually makes it more enjoyable for me in pve. =[

I'm not really a fan of mashing shadowbolt 900 times in a row for 3 hours straight. I'd really hate to see hunter dps dumbed down to be that simplistic, even though it very well may. :/"


The exact reason I stay with Aff even though it sucks donkey balls in BT. Blizzard need to step it up on some of the mashier specs to make them more interesting. Seriously, who actually enjoys mashing 1 button over and over?

Sek said...

One of the bigger problems with hunter raid DPS is the dependence on the pet being alive, which is not always an option.

Skellum said...

There is no problem with PvE DPS. Finding a smart mage is like finding a talking dog. Im not sure what it is but the collective intelligence of the class seems to have fallen off the deep end. Maybe all the smart ones rerolled lock back when that pointless damage tax happened. Keep em even or one group quits.

Sek said...

Well, for example, when learning the Eredar Twins, we brought only one Hunter. When learning M'uru, we're not bringing any hunters. There is mass raid damage and it is just not feasible to keep the pet alive.

Anonymous said...

Sorry for the OT, Leiah, but I'd like to know your opinion on S4 itemization. Issues concerning why we even need to see yet another increase in DPS and why they think that the common arena Rogue actually needs glaive DPS 1h weapons.

Anonymous said...

And why have 2x S4 1H Hunter axes:
1. less stats
2. 2050 arena rating
3. and bigger price
Compared to S3 2h Axe?

Anonymous said...

Top hunter on Tournament Realm is rated 1881.
...

Anonymous said...

Growl @ Blizzard QA...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=6441206050&sid=1

Sam said...

Interesting. Thanks for this.

I know all too well about what a piss poor job pets do at holding agro. It's pathetic. I don't even bother putting growl on my pets anymore. I'll rip agro off of them in 2 or more shots anyways, no matter what. If I really want my pet to be able to hold agro for a few seconds on an elite mob, I always end up misdirecting onto them, and then feigning if necessary as well. it's really pathetic.

Anonymous said...

Post hijack.

Leiah, do you know if Blizz has any planned fixes for the melee scaling vs. clothies in S4 or if it will only come in the expansion?

I'm getting really sick of the "zomg zerg the lock!!" in arena.

Sam said...

Not really. I haven't been keeping up with live very much, recently. I've been focusing on other things. Sorry. =[

Draele said...

Hey Leiah- As I understand it the WotLK F&F Alpha has just started. I know you're under an NDA right now but I expect you to have some comments on the whole deal ready to post as soon as the NDA is lifted =D

Anonymous said...

You're a POS for thinking Hunter's aspects should cost no mana, when most of their abilities cost next to no mana already. Also doing damage in Arena isnt a far cry from doing PvE DPS, except you actually need a brain and be mobile / counter offensive focus, something 95% of Huntards lack (a brain).

PS Grats on switching to a no brainer class (literally) when you realized Blizzard shut the door on Warlocks.

Failure.

PSS Reading the other comments from the many other bad Huntards is evidence enough that the class is played primarily by chimps, such as yourself.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous,

P.S. stands for post script. When you need additional post scripts, the correct notation is P.P.S, etc. Feel free to go contract HIV at your fraternity's next party.

P.S. Apologies to Leiah for my unkempt posting.

Anonymous said...

Few ?! that some exist since beta...

1. Why hunter abilities such as FD use SPELL hit instead Melee hit rating? (was fixed for warrior/druids/paladins...)
(ATM resist rate vs 73boss = 17%)

2. Survival hunters. Does EW generate extra threat? Or does GFTT? Because Omen tends to get nuts with my TPS... doesn't matter if I'm first on dps or way behind(Ilidian 10k armor, rest of bt:7700 or 6200??). I need 3-5 chained successful FD's in 10minute fights to go all-out. First 2-3 minutes are critical.

3. Kill command crits triggers SpellCrit procs. (Lightning Cap,etc)

4. Pet spells don't crit, ever. (unless talented) (might be due their base 33 intelect).

5. MM or SV hunters pet misses ~17% of Kill Commands on 73boss (attacking at back). Spell Hit?

6. Pet spells (LB for instance) scale wrong. Since they are instants they take 43% of Spellpower... 2x. (meaning pets scale their instant spells by 43% of 43% of spellpower = ~18%).
Full T3 hunter = LB for 150
Full T6 hunter = LB for 170

7. I burn 460mana/5 at all-out, with 8200 full buffed mana pool (and efficiency talent, spamming onl SS witch is best mana/damage shot) that's... 90 second of PvE without external buffs and pots. Witch should be worst mana efficiency of any class..
Oh and in those 90 seconds I fire 2g worth of ammo in the boss. :)

Anonymous said...

/poke Leiah. Haven't seen you on steam in a couple of days. Wanna ask you something.

Sam said...

Sorry, I'm enjoying NYC with my girlfriend this week. I won't be home until next week.

Anonymous said...

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/6411/thoridalnewel5.jpg

Thori'dal has now become REAL (maybe even too much...) legendary (2.7 speed + added dps).
For BM hunters at least. Those that will get this will be first Hunters that will be able to break 3k dps on Brutalus. (change is ~100dps improvement over old Thori'dal, resulting in 200-250dps upgrade for BM over badge XBow - with4xT6 bonus!)

For us friendly neighborhood Survival hunters... well it kinda stayed same. We don't care much thoo ;)

/applaud to Blizzard itemization team.

Anonymous said...

Tournament Realm - 18.5.

* 0 hunters above 1900.
* From 18.4->18.5 hunters (and paladins) had decrease in representation. (-75% change@1800 rating for hunters... ofc that can mean 3 out of 4 hunters dropped down ;))

http://vhairi.blogspot.com/2008/05/us-tr-stats-18th-may-2008.html

Anonymous said...

Lol hunter@arena:

http://www.tehgladiators.com/?p=23

:p

Sam said...

Sorry I've been very busy, lately. Was out of town for a week and a half with the gf, and now I'm back working on other things.

No, I will not be discussing any alpha-related material on this website at all, so don't expect to see any thing like that in the near future. You can gather enough info from google, youtube and elitist jerks anyways.

Maybe when the NDA is lifted.

That being said, I am very much looking forward to what they will be doing with hunters in WotLK soon. I have very few complaints with the state of warlocks atm.

Anonymous said...

"Warlocks atm," as in on the live servers, or Warlocks in WoLK alpha?

Sam said...

..... Can't say.

Anonymous said...

Right now then? You don't want to debate and that's fine. S3/2.4 didn't see the actual death of Warlocks, and TBH I wasn't expecting it, either. S4, from what has been shown, looks retarded though.

The issue of Warlocks atm is not that they suck, but that they "balanced" in a retarded way such that they either counter their opponent ridiculously well (Paladin, Shaman, magic-based DPS teams) or get countered retardedly hard (melee). They need to mitigate the effect of counterclasses. Unfortunately, we're going to have to pay for those changes.

Gonna try out AoC when finals are over, I don't expect to be impressed though.

Sam said...

Not talking about right now. -_-

Oh, and AOC sucks. Already tried it.

Anonymous said...

well i hope in wrath we locks get some active defence against melee

And from what ive read of the alpha changes they will be nerfed alot or removed from the next build

Anonymous said...

Leiah, I hope Blizz understand that some of us vets can't wait 5-6 more months for the lock class to be fixed in 3v3 and 5v5. It's just silly atm against melee zerg teams. Even a bandaid fix right now would at least be better than nothing for the next few months till wotlk.

Anonymous said...

lol @ s4

Makes sense though, giving people another goal to fight for (s4 gear) is probably more beneficial than trying to balance the game, even if the new gear obviously favors physical DPS.

Sam said...

I wouldn't expect much in terms of further class balance on live realms anytime in the near future. Most, if not all, of their effort is going to be focused in Wrath from now until october/november, when I have a feeling this game is going to be out. (You guys do remember the time line I estimated for you, yes?)

The only big patch remaining between now and wrath launch will be the implementation of the new talent trees which will be roughly 1 month or so before launch, so probably near the end of september. Before that, all you really have to look forward to if I had to guess, would be season 4 and daily quests. That's really it. I can't really bring myself to play live much any more other than to do some arena games for fun on my various toons. I also enjoy screwing around in arathi basin by seeing how many horde scrublings I can round up on my NE druid and just seeing how long I can survive with several people beating on me. I just make a mini game out of it until I get bored. I know. Exciting stuff.

However, I will say that warlocks are going to be in very good shape soon. I know a lot of people will be pleased with the coming changes. Maybe not everyone, but definitely most by far.

Anonymous said...

It scares me a little to see that they have no plans to balance WoW over the entire summer at all, it's as if they want people to drop the game with only season 4 as motivation to keep playing... especially with the sad state of "balance" the game is currently in.

But that's good for me, I'm taking classes over the summer that I should be acing anyway.

Anonymous said...

Not to be a downer, but I'm willing to guess part of the reason Warlocks are looking so good atm is because Rogues didn't get their talents yet :P

Er, well, now they do.

Anonymous said...

lol Maso, I was thinking that myself :p.

But yeah, it's alpha so I wouldn't be too worried.

Skellum said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Im enjoying the fact that 100% of the new Warlock Talent trees have any any gains so far as PvE viability goes. What am I now? 0/21/40. What will I be at 80? 0/21/50. Oh, but this time I dont get master conjurer. This angers me.

Anonymous said...

I hope that Blizz will take the tourney results into consideration. It was done in s2 which was supposedly balanced in terms of melee vs s3, yet; it was a heavy melee tourney. Now imagine if it was done in s3 gear.

Anonymous said...

With one week left in S3, I've finally decided to prema shelf the lock (was going back and forth with it but now made the decision), feels so useless in arena now. Will prolly try out hunter and see if I like it :).