Dungeon Blather

[Jack9]

Heh, I was pulling 1700 dps before I set foot in Naxx on my DK. I think you're making some false assumptions or just gearing him badly.  Only epics were a Mirror of Truth, goggles, and Titansteel Destroyer. 

Well, that's annoying.  Anyone know of any sites that might have a reasonable level of detail for this kind of thing?  Most of the ones I know of are either devoted to specific tasks (e.g. tanking, how to beat specific bosses, that kind of thing, not so much "how to not suck at DPS in general") or way out of date.

I always go to www.elitistjerks.com for my "Serious business" wow discussion. 

Again with the elitistjerks.com - these people are generally morons. Of course I was there for the pre-BC balance druid faq that said druids shouldn't be using cloth gear or that BC prot paladins should take kings. Complete sheeple and clique-mindedness that makes them far from serious.

The signal to trollnoise ratio is small enough that you can consider EJ an extension of a server's trade chat or just the regular wow forums, but with more traffic.

maxdps.com is what you're looking for, in this particular case.

[Gobbeldygook]

sheeple

maxdps.com

Go away.

edit: It's been a while since I went to maxdps and it still as terrible as I remember.

First, the broad strokes
-A number of specs are not modeled (frost dks, feral DPS and tank, destruction and demonology warlocks, arcane mages, mm hunters, protection paladins) at all.
-They have ZERO wrath support for Rogues.
-Most of the specs that do have wrath support haven't been updated since Wrath launch despite major changes since then.  The only specs I noticed being up to date are retadins, moonkin, blood & unholy dks.
-No support for glyphs.

Detailed problems I was able to spot in moments:
-Enhancement shaman contains no mention of where maelstrom weapon casts go in your rotation.
-The prot warrior section completely fails to mention that concussion blow should be a part of your rotation.
-The healer sections are universally worthless with no guidelines on when or how to use your abilities.
-The default fury warrior spec is flawed.  It doesn't have Two-Handed Weapon Spec, a straight-up 6% DPS boost that is massively superior to anywhere else you could put those three points.

Maxdps is a retarded site for retards like you.

[Selby]

Maxdps is a retarded site...

Our old raid leader insisted we were to use maxdps.  I went there and it said my mage with my gear I should be good for almost 2300DPS in Frost spec.  I never even came close to that, even all purple'd out now - it's more like 1800 max on a pure DPS fight and maybe a bit more if various trinkets and cooldowns stack properly.  EJ on the other hand said to spec and rotate a certain way with some numbers, so I tried it and my DPS shot up considerably over that.  I don't completely disavow maxdps, but I do take all of the sites with a grain of salt until I can try it out in an actual fight situation to see how it behaves.

[K9]

Again with the elitistjerks.com - these people are generally morons. Of course I was there for the pre-BC balance druid faq that said druids shouldn't be using cloth gear or that BC prot paladins should take kings. Complete sheeple and clique-mindedness that makes them far from serious.

The signal to trollnoise ratio is small enough that you can consider EJ an extension of a server's trade chat or just the regular wow forums, but with more traffic.

maxdps.com is what you're looking for, in this particular case.

No U. 

[Ingmar]

maxdps.com is just mathematically flat out wrong about every spec I play at least.

Yes you have to have some slight filtering skills for EJ, but they're much much much more reliable than any of the other sites, short of a few very good spec-specific ones (shadowpanther, maybe maintankadin and tankspot).

[Chimpy]

The big problem I had with Maxdps when I played and people were using it (which was during Sunwell) is that it's gear ranking system that everyone uses takes every single item in a vacuum. So what it tells you is a best in slot item for every slot, ends up meaning jack shit if you lose something more important overall.

Plus, with any theorycrafting in WoW, the "optimal" is never anywhere near reality. Those sites really come down to "perfect world" scenarios, which end up making things harder than they should be for groups run by people who do everything solely on "what the spreadsheets/maxdps/EJ/bosskillers say". Every group and every encounter is different, if you don't adjust things for how your group dynamic shines, you will ultimately fall short of your goal.

Of course, that is most of why I stopped playing as few people I was around would ever think of doing something even remotely different than what they had read on some website, and never took the big picture into account when assessing DPS/healing/etc.

[Rendakor]

I just use EJ as a guideline, a place to find out simple game related information that is not readily available without say, hours spend attacking a dummy. Hit cap, for example: a stat that varies based on class and spec, but is incredibly a) incredibly important for PVEing successfully and b) not stated flat out anywhere in game. EJ has that information available. Other examples include the way certain talents work, effects of meta gems, proc rates/ICDs on trinkets, etc. I take everything said there as nothing more than a guideline, however.

[apocrypha]

I don't raid, I don't care about having the ultimate possible DPS, I play multiple characters and classes, I'm not interested in epic-chasing. Being limited to a couple of 1 hour sessions a day and being 6 months behind the levelling curve means that I know I'll never see 70% or more of the current end-game content.

I just want an easy tool to tell me what gear upgrades I can aim for and what would be useful gems & enchants to put on it and Rawr (from EJ) lets me do just that. Combined with the good posts in response to my questions on the previous page of this thread it means I've managed to usefully upgrade a few bits of gear (head, axes, enchants) on my enhance shaman already and I've got some nice, relatively easy-to-achieve goals to play with when I get bored of levelling my army of alts.

Luckily I also a hoarder (for the Hoard! Hahah) so I've just managed to level blacksmithing, engineering, jewelcrafting, inscription *and* alchemy to 400+ on a bunch of different characters in less than a week without having to spend 1000s on materials, which helps the upgrading no end 

[Fordel]

The big problem I had with Maxdps when I played and people were using it (which was during Sunwell) is that it's gear ranking system that everyone uses takes every single item in a vacuum. So what it tells you is a best in slot item for every slot, ends up meaning jack shit if you lose something more important overall.

I use RAWR whenever I need to know if X or Y item is superior, since RAWR takes a look at your items and talents as a whole. It's also very accurate for DPS estimations on tank and spank.

Or it was like 2 months ago when I last opened it.

[K9]

The most fundamental reason that EJ is superior to maxdps is it's transparency. All the logic is laid out, and you can ask questions and get answers. The EJ Theorycrafting Think Tank articles are generally the best guides I have seen for classes (where they exist).

[Sheepherder]

My warrior according to MaxDPS's armory import.

My warrior on the armory.

Something isn't right here.

[K9]

You don't have any minor glyphs 

[Woopee]

I've never done heroic SL...I have no wish to be chaosed into killing my own party members by Blackheart. I probably would unless my shammy just stood there casting Lightning Bolt the whole time. Not my idea of fun

[SurfD]

I've never done heroic SL...I have no wish to be chaosed into killing my own party members by Blackheart. I probably would unless my shammy just stood there casting Lightning Bolt the whole time. Not my idea of fun

Oh crap moments like that are sometimes outright awesome tho.

I remember the good old days in ZG when people who got mind controlled by hex piles did like 300% damage.  Nothing like looting a hex pile when no one was paying attention and having the decked to the teeth rogue suddenly go cuisinart on 2 or 3 unsuspecting clothies before anyone realizes what is going on.

And it is still fun to run unsuspecting 60s through Strathholme on my 80 feral druid, just to see if i get possessed by the banshee mob and murder them.

[kildorn]

I've never done heroic SL...I have no wish to be chaosed into killing my own party members by Blackheart. I probably would unless my shammy just stood there casting Lightning Bolt the whole time. Not my idea of fun

Mind Control is nowhere near that awesome.

Mind Control is typically the AI switching your auras around or dropping sentry totem.

[Ingmar]

TIME FOR FUN

That is one of my favorite fights ever, but most of my guildmates don't agree. It can lead to some totally hilarious outcomes.

[Jayce]

Mind control fights are great.  Why so serious? 

[Soulflame]

Typically, mind control means "shaman blowing bloodlust under mind control while fighting the last few packs of lynx trash while in the last 8 minutes of a bear run."

Good times.  Good times.

[Sjofn]

TIME FOR FUN

That is one of my favorite fights ever, but most of my guildmates don't agree. It can lead to some totally hilarious outcomes.

It only really bugged me when he'd MC us with three HP left. I loved MC'd tree though. 

[apocrypha]

TIME FOR FUN

That is one of my favorite fights ever, but most of my guildmates don't agree. It can lead to some totally hilarious outcomes.

Totally agree, stuff like that that keeps instances fun & interesting 

[Sheepherder]

The problem with randomly dieing to a shaman popping heroism during a MC is that most people get pissed with the corpse run and repair bill rather than appreciate the ludicrous situation that just unfolded.

Repair bills and corpse runs: unfun shit that should be cut.

[SurfD]

As far as i know, you will never take a durability hit if another player kills you while under the effects of mind control.

Or from many other forms of "friendly fire" either.  For example, you do not take durability if you are killed by a crossed polarity on thaddeus.

[Merusk]

Yep.  You don't appear to take a hit if you get MC'd on Yogg, either. So if it's a wipe I make sure to stare directly into the skulls, then enjoy watching as I kill 2-3 other players.  The DK AI is much smarter than the hunter one ever was. (Wtf dropping traps and Vollying, then running up to melee..)

[Sjofn]

The paladin AI was pretty stupid at times too, it would switch my aura to something completely idiotic (it would wind up on crusader sometimes in TBC, for heaven's sake)  and then fiddle with random seals.

[Sheepherder]

As far as i know, you will never take a durability hit if another player kills you while under the effects of mind control.

Or from many other forms of "friendly fire" either.  For example, you do not take durability if you are killed by a crossed polarity on thaddeus.

Warlock Hellfire doesn't give durability loss either.  However, in this situation all it takes is for the tank to come off the MC segment with low enough health that he is effectively unhealable and all of a sudden everyone gets repair bills.  Repair bills are one of those arbitrary and fuckstupid ideas out of the dark ages of MMO's that Blizzard simply refuses to purge with fire.

Repair bills work in single-player because it's very easy to tell who fucked up.

[AutomaticZen]

The paladin AI was pretty stupid at times too, it would switch my aura to something completely idiotic (it would wind up on crusader sometimes in TBC, for heaven's sake)  and then fiddle with random seals.

Which was a pain in the ass if you were tanking.   Plus, I'd inevitably go toe to toe with whoever was our highest DPS.  Pre-Wrath.  Hitting for like 100-125 max.

Sad panda.

So glad the Wrath changes gave me some actual damage when I swing my hammer.

[Ingmar]

The new 5 man is not easy to heal as a just-dinged 80.

[Fordel]

You just don't have your old LifeRoll clutch!

[kildorn]

The new 5 man is not easy to heal as a just-dinged 80.

It wasn't easy, but you did pretty well. The only deaths were LOLadds bug, and stop-bitch-out-the-mage-and-heal <3

Just depressing that it was all mail and feral dps night.

[Sjofn]

Well, it extra special didn't help it was a JUST DINGED level 80 druid tank.

I SUX AT BEAR OH NOES

Only one class to go and I will be officially one of those broken people that has one of each tank at level 80. 

[K9]

Has anyone tested the supposed rake scaling in occulus and/or EoE?

[Ingmar]

Not yet, I have been meaning to do Oculus again hoping that the scaling will make it non-painful.

[Rendakor]

I noticed a HP increase with gear item level in Occulus, similar to FL. Not sure if damaged scaled as well; the zone is still painful as hell. Haven't done Maly since patch, and probably won't ever again.

Edit: spln iz hrd

[Malakili]

Blizzard seems insistant upon making vehicles a focal point, but I can't, no matter how hard I try, seem to like them.   There are a few ok implementations, like I don't mind Isle of Conquest, but in general, I think the game would be just as good were they removed entirely (Maybe with the exception of mounts with extra seats, if that counts).

[Paelos]

PvP with vehicles is actually fun. It's interesting to blow shit up without an agenda beyond taking the next hill.

In PvE they suck ass. They should be completely abolished from that aspect of the game. People don't enjoy doing technical fights where they can't use any of their normal abilities. They don't want to get into a wonky viewpoint and then try to negotiate completely different controls. And lastly they HATED having all their fancy gear reduced to a worthless pile of crap on the floor.