Here comes the next content patch (3.2)

[Soulflame]

Honestly, unless it's HToC, the only question should be "can you break 1500 DPS."  That requires minimal gear, and some knowledge of how your class works.  HToC's requirements are only slightly higher.

The problem is, as Shrike noted, is that sometimes you pull in some real idiots.  I've had a DK do 400 dps.  Yeah, I don't know either.  I've had rogues that couldn't break 1k dps.  Again, you got me.  There's people who stand in fire, people who stand in the wrong spot to pull adds, or people who LoS the healer while standing in fire and pulling adds.  

[Rasix]

You're probably better off doing PVE in a full set of PVP epics than in vendor blues. I was doing just fine in heroics in full Hateful.

I have a mixed set of honor and WG gear.  Are you telling me that this is sufficient for heroics?  That would make life pretty easy. 

It's not like you need a load of +hit for heroic bosses.  I think my pvp gear only gives around +4% and I didn't notice any resists.

Seriously, I was putting out DPS that was fine for any heroic in PVP gear and a fairly complex rotation I had no practice with.  It's just not. that. hard.

Here's a link to my armory: Delat.

[K9]

What I don't understand is the laziness I see in these games.  When I played EQ, UO, DAoC, etc.  the fun of the PvE game was in the challenge of the encounter.  In DAoC I used to solo/duo content made for groups.  It was a challenge, but that made otherwise mundane pve interesting.  I'd be interested in seeing if we could run a heroic with 3 or 4 people.  That would be a challenge even if it did turn out to be impossible.  

Perhaps I need to rethink things.  People run dungeons to get "stuff" and not for fun.  Blizzard may as well just implement a slot machine that rewards loot every x hours and set some gear level required to pull the lever.  It's the same damn thing for most of the playerbase.

There's an issue with inflation of expectations. In Vanilla WoW people ran endgame instances for blues and epics were a raid-only thing. Then in BC we got heroics, and those became the standard pre-raid endgame, while the equivalent normal instances were left by-the-by, even though Strat or Scholo at the 60 endgame were harder than a fair few of the TBC heroics. Also epics now moved into the realm of heroics, with an epic off each boss and epic items from badges. By the end of BC the view was that heroics were the pre-raid endgame, and plenty of those were real challenges, even with raid gear and consequently very few people ran them (Arcatraz, Shattered Halls, Shadow Labs, Achunei Crypts). So people went into WoTLK expecting to get straight back to running heroics at 80, forgetting that most of us had to run normal instances to gear for heroics abck at 70, and the bar was set lower. The bar was also set very low with most of the entry level raids, compared to TBC, which is fair enough to an extent, since the BC raids were ball-crushingly hard at release.

The new standard is adjustable difficulty inside raids. My group is now running Ulduar-10 hard modes and these provide some really fun challenges. Many of the hard modes change your approach to the fight. The problem is, this isn't mirrored lower down. Blizzard can make challenging 5-man instances that aren't ludicrous. Shadow Labs was stupuidly long with retarded amoutns of trash, heroic Magisters Terrace was very hard, mainly because it had a lot of trash. Shattered Halls and Arcatraz on the other hand, were fairly trash-light by comparison; the difference was that each pull could crush you hard. As a priest I can tank almost anything inside a WoTLK heroic; at 70 the number of mobs that wouldn't 1-shot me I could count on one hand.

Apparently 3.3 is bringing a new 5-man; ideally it would be hard at the offset, and offer an internal hardmode or two. However, I anticipate that Blizz will pander to the crowd; which saddens me slightly, because although I am one of the majority of casual gamers, I feel they have gone a bit too far towards making the game basic and sanitised. The problem is that it's hard to ramp the difficulty up after you have lowered it.

edit: I'd also add that I found the Ulduar difficulty curve perfect to balance challenge and reward for my guild and I. ToC normal is too easy, ToC heroic is a little out of our grasp. Ulduar and its mix of normal and hard modes is just right.

[Nebu]

Honestly, unless it's HToC, the only question should be "can you break 1500 DPS."  

I have no clue what my hunter's dps is.  I tried using an addon, but the way it measures dps seems flawed compared to the way I've done it in the past.  It also penalizes you for using utility based abilities... which seems stupid.

How should I be measuring DPS?  Hell, should I be measuring dps?

[Shrike]

Level 80 blues are sufficient for heroics. Heck--if you're a plate wearer--savage or tempered saranite is sufficient for heroics. Most groups don't want any sturm und drang with fresh 80s, but it is sufficient.

Actually, if you've got the funds (and we're talking Maobamarx levels of gold here), you can equip yourself pretty damned well from the AH. There are a lot of BoE t8 and t9 equivalent pieces from the assorted tradeskills. There are also the conquest bracers, which are BoE and usually in good supply on the AH. Not just a few dungeon drop BoE epics, either. Just bring money.

The only piece(s) you can't get on the AH are weapons past the basic blacksmithing lvl 80 ones. You won't be getting past 186dps (2h) or 143dps (1h) without hitting some dungeons or raids. Kinda sucks, but just the way it is.

[Soulflame]

Recount is still the default mod for measuring dps.

[Merusk]

Most people already get a steady diet of challenges from ToC, or Uld hard modes, or whatever.  I can't speak for anyone else but me, but I'd rather my heroics be a 15-20 minute milk run, rather than a 2-3 hour "triumph", involving multiple wipes, and a repair bill that wipes out a sizable percentage of monies earned from dailies that day.

No, mot RAIDING people aren't even killing Yog yet, much less doing hardmodes.  Your guild is on the cutting edge, as we keep pointing out time and time again.  You are not representative of the typical WOW player.

However, yes, you're right.  Raiders all want to walk through in 15-20 mins. so they put out these ridiculous demands for PUGs that the rest of the server mirror.    Also, the repair bills are smaller when the gear level is lower.  A single repair bill in my Ulduar gear is now costing me about 18 gold.  That's about the same  as when I was at 50% durability in heroic crap.  I've thought about just running around in T7 gear to do dailies since just getting hit/ smacking things winds up taking a decent chunk of change off of me.

Heroic COS:  I don't think I've had a group that hasn't been able to get the drake since before Nax was being pugg'd.  

Honestly, unless it's HToC, the only question should be "can you break 1500 DPS."  

I have no clue what my hunter's dps is.  I tried using an addon, but the way it measures dps seems flawed compared to the way I've done it in the past.  It also penalizes you for using utility based abilities... which seems stupid.

How should I be measuring DPS?  Hell, should I be measuring dps?

Use recount, run it during a dungeon run but set it to "current fight" instead of "overall" and keep an eye on it.  Yes, it penalizes for using utility abilities in the middle of combat.. but then you're not doing DPS, so you're not really DPSing.  Yes, it's weird, but it's aimed primarily at raiding info where utility abilities are usually trivialized, unable to be used in the first place or used in such a specific way that nobody cares that your DPS is low so long as you do that one specific job.. so all you're doing is tanking/ healing/ dpsing anyway.

[Soulflame]

Honestly, I think you're confusing me with someone else.  I do not deny I'm (more or less) in the top tier of raiding, although the true progression raiders would look down their noses at me and call me Baddy McBadderson.

To clarify:  I am in a 25 man guild that has (barely) killed Yogg Saron.  We have a slightly more hardcore 10 man group that is doing hardmodes in 10 man, although we more or less brutally outgear them now.  I should also note that our tentative tries at Heroic Trial 10 man mauled us pretty badly.

Having said that, Firefighter (the fight we're working on now in 10 man) is quite possibly the most fun fight I've seen in WoW for quite some time.

[Nebu]

Use recount, run it during a dungeon run but set it to "current fight" instead of "overall" and keep an eye on it.  

I think you have me confused for someone that has people to play with.  I don't have a guild nor do I have a group of people to play with. 

Any other ideas?

[Shrike]

There's a Rawr hunter module as well. Might be worth checking into. Since it's essentially a spreadsheet, you can dink with it extensively to explore gemming strategies, potential upgrades, and even buffs and various priority/rotations.

Personally, since even the mention of dps pisses me off, I refuse to run meters. Most aren't completely trustworthy and Recount in particular fucks up enhance shaman dps as a matter of course. All a group leader needs to know about my dps is that it's "enough." And it is. Furthermore, if he's a dumbass DWing DK, it's probably too much, since the stupid bastards are tanking without a clue (or even a whiff of threat).

[Nebu]

Even more reasons why I don't want to pug.  If some group leader is micromanaging my fun, what's the point?  I play these games to blow off steam after a hard day at work.  I don't want it to be a second job with a second set of administrators telling me what I'm doing wrong. 

[Merusk]

Use recount, run it during a dungeon run but set it to "current fight" instead of "overall" and keep an eye on it.  

I think you have me confused for someone that has people to play with.  I don't have a guild nor do I have a group of people to play with. 

Any other ideas?

Get recount, and run it while beating on a training dummy in any of the major cities.  It won't be as accurate a representation of your potential DPS since you'll have no buffs on you and no debuffs on the dummy, but it gives you someplace to start from.

For the people I figured you'd just pug.  Just Do It!

[Nebu]

For the people I figured you'd just pug.  Just Do It!

I think I'm going to level up and try to get in a group with Rasix and his friends.  Maybe they'll be nice to me if I screw up.  The guys in BC were pretty nice to me and let me tag along on occasion back on Venture Co. 

[Sheepherder]

Nebu, do heroics and ToC.  They're both easy and fast loot.  Easy to the point of absurdity, like seeing a tank heal himself almost the entire fight after the healer bit it standing in the boss's AoE.

[Lantyssa]

I think I'm going to level up and try to get in a group with Rasix and his friends.  Maybe they'll be nice to me if I screw up.  The guys in BC were pretty nice to me and let me tag along on occasion back on Venture Co. 

Slap hasn't thrown me out yet, and I'm absolutely pathetic.  I'm pretty sure I'm the druidic version of the 400 dps DK.  I think you'll be fine.

[K9]

Even more reasons why I don't want to pug.  If some group leader is micromanaging my fun, what's the point?  I play these games to blow off steam after a hard day at work.  I don't want it to be a second job with a second set of administrators telling me what I'm doing wrong. 

That's how people should play these games. Although, I don't see so many people micromanaging in PuGs. I think you might want to try a couple, for every bad PuG, there are a lot of good ones too in my experience.

For DPS have a go on a training dummy as Merusk suggests. Major cities have level 55, 60, 70, 80 and boss dummies (or something like that). Boss dummies are equivalent to your level + 3 for hit/miss calculations, and are the best benchmark for endgame PvE. Target dummies aren't a perfect measure since you won't have buffs and debuffs helping you; but on the other hand you can stand totally still, unlike most fights, so it roughly evens out.

Recount is still your best tool for measureing DPS, but it starts recording once you are in combat, and on boss dummies you have a 5 second lead out after you stop attacking, whereupon recount stops, so your DPS will dip a little. DPS will also vary fairly predictably, it will start high, then gradually drop until around 2-3 mins when it will rise again, or whatever perior most of your DPS cooldowns are on. Usually I'd aim for a 5-8min fight, or however long you can go until you oom, for a good reading.


OTOH: As for guild progression, we've cleared ToC and some Ulduar Hardmodes, but haven't killed Yogg. We've only killed Vezax once tbh, mainly because we don't have time to clear 4 keepers and Vezax and have enough time to learn Yogg, and we don't want to extend resets as we'd rather farm FL, XT and Hodir hard for loot rather than practise Yogg for loot nobody wants.

[Sheepherder]

Usually I'd aim for a 5-8min fight, or however long you can go until you oom, for a good reading.

A good reading would involve a dummy without raid buffs over ~30 seconds iterated five or six times with full "press buttan fer win" usage, because that's usually how heroic bosses play out nowadays.

Like my last H-UK, 2800 DPS on bosses self-buffed because Arcane Power + Icy Veins + Heroism is sheer fucking insanity.

[Selby]

Maybe it's just me, but I rarely have trouble getting a heroic group for the daily.  I just stick myself in LFG, go about the rest of my dailies.  Someone usually invites me within 10-15m.  I'd say you would have similar, unless your server is just goofy regarding gear checks.

It is funny to watch how some people insist on having full ToC-25 (H) level gear before you can join their raiding guild or accompany them on a heroic.  I usually don't run with those guys.  I have also found that I end up running heroics with a good crowd of people who I have done it with before - do a job well and people will remember you in the sea of horrible DK's...

[WindupAtheist]

To be fair after having LFG'd for a while, I should point out that the whole "must have uber gear for trivial run" thing seems to have been something of an abberation. Just sitting in LFG with the right dungeon selected does work eventually.

I have a mixed set of honor and WG gear.  Are you telling me that this is sufficient for heroics?  That would make life pretty easy.

Yeah, I did HTOC a number of times to get my axe, I've done other heroics, nobody has ever complained, and I don't even own any PVE gear.

[Nebu]

Yeah, I did HTOC a number of times to get my axe, I've done other heroics, nobody has ever complained, and I don't even own any PVE gear.

That is encouraging.  What about my dungeon ignorance?  I've never been through any 5 man content past Zangarmarsh.  Are people willing to take someone on that will follow direction without prior knowledge?

[WindupAtheist]

Just give the wowwiki.com entry for each boss a look. Lots of them have gimmicks, but none of them are particularly complex. Don't stand in the fire, turn away when the raid warning says he's about to do his blinding flash, jump out of melee when it whirlwinds, crap like that.

[Nebu]

Just give the wowwiki.com entry for each boss a look. Lots of them have gimmicks, but none of them are particularly complex. Don't stand in the fire, turn away when the raid warning says he's about to do his blinding flash, jump out of melee when it whirlwinds, crap like that.

This is why I like grouping with friends.  They aren't shy about yelling at me in skype/vent.  Negative reinforcement and all that. 

[Rasix]

Yeah, I did HTOC a number of times to get my axe, I've done other heroics, nobody has ever complained, and I don't even own any PVE gear.

That is encouraging.  What about my dungeon ignorance?  I've never been through any 5 man content past Zangarmarsh.  Are people willing to take someone on that will follow direction without prior knowledge?

Like WUA said, a quick glance at wowwiki will really help prevent you from looking totally dumb.  For TOC I neglected to do this and just asked on a boss "he do anything special" and someone told me the key to the fight in about 5 seconds. As a DPS though, your jobs tend to be less complex so often you can just mimic what others are doing 

[Shrike]

Yeah, I did HTOC a number of times to get my axe, I've done other heroics, nobody has ever complained, and I don't even own any PVE gear.

That is encouraging.  What about my dungeon ignorance?  I've never been through any 5 man content past Zangarmarsh.  Are people willing to take someone on that will follow direction without prior knowledge?

Chances are nobody will notice. In heroics, it's just the basic rules of thumb: don't stand in anything on the floor, /assist one of the other dps that seems to know what he's doing (or is higher on the threat meter than you...), and if you do get aggro, pull it to the tank (and hope he's paying attention). Oh, last one, don't group with DK tanks (particularly DW ones) unless you know them very well.

Most heroic fights are pretty simple. A glance at any strategy site (Tankspot is good) will get you on the same page as everyone else, and with a little experience you'll be as jaded as most other players. Of course, you'll run into a pretty fair number of the terminally stupid, but then you can post your angst here and we'll all enjoy the meta game of ragging fellow WoW denizens.

[K9]

ToC is probably one of the least technical heroics; it just puts a lot of stress on healers and tanks in terms of the damage bosses do.

[Selby]

ToC is probably one of the least technical heroics; it just puts a lot of stress on healers and tanks in terms of the damage bosses do.

Yes.  I ran this healing with 2 guild members last night: a geared druid and our raid main tank and me healing.  We had to PUG the 2 DPS (should be easy, right?  They grow on trees and whatnot).  We wiped 4 times on the last boss because the DK DPS was putting out maybe 1400-1500.  He just wasn't getting any kind of rotation that generates damage down, it was draining the hell out of me to keep the tank alive, and keep myself alive because none of the rest of the group was picking up the spawned zombies so I had to run around to avoid being smacked by 6-7 zombies at a time.  A good to great healer will have problems with mana regen and aggro management if the DPS aren't making an effort to get the boss down, and that was our problem last night.  The DK left after complaining about his repair bill, we picked up a good guild member (a DK at that) and had the boss down in less than 3 minutes and it wasn't even close at all.

As far as you go for getting into heroics as DPS, most tanks will mark a skull or X on the mobs.  Skull usually is supposed to die first, X next, then whatever else is left.  Assist the tank in killing his mob, there aren't any goofy or screwy gimmick fights in heroics that require an off-tank or particular mob that the tank has to occupy while the rest of the group kills another.  Get Recount if you are curious and practice on a training dummy to determine what your DPS is (it also helps to practice your rotation in fights where it's not just you and the mobs don't die within 15s ;-) ).  I would venture as long as you are pulling 2000-2500DPS, no one is going to notice or care.  Heroic mobs die pretty quickly and the DPS above that is more about how fast you run the instance than beating any particular gimmick or timer.  Don't just stand there and autoshoot or scattershot on a single mob though, that pisses people off as they will feel like you are just mooching a run off of them (regardless of whether you are or not).  Healing is really where you need to worry about knowing your game, and tanking is easily all about having certain gear with +def and +sta along with paying attention to what else is going on to keep aggro on everything that is going on around you.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I think people are just to used to 'easy' heroics. So when they get to ToC they say "Wtf I have to use cooldowns?!" even if said cooldowns are on a 2minute timer.

[Gobbeldygook]

I would venture as long as you are pulling 2000-2500DPS, no one is going to notice or care.  Heroic mobs die pretty quickly and the DPS above that is more about how fast you run the instance than beating any particular gimmick or timer.

As someone who has been #1 DPS over an instance while tanking it, clearing instances with subpar DPS when you have tasted the fruit of clearing heroics with every DPS above 4k is like having your dick slammed with every pull.  It just takes so damn long for everything to die.
---
The only heroics where I feel there is a realistic chance of me being unable to complete the daily if I pug it are Old Kingdom, Oculus, and Violet Hold.   For all the others, even if my pug is full of complete failures, I'll complete it.

[Selby]

As someone who has been #1 DPS over an instance while tanking it, clearing instances with subpar DPS when you have tasted the fruit of clearing heroics with every DPS above 4k is like having your dick slammed with every pull.  It just takes so damn long for everything to die.

Oh believe me, as someone who does 5k regularly now, if I am in a group where everyone is doing 1500-1750DPS, it is hell on me because I know how fast it can be proceeding when our guild 6k rogue, me, and a guild hunter who pulls 5500 are on the run.  It bothers me most on my healer, because I have to deal with mana management when it could be going MUCH faster.

Like today, I was in Heroic Azol'Nerub and I was pulling 4800DPS and the next one down was... 2100.  It went smoothly, but there were some frustrating areas where people were not getting the mobs down fast enough and were taxing the hell out of our healer.

[Ingmar]

6900 DPS + whatever the other one was + tank shouldn't really tax a healer that's any good unless the tank is seriously undergeared. That's what, a minimum of 9000ish group dps? That's PLENTY for any heroic.

[WindupAtheist]

Let's get back to planet Earth here. Having a bunch of guys in top-end PVE epics roflstomp some pussy dungeon that drops mostly blues so you can pick up some badges in 20 minutes instead of 35 is nice, I guess, but they're all pretty trivial as long as everyone is...

A) not in random quest greens
B) pushing all their butans
C) not standing in the goddamn fire

[Paelos]

Anyone doing 5k or more dps should just stop doing 5 mans. You've moved past that now. If you're still farming badges, deal with the normals and STFU.

[Selby]

If you're still farming badges, deal with the normals and STFU.

Gotta get the alts geared up and keep the main raider supplied with EoT badges ;-)

[Zetor]

I would venture as long as you are pulling 2000-2500DPS, no one is going to notice or care. 

New 80s in quest greens / some blues aren't going to be pushing 2k dps, especially if they're a gear-dependent class like warrior... and definitely not going to push 2k on a dummy. :p

[Selby]

New 80s in quest greens / some blues aren't going to be pushing 2k dps, especially if they're a gear-dependent class like warrior... and definitely not going to push 2k on a dummy. :p

Which is funny considering everyone brags about having quest greens and blues will be able to do 2k DPS.  I don't doubt it though.  I personally don't care too much unless they stand in the fire all the time or are in full purples and still don't put out more than 1500 =P