Nuttin’ as Sweet as Pissing Off a Rogue
“Dear BRK, I was a Mana conservation whore for a long time. I had spent a long time perfecting my timing to allow one auto shot to slip out between Steady shots. My DPS was good, but not great.
“[Then] I read your bit about left over mana.
“Last night in BM I started popping arcane and kill command at the same time, auto, then steady, auto, kill / arcane. Mixing in Multi shot when arcane was still on cooldown. Our MT is a pally, so he leaves Judgment of Wisdom up, so with my wrathfire hand cannon, the Uber fast Beast spec attack speed, and Rapid Fire I have more mana than I can spend.
“We had the pally on MT, me, priest, rogue, and mage on the adds. They are all in all Kara gear. I’m in a mix of quest, AH, some instance, and 3 Kara pieces.
“I led in damage. The rogue was PISSED, he was blowing all cooldowns, and finally popped a flask to try and get ahead of me. At the end of the run the damage meter posted and I was in first, beating the rogue by over 4%.
“I still haven’t gotten the trinket I want out of there, so I told the rogue he has another chance to beat me. Bob”
Now say it with us, kiddies:
The purpose of a hunter is to provide massive quantities of sustained, ranged DPS.
Making rogues angry is just a lovely byproduct.
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Yup. We, the BM Brand™, do put out massive amounts of sustained damage… but you know what. I hate DamageMeters!
Why? you might ask? Well, when you’re in a raid, you need to be working as a team. Everyone needs to be working at their personal best… and this is going to piss off some people… but topping the damage meters ain’t the be all and end all of a raid experience.
Publicly synced damage meters are a menace. I watch our mages and shammies and rogues and hunters die by putting themselves in danger just to stay ahead of people. Then they die… and their place in the damage meters falls lower and lower.
In a raid you need to work as a unit and check your ego at the door.
One of the biggest reasons BM Hunters can top the charts is that we, essentially, don’t have to worry about aggro. If you use feign early and often, you don’t have to sweat aggro and can go hog wild and chances are you’re going to be at or near the top of the charts.
If you pay too close attention to that meter and let that be your guide… you WILL make mistakes and you will be less aware of your environment and your aggro.
WWS and SWStats are great tools to monitor our own dps and group dps without it being constantly refreshed and publicly available during fights. Concentrate on the job at hand and play your toon to it’s utmost potential, you live, cause pains, bosses die… PHAT LEWTZ! Who cares if you top the damage meter and the boss lives?
And since I dumped DamageMeters, people have been asking me… “What the heck are you doing now? Your dps is way up!” I merely reply… “My job.”
Ok, you got to be kidding me? Is it just the stupid people that send you questions? Or do you infact, make these Questions up and then answer them yourself?
No one, and I mean, NO ONE, can be this retarded.
Seriously, since I stopped running DamageMeters, my dps is up. I monitor my own dps with SWStats and don’t make myself publicly available for a synced DamageMeters channel.
All I care about is pumping out as much dps as I can according to my ability as a player…. without pulling aggro from the tank of course. And since I started playing this way, my dps is up while other people are dying to silly things like cave-ins in gruul or spouts on Lurker trying to get that one shot in that might put them higher on the charts.
I’m more aware of my environment and what is going on in the fight rather than what that pesky rogue or lock is up to on The Meters™.
Dead toons don’t dps.
On Slashdot, they call ‘em (and the default post name is) Anonymous Coward.
@pelides: IMO, NO ONE should have damage meters visible during a raid. Their use is for post-fight analysis. My guild isn’t into raiding yet, but I do have Recount running (HIDDEN!!!!) when we do a 5-man. Afterwards, I try to remember to ask if anyone wants their numbers. I’ve never been asked during an instance, or a fight, “How’s my damage?” (If I did get the question, my reply would be, “Tell you when we kill the last boss.”)
Of course, telling people to hide their meters during a raid, and having them actually do it, are two different things. But it seems to me a sharp raid leader, or class leader, should be able to spot stupid behavior and call out the offenders (via /w of course!) and tell them to knock it off.
And since I dumped DamageMeters, people have been asking me… “What the heck are you doing now? Your dps is way up!” I merely reply… “My job.”
Maybe you quit watching the damage meters and actually started playing like you should have in the first place?
Damage meters are to be used as a tool to monitor your performance and help you study why you are not on the top of the charts. DPS is YOUR JOB. Quit watching yourself fall on the meter and do your job and you’ll be fine. If you have to turn it off to do DPS then turn it off.
As a raid leader I value them very much.
If that rogue really out-geared you and you smoked him then he was a really bad player.
Slightly off-topic but everyone else is correct, posting damage meters in /raid or elsewhere shows poor taste.
Get recount and keep track of yourself.
@Kestrel
I’m with ya 100%. We used to have a guild policy that publicly broadcasting a DamageMeters channel during a raid would earn you a scolding from the GM. We’re a pretty laid back guild, so there are no dire consequences for actually broadcasting a channel.
They can be a very useful tool. I’m going to start using WWS because I like the way it works… all behind the scenes and if configured properly can be very accurate and very very informative. A post mortem of a fight if you will.
I’ve just hit the point in the game, after 2.5 years, where I seriously don’t care about topping damage meters any more. Typically my hunter co-officer is at the top of our damage meters, but since I’m not synced, he’s not receiving all of my combat data and definitely not combining my pet data into my own, so I typically tend to fall somewhere lower on the actual damage meters.
But I know where my dps falls and we watch the Dragonslayer fall every week. (And he dies at fewer growths when I’m in the raid!) I’m doing my job to the best of my ability and don’t care about being top dog.
@leksi
I’ve always been a good dps’er. Always doing my job. Always one of the highest in my guild. Always top the meters in arena and whatever BG I’m in.
I never actually had the meters up when I was in a fight because they eat up too much valuable screen real estate.
I actually stopped turning the bloody thing on when I saw the competition it inspired. I’m a “Be the best you can be” kinda person not a “I need to be the best” kind of person.
And when I say my dps is up, I don’t mean like I went from 500 dps on gruul to 800 dps. It was more like going from 850 dps up to 900 dps. Not a HUGE change in dps, but a noticeable one… and most of that I attribute to discussions with other hunters on my realm and by reading a lot of strategies lately and just by simply being more aware of my environment and not giving a rat’s @ss about beating the mages or locks or rogues.
When I removed myself from “competition” or even caring about where I stand and making my data less than 100% available to those who run and care about the meters, I found myself doing marginally more damage than I was before. It was a psychological shift I made and people have noticed.
If people don’t have my combat data 100% accurate and they come in ahead of me on the meters, they are less likely to compete with me and focus more intently on their job… because they think they’re beating me… when they’re not… well, ok, a couple might be. I did my best to kill the big bad monster and he died. That’s what counts.
Having the meters open mid fight is ELSTUPIDO if you ask me. The fact of it is the more you stare at those silly bars the less you are paying attention to your cycles and your ass not getting skewered by an aoe.
Minimise your meters. Make omen small, turn on the warnings so you know when to slow/feign and pay attention to the fight and your autoshot timer you suddenly will do better!
a BM hunter who out dpses a similarly or superiorly geared rogue just shows poor rogue skills / spec, nothing more.*
Not harping on BM hunters, They’re still the highest raid dps hunter spec currently available. Just saying.
*noticed you were in BM. Assuming you were on add duty, you had the advantage of actually using multishot to its full effect, on lower armored mobs, while the rogue was on the main target. I guess I should re-phrase: rogues are the highest single target sustained dps in the game, and if a hunter beats them then it’s a spec/gear/skill issue on the rogue’s side. Most real world scenerios (trash pulls, melee unfriendly bosses, etc) rarely play that out.
A hunter will probably beat a rorgue’s dps on prince. If a hunter beats a rogue’s dps on aran, fire your rogue.
i run damage meters and have it on my screen during almost all raids. why? because i want active analysis of how the raids dps is distributed. i dont ever get mad or angry when brk or anyone else passes me. i know i put out extremely high numbers. when i see the other rogues, our elemental shammy, hunters, etc approach and/or ecplipse me, i get EXCITED because it tells me they are learning their role in that particular raid (or that they are trying to do TOO much, which is why i have omen right on top of the meters). my mentality in a raid is either “our dps kicks ass” or “our dps is lacking”. raid dps works as a whole, not as parts.
you want to see some scary dps numbers? run with a well geared boomkin who cares not for threat management. ask BRK, he knows first hand.
as for screen space…running a 1600×1050 widescreen resolution kinda helps
@baseball
And your point is?
The fact that different classes do well/don’t do as well on different bosses ought to be known by now… That’s why the make different boss encounters. Comparing different classes’ dps on a boss where a hunter is clearly at advantage is just silly. Just as silly as comparing dps on a boss that’s clearly easier for a rogue. See if a rogue (or anyone else for that matter) can outdamage a warlock on Illhoof… not often.
The debate about whether one class is better in terms of dps than another is just plain stupid… different classes perform differently based on what boss they encounter.
/arato
If boomkins didn’t have to worry about aggro-management, we’d quit our hunter and roll something else. Like dice in Candyland.
dear brk, can you make a new rule for avatars? unless you’re driving and blowing bubblegum at the same time, your avatar can’t be your rl face? i would also accept most activities while blowing bubblegum, but no portraits plz. kthx.
Using a Wrathfire Handcannon I can see a shift towards more Arcane and Multis having a huge impact.
Now, if the letter writer would *also* change to a weapon that doesn’t make every Steady Shot interrupt the next Auto Shot.
@doom
Well, you’re lucky to have a group that doesn’t really compete for bragging rights then. I run my comp at 1900×1200 so I have plenty of screen real estate, but I’m a fan of clean, uncluttered interfaces.
I’m just seeing problems on Lurker where people put themselves in jeopardy and get nailed by a spout or stand in a cave in on Gruul just to get that long spell cast off for the points it would score.
People just diving into trash mobs before Gruul when tanks don’t have aggro and getting wasted by the ogres charging. More time spent res’ing means less time on the boss which means on a bad night more trash clearing!
It’s infuriating! I miss the MC days when the tank would actually throw out a raid warning when he had aggro. They seem unwilling to do so now and when they (very rarely) do, people are just ignoring it and getting themselves killed all in an effort to position themselves better on the charts.
This isn’t just a guild thing either. I see it in pugs all the time and I hope I never see these people again because I have better things to do than rack up a repair bill with silly pug’ers.
It drives me crazy! Crazy I tells ya!
disclaimer: Most of my guild is east coast and I’m in Seattle, so I do a fair number of pugs when the rest of my guildies are asleep.
@arato:
I felt like the OP dipped slightly into the “zomg huntarz are bettar than roguez reroll plz” mentality, and wanted to make sure it was tempered.
It was not intended to attack the hunter — just to caution that his dps victory wasn’t the cause of beastmastery being all that, but rather his own skill / lack of the rogue’s skill. You could look at it as a backhanded compliment =)
In a guild where our top dps slot is [on non rogue friendly bosses]a marksman hunter (over our two BM hunters), followed by a warlock and a shadowpriest, I’m well aware that Blizzard has done a great job allowing skill to really shine through specs and classes.
And fyi our warlock does some of her worst damage on illhoof — she’s too busy killing the imps =)
@baseball:
Our last Illhoof kill had two locks - 1569 and 1148 dps, and they were on imps. That fight is made for them.
Our last Illhoof kill had two locks - 1569 and 1148 dps, and they were on imps. That fight is made for them.
That’s on the Imps, their damage on Illhoof was probably close to zero as baseball implied.
@ Doom: You’re the exception to the rule. But you make a good point: I should have said “almost no one” should be running meters during a fight.
I read your blog, and I read about you from BRK, Cay, and even TJ–I’d trust you, and several others, to be responsible with meters up. I almost trust myself–but at this point, I don’t need the distraction. But I think pelides knows where I’m coming from: Too many OMGLOOKATMELAWLZ types look at the meters, and think the most important thing is to be on top.
…no, I’m not gonna go there…
I guess I should clarify my position a little. It’s definitely more in line with kestrel.
I can see class leaders using it as a tool. Even though I am an officer in my guild, I turn the damn things off. personal preference. I just watch my hunters during the fight and that can tell me easily as much if not more than the damage meter. Is my boy firing aimed shots like crazy? Is he running around like a headless chicken firing only arcanes and stings? Is he getting his auto shots in? Is he getting in cave-ins and not moving? is he running toward other people on shatters? Did he take any pots or dps food?
These are some of the things I’m looking for in my hunters. I can tell far more about them by watching their performance during a fight than I can just from a damage meter.
Again, this is personal preference, but darn it all to heck if it isn’t a VERY strongly held one.
I’d love to see all non-leaders in a raid switch over to something less public and just focus on their jobs.
I’ll say it again, topping the meters don’t mean squat if the boss don’t die!
But looking at the breakdown of your shots and the percentages and all that good stuff definitely can be very revealing and informative.
@tinwhisker:
Baseball’s statement is in response to Arato’s statement that implies no one can out damage a lock on the Illhoof encounter. I misunderstood baseball’s statement as the Illhoof encounter, and not Illhoof himself; my apologies.
I have to completely agree with Doom. DM’s provide valuable and necessary feedback in real time.
However, they only reflect a fraction of overall group activity. If you’re lucky enough to be entirely focused on dps, then moreso for you, but not to the point where the tool defines your skill as a player nor as the only method of comparing contribution(s) to the team.
If you’re running with ppl who are only focused on topping the DM then you need to find players who can put the group’s priorities in front of their image. I agree with Pelides with respect to this point, but not to turn them off. They have a place, though a lesser one than threat meters.
@platehealer
I used to use them as a tool, but the broadcast channels would get hijacked by people and reset and blahdy blahdy blahdy blah.
Since we were having problems with people simply dying too much, I was more interested in seeing what total damage over the course of a raid was… see who was falling WAY behind when they should have been up near the top.
In essence, I wanted to see who was dying a lot and wasting valuable time by making us run back to the instance or waste our time res’ing people after stupid trash wipes.
For all my efforts, I could not gain control of this channel and just let it run so I could get a picture of the entire nights run and not just the individual fights.
If one of my hunters is sitting outside the top 10 and his gear and spec are similar to mine and he’s not in the top 10… he’s dying way too much and I need to be able to see who that is.
And when I’m focused on the fight, I don’t need the hunter raid party tab pulled out… screen real estate is valuable to me.
So, I stopped using it. Your individual situations may vary, but I don’t like the one-upmanship that these things seem to inspire.
I’m going to switch over to WWS for a sort of unbiased, 3rd party approach to raid analysis from now on and use SWStats to monitor my own performance.
Anonymous (the #2 poster): It was not a matter of retarded, it was a matter of not paying attention. Ever have one of those moments where you KNOW that 2+3=4, but unless you stop and think about that fact that you have a 2 and a 3 and you never notice it, you can think you have something near a 4. I play 90% solo, so having mana left at the end of a fight is a good thing. I never noticed that during a boss fight it was more important to squeeze every last drop of DPS out. His article was nothing special. It was a flashlight that let me see something I had been ignoring. 99% of the advice I have seen on BRK has been that. Things that would be common sense if you looked at them, but due to being distracted by real life, and quests, and daily’s, and farming cash, and all the other things, I just never took the time to look at them.
Baseball: No, I was not on adds, I would get the first add to let the mage drink, but then had to switch to the boss. When I mentioned the makeup of the raid I said “and a mage on adds”. This is a perfect example of my previous point. You read BM, knew that the adds were lower armor, and made an assumption.
A little part of my advantage is I spend a LOT of time farming herbs. Because I sell them to guildies cheaper than AH price they keep me Well stocked with pots. I have a Major Agility on me more than Mark spec hunters have TSA on. (BTW, you get some weird looks when flasking while farming leather…but MAN does it speed things along.)
That combined with the fact that I didn’t care about multi shot, because I could handle an add if I happened to get one. And, I kept snake traps on the ground to help with adds. And, I have 2 AP trinkets on cooldowns, rapid killing, and BW…I am always self buffed. And, I had Blessing of Might but the rouge had Salvation because he was not the greatest at aggro management. And, we had a lot of caster mobs, so the rouge had to bandage a lot. I could heal pet, health pot, and keep shooting. I didn’t beat him by a lot, but I did beat him.