Hybrids are not 5% away from pure DPS

#0 - March 22, 2009, 2:24 p.m.

Obviously my subject is an inflammatory statement!

I have read many posts lately in which people discuss the differences between pure and hybrid DPS and the reasons for it and why it should be where it is. I think something important may be getting missed, and that is that hybrid DPS is even lower than the devs are seeing with whatever testing and numbers they are seeing.

GC recently posted in a thread (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15864857264) that "It just isn't going to turn out that way on every parse, folks." Yes, yes it is. If your guild is even reasonably good, people are going to perform well on every fight. 1 random person may mess up and die here or there, but I mess up my rotation maybe 1 fight each Naxx clear, and usually it's a trivial mess up that lowers my total dps by 1-200 total. Shadow Priests are doing 1.5k less than me even when I mess up.

I highly encourage GC and whatever developers read this to look at:
(http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/dps/6/0/3) which is an accumulation of WWS parses from guilds out there. I don't know if bad guilds add their parses, but this is certainly a comprehensive look of what DPS looks like at the top end.

Now, I play a Warlock, but in this case I'm going to be arguing on behalf of Shadow Priests. Let me point out the following conclusions from the above website:
-7/17 of the current fights in the game Shadow Priests are (on average) doing the lowest DPS.
-They never reach top 2 on any fight in the game.
-They reach top 5 on only 3 fights.

Now I don't know about you, but I would say that for a class that brings DPS numbers like the above, +3% hit that a Boomkin can also provide and Replenishment that 3 (and soon more) classes can provide, what's the point. You can say "bring the player not the class" but at all ends of raiding, that just isn't true. Sure, if you're the kind of person who has real life friends playing I'm sure they'll take your Shadow Priest. But a huge number of players at both the low and high ends of gameplay have to compete for raid spots and to get into guilds. Those guilds are then going to go to websites like this and forums that discuss the results of this website and see just how bad Shadow Priests, Retadins, and DPS Druids are currently.

From what I've seen on the PTR thus far, Shadow Priests aren't changing at all, Retadins aren't changing at all, and Boomkins/Feral Druids are brokenly high in dps (Lol cat form 7.2k dps?). At some point it just becomes demoralizing for a class.

GC talks about "the Sunwell days" a lot and what they meant to raiding. Yes, it meant you had to bring 1-3 Shadow Priests, so they were guaranteed a spot due to their utility. Now, that utility is gone because other classes that do higher dps bring it more easily. So once my 7-8 raid utility class spots have been filled I'm going to stack good dps.

As far as hybrid classes being hybrid goes, if a guild finds itself short of healers night after night, I would hope that instead of forcing a Shadow Priest or Retadin to go healer, they would just recruit somebody who is 100% at the role. I feel like possibly the friend angle is getting played out here and isn't realistic. I have plenty of RL friends that play with other RL friends and good for them. I also however know the vast majority of my RL friends play in guilds that match their particular playstyle and timeslot needs and have to compete for raid spots. Right now, hybrids, in particular Shadow Priests and Retadins are losing that competition.

As a disclaimer, I definitely see plenty of parses with Shadow Priests at #1. In every one of those cases however, it is a Shadow Priest doing 4k dps (which is pretty good) alongside Warlocks doing 3.5k dps (which is terribile). I have yet to see a Shadow Priest top damage meters against people who can actually play their class.

Don't make the 5% rule either. 5,078 DPS is not 5% short of 6,730 (PW parses: warlock -v- priest). Heck, the ONLY class that Shadow Priests are 5% in range of is the 2nd worst DPS class: Retadin. So... hybrids have the 5% rule with each other? The lowest pure DPS class is doing 11% more damage than Shadow Priests....

Looking at the Patchwerk numbers:
Warlock: 6,730
Mage: 6,224
DK: 6,137
Warrior: 5,826
Rogue: 5,741
Hunter: 5,730
Shaman: 5,675
Druid: 5,352
Paladin: 5,223
Priest: 5,078

Priests need about a 700 dps increase in order to be at a point where they could be considered within 5% of the top of the chart. So far that hasn't happened on PTR.

Ghostcrawler

#45 - March 22, 2009, 8:32 p.m.

In our minds, Patchwerk is not the perfect fight around which dps should be balanced. It is a relatively simple fight. However consider:

1) Warriors don't get rage from taking damage on Patch. On fights where warriors get rage, their dps will go up. Which case do you balance around? (We balance around both, which is why you can't just look at the Patch numbers.)

2) Patch is a very stationary fight. Certain specs do better when the boss doesn't move. Other specs care a lot less if the boss doesn't move, provided they don't have to move as well.

3) Patch has no adds. Adds can add a lot to a fight. Even if you say "trash doesn't matter" (which we think is silly to say), there are boss fights with adds. Killing them quickly can get you back to the boss. Some classes can swap targets or do AE damage faster or more easily than others.

4) Patch is a short fight. This is probably the most important factor. If you have a cooldown you can blow once every three minutes, then that cooldown counts for a lot more on a three minute fight than a five minute fight. If your cooldown lasts for 20 sec, that counts for more the shorter the fight it. We were watching dps on Ulduar fights the other day. The amount of additional dps that a raid can kick in when they need to burn something down quickly is extraordinary, sometimes double what the raid can normally do.

We look at Patchwerk numbers. We don't balance around just those numbers.

I also find it slightly suspicious that many raids can achieve the same dps (or within a few %s) night after night on the same boss. The delta is caused by things like RNG and skill. But that is a broader topic.

Furthermore, if you are downplaying skill and just assuming that every one in your raid is at the top of your game, then why did some guilds reach Illidan, Archimonde, KJ or Sarth 3D faster? You can blame it all on them being able to devote more time to the attempts if you want, but we think there is more going on.

We stand by "It just isn't going to turn out that way on every parse, folks."

P.S. I also won't claim that the dps numbers are balanced where we want them in 3.0. Many of our 3.1 changes are designed to address those issues.

Ghostcrawler

#51 - March 22, 2009, 8:58 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Just to nitpick ya a bit GC, but a 3min fight is the worst possible case scenario for a 3min CD :)

True enough, but you get the point. Those huge dps bursts that raids can accomplish can't be done just at will over and over. Cooldowns matter.

Q u o t e:
Actually GC coming from a few hardcore raid guilds in BC, i know it wasnt skill that got down some of those harder boss fights faster. It was sheer repitition and practice that enabled us to down kael'thas and 3d sarth for example. We wiped many times. You also have to take into account we had to gear up everyone for certain fights during BC like kael before the nerf.

Gear and repetition absolutely are a factor. But you won't convince us that skill doesn't play a major role in tackling PvE content. We watched guilds tackle Sarth 3D. At first only a few could do it, then gradually a lot more raiding guilds could manage it, but only after there were movies and guides providing specific instructions. Many can't do it today, especially on 10-player mode. Skill matters too.