DPS - Remember When It Wasn't Such a Numbers Game?

[Rotted]

No, I do not remember that.
We had damage meters in vanilla and not doing your job was just as much of an issue back then. Granted, the bosses were not as hard but still.

I kinda get what the op says, I first started raiding in tbc as a lock, I progressed with my guild through the lower raids and cleared them up to and including SSC. We did everything in TK except KT and progressed into BT and got up to supremus, after sunwell came out we cleared brutiuls. We all had damage meters, but no one was ever called out or scolded for performance, we just said meh we need more damage, lets go back and get those bits and pieces from x raid for y people.

Dungeon wise, it was always more about continuous CC on trash packs opposed to speed of getting them down. So yea, I'd say (from my pov) CC was always the hot issue not damage numbers

[Aggrophobic]

I kinda get what the op says, I first started raiding in tbc as a lock, I progressed with my guild through the lower raids and cleared them up to and including SSC. We did everything in TK except KT and progressed into BT and got up to supremus, after sunwell came out we cleared brutiuls. We all had damage meters, but no one was ever called out or scolded for performance, we just said meh we need more damage, lets go back and get those bits and pieces from x raid for y people.

Dungeon wise, it was always more about continuous CC on trash packs opposed to speed of getting them down. So yea, I'd say (from my pov) CC was always the hot issue not damage numbers

And you can find guilds that don't care about performance in Legion as well. That does not mean no one cared about DPS back then. The OP was just clueless back then and raids were easier so not everyone had to actually pull their weight.

But EN is rather easy as well, or we have so much gear now that it was made easy becuase of it. People does not seem to like that though.

[Deleted]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I member

[Rotted]

And you can find guilds that don't care about performance in Legion as well. That does not mean no one cared about DPS back then. The OP was just clueless back then and raids were easier so not everyone had to actually pull their weight.

But EN is rather easy as well, or we have so much gear now that it was made easy becuase of it. People does not seem to like that though.

Which is why I said I kinda get, I didn't state that was the case 100% of the time, but generally I found things to be more laxed. While we were casual based back then, I wouldn't have said our progress was terrible, and I wouldn't say we didn't care, we were just, well more casual than now

[Matthias]

Very interesting comment on found on Mike Preach WoW's "Legacy of the Burning Crusade video. Really displays why I loved the TBC style of dungeon crawling.


5 mans heroics in TBC is the best memory I have of wow. Playing a hunter was amazing during that time. Every trash pull had the potential of wiping the group. Had to focus fire each mob, crowd control was a must. AOE was useless, most of the time, could not risk popping the sheep or frozen mobs. A typical pull consisted of:

1- Drop a freezing trap at you feet away from the group (no trap launching)
2-Wait a few seconds for cooldown to prepare chain trapping.
3-Misdirect on tank to initiate pull
4-Mage sheep the moon marked mob to initiate the pull
5-Shoot skull mob to tank
6-Distracting shot on blue square, lured into trap.
7-Assist tank, send pet
8-start DPS
9-Drop new trap, position yourself so new trap is in the path of currrently frozen mob.
10-Do OP beast master DPS
11-Keep an eye on healers in case they pull aggro.
12-When frozen mob get free, regain aggro and freeze again.
13-Drop new trap
14-Keep misdirecting to tank
15-Priest got aggro from 2 mobs. Distracting shot on one straggler, run him to the tank.
16-Send pet on the other, turn on growl
17- Get back in position to refreeze.
etc etc

When fight is done, 30% ahead of second person on DPS meter.

Notice how he doesn't even mention DPS until number 6, cause at that point your still confirming that the pull went smoothly.

[potis]

Very interesting comment on found on Mike Preach WoW's "Legacy of the Burning Crusade video. Really displays why I loved the TBC style of dungeon crawling.


5 mans heroics in TBC is the best memory I have of wow. Playing a hunter was amazing during that time. Every trash pull had the potential of wiping the group. Had to focus fire each mob, crowd control was a must. AOE was useless, most of the time, could not risk popping the sheep or frozen mobs. A typical pull consisted of:

1- Drop a freezing trap at you feet away from the group (no trap launching)
2-Wait a few seconds for cooldown to prepare chain trapping.
3-Misdirect on tank to initiate pull
4-Mage sheep the moon marked mob to initiate the pull
5-Shoot skull mob to tank
6-Distracting shot on blue square, lured into trap.
7-Assist tank, send pet
8-start DPS
9-Drop new trap, position yourself so new trap is in the path of currrently frozen mob.
10-Do OP beast master DPS
11-Keep an eye on healers in case they pull aggro.
12-When frozen mob get free, regain aggro and freeze again.
13-Drop new trap
14-Keep misdirecting to tank
15-Priest got aggro from 2 mobs. Distracting shot on one straggler, run him to the tank.
16-Send pet on the other, turn on growl
17- Get back in position to refreeze.
etc etc

When fight is done, 30% ahead of second person on DPS meter.

Notice how he doesn't even mention DPS until number 6, cause at that point your still confirming that the pull went smoothly.

Even the fact he mentions "keep an eye on the healer to pull aggro" shows what a massive pile of bullshit that whole list is and what a massive noob he was, or how shit his groups were.

I already told you before, everyones experience is different.

Heroics in TBC were a joke, only Mechanar had anything remotely dangerous and thats just the amount of damage , not difficutly.

I still remember my first HC Auchenai Crypts run with my friends i think it was 25th or 26th of January 2007, it literally went "LOL YOLO, THEY SUMMON EXTRA MOBS, CLEAVE THEM DOWN" and i remembered it because my friend casted Flame Shock instead of Earth Shock to interrupt a summon and we argued about it.

Rose tinted glasses of crap content from people that cant coordinate fingers with eyes does not make it hard content.

What was hard in TBC?

What most people didnt see because they hotfixed them before most people went into Heroic Dungeons and an insane amount of bugs.

[Matthias]

Even the fact he mentions "keep an eye on the healer to pull aggro" shows what a massive pile of bullshit that whole list is and what a massive noob he was, or how shit his groups were.

I already told you before, everyones experience is different.

Heroics in TBC were a joke, only Mechanar had anything remotely dangerous and thats just the amount of damage , not difficutly.

I still remember my first HC Auchenai Crypts run with my friends i think it was 25th or 26th of January 2007, it literally went "LOL YOLO, THEY SUMMON EXTRA MOBS, CLEAVE THEM DOWN" and i remembered it because my friend casted Flame Shock instead of Earth Shock to interrupt a summon and we argued about it.

Rose tinted glasses of crap content from people that cant coordinate fingers with eyes does not make it hard content.

What was hard in TBC?

What most people didnt see because they hotfixed them before most people went into Heroic Dungeons and an insane amount of bugs.

Um Mechenar was like the easiest of all the Heroics. Maybe your mixing it up with Arcatraz. I think what your missing is yea, once you understood how to CC, kite, etc it wasn't hard, but it was still dangerous. More things could go wrong and rectifying such mistakes could get messy.

[potis]

Um Mechenar was like the easiest of all the Heroics. Maybe your mixing it up with Arcatraz. I think what your missing is yea, once you understood how to CC, kite, etc it wasn't hard, but it was still dangerous. More things could go wrong and rectifying such mistakes could get messy.

Indeed Arcatraz , i fucked that up myself but i meant Arcatraz

There were 2 hard places in TBC heroics and both got nerfed way too early for people to have seen them.

Second boss in Shadow Lab with the 10+ stealthers moving around instead of the 3-4 that exist now with tiny patrols compared to before, and 1 pack in Shattered Halls which got nerfed but still was a bit hard if the tank was bad.

Anything else was not hard at all, just experiences from different skill level of players.

[exor37]

Even the fact he mentions "keep an eye on the healer to pull aggro" shows what a massive pile of bullshit that whole list is and what a massive noob he was, or how shit his groups were.

I already told you before, everyones experience is different.

Heroics in TBC were a joke, only Mechanar had anything remotely dangerous and thats just the amount of damage , not difficutly.

I still remember my first HC Auchenai Crypts run with my friends i think it was 25th or 26th of January 2007, it literally went "LOL YOLO, THEY SUMMON EXTRA MOBS, CLEAVE THEM DOWN" and i remembered it because my friend casted Flame Shock instead of Earth Shock to interrupt a summon and we argued about it.

Rose tinted glasses of crap content from people that cant coordinate fingers with eyes does not make it hard content.

What was hard in TBC?

What most people didnt see because they hotfixed them before most people went into Heroic Dungeons and an insane amount of bugs.

did u yolo SHH and MGT too?

- - - Updated - - -

threat was never manageable (as in "you had to manage your threat"), it was binary, you either did damage, or didn't. It wasn't management, it was really dumb mechanic. Seriously, imagine stopping doing damage for 20 seconds because your blue bar just reached brown tank bar on aggro meter. Yeah, not that fun.

used to push my threat to 120% or even higher and keep an eye on it . it was always engaging for me to tip toe on threat
no it wasn't binary.... there were invis,Feign death, soulshatter, vanish ...etc to use ,u could use them at wrong time and fill up ur threat bar quick again.. and ruin your potential dps

either u didn't play when threat was a thing , or u were extremely bad at managing it.

[Deleted]

I don't. It has always been a numbers game. When your role in a game is getting in as much damage per second, of course the damage number you output is going to be the most important thing...

[Charge me Doctor]

did u yolo SHH and MGT too?

- - - Updated - - -



used to push my threat to 120% or even higher and keep an eye on it . it was always engaging for me to tip toe on threat
no it wasn't binary.... there were invis,Feign death, soulshatter, vanish ...etc to use ,u could use them at wrong time and fill up ur threat bar quick again.. and ruin your potential dps

either u didn't play when threat was a thing , or u were extremely bad at managing it.

Pressing a button to reset threat is not managing it. Arcane mages manage their mana. Healers manage their mana. Tanks manage their cooldowns. DPS never ever ever managed their threat. They just stopped dealing damage at: a) start of a fight (null for wotlk mages, rogues, hunters thanks to mirror image, tricks and MD) b) middle of a fight (pressing one of buttons you mentioned. If none) or played an alliance character and never gave a fuck about aggro.
Seriously, it baffles me that some people think that you used to manage threat as a DPS character, it's like saying that fire mage manages mana now. Just wow.

[ztn]

In Vanilla and TBC people could give a flying hoot about how much damage you could do.

screen from my early vanilla...

it was even guild bank prizes for top1 dps on golemag... so every single competent player care about his damage since 2004...

[Kezotar]

No, I do not remember that.
We had damage meters in vanilla and not doing your job was just as much of an issue back then. Granted, the bosses were not as hard but still.

Stop spreading lying shit.
Yes, DPS meters were in Vanilla, almost no one used them.

Plus, you weren't based on your DPS, but your performance. CC, Helping healers, whatever.

[Zelk]

What do you think DPS means OP?

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Should be titled "Remember when I was a noob and didn't realize people cared about numbers?"

[Aggrophobic]

Stop spreading lying shit.
Yes, DPS meters were in Vanilla, almost no one used them.

Plus, you weren't based on your DPS, but your performance. CC, Helping healers, whatever.

Bullshit. You might not have used them but DPS was important, just like today.

[Matthias]

screen from my early vanilla...

it was even guild bank prizes for top1 dps on golemag... so every single competent player care about his damage since 2004...

Remember that time I said I wasn't talking about raids? Here I'll show you

Now I'm not really talking about raids, because you always were expected to pull decent numbers in a raid environment since tanks in a raid environment could generate more threat with Misdirect rotations and they got more rage since they got hit harder, to generate more threat. However in 5 mans that wasn't the case.

That's the time I said I wasn't talking about raids

[Kakera]

Remember that time I said I wasn't talking about raids? Here I'll show you



That's the time I said I wasn't talking about raids

Who cares. You're still wrong. Numbers are an integral part of any RPG at any level you play at. Go back to school and learn if you dislike it. It's a part of life and you can't escape it.

[Matthias]

Who cares. You're still wrong. Numbers are an integral part of any RPG at any level you play at. Go back to school and learn if you dislike it. It's a part of life and you can't escape it.

I never said it wasn't a numbers game. Your right every RPG is about numbers, I'm emphasizing that in a 5 man environment it's all about your DPS wad and less about your resourcefulness then it was in the past.

[Lashiec]

Hi Matthias. I liked reading your original post, and I liked reading the replies a lot less. Good lord, half the responders I think read one sentence and fired off a response based on raids. Then there are the insecure people that have to puff themselves up with 'everyone sucked then' or 'everything was easy then'.

Those are of course not worth responding to, but, I want to address the people insisting that even in Vanilla/TBC 5-mans it was 'all about the numbers'. They think they are being so profound, but they are actually wrong. Dead wrong.

The reason that's not true is because.. in 5-mans, people's DPS didn't vary to any great degree then! For two reasons: 1) Damage rotations were simpler, and 2) players' gear levels didn't vary as much. Why? Simple, there was a theoretical top end to people's gear in 5-mans because the only reason to run them was for the drops. If you outgeared the dungeons, you weren't running them. Virtually nobody who had enough DPS to trivialize the mechanics were running the 5-mans. So when you were organizing your group, all you really were looking at was if the players didn't have toilet-level gear. If they passed that test, then their DPS would not be an issue. Sure, it was possible that you could take someone with kinda sub-par gear, and they sucked at their DPSing, and it did hold you back, but it was FAR more likely that the problems came with people handling the mechanics. When I got friended and invited back to groups, it was because I managed threat and handled CC and other mechanics properly, not because of my DEEPS on the meters.

Five-mans were a much difference experience then. You had to mark mobs, pull carefully into a safe location without pulling other shit, MD on the pull if you had it, apply CCs on mobs in the right places at the right time, always be monitoring your CC because you had to re-apply QUICKLY or you were screwed, possibly move the mobs if a pat was coming, be able to kite mobs in some situations (when one hit can kill you), all the while doing DPS/healing and managing your threat. There was more teamwork and it was constantly engaging, I think more so than 5-man is now. This is not a dick-waving thing, the game is challenging now and it was challenging then, just in different ways.

Blizzard has changed the game fundamentally in ways that would make that hard to capture again. One thing that changed things a lot was when Blizzard decided that 5-mans should still be farmed in endgame by players that outgear the instance and incentivized this, and that has 'poisoned' the 5-man experience in a way. And tuning of players/mobs is so much different, classes less specialized, AOE is so powerful and common now, it's a lot of things.

For sure, Mythic+ is the best 5-man content in quite a while, I do enjoy it! But with the timer aspect and the nonstop escalating gear, the ilvl is still the almighty difference maker, and that's what OP is trying to get at.