How to compete in the M+ Invitational 101

[muto]

I can't wait to see the triple Affliction Arcway run.

[dirtybrew]

I can't wait to see the triple Affliction Arcway run.

That comp is actually pretty bad. Low number of stuns and interrupts is brutal in arcway. Pure damage isn't everything.

[Deleted]

It's going to be more varied than people think, but it's not going to be super varied.

I doubt that. I would compare it to the difference of world top 100 and world top 1 raid guilds:
World top 100 guilds are all very very good players, but they also play in a more or less fixed group without much class stacking. World top 1 guilds readily use class stacking to be the best of the best.

When you apply this to m+:
Currently, there is no incentive to be a top 1 group for m+ because it's just that. So you run it with friends, guildies, whatsoever. As soon as it becomes a real competition, and especially with a price-tag attached to it, it becomes about the absolute min-maxing. Which means that you will pick your team in a way that gives you the absolutely best chances to win.

When player skill is not the differentiating factor, because effectively all of the players at that level are almost equally good, you will gravitate towards a group setup that is simply superior.

Warry is basically a must-have. Hunter (both MM and BM) is also insanely good. Mage (actually even all specs, although fire seems to still be best overall) or Ele are a must if you don't have a BM hunter for hero/lust. And no, drums will not suffice because as I mentioned earlier, this is a min-max game, and 10% (or was it 5%) more haste is just better. Especially given that both mage and ele are highly competitive with all other classes that don't have hero/lust.

That leaves tank which will be either DK or VDH (I actually ran a high key with a VDH for the first time yesterday and holy hell, they ARE amazing) and heal. Paladin for dps or Drood for pure heal.

[Tojara]

I doubt that. I would compare it to the difference of world top 100 and world top 1 raid guilds:
World top 100 guilds are all very very good players, but they also play in a more or less fixed group without much class stacking. World top 1 guilds readily use class stacking to be the best of the best.

When you apply this to m+:
Currently, there is no incentive to be a top 1 group for m+ because it's just that. So you run it with friends, guildies, whatsoever. As soon as it becomes a real competition, and especially with a price-tag attached to it, it becomes about the absolute min-maxing. Which means that you will pick your team in a way that gives you the absolutely best chances to win.

When player skill is not the differentiating factor, because effectively all of the players at that level are almost equally good, you will gravitate towards a group setup that is simply superior.

Warry is basically a must-have. Hunter (both MM and BM) is also insanely good. Mage (actually even all specs, although fire seems to still be best overall) or Ele are a must if you don't have a BM hunter for hero/lust. And no, drums will not suffice because as I mentioned earlier, this is a min-max game, and 10% (or was it 5%) more haste is just better. Especially given that both mage and ele are highly competitive with all other classes that don't have hero/lust.

That leaves tank which will be either DK or VDH (I actually ran a high key with a VDH for the first time yesterday and holy hell, they ARE amazing) and heal. Paladin for dps or Drood for pure heal.

Of course there is no incentive right now, but there are people who still push keys, which is all you can go by right now. Even without reward people still min/max to push as high as they can go. I just based it off of the top 20 runs from last week, and there is some variance. I outright stated that while there is variance, it's not completely varied. I merely meant that I don't think it's going to be completely cookie cutter to the extent of it being the same tank class, the same healer, and the same three DPS. I fully expect there to be variance in tanks, with moderate variation in DPS. The only true place where variance would be low is with healers.

Keep in mind that some instances favor some classes/specs over others. While I run with an elemental shaman in my key runs quite a bit, he doesn't attempt to hide his contempt for how bad elemental plays in a couple instances, especially those that are not as trash intensive like Upper Karazhan. Survival and niche compositions also become an issue in certain dungeons as well. Anybody who has done high Upper Karazhan keys for example knows how hard it is to effectively soak the orbs on the third boss without having an abundance of immunities.

MM is actually pretty retarded in M+, and 5% haste on drums really isn't as big as you're making it out to be. I claim ignorance as to whether or not being MM and having drums is better than bringing a BM hunter though. Warlocks are also top tier, and is reflected by the amount of them in high clears (more so than mages). They don't have immunities, but they are generally more durable and affliction in honestly a better mage, mostly because they can have all the aspects of each mage spec in one single spec. Fire can be beast on trash, but is middling on bosses. Affliction really doesn't have that problem. Another combat rez certainly doesn't hurt. Not saying they are better than mages, just competitive.

Ultimately we will have to wait and see what compositions arise, because the very top right now is narrow in regards to people actually attempting to push keys. Variance will depend on what affixes they decide to use, and what instances they decide to use. If it's only a couple instances and a couple affixes then yeah, we might not see much difference in comps.

[satimy]

Hunter, Warrior, sub rogue , Hpal, Dh tank

[Crysth]

Am i mistaken in assuming that whatever toons your team used to qualify, they are locked into for competition? If so, we may see the few teams that qualify use the same comp due to how strong they are on the 2 qualifying weeks. The only reason I can see there being much variance is if there's some random teams that come out of nowhere and crush shit with an unexpected comps or blizz uses their line about choosing teams based on their performance to pick teams that they go "they performed really well considering this doo-doo comp they used".

[DevilsAdvocate]

I remember when they tried to push the WOW TCG game with a $100k tournament. The first one was won by some mediocre magic players that basically defaulted to first place because nobody else knew about the game. These players were banned from Magic for 3 years or something later on.

M+ is a badly balanced f*cking joke. It will be sad to see the first invitational won by some Mythic raiders that just happen to be overgeared and use class-stacking to power through. That Blizzard thinks this will somehow drive people to the game or power subscriptions is somewhat absurd.

M+ can get there eventually ... maybe. The time it took them to fix stuff like COEN and Karazhan doesn't give me any hope though.

[Artemol]

Yeah, I didn't comment on VDH because I don't run it and haven't seen someone run it. I don't doubt that VDH has very good dps.

What.. the... fuck...

I'm playing vengeance DH. and i average 950-1mil DPS in any dungeon.
And i BARELY need healing on any lvl below 23.

[Emancptr]

What.. the... fuck...

Can you actually read what I said. Let's go over it one word at a time.

I didn't comment on VDH because I don't run it.

What this means is that I did not place VDH in my rankings because I do not have personal experience with them. Let's follow that up with the second sentence.

I don't doubt that VDH has very good DPS

So, despite suggesting that I am not 100% familiar with VDH. I then go on to state that, given my limited experience, VDH seems to have very good DPS.

I'm playing vengeance DH. and i average 950-1mil DPS in any dungeon.
And i BARELY need healing on any lvl below 23.

That's cute. I don't remember the last dungeon I did less than 1.3-1.4 million DPS as a tank.

[Artemol]

Can you actually read what I said. Let's go over it one word at a time.



What this means is that I did not place VDH in my rankings because I do not have personal experience with them. Let's follow that up with the second sentence.



So, despite suggesting that I am not 100% familiar with VDH. I then go on to state that, given my limited experience, VDH seems to have very good DPS.



That's cute. I don't remember the last dungeon I did less than 1.3-1.4 million DPS as a tank.

Can you solo a +20 tho?

[Tech614]

That's cute. I don't remember the last dungeon I did less than 1.3-1.4 million DPS as a tank.

Let's see them logs where you're doing 1.4 mil overall dps for entire run in every run you do.

Especially on tyranical week rofl.

I think you're confusing average trash pack dps with total DPS. Please try to keep up.

[Emancptr]

Let's see them logs where you're doing 1.4 mil overall dps for entire run in every run you do.

Especially on tyranical week rofl.

I think you're confusing average trash pack dps with total DPS. Please try to keep up.

1) Nobody Logs Mythic+.

2) If you did log Mythic+ you would realize that it is impossible to have 1.4 million overall dps on logs. This is because logs calculate dps as Total Damage divided by Total Time in Dungeon (including all of the running downtime.)

Whereas, Details' Total Dps for a run only calculates based on the time in combat (Where the 1.3-1.4 million dps number I suggested earlier came from).

3) Here is a log with me doing 75% of dps' damage. Those dps are doing 100th percentile damage (albeit in M+ that no one logs). Note it's obviously not 1.4 million because of issue 2 mentioned above.

4) Mythic Mistress Sassz'ine log of me doing 1.45 million. Mistress is a relatively close indicator of M+ dps (for fortified weeks). It has periods with 4+ adds, and downtime where you're only hitting the boss.

Note: this is the 2nd highest log for all tanks (I also have the 3rd highest log for all tanks on my re-kill). The only tank to beat that parse is a VDH with almost 10 ilvls on my gear.

5) My average trash dps is 1.5-2 Milllion on 3-4 mob packs, 2-3 million on 6+ mob packs, and will spike 6 million+ on certain packs/talent setups.

6) My raider.io I'm not doing this damage on 10-15 keys. I'm doing this damage on M+ 20 or higher keys.

7) We stream almost all of our M+ runs. You can actually come and see the damage that i'm doing in real time and verify.

8) Obviously on Tyrannical weeks my dps goes down. I would say that i'm usually 950k-1.1 million dps on Tyrannical weeks. The 1.3-1.4 million dps for an entire dungeon is on Fortified weeks.

Can you solo a +20 tho?

I must have missed where they changed the M+ invitational rules. Is it now, "What tank can solo the highest M+ in under 15 hours?" If so, then I think Mione has this in the bag.

[DeadSwordz]

1) Nobody Logs Mythic+.

2) If you did log Mythic+ you would realize that it is impossible to have 1.4 million overall dps on logs. This is because logs calculate dps as Total Damage divided by Total Time in Dungeon (including all of the running downtime.)

Whereas, Details' Total Dps for a run only calculates based on the time in combat (Where the 1.3-1.4 million dps number I suggested earlier came from).

3) Here is a log with me doing 75% of dps' damage. Those dps are doing 100th percentile damage (albeit in M+ that no one logs). Note it's obviously not 1.4 million because of issue 2 mentioned above.

you know if you mouse over you're active % it tells you you're dps if you had 100% which is 927k which is slightly short of 1.4 mill

[Emancptr]

you know if you mouse over you're active % it tells you you're dps if you had 100% which is 927k which is slightly short of 1.4 mill

On a Tyrannical week. What did I say my Tyrannical week dps was? Oh yeah, 950k-1.1. million.

22 DHT, with 1.2 million "active dps"

BRH 18, 1.37 million "active dps"

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Not that relevant after all the buffs to other healers damage, all healers can put out pretty decent damage now.

Holy paladins can be the top dps in the group if played right. Others can do about half that.

[DeadSwordz]

On a Tyrannical week. What did I say my Tyrannical week dps was? Oh yeah, 950k-1.1. million.

That's cute. I don't remember the last dungeon I did less than 1.3-1.4 million DPS as a tank.

oh my bad i didnt realise you had such a short memory that you cant remember over a week

[Emancptr]

oh my bad i didnt realise you had such a short memory that you cant remember over a week

I like how I produce proof of my statements and you nit-pick verbage.

Meanwhile, the guy I initially responded to has literally no evidence. MMO-Champ threads at their finest.

[Jimson]

/snip

Not going to get involved in this dick-measuring contest, but I just wanted to say I find it hilarious that you start off with "No one logs M+..." and then produce three M+ logs.

[Deleted]

Not going to get involved in this dick-measuring contest, but I just wanted to say I find it hilarious that you start off with "No one logs M+..." and then produce three M+ logs.

99% of the player base don't log M+. He does because he is in the 0.001% pushing super high keys, and thus can review his logs to see the mistakes/improve or whatever. Not hard to understand

[Jimson]

99% of the player base don't log M+. He does because he is in the 0.001% pushing super high keys, and thus can review his logs to see the mistakes/improve or whatever. Not hard to understand

Did I say I was having problems understanding it? No. I said it was funny.