How complex should DPS rotations be?

[Deleted]

Honestly, they seem complex enough already.
I see about 10 Paladins a day who can't handle their Judgement > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm rotation without messing it up at least twice.

[Avalanch]

Good paladins keep crusader aura up ALWAYS.

That's what I used to say to my raid leader! But for some reason I would always get yelled at, man..

Stuff like..
- Hey retardin! Turn off crusader aura.
- CRUSADER AURA! TURN OFF NAO!
- My dps will plummet unless you turn off crusader aura!

I tried to reason with them.. but alas.. I was removed from raids. The bastards.

[waddlez]

I know what lightning shield does and I don't see the point in LS if you're in PvE with a tank, except for the occasional random spells cast on you. Unless your tank is horrible ofc.

oh my, looks like you didn't read the post!

http://www.mmo-champion.com/general-...73/#msg2977173

let me link it back for you

now read everything

even the links

SURPRISE! Lightning Shield isn't used as defensive dps but auto attack dps!

[Rlyskilled]

My main is a Ret Paladin. I have a Shadow Priest and a Muti Rogue alt. Three very different DPS rotations.

I'm not sure if this is a good word to use but I feel I'm accomplishing the most as a Shadow Priest. It just feels the most like a rotation rather than a 12341234 priority list or repetative 112112112 rotation.

[Balance]

My main is a Ret Paladin. I have a Shadow Priest and a Muti Rogue alt. Three very different DPS rotations.

I'm not sure if this is a good word to use but I feel I'm accomplishing the most as a Shadow Priest. It just feels the most like a rotation rather than a 12341234 priority list or repetative 112112112 rotation.

Agreed. My main 3 raiding toons have been a shaman, a priest, and a warrior. I definitely feel like I'm getting the most done as a shadowpriest. I usually switched between enhance/elemental offspec as I had a resto mainspec, but I felt that it was ridiculous until you got to higher gear levels elemental could do as much dps as enhance. Enhancement overall is a very mindboggling spec to play correctly. Shadowpriests feel like. When you nail landing that VT right when the one currently on the target is dropping and you know you're that much closer to 99.9% uptime you get a tingly feeling inside. That feeling comes back when you look at dps and notice you're outdpsing an arcane mage.

[Mizerie]

a DK for example;

You were describing a blood or unholy rotation -- frost (played properly) is far more proc-based and can easily be messed up due to the tight pestilence window you have

[Rlyskilled]

When you nail landing that VT right when the one currently on the target is dropping and you know you're that much closer to 99.9% uptime you get a tingly feeling inside. That feeling comes back when you look at dps and notice you're outdpsing an arcane mage.

Agreed.

This also feels a million times better on a Shadow Priest than a pally or rogue:
/Bloodlust
/Potion of Speed
/MINDFLAYMINDFLAYMINDFLAYMINDFLAYMINDFLAY

[Harry Botter]

The only thing this thread has going for it is people saying ZOMFG I HAS TO MASH MANY BUTTONS TO MAKE YELLOW NUMBERS POP UP CAN I HAZ A COOKIE?!?!?!?!?!

Honestly if anyone thinks a dps rotation or priority is hard you fail, if mashing buttons in sequence is hard for you then go and play poker on yahoo or something, and if watching to see if you get a proc or need to use X skill or spell is hard for you then i feel sorry for you. Afterall this is just a game and i realize some people are just going to have an easier time of it than some people but saying "X class is harder" is just silly, its all easy once you get used to it.

[enbee]

Honestly, they seem complex enough already.
I see about 10 Paladins a day who can't handle their Judgement > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm rotation without messing it up at least twice.

That's a bit oversimplifying...

Priority based rotation is harder than a fixed rotation for sure. If you want to do it propperly you always have to think 2 gcd ahead and keep your eyes peeled for that 2t10 proc. Ret is easy to do decent damage with, quite hard to do great damage with!

[Powerogue]

rotation should be fairly simple, i think the difficulty should come in survival while still pushing your dps.

THE BOSS IS USING HIS AOE MEGALAZOR!
rogue1 uses cloak of shadows! it is super effective!
rogue2 sits there and spams sinister strike. rogue2 fainted!
rogue3 feinted! 50% damage reduction!

rogue1 and rogue3 win!

the use of an acceptable supply of survivability cooldowns coupled with reactions such as move out of the fire or other specialized boss mechanics should be the source of difficulty for dpsers.

[sidphoenix]

Im more a fan of the 50/80/100 kind of model for bad/decent/great players. The funny thing about arcane mages or melee with high percentages of white attack are the percentages of theoretical DPS you can achieve without doing more than one thing. Im still personally pleased with the mage model, in that the difference between knowing the timing of various rotations and priorities can yield great dps in situations that would be difficult with other classes.
The most disturbing part of being an arcane mage was t9, where the appropriate rotation was to press 1 button as high a percentage of the fight as you can. it made bad mages equivalent to good mages on short fights, and a giant drain to a raid if they were bad on long fights because they would be asking for innervates all the time, or simply run OOM. That was a poor design of set bonuses, and gave mages a bad name for half an expansion. I think most folks just want bad players to look bad, but check out the mage forums every now and then: still have folks asking why they can't break 3k in 4PC t9.

[Deleted]

I know what lightning shield does and I don't see the point in LS if you're in PvE with a tank, except for the occasional random spells cast on you. Unless your tank is horrible ofc.

Apparently you don't realize what Static Shock is...

Then let me enlighten you -- Static Shock (used in conjunction with Lightning Shield), gives your auto attacks a 2/4/6% chance to proc a Lightning Shield charge to deal damage to your current target, hence your 5/7/9 charges of Lightning Shield will eventually fall off and you'd need to refresh it.

Enhancement has Stormstrike, Magma Totem, Lightning Shield and so on, on their priority list twice, because they have different effectiveness when used at different times. For example, a Stormstrike has much higher value if the Stormstrike debuff (20/28% increased Nature damage taken) is not active, than when it is, because your Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning, Earth Shock and Lightning Shield deal Nature damage.

Please, don't speak about other classes if you don't have a clue of what you're talking about -- not to mention you listed Silencing Shot and Chimera Shot twice on your "priority list".

[Therastos]

In order to clearly address the points I want to cower, I'll be quoting you a lot. I will also be measuring the difficulty of different mechanics by comparing them to additional DPS-ability ("button"), since I can't think of any better measurement.

Now Blizzard has a couple of mechanics implemented that affect our DPS rotations: Ability proccs (like instant Slam), Cooldown Management (Arcane Power/Evocation), Dots with cast-time (require pre-casting) and stacking buffs/debuffs (Shadow Weaving).

And it is good that way. I like how there is multiple different DPS-mechanics, and I can't think of any new ones. Maybe Blizzard can.

But what do you consider the right complexity level for a DPS class in PvE?

Should every class use at least 5 abilities within a 20 second window? Or are 3 enough?

It depends on the mechanics used and how significant reduction to damage does bad play give.

Enhancement shamans, for instance, use 8 single target DPS-abilities with cooldown 30s or lower (stormstrike, lava lash, flame shock, frost shock, magma totem, fire nova, lightning bolt, lightning shield (not in any particular order)), but whether you use stormstrike before or after MW5-lightning bolt does not make a big difference at all, and priorities can actually change depending on gear or available (de)buffs.

On the other hand destruction warlocks (who use 4/5 buttons) can gain Pyroclasm (increases fire damage for 6% for 10 seconds) and Backdraft (reduces cast time and global cooldown of next three destruction spells by 30%) when they use Conflagrate. Such enormous buffs. along with the fact that conflagrate is the highest hitting nuke, mean that failure to use Conflagrate on every cooldown (by doing one cast before using it, for instance) causes much higher DPS-loss than skipping flame shock altogether in favour of earth shock.

In other words, the amount of DPS-abilities by itself does not necessarily increase the difficulty. Having a different amount of abilities to use increases the diversity between classes, but I think three DPS-abilities (with cooldown below 30s) is the minimum and anything above eight is a bit too much.

How many proccs can we expect a class to manage before things get chaotic? 1 or 3?

Assuming "proc" here means allowing the usage of an ability (in a manner that increases damage output) that wouldn't otherwise be used, it isn't much different from using abilities based on cooldowns or timers, though that is modified by importance and the frequency of the proc.

Even though not a DPS-spec, devastate and revenge have 30% chance to proc Sword and Board, making next shield slam instant. Shield slam deals much more threat and damage than devastate, and the proc chance (and the short cooldown of shield block) mean that not using the proc on next GCD might mean significant TPS-loss.

On the other hand Molten Core (12% chance on corruption tick to increase Incinerates damage by 18% and reduce cast time by 30% or increase Soul Fire damage by 18% and increase critical strike chance by 15%) proc lasts long enough to use the charges before it is likely to proc again, in execute range you'll use the charges even if you don't notice the proc, and not using it isn't very significant DPS-loss anyway (on my warlock incinerates DPS is 7844 and shadow bolts 5990, while incinerate is 9,6% of total damage: not using incinerate at allwouldn't cause more than few hundred DPS-reduction).

In my opinion Sword And Board basically adds one additional button (even though shield slam is one of abilities you use otherwise, too) and molten core half a button.

Does every class really have to have a DPS cooldown to burn? After all some are without.

Yes. The quality and quantity of cooldowns should differ, but there are some fight mechanics that pretty much enforce the usage of DPS-cooldowns on correct moments: if most/all classes didn't have such, Blizzard couldn't balance the encounters around the assumption that raid dps could be even doubled for short durations of time, making such moments easy if you have a lot of cooldown-heavy classes. In Patchwerk-kind of fights the correct management of cooldowns, using them with bloodlust, each other, trinkets, procs and maximizing their uptime is part of skillful play. They are also "fun", and allow best players to get ahead without affecting the complexity of basic gameplay.

Is it ok for a DPS class to have a simpler rotation as long as they have to manage other abilities or buffs like Totems or Hand of X?

No. Totems, for instance, are the way to give buffs granted by shamans a different "flavor" than other classes. Also, in most cases totems are just called and left on spot. Hand of Protection/Freedom/Salvation, on the other hand, are highly situational class abilities. They can be used by healer and tanking paladins as well, and you might as well argue that warlocks should have easier time DPSing because they can use Banish and Fear the restoration druid on Faction Champions. If the ability is frequently used, such as Misdirection or Tricks of the Trade, it could be counted as additional "button" you need to care about.

Is it ok if Melees have a more forgiving rotation as their proximity to the target generally puts them at a greater risk and restricts their pov?

There are encounters that favor melee, and encounters that favor ranged in terms of difficulty. That is a matter of encounter design, not DPS-difficulty. However, I think melee should generally have better tools at handling threat than ranged, seeing they pull aggro at 110%, rather than 130%.

Can a DPS specc be pushed to far regarding its complexity or is anything fair game as long as it scales with skill?

There will always be players that will perform to 99,9% of maximum potential, and I think game should be balanced with endgame as first priority. However, I think it is fair for "harder" specs to do a bit more DPS than easier ones (with hybrid tax, or tax from good raid buffs included). For instance, I think it would be fair if ferals in their current state did DPS as if they didn't have their hybrid tax.

How big should the gap between a bad, a mediocre and a good player be when DPSing? 50%/80%/100% or closer to 30/60/100?

I think bad players should be at some 50% of theoretical maximum DPS, while normalmodes are balanced to some 50-80% (Firefighter-kind of enconter <-> Patchwerk-kind of encounter) of maximum, and hardmodes (which are aimed for "good" players) to 90-98% depending on encounter mechanics and whether the boss is supposed to be really hard (end boss should be, first bosses, even in heroic, shouldn't). For me it appears that these numbers are pretty close to what the situation is in ICC with 0% buff, with the exception of Lich King heroic, which was overtuned.


My conclusion is that the proper difficulty should be equivalent to 7-10 buttons, with all rotational DPS-abilities, high-priority procs, DPS-cooldowns and unsituational, commonly used raid support abilities with short cooldowns being equivalent to "one button" and very high priority abilities as extra half. That puts ferals and enhancement-shamans at the higher edge (while still being within those limits), and a few specs below the threshold, while most fall within those parameters.


As an unrelated note, where does that "JOHN F**** MADDEN" come from? He seems to be a sports commentator: Is it a reference to rapid commentary of quickly changing situation or something along those lines?

Edit:Phew, there was no posts when I started writing this, and now the thread is on its fourth page.

[jb226]

I'm not sure I can answer in any absolute way, but here are things I do and don't like to see:

1. I do NOT like the feral druid rotation. I think it's too complex to not only manage the same sorts of things that every other class manages (keep up various DoTs and buffs) but to have to manage them around two separate resources (energy and combo points). I do, however, like that there is a pretty significant difference between good and bad players for the spec.

2. I do NOT like simple rotations that actually simplify to a rotation rather than some sort of priority. My elemental shaman falls here. His ultimate rotation changes based on what particular set bonuses he has, but once I have them it only takes a few dungeons to basically memorize how many LBs I'll get to a LvB or at what point I need to refresh that Flame Shock. Honestly, aside from my CD and trinkets, my rotation is three buttons -- and one of them is quite rare with 4T10. I happily volunteer to do things like interrupts on Deathwhisper, not only because it gives me something else to do but because even when I throw that into the rotation it has practically no impact on my DPS.

This also applies to Arcane mages. If I pressed 2-2-2-2-3, not only would I actually be doing the proper rotation about 80% of the time, but even the rare times RNG hits and I technically messed it up I don't lose all that much DPS. From a pure DPS standpoint, ie, not factoring in moving from fires and such, I really don't even need to be looking at the screen for these toons.

3. I DO like rotations that are proc based. I like them more and more the less predictable the procs are. It forces me to actually pay attention to what I'm doing, even if the rotation itself is fairly simple. I actually think Boomkin in its current form is pretty good: Keep some DoTs up, manage a few CDs, spam an ability but wait for a proc that completely changes what you're spamming. On the flip side, Boomkins also suffer a bit too much when they hit one of those RNG stretches of bad procs. I don't know if there's a sweet spot between a proc being too random and too predictable, but if there is that's where I'd want them to sit.

4. I actually liked my Affliction lock's rotation. There was a lot to manage but it was not hard to manage it; just keep an eye on some timers. That said I also became bored of it and switched to Demo, which I also enjoy. It has a similar feel to affliction in terms of watching a couple of DoT timers, but it also has some procs and a handful of various cooldowns to watch. I feel more involved.

5. I DO like execute phases. I'm honestly not 100% sure why, but I do. Demo lock is fun. Affliction was too because of how often you had to cancel the channel to keep the DoTs up. Warrior is okay but on the boring side.

Is there a summary to make here? I'm not sure. I think it's safe to say that I want to be involved in my DPS. I want to have to pay attention. I want to feel like I, the player, actually have a significant say in the DPS, which is a feeling I tend to lack on, say, the Arcane mage. I mean yeah, you have to know how to gear and such but ultimately you could macro the whole damn thing and have a toddler mash the button for you and do strong DPS. (Before the arcane mages out there get snippy, of course you'll do better if you do a better job of managing CDs, timing evocates, knowing when you drop the rotation and blast faces, etc -- but the difference between awesome and good in the same gear isn't as significant as it is for most other classes.)

It's not about a number of buttons or a number of procs, it's really about needing to pay attention and having an impact on how well my toon does with his gear.

[Rizendragon]

As a Frost DK main i think the priority system we're on is near perfect. We have dots to watch 2 procs to manage 6 runes that should always be on cd and we have runic power to fill the rune down time while watching for said procs.

Now i did say near perfect. this is mainly because usually we have to forgo the KM proc to get our runes to line up with our diseases correctly (this being on the Glyph of Disease spec). With the rune change in Cata we should have a little more time to weave in big Frost Strike hits a little easier.

As for other classes i can't say much i don't have much experience on anything other than my DK for raiding.

[MortalWombat]

As a Frost DK main i think the priority system we're on is near perfect. We have dots to watch 2 procs to manage 6 runes that should always be on cd and we have runic power to fill the rune down time while watching for said procs.

Now i did say near perfect. this is mainly because usually we have to forgo the KM proc to get our runes to line up with our diseases correctly (this being on the Glyph of Disease spec). With the rune change in Cata we should have a little more time to weave in big Frost Strike hits a little easier.

As for other classes i can't say much i don't have much experience on anything other than my DK for raiding.

I think the only flaw of frost DK dps is that you have to mash the keys 24/7. Not that fun after 2 or so hours of doing it, just starts to hurt.

[Linkedblade]

We should have much more utility most classes already have at least a single dot, a single nuke, and a single little cast. Personally [coming from a mage] we should have at least 2-3 buttons to push, in a variety of situations. Complexity isnt the issue imho, just we need a different rotation, during a different enocunter, so skill wouldnt be complexity, but knowing what to do in the right situatuion.

[Rizendragon]

I think the only flaw of frost DK dps is that you have to mash the keys 24/7. Not that fun after 2 or so hours of doing it, just starts to hurt.

actually thats the reason i play a frost DK. i get bored waiting for my runes to cooldown if i end up running out of RP... half because i know i'm losing DPS and half because i feel like i should be smashing a button... idk if i'm playing a game and not doing something to piss the boss off heal another person or to kill the motherf****r i'm not happy (not including auto attacks).

As a side not to the ranged DPSers QQing about melee dpsers being more forgiving try playing the specs that rely on high auto attack damage such as a frost DK. we're one of the less forgiving specs out there right now. if we mess up a disease refresh we loose a decent amount of DPS if we maiss a few swings on the boss we loose dps etc. don't take that as complaining either. i feel that adds to the complexity of the class/spec and i like it.

[avengingbt]

Rotations should be hard as hell, maybe even impossible to pull off perfectly.

Really though, some need to be more interesting. I play feral main spec, and I think that's a good benchmark. I have timers (mangle, rake, rip and kindof FFF), procs (clearcasting & trinkets), cooldowns (berserk and tigers fury), combo points, energy and position to keep track of. Lots to keep track of, keeps me interested, has enough to sort the good players from the bad.

A lot of other specs don't seem to have that.

On a more simple level, fire mages are good too. They have a basic nuke, fireball, but they do have to watch their LB/scorch timers, their combustion cooldown and their hotstreak procs. It's a lot simpler than feral, but it's still mindly interesting when compared to some other specs.

[Shiira]

I think the only flaw of frost DK dps is that you have to mash the keys 24/7. Not that fun after 2 or so hours of doing it, just starts to hurt.

There are a fair few problems with dk mechanics and a lot of them are being fixed in cataclysm, unfortunately it appears that this is not one of them.