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  1. #1

    Help on improving DPS on stoneguards/overall please

    Hello everybody,

    yesterday we managed to kill stoneguard. Yeah on normal and no it wasn't easy I have to admit.
    It's nonetheless been a very satisfying feeling. Before the shitstorm breaks loose: Yes, our overall performance is underwhelming. There are too many points to work on all of them at once. We are raiding once a week for 3,5 hours - so it's far from "progress" raiding. That however is no excuse for not playing as good as possible. As such we have some people being up to their game and some not as good. Rest assured, that I will post a similar thread in other classes' forums to get feedback on the other peoples performance. Right now I'm especially interested in our rogues performance and how to improve it. So while I know that there is A LOT of room for improvement on many parts of our raid, I'd be happy if you could focus on my fellow rogue.

    Please have a look at our kill last night.

    I'm Hunnok, one of the tanks and most of our tries ended before any real good could have been done due to fukup on tanking side.
    Some DDs are OK: our warlock and our shaman would be what I'd call "in shape" some others range from "need to improve" to "What the ...". We have had a lot of tries beforehand with the explicit order to avoid as much damage as possible and just stay alive for 7 minutes. If we managed this, "only" damage had to be applied in addition. It worked out - the boss fell, but with a LOT of hassle and some differences in performance.

    Now for my questions:
    ---------------------------
    Xeramas, our rogue, former raidleader and avid player scored a meagre 32k DPS, 50% behind the other melee-DPS and more than 100% would have to be added to reach our lock. Granted, this fight is as melee unfriendliy as it can possibly get, but that's a problem all our melees had to face.
    He usually is a very aware and teamoriented player who uses all things at his disposal to help out the groups needs. So I feel I'm in dept to find out what can be done to improve his performance as a DPS. Please have a look at the logs from the kill and his armory. If you can give me any advice regarding playstyle, itemization, talents, rotation - anything I'd be very glad. Also if you could add any specific tips for stoneguards he might have missed I'm all ears.

    I'm sure that there's more than just "He needs to L2P". So under the assumption that he does know how to execute things well, WHICH things would he have to execute well in order to pull some numbers?

    Also I'm sure that a lot of melee DPS-loss still comes from bad tanking (I'm one of the tanks) although as I already said that is something all melee have to face.
    ---------------------------

    I'm open to all sorts of critics, suggestions or further information

    Thanks alot in advance
    Hunnok/Ntarok/Fiercon
    Last edited by Fiercon; 2012-11-02 at 12:19 PM.

  2. #2
    For that fight, first thing is tell him to grab a combat OS. Bladeflurry is a beautiful thing on that fight.

    As far as how he did in that one, in a 6.5 minute fight he only used his 3 min shadowblades cooldown once as far as I can see. Big issue as he should've been able to get off 3. His slice and dice uptime is also low. 85%? Given that assassination refreshes that for you to full duration, that's really bad. Rupture uptime is similarly low at 81%.

    Just off the top of my head, but that's a start.

  3. #3
    Thank you very much for your first input Woceip, I have some remarks regarding this:

    Xeramas died once, hence the loss of his buffs. I think without being killed once he could have managed some more DPS for sure, his uptime of rupture and S&D is close to 100% if you count out the seconds after his death.

    Shadowblades on the other hand is definitely something I'll point out to him.


    Keep it coming and thanks in advance!

    Fiercon

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Woceip View Post
    For that fight, first thing is tell him to grab a combat OS. Bladeflurry is a beautiful thing on that fight.
    ^This

    Quote Originally Posted by Woceip View Post
    he only used his 3 min shadowblades cooldown once as far as I can see.
    Same story with vendetta, that is another big CD and has only a 2 min CD and he used it once.

    Hard to get an idea on the armory as it looks like he did just grab that combat OS and is in the process of changing gear for it as his gems are haste (combat) and his reforging is mastery (Asassination).

  5. #5
    OK,

    so as I see it Cooldownmanagement is off, I'm going to suggest some power auras or simillar.
    Thanks for the armory clarification - I'll ask him what he is trying to achieve atm.

    Do you find any strange numbers in regards to possible actions per fight: E.g. did he use as much special attacks as he possibly could have or is there a "lag" in button mashing too?

  6. #6
    High Overlord
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    As already said, Use combat on stone guards.

    Replace windsong with Dancing steel. Missing belt buckle on waist.

  7. #7
    Wrong spec as others have mentioned, you can't tell special attacks from a log but low rupture and SnD implies low uptime on the boss. It could be a tanking issue but rogues have a pretty easy time on stone guard. I'm on my phone so I can't look at his armory, but I'd say he needs to be have shadowstep for any fight with a lot of movement, needs to use cloak/sprint to clear traps and otherwise cleave the bosses. No rupture when cleaving, always killing spree before shadow blades/AR. Even with a 463 weapon he should be able to pull 40-50k on stone guard.

    Edit: didn't notice you had a link to his armory (I hate searching it on my phone). I noticed he has spec and glyph issues: tier one needs to be shadow focus since its the only dps gain on that tier. He should also be using either leeching poison or elusiveness, cheat death is terrible and in pve you shouldn't need it with all our survivability. I personally prefer shadowstep because of positioning issues and a quick way to get back to boss after popping traps with cloak but if you have one rogue I could see usin prep for double cloak (which won't be a dps gain for him if that's how it is used). He needs to glyph cloak instead of evasion, evasion isn't a very good defensive cd for us in most raids and cloaks is very good.

    I'll see if I notice anything else but I wouldn't worry about gem/reforge changing since this is the only combat fight in the first 6. The belt buckle is a big deal, dancing steel is nice but don't put it on sub-476 weapons unless you have a ton of spare gold.

    Rotation wise I'd open from stealth with SS and get SND and revealing going immediately, killing spree as soon as you get intermediate insight and then pop shadow blades/AR and cleave like mad through deep insight. Once it's up you can cloak and pop traps if neccessary then shadowstep back, pop vanish and repeat. Obviously you want to avoid capping energy do make sure you are empty when you go to pop traps, don't vanish at full energy, etc. keep revealing up at all times, same with SnD (make weak auras for them huge in the middle of your screen if you need to). Use feint on explosions and pop recuperate only if you have to, healers or raid leader should be able to call for you to use personal CDs if things are strained.

    If you have questions let me know...
    Last edited by Rory; 2012-11-02 at 03:09 PM.

  8. #8
    Wow, thanks very much for the added information Rory and everybody else. I will be sure to .... oh my - I just carefully read your post and I think our rouge just did not cast a single revealing strike. Or did I misread it and revealing strike comes with Combat-spec?

    -Edit-
    OK, comes with combat spec - *phew* almost prepared for some shitstorming

    GREAT insight so far - thanks a lot guys and keep it coming (if there's more to say )

    Thanks
    Fiercon
    Last edited by Fiercon; 2012-11-02 at 03:49 PM.

  9. #9
    You say he died, but he was dead for something like 10-15 seconds (guestimating from the graph) but he had 357 seconds of slice and dice out of the 415 seconds of your kill. Unless I'm wrong and he was on the floor for 40+ seconds, he is in fact letting his SnD fall off or simply not applying it. Same with rupture. His envenom uptime seems low as well. Now he missed out on 2 shadow blades which will effect this, but I'd say he isn't pooling energy and combo points with anticipation to space out his envenoms to minimizing clipping the buff. His low rupture uptime is also probably, at least partially, related to poor management of combo points with anticipation and poor energy pooling.

    Like others have said, he should be playing combat. I just mentioned that because on most of the vaults fights (at least normal) he should be playing assassination. Combat even with a blue mh will beat an epic mh assassination on a fight will full cleave uptime.

    I disagree with Rory on cheat death. Even for heroic, its good for specific things. But really this is normal mode where the raid damage isn't insane so I don't think leeching would be particularly strong for him unless somehow those jade bolts are killing your raid (he hardly took any personal damage from the pools). Elusiveness is good, but again, the damage isn't massive and you only actually gain 15% more on AE which isn't really that much on a normal mode mine (assuming he was eating them with feint on purpose) and the explosions are trivial damage. Cheat death allows him to make a mistake and not need to eat your only bres which I think is a lot better for what you're doing as it will safe you from cobalt mines (I take cheat death for this fight on 25hm). He also did die from a cobalt mine (guessing he burned cheat death earlier on something, perhaps the bleed from getting agro on a boss?). Elusiveness really won't save you from a mine death because if you saw it to hit elusiveness you wouldn't be hit anyway (and like I said, the 15% difference on normal mode is minimal anyway).

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Fiercon View Post
    Wow, thanks very much for the added information Rory and everybody else. I will be sure to .... oh my - I just carefully read your post and I think our rouge just did not cast a single revealing strike. Or did I misread it and revealing strike comes with Combat-spec?

    -Edit-
    OK, comes with combat spec - *phew* almost prepared for some shitstorming

    GREAT insight so far - thanks a lot guys and keep it coming (if there's more to say )

    Thanks
    Fiercon
    RvS is combat only. Note that 100% RvS uptime is not optimal. When it's about to fall off, you should dump all your energy, then pool when it falls off, then do an RvS before you cap. Also, open from stealth with Ambush as combat (2CP, higher damage). The rest of Rory's information is fairly solid. Extending yellow insight can be a slight DPS gain too, but managing insight as a novice to the spec can be very difficult.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Squirl View Post
    RvS is combat only. Note that 100% RvS uptime is not optimal. When it's about to fall off, you should dump all your energy, then pool when it falls off, then do an RvS before you cap. Also, open from stealth with Ambush as combat (2CP, higher damage). The rest of Rory's information is fairly solid. Extending yellow insight can be a slight DPS gain too, but managing insight as a novice to the spec can be very difficult.
    Yeah, revealing is combat only. When I said revealing up at all times what I really meant was when you SS. If you are pooling its fine so long as you remember to use it before you build combo points again. I wasn't aware ambush for combat was coming out ahead, I'll have to look at that.

    As far as the previous comment about hear death for someone else: you're welcome to your opinion but there is raid damage on nearly every fight, this one included. Any pressure you take off your healers will give you a better chance to down bosses, ESPECIALLY in a casual raid that is struggling with normals. Cheat death can be helpful, but if a player positions themselves well and uses their defensive abilities well it's worthless. Leeching and elusiveness give benefit on every fight and are the conclusive choices of nearly all the top rogues. I'll stick with that

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Rory View Post
    Cheat death can be helpful, but if a player positions themselves well and uses their defensive abilities well it's worthless. Leeching and elusiveness give benefit on every fight and are the conclusive choices of nearly all the top rogues. I'll stick with that
    Last I heard, Leeching also helps with procs. You'll get slightly better uptime on all your procs by using it, thus providing a minor DPS increase. The healing is really just a bonus.

    I just roll Leeching on every fight. No real reason to swap. Elusiveness might be good for tanking Garalon if your guild uses that strat, but that's the only thing I can think of.

  13. #13
    We're off on kind of a tangent now, but I still advocate Cheat Death on some fights. Especially H Gara'jal 10M, unless they nerf the spawn rate of the shadowy minions. Some times those suckers just all target you at once, and no healer has a chance of healing you through that.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by rayanne View Post
    We're off on kind of a tangent now, but I still advocate Cheat Death on some fights. Especially H Gara'jal 10M, unless they nerf the spawn rate of the shadowy minions. Some times those suckers just all target you at once, and no healer has a chance of healing you through that.
    They fixed the RNG one shot. If it's still happening for you, the adds aren't dying fast enough downstairs.

  15. #15
    Oh, good. Honestly I havent done that fight in a few weeks!

  16. #16
    The fight is not actually bad for melee, in fact, it is quite good for melee. You can always be behind the boss and if you have one tank that is always tanking two bosses then the melee don't even have to move except to avoid some ground effects. The only reason ranged has any advantage is if the ranged player can multi-dot. But a combat rogue can do very well on this fight.

    http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/.../Combat_Rogue/

    133 combat rogues doing over 100k dps on that fight in 10 normal and of the top 200 the lowest is 96.7k dps. Yes they probably have better gear, but gear alone is not going to improve dps by 64k. With his current gear there's no reason he shouldn't be doing 60k or more dps, especially if he switches to combat. Also tell him to get a belt buckle and enchant his bracers.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Rory View Post
    Leeching and elusiveness give benefit on every fight and are the conclusive choices of nearly all the top rogues. I'll stick with that
    I dunno how you got that information, but Ahdehl was saying on his thread he likes cheat death for stone guards. I'm not going to claim something like you are, but clearly some top rogues do agree. I really question how you got that information... there some site where the top rogues go and list which they spec into for each encounter? Cause theres no way you can tell from the armory that they aren't swapping it in for some stuff.

    For his case, I feel pretty strongly you are wrong. Look at the damage he took. I seriously doubt his healers were having trouble before he exploded on that bomb.

  18. #18
    Feint is better for breaking mines, and CoS is best. Relying on Cheat Death to break bombs is not a good idea. It's for when you screw up. Top rogues should not be screwing up. That's what makes them "top". Not that not standing in stuff at this point in the game is even hard.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Squirl View Post
    Feint is better for breaking mines, and CoS is best. Relying on Cheat Death to break bombs is not a good idea. It's for when you screw up. Top rogues should not be screwing up. That's what makes them "top". Not that not standing in stuff at this point in the game is even hard.
    Whoa now, who ever said you should try to break one with cheat death... And don't take it up with me, I don't speak for them. Ahdehl's thread for his stream where he answered a question on cheat death and said he takes it on SG is a couple pages back.

    All I'm saying is that if he has some actual data to back up this conclusion he is drawing, let me know, otherwise I'm going with he is simply assuming things based on at most a couple of data points.

    But back to this specific case, the rogue in question died to a mine. The mine did 170k which is full damage for normal mode. Elusiveness would not have saved him because he did not see it / did not feint (normal feint would have saved him as well). Leeching poison is only really nice to help with heavy, constant raid damage. Looking at this scenario, that isn't present. LP isn't going to save you from a bomb.

    Edit: Also leeching can only possibly help with windsong. Dancing steel or whatever it is called specifies on melee attacks. Now the rogue in question is still using windsong, but a minor dps gain versus him being dead so...
    Last edited by Sesshou; 2012-11-02 at 09:55 PM.

  20. #20
    Raid awareness saves you from bombs.

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