Questions about raid's dps

[Stealthedbear]

More particularly, Ivey's DPS as seen here: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-ed...pes&boss=43324
We were wiping a lot on cho'gall and I know everyone's DPS is low, but her's is low despite being in full 359 gear. Her dps never goes above 15k, and everyone always says that their dps is always higher as a shadow priest with similar gear. You can check the other boss fights I have it set up to cho'gall, I just don't know what to tell her really, I've worked with her a lot on her dps but it seems to hit a ceiling and I don't know if it's a gear issue or a skill issue. Thanks.

[Velyndina]

Well I wouldn't really judge dps on a fight like cho'gall, like on my Fire Mage I spend a lot of time slowing/rooting and killing the adds so that drops my DPS significantly, but I usually stay around 16-20k, it really depends what goes on in the fight.

Ehm...if I'm looking at WoL correctly (which I'm probably not, I rarely use it) Ivey is at 12.8k? That does sound a little low but I also see some other people below 9k dps that aren't the tank...

[Simca]

It isn't a gear issue, but is hard to pin down issues sometimes.

You need a dedicated shadow priest to look at these logs and check her cast sequence and her GCDs. The single most common problem in WoW is wasting milliseconds between casts. I've seen people in pugs wait up to 500-1000 ms between casts. I'm not saying that is her problem but it is a common one that people on these forums never seem to talk about. Casting ANY spell is more important than wasting time if it means picking the right spell.

The most commonly discussed problem on these forums is always "gem better" or "gear better" or "reforge better" when in all honestly those changes are not going to make a 8k DPS player into a 15k DPS player.

Here's a log of my guild on Cho'gall last week with the view set to our Shadow Priest (and Raid Leader) Valatros: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/u...=13800&e=14224

(Note that our overall DPS will be higher since we completed the kill and have somewhat better gear, etc but the general principle and damage distribution can help a lot)

Edit: Also your Mage is performing pretty poorly on those attempts (worse than the priest imo). It was probably smart of him to switch to Fire because Fire's AoE is much better on the adds, but he needs to work on his Fire rotation or something.

Edit 2: Her uptimes on her DoTs are around 25% too low, her uptimes on her buffs (DE and ES) are around 25% too low, and her uptime on Shadow Orbs is around 15% (or more) too high. She definitely needs to work on tightening her rotation.

[Loregasm]

Okay, admittedly, I'm terrible at deciphering WOL reports, but it looks like she's getting about 50% uptime from Empowered Shadows, and 70% from Dark Evangelism. This is terrible. DE should be 90%, or higher, really. It stacks up from Mind Flay ticks, and you Mind Flay constantly. ES is harder to control and keep up, but you really should be able to get almost 85-95% uptime, unless you get screwed with no orbs for 30-45 seconds (I've had it happen, and it blows). Other than that, there are the basic Spriest problems. When does she re-cast her DOTs? Is she using MB on CD? On CD with 1 or more orbs? With 3 orbs? I notice Mind Sear is in there, so she switching to AOE. Spriest AOE isn't the worst anymore, but if you're doing it wrong, it still blows. What is she doing for AOE?

Shadow is a very complex and involved spec. It's extremely rewarding when played well, but it's pretty crappy when played poorly.

Edit: Checked out her armory. She's below the hit cap. I've heard a lot of people saying casters don't really need to hit cap any more, and it's BS. Sure, you can re-cast a spell that misses, but that's wasted time. She needs to get to the hit cap. Also, personal pet peeve here, PVP shoulders. Tier would be best, but Atramedes drops some nice ones that will beat those out any day.

[Stealthedbear]

Okay, admittedly, I'm terrible at deciphering WOL reports, but it looks like she's getting about 50% uptime from Empowered Shadows, and 70% from Dark Evangelism. This is terrible. DE should be 90%, or higher, really. It stacks up from Mind Flay ticks, and you Mind Flay constantly. ES is harder to control and keep up, but you really should be able to get almost 85-95% uptime, unless you get screwed with no orbs for 30-45 seconds (I've had it happen, and it blows). Other than that, there are the basic Spriest problems. When does she re-cast her DOTs? Is she using MB on CD? On CD with 1 or more orbs? With 3 orbs? I notice Mind Sear is in there, so she switching to AOE. Spriest AOE isn't the worst anymore, but if you're doing it wrong, it still blows. What is she doing for AOE?

Shadow is a very complex and involved spec. It's extremely rewarding when played well, but it's pretty crappy when played poorly.

I'll try to answer this the best I can. I know she switches to adds, for the little adds that come up she just mind sears. She casts her dots like a second or two before they wear off, uses MB on CD.

And to simca above, yeah we were having a lot of problems with the adds so we had the mage switch to fire but feel like that wasn't helping either.

[Velyndina]

I'll try to answer this the best I can. I know she switches to adds, for the little adds that come up she just mind sears. She casts her dots like a second or two before they wear off, uses MB on CD.

And to simca above, yeah we were having a lot of problems with the adds so we had the mage switch to fire but feel like that wasn't helping either.

Is the hunter throwing traps before they spawn? Is the mage using blast wave/frost nova, RoF, CoC etc..?

It should be fairly easy to quickly dps down the adds with your raid setup. Be sure to have ranged get in range of the adds before they spawn, and if you for some reason tank Cho'gall next to his throne, bring him to the mid when people run to kill the adds so theres less downtime running back to cho'gall.

[Loregasm]

She needs to keep ES and DE up while she's using Mind Sear. They buff the damage from MS by about 35% in her gear.

[Slickx]

Your mage and spriest dps is so low that i'm sure someone that was in full quest gear could out dps them if they knew what they were doing right.

Mage dosen't even have half his gear enchanted or gemmed properly. Why let baddies like this raid with you?

[Slashbubblehearth]

Imo any dps NOT under the tank is doing something right i guess. Under 15k i find unacceptable tbh, Players were able to pull off 15k in Wrath

[Loregasm]

Okay, enough about the Spriest. I can't help her much unless I see her play, and that's not going to happen. She's not the only problem you're having, from what I've gathered. Your mage NEEDS to be fire. If you had two mages, one could be arcane and the other fire, but you really need a fire mage here. Or more hunters. As Velyndina said, your hunter should drop a frost trap a bit in front of where the adds are going to spawn. All the DPS and healers need to be on the other side of that trap. the adds can and will target them and head toward them, and if they miss the trap, you get boned. The mage should Blastwave them when they spawn, or slightly after when you have 2+ puddles, and spread his DOTs around. Lay a ROF down after the trap if it looks like they are going to get through. Run up and hit them with COC, or use another BW if it's back up. Just be careful not to touch them. Frost nova them if they're still coming. Mages have a lot of tools to use here. Also, switching out one of your melee for another ranged with solid AOE will help if that's where you're having issues. You shouldn't have to do that, but it's an option. Also, if you can talk your hunter into going Survival (if he isn't already), Entrapment is a godsend here. You can drop Snakes when they spawn, rooting them, then the frost trap, rooting them again, and still have all the mage tools.

Another question: Are you two healing this, or three healing? It looked like you were three healing, which you might need to do at this point, but it's honestly easier if you 2 heal it, and your 3rd healer goes DPS. You get fewer big adds, fewer chances to screw up and get more corruption, and you push through P2 to the kill faster. It looks like one of your healers is a druid with a Moonkin offspec. That's actually perfect for your set up. Moonkin bring even more tools to deal with the little adds.

[Stealthedbear]

Okay, enough about the Spriest. I can't help her much unless I see her play, and that's not going to happen. She's not the only problem you're having, from what I've gathered. Your mage NEEDS to be fire. If you had two mages, one could be arcane and the other fire, but you really need a fire mage here. Or more hunters. As Velyndina said, your hunter should drop a frost trap a bit in front of where the adds are going to spawn. All the DPS and healers need to be on the other side of that trap. the adds can and will target them and head toward them, and if they miss the trap, you get boned. The mage should Blastwave them when they spawn, or slightly after when you have 2+ puddles, and spread his DOTs around. Lay a ROF down after the trap if it looks like they are going to get through. Run up and hit them with COC, or use another BW if it's back up. Just be careful not to touch them. Frost nova them if they're still coming. Mages have a lot of tools to use here. Also, switching out one of your melee for another ranged with solid AOE will help if that's where you're having issues. You shouldn't have to do that, but it's an option. Also, if you can talk your hunter into going Survival (if he isn't already), Entrapment is a godsend here. You can drop Snakes when they spawn, rooting them, then the frost trap, rooting them again, and still have all the mage tools.

Another question: Are you two healing this, or three healing? It looked like you were three healing, which you might need to do at this point, but it's honestly easier if you 2 heal it, and your 3rd healer goes DPS. You get fewer big adds, fewer chances to screw up and get more corruption, and you push through P2 to the kill faster. It looks like one of your healers is a druid with a Moonkin offspec. That's actually perfect for your set up. Moonkin bring even more tools to deal with the little adds.

The first two attempts we 3 healed it, and the second two attempts we 2 healed it with our resto going boomkin. The only time we've ever been able to down cho'gall as a guild was when we brought like 6 ranged dps and 2 healed it.

And yes I know the hunter is dropping traps down, mage uses RoF, don't think he runs in to use Nova or CoC though

[Deleted]

whats the minimum dps needed for each dps on cho'gall 10 man, if 2 tank 2 heals 6 dps or 2 tank 3 heal 5 dps

[Deleted]

I always believe that looking only at the DPS digit is a bit superficial; depending on fight circumstances, tactics used and amount of movement, DPS may drop significantly, regardless of item level.

I only have the log info, but here are a few things I could mention after taking a quick (but maybe not so accurate) look:
- So far, it doesn't seem like you wiped from DPS, but from execution of the fight. Look at DPS if you can't push P2 fast enough (should be at most very shortly after the 4th adherent has spawned), or if you get overwhelmed with tentacles in P2.
- You are using 3 healers. It's probably easier to go with 2 instead. Have you tried it?
- Interrupts for MCs aren't going very well. Find a better plan for this: I would suggest looking into priests rotating glyphed fear, and melee using a /targetenemyplayer macro for easier targetting.
- The little adds are very problematic. I would suggest your DK using a Chillblains spec, and just throwing everything he's got at them. For the first two packs at least, I think it's enough if only him and the hunter stay on adds. A D&D and a lot of howling blasts will do the trick, especially with hunter help.
- Assuming the point above, with the adds, work, you may want to keep the Adherent adds slightly closer to the boss, so people don't have to run too much in order to DPS. The purple "circle" in the room is a good indicator, tank Chogall at one point and tank the Adherent at the opposite point (so a lot closer than some guides may suggest). If needed, the add tank can move the add a bit to the back when it's on very low health. The important part here is that people shouldn't have to move extra in order to get in range of the add. Minimising movement needed = increasing DPS.
- The raid is taking a lot of extra damage from Corrupting Crash. Focus on spreading out as soon as the Adherents spawn, and do your best to avoid them. This extra damage + the very often 2 MC stacks probably adds up, and if you get rid of the majority of this damage, you can get away with 1 less healer.
- I see you have two melee. If you can kill the Adherent in time, it may be an idea to keep one of them on the boss so he doesn't lose too much DPS from movement. Probably the DK is a better choice here, seeing as warriors have 100000 "teleports" Have your tank assisting with interrupts on the add as much as possible.

[Deleted]

We've always 3 healed it. We use a Lock, Fire Mage, Spriest, Ret Pala and Fury Warrior. The lock stuns them, the mage helps with RoF plus we have our Resto Shaman drop an Earth Bind in the middle.

I think our melee are well above 20k, our lock is lowest due to add duty in particular. He's at 15k ish, while the Priest and Mage are close to 20k as well, that while also helping on adds.

Seems like some of your raiders need to check up on their rotation, gearing and gemming tbh.

That said, you need dps who can actually push more than 15k imo, that's with 3 healers. As I've never tried 2 healing it, I can't say for sure but obviously it would be a bit lower due to the extra dps - assuming your healers can keep up.

But basically, if you have pro healers, 2 heal it. We have pro healers but our dps'ers are mental, which is why we just play it safe and 3 heal it. And seeing you don't really have mental dps, maybe 2 healing it is the best way to go for you.

[Simca]

On my guild's first Cho'gall kill, we used a Balance Druid (who solos the first wave), an Elemental Shaman (who joins the balance druid for the second wave), and a Shadow Priest and Survival Hunter (who join the other two for the third and fourth waves). The last DPS was a melee.

You don't need 6 ranged DPS (we used 4 and did fine and they weren't even optimal classes. this was pre-4.1's Mind Sear) or 2 healers (we used 3).

Using 2 healers obviously helps with DPS problems, but you should treat the problems themselves rather than work around them and pretend they don't exist.

---------- Post added 2011-06-17 at 02:28 AM ----------

I always believe that looking only at the DPS digit is a bit superficial; depending on fight circumstances, tactics used and amount of movement, DPS may drop significantly, regardless of item level.

I only have the log info, but here are a few things I could mention after taking a quick (but maybe not so accurate) look:
- So far, it doesn't seem like you wiped from DPS, but from execution of the fight. Look at DPS if you can't push P2 fast enough (should be at most very shortly after the 4th adherent has spawned), or if you get overwhelmed with tentacles in P2.
- You are using 3 healers. It's probably easier to go with 2 instead. Have you tried it?
- Interrupts for MCs aren't going very well. Find a better plan for this: I would suggest looking into priests rotating glyphed fear, and melee using a /targetenemyplayer macro for easier targetting.
- The little adds are very problematic. I would suggest your DK using a Chillblains spec, and just throwing everything he's got at them. For the first two packs at least, I think it's enough if only him and the hunter stay on adds. A D&D and a lot of howling blasts will do the trick, especially with hunter help.
- Assuming the point above, with the adds, work, you may want to keep the Adherent adds slightly closer to the boss, so people don't have to run too much in order to DPS. The purple "circle" in the room is a good indicator, tank Chogall at one point and tank the Adherent at the opposite point (so a lot closer than some guides may suggest). If needed, the add tank can move the add a bit to the back when it's on very low health. The important part here is that people shouldn't have to move extra in order to get in range of the add. Minimising movement needed = increasing DPS.
- The raid is taking a lot of extra damage from Corrupting Crash. Focus on spreading out as soon as the Adherents spawn, and do your best to avoid them. This extra damage + the very often 2 MC stacks probably adds up, and if you get rid of the majority of this damage, you can get away with 1 less healer.
- I see you have two melee. If you can kill the Adherent in time, it may be an idea to keep one of them on the boss so he doesn't lose too much DPS from movement. Probably the DK is a better choice here, seeing as warriors have 100000 "teleports" Have your tank assisting with interrupts on the add as much as possible.

I agree heavily with the bolded points.

As for the first point though, their current attempts are going to run into DPS issues. It is better to work them out before the raid then to run into issues in the middle of the raid and just be like "Hey, fix your DPS" and then wipe for 2 hours because he can't fix things mid-raid usually.

As for the fourth point, I disagree but only because of your last point. They should be keeping one melee on the boss especially if they are going to 6 DPS it. They should still keep the adds on the stairs just because there is no reason not to. The only melee who needs to get back to the boss is the Warrior, and he can just intervene a ranged and charge the boss.

[Deleted]

I agree with most what has been said here. Very low uptime of the dots and Emp Shadows which absolutely has to be fixed to get higher dps.
And overall your raid can be better as a whole.

[Deleted]

As for the fourth point, I disagree but only because of your last point. They should be keeping one melee on the boss especially if they are going to 6 DPS it. They should still keep the adds on the stairs just because there is no reason not to. The only melee who needs to get back to the boss is the Warrior, and he can just intervene a ranged and charge the boss.

I was thinking from the perspective of all raid stacking up behind the boss for easier MCs. If that's the case, minimal spreading is enough, thus ranged should already be within range of the add. I don't know "how far" is that though, because I play melee I also believe that the adds shouldn't be dragged very far away, because it's just movement lost when AoE comes. I guess the optimal spot is down to group preference, after all.

[Deleted]

Btw, your add tank should be able to get ALL the interrupts himself. The only exception to this, is when Cho'gall casts Fury of Cho'gall, before he summons an add. Then you need a ranged to have an interrupt ready for the first cast. Other than that, your add tank should handle it by him/herself.

[shaft4783]

I dont believe ring of frost works on chogalls adds. Pretty sure they are immune to it. Anticipation is key on the adds. The hunter has to get a trap down, and the ranged has to be in position to kill them before they spawn. A hunter, a warlock, and even a Mage as arcane using blizzard is enough to down them if everyone is prepared. The trap is a must.

[Zayniel]

Our first kill was 3 healers, 2 melee, 3 ranged, 2 tanks. We still kill it that way.

We just put everyone on the adherant, SV hunter on first wave, another ranged helping on 2nd, all ranged on 3rd and 4th (using some sort of cooldown for 4th wave).

Move him up the throne when p2 starts, kill first set of tentacles (spawns outside), pop BL right after they're down. Use interrupts as much as possible (boomkins are gooooood), collect loot

Although, you need to tell some of your DPS to shape up. Some are... kinda low.

Good luck!