Monday Report

Ah... the Monday "TPS" reports! it is that time of the week again where i have to update a few things and make sure all of my customers are paying, or at least, have a reason to not pay on time. Now this often interferes with what i really want to do, which was to recap the weekend (which i briefly did in the previous post) and reflect on a few points of discoveries for this week. I think that having some form of contemplation is good, even if its very little or if it results in absolutely nothing.

DPS is leveling out. I remember pretty well the few days of blogging about 200 dps and i do remember my first venture into RFC, where my dps was a whopping 17. 17 dps. that was crazy cool since everyone else was doing 8 dps. But it slowly got better. in fact, it kept jumping every few levels. but now it seemed to have leveled out as i find myself sitting at 1k-1.3k dps since 66. I remember 66 vaguely because this is when i got my awesome hammer from the hydra boss inside underbog. i added some STR gems to it and it made a gigantic jump in dps, so much more than the hellreaver. also with the gloves, chest and boots having a bunch of slots, i gemmed them with bold bloodstones and perfect bold bloodstones. those are cheap and are way more than i really need at my level. so since then, my dps hasnt really changed much. i did have a lot of fun with holy wrath on demons and dead/undead things as well as timing my divine storm and consecration right. all those add to the awesome aoe dps. there are many times where i did pull aggro but it wasnt too hard to finish off the mob before it killed me. i did venture into UK once and got my ass handed to me for pulling aggro, so my hypothesis was correct. i can "safely" pull trash mobs from the tank in outland, but not in northrend. although this had led to a bunch of butthurt tanks who, instead of try to be better TPS, decide to hold a pity party at our expense and either afk out or leave. TPS is threat per second. come on guys, im hitting the same mob you're hitting and im pulling them off of you. maybe you should learn to tank?

So my analysis is this. DPS stops at around 1k around level 66 and stays that way until 73, when most people get their gear "up to par" with the dungeons up north. this gear i speak of has stats that go well with the new system of play, or new stat priority, or new damage formulas Wrath brought on in patch 3.0. Once we are able to do Violet hold and Drak Theron Keep, we should have gear to decently outdo 1k dps. Please note this is also my theory. It is by no means what happens normally, as there are many classes and many ways to buff your dps. i mean give a warlock seed of corruption and there you have it, 4k dps at level 75. but this analysis is based on my own ret paladin with his own playstyle. also, i speak of overall dps, and not just single target dps since most of what matters in instances is the AoE dps anyway. When raiding happens, i guess we'll have to fine tune things. but for now, no boss is really on some kinda "enrage" timer where we can wipe if we take too long. so the limiting factor is really, or should ideally be, the healer's mana.

So going back to the topic, i feel that this stagnation in dps can be a good and bad thing. one, it can help me focus on fine tuning my play without really worrying too much about dps. in UK, i was top dps at 1k dps overall, but had a 500dps on prince keliseth, mainly due to running back and forth killing the frost tombs, and getting frost tombed three times with the first time not being freed until i yelled "HELP". I figured i'd be a little higher than that. we'll see how things pan out tho. but keliseth really drops my dps more than anything in utgarde keep. but fine-tune i will do.

i do notice some abilities that i will never use and one is repentance. oh why dont they just give me that ability at 80 instead of sacred shield? i'd sooooo love a trade. i'd run and SS myself all day if i could. it would make things a lot more interesting than a silly CC that i'll never use (not just because everyone is AoE crazy, but also because, well, there is no real spot for me to use it besides MGT. really, i've only used repentance at magisters terrace. and the tank didnt even notice. nope. he went and pulled a second group and left the CC'ed mob standing, only to get out of it and blast a hole in me. thanks stupid tank. oh and at the five super friends right before Keal, i asked which mob should i CC, but by the time i finished asking the question, the tank already charged in. needless to say, no one survived. no one knew how to fight that fight. everyone thought the naga chick was tank and spank. but there's gotta be a reason why all five of them are standing there right? i mean its pretty close to a perfect group and killing the healers first would have been nice. i mean stupid tank should at least ask about the fight. anyway, that group dropped and i was stuck trying to figure out how people can be so bad when it comes to thinking. i mean yes, tank and spank requires little thinking, but when it comes to fighting groups or bosses where there's more thought involved, people seem to get anneurisms and die, and politely drop group asap so we dont have to waste a /kick.

OK these reflections are turning out to be rantfests. but maybe that's what they're supposed to be. i havent had a deep thought in the past several posts. its been very... dull to just hear me mention stupidity. and it angers me tho, to see this kind of dumbness and see people, instead of wanting to figure out what happened and fixing it, to just dropping group and thinking that the current wipe was due to just "bad luck" or " bad group composition" or because the tank just sucked. sure. it could be one of those things, or all of those things. but how will you overcome these things if you're just gonna drop group each time a wall pops up. these instances are supposed to be hard. they're supposed to be challenging. they're supposed to involve a kind of synergy in a group where everyone works together to try to accomplish something a single character would be unable to do. instead, i feel that the mentality is one where people want to progress through. and progressing means they level up. no, it does not mean beating a boss. it does not mean learning your CC's or utility spells. it doesnt even mean decursing. i was cursed several times throughout many runs before and i wasnt dispelled until i actually had to ask for it in party. what? seriously. isnt 200 mana for a dispell worth it to the group?

anyway, my point is this: Progression means to level up and not to accomplish a goal.

This really shouldnt be the way to play. otherwise, any monkey can play this game and progress. i wanted to down the bosses and get the achev for accomplishing the instance. sure i can leave, level up to 72 and do the instance again. but why do that? i can do it perfectly fine at 70. i dont see why we cant all make the corpse run, talk about the wipe, and then kick the boss' butt. no, im stuck with people thinking its not worth the effort because leveling was so easy in comparison (then why did you q for a friggin instance then?!!!??!?!????). why deal with this "harder" bs when the easy stuff will lead to the same thing... and that's to gain experience points? why deal with having to move out of the fire? why deal with lowering my already low dps so i can CC someone? because it keeps everyone alive dumbass. it allows us to move on to the next group of mobs or bosses. this is not always an aoe fest where the tank grabs everything and we all hope the healer can heal through all of that while we dps everything down. maybe part of the game is to play using all of our tricks. maybe that makes the game actually fun??? If you dont want to deal with it, dont queue up for dungeons. if you want easy, go do a quest and leave the instance queues for those who actually want to do this. /facedesk

But alas, through 70 levels we were forcefed one way of playing, the easy way of playing. so why not take the easy way when it comes to leveling? finish off your quest while waiting for another instance queue. and hope that you dont get the same hard instance, or that if you do get the same hard instance, mechanarlol, that there will be a great healer, or great tank, or a great dps that will carry everyone through so you dont have to learn anything yourself, so you stay unchallenged, so you can continue pressing your usual three buttons.

So ok, since i have ADD and cant hold a constant thought for a paragraph, im going to just post this rant and call it a week. Have a great one everyone. i hope to type about happy things later on.