My 10-man team didn’t make it to heroic TotC last week – we had only one tank after all, and we can only push Hrist so far. So when a guildie asked if I wanted to hit a heroic totc pug I was willing to give it a go. Two guildies were in it, and I assumed that they were doing due diligence on the other members.
It was, surprisingly a lot of fun.
We certainly had wipes – a good deal of wipes in fact. But we also got all the way up to Anub’arak (and didn’t even try to do him) and I think that’s a lot more than you can expect from a pug.
What interested me most from the moment I stepped in, however, was that there was another hunter. I took a quick inspect and saw that he had a good SV spec, and frickin’ amazing gear. Just about every piece of gear he had was from heroic – all ilvl 245 (except greatness, which he was stacking with Death’s Verdict) including 4 pieces of t9.5.
Naturally my first though was that I wanted to out-dps him.
I was talking to the Cheerleader recently about what makes our raid team work. She felt strongly that it was a matter of coming to trust each other over time. My response was, if I recall, “Bah. Trust is for healers. Healers need to trust each other, dpsers compete with each other.” And I think that’s true, and further I think it’s a good thing.
Without question everyone has a job in every fight that is top priority – disarming or dispelling or ccing or shooting down frost orbs. After that top priority is to avoid avoidable damage. But really — that’s everyone’s job. Our specific job is to do everything the fight and the RL require of us while still doing as much eyebrow-searing dps as possible.
And nothing motivates you to squeak out every last auto-shot and bleed as much as competition.
So despite the wiping and despite not a single piece of hunter loot dropping, I had big fun trying to keep pace with another skilled and better-geared hunter.
“Bah. Trust is for healers. Healers need to trust each other, dpsers compete with each other.”
Love it.
I agree Frost there is nothing more thrilling then running a pug and seeing another hunter or any other dps class with better gear then what you have and just wanting to smash there dps with gear which is lower then theres and making them think, how the hell did he just do that??
You kicked his butt
but (maybe a huntard question) why are there 11 people showing on recount in a 10 man raid ?
I like it when the other hunter says “hey nice gear.” That’s about the time i decide to show him why i have all this phat loot.
I had a similar experience just last night. I was helping my wife get her newly lvl 80 Pally some tanking gear. We running our last heroic of the night and had to pug out a DPS spot. We got a hunter who had 2 pieces of t9, 2 pieces of t8.5, a t7, Marrowstrike, and Arrowsong. He was geared a lot betterr than me. He had a really good SV spec, similar to what is on this site. I’m in MM and was able to out DPS him by 500. WOOT! The whole time I was MD and FD to not take aggro. But all in all a great night and the other hunter just said, “How did you…..thanks, later”
Fun times
So I pugged VoA the other day and this other hunter hit 9K on Koralon. I cried. 3rd best-geared hunter on the server, but still. But I’m the same way. When I enter a PuG, hell even a guild run, I expect to be top dps. When I’m not it spurs me on to try harder.
Nice damage meter there, as usual. I’d probably fall somewhere in between you and the other guy based on my average dps lines from ToC10 and 25.
I’ve been been on both sides of this story. Losing out to a hunter with lessor gear just causes me to dig deeper and research further. And if I beat out any hunter..with better or lessor gear…I’m always quick to throw them a WHU link if asked…”How did you…”
I think it happens to all of us. As soon as I see another hunter enter the raid, I jump on him to inspect him and compare our gears. I haven’t played as much as I would like to lately, so a lot of people have outgeared me by now, but I still dig deep and somehow end up topping the charts in most pugs, and, until the recent addition of a mage, in my guild runs. And it makes me feel good
Dpsers compete with each other. I agree completely, but just a remark.
For some players, this competation goes sofar they are specing out of talents, because they are optimising for personal dps, even though they hurt overal dps.
Some examples. Hunters refusing to MD because it costs them a GCD, SV hunters refusing to fix/not use their macro’s and overwriting MM’s marks, wanting to top dps and not switching to adds on Emalon (And I’ve had several wipes making me even considering skipping him because his emblems and loot are useless anyway … ), etc.
Raid first, then personal dps.
I must say that I have yet to have the experience you describe Armin……of course as an MM spec’d hunter I always wait till the last second to apply my mark (just in case
) I do agree though that the raid comes first.
Welcome to my world Frost…
Your world is raiding very successful heroic totc pugs and smoking better-geared hunters on the meters, Stout?
My comment under the Podcast Ep 14 seems much more suited for this topic. Competition is good; helps people strive to be better.
On a side note; reading Out DPS’s take on Proc stacking; they didn’t believe Furious Howl was worth stacking as it is a static AP buff, so leaving it on autocast is acceptable. CoTW on the other hand should/must be stacked as it scales based on your current AP (therefore stack with FH). Have you read their post? Its pretty damn good; they also tell you how they managed track autoshot and trinket cooldowns. Good stuff…now it time to take down my guild’s mauch better geared rogue (and not just on Northrend Beasts)
Alas – I didn’t read that post. I just checked it out and it is incorrect about stacking ap cooldowns. Let me explain:
Furious Howl is the one cooldown that you can stack with every trinket proc — and it stacks multiplicatively.
Basically our cooldowns fall into three categories: ap, agil, and haste. In general you want at least two categories to get multiplicative advantages. (The only exception is agility – which stacks multiplicatively with itself – but we only have our trinket proc for that).
Combining two AP cooldowns is additive dps gain. It’s just the same advantage as if you did them separately. Same with two haste cooldowns. But if you combine an AP cooldown (furious howl) with, say, an agility cooldown (trinket proc) now you’re getting the AP bonus *and* the extra crit on that AP. So using it with the trinket is far better than using each of them separately.
Basically the logic is either way you’re going to get the ap boost from Furious Howl, but by stacking it with the trinket proc, you’re also getting an extra 10% crit or so on that ap boost.
Here’s the full WHU article on stacking with procs: http://www.warcrafthuntersunion.com/2009/11/stacking-cooldowns-with-procs/
“It is INCORRECT about stacking up cooldowns”
Just wondering what outdps had to say.;D
Ap cooldown I mean