[Corigan]

Here's a link to our WWS forums - which gives a ton of data for all to view, should you choose to help. Our mages in particular are extremely low and as I dont play a mage I'm not sure where to begin even to correct the issues.

(side note - feel free to offer suggestions for any/all of the dps you see if you choose)

Currently the best I can really do is just start pushing my guild heavily to raise dps by shooting for the XT hard mode every week and then compare. Any additional help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

This is a gloves-off request - check out the WWS and check out the people's armories - I wont personally take any offense to any constructive posts.

The Firm of Anvilmar Forums - View forum - WowWebStats Posts

Thanks.

[Corigan]

OH also, if you see any glaring mistakes we as a guild or individuals are making, feel free to post on our forums as well.

[Tarigar]

I know all the mages in my guild respec'd away from Arcane. This is one of our Mage's current armory.

WWS for similar encounters can be seen here Wow Web Stats. I do know Elitist jerks tends to stay on the top spec's for all clases.

[minrog]

The buffs/debuffs that your casters need, with an X for ones they are getting:

X Bloodlust/Heroism
X Ferocious Inspiration (BM Hunter)/Sanctified Retribution (Ret Paladin)
X Improved Moonkin Form (Balance Druid) / Swift Retribution (Ret Paladin)
X Elemental Oath (Ele Shaman) / Moonkin Aura (Balance Druid)
Wrath of Air Totem (Shaman, prefer elemental)
X Totem of Wrath (Elemental Shaman)
X Totem of Wrath (Elemental Shaman) / Heart of the Crusader (Ret Paladin) / Rogue Skill (can't remember)
Improved Scorch (Arcane or Fire Mage) / Improved Shadow Bolt (Affliction Warlock / Winter's Chill (Frost Mage)
Curse of Elements (Warlock) / Earth and Moon / Ebon Plaguebringer
Improved Faerie Fire (Balance Druid) / Misery (Shadow Priest)

----

Shaman = Wrath of Air

I don't know why they wouldn't be dropping this. I don't see the buff being listed on the fights but it may be a display issue in WWS. On your next boss fight I would check and see whether you are getting this one, it's a pretty important buff.

----

You are missing the 5% spell critical strike debuff in all the fights I looked at.

Mage = Improved Scorch
Mage = Winter's Chill
Warlock = Improved Shadow Bolt

Fire scales better with haste than Arcane does, but even an Arcane Mage should be able to spec for Improved Scorch (never make them go Frost). Your Warlocks aren't going to want to go Affliction if they love the Destruction playstyle but it's much faster/easier for an Affliction lock to apply Imp Shadow Bolt than for a Mage to do Imp Scorch.

----

I have been unable to find a fight where the magic damage debuff has been applied. The Moonkins are the easiest unless you have an Unholy Death Knight of in the raid. I believe EJ instructs Moonkin DPS'ers to ditch this talent and Imp Faerie Fire in favor of higher DPS personal abilities but they also assume someone has the job covered. In your raids it looks like no one is manning the post.

Warlock = Curse of Elements
Death Knight = Ebon Plaguebringer
Druid = Earth and Moon

----

You aren't getting the bonus spell hit buff. This is especially sad considering your Moonkin in some of the fights are missing spells at a rate of more than 3%. If you don't have a Shadow Priest your Feral Druid is going to have to skip using Faerie Fire as a threat move so your casters can be fully buffed out.

Shadow Priest = Misery
Balance Druid = Improved Faerie Fire

---- Final Thoughts ----

There may be sub-optimal rotations and gear involved. There is little point in working through those if they are missing the most important buffs to their abilities. In most of these cases they have picked the highest personal DPS spec instead of the highest raid DPS spec and it means all of them are going to be gimped. The Warlocks are doing pretty well but what you are looking at is DPS barely above what you'd get from fighting a Heroic Target Dummy while self buffed. Get a debuff/buff filter (I am using Dfilter to see the debuffs) and look and see how many of the above buffs are missing.

Your melee has the advantage because they don't require much or any loss in personal DPS for the raid DPS bonus. If you are going to be running buffless like that you might think about replacing the casters with Hunters for ranged (or at least threatening that hehe).

Added Note: I kept looking through the WWS. Because you are so physical DPS heavy I was unable to find any fights where they were getting more than half of the caster raid buffs. Most of them in the Ulduar 25 runs they are getting less than 1/4 th of the raid buffs that theorycrafters assume when doing the checkboxes, in a couple places they are only getting their self-buffs. The Naxx 25 runs are better distributed between melee/casters which is why the casters are doing better in those runs.

[Corigan]

Excellent feedback and thank you. Hope you dont mind, I'm going to be reposting a direct quote of your response to my guild forums.

Hopefully we can get something squared away here.

[Sparrta]

Hello Corigan, a fellow anvilmarian here

[Corigan]

One thing Mini. I can fully accept that alot of the dps issues on our casters is related to lack of buffs - but as a whole, even in caster heavy runs the mages in particular are very, very low. (Disregard Holymage - he came in from another guild as a pug and you'll notice in the same group he's blowing the doors off our guild mages).

If it werent so consistantly sub par I'd not be looking at what they're doing as to why it's so long. I'd be looking at individual fights more as well as buffs.
This run: Wow Web Stats is a run where the top 2 mages, Holymage and Nochances were both out of gulld mages (fatbear also out of guild) and are 'way' ahead of the other casters. The only one that really gets a pass here is Sevanduin (recent 80, low gear level yet). There's alot of situations like this where we'd have out of guild casters straignt up wrecking bosses and our casters not holding up .

That's what's got me posting on here for help. Same buffs same raid makeup and our casters are falling distinctly short.

[Salloman]

heh... I agree your mages should be doing A LOT better.

One of your mages Id like to point out is below Arcane hit cap. Which shows on the web stats as misses. Arcane hit cap is 289. very attainable. So hit first, then gearing. Your arcane mages are on the low side of Haste for uldar.

Hence their dps will not be competitive. Usually this is where talk of changing to Fire spec is mentioned. But Fire is not nessacary better for Uld. Boss fights is Uld are highly mobile and are automatically not a casters best friend. Fire has Dots which help with their overall end damage. Arcane mages need A TON of haste so our DPS off sets our overall end damage.

So can your mages be raiding uld in Arcane? Yes, but they are improperly geared for it. The hit capped mage I was looking at has a mediocre amount of haste.. 343 i think. Where Uld mages want well in excess of 500-600. Some fights, depending on assignment(i get a lot) and fight mechanics will put mages a little behind. I know on a standing fight, my dps self-buffed is easily between 3500-4K(modestly). Raid buffed in 25, I can push 5K easily. Moving fights in uld, will move me back to about 3K-4K depending on the fight.

Fyi... my experience in Uld is your mages on average should be somewhere 6-10 out 25. We are usually right along side hunters and well below rogues. There has been a lot of Mage chatter regarding our overall fail in dps, but really good mages almost always shows up in the top five, while average mages are well below. Hence, the distinction between really good players and average. They just have some to learn and if you encourage them - elitist Jerks forums- they will get better as long as they are willing to learn and study. Just like tanking :P

Hope that helps a bit!

[Saywhen]

Have you ever wondered why when you do a 5-man your DPS is never as high as a 10 or 25 man? It's the buffs. Your raid isn't exactly an optimal setup for a caster to come in and light up the meters. You have anywhere from 15-17 DPS on a given fight and only 3 are casters. No Moonkin, no Warlocks, and no Shadow Priests. The buffs those three classes can bring are absolutely necessary to push your raid's DPS to the limits. The way it sits is your entire raid is bringing physical damage buffs, attack power buffs, armor penetration buffs, buffs for bleeds, etc. This isn't the type of environment a caster is going to strive in. They basically have to fend for themselves. The guy previously stated exactly the buffs you should be giving your raid.

As far as the actual people are concerned, this will feel like I'm picking on your Elemental Shaman, Nastu. It's only because I play one and I believe if you figure out things each individual can do differently the raid as a whole will most definitely benefit.

First thing is he's over the hit cap by about 70 and anything over the cap is useless. It's not a big deal if the gear he has is the best he can get and it just happens to have hit on it... but he has his gloves enchanted for hit. He needs to drop that for spell power as soon as possible

Next thing I see is he has a 30 Stam gem in his legs. I understand that he has low Hp, wants a socket bonus, and needs a blue gem to activate his meta, but I think it's the entirely wrong way to go about it. Try dropping that gem for a Glowing Twilight Opal and enchanting Tuskarr's Vitality on his boots instead of Icewalker. In this scenario the gains outweigh the losses in my opinion. He loses only 3 stamina, gains 16 spell power, still keeps his meta activated, loses 12 hit which he doesn't need anyways, loses a negligible amount of Crit, and gains quicker run speed which is amazing for fights where you need to get in and out of things. I think he'll survive much better this way.

Also, he needs a ton more Haste. Haste is an amazing stat for Elemental Shaman, on par with spell power. If it's possible he needs to drop all the pieces that have sub-par stats. Those include his head, both rings, shoulders, cloak, chest, off-hand, belt, and his boots. Anything that has just Spell Power, Crit, Spirit or MP5 is a poorly itemized piece for us. The optimal piece is a Spell Power, Crit, and Haste item, such as his gloves. But again there are times when an item is itemized more poorly than another but you should still use it. He just needs to get to that point where he can see it himself and make those decisions when an item drops.

He needs to stop dropping Mana Spring and Windfury Totems. You have four Pallies so he has to have Wisdom. Wisdom and Mana Spring don't stack so every time he puts it down, it's doing absolutely nothing except looking pretty. Drop Healing stream instead unless it's a fight that requires Cleansing. The Windfury totem stumps me the most. Wrath of Air totem is a MUST. Not only for the raid since the healers can now heal 5% faster, but as a Shaman haste is point-for-point as good as spell power (I know I said it earlier but just to reiterate). If he is the only Shaman he should never put down Windfury. Even when I'm with more Shaman I put it down anyways to always make sure I have the buff.

Edit: Just looked at that other WWS you posted from the "caster" heavy group. You have another Elemental Shaman in there doing exactly 1000 DPS more than your Shaman, yet they both have almost identical amounts of spell power. Their guy has 527 Haste and yours has 200.... just food for thought.