When I play an MMO I typically take it upon my self to ‘be all that I can be’ when it comes to my character. I know this opens up a can of worms about the min/max that goes on in games, but it’s just one of my many generic ‘goals’. I like to be good at playing my character. I don’t like to be a liability for the group I’m in, and it’s fun to know that I play well. If I don’t play well at least it’s not from lack of effort. I don’t hold this over other players heads because personally it doesn’t matter to me how they play their own characters. I just take pride in the things that I do, and I don’t really think there’s anything wrong with that until you start projecting negative attitudes towards other players. If you harp on them for not being ‘as good’ as you and tease and make fun of people then I will very quickly have a problem. That being said there are a few sites I use in order to learn more about my characters for World of Warcraft. You can play just fine without using any external resources, especially if you’re really good at figuring out the mathematics of the game yourself but I am not one of these people.
ElitistJerks (forums) – Now doesn’t this forum sort of go against everything I believe in as a gamer? Sort of. I only read the class sections and I stay away from every sort of comment that vaguely resembles someone trolling. Forums are notorious for flame wars and that’s really not something that I need to get involved with. If you can look past the ‘elite’ attitude of gamers you’ll find some fantastic information. You just need to develop a bit of a selective reading skill. It gets easier over the years. My issue with this forum is that as time goes on there are fewer and fewer updates by people who really know their class. I’m hoping when 4.3 goes live this may change a bit.
MaxDPS.com – a site I’ve only recently started using, this gives you a choice of stats to input and then find optimal gear for your character. It also includes things like spell rotations, and talents. There are some faults with the site, for example they only have one rogue spec listed (combat) and the gear is a bit behind. I couldn’t find some of my pieces listed. Still, it came in handy.
AskMrRobot.com – I was just told about this site yesterday, and I absolutely love it. You can input your character from the armory and then optimize to find gear that’s BiS (Best in Slot). It also tells you which gems, enchants, and reforges would suit your spec the most, and allows you to customize what tier of gear you’re aiming for. You can leave off certain BiS options like ‘Too lazy to get exalted rep’ – if you select this it won’t list gear for you that requires exalted reputation. Using this site I was able to narrow down what upgrades I should work towards, where they came from, and then what to do with them.
PLAYING a character well is still something that’s completely up to you. If you’re going to constantly stand where you shouldn’t stand, you’re going to die. If you run ahead of the tank, are impatient and pull on your own, constantly badmouth someone in your group, or any other number of ‘bad player’ things you’ll never be one of those ‘good players’. It doesn’t take high dps to be a good player. My warlock is a great example of this. She’s wearing pretty poor gear at the moment and only parses around 5-7k dps, but I know where to stand and what to do on specific fights. Staying alive and not being a dumbass dying to certain encounters is just as important as being able to parse high. When you’re able to do both, well now, that’s what I strive for. My priest is getting there, I have 0 raid gear and can hold a steady 11-12k dps on single targets, I’ve been able to parse as high as 42k on group encounters depending on how many adds there are. None of that matters if I don’t know enough to move out of the way when a flaming ball of lava is headed in my direction.
As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!
Mm. As a long time WoW player, optimizer, former tankspot author, etc…. I think understanding the mechanics of the game is useful, and that sites like Ask Mr. Robot can help minimize the time put into twiggling the various numbers to get good results. But, especially in modern WoW, I think the importance of this is overemphasized. Back when raids had “gear-checks” optimizing to squeeze every last drop of DPS was critical. But these days, dungeons and raid bosses have complex “see and react” platformer like mechanics with very forgiving “putting up numbers” requirements. Any boss in modern WoW can be dropped with gear a full raid tier back, but it’s unlikely that you can succeed if you don’t react pretty much instantly to each “threat-warning.” If you approach each fight as MMO versions of “Simon Says” or “Super Mario” you will do much better.
And yes, I know raiding has been trending that way for a long time, and that all the way back in classic there where “read and react” actions. But back then it was 20% read and react, 80% gear and talent optimization. Now it’s more like 85 – 90% read and react, with very little gear concerns. Spend your time accordingly, if you want to be the current “better player.” Don’t bother Mr. Robot until you’ve already read your boss strats (and maybe made a cheat sheet or two).
Mr. Robot was tipped off about your post and is glad you like his gear optimizer :)
Yes but Elitist Jerks is well policed and keeps morons from posting there. Still the best reference for making yourself a good player