Your Opener Will Make or Break Your DPS
As our team prepares to head into Hellfire Citadel next week, we are continuing to push players to improve. As always with Vapor, we have decent players, but most either struggle with mechanics or output. Via weakauras and discussions based on log studies, we are continuing to push people not to fail at mechanics.
So then our other goal as raid leaders is to get people to push their output. We have seen a lot of improvement with some of our struggling DPS in terms of overall rotation being executed better. However, we still have some areas of weakness, across the majority of our members:
1) DPS on the move. I know that Blizzard took a lot of mobility away from us, but even so, there are things every spec can do on the move, and we have players that need to work on this. We have several that, while handling a mechanic, will simply do literally zero output for several seconds, while handling said mechanic or movement phase. This is an area where we could make huge improvements.
2) Burst (using/utilizing CDs properly)
3) Opening Burst (what is done on the pull)
This post is going to focus on #3, because that is probably the one that jumps out at us the most at the moment, and because it also leads into #2.
An Example
I’ll open with data. Cuz math nerd.
Here are two mages on heroic Gruul at exactly the same spec, same ilvl (690), and almost the same fight length. The graph below shows their output for all of the fight EXCEPT the opening burst (40 seconds of hero).
Note that their DPS is comparable at most points, except that purple mage seems to have moments of higher burst (#2 above, *cough*). I crunched the numbers for you, and can tell you that, in this phase of the fight, purple mage outdpsed blue mage by 3.13k DPS. Not insignificant, but not crazy.
Here’s the kicker. Purple mage actually did 46,725k DPS total on this fight, and blue mage did 32,616k.
An overall difference of 14k DPS is HUGE. At a difference of only 3k for the bulk of the fight, try and guess where that sizable gap came from.
Yup, the opener.
Purple mage did the opener right. Blue mage did not. In the opening 40 seconds of the fight, with hero up, purple mage outdpsed blue mage by 68.25k DPS, which accounted for that extra 14k at the end of the fight. Here’s a visual of the opener phase (during hero), and then the entirety of the fight.
Opener:
Whole fight:
Check out the stunning visual difference on that last picture. Purple mage’s opener was executed flawlessly. As a result of the clear practice/effort he’s put into learning to burst on the pull properly, he also, by corollary, can re-approximate that burst each time his CDs come up. You can see those moments at about 1:45 and 3:30. His ability to burst better than blue mage carried him to a 14k DPS difference, despite the vast majority of the fight being played at exactly the same output/skill level.
Purple mage’s burst during hero was 36.39% of his total damage done during the fight, even though hero’s actual duration was only for 15.9% of the fight. He peaked at about 178k burst DPS.
Blue mage’s burst during hero was 18.54% of his total damage done, with hero, again, being active for 15.9% of the fight. This means blue mage’s DPS during hero is hardly different than his DPS for the remainder of the fight, which is astonishing. He peaked at about 55k burst DPS.
More Examples
So, let’s check out some other specs. Each comparison below has two people of the same spec, same ilvl, and same fight duration. Take note of the pattern wherein the player that bursts higher on the pull, by virtue of knowing how to burst properly, also gets more burst out of each subsequent use of his CDs. You can see the peaks in the graph each time these players burst again. Like I said, #3 (opener burst) leads into #2 (all burst).
679 Ret Pallies on Gruul:
Purple pally finished the fight at 40,294k DPS. Blue pally finished at 28,243k.
679 Feral Kitties on Gruul:
Purple kitty finished the fight at 42,724k. Blue kitty finished at 30,071k.
690 Marksmanship Hunters on Gruul:
Purple hunter finished the fight at 48,128k. Blue hunter finished at 35,629k.
Note that the magical 40k number we keep asking for was achieved by every player that did their opening burst properly, and was not achieved by those who did not. Also note that it was even people not yet at 680 ilvl (let alone the 690+ most of our raiders have reached) who were able to achieve the 40k, again by virtue of knowing how to burst properly.
Also, note the fact that the blue/purple pairings play fairly equivalently for most of the fight. The giant gaps are the opener and follow-up burst moments, and those gaps alone are accounting for 10k to 15k DPS difference over the course of the fight. Do you see why we keep pushing people to burst harder on the pull?
Conclusions
It’s time for a harsh reality check:
If you are 690 ilvl or above, you should be capable of bursting 100k on the pull, even without hero. With hero, 120k is a reasonable goal.
“But, my spec isn’t a burst spec.” “But, RNG.” “But, but, but…”
Okay. So your spec isn’t super for burst. Fine, then you get to burst 90k.
The fact of the matter is that at 690 ilvl, if your idea of "burst” on the pull is 50k, then you have some serious work to do. Bursting 50k is not your spec. It’s not your ilvl. It’s not the strat. It’s not the RNG.
It’s the fact that anytime you went to icyveins/summonstone and researched your class’s rotation, you failed to scroll down to the part that says “Opener” and study it just as hard as everything else.
The “Opener” section is always there. If you found a site that teaches you your rotation without a subsection on Openers and cooldowns, then find a better site. The Opener section is vital. I hope I’ve proven that. Please study it, and then please practice it. Target dummies are in the game for a reason; Blizzard expects those that want to raid at higher difficulties to want and have to practice their rotations in order to be effective. Can’t burst at least 90k? Take action and fix it. Don’t complain about wiping if you haven’t done your part to solve the output problem.
We are going to be pushing people to work on their burst as we go into HFC next week. At this point, with the exception of the two or three newest recruits, everyone on our team is 690+ ilvl. When we pull that first boss next week, with hero up, we expect everyone to be at 90k, minimum.
Rise to the challenge and help us become more and more awesome!
Moose believes you can burst 100k.
