All other ToC fights i seem to fall fairly far behind though, But since jaraxus is the patchwerk of ToC your theories seem to hold up for stand and nuke fights.

That same night on northern beasts i only made it up to 6800 dps, where as the hunter still sat at 8900. We do in fact lust on the first stun because that when the whole raid will get more use out of it not just the moonkin. So my issue isn’t so much about our tank n spank dps as it is with any fight that requires any amount of moving. Outside of dots we have no instant casts(which apparently many think we will be getting in cataclysm). Movement fights hurt us too much in my opinion and since essentially every fight has movement outside of a few thats why many people think our dps is too low. Of course my gear comes into question here as well i am in mostly heroic 10 man stuff(nothing from 25 heroic has dropped yet QQ), so that maybe significantly impacting my ability to keep up on fights where i have to move a lot.

Mainly i wrote this because id like to hear your thoughts on our dps in a heavy movement fight(or even a medium movement fight like algalon, i consider him a medium movement only because you’re not going to get a cosmic smash every time). I’m not sure what you would consider a heavy movement fight to judge with though(not counting twins or yogg). Do you think a instant cast nuke would help us? would changing moonfire to do full damage and the dot still ticking like it does glyphed help? I know that would be op in pvp but i am just throwing some idea out there because this seem like a good place to discus it or perhaps you could make a new entry about possible cataclysm tweaks to help our movement disadvantage.

Thanks for taking the time to read my mindless rambling its late and i am going to sleep will check back tomorrow.

*everything I say below assumes equal geared raiders, in an optimal raid environment*

Yeah, we can top meters – but if we do, it’s because Mages/DKs/etc are making mistakes.

This is the problem with this entire argument, Qieth considers us competitive because he can get into the top three of his damage meters – as can thousands of other druids.

The other side of the argument, is that our class mechanics do not allow us to do more damage than the aforementioned ‘pures’ and for us to perform better than them, they are required to make mistakes – not play with optimal efficiency.

These class mechanics are simulated rather accurately by simcraft – but as we all (should) know, simcraft assumes a lengthy patchwerk. As a moonkin, we suffer more from movement due to the nature of our eclipse rotation – and as Qieth himself has stated previously, an arcane mage for the sake of argument can ‘spin up’ and perform in a much, much shorter timeframe than a moonkin – and this only goes to enhance the gap between us and ‘the top’ when it comes to real raiding environments.

Now I’m not saying Qieths entire guild sucks, that’s unfair – and I personally top the meters of pretty much every raid I attend and I’ve got no complaints with our progress, but I’m still under no illusion that when my partner (Destro Warlock and rival to me on the meters) plays with her head screwed on – I cannot touch her*

*but letting her win benefits me in the long run…

So I am still 500 DPS behind the second top DPS and a resounding 1.2k behind our top DPS on the fight. (Hunter #1, Lock #2)

Looking to a more average fight of mine on NrB I have me at 6.8k DPS for the fight. Number one on the fight was at 7.7k DPS, number 2 was at 7.3k DPS.

Again, 500 DPS behind number 2 and 900 DPS behind #1. (DK #1, Lock #2)

I don’t consider that wide of a margin competing for the TOP spot. Although I am always upper middle of the pack, I think we are very competitive in that regard, but the top DPS is just not really feasible when you have pures (and DKs) pulling those numbers on a REGULAR basis.

I say that we are competative to DPS in general, and that we can – and will, if played and geared correctly – take top spots.

That is not what I said at all. We ARE competitive with the core of DPS, we are not competing on a regular basis for the TOP spot in DPS. My point has been that we are competitive for decent DPS in that we can maintain upper middle of the pack status. But, no matter how well I perform there are pures (and DKs) well above me in that 1-3 spot and that goes for most of the regular parses you look at. For instance we cleaned up Ulduar last night and on XT we killed him normal mode, at the end of the fight I had pulled a nice 10.3k DPS and that earned me spot #6 on the log. Is 10k+ good DPS? Hell yea, but it still isn’t enough to TOP the charts.

All that said I am okay with not being on top of the meter for every fight, I understand that as a hybrid we won’t have that benefit against pures with equal gear and skill, as long as we remain COMPETITIVE (and I feel we are) I am okay with it.

Im gonna ignore 90% of the post and only focus on one area, cause it COMPLETELY INVALIDATES THE REST OF THE POST.

Just for argument, here is the first occurance of a moonkin on the “top” NrB25H list http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Crusaders‘_Coliseum/Northrend_Beasts/25H/dps/?page=6 . He is #234. Not in the top 5, top 10, top 50 or even top 200…

Now, I know you are thinking… “Well I said that those lists are biased” but heres the sad truth… if you are going to say

“The result is that the top DPS’ers of all time (OF ALL TIME, Kanye!) are prodigies with a bit of luck, and comparing any DPS to them is a mistake. And you cannot be sure that they are teaming with any kind of decent moonkin.”
aka, Those top numbers (233 players) are prodigies with a bit of luck, the reason their personal meters don’t have a moonkin (why you are checking their personal meters, I have no clue…) at the top is because they arent “teaming with any kind of decent moonkin”

But then you go on to say
“If we really have to look at other peoples logs, I would much rather find logs from the highest moonkins on a specific fight, and then compare them to their group at that very moment.”
aka “Here is a log of the best moonkin, click each instance, and notice how they are beating the hunters/mages/pures in their guild.” which is almost like a direct contradiction to saying that the pures only won because of “luck and skillless moonking” (I am being dramatic to prove a point). How do you know the pures in the guilds that the moonkin topped are up to par? Lets go with another statement you posted;

“But you will ensure that these are the very best moonkins out there, and that you can compare them to their peers…
…Looking through these logs, I notice that the top 200 moonkins are smack even with their peers.”

First off
Peer: one that is of equal standing with another

So…
Top Moonkin
http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Crusaders‘_Coliseum/Northrend_Beasts/25H/Balance_Druid/

Pures
Top Marksmans
http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Crusaders‘_Coliseum/Northrend_Beasts/25H/Marksmanship_Hunter/

Top Arcane Mages
http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Crusaders‘_Coliseum/Northrend_Beasts/25H/Arcane_Mage/

Top Combat Rogues
http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Crusaders‘_Coliseum/Northrend_Beasts/25H/Combat_Rogue/

Top Destro Locks
http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Crusaders‘_Coliseum/Northrend_Beasts/25H/Destruction_Warlock/

Other Hybrids

Top Feral Druid
http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Crusaders‘_Coliseum/Northrend_Beasts/25H/Feral-Cat_Druid/

Top Unholy DKs
http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Crusaders‘_Coliseum/Northrend_Beasts/25H/Unholy_Death_Knight/

In all these lists, their Top 40 beat all but our to 10, and on some of the pure lists, their top 40 beat all of us… How is that smack even?

Since we generally agree (to a point where i won’t argue it), i would like to comment on the Simcraft. It does put our 4pt9 fairly close to 2pt8, so i am not too fussed about an overpowered set bonus. I also have high hopes for our 4pt10 bonus, because – with the added crit we get, crits should be fairly frequent on wrath and constant on starfires. So while the initial numbers seem a bit bleak, I will still hold out for it.

The reason why i allow myself to trust Simcraft, is because it supports the observations i have made myself. As someone said earlier in this discussion, even a slight “loss” in skill can make up for the 5% we are behind theoretically. I agree, however, that some classes have it easier than others. I use the Icehowl example for this: An arcane mage can quickly pick up his rotation after a charge, where we have to beg for an eclipse proc. Put in a bloodlust on the first crash, and there is no way that we can compare the numbers, as opposed to if we use bloodlust at another place in the fight.

There are no pure, straight fights – the closest we get to that is Deconstructor. So when comparing TOTC fights, we simply have to take everything into account – some classes have splash damage, some classes can’t be targeted by snobolds, some classes can manage to do more optimal DPS on crashes. On Jaraxxus we would exclude mages completely, and compare against hunters and mages instead (in my world hunters are casters ). It is not from the single fights that we get an idea of how we compare, it is across several fights over several raid days, and we can only get an estimate.

Most of the time, when i hear another druid complain about their damage, i look at the logs, and i can usually point my fingers to an issue or two that would affect DPS sufficiantly, be it gear, the layout of the fight or something else.

We will see a decrease in 3.3 when we go into Icecrown, but i pray to the pasta in the sky that Blizzard will get around to fix NG before that. If not, then we have to hope that our sets will make up for it.

Can we, the members of the WoW community — devs and players alike — get past this silly idea? Let’s face it, hybrid classes are NOT truly hybrid classes any more. You cannot, as a feral druid, for example, shift out of kitty form and start healing, or even switch into bear form and start tanking. Different roles require completely different specs and gear sets. So at what point do we say “huh, moonkins tend to stay in moonkin form, and if they’re asked to heal, they have to do so between fights, when they can switch specs and gear”? There’s no excuse for the “hybrids versus pures” argument any more. Hybrids no longer exist.

Your guild’s other DPS suck…

Look, it sounds cold, but this argument has merit. When we discuss our place in the DPS world, we need to discuss it in terms of high-end damage. I’m not including fight mechanics that scale DPS like General Vezax or Hodir or Twins (or Jaraxxus for mages). We need to sit and look at fights that are more of an equal playing field. In top guilds, moonkins, even those who are considered among the most skilled moonkins in the world, are not capable of competing. I’m talking about moonkins who are as well-geared as anyone else in their guild, who execute their rotations perfectly, and some who are among the leading moonkin theorycrafters. If you’re a moonkin and you’re leading your guild in DPS (as I was for a while), you’re either MUCH better-geared than your guildmates or they’re simply not as skilled as you. Maybe that doesn’t mean they suck, but it does mean we shouldn’t be comparing the best-skilled moonkins with lesser-skilled players of other classes.

Boomkins are never on the Top Lists…

Top Lists, as Qieth mentioned, are silly. Certain classes have advantages in certain fights, that’s unavoidable. Ignore the top lists and focus on high-end DPS on neutral fights.

(By the way, you totally said Northrend Breasts, which is completely full of awesome and amazing.)

I do, however, like your approach of taking the top moonkins and comparing them to their guildies. I think, though, that you have to then compare those guildies to other members of their classes. Yes, it is entirely possible that those moonkins are competing with the best of the best of other classes, but it’s also entirely possible that they are not. Remember, big picture.

You’re just selecting what benefits your argument…

I giggled. That’s what everyone does. Wouldn’t make much sense to prove the points for the other side.

I’m a bit skeptical of those SimulationCraft results, but even assuming they’re accurate, you have to take the rotations and fights into account. It is MUCH more likely that an arcane mage will reach their theoretical maximum DPS than it is that a moonkin will do the same. The arcane rotation is very proactive; the moonkin rotation is very reactive. Moonkins are MUCH more dependent on RNG than arcane mages are. Moonkins are MUCH more affected by movement than arcane mages are. That’s not to say that we are completely incapable of being competitive; it’s just much harder for us to be competitive.

Bear in mind, too, that we’re currently helped by an overpowered set bonus (2T8) and an addon (WiseEclipse). When these two things go away in 3.3, we’ll be looking at significantly lower DPS.

But what about……

Not going there. Not all fights are created equal for all classes, people need to get over that.

I also wanted to point out one thing that Sunfyre brought up that really hurts us — scaling with stats. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having soft caps, or even breaching them, but when both of our secondary stats have soft caps, it really hurts our ability to scale with gear.

My Conclusion:

We’re certainly not as far behind as some people make us out to be, but neither are we where we should be. The concept of “pure DPS” classes doing more DPS than “hybrid” classes with a pure DPS spec is just silly and really shouldn’t apply any more. Rather than talking about pure versus hybrid, we should be focused on RNG versus non-RNG. RNG classes should be capable of higher top-end DPS and lower low-end DPS than non-RNG classes, with their averages being about the same. That’s not the way it is, but it’s really how it should be.

When comparing DPS, we need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Qieth’s method of comparing the top moonkins with their guildies is a good start, but then you need to compare the guildies with other members of their classes to get a complete analysis. Furthermore, context is extremely important when comparing DPS. Things like movement, RNG, and fight-specific buffs hold a lot of sway over one’s DPS, arguably more so for moonkins than most other classes.

And, finally, given that we’re currently unrealistically buffed by an overpowered set bonus and an addon that exploits a game mechanic that the designers did not intend to be there, we are naturally going to see a DPS decrease in 3.3, which will put us further behind other classes.