http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rNQYS221OWlH1bGTNIdY-aw

I threw together this spreadsheet to highlight a few points. The first thing to notice is the colors, obviously. Bright pink is 1-3, yellow is 4-6, and green is 7-10. The higher the number, the worse the class is (in terms of DPS). Sometimes this is justified, obviously.

Notice, for instance, that rogues are practically all pink. This is because they are in the top 1-3 of the first 10 encounters. As you move further down the class list, the pink starts to disappear, replaced by yellow, and finally by green. This shows class representation. All of the numbers are taken from (as of 5/19/09):

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/7

The classes on my spreadsheet are sorted by their average DPS across all fights. You'll notice that Death Knights are third place. This makes sense -- Blizzard has already stated they think DK DPS is too high. You'll notice that, aside from Death Knights, the top 5 are the pure DPS classes (in repsective order): Rogue, Mage, Warlock, Hunter.

You'll also notice that, despite Mages being second place in average DPS, they have far more "higher rank" DPS slots than third place death knights (a lot of green on mages vs a lot of pink on death knights).

This is because of the second point: inflated DPS. The standard deviation is listed underneath each class rank. Notice that the class with the highest standard dev. is mage at 3017. This means that, on average, mage DPS per boss differs by this amount from the mean. Why is this?

Because Mage DPS is exceedingly low on encounters, and then exceedingly high on other encounters. In other words, they have extremely poor results on most encounters, and then ridiculously awesome results on other encounters (General Vezax and Hodir, due to Shadow Crash buff on Vezax and Storm Power/Singe/Moonbeam Haste on Hodir).

You can think of standard deviation as that class's DPS consistency across fights. The closer it is to 0, the more consistent the DPS is. For instance, if you had 5000 DPS on every fight, your standard deviation would be zero, because your DPS never differs from the mean (which, in that case, is 0).

Another way to look at this is to look at the average ranking across fights. This number is also highlighted by color. It's listed by class to the left of the class average DPS per fight.

Rogues for instance have an average ranking of being 2.42nd in DPS across all fights. Mages, on the other hand, have an average of being in 5.17th place.

Now, as I mentioned, some fights have arbitrary DPS. By arbitrary I mean that the DPS output is subject to specific designs of the encounter that have a biased relation to specific classes. How can we best see this? Look at the standard deviation of all the DPS of each class per boss. Notice the numbers are much higher on Hodir and General Vezax? This is because the classes that benefit from the buffs are doing so much more DPS than the classes that don't benefit from these buffs.

In other words, those classes are having their average DPS inflated by the higher-than-normal DPS from those few encounters.

This, of course, makes me wonder. Is Blizzard saying, "We know some pures aren't doing well at all on the vast majority of encounters, but that's okay, because on a few encounters, they're doing exceedingly well?"

Hunters are far, far too low on practically every fight. While their average is only ~900 off from Rogues, their representation is far worse. If you actually compare the top DPS to hunter DPS across each fight, you'd see hunters are behind anywhere from 100 to 1500+.

I don't think anyone really needs to worry about hybrid DPS being too high. This spreadsheet pretty clearly shows just what Blizzard has been saying: feral DPS and warrior DPS is pretty high in the first few encounters, due to their design, but it drops off after there, and rightfully so.

As for buffs and nerfs... it's easy to say, "Well, the averages look pretty consistent! All the pures are within a few hundred of each other." Well, not really. Think of it this way:

Mages and Warlocks are far, far behind in the early Ulduar encounters, and slightly ahead in the later encounters. Hunters are behind in all encounters. And rogues are ahead in all of the early encounters and only slightly behind in the later encounters (as the last two encounters show, their drop is not enough to lower them).

And then there's death knights.

So make of that what you will.

Well, the hunter buff that was implemented today should help (bow dps increase), but yes, I'd like to see hunters continue to be buffed. I also think that ele shaman need to be looked at (particularly the ToW vs magma totem issue).

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Q u o t e:
tldr, most likely mage qq even though they are great dps in ulduar, nothing to see here.

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Well, you fail at guessing, but I guess that's the point of guessing... still, you could have at least made it an educated guess. My post has very little to do with the mage class, actually.

2 Things

1. Using the top 20 reports suggests potential damage of top players more then it does average dps (classes with large dps shifts due to RNG will always have higher reports even if they have the same average dps).

2. There are more 'melee friendly' fights in Ulduar then 'caster friendly'. So it may be more beneficial to compare caster and melee numbers separately and then try to see how they do on neutral fights.

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Q u o t e:
tldr, most likely mage qq even though they are great dps in ulduar, nothing to see here.

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Dude,

Please think about before posting. OP has very good points. He at least did some analysis.

I think Hunter dps is not low. Ulduar contains anti0hunter fights. They can outdps other range dpsers in non-gimmick (or equal gimmick) fights like IC and Ignis.

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Q u o t e:
I think Hunter dps is not low. Ulduar contains anti0hunter fights. They can outdps other range dpsers in non-gimmick (or equal gimmick) fights like IC and Ignis.

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What does it matter if its cause of gimmicks? Clearing Ulduar and what damage you do in Uld is all raiders care about. The dmg is too low for the fights. Hunters damage in PvP is also low.

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Q u o t e:
I think Hunter dps is not low. Ulduar contains anti0hunter fights. They can outdps other range dpsers in non-gimmick (or equal gimmick) fights like IC and Ignis.

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Sooo, you're saying that because Hunters do well on one fight and average on a second fight, it justifies them failing utterly as a pure dps class on the other 10 fights in Ulduar?

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Q u o t e:


qq more bad mage alt. Mage dps is fine, learn to play.

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Alt of a Rogue or DK
we all know that sooner or later NERF is waiting for you. Enjoy being OP as much as you can.

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Q u o t e:


Sooo, you're saying that because Hunters do well on one fight and average on a second fight, it justifies them failing utterly as a pure dps class on the other 10 fights in Ulduar?

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I am saying Hunter dps is fine.
Blizzard should give some gimmeck bonuses to hunters for gimmeck fights rather than increasing their base dps.

Otherwise, they will own other range dps in pvp as they did earlier arena seasons

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Q u o t e:
What does it matter if its cause of gimmicks? Clearing Ulduar and what damage you do in Uld is all raiders care about. The dmg is too low for the fights. Hunters damage in PvP is also low.

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One of the arguments many people come up with is to say, "Why would you want to nerf class X? You want to kill the bosses slower?" Their implication is that if you nerf class X's DPS, then the boss will die slower, and because of that, your overall raid is suffering.

While it's true that the boss will, theoretically, die slower, it's also true that the percentage of damage being dealt to the boss has to be redistributed. If class X is doing 18% of the damage to the boss and class Y is doing 14%, in best case scenarios, and class X is nerfed, then that gives more time for class Y to deal damage. It then maybe changes to 16% and 15%, respectively (these don't add up, obviously, cuz it's an example, but also because there's other classes taking a share of the damage as well).

Think of it in terms of the bosses hitpoints. Each class is taking a set amount of the bosses hitpoints. What players are concerned about is that there is too much reliance on a few classes for doing the majority of the damage.

The same thing happens in RTS games. If one unit is significantly better than another, it's always going to be used. Now, are people stacking classes? No, not really. But then, each class is being played by a real person (or a clever trick...)

It's not always "buff this class," so much as it is, "tone down this other class."

Look what they just did to hunters and have said they plan on doing. Does this data not support everything Blizzard has said? They've said feral DPS is high on first few encounters. They've said they want to "wait and see" how DPS turns out in latter half of Ulduar. They've said hunter DPS is lower than they want it. They'd said DK DPS is higher than they want it. All of their statements are mirrored in the data shown here.

And using the averages of the best reports is actually fairly realistic. It helps keep things in a "theoretical max" perspective. Why would you want to look at the average user or the sub-par DPS and say, "Oh, this is what we should base changes off of?" People who are average or sub-par DPS are there because they don't necessarily care about improving their character. Or they are in sub-optimal raid settings. Isn't it better to take the far end of the spectrum, so that DPS across classes is inclusive (takes proper buffs into account)?

You cannot compare DPS straight up against each other on every fight in Ulduar, you will not get an accurate comparison because of the various mechanics on different fights that give advantages to different DPS types (ranged vs. melee vs. AoE). Depending on what type of DPS you want to compare you have to look at a different fight or phase of a fight.

Auriaya and Freya are fights that are easily skewed by AoE damage. Classes that have AoE abilities that are easy to incorporate into their rotations will have a huge advantage (mages, warlocks, rogues, spriests, DKs).

Kologarn is a fight that gives an advantage to classes that have AoE abilities as part of their normal DPS rotation because you can hit all 3 targets from one spot (Ret Paladins, feral druids, shamans, warriors, meta locks, DKs).

Ignis, XT, Mimiron P2 are fights that heavily favor melee because ranged have forced interruptions to their rotation or have another mechanic to deal with.

Mimiron P1, Hodir, and Vezax can give an advantage to ranged DPS because they have mechanics that increase damage and ranged can almost literally plant their feet and DPS.

Iron Council and Thorim are what I would consider the closest things to balance fights but even they aren't that balanced because movement hurts ranged DPS on Thorim more than melee, and on Iron Council if ranged get runes of power that melee can't use they will have the advantage.

Yogg gives an advantage to classes that can DPS without facing their target 100% of the time (DKs, Affl locks, rogues, ret paladins, warriors).

The point I am trying to make is that you cannot directly compare each and every class/spec on every single fight in Ulduar and make some all encompassing statement like Class X needs buffs because they are not good DPS. The variety of mechanics in Ulduar encounters will not let you do that.

On a side note, your "data" made me lol with how low mages, hunters, and shadow priests are ranked on the fights.

Edit: It wasn't the OP who called Ignis a neutral fight my bad.

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Q u o t e:
2 Things

1. Using the top 20 reports suggests potential damage of top players more then it does average dps (classes with large dps shifts due to RNG will always have higher reports even if they have the same average dps).

2. There are more 'melee friendly' fights in Ulduar then 'caster friendly'. So it may be more beneficial to compare caster and melee numbers separately and then try to see how they do on neutral fights.

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1) it is the top 50 DPS of each class, but you are right, in some of the fights it will be the players standing in the correct buffs, getting good RNG, being well geared etc that is making them high. But, that is the sign of a good player as well as a lucky one, knowing what glowy things are good and being in them as much as possible.

I think the mage results are very interesting. There is such a massive disparity between the fights they do well on and the fights they do badly on. It could be argued that they need a buff, and the boss buffs need to be toned down so they end up 1-4 in most fights, not 1-4 in 6 and 7-10 in 6. But at least they excel in the latter parts of ulduar, so you will want to take the mage from the start so they are geared for the end.

2) I am not sure how you are making this conclusion. Mages do well in 6 and poorly in 6, locks do well in 8 and poorly in 4. Rogues and DKs are clearly OP, but if you look at the other melee they are not doing any where near as well as those two classes. If this is really the world of meleecraft then ret and warrs are more broken than we thought!

From this spread sheet I think we can say the following:

Rogues and DKs are OP
Mages are fine overall, but they seem to need the encounters changing more than changes to mages
Locks are fine
Hunters are in trouble and need help
Shammies and druids are fine overall, but it is hard to distinguish between their different DPS specs
Priests, ret, arms and fury all need help.

And I would say that hunters should be the priority, then balancing rogues and DKs, then fixing priests, ret, arms and fury.

Well people are complaining about 'meleecraft' theyre talking about PvP. I think most raiders know Ret and Fury are a bit too low in PvE.

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Q u o t e:


1) it is the top 50 DPS of each class, but you are right, in some of the fights it will be the players standing in the correct buffs, getting good RNG, being well geared etc that is making them high. But, that is the sign of a good player as well as a lucky one, knowing what glowy things are good and being in them as much as possible.

I think the mage results are very interesting. There is such a massive disparity between the fights they do well on and the fights they do badly on. It could be argued that they need a buff, and the boss buffs need to be toned down so they end up 1-4 in most fights, not 1-4 in 6 and 7-10 in 6. But at least they excel in the latter parts of ulduar, so you will want to take the mage from the start so they are geared for the end.

2) I am not sure how you are making this conclusion. Mages do well in 6 and poorly in 6, locks do well in 8 and poorly in 4. Rogues and DKs are clearly OP, but if you look at the other melee they are not doing any where near as well as those two classes. If this is really the world of meleecraft then ret and warrs are more broken than we thought!

From this spread sheet I think we can say the following:

Rogues and DKs are OP
Mages are fine overall, but they seem to need the encounters changing more than changes to mages
Locks are fine
Hunters are in trouble and need help
Shammies and druids are fine overall, but it is hard to distinguish between their different DPS specs
Priests, ret, arms and fury all need help.

And I would say that hunters should be the priority, then balancing rogues and DKs, then fixing priests, ret, arms and fury.

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Ret Paladin says==> Ret needs buff
Hunter says==> Hunter needs buff
Mage says ==> Mage needs buff

Who actually needs buff? It is not Rogues or DKs for sure.

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Q u o t e:
The OP doesn't have a very accurate idea of what he is talking about. FFS he called Ignis a neutral fight.

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That's quite a feat of mine, due to having never even mentioned Ignis. Obviously because I only mentioned the specific buffs on Hodir and General Vezax, that means every other fight I've considered neutral.

Edit: You did correct yourself. Thanks for rereading. And I do mean that.

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Q u o t e:
Auriaya and Freya are fights that are easily skewed by AoE damage. Classes that have AoE abilities that are easy to incorporate into their rotations will have a huge advantage (mages, warlocks, rogues, spriests, DKs).

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You're right. What does that have to do with your ability to compare the DPS of each of those classes against each other? I listed the DPS per class, per boss for a reason. If you want to compare the classes that can AoE on AoE fights, then do so. In the end, it all translates into the same damage though. If rogues weren't given Fan of Knives, would you say it's still wrong to average it out? What if by highlighting the damage output we're able to say, "The classes with AoE abilities did significantly more damage than the classes without AoE." And in doing that, we can say, "Class X needs an AoE ability, and class Y needs less AoE damage."

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Q u o t e:
Kologarn is a fight that gives an advantage to classes that have AoE abilities as part of their normal DPS rotation because you can hit all 3 targets from one spot (Ret Paladins, feral druids, shamans, warriors, meta locks, DKs).

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Kologarn is a melee DPS fight. Hitting all three targets means absolutely nothing if you aren't destroying the left arm (that's the arm on your right when facing him). He doesn't take damage until you destroy the arm, at which point he takes the damage you did to the arm. Naturally, all of this damage still registers in the combat log. But why does this matter? It doesn't. The incidental AoE damage hitting multiple targets isn't significant enough.

You want to talk about AoE damage on Kologarn inflating damage? How about talking about the hell that ranged have to go through running from eyebeams, DPSing people out of the arm (although that's not terribly difficult), and getting gripped at all the wrong moments? The lost DPS from that is far, far more offsetting than the "extra" damage people are getting on hitting multiple targets.

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Q u o t e:
Ignis, XT, Mimiron P2 are fights that heavily favor melee because ranged have forced interruptions to their rotation or have another mechanic to deal with.

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Obviously Phase 2 of Mimiron encapsulates the entire four phases. But wait! You forgot to mention that Mimiron phase 4 favors AoE classes who can hit the head, body, and legs (well, "tank" thing anyway). And it's well known that XT is a melee dream. Again, this is all shown in the comparison though across the chart. Why do you think I've ranked classes to show their ranking on each fight? Why do you think druids are so high in the first few encounters and then drop off suddenly?

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Q u o t e:
Mimiron P1, Hodir, and Vezax can give an advantage to ranged DPS because they have mechanics that increase damage and ranged can almost literally plant their feet and DPS.

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You're not stating anything new.

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Q u o t e:
The point I am trying to make is that you cannot directly compare each and every class/spec on every single fight in Ulduar and make some all encompassing statement like Class X needs buffs because they are not good DPS. The variety of mechanics in Ulduar encounters will not let you do that.

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You're absolutely right. I'm pretty sure everyone else knows this too. Blizzard knows this. That's why I didn't say, "Here's the average DPS" and not list the specific bosses. It's why I bothered mentioning things like the buffs casters get in Hodir. You really aren't saying anything new, though I know you're trying very hard to sound very important (and perhaps sincere).