That group thang

Subtitle: switching from solo to group work successfully

Ever said something that sounded cute, funny, whatever...at the time...to you, anyway...and realized later it was really a very stupid thing to say? Of course you have; I think we all have. Most of us don't do it quite as publicly as, say, the Dutch speed skating coach last night, but the fact is...well, let me switch to speaking only of me. I know that I typically don't try to sound cute, funny, or whatever when it's just me, so odds are, if I'm gonna say something really stupid, it'll be to or in front of other people.

Anyway, a few posts back I made a comment about druid DPS being...what did I say, now? Simple? Easy? Sounded cute at the time, it really did. But last night I got tired of my measly 800 DPS in groups and tried my own advice out...off I went to the web sites to see THE WAY to raise my DPS as a kitty cat. Unfortunately, there isn't THE WAY. There are about as many opinions on how to produce good DPS as a kitty as there are these days about health care in the U.S., and as in that other topic, many of the opinions are based on concepts which can only be loosely considered facts.

So, being a good experimentalist, I picked one and went off with a guild random run with my druid in DPS mode rather than healing mode. Incidentally, the one I picked had basically three different sequences, intended to be run one after another for the sake of cooldowns, and all starting with four Shreds followed by a finishing move. It was like memorizing dance steps...Button 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 2, 2, 2, 2, 5, 6, repeat. Simplicity is nice sometimes.

A brief aside for those unfamiliar with druid cat DPS'ing...it's based on Energy, like a rogue (I guess; I've never played a rogue past level 14). Energy starts at 100 and each special ability costs some amount...some are small costs, in the 5 or 6 range, and others..specifically Shred...costs 70. The Energy comes back over time...refill takes several seconds...and if you're at 0, that means all you can do is try to nick 'em with your claws. The other part of the mechanic is combo points, which build up on a specific target at the rate of 1 or 2 for each special ability the druid uses and are spent by finishing moves that become more powerful or longer lasting when more combo points exist.

Incidentally, the druid DPS has another aspect...location. Some abilities only work behind the target, Shred being one of those. Tuck this away; it'll become important in a bit. But it's not a factor in mage DPS, or lock DPS, or hunter DPS.

Whew...that's the nutshell. Anyway, I learned the hard way that four shreds in a row...well, it doesn't work. For one thing, the math isn't right. Shred once, and you're down to 30 Energy. Shred again...oh, wait, you can't. So you swipe and swipe a couple of times waiting to get back up to 70 energy, and once you're there, Shred! But you are now down to about 4 or 5 Energy and must wait again. By the time I was getting to 4 combo points, what I was trying to kill had already been deaded by someone else.

Math sucks, sometimes. It's important to know, but man, sometimes the mathematical realities of what we're trying to do are hard to swallow. And speaking of mathematical realities, after respeccing and changing my action bar buttons all around for this new shiny sparkly spec, I improved my DPS by about 10. Woo hoo! At least it didn't decrease my DPS, right?

Important Lesson #1 is actually a repeat from a previous post, but more intense here. Blizz has changed druid cat mechanics several times over the past couple of years...some, apparently, significant changes. When looking online, you have to be careful to use current information. In the case of cat DPS, it's...hard. G'head, I dare you. Open another tab and Google for information. You'll see a ton of very conflicting stuff out there.

Important Lesson #2 is also fairly obvious in hindsight, but again, made more intense by this situation. What got you TO level 80, mostly solo for most of us, probably won't help you improve much when you're at 80 doing heroics and raids. In the case of druids, remember the positional thing? When you're soloing, any attack that only works from behind the mob only works once. After the first swing, the silly mobs usually turn around, dang them. There's a nice little pounce attack that stuns the mob so you actually get two swipes from behind, but it's still just two. So while climing to 80, I had pretty much ignored any attack that required me to be behind the thing I was trying to kill. Now, though, in heroics, those attacks deserve attention because there's usually a nice person wrapped in heavy metal making what I'm trying to kill face him, and the Death From Behind approach works nicely.

Bottom line...once you hit level 80, you're more of a n00b than you were at 79. Ain't that great?

In the end, I looked online at a guild page about druiding and decided to just be a copycat. There's a druid named Sounder in an allied guild who usually does OhMyGod DPS, and I read what he said as though it were an instruction manual. Next run...do as Sounder does...doubled my DPS. Thanks, Sounder!

And yes, I apologize to druids in general for making the inference that druid DPS mechanics are simple. They're not...you have to watch several buffs/debuffs in addition to combo points and Energy, all at the same time while trying to follow mobs around as they move. It's actually quite complex.

And fun.

I'm definitely going to do it more.