I posted the other day about 29 parses still being parse. I was frustrated that i just wasn’t playing my havoc DH well despite a decent ilevel (437).
I did some homework on my build for single target with a focus on getting the main things correct.
FWIW: Here is what I did:
be in the boss’s hit box as much as possible.
I know that this is basic, but as a havoc player with momentum, it is easy to be out of the box. also i wasn’t very precise in my positioning around the swirlies. It caused me a death one time, but I felt that was worth the effort to try to stay on the boss for more uptime.
focus on the main combos for my single target build
I was very happy that my vengeful retreats and essence break combos were mostly well aligned and in the correct order lol
I tried to make sure I threw glaive before my eye beam.
looking at my casts in warcraft logs in previous runs showed me how frequently i hadn’t lined up these important combos.
the single target build still runs on momentum so I zipped around whenever other things were on CD.
My overall score on the full normal run was 60. I had one purple parse (a 76 on magmorax).
I am not and am not trying to “top the charts”. as a “serious casual”, I just want to feel like I have half an idea of what i am doing. Focusing on just a few key items helped me improve.
Yep. Uptime in particular is pretty important for melee DPS. As you get better you start to come up with strategies on a fight by fight basis. You start saving your mobility tools for specific mechanics and getting a better feel for how soon and how far you need to move for mechanics. A lot of newer players feel like they need to run to the opposite side of the arena the second a bomb-style mechanic targets them and they really don’t need to.
Whenever someone asks the question of which is more important, damage or mechanics, the correct answer is both. The goal isn’t to maximize one at the expense of the other. The goal is figuring out how to maximize your damage while still doing the fight as safely as you can. Which means a raider’s progression journey for a fight shouldn’t end just because they know how to not die to its mechanics.
I think this and positioning and is incredibly mega important for parsing well. I prefer to just call it “uptime”. If you cannot hit the boss with anything you have no uptime and no uptime is no dps and no dps is a parse ticking downwards.
I think it’s very important to emphasize any talents that increase your ability or melee range. They’re not talents that will improve your theoretical dps on raidbots or other sims but are massive talents for keeping uptime as high as possible.
I would say this is one of the big markers of becoming a great dps, instead of a good dps. When you figure out the exact timing of your abilities for the typical pug you join, how to cheese a mechanic here and there using your utility, or how to save a group member (limited to class, but lemme tell you, I have pulled off some SICK bubble taunts on rashok to save a tank with no brez up)… that is when you have started mastering your class.
There’s other indicators, but these tend to be the biggest “Aha” moments for me.
One thing I really hate about melee. Currently I play ret and can build for a 20 yard ‘melee’ range so I have a lot of leeway, but some melee you have to be tickling the boss’s balls to do any damage.
My man let me tell you, I’ve been playing a warrior alt farming 11’s. The hit box difference is absolutely bonkers annoying. I’m so used to being able to DPS while running away from the boss. Or being able to stand on the edge of most avoid circles and still being able to reach the boss, even with combo melee ability.
The warrior has to be so much closer. I have no idea how I was playing ret paladin prior to the rework.