I 100% respect Max @ Limit. He’s a brilliant raid lead. But in the last few weeks he talked about why WCL 100% matters.
Warcraftlogs does not matter as much as you think it does for the broader progression in WoW. It might matter to Liquid and forming their RWF teams and of course it does. But don’t get soo hung up on this for the sake of your guild, or playing with friends. I really hope people look at logs with a grain of salt and the meme they are at times.
I’m going to be a contrarian, not simply because of that, but because I play this game differently than Max does. I mainly pug it and have chosen to since BFA after my CE guild started losing focus.
I’ve successful pugged to 4130 IO, and I’ve lead top 10 global AOTC groups by inviting pugs. These groups have mostly comprised of pugs and some friends. And for a fun activity I’ve even pugged many parts of mythic raid almost every tier (please blizzard remove the mythic raid lock… but thats another topic).
Once again in a guild this tier, and I know the difference in pugging and downing bosses in heroic, or mythic guilds, which many players participate in. I also understand how to read logs and what to look for.
I have a friend who lead’s pug raids and has helped blue/green parse players, even some gray, achieve AOTC in week 3 or 4 and progress into Mythic content. He started doing it on stream, its quite interesting to watch. Because those players listen, they are willing to handle a mechanic, like rolling chips on bandit, which will lower their parse potentially. His progress truly illustrates that being a team player is more important then focusing on just your output, even though output is good too.
Here’s why WCL does not matter like you think it might:
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As a raid lead many times I see all legendary parses on a player, then I short by damage taken in a raid and that player will have used defensives less than others, and taken more damage than any other player, they also might not listen and might not follow a mechanic. So, they got their parse but at the sake of potentially straining the team. Ideally, I’d honestly fill a group with all blue/purple parse players if they had all flawless mechanics. Yes, there are some players who dodge every mechanic and truly earn their pink parse. But for example this last week I got multiple legendaries/99s in a pug I joined but I was assigned no mechanics, and I didn’t have to pop on sprocket. Could I have got a rank 30 parse on a fight if I had to run out of range of the boss and pop? Probably not. The first time I got heroic gallywix in a heroic pug I had to solo all the coils and I didn’t parse legendary. But did that make me less of a gamer if I was soloing the mechanic for the whole raid?
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I will 100% say its easier to parse on a fight if you clear that boss before others do. The first DPS to reclear heroic after a spec buff on reset get an advantage or the player who get 's BiS trinkets or MHs/2Hs early on. The output of the whole team also matters on some fights. If you 1 phase vexxie your parse will be higher than another raider who has great parses in other content but their team output is lower and they have 2 or 3 phases. If you’re on Stix and you get the rolly poly thats going to lower your overall “parse” damage. Some people might not ever parse on this fight with the RNG of that mechanic, but they might save their raid with the clutch rolly poly to stop an explosion. Does that make them less of a player?
I think you’re getting the point. It doesn’t require a group of all 99 parses to clear bosses, get M+ titles or even CE. What it requires is a group of players who work together. Whether that is sacrificing their combust to double CC in a key, or using a global like AMZ instead of pressing the next part of their rotation, or hitting sac on a DPS in need or properly handling a heroic mechanic. Its looking at how you can support your raid, and be the best contributing player you can be. That is WoW is about, and that mindset will get you everything you want in this game.
I’ve accomplished great things by pugging, and even formed a 1 shot raid clear last week without even checking logs and inviting based on experience. So, if logs are going to change I offer a solution and I call it a “style point system.” Or SPS. Here’s how it works, and it will require the coders at WCL to do more work ; ) they can be mad at me later.
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For fights where there are randomly assigned mechanics. RNG elements DPS get 1 style point for properly handling that mechanic, or using a defensive before AOE raid wide damage or soaks (when its a raid wide requirement). So, even if they parsed a 80 but have 5 style points on a fight, you can assume this person is an incredible gamer.
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And here is where it gets fun. If a DPS parses a 99 but fails to use their defensives before AOE, ignores a mechanic (i.e. gets on a rolly poly and runs straight into the boss) or ignores a raid wide required soak, they get a negative style point. So, they could show a 99 parse but a -3 for style points. Then when a raid lead opens the log they can look at what essential ability or action they ignored and decide to invite from there. Basically it would solve raid leads tons of time for vetting players. It would also add another factor for players to achieve when they might not want to focus on maximum DPS parses. “I’ve collected more style points in a season than any other X spec in my guild.” It could create healthy and friendly competition to play the game correctly.
I suggested this before when logs became toxic in BFA but nothing was done. But having seen internet posting trends again, well its happening now. And I think years later WCLs needs to fix their system.
Thanks for reading and leaving your opinions and feedback below. If you think other elements are missing for style points please suggest one. This could be a great thing for the broader WoW community.