Overall vs Algalon representation numbers as of 2/6

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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Since there has been a lot of chatter about representation, I decided to dig into the numbers a bit.

I used the overall total parse numbers for each spec from Warcraft logs to get a feel for what people are playing. These numbers should be a reasonable estimate of how much of each spec are zoning into Ulduar at all, and should catch the majority of players that are interested in zoning in between guilds, PuGs, and GDKPs that don’t care what class/spec people are playing much in addition to the guilds that are actively cultivating their roster.

I used Algalon as the comparison point because it is the easiest fight to look at (hard mode only) where guilds are selecting rosters most likely to kill him due to the 1 hour time limit.

This gives a general idea of how valuable each spec is for the hardest content compared to the general population and normalizes it for the number of players actually using that spec in raids instead of just looking at raw counts that only give a partial picture.

Here are the results (broken down by role, the % is the percent of the total population that have an Algalon kill)

–DPS–
Affliction Locks (0.48%)
Combat Rogue (0.36%)
Unholy DK (0.31%)
Demo Locks (0.25%)
Enhance Shaman (0.25%)
Shadow Priest (0.24%)
Frost DK (0.23%)
Feral Druid (0.22%)
Assassination Rogue (0.22%)
Balance Druid (0.21%)
Survival Hunter (0.21%)
Arcane Mage (0.20%)
Fury Warriors (0.18%)
BM Hunter (0.17%)
Retribution Paladin (0.13%)
Arms Warrior (0.11%)
Marksmanship Hunter (0.10%)
Fire Mage (0.09%)
Ele Shaman (0.04%)
Frost Mage (0%)
Sub Rogue (0%)

–Healers–
Holy Paladin (0.34%)
Discipline Priest (0.29%)
Resto Shaman (0.27%)
Restoration Druid (0.14%)
Holy Priest (0.09%)

–Tanks–
Protection Paladin (0.59%)
Bear Druid (0.59%) (I’m not sure how accurate this one is with detecting druids as feral DPS vs guardian)
Blood DK (0.21%)
Protection Warrior (0.21%)

So, overall, from the DPS perspective, affliction locks are pretty crazily overrepresented.

Between fury and arms, warrior DPS seems to be in an ok spot compared to the rest of the pack. People don’t appear to be actively avoiding warriors.

Ret is a notable step behind the pack, and nothing under it lacks a different DPS spec that performs better in PvE (I do feel bad for ele shaman though, given that their alternate DPS spec is very different).

For healers, things look mostly OK. Druid is struggling, while holy paladins are a bit overly represented. Holy priest is not doing great either, but has Discipline to fall back on.

For tanks, blood DK and Prot warrior look viable, but notably underrepresented here. Guilds are almost 3x as likely to choose a Prot Pal and Feral druid over a blood DK or Warrior here compared to their population.

Now, obviously there are some flaws to this data. Algalon does have some aspects of the fight that leans toward some of this class selection, but it’s not an awful way to see how the hardest fights are causing some notable representation gaps, and where certain specs/classes are struggling.

2 Likes
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Not going to read it all as your fundamental assessment is off.

Alg is not a good representative sample of who is zoning into uldar. Nor is it an assessment of guilds as he is a fight people change rosters for.

Alg has a small and vast majority able to fight him. As such by using him you are removing the vast majority of the people zoning in and giving data not remotly relevant to what you said you are after, data about those zoning in. Or data about guild rosters as they change toons for him quite often.

The first bosses would be the ones to get that data. Compared to the normal hard modes such as hodir or firefighter.

Alg only gives you data on who the high end guilds are taking and to that one fight. As many do swap comps just for him further making your access ment bad for what you claimed it was for.

While looking at only one type of player the high end which are most known to keep multi toons to swap, also again is not accurate tk what you claimed to be looking for.

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I didn’t use Alg as the representation of who is zoning into Ulduar.

That was done with all parses.

I used Algalon as the parses looked at for guilds selecting specific specs for a challenging fight that doesn’t greatly favor melee or ranged like some of the other fights like Vezax/Hodir.

You can get into Ulduar with literally any spec. They are all represented there similarly to their population that are interested in raiding. You even see full PvP specs in there like frost mage and sub rogue.

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Alg dose greatly favor range. The damage range takes is notably less than melee and in a fight that healers are stressed this is massive.

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And yet the only outlier for composition on Algalon is from affliction locks.

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He is comparing specs through the door vs Algalon kills. Missing Resto Shaman BTW.

Still the difference between the Tanks and the healers is bigger than Ret and other dps. So begs the question, Why change rets?

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Which is not unexpected. If you’re going to make a swap to a range you will swap to one of the better ranges.

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Thanks for catching that! Added it in.

Sure, but unholy DK, enhancement shaman, Frost DK, Combat Rogues, Assassination Rogues, and Warriors (between fury and arms) are still reasonably well represented even with that accounted for and match/beat many of the ranged options.

Ret is the only DPS that had a notable drop off of the gradient at the bottom of the list that doesn’t have a better represented DPS spec to swap to (unlike mages/hunters/rogue/shaman in that range or lower).

Similarly, resto druid struggles a bit there.

Blood DK and Prot warriors seem to struggle as tanks there compared to Pal/Druid, but not by enough to be abandoned.

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Seeing as how you used this logic, you clearly should read the entire post since at no point did he say Algalon was being used as a representation of how many people are running ulduar. But sure, continue to act like you know what your talking about

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But I enjoy playing arms… and we are actively avoided, even more so than ret paladins.

Am I being told to play another specialization I do not enjoy!?

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Well, you have two choices.

A. Find a guild that will take an arms warrior to hard content.

Or

B. Start playing Fury, which is better represented.

Rets don’t have option B while still being DPS.

We could also start arguing for buffing sub rogues and frost mages to be buffed to the point of being competitive, but that’s likely out of the scope of classic.

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You don’t think that distorts the data? Many guilds haven’t even attempted him yet.

Seems like a weird way to look at it. There are only 5 BM parses. Is BM really better represented than ret? Almost nobody plays the spec at all. It’s especially weird to look at the tanks that way when the raw numbers show that there are way, way more paladin tanks than any other class.

Yeah, there are more lock parses than about 6 other classes combined.

Same could be said for feral druids with barely more parses on the boss than ret has. Their other dps spec is as different as playing another class.

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You have no idea what you are talking about. Melee don’t take more damage on this fight and healers aren’t stressed with raid damage.

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You have the option of re-rolling.

Imagine complaining about how bad ret dps is while knowing the outcome of dps ranks in a 15 year old game. Talk about entitled behavior man.

The utility alone should be a reason to bring you. Fury or arms dps has poor damage and garbage levels of utility.

Ret at least did a great job supporting the team. I play both warrior and ret as alts and I knew how bad they were during sunwell prepatch phase but like the classes enough to play them without complaining.

Its Just stupid and entitled to make people adjust to your poor game choices.

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This is the whole point. Ret did not need buffs. This is classic.

I get the argument that this “version” of wotlk never truly existed (that being your 3.3.5 patch balance through naxx > ToC). However the same exact argument can be made across the board for A LOT of specs at points in time throughout classic.

I draw a line at messing with class balance. This is what “some changes” eventually brings.

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They messed with class balance when they buffed Algalon’s damage.

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That was the idea. I wanted to choose a boss that the majority have not yet done to see what guilds are doing that are actively selecting what specs to bring.

I did not want to choose a fight like Ignis where all of the specs can succeed and it’s just a better representation of who walked in the door.

Except it isn’t, as evidenced by the fact that ret is both less represented on Algalon in terms of percentage of our population AND by raw numbers of kills compared to the fury warriors (about 50% lower there)

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2/3 mages specs are below Ret paladins. pepehmm

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Aye, but it’s a heck of a lot easier for one of those to swap to a spec that’s best for Algalon than it is for Ret to suddenly be a better DPS class for the fight.

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Ret can swap to healer pretty easily, considering they’re the only class soaking up all that junk plate healer loot

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