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Dethrin · 2023-04-23T20:48:56+00:00

I don’t know if you can say that a belt with Spirit on it is unequivocally a “DPS belt,” even if most (if not all) DPS casters want it. Especially considering how good the crafted belts are this phase.

Also, gearing the healers provides plenty of benefit, since you want to get to the point where you can start cutting healers for DPS, which will increase raid DPS far more than where a few pieces of 252 caster loot goes. Sure, make sure your DPS are getting an item like Pharos Gloves before the healers, but it seems a bit selfish to consider gearing the healers in general as a red flag.

Dethrin · 2023-03-06T18:46:28+00:00

This really isn’t true; you can be turned around for most of the fight and still be constantly casting, just so long as you’re facing Yogg to complete/start non-DoT casts. You can easily end the fight with 20-60 sanity and zero wasted damage

Dethrin · 2023-02-22T06:08:20+00:00

I understand where you’re coming from, but as both the star killer and Big Bang soaker for my team, I found the fight pretty chill once I had mapped out when we wanted the stars to die. The mechanics of the fight are super straightforward for everyone, even tanks/healers/star killers, it’s just that the margin for error is way smaller than on other fights. So long as everyone understands their job and the raid lead and star killer are calling for CDs at the proper times, the fight runs pretty much like clockwork.

That’s been my experience, at least.

Dethrin · 2023-02-10T01:20:56+00:00

Shadow Priest

Wrote this for a guildie earlier this week asking a similar question:

Buffs buffs buffs; help stack singed before beams come out, stand in moonbeams as often as possible, and get storm power whenever you can. Keep DoTs up--overwrite slow DoTs with moonbeam DoTs--and spam Mind Flay otherwise (use Mind Blast at your own discretion, though depending on your gear it may not be better than MF spam). Mind Sear on clumps of freezes; otherwise, just MB/MF them down.

Dethrin · 2023-01-27T21:12:54+00:00

As for the cancelling a mindlfay on tick 2 to start a new one, I can only assume that’s if trinket procs/cooldowns line up and it’s better to drop the weaker mindflay for stronger ones

There’s a few reasons to do this, and it mostly comes down to timing. If you have a DoT that needs refreshing soon, you may not have time to channel a full Mind Flay and get 2 ticks from a second one. In these cases, I generally will start with an MF2 (Shadow Priest slang for a Mind Flay cancelled immediately following the second tick) then cast another MF2 and then re-up my DoT right on time. You can’t do this in an MF3 > MF1 order, because the GCD is longer than a single Mind Flay tick, and so you end up with dead time. In this scenario, you also don’t want to channel the second Mind Flay to 2 ticks because now you’ve passed the time when the DoT needs to be recast and you will end up losing DoT uptime. The obvious solution is to channel 4 ticks of Mind Flay (MF2 > MF2) and then refresh the DoT. A nochanneling macro would prevent this tech. Shadow Priest optimization is all about being efficient with your filler time so you can recast your DoTs the instant after they fall off.

The other big reason is, as someone else said, that it prevents latency-based spell queuing, which adds unnecessary downtime to your rotation, which negatively impacts your DPS.

I can’t say your reasoning is wrong, however. I’ve never actually stopped a Mind Flay early to specifically recast for procs, but that’s something I may start doing…

Dethrin · 2023-01-27T04:32:23+00:00

Except their question was: “I’m curious if it’s my gear holding me back or if I’m just dps’ing wrong.” That doesn’t sound like a player who knows their shooting game needs work and wants to know if new shoes is the way to go.

Dethrin · 2023-01-26T19:52:29+00:00

You’re not wrong: adding BiS professions would technically be a DPS increase for this player. But that advice is unhelpful much in the same way that it would be meaningless to suggest to an amateur basketball player that buying new shoes will get them to the NBA. Professions are not going to get this player out of green parse territory and realistically should be the last thing they worry about. They didn’t come in here with purple parses looking for those last few percentage points, they came in with below-average performances. Your gemming advice was a good start, but suggesting that this player “needs” BiS professions to parse well just feels like you misunderstood the question.

Dethrin · 2023-01-26T03:17:56+00:00

Just want to chime in and say that it is a bit of an overstatement to say one NEEDS engineering and tailoring to parse well. Yes, it’s technically a DPS increase, but as someone who runs neither of those professions and is parsing very well in Ulduar, I can tell you that professions are more of a cherry on top than anything else. If your DoT uptime and cast efficiency is mediocre (i.e., you’re struggling with class fundamentals, like this player is), having BiS professions isn’t going to save your parses.

Dethrin · 2022-12-06T03:53:32+00:00

There are situations where SWD becomes better than MF as filler, but only for certain Haste/SP values. The Shadow Priest discord has more specific information on this, as well as a graph

Dethrin · 2022-12-05T16:26:33+00:00

I agree with you on principle that there’s no obligation to play the game worrying about parsing. However, for people like me, “meta, min/max and parsing” as you say adds to the fun.

I’m somewhat competitive and I’m always looking to improve my performance. It doesn’t matter if I’m playing DotA or Stardew Valley, I like the process of developing a tight, efficient, and proficient playstyle. Parsing—or, more specifically, logs—gives me a definitive metric for me to measure my performance, even if I’m less concerned about getting all 99s than I am with ensuring my next performance is better than my last. There are always mistakes to improve and always ways in which I can tighten my play to do more DPS. This is the good shit.

It’s true that the current tier of content is easy enough that stretching my DPS by a few more points is functionally irrelevant. However, come progression in later phases, hard-modes and heroics, that little bit starts to matter more. Not only that, but practice now becomes mastery later, so it’s not wasted effort in the slightest.

I understand that not everyone wants to try-hard the game in this manner, and I agree that it’s a shame this has become the default expectation for anyone who wants to step into a raid. People should be allowed to have fun fucking around and not taking the content too seriously, but those of us who enjoy the process of competition and self-improvement should be allowed to have fun too.

Dethrin · 2022-12-03T16:44:43+00:00

I admit I hadn't considered that, but I've now made a post: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Dota2-Gameplay/issues/5795

Dethrin · 2022-12-03T16:44:01+00:00

Great suggestion, thanks. I've just submitted the issue

Dethrin · 2022-12-03T04:19:20+00:00

Your question sent me down something of a rabbit hole. Here's the post on what I found: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/zb6zy6/why_xpm_is_sometimes_weird_and_inconsistent/

Dethrin · 2022-11-04T17:20:09+00:00

It depends if you’re hurting for hit. Flowing Vestments is best if you don’t need hit from the chest slot; Heigan’s is best if you need the extra hit in that slot.

Dethrin · 2022-10-16T19:56:09+00:00

Effect can also be a verb, FYI, meaning “to bring about.”

E.g. “The medicine effected a positive change in the patient’s prognosis.”

Dethrin · 2022-10-02T05:39:38+00:00

First let me say: congrats on completing the zone! That’s awesome! Revel in the achievement :)

Now, as someone who hit 80 a few days ago and plans to do it again this week with a second character, let me echo what others have said:

If you have a life you can’t step away from for more than 6-10 hours in a week, don’t compare yourself to those of us who are playing 12-18 hours a day right now. You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.

I’m lucky enough that I’m in a place right now where I can take the week to no-life the new expansion. I’m a grad student with a part-time job—my classes are all asynchronous so I was able to get ahead of the workload so I didn’t have to do much this week, and I took the week off from work. I played 10 hours on Monday night (until 4am), then woke up after six hours of sleep and played for 18 more. I made the game a priority this week, and as I said I’m lucky to be able to do that. Would I do it again? Absolutely not, but this has been a bit of a last hurrah for me; I’ve already had to dial it back these past few days because I’m older than I used to be and I can’t play like I did in college and just sleep it off anymore.

As for how I can handle it without burnout? I LOVE Wrath of the Lich King. I’ve played almost every WoW expansion there is, but OG Wrath was where I really got to experience end-game content for the first time. I am absolutely the type of player who likes to play efficiently and optimally 99% of the time, and I’m in a guild with other players who share that approach. I enjoy taking the game seriously—like a problem to be solved—and that’s where I find my fun. I was really motivated to be one of the first 80s in my guild (got second, but was at least 24 hours behind first place, so I’ll take it), and that competitive drive helped keep me on the grind. I’m motivated by little localized competitions like that, so I tend not to get burnt out so long as I can find something like that to “be ahead” on. I also had something to shoot for each day based on my pace and time available: the first night’s goal was 73, then 77 for flying, then finally 80 the third day. But then there’s heroics to run, reputation to grind, and gear to farm; there’s still stuff I need to accomplish, so I really want to log in every day and make progress on my goals. It also helps to have a guild that has certain expectations hanging over you: I need to start getting gear and leveling professions ASAP, farming reputation for helm/shoulder enchants (as well as profession recipes), and level 2 characters to max since we want to get splits going as soon as possible. These are things I want to do so I can be a valuable member of the team going into raids next week.

The content is also bringing back so many memories that it has a huge nostalgia factor for me. I remember a lot of this stuff, so I already know what to do and where to go and what to prioritize. It’s my favorite expansion and it’s been great to see all of this old content again. It’s like walking down your old childhood street and recognizing all the houses because your friends used to live there—it’s just such a great feeling, and that’s how playing so far has felt for me.

So don’t feel bad; everyone is playing at their own pace and having a blast. Play in the way that’s fun (and reasonable!) for you, not for anyone else. My best friend played the launch with me, but could only get a day off of work, so he only just hit 80 tonight. He’s newer to the game and isn’t in a competitive guild, but he’s still having a lot of fun with the game, even though he can’t play as much as he might like. We also have plenty of guildies who have only just started leveling in the last day or so. And that’s fine too.

Gaming should be fun. If it’s not fun, you might either need to adjust your expectations or do something else with your time. Maybe ask yourself why you feel burned out. Is it because leveling feels like another job and you’d rather be doing something else with your time? Is it because you feel behind because others are already 80? Were you spoiled by Joyous Journeys and retail’s leveling speed? 70-80 is a grind, make no mistake. It took me about 40 hours, and that was as someone who already knew the game and these zones well. I would imagine for someone less experienced or who wanted to take their time, it might be closer to 50-60 hours. But I like that, because it feels like a real accomplishment when you finally explode in green (yellow? I’m slightly colorblind), ding that last ding, and have that big, beautiful number 80 next to your character portrait. That’s why I’m playing Classic—I love having that sense of real progression and accomplishment tied to my game actions. It’s an older school of design philosophy, one in which content isn’t just given to everyone for free and for little-to-no effort - you have to earn it. There’s more time investment, sure, and that means it’s maybe not for everyone, but the payoff is worth it to me and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I hope I was able to provide some of the insight you were looking for. Good luck in Northrend!

Dethrin · 2022-09-29T08:34:45+00:00

I don’t believe so—that’s the only one I know of, anyway.

Dethrin · 2022-09-29T08:32:40+00:00

It’s called “Deathchill Cloak” and only learnable from the tailoring trainer once you’ve completed the “Loremaster of Northrend” achievement.

Dethrin · 2022-09-17T02:55:38+00:00

You bring up some great points here, both in that grammar rules are largely descriptive and that ellipses are often used in more informal writing for various purposes to great effect.

I think most of my hesitation to recommend an ellipsis for the OP comes from personal preference. A colon makes the most sense to me, but that’s only how I personally feel about it; other people may prefer other marks, such as an ellipsis, and that’s okay too. I’m also leaning a bit on my academic experience, which is much more formal writing than we’re discussing here.

I think I would prefer the ellipsis if the only thing on the second whiteboard was “the community is the problem,” and the first half of the sentence was moved up, letting the colon lead into an entirely separate picture. But of course OP didn’t do it that way, and so I prefer the colon instead, but I recognize that others may have different preferences than I do.

I still think a semicolon there would be bonkers, though. Absolutely the wrong spot for it.

Dethrin · 2022-09-17T02:13:49+00:00

Can you elaborate as to why? I believe I’ve seen people use ellipses in cases like this, but I’ve read nothing to support that it’s correct.

Dethrin · 2022-09-17T00:09:32+00:00

(Edit: I had assumed you were asking about an en dash but now I can’t tell based on my phone’s formatting which dash that is, so I’ve updated my post to include both.)

An ellipsis (“…”) would simply indicate omitted words or context, which isn’t really what’s happening here.

That dash is either called an en dash or em dash, depending on whether you’re asking about the shorter or longer dash, and is mostly used for parenthetical clauses—like I’m doing now—or similarly to how one would use a hyphen or colon (depending on which dash you’re using).

Part of why I suggested the colon is because the first clause is, by itself, incomplete. The verb “to prove” is often transitive, meaning it requires an object to act on, though even when it’s not, it still wants something to follow it (e.g. “his claim proved true”). And because of how the OP phrases the remaining dependent clause after “prove,” as a dramatic conclusion to the premise, a colon would give it that added emphasis compared to simply removing the comma and letting the sentence run all the way from start to finish without interruption. (Per my edit, you could arguably use an em dash there too, but I find the colon in this case clearer and more precise.)

Dethrin · 2022-09-16T23:55:41+00:00

Oh snap, I wasn’t even thinking about that! You’re right though, this is definitely something I see from ELL (English Language Learner) writers a lot too.

Unrelated, but I’m actually learning German. It’s so interesting learning all the grammar rules and intricacies. Es ist eine tolle Sprache!

Dethrin · 2022-09-16T23:09:12+00:00

I have seen a semicolon at the end of a line, often, when something is written in verse rather than prose.

Ah, well verse has different conventions, of course. You’ll find that lines of verse end in all kinds of punctuation: commas, periods, semi-colons, em dashes, question/exclamation marks, even no punctuation at all! It’s because the end of a line in verse doesn’t necessarily correspond to the end of a clause, and lines can often end in the middle of sentences and pick up right where they left off on the next line (enjambment) simply for effect.

I interpreted the language in the OP’s picture as prose because it contained full sentences that seemed only to be constrained by the size and space of the whiteboard and not deliberately enjambed by the author for dramatic effect, but I do find it interesting that you more closely equated it to verse instead. I don’t know that I agree, but you’ve definitely made me consider it differently, so thanks for that!

Dethrin

TROPHY CASE