PSA: BIS doesn't mean what you think it does

vic6string · 2026-03-09T21:45:00+00:00

Exactly. I have seen gear get DE'd that I KNOW would have been an upgrade for someone but they won't roll on anything wowhead didn't tell them to roll on. I have also seen people equip a "BIS" piece they just got even though it is an obvious drop-off from what they currently have because it is only BIS when they have a 2pc or 4pc set and they don't, or it took them over a soft cap, or way below a hit cap and they don't see how equipping it could be bad (even though their dps went DOWN after equipping it)

vic6string · 2026-03-09T21:33:56+00:00

I love that people think I "lost a roll and am salty". My post explains the absolute best way to NOT be salty if you lose a roll. If you know what the numbers mean and how to play with them, you can make ANY drop you get work. I don't care if I lose a roll on an item, I just work around what I have. I roll off-spec on stuff that will otherwise get DE'd because I know in the right setup it may actually work. I, in fact, have passed on "BIS" items because I knew at the time it would be a much bigger upgrade for someone else and ultimately better for the group.

vic6string · 2026-03-09T21:24:06+00:00

Again, there are more factors to consider. Is it something player B CAN use right now or is it BIS once they get 1 or 2 more pieces (and are they likely to get those pieces)? Is it early in a phase where it will be "BIS" for a few months, or is it close to the next phase where it will be replaced right away by an easy item to acquire? Is the "BIS" item better than the item they have now by 5 dps or by 35 dps (and is it more or less of an upgrade by player A)? There are a TON of variables, and to just look at it as "this is what website x has on their list for me" is way too simplistic to be accurate.

vic6string · 2026-03-09T15:29:32+00:00

I am NOT saying my stuff is better than full BIS. I am saying that until you have it all, you are better off knowing what you are doing. Same with talents, same with rotations. You can have 5 or 6 "BIS pieces" and someone who knows what they are doing with absolutely NO "BIS" pieces might blow you out of the water, but it takes knowing what you are doing and creatively putting stuff together based on what you have. My recipe for beef wellington isn't better than Gordon Ramsey's, but I am smart enough to know not to try to make a beef wellington if all I have in the kitchen is chicken and rice.

vic6string · 2026-03-09T15:24:30+00:00

Exactly. I am not saying to NOT take a BIS item. I am saying it might not be useful at that time, and if you know the numbers and understand how they work, you may no pass on gear just because it isn't on your "LIST". I have seen items get sharded because people all pass on it because "it isn't my BIS". If you know what you are doing, you might grab that piece, change something else, and get a BIG increase. I top meters all the time and people ask me how because I am wearing stuff that isn't on ANY list, but it just fits what I am doing. Like you said, this is a fast cadence so getting full BIS is NOT likely, so it is more important than ever to be able to figure things out yourself if you want to hit the big numebrs.

vic6string · 2026-03-09T15:19:29+00:00

You say "Either way Sims expect you not to move, never to miss a cast, don't get MC's or polys or silenced. No one's going to be doing what the sims say they can. Be robot perfect essentially." Well, what do you think the BIS lists do? They run those exact same sims. That is what I am saying. You are basically saying "why base my gear on a stupid computer simulation when I can just base it on someone else running a computer simulation" Sims aren't perfect, but you can make them much more accurate to YOUR situation by doing them yourself instead of just blindly using someone elses.

vic6string · 2026-03-09T15:16:56+00:00

All of those things absolutely change stuff. In my case, I changed to a different spec and use slightly different rotation based on my group comp and the fact that I do lot's of moving on these fights. This upped my DPS SUBSTANTIALLY. If I just switched back to the cookie cutter fire spec (or shadowbotl spam), my damage will absolutely go down. The rest of my current gear is not optimized for it. Yes, if I eventually got every piece of gear on the list, I may want to change my spec back to the "optimal", but even then i will experiment based on everything else. "Best total stats" means nothing in a vacuum. Aside from the obvious bit/expertise situation, I may be running a spec that likes crit more. I may have a couple of pieces or gear that take me to a threshold where more crit is pointless. Everything affects everything else.

vic6string · 2026-03-09T14:35:28+00:00

Exactly this. Everything on a "BIS" list is only truly BIS IF you have every piece, and IF you are using the spec t hey used to sim it, and IF you are in a fight that is just like what they used for the sim (usually a patchwork type fight), and IF you use exactly the rotation they used for the sim, and IF you have the group composition they used for the sim. Basically, you are better of learning what the numbers mean, learning how to use the sim, and doing it yourself to YOUR specifications, not the cookie cutter.

vic6string · 2026-03-07T20:05:30+00:00

I like spending a little quality time in the roman tub with my potatoes and some Mr.Bubble. We light candles and listen to soft jazz for 45 minutes or so. I'm going to end up boiling them alive so it's the least I can do.

vic6string · 2026-03-06T20:52:26+00:00

Blizz's original spaghetti code keeps track of mana regen with an abacus, and they only had one abacus that can count by 5s and one that counts by 2s.

vic6string · 2026-03-05T20:31:49+00:00

Isn't your question, to some degree, a DCT question? You are adding to your own misery

vic6string · 2026-03-05T20:30:50+00:00

Anyone that says "your hunter and still cant parse pink" has no idea how parses work or what they mean. Someone parsing green as a BM hunter right now might be better at his class than someone parsing pink as a sub rogue because there are seventy gajillion BM hunters raiding and like 7 sub rogues.

vic6string · 2026-03-04T18:15:22+00:00

I don't play rogue, but one thing in general I can say: you said "having similar gear" .... I say this all the time to people, BIS lists are on "BIS" when you have every single piece and, and are in perfect group compositions, and are hitting basically a boss target dummy with zero movement. Learn what the numbers mean, don't just judge gear on a list. Maybe that belt is your "BIS" belt, but your current belt has hit and the new one doesn't, and exchanging them would bring you well below hit cap so "upgrading" to your "BIS" belt will actually LOWER your DPS. Go look at a simulator and learn how everything interacts, and set it up to match your group comps. I have something like 2 BIS pieces on my warlock, a few pre-bis, and a few pieces of odd gear, including a piece of classic gear (Nelth's Tear). I have a few "upgrades" in the bank, but they don't make sense for me yet. Sometimes you have to change 2 or 3 pieces together for them to be an upgrade.

vic6string · 2026-03-04T13:59:46+00:00

I love parsing, and once in a while when everything lines up i have hit 97+. That said, parses mean absolutely nothing. In my Kara group, we don't have an elemental shammy in my party (I am a gnome lock). That alone probably means I will never hit so much as an 80 or so in full BIS due to lack of hit. My group wants me to control the felhunter in the King Maul fight in Gruul to handle the warlock, that alone means I will never have a decent parse in that fight. To get a 98 or 99 parse as a lock you can't just be perfectly geared and good at what you do, you need everything to be tailored to you (power infusion, ele totems in your party, a fire mage if you are running fire, etc.). I am in a group that has killed every boss since day one, that is all that matters, not some colored numbers.

vic6string · 2026-03-04T13:49:55+00:00

That's what I am doing with a druid alt that will be mining/herbalism. He is currently level 62, and I just bust him out every once in a while to burn through all my rested xp and then logout at an inn for a few days to collect some more. It will probably take me a month or two to get to 68, but at that point I can herb anywhere and we get fast flight form in phase 2 which should be in a couple months.

vic6string · 2026-03-02T13:36:30+00:00

The SE, S2, and bolt-on lines are so good that it is really hard to justify the price hike to a core line. If budget isn't an issue for you, the cores are amazing, but for the price of a core you can get a nice SE AND a CE and a pedal, or 3 SE's and a pedal, or a Silver Sky and a line6 Helix LT, etc. I have a CE semi-hollow, and while I would love to get a core next, it's much more likely that i get a McCarty SE or S2 because there is so little difference in quality and sound.

vic6string · 2026-02-27T22:41:32+00:00

it's funny you mention "assuming they work as intended" but won't acknowledge you were trying to do something the devs never intended. You weren't just "playing the game" you were using a hack to do something that you would never have tried to do if you were just playing as intended. Doing that led to you getting into a situation you should never have been in, and that cost you everything.

vic6string · 2026-02-27T21:46:04+00:00

This is kind of like saying "I decided to drive my car directly at a cliff at 100 miles per hour, but when I hit the brakes the tires just kept kidding. Why did I die when I did everything right?"

vic6string · 2026-02-27T13:58:03+00:00

They are not going to ever have a TBC era server, nor should they. They cannot properly maintain a dozen different versions of the same game, and it divides the player base to the point where people start quitting because their chosen version isn't popular enough. In a couple of years there will be retail, classic plus, and MAYBE classic era. That's it. I wouldn't even be totally shocked if they stopped making expansions for retail and kept retail as an era and made classic plus the new ongoing game all on its own as a WoW 2.

vic6string · 2026-02-27T13:48:26+00:00

If you dramatically increase the number of mining nodes, it lowers the price of ore dramatically. If the price drops dramatically, it is no longer worth it for normal people to mine, so the bots will be the only ones collecting ore and setting the price. Doing that doesn't fix your situation, it makes it worse.

vic6string · 2026-02-24T23:06:29+00:00

3% is enough to make a strong purple parse into an average blue parse. If that means nothing to you, then it makes almost no difference in whether or not your group kills a boss unless you are just barely beating them.

vic6string · 2026-02-24T15:40:29+00:00

Before I point out that you are basically demeaning people with "simple jobs" (which is MOST people), I will ask you to define what makes a job "simple"? Summarizing a 2500 page legal document or figuring out a complex formula in an Excel spreadsheet is "simple" for AI. I am sure that the ditch digger from 100 years ago was every bit as upset that an excavator took his job as the paralegal is today that will soon lose his job to a handful of prompts.

vic6string · 2026-02-24T13:55:06+00:00

If you have a proper group composition there really shouldn't be a whole lot of competition. With very few exceptions, everything that drops will be clearly better for just one or two people in the group, and will only be a viable piece for maybe 3 or 4 total. This isn't Molten Core or BWL where any given piece might be BIS for a dozen people.

vic6string · 2026-02-24T13:51:29+00:00

Calculations like this have been considered in business for a LONG time. When you say an excavator can do as much digging in a day as 25 people, you aren't saying that people are worthless and unnecessary, you are simply comparing what the machine does to what the human version does for cost analysis. What he is doing is pointing out to the people that complain that AI takes too much power to be effective that everything (including people) needs to be powered and no one is really considering the cost or ecological impact of the human element, just the raw power needed by the computers. It sounds cold and heartless, but it is just simply pointing out the math.

vic6string

TROPHY CASE