Hard events

[mistatk]

Wanted to post a couple quotes from a current forums post on station.com.  Reason I want to quote is so that nobody assumes this is something I've thought up, or is just my opinion and dismisses it.

"I wasn't talking about anyone in particular, I was saying make sure everyone in your guild is pulling their weight. Not only is DPS important but ADPS is a completely separate monster. If you control the environment then you can identify where the improvement is needed.

 People like to look at tanking, healing and cc as reasons guilds fall short but dps is the biggest thing. DPS players take up almost 2/3 of a raid force. Imagine doing that raid in less than 2 minutes. How much less healing, tanking, emotes you would have to deal with.

 No need to get defensive. I would never say you cant play your class, I don't even know you."

---

"The longer events take, the greater the chance that probability catches up with you and your raid gets a string of bad events. You spend greater and greater proportions of the event functioning with lower yield or absent discs, or with greater and greater proportions of your raid force not functioning at 100%. Getting events done faster significantly decreases the amount of overall raid mechanics and damage output your raid needs to stand up against."
--- end quote

Seems like common sense, but the reason it stands out to me is that month in and month out I will see the same ranger do 2x the dps of another ranger.  Or one ranger do more dps then the bottom 3 combined.  So in a raid with 10 rangers when this goes on for 6months or a year this isn't all bad luck. Some people don't know all the tricks of their class and either aren't aware (looking at parses) or just don't really care. 

I understand Freelance is a place for people to raid openly, beginers included and LEARN and progress, but I don't believe it is designed to be a final resting spot for players who no longer care to try and for that reason are not permitted anywhere else. 

Sometimes group make up isn't ideal, so players in a better setup group will do more dps then a same class in another group.  I know some people are boxed, and it can be hard to maximize your dps while boxed.  On the other hand, some of the lowest scoring people on dps parses are not boxed and are in decent groups and still consistently month in and month out underperform.

There was a time when 90% of a tanks agro was off their weapon procs.  Now 90% of their agro is off "spells" or abilities.  There was a time when 6 clerics doing a complete heal rotation was the best way to heal.  Point being times change, then they change some more, then they keep changing.  If you haven't reviewed what your doing compared to others of the same class in awhile, take someone who shines at their class and ask them for some tips on how you can improve. 

I can't count how many times I've asked someone a question about something they are doing in a raid, whether its tank related, dps related, or other and gotten the answer:  "well, its just freelance".  That isn't a good answer.  A lot of effort is put into running the raid, and a lot of people come in hopes of being successful. 

[Kaloha]

I normally don't have this problem, but I've also played a Ranger since the year 2k so I have an innate knowledge of my class and how to withstand or heal through normal traumatic situations. Additionally I stand top of my class on the server, my survivability is much greater.

So I'm curious? Are you counting deaths of said rangers prior to comparing them to the top ones whom are dps'ing the best? More times than not we are grouped with 2-3 boxes who never can perform as well as a real player unless you're someone like Mildaria. Additionally our Rangers die more than most that I've seen. Usually I'm unable to pin point specific deaths, but it seems to always be a case of MTO deaths, mismanaged agro, missed AE calls, or not enough heals to go around

That's not to say people don't need help in these areas but when your groups boxed healer fails to keep you alive, there really isn't much you can do for dps. Death + Rez Effects + (Disc Timers?) = zero dps. And if the boxed healers doesn't kill you surely the MTO dieing will. Which is usually the case, MTO dies early, rangers and other dps follow suit. It's always a chain reaction. There's also the situation where some Rangers get the best DPS support groups and others always consistently get the left over groups.

That's really just a couple scenario's, but I wanted to point out that it's not always as straight forward as you claim. There's always other factors. I've obviously noticed the less boxes we have the better we do...I'd also like to point out, because it's something I've noticed, Rangers need to learn to heal themselves better. When I spend more time healing my group mates whom are rangers more than they're healing themselves, that's a problem. Become self sustainable, DO NOT rely on that boxed healer in your group to save your ass. Because more often than not, he/she won't and you're dead dps.

[mistatk]

I look at deaths.  The groups get shifted around a fair amount, so over a years time most people get to be in many different group setups.  You know anytime your grouped with mildaria/sirenea and many others that you are for sure going to get the best that class has to offer.  What group you have is a big factor in how you do.  Problem I think is, that some good players go elsewhere because they feel that some of the people are not playing real well.  Which then causes more boxes to be in the raid, to fill their slots and have enough to raid.  Everyone wants to raid with people who they feel like are taking it seriously and putting forth their full effort.

[Borean]

As I watch my health bar during events, I have to quickly ponder whether to stop attacking long enough to heal myself.  I know it's only a couple of seconds, but those seconds add up.  Do I stop attacking and heal, or do I trust my group healer?  Guess wrong and DPS suffers either way.  Maybe I should develop the habit of asking the healer whether he's being boxed.  I don't always know whose toon is whose.

[Over ez]

I thought the big picture Mistatk was trying to get at here is whether or not all DPS characters are trying and making improvements IF needed, not the particulars of someone dying at times.  Of course dying will affect dps and we all have cruddy dying nights, but when one character constantly is doing twice the dps of another character in the same class, dying is likely not the crux of the matter  I don't see anyone has having addressed this point really.

I do also play Scoville, and come in low on parses, I see large room for improvement with that character, I hope others look into it as well.