Mar 2
Qualitative vs. Quantitative Performance Analysis
Posted on March 2, 2009 under Thoughts | 2 CommentsWorld of Warcraft is an ever-changing game. While reading this post, keep the date it was written in mind—changes may have occurred since then!
Let’s take a look at this theoretical DPS chart below, comparing the DPS of five members of a heroic dungeon run (not necessarily to scale):
Which of the three DPSers did the best job? The insinctive answer is “the rogue, they did the most DPS.” And in a way, you’d be right.
But what if I told you the rogue stole aggro on half the pulls, refused to sap the correct target, and rolled need on every boss drop? And what if I told you that the hunter consistantly trapped mobs that got loose and ran toward the healer, never Multi-Shot mobs that were CC’d or minding thier own business, and offered a feast every time someone died?
I’ll tell you right now, as a tank and someone who often puts together and leads instance runs, I’d take the hunter anytime they wanted to run, and I’d add the rogue to my NotesUNeed list under “Avoid.”
It is very common to judge the worth of a player quantitatively–that is, based on how much damage, threat, or healing per second they can produce. Partly, this is because we’re human–how often are first impressions the only judge of a person we care about?
In the guild’s first Obsidian Sanctum run, which I blogged about a while ago, there were two particular guildies (who are no longer with the guild) with us: one of them was very well geared and had good DPS, the other one was a bit lacking in both gear and DPS. The first guildie, however, couldn’t manage to avoid the lava walls–I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me he got hit by every single one. The second one, with the lower DPS, avoided almost all of them, if not all of them.
In this situatation, the ability to follow directions and follow WoW Rule #1 (”WoW Rule #1: Don’t stand in the ______!”) was much, much more important than the ability to pump out tons of DPS.
While sometimes the numbers are important, don’t fall into the trap of judging people quantitatively. THE METERS DON’T TELL THE WHOLE STORY! Take the time and make qualitative assessments of party and raid members!
PS: Because I said I would: Yoder is awesome.
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- Paid Name Change
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- Why Can’t I Decide?
- New Blog Azeroth Rule
- Not Joining the Bandwagon
by Trent, on March 4 2009 @ 2:32 pm
That guy has my name!! well, last name at least… =\
by Belloros, on March 30 2009 @ 8:46 am
You are correct that an ill played DPS is not dependent on the numbers. On the other side of the coin I would almost prefer a DPSer that was a little sloppy rather than a DPSer who was only cranking out 800 DPS. I have had this very thing happen before on my tank. I’ve had several groups with extremely low DPS. Usually this happens when I help a friend so, unfortunately, I couldn’t just leave. Low DPS can make things exceptionally hard on both healers and tanks as they have to do their thing for longer periods of time. As for damage meters, the only real use I’ve found is to find one’s average DPS. It is a good indicator as to the gear of someone as well as skill. I’m not saying that it should be the only thing one goes off of but will assist in knowing where someone is at.