Gevlon has posted his opinion on math and theorycrafting.. This was sparked by a thread in the official forums where someone was complaining about the fact that all the theorycrafting has created an environment where one has to set up their character a certain way or else be mocked by people and not allowed to raid. Well, Gevlon’s stance is unsurprisingly that
“The post is an outcry of a social person to be accepted, loved and not judged for being the way he is. The simple idea that in the game you are valued after your performance is inacceptable for him”
with his usual snide characterization of your average WOW player as a moron who gems his hunter for strength and wants to be loved.
As much as I like reading Gevlon’s borderline sociopathic economic commentary, I often don’t agree with him. Though this blog is dedicated to methods of maximizing DPS performance for hunters, I think that the elitist attitude described by the original poster on the official forums is indeed a problem. This game has multiple bars, any of which are fun to play.
I happen to be a weirdo who gets great personal enjoyment out of seeing large numbers in recount, and have a knack for accomplishing this. Anyone who comes to me asking for advice will get it, but they have to ask, and I’m not going around judging people by how they set their characters up. People who do that are usually just passing on criticism they received before “towing the line” and using a cookie cutter spec. Making yourself feel better by telling someone else off and giving unsolicited advice is spinning your wheels. Lots of noise and smoke, but you’re not going anywhere.
There’s two obvious rebuttals to elitists. Firstly, people who don’t follow cookie cutter specs and rotations etc. are often individualists who are indeed skilled, and will perform better than some less skilled players who do everything “right”. No amount of copy-pasting from elitistjerks.com will make you good at your class- that takes experience and skill. There are beast master hunters that will top the DPS charts, despite the fact that the theoretical potential DPS of that specialization is lower than survival. My guild’s off tank is a DK who is going against the grain by dual wielding, but he’s making it work because of his personal skill.
Second, players who aren’t “optimized” for raiding might not be interested in the type of raiding that people implicitly assume. If someone spends most of their time on battlegrounds, dailies, heroics, and t7 PUG runs, they don’t need to perform at the level required by Ulduar. The average player in this type of content has a much larger margin of error. If your 25 man naxx PUG has an average DPS high enough to down patch just before the enrage timer with nobody sticking out too far ahead of the pack, nobody’s carrying anyone, and everyone’s having fun. Even if all the DPS could go an respec and re-gem to increase their DPS by 25%.
That said, elitistjerks.com and places like it serve a purpose- they house people who do the math behind the cookie cutter builds and rotations that are needed by people who do want to min/max and squeeze as much performance out of their gear as possible. Ulduar is challenging, and there is always going to be content that you have to stretch your personal performance to new heights in order to see.
Very nice observations, i totally agree with you in all points….
And i did saw (only once tho) a BM hunter top on recount :)
Pre nerf, I used to see it all the time. Now it’s rare, but apparently doable :)
I don’t think you are a weirdo at all for enjoying topping the DPS charts and doing some min/max to get there! It is definitely a fun thing to do. I think it’s good that there are people out there who enjoy that– they help provide a lot of the research to everyone else, such as forums and blogs etc. (Your blog is very helpful in this regard by the way– one of the most helpful and information-packed “newer blogs” I’ve seen in a long time).
The main problem, as you addressed, is the tendency of various places (mostly forums, though I’ve seen it in comments of blogs and even a couple blogs themselves) to automatically dismiss someone based on their spec, playstyle, arena rating, raid achievements, etc. And I don’t mean something like “I’m sorry, you cannot run Ulduar with us because you haven’t cleared Naxx yet” or “Well if you are interested in improving your DPS… [insert tips here]”. No, I’m talking about stuff like “lolz no baddies allowed, please delete your character now” or “No good hunter would ever spec [insert non-spec-of-the-month here] so I’m disregarding your opinion”… sadly that is the type of stuff I see often, again, mostly on a forum environment.
In the end I think what people forget is this really is just a game, no need to get so worked up about something that we will all probably have forgotten about twenty years from now. It’s not like we’re going to be ranting and raving about WoW theorycrafting on our deathbed. Well, hopefully not ;)
My wife does (think I’m a weirdo, that is).
“It’s not like we’re going to be ranting and raving about WoW theorycrafting on our deathbed.”
Speak for yourself! <3
I’m usually top hunter DPS in my guild as BM spec. Most of my guildies don’t worry too much about DPS as long as we kill the boss, which I think is a good attitude for making a more friendly social environment.
Besides, I know if I don’t perform to my best, I’m going to lose out to the mages, locks and DKs… Always a good incentive to become better at what I do rather than just change my spec :)
im the top hunter dps in my guild, but i do it as a DK so yea, reroll n00bsMy name is Kell, but I fail at life. Euripides is the best hunter in the world, and I owe him 8$.
Individualists must walk their own way. You can’t expect strangers accept you if you are not in the line. I’d be the last person to tell you to be in that line. However if you are BM when everyone is surv, prepare to have some extra achievements to prove your worth on apply. (My GF was surv all TBC when everyone was BM, she has nice and less nice stories.)
However if someone is not in the line AND not performing well, he is an M&S as he is too lazy to copy&paste and too dumb to find out something original.
Your argument is valid, however there is a hidden assumption: that the raid the individualist is in is a min/max raid group filled with hardcore skilled players who choose performance above personal playstyle preference. If, however, they’re in a PUG or guild filled with friends who can do Naxx25 but can only do half of Ulduar with no hard modes, then there’s enough slack to justify, for example, a BM hunter.
Also, at least in T7 content, the encounters are designed to be hunter friendly enough that even a BM hunter can top the DPS charts, despite the fact that they have a average 10% lower performance than a survival hunter in the same gear.