Did you have a theorycraft suit? I had a theorycraft suit! Check me out:
Ugly, yes? It’s not supposed to win a beauty contest.
My theory suit landed me (buffed) at 500 intellect, 500 spell damage, and 20% critical strike chance. Just some nice, flat numbers. Then, go pay Dr. Boom a visit, and shoot spells at him until there is no more mana to spare. And then use a WWS report to peruse numbers and see what’s up.
For instance, the old school raiding frost spec (that would be 10/0/51, for those who already forgot), chain cast frostbolt, using icy veins once, and you get this!
- DPS: 685. Total damage dealt: 39 751
Yay! Wasn’t that fun?
If only everyone could do that!
Whelp, goodbye, theorycraft suit, hello Target Dummy. /vendors theory suit
Remember the old “SS or it didn’t happen”? Meet the new adage, “TDT or it didn’t happen”.
Target Dummy Test, indeed.
“I did 3000 DPS!” Prove it.
“No matter how hard I try, I can’t beat that damn hunter!” Prove it.
Find your flaws. Find why you suck. Or rock. The dummies are there, standing around, waiting only for you to go beat the tar out of them.
Grab your favorite boomkin buddy and go to town. See what happens. Bring your best gear, bring your friends, watch pretty numbers for a while.
It’s theorycraft in it’s most basic form. Standing there, casting spells, observing what happens.
Ahh, science! And it’s science everyone can do!
To be blunt, you should practice your rotation on these dummies long before you ever step foot into an actual raid in Wrath.
Practice AoE. Simulate movement fights by running around every twenty seconds. Have people in your guild shout random numbers at you. Every odd number, stop casting and move to a new spot. Switch to another Dummy every 30 seconds and cast at it for 20 seconds, then switch back.
And through that all, work to keep your DPS as high as possible.
The goal here is to learn to play. Learn the limits of your class through first hand experience. Learn how much strain your mana pool can take. Learn what you’re lasting power is, then grab a shadow priest and do it again.
The point is that when you actually go into a raid scenario, you already know the basics of your class.
You can do your rotation while drunk, herbed, and blindfolded.
You already know how far you can push your AoE potential.
You already know how to adapt your DPS to movement situations and target swaps, or throttle it when mana is tight.
You don’t need to “L2P” once you’re in a raid. You should already know. That way, during a raid, you’re learning how the raid works, how the individual encounters work; and that will save everyone a hell of a lot of time.
Some great advice. I’ve been planning on planning to do this for some time now. Since I’m changing my mains for the expansion, this is a great way to practice things and see how they work.
There are obvious limitations, but its still an improvement over the old way of doing stuff. Looking at it from my tanks perspective though, it will be okay to see how much threat generation I can put out, but the numbers won’t necessarily be accurate since I won’t be getting hit to generate rage or take damage to assess survivability. Suppose I’ll have to actually get out there and tank real stuffz.
Fikkle
But what if you used a training dummy… and no matter what you did it turned out that your boomkin buddy can outDPS you no matter what kind of crazy rotation you come up with?
What then?
Not so funny then is it?
But yes, training dummies should be used to at least figure out your basic rotations… beyond that practice tends to diverge from theory quite a bit so go out and duel a little to see what’s what.
After all… DPS is important… but in the end situational awareness and hitting the right buttons at the right time is where it’s at.
Ahhh a bit of WoW-boot camp basic training…. sounds like great idea… no more kiting mobs around Ungoro Crater… Hit the target dummy and have your friends randomise it.
Maybe even start a duel with one 1st, so they can actually hit you and you can simulate health management (or early death as the case may be)
I’m going to go and find a dummy to practice on.. worst case I will use the target dummies.
I’ve spent so much time on the Ironforge test dummies, it’s ridiculous. The two areas of my game that have enjoyed the greatest boost in dedicated time are theorycrafting and… well… Bejeweled. I find myself moving little gems around 15 minutes after my flight has landed. Damn you, Pop Cap!
Maateline can’t get in touch with you, so I’m posting. You got into Stay Frosty, log on sometime so one of the officers can give you a guild invite!đŸ˜€
@ Fikkle – The day I start writing posts that pertain to tanking will be the same day I host an Uwe Boll marathon and drink the contents of a lava lamp.
@ Captain the Falcon – Y’see, the QQ these days about X class out DPS’ing Y class is getting the reply “TDT or it didn’t happen”.
Now, you have a dummy test, PROOF, that X is overpowered. That would be an awesome thing to take to the forums.
@ Taueth – got an e-mail, sent a reply. Should be able to get in touch with me tomorrow.
Sir, you’ve shown me the light.
I’ve been to the dummies once or twice when respeccing but it definitly isn’t enough. I hereby promise to visit them regularly. And if I feel confident enough I’ll ask a friend to come shoting at me too. That idea was new and brilliant.
Thank you for pointing it out!
yours sincerely LarĂsa
(still learning to play)
Nice work. I wonder if I should try some TDT for heals =)